Youtube comments of Paul Aiello (@paul1979uk2000).

This wasn't anything about the advisors advising Putin, this was about them telling Putin what he wanted to hear and it was easy to see the fear they showed in their body language and clearly just going on that, this is Putin's war not Russia's war but for this to get resolved, it's going to take these kinds of people that are close to Putin to become brave and do something about it otherwise it could be all their necks on the line if they leave it too late and the Russian people rise up with how bad things are getting in the country. Either way, I think Putin is finished no matter what happens in Ukraine, there are some lines you don't cross and I can't see how he can recover from this.
643
It's usually the Germans and the French but in truth, even thought they are the big players in the union, they can't get anything done unless there is enough support from enough other members, so even thought some members can guide the direction of the union, no individual member actually runs the union. With that said, bigger members like Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland are always going to have a bigger say based on their economics and population size and rightly so. In any case, there's always going to need enough broad support from big and small members to pass or block new laws and changes but with all that said, clearly the balance is shifting in favour of Germany and other more central European countries and mostly because of EU expansion which opens up more trade and other benefits with the eastern EU countries and it's usually always neighbouring countries that benefit the most, throw in that Brexit happened which is closer to France, it's easy to see how the balance can shift, but in the end, it doesn't really matter because there's always going to be a need for broad support to pass something and in that sense, no one country runs the EU, they all do. As for the vision for the EU, that's not going to be determine by any individual EU members and more likely to be determine outside powers like the US, China and a rising India, in other words, the EU will change in areas that it needs to do so they can better compete with them on the world stage, in other words, expect a lot more integration in key areas, regardless of wants, the alternative is that we get pushed aside by the other big powers around the world which could have a big negative impact on the economy, politics and even our social systems which I'm sure many of you know, the US and China would love to water them down, so yeah, expect more integration, not because we want it, but to protect our interest.
623
I've always had the impression that the US comes across as weak when it comes to Israel, like the US doesn't have an independent voice on the matter, they always seem to bend to the will of Israel, regardless of what Israel does. It does make you wonder, does Israel have a major hold over the US or are they really this blind when it comes to Israel? don't get me wrong, I can understand supporting Israel when it's right to do so, but clearly the US supports Israel no matter what, Israel is taking advantage of that by abusing that power and doing this it likely normally wouldn't do, and by not de-escalating the situation, the US is actually helping to keep the war going. Don't get me wrong, Israel has a right to defend its self, but it's clear to see that Israel is going too far, the US is one of the few guilty parties that is allowing that to happen.
161
What we should remember with the EU, the project started out shortly after the second world war, there was a lot of good will in preventing a lot of the mistakes of the past and working closer together through integration, even then, European countries have not had an easy time of things and it's takes countless decades to get where we are at. The mistakes I'm seeing with these other unions like the one in South America and the African Union is that they are rushing them together, worse yet, they are letting anyone in, regardless of status, especially the African Union, that doesn't encourage reforms and change for the members, the carrot and stick approach which the EU has been very successful with it over the decades, apart from recently with Hungary and Poland, which in the case of Hungary, the EU needs to get a lot tougher with them. I think the other problem with the South American union is Brazil, you've got one country that's massive in comparison to the others, that creates an imbalance, the EU on the other hand have a mix of big and small countries, many of which keep each other in check, in the case of the South American union, Brazil rules the show.
154
A lot of what Germany said makes a lot of sense and reforms are needed to the EU before it can expand, otherwise hardly anything will get done with so many countries and only one can block things from happening. I'm also starting to come to the conclusion that if the EU can't get these reforms done at an EU level, they really should start focusing a lot more on the Euro Zone, they are more likely to want to make the EU work and more likely to want to do reforms than countries that are dragging their feet on the outside of the Euro, now that's not to say that all the none Euro Zone countries are like that, some are not which don't qualify to join the Euro but it's clear that others are not in the Euro because they don't want this integration and are mostly in the EU for economic benefits which is fine but not when it's holding the rest back. So yeah, either the EU needs to go multi speed or a lot more focus on the Euro Zone is needed if they can't get these reforms done at an EU level, the last decade or two have been a waste with not much reforms and integration in the EU and Europeans can't afford to stay like that with a rising China and a US that's only getting bigger, the simple reality is, we either change or we're going to get pushed aside by the bigger powers and the only way we are going to compete with the US and China long term is if the EU countries integrate a lot more and work closer together, the alternative is that EU countries will get pushed aside on political, economic and social matters, that will weaken living standards and our voice around the world.
118
It was only a matter of time before this happens for both videos and voice and it really will discredit footage either video or voice as evidence when it can be faked easily enough but worse yet is a lot of fake news thats going around now, this could make it much worse and the public have little trust in the system as it is.
115
I've always felt that governments should push small to medium size companies more at the expense of big companies. For one, there are a lot more small to medium size companies which give consumers a lot more choice, it's also a lot more competition whiles they are also far less abusive with it's position compared to bigger companies which are very controlling and try to monopolize any given market by giving us less choice and making it harder for smaller companies to compete, we see this playing out time and time again and it's rarely in the interest of competition and consumers, I also feel it holds back innovation. On the other size of the coin, I understand why countries like the US and China push big corporations and part of it is because they like to use that as a weapon on other controls, in the end, it's really about control and domination, it's rarely ever about what's best for the consumers and society at large. This is why it's great to see what the EU is doing, it doesn't always get it right but let's be honest, could you imagine how much worse things could get if left to the US government or worse, China? Both of which seem to have little interest in what's best for their own people. Funny thing is, many Americans will think a lot of this is targeting American corporations and in a sense, it is American corporations that got the ball rolling by being abusive with its monopolistic position, the thing is, corporations are not really loyal to any country, they are international now, they don't care about the people, even in the country of origin and with a lot of the policies the EU is doing, others around the world like in the US stands to benefit by that, basically by the EU doing the job the US government should be doing with its own companies.
101
I don't think he saved the EU, the EU was fine before this but I think he's put the EU on the road to more integration, especially on security and military matters, also some eastern European members like Poland and Hungary might tone down their authoritarian paths now the people are seeing the risks that can lead to as we see in Russia. Putin has shown how important the EU, NATO and the western alliance is and why they need to stick together, especially if China starts to play games. The funny thing is about all this, I said to my brother a few years ago that Putin, Trump and Brexit are the best friends of the EU and they don't even know it, anything that's seen as a threat in trying to create division would likely end up creating more unity, being that those 3 things were trying to divide the EU countries, make them weaker with the aim of taking advantage of them, that was always going to backfire at some point, it kinda did with Brexit but it really has now with Putin in that Putin might have speeded up integration in the EU by decades which will be interesting to see the next 10 years. Not only that, if there were any countries that wanted to leave the EU, I think the odds of that are a lot smaller now and on top of that, more countries are wanting to join it because it's a safe haven, it wouldn't surprise me if public mood in the UK starts to shift on the EU which might actually allow them to rejoin sooner than expected because with Brexit, I thought the UK wouldn't be able to rejoin for at least 2 to 3 decades, now with everything change and if there is the political will in the UK, it could happen in 10 years, but that really depends on future governments in the UK and what the EU and it's members decide, France might still block it. Either way, this has been a disaster for Putin and it's played right into the hands of pro Europeans, it's also showing a lot of potholes into a lot of the arguments of Eurosceptics, probably why Macron in France is doing so well in the polls, likely because he's been vindicated in what he's been saying for years about what the EU needs to do, now a lot more people are waking up to that fact. Still I have to say, what a time for the UK to leave the EU when we really need to be in it with everything going on.
101
This needed to happen, for too long, the UK, it's government, much of the media have used the EU as a scapegoat for many of the wrongs in the UK when really, the UK should have been fixing its own problems and not blaming others. Things really went south in the UK after the financial crisis around 15 years ago, where blaming others was the name of the game, with the EU getting the brunt of the blame for a lot of the things wrong in the UK. Brexit needed to happen to stop this blame game that many in the UK kept putting on the EU and now many in the UK are starting to wake up that the EU wasn't the problem after all and the problem was much closer to home with our own government and unfortunately, things are likely going to get worse for the next decade or two before real change in the UK can happen, basically, where enough of the public, media and government stops hating on the EU and blaming them for all the wrongs in the UK. So Brexit needed to happen, and it needed to be painful for the Brexiteers to really feel the impact of that, and this is needed to happen over decades, which we are talking about a lot of damage and decline as the UK sits in the shadows of the EU and the moral of the story is, always research things before voting on something that could impact you negatively, Brexiteers are getting a painful lesson in this because many tend to be less educated and lower class in poorer regions in the UK, ironically, the regions being impacted the hardest by Brexit. I've also got to say, the Tory government played a blinder on the Brexiteers in getting them to vote for something that isn't in their interest and like always, it's not the government that pays the price, it's the people that are paying the price and the sad reality is, we've hardly even started yet as the damage of Brexit is long term, simple by being the only rich European country that doesn't have any special deal with the EU, which puts the UK at a major disadvantage compared to EU countries but also at a disadvantage compared to countries like Switzerland and Norway which have much better deals with the EU.
99
This was the idea of the EU and US, basically, to make it as painful and costly for the Russian troops in Ukraine by supplying Ukraine a lot of arms and to hit the Russian economy hard with sanctions. The idea is simply, to weaken Russia so much that they become less of a threat to the world whiles also trying to turn the Russian people against the government but lets be blunt about this, the west doesn't care, they see Russia as a threat and are going to weaken that threat, it's up to the Russian people to wake up and see what Putin is doing and if they don't, the west will just hit the Russian economy where it hits the people hard, either way, they don't care. The reason they don't care is simply, the Russian people are partly to blame for Putin getting into power, the west isn't waiting around for the Russian people to wake up and see what's going on, they are going out of their way to weaken Russia so it's less of a threat and unfortunately, that will hit a lot of innocent Russians, but what's the alternative? It's the same for China but in their case, the west would target the manufacturing sector, after all, there are many other countries around the world that would love to take that business away from China and that's probably already happening because of China hostile plans on Taiwan and if they are helping Russia out here, the west will likely just speed up that process. It's high time that the rich countries stop funding these crack pots, after all, a lot of the wealth and power these countries are getting is from the rich and more open countries, maybe now it's time they start becoming more selective in who and how they trade with countries.
99
Good advice, could you imaging a flying drunk?, far worse then a driving one, in fact it will remind me of that movie that Will Smith was in when he had super powers.
90
The UK is like a cross of Europe and America, but the problem with that is that it's got many of the bad elements of the US and the truth is, the UK is very European in most ways, to our social policies, to the cars we drive, the sports we play, how our cities are built and countless other things. I always find it weird how the UK tries to import a lot of the negative aspects of the US, when it's clear that when it comes to quality of life, European countries dominant.
87
Maybe but that isn't the case for EU countries, that have some of the highest quality of living, have a lot of time off work, paid time off at that, and a lot of social benefits, including child support, and yet, people don't seem to want to have kids. Basically, EU countries have some of the better conditions to have kids, a lot of support from the government and more free time, yet, it doesn't seem to be having much if any impact on population growth.
86
A Russian invasion of Poland would be political and economic suicide for Russia, Poland is quite a lot richer than Ukraine and more modern but more importantly, they are in the EU, I know we have article 5 with NATO but it's just a word that hasn't been tested, not really much holds those countries together in NATO because they are not really integrated together. The EU is quite different, from the early days shortly after the second world war with the Coal and Steel Community which was designed to pool resources among its members and make it almost impossible to go to war with each other, well that impact the same if a country was to invade any of them, basically, it would hurt them all which would compel them to get involved in a much more forceful way than we are seeing in Ukraine out of self-interest, integration is key to how much effort others are willing to do to help. It's also the reason why with talks of Ukraine going neutral, they are willing to put NATO on the table of not joining but they are not mentioning the EU because the EU is the real prize they want that more or less offers the same security and protection plus a lot of other benefits, the truth is, an attack on an EU and probably a NATO member could quickly escalate into a major war, something I highly doubt Russia is willing to do with its poor performance in Ukraine. With all that said, Ukraine should try to join both the EU and NATO, every level of protection adds more security and stability to the region, NATO does have its uses but because some of the big members are far away from the conflict zone, it doesn't impact them as much, whereas the EU with a war on its door step, well all of a sudden, there's a much bigger incentive to intervene, the problem is, the EU is quite powerless to do much on the military front as it's mostly a national thing, thats a major problem because the members are pulling in all directions which is the weakness Putin plays on and it really makes me wonder if the EU had its own military and one voice, put 60,000 peace keeping troops in Ukraine before the war started that we could have prevented the war from starting, the US could have done the same but the reality is, they rarely care about things outside it's boarder, the EU being as the war is on its door step would likely intervene because no one wants a war zone on its door step, so basically, Putin is taking advantage of our division in Europe and not just Europe, but even the divisions the EU and US have shown over the last few years.
86
I remember reading once that in the EU, more people speak English as a second language than there are Americans in the US. English is quite common around the world and especially in Europe where they teach it at most schools.
81
I think we should remember that Russia had a rainy day fund for the war in Ukraine, they are using that to prop up the Russian economy and ruble, experts have predicted it will run out late this year, that's when Russia could be in trouble because the impact of the war in Ukraine is going to be felt far more on the Russian people, something Putin is desperate to shield them from so he doesn't lose popularity, but the hard thing to predict is how much oil and gas revenues from last year will have delayed this impact. Another factor we should remember, sanctions usually take years to do the real damage, the damage being done to Russia is actually very predictable going on what we've seen in the past, basically, sanctions hit hard at first, the country spends a lot to prop things up, that money runs dry and then the country starts to decline, sometimes at a rapid rate, so it's not strange what we are seeing in Russia at the moment and it could have been a lot worse for Russia if Putin didn't put a lot of money aside for the war in Ukraine, after all, he thought the war would be over quite quickly, that's where the real problem is for him, he can't afford this war to keep dragging on as it's a drag on the economy they can't afford, whereas the west can afford to keep arming Ukraine indifferent because they are a lot richer and the resources is being spread out over so many big powers, so what we are seeing in Russia is a slow decline, which is I think what the west and especially the US wanted because it keeps things stable whiles weakening Russia's political and economic power over the long run. The west very likely knew this was going to be drawn out over some time, and in some ways, it might be better to have a slow decline of Russia and not a something that falls apart overnight which can be very unpredictable in the outcome, but that is unfortunate for Ukraine, because it drags the war out a lot longer.
79
@user-je3sk8cj6g The US did help to prevent war, but let's not kid ourselves, the EU had a massive impact in reducing the chance of war among EU members. The entire idea of the Coal and Steel Community decades ago was to pool those resources together as one so as to make it far harder to go to war with each other as it would be harming your own interest. So the Americans did help to stabilise things in the early days after the second world war, but the EU has had a massive impact of making it almost impossible for EU countries to go to war with each other.
78
I don't know, I'm British and thought it was a crazy idea that the UK left the EU, I can't see us joining any time soon for a number of reasons. The main reason is the EU and it's members, it's highly likely that even if the UK wanted to join, the EU or one of its members would block us joining for at least 2 decades or more, after all, not much has changed in the UK and the UK has always been a troublesome member, if the EU was to let us back in, they are going to want to see some major shifts in how the political system sees the EU projects, as well as the media and public, all that takes a lot of time to change and for now, there is no real incentive for the EU to want us back after how the UK has behaved. With that said, the UK could join the single market and custom union, that would protect the economy and living standards but the UK wouldn't have a say in EU law making that the UK would have to abide by, maybe that's something the UK will just have to accept to get back on good terms with the EU and it's members. Truth be told, with everything that's going on in the UK with Scotland, Northern Ireland and even Wales talking more about independence, it's going to be hard to predict the next 10 years for the UK because unless this government gets its act together, I can see one or two of the UK members leaving the UK union over the next decade. Basically, as long as this Tory lot is in power, there is no hope in getting on good terms with the EU because they are going out of their way to pick a fight with the EU and then we have Labour that are too weak and scared to death to even mention Brexit that things don't bold well for the UK. The only silver lining in all this is the Tories themselves, if they keep going the way they are doing, keep protecting Boris and the hard line Brexiteers, they could implode by the next election, that could open up the door for closer ties between the EU and UK but I suspect that would only be the case if the Tories get humiliated at the elections which they might be heading in that direction and if the Tories are smart, they would get rid of Boris and the hardline Brexiteers in the party because they are dragging the party down and personally, I hope the Tories are dumb and stick with Boris so they can sink.
77
Out of all the big countries, Germany is one of the few that I actually trust to do the right thing and I say that as a Brit, they just seem to be more level, more balanced in how to run a country compared to many others like the US, the UK and even some EU members like Italy which make one mess after another, Germany looks more stable.
73
The real problem with immigration to the EU is in a big part because we've got 27 EU countries all pulling in different directions with different policies. If anywhere needs a clear EU mandate, this is it, basically, because EU countries have open boarders among themselves, it makes a lot more sense for the EU to have control over immigration, that would help to solve part of the problem where too many immigrants end up in too few countries like Italy, which is causing a problem, it would also be a more beefy policy in controlling who can come in if done at an EU level, because at the end of the day, the division is what is creating this mess, which just weakens us all in the EU. In any case, it's crazy that we've got a union with freedom of movement in the union and yet we don't have a strong EU policy for controlling the boarders and immigration, which for the most part is left to the members in the EU, clearly, some major reforms are needed in that area, patch up jobs can work in the short term but it's not solving the underline issue and I feel there's only two ways to solve that, either we give the EU the powers to enforce these rules or EU members start putting boarders up, the second option is highly unlikely to happen, so lets see how long it takes before reality bites and we are willing to give the EU the powers to take control of this mess.
71
I think it's safe to say that since the Tories got into power over a decade ago, it's been one disaster after another for the UK, and a lot of this is self inflected by the people of the UK by keep voting the Tories into power, after all, it's not like the voters have not had a few chances to kick them out. But the real icing on the cake was the ideology behind Brexit, which helped to keep the Tories in power. Regardless of what we might think of Brexit, there's no doubt that the direct impact of Brexit and the indirect impact of the distraction of Brexit, as well as the focus that it helped to keep the Tories in power, ended up doing a lot of damage to the UK, both politically and economically, that I feel will take decades to recover from, and in some ways on the economic front, we won't recover as well as we could while in the EU. The only silver lining in all this is that at least now we are seeing warmer relations with the UK and EU, with time, that could repair much of the damage, but the damage done and the hold the UK has dug it's self will probably take decades to recover from, which is unfortunately for the younger generation, as they will likely pay the highest price for this. But seriously, this all happened under the watch of the Tories, a party that likes to think of themselves as competent, that view has been smashed royally over the last decade. Labour, regardless of the leader and what we might think of them, can't come soon enough, might be a breath of fresh air over the lot we've had. As for the mood in the UK, it feels dark, and much of that was happening over the last decade, which probably ended up leading to Brexit, but the last few years have felt really dark with no light at the end of the tunnel and what a mess the UK has got its self in and in mostly because of ideology. On the plus side, I feel this was needed, arrogance should never be rewarded and there's been a lot of that over the last decade and the only way to drum that out of people is to pay a high and painful price, which is likely going to drag on for at least another decade or more, it's just unfortunate that a lot of innocents are being dragged through this, but then, we can take comfort in knowing that the impact is hurting the ones that cause most of this mess the most, in other words, northern England, Eurosceptics and the likes, and that is actually a good thing, a good decade or two of pain will do wonders in making them think twice about their actions.
66
Nation building is fine as long as it's done from within, what the outside help should be doing is helping to guide them, stabilize the region and help to improve living standards, that in the longer run should keep out many of the fanatical elements whiles stabilizing the region. The problem with the US at least, they are good at invading a country but not very good at nation building, in a lot of cases, they end up making a mess and there's also the aspect of self-interest, you get the impression that with the US at least, they don't do it for the interest of the country in question but for what the US can get out of it and I think that is a big part of the problem in why it's so difficult to stabilize countries, the motives are wrong.
66
Yeah I didn't think Switzerland had it in them lol.
65
@ascgazz Starmer doesn't want to say anything on Brexit or the UK rejoining until after the elections, he doesn't want to divide the votes so he's keeping his cards close to his chest. The truth is, we really don't know what Labours policies are on Brexit and the UK rejoining the EU, because Starmer is scared to death of talking about it because he fears losing voters from Brexiteers, but after the election, that tune could change, we'll have to wait and see. But either way, I don't see the EU letting the UK back in for quite some time and unless there's a massive shift from the public, media and political parties in how they see the EU project, that will take time.
61
I think us Europeans love to complain about everything lol, but honestly, I think it's part of that complaining and protesting why we Europeans have it so good, we tend to be more willing to stand up and make governments listen to our voices compared to the US or the UK.
61
I think it was a success considering the circumstances of the last 6 months, yeah I'm sure many of us would have liked more but we have to be realistic of the hard times over the last 6 months and the coming years. Still, big changes are still very likely to come over the coming years but for now, the pandemic should be the main focus. Also with Biden taking power in the US, EU-US relations should get better.
59
This is how the EU does these kinds of big deal, the hard ones that normally wouldn't get an agreement in most case, the EU does it different as in that they lock them all in a room, they don't feed them and don't let them have any sleep until they come up with an agreement, in the end, they get so tired that they forget what they agreed too lol. This is why these deals always look tough, but they always find a way through it and got to give the EU and it's members credit, most other countries around the world would likely fail on these kinds of deals which says a lot about diplomacy in the EU and it's members and that is always a good thing to see.
59
One thing I've learned about politics is how it always swings from left to right of politics every decade or so, I don't find it that big of a deal, people give one side a chance, they don't like the results and give the others a chance, and the merry go around continues with politics rarely listening to the people until it's election time or there's a big uproar against them. As for the far left and right, another thing I've been noticing is how many of them have become more moderate to appeal to more voters, we are seeing that in Italy, if they become more moderate, they are far less of an issue, and it stands to reason, far left and far right parties only appeal to a subgroup of people, moderate parties appeal to a wider audience, so the far left and right parties, if they ever want any credible chance of gaining power have to become more moderate, and even in the off chance they gain power by not moderating, their views will either get them kicked out or they mess things up so much that when they do get the boot, it's unlikely they will gain power again. Just look at the current government in Italy, how they've had to tone things down on the EU, the Euro and many other things, and the reason being is that most of us want stability and growth, they don't want things being turned upside down, basically, it's far easier to say wild things when not in power on the sidelines, it's a lot harder to keep saying them if close to winning power or in power, the reason being is because their neck is on the line, if they mess up because of the policies they promised the people, the people will turn on them even thought the people actually wanted those policies. Politics is a tricky game, which is why lying seems to win over the people a lot more than the truth does, but reality always wins out in the end, the UK is finding that out the hard way with Brexit, the US could have paid a high price if Trump was more popular and managed to push the changes he wanted, basically a power grab, but in the end, people are playing with fire when voting for these kinds of things, history has shown how bad it can go for us and why moderate parties is the way to go.
58
I have to wonder what's going on in the US on why they seem to think this is a war with thinking the government is taking their freedoms away from them, we're not seeing nowhere near that level of panic in Europe and yes we Europeans don't like the lock down and want to get back to some kind of normal life but we understand for the most part on why the measures that were put in place are needed, in the US it seems like a tug of war from common sense to freedom of movement and that is likely going to make the death toll and economic harm even worse in the long run. I think the real part of the problem is the lack of government support for the people, in the US, the government support is quite weak which is putting pressure on Americans to get back to work, whereas in Europe, the government support is quite strong where the pressure to get back to work isn't as strong and I see that from country to country, in any case, at the rate the US is going, it's looking like history could be repeating it's self.
57
I think Norway would be better off inside the EU, at least they would have a voice at the table in making these laws, same for Switzerland which have a more complicated relationship with the EU but considering it's location, EU membership would probably benefit them more than it does Norway. Personally, I think Norway will eventually join the EU once the usefulness of oil in the country has far less value.
57
I never had any doubts about the EU countries being alright over winter, yes they would have to tighten their belts but the lights will stay on, after all, they import over 50% of its energy from other countries than Russia, with a few smart decision, tightening their belts and the gas storage, they should be fine in winter and after this winter, that gives them a lot of time to adapt. For Russia, it's becoming a disaster because they are shutting themselves out of one of the richest markets in the world that is on its doorstep, that's got a lot of economic damage to Russia and when you throw in that Russia is not a reliable partner for any country, in that no country will want to buy too much from Russia in case they get political again, they've lost a lot of trust here as I highly doubt the likes of China and India will want to buy too much from Russia in case they play games with them. As for the UK, I do feel we've got it worse, we've got a government that keep blundering from one mess to another, we don't really store that much gas in the UK and the energy prices are sky-high, I got a sense that the UK government is sleepwalking into disaster in this winter and it wouldn't surprise me if we get massive protest over the winter and if the new leader could be out of power by the end of winter.
54
In your dreams it is but in reality, the EU and it's members are getting stronger, especially with the UK leaving which have been the main ones that held it back, beside, what the EU is doing is a good thing, it's actually raising the standard on a global level which we all stand to benefit from that, also, it doesn't actually matter who does this weather it's the EU, US or China as long as it improves the standards for us all and like they pointed out, businesses will always likely go with the highest standard so that they can trade all over the world without any real problems.
51
True, it's a bit like natural disasters that are added as economic growth when in reality, it's having a negative impact on the economy as it's damage that needs to be repaired, in other words, resources are needed to fill that voids that otherwise wouldn't be needed. It's the same with Russia and the war, on the surface it looks good for the economy because of all the military spending, but this is resources being diverted away from other social programs in Russia, then throw in the brain drain and how many Russians are being killed in the war, it's all bound to have a negative impact on the economy but it's hard to say by how much because the state is either not reporting or is manipulating the numbers.
51
Apple would just bump up the price of it's phones to it's loyal fans, it's the Apple way after all and they have to keep profits rising so they'll take it out on the loyal fans lol.
51
The future is high-tech, if there is any area that countries should put a lot more focus on is that area as that is making up a sizeable part of the world economy and is only going to keep growing, on top of that, there are no limits to how far that industry can go, it's likely going to keep growing. Fossil fuels are one area that countries should really try to diversify away from and even thought it's a profitable industry for now, it's clearly going to be a dying industry over the coming decades, maybe much sooner with how Putin is using oil and gas as a political weapon as that could push the Europeans to produce alternative energy sources and I suspect a lot more countries are going to want to generate a lot more of its energy in their own countries because of energy security reasons. The irony is about that longer term, countries that produce no or very little fossil fuels could end up being the biggest winners because as they transition to alternative energy source, it would be like getting a massive windfall tax for those countries in savings by not having to import oil, gas and coal, whereas countries that produce a lot of fossil fuels are going to have a massive hole in their budget that they need to fill by other means, either those countries are going to have to become a lot more efficiency or the standard of living is going to take a big hit, the thing is about all this, countries that have little to no fossil fuels are in a good position for the future because those countries have done a lot of the reforms needed to be a lot more efficient, a prime example of that is a lot of EU countries, Japan and some others which stand to benefit the most with the transition to alternative energy sources because they are big importers of fossils now.
50
Any help that African countries can get to help them develop should always be welcomed but I do worry about the debt trap that China is doing on African countries, that could turn many African countries away from China longer term. The EU is quite different, it doesn't seem like there is any debt trap going on, also, geography is probably a massive advantage for both the EU and Africa as they are more or less next to each other and that does allow a lot more interesting project to happen that are useful for both people, trade is also another thing, most trade tends to be with nearby countries. If the EU and African countries do this right, there could be a lot of benefits for both sides, renewable energy is probably a good start as the EU is pushing hard on a green agenda and Africa is rich in many areas of clean energy that with some help could benefit a lot of people on both continents. Also as with what was said, I do think the people should be involved in both the EU and Africa on what projects are being done, the benefits to the people and the cost of the project.
49
We should remember that each episode is longer then what we see, around two hours I think and they cut it down for what we see on tv.
46
You can't reason with countries that are looking for a fight but the good thing about the EU is that it's a very rule's based organization that is always diplomatic. The UK should consider it's self lucky that the EU isn't the US because the US by now would be a lot harsher with the UK with all the crap the UK keeps doing and honestly, I think the EU should get a lot tougher with the UK, it's the only language the Tories understand.
46
Got to thank the Soviet Union for that, they really did a number on Americans that they see anything that isn't capitalism as bad and a lot of Americans are paying the price for that.
45
This was bound to happen with the newer leadership, with the last leadership in China, they were slowly doing reforms and opening up, hence the impressive growth rate over the decades, with the new leadership, he's using hard line policies which given time is going to weaken China's economic growth and we are seeing early signs of that already. Yes Covid is having an impact but let's be honest, growth was starting to slow in China even before Covid, it's the new leadership being too controlling where the real problem is. Western countries are far more successful because of being more open, having a freer flow of information from top to bottom with its citizens and what we are seeing in China will very likely happen in Russia if they restrict the free flow of information to its citizens, you would think these countries would learn by now that the more open a society is, the more successful they tend to be, if one government fails and people are not happy with them, people can throw them out and bring in a government that creates change, we don't see that in China, if they do a policy and it ends in disaster, they'll likely continue going down that track because of the one party rule.
44
Reforms are clearly needed on the EU and should have happened years ago, and for me, the EU needs reforms in connecting the project with its citizens, popularise movements take advantage of the disconnect the EU has with its citizens, especially with the less democratic aspects of it like the Commission. Personally, I think the veto rule needs to go or at the very least, it needs to be done in a less obstructive way because at the moment, it's being used too much for politics on things that are not related to what they are talking about, basically, some countries use it to carry favours on other policies. Another thing is that I think the European Parliament needs to be given more powers, maybe at the expense of the EU Commission or expanded powers over what the EU has now. I also think it's high time the EU Commission and President are merged together and should be directly elected by the citizens, with any luck, that will help connect the citizens more with the project. Other reforms on integration might be more difficult to achieve but I do feel more is needed, especially on military, forign policy matters and on the internal EU market so it can function better for its citizens, but personally, I think on military and forign policy matters, it will be very difficult to get all 27 countries onboard and they should go about it like they did with the Euro and Schengen zone, basically, try and get as many countries onboard and they can move ahead, as they make it work, the door should be open for others to join at a later date, I think this is a better way of getting movement without needing all members onboard, and at least it allows the countries that want to move forward to do so without being held up by the ones that don't, either way, big changes are needed if we Europeans want to stay competitive with the US and China long term.
44
It's funny really because they always follow the same pattern and don't seem to learn from history, the human race is like a revolving door thats doomed to repeat past mistakes just in a different setting.
43
@trimaxionerror5696 You can't blame the government or the German people for what a car companies does, that would be crazy and you could hold any country to account for almost any action on that basis, either way, that doesn't say anything of a people on a country.
43
The UK was kinda like that, anything that goes wrong, it's the EU's fault, the UK is finding out the hard way with Brexit that most of the problems in the UK were in fact because of the UK government not the EU. Maybe Hungary needs the same treatment, but for the time being, I think the best solution for the EU is to strip Hungary of its voting rights, and if they can, any of the Covid funds as well as development funds that go towards Hungary, they could reallocate that towards Ukraine, in a sense, Hungary is still paying but getting nothing back, and the irony is, that money will be lost, being as it's not frozen, Hungary won't get it back, the good thing about that is that Ukraine gets its money, Hungary gets none, and the longer Hungary keeps playing these games, the worse it gets for them. Eventually, this could mean Hungary leaving the EU at some point, which is fine by me, but even if they don't leave, by stripping them of their voting powers and funds, all they can do then is talk on the sidelines, they've got no power after that. The ideal solution is that the people of Hungary wake up and see what Orban is doing before it really starts to hurt the people of Hungary on the economy, but I have a feeling just like the UK with Brexit, the people of Hungary will only learn once marginalised and kicked out of the EU, sometimes that needs to happen because some abuse what they have. The good news is, it finally looks like the EU has had enough with Hungary, this is long overdue, and I do find it amusing how Hungary says we don't give in to blackmail, that's the sign of a hypocrite, being that they've been blackmailing the EU and other members for years now.
43
I think the real problem isn't heating or air con but the way houses are designed, which for the most part, most houses are designed badly around the world. Take my house for example in the UK, in winter, the house is well insulated, so much so that we tend to only need heating on for about a day or two per year, the house seems to hold a lot of the heat inside but on the other side of the coin, in summer, it gets too hot upstairs, with a few changes and better design, this house could work so you rarely need heating in winter and don't need air con in summer if you block a lot of the heat from coming inside the house, some houses actually do this already, even in colder climates than the UK. If houses were better design, people could save a fortune on heating and cooling and live more comfortable indoors, so yeah we could invent better heating and cooling solutions, which we should, but what we should be doing is reducing the heat that comes into a house whiles trapping as much heat that's already in the house, that would work out better whiles using far less energy. It's also the same with energy use, you'll be surprised how much energy you can save whiles not changing your quality of life, I'll give you an example, over the last 15 years, we went out of our way to reduce our energy consumption, we managed to reduce it to about half of what we used, this is also whiles having more tech items in the house, our quality of living is actually better now than it was 15 years ago whiles using about half the electric and how we did it, we put more focus on the energy use of items we buy, after 15 or so years of replacing items around the house, you end up reducing your energy use a lot whiles still living the same and I have a feeling a lot of people around Europe are going to do the same so that as the energy crisis eases, they'll be better off by using less energy than they did before the crisis and as the saying goes, never let a crisis go to waste, this is one of those times to make real changes in Europe and for that matter, around the world. With that, there's only really 3 big items we can change now that will have a decent impact on lowering our energy and that's the boiler, the oven and the fridge freezer which now there are much better ones around, there are other small things we could change but it will have little impact overall, the only other thing we could do is solar panels which we've not jumped on yet.
42
@Chris-xz8fm To be fair, military power is usually dependent on economic power, Germany might have a weak military now, but that can change quickly if needed, just for now, Germany is a very passive nation and probably because of its history. But history is history now and Germany should be pulling its weight on the military front and should have one of the most powerful if not the most powerful in Europe because of how big it's economy is. As for Poland, they are a rising military power and frankly, I don't blame them for everything that's happening on the east but superpower? No chance, they don't have the economic muscle to pull that off, even if they were a fully modern nation, the military power would be limited because of its economy and population size. The irony is, the best option for both countries is to pool resources through the EU and to create a super military that serves the same purpose of defending its members interest, that would be far more potent and useful for its members compared to the individual militaries which many of them seem like puppets of the US, in other words, weak and imagine how things would be in Ukraine now if we had a strong EU military, the war might never have started or the EU would have a much stronger voice to back Ukraine with far less division, a case we are seeing with Germany and Poland, the division is our biggest weakness in Europe, something that the likes of Trump, Putin and Xi are quite happy to take advantage off by dividing us among each other, and they've been quite successful at that. With all that said, it's in Germany's and Poland's interest to solve these problems because of being neighbouring countries and because of the political and economic ties that being so close to each other brings.
41
There might be one excuse France has, France have been pushing hard for an EU military, maybe by showing a weak hand on Ukraine whiles at the same time being one of the more hawkish nations in favour of Ukraine, they might be showing other EU members why more pooling of resources at an EU level is needed on defence and forign policy matters. Also, if Trump were to win the next US elections and support for Ukraine dries up, that will make France look a lot better whiles it could make some of the eastern EU countries look bad that have become too dependent on trusting the US. The truth is, we Europeans really need to start looking after our own interest, and we can do that far better at an EU level, France is one of the countries that understands that whereas other seem to think the US will save the day or NATO will come to the rescue, that's a high risk game considering how polarised US politics is getting.
41
Yeah, I used to have high regard for Germany, but over the last decade, they've been doing too many mistakes and showing poor leadership on the European stage, it really got exposed over the last few years with the energy dependency on Russia, which Germany played a big part in pushing on that. I want to see a strong Germany, showing good leadership, but under the current government, I don't see that happening, they need to wake up to the reality of how the world is changing and like you say, too many are showing cowardly and backwards policies, and it's surprising to see with everything that is happening from Russia, the US, China and the Middle East, if this isn't a sign for waking up, I don't know what is. As for Macron, I don't agree with everything he says, but he is right about the EU and what we need to do as Europeans, our divisions are making us Europeans weak, and it doesn't have to be that way, we've already got the institution in place with the EU, it's just a matter of doing reforms to it and giving it the powers in certain areas that it can protect our interest better.
40
mininmalta 123 True but I find it ironic how the ones that won the second world war like the US and UK are the ones that are going off the rails whereas the likes of Germany and Japan that lost the world war look far more stable and better run.
40
True, buzzwords might seem useless but it's a statement of intent and the public seems to respond to that a lot more than jargon.
40
Technically, the UK is a middle power, the problem is, the gap between the EU, US and China compared to other middle powers is massive, which weakens the voice and relevance of middle powers a lot. The major powers are the EU, US and China, and I'm sure others like Russia would like to be seen as a major power, but the truth is, it doesn't have the economy, the population size and its performance on the military front has been a joke over the last few years, basically, Russia is a lot weaker than what many in the west thought they were and it's showing in Ukraine.
40
Same, not watch the video but I've seen how this goes with every other tantrum the UK government throws, the EU always comes out on top because they are smarter and more diplomatic than the UK government is. In this case, the UK doesn't have a leg to stand on, it's a treaty the UK signed just a year ago into EU and international law, break that and the UK will also end up on the wrong side of the US because it's playing fire with the world order in the US had a big part in making, in other words, if the EU and US lets the UK get away with braking international law, others will follow as international law will have little meaning, so the UK needs to be careful here.
39
I always find it remarkable how much of our innovation is copying what is already there in nature and wild life and then repurposing it for our own needs.
38
That's why what Putin is doing is a good thing, yes it hurts in the short term but longer term, EU countries will benefit a lot by this. As for the EU, the EU isn't the problem, they want to ban oil and gas, but they know it's politically impossible to do because of some EU members, basically, the EU can only do so much, you need broad support from the members. Also, let's be blunt about this, the EU doesn't have the powers in those areas, it's really up to the members, so the blame is firmly on some of it's members not the EU.
38
When it comes to swings in left to right of politics, what we are seeing is nothing new, we always seem to get swings from left to right over a few elections, usually because the people give one side time to deliver, they don't deliver so they give the other side a chance to deliver, they don't deliver and the cycle continues, left to right wing politics, at least in the west is always like a seesaw effect, so in this case, the right are gaining more seats, this will usually happen like it always does, they don't deliver and an election or two later, things swing the other direction, rinse and repeat every decade or so and you get an idea of how things go. Ultimately, nothing really changes, if you look at almost all western countries over the last few decades and the swing from left to right wing politics, not much overall changes unless there's a radical in power, but they don't last that long in most cases because their radical policies are at odds with most of the population.
38
@sergioserobcam Actually, Scotland wanted to leave the UK union with the intention of rejoining the EU, basically, they wanted away from the UK, not the EU and yes, like Darren said, the UK being part of the EU was a big part of the 2014 vote that kept Scotland in the UK, clearly a lot has changed since then.
38
@c.augustedupin8860 It's not really about guts but that the EU has to look at the interest of all it's members and they are pulling in different directions when it comes to China. This is one of those instances that more political integration and speaking more with one voice at the EU level could do wonders for them, but the fragmentation of each EU member having their own interest is what limits what the EU can and can't do. If you really want to send a strong responds to China, what you need is a united front with the EU and US, with that you would likely get many other nations falling in behind, that's a message that China would take note off but as we know, some EU countries and even the US are sending conflicting views on China and mostly because of economic interest.
38
True and they are not the only one and not just from Japanese firms but from all over, many Brexiteers don't seem to understand that many of these big companies picked the UK as a hubs for easy access to the EU market, without single market and custom union access, it doesn't make as much sense for thoes companies to stay in the UK when they can set up shop in a EU country and sell to a much bigger market, in any case, the penny will drop sooner or later.
36
It should all be transparent, but that isn't the fault of the EU but the fault of the members that want to maintain control over who becomes the leader of the EU. Honestly, I think it would be better to just open it all up and let the people vote for the EU Commission, for better or worse, at least it would be more credible in the people's eyes and it would be another nail in the coffin of the Eurosceptics that use that argument to oppose the EU project. Considering the rise of the far right, major reforms of the EU are needed to make it more accountable and democratic, because if the far right gains too much support, they could do some serious damage to the project, but if it's more accountable and the public have more of a say in what's going on, that will make it difficult for any that want to dismantle the project unless there's a lot of support from the people to do so, which is unlikely if they have a bigger voice and it's more likely that support for the project would grow. Either way, the EU countries need to get their act together and start listening to people's concerns and doing real changes that impact people's lives for the better, otherwise, the far right or worse will continue to rise, which could become dangerous if history is any indicator, basically, the rise of the far right isn't because of anything they are doing right, but it's because of so many things the mainstream parties are doing wrong in the public eyes and the far right are capitalising on that, not just in Europe but also in the US.
36
That's the thing in all this, it all boils down to the economy, manufacturing and high-tech, which the west is far ahead of Russia. Basically, the west can supple Ukraine more or less indefinitely without it having much of an impact on their own economy, Russia on the other hand would have to mobilize a lot of its economy towards the war effort which I doubt would go down well with the Russian people as it would mean less of the creature comforts for them and a bigger hit to the economy. Throw on that it's looking like the EU will ban Russian oil, things are just getting worse and worse for Russia and it's likely going to get far worse as Ukraine gets better armed and trained as well as the EU cuts off Russia's oil and gas.
36
Schengen is working really well internally, yes there are some small issue with less developed eastern EU members but overall, Schengen is working really well. The real problem isn't Schengen and isn't the EU's fault, the problem is that we've got a union of open boarders, which means problems of anyone EU members ends up being a problem for all, the issue being is that the EU doesn't have the powers to enforce its external boarders or immigration policy, that's done at a members level, 27 voices pulling in all directions, it's easy to see how it can go wrong. In the end, if the EU is going to have open boarders internally, the EU needs to be given more powers when it comes to the EU's external boarder and on immigration, at the moment, there's very little the EU can do apart from try to get EU countries to hammer out an agreement, Schengen is just exposing the flaws of having those powers at a national level and not an EU level.
36
Yep, I blame the UK and those eastern EU countries that loved kissing American arse lol. Seriously, these countries must feel kinda stupid with everything that's going on with the US, especially the eastern EU countries and how the US is more or less abandoning them when it comes to Ukraine. As for France, like them or not, they've been proven right, we in the EU need to stand up on our own feet and stop cowering to the US like the UK and those eastern EU countries love to do, but they are not the only ones, many around the world like Canada, Japan, Australia showed a lot of weakness when it came to the US, but at least Canada is starting to wake up as the US hits them on the head, the UK still seems asleep when it comes to the US lol.
36
What I've noticed when it comes to power projecting, the economy is what really matters, if you have a strong big economy, you can pretty much build anything you want with the backing of that economy. Russia has a weak economy, hence a weak military that is really being exposed in Ukraine, after all, we should remember that Russia's economy is around the size that fits in between Spain and Italy whiles having to cater to a much bigger population, basically, Russia is weak in comparison to the US or China. As for the EU, they've got the economy but they don't have the political unity, if the EU countries actually got together, pooled their resources, get rid of a lot of duplications and spend 2% on the military, it would be a powerful military, far more so then China or Russia but not as much as the US because they are bat crazy with fear of China so they are spending more on the military than they should which is costing the American people a lot of money that could be better used for social programs which the US is lacking. I also think EU countries that want to do this should do it, don't wait to get all EU members onboard as that is unlikely, do like they did with the Euro and Schengen, gradually, more countries will want to join as it's shown to work, that's the best way to get some movement on it and I think Germany would prefer to do it at an EU level then German level because of the war guilt from the first and second world war, basically, they might feel more comfortable in the EU doing the military for them, France would likely be onboard because they want to project power around the world and realize that the EU is the only way to do it as the members are too small to matter, Italy wants to rebuild the glory of Rome and see the EU as a way of achieving that, after all, it's no accident that the treaty was signed in Rome for the EU, Spain I think would also be another country onboard, if those get together and do it, they'll very likely get a few smaller countries onboard and that's how the ball gets moving, that's probably the best way to do it because the EU is never going to get them all onboard in one go. If the EU did have a strong military, it would take off a lot of the burden from the US around the world as the EU could share in that, it would also reduce the cost a lot for the US because the EU and US could work on a lot of military projects together and share the cost out, there are a lot of benefits for both sides in doing this if the US stops seeing the EU as a rival and I think longer term, the EU and US are going to need to work a lot closer together to contain China and protect western values. On another note, I think the EU needs many reforms and needs to integrate more if it wants to protect it's political, economic and social interest around the world, if EU countries keep bickering with themselves, they are just going to get pushed aside by the US and China, so sooner or later, the EU members are going to have to get their act together and with everything that is happening in Ukraine, the next 5-10 years is the perfect opening to do real change in the EU. Another factor we should remember, it's not about how much is spent on the military or how many troops, tanks and planes you have, it's how high-tech the military is, once you get to a certain military advanced level, it's highly unlikely anyone will mess with you, not even the US because the cost will be too high, after all, look at every war the US has been in since the second world war, it's been against much poorer countries that can't really fight back, go up against modern countries and the cost in lives and money goes crazy, hence why, the EU even with the spending now would be untouchable, but if they do combine, pool their resources and spend 2% of their GDP on the military, the US, China or India wouldn't mess with that because the cost would be very high for themselves, after all, look how much it cost the US just going up against Iraq, it's all about the economy and modern tech, the EU, US and China to a less degree have that and that makes an all out war among them very unlikely.
36
To be fair, that has little to do with the Euro and more to do with Italy not keeping pace with other EU countries, a lack of reform, corruption and high debt levels isn't doing Italy any favours and these problems would be there with or without the Euro, and many would rightly say that the Euro is helping to shield the worst of it for Italy, things could be worse for Italy if they were not in the Euro. But when things go wrong, there's always something to deflect blame on, the UK always blamed the EU for all the wrongs in the UK, since Brexit, Brits are realising that the EU wasn't the problem and the problems are much deeper in the system of the UK, in the case of Italy, it's easy to deflect blame on the Euro then to solve their own problems, but the simple truth is, a lot of countries are doing fine in the Euro, so that excuse is wearing thin, and besides, the problems were there before the Euro in Italy, just that it's becoming more evident as time goes on and deep sutural reforms are needed in Italy on the political and economic front as well as some major clean up of corruption which is holding back the economy. In the meantime, Spain, a country that started out well behind Italy are quickly catching up and I suspect they will overtake unless Italy gets its act together, Spain is a Euro zone country and are doing well out of it just like most are doing, in fact, if you look closely, it's countries like Italy and Greece that have had major issues with it, but if you look closely, you'll see it had little to do with the Euro and far more to do with internal politics and policies, Greece seems to be coming out of the worst of it and might be on the right track now, but we'll have to wait and see on that, as for Italy, I've not seen any major shift yet to get things moving and I really hope Italy gets its act together, but it's hard to keep faith on the country when they keep stumbling, and in any case, deflecting blame isn't the solution, constructive policymaking and solutions are needed, not the blame game that creates anger that gets none of us anywhere.
35
This is a pretty terrible deal for the UK, the EU managed to hold onto access with trade for the most part where it counts, they held onto fishing access for 5.5 years which could get extended at the time, the UK still pays in the EU pot and they didn't give the UK any meaningful access to financial services which the British economy is highly dependent on. I knew the EU was going to get a good deal out of the UK because of their size but I didn't think it would be that good because now Scotland and Northern Ireland could very well drift away from the rest of the UK as they want to be more in line with EU rules which could put pressure on the rest of the UK to follow a lot of EU rules, the EU was never going to give good financial service access because they see this as an opening to steal business away from the UK and they'll likely change the rules of the game to do just that. It boggles my mind, where are the actually benefits of Brexit, Brits now have less rights, likely worse living standards and still end up following a lot of EU rules without any say and their only real other alternative is Washington which I doubt many Brits would like considering their labour laws and food standards. Still it will be interesting to see how all this pans out.
35
@ЭЮЯ-о3к Very bold to say that, I've travelled a lot and that is BS. From what I've seen, Moscow and St Petersburg's have around the same standard of living as some of the Eastern EU members, much of the rest of Russia is down the toilet and we should remember that Russia has a massive leg up with it's oil, gas and other natural resources, without those, Russia would be a basket case and it really shows how far those eastern EU members have come along considering they have little to no natural resources and are doing well on the economy scale whiles quickly catching up to the west.
34
We are not quite at that stage yet, but I can see over the next decade that many will be wondering, why watch Hollywood movies or tv shows when I or anyone else can create their own for free. Better yet, using an existing show like Star Trek TNG and having A.I. create new episodes by it's going through all the episodes and understanding the arc of the actors, story and theme of the show and then creates new episodes with new stories that fit the narrative of the show, the possibilities are endless. I know some will say, never going to happen, but if you looked at how much A.I. has developed in just 2 years, you can only imagine what it will be like over the next decade or few decades from now, and this could be very destructive to the creative industry, especially the ones that are not listening to fans as we see with Star Trek and how many are not happy with the current state of Star Trek, basically, we could get far more fan made shows on basically everything, that is a clear threat to the creative industry because of having so much cheap contents for viewers to use, it reduces the value of human made content a lot. With all this said, for much of what I said above to happen, it will have to be a locally run A.I. model as online models will be too restrictive in what you can and can't do, and what I said above with the Star Trek thing, it's highly unlikely that any online model will allow that, but locally run A.I. well the sky is the limit.
34
Honestly, defence spending isn't the issue, the real issue is having 27 different militaries with 27 voices pulling in all directions, not to mention all the duplications and waste it gives. Even at current spending, a single EU military would be far more effective over what we have, but I do think boosting spending to 2% across the EU is needed with all the political instability that's going on around the world
34
I doubt this has much to do with control, corporations are very international now that they don't really care that much about their native land, it's all about the profits, wherever they can get them. Corporations will do what's in their interest, regardless of the market they are in around the world, as long as there is profit to be made. To give you an ideal, there are American pharmaceuticals companies that sell drugs far cheaper in the EU market then they do in the US, you really should ask yourself, why is that the case? In a sense, it's American companies screwing over the American people whiles because of EU regulations, are giving EU citizens a much better deal. To put it another way, it really doesn't matter where companies come from, they only care about profit and will enter any market around the world that can deliver profit, what makes the EU special is that it does a lot more right by its citizens then the US does and Europeans benefit for that, regardless of where the companies are from. Seriously, Americans need to wake up, the US government and many corporations are screwing Americans over because the US system allows them to do just that, corporations will always sell at the highest price they can, but they will also sell cheaper in other markets if regulations are in place that force them, after all, if it's a big market, they would rather make some money then none at all. So think of the EU as free market but with a lot more government regulations on companies to protect citizens.
34
To be fair, the same thing has been said many times through the decades and somehow, the EU countries seem to find a way forward. But it's very likely there will be some watering down of some of these proposals. But regardless, major change is needed, otherwise I suspect the EU and its countries will go in decline and get pushed aside by the US and China, which will have a negative impact on all Europeans.
33
I think as more countries join the Euro, it's going to push the holdouts to join at some point, after all, from an economic point of view, it could be seen as a disadvantage to not join for the countries holding out because investment would likely steer towards Euro Zone countries because of stability and the currency rate being the same over a wider range of people. None Euro countries could mirror the policies of the Euro, but if they keep doing that, you have to wonder, why not join altogether? Either way, if you were a company investing in the EU, you're more likely going to want to invest in a Euro country because it serves a bigger population of consumers without having to worry about currency fluctuations, which puts pressure on none Euro countries to mirror the exchange rate and policies of the Euro to be more enticing to investors, especially big investments that aim to sell Europe wide, the Euro Zone countries make more sense, with the exception of the developing EU countries in the east, which cheaper labour will still entice investment, but that won't last as they develop, so over the long run, I suspect all EU countries will join the Euro as it's likely going to be more difficult to stay out as more join it, especially as the majority of the EU is already Euro Zone centric. Anyway, inflation in Bulgaria does seem to be going down overtime, but public views and political stability could be a hold up for Bulgaria joining the Euro, but overall, things are in a good state for them joining before 2030, but I doubt they will join in 2025 because there are too many hurdles to overcome, but the odds are good for them joining before 2030.
33
I wonder how long it will take us Europeans to figure that one out that it's going to be harder to protect our interest if we don't do more through the EU, after all, imagine how big the likes of the US or China will be in 30-50 years from now, without the EU, we Europeans would be irrelevant on the world stage and that would make it much harder to protect our political, economic and social interest. At the end of the day, I think we will continue to further integrate in the EU, not out of want, but out of need, with each passing decade, it's going to be harder for individual EU countries to compete with the likes of the US and China and they will take advantage of that to divide and weaken us, as well as get us fighting among ourselves, if you look closely, we already see this happening in the EU with how Russia and China are pitting us off each other, the US does it at times.
33
In theory, Russia could stop gas to the EU but in practices, it's never likely to do unless all out war broke out. Truth is, Russia would stand to lose a fortune if they did that whiles at the same time making themselves an unreliable partner around the world, that would impact Russia in many ways. As for the EU, they would likely source gas from the world market which in the short term would push up the price for the EU and everyone else but it would also isolate Russia, it would also very likely speed up the EU green movement. It's why Russia only plays these games for a very short time and likely knows they can't go full in on their threats as it's themselves they would hurt the most in the long run, after all, think about if, if Russia did that to any modern economy on gas, they likely can do it to anyone, even friends around the world and not just on gas but even oil and other natural resources, basically, Russia would lose a lot of trust and custom from around the world and why it's not really a threat but a power play move to try and spook the EU but ends up meaning nothing overall. The irony is that Russia playing these games is likely moving the EU countries to alternative energy sources much sooner then it would be if Russia was more reliable, Russia could end up losing tens of billions over a decade or two because of their political games, after all, you never threaten the one that's buying your goods, otherwise they'll cut you out and buy elseware.
32
That's the thing, even if they got a victory in Ukraine which is looking highly unlikely, the cost to Russia will be making them think, was it all worth it? Regardless of any benefits Russia thought it was going to get by taking over Ukraine, the cost is very likely much higher for them with the isolation from the world and that is only going to get worse for Russia as the European diversify away from Russian oil and gas and then it's very likely that the EU and US is going to put a lot of pressure on countries that trade with Russia. It's sad but I think the only way Russia is going to learn is by total humiliation and from the western point of view, their main goal is to weaken Russia politically and economically, isolate them whiles making this war as painful and costly for Russia. Putin massively miscalculated on all this, all he's done is turned the west and much of the world against Russia, he's pushed more countries to want to join the EU and NATO, he's lost one of his biggest, richest customers on it's doorstep, the EU and isolated the country, because let's not forget, even friendly countries to Russia will be wary of doing business with a country that uses fossil fuels as a political weapon, which breaks trust and even friendly countries will be careful to not buy too much from them now in case Russia plays games with them. I also find it amusing how someone like Putin likes to portray the image of being someone smart could blunder so badly here. In any case, the real entertainment is going to begin as the reserves in Russia start to run out and as European countries diversify away from them, the cost to Russia will be massive, especially if they are still in Ukraine.
32
@Vmurmur Far more than people think, EU countries are modern advanced economies, they've got the manufacturing capabilities, it's just a matter of need to do it. We should put things into context, EU countries for the most part don't really see Russia as a threat to them, because in all honestly, they are not, Putin is having a nightmare of a time in Ukraine, which is one of the poorest European countries and they are not an EU or NATO country, which made them a very easy target, hence the risk to EU countries for now is quite low, hence the low urgency. But if things were to escalate, a lot more economic muscle would get put to arms and the economy is the real power in this world, so the risk to EU countries from Russia is quite low and Putin has more or less tried his best to destabilise things and yet had little impact. With that said, I really do think EU countries should get together on the military front and build a strong arms industry, basically, stop being reactive and be more proactive, especially in a world where the US is becoming less reliable and more unpredictable. Anyway, some countries think of EU members as being weak on the military front because of not being as aggressive, but it's understandable why they are not as aggressive considering their history, but only a fool would see that as weakness, if push comes to shove and there was a real threat to them, that economic might will kick into overdrive on the military front, the EU, US and China are 3 powers that can put far more economic muscle towards the military and manufacturing capabilities if needed, Russia doesn't have the economic muscle to keep up and is a dying empire that's living in the past. But if I'm honest with myself, I've been disappointed in both the EU and the US on Ukraine, they talk a good deal but are not delivering enough and not quickly enough, they come up with rules on what Ukraine can and can't do with the arms, especially the US which is favourable for Russia as they don't have these limitations, the EU and the US if they wanted too could have given Ukraine the means to end this war a long time ago, but I have a feeling that the US wants this war to drag out with the aim of bleeding Russia, basically, the longer Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and spending a fortune, the more it drains them over the years, I doubt the EU wants that as Ukraine is on their doorstep, but it fits in with US thinking, which is unfortunate for the people of Ukraine as they are the ones suffering for this. This is another big reason why EU countries need a single EU military and forign policy so they can have independent thinking away from the US.
32
Probably not as creepy as it seems with the one-upmanship France and the UK have over history lol. But I do think France is looking more promising longer term, partly because of Brexit being a constant drain on the UK, but also because France will have the advantage of being in the EU and the cooperation that can brings. Also, the UK economy is in really bad shape and cuts are likely going to happen across the board over the next decade or so and it makes you wonder if the UK can maintain it's military budget longer term, especially as the economy really starts to bite, France are in a much better position on this as they are pushing for cooperation on the military front with the EU and it's members, that longer term will have a lot of advantages and cost savings.
32
It makes the EU Commission look weak, the European Parliament has wanted to get much tougher on Hungary for quite some time now. All this is showing is a high level of incompetents on the EU Commission part, the more you give in to Hungary, the more they'll come back for more, sometimes you have to put your foot down and get tough, Hungary are embarrassing the EU Commission and considering it's one of the unelected parts of the EU, it doesn't look good for them and it's a clear indicator that we need reforms with more powers going to the European Parliament which seems to care more about the interest of the EU unlike the EU Commission that keeps appeasing, seriously, what does the EU Commission expect to happen? Hungary is going to keep coming back for more because they see the EU as being weak thanks to the Commission. As for Hungary, I think the EU needs to kick them out one way or the other, the public in the country have had more than enough chances to kick Orban out, so they are part of the blame and because they don't want a change in government, I see little option but to find a way to kick Hungary out, they are not compatible with EU and European ideals and seem more interesting in Putin's interest. I'm very pro EU but even the EU is testing my faith in them with how weak they are with countries like Hungary and if the EU isn't careful, they are going to lose a lot of credibility with the public which could damage the EU project, but seriously, it seems like the European Parliament is the only creditable insinuation, the rest seem to want to appease.
32
Yeah, Ukraine really did open up a big device in those two countries views on many things, Hungary have become more hardline since then whiles Poland has softened it's tone. I personally think Hungary will get kicked out of the EU one way or the other as their interest are not in the interest of the EU and it's other members, whereas Poland might be saved, but Poland was going the same way before the war in Ukraine started, and might still be going. Either way, they are not a threat to Germany and France, because those two countries know how to play the game with cooperation, working with other members and compromise, which is becoming a major weakness of Hungary and Poland, mainless out of self-interest, which you don't really make friends with other members like that, the UK found that out the hard way and they are more powerful than Poland and Hungary combined. If Poland and Hungary really want to boost their power in the EU, they need to work with other members, that means compromising in a lot of areas and doing things that are in the interest of most members, not just themselves, the UK never got that memo, France and Germany did, hence why they've been so successful, I'm seeing a repeat on Poland and Hungary, taking the role the UK had, whereas power will shift to a degree, it always does when new members are in, but it's not likely going to shift towards Poland or Hungary, and more likely to shift to other smaller countries in the east that are more moderate in their views.
32
@alm9322 Those two countries are some of the newest members, it takes decades to catch up to the western European countries, and even then, it depends how quickly those countries do the reforms needed to catch up, some are faster than others, something we see in the west. Also, you only have to look at GDP per capita of eastern EU members and compare that to eastern European countries that are not in the EU, overall, the ones in the EU are doing a lot better than the ones that are not. In any case, the EU isn't about handouts, it's about creating political and economic stability, so that the economy can do well, whiles investment in the country goes up. The stability that the EU offers those countries is far more valuable than the economic handouts the western countries give them, after all, look at Hungary, if they keep going the way they are going, investment could take a hit in the country, as it will be seen as high risk, more so if they ever left the EU, a lot of the investment it gets now would relocate to other eastern EU countries. Ultimately, the EU helps to create stability, but it is really up to the country in question to do the hard reforms needed to create economic growth, the EU just helps to set them on that path, whiles making it difficult to go off the rail, Hungary and Poland are a prime example of that, if it wasn't for the check and balance from the EU, those two countries would very likely be going off the rails now, which would hits their economy in a negative way.
31
wandering soul That's in the past, hardly anyone from that time is alive today, there is no way the German people of today can be held to account on something they had nothing to do with and in any event, it's history now and Germany has a nation is very different now, the hostile countries tend to be the likes of the UK, US, Australia, ironic when you think about it.
31
I honestly never really saw Russia as much of a military power before the invasion of Ukraine, we should remember that Russia is a poor country with an economy that's a bit bigger than Spain. It's easy to be seen as more powerful when you're more aggressive and lashing your tail around which is what countries like Russia does, especially in comparison to western countries which are far more subdued on that but are far more powerful in military matters if they choose to be, in other words, if they put their economic and manufacturing might behind the military. I also wonder about China and its military capabilities, they are likely more capable and stronger than Russia is because of the economy but probably much weaker than the west gives them credit. I have to admit, before the war, I didn't think Russia would be this weak that it's surprised me how badly they are performing and it's clear Russia is getting desperate because of all the nuke threats it keeps saying, that's a clear sign of desperation that things are not going their way. The irony is about that, the more Russia threatens, the more the west mocks Russia by sending more arms to Ukraine, Russia is digging its own hole deeper and deeper with its threats because the west has much deeper pockets that they can continue to supple Ukraine with arms and intelligence pretty much indefinitely whiles also training them, in other words, the west is making sure this is going to be really costly for Russia and it's people until Russia leaves Ukraine and even then, the sanctions might stay until Putin is deposed as he's clearly shown he can't be trusted and not just in Ukraine but over the last decade, in that sense, the west has been too slow and should have got tougher on Russia years ago.
30
It's remarkable how erratic the weather has been over the last 5 or 10 years, from crazy heatwaves, to the cold weather we are getting in the UK. Some people misunderstand global warming in that they think it's about the Earth warming up, which is true to a degree, but it's really about the weather pattern changing and becoming less predictable, something we are seeing in the EU, UK and US, the weather patterns seem to be erratic. I mean seriously, the temperature where I live is around 16C where I live, around 2 years ago, it was around 37C for this time of year, and I never recalled any of these wild swings in weather patterns growing up in the 80's, 90's and 00's, just over the last 5 or 10 years has it really become noticeable, and the alarming thing is, it seems to be getting worse at a rapid rate that unless it goes back to normal, I really do have to wonder what the weather is going to be like in many regions around the world over the coming decades.
30
@trimaxionerror5696 The Germans and Europeans for the most part have a long history of war that it doesn't seem like they want to go that route again with the exception of maybe the UK and Russia, the war like mentality seems to be more the US then EU countries now, Germany seems to be one of the more civilized modern countries just like Japan is now, remember, the second world war impacted them the most so the last thing they want is a repeat of that. As for Russia and China, condemning them for what? The US is the one that wants to play world police, let them deal with it, besides, the EU is smarter than that, going hostile with Russia or China doesn't work, the US is showing that and it's likely going to create a second Cold War, the Europeans are smarter on that when it comes to diplomacy and like to keep all communications and channels open, it had to be, because you don't form a union like the EU without being smart or using force and clearly no force is used on that. As for China, all the US and UK are doing is sinking, they are not powerful enough to take on China with how fast they are rising, it's one thing to take the moral high ground, it's another to use common sense, now don't get me wrong, the EU doesn't like what China is doing but they are smarter than that to go direct with them like the US is doing because that will be very costly for the US in the long run, the UK could get dragged into it thanks to Brexit, Australia as well because they fear China a lot and seem desperate on that but hardly any other country are following them. Beside, look at a lot of the wars started since the second world war, the US and UK have usually had a hand in it, they have become the hostile nations to the world and many are starting to see that now.
30
That's where the real problem is, a union of open boarders internally needs the union head to have the powers to enforce its boarders and immigration policies, which it doesn't have the powers for now. All Schengen is actually doing is exposing the weaknesses of the members not the EU, but seriously, what on earth made them think you could have open internal boarders whiles the external boarder and immigration policy is handle at a members level, 27 voices all pulling in different directions, it was just asking for a mess and it also ends up meaning that some countries like Italy and Spain don't get the help needed to deal with it, if it was done at an EU level, they likely would get the help needed, it would be much easier to enforce the external boarders and to have a fairer more balanced immigration policy. Schengen is just exposing the flaws of those powers being in members hands and it's showing all the time how many members argue with each other, that's where the real problem is and there's only two ways to solve it, either give the EU the powers to solve this issue at a transnational level or put all the boarders up, but doing that would hurt our standard of living and make us less economically competitive over the long run, in other words, EU members are going to have to find a solution at an EU level.
30
Germany today is a very different country then it was back then, in fact I would say the UK is a more hostile country than Germany is the last few decades, also, the UK not being in the EU actually makes Germany more powerful in the EU and out so it's likely going to affect the UK either way we go.
29
Farmers always complaining, I suppose they'll blame it on Brexit when they go belly up or worse yet on the EU and if they have the right wing media on their side, they'll make it seem like the EU planted the Lynxes here to cause chaos lol.
29
That's the case for almost all modern countries and if you look closely, most of the population growth is from immigration and those people that have more kids than natives. It's a first world problem that more people want to enjoy life and not have kids, something that will likely get worse in every developed nation unless people have more free time. But honestly, I don't think it's that big of an issue, at least not yet, people are living longer, robotics and A.I. are going to take over most of the job market in the decades to come, that's likely going to have a major shift in people's free time which could boost birth rates.
29
@joeyjojojrshabadoo7462 He's right thought, since the war in Ukraine and even before the war, Russia's influence has been in decline and it's very likely to continue as long as the EU and NATO continue to expand eastward, which is very likely in the case of the EU because of Russia's actions in Ukraine that is scaring a lot of eastern European countries into the EU's hands. Putin probably sees the EU as the biggest threat, because for every country the EU swallows up and helps to develop, it has a ripple effect on nearby countries that want the same thing, just like the countries that joined the EU over the last 2 decades is having a ripple effect on other nearby countries in the region, that over the long run is weakening Russian influence in the region whiles making the EU stronger. But Russia only has it's self to blame, threats, intimidation only work for a short time, ultimately, it's pushing these countries towards the EU and the irony is, with everything that's going on in Ukraine, the EU is by far the biggest winner from that with Russia being the biggest loser, we've already seen two countries join NATO and countless more that are lining up to join the EU, Putin's tactics are not working, but he's got himself into such a hole, that it's hard for him to change course.
29
I remember reading somewhere that EU countries actually does more high-tech than the US does on a per capita basis, but the real problem in the EU is funding, something a capital market could solve. Basically, a lot of high-tech is being done in Europe, but getting the money to push ahead with it is much harder, so many of them get snapped up by American corporations, there are ways of solving that problem at an EU level, but the members need to come together to make it happen, and there would be a big incentive in doing so, far more independence away from the US and a lot of jobs creation in the EU, but it might harm US interest if it becomes a lot harder for there corporations to snap up a lot of the talent and tech as a lot of it would likely stay in the EU if we create a capita market to allow us to throw a lot more money at it.
29
Maybe, but honestly, there wasn't really any credible alternatives to von der Leyen, apart from maybe Mario Draghi, and the far right didn't really come up with any credible options which made von der Leyen the default option, also, as much as some might not like her, she has been credible and a safe per of hands over the last 5 or so years under difficult circumstances.
29
It's not so much an obsession, it's just that most of the world tends to have weaker laws and regulations than we see in the EU, and the EU has a big enough market to have a big impact on global laws and regulations, the US could do the same but a lot of their laws and regulations are much weaker. So it's not that the EU is obsessed, it's that their standards tend to be higher than most and honestly, I think Europeans in the EU are the lucky ones that have a government that looks after their privacy and well-being.
28
Russia, a country blessed with a lot of natural resources that most countries would love to have and yet because of it's corrupt, paranoid political system, it can't really take advantage of them. Russia as a country, could be a rich country with a high and even higher GDP per capita than most countries if they used that wealth right but what we have is a country with a lot of natural resources that don't make the most of it and a GDP per capita that is quite poor. However we like to look at it, you've got to put that down to the political system and indirectly, on the Russian people, after all, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia had a chance of becoming a modern country, is blessed with a lot of natural resources and yet still messed it up. Maybe with everything that's going on in Ukraine and once the sanctions really start to bite which lets be honest, they've hardly started yet, maybe real change in Russia can happen.
28
I've no problems with debts at a personal, government and public level, but I always feel that debts should be short term of no more than a decade and should be reasonable when it comes to paying it back, in other words, it doesn't put you out too much by being a burden, or in the case of a country, austerity measures. I feel too many countries take on too much unnecessary debt because it's easy to do, many governments know they can pass the burden onto the next government, easy access to debts probably reduce much needed reforms that could boost the economy. So I feel debts are fine, as long as they are manageable and short term of no more than a decade, when it's longer or what seems like permanent debt, it ends up being a drain on the overall economy, but more of a worry is that debts are used by many governments to dig themselves out of a hole because they don't want to make the hard choice on reforms. With that said, sometimes emergency debts are needed, like with Covid, but most of the time, it should be avoided and kept low where it's manageable, doing that would likely put more pressure on governments to do real reforms in the economy to boost it.
28
True and it's based on the economy, population size and the military, eastern European countries getting this right doesn't really shift the needle on balance of power and actually, in the case of Poland and Hungary, their power is being limited by their own actions as they'll never gain too much through Europe unless they change their ways. Personally, I think the real shift of power will actually be away from Italy towards Spain, mainly because Italy have a declining economy that are slipping behind the rest, they have an unstable political system and are becoming more like the UK where they blame the EU for all the wrongs in Italy and not wanting to look at where the real problems are in Italy. In any case, did the power balance shift as the UK left? Nothing really changed and I doubt much is going to change here apart from what I said above with Italy and Spain, as for the eastern EU members, they will gain more powers as they become more modernized, but let's not kid ourselves, it's not going to be Poland or Hungary that gains that power, it's going to be the others in the region and you only have to look at the UK when they were in the UK, they always got pushed aside by the other members and a big reason for that is because they were obstructive and not constructive on the EU project, you want to gain more power in the EU, you really have to be a pro EU countries whiles having a decent economy and population size, the UK could have had that but it was too Eurosceptic and was push to the fringes of the project, the same will likely be the case for Poland and Hungary unless they change.
28
True, Putin thought the war would take a few weeks to a month or two to take all of Ukraine, he also didn't expect such resistance from the west with the sanctions, military aid to Ukraine and so on. With European countries gradually moving away from Russian oil and gas and Russian reserve running out, this was is working out to be very costly for Russia that I see no real way that they can win this one and the cost is so high for Russia that even if they did win, it might as well be a pyrrhic victory as the longer term cost is likely much higher for them. The real damaging impact to Russia is losing the trust of the Europeans, as it's going to be difficult for Russia to find other buyers to buy it's oil and gas and even then, there are very few limited markets that are as rich as the EU countries, throw in that more countries want to join the EU and NATO, this couldn't have gone any more wrong for Putin then his worse predictions and the real cost to Russia hasn't even started, remember that Putin has built up enough reserves to weather the storm, Putin was expecting a quick victory here and as the reserves run dry and the Europeans source alternative energy sources, that's when things will really get bad for Russia. If the Russian people are smart, they'll get rid of Putin pronto, because it's the Russian people that will suffer in the long run with Putin in charge of the country, I also think that Ukraine will fancy their chances of taking Crimea back if the west keeps helping them.
28
I can confirm that, I know of 3 people that have put solar power on their houses because of the war in Ukraine and the impact of higher energy bills, 2 of these I know were not interested in solar power but the higher energy bills were a massive incentive to get them moving.
27
OPEC reminds me of a cartel that fixes energy prices among themselves. Maybe it's high time western countries separate the price point of oil, gas and renewables from each other so consumers can actually see the benefits of the lower price points. Best way to get real change is for consumers to feel the benefit but the way it's set up now, renewable energy price is sold to consumers at the same price as the most expensive fossil energy, so gas in this case and it's easy to understand why they would do this, they don't want consumers to realize how cheap renewable energy is compared to gas and oil because if consumers start to realize that, we'll end up seeing massive investments going into renewables, far more than we are seeing now and it's easy to see how that would be bad news for OPEC, so they rig the market to make it seem like alternative energy like renewables is expensive and honestly, it's remarkable they got away with it.
26
As a Brit, I'm happy to see Germany rise up on the military front, I know not all Brits will think like that, especially Brexiteers who seems to think we are in the old days of who has the biggest military, UK or France lol, in this case, it will be clear that Germany does. Anyway, I understand going off Germany history on why the country didn't want to be a major military power but times change, Germany is nothing like the country it was, Germany can contribute a lot of good to the world, especially in the EU and I really have to wonder if it's high time EU members need to start integrating more on military, security and energy matters, that would save a lot of money, reduce duplications and have a lot more clout around the world, it would also make Europeans in the EU a much more credible force on the world stage, the economic might is there but the political side needs some work because others take advantage of our division, even the US does that at times. So yeah, I think it's high time we start looking after our own interest and not being so dependent on the US, this includes the UK which I think will rejoin the EU, maybe decades later as France wouldn't let us in any time soon.
26
It pretty much levels the playing field with the deal the US had with China, I don't see why the EU had to get approval from the US when the EU is big enough to do it's own thing. Now don't get me wrong, I do think the EU and US should work together a lot more in the future and coordinate more when it comes to China but the US will likely let this one slide considering the antics of Trump, in other words, Biden needs to repair relations around the world and especially with the EU and China.
26
I would love to sign it, unfortunately, those Brexiteer clowns took my vote away, but anyway, I hope this gets enough support to make real changes to the gaming industry.
26
A lot of the times they are, but like all governments, they get something's right and something's wrong, but imagine this, if the EU didn't exist and the US or worse, China managed to push its morals onto the world, I somehow doubt many people would want that and because of that, I'm grateful we have the EU because things could be much worse without them as the US doesn't seem to care about the people and China is way behind them.
26
I have to agree with Erdogan on that, if the west showed a much tougher response on Crimea years ago, Putin likely wouldn't have invaded Ukraine, he did so because he thought the west was weak and divided, the west was and still is divided for the most part but Putin didn't understand the scale of what he's done that's united the west for the most part. There is also the EU aspect in all this, if the EU had its own voice on the military and forign policy, the EU members pool their resources in those areas, I doubt Putin would have invaded Ukraine, it's our division on why he took advantage of Ukraine and the quicker the Europeans wake up and see that and start working a lot closer together, the better.
25
Sounds a bit like the UK, where a lot of Brits before Brexit, blamed the EU for a lot of the wrongs in the country, even though a lot of what is wrong in the country had little or nothing to do with the EU and much of the problems were created by national governments. In the case of the UK, they are learning that the hard way with Brexit and many are starting to realise that most of the problems in the UK had little to do with the EU and a lot more to do with national policy. It's understandable really, it's far easier to use an outsider as a scapegoat, but it's not very productive in getting real change done that can benefit the people, which if the EU and its members work together, we can achieve a lot more that will benefit the people across all EU members. I do also agree that big reforms of the EU are needed so it can function better for all it's members, that could mean some integration in some key areas so we're more effective in protecting our interest, especially being that a lot of our weakness we see in the EU is that many EU countries are pulling in multiple directions, which is weakening us all
25
That and I think we need more reporting on the news and papers on what the EU is up to, too many of the public don't seem to have a clue what's going on and go off what national governments or some of the press tells them which twist it for their own advantage, that is the main problem the EU has at the moment, not enough involvement from the public in EU democracy and that is something I think needs to change so the public have a better understanding in what's going on, that should also weaken the Eurosceptic movement a lot because they play on fear, ignorance and people not knowing fact from fiction.
25
This is where the real problem is, the west can afford to spend this kind of money, and because it's being share, the impact is far less, whereas Russia is having to spend big to prop up it's military and economy, that can work well in the short term, but it's massively expensive to do, especially if the war drags on and like one of the comments on here said, they are getting revenue from oil and gas sales, but it's kinda like throwing money down the drain that normally would go towards helping the economy and Russian people, the end result is that over the long run, it's going to have a negative impact on the Russian people, which by the way, it seems like Putin is trying to shield the rich areas of Russia at the expense of the rest of Russia from the impact this war is having, mainly because Putin doesn't want the Russian people to turn on him, so he's being selective on what parts of the country to shield from most of the impact of this war, which again, that only works short term, longer term we are talking about Russia decline. Also, the stats that are coming out from Russia on the economy, inflation and so on are likes downplayed and are very likely worse than it's reported, you only have to ask the average Russians to get a bit of an idea on that one, so the simple truth is, we don't know how bad it's hitting the Russian economy, but it's clearly worse than what's being reported in Russia and likely to get worse overtime. Also, isn't Russia printing more money in the last 24 months then it did in the entire 90's? If so, this is going to be costly over the long run, especially as the 3 big players, the EU, US and China are moving ahead with renewable energy, which will put downwards pressure on fossil fuel prices over the coming years.
25
@freedomfighter22222 Which is why a standard measure is needed, with or without pension to calculate how much is going on the military. I suspect many countries are using other tricks to inflate the numbers.
24
I think the real issue is that people see things in a short term lens, the Euro being a new currency, any slight problems and the septics are quick to jump on it and make it seem like it's going to fall apart. The reality is, there's no risk to the Euro, the people want it, the EU wants it, and it's just a matter of making the Euro more effective for its members in boosting economic growth, which that takes time.
24
That's the problem in the UK, too much focus is on the south and especially on London, lack of interest and investment in other regions is creating a lot of inequality in the UK and unless anything radically changes, it's probably going to get worse because the UK has dug its self into a deep hold with Brexit and all the other mess that's been created that is leaving less resources to invest in areas that's needed, it's probably that it could end up with the UK government focusing even more on London, making the UK even worse. The UK needs a major overall, and I don't see that happening with the Tories in power, I'm not even convinced it will happen with the current leadership of Labour if they get into power.
24
I think an EU military is just a matter of time and not because of wanting one but because of the changing world, we're seeing a more hostile US and a more aggressive China and Russia, if Europeans want to protect their interest, they are likely going to have to band together and pool resources as we're too small as individual countries when compared to the US or China. In other words, I think an EU military and more integration will happen because of the changing realities of the world, at least if we want to protect our economic, social and political interest because otherwise, we're just going to get pushed aside and that could be bad for our social system, a little hint is what the US wants from the UK after Brexit when it comes to trade deals, a watering down on a lot of things that are not in their interest.
24
@inno.1552 There's no need to force them to split, but if the EU did play hardball on US big tech companies, others will quickly swoop in and fill that void, being as the EU is a massive market and other companies around the world are just waiting for that kind of opening. On top of that, if the EU did something like that, other countries would likely follow, the last thing the US and US tech companies want is that to happen as it could be an avalanche against the US and in favour of other companies. The point is, a valid alternative can spring up quickly when there's a major market with high demand for a given service. In any case, that's the nuke option and it would be quite effective, but the smarter option is to regulate tech companies much tighter with the aim of encouraging new companies to enter the game and spur some competition.
24
I tend to find that things happen depending on need and in the case of the EU, it came about because of the aftermath of world war two and the changing political and economic realities in the world, mainly the US being a power in the world. Because of that, it's unlikely the US would fall apart, it's also unlikely the EU to fall apart and as for Brexit, as much as the UK seems to want to leave, they are making a right meal of leaving because reality of leaving is kicking in but Brexit might still happen but unless the realities of what the Brexiteers have promised comes true, the UK or what's left of it is likely going to rejoin the EU again at some point. If we look around the world, we are seeing political and economic unions popping up around the world, most of them are at a very early stage whereas the EU isn't, I suspect we are going to see more of these with many countries grouping together simple to protect their political and economic interest in a world where we have super powers like the EU, US, China and so on and this isn't because people want it but it's more about the realities of the changing world, the irony being is the UK could be a perfect test case to see that.
24
I always imagine what someone shortly after the second world war would think of what we've built today with the EU, they very likely would think it's not possible, probably the same way many think about a federal or confederate EU. What Europeans have achieved since the second world war is remarkable and others around the world are trying to emulate it like the African Union, so clearly it's been a big success.
24
The irony is that Russia over the last 5 or so days might have done more for EU military integration then what the EU could do in decades. These kinds of events really put things into perspective and focus minds on what is really important. So yeah, I suspect the events unfolding now could very likely push more EU integration but also even push western countries closer together, what Russia is doing here is a massive wake-up call for us all and especially for Europeans.
23
Yep, there's supposed to be a separation of church and state in the US, but they don't seem to practice that, whereas in many European countries, bringing religion into politics is enough to get someone fired from their position in government, politics and religion is not a good mix and I'm happy to see religion is a dying breed in Europe, which is ironic considering how much architecture we have in Europe around religion lol.
23
The irony is, Poland and Hungary backing each other up was the main reason that the EU couldn't deal with Hungary, if Poland doesn't back Hungary, the EU can get a lot tougher on Hungary, even to the point of kicking Hungary out of the EU, unless another EU member has their back, but none in the east will have the clout that Poland has. But we'll have to see what happens, if they can form a government and if they go through with reforming the system in Poland, saying they'll do it is one thing, doing it is another, but relations with the EU and Ukraine should get warmer now, Hungary on the other hand could find themselves really isolated and I've said it many times that I felt Poland could be saved, but I don't think Hungary can, so depending on what government Poland forms, it could be the right time to pile a lot more pressure on Hungary in the areas where they are rolling back on the rule of law, if that doesn't work, kicking them out of the EU might be the best option, I would rather find an alternative solution but unless the people in Hungary wake up to what the government is doing, kicking Hungary out might be the wake-up call they need just like the UK is getting with Brexit.
23
@0w784g Not quite because I would say the EU goes after EU companies more than they do international ones, just that international ones are not used to the norm in the EU and feel they can get away with bending and braking rules, especially in the US which everything is so twisted up to favour big corporations. Protectionism exist everywhere, let's not kid ourselves and in some sectors, it makes sense to do that, energy security is one area but even then, it's still to a minimum.
23
It's not that easy when EU countries have an open boarder. In truth, the real problem is having open boarders whiles at the same time having individual countries doing their own things when it comes to the boarder and immigration. It's a crazy situation to have one without the other and think it can work with 27 different policies, in other words, if we really want open boarders among EU countries, which I suspect most want, then we need the EU to have more powers in areas like enforcing the EU boarder and on immigration, and basically, the real problem isn't the EU as such, but 27 different countries having their own policies in an open boarder union, that's where the real problem is, and it would be a real shame if EU countries continue to close boarders as that's taking away one of the biggest benefits of being in the EU for its citizens. To put it another way, we can't have our cake and eat it, if we want open boarders, then the EU needs the powers in those areas to enforce them, in other words, the real problem is being caused by EU countries all pulling in different directions, and if we are not careful, we could end up with boarders being permanently closed in the union for EU citizens.
23
This isn't really about control and more about building better ties for both sides, but honestly, I would be more worried about China than I would with the EU because China aim is to get more control over shows African countries by using debt trap diplomacy. I think if the EU is to be successful in Africa, it has to offer something better than what China is offer, money helps in the short term but overall, it doesn't make that much of a dent in economic growth, what Africa needs is know-how in building a modern economy, the EU is very successful in doing that as it's shown with countless countries that joined the EU and became a lot richer for it. If the EU helps Africa to develop, that would be worth far more than any money the EU or China gives Africa because the know-how will allow Africa to stand on it's own feet, that would be far more useful than throwing money at the problem which a lot of it gets wasted anyway, but then, it's up to the African countries to choose.
23
That's an issue for almost all modern countries, if it wasn't for immigration, the problem would be far worse for developed countries, even the US. People seem to want to have far fewer kids nowadays and if you look at the stats, a lot of the growth is coming from immigration, either directly or by them having more kids than the natives, this is more or less happening in every modern country, the US is no exception and if you look at the countries that have a bigger population decline, they tend to be the ones that bring in fewer immigrants, Germany probably being the exception to that one.
23
I think that's the case for almost all modern countries, the idea that such a small percentage of people own most of the wealth in a country, really shows how the current system we are living under isn't working, and maybe what we've been seeing over the last few years are the cracks starting to open up with people getting angry, protest voting and such, and personally, I think it's only going to get worse until governments start clamping down on the rich elites and big corporations. What I mean by that, immigration and all the other complaining is really a sideshow to what the real problem is in society, from cost of living, inequality, housing being so expensive and so many other things like that, yet with all that, I get the impression that governments are blind to what's going on in western countries, so I expect things to get worse before the wake-up call kicks in, and the irony is, things getting worse will ironically hit the rich elites and corporations much harder in the long run, so if they are smart, they'll nip it in the bud and come back down to earth before the public gets really angry at how things are going, until then, enjoy the show and the potential revolution that could be on its way if they don't wake up. Also, if you really want to thank anyone for why this is happening, you can thank the internet, as that is opening peoples eyes and exposing how screwed up the system is in favour of the rich elites and big corporations.
22
Timing and who stands to benefit are usually a good indicator on who did it. In this case, Russia knew a big counter offensive was about to begin, that's where the timing comes into it, Russia also had an incentive to do this as it would make it much harder for Ukraine to do an offensive in that area, so it seems likely that Russia did it. The only reason Ukraine might have done it was to enrage the west and gain more support from them, but that seems highly unlikely and risky for Ukraine to do, after all, if the west found out, support for Ukraine could quickly dry up. Russia has a reputation of not caring about its own people, never mind people of other countries, and as we know, Putin is getting desperate, so we don't know for sure that it was Russia, but the evidence is pointing in that direction, and they have the most to gain from it, and as I said above, the timing is too perfect just as Ukraine is about to start an offensive, I can't imagine Ukraine doing it, only to slow their advance, but Russia on the other hand wants to buy time and slow Ukraine's advanced, and that is probably what this is all about.
22
@KyussTheWalkingWorm Like Tobias said, all those ray tracing games are likely optimized for Nvidia hardware as that was the only option until these new AMD gpu's got released, so the performance gap is likely going to become smaller, throw in that games target consoles and that's a lot more like these new AMD gpu's than Nvidia hardware as well as the drivers not being mature yet, I suspect performance is only going to get better in time. Another thing to remember is that ray tracing was poor on Nvidia hardware early on but with driver updates and software optimization, it got a lot better, if that happens on AMD hardware, the gap could close a lot but with that said, I doubt these cards will beat Nvidia's new cards in ray tracing performance but then it doesn't really have too.
22
wandering soul World War 2 was a real wake up call for Europeans, especially the Germans, last thing any Europeans in the EU want is another war, it's more the Americans, the Russians, China and others that keep pushing on things like that, the Europeans have become one of the most peaceful of modern countries now, you should really be worried about the US and China because they are the ones trying to start a new Cold War at the moment, Europeans should stay out of it.
22
@chrishieke1261 Yep, emotions are running high, they are not looking at the situation objectively, yes some countries messed up more than others but on balance of power, it doesn't actually change much, especially because the biggest member in the east, Poland are slipping on democracy and to have power in the EU, you really have to be a team player, Germany and France are good at that, the UK when in the EU wasn't and it showed as it got sidelined a lot on many EU policies. With that in mind, even small EU countries from the west or east can have an impact but it has to be on overall policies that are good for all the members as a team player, Poland and Hungary are getting it badly wrong and the war in Ukraine does help Poland a little but it's no get out of jail card for what it's doing back home. The key to power in the EU is to be progressive, constructive and not obstructive, the UK had all the key ingredients to be a bigger player in the EU, but it was obstructive and got pushed aside a lot by other EU members, I suspect the same could happen to Poland and Hungary if they don't get their act together and their lose could be the gain for other EU members, especially the ones in the east.
22
I was thinking that, too much of it is based on our understanding of the universe, physics and all that. We've got so much to learn that there's no way we can know for sure if we'll get to see those things or not but one thing certain, it won't be for a long time. What interest me, what is the end game of us advancing? if we keep advancing our understanding and technology, wouldn't we more or less become god like in that we could more or less do whatever we want? In any case, I suspect the speed of light is the limit of our understanding but things but is far from the limits of speed, just the limit of our advancement.
22
The problem for Russia, it can't really find other rich markets to sell it's oil and gas too, the EU and US being the big bulk of the rich world are customers you can't afford to get on the wrong side off, Russia has got on the wrong side of them, especially the EU which in the short term it's painful for the EU but they will adapt away from Russia, it's far more painful for Russia because they have limited options in where they can sell oil and gas too and even then, other countries, even friendly countries to Russia, knows Russia is in a weak position and will pressure them to discount the price of oil and gas a lot, that position will get worse for Russia as Europe moves further away from Russia which is likely going to make Russia more desperate, the likes of China, India and others are very likely going to take full advantage of Russia's weakness. As for the EU, the pain is short-lived, probably till next winter when things start to ease off a lot and the EU is the key because high energy price and inflation might stay high around the world till the EU countries secure alternative energy sources. There is a massive opening for the EU here to really push its renewable agenda, even thought the EU was pushing on that before, a lot of foot dragging was happening, now we might see them go full steam ahead which will be interesting to see the energy mix in the EU over the next decade, but either way, energy is becoming a security risk that I suspect a lot more countries will want to generate a lot of its energy internally, that is really bad news for the fossil industry and the longer and higher energy prices stay, the worse for that industry and better for the renewable industry that it wouldn't surprise me if in the long run, Putin might have wiped out a decade or more revenue from the fossil industry, that would be worth trillions to those countries that produce it, so in the short term they are profiting, longer term they could pay a very high price because of Putin's actions. At the end of the day, never threaten your rich customers, because they will in time look elseware and that is what Europe is doing and once the EU shift away from Russia enough, it's very likely that the EU and US will go after those countries that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, after all, a lot of countries are not going through all this only for the likes of China and India to prop up the Russian economy, there is likely going to be a lot of pressure on those countries to stop buying from Russia with the aim of isolating Russia on the world stage and as the likes of the EU and US are by far the biggest markets to China and India, both the EU and US have many tools to pressure China and India on that, the end result is, Russia isn't that important on the world stage whereas the rich markets of the EU and US are and it's around then when Russia has real problems. The irony is about that last bit, Putin is helping to speed that process up by cutting gas to EU, it forces them to adapt and look for alternatives quicker which is the last thing Russia can afford to do, but I understand why Russia is doing that, they've got no choice, they know EU is moving away from Russia, Putin wants to be seen as getting the boot in first to do more damage but the end result is a lot more damage to Russia whiles the EU will adapt because it has no choice but to adapt and as we know, a lot of change can happen in a short space of time with enough political will to do those changes and as for Russia, it was a massive mistake to use oil and gas as a political weapon, the moment you break trust on things like that, Russia is going to find it difficult to sell to anyone, even China and India will want to be careful to not get too dependent on Russia in case Putin gets political with them, that line has been crossed which will hurt Russia long term. Oh and one last thing, the sanctions usually take years to really bite, but we should remember the long term aim from the west here on Russia, it's not political change that they are after, even thought that would be great, the west is wise enough to know that Putin will feed the Russian people a lot of lies to protect his own position, the west real aim here is to weaken Russia on the world stage, weaken it's political and economic power by isolating them, that longer term looks like it's going to work and Russia will find it difficult to adapt to that, so all Putin has done is speed up the decline of Russia as a power and let's not kid ourselves, Russia was in decline before the war started, the real powers in this world are the EU, US and China, whereas Russia for all its noise, only has an economy in between the size of Spain and Italy and the economy is the real power in this world.
21
You get a sense from Brexiteers that any deal with the EU is bad, I mean seriously, what do the Brexiteers think the UK should do, cut all ties off with the EU? I'm not being funny, but whether we like it or not, the EU is by far our most important partner and for all the talk about these so-called free trade deals the UK is signing around the world, the economic benefits from them is so tiny that it's almost not worth it and the UK would need to sign a heck of a lot more deals and better ones at that to replace what we had in the EU. Closer relations with the EU is in the UK's interest, more so now with how the US is going off the rails, which is probably why Brexiteers are so angry, because this Brexit reset is likely just the start for further closer relations with the EU over the long term, maybe even to the point of joining the single market, custom union or even the EU, that's what the hardcore Brexiteers are really angry about, it's certainly not the fish which lets be honest, the economic impact is so small to not matter, but the Brexiteers will use any excuse like fish to try and drive there point home. The good news is, after so many years of Brexit, the Brexiteers have lost a lot of credibility thanks to their lies, support for the EU and closer relations are higher among Brits than they've been for a long time, in other words, Brexiteers can scream all they want, far fewer people are listening and thanks to Trump, that's just helping the EU case.
21
Considering Russia is being propped up by billions in oil and gas revenues and Russia is having to eat into a lot of it's reserve and even with all that, it's got one of the highest inflation rates and the economy is performing badly compared to western countries. Things don't look good for Russia because eventually those reserves are going to run out, in time, EU countries will diversify away from Russian oil and gas and even thought China and India are buying more oil and gas from Russia, they are getting it dirt cheap which isn't good for Russia and even then, it's very likely that once the EU countries diversify away from Russia, the EU and US are going to put a lot of pressure on countries that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, the idea being is to isolate Russia. Throw in that Russia invasion of Ukraine must be costing them a fortune and it doesn't look like they are making much if any progress in the country, things don't look good for Russia. Time isn't on Russia side, the longer the war in Ukraine drags on, the more costly it will be for Russia, on top of that, the west in time will be in a better position to supple arms better to Ukraine which is just going to make it more costly for Russia and as that is going on, Russia will be losing a lot of revenue from oil and gas sales whiles being isolated from the world. The end result is that even if Putin got what he wanted in Ukraine, he's still lost, the cost in all the other areas are hitting harder and we should remember that sanctions usually take about 2 to 3 years to really bite, so things are only just starting. The truth is, for all the resources Russia has, it's a weak country, it's got a GDP in-between Spain and Italy which has to account for a much bigger population and with the kind of resources Russia has, that's poor mismanagement of the economy because more competent governments with that level of resources would be a lot richer, the reality is, Russia is no match for the big boys like the EU, US and China and all Putin has done here is speed up the decline of Russia as a power on the world stage. Also, what a lot of people seem to misunderstand about the sanctions, it was never designed around the idea of getting the Russian people to turn on Putin, even thought that would help, no, the real intention of the west is to weaken Russia as a power by weakening its economy and isolating the country over the long term, if the Russian are fine with that, more fool them, but longer term it means a decline in living standards for Russians, the end result is that the west doesn't care about trying to get the Russian people to wake up, they are going out of their way to reduce the threat from Russia by weakening them as a power, that's a long term goal and so far it seems to be working and as for the west, it will only take a few short years for them to adapt to all this, basically, they are in a much better position to adapt to this then Russia is.
21
It's why so many countries want to join the EU, it's got a good track record at lifting countries out of poverty, and even though you get some countries that struggle, like Greece, overall, most do well out of the EU. It's easy to understand why, being in the EU market, creates political and economic stability, it also means it's members are held to account by the EU whiles the EU is held to account by it's members, that check and balance goes a long way so countries don't go off the rails, which if the eastern EU members were not in the EU, some of them could go off the rails, which would harm the political and economic stability of those countries. In fact, you only have to look at the GDP per capita of the eastern EU members and compare that to the eastern European countries that are not in the EU, there's a big difference, and clearly the EU is doing a lot for them, by creating political and economic stability, an open market for trade, which all of that gives companies a much bigger incentive to invest in those countries.
21
It's easy to see where the problem is and that is the support the government still has even with the hit to living standards and in a western country, they panic with just 7% inflation, much higher and that would very likely throw out any western government out of power, in other words, that the people of Turkey still support the government with everything that's going on is clearly where the problem is and that isn't likely going to get fixed any time soon and I suspect it's going to get worse for them. Also, never bring religion into politics, it usually has a negative impact on many things.
21
@AsaelTheBeast That's true but it's still based on our understanding of the universe as we know it now, after all, the amount of times something is seen as impossible only to be done throughout history is quite telling. The truth is, we are still a primitive people when it comes to our understanding how things really work, so the last things humans should do is put artificial limits on our advancement purely based on our understandings of the universe, that only holds us back. Truth is, there is little reason to have faster than light speed with our level of advancement but as we go into space, that need will change and with that, a lot more resources will be put into areas that can find solutions to these problems, but for now, as long as we're stuck on this planet, it's not really an issue.
21
Simply answer is yes, modern economies are very adaptable and can change quite well given a little time. We should also remember that where Russia loses out here, others stand to gain and will be more than happy to fill that void that Russia leaves behind. Personally, I think the two key players that really lose out here long term is Russia themselves and the fossil industry, that might not seem it on the surface but Russia is being isolated from the world, sanctions usually take 2 to 3 years to really bite, Europe is moving away from Russian oil, gas and other natural resources and any others that do buy from Russia will buy dirt cheap or limit how much they buy from Russia because Russia has shown to use it's natural resources as a weapon to try and get other countries to do as Russia wants, in other words, no country, not even friendly ones will want to depend too much on Russia after these antics, that's long term damage for Russia. As for the fossil industry, on the surface, they might be happy in the short term because of the high price but the problem is that now energy is becoming a security risk, it's likely going to push the EU and US and many others to speed up the adoption of alternatives a lot, basically, the fossil industry might have wiped out a decade or more revenue thanks to Putin, so a bit of short term pain but long term gain as we are very likely going to get massive investments into alternative energy sources and all you needed was someone like Putin to focus political minds to make it happen and now he's done that, especially in Europe.
20
@samsonsoturian6013 Energy independence is already doable today, it's just expensive to do, but it's a given that it's going to get a lot cheaper as battery tech for EV cars gets better and solar keeps improving and getting cheaper, it's going to allow a lot more of us to become energy independence, especially once the battery tech matures.
20
@NeilCWCampbell I always through it was about cutting standards lower than what the EU would allow, which the Tories have wanted to do for decades but couldn't do because of being in the EU. Now though, they can take their sweet time in figuring out ways of lowering standards and pulling the wool over the British eyes in thinking it's good for them, which lower standards are rarely good for the people. Say what we want about the EU, at least when the UK was part of it, we had a check and balance on what the government could get away with, now it's up to the people to keep them in check, and unfortunately, they do a poor job of keeping them in check in a lot of areas. With all that said, it will be interesting to see if the British people allow future UK governments to water down a lot of regulations to such a degree that the UK ends up something like the US with such weak safety nets in place, they might as well not be there, and here is the kicker, UK governments might want to do that to create more economic growth, but the end result isn't good for the average citizen.
20
The EU parliament makes more sense mainly because there is more hands in the pie, at the top end with governments, it's too easy for them to get too emotional or corrupt on these matters whereas in a parliament, more people involved should make that harder. With that said, I do think the EU Commission and President should be merged and just called the EU president, it should also be directly elected by the public, if there is one weakness of the EU it's that it doesn't engage enough with the European people the benefits of EU membership hence why we got Brexit and Eurosceptic movements.
20
To be fair, some companies even in Europe are hard to pin down to which country, like when I was younger, I didn't realise Adidas or Puma were German, I thought they were British or American. There's also the factor of how some companies rebrand themselves in the country they are doing business in, for instance, when I was younger, my friend thought Ford were British lol, many companies do that because they know there's a percentage of consumers that are more likely to buy if they think the product is from their own country, so it doesn't surprise me if that tricks goes on in the US.
20
Us remainders Brits love it as well, it gives us this warm and fuzzy notion that most EU laws, rules and regulations will filter down to the UK even thought the UK isn't in the EU any more, that and it also gets up the nose of Brexiteers because they truly thought you can have true independence when in this global connected world, there's is no such thing, you have the big players like the EU and US that makes up a lot of the rules, laws and regulations that smaller ones have to more or less follow to have good links with them, usually the laws and regulations tend to be under a different name with small differences to make it seem like it's their own law, but in truth, it's almost a carbon copy of the law another power did. Hence the reason why many think the EU is becoming a vassal of the EU because of how close we are to them geographically, it makes it very difficult to diverge away without doing a lot of economic harm and with that, it makes a lot of sense to close in a lot of the rules to benefit the economy and even if the country doesn't do it directly, companies themselves do it indirectly, as for them, if they are planning on trading in Europe, most are likely going to set their standards on EU standards even for countries that are not in the EU, in other words, countries like the UK ends up following the same rules and regulations even if they are not put in place because most companies are not going to have two different standards. Simply put, the EU market is far more important to them than the UK market so most companies standardize on EU standards for none EU countries in Europe and in many cases, even around the world.
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That's always the case, set the bar high, knowing it's going to get watered down at a later stage, but just getting a few of these things through would be a major success, even if some are watered down. As for the veto rules, that needs to go, if that doesn't go, there's little to no chance the EU will let any new countries join and longer term, the EU is going to have to expand if we want to compete with the US and China long term.
20
Pretty much and it's ironic that throughout history, a lot of empires that fall or go into decline are self-inflicted, the US is going through the process of that and like most self inflected things, most won't be aware it's happening until it's too late. Before Trump, there was already a shift in the balance of power in the world, mainly from west to east, what Trump is doing is speeding up that process and the ones to benefit the most are the EU and China, the EU because countries around the world are seeking an alternative big power that's stable and reliable, then we have China that have been wanting to pull the EU further away from the US for some time now, knowing that pulling the EU away from the US creates a divide in the west, which especially weakens the US and isolates them. Trump has a reputation of doing policies and actions that keep backfiring on the US, but unlike his first term that was quite tame, the damage he's doing to the US in his second term is far higher and long-lasting that even if Trump were to be kicked out of power today, it's probably going to take decades for the US to repair its ties with the rest of the world, and that's assuming future governments even try, but as it is, the longer Trump stays in power, the worse off it is for the US, we are witnessing real decline in motion with the US and it's going to be a slow burn that most Americans will probably not notice until it's too late. In any case, where the US stands to lose out, others stand to gain with the EU and China likely to gain the most from the mess Trump is creating, which is ironic as Trump wanted to hurt those powers the most, his actions are likely to help them over the long run, so in some sense, it might be in the interest of the EU and China that Trump stays in power for longer so the EU and China can capitalise on it, short term pain for long term gain, and whiles all that is going on, countries will continue to shift trade away from the US which will weaken the US and isolate them more, also by being less exposed to the US, the threats from the US become much weaker.
20
At a time when there's a war going on and strong leadership is needed and usually many countries in the EU look up to Germany for that, Scholz has actually been really poor and indecisive, Germany needs stronger leadership in these times and Scholz doesn't seem to be the one for the job.
20
@emildavidsen1404 Spending could be higher, but even at current spending, if it was a single military, it would be far more powerful than it is today, the real issue is having 27 militaries with all the waste and duplications, not the military spending, because let's be honest with ourselves, even if each EU country spends more, it's not going to change anything and leaves Europeans at the mercy of the US, for that to change, Europeans in the EU have to start working much closer together with pooling resources together.
20
The second world war is one factor on why Europeans don't want to push too aggressively on military power, they are more than capable of doing so, they've got the economy, the skill set to do it but not the will to do it, that can change, especially thanks to Russia, but I also think EU countries need to combine and reduce duplications. But the truth is, they've not really seen a need to change, there isn't really any threat to them, even Russia with all the noise isn't really a threat to the EU but it is high time EU countries got together in many key areas like the military, energy security and so on.
20
I always get the impression that the country is too big and too centralized in why democracy doesn't work there but democracy is proven to deliver good living standards by listening to the people. I think Russia would need to devolve more powers to the regional governments in the country if they want things to really get better, that seems unlikely under the current government, the alternative is that Russia breaks up into smaller countries, that's a possibility, especially when you look at the standard of living in Russia, it's quite poor, most of which is centred around Moscow and St Petersburg where the quality drops off a lot in other regions, then when you take into account the oil, gas, coal and other natural resources Russia uses to prop up the economy, Russia's economy is doing really poor, even before the war started, after all, with that kind of natural resources, Russia should be doing better and it begs the question of how much worse Russia would be if no one wants its resources. So Putin likes to think Russia is doing well, truth is, most countries would love to have the natural resources that Russia has and in better hands, the economy would be doing a lot better and being as Putin been in power for 2 decades, it's clear he's done a poor job and this is all before the war in Ukraine even started, now it's much worse for Russia. In any case, democracy can work on any size country, but the government at the top needs to give enough powers to the lower governments, a bit like how the EU does with its members or how the US does with its states, if you try and centralize too much power, performance on the economy is usually worse, it also means more mistakes can happen as we're seeing in China with it's zero Covid policy.
19
It's always extremely difficult to do treaty reforms in the EU, but they always seem to find a way, usually by locking them in a dungeon until they all come to an agreement lol. I feel serious talks on treaty change needs to start happening around 2025, if we keep delaying it, those countries that want to join the EU will eventually give up on the idea of EU membership and will look elseware, worse yet, the EU is making it difficult for these countries to reform themselves so they can become members of the EU, the EU is giving little to no hope that the door on EU membership is even open, regardless of what reforms those countries do, that's a major issue, because without hope, it's hard for these countries to get the political and public will to do the reforms needed to join, worse yet, if the door stays firmly shut, these countries will eventually lose interest and look at other alternatives, or worse, some might become authoritarian like Turkey did. So yes, the EU needs to do a lot of reforms and before 2030, but it also needs to send a strong credible message that the door to EU membership is open, based on merit, whereas at the moment, many of these countries feel that it doesn't matter what reforms they do, the door is still firmly shut with the EU Commission being the major problem here, they are sending the wrong message to these countries which the likes of Russia and China are taking advantage off.
19
@eatingdisorder6473 If it wasn't subsided by the gov, the burden on the public would be even worse, these are businesses that only care about profit so why would it be any cheaper when they want to cash in as much money as they can from you? After all, people don't haggle on price when it comes to health, they either don't get any help or they pay whatever price they ask and that where they take advantage of Americans.
19
Russia see it as an attempt to further its own goals thanks to Serbia, the EU on the other hand wants a more stable and developed region, it's very likely the EU would win out with those countries because the EU has far more to offer those countries than Russia has and that is only going to get worse for Russia as they go into decline. Also, threatening and scaring countries doesn't help Russia case, in fact, Russia is playing into the hands of the EU because more countries want to join the EU and it looks like the EU is more open to enlargement.
19
This is why we need a new measure for measuring from the bottom up, lower to middle classes, because the numbers being reported and the reality for the citizens are very different from each other, especially in the US and UK, but even in many European countries.
19
I think my brother once told me why that is the case, the cheaper battery are being reserved for EV cars, which if true, then consumer grade batteries for the home are a lot more expensive than they should be and probably will remain so until there is enough capacity for the EV market. Which is ironic, because I have heard some people over the years say that it's actually cheaper to buy a EV car and use the batteries from that for your home then it is to buy the batteries on the market for your home. They really do need to narrow that price gap between the two because the tech is the same but the price difference is massive, and if batteries for the home were as cheap as they are for EV cars, solar energy would be a lot more enticing, especially for the ones that want to go gridless.
19
It really does depend on region, even within a country, and I suspect Sicily is a lot cheaper to live than Milan in the same country, and we see that in most countries where one region can be a lot cheaper then another.
19
The thing is with borrowing, it can be a good way to solve short term problems, but some countries use them to delay doing major reforms, Italy is known for that, Greece used to be as well. I think the rules on borrowing should be tied to reforms, because reforms are the thing that really kick-start the economy but can be sometimes difficult to implement, depending on the reforms, but borrowing to try and get out of a hole without the reforms is potentially digging a bigger hole long term. Regardless of what some might think of the EU rules when it comes to borrowing, they do make a lot of sense as lower debts are in the interest of everyone, but with that said, I do think there can be a bit more flexibility when it comes to borrowing, especially in emergencies, but reforms are always the key, and if reforms are done all the time, then the shock of them is much smaller on the people, whereas if a country leaves doing reforms and ends up needing to do big reforms, let's just say, the government in power isn't going to be very popular with the voters, so it's better to do reforms on a constant basis so they end up being much smaller on the impact and they don't pile up, that would also do wonders for the economy and potentially living standards if the right reforms are done. The sad thing is, because of the democratic process, you've got a system where governments are not in power for long and usually think in short term interest, in other words, they are more than willing to spend public money and borrow a lot, knowing they can past the burden onto the people and the next government, maybe stricter rules are needed in place to prevent governments from getting reckless, the EU kinda always has that but it needs to be more enforced, with a bit of flexibility depending on the circumstance. Also, don't get me wrong, I'm not against borrowing, in some circumstances, it's needed, but too many governments, use it as a mean to paper over the cracks in the economy, which only ends up delaying and making things worse over the long run, reforms are the key to staying competitive and getting the economy back on track, sometimes borrowing can help on that, but only with competent governments that have a long term plan to put in motion, but unfortunately, it's just too easy to borrow now and pass the burden on future governments and the people, which that Stability and Growth Pact from the EU is supposed to resolve but it only works if it's enforced. But seriously, countries that have had high debt, Japan, Italy, Greece, have not done that well economically because the debt is acting like a drag on the economy, so all countries are better off lowering debts as soon as possible. Also, countries need to stop trying their cake and eat it, the amount of times during elections where you hear them say they will promise tax cuts and more public spending is becoming a bit of a joke now, the only way to have both is with major reforms to the economy to boost growth, otherwise, the burden is being passed onto the people longer term and usually that is painful as it usually means austerity measures, it's all about the reforms, do the reforms to boost growth which then allows more spending and potentially lower taxes, whereas higher debts is just digging a bigger hole for the country, which there is a lot of evidence around the world that shows that.
19
The EU has already stepped up and the funding is already much higher than what the US has given so far, especially if you look at it from an EU and its members level. The problem is that the EU isn't on a war footing just yet and will take some time to rearm, so the EU is in a good position to give Ukraine aid but the US is in a better position to give military equipment, Ukraine needs both. On the plus side, it does look like things are moving in the right direction, in the EU, they are finding solutions to side step Hungary that keeps trying to block everything, and there seems to be signs in the US of the Republicans softening their tone on that $50 billion. Both sides need to step up their game and give Ukraine the means to end the war sooner rather than later.
19
This always happens and relations will probably get worse with China and India, the main problem being is that both are big rising powers, it's rare for two major powers to get along, we saw that with the US and Japan in the 80's as Japan was being seen as a threat to the US, we see it today with the US and China as the US sees China as a rising threat, heck, even the EU and US have there ding dongs, with the US wanting to keep the EU countries divided, any rising powers will usually always have issues with other rising or established powers, China and India rising is no exception, so expect more disagreements and fallouts from all this. But on the plus side, with the EU and US already a power and with China and India on the rising, it's giving many options for countries to choose from, which I probably say the US have by far the most to lose because they've had most of the last century as a single power, apart from the Soviet block, whereas the EU is a rising power if they get there act together and integrate in key areas and continue to expand with more countries, it's also clear to see that China and India are likely going to be major powers, and it's probably why the US is the more hostile and aggressive one in trying to put down and contain these powers, especially on China which make themselves an easy target, whereas the EU or India are much harder targets to attack, but things are going on behind doors. At the end of the day, it's all geopolitics, the US will use India to see off the threat of China as they see China as the real threat for now, but as the US rises, the US will see India as a threat, it's a game of basically using each other for their own geopolitical ends, with the US by far having the most to use, hence it's aggression on China, but India needs to be careful, if history is any indicator, the US will go after India if they see them as a rising power that can be seen as a threat to US power, the US have already seen Japan and the Soviet Union off, they've been trying to see the EU off since the 90's but not really having any success with that and are now currently going after China not because of its political system or how the country is structured but more because of the rising economy and how the US sees that as a threat and with that, things are going to get interesting over the coming decades as the US isn't powerful enough to contain all these rising powers that are quickly turning the world into a multipolar world, which could make the US far more aggressive on the world stage to protect its position, which we might be seeing early signs of that already, so interesting times ahead of us.
18
We did the same in our house in the UK because of the invasion in Ukraine, and the results have been solid, even though we had one of the coldest winters on record of -9C, we rarely needed to use the heating and even when we did, it was for a short amount of time. Normally the temperature where I live is anywhere from -5C to 0C in winter, with either of those, we don't need heating at all and it feels comfortable indoors. Insulating and smart buying when buying products that use less power to do the same thing is the best way to reduce our bills and in my case, there is still quite a bit more we can do from solar power, to heat pumps and a few other product replacements to reduce our footprint. In the end, there are a lot of things we can do to reduce our energy needs without lowering the quality of living, and by doing so, you either keep energy bills stable or you can lower them, and I feel once renewable energy gets to a good enough state with the battery tech to back them up, many of us could go independence of the grid.
18
Why? Because of bad upper management, Putin might like to think he's smart, but let's be honest, a country with such natural wealth and smarts, Russia should be doing far better than they are, the fact that they are barely keeping up with eastern EU countries which are still developing and most of which have little to no natural resources, is quite embarrassing for Putin. A competent government with such natural resources, ends up delivering what Norway has, but that's quite rare in this world, and if it wasn't for the natural resources, Russia would be a lot poorer then they are and considering that Putin has been in charge for so long and has an iron grip over the country, the blame is on him why Russia is performing poor and the simple truth why they are performing poor is simply, Russia is living under a dictatorship that makes it much more difficult for the Russia people to express themselves, innovate and become creative because of the governments iron grip in dictating what can and can't be done, and in any economy, the people are the real assets, as long as you allow them to be free and creative, hence why western countries are so much more successful. You know what the irony is, Russia could be a very rich country if they went on the proper path to democracy and stop being so antagonistic with the EU and the US and build friendly relations, but that isn't going to happen because of a leader that's living in the past, and ultimately, the real blame is on the Russian people for allowing the country to get where it is now.
18
It's easy to grow when being so far behind, it becomes a lot harder as the gap closes as the reforms and changes needed are usually not very popular with the people or governments. In the end, developing countries have a blueprint with modern countries, all they have to do is copy that and put their own spin on it to be successful, and in a way, it's remarkable how well modern countries find ways to grow, there's no blueprint for them, it's a lot harder to find growth when you're at the top.
18
Very likely, it was a big part of why Trump supported Brexit so he could screw the UK over and when he talks about a wonderful deal, he means for the US not the UK and as you say, thanks to Brexit, the UK isn't in a position to walk away because the last thing they can afford to do is get on the wrong side of the US with how things have gone with the EU, so expect even higher demands on the UK from the US then they tried with the EU.
18
True and I have to wonder how much worse this can get and the cost after the dust settles is going to be massive, it's likely going to take years to repair the damage on this.
18
If Poland is becoming a superpower by what they said, then what the heck is the US, a mega power? lol. Poland can never be a superpower because they don't have the economy and population size to back that up. The US is a superpower, the Soviet Union in the past was, the EU could become one someday, so could India and China.
18
As a Brit myself, there's no way in hell that the EU should allow the UK back after how the Brexiteers behaved, at least not for another 2 or 3 decades, and that is on the assumption that there is a massive shift in public, media and political views on the EU, in other words, we are a long way from that. Realistically, if the UK really wants to rejoin the EU someday, don't expect it any time soon because that is decades away as I don't see how the UK could convince the EU and all of it's members to let us back in any time soon and realistically, single market and custom union access is more achievable, that would solve a lot of the problems that Brexit did on the economy, it would also solve the issue of Northern Ireland and also solve our trade deals around the world, whiles giving us open access to the EU market, but the downside to that is that the UK would have to follow EU laws, rules and regulations without having any say in them, that might be the price we have to pay if we want to rejoin, and will probably open up the door to rejoining sooner rather than later as that move would show a commitment by the UK that it's serious about wanting to join. There's also the factor that even if the UK does want to join, there won't be any op-outs this time around, the UK will be joining everything of the time they join, so the Euro, the Schengen treaty and any new treaties of that time, in other words, there's going to have to be a major shift in public views on the EU project before that can happen, and for now, we are seeing small shifts in change, but far more will need to be done. But don't get me wrong, I want to see the UK rejoin the EU and as a Brit, I was set against Brexit, but having lived here all my life, I've seen how hostile many Brits have been to the EU project and unless there's a major shift on the people on how they view the EU project, I don't think the EU should let us back in. On a positive note, I have noticed a change in the UK on the EU, I'm seeing a lot more positive sentiments on the EU from the media, the public and even online in forums, I started to notice this change during the Brexit process and it seems to be ongoing, before Brexit, I always felt I was the odd one out as most in the UK were Eurosceptics, but now, I rarely have to argue my case on the EU project, so that's one big shift that's happen, but a lot more work is needed.
18
I think the real problem is that not enough Americans have passports so they don't see how their system compares to others and just assume theirs is the best, seeing other systems in action is a real eye opener that can get real change done at home, more so if you live in those other countries for some time and this is something most Americans miss out on and why the system is able to screw them over with such a bad system, they simply don't know any better.
18
The problem is that Putin has to back down here, that's a problem for him because he's built an image of being a hard man in Russia so backing down would hurt that and weaken is position in Russia. On that note, the west can't afford to back down, Putin has shown that he is willing to use threats and even force to get what he wants, there has to be a high price for Russia to pay for that, otherwise, things could escalate in Russia taking on other eastern European countries, worse yet is the message it sends to China and I think that is what this is really all about, sending a powerful message to China on how far the west is willing to go if they have any real plans on Taiwan. If the western countries back down, it will likely embolden these autocratic nations which could make things worse down the line, this started out with Putin and Ukraine but now it's morphing into a battle of open countries vs closed controlled ones, as it's become clear the last decade or so that they have been meddling in open democracies from Trump, Brexit, the popularize movement around Europe, there have been many stories over the years about the connections to these and those closed governments, especially on the money side of things. So yeah, I think this could morph into a real battle in taking on autocratic and dictator nations as before the west could tolerate them when they were not a threat to use but in recent times, they are becoming more of one, especially with Russia and China and to a much less degree, even Turkey and I think that's where the west needs to wake up and put it's foot down, especially considering that it's the rich open countries that are funding these crack pots.
18
The Brexiteers can't come up with any substantial benefit to Brexit, if they could, they wouldn't be swooping so low on petty benefits that the British people were not asking for and are not really benefits that change things in a meaningful way. As for the losses from Brexit, well the list is as long as my arm and a lot of that are quite substantial. The real problem with the hardcore Brexiteers is that they are trying to see victory in defeat, many Brexiteers have realised that Brexit has failed and the so-called promises have not lived up to what was promised, an intelligent person is someone who can admit defeat, learn from it and change course, an idiot is someone that doesn't change their thinking, even thought the evidence shows they are wrong, these people are their own worse enemy, most are either not well-educated or informed, most tend to be on the poorer side in the country, most are also quick to blame others for how things are in their own life. These people need to take responsibility, the reason the country is a mess is in big part because of these kinds of people, and this is why Brexit was needed and a hard like Brexit, and it's also needed that Brexit drags on for 2 or 3 decades to really drum the message home, because that's the only way I think these people learn, as the economic situation hits them hard, now that's unfortunate for the innocent people in the UK, but in the end, we didn't do enough to stop these clowns so we are all partly to blame, after all, if the pro EU camp countered a lot of the BS from the Eurosceptics over the decades, maybe we wouldn't be in this situation, but in the end, the right had a free ride in blaming the EU for everything wrong with the UK, tell a lie enough time and people will buy into it, and that's what happened with Brexit, a lot of lies and ignorance. Also, we need a website that tracks the laws, rules and regulations from the EU and more importantly, keeps track of the ones in the UK that mirror the EU ones, because the impression I'm getting is that the UK is mirroring old rules and new ones in a lot of the important areas but without having any say over the creation of them, which is what many would say would happen, the UK becoming a rule taker, if the hardcore Brexiteers knew the extent of that, they would be furious, fortunately, their ignorance is playing in our favour lol.
18
I remember thinking after Brexit, who would take over the spot of the UK and most assumed Italy would, me personally, I thought there was a chance it could be Italy but they are all over the place politically which it looks like they are falling behind Spain and other EU members both politically and economically. Poland had a chance of being a big player in the EU but with its current government and backsliding, they are losing a lot of trust among EU members. Ultimately, it was never going to change much from it being Germany and France being ahead with Spain, Italy and Poland all having a chance to have a bigger say but the ones that would win out are the ones that are more progressive towards the EU project and not the ones always blaming it for all the wrongs in the country and trying to dismantle it, so Poland had little chance in that, Italy has a much better chance if they stop blaming others for their economic situation. I do agree with most of what is said in the video, Spain seems the logical choice, they have a stable government, are progressive on the EU, have good connections with Latin America and Africa which will play into the bigger picture with EU relations and them. At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with being sceptical about some EU policies but when it gets like it was in the UK or Poland where it doesn't matter what the EU does, they will be sceptical, it becomes clear they don't have the interest of unity at heart and end up weakening their own power because of it and we should remember, the UK when in the EU could have been a much bigger player, right up there with Germany and France but its sceptical views pushed the UK to the side among other EU members, in the end, you want to gain more power and influence in the EU, you really have to be more constructive and not obstructive, major mistakes the UK, Poland and even Italy are doing which is holding back their interest.
18
It's the least Russia deserve, not only would that mean Russia losing the war but it would also be a step backward for Putin if they lost Crimea and in the early days of the war, I would have said Ukraine wasn't capable of taking Crimea back but with how things are going and with the help the west is giving them, I suspect Ukraine would fancy their chances in taking Crimea back. If they did, that would be very humiliating for Putin, especially considering that after this, it's highly unlikely EU countries will buy oil and gas from Russia again and that many countries want to join the EU and NATO, basically, the way the war is going, it's having the opposite effect that Putin wanted.
18
Reminds me of Nigel Farage that when he was there, he seemed to be there only to cause trouble and didn't offer anything constructive to the debates, it's quite embarrassing. Seriously thought, this all might come across as funny, but these people are supposed to represent the interest of the people and should be doing serious work for the EU and it's members and not mocking the people, which is more or less what they are doing with their ramblings about things that should be done in other venues.
17
Whichever direction the EU goes, there's a lot more talk about it in the EU and among its members, it also looks like momentum and support is building to do some real change and as for when there are serious talks of treaty change, I suspect 2025 onwards with the gauntlet more or less being set to no later than 2030. The reason I say that is because, if there is no progress happening by then and there are no real signs of new members being able to join the EU by 2030, a lot of these countries could give up on the idea of joining the EU and look at other options, after all, they are not going to wait forever. But this isn't a blank cheque for these new countries that wants to join the EU, there's still a lot of work and reforms they need to do, but the EU needs to get its act together and show that the door is actually open for these countries to join, it would encourage more reforms in those countries, whiles at the same time, give the EU and its members enough time to discuss and reform the EU, so it can work better internally and with new future members and I think 2030 is being seen as the limit, that if there are no signs of change, no hope of these countries joining, I suspect a lot of them will give up and find other solutions away from the EU. So the clock is ticking on both side that I think serious talks need to start happening by around 2025, even if it takes months or even years to come to a conclusion, there are needs to be signs that progress is happening, after all, just look at Turkey, they more or less abandon the idea of joining the EU because real progress wasn't happening and fair enough, a big part of that problem was Turkey not doing enough reforms, but part of the problem is the EU and some of its members more or less shutting the door, many of these eastern European countries feel like they are in the same boat that joining the EU is a pipe dream, if many of these countries act on that, the EU could lose a lot of support from these countries, which will harm it's future plans of expanding in those regions, which longer term will hurt EU and it's members interest, especially if the EU wants to compete with the US and China long term. To put it bluntly, the EU and it's members have been wasting too much time over the last decade and now are playing catch up and need to find solutions to make this work, and there are many options if the political will is there to make it happen. Also, let's be blunt about this, you can't have economic integration without political integration, if we want to reap the benefits of further economic integration, we're going to need further integration to set standard laws, rules and regulations throughout the EU countries, on top of that, if European countries really want to compete better with the US and China, we're going to need further political and economic integration, especially on the political side, because that is where we are weak and both the US and China already take advantage of that, whereas it's a lot harder for them to do that on the economic side because we are a lot more integrated there, which makes us stronger. Also, when it comes to integration, it's not an absolute and in one direction, there are many things that can be done at a local level and done better, and not so much national level but local city level, but there are also many areas that are better being done at a supernational level with the EU, especially on the economy and external political matters and it's a fine line in getting the right balance, but things will need to change if the EU and it's members want to remain competitive with the US and China long term and I suspect it's going to be external forces like the US and China that's going to dictate the direction the EU goes, mainly because of the reality check that's needed for us to compete with the bigger players, so unless that reality changes, I don't see many alternatives but to integrate further and the European elections is not going to change that reality, regardless of outcome, all it can do is delay it. The alternatives if Europeans do go in the opposite direction, it's going to be a lot harder for the EU and it's members to protect its political, economic and social interest, which over the long run could weaken many of those areas as pressure from both the US and China builds on them trying to push their values on us, for now, we are strong enough to push that back, but without further integration, I think it could be hard for Europeans to protect these values and let's be blunt, the US have tried many times to push it's own values and standards on Europeans, they've failed because the EU is strong enough to stand up to them, but that can change in the future and likely will if we don't change, basically with further integration and more new EU members.
17
If you're a business and you're planning on selling across Europe, it doesn't make much sense to invest in the UK market whereas it makes a lot more sense to invest in the EU market because of the size of that market and it having the same regulations over the EU countries, any extra cost, they can either pass onto consumers in none EU countries or swallow that hit, hence the reason that many none EU nations in Europe are in the single market or custom union, so they don't take as much of a hit, the UK on the other hand is in none of them, so it's hitting the UK much harder. Many that do big investments in Europe, tend to do so with the intention of selling throughout all of Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the EU market being a stable market where they can sell the goods to all those regions. What that basically means, it's in the interest of those countries like the UK to closely align on EU rules to reduce the cost of goods coming into the UK market for consumers and businesses. It's all well and good the UK saying they are going to have a bonfire on EU regulations, the reality is, the more the UK diverts away from EU norms, the more costly it's going to be for UK consumers and businesses, mainly because of all the extra red tape and tariffs in place, the UK does have the option of joining the EU single market and custom union, which would solve most of these problems, but the government and some of the people are still highly charged on Brexit which makes that difficult to happen. Until then, I don't see a bright future for the UK over the next decade or so because not only do we have restricted access to the EU market which is our biggest in the world, we also don't have many trade deals around the world and ones that the UK strikes are likely going to be worse than what the EU can sign, basically, the UK is at a disadvantage across the board, having worse access in the EU market and worse trade deals or no trade deals with other countries around the world and let's not get onto bilateral agreements as that will take forever. In the end, the UK needs another decade, maybe two of pain, to really drum this Brexit mentality out of the Brexiteers, once it dawns on them, maybe real change can happen, but until then, whether it's the Conservatives or Labour in power, don't expect things to get better by much unless Labour changes course on the EU a lot.
17
@conor1821 Very true, I even remember as a kid growing up in the UK how Brits used to make fun of the Irish because of how far behind they were economically, now it's the other way around where the Republic of Ireland is better off than the UK. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the eastern EU members not only catch up to western EU members but also become richer on a GDP per capita basis, especially compared to the southern EU countries like Italy that keep lagging behind.
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The US likely wouldn't have become the nation it is if France or the UK held onto it but as it was, it wasn't really worth much to them at the time, remember we have to look at how the world was at the time and not how it is now and the French and British had bigger fish to fry around the world and all that was going on in the US with the UK and France was to make sure that none of them got any advantage over the other.
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@G M They are allies but not under the current government, so I don't blame the EU for doing their own thing, it now really is up to the Biden administration on if they repair ties with the EU and then they can coordinate more in the future which when it comes to China, I think the EU and US will have to work together at some point.
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Are these clowns in the DUP still crying that the Tories threw them under the bus?, maybe next time they might think a bit smarter and not get in bed with the Tories but I doubt it. In any case, it's nice to see how Brexit is harming the less educated and less well off in the northern parts of England, hence that vote the Tories just won, hits them right in the pocket lol. A few more of these and maybe even the Brexiteers might learn but again, I doubt it lol.
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@Xamufam I was thinking that, the EU is actually quite open when it comes to trade.
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I always had a sense that Skyscrapers was and is still a power status symbol, with countries doing it to announce, hey look guys, we are a power like others are. Europe is one of the odd one out that doesn't really build them, part of that reason is that Europe didn't really have much to prove, it's already got a long history and is already a power, but another reason is culturally, Europeans don't find Skyscrapers appealing on the landscape and they are right, a lot of people around the world don't really like living near Skyscrapers. As we see, Asian is on the rise as a power and they are doing what is expected as a rising power, building lots of Skyscrapers, just like the US did to announce their rise as a power and to be different from Europe. Today, thought, Skyscrapers are not appealing and most of us don't want them or don't want to live near them, in Europe, we do build them but we have designated areas for them that are well away from landmarks and residential areas, usually they are in business areas that you travel to work in but not usually live in, and also, today, Skyscrapers doesn't have that power status symbol it used to have and honestly, I think Europe has the right approach when it comes to Skyscrapers and the well-being of its citizens. In any case, I think the real problem with Skyscrapers, the higher they go, the less appealing they become to want to work, live in them or to want to live anywhere near them as they block out a lot of the natural scenery and the more expensive they are to build and maintain, and I think some that build these buildings forget the quality of life impact it can have on the citizens in those areas. In fact, if I recall, in Europe, there was a boom of Skyscrapers in Europe, but a lot of people turned against them because of the harm they were doing to the natural landscape, so some regulations came into force, I think first starting in Belgium and then spreading across Europe on what kind of building can be built, how high and where they can be built, without those regulations, Europe might have ended up like many other cities around the world with lots of Skyscrapers around.
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I don't think it will be the end but it's really exposing a lot of the flaws in the system and that is likely going to get people to demand some big changes after the dust settles. The same is likely the case in the EU and it's countries, big changes are ahead because even thought Europeans are dealing with this better, they should have dealt with it much better with the resources modern countries have. It also makes you wonder, what is the magic number in how many people have to die for it to be enough to do the right thing by the people? it's crazy how these arguments go when close to 100,000 people have died in the US alone and the US is clearly not out of the woods yet on this.
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Local politics would be better, and I don't mean at a nation level but regional level that's closer to the people's interest. With that said, there are a lot of good reasons to pool more resources and integration at a national and supernational level with the EU, especially if we want to protect our political and economic interest, whiles also being more relevant and having a voice on the world stage, something we can do better by the 27 members working through the EU, especially with how the geopolitical situation is changing around the world with the US, China and Russia. To put it another way, if we Europeans are serious about protecting our interest, we are going to have to do more through the EU, because whether we like it or not, the individual countries are too weak to stand up to the likes of the US and China, whereas we can if we speak with one voice through the EU, I think that reality over the long run is why further integration is likely to happen, but there are many ways that can happen, and it's up to us to find the right way that works for all members and the people. I also do think that more democracy is needed on the EU, with it being more connected with the people, a lot of the far right and Eurosceptics take advantage of that disconnect the EU and the people have, if there were more of a connect with the EU and the people, it would be far harder for the Eurosceptics to have much of a case, or let's just say, there case would be weakened, in other words, we need major reforms on the EU and need them before 2030 at the latest.
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One thing about dictators and wannabe dictators, is that it's hard for them to make friends as they are more likely to stab each other in the back, they are usually self-centred on their own interest, which makes it difficult for cooperation to last, because the dagger is always hanging around. Countries that are democracies are not so successful by chance, they are so successful because that openness allows them to make far more friends around the world, it also reduces the risk of making big mistakes, politically and economically, China is an example of that, under there current government, they are doing a lot of damage to the country, yet the people have no alternative option because it's a dictatorship, meaning, if the government continues on that path, they end up ruining the country, Turkey is another example, you've got a government that keeps insisting on weird inflation policies and he's doing a lot of damage to the country, in a democracy, any that try to do a lot of damage are quickly thrown out, and why democracies are far more successful, because they can adapt far better to what's going on, without being stubborn on policies that clearly don't work, democracies also have constant pressure from the voters to keep improving things. But seriously, when will these dictators learn, you can have your wins here and there, but long term they can't win, but on the plus side, their games with each other is keeping the democracies around the world in power, which most are western. Orbán isn't very bright, you might be making friends with other dictators around the world which could backstab him at any time when it suits them, Orbán is alienating his closes partners in Europe where a lot of the countries economic success comes from, it's a high risk move from Orbán that he could end up with no friends and many backstabbers from around the world, but this is why dictatorships are rarely that successful and don't usually last that long, you only have to look through history on that one, they are too stubborn and do too many mistakes because of that, which holds them back and reduce them as a power, yet these countries don't learn lol, if Orbán was smart, he would see that his only real chance of real power would be through the EU, but that means being on friendly terms with a lot of EU countries to push many of your own policies, Germany and France understand that, Hungary doesn't, so what we end up seeing is Hungary being slowly isolated in the EU, which weakens the countries power and longer term could reduce investment in the country and could lead to the country being kicked out of the EU. As for his hopes on the rise of the right, I think Orbán is dreaming, a lot of the indicators are showing that even with the parties that could do well, they are not that supportive of Orbán, with the exception of Trump, but he is far less important, what Orbán really needs is support from EU countries, which seems unlikely whichever way the elections go this year, in fact, from the EU's point of view, Trump is a very useful idiot for the EU in a lot of ways.
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Simple answer, probably not, long answer is more complicated, as in, what kind of an EU do we want and I think the future of the EU will be shaped by the changing realities around the world, mainly a rising China and a continuing growing US, basically, if Europeans in the EU want to protect their political, economic and social interest, we need a strong EU because the likes of the US and China will play EU countries off each other whiles also trying to weaken out workers rights, food standards and many other things to benefit themselves. In the end, I look at the EU as not something we want as such but something we need and that need is going to grow in the future that I think more integration is going to be needed, especially in military, security and energy matters. With all that said, the EU feels a bit detached from Europeans which help the Eurosceptics to push their agenda, I think the EU needs to engage with its citizens more, I think reforms are needed with veto and majority voting and I also think the European Parliament needs more powers with the EU Commission and President being merged into one and being directly elected by the people.
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Depends how you define being safe, for example, Americans feel far less comfortable in letting their kids explore outside whereas in Europe, it's quite common for kids as young as 10 or even younger to explore for miles away from where they live and overall feel safe. Europeans tend to feel far safer than Americans do in their society and probably a good indicator of that is the amount of cops you see, in Europe, you don't see that many out and about whereas in America, you tend to see a lot, a good indication of safety. In any case, out of all the modern countries, the US tends to come out as one on the least safe places to live and that boils down to a number of reasons, crime, guns, weak social system which ends up creating more crime as people get left behind in society.
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Don't underestimate how many people are deluded in this world. Regardless of our views on the EU, it's in our interest for it to be around to protect and further our interest in this fast changing world of superpowers, without the EU, the likes of the US and China would walk all over most EU countries, and that is only going to get worse over the coming decades, unless we get our act together and work together, pool resources together and integrate more in areas that make sense, the alternative is a slow decline that will harm our interest. With that said, change and reforms are needed to the EU, especially with the disconnect that the EU and the people have with each other, I also think more democracy is needed on the EU project, it's always these kinds of areas that Eurosceptics jump on to weaken the EU, it's time we close many of those loopholes to weaken the Eurosceptic argument. So yeah, the EU isn't perfect and needs a lot of work, but to abolish it would be foolish of us Europeans with how geopolitics is changing with the US and China, and in fact, I suspect we are going to need the EU far more over the coming decades as the US and China becomes a lot bigger, smaller countries around the world are just not going to compete with the clout the big players have, but in our case, we can be a big player through the EU.
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@mememachine5244 It hardly impacts the rich at all but the middle and lower classes are the ones being hit and we've only just started, years in and the impact will become more noticeable, especially because the government and Brexiteers won't be able to hide behind Covid and that's when it really starts to hit home. Still, considering how early we are in Brexit, I'm surprised how much damage it's done to us. Also, when is the US going to lift it's tariffs on the UK? They have done with the EU, I thought the UK had a special relationship with them? Just goes to show, we're smaller and the US doesn't have to bend to our will whereas it's a different game with the EU and US
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I was thinking that, most Euro Zone countries would fit for the inner core in the EU, it's the countries that have op-outs in many areas that you have to think twice on.
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If the UK were to rejoin again, the UK would be treated as a new member, in other words, there would be no op-outs on the Euro or Schengen zone, and because of that, there will likely need a sizeable shift from the public, media and political parties in the UK in how they see the EU project. Basically, I don't think that shift will change overnight and it will take time, but at the very least, the ones that want the UK to rejoin the EU, need to make it crystal clear to the people that rejoining won't be under the same terms they had before leaving, they will be rejoining everything, if they still want to join and have a more positive view on the projects, then the odds will go up a lot for them rejoining, but we are probably talking decades off.
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All the EU needs to do is suspend Hungary voting rights in the EU, all of a sudden, Hungary wouldn't be useful for the likes of Trump, Putin and China, which would isolate Hungary far more.
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@BabbyHolmes So why do Europeans not think the same way as Americans do on this? They have freedoms as well but they don't feel they are under threat, at least for the most part, this seems like a very American thing and it's likely because of patriotism, that's throughout such rampant paranoia in the US system that people see conspiracy everywhere. We Europeans don't like being locked in doors for months on end but most of us understand it, we don't see it as taking away our freedoms, we see it as something that needs to be done to protect lives whereas in the US, there is a tug of war going on from common sense in wanting to protect lives and the others that don't care about the well-being of the people and want to open up the economy because they are losing their shirt, it's a stark contrast to how things are being done in EU countries and in the US, the US looks like a mess in comparison and god forbid what it's going to be like once the economic hardship starts to bite for the poor and average people, in other words, the worse is yet to come.
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True but it never really achieved anything because the EU put the same amount of tariffs on US goods, in the end, both the US and EU were hurting each other which was playing into the hands of what China wanted, Trump didn't see that but it looks like Biden does.
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Yeah it's more pan-European than any individual country and with the aim of competing with Boeing as none of the individual countries could so they pooled resources together, ESA did the same to compete with NASA, but in space terms, they cooperate on a lot of projects together.
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Brexit isn't working, it's clear to see even for Brexiteers, but Brexiteers are slow learners and it will take about 10 years of pain before they are willing to admit they got it wrong and want to change course and until then, things are likely going to get worse in the UK with the real possibility of Scotland and/or Northern Ireland leaving the UK union and honestly, maybe that needs to happen as a major wake-up call for the Brexiteers. Being stubborn and not listening to other points of views on Brexit can have major consequences for the UK and I think that as long as the Conservative Party are in power, the risk grows every day that Scotland or Northern Ireland will leave the UK union, they are the ones fuelling the fires and they don't even realize it.
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The real problem for them is that moderate parties are really successful because there policies are moderated, far left or far right are less likely to get along with each other because there policies can go to the extream in many areas, making it difficult to work with each other. Then on top of that, you've got many of them that are moderating to appeal to more voters, and it's probably why throughout history, far left and far right parties rarely do that well long term, and usually when they do well, it's because the mainstream parties are messing up so the extream parties take advantage of the anger in voters. The reason why so many parties that are seen as far left or far right are toning down many of their policies, it's because they know that if they want to appeal to voters long term, they need to tone there policies down to have any chance of winning elections time after, otherwise, they have this chance of power, mess things up a lot with there extream policies and voters are unlikely to vote them back in, some extream parties get that, others don't, that will make it difficult for them to work with each other unless the population at large becomes radicalised, which if that were to happen, we've got a lot more problems to worry about and basically, as long as the population at large is mostly moderated, the far left and far right are not really much of a threat, yes they can have the odd victories, and yes they can rule on fear, but it's hard for them to succeed when the population isn't on the same wavelength as them.
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With Russian aggression in Ukraine, the EU is speeding up the process of allowing countries to join the EU but there is a problem and that is mostly Hungary and to a lest degree, Poland. The EU isn't likely going to let any new country into the union until those two countries are sorted out on the backsliding on democracy and even then, there is also the factor that the EU will need treaty change, reforms are needed in areas of vetoes and majority voting because it's clear the EU can't go on like this when one member can hold the rest to ransom. That doesn't mean vetoes need to go away but it needs to be done better, maybe by a percentage of members need to be onboard to veto something and not just one like it is now and until those two problems are solved, the EU shouldn't let any new member in as it will only cause more problems down the line without those reforms being done. I think the EU needs to get treaty change over the next 3 years and I think Hungary really needs to be kicked out of the EU, to make room for more deserving countries like Ukraine and others. As for the Balkan idea, it doesn't sound like a bad idea because sooner or later these countries are going to have to resolve their differences between each other if they ever want to be part of the EU, there's nothing stopping them doing that whiles waiting for the EU to do the reforms needed, it would likely being those countries much closer to EU membership.
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@SimonMester The problem is, you can't really have an economic union without a political union enforcing the rules on its members, without the political side enforcing a level playing field, members would make their own rules up and eventually, boarders would go back up on trade. Also, before the UK joined the EEC, there were a lot of debates on the EEC at the time, some arguing that it was an economic only union and some arguing that it's an economic and political, in truth, the project has always been about political and economic integration in areas that makes sense and this was the case even before the UK joined the EEC. As for the EU coercing countries, it really depends on the policy and how it's done, but if it's one or two countries trying to hold the rest to ransom and there are attempts to resolve the situation but they won't budge, then honestly, the EU has a legitimate reason to get a bit tougher on the country in question, especially if the country in question is using the veto to carry favour in other areas that are not related to the policy at hand. At the end of the day, if we truly want to live in a democracy, then majority rules, but I can understand having some safeguards in areas that are sensitive to some areas in all the EU countries. In any case, the way the EU is now is that EU members can use the veto to block too much, imagine if each US state could block the rest or imagine cities in a country could block the rest from progressing, nothing would get done, and it's why the veto rule will change to change at some point.
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Germany is showing poor leadership when it comes to Ukraine, and it's a shame really because them being the biggest economy in the EU could have the biggest impact. France is becoming more hawkish in favour of support for Ukraine, which is welcomed, but more needs to be done. Many of the eastern EU countries are doing fairly well, but I do feel more common ground support at an EU level needs to be done as it would be a lot more effective. Speaking of the EU, they've surprised me in the amount of support they've given Ukraine, considering the limited powers it has in military and aid support areas, as that normally falls on the members of the EU not the EU. With all this said, I do think more needs to be done, the EU countries need to start a rearmament program and that would be better done at an EU level to coordinate it better, whiles reducing waste and duplication. As for the US, it's showing poor leadership on Ukraine, it started out well but with all the gridlock that's going on with the Democrats and Republicans, it's a big indicator that we Europeans need to look after our own security, and we can do that far better at an EU level by pooling resources together, and then we have to remember that there is a risk of Trump winning the next US elections, which if he does, support for Ukraine could dry up quickly after that, so we Europeans in the EU need to act and act fast in giving Ukraine the means to end the war sooner rather than later, because dragging the war out is costly for Ukraine and it's more costly for the countries supporting Ukraine. Germany needs to be careful about it's policies, because the balance of power in the EU could shift away from Germany if it doesn't show good leadership at a time when it's needed, and we should remember that Germany have been making countless mistakes when it comes to Putin over the last decade, it's not a good look for the country and with everything that's going on, it wouldn't surprise me if the balance of power in the EU shifts away from Germany towards countries that are more hawkish of Ukraine and building a stronger military force in the EU. France is also right that nothing should be ruled out, Germany did a major mistake by trying to debunk that, and not just Germany but some other countries as well, because it shows weakness and limits of what these countries are willing to do on Ukraine, the likes of Russia and China are looking for these weaknesses to see how far they can push the west, Germany and others by debunking what France said shows division and weakness and it's a shame because I've had high respect for Germany, but these constant mistakes over the last decades are not doing the country any favours, and we would think the wake-up call would happen after Putin invaded Ukraine, yet Germany is still hesitant and making excuses at a time we can't afford that, which ever way we look at it, that's poor leadership and that could have a cost against Germany in the balance of power in the EU if Germany isn't careful.
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Many reasons why the EU as a project started out, at first it was a project to bring European countries together and prevent another war among its members from happening again by pooling resources together, hence the Coal and Steel Community many decades ago. As time went by, it became a political and economic union, which yes, unlike some that like to think the project was supposed to be economic only, it was always about political and economic integration over the long run. Now we have the modern EU, which is kinda a hybrid country/union with powers being in flux between the EU and it's members. As for the future of the EU, further integration is very likely, not because of want, but because of need, the geopolitical situation around the world is likely going to force us Europeans in the EU countries to work closer together by pooling resources together if we want to compete with the US and China long term, if we don't do further integration, it's going to become more difficult for us Europeans in the EU to protect our political, economic and social interest, because whether we like it or not, the ones with the bigger hammer are the ones that dictate global laws, rules and regulations, the EU countries on their own are too small to have any real impact and would get pushed aside by bigger powers, but through the EU, we have a much bigger voice, and we are going to need to see that in more areas, especially the military, forign policy matters and a capital market so the union can create a lot more funds for startup companies, especially high-tech companies which we are lagging behind the US and China on. If we don't do any of that, we'll eventually will go into decline as the gap in power from the US and China pulls ahead of us, in other words, we'll become less relevant and that will make it much harder to protect our interest, especially our high social standards that we Europeans take great pride in, the US and China don't seem to care about that and would probably be happy to water down our standards if they could, which a weaker EU would most likely allow that to happen, and it could be anything from lowering food standards so the US can sell its junk to us or opening up the health care system more to the private sector, which again, I'm sure the US would like that, and the list goes on and on and at least with the EU around, we have a lot of protection from that.
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It's too early to say, remember that Brexit was always going to be a slow burner and the damage will become more apparent to the people many years and even decades later, still I am surprised at how much damage has already been done to the UK in such a short space of time considering little has changed and it looks like it will gradually get worse and much worse if Scotland and/or Northern Ireland was to leave the UK.
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I suspect the big difference is that in the EU, we have big governments which makes it harder for corporations to get their way with them, throw in that the public tend to be a lot more protest happy which means governments fear the people a lot more than they do in say the US and that allows the people to more than likely get their way in the EU. The irony is, in the US, Americans want small government but that's backfiring because it's trading in democracy for big corporations that run the show and I suspect unless they get their act together, it's only going to get worse in the US because of all the lobbying and money being thrown at it, something that is much harder to do in the EU because of the two reasons above.
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It's working wonders on the Labour Party in the UK, basically, they support a bad deal because of lack of time and looking at the alternative, but still it's a bad deal for the UK and the problem is for the Labour Party is that if things go wrong with Brexit, the Tories have an easy scape goat in Labour in saying they also supported it, basically, if Brexit drags the Tories down, they are going to try and drag Labour down because they supported it, something that would be much harder to do if Labour stays out of it and makes the Tories own this mess. On the plus side, it looks like all the other parties are not supporting it and you have to wonder what that could do to the UK union over the longer run.
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I'm a Brit and from what I've seen over the last 15 years, the UK is falling behind in a lot of areas, mainly because of lack of funding in so many public services, and it wouldn't surprise me if that had an impact on Brexit, people usually lash out when things are getting worse. Trump is another example in the US, he didn't get voted in by chance, he got into power because a lot of Americans feel like they are being left behind, and it's ironic, because in both the US and UK, they like to brag about how well the economy and unemployment numbers are doing, but to the average person, that means nothing if they don't feel any of those benefits, I think that's what many European countries are doing much better on, wealth distribution, and that matters a lot more than many of the other stats.
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China will try and are in an ok position to do so, Russia is too weak and won't achieve much, but the problem for China is that they are not trusted around the world, but that is also becoming the case for the US with so many of its radical policies and how the US is becoming less reliable. If the EU steps up to the plate with further integration on military and foreign policy matters, whiles also creating a capital market so they can compete much better, the EU could be a credible alternative that countries around the world are looking for, or at the very least, they can play the EU and US off each other by having 2 options, the EU would be the big winner in on that on so many fronts whereas the US would stand to lose in many areas.
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I think the real problem is because there are 27 countries with their own ideas on what to do, so they end up pulling in different directions. Also, the EU is boarded with a lot of poor countries, which makes it a lot more challenging compared to Australia which, let's be blunt, is in the middle of nowhere and much easier to protect its boarders, to get a bit of an idea on that, just look at the US with Mexico, the EU on the other hand has it much worse because of its geographic. But personally, I think the real problem in the EU is that the EU has limited powers in what it can do in this situation, too much of it lies with the members and that for me is where the real problem is, EU countries will likely have to give the EU more powers in these areas if they really want an effective policy that works, otherwise, we're just going to keep seeing a patch up job that might work in the short term but doesn't in the long run. It's also crazy that the EU union has open boarders among themselves and yet doesn't have a single policy at the EU level, if you have open boarders among yourselves, it's clear that the EU should have the powers in enforcing the boarders for its members. So let's see how many more patch up jobs we'll get before reality kicks in and the members give the EU the powers to deal with these problems.
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Thats the Brexiteers way, using humans as leverage and after these last two years, not once have I sense that hardline Brexiteers care about the well being of the UK and British people, they seem to want the hardest of Brexit and don't care how much damage it does to the UK and British people, I get the sense they don't care if the UK union falls apart for it as well. Problem is that Brexit is like a religion with them and you can't reason with people like that so the best thing to do is discredit them. As for the EU, they are holding all the cards and have done since the moment we signed Article 50, they don't need to give the UK anything and they show wont bend to the will of the UK when it comes to the four freedoms, so it's high time the UK gets this cake and eat it off the menu because the EU is not going to give us that.
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Trade deals always become tricky, depending on what's in the deal and more so if one size is a lot bigger than the other, because the bigger side will expect a better deal than the smaller side and usually the bigger side can afford to play the long game, basically if you look at the EU and US, look at the trade deals they get, they are usually tilted in favour of the EU or US and it really boils down to two things, economy of scale and consumer power, which basically means that a lot of countries want good trade terms with big markets like the EU and US, they know that and they take advantage of that clout to get better deals for themselves.
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A lot of these proposals look promising in streamlining the EU and making it more democratic, it also looks like it could help bridge the gap from the public and the EU, which a lot of the public feel a disconnect with the EU, I also do like the idea of the European Parliament being given more powers and a streamline process on the EU Commission over the mess we have now that we don't know who is in charge, especially from outside the EU. As for how realistic these proposals are, well they are quite big, but big reforms are urgently needed, it's a given that there will be some watering down of some of these proposals, but if they can manage to get the vast bulk of them through, it would be a big deal for the EU and all EU citizens, if too much time is wasted, countries that are waiting in line to join the EU will likely start to give up on the idea, it also could mean us Europeans getting pushed aside on the world stage because of the divisions are weakening us, in other words, if we don't get our act together, it could have negative impacts for all EU countries and citizens when it comes to our political, economic and social interest, which will be harder to defend if we don't speak more with one voice to protect them, especially in a changing world with the US and China moving ahead, so major reforms are needed or we could end up on the path of decline, which will impact every European in the EU as well as nearby countries in a negative way. Still, got to give credit to them, these reforms are quite bold and rightly so, some major changes to the EU are long overdue and I suspect, if they can't get enough of these reforms through, a two-speed Europe is probably likely, in other words, many countries will get fed up with others holding them back and could very well go ahead in some areas where they can, which if that happens, that would be really bad news for the countries being left out as it ends up concentrating powers on the inner core groupings of countries that move forwards, in other words, any country that tries to block for the sake of blocking things, should think twice as it could backfire on them.
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This is the problem, I get the impression that many that want to rejoin, seem to think the UK can rejoin under the terms of when they were in the EU. The message needs to be made crystal clear to the British public that rejoining the EU, there will be no op-outs on things like the Euro, Schengen and other things. After that, if there's enough support from the UK public, media and political parties, then I'm sure the EU would let us back in at some point, after all, the pro EU support would have to be quite strong in the UK for them to want to accept the Euro and Schengen, but at the very least, before there's any talk of joining, that message needs to be made clear to the British people, which for now isn't clear.
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I find the problem with countries like Australia and Canada is that they've both got a small population, which is a problem when it comes to growth of companies when there's such a small consumer base, it makes them far more dependent on bigger powers around the world, especially the likes of the EU, US and China. Then we have natural resources, which both countries have lots of them, that can be a blessing and a curse and puts them far more dependent on outside factors. Bigger powers like the EU, US and China have a massive advantage of having a far bigger economy, baked up by a far bigger population, and they can change the rules whenever they want to their advantage. I actually feel that countries that have fewer natural resources are in a better position because it forces them to adapt in other areas to be competitive, whereas countries that are more dependent on natural resources, are at the mercy of the world market, the demand for that resource and even the rules that bigger players can change at any time to put smaller players at a disadvantage. It's also kinda worse for Australia because of its geographic of being in the middle of nowhere, whereas Canada at least are on the doorstep with the US, and it could become far worse in the future for Australia because of a rising China which are not exactly on friendly terms with western countries. Basically, with Australia being so dependent on China and Canada being so dependent on the US, they really do have those two countries over a barrel that if they wanted to play hard ball or to change the rules, what can Australia and Canada do but complain about it? It probably also explains why both Australia and Canada wants to increase trade with the EU to diversify trade and the risk, being that the EU is the only other big player around, but as both Australia and Canada have found out when it comes to trade deals, the EU holds the cards when it comes to getting better terms for its self then what both countries would want, but it's in both countries interest to diversify trade with other players around the world, more so with Australia, they don't want to be too dependent on China with how political China is getting and even Canada should think twice about the US with how erratic it's political system is getting, which means both countries can't afford to rock the boat with the two superpowers they trade a lot with and need to diversify to reduce the risk.
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The problem with the US is that the Soviet Union have done a real number on Americans in that they see things in black and white terms when it comes to capitalism and socialism, which makes it very difficult for the US to put in a lot of social programs that pretty much all the other modern western countries enjoy and because of that, it's the poor and middle class Americans that are paying a high price on that. This pandemic is really showing the cracks in the US system, it's showing massive flaws in how they do things and is likely making things much worse because the public are not getting much support which is putting pressure on them to open up the economy, what kind of system in the modern worlds gives you a choice of risking getting the virus or having no money to get basic things like food? I'll be shocked if even the most patriotic American doesn't see the flaws in the system and if they don't, then good luck to them because they are going to need it with the hard times ahead. With all that said, I am grateful that I am a European because overall there is little to worry about, yes I know hard times are ahead but considering what Americans are going through, other modern countries have it good at the moment.
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It's kinda true for a lot of western countries, leaders start out good, riding the wave of popularity to get into power, but then end up not delivering on the promises made and performing poorly on the economy, which is what most voters really care about. We'll have to see what she's like near the end of her term.
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Very true, hence the incentive argument she said doesn't hold much water, yes profit motives is a good incentive but as you said, a lot of this work is being done at a small scale and by universities, in many ways, being funded by taxpayers. But big corporations are much better at PR and buying these small ones out. The irony is in what she's said, it could actually be the opposite, if big corporations have less incentive to invest, it would allow the smaller ones to flourish, we could actually end up with more competition, lower prices and more drugs on the market.
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@brownbear1657 He's right thought, there's been a lot of complaints about the system for well over a decade with how inflexible the older system was. Maybe a more flexible system was needed to give countries more room to breath, as long as there is pressure to brings debts under control.
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@Skooms89 I can assure you, there are many countries that don't blame China and that sounds like you're projecting what some Americans think of China as if the rest of the world thinks that way when in reality, a lot of the world doesn't think like the US on China.
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@NoumenonAndPhenomenon I suspect China won't want to buy too much Russian oil and gas because they've seen how Putin is willing to use that natural resources as a political weapon if you don't do what they want, so China will take advantage of Russia by pressuring them to sell oil and gas dirt cheap but they won't buy too much that they risk becoming dependent on them. Also, gas is a different story as that isn't easy to transport like oil is and another factor is that the likes of China and India will want to be careful of what the west does, basically, it could harm a lot of business interest from China and India in the west if they get too close to Russia when the world is trying to isolate Russia, hence why a lot of companies from China are either pulling out of Russia or scaling back as the west is far more valuable to them than Russia is and these companies seem to be doing it voluntarily without the government pushing it, basically, these companies are protecting their interest in the west and don't see Russia as being worth it with everything going on.
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As a European, I don't think all Americans are like that, there are many senseable and smart ones but the problem is and this is how many around the world sees it, a lot of Americans voted Trump into power, someone that should not even be close to power and yet a lot of them voted them in, that is why many around the world roll their eyes in the back of their heads at the US and god forbid if Trump wins the election later this year with everything that is going on, that would really be the turning point on America's decline on the world stage because I suspect a lot of policies from world governments will change in how they see the US and that can be really damaging for the US in the long run.
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It would be crazy for the EU to offer the same advantages EU members get to a none EU member, it would also make other EU members wonder why they need the EU at all, in the end, the EU is one of the most open free trade deals in the world, nothing else really comes close to it and it's almost as open over it's members as internal trade is within a country is. Thats something the UK doesn't want to miss out on and the EU will ask a high price for the UK to continue to enjoy that, more or less EU membership in name only but without any say in EU policy whiles having to abide most of it's rules, either that or any other option is going to be much worse then what we have in the EU.
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I suspect China isn't coming to the aid of Russia because it didn't expect this tough response from the EU, US and the west, China also has a lot of economic interest in the west that it doesn't want to damage, so even thought I suspect China wants to take sides with Russia, it's not tactically sound to do so with how things are going on, especially as Russia is quite a small economy in comparisons to the west. Another thing is, if the west is willing to react like this with Ukraine, what would they do with Taiwan? The events over the last few days has sent a powerful message to Russia but also to China as well when it comes to Taiwan but this could also be a big opportunity for the west and China to reset their relationships and try to get them on a normal footing, I doubt anybody wants war but the west is clearly showing the step they will take if pushed by rouge states. Another message this is sending is that I have a feeling that Russia and China saw the west as being weak, indecisive and won't take much action apart from a slap on the wrist, that bubble has burst, especially from the EU side has they are showing they can be a lot tougher if needed and more decisive, in other words, the west isn't weak by being inactive, they just prefer to use diplomatic means before harsher meathead but are more than capable of getting a lot tougher if needed and can get a lot tougher than they are doing on Russia right now if the need arises but for now, they feel this will be enough over the longer run to squeeze Putin's power base in Russia whiles turning the Russian people against the system of Putin and in time, it could very well work. The west and China have a lot more economic interest together for them to ever really want any major conflicts between the two but as Russia has proven, you should never let a mad man in the position of power. As for China replacing the oil and gas that Europe buys, the problem with that, it takes time and what Russia has done with this invasion is accelerated the process of looking for alternative energy sources, especially in the EU, basically the damage is already done to Russia and by the time they can adapt, the EU countries and likely many around the world will be actively looking for alternative sources away from Russian. Another problem with that as well, would Russia really want to be in the pocket of China? if Russia gets isolated and turns to China, that would put Russia under the thumb of China, I highly doubt Putin or the Russian people want that as it would make Russia look very weak. From what I can see, I don't really see any winning solutions for Russia here, Putin did a massive miscalculation on this whiles backing himself into a corner on something he can't win and China is realizing this by being more cold on Russia. On that note, there might be an opening for the west and China to reset relations between each other and try and get them on a normal footing being as what's going on now is a massive wake-up call for us all.
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Poland was the key, not much could be done about Hungary until things changed in Poland, now that the sea of change is happening in Poland, it's going to be far easier to go after Hungary. Some will say that Slovakia will take the place of Poland, but they are far smaller than Poland is and the government in Slovakia is in a weaker position than the position the PIS were in Poland, I don't see Slovakia being much of an issue, and if they try to be, I suspect the EU and other members will likely get far tougher on them than they've been on Poland and Hungary so far. Hungary's views have more or less isolated themselves in the EU, they come across as treaters when it comes to democracy and the values of openness, it's far more likely once the government is in place in Poland that the EU can get a lot tougher on Hungary, either by suspending its voting rights in the EU, which would be ideal, the EU keeps them in but they have little say, the other option is to kick Hungary out of the EU, that is what I think will happen unless the people wake up in Hungary and create change over there. I've always said that Poland can be savaged, but I feel Hungary is a lost cause, if they want to be under the thumb of Putin, let them, boot them out of the EU and see how well that goes for them, whiles we are at it, they should be kicked out of NATO as well. In any event, the EU has been way too soft of Poland in the past and Hungary in the past and now, they really need to get tough of Hungary, otherwise, other EU members might feel they can get away with braking the rules, also, it's all well and good saying the people in Hungary are pro EU, they've got a funny way of showing it by continuing to elect a harden Eurosceptic into office, there are no excuses for the people of Hungary, how many elections did they need to see what Orbán was like? The EU should strip the country of its voting rights because of all the violations it's done, if the people in the country turn against the EU, so be it, just kick them out, they are too small to matter but them being in the EU are causing a lot of issues for the other members, simply put, Hungary isn't worth having in the EU and with the EU being so soft on them, it's making the EU look bad, whiles encouraging other members to break the rules, after all, if Hungary can get away with it, why can't others and normally, I would say the EU should wait till the next elections in Hungary, but that's in 2026, that's too long off, if the EU doesn't act whiles it can, it might not be able to do in 3 years. Also, it's early days with Poland, they still have to implement the changes needed when it comes to rule of law.
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It really depends on the people of Hungary, but yeah, this is long overdue, Hungary have been abusing it's power for too long, the EU has been too soft on them, where the people of Hungary stand, well it's going to lead to one of three things, isolation without any voting rights, probably no EU funds as well, or the people of Hungary wake up and push Orban out of power and elect a more senseable government, or Hungary leaves the EU, the second option is the best option, but honestly, I can't honestly say I care if Hungary gets kicked out of the EU, after all, Russia and China can have their fun with them then, maybe that's the only way they'll learn.
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@vonunterberg4313 To be fair, Turkey would have to do some major political and economic reforms before they could join, under the current government, Turkey has zero chance of joining, but in the future, well it depends on the people of Turkey. In any case, Turkey have been wanting to join the EU for decades, but they've been dragging there feet on reforms, going sideways and even backwards over the last decade. The speed at which a country can join the EU really does boil down to the country that wants to join, how quickly they do the political and economic reforms to join, hence why some countries join the EU far sooner than others, they do the reforms needed to join, whereas the others that drag there feet, keep making excuses on why the EU won't let them in.
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@nicolaeadrian7882 Wouldn't surprise me if Hungary gets pushed out of the EU at some point but I doubt Poland will, they might be salvaged with everything that is going on in Ukraine, but before that, Poland was heading in the same direction as Hungary was but Putin seems to have scared them, as for Bulgaria and Romania, I highly doubt any of those countries will leave the EU.
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How is that cheating?, they ware born in France lol.
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A fiscal union seems logical long term, but realistic in the shorter term is the second option, giving more powers to the European Parliament, something that needs treaty change, but that's going to be needed before the EU can expand with new countries, so reforms on the veto rules can be done, so big treaty change is needed and it's needed over the next 5 to 10 years, maybe sooner. Another reason why the second option is a better option is because it's seen as more democratic in the public eye, which goes a long way in gaining support for the EU project. In any event, treaty change is urgently needed, regardless of what form the EU takes, the EU needs to become more streamlined, the veto rules need to go or need to be reformed before any new country can join the union, I also think reforms to the EU Commission and President is needed, maybe merging the two and having it directly elected. The EU is on a wave of support thanks to Covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine, but don't expect that support to stay unless real reforms are done, because the reality is, the last 10+ years, we've had very little change in how the institutions works, no treaty change or anything, and clearly change is needed. I also think the EU and its members need to find a way to kick Hungary out of the EU, personally, I think Hungary are a lost cause and needs booting out, Poland on the other hand could be saved, but the EU needs to get a lot tougher in this area, like the European Parliament wants, because it's showing weakness, which allows countries like Hungary and Poland to break the rules, if the EU doesn't get its act together in those areas, other EU members might feel they can break the rules and it doesn't matter, then the EU would have a far bigger problem, a big part of this problem is because of the EU Commission not getting tough enough like the European Parliament wants, probably another reason why a power shift towards the Parliament is a good idea, they seem more Intune with public thinking then the Commission is which seems quite distant from the public. Anyway, just watched the video, looks like he came to the same conclusion as me, fiscal union long term as that would save a lot of resources that could be better spent, but with the second option of more powers towards the European Parliament, which is achievable over the next 5-10 years, either way, treaty change is going to be needed to solve that problem as well as others.
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@DommTom The real issue isn't decommissioning nuclear power, it's getting too into bed with the Russian's, especially when there were many red flags that Germany should have diversified its energy sector, that failing is on the government.
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France is right in that sense, it's high time we Europeans in the EU get serious about our own defence and forign policy, especially with everything that's going on with Putin, Ukraine and even the US that's becoming less reliable as a partner, and then there's Trump, we Europeans would have to be reckless to put our faith in the US with how polarised US politics is getting and for EU countries, if we really want to be effective, we really need to pool resources together at an EU level, we can achieve far more than we can at an individual level, in fact, a lot of weaknesses are being shown by countries pulling in all directions, if that isn't an indicator on why more at an EU level needs to be done, then I don't know what is.
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@ghoond1314 True, it depends on how Trump plays the system, especially with his base, lucky for the American people, Trump isn't smart enough to know how to play the system and has the charisma of a dead fish lol. Things could have been far worse if Trump was smarter and knew how to play the system.
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@vadwvea7153 There is zero chance the EU would let the UK rejoin any time soon, think of the message that would send to other EU members as well as other countries that want to join if a country can leave and quickly join, that would open up a can of worms that I highly doubt the EU or many of it's members will open up. The best the UK can hope for is closer relations with the EU, maybe single market and custom union access over the next decade, but EU membership is at least 2 decades away, and this isn't including the factor that most Brits don't realise that the UK would be joining as a new country with no op-outs, in other words, Brits will be to be prepared to accept the Euro, Schengen and all the other treaties, to put it another way, there would need to be a major shift from the public, media and political parties in how they see the EU project, and that would happen overnight, so we are talking decades.
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@edmurth Not everyone needs to understand it, only a few need to understand it for it to be exposed if they are doing anything wrong. I agree that more transparency is needed, but I also think more accountability online is needed, because these people are able to say whatever they want, regardless of truth or not, and it does manipulate a lot of followers, which can be dangerous with people in positions of power that have a lot of followers, we see that with popular right wing media all the time how they manipulate the readers and viewers, and we are seeing it online now, there is zero accountability for what's being said, that's the main issue.
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The moral of the story is, never EVER trust a Tory unless it's the likes of Ken Clark who at least as Tories go pretty decent, most of them are just snobs that don't really care about the well being of the British people. As for that big so called trade deal which is more or less a role over of what the EU give us is only there until after Brexit when they can change the terms on it which as we know, many countries will want to change the terms in there favor at the UK's expensive. Say what we want about the EU but they have a lot of economic clout, I doubt other countries around the world are going to give the UK the same terms the EU got us when they don't have too, in fact many will use this to get better terms out of the UK.
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He's right though lol, after all shes done so many u-turns that I'm surprised she can stand straight.
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Self-made billionaire is such a crazy term which really should be translated as this, someone that's made billions by exploiting others, whether that is the workers under him or the consumers. It's not really possible to earn that kind of money by hard work alone, but if you've got an army of workers slaving away under you for peanuts whiles he profits the most from it or overcharges consumers, you get a real sense of how wrong the system is. But the question is, how much by honest means without exploiting others could someone realistically earn in a lifetime?, I'll probably say around 5 to 10 million in a good job and that's over like 60 years of your life. In the end, capitalism allows the exploitation of workers by paying them just enough to get by whiles the ones running the show runs away with most of the profits and in a sense, they are more or less criminals but the law allows so it's alright lol. Anyway, I'll give you an idea of what I mean, my friend works at a watch repair shop, there's about 4 people working there including the one that owns it, it makes around 10 grand a week, the wages the workers get is just a bit higher than minimum wage even thought the workers are the ones doing most of the hard work, whiles the boss is a so-called self-made millionaire and that might be true but it's because of exploiting the workers, getting them to do all the hard work whiles the one that owns the company keeps most of the money, that's the real flaw with capitalism. But what really makes it bad is when they say a honest days work for a honest days pay, that's crap talk which will either keep you poor or just content in life, the sad truth is, being corrupt pays a lot better, whether that be money, politics or anything, it pays a lot more, lies in politics usually gets you to a higher more powerful position and so on but what really makes it sad is that it's the peoples fault for allowing all this.
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That's the thing, Russia is quite weak whiles depending on a lot of others to buy it's natural resources. If push comes to shove, the kinda might EU countries could bring to the table because of the economy, skill set and advancement would be enough to scare Russia. But lucky for Russia, Europeans are not war like any more but if the threat becomes big enough, that can quickly change. In any case, Russia only really plays games with none EU countries because they are easy pickings, it's what Russia fears the most, countries joining the EU because Russia wouldn't dare take on an EU countries in any meaningful sense, it's also the reason why so many countries want to join the EU, for protection from Russia. Still, it would be funny if a war broke out with Russia and the west, especially in today's age when it's all about the economy, so basically, Russia might learn a valuable lesson in how weak they really are.
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Sovereignty is overrated, I mean honestly, most of the rules and regulations around the world are made by the big powers where smaller players have to follow without having a say in them, either because of political pressure or economic. The reality, sovereignty is a lot weaker in this global world then people like to realise, hence why so many of the rules from country to country are not that different from each other, part of that is because of economic trade but it goes much further than that, either way, the global rules are more or less made by the EU and US, where most of the world has to follow them to some degree or another if they want good trade links, the UK with Brexit is a prime example, for all the huffing and puffing about sovereignty, the UK is more or less mirroring EU rules, even newer ones. It's easy to say you want to have sovereignty and be different, but the reality is, rules, laws and regulations are being standardised by international rules that are more or less being created by the big powers of the EU and US, that puts a lot of pressure on smaller countries to toe the line, especially if they want a good standard of living and trade links. Another example is Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, they are not EU members, but look at how much of the EU rules they've adopted without having any real say in creating them. If you want true sovereignty, you're going to have to move to the moon, trade with no one and have no contact with the outside world, otherwise, in this global world, there's always compromise when it comes to sovereignty, as in, the big players like the EU and US are the ones that dictate the terms, China could be a player but they don't have an appealing agenda that much of the world would want to get behind. In any case, sovereignty is an illusion in today's world that I'm surprised so many people around the world still think it's a thing.
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@redstomp9664 The EU is always reforming, it's a union in the making but I think the reform Brits want are very different than what Europeans want and that is where the real issue is, after all, the UK was never comfortable inside the EU from the get go and should never have been allowed in the first place. Maybe someday in the future that can change but I suspect Scotland and Northern Ireland could be out of the UK by then, after all, the real problem has always been with England and not the other parts of the UK union.
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With trade wars, no one really wins but the EU being a bigger market can absorb the damage a lot better than a smaller market like the UK, so the UK is the one that loses out. There is also the factor of trust, the UK isn't conducting its self to international norms, that can be a threat to the world order the US setup after the second world war, after all, if the UK is willing to break international treaties, others will likely follow, so I doubt the US is happy with what the UK is doing. In the end, the Tories in the UK just want this war to drag out with the EU and for good reason, they need the EU as a scapegoat for all the failings of the Tories in the UK as they've always blamed the EU for all the wrongs in the UK, something that is becoming harder to do with the UK not in the EU any more but that won't stop the Tories, they need that bogeyman to shift blame too. The truth is, the Tories have been a disaster for the UK going back all the way to the austerity measure, it boggles my man that they are still in power and I can only really put the blame on the people that put them into power, in other words, they can't really complain for how things are as they helped to shape them. As for Bo Jo, it was shameful that he went to Ukraine unannounced just a day after the 3 big EU leaders went to announce EU candidates statues for Ukraine, almost as if Bo Jo felt left out, Boris doesn't care what is going on in Ukraine but he is more than happy to use the situation to get away from his own problems in the UK, it's embarrassing to watch. At least with the 3 EU countries that went, they had a big reason to go, all 3 countries were a bit cold on the idea of Ukraine joining the EU, all 3 going there and approving it sends a powerful message to Ukraine and even Russia, Bo Jo on the other hand just went there to escape his problems back home.
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I do think reforms are needed, especially if the EU and its members wants to stay relevant on the world stay but also because of EU enlargement, I see no realistic ways that the EU can allow other countries to join until the veto rules get reformed as it would become unworkable with more countries in it and some kind of majority voting is needed in more areas. I'm starting to think, maybe if they can't get the reforms done at an EU level, maybe the Euro Zone countries should focus on themselves, after all, Euro Zone countries are more likely to want to integrate and to make the project work compared to none Euro Zone countries, some of which like Hungary and Poland are at arms length with the EU anyway. So yeah, it would be nice if they can do it at an EU level but if the likes of Poland and Hungary keeps blocking it, those Euro Zone countries should go it alone, they are the bulk of the EU anyway and at least they want to make it work unlike some of the others, now don't get me wrong, I know not all the eastern EU members are like that and many want to make the project work but there are some that are actively going out of their way to hold it back and by extension, hold back all the other members. So yeah, try and get it done at an EU level, if they can't, push harder at a Euro Zone level, after all, they've integrated many times at a core group in the past without everyone being onboard and that would be a massive advantage for those countries that do go ahead with it as it would very likely isolate the likes of Poland and Hungary as in time, other none Euro Zone countries will want to join the Euro Zone to not get left behind. In other words, stop messing around and have core countries do the integrations that they want, as they make it work, others in time will want to join, we've seen that throughout EU history and it seems a better option than being held to ransom by the likes of Poland and Hungary and with that, power slowly shifts away from the countries that don't want to integrate, towards the ones that do.
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I've been keeping up with events but this puts it into context what's really been achieved in the EU, it's been a busy year. As for the EU corruption scandal that's going on, I don't see that as a negative, in fact, it's a good thing, because it allows the EU to clean house, we should be a lot more worried about corruption that goes undetected around the world and now this scandal is going on, it's likely going to scare some that want to do corruption in the EU because the spotlight is on them, so the scandal might look bad on the surface but overall it's a good thing to clean things up and as the saying goes, never let a crisis go to waste. As for EU gas storage, the EU countries are doing a lot better than expected, it peaked at around 95% and is currently at 83.5% with it actually going up over the last week, something I didn't expect deep into winter and if that continues, it doesn't look like gas is going to be an issue for this winter or the next winter and I suspect the reason gas reserves are going up and not down is because of the mild winter but more importantly, the reduction of gas consumption that's happened over the last year, around 26% I think it was and I suspect EU countries will reduce gas consumption by around 10-15% this year, the high energy prices are pushing consumers and businesses to become more energy efficient and that could put the EU economy in good standing once energy prices stabilize as the overall economy will be a lot more efficient. Anyway, it's going to be interesting what this year will bring, I suspect a lot more renewable energy will be installed and more work on integration in some areas.
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@_blank-_ The European Parliament elections that are talked about in the video above, which are elected by the people.
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I don't think it's about Germany replacing US military power in Europe but with all the military spending in European countries over the last few years and that's likely to continue for the foreseeable future, it's likely going to mean the US becomes less relevant in Europe, maybe to the point that US bases get kicked out of many European countries, especially with how hostile the US is becoming with the likes of Trump. In any case, with the big increase of spending in most European countries, it's likely going to have a massive impact on European military capabilities over the next decade or so, especially as EU countries are likely to work close together, which is basically the biggest nightmare Putin can have, a much more potent military power on its doorstep. As for the US, it might benefit from this increase in spending in the short term but I suspect longer term the US stands to lose a lot, especially once this increase in spending kicks into gear in research and development, as well as arms capacity, with the US becoming more hostile, it's likely that European countries will develop more of its own capabilities, meaning far fewer arms purchase from the US, it's also likely going to be much worse because as an arms industry builds in Europe, it will likely compete and eat into US arms sales around the world, especially as a lot of countries don't like the US and are looking for alternatives. The irony in that is that it will likely mean the US will either have to increase taxes on its citizens or spend more as a percentage of GDP to make up for the loss in arms sales around the world, whiles the European countries stand to gain a lot of revenue from arms sales and with that, the next two decades are going to be interesting to see, with the US becoming more hostile and isolated, a rising China and a much stronger Europe when it comes to hard power, I think the real winners in this game are likely going to be the EU and China, whiles the US and Russia stand to lose the most.
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@eaman11 Well said, some people seem to think European countries can just switch off buying gas from Russia, it's not that simple and even if they did, maybe people have not realized it yet but all it does is push up the price of gas and oil on the international market because it forces European countries to scramble around the world for alternatives, the end results is high energy bills and high inflation for most of the world and that won't ease much until European countries secure energy sources around the world, in other words, most of the world is in the same boat. The good news is, thanks to Putin, it will likely happen much faster than it normally would, crisis can usually get change done in a much shorter time than normally would happen. Truth is, I'm happy to share some of the pain in the short term because I know this is very likely going to get more radical changes in the energy market, especially if energy prices stay high, in other words, Putin might have shortened the fossil industry by about 10-15 years because of his actions because now a lot of countries will want to generate a lot of their own energy means internally for security reasons. That's bad news for the fossil producing countries because even just 5 years would be enough to wipe off trillions in revenue and I suspect, as happy as the oil and gas industry is about the short term profits, they likely know how damaging this is to their own industry long term, hence why on the one hand, I hope energy prices stay high so bigger changes can happen in a shorter space of time but on the other hand, I want energy prices to come down. Putin for trying to be smart has really shot Russia in the foot here and I don't see any real way of Russia getting out of this in a good way.
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@lvoldum I remember around that time where the EU wanted all the talks done in the open whereas the UK government didn't and after seeing what we've seen over the last few years, you can understand why the UK didn't want it being public because it looks bad on them.
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@GoobNoob Well actually you can, economy of scale, in fact the US would be in a better position to do it then smaller countries because of that economy of scale thing. The real problem is taxes, the US has a low rate of taxes and the poor and middle classes are paying the price for that in so many areas compared to places like Europe that has higher taxes but gets a lot of benefits from them.
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I've never for a second though the majority of people in China living in prosperity, it's clear to see that it's a few hand-picked cities that are living much better than the rest, a bit like how Russia is today. If China was modern across the board, their economy would be around 4 times bigger than the US, clearly that isn't the case, so there's still a lot of poverty in China, and just like with Russia, it's easy to show the highlights of regions that are doing well whiles covering over the regions that are doing badly.
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I think Ukraine will join the EU at some point but there are changes that are needed on both sides, for one, Ukraine can't join till the war is resolved, after that, there are a lot of political and economic reforms in Ukraine that are needed, something that is likely going to be easier to achieve after the war because it will be bold of any opposition to block many of these changes with everything that's gone on this year and they could easierlly be labled as being pro Russia, so a lot of the ones holding things back will likely melt away in the background. Then we have the EU side, the EU shouldn't let any new countries in until some major reforms are done to the veto rules and majority voting, adding more countries in without reforms in those areas is just asking for trouble as we see with Hungary and Poland, which is ironic because both those countries want the EU to expand and yet they are the ones giving other EU countries pause on expanding. As for the size of Ukraine and it's population, I don't think that is a problem, the EU expanded with 10 countries over 2 decades ago when the EU union was smaller, they can managed with Ukraine and a few other countries, especially when you consider that Ukraine won't join for at least 10 years, which by then, the eastern EU countries will close the gap on the west so they are less of a burden on the others, basically, as more of the eastern members become modern, the more resources there are going to be to help other countries that need it, so more of the burden will spread out over more members. In any case, the real problem isn't economics, it's political and that's on both sides, so how much political will there is on both sides to make it happen, but again, none of this can even start until the war is resolved.
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@trimaxionerror5696 Because I am British doesn't mean I have to follow what the system tells me, I would love for the UK to do well after Brexit but I like to look at things for how they are and the UK has got it's self into a right mess, not only are we heading for the worse outcome on Brexit but it's happening at a time when we are being hit hard by the pandemic, the next 5 to 10 years are going to be very tough on us British. As for what countries are good or bad, what's that got to do with anything? also, what has history on what the UK and US did for Europe in the past have to do with Europe today, you do realize that the US and UK are two of the more hostile modern countries to do, arrogance does that. Now don't get me wrong, I don't like the actions that China and Russia does but the US and UK are not much better, we've been in so many wars since the second world war, many we either started or had our hands in, we are not as innocent as some like to think. As for Germany, well considering how effective they were during the second world war, they used that same mentality to rebuild their country and became one of the most successful European countries, now the Marshall plan helped but it was their mindset that really did the difference. As for the Germany's, they have nothing to be ashamed about, it's a different generation of people and would be wrong to put the blame on this generation of people for what happened in history. The fact of the matter is, Germany has been a model country since the second world war, one of the most peaceful modern countries whereas the UK has been quite an aggressive one since then, look up how many wars the UK has been in since the second world war, a lot of which we were dragged in by the US, nothing is as black and white as you like to think.
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@steelcrown7130 The UK and Australia have little choice, Australia needs to keep the US onside which means Australia more or less has to bend to the will of the US and that's becoming more the case with a rising China. The UK is a bit different that didn't have to bend to the will of the US but many see the UK as weak as a poodle of the US, even many in the UK see that and that position is very likely more exposed with Brexit. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean the UK and Australia are not useful to the US but it's pretty much on the terms of what the US wants and not the other way around, that also means US interest, something we don't really see much with other European countries like Germany or France which are willing to have their own voice on matters, the Iraqi war was a prime example of that, something 70% of the British public didn't support but the government had to fall in line with the US. The irony is, with European countries rearming again, the EU could become the US more important friend, especially if EU countries pool their resources together.
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Just like we saw in the UK, we got governments bragging for decades how well the economy is doing and yet a lot of people feel like they are being left behind, which likely contributed to the Brexit vote, voters were lashing out at how things are getting worse. Same in the US, we keep hearing all this bragging from governments on how well the economy is doing and yet a lot of voters feel left behind and disillusioned with how things seem to be getting worse for the average person, hence how Trump managed to get into power, Brexit and Trump is all about a lot of angry voters feeling like they are being left behind. So take your pick, either the economy isn't doing as well as they want us to think or too much wealth is ending up in fewer hands. As for Russia, you can't take any of the stats as being accurate, but what we do know is that they are bleeding as economy because of the war and sanctions, and what we should remember with sanctions, they tend to be a slow burn over many years, even decades to do the real damage, basically, we are talking about slow decline of the Russian economy, not an off the cliff economy that many thought, and I think this is what the west wants, a weaken Russia but a stable one, which a slow burn delivers that, but unfortunately, that's not good news for Ukraine because it per longs the war longer.
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I agree and I think major reforms of copyright and patent laws are needed as the rules we have mostly seems to serve the rich elites. 10 years for both doesn't seem like a bad idea with the exception of some things that have a massive investment which could take longer than 10 years to get their money back and make a profit on it but in most cases, it's usually less than 10 years.
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@beundelboss368 That's pretty much it, European countries on their own are not going to compete with the likes of the US, China and India, so either we'll get pushed aside or we come together which is what the EU offers. If we Europeans get pushed aside, that could have negative impact in many areas from living standards, workers rights, food standards, social system and countless other things, many of which are protected by having a strong EU and something others like the US have shown to want to weaken, especially food standards and workers rights, in fact, the UK with Brexit will be an interesting case over the next decade on that. But for me, if we Europeans want to protect our political, economic and social interest, we're going to have to band together in the EU, more so than what we've already done, in other words, more integration is likely needed.
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I always sense that the UK is in denial about its place in the world, it's a middle power that's in decline, especially since Brexit, but the signs were there even before Brexit, just that it's got worse with Brexit. As for the EU, the EU isn't a magic bullet, but it does set the groundwork for countries to grow with fewer restrictions and red tape, it also pushes countries to do reforms in many areas, including the economy, whiles also making it harder for governments to corrupt the system and slide into a dictatorship. It's not perfect, not by a long shot, but it works, and works really well, you want to get an idea of how well it works, look at all the eastern European countries that joined the EU and look at the wealth in those countries compared to none EU countries in the east, there's a big wealth divide in favour of the countries that joined the EU, considering how many countries that joined, that isn't by chance and it's clear the EU is having a big positive impact on those countries, the same will likely happen to any future country that wants to join the EU. The UK ironically with Brexit made a play for wanting to cut red tape, the truth is that Brexit has introduced a lot more red tape, at least when we were in the EU, we had one set of red tape across many countries, now the UK is setting up its own, that's proving to be more costly for businesses and consumers, and the only way for the UK to reduce that is to mirror EU rules, which goes against everything Brexit was supposed to be, so however we look at Brexit, it was always going to be self harm, and that harm will get worse if the UK tries to diverge from EU norms, meaning the UK is screwed to either be a vassal state of the EU, mirroring its rules or being poorer by diverging from them.
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At first, the US and Boeing didn't think the EU and Airbus would compete but as the years went by and Airbus was gobbling up market share, Boeing didn't like it and got dirty and then the economic war began with no real winners because of the size of both the EU and US, well I say no winners, the EU is probably the overall winner going off the market share that Airbus has from nothing and that it seems to keep growing. As for China, it's clear as daylight that the EU and US has to work closer together to counter China, I suspect they both know they are not big enough to keep China in check but working together and bringing other countries onboard of like-minded nations, that should be enough to keep China from being so aggressive. This relation between the EU and US is likely going to get much stronger over the years and decades because for all their differences, they have a lot in common at a time where there is a real threat from China.
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When looking at the terms these countries have with the EU, I feel it's a better deal for the EU then it is for those countries, and I suspect they would love to have countries like Hungary and Poland in that kind of deal, after all, the EU gets most of what it wants with those countries, whiles those countries have no say in EU policy areas, it's a really sweet deal for the EU, not so for the countries in question and the irony is, the UK is heading in the same direction as it's creating closer ties with the EU, it begs the question, why leave the EU in the first place for the UK, and in the case of the other 3 countries, why not just fully join so at least they've got a bigger voice in all this.
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Hence why Russia is angry, they know this isn't a matter of diversifying it's oil away from the west, having a global cap of $60 on Russian oil will give countries like China and India more clout to get a deep cut, maybe around 30% cut under the $60 mark, so this likely will hurt Russia, regardless of what countries are buying or not buying.
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We do but it's unlikely the companies will do that as it will give us more options, competition and lower prices, so unless the government regulates so different system are compatible with each other, which I think will happen at some point in many countries, but until then, I don't see the companies themselves offering that yet, and your best option if you have the skills and know-how, is to do your own set-up.
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It's highly unlikely that Putin would invade an EU or NATO country, it's one thing to take on Ukraine which are a much poorer country, it's another to take on an EU or NATO country, on top of that, the EU and NATO would be compelled to response back in a much more forceful way if Putin did that. If Putin does attack another country, it's likely going to be vulnerable countries that are not in the EU or NATO, countries like Moldova but considering how things are going in Ukraine plus the sanctions, it's looking like Putin is going to get bogged down in Ukraine. Putin has already miscalculated on the EU and western response to this invasion, with it being much tougher than he expected it to be, an invasion of a NATO country would force other NATO countries to get more involved directly, that is a lot more the case with EU countries with how integrated they are together, in other words, it could become an all out war if Putin did that. The truth is, the EU and US would have to respond a lot tougher even if Putin invades a none EU or NATO country, if you don't put a stop to him, he's going to keep going, invading one vulnerable country after another, that would likely force the west to get more directly involved even thought they know the risk in a nuclear age.
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Almost every poll I've seen is showing a shift in favor of remain and now talks are on the table for another vote, this Sky poll is just showing what a lot of us suspect, what supprised me about this poll is the 59% wanting to stay in the EU, if that is even remotely true then the leave side are in big trouble if another vote happens or even if one doesn't happen for that matter.
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It's funny that when you look at a lot of these videos, in many areas, China is becoming number one in a lot of them over the last decade or two, you can actually understand why the hawks in Washington are so worried about what is happening as it's easy to see China is taking over as a power in a lot of areas.
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I doubt they can leave, the EU market is too big for them to leave but even if they did, other rivals in the market will be licking their lips to take advantage of Facebook by filling that void in the EU. In other words, even if Facebook did leave, another rival would swoop in and gaining market share in the EU would likely help that rival on the world market against Facebook. Also, I highly doubt other governments around the world would take too kindly if Facebook follows through with its threat, it would send a message that Facebook thinks they can bully governments and many governments around the world could end up getting a lot tougher on big corporations, even pushing to break many of them up. Last thing any big corporation should do is threaten any government as others will be taking note of that and very likely will respond in kind, in other words, don't push your luck corporations or you could end up with a lot more governments going after you and with much tougher measures and the reason that will happen is because if Facebook actually got away with it, they will embolden big corporations to threaten governments all around the world to get what they want, it's easy to see how this can spiral out of hand against corporations if they follow through with those threats, but personally, just making the threat against any government should be enough for much tougher action to be taken against them.
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That's decades of programming by the media and governments of the UK for ya and it's quite easy to see that because most Brexiteers know little to nothing about the EU apart from what the UK system tells them and unfortunately for them, that same system is going to turn it's attention to them now, the irony being, Brexit is likely going to hurt the ones that voted for it the most.
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Not without major reforms to the economy, in fact it could make things worse because devaluing the currency is the easy option which works in the short term but the core problems are still there, longer term it would have made the situation much worse in Greece. Also, let's be blunt about this, without the EU and Euro backing, the problems in Greece would likely have been a lot worse now. What's actually needed is less scapegoating and more major economic reforms to push economic growth, what we are actually seeing is foot dragging on the reforms, that is where the real problem is and the EU can only do so much to help, Greece has to want to help it's self, so leaving the Euro isn't the solution, in fact it would likely make things a lot worse for Greece because the Euro is backed by a lot of stable countries which is helping to keep Greece an afloat, without that, without that, trust in Greece would likely plummet and it could end up being in the situation that Venezuela have been through which no country wants to go through that. So yeah, do major economic reforms, improve workers productivity and stop using scapegoats of others for the problems in the country, that's how Greece can solve these problems and for that, you need bold leaders in Greece to push for these major reforms because it won't be easy to achieve but that the only way I see Greece getting its self out of this hole it keeps digging it's self in.
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@turkizno You're looking at the wrong face then, the EU Commission has very limited powers when it comes to defence and living standards as that is much closer to home within the country. It's hard for blame someone for problems when they don't have the powers to fix those problems, and when it comes to living standards, two factors are at play, one is external factors like the Russian war in Ukraine which bumped up inflation, the other are the lack of reforms by governments of the individual countries, a change at the EU would have very little impact on that as the real problem is with the governments of the individual countries.
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@taxibaanyoutube9156 So wouldn't giving powers to the EU in military matters not reduce Germany's odds of become an empire or being a threat on the military front when the power is shared out among all EU members at an EU level? Having 27 separate militaries, forign policies and so on ends up incenses the odds of conflict among the countries, it also keeps us weak and divide among the world's powers. Regardless of your views on the EU, good or bad, we can achieve far more together in a world that is becoming more hostile and being controlled by superpowers like the US and China, some of us might not like this, but if we are to compete, we are going to have to integrate, pool resources together and work closer with each other if we want to protect our interest. The alternative to that is no EU, which bigger countries like the US or China will take advantage of that by dividing us more, playing us off each other, with the aim of weakening us, without the EU, there's a fair chance that pressure from the US would build on them wanting to weaken our workers rights, food standard and to open up our health care industry to the big American health corporations, in other words, the US would be in a much better position to water down our laws, rules and regulations if we didn't have the EU around, and they likely would because that's what American corporations want when doing business in Europe, and thankfully, we have a strong EU that can stand up to the US and protect our interest, and this benefit also helps countries that are not in the EU as the EU shows that there are alternatives to American style capitalism, hence why almost all modern countries follow a European style social democracy with the US being the odd one out, it could be a very different picture if the EU wasn't around.
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@reggie69. I have a sense that the regions that are closer to richer regions are richer for it, so the south of the UK being closer to the rich European mainland, the north of Italy for the same reasons, the west of Germany and so on, and it kinda makes sense that more economic development will happen closer to richer regions.
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That's probably part of the reason for having lower food standards in the US, it's an incentive to get more people sick so they need more medical help which being as the health care system is for profit, it's an incentive to get people as sick as possible. Food poisoning tends to be much higher in the US compared to the EU. Also, as you point out, a universal health care system means it's in the government's interest to look after the health and well-being of it's citizens to reduce cost on the health system, the US being for profit feels like it actually wants more people to get sick so they profit from it.
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Thats the thing many euroseptics don't seem to understand, the shape the EU takes is really dependent on it's members and it's people, the EU can't really do things unless it gets enough support from enough members, many euroseptics make it seems like it's a power on it's own that can do anything it wants lol, it's anything but that, it needs support by enough members to get things done whiles also needing support in the European Parliement. As for a united Europe, I think it's a great idea considering the history Europe have had for so long, we've had one of our most peaceful times over the last 60 or so years then we have over the last 2000 which says a lot and fair enough that the US and NATO played a part, to me, the EU really played the biggest part when it started out as the Steel and Coal Community, the idea was to tie the members resources together to make it very hard for them to go to war with each other and it worked, the idea of war with any EU member would be unthinkable today.
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I highly doubt Italy would leave the EU, they stand to lose far more than the UK is losing, being out of the EU, mainly because Italy has an unstable political and economic system, them being out of the EU wouldn't do them any favours when it comes to investment in the country, especially as having easy access to the EU market is a big advantage. What we really should remember is that the UK is a special case, they've never had the vision of a united Europe, they joined the EEC whiles more or less lying to its people about what the project is about, a lot of the other EU countries might have issues with how it's run, but none really want to rip the project apart, which is more or less what the UK wanted, any issues other EU members have with the project is more about wanting to change the project, to serve their interest better, this is a massive difference on the UK compared to every other EU country, even Hungary and Poland were they complain, is more about wanting to change the project, not rip it apart. The truth is, the UK never wanted in the EU in the first place, it's always been a troublesome country and had by far the most op-outs out of any EU country, a common theme with pretty much every other EU country is that they want change and reforms done to the EU, many are not happy with how it's currently run, but that's a long way from wanting to leave the union and hence, we see the same pattern with Eurosceptic parties throughout the EU, they tell the people things like wanting to leave the EU or the Euro, but once in power, they change their tune as reality kicks in, we saw that in Italy over the last few years, only for the current government to tone it down a lot once in power, because if they went thought with what they were saying, it would be them that would get it in the neck once it impacts the people, in that sense, they are smarter than the Conservative party in the UK, or maybe, they saw what was going on in the UK with Brexit and thought, this isn't for us, probably why support has been going up for the EU in every EU country, and ironically, even in the UK. My point I'm getting at, it's easy for the party that's not in power to say they'll do this and that for the people, it's another thing delivering on that, hence why opposition parties promise more than they can deliver, and if they win power, they tone it down as reality kicks in.
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I don't think the economy is broken, in fact, if you look at it, it's held up remarkable well considering how it's having to transform the energy sector in such a short space of time, after all, many predicted things to be far worse, that it's not actually shows a lot of resilient. That doesn't mean what's going on with energy doesn't hurt the economy, because it does, but it also offers a lot of benefits long term by forcing change a lot sooner than it would have been. The truth is, according to the stats, the US has been outperforming the EU for the last 2 decades, at the same time, the quality of life index have been widening in favour of the EU over the last two decades, with Europe more or less dominating the top 10. So the real question is, what's more important, quality of life or wealth? It seems to me that Europeans, especially western Europeans in the EU have the better end of the stick because wealth is more distributed and there's less poverty, whiles at the same time, a strong safety net for its people, now don't get me wrong, you need a reasonable amount of wealth, but given the choice, I suspect most of us would pick quality of living over more wealth. The irony is, the US could have more, but the problem is that too much wealth is in too few hands, so you get the impression that Europeans are better off than Americans in a lot of ways. At the end of the day, whether an EU or US citizen, I wouldn't worry about it, as long as the fundamentals are in place, the quality of life should be good enough for most of the people, it also means that change can speed up or slow down depending on need, like we saw with the energy transition in the EU, that works in almost any area depending on need.
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Materazi Islam That's what makes it impressive, how many teams can go from not qualifying for the last world cup to winning the Euros? As for the route, England had an easy route in two major tournaments and still lost, in this case, most of their games were at home so that makes it even worse. Italy beat Switzerland which on paper might not mean much but Switzerland knocked France out and almost beat Spain, then Italy beat Belgium, Spain and England to a hostile crowd, now that's a tough route. As for cheating, how about England against Denmark and that penalty? at the end of the day, most will agree that Italy was the best team throughout the tournament and that England had a lucky run to the final and in the end, nobody remembers losers so who cares.
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A lot of people are laughing but it's not at Americans, it's at Trump and his support base that most are laughing at, I'm well aware just like many are that there are many good, innocent Americans in all this but the problem is, the get clouded over by the bad Americans and unfortunately, there is a lot of them, hence Trump getting into power and this is why it could be make or break for the US come the election later this year because that could be the deciding factor in how much of the world sees the US and how they change tactics both politically and economically after that.
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It's not impossible, but it will take time and the EU is well aware of that factor, with the idea of transitioning over a period of time, which is more than possible.
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I always find it amusing how countries deflect blame away from themselves, the UK did it before Brexit, always blaming the EU for all the wrongs, Italy does it a lot, not many of them look at the mess they've created in their own country and it becomes easier to deflect public attention onto the EU. When it comes to immigration and migration of people, the EU has limited powers in what it can actually do as most of it is still at national level, normally that wouldn't matter but being in a union of open boarders changes it where it impacts all EU members, the real problem isn't the EU as such, it's the problem of having a union of open boarders whiles at the same time having each EU member having it's own policy on immigration. Basically, major reforms are needed and if the EU countries want to continue having open boarders among themselves, they really need to give powers to the EU to enforce its external boarders and immigration policies, otherwise you'll keep getting 27 different voices pulling in all directions, which is where the real mess is.
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True, and as I pointed out in another post, the more they close the gap with western countries, the harder it's going to get to have high economic growth, it's far easier when starting at a lower level, especially when the blueprint is laid out in front of them, it becomes a lot harder as the gap closes and the tougher reforms are needed, usually the ones that are not as popular with the public or government. In any case, Poland is the only credible country that could be a big player, and mostly based on its population size which can give it some clout, the rest are just too small to have that big of an impact in taking on the big fish in the EU, and even Poland needs to be careful, bending and braking the EU rules isn't making Poland any friends, and if there is one thing the core EU countries know, you need friends onside to get things done in the EU. Poland if they are not careful, could end up being isolated in the EU by a lot of the other members, a bit like how Hungary is going, and to be powerful in the EU, you really do need to get along with a lot of other EU countries, whiles also being flexible when it comes to compromises, even smaller countries can be powerful in the EU with the right friends, but I feel that Hungary and Poland are setting themselves up for isolation, where I think it's already too late for Hungary, unless something major changes, whereas I think Poland can still be saved.
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One in government in the US a few years ago said this of the UK, why the hell would they talk to the UK when they have no influence in the EU any more, that's key because the US is willing to talk to any EU member that has a seat of the table in being able to sway and change thinking at an EU level, even smaller countries than the UK now has more influence simply by having a seat at the EU table. In fact we saw a lot of that in the past with how the UK wanted to be a bridge with the EU and US, now, the US, Russia, China and other powers bypass the UK because we're not really relevant any more, now they just take advantage of the UK because they are an easier target, that's exactly what Putin wanted, the Europeans see that, hence why they are closing ranks together. The irony is, for Putin, the UK being out of the EU might backfire on him in the long run because now the EU doesn't need to get paralysed by the UK when it comes to integration, the UK always had a different vision on the EU than other EU members had and we see that with the difference from British and other European Eurosceptics, so in the short term, it causes the EU harm but in the longer run it could make them stronger, as for the UK, it just causes the UK harm and I don't think the UK will recover from this for decades.
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The reality is, Russia is bleeding resources and lives, this is resources being taken away from the Russian people and put towards the war effect, there's also the impact of the losses of Russian troops, that has a negative impact on the Russian economy long term, especially considering Russia's population has been in decline for some time. The truth is, the longer the war drags on, the more it's going to be a drag on the Russian economy and people, that could spill over into politics, which if it does, Putin could be in trouble. There's also the factor that the EU, US and the west can afford to keep supporting Ukraine over the long term, for one, the resources the west are giving to Ukraine is tiny compared to its economy and two, the west is rich, Russia on the other hand is having to spend more on its war effort, it's having to recount more troops, all this is having a negative impact on the Russian economy and the longer the war drags on, the more of a drag it becomes on Russia. So you really do have to wonder, was it worth Putin starting this war? Probably not and in hindsight, if he knew it was going to be this difficult, he probably wouldn't have started it, remember that Putin predicted that he would take Ukraine in a matter of weeks, months and he was banking on this being a quick war with little opposition from the west, he got all that wrong. Also, Putin didn't think it was possible for the EU and other European countries to move so quickly away from Russian oil and gas, many in the west didn't think it was possible, yet over the last two years, the shift has been remarkable and ongoing, that's costly for Russia on three fronts, one because he's losing one of his richest costumer, two, Russia is becoming more dependent on China, and three, we are seeing a renewable energy surge in a lot of countries, that's basically killing the fossil industry sooner rather than later, in the end, Putin didn't understand basic economics, never threaten your rich customers, because they can look at alternatives, which is more or less what they are doing.
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Honestly, I feel farmers get too much out of the EU already, especially on the budget, which they account for a sizeable amount of it.
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@Admin-gm3lc If they actually offered something beside poverty, maybe they would, the reality is, Russia is trying to exploit these countries whiles the EU is trying to develop them, you only have to look at the living standards in the Eastern European countries that joined the EU and the ones that didn't to see that and eventually those Eastern European countries that are in the EU will become modern first world countries like the west. Now ask yourself, do you really think Russia is going to help develop these countries when they can't really help themselves or do you think they will divide and conquer, basically, basically Russia wants to keep those eastern European countries weak so it can control them, the EU on the other hand wants to make them strong so they give both Russia and the EU an ear ache lol
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No wonder Bill lost it when he heard that lol.
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It's a lot more mixed in Europe whereas in the US, you get the impression rich, middle classes and poor are kinda gated off from each other, which causes a lot of problems when it comes to equality and poverty.
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True, which is ironically what the UK wants but is unlikely to achieve because most companies will follow EU regulations even for the UK market, after all, can you imagine many companies creating another division of goods just for the UK market? what's likely to happen is that the UK gets lumped into the EU rules, in a sense, the EU is creating a lot of the rules for the UK now without the UK having any say in them thanks to Brexit.
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@fedethefico Yeah their videos are becoming less balanced when it comes to the EU and Europe the last few months, glad I'm not the only one that noticed that.
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Yes and no on if the EU has failed the Balkans, yes in the sense that the EU should have been more encouraging in giving these countries hope that they can join, which likely would have helped them do the reforms needed to join, and also that the EU should have done reforms to its self years ago, especially on veto rules, which is probably the main reason why it would expand until there are reforms to the EU. But no in the sense that the EU isn't really the issue, some of the members in the EU are, some big reforms to the EU are needed and are long overdue, but there needs to be the political will from the EU members for real change to happen, momentum seems to be building on pushing for reforms, but that could take years and might not achieve much and honestly, too much time has been wasted over the last decade, that many countries that want to join have been losing hope, seeing the EU door firmly shut. Personally, I think reforms to the EU are needed before 2030 at the latest, with serious talks starting after the European Parliament elections later this year, and ideally, the talks should be concluded within two years, with them being implemented on the next European elections. If there are no real signs of change that countries that want to join, especially the ones doing the reforms to join, if there are no real signs they can join, many could look for alternatives away from the EU, something the likes of China and Russia will likely take advantage off. I do also wonder with Ukraine, if the EU and NATO were more open to encouraging reforms in the country, if they could have been much closer to being a member of the EU or even being a member of NATO, which likely would have prevented the war that's going on now. I also do think the EU should open more talks with the Balkan countries, being that they've opened the door with a few other countries recently like Ukraine, that could help to get things moving, but there is still a lot of work to do in those countries that want to join, a lot of reforms are needed, a reduction in corruption and so on, and there is also reforms of the EU that are needed, especially on the veto rules before any country can join, but at least if the EU shows signs of reforms and encourages those countries that want to join that they can with the reforms being done, it could go a long way politically and with the public in those countries in getting the reforms needed, whereas, if they lose hope, it becomes a lot harder for them, or worse, they could look at alternatives like Russia or China.
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The impression I'm getting is that he wasn't happy about it but understands the reasons behind it and it looks as if the US will let this slide because they really need to repair ties with the EU with all the antics and damage that Trump has done and like the video pointed out, this is just levelling the playing field.
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@gubruikertje People are well aware that Israel didn't start the war, but the way Israel is conducting this war is overkill and many countries around the world are taking note of that, which probably doesn't help the economic situation. There's self-defence and wanting to respond to what happened, but clearly in the eyes of many around the world, Israel is taking it too far, which could escalate the war into something much worse in the region or it could damage Israel's economy longer term. Either way, the longer the war drags on, the less investment is likely to happen in Israel, the higher the chances of the war escalating in the region, it's not doing Israel any favours the longer it drags out.
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An easy way to find out, have another vote and see what the real will of the people is, why do leavers fear another vote so much? if they truly think the British people want to leave the EU then another vote wont change anything, in fact it if leave won again, the remain side wont have a leg to stand on. The truth is, the hardliners fear another vote because they had to lies so much to win the first vote and now that we've had 2 years to expose a lot of the leavers lies and see how bad Brexit is going and seeing that the EU isn't offering any cake and cherries, the hardliners fear that another vote, the British public are less likely to fall for the lies a second time around, thats what they really fear.
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It's not by lack of trying, even Africa with the African Union is trying to emulate the EU. But we should remember that the EU came about from the ashes of the second world war, there was a lot of political and public will to do major changes, and even then, it's not easy and takes a long time as we see with the EU its self. In a sense, it was a lot easier for European countries to do it because much of Europe was flattened after the second world war, but I do support these other regions in South America, Africa and Asia to do this, as it would likely create more stability among the nations involved, whiles also creating economic growth, and with any luck, political stability, especially if there are a lot of checks and balances like the EU does, something I think that needs extending further as we see with Hungary and Poland drifting. Another thing we should remember, the European countries have shown it can work, yes it has its ups and downs, but overall, it's been a massive success, the blueprint is already there for others to emulate, but each region is different and will need different policies that fit better for the given region. In the case of the African Union, the real flaw in that is that there is no carrot and stick for its members to change, the EU encourages wannabe countries to change a lot by the political and economic benefits they stand to gain, the African Union isn't doing any of that by letting any African country join, regardless of what the countries do, that for me is the wrong way to do it and personally, I think some of these other unions need to scale back a bit so that the countries that want it to work, can go ahead with it, reap the benefits of it, which in time will leave a carrot to use on other countries in the region to want to join, whiles also using the stick to get a lot of political and economic reforms done that will benefit both sides a lot. To see an example of that, just look at Hungary and Poland, if they were not in the EU now, they would quickly be shifting towards a political model like what we see in Russia, where the voice of the people doesn't matter, because they are in the EU, they have to be extra careful in what they do, and the EU is always on their backs to pull them back into line, I don't feel the union in South America, African Union has any of this, which is a massive deal to create stability, both political and economic, as well as growth.
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@RafaelW8 Don't underestimate the Tories lol, they've been a disaster for the UK going all the way back to the financial crisis. It's remarkable that Brits continue to vote them in, expecting a different result lol.
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Russians don't know any better, for many of them, they think they are living in the best country in the world, it's more or less what the system drums into them. If Russians could just live one year in another western country, they would get a major wake-up call for how bad things are in Russia, both politically and economically, and don't get me wrong, the west isn't perfect, not by a long shot, but compared to some of these other systems around the world, the west have it good, especially in Western Europe which really have it good thanks to a lot of the social policies in place.
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The thing is about Trump is that he is showing why the UK really should stay in the EU and with how the world is changing, the UK and rest of the EU members really need to stick together if they are to protect there intrest, the reality is, the UK just isn't big enough to compete with the likes of the EU, US and China and will always play second fiddle to them, so we are not really taking back control, it's just being redirected and dictated to by other powers without the UK having any say over it.
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@chrisrios4303 I think he's talking about compared to every other rich nation that is doing far better on that scale, the US likes to keep saying they are the best but when you look at other rich modern countries, so many things are being done better in them then the US that benefit the poor and middle classes, it's not even funny but it is sad because too many Americans assume they are the best and that makes it harder to do real change that would benefit them and that is why nothing much really changes in politics because they use the argument of saying, well it's not as bad as it is in other countries which is a really weak argument for them to use. They should compare to modern countries only or better yet, live in one of those countries for a few years, that's the best way to get a major wake up call of the flaws back home, I know this because I've lived in both the EU and US for years and that's when you realize how bad things have got in the US in so many areas. What makes it really sad is that it's going to get a lot worse once the economic fallout of this virus hits.
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The real issue isn't just limited to the EU countries, it's happening in many countries around the world, including the US, and for me, immigration isn't the core issue, I think the real issue over the last 10-15 years is that people feel like they are being squeezed, living standards don't feel like they are getting better, especially for low and middle income people, this is creating a lot of anger and people are lashing out, so unless any political party does some real changes that lift living standards from the bottom up, I suspect the situation could get worse, maybe a lot worse if nothing changers. In the end, misery fuels the radical elements in society, to reduce that, the quality of life needs to improve for all and this pattern is playing out in many countries, the US with Trump, the UK with Brexit, Italy with the current government and in many other EU countries, a lot of people are not happy with how things are, with immigration and the EU being used as a scapegoat to vent angry for how things have been getting over the last 10-15 years. Things could get worse unless there's some radical changes in rebalancing the economy to raise living standards from the bottom up, the irony being is that the traditional centre parties seem blind to that reality, which is ironic because these so-called radical parties are the biggest threat to them, especially the ones that tone things down when in power.
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True, it kinda reminds me of Putin years ago when he took over Crimea, the west was too soft on Putin, so he took his chances and invaded all Ukraine. Dictators or wannabe dictators only understand one language, and that's much tougher measures against them that makes them think twice about their actions, appeasement or soft touch doesn't work, it emboldens them to want to take more. Both the EU and US needs to get their act together in a world that is becoming more hostile and unstable, they need to start doing what's right and create more stability before things get out of hand, otherwise, things could escalate quite quickly that drags us all in it, and with the rise of the far right in Europe and North America, we might have already left it too late by being too soft with appeasement, I mean serious, the likes of Putin, XI and others are playing games, trying to divide us and manipulate us, Putin has been very successful at that in both the EU and US over the last decade, and all we've done is give him a slap on the wrist for it. Some might not realise it but war has already started with two camps against each other with Putin trying his best to divide the western camps in the EU and US and has been quite successful on that, XI trying to divide the EU away from the US, and then we have all the other pawns in many countries being used.from Serbia to Hungary and so on.
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@bencze465 There are special occasions and international events, but America do sing the national anthem far more than other modern open countries and at events that don't seem to make much sense to sing it, and they do it far more. From the outside, it looks like a cult in trying to condition the mindset of the people, which is ironic, because if history is any indicator on the kind of countries that do that to their people, well let's just say it's not the company you want to be involved with, basically the likes of the Nazis, China, Russia and other countries that want to condition the way of thinking of its people, and like many others have said, it's weird, and from what I can tell, the US is the only modern country that does it, and people should ask the question of why they do it, and it's not hard to see the reason.
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It's not really that surprising, from an outside perspective, it's a lot easier to see things clearly, in the UK, too many Brits got too emotional on Brexit and it clouded their judgement. Also, we should remember that the UK has a very hostile media against the EU for decades that have been bashing the EU, clarity wasn't going to be the Brits strong point with that kind of messaging for so many decades.
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@dutchball2345 It's power display day, dictators always like to express power to its own people and especially to the people of the world to say, look at what we've got lol. Since the war in Ukraine, these parades have been a lame duck for Putin and if he really wanted to impress, he would have a full on parade with the usually military equipment to say to the west, not only do we have enough for the war in Ukraine, but we have enough for a parade. In the end, all Putin is showing is weakness with the parade, that resources are running thin that he needs everything for the war effort in Ukraine, but let's not kid ourselves, if Putin could spare more for the parade, he would, it's what dictators do.
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Thats always the case, if there is something I've noticed of Brexiteers and euroseptics over the last few decades is that they always pin the blame on others and the good thing about Brexit if it happens is that they wont be able to do that anymore, anything that happens in the UK will be down to the UK goverment then, lets see what scapegoat they come up with then.
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I think the EU and US should try to be close friends but I also feel the EU countries should distant themselves from the US, especially on economic matters with the US using trade as a political weapon. I also think EU countries should look more at what's in their interest, even if it hurts US interest when it comes to China, after all, the US shows little regard for EU interest, so why should we show any for US interest, and this is also the case for a lot of countries around the world that the US doesn't seem to care about, distancing themselves from the US, especially on the economic front is probably the smart thing to do so as to be less exposed to the US economy, which will make it much harder for the likes of Trump to use trade as a political weapon, it will also help other countries around the world whiles sobering the US down, which I think it's needed as a reality check. In any case, Trump isn't the problem, he got elected twice after all, the real problem is US politics and voters thinking patterns in the US, that isn't going to change much after Trump is out of power and because of that, countries around the world really need to start looking at alternatives away from the US.
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I can confirm as a Brit, about 2 years in the Brexit process, I started to look more towards the EU over the UK system, having more trust in it, where now I feel like I'm more interested in news that's going on in the EU than in the UK, but that doesn't mean I'm detached to what's going on in the UK, I live here after all, but it's remarkable how good of a job the Brexiteers have turned me off many things in the UK, especially UK politics, something I thought I would never hear my self say but the Brexit process was such a shit shows on the UK said whereas the EU side was reasonable, calm and collective, it made me disillusioned with the UK and I know many others are thinking the same. The way the UK handled Brexit has made me less proud to be British whiles admiring the composure from the EU side, after all, the way the UK side behaved on Brexit, the EU side could have got a lot tougher on the UK, but they didn't and kept composed, that gained a lot of respect from me on the EU and really highlighted the real problems in the UK are self-inflicted on its self, with the EU being the natural scapegoat to blame all the wrongs in the UK. Still, it's nice to see that a lot of other Brits are starting to open up their eyes on the UK system and on the EU, but it's just noise, without actions to back up the difference in views, it means very little. On the plus side, it does look like relations are somewhat getting better between the EU and UK, but I don't expect big changes until the Conservative Party are out of power, and unless we see a massive shift in policy from Labour on the EU, I don't expect much change from them and I feel both major parties are creating division in the UK, whiles making it difficult to hold the 4 UK nations together and many like to firmly put the blame on the Tories and a lot of the blame on Brexit is on them, but Labour are playing a big part on why Brexit is a mess, especially with them trying to make a failed deal work and not change course and as you can see, I've lost a lot of trust in both major parties, which are only saying what they think we want to hear and saying what they think will get them in power, I don't sense for a second from either party that they care about making the UK better.
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@tomlxyz The EU doesn't have the powers in these areas, that's where the real problem is, each EU member is doing its own thing, the only two ways to solve this is either all the borders go up which would over the long run make us poorer, or the EU needs to be given more powers to enforce the external borders of the union, as well as immigration policies. The real problem isn't the EU, it's the actually members with the problem being exposed by having open borders in a union that the EU has little powers in enforcing the outer borders.
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In a way yes, but that dancing act is holding Serbia back, after all, Serbia is in one of the best positions to join the EU and probably could have been a member by now, so that dancing act is holding back the economy, after all, Serbia is one of the poorest countries in Europe, that balancing act of playing all sides also means Serbia is being used by many of these sides for political gains. Either way, the eastern EU countries and countries that want to join the EU will likely pull ahead of countries that play games. So no, Serbia isn't playing this game smart, they are playing themselves, thinking they are playing the others, after all, China and Russia are using them to score points against the west, the US likely doesn't care about Serbia, but the EU, if Serbia becomes a member, would propel its economy that would have a big impact on living standards for all its citizens, so the one that's being played here is Serbia and I wonder how long it will take before they realise that, probably as other countries join the EU and there economy develops faster, or as the eastern EU countries continue to pull away from them in economic development.
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Very true, it's easy to complain about the EU and it not doing enough but the truth is, it's not got the power to do things in many areas and I do agree that the European Parliament should be given more of a say, but I also think reforms to the EU are needed, especially on the EU Commission and President to make it more accountable and closer to the people.
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Italy's problems seem a bit like the UK but in the UK, there's a north-south divide with no easy fix. But I sense the problems in Italy are worse with the division and corruption. Can these problems be solved? Of course they can, but a lot of work and political will is needed to solve these problems and we are talking decades of work not years to really repair this damage, this is the case for both the division in Italy and the UK. In any case, Italy trying to blame the EU for its problems is the same mistake the UK did, many in the UK, especially the north blamed the EU for the problems in the UK, the UK ended up realising after Brexit that the EU wasn't the problem and that the real issues were with the government and the institutions in the country, I feel it's the same in Italy, basically, stop using the EU as a scapegoat for the problems in a country as that isn't solving the problem, much deeper reforms, a reduction in corruption and changes to the institution to make the economy more dynamic are needed. As the UK found out, blaming the EU for all the problems is sidestepping the issue and not solving the problem, Italy have been doing the same mistake, and in the case of the UK, it only dawns on them once the UK was out of the EU and they couldn't blame the EU for all the problems in the UK, I hope Italy doesn't fall for that same trap that some in the far right want to push, because it will only make things worse for Italy, in fact, more so then it's doing for the UK as the UK is seen as more stable than Italy. Anyway, I'm more in favour of regional governance of the regions depending on how it's done and implemented, but richer regions should always help out the poorer regions so to not allow a massive imbalance in the country, but that help should be conditional on reforms and change, basically, the rich northern regions continue to help the southern regions but under the condition that the southern regions help themselves and that should be the case in all countries, after all, letting regions in a country fall behind isn't good for anyone in the country and there are a lot of economic benefits to be had by helping them to develop, but these regions have to be pushed to develop, so no free handouts and continue to help them but with conditions. As for devolution, there are some benefits to that, who after all is going to listen and be more connected to the local regions more, a regional leader or state leader? The closer the leaders are to the people, the more likely they are to listen to local concerns compared to a national government, but with that said, there are many things that are better done at a national level or EU level, it's really up to us to find the right balance that works for all, but clearly, the current system in Italy and many other countries isn't working as the system feels too detached from the population and there concerns, hence the right of the far right in Europe and North America,
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Considering how integrated the EU countries already are, I can well see in time when it becomes something like a federal Europe or something like that, especially for Euro Zone countries. I suspect a big reason it will happen not because we want it as such but because of the changing realities in the world, if we in Europe want to stay relevant with other big powers like the US and China, we're going to have to band together in more areas, otherwise they will just push us aside which could become a threat to the European social, political and economic model. Basically, I don't think we have much choice if we still want to get our own way, but the real question is, what form of government and system would it be? As for Volt, don't know much about them but going on many of their policies, they seem quite progressive in a lot of areas and yes, many of these problems would be much better served at an EU level, migrants being one of them because the real problem is with that is that you get members complaining to each other in how many each should take and some taking too many whiles others not doing enough, a pan-European policy would help a lot on that.
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@puck7520 Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are practically in the EU more than what the UK was when it was fully in with all the op-outs the UK had lol. But in the case of those countries that are out but kinda in, they have little to no say in EU law making so they more or less have to rubber stamp them, in that sense, those countries would be better off inside the EU then the deal they have now and maybe someday that will happen.
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Pretty much everything the UK goverments said since Brexit is more or less wanting it's cake to eat and the EU rejecting it, it's like the UK goverment thinks the EU should accomodate the UK and change to give the UK everything it wants which seems to be everything the EU offers but without any of the cost, crazy really but it explains why the UK is going nowhere fast with these talks. In the end, I suspect once all the huffing and puffing from our goverment is over with, we will end up in the single market and custom union or something that amounts to that under a diffrent name, it seems to be the only way to limit the damage of Brexit whiles protecting the Irish boarder and services, so far after two years, no other plan seems to work realisticlly, in any case, it does beg the question, if we stay in both of them, then why not just stay in the EU, at least we would have a say in all the rules then because the way things are going, the UK is going to end up a rule taker and not maker.
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That's the name of the game, blame others for what's going wrong in one country, Brexiteers like to blame all the wrongs in the UK on the EU even thought most of what's wrong in the UK are down to UK national governments policies, Trump supporters are the same in the US, it's others faults and not their own, they always like to deflect blame away and not look in the mirror to where the real problem is. On the plus side, the UK won't have that excuse after Brexit, that's when reality starts to come in that the UK government was the problem all along and the EU wasn't really much of an issue, even better because the Conservative government has a clear majority, so they can't deflect blame on the EU or on others like the Labour Party, basically, it's them that will have to own the mess that happens and throw in the mess they are making with the pandemic, well I suspect the next 5 years could be quite tough for many.
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They probably did well not because of their policies but because of the fear of the far right, most of the public don't want things being turned upside down, which if too many of the far right got into power, it would probably do, most want stability and a better quality of life. Basically, the problem is with the far right is that a lot of their support is from protest voters that are angry at mainstream parties, their policies are not really that strong in many areas and it would be reckless to give them too much power without a fleshed out agenda on policies across the board. With that said, some of the far right parties have been given a chance of more power, if they mess that up with too many radical policies, they can quickly get wiped out by the voters on the next election or the one after, it's the reason why so many of the radical parties, tone down there policies as they get close or in power, they want to appeal to a wider voters base and radical policies rarely does that, and it's also why centre parties are so successful, they are more willing to compromise, to listen to more concerns across the political landscape and are more likely to be willing to work with other parties to get things done. In other words, the far right have got their chance, let's see how they do with real policies, because voters have given them a chance, but they won't wait long before they turn on them, especially if they mess up with some policies and because of that, I suspect many of them will tone things down to try and build on there success, just like many others across Europe have already done, basically, they've been given a taste of power, they'll be on edge now in not wanting to mess that up.
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I don't think the EU needs to follow an existing system that is out there, it's a new project that's work in progress and I think it would make more sense to create a new system whiles looking at the good and bad of all the other major systems around the world and try and improve on that, especially when connecting with the people because a lot of systems seem quite distant from the public, which I don't think is healthy for a democracy. I also think mandatory voting should be a thing as we tend to see that with lower turn out, it allows more of the radical elements in society to gain power which isn't good for anyone, also, considering governments impact us all, it makes sense that we all should vote, we also need to find ways to get people more involved in politics, I find it crazy how so many either don't vote or even know what they are voting on which isn't good for a democracy because a democracy is only as good as the people involved, hence the mandatory voting part, this should include the media that should be reporting on the facts and not fabricating the news as we see in the UK and US. As for the EU project, I think it's only a matter of time before it becomes a lot more integrated into some kind of united union that feels more like a single country than union that it is today and the reason for that is the US, China and a rising India, some will say Russia but let's be honest, Russia is a dying power that's lashing out, a bit like the UK is, after all, Russia has an economy that's only a bit bigger than Spain, in other words, they are no match for the EU, US and China if they put that economic might to any venture they choose. Anyway, I think it will happen and not because of want but because of need, realistically, if European countries want to protect out political, economic and social interest, we're going to have to band together a lot more than we've already done and I'm saying that as a Brit and even I know even with Brexit that we need the EU. The alternative is a weak union which will lead to other major powers like the US and China taking advantage of Europeans and very likely watering down many of our standards like food standards, workers rights and so on, something the US has already tried to do with food standards but are not in a position to do it yet, that can change if we Europeans don't get our act together and don't think it can't because major powers tend to bully smaller ones to get what they want, the UK might be a prime example of that with other trading nations getting far better terms out of the UK then they could when the UK was part of the EU. Anyway, I always feel it makes sense to have as much power at a local level in areas where it makes sense and I don't mean at a country level but more region level that's closer to the people of that region, power should only be reserve at a higher level when it makes sense, so the military, foreign policy, currency, boarder control, energy security and other things like setting high standards in many areas like workers rights, food standards and so on, it could be a 3 tier system where powers that make sense at a local level should be used there, then at a national level or state level if you prefer and then a supernational level like the EU and clearly a lot of work is still needed.
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A world where the US isolates its self would force EU countries to combine their military powers together, in other words, they would likely be forced to take that role, which they've got the economy, manufacturing capabilities, skill set to do it but lack of need to do it, but the US isolating its self would be a massive incentive for Europeans in the EU to get their act together, after all, political will and direction changes on world events, just like the EU came about after the second world war. But in truth, the US won't isolate its self for one simply reason, political and economic benefits to the US, the US isolating its self would actually hurt US political and economic interest, after all, the US doesn't have all these army bases around the world out of the goodness of their heart.
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I think the main problem with Japan is there secret nature as a country compared to western countries which are far more open. Japan had the advantage until the 90's because Japan jumped on the tech train before western countries did, but in the 90's, we had a tech boom that both North America and Europe jumped on, it wiped out the advantage Japan has had and Japan have been struggling ever since and it's just simple things from slow adoption to the internet because it's a western tech. What really surprises me is that this has been going on for 35 years and you would think that Japan would do some major policy changes to kick-start its economy, but it's struggling ever since and things would have been worse for Japan if it wasn't for the economic boom in the Asian region which has a knock on effect on boosting growth on nearby countries. Personally, I think Japan is going to continue to sink compared to its rivals in the region unless drastic changes are done at a political and economic level and considering little has changed over 35 years, it doesn't bold well for the future of Japan.
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I think with everything going on in Ukraine, relations with the EU and US are going to get stronger on a number of fronts, military, economy, foreign policy and probably in areas of democracy, because clearly, western standards are being undermine by Russia and a rising China as well as the authoritarian governments around the world. For all the differences the EU and US have, they share a lot more in common and with how the world is changing, they are likely going to need each other in the coming decades as I don't think either one of them on their own can compete with a rising China, but together they can, especially because that will bring a lot more countries closer to them. The UK might be the odd one out, it's not in the EU which makes them less relevant and useful for the US or EU, they are also showing a lot of the traits like braking international treaties, basically, they are undermining the international rule based economy that the US had a big part in creating with now the EU and US maintaining and because of that, many countries like Russia, China and many authoritarian governments are thinking, if the UK can brake these rules, why can't they do the same? The EU and US needs to be firmer with the UK on that before things unravel.
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Higher prices is actually a good thing, yeah I know it's painful in the short term but it ends up killing those industries sooner rather than later, because more effort and investments go into alternatives when prices are high and considering that much of the world is already on the march for clean renewable energy, the high price is only going to help by pushing the doubters aside that keep dragging their feet. It's also quite self-defeating for the oil producing nations, cutting supple might end up pushing the price up in the short term, but you end up selling less whiles creating a boom to your rivals, the end result is that these industries are killing themselves faster than they need to do. There's a big march towards EV cars and heat pumps, that's pushing everything towards electric whiles slowly killing the oil and gas industries, higher prices can only help that by more investments in renewable energy and battery tech, and they know this, after all, look at every energy crisis in the past, they tend to be short-lived, because money is thrown at the renewable industry for alternatives, which scares the hell out of the fossil industry, basically, the market is only going to bear high prices for a short time, keep the prices high and they'll kill those industries a lot quicker than it would normally do, hence why high prices don't last that long. As for oil producing nations, especially in the Middle East and Russia, they need to be careful, the Ukraine war has started a gold rush for renewable energy in the EU, US and China, the price going up is only going to help that, some countries are too dependent on oil and gas revenue, by them trying to think they are smart, could very well backfire on them, after all, the ones with the real power are the rich buyers, they dictate where the money goes, as Russia found out on oil and gas.
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The problem is in the US, when the Cold War was raging on, the American people got hypnotized and brainwashed into thinking that anything socialism is bad and capitalism is good and that for me is where the real problem is in the US and that won't be easy to change because of that level of brainwashing, in other words, the American people have to change if they want real change and need to stop assuming they are the best when clearly that isn't the case, the US can learn a lot from how other things do things better, more so in Europe. Now don't get me wrong, capitalism isn't a bad system if balanced right, Europe in the EU countries do it much better and even there I think they could do it better which thanks to this coronavirus, big changes that benefit the European people might happen, but in the US I'm not convinced unless the American people stand up and fight back. We only have to look at how both European countries and the US are dealing with this virus and dealing with the public, many European countries are putting in place where the government is protecting a lot of the jobs whiles also paying a high percentage of their wages, whereas in the US, we are seeing $1200 per person which isn't going to go that far really and it begs the question of how much bail-outs big corporations will get which in the case of the US, tax payers will likely pay that with higher taxes, in Europe it's hard to say how that will go but I suspect they are going to go after the rich elites a lot more to get them to pay their fair share in taxes from people to corporations, we were already seeing signs of that with the EU, this coronavirus is likely going to ramp things up to a new level on that. So in Europe and more so the EU countries, things look a lot more hopeful for real change once the dust settles but as for the US, I think the public are going to have to fight hard to get any real change because I highly doubt the rich elites will fold too easy considering they have pretty much everything in their back pockets in the US. On the plus side, this coronavirus could be the first big push to get universal health care in the US as this is a massive event we are going through and it will be interesting to see what real changesets happen in both the EU and US markets after all this because it's not going to be business as usual as something, big changes are ahead even if it's going to be painful to get them.
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Never say never, after all, some used to say we would never have a Europe like we do with the EU today back in the 1940's, a lot can change if there is enough political and public will to make it happen, and in the case of Ukraine, it wouldn't take that much to bring them in because for the most part, they are not that different from other EU members, whereas Turkey on the other hand would take a lot more work to bring them in, but even that is possible someday.
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@kagenlim5271 But he is right thought, the sheer size of China population gives it a lot of political and economic clout, that isn't changing any time soon. To put it another way, the US only became a superpower because it was the only modern country with such a big population, there's nothing special about the US apart from that it's population size is far bigger then any individual European country, that normally defines power if you can modernise the economy to back up that population. China has the population, they've been having impressive economic growth for decades, that very likely spooked Washington, because the writing was on the wall, if that growth continues, China would end up being far bigger than the US, and that is more or less why the US is being so hostile on China now, it sees it as a threat to its core power around the world. The irony is, the US does this with any power it sees as a threat to it's own, we saw it with Japan in the 80's, we saw it with the EU in the 90's and onwards, which the US won't with weakening Japan but are getting nowhere with the EU, probably because Japan has a much smaller population, that it was surprising how powerful they actually got, whereas the EU have a big population so it's much harder for the US to push them around. Either way, US actions on China suggest they see China as a major threat to them, after all, when you cut through all the BS, actions usually speak louder than words and the US is showing that on China, for many on the outside of the US, they see the US as fearing China.
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That's been the case for many parties across the EU that have advocated for leaving the Euro or the EU but have backtracked on that, especially the closer to power they get. It's easy to advocate on the sideline in what they want to do, it's another thing to follow through, hence why a lot of those parties seems to become more moderate the closer to power they get, they likely realise that if they mess up, it's their neck on the line, after all, most of us want stability and moderation in our lives, shaking things upside down usually has a negative impact on the population, as we saw with Trump in the US, Brexit in the UK and the popularise movements that do gain power in Europe. Some are starting to learn like the Italian government to become more moderate to appeal to more voters, I sense that is happening across the EU, and if so, they are no real threat, apart from the mainstream parties.
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That's true, it's remarkable how many seem to think you still need to use the command line or that gaming on Linux isn't that great and so on. Truth is, Linux is quite an easy OS to use, it's different from Windows so there is a bit of a learning curve but that's the case for anything that's different and as we're seeing with the Steam Deck, Linux is more than capable at running games. That doesn't mean Linux is perfect, but it's in a much better place now than it was just 5 years ago.
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Religion is probably the biggest reason why we are not seeing any big powers in the Middle East, religion tends to hold back growth in a lot of sectors that harms the economy a lot, in fact we see that in the west where countries with less religion tend to be more economically successful, in fact, the Republic of Ireland before joining the EU was a basket case, now with far less religion in the country, they are one of the richest countries per capita. Now don't get me wrong, religion isn't the only reason for the problems in the Middle East but it's a big part of the reason.
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Germany and France do carry a lot of weight in the EU, but that doesn't mean they can do whatever they want, they have to get enough support from enough EU members to get things done, and this is the case for all EU countries, big or small, if they've got any constructive ideas and can get enough support from other EU members, the odds of these ideas being implemented are boosted, and these ideas can come from any EU country, big or small. So the key to influence in the EU is working with other EU members, being constructive and also willing to compromise, of the big countries, Germany and France have been good at this over the decades when compared to the UK or Italy which have not been that great at it, many small EU members are also good at it, it's all about being a team player where the real influence and power is when it comes to the EU.
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The wariness is because the US tends to be quite an emotional country in the leaders it picks, you only have to see that with Trump but it goes much earlier than that with Bush and 9/11, a lot of policies were done based on emotions and self-interest and not for the greater good, it was around that time when I realized that EU countries need an EU military. But it's not just the US, I think the EU and US would have a close relationship anyway because of it's core shared values, the real threat is the rise of China which I doubt the EU or US on their own will be able to contain in the long run, that's why I think the EU will have to build a strong military to help protest western values.
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Yeah, if you're playing competitively, you want to keep the red balls bunched together, unless you're playing for fun, then you can open the balls up on the break to speed up the game. Also yeah, to what he said about the balls rolling a lot more, that's accurate to a real table, the balls roll a lot more on snooker compared to pool, and I would say mastering the pace and setting up is among the more difficult things to learn with snooker, master those two and the game becomes much easier.
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It's doesn't work anyway because the EU can return the favor and put sanctions on American companies, both sides lose out in the long run but in the end, the US started this even thought Iran was sticking to the agreement, I don't see why other companies should listen to the US when they throw there toys out of the pram and threaten other countries that trade with Iran when Iran is doing everything of the ageement that was set, it really makes the US look bad and less trustworthy in the worlds eyes, it also could weaken the US in the long run. Think about it, the US pulled out of that TPP deal thinking that without the US, it would fall apart, what ended up happening is thoes countries went ahead with it and ignored the US, now we hear noise about the US thinking of joining TPP again, it's making the US look weak and also showing that you don't need to listen to the US as much as some like to think and the same thing can happen with this Iran deal if the EU and many others ignore the US, this is how decline happens and I doubt Trump even sees that.
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Considering that Finland is an EU and NATO member, it would be suicide for Putin to take Finland on, both the EU and NATO have a clause that an attack on one is an attack on all, if they didn't get involved, it would weaken both organisations a lot. Also in the case of the EU, being as Finland is a lot more integrated both politically and economically into the organisation, the impact would be much higher on EU countries than NATO ones, in other words, it would more or less force other EU countries to intervene because of how tightly integrated they are, whereas NATO, not much is holding its members together and it's never been tested to see if other members would come to the aid of the one being invaded. To put it another way, an attack on Finland would have a political and economic cost on other EU members because of how closely integrated they are, whereas with NATO, would it really impact the US if Finland were invaded?
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It's the system, not so much the people that is the problem on why so many don't see the US as that appealing, at least from other modern countries, but the system reflects on the people as they have the power to change the system. Personally, there are countless issues I see with the US that are not appealing, polarised politics, two party system that's first past the post, for profit health care system, poor workers rights by modern standards, lack of paid holidays, lower food standards and countless other social programs, the list can go on and on, on why the US seems unappealing to many from the outside, especially from modern countries that take for granted a lot of the social benefits and protections they have. So it's not really about the people as such, the system they live in is the problem, also there are safety issues, stats show that the US is far less safe compared to other countries and when you look at the things that really matter in life, quality of life, it's more or less dominated by European countries with a few outside of Europe in the top 10, which I think is Canada, Australia and Japan. Also, let's not forget about the patriotism and flag waving, it's very cult like in the US which isn't normal in other modern countries, in fact, it's more normal in systems like China, Russia and even the Nazis, basically, systems that want to condition the mindset of people to think a certain way whiles making sure they stay ignorance, I suspect that's done so the system can screw over the citizens far more, and Americans do get screwed over far more compared to other modern countries, also, the pledge of allegiance, that's just creepy, the idea of trying to condition kids at such a young age is a real clear indication of indoctrination, with the aim of making it's citizens think they are the best, no question and to not question the system to make it better, which allows the system to say to it's citizens to shut up and be grateful you've got it the best, it's all lies to fool the people with the aim of screwing them over, after all, if most Americans actually knew of the benefits citizens get in other modern countries, I suspect there would be more demand for change, but fortunately for the elites in the US, most Americans are clueless about the outside world and that's how they want to keep it so they can keep taking advantage of the American people, from the outside it's so easy to see.
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@trimaxionerror5696 It's a long list and you asked for it so here it is. Greek Civil War (1944–1948) Indonesian National Revolution (1945–1949) Operation Masterdom (1945–1946) Corfu Channel incident (1946–1948) Malayan Emergency (1948–1960) Korean War (1950–1953) 1951 Anglo-Egyptian War (1951–1952) Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960) Jebel Akhdar War (1954–1959) Cyprus Emergency (1955–1959) Suez Crisis (1956–1957) Border Campaign (1956–1962) First Cod War (1958–1961) Upper Yafa disturbances (1959) Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation (1962–1966) Dhofar Rebellion (1962–1975) Aden Emergency (1963–1967) Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970) The Troubles (1968–1998) Second Cod War (1972–1973) Third Cod War (1975–1976) Falklands War (1982) Multinational Force in Lebanon (1982–1984) Gulf War (1991) Bosnian War (1992–1995) Operation Desert Fox (1998) Kosovo War (1998–1999) Sierra Leone Civil War (2000–2002) War in Afghanistan Fourth Anglo-Afghan War (2001–2014) Iraq War (2003–2009) Libyan Civil War (2011) Operation Shader (2014–present) Persian Gulf crisis (2019–present) As you can see, it's rare that the UK isn't at war since the second world war, now compare that to Germany which have hardly been in any since, it's like the Germans became less warmongering whereas the Brits became more and what is it with all those cod wars? are we going to have another one with the EU? lol.
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As a Brit, I actually consider the UK and US democracy to be some of the weakest in the western world with its first past the post, mainly two party system and regional groupings which tends to ignore a lot of our votes. The EU isn't perfect but I have more faith in them then I do in the UK government with everything they've been going on the last 5 or so years. As for Scotland and Northern Ireland, a true democracy wouldn't have any issues with them having a voice on if they want to stay or leave and in fact should be able to have a voice at their choosing, clearly thought, we've got Westminster trying to dictate terms and block a referendum in Scotland and you have to wonder how would the Brexiteers react to that if the EU did the same to the UK on the Brexit referendum, I think they would go ape, but then the EU is a lot smarter than this current UK government.
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That's the thing, the EU can adapt to all this, Russia will find it much harder to find other rich customers and the EU and US is very likely going to actually put a lot of pressure on countries that do buy cheap oil and gas from Russia. Also, it's unlikely that China, India and others will want to buy too much from Russia as they won't want to be too dependent on Russia in case they get political with its energy reserves. I think that's where the real damage is, it's with trust, Russia using energy as a political weapon has broken all trust in them and that's going to take years if not decades to repair, no country, not even a friendly country can be stupid enough to get too dependent on Russia, knowing they could turn the screws on them at any moment. I think that is where the real damage is for Russia and it's long term.
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@pascalausensi9592 He's right thought, we do need a better system, GDP numbers is a poor indicator of the wealth and well-being of its citizens, and I think we need a system that works from the ground up, basically a system that puts pressure on improving the lower and middle classes, because the way it is with GDP numbers, it only tells you how much wealth there is in a country, it tells us very little on how that wealth is distributed, how even it is and even if it's improving the quality of life. In any case, you know it's a messed up system when a disaster like an earthquake is added as economic growth because of the rebuilding effort, because yes in the long run, that rebuilding effort could add more growth, but in the short term, it's a net loss in economic productivity, basically, that kind of thing should hurt economic growth in the short term, but the way the system works, it's added as economic growth, which is why reality and economic data is getting so distance apart from each other and why so many people are so angry in North American and Europe with voting for popularise movements, because the economic data says things are getting better but for most, the reality is that things are either stagnant or even going backwards, hence why so many vote for the likes of Trump, Brexit and the other popularise movements and that could get worse if the system doesn't start listening to the concerns of the people.
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Odds do look quite good, but if not by December, I don't think it will be too far in the future that Georgia will become a candidate.
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@franznatur That's 450 million rich consumers, also, many of these laws pass onto other European countries like Norway and Switzerland that are not in the EU. Basically, it's a massive market that can't be ignored, hence why a lot of these rules the EU does, ends up becoming worldwide rules. The US could do the same but they are not that great on consumer protection.
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I think realistically, before the EU can bring in new members, it's going to need to reform the EU, especially on vetoes and majority voting, otherwise, more members will make the system unworkable. I think with vetoes, either it needs to go or it needs to be based on a percentage of countries to block something, not where it is now where anyone member can hold the rest to ransom, it's easy to see how that can create grid lock as more members join. The second is majority voting, that could be done on population size and amount of members that vote a given way, it could even be done in a way where you need a percentage of the population and members to pass or veto a motion. I think treaty change needs to happen over the next 3 years and whiles that is going on, the countries wanting to join the EU, can do the reforms needed to join, after all, joining the EU is no quick process and how quick it happens usually depends on the reforms the country does. In the case of Ukraine, a few things need to happen, the above reforms of the EU, the war in Ukraine needs to come to an end and a lot of reforms, the reforms part is probably much easier to achieve now thanks to Putin because any government in Ukraine will use the threat of Russia to push reforms through, they will also make the ones holding out feel guilty into pushing the reforms through, in other words, it should be much easier for Ukraine to do the reforms needed to join the EU then it was before the war, still the war will need to come to an end before that can start. But let's not kid ourselves, it's no quick process, there is no such thing as fast tracking a country in like Ukraine wants, how quickly a country joins is really up to how quickly the country in question does the reforms needed to join, some countries are quite fast on that, others drag their feet. One thing is certain, thanks to Putin's aggression, more countries want to join the EU than they did before the war, the EU is also more open to expending eastwards, that in time is likely going to get other countries to want to join but like I said above, first the EU needs to reform its self before any country can join, Hungary and Poland are proof that change is needed, which is ironic because Poland and Hungary are the two countries that want the EU to let these other countries in and yet they are the biggest roadblock from letting it happen, especially with Hungary. Also, what is it with some countries that seem to think that if they complain a lot or try to guilt them into speeding up the process of letting them in? That doesn't work, the EU is a very rules based organization, if any country wants to join, it really is up to the country in question how quickly they can join, in other words, do the reforms needed and solve the other issues they have, especially boarder issues, it's not magic, it's just common sense and hence why some countries join much faster then others.
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It really doesn't matter what the system is called, it can be any system, what is important is that EU countries need to start working much closer together if they want to protect their interest.
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Immigration isn't the problem, it's the way it's done within the EU that's the problem, basically, you've got an EU with no boarders internally, but then you've got boarders and immigration policies being done by 27 countries, it's easy to see how that can create a mess and there are only two solutions to that, either close all the boarders inside the EU, which would be unpopular among Europeans, or the EU will need to be given more powers when it comes to external boarders and immigration. The irony is about Japan, it's a country that's going into decline because of not bringing in enough immigration, which is having a negative impact on the population size and weakening the country in so many areas.
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What I always find is that leaders tend to be less popular if they've been in power for some time or if the economic situation isn't good in the country, both of which usually have a negative impact on leaders, regardless of how good they are or what policies they take, they usually end up being a scapegoat for how things are. Still, with decent policies, they can limit the damage to themselves. As for the Italian leader being the most popular, well, she's in the honeymoon phase, once that starts to fade away, she will become a lot less popular unless she delivers a miracle on the economy, which seems highly unlikely, where Italy will return to growth but more or less standard growth, that will be enough to hurt her standing in Italy as time goes on, after all, many leaders tend to be popular for the first 2 years in, especially if from a new party, but then the people will expect solid results and in her case, she got into power because Italians want change, if little or nothing changes in a big way on the economic front, her popularity will likely nose dive, probably in time for the next election.
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From a European perspective, we don't really have any negative thoughts when it comes to Serbia and see them in the same light as other eastern European countries. But Serbia isn't doing its self any favours by trying to play all sides, Hungary have been doing that and the last thing the EU wants is another Hungary. I don't know what the support is in Serbia from the population and political groups is like, but if Serbia ever wants to join the EU, they really have to make a commitment on that, which isn't what Serbia is doing, it's playing games and using threats, which won't achieve anything in bringing Serbia closer to the EU. Serbia really needs to make a choice, do they think their interest lies in the EU or do they think it's more towards Russia? Considering everything Russia is doing in Ukraine, it should be an easy choice, but common sense isn't a strong point of the human race, so personally, I think Serbia needs to make its own mistakes as I think that is the only way they will learn.
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Sany, it's not 40 billion, it's likely to be more then that and as for why we likely will pay it is because it's in our intrest to do so to get better terms, got to think of the long term picture, 40 billion or so is a drop in the ocean if it means us having good trading terms with the EU. As for the EU, it's not a failed experiment, flawed maybe and it clearly needs some reforms over the next 10 years, in all honesty, I'm supprised how well it works with all the diffrent countries in it and it's clear they all want it to work but are not happy with the current set up. As for the countries you mentioned, Ireland and Spain have been a big success story, as for Italy and Greece, most of the problems they face are down to the national goverment not the EU and they really need some real reforms done, remember that Germany 20 years ago was the sick man of Europe but they didn't complain or blame others, they did the reforms needed to get back on it's feets, Italy wasted all thoes years and so did Greece, it's easy to blame others for there own problems but odds are the problems in thoes countries would be worse if it wasn't for the EU. Even the UK always blames the EU for it's own problems, the mirgrants issue is a prime example of that, the UK was the first to open it's doors to the eastern members when Germany and France warned the UK to not do at the time but the UK did it anyway, then the UK like all EU members had the power to kick out people from the EU that didn't find work after 3 months, the UK was one of the few that didn't use that, also, immagration is higher from outside the EU then inside the EU to the UK and we've always had full power over that, don't you see a pattern? Our own goverment is the real issue, they didn't do anything when they could but complained about it anyway, what makes you think Brexit will solve that when the truth is, they wanted cheap labour and that will likely continue after Brexit, in fact even more likely just to try and compete. In other words, a lot of the issues EU members face, the EU doesn't have the power to do much if anything about and yet EU members and people seem to think they do, national goverments have the power in that but many didn't use them or didn't do the real reforms needed, in any event, it's always easier to blame others for ones problems then look into the mirror, the UK have been doing that with the EU for decades so it's nothing new.
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We should remember that the cost is short term overall and should start to ease after this winter, it's highly unlikely western countries are going to go back and buy oil and gas from Russia after everything that's gone on, there is no trust there any more and I doubt any of those countries would want to be dependent on Russian oil and gas after this. Russia has more or less lost the European market for at least a decade and it's going to be very difficult for Russia to replace that market with other rich buyers. To make things worse for Russia, their actions is very likely going to speed up the renewable energy deployment as energy now is becoming a security risk that more countries around the world are going to want to generate a lot more of their energy internally, throw in the high energy cost of fossils at the moment, this is really bad news for the fossil industry and it's in their interest to create stability and bring the price back to normal level before pressures builds up enough on governments that real change on clean energy happens. Personally, I think the fossil industry might have wiped out around a decade or decade and half of the fossil industry with everything that's going on with people that are really angry and that anger is going to fuel change a lot faster than it normally would happen. In other words, grin and bear it, tighten our belts this window and let's rapidly move to alternative energy a lot quicker than we were doing, then those fossil producing nations play their games with trying to control their prices, the west are more than capable of moving to alternatives if there is enough political will to make it happen and with everything that's going on, it's very likely that we are going to get big changes over the next decade that favours the countries that don't have oil, gas and coal and hurts the ones that do. As for Russia, I see no way for them to win this, their reserves are running out, Europe is moving away from Russian oil and gas and even thought Russia is trying to sell to China, India and others, it's very likely the EU and US will go after those countries and put a lot of pressure on them to get them to not buy from Russia with the aim of isolating Russia, it might even mean tariffs and sanctions on those countries that are trying to profit on cheap oil and gas from Russia, after all, a lot of those countries are dependent on western markets and can't really afford to lose access to them, they'll very likely bend on this because the western markets are far more important to them than a sinking Russia is.
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That's the irony, that it's a threat to the creative sector first before manual labour. As for the threat to manual labour, the problem is with current robotics and automation, it needs everything to be setup in a specific way to work, A.I. changes all of that by making it far more flexible and adaptive to what's going on. Robotics are getting very flexible in what they can do, tied in with A.I., it could end up being a bigger threat to manual labour a lot sooner than some think, but I think we are safe for the next 10 years, after that, who knows with how quickly A.I. and robotics is advancing. Flexible A.I. and robotics is the real game changer here, that reduces the need for humans in almost any area of the workforce as it would be able to maintain its self, adapt to problems that come up and change as needed, something that's quite new and could revolutionise the work force over the coming decade.
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The Middle East might not of been perfect before 9/11 but at least it was more stable until the US invaded, since then, terrorism has gone up a lot, probably millions of people have died over the last 20 years that didn't have too and the entire region is far less stable, the French and the Germans tried to warn the US and UK but the US had other reasons to wanting to invade and the sad truth is, none of the people that created the mess are paying for it, we like to think of ourselves as an enlighten people, we are not even close and the funny thing is, the US is becoming the main threat to world peace, could you imaging saying that 50 years ago, how quickly countries can change.
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Normally I wouldn't be supportive of either said, on the one hand, Israel had a right to retaliate against Palestine with the attack that happened, but I think many of us feel that Israel is going way too far, which is probably turning many people off Israel. Basically, it looks as if Israel is abusing the situation for its own ends with the backing of the US and some other governments around the world. But don't get me wrong, I'm not supportive of either cause but I do like to see justice and what Israel is doing doesn't look like justice to me and that's probably having an impact of turning a lot of the younger generations against Israel, which might not be an issue for Israel now but if this trend continues, it could be a major issue for them as pressure from the younger generation will filter through as they get older, that will end up shaping the political narrative in those countries. I suspect that most of the younger generation of people don't support the Hamas government but support what is happening to the people Palestine.
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I saw where apparently the votes in those regions were in favour to the tune of 95%-99% to join Russia lol. No way is that the voice of the people in those regions when half the population is from Ukraine and not Russian. Also, I don't think I've seen any legal votes in my life get 99% of the votes, it doesn't work that way as peoples views are different all over the place. Seriuselly Putin, at least make it look more legit, because that vote looks like a shame even to your harden supporters lol. In any case, I highly doubt those regions will be seen by the people of Ukraine as Russian and they will continue on with their attack and the west can't afford to let Russia take these regions as that sends a bad message internationally that others could do the same and have a shame referendum.
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This was bound to happen at some point and if it wasn't the EU doing it, it would be another power doing it. It also looks like the US is getting tougher on big tech. In the end, this has been a long time coming because big tech companies are using one dominant market to create another monopoly in other markets which puts medium and small size competitors at a major disadvantage and we all pay the price on that one regardless of where we are.
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I have a feeling that China might be willing to open up it's market to the EU and maybe other countries here but suspect they will want to exclude the US from that, if that happens, Trump wont like that but there is little to nothing the US can do about it. If the EU and China plays it's hand right here, both the EU and China could benefit from this a lot, the US needs to be very careful with whats going on because if the EU and China gets close together, the US can't compete with that, it would push the US out. Now imaging how bad this could really get for the US if they go for that second round of tariffs on the EU and China, that would be long term damage for the US and would force the EU and China to change tactics at the expense of the US.
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I remember reading an article a few years ago where it was said that the EU builds a lot of the tech that builds the foundations of creating other tech, so under the raider tech, the US builds a lot of the flashy tech that's in our face, hence why you get many Americans who seem to think Europeans don't build high-tech, it's just under the raider tech that doesn't get noticed by most but is critical to the tech industry nonetheless and then we have Asia and especially China that is the manufactory of the world, which without that, the cost of goods would be much higher. In a sense, you need all 3 or the modern would fall apart or it would send us back a few decades
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@puraLusa Reforming the EU is long overdue, in fact, I would say it should have happened before the 10 eastern countries joined, we are seeing the mess by not doing the reforms has created, and because of that, there is little to no chance of any new country joining the EU until there are some major reforms.
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I agree with that, we share a lot more in common than is different but we are also different in so many areas, most modern and many developing countries seem to be adopting the European system when it comes to the social system, government system, laws, taxes and so on, the US out of all the modern countries is the odd one out and in a sense, you could say the Europeans are winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the world. As for EU-US relations, I think they are going to have to become a lot closer in the coming decades and not because of Russia because I don't really see them as a threat, China is the real threat that I don't think the EU or US on their own can contain but together with all the friends, they likely can, but I also think the EU will need to speak more with one voice in many areas, especially on the international stage if they want to stay relevant and for the most part, they already do on economic matters but they don't on political matters and the US, Russia China and others take advantage of that weakness.
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@jimb9063 I don't think standards will drop in Europe, there would be too much resistance to it from the people, food intake is far more of a big deal in Europe then it is in North America, so even thought corporations and some governments might want to lower standards, they will likely have a much bigger fight on their hands from the public if they tried. Even the UK when we left the EU with Brexit, I've not seen any indications of lowering food standards, and if there are any hints of that, it's usually all over the press, which kicks up a fuss with the public. Longer term, you can never be too sure, people need eternal vigilance to keep governments and corporations in check, otherwise they would lower standards if we let them, just like the American people have allowed them to lower standards to almost dangerous levels in the US.
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That's exactly what would likely happen, it's the excuse some in the west would need to really ramp things up, that kind of move wouldn't be in the interest of the Wagner group, Russia or Belarus, which would likely be the primary targets for western countries to ramp things up on. Something we should remember, the EU and US are giving crumbs to Ukraine, and even that is giving Russia a hard time, I think we all know that if the EU and US ramp things up, they could do far more, and an attack on an EU, NATO member would be the excuse needed to push that agenda, a bit like a smoking gun, like with the Iraqi war in the early 90's when Saddam invaded Kuwait, which ended up with a coalition of countries that pushed him out, that invasion of Kuwait was the excuse the west needed to really put Saddam in his place.
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@sizanogreen9900 Honestly, I think the EU countries have weathered the storm quite well over the last few years with everything that's gone on, and Europeans countries still dominant when it comes to quality of life whereas the US and UK are lagging behind. GDP numbers are kinda meaningless because they don't tell us much of what's going on for the average citizens, after all, if the US was doing so well, we wouldn't be getting the rise of Trump and the far right overall, but clearly, there are problems in most of the developed world across Europe and North America because a lot of people are angry at the mainstream parties and want real change. In any case, I'm grateful I live in the US, because on paper the US looks to be doing better, but in reality and for its citizens, Europeans have it much better and it's one of those situations that you can only realise if you've lived on either side of the fence to see the real flaws, which in the case of the US, it's got far more flaws that make it less appealing.
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To be fair, the 2% extra is the starting point and will likely keep improving with time, but with that said, there's no real reason for you to upgrade any time soon, so by the time you get to upgrading, the tech likely will have improved a lot. In any case, we only need one company to release these to market and prove that it works for the floodgates to open up that many rivals will quickly do the same, with that, the tech will quickly start to advance and the price point will start to come down, and for now, the problem is that it's still in the lab.
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@whitezombie10 It's not that simply, just look at Hungary and Poland, you can't bring countries in the EU until you're ready and it was a mistake the EU brought in Hungary and Poland with them backsliding but in the case of Poland, it looks like relations can improve with them whereas with Hungary, I think they are a lost cause that will in time be forced out of the EU one way or the other. Before the EU can even think about bringing in other countries, it needs to sort out Hungary and Poland, they are the main obstacle to EU enlargement now, the second thing that's needed is reforms of the EU with vetoes and majority voting, until these issues are solved, I don't think the EU should allow any country in. The EU reforms will need treaty change, I think that should happen over the next 3 years, as for the other problem, the problem with Poland might be solvable and in part because of what's going on in Ukraine, if the EU sorts Poland out, it will be a lot easier to sort Hungary out which I think the EU should kick Hungary out and that will probably happen in time.
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He's the good guy compared to the likes of OpenAI, but in the end, they are all corporations and care about profit over everything else, but clearly Mata are seeing the open source community as an asset when it comes to A.I. in that open sourcing the models, allows the community to fine-tune them so they become a lot better, the end result is that Mata can save billions on running cost whiles also the open source community have a lot more options in running A.I. at a local level, it's a win-win for all sides, especially compared to OpenAI that keeps everything under lock and key.
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Chrish, thats not true, the UK have had one of the best deals out of the EU, we have by far the most op-outs and David Camaron wanted even more, honestlly, the UK is asking for too much and as it is, we've very likely lost some or all of thoes op-outs even if we want to stay in the EU now. Doesn't the EU have a deal with most Afircan countries called EBA which offers them duty free and quota and free access to the EU market? The EU have already said they wont do another deal like they did with Switzerland and beside, I doubt the EU is going to give the UK what it wants if it harms the 4 freedoms, we should also remember that the UK is a leaving member, they are going to want to make sure that we are worse off then being a member, that is a given. The truth is, no deal on offer is as good as what we already had and now it's just about limiting the damage done, single market and custom union is the least damageing as I doubt the EU would let us stay in the EU with all our op-outs now but as we know, that would mean the UK becoming more or less a vassal state. All the other deals are pretty bad really and offer nothing even close to what we get now.
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If it was up to the EU, this issue would have been resolved a long time ago but the Tories and many Brexiteers want to keep this fight going because they need a scapegoat to distract the British people away from the mess the UK government is making of the UK. After all, it's a lot harder to keep blaming the EU for a lot of the problems in the UK, something the Tories have done many times whiles we were part of the EU, now the government is worried the British people will turn their attention to UK governments on why the UK is such a mess, hence why the Tories keep picking a fight with the EU, in the vain hope of making them seem the bad guy, it's laughable in a sad way but that's how low the Tories and Brexiteers have got too. In any case, you want to solve Brexit, we have to get rid of the Tories to solve that, otherwise they are going to keep dragging it out because it's in their interest to do so, in the meantime, expect things to get worse not better in the UK.
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The west is looking really weak here, especially the US and EU, we keep hearing tough talk and sanctions but it's not really having an impact, we've known that for years it's not having much of an impact, western countries need to get a lot tougher, otherwise Russia won't stop at Ukraine because if no one is going to stop them, there are many tempting targets in the east of Europe for Russia to want to take on. With that said, I highly doubt Russia would take on an EU or NATO country as the EU or NATO would have to respond with military force but there are many countries to the east that are not in the EU or NATO. On that note, it's easy to see the real problem in the EU, we don't speak as one voice which makes us an easy target when it comes to division and a big reason why more integration in key areas is needed if we are to give the likes of Russia something to think about. Either way, if the west doesn't do enough to deter Putin here, Putin isn't likely going to stop at just Ukraine and it will likely give China ideas in doing the same thing because why not, not like the west is doing anything to stop them. So yeah, western countries need to grow a pair of balls here, especially the US and EU because they are both looking weak and like a joke from the outside.
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Come on guys, there's been a long list of where Hungary have been braking EU rules that Hungary agreed to when signing up to the EU. According to some of you people, it's fine for Hungary to break the rules as it's been doing for years with back sliding, do you also support that idea with other countries doing the same like Scotland braking UK rules? Or how about US states braking US rules. If you don't like the rules, you know where the door is, but getting mad because they can't do what they want, well that's just stupid.
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As a Brit in the UK, I have to agree, politicians are useless and are more opportunist than actually serving the interest of the people. At least with technocrats, they are more likely to be an expert in their position compared to unlike politicians where it's like musical chairs where they put them in any position that's going, regardless of experience they have, and probably explains a lot of the bad results we've been seeing in Europe and North America over the last few decades and probably why the far right is on the rise, people are getting fed up with the system not delivering.
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@daftdigital The UK would have been stronger for sure, but it was never going to be the situation we saw in Norway because Norway oil was accounting for a much smaller population, so the money went a lot further. Problem is with the UK, governments tend to think about the short term picture and not the long term and with competent governments, the UK could have done much better like Norway did, but we were never going to have the success that Norway did. But seriously, why does the British people keep voting for the Tories? They've been a disaster for the UK on Brexit and many will argue they've been dragging the UK down since the financial crisis, it's clear the Tories don't care about the people and only care about keeping power and if the British people really want change, they really need to change their voting patterns, because voting for more of the same and expecting different results is just stupid.
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@wanelly Having lived in America and Europe, house size isn't as important as it sounds as long as it's confy for you, I found when I was in the US that it was a lot more work to keep it tidy and it didn't help that working hours ware longer, at least when I was there, so back in Europe, not only do I work less hour, it takes me less time to clean the house, win win all round.
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The EU isn't like the US, and we should find our own path, but there are many things we can learn from the US system, things they got right and things they got wrong and we can create our own system that works for us. It will in the end mean more integration in some areas, especially if we are to stay competitive on the world stage in a world that's becoming more dominant by superpowers like the US and China, we in the EU have to adapt to that reality and pooling resources together will make us a lot stronger whiles allowing us to protect our interest better. When you think about it, our biggest weakness in the EU is that we have 27 voices, pulling in all directions, the likes of the US, China and Russia takes advantage of that by dividing us and playing us off each other for their own benefits, now I'm not saying we need a single voice but we clearly need to streamline our voice in the EU so it becomes more effective in protecting its members interest.
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The real problem with BRICS is that there is little holding it all together, each of the countries in it don't have that much in common and there is no integration, so no, it's no real challenge to the EU. The US, China and maybe Indie in the long term are more of a challenge for the EU, just as each of these are a challenge to each other. The other problem with the BRICS group, China and India are massive in comparison to the other members, and India and China are so different from each other on so many levels that for it to be meaningful, they would have to find far deeper common ground which will be a challenge considering the countries we are talking about. Also, them not liking the west isn't going to be enough to give it any real teeth, many of the countries in that would have to make some hard choices for that to happen and that seems highly unlikely with the countries in it, basically, China and India would be running the show for their own interest at the expense of the rest and even then, China and India are not exactly on friendly terms. Basically, if they really want to be a power, economic integration is one thing but it will need political integration, which lets be blunt about this, because of the size of China and India, it would give them two all the powers at the expense of the others in the BRICS group, to put it another way, there's too much of a difference over the countries political and economic views for it to be a threat. The African Union, Latin American Union or South East Asian Union is a lot more credible, some of which are modelled on the EU but are going about its formation the wrong way, the African Union is a prime example, there's no correct and stick to get remembers to change, they let pretty much any African country in, there's very little in foundations and unity that holds it together on political and economic matters and to get that, they need to start from the ground up with fewer countries that have a lot more in common and then making it work, with that, encouraging others to change with the carrot and stick approach. The biggest mistake I'm seeing with them is that they are all rushing to try and replicate what the EU did, but we should remember, the EU took a long time to get to this stage, it also did some after the second world war which made it a lot more politically easier to integration because of the destruction of the second world war, but on the plus side, these other unions have a blueprint in how to do it by looking at how the EU went about it, learning from that and either following that and doing their own changes. My advice to these countries that want to form these unions, start smaller with like-minded countries and ideally, countries that are around the same size in power, political and economic, as for BRICS, it's no threat because China and probably India will abuse it, China already shows that it wants more power around the world, that power play is why it's not likely to work, because the smaller countries in it will get pushed aside and become irrelevant, or worse, under the thumb of China.
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Especially considering that the EU goes after more EU companies than it goes after US tech companies. This isn't about the EU going after US tech, this is the EU going after big companies all over, and the problem for the US, it's almost like the wild west with how the government lets big companies get away with too much, probably because the US government looks at these companies as a geopolitical weapon on other countries like China, in the end, Americans are paying a high price in many sectors by having such a weak government that allows corporations to do almost anything they want. Also, let's be blunt about it, it's not just the EU going after them, a lot of governments around the world are starting to go after them, the EU might have got the ball rolling, but clearly, the US is allowing big corporations to get away with too much.
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Is it blackmail or more like risk assessment? If you don't want any blackmailing, then you really shouldn't be getting into debt.
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Got to remember that some of these eastern European countries have forgotten what democracy is all about with being behind the iron curtain for so long. The mistake the EU did was bringing in so many so fast when it should have brought one in at a time and when they are really ready, it would have been slower but at least they are lest likely to slip back into authoritarian governments. Thing is, without the EU keeping them in check, many would slip back and that would likely hurt the economy. Now I'm not saying all the eastern European countries are going that way but it's clear there are a few rotten eggs that shouldn't have been allowed in the EU until they are ready. This is also a big reason why the EU is slowing down the process of new members joining, because first the EU needs to sort the eastern EU members out before it can bring in newer members, so it's easy to see where the blame goes for that which is ironic because the ones that are to blame want the EU to expand the most lol.
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True, but I can see many that don't want integration not wanting that idea, the main reason being, even though the countries that don't want integration, don't have to do so in that system, they likely know that by not doing so, would put them at a disadvantage compared to others that do integrate. Longer term, the countries that do further political and economic integration will have more advantages over the rest, that would likely put more pressure on the others to follow and integrate, especially if they see it working. So on the surface, a multi speed EU might seem like it's allowing countries to integrate, to do so and the ones that don't want to, to stay on the side, the reality is, over the longer run, it's likely going to pull almost all countries in, we kinda see that with the Schengen zone and the Euro Zone, starts out with a few and more and more join overtime until almost all are in it. With all that said, I do think a multi speed EU could work, let countries move forward at their own pace whiles allowing others to hang back and move at their own pace, and we kinda already have that with the Euro Zone, which is the vast bulk of political and economic power in the EU and is by far the core of the EU, which if I'm being honest, these are the countries that matter, as for the rest, most of the eastern bloc will in time join the Euro Zone, but the ones that don't, they could find themselves being isolated in the EU as more focus goes on Euro Zone countries because their policies in a lot of areas will match up closer with each other, which puts the remaining countries at odds or their interest being overshadowed, which in turn will either put pressure on these countries to integrate further or to leave entirely.
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Poland doesn't have the economic power to become a military superpower, nor does it have a big enough population to back the economy. Poland can be a military power, no doubt about it, but superpower is a bit far-fetched. To be a power in this world, 3 things are needed, 1 is a strong economy, 2 is a big population to back up that economy and 3 is being a modern country with high skill sets, the EU and US have that, China is quickly getting there, Poland on its own will never get there because it doesn't have a big enough population to have a big enough economy which is needed to be a superpower militarily. Even in the case of the EU, it's got the economic power, population and modern high skill set population, but the biggest weakness of the EU is not having a single voice in many areas unlike the US, basically, if the EU members got closer together in many areas like the military, they could become a major military power on the world stage. Poland has a few problems on why it can't be a military superpower, it's got a declining population, it's a developing country that's playing catchup to modern countries and having a small and declining population, they likely don't have the skill sets in many areas to become a military superpower. I mean seriously, the likes of Germany, France, the UK can't become a military superpower, and they are all in a better position to be one than Poland is. The US is one, the EU could become one, so can China, there are others like India that could become one someday and maybe the odd other few countries if they got their act together. As for Poland, thier best chance of being a military superpower is by pooling resources with other EU members and having it done through the EU, something I suspect other EU members will do, especially western ones, but I don't see Poland being part of that, not under the current government anyway.
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Very true but you're not alone on that one, we saw a lot of that in the UK with Brexit, facts, evidence seems to have little meaning for these people and that isn't good for democracy because a democracy is only as good as the public getting all the facts on what they are voting on, it might also explain why we in the mess are making such a mess on this coronavirus compared to many Asian countries, likely because of rampant paranoia where people don't trust governments or the media and don't really know who to trust any more and that is the mess we are in with the west and in the case of this virus, we are paying a high price on that.
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No country really leads the EU, some lead more than others like Germany and France, but overall, the leadership is spread all over the EU members, depending on population size and voting share, but some countries do a better job at leading then others, and I know bigger countries will have more of a leadership role being that they are bigger, but smaller countries can and do contribute a lot. The real key when it comes to leadership in the EU is being constructive, I've noticed that big or small countries, the more constructive they are on working together across the EU to get things done, the more leadership they are likely to get, whereas countries that are more obstructive, tend to get isolated and weaken in the union, we are seeing that with Hungary at the moment and we saw that with the UK when they were in the EU, so being big or small, didn't have that big of an impact on influence, and it was clear when the UK was in, Germany and France had far more influence than the UK did, Italy could have more influence in the EU if it got it's act together and so could other EU members. As I said above, the key is being constructive, which allows to get more backing from other EU members and also allows more compromising on policy areas, so even thought bigger countries will have overall more influence because of the size of the population, smaller countries can have a lot of influence if they work with other countries and are constructive, Hungary is really losing out because it's always being obstructive and that weakens there position in the EU, whereas many other small EU countries that are more constructive, have a bigger voice for it. As for Hungary, having a big mouth and trying to block everything in the EU isn't power or influence, and we see that throughout the EU, for all the obstruction that Orbán has tried to do, as he really achieved anything from it? The EU and its members seem to always find ways around his obstructions, whiles at the same time, Hungary is becoming weaker and more isolated, which longer term could have a negative impact on there economy, which we might be already seeing early signs of that now with its influence numbers and interest rates being quite a bit above the EU norm. As for the video, clearly the Germans are the power when it comes to the economy, they have a bigger economy and population size and usually have sensible policies on the economy, apart from recently with the energy sector which was a big mistake on the German part. As for France, they are far more bold than the Germans when it comes to vision, especially when it comes to the EU, they also have a decent military, which if the Germans wanted, they could have a military bigger and more powerful than France if they had the incentive to do so, but I understand going on it's history why it doesn't want to be a military power, but Germany is a very different country now and the world has changed, and if the Germans don't feel comfortable having a powerful military, maybe pooling resources and having one at an EU level is the solution. As for Hungary, I think their position of power is actually quite weak, Orbán can throw tantrums all he wants, but it's not really making the country stronger, in fact, it's likely weakening the country by isolating it in the EU, which will make it much harder for Hungary to be heard by other EU members or the EU if Hungary needs there help, real power in the EU is by being constructive, a team player and a country that is willing to compromise in areas to get movement done, Hungary doesn't qualify in any of those areas, using threats and vetoes isn't a way to gain power and influence, it's a way to become isolated and weaker in the long run, just look at the UK when it was in the EU, they were not really a team player or very constructive in the EU, because of that, the UK's voice in the EU was much weaker than Germany and France, and let's be blunt about this, the UK is far bigger and has far more influence than what Hungary will ever have, and if the UK was more constructive and not obstructive in the EU, they likely would have had a much bigger voice in the EU, it's the same for all other EU members, big or small. When it comes to the future, I do think Spain and Poland will increase their influence in the EU and around the world, Italy should have more influence, but it's political system is a mess and not stable and there is too much corruption there that weakens it's position for it's size that you get a sense that smaller countries in the EU have more influence than what Italy has. The irony is when looking at the voting powers, the smaller the population the country has, the bigger the percentage of voting powers they have, if everything was done on a truly equal basis, the bigger countries would actually have more voting powers then they already have, and I do find that amusing because I've heard many times when smaller countries complain about that and want more voting powers, which wouldn't be fair at all.
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It's probably more risky to do nothing, lack of reforms over the last decade or so are hurting the EU and it's members and we are starting to see signs that the EU is starting to get left behind on the world stage, something that is only going to get worse if we don't get our act together.
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It's remarkable that the UK is still peddling that lie on the vaccine, truth is, the EU countries always had the choice of going the route the UK did on buying vaccines, they choose to do it at an EU level because the EU has more clout than any of its members and in the short term it started out slow but longer term, the EU ended up being more successful than the UK and the US, hence why when the EU countries were doing better, the UK government went from bragging to staying quiet on that.
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I think the problem with Hungary is that Orbán tried to be smart, he ended up creating more of a dependency on Russia, especially in energy matters and he's also been isolating Hungary from the rest of the EU, which is probably hurting trade and investment in the country. Hungary should be doing better than it's actually doing, especially on inflation and interest rates and even on economic growth, but Orbán policies are starting to bite and could get even worse over the coming years unless Hungary change course.
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Jordie Cruyff That's unlikely to happen because the country is too small, in fact I suspect others like Norway, Iceland and Switzerland will join the EU at some point, they are more or less already EU members in a better sense than what the UK was with all it's op-outs but those 3 countries have little to no say in EU decision-making but still have to rubber stamp a lot of its rules, Norway will likely be the first as oil dries up, Switzerland next because as tech advances, they won't be as important as a trade route so many countries will bypass them and go around them which wouldn't do them any favours, we should also remember that the EU has a very light touch of those countries, that could change at any given moment in the future. In any case, as long as the US, EU, China and other big powers continue to grow, that's going to push smaller countries to bundle up just to protect their political, economic and social system interest, otherwise, you'll get what is happening in the UK with Brexit in how some countries are trying to water down many things in the UK like food standards, labour laws, the health care system and so on.
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I think the EU and US needs closer relations with a rising China growing all the time, the EU and US still stands for western values and to protect those, they need to stick together. As for the US Inflation Reduction Act, I kinda hope the EU does its own, being as a lot of this money is going towards renewable energy and battery tech, it will help to kill the fossil industry sooner rather than later. The problem is, even thought the EU and US can afford to do this, a lot of countries around the world can't and there is a risk that some of these countries could turn away from the west and towards the likes of China if the EU and US becomes more protectionist. Personally, I think where the US got it wrong on this is that they should have subsidized the money but keep it open for all companies around the world that are pushing for clean energy sources, there would have been far less of an issue than and the big cash injection would still go to the areas needed. In any case, I think the EU and US are going to have to get a lot closer in the future because like it or not, China is here to stay and are likely going to be a lot bigger in the future, I can't see how the EU or the US on its own can stand up to them, but both together, whiles keeping like-minded nations onside, likely can, but the sad truth is, the US is its own problem with its own political instability and being very defensive with the rise of China as a power, that longer term could do the US a lot more harm if they push friends away.
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@Jake-hb4bd He does have a point thought, flying is dirt cheap in Europe so cars are not as needed for long trips.
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All protest come to an end at some point, in this case, if the farmers don't end the protest at some point, they will eventually go bankrupt and alternative measures of bringing food in will develop. Now it's just a matter of how long it last, what are the objectives of the farmers and how the negotiations go, but the longer it drags on, the more likely it will hurt farmers. The irony is, farmers in the EU are quite fortunate in that they get a lot of money from the government and the EU, in a lot of countries, they have to fend for themselves, so they should be careful to not bite the hand that feeds them as there are alternatives if push comes to shove, and also, if farmers do become too troublesome, governments in the EU and its members could look for solutions to marginalise them. So as much as I support farmers getting a better and fairer deal, they shouldn't disrupt things too far or many governments and much of the public could turn against them.
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@johndong7524 No offence, but there is no military threat to EU countries, to even think there is, is just stupid. We are talking about modern, highly developed countries that are high-tech and rich, contrast that with Ukraine, which is one of the poorest countries in Europe, on top of that, Spain is an EU member and EU countries have a clause in the treaty like NATO, that an attack on one is an attack on all, in fact, it's probably more so with the EU then it is with NATO because EU nations are far more integrated together, both politically and economically, not to mention that most EU countries have a modern military. There is no real military threat to EU countries, whereas Ukraine was an easy target to begin with, one of the poorest countries in Europe, they are not an EU or NATO member, it's easy to see why Putin targeted Ukraine with the natural resources they've got, and even then, Putin is having a nightmare in Ukraine, whiles the west, namely the EU and US are only throwing crumbs at them when it comes to help, if the EU or US wanted too, they could throw far more resources at Ukraine, and if Russia was stupid enough to take on an EU country, that resource would quickly kick into action, with the manufacturing capabilities they've got. As for NATO and American bases around the world, they are mostly there to protect US interest, not to help others as you think. But seriously, you really do need to educate yourself, because you clearly don't understand economics, because check any of the stats, Europeans have a high quality of living, are highly developed, many of the bigger EU countries have a decent military, but are not bat crazy like the US that is willing to spend more on the militery at the expense of its own people. At the end of the day, European countries dominant the top 10 when it comes to quality of living, the US on the other hand is actually slipping behind on those indexes, and even many younger Americans that open their eyes are starting to see that. You on the other hand are part of the problem in the US, your eyes are closed and you're too defensive in not wanting to accept that others can do things better than your country can and a smart person would actually look at the differences and want to learn so they can try and improve things back home, you on the other hand are showing pure ignorance because that what the system in the US teaches you, or lets put it another way, you won't find many Europeans that will say they need the US, it's mostly Americans that seem to think that, hence the ignorance lol, and like I said, open your eyes idiot.
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Europe's or rather the EU's defence spending isn't the real issue, the real issue is that they are all pulling in different directions. What is really needed is a single voice and a single military, and I can only see that being done at an EU level. Yes, EU countries can spend more on their militaries but they are still going to be quite weak if they are all separated and worse yet, there are a lot of waste and duplications. Now I know we have NATO, but come on, the US doesn't always have Europe's interest at heart and it's high time Europeans countries get together and pool their resources, otherwise they will get pushed aside by other powers like the US and China. It's high time that people in Europe realize that yes the US is a friend but they are also a rival that anyone that threatens US power around the world, even friends, will see a different side to the US as Japan found out in the 80's. So yes, the EU countries should continue to be friends with the US, they share a lot in common but it's high time Europeans wake up and start realizing that the US serves US interest not Europe's and only come to the aid of Europe if it's in the interest of the US. So the real question is, how marginalized does the EU countries have to go before the penny drops that they need to combine their resources together to protect their political, economic and social interest, and I say social interest because the only reason EU countries can afford them is because of the backing of the EU economy but it will become harder and harder to protect those things, like workers rights, food standards and universal health care because we've seen it a lot over the decades how the US tries to lobby other countries to abide by their rule sets, the EU with its economic clout is the only thing keeping them at bay and that has a positive impact on other countries that want to maintain a social democracy with social benefits. The truth is, even if individual EU countries do boost their military capabilities, they will still be miles behind the big players like the US and China because of economy of scale, in other words, European countries in the EU are going to have to pool their resources together a lot more over the coming decades or they are going to get pushed aside by the other powers. As for countries that could rival or beat the UK and France, clearly Germany is one of them, they have the resources, the economy and population to be the biggest military power in Europe, it's weather they have the will to make it happen. Poland is hard to say, their economy is still developing, its population growth is static or even shrinking, I do think Poland could be a reasonable size military power in Europe but personally, I think Spain has a better chance, they've got a more modern economy that's continuing to grow, its population is growing and as a country, it's got a lot more potential in the future, it also helps that Spain is pro EU and closer to France and Germany which could become a big deal if those 3 countries plus other work on many military projects together. I would throw Italy in there but I feel Italy is a declining power, its population is shrinking, it's not very pro EU, it's got an unstable political system but more importantly, they keep blaming others for a lot of the flaws in their own system, which is a shame because I'm half Italian but I've got to see it for how it is. On the plus side, cooperation among Germany, France, Spain, maybe even Italy and a few others will likely be strong on the military front going forward, Poland could be thrown into that mix but under the current government, I'm not so sure.
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@raquetdude They could do that but it's unlikely, but in any case, the real issue is that consumers of these games have no way to access them once they've been shut down, and I think that is where things need to change, basically, give the community the tools needed to keep the gaming running as long as there is enough interest, then it doesn't matter about the publishers as they are not running it any more.
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That doesn't surprise me, I mean, if you cut out the modern world like the EU, US, Japan and so on, the rest of the world doesn't really produce much, apart from natural resources, and even then they tend to need western help to take advantage of it. An EU or US citizen, it's very rare to buy a product from the likes of Russia, Africa and many other places, and even China, if you look at it, they are mostly used for cheap labour, not so much because they invent much, even thought that's slowly changing now, but honestly, without the west, the world would be far less advanced, especially without the EU and US and it's why the west is so successful.
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@THEBEEEANSS Politically yes, but that's because the members are pulling in all directions, if they spoke with one voice, they would be right up there, as for the economics, European countries dominant the quality of life indexes in so many areas, which is really what counts for most people. The reality is, Europeans have no chance of competing with the likes of the US or China unless they combine through the EU, if we don't change, we'll end up going into real decline, to get a hint of that, just look at the UK since Brexit, countries around the world are taking advantage of them because they don't have the clout of the EU any more, the same would happen to all EU members if we don't get our act together, and a lot more so for smaller countries, after all, the UK is a big country and even they are being taken advantage off, imagine the smaller EU countries.
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This is the irony and I remember British and Americans laughing at what was going on in France at the time but I remember thinking, I wish what was going on in France would happen in the UK, governments are more likely to listen when people rise up either by a protest movement or even a riot. In the UK and US at least, it seems like the public have been subdued to not stand up for themselves and the governments take full advantage of that by screwing them over, countries like France and Italy have a strong protest movement that they are more than willing to rise and give the government a bloody nose if they feel the government isn't doing what's in their interest and I love that, I only wished other countries would be brave enough to do the same..
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@tomorrowneverdies567 Even at current spending, if EU countries pooled their resources as one, got rid of a lot of duplications, it would be a pretty powerful military and it looks like many EU countries are planning on bumping up the budget for it's military spending, but like I said, the real problem isn't the spending, the real problem is there 27 different militaries, with a lot of duplications and waste, spending more isn't going to solve that without key integration in key areas.
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This is one of those double edge sword things, on the one hand, I would like to see more women on corporate boards but the job should always go to the best person for the given job. The problem is, the business world strongly favours men which make it difficult for women to rise up the ladder and maybe some government intervention is needed but not at the expense of putting women in those position if they are not the right person for the job.
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Yeah I think that would be a better system in the EU with the European Parliament elects the leader, like you said, the power is shared over far more people. I also think reforms are needed to the EU where the European Parliament is giving more powers at the expense of the EU Commission, whiles merging the EU Commission and President as one and making it directly election, it would help to reduce many of the Eurosceptics that say the EU isn't democratic enough, or force them to focus on other areas which could weaken there argument. Either way, reforms are needed and I think there needs to be a big push on that after the elections.
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Entertaining but sad, it boggles my mind at how low iq's can really get and as much as I like to feel sorry for what's going on over there, it's hard to, the real sad thing is that many of these people will go on with their lives and end up spreading the virus to innocent people without them knowing it, the law should step in and get very tough of people that are known to spread it and/or others that have been killed because of these idiots.
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@veritaspk Yep, not with Russia, at least not with the current leadership, but it wouldn't surprise me if EU relations with China become warmer if the US pushes its luck, which is probably the last thing the US wants, which is why Trump is more of a risk to the US than he is to anyone else, but honestly, I think this might need to happen to deflate egos in the US. But honestly, the EU doesn't need China or the US, as much as Americans seem to think they do, they've got an advanced economy, big economy, high skill base, all they really need is to restructure on the military front, which could happen quickly if there were a real threat to them, which would likely combine military units of each of the members into a single entity, reduce duplications and streamline in other areas, even on current defence spending, that would be an impressive millinery, and spending is going up in many countries. But yeah, if the US does push it's luck, the EU would likely be on friendlier terms with China in areas that the US doesn't want, that doesn't mean the EU would be friends with China, but it would mean the EU won't do what's in US interest.
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Which is pretty low when you look at other comparable countries like Germany or France.
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I think if China does back away from Russia, the west and China should try and put relations on a normal footing, reset them into a more productive path and not antagonistic path. What's going on in Ukraine is a major wake-up call for the EU, US and China and a lot of good can come out of something bad if there is enough political will on all sides. Either way, China's economic interest are tied with the west and especially with the EU and US, it's highly unlikely that China would want to put that in harm. As for Russia, they clearly miscalculated here, they expected the west, especially the EU and US to be weak, divided with infighting among themselves and for the sanctions to be much weaker than they are, China likely got the warning message in how far they are willing to go and in the case of China, it would likely be worse because I suspect more countries would side with the west against China, especially in the Asian region that fear China and because of all that, now could be a massive opening for the EU, US and China to reset relations and put them on a better footing before they get out of hand.
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That's been the case through history, radical parties do well when the people of the country are not doing so well, but they are usually short-lived or they do a lot of damage and get kicked out, simply because they are too radical for most of the public, hence why many of the radical parties are becoming more moderate, which when they do that, they are far less of a threat because they know if they react on those radical views, the public is likely to turn on them and they might never get into power again, we see that in the EU when a party is close to winning power, they quickly change their views on the EU and Euro and in the end, they only care about winning power and will say what they think the people want to hear. What the mainstream parties should be worried about is why are the radical elements doing so well across the west and a big part of it is likely because a lot of people feel like they are getting left behind and this problem could grow until the moderates start looking after the people, we've seen a small taste of that in the UK, US and many EU countries, it's not a threat yet but it wouldn't take much for it to get much worse if the public gets fed up.
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@calderarecords It wasn't really, it was just the budget was too big to keep it going and the tech wasn't advanced enough, if it was done today, they likely could pull it off with a lot more seasons and Rome deserves that because there is so much to tell that is looked over by many and yeah I would love to see something like 10 seasons with 20 episodes per season showing all of Roman history as accurately as they can while showing from both sides, Roman politics and the public side. In any case, I've only watched GOT once and don't feel like watching it any more, but I've watched Rome many times so I know which I prefer.
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I think the real problem for Poland and Hungary that many seem to forget is that you can't change Europe in any big way unless you make friends within the EU and it's members, Poland and Hungary are not doing a good job with that, especially with how they use their veto and how it's their way or the highway attitude. There's a reason why the likes of Germany and France are far more successful in the EU then say the UK was, and that's because they work with others, they compromise, water things down and corporate with other EU members, that's the key to getting things done in the EU, Germany and France knows how to play that game, Poland and especially Hungary don't, which is why they are not a threat to Germany or France or EU unity as a group, because most of the other members have a different vision in the EU then what Poland and Hungary wants it to be, so the end result for Hungary and Poland is more or less what ended up happening to the UK, isolation within the EU, something we've been seeing early signs of already. If those countries want real power in the EU, they have to have the interest of the EU and it's members at heart, that's clearly something Hungary doesn't have, Poland on the other hand likely can change but that's up to them to change, but as it is, there are not a threat to the EU or it's other members, the only other thing that can cause real change is if enough of the population in the EU members change views on what they want, but most of us are moderates and tend to vote accordingly, even when we give far left and right parties a chance, those parties have to tone things down a lot and become more moderate to appeal to a lot more voters, after all, if they don't tone things down and make a mess of things, they likely might not get elected again, after all, most of us want stability. It's partly the reason the government in Italy has tone things down a lot, being in power now, if they mess up, it's likely the people won't vote that party in again, so they have no choice but to moderate their views to appeal more to the people, regardless of what their real views are, after all, most of us want growth, stability and peace, not for the country to turn upside down.
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One thing I love about parties that talk about this or that policies before forming a government is how they promise so much but rarely deliver, it's easy for a party that isn't in power to say anything they want, it's another thing to go through with it when in power as they are the ones that will get stick from the people. Realistically, I can't see Norway pulling away from Europe is quite laughable with everything that's going on in the UK, it's easy to say we'll save 2.7 billion but as the UK is finding out the hard way, they are actually losing money. Beside, the countries that do well in Europe that are not in the EU are countries that have strong relations with the EU, the UK is the exception and they are slowly sinking, it will be interesting to see where the UK is over the next decade or 2 but it's not looking good for them. I also can't help but think that many of these videos are looking at European countries through the lens of how the UK thinks or want to see which isn't a good idea because they seem to get it wrong most of the time as we saw on Brexit.
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@iTheGeo Corrupt companies that want to sell their cheapest crap to consumers, so they lobby the government on that and in the US, lobbying is quite powerful. The real problem is that US governments are quite weak when it comes to standing up to them and that's the way Americans seem to want it, the irony is that it's kinda like trading democracy for many smaller dictators which is more or less what companies are, so letting companies get too powerful where they are effective in lobbying the government to get what they want isn't good for the American people and I suspect that is going to get a lot worse as the companies get bigger unless real change in the system happens. Contrast that with Europe where governments play a much bigger part in the economy and social system and it seems to be benefiting Europeans in a lot of areas.
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I think the UK is screwed which ever way Brexit goes now, too much has gone on. Hard Brexit would be bad for the UK apart from that it would really expose the Brexiteers and euroseptics how wrong they got it on this which might be whats needed to for them to wake up, Soft Brexit more or less keeps us in the EU by name only because even out of the EU, the UK will very likely have to adopt most EU laws, rules and regulations without having a say in them. Remaining in the EU is the best option but would also make the UK look stupid and will likely take a good decade of the UK trying to repair the damage it's done to it's self with the EU. I don't see any options that the UK can win without it having some damage to the UK as the UK looks like a joke now and we have lost a lot of trust in politics and busisness and the more the games keep playing, the worse it's going to get for the UK. The irony is, I think the hardest of Brexit might be needed because for too long eurosepics in the UK have been blasting the EU from the side without having to back up what they say, now with Brexit, they are really exposed and if Brexit goes badly wrong, it could do some real damage to the euroseptic movment in the UK and likely mean the UK rejoining the EU a decade or so later with the Euro included, just in time for Farage to collect his pension whiles looking at Euros every time he puts his hand in his pocket, oh the irony if that happened lol.
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Interesting concept, but truth be told, Poland would likely be able to defend their land better, economically they are doing better and the economy is what projects power in any given field the country chooses and being as Poland's economy is bigger, thanks to being in the EU and they have a higher GDP per capita, that also means they can have a more powerful military. But in reality, it would never happen unless all hell broke loose, Poland is an EU and NATO member, so attacking Poland would compel both organizations to have to get involved directly whereas with Ukraine, they are helping them out but don't want to get directly involved. Anyway, a more interesting concept would be, how long would Russia last against NATO countries if nukes were never used? Some studies have actually been done on this a few years ago and if I recall, NATO would win the war in just a matter of 36 hours lol, I don't think the Russians realize how weak they are compared to the west and for a time, even the west thought Russia was a lot stronger but that was based on what Russia used to be during the Soviet Union days, truth is, since the early 90's onwards, the west have been through an economic boom whiles Russia have been lagging behind, the gap between them now is massive in almost all areas. Still, it was cute that Putin actually thought he had a chance, what a deluded fool, thinking western inaction is a sign of weakness which in reality, the west tries to avoid wars and conflicts if it can and some seem to confuse that for weakness which it's anything but that.
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It's weird when you considering that pretty much every modern country is a social democracy with many social programs, the US as modern countries go is the odd one out and in a much worse way with having such weak social programs and in a sense, the US is getting left behind when it comes to human decency and quality of life. Either way, for any modern country or developing country, the US isn't an example to follow, other modern countries like in Europe are far better.
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I've always been in support of the EU project even if it's not perfect but then nothing is. Over the last few years with Brexit and now the pandemic as well as the changing world where it looks as if a Cold War could happen with the US and China, a strong EU is probably needed now more than ever to protect European political, economic and social intrest and we are already seeing hints of that on a Brexit UK with the likes of the US, China, India and Japan pushing their weight around on the UK, something that is much harder for them to do on EU members. Also, out of all the systems around the world, the US system is too corrupt, too greedy and too inclusive for the very few at the expense of the rest, China is too controlling, the EU and it's members actually look like the last major power that looks far better balanced in putting their people first compared to the others.
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Countries will do what's in their own interest, so it's not really about surpassing, countries will do what's in their own interest, regardless of west or east,
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It doesn't work that way, the moment Russia invaded Ukraine, then Ukraine had every right to invade Russia, the fact is, Ukraine and Russia are at war with each other, saying Russia can invade Ukraine but Ukraine can't invade Russia is a ridicule's argument to make. At the end of the day, the aggressor is the ones that start the war, how the war goes from there is anyone's guess, but if Ukraine could only defend it's self whiles Russia could invade, that's quite an advantage for Russia as they can target Ukraine from Russian soil and Ukraine can't do anything about it, because of this, Ukraine should be targeting Russian sites much sooner, but the west put limits on that until recently. In any case, the aggressor that starts the war, can't complain how the defenders will respond to the war, Ukraine has every right to fight this war however they see fit, Russia started the war, Ukraine is responding to it, attacking sites in Russia is very effective in defending Ukraine.
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@davrosdarlek7058 The same way that other countries do, a lot of countries including the US and UK profited out of that.
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Yeah, it does surprise me how quickly these open source models are developing, from a size to performance level. You get a sense that the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft and Google are using a brute force approach to A.I. which must cost them a fortune to run compared to the smart nimble way that the open source community is doing, and it makes sense, if you have limited resources, you're going to think outside the box to get better results. I really do wonder how much better a 7b, 13,b 40b and 70b can get before we get to limits that we need bigger models for better results, it looks like we are still a long way away from that because we keep finding better solutions for the given model sizes, which improves performance and like you said, it's remarkable the pace of development in just over 1 year, makes me wonder what we will see over the next 5, 10 years.
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I somehow doubt that paper even matter, what he did is what really matters and no one, not even the migrant haters can take that away from him, good on the French president for doing the right thing here because I have to wonder how many other goverments like the US and UK would of done the same with all the hate going around.
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With how quickly renewable energy is developing and getting cheaper, OPEC's dreams of pushing oil prices up is less effective now, yes they can do it, but the higher oil and gas prices go up, the bigger the shift towards renewable energy sources, with cars going electric and heating going electric with heat pumps, we are quickly going into a world that's all electric, and as renewable energy is having a bigger percentage share of the energy mix in a lot of countries, that's isn't good news for any country that wants to push the price of oil and gas up, they become less competitive, which in turn speeds up the adoption of the alternative. In other words, I want oil and gas countries to try and be controlling and to try and push the price up so that we can kill those industries, sooner rather than later, the irony in that, the countries that import a lot of oil and gas stand to benefit the most by that by having a massive windfall of money per year, whereas the producing nation have a massive loss, especially the ones that depend on oil and gas revenue a lot.
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To be fair, you wouldn't need to spend anywhere near that amount for that kind of set up.
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Honestly, I don't see what the problem is, there is nothing stopping an EU integrated military being part of NATO as is but it would have a lot more clout in that organization, I suspect the US is the one that doesn't want that to happen. Also, I think an EU military is very likely and not because we Europeans want it but because we will likely need it as the likes of the US and China become more unstable, reckless and aggressive, also they are going to continue to grow so if us Europeans want to protect out political, economic and social interest, we're going to need to integrate and pool more resources together or we could end up getting sidelined, basically, external pressures will likely push us Europeans into it and mostly the US, Russia and China will be the big reason for it, in that sense, Trump is doing wonders for the EU. So the real question is, when it happens, what form it takes, will some members be part of it or all and how much they integrate within in but I think it's just a matter of time especially with how the US and China are going, so us Europeans have two choices, either we get pushed around by the other big powers or we stand on our own feet. As for NATO, there is no reason why that can't stay around with the EU, US and other members involved that share common interest.
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There is another side to look at this, Ukraine wasn't really going places before the war and is one of the poorest countries in Europe, once things settle down, it's very likely that Ukraine will get a lot of help from the west and especially the EU, throw in closer ties, we could over the next decade see an economic boom in Ukraine but before any of that happens, Russia needs to be pushed out with a push for closer ties to the EU and Ukraine. So things look bleak now but I think the future for Ukraine could look better if the EU extends its harm to Ukraine. As for the EU and Ukraine EU membership, there are two major problems that need to be solved before Ukraine can join, one is Hungary and Poland backsliding on the rule of law and two is EU treaty change, especially on veto and majority voting, until those two issues are solved, I don't see any country being allowed in the EU as it's becoming unworkable because of the veto as Hungary are proving already.
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The real problem is, isn't if von der Leyen wins, but are there any credible alternatives to her? I can only think of one credible alternative in Mario Draghi from Italy, and all the huffing and puffing from the far right is meaningless unless they give a credible alternative that most of the EU members are happy with. But considering the EPP won the majority votes, you would think it was a given that they would choose who the next leader of the EU is.
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NATO should be easier to join compared to the EU, joining the EU requires a lot of reforms at an economic, political and social level that takes years to do, joining NATO could be done quite quickly. With that said, I think the EU needs to widen the door for Ukraine on joining the EU but make it clear that it's up to Ukraine how soon they can join.
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I say it's at 50/50 on Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK, in any case they don't have to rush, they can see how things go but one thing I do know is that a bad Brexit will help the inderpendence movment in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. I suspect the UK goverment is going to have to sens a lot of cash to both regions just to keep them in the UK and guess who will cop that one?, the north part of England because they voted the most for Brexit and the goverment can simple say to them, stop complaining, you voted for this. As for the EU, the euroseptics have been pridicting the EU will implode for decades now, don't they ever get tired of being wrong all the time? lol, even here with Brexit, the Brexiteers thought many other EU members would follow the UK and that the EU would be devided on this, what we are seeing is that there is little to no threats of anyone else wanting to follow the UK with all the mess thats going on in the UK and as for the EU, they seem quite united when it comes to Brexit. I love how the Brexiteers keep getting it wrong time after time. :)
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The EU countries tend to focus more on heavy industry over high-tech, and this is the key, it really depends on what countries want to focus on. After all, clearly, EU countries can do high-tech, they've got the economy, the resources, the talent to do it, but they don't seem as interested in it like North America and Asia is. After all, just look at South Korea and all the high-tech that they bring to the market, we are talking about an economy the size of Spain, which isn't that big by European standards. So it really depends on if they want to push hard into high-tech, something I think they will, because it's becoming more important as we move forward. It would be good as well because Europeans tend to be less greedy compared to American corporations.
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Europeans tend to have a lot of pride because of its history, will Europeans want to play second fiddle to the likes of the US or China? That is what I think is really going to push us all together, self-interest in that for Europeans to compete with the US and China, Europeans will need to band together and we already have the perfect tool to make that happen with the EU, it just needs more reforms and integration for it to really protect the interest of Europeans.
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True, the Tories have been a disaster zone for almost 15 years now, starting with Austerity measures and they've been lurching from one mess after another, with its biggest being Brexit which the cost of that is long term and I've got to say, I'm surprised why the British people would ever vote the Tories, it's clear as mud that they only care about the rich elites and the south of England, with the north of England getting the short end of the stick and in the case of Scotland, it doesn't surprise me why so many would want Scotland to leave the UK union with the level of incompetents we keep seeing from the Tories, they don't exactly inspire trust.
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Smart man, even if I was rich, I would want higher taxes because I wouldn't want to live in an environment where there's massive inequality, basically, I would feel my quality of life would improve if everyone around me improves as well, after all, we don't live in a bubble, so it's in our interest that the quality of life is better for all.
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I was saying this a few weeks ago to a friend of mine, being ruled by Brussels doesn't seem like a bad idea with what we've seen in the UK over the last few years and it really shows how bad things have got in the UK to some of us to think that.
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To be fair, as long as you're in the EU, there's little Russia can do to your country as I highly doubt Russia would go after an EU countries knowing what could happen but as for the politicians in the given country, well that's another story, Russia can play games with them and in fact is doing so. Russia is going after Ukraine because they are an easy target, also, Russia doesn't like EU expansion because they know as the EU expands, those countries become a lot more protected where Russia can do far less with them, it's the main beef Russia has with the EU because it wants it disbanded so it can pick on the eastern European countries for it's own end. Basically, divide and conquer, something much harder to do whiles those countries are in the EU.
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That's true and it is an area that EU countries need to get to grips with, high-tech is the future and the EU countries have been missing the boat on that. But they are more than capable of getting back in the game, South Korea is a small economy but very high-tech, the EU economy is a lot bigger than them, it's high skilled and has a big population, it's just a matter of incentive and right government policies to make it happen, and I think it will happen as high-tech reduces other industries, like manufacturing could be replaced by robotics and A.I. in the sense that most manufacturing is done much closer to where the goods are being sold, meaning it wouldn't be good for exports, which is what Germany is, but Germany is also in a good position to be the Silicon Valley of the EU if they pushed hard on that.
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At the very least, it's really exposing how weak the Russian military really is, no big power would allow this to happen and certainly not for this long, and with every passing day of Ukraine on Russian soil, the more insulting it is to Putin, that they've not been able to respond yet, shows how weak Russia have got.
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I usually drink enough water that when I go to the toilet, I'm usually peeing water out, in summer I probably drink about 50% more than I do in winter and never had any issues with dehydration, but there might be other factors why Americans drink more, it could be the food they are eating, it could even be the water is different there, could be lifestyle, but I doubt that one as Europeans tend to be more active than Americans, and as for the weather, that really does depend in what region in Europe or America you are in, but we do get a lot of humidity in some parts of Europe that makes it feel much hotter than the temperature would suggest. Anyway, on average, Europeans tend to eat healthier than Americans, a lot of healthy food usually has more water in them, which might suggest needing to drink less water compared to what Americans need.
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Makes more sense to do it at an EU level and have it taxed accordingly to a percentage of the economy, that would be a much more effective military even on the current spending, it would also be a lot more powerful, it would reduce a lot of waste and duplication., the US arrogance could be the key for Europeans to create this, which if they do, it wouldn't be in the interest of the US because the EU wouldn't need to listen to the US and could do its own policies in a lot of areas, many of which would be in the interest of the US.
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Yep, you really get a sense how good we've got it in Europe, looking at the UK with Brexit and how poor they are doing with this pandemic to looking at the chaos in the US and then a more controlling China, the EU is actually looking like a better bet with how things are going in the world and that is probably why polls in the UK are showing 57% of Brits want to rejoin the EU, a lot has changed over the last few years and a lot is likely to change over the next few years.
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I don't think there's any real chance of Poland leaving the EU, they gain too much from it and beside, Russia would love that as they would be their new play thing lol. I think the real fear is that this could be what breaks the back of the current government, after all, if there is any chance of Poland being pushed out of the EU, what do you think the Polish people are going to do to the government there? Should be entertaining to watch lol.
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@TheManinBlack9054 That's true but overall GDP is key, that matters because it allows a countries to develop in which ever way they want, basically they have a lot more resources to play with or to put it another way, if a modern European country felt threaten, they could put a lot more resources into the army that Russia can't afford, in fact, it's what the US did to Russia, spend more with the aim of bankrupting the Soviet Union. Many EU countries on their own have a bigger economy then Russia and lot bigger if combined, if the economy resources are put towards arms, Russia would have a major problem.
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True, even me from the UK have watched him and the contrast from him to Trump is remarkable, if there is any time you need a leader like Cuomo, it's right now as he sticks to the facts and tells it as it is.
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Doesn't shock me but it is a bit strange for a modern country to have so much religion because usually, the more advanced a country is, the less relevance religion plays in society, but to be fair, the US does have far more social issues in its society than European countries do and religion probably takes advantage of that.
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People like you have said that for the last 30 years and it's still here, wanting something to happen doesn't make it so, in fact, the likes of Brexit, Trump and Putin is making the case on why the EU is a lot more needed to Europeans, even to us Brits it's sending that message out. Beside, you should be more worried about the UK union, the way things are going, thier is a real risk that the UK could brake apart if Brexit goes badly wrong, hard Brexit will incressse the odds of Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK union, maybe you don't realise this but Scotland have been fighting for inderpendence for decades, Brexit just gives them another reason to fight on. In any case, how is the UK going to thrive after Brexit, you and the leavers have had two years to show us that and yet you've come up with nothing, shows us the evidence that the UK will be better off out of the EU because so far you are all hot air dreaming of fairies and unicorns that have no basis in facts.
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@clutrike7956 I'm all for expanding the EU further, but it's not going to happen without reforms to the veto rule, I highly doubt a single country will be allowed into the EU until there are reforms in that area, and countries that want to join are not going to wait around forever, so we really need to start making reforms this decade. As for expanding outside of Europe, maybe someday, but the EU has enough to chew on in Europe to worry about countries outside of Europe that might want to join, but honestly, I don't think it matters as much if a country is in Europe or not and what counts is the ideals of a country, if they are not that different then why not, and with enough reforms, they probably wouldn't be that different, but either way, even in the current EU, there's enough differences among its members and it still works, so it's possible with enough flexibility that it could work with countries that are not in Europe, but honestly, we are talking many decades off before that becomes a talking point, but it might become a talking point once there are fewer options to expand in Europe, either way, there's enough on the EU table for the next 3 decades at least in Europe.
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Personally, I think the EU could play it neutral on China, unless China becomes more hostile around the world, the US has it's own motives when it comes to China and it's mainly because they see China as a threat to US power around the world, a lot of Europeans have a different view on that as this video pointed on and it's not just Europeans but a lot around the world don't see China in the same way the US does. But in any case, the EU countries need to integrate a lot more, pool resources together in key areas like the military, whiles also still being on friendly terms with the US.
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I'm still waiting on the net gains from Brexit that Brexiteers promised us because so far all we've seen is net lose and this is before the real carnage kicks in next year, that and the pandemic is likely going to boost that 57% support in the polls to rejoin the EU, the real hard work begins next year for this government and that's when the real entertainment begins, if Labour plays their cards right and this government really messes up over the next few years, this government could get wiped out by the next election, what a turn of events that would be considering the landslide win the Tories got. Beside, wasn't the idea of Brexit suppose to reduce cost and red tape because so far from what I am seeing, it's doing the opposite.
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That seems to be happening in the UK at the moment, and they are running like rats lol but hey, when the risk gets close at home, what how they take things a lot more serious.
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Yeah, overall, she handled things quite well under difficult times, but I do agree on Orbán that the EU should be a lot tougher, but like you said, the EU Commission role has limited powers that she probably didn't have much choice when it came to Orbán because EU countries probably didn't want to rock the boat, but in this case, the boat needs rocking, otherwise things will get worse. Personally, I think treaty reforms are needed, I think more powers are needed at the European Parliament level and I think the EU Commission/President should be merged into one position and be directly elected.
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@hmthisisit True and not just education but even the media and governments giving the voting public all the facts on what they are voting on, that's needed for direct democracy to work effectively, otherwise we get the kind of mess we are seeing in the US with Trump and the UK with Brexit where everything is twisted up from the media to the government and that makes direct democracy a bad idea, so it's good with a well informed public but it's bad with a public that vote going what they want and not what is.
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It is an unfortunate truth and democracy would be the better system but it's clearly failing too many people in Europe and North America, especially among the lower and middle classes of people. People are voting more radical because they are getting fed up with the current system that is failing them, especially when it comes to cost of living and going after the rich elites and corporations to make them pay their way. Things will very likely get worse unless the centrist parties wake up and get their act together and start listening and solving the concerns that people have, this is the case throughout Europe, the US and many other modern countries that clearly show that people are not happy with how things have gone and all this is leading to the rise of the far right in Europe and North America and that rise will continue to rise and become more dangerous for everyone unless the mainstream parties wake up and get there act together, the clock is ticking on them.
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Never say never but I think at some point Europeans in the EU are going to have to centralize more and speak more with a single voice if they are to protect their interest because the world is changing with the US continuing to get more powerful, a rising China and India and other groups of countries forming. Basically, I think when push comes to shove, Europeans will integrate a lot more in areas that is hard to think of doing now and it won't be because they want too but because they have too if they want to protect their interest, the alternative is to be weak and divided with the likes of the US, China and India playing games with them which would impact the economy, political interest and even social system standards as the US have shown many times it wants to weaken standards like food standards, workers rights among other things which ironically, the UK could be the perfect test case to see that happen now they are not protected by the EU.
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Economically, all EU countries should benefit from further integration with more economic growth and less waste, politically, integration will help Europeans to protect their interest around the world. If done right, integration will be a good thing for Europeans, the question is on the process of getting there and doing it the right way that works for all the EU members, but I do think that in this quickly changing world with powers like the US and China, EU countries are going to have to integrate more and to expand if they want to stay relevant around the world, relevant in the sense of being a big power and protecting European interest, which are quite different from US or China interest.
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Yep, whiles the EU and its members are moving forward, it seems the UK is moving backwards, especially under the Conservative rule which have been a disaster for the UK for well over a decade, going back to the Austerity measures which is really where the UK started to sink.
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@markojovanovski3372 It's more likely to do with the EU having tougher rules in place to allow these countries to develop, whiles at the same time, making it more difficult for them to go off track, but that doesn't always work as we see with Hungary, but it does with most of them, so the laws, rules, regulations, easy access to the market, allows a lot more economic growth and forign investments. Also as pointed out, the pattern is the same, look at the countries that joined the EU from the east, they are doing far better than what the ones that didn't join are doing, with the exception of Russia, and even then, only in select cities like Moscow, St Petersburg, the rest of Russia isn't doing so well, and this is with a country that's got a lot of natural resources so should be doing far better. Or if we want to put it another way, pretty much all the developed rich countries in Europe are either in the EU or are closely tied to it so much that they might as well be in the EU, the rest are pretty much fending for themselves and are pretty much doing far worse for it. Also, we should remember, countries that want to join the EU but are not in are likely to develop far more than countries that don't have a plan, mainly because of alignment with the EU market and other policies, Croatia is a prime example of that, they were getting ready to join the EU well ahead of before they joined the EU and benefitted a lot on the economic front, the same goes for all other countries that joined, they benefitted before joining by alignment and the same will be the case for future members over time. Also, I find that countries that implements the reforms sooner rather than later, tend to benefit on economic growth the most, some are quick on it, others drag their feet, hence why some do better before and after joining the EU, the EU after all can only help so much, the country in question still has to put the work in.
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@promajo Not quite true because people that are vaccinated are still catching the virus and it can still mutate in them, it just means there are less chances of dying from the virus. But I really have to wonder how effective getting the jab is with infection and death rates rising again.
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@BlueTigerReal Ukraine likely could be a far better choice then Serbia and it's all thanks to Putin, basically, thanks to the invasion, Ukraine from a public and political level will put far more effort into cleaning up the country and doing the reforms needed to join the EU, fear and war is a very good motivator. So Ukraine can't join until the war is settled, but I bet once it is, it will be far easier for Ukraine now to pass the reforms needed to join the EU because of the public support to do so and because it would be bold of any politician to try and block or hold back the reforms, in other words, there will likely be far fewer games being played and how quickly a country can join the EU really does depend on the commitment of the country in question, some join far sooner than others because the support to do the changes needed are there. So it wouldn't surprise me if Ukraine does some rapid reforms to speed up it's EU membership bid once the war is over with.
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@fungo6631 Not always, but staying stagnant can be seen as going backwards. It really does depend on what you are used too. In any case, Norway is one of the richest modern countries around, but that means little to the people that expect constant progress in things getting better, regardless on what position a country is in around the world.
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The EU is interested but the UK seems to want too much as too many bought into the lies that the UK would have all the benefits of EU membership but without any of the rules, that was never going to happen for the UK and that is the main reason the UK keeps throwing tantrums, threatening to walk away but never doing it.
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It seems to me that the EU didn't so much soften it's stance on this but thier was some confusion over the matter which the UK clarifyied so nothing really changed overall.
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It's not really about the EU being essential, it's about protecting one's political, economic and social interest. European countries on their own are just not big enough to protect their interest against the big players like the US and China, because of that, they can dictate the terms and the rules around the world, and thanks to the EU, Europeans in the EU have a much bigger voice on the world stage and can protect their interest a lot better than if they were not in the EU. Pretty much all modern countries in Europe are in the EU, even the ones that are not in the EU, are so closely tied to the EU that it offers them a lot of protection, apart from the UK that is, and with Brexit, they've been paying a high price for that. The rest of the European countries are much less developed. So you real question you should be asking yourself, why do so many modern countries want to be in the EU? As for the AfD, there is cause for banning them, but I don't think it will happen, but either way, what kind of party would have a secret meeting about a policy they want to enact? Why was it all kept a secret? The logical reason is because they knew it wouldn't be popular with the German people, that tells you everything you need to know about the AfD, they were willing to lie to the German people and enact policies once in power where the Germany people had less of a voice to stop them, if that isn't alarming of the policies of the AfD, I don't know what is, and who knows how many other secret meetings they have. Honestly, if I was a German, I would be angry at the AFD for what they tried to pull, but hardcore AfD supporters won't care, they will support them if they did some Nazi level shit, these people can't be helped, and fortunately, most people are moderate, even the AfD supporters, many of them might start to drift away from the AfD because of what they tried to pull on the German people. But hey, why am I wasting my time, I'm on a fanatical YouTube channel here, it's not hard to see where the views in the comments are going to go, especially with the echo effect.
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@user-gz7cj3zc7x And you wonder why the US has problems lol, besides, us Europeans don't mind paying more taxes so that we have a more balanced system that works for many and not the few, the US system seems to be all about the rich at the expense of the poor and middle classes and that could get far worse with what the government is doing at the moment, it's the biggest crime going of forced redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the rich elites, I'm shocked Americans are allowing it to happen right under their noses, after all, who do you think is going to pay all of that? The poor and middle classes as always and that's going to put quite a lot of burden on the American people for a few years.
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Trump was never going to sort out wealth inequality, he probably doesn't enough know what poverty means considering how rich he is, you want inequality to get sorted out, countries need to elect leaders that have actually been in poverty so they know what it's like otherwise why would they care and so far, Trump seems to be giving more to the rich elites whiles taking away from the poor and average as expected.
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@MrJaaaaake Much of that is true for Japan but isn't for Germany but a big part of that in Japan was because they tried to compete with the US in the 80's and they have too big of a population for its land mass, Germany doesn't need to directly compete with the US as they are in the EU, the irony is, Germany is one of the most successful big countries in Europe.
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@trimaxionerror5696 It's not about turning a blind eye but looking at it realistically, the actions the US does rarely work because it just turns the people in those countries more on the side of the government, in a sense, they are doing them a favour, it rarely works when it hits the average people in those countries because for the most part, most are innocent. Now I'm not saying the likes of China and Russia don't need to be held to account but tariffs rarely work and a lot of the other US led actions work, they usually just make things worse for both sides and they should learn from the EU with Brexit, how to target the UK government without targeting the British people, it's very effective if done right because public support for rejoining the EU is growing, that wouldn't be the case if the EU was hostile with the UK, the EU are basically playing the UK goverment and they don't even see it yet. Basically, it's the motives that stinks when it comes to many of the actions of the US and UK with dealings with other countries, even when they say they are doing good, they usually have something in it for themselves. In any case, it's not really relevant, dealing with China isn't going to be easy, the US is doing it all wrong because they are playing right in the hands of what the government of China wants by turning the people to become more hostile on the US, the trick is to target the government of China so the people of China pressure real change there but all the US is doing is starting another Cold War and unlike the first Cold War, it doesn't look like the US will get many friends to go along with it because most seem to want to stay out of it. The UK with Brexit can't really afford to be dragged into that because we need good relations with both the US and China and especially with the EU.
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@A Guy The last time we had peace like we do today In Europe, it was almost 2000 years ago with the Roman Peace or Pax Romana if you prefer, that lasted almost 200 years. As for Germany, you are bashing them on what they were like before the second world war, they are nothing like that now and are one of the most peaceful big countries around, especially compared to the likes of the UK and US which come across as quite hostile after the second world war.
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@A Guy Almost true that, humans are quick to forget history and easy to repeat it and we have been seeing signs of that in the US with Trump and his supporters, the UK with Brexit and their supporters and the popularism movement around Europe and the world, a lot of these people have actually forgotten what it was actually like in the past and have a lot of the same aggressive tendency that made the likes of the Nazi bad, I know they don't want to be seen like that but if you look closely at them and what they say and policies they do, it's very hostile where they try to force their ways onto others and are quite happy to use disinformation, to cheat and lie to get their ways. They don't seem to realize how they are becoming what they supposedly used to hate, it's funny to watch as well, there is little modesty or moderate nature to them, just hostility. History is a great teacher if we listen to it but every few generations, we seem to forget that and end up repeating the same mistakes.
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@duwang8499 Why should Germans, especially young Germans feel any shamed for things they had nothing to do with?, the Germans have nothing to feel ashamed about now because it's a different generation of people now but if I was German, I would look with alarm at what is going on in the US and UK and many other parts of the world because it's got that families feel to it of what the Germans went through in the past. Germany's real advantage after the second world war was helped because they started from little to nothing, a new system, a new political system without any of the old relics, the UK still has a lot of that old baggage that holds it back and that isn't easy to change, the US is even getting bogged down with the same kind of thing, a system that doesn't serve the people that well in modern times. As a Brit, born and lived in the UK all my life, I see it many times how many Brits see the Germans, we see it from the news to tv programs, the media and governments and it all seems to boil down to one simple thing, the Germans lost the second world war but became a lot more successful than the UK with a bigger economy, much better manufacturing base, a more prominent position in the EU, that left a big sting for many Brits that want to be seen as a power in the world, they are not the only ones, even Japan, the two countries that lost the war became two of the most successful countries in the world, basically, the impression I get is that many Brits are jealous of the success of Germany, especially on the right, so Brexiteers and the likes. You know what I find ironic about the way the world is now, I see the US and UK as bigger threats to world peace then I see the Germans who have been very peaceful since the second world war, I mean, just look at all the wars the US and UK have got into, look at the mess they created in the Middle East.
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I remember most of these songs growing up in the UK in the 80's and 90's, and the thing is, when I was young, I didn't realise how many were from none English-speaking countries and only realised as I got older. 70's to 90's were the golden age of music and the funny thing is, this was only a small selection of the classics from the 80's, there are so many more that didn't make this list.
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We keep saying that about the US but they seem to avoid real world sports :)
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@memorymeme51 To be fair, the UK was never really in the EU lol. Anything, it seems highly unlikely that any country will leave the EU in the near future, but some major reforms to the EU are needed and I think they need these reforms over the next 5 years.
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@anthonymares5079 Yep it was in the bag according to England fans and it was like in the water that they thought they couldn't lose, they felt the same in the last world cup and look how that turned out lol, in the end in both tournaments, they had an easy route and the moment they played a good team, they got knocked out. So getting to the final doesn't mean much with that kind of luck on their side which is likely going to come to an end for the next world cup with all the bad PR England got here, in other words, UEFA and FIFA would have to be brave to give England any favours for awhile lol.
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We should remember that our leaders are a reflection of the people, the British people have had many chances to elect differently, but they keep voting in lemons, so the real problem isn't the government, it's the people in who they choose to elect and also for not holding them to account, basically, the Brits have become too much of a soft touch and the government takes advantage of that.
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I think what we should remember is what Russia invading Ukraine symbolises, there's a rise of authoritarian governments over the last decade or so, if democracies of the world don't make a stand, it could embolden other countries to go the authoritarian route or worse yet, start other conflicts around the world. Democracies need to make a stand because other countries like China are looking for cracks and weaknesses in the west, if we don't show enough support for Ukraine or supports starts to dry up, the message to Russia, China and others will be clear, we only have the stomach to support the war effort for a short time of a few years, Putin is probably banking on holding out in Ukraine with the hope that western support dries up or Trump wins the next election. A lot more conflicts are starting out around the world, and probably because of lack of leadership from the big powers like the EU and US, the support being given to Ukraine is helpful but it's not enough and it's not delivered soon enough, western governments need to be more aggressive on it's support of Ukraine so Ukraine can end the war sooner rather than later, dragging the war out is just more costly for Ukraine and for the west, it's probably stirring up trouble in other regions around the world because our attention is divided, I mean seriously, the EU and US are more than capable of putting an end to this war if they give Ukraine the means to end it, I mean seriously, what are they waiting for, public support to dry up? Or other governments to come into power in the EU countries and the US that doesn't support the war effort, dragging the war out is playing with fire, whiles showing the resolve of the west as being weak, we need to start standing up for our ideals in the west because at the moment, authoritarian governments are winning, you only have to see the rise of them around the world and in fact, the factions in both the EU and US are on the rise.
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It really does depend on the UK government, the EU has been open to talks and closer relations for some time but that Brexit holdback is holding the UK back, especially the government, but since Sunak took over, things look better between the EU and UK but there is a long way to go to repair the damage the Brexiteers in the UK created.
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@prepperjonpnw6482 Can't comment on Eastern Europe but as for Western Europe, I've lived in both the US and EU and can honestly say I felt as free in both, but what I will say is different from the two is the social system where I feel Europe gets it better than the US with a more social systems that benefits the poor and middle classes better than the US system does.
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Considering the time frame then yeah, Germany have done quite well in such a short space of time, and it's not easy to integrate two different systems of ideologies together, from the people, politics and the economy, but progress is being made. The UK and Italy have had a lot longer to heal the divide and in the case of Italy, they've had issues with many factors like the mafia that's not made it easy to develop the south, whereas the UK north, especially north of England, that's more politics in that the government doesn't care about the north, for them, it's all about the south and especially London and probably why there's been a growing moving in Scotland for independence.
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@EUMadeSimple A minimum baseline should be done in a lot of areas, health care being one of them, but I think there is enough flexibility to do health care at a nation level or even region level as that would be a lot more flexible whiles creating new ideas in becoming a better and more effective system as each region can do it's own thing whiles having a minimum baseline set by the EU.
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There is far more to it than that, look at Hungary and Poland, they receive a lot of money from the EU and yet they are sceptical of the project. I think it boils down to one simply things, Hungary and Poland only wanted in the EU for the economic benefits and not to create unity among its members, a bit like the UK that likes to think the EU project should be economic only, whereas Spain actually want the EU project to work and are more constructive on that and not obstructive like some others are.
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I do know one thing, no new member is joining the EU until Hungary and Poland are sorted out and until there are reforms done at an EU level, specifically on reforming the veto and majority voting. As for if Hungary can be kicked out of the EU, it depends, under the current rules, no but there are many ways the rules can change and if drastic measures are needed, there is nothing stopping the EU members leaving the EU and creating another without Hungary and Poland, either way, pressure is going to keep mounting on Hungary and Poland until they either change or get kicked out because it's highly unlikely the other EU members are going to allow countries to stay in the union that are slipping into authoritarian, especially with everything we are seeing in Russia right now. I suspect the EU is seeing an opening to pull Poland away from Hungary with everything that is going on in Ukraine, Poland isn't too happy about Hungary stance on Russia, if the EU can sort Poland out, it will be much easier to sort Hungary out because their veto won't work and the irony is, Poland and Hungary really does want the EU to expand with more countries to the east but them two are the main road blocks stopping that from happening because there is little to no chance the EU and many of its members are going to allow more countries to join the EU until Poland and Hungary are sorted out and reforms are done to the EU institutions to make it much harder for a repeat of what's going on in Hungary and Poland. In other words, any of the EU members as well as countries that want to join the EU, you can leave the blame squarely on Hungary and Poland because they are the main obstacles. I also find this unusually, a big draw to the EU isn't really the money the countries get from the EU but the political stability it creates, that is far more important as it will likely mean a lot more investment in the country, Hungary and Poland to a less degree are putting that at risk for its citizens, after all, would you really want to invest in a country that's being pushed further away from the EU union? Probably not and at the end of the day, they new the rules they were signing up to when joining the EU, if they don't like it then leave but in the end, the people in these countries want a high quality of living, these rules and reforms are a big step in delivering that, in other words, if Hungary and Poland are not careful, they could start to slip behind the other eastern EU members on economic growth and it's clear to see these countries are not learning, a big part on why the west is so successful is because of the rules in place, especially on rule of law, but hey, Hungary and Poland seem to think you can have your cake and eat it, a system like Russia with a modern standard of living, good luck with that one because it's been proven time and time again to not work, freedom for the people is what delivers economic growth and higher quality of living and until they learn that, they are going to slip further behind in time.
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As long as the western countries, so the EU, US and NATO continue to support Ukraine with military arms and other resources they need, I can't see Ukraine losing this war, they can continue to cause a lot of problems for the Russians and because Russia is the invader, it's a lot harder to maintain a country that's been invaded, so the cost for Russia is massive, all that's needed is the west to continue their support and it's only a matter of time before Russia gets kicked out of Ukraine and the real question is, how much political, economic damage is Russia willing to take as well as lift loss. But in any case, the longer the war drags on, the worse it gets for Russia, because it's money reserves are running out, European countries will continue to actively move away from Russian oil and gas, Putin could have real problems late next year as the money reserves runs out and revenue from oil and gas continues to fall, it will very likely be much harder for Putin to keep the Russian people at bay and much harder for Putin to fund the war machine, especially because once the EU moves away from Russian oil and gas enough, there's a fair chance that both the EU and US will put a lot more pressure on countries that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, the name of the game is total isolation for Russia until they learn their lesson.
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The real alarming thing is that the drop is much higher for the UK than the other way around with the EU, basically, trade has dropped on both side but EU companies are still selling more to the UK than the UK is selling to the EU and to make things worse, the UK government is making it easier for EU companies to sell in the UK whiles the EU isn't doing the same back. This is basically the EU having it's cake and eating it at our expense, who would have thought lol. What makes it funny is that the Brexiteers are getting all defensive on this, they know they've messed up but can't be seen to admit that, so with that, their arses needed to be burnt for a few years for the real penny to drop, which ironically, a hard like Brexit was the only way those clowns were going to learn because they clearly didn't want to listen to reality and as we are seeing, project fear has become fact and it's only going to get worse in time. You also have to wonder how bad the UK is willing to let relations get worse with the EU because so far, the EU is outsmarting the UK when it comes to Brexit.
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The problem with the US is that too much revolves around money and not quality of life. I've been hearing for 2 decades from the US that Europeans are falling behind, but when you look at many of the index in a lot of areas, European countries dominant them in so many areas like quality of life, in fact, the US seems to be falling further behind going on many of the measures that matter. What even more ironic is how many times I've heard of Americans that have moved to Europe, getting less money and are a lot happier for it, whereas I've heard many say it the other way around when moving to the US, you know something is messed up when you can be in a job that pays more and the quality of life ends up being worse.
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Trade with other countries is always a balancing act, modern countries like the EU and US, can't compete with cheap labour countries if they have full on open trade with them, especially developing countries that are pushing into high-tech. If there was an open door policy, we'll find that a lot of industries in the EU and US would go bankrupt, mainly because the major advantage developing countries have is cheap labour and fewer workers rights and red tape, which gives them a big advantage over developed countries. So as much as we all like to have goods on the cheap, there needs to be policies in place to protect industries, until things level out, usually in the form of tariffs so modern countries have a better chance of competing. This is even more important now because both the EU and US wants to move a lot more production internally in key sectors of the economy and I think it makes sense for big powers like the EU and US to have key sectors of production, done back home for security reasons or, at the very least, with like-minded powers, so like the EU and US, whereas China is positioning its self a bit like Russia did with energy, not a good idea to be too dependent on that for any country. Still, it looks like both the EU and US have learned with Covid and now the war in Ukraine, to push a lot harder on the domestic market, or at the very least, trade more with friendly countries that are not likely to play games like Russia did on energy, basically, cut these corrupt countries out of the loop.
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Same, those Brexiteer clowns took my vote away with Brexit, so I can only watch from the outside. Still, I've got to admit, with the mess that the UK government did with Brexit, I seem to be more interested in EU politics than I am of UK politics, Brexit really put the EU on the map for many Brits, but it's just a shame it led to the UK leaving the EU and not having a voice in the union.
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When one party dominants so much, that's not good for democracy and it makes you wonder if that's part of the problem Japan has been having over the last few decades. One party system isn't democratic, a two party system kinda is democratic, but grouping so many people into 2 groups isn't very democratic, something we see in the US and UK which are mostly two party systems, it under-represents a lot of the people, which probably explains much of the quality of life issues those two countries have. Voters are of multiple backgrounds and views, it's crazy to think you can group them all into one or two party system and expect it to work well, multi party systems with credible offering are that give voters a lot of choice are the real democracies.
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That's just the UK media, they make it seem like any disagreement and that's it, the EU is falling apart lol, they are clueless really, the threat of the EU and Euro falling apart has been there for decades according to them and yet it never happens because wanting something to happen and it's actually happening are two different things. Anyway, I think without the UK in the EU, the odds of falling apart are less because the UK was a big problem to reforms and integration in the EU which kinda leaves the project in the middle of nowhere and makes it hard to serve the benefits of the members and people, that will likely be easier, especially for the Euro Zone countries to move ahead with real changes and with that, the next 10 years is going to be very interesting to see. With all that said, according to the polls, 57% of Brits want to rejoin the EU, those numbers keep going up as time goes on and that is quite a high percentage that if a vote was done now, it's very likely the UK would rejoin the EU but I doubt the EU would allow that, it will only take one EU member to say no and a few likely will because it took them long enough to get us out, they wont want us in the political decision-making for quite some time now so the best the UK could hope for is single market and custom union unless the people vote to join the EU with at least 70% in favour, enough for the media, the public and the government to be less hostile towards the project.
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Apart from we keep braking temp records pretty much every year all over the world for the last decades.
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True, in a sense, the EU is having it's cake and eating it and it's a clear sign that the UK needs the EU a lot more than the EU needs the UK, hence why EU goods can come into the UK much easier than UK goods going into the EU, basically, the UK government realized that we need many of those goods from the EU market whereas the EU countries can source elseware. A big part of that is because once the UK left the EU, we not only have restrictive access to the EU market on our door step, but we've also lost all the EU free trade agreements as well as bilateral agreements around the world, that's put the UK in a bit of a pickle when it comes to the economy, hence why the UK government is desperate to sign any free trade agreement it can, the problem is, it's all well and good signing a deal, it's another thing to get a good deal, this is where things are going wrong in the UK, we're signing too many deals that are very much in the favour of other countries and mainly because other countries have a much stronger hand against the UK now and are taking advantage of that. The end result is that the UK is signing worse deals around the world then the EU can get and that will have a negative impact on the economy longer term and that could also be a big reason why Brexit regions are actually trading more with the EU now then they did before Brexit happened which is making the UK more dependent on the EU market and it's easy to see why, we've hardly got any trade deals around the world and the ones we do have are not that good. Brexit has just been one big mess that is harming the UK and longer term is very likely going to harm living standards.
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Nvidia got massive performance uplift on the 20 series of cards from release to now so it's possible, especially as ray tracing is new for AMD cards so drivers are likely not mature yet and games are not optimized for it, performance is likely only going to get better but we'll get a better idea of that over the next 6 to 12 months, maybe sooner.
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For me the issue isn't spending 2% of the GDP on the military but more that the EU has 27 different militaries with a lot of waste and duplication, and even at current spending, if it was combined as a single military, it would be a lot more powerful than any of the individual militaries. EU countries spending 2% at each country's level will still be weak compared to the big players and the only way I see around that is to pool our resources together, which could actually work out cheaper for a much more powerful military, after all, the EU isn't bat crazy like the US on the military front, so don't need to go crazy on spending, but the EU members would have a far more powerful military if done at an EU level and wouldn't have to spend that much for it to be a potent defence.
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The problem I find with a lot of these groups around the world is that there's very little holding them together and not much in common with each other, to make it worse is the lack of investment in those groups to make them work more effectively, political, economically or both. Because of this, a lot of them kinda feel like a talking shop with very little clout to do anything meaningful. The African Union is a prime example of that, it's modelled on the EU, yet it basically lets any African country join with little in the way of rules, reforms needed or incentive to candidates to want to reform, unlike the EU where there's a rule book as long as your arm that countries that want to join have to reform on, both politically and economically, that creates a common tie whiles also creates real change, the AU just lets them all in and that gives little incentive in getting real change for the better. If these other groups really want more clout around the world, they have to get back to basics and work on the foundations, unfortunately, that takes a lot of time and effort as the EU has shown, but it can also deliver a much bigger voice for its members, that can happen with these others but without getting back to basics and building the foundations, they feel like a talking shop with little in the way of power.
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Don't worry, we are not even close to that level of danger yet with the far right, and let's be honest, I suspect most voters don't want the far right and are only voting for them as a protest vote to teach the mainstream parties a lesson for underdelivering for decades, especially when it comes to cost of living for the lower and middle classes. I would only really start to get concerned if the public started to get really fanatical, that's when things can really get messy, but we are a long way from that in most European countries and would say the US has to be far more concerned with that because of how the system is set up over there in being a left vs right debate and only having two political parties, it's radicalising the public, especially when you throw in all the other issues going on in US society, in Europe, we are not even close to that with the exception of maybe one or two countries.
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This is a game of powers taking advantage of each other, you've got China that wants to split the EU and US, then we've got the EU that are not as hostile towards China like the US is, that's very likely on purpose, because the EU knows that as much as the EU and US are friends, the US only cares about self-interest, so the EU is playing the same game by being more open on China than the US is being. As for the war in Ukraine, I get the impression that the US wants the war to drag on, probably because of military contracts, the US does seem to like wars, you only have to look at the last 50 years of history to see how directly or indirectly, the US have been involved in many of them, whereas, the EU very likely wants the war to come to an end, as I doubt they want a destabilised region on its doorstep. China motives are a bit unclear on Ukraine, they likely like the idea of Russia becoming isolated around the world because it basically means Russia becomes a vassal of China and that relationship is very likely going to become more one way in favour of China. China is also playing on the factor that they know a lot of Europeans don't like US policy around the world, the Inflation Reduction Act is just another example of that and as close as EU and US thinking is close to each other, that could diverge overtime, especially as the EU going forward is likely going to have its own policy and interest that diverges away from the US.
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@TProfileG He didn't really have much of a choice, he bluffed to the end but the EU didn't buckle and the more I see and hear of this deal, the more it looks like a good one for the EU and not so much for the UK, depending on your views. Personally, I think the UK had to make some pretty big concession to get that kind of access to the EU market, something Boris and the Tories will want to keep quiet as long as possible to try and pull the wool over the Brexiteers eyes, in my view, I'm in favour of being in closer alignment with the EU as that will make it a lot harder for the Tories to water down workers rights, food standards and the likes, but if the UK is more or less just rubber-stamping what comes out of the EU, what was the point in actually leaving?
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What happens? Probably not much, I highly doubt Russia would take on an EU or NATO country with how that could escalate things much further in a way that I doubt Russia could win. We should remember that Putin picked Ukraine because they are one of the poorest countries in Europe, they are not in the EU or NATO and they've got a lot of natural resources, from a tactical point of view, they were a tempting target for Putin, there are a few other countries that could be a target, but none are EU or NATO countries. We should remember that if Putin were to attack an EU or NATO country and none of them came to the rescue, it would likely do major damage to both organisations, especially when it comes to credibility, basically, the EU and NATO would more or less be forced to get more involved directly. For now, the EU and many EU countries, as well as the US, don't see Russia as much of a threat, a lot of bluster and noise but Russia isn't really that big of a threat, they don't have the economics to take on the EU, US or NATO, and I know some will say European countries might come across as weak on the military, that's more because they don't see much of a threat to them, but if a threat were to arise more directly, you can bet a lot more of the economic power will go toward military arms, that's a war Russia can't win because the economy is far bigger and that's the key when it comes to military power, it's just a matter of directing the economy from other economics and more towards the military if needed, the US does this by spending more on its military, but they also do it by having a single combined military, which EU countries don't have at that scale, but if a war were to break out, you can bet that far more resources will go towards the military and that EU countries will work far closer together on military defence, but as I said before, Russia isn't really seen as a threat, in fact, just looking at Russia's poor performance in Ukraine is a clear indicator that Russia is no match for the west. With all that said, EU countries need to get their act together, the US is becoming less reliable and more unpredictable, it's all well and good EU countries saying they are going to spend more on the military, but the truth is, they are still quite weak when divided, at least compared to the US, if they want to do that, they are going to have to pool resources together into a single EU military, that would be far more powerful than any of the EU members can do, it would also reduce a lot of waste and duplications, and ultimately, the end goal is the same for all the EU members, defence of there country, who is likely in a better position to do that, the individual EU members that are split over 27? Or a single EU military, with the backing of all the EU economy?
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The simple answer is yes it can, it would probably need to be reorganised a bit but it would do fine without the US and EU countries would likely play a bigger role in it. But if the US were to leave NATO, it would actually weaken the US position with its allies, it would also weaken them in Europe a lot, it could also make the EU stronger if they play there cards right as they could become a potential replacement of the US, but they need to get there act together as speaking more as one and not 27. As for the US, it could isolate them as a country, which is more or less what China and to a less degree, Russia wants, after all, a US with fewer allies is an easier target for a rising power like China, and we know this already because China have been trying to pull the EU away from the US, so Trump could play into the hands of what China wants and could do a lot of damage to the US if he's not careful over the coming years, but in any case, I think the EU and China are the ones that stand to benefit the most from Trump and his actions, if they both play their cards right, whereas the US is quickly heading on a slippery slope that they might not recover from any time soon if they keep going the way they are doing.
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To be honest from what I've seen is that the Germans didn't want to take a prominent position in Europe but got pushed into it by other European countries and thats probably a good thing because out of all the big countries in Europe, Germany seems the more stable and reliable one.
6
Not sure how the UK holds the upper hand by not signing Article 50 when big investment is likely going to hold out of the UK not the EU, so really we can't afford to let it drag on too long whereas the EU it doesn't matter as much because not much changes for them but I do agree that if and when Article 50 is signed, the EU has us where they want us, but that's always going to be the case, if we sign this year or the next, personally, I think they are buying time to see what's what and see if it's really worth it.
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Diplomacy was the best way, it would've been much slower to get the right result but it would of created far less problems, ultimately, we needed to get there own people to overthrow the government, once they lose support of the people, governments crumble and change can happen, hopefully peaceful change, problem is when a foreign power intervenes, they usually have different motives in the region and are not usually looked at in a good light by the natives.
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We can't really compare today's world to ancient times, for the time the Romans were civilized and pretty much what the west is built on is thanks in great part to what the Romans did, also, if we like to compare today's morality to ancient times then we could easily say the same things of our civilisation of today and how the world could be 100, 200 plus years in the future where we like to consider ourselves civilised but to people in the future, we might look quite barbaric and in the end, you can only compare to others at the time and not of a different time.
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The problem is with these kinds of coalitions is that the views are so wide apart that it wouldn't take much in new future policies for it to all fall apart. It's very likely that many policies within the coalition will get watered down to win enough support to get things done, or if any of the coalition partners play hard ball, it could be enough for the government to fall apart. It's going to be interesting to see over the coming months and years but I suspect it's not going to be as big of a deal as some think it will be because there are too many voices pulling in many directions and it wouldn't take much for them to fall out. Either way, moderate parties are successful because they moderate their policies to be more accommodating with more of the public and more people in government, basically, when it comes to the crunch of pushing for policy change, I suspect that's when things will get difficult in that there will likely be a lot of compromises and watering down of the policies, so much so that I don't think this is an issue for the EU at all, no different from how many of the other so-called radical parties that gained power have not really been that big of a deal throughout the EU. Still, we'll see over the coming months and years, but we've heard this time and time again, Italy is a prime example and yet, you wouldn't think it but the Italian government comes across as quite moderate that gets along quite well with the EU, probably because political reality kicks in on what they can realistically do, after all, it's far easier to talk on what you want to do when not in power, it's another story when in power that you have to be careful on your policy choices and have to keep the voting public onside, which most are moderates.
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The EU is a massive economy and can focus on both things, besides, the issues with Russia and energy is very short term of just a few years, not a big deal overall. As for helping Africa, I agree, the EU should have helped a long time ago, but things tend to have a reactive effect depending on what others are doing, in this case China. Personally, I think China is trapping many countries in Africa with debt trap diplomacy, that's not a good thing because it could make those countries poorer in the long run whiles signing over assets over to China as they can't pay off the debts, it's a smart move from China but it's bad news for Africa, but for many, it's too little too late already.
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The real question, would China and India want to buy too much from Russia with Putin using oil and gas as a political weapon? Who is to say Putin wouldn't use that against China or India if they don't do their bidding? This is the problem Putin faces, you break trust and no one is going to want to be too dependent on Russia, and is other problem, there are no other rich customers around the world to buy that oil and gas, so even thought China and India might buy more, they will pay dirt cheap prices, that is costly for Russia longer term unless they can get the rich countries back onboard and that's highly unlikely as long as Putin is in charge of Russia and even if Putin leaves, I highly doubt the EU will buy much from Russia after this, the EU countries are very likely going to go full steam ahead on renewable energy for security reasons. Basically, there isn't much Russia can do, the damage is done and it's long term damage.
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Government intervention isn't a bad thing, in fact, it's needed a lot of the times because if capitalism wasn't regulated, you're going to end up with very few corporations that rules everything because they build one monopoly to make another until they dominant everything. We should also remember that the EU actually listens a lot more to concerns from other companies and the public, so if there's enough complaints on one thing or another from rival companies or the public, there's a fair chance the EU will act on that, which is basically democracy in work. The real problem I keep seeing with big corporations, once they get into a monopolistic position, they abuse that power by either slower down progress, higher prices, limiting choices or making it much harder for rivals to compete as they change the rules to favour them, the end result is that consumers get screwed over with less choice and higher prices, something that seems to be happening in a lot of sectors, especially from American companies, so sometimes you need stronger regulations to keep them in line, which thankfully we have the EU for that. Either way, the US having such weak regulations on it's corporations is quickly heading into a Blade Runner like future where corporations run everything and the government is powerless to stop them, which basically means there is little in the way of democracy. We see this already in some sectors where some American corporations offer far better deals to Europeans then they do to Americans, you only have to look at the health sector to see how Americans are being screwed over by some American corporations whiles giving far better deals to Europeans, because in their eyes, some profit is better than none at all, but with weak regulations in the US, it's a free for all and they'll charge what they can get away with. Regulation isn't a bad thing if done right, in fact it's needed in a lot of sectors.
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The UK could but not anytime soon, I suspect the UK will have to wait at least 2 decades before they could even think about joining, the only way I can see it being sooner is if Scotland or Northern Ireland were to leave the UK and rejoin the EU, I suspect they could join much sooner. On the plus side, views on Brexit in the UK seem to be changing, but I doubt the EU or some of its members would let the UK back in until there is a massive shift in the UK from the public, the media and political landscape, change seems to be opening up on the public, but not so much on the media and clearly a none starter with the political party, because of that, there is zero chance of the UK joining any time soon and you only have to look at the Labour Party to see there is a long way to go before the UK gets on the right side of the EU.
6
I'm half Italian, living in the UK, and sadly, I think you might be right. I suspect Spain will become bigger than Italy on a per capita basic, then the eastern European countries will follow over the coming decades. The problem in Italy is that there is too much corruption, especially at government level, there's also a big divide from north and south, it's holding back the economy. Whereas, eastern European countries, are not that different from western northern countries, just starting at a less developed state, but I can well see them catching up and doing well for themselves inside the EU, whereas Italy, constantly keeps having problems and blaming others for those problems. Italy needs some major reforms whiles also pushing hard to clean up corruption, otherwise, I fear Italy is going to continue to fall behind many of the other EU countries, that's going to feed into the Eurosceptic movement, just like it did in the UK, after all, people that feel things are getting worse, tend to blame others for the problem, the UK and Italy are well known for using the EU as a scapegoat for all the wrongs in the country, the UK is learning the hard way that the UK was the problem, not the EU, I hope Italy realises that before it's too late.
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You means the ones like where Japan is threatening the UK to sign a deal in 6 weeks because they know the UK will get worse terms than what the EU could get, hence why Japan refused to roll over the EU trade deal with Japan for the UK, it suggests Japan knows they can get more out of the UK. How about India who have said if the UK wants a good deal, the UK is going to have to open up access to visa free access for people of India to come to the UK, I'm sure that will go down well with the Brexiteers lol. How about the US who keep threatening the UK to open up access to the NHS, lower food standards plus countless other things if you want any kind of deal from them. China? I think the UK can kiss goob buy to any good deal with them with what is going on with Hong Kong. What's ironic about all of Brexit, the EU might be our best hope of getting any good deal at all with how things are going but the UK will have to bend to the EU for that to happen, it sure doesn't look like we are getting good deals around the world when the vultures are out and this pandemic will likely help on that one. This pandemic came at the worse possible time for the Brexiteers and that probably explains why support for rejoining the EU in the UK is surging, according to the latest polls, it's standing at 57% and even thought polls can be wrong, they rarely are when the margins are that high, in other words, if we had another vote, we would very likely rejoin the EU and what should really scare you is that number keeps going up, so wait till the pandemic and Brexit economic harm starts to bite the average people, that's when Brexit will really be seen as a mistake even to a lot of Brexiteers and that scares the hell out of the Tories lol.
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@Painfulldarksoul That's why many were grateful that the UK left the EU, you only have to look at the op-outs the UK had when in the EU, many of which would have benefitted the British people if they didn't op-out like the Working Time Directive. But in the case of the UK, I don't feel it's truly a European nation in the sense we like to think of it, they are like a hybrid from the EU and US, many of the good things from the EU but a lot of the negative things from the US, the NHS is a prime example of that, which is one of the worst out of all the EU countries, then there's workers rights and countless other things.
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True and in the long run, those two countries could get very isolated by all the others if they are not careful and that will make it more difficult for them to get what they want. The Dutch point of view is easy to understand, they don't want the countries down south to get reckless with the money which they do have form on doing that, I also understand the point of view from the countries down south, they need help and need it now, but Poland and Hungary are setting themselves up for getting the boot out of the EU if they don't clean up their act as respect for democracy and the rule of law is one thing the EU and its other members hold dear but the EU is smart about these things, leaders come and go and they can afford to wait it out with those two countries but if they continue to go on their path with other leaders, there is a real risk of them being booted out of the EU or money being frozen, the EU and it's members will allow them to go so far but there are limits before they really get tough on them if needed. In any case, I like to think that Poland and Hungary will change but we should remember that they are still new to all this democracy thing and are still finding their feet on that so a bit of leeway is fine by me.
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I have to agree with that, I'm British but even I would have more faith in the Germans doing a better job than our own government does in the UK lol.
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@benbuckley2540 The real question is, how many of thoes 17.4 million people voted with no deal in mind, I suspect far less then 17.4 million considering Brexit was sold on the idea of having a good deal with the EU. In truth, we only really have two options now, remain in the EU by another public vote or May's deal as no deal was never on the table and was only used as a threat to try and get the EU to bend, they didn't so that is already out.
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@Keichwoud357 The irony is that Russia does see the EU as a far bigger threat because of the EU expanding into Eastern Europe, Russia seems to have this backwards mentality that they own all those eastern European countries, the truth is, the reason Russia is losing and the EU is winning is because Russia offers threats whereas the EU offers a better quality of life and it's easy to see which appeals to most of those people and that will get worse for Russia as those eastern EU members modernize, other eastern European countries will want the same, basically, Russia sees what's going on and it's getting desperate because it doesn't have the economic power or trust to modernize these countries when they can't even modernize their own country even thought they have a massive advantage of having a lot of oil, gas and other natural resources. As for America's influence, there is some of that with some members but the EU and many of it's countries butt heads with the US a lot of the times, especially on trade.
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If it makes you feel any better, the UK could be following in your footsteps thanks to Brexit because we are already seeing small signs of weakening food standards, workers rights and many other things and the government has been under funding the health care service for about a decade until Covid kicked off which put a lot of pressure on them to invest more in it. I get a feeling that the Conservative government was trying to make the health care service so bad in the hope that the British people would get fed up with it and not care if it gets pushed out and replaced with private health care, I suspect the US will put pressure on the UK to weaken many of these things when it comes to a trade deal because the UK has a much weaker hand to play with compared to the EU. All of this couldn't happen when the UK was in the EU with its high minimum standards but now it could be a free for all and the irony being, standards might go down so that the UK can compete better, hence cutting down on regulations and red tape but that's just another way of weakening standards for the people.
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I think that's the context you've got to put this in, Russia is throwing a lot of resources into the war effort and yet are achieving very little, its performance in Ukraine is poor considering how Russia was seen as a mighty military power, that view in the west has changed a lot on Russia. Then we have the west, and especially the EU and US, the resources from them going towards Ukraine is tiny compared to what they could do and I do feel the west could do more to speed up the process of Ukraine winning the war if the west gives Ukraine the means to do so. Russia is seen as a weak country thanks to Putin, that Putin has to attack civilians is an indicator that Putin doesn't know how to win this war, in other words, it's desperate measures when it comes to war. I am also coming to the conclusion that Ukraine should be given the means to be able to attack sites in Russia, this handicap that the west have put on Ukraine isn't fair, it's allowing Russia to attack any sites in Ukraine but not for Ukraine to do the same in Russia, if the west wants to send a message to Putin, the message needs to be much closer to home.
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Spot on, how many times do people have to fall for that, basically they are telling people what they want to hear and not what can realistically be delivered, after all, it's easy to lie when not in power but once in power, they are the ones that get it in the neck if they get it wrong, hence why so many governments rarely deliver on what they promised because in most cases, they can't but they know lying is an easy vote winner. The real problem is the people that fall for the lies.
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The problem for Orbán, without the EU, Hungary as a country would be far weaker, Orbán knows that his only real influence is the vote he has in the EU, he also knows that if Hungary were to leave the EU, Hungary would be useless to the likes of Trump, Putin and Xi, so as much as he doesn't like the EU, he has no choice but to stay in as that is his only real power. I do think that if the people of Hungary are not careful, it's going to lead to Hungary being kicked out of the EU and that will likely happen in stages, first Hungary will get isolated from decision-making, second, other EU members will put up their boarders on Hungary, with that, Hungary would have little to no influence in the EU, which from the EU's point of view, they would be fine with leaving it at that, but for Hungary, that would be a weak position and quite humiliating, also, by not having much of a voice in the EU, Orbán becomes useless for Trump, Putin and Xi, and honestly, I think this is the only way people in Hungary will wake up and elect someone more sensible, either way, the issue will be mostly solved whichever way Hungary goes and it's far less of an issue for the EU and it's other members. So yes, its high time the EU pulls out the nuke option on Hungary, I mean seriously, how far does Orbán have to go for the EU and its other members wake up to see that Hungary isn't a good fit for the EU club, and this does include the people, because how many elections have happened and yet the people keep voting in Orbán, in fact, that's a bigger reason why Hungary needs kicking out of the EU because the problem isn't just Orbán, it's enough of the people that are supporting his ideals, which goes against everything the EU stands for.
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I'm not so sure about it being a mistake, devaluing a currency can help at times, but I always feel it's a cheap way to paper over the cracks in the economy, which is usually where major economic reforms are needed. Devaluing the currency can work in the short term, but it rarely solves the underline issue in the economy, especially when it comes to being competitive on the world stage, which reforms are the better option. But to be fair, most will always take the easy option out, which devaluing a currency is easier to do, reforms, especially big reforms are usually not popular with the people of the country but a lot of the times are needed if a country wants to stay competitive at the higher end of living standards.
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Not only that, but renewable energy is getting so competitive now that pushing the price up of oil or gas will lead to more renewable energy adoption. This isn't like the past where Opec could control the price and there was nothing we could do about it, since the war in Ukraine, there's been a massive drive to renewable energy to create independence when it comes to energy generating, the higher the price is of fossil fuels, the better it is for the renewable industry and the quicker that takes over, being that cars and heating is going electrics, it's becoming high risk for the fossil industry to bump up the price, and even if they do, they likely can't do it long term because renewables is getting cheaper and better. Also as you point out, those countries are divided, if one country tries to bump the price up, another might take that opening to sell more oil or gas, after all, the value of oil and gas is likely going to be much lower than it is now, so better to sell now, even on the cheap, then not be able to sell at all in the future. Either way, let them play their games, they'll end up killing those industries much sooner than it would be and in the case of Russia and Saudi Arabia, considering how dependant they are on oil and gas revenues, it won't do those countries any favours, and naturally, they'll blame the west for not buying their resources, even thought they created this situation by being political and playing with the price of that resource, basically, the situation they are creating for themselves, they've only got themselves to blame, especially Russia, which are being screwed over by the west and by China, I wonder if Putin even realises that yet.
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I think that pretty much sums up the real problem in the US, thanks to the Cold War, the system in the US pushed a lot of fear on Americans that make them see anything that's social, left and all that as bad and that likely explains why out of all the modern countries, the US is so different from others, a lot of Americans are paying the price for that ever since and it's not going to be easy to change too. This virus might be a wake up call for the American people and if this doesn't wake them up that the system they are living under is broken then nothing will and decline will happen and the first signs we'll get of that is at the end of the year with the election which could be make or break for the US as a country depending on which way they vote. In the case of English, that isn't going away even if the US declines, around half of the EU population can speak English as a second language and many others around the world can, it might weaken the language but it's not going away because Europeans want a common language so it's easy to communicate when going across the boarder around Europe.
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@donkeylord3517 It depends on how we look at it, when was the last time we had such a wide gap in wealth inequality? I think it was around the times of the Romans before they fell apart, you say the system is working and to a degree it is, but it's leaving way too many people behind and more importantly, the system is working, it's working for the rich elites, we are seeing that now with this pandemic. If we look at Europe which is more balanced from capitalism and socialism, they seem to be dealing with this a lot better, inequality is far less of an issue, the people feel they are better supported by the system where the US system seems to be braking in throwing Americans under the bus. Another factor on how we can tell the system is failing a lot of people, look at the leaders being elected in some countries, the US, the UK and so on, these people are only getting in power because people are getting desperate, they want real change and will vote anyone in, in the hope change will happen, the problem is that they are voting for the wrong horse on people that are more likely to screw them over than make things better, hence the mess in the UK and US. In any case, it will be interesting to see how EU countries and the US rebound from this pandemic because both have taken quite different paths in dealing with it, one is more humain what is going on in Europe where in the US, the system doesn't seem to care about the people.
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True, and it's not just Spain, look at the UK, the south part of it is richer and likely because it's closer to richer regions in Europe, or Italy, the north is richer and again, it's closer to richer regions in Europe. So it does seem like the richer regions are to a given country, the more likely it's going to have a knock on effect, something we are very likely going to see with the eastern EU countries, as they become richer, it will have a knock on effect to other countries further east as well as existing countries to the west in the EU, we also see the same in Germany where the west is richer then the east, but that's for other reasons being divided during the Cold War, it's also likely as the eastern EU countries continue to develop, it will have a knock on effect on Eastern Germany which should boost economic growth. Maybe a rebalancing of wealth is needed when it comes to countries like the UK and Spain because clearly, there's a big advantage to the south of the UK and the north of Italy, which makes it much harder for the other side to compete because of geographic. As for Spain, I never got a sense of the south of Spain being poor, in fact, this is the first I've heard of it and thought all of Spain is quite well off.
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I think NATO should stay as an overall military alliance but the EU countries really need to get their act together and work a lot closer in military matters, the EU countries the biggest weakness is that we are divided politically, Putin took full advantage of that divide, many others around the world try to do the same. I think if EU countries want to protect their political, economic and social interest, they are going to have to speak more with one voice, the irony being, Putin might have helped on that immensely.
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@davidwilner4553 It is a bit overdramatic and was done for hits, I'm English and even I can see that. The truth is, all that's happen is the talks are over with no agreement, that's it, talks will likely resume at some point in the future. But yeah I think it's high time we stop looking at things as if it's related to Brexit when this clearly wasn't but the headline was clearly designed for more views.
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Would be a great idea with our robotic overlord taking over most jobs but I doubt it will happen in the US without some kind of revolution, but in the EU countries, I could well see it happening at some point as they have a more social system that looks after the people. Anyway, this plan sounds something like many European countries are doing, like the UK where it's £2500 per worker every month. Honestly, I didn't think the US had it in it to be so socialist lol and before you know it, universal health care will be on the cards lol. But anyway, like many, I suspect this bill won't pass and what does pass is likely to be less per month or have so many loop holes that many don't even qualify for it, after all, this is a Republican government, they rarely care about the well-being of the people.
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That's saying a lot, me being from the UK as well and I have to wonder which is the biggest laughing stock, Trump or the UK Conservative Party when it comes to Brexit, I suspect they are both in competition with each other to be the biggest laughing stock around the world but unfortunately, this is no laughing matter because it could be quite damaging to both countries for different reasons.
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Depends on what tariffs you are talking about, but if we are talking about food standards, then the EU is right to ban them, because the US has lower food standards than the EU and there is little chance that's going to change because of public support in favour of higher standards. Besides, the US doesn't have any problems exporting to the EU in areas that have high enough standards, it's just the reality that EU standards tend to be higher than most of the world and it's up to others that want to do business in the EU market to raise their standards. To be blunt about this, we in the EU are not doing what we are seeing in the US, a race to the bottom which is throwing millions of Americans under the bus and it's only getting worse.
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China is playing the US at its own game, basically, by the US trying to restrict what can and can't be imported into the US, China is getting around that by being a lot more aggressive on pricing, this is a big deal because the world is a big market that a lot of it doesn't follow the US vision on China. It also means that if the US does restrict products from China that are a lot cheaper, that's giving the advantage to countries that don't restrict them. If China is smart, they will target the tech sector, especially Nvidia, AMD, Intel and others in that space that have becoming way too greedy the last few years, there's a massive opening for an alternative, even if the product isn't quite as good, if it's a lot cheaper, a lot of consumers will flock in that direction, just as we are starting to see with many industries from China like Solar and EV cars, basically, China has seen the weakness of the west and especially the US, which is greed, by targeting that, it's very easy to gain market share fast as China are showing in many sectors. I know some will say we should buy western products and I would, but with how greedy some are getting, if China offers an alternative of high quality and much lower price point, I would be stupid to not jump, and that I suspect is what most of the world thinks. China is likely going to continue to be aggressive on pricing in one sector after another because it's working for them at a time when the US is trying to keep China down because of other geopolitical reasons, basically, as long as there is enough countries around the world that's willing to buy products from China that are much cheaper than western products, then China wins by default and if the west is smart, they'll stop being so greedy, otherwise, China is going to eat there lunch, one sector after another as they are already showing, which will be fun to watch in the high-tech sector where they've really got greedy in the west, especially the US, and to put it another way, it doesn't matter if the US bans there products, if other countries are buying them, that's giving there consumers a big advantage in savings compared to US consumers, so the US can only go so far on that unless there corporations are willing to slash prices aggressively, fat chance of that lol.
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If there is one thing I've learned over the years of being alive is that left, right of politics, it doesn't really mean much overall. I see a consistent pattern that seems to happen, left wing parties gain power and are giving a chance, only for little to really change, years or a decade later, the right wing parties gain power, and again, not much really changes, and we keep seeing this seesaw that swings from left to right every decade or so. It's easy to understand why this happens, one side or the other are giving a chance by the voters, but not much changes, so they give the other side a chance, ultimately, not much really changes regardless of which side voters pick, and it's clear to see that voters want major changes. Then there is the people, we keep hearing a lot about these radical parties taking over, but if you look closely, any that get close or into power, they tone things down a lot that they seem like a very moderate party, that isn't by chance, to appeal to more voters, you have to become more moderated in your policies, after all, if the radical parties went ahead with the policies they really want to do, how long do you think they will last in power? Probably not long, and they'll probably never get back into power again if they rock the boat too much. Ultimately, what most voters want is stability, more equality, fairness and for things to get better, the mainstream parties have been lacking in those areas over the last decade or so in Europe and North America, so it really boils down to, can these alternative parties shake things up, especially in Europe, I suspect probably not, because it's easy to promise the earth when not in power, once in power, reality bites on what agendas they can push, it's also why I don't see these radical parties as a threat, because they would only be a threat if the majority of the population becomes radical, which we are far from that, but ultimately, the reason these are being given a chance is because people want change, but don't expect much change as reality bites.
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Unfortunately, that's the big advantage the big players like the EU, US and China have, they can change the rules in their favour to benefit them and put other countries at a disadvantage. Having a big consumer base market is a massive advantage as it basically means they can make the rules however they see fit, it also gives individuals and companies in those markets a big advantage as they can play by different rules compared to the rest of the world by having easy access to a big consumer base. The irony is, in the case of the EU, if the members got their act together, create a capital market and other reforms and integrations, it would allow the EU to do a lot of the same that the US and China does when it comes to big spending and investment in many sectors, including high-tech, that would be a major advantage for the EU but it would put other countries like Australia and Canada at a disadvantage. Today, the world is ruled by two things, the size of the economy and the population size which creates a big consumer base, those two factors allow them to make the rules up as they go along and it's more or less what the EU and US does when it comes to international rules and regulations.
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I love it when Russia plays these games as it really amount to little as it's always short term but more importantly, it gives another shot in the harm to invest in alternative energy sources. Russia's thinking is very short term and not very smart as they could very likely end up speeding up alternative's energy sources which could cut revenue down by about 10 years to Russia on gas and oil. If Russia were smart, they would have a stable energy system with no games and a reasonable price, there would be less incentive and motivation for Europeans to look for alternatives then which could delay that by decades but all Russia is doing is making themselves less reliable and that in the longer run will make it's oil and gas worthless. In any case, if Russia did play these games longer term, Europe would get it's gas and oil on the world market, likely pushing up prices for everyone else and that could turn more countries against Russia. Either way, I don't see what Russia aims to achieve longer term here because it's likely harming it's interest.
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That really depends on the starting position of the economy, austerity measures are not really liked by governments or the people as they are painful, but if debt levels become sky-high, the options become very limited where spending cut becomes one of the few thing they can do, regardless of how painful it is, sometimes it's needed to be done. But really, reforms should be a constant thing with countries to boost economic growth and reduce the need for debts, that will likely reduce the odds of austerity measures being needed, it also helps to keep taxes low whiles allow for more public spending. High debts ends up being a major drag on the economy that is long term as Japan, Italy and Greece have shown.
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I find it amusing how this is suddenly EU stupidity when this was done at a national level and not EU level, in fact the video even clearly pointed that out by showing each member and it's level of dependence on Russian energy. Beside, lets be blunt about this, most countries trade the most with near by countries, regardless of trust with them and all because it usually makes economic sense to do so then buying halfway around the world unless cheap labour is involved. The truth is, the west has been stupid when it comes to Putin, from Trump close connections to Putin, Brexit in the UK and the links to Russian money and to the popularize movements around the EU which a lot suspect was finance by Russian money, basically, the idea was to weaken the west and get us fighting among ourselves and Putin was highly successful on that but his biggest success came about with Brexit in the UK, all the other things did limited damage that can be repaired, Brexit is longer term damage that will hit the UK for decades. In any case, it's high time the rich countries stop financing this crack pot leaders, whether that be Russia, China, Turkey and many others, they are a lot weaker without our money.
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It would be great if they could resolve these issues and it would help their case on becoming an EU member because the EU wants countries that join to have good relations with nearby countries. These problems will have to be solved at some point if they want to become an EU member, so credit to them for trying to solve these problems ahead of time and I wish them luck and these problems can be solved, just look at the problems EU countries had with each other over the last 100 years, yet they managed to solved these issues with enough political will.
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It's needed as well to bring in fresh blood and new ideas, especially when existing parties get stall by promising a lot but never really delivering. The problem in the US is how the system is set up, it makes it almost impossible for new parties to gain any real power, the system is set up in such a way that allows the two main parties, the Democrats and Republican Party to dominant with a slim to zero chance of third party taking them on, in a sense, it is kinda a weak democracy as it doesn't allow fresh blood, and I suspect a lot of the issue the US faces is because voters have very little in the way of choice, you've got the Democrats, which are right wing and then you've got the Republicans which are far right, and with that, we see a seesaw swing from one party to the other every 4 or 8 years with little in the way of change, in some sense, Americans must feel powerless to get any major changes done because the system doesn't listen to the voters unless there's a mass protest to force them to listen. The UK isn't much better as systems go, it's mostly a two party system, but there is an opening for other parties, it's just that it's made difficult by the system to allow them to gain any real power, other European countries do far better than both the US and UK by allowing a lot more voices to be heard, that allows more real change in the system. Basically, you get a sense that in the US with the Democrats and Republican Party and in the UK with the Conservative and Labour Party, not really much change whoever you vote for and it all feels like a show when the elections come up with lots of promises, low taxes, higher spending but ultimately, not much change and lots of lies after the election, the cycle continues with every election.
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Same in the UK when I was at school in the 90's, I remember it being really good as well, but I can't comment on what it's like today and with everything in the UK, it wouldn't surprise me if standards have gone down lol.
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@illyanaamara8536 I think I would have taken in my own meals then have school meals, sometimes I did that in the UK but I didn't really feel I had too because the meals were pretty good and I suspect for many kids, better than what they had at home.
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I tend to find the EU is proactive to laws and regulations whereas most of the world tends to reactive, in other words, the EU tends to come up with laws and regulations before something happens whereas a lot of the world like the US tends to change laws and regulations after something has happened. As for the A.I. act and OpenAI leaving the EU market, they could but it's unlikely, as that would leave a major advantage to rivals of ChatGPT, after all, the market is too big to ignore and other rivals will swoop in and fill that void at the expense of the ones that leave. Also, if the likes of OpenAI does leave, it could push a lot more resources towards open source A.I. which is the last thing these corporations would want. As for the A.I. act, is it too strong? It's hard to say because the problem is, governments around the world are not sure of the correct way to regulate A.I. and it's likely going to take some time before we come up with some sensible solutions to it, I suspect that when negative things start to happen because of A.I. there's going to be a much bigger push from governments and the public to regulate A.I. more, after all, we are at the early stage of A.I. wait till it really starts to impact the world, that's when pressure will start to build, for good or for bad. Personally, I think online closed A.I. are going to have some major problems going forward, and not just in the EU but around the world and the reason being is that, once A.I. becomes better and more useful, it's going to integrate more into our lives, that is going to be far more of a privacy and security risk for many governments, corporations and the public, it could also push a lot more of us toward open source A.I. because that is a lot more transparent, it's open, it's run locally, so no privacy or security issues. So in truth, OpenAI or any of the big closed online A.I. services, will likely only speed up the demise of them whiles favouring open source, and personally, I don't think they can win this one with how quickly open source A.I. is developing and how well it already runs locally on our PC's, all that happened in just a few short months, so imagine over the next few years.
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The EU is democratic, but not in a direct sense apart from the European Parliament, but all the other positions are appointed by governments from each EU member, which are elected by the people. Could the system be better, of course it can, more direct elections in the EU would go a long way in shutting the naysayers down, they'll have to come up with other excuses on why they don't like the EU, something that will help to make them look more radical, but for now, the EU makes it easy for Eurosceptics to target and it does do a lot of damage as we see with the rise of the far right.
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I was thinking the price seemed crazy eye for that set up compared to the ones you can get in Europe. I know there are tariffs on imports from China in the US, but surely that's not making up such a high price tag. To be fair, solar is getting dirt cheap now that the installation and inventor is the highest cost, not the panels, but I do have to wonder what kind of set up I could do in the UK for the cost they paid for their set-up. Anyway, is a solar set-up really that much more expensive?
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It doesn't really need to be known as long as it's got benefits, economically, politically and stability and that what really matters. As for the EU bringing in new members, we've got to look at it realistically, the EU has brought in a lot of countries since 2000, most are doing fine, so because you get the odd one like Poland and Hungary throwing a hissy fit, that doesn't mean it's not a success because it clearly is. But I do think the EU needs tougher rules on new members that join in future so it's harder for them to slip like Poland and Hungary is doing. As for Russia thinking it's anti Russia, well they would think that as they want to control that region and use them as puppets in their own games, all those countries really want is improvements to the economy and more political stability, something the EU can offer and not what Russia can, basically, the EU wants to improve those regions because it helps both sides when it comes to trade whiles Russia wants to use them as pawns in their geopolitical games, I think if I was a citizen in any of those countries, I think I know which I would find more appealing. Also, there is nothing stopping Russia being part of these benefits has the EU is open to that but Russia will need to be less arrogant and less controlling for that to happen, in other words, not any time soon.
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You have to be careful when voting for change, the UK voted for change with Brexit and now things are worse, the US voted for change when Trump was in power and now things are worse. I'm all for change, but not change for the sake of change, it's got to be change that improves things and not a protest vote by angry voters, as that usually backfires into change that hurts the people's interest.
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@reucutajar It is for all members, even smaller ones when the main goal of a military is to defend one's homeland, after all, no country is going to mess with the EU or it's member if we had a single military, even at current spending, whereas the way the system is now, it keeps us weak and divided, it also allows the likes of the US, China and Russia to play EU members off each other to weaken us more
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What I tend to find is that the right wing tend to do well at times of crisis or when people feel like they are being left behind, so the financial crisis in 2011, the energy now and so on, we see that in Europe and North America and the right wing seems to love misery because they play on that a lot by blaming the left, even thought in many cases, the right created a lot of the problems lol. As for the more radical right, they are not really that much of a threat, at least not yet, even if any get into power, they have to moderate a lot or they know they will get kicked out of power and probably not get back in, radical parties usually only survive short term unless they become a lot more moderate, something many are seeing in Europe but when they moderate, they become far less of a threat to the system. You only have to look at the UK under the Conservatives and Brexit, they had their fun, they allowed the radicals in and they created a right mess that's made things much worse for the country, now the Conservatives are realizing that they have to get rid of the radicals, otherwise they will sink the party. Same in the US, the Republicans let Trump and the radicals in, they had their fun and because of the mess they created, they are being pushed out. Basically, what I'm getting at, the public is willing to give these a go because they are not happy with how things are under the traditional parties, but that doesn't give the radicals a free hand to turn the system upside down like some wanted to do, some tried, Liz Truss in the UK, Trump in the US and they both got kicked out for being radical, maybe the public remembers history and don't want a repeat of that which is what the radicals could do, but what the people do want is real change that benefits them, which is leaving the door open for the radical parts to take advantage off and that is what we are seeing across all the west.
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The Cunt Well just look at many of the wars those countries have been in since the end of the second world war, many of which are because of self-interest like oil or other natural resources, now don't get me wrong, Russia and China are hostile states as well but no one can honestly say the US, UK and Australia are clean considering how many wars they've been in, especially as many of them were started by them because of political motives, a big part of the mess in the Middle East is thanks to them.
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It more or less still is today. But we should remember that Europe is quite multi cultured now, that's not a problem in its self, but much stronger policies are needed on integration, I also find it crazy how we have open boarders inside the EU and yet each of the countries does it's own immigration policy, it's easy to see how that can create a mess and yet the solution is either close the borders, which is unlikely, or the EU will need more powers in those areas so it can act on them, the real issue is that we've got 27 countries with their own policies, pulling in all directions in a union of open boarders, the irony is, the EU is the solution and not the problem like some like to think, but it only has the powers to get the EU countries together and talk.
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Got to agree with that one, Brexit has been one of the biggest entertainments going, it's just a shame that it's impacting people's lives in a negative way, but on the plus side, it seems to be hitting Brexiteers more than the rest.
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I can understand that and I understand the difficulties he faces with the coalition, but sometimes you have to be bold to get things done, especially at times like these, after all, dragging our feet has a human cost to it as well as economic cost for Ukraine and the countries supporting Ukraine and sometimes you just have to do the right thing, put your foot down and be bold with it, otherwise this is going to cost us a lot more the longer the war drags on.
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Biden said it right, by improving everyone else standard of living in society, you end up improving your own which is pretty much what the social system in Europe does, it also says a lot that almost all developed countries have a vast support network to help its people out in these times when the US seems more interested in saving the rich elites, it's criminal watching what is going on right under the nose of the American people right now but part of this blame is on the people, Trump got elected by them after all and governments are a reflection of public thinking which suggest there is something really wrong in the US.
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It depends, it kills it from a government point of view but it seems public views are changing on the EU now and that could make things very interesting over the next 5 to 10 years.
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That isn't really a fair comparison, Italy and Spain was always going to get hit much harder because they get a lot more tourist and that matters a lot if you look around the world at the regions that got hit hard, they are tourist hot spots and in the case of Italy, they were one of the first western countries to get hit hard by this so I think they deserve some leeway on that. But with all that said, a lot of western countries have done poor compared to Asian countries and some tough questions need to be asked why that is.
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I think a lot of trust has been lost from Europeans on the US but that can get better in time if the EU and US work on it, I suspect relations will get better and mainly because of China, to contain them, the EU and US will have to work with each other and in the end, the EU and US have far more in common with each other than difference to break apart too much. All in all, Biden should be a good thing for both the US and EU but I don't think it's going to be the same as it was before Trump got into power. I also think the US will have to go on a diplomatic tour around many parts of the world to repair relations as Trump as damage that a lot, trust can be gained back and a good working relation can happen but this has to come from the US side not others.
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It's looking like the army is needed because too many people are not getting the message and are treating it as a joke and the really worrying thing about this is the rise is higher than in Italy at this stage and our NHS isn't in as good shape as the Italian health care system, the UK isn't ready for this and the cuts done to the health care system over the last 10 years could make the situation much worse.
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Actually, if an EU military were to form, EU military projects would likely get spread around the EU countries to the ones more effective on certain types of military projects, something we kinda already see today, other countries in the EU would have a bigger incentive in building the capabilities to win over the big military contracts, and a lot of these contracts could be massive because it's not just arms building for the EU, a lot of these arms will be sold on the world stage to other countries, a bit like what the US does already.
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If the rest of the world did that, it would do a lot of harm to the US whereas the rest of the world would trade with each other but in any case, it's not really needed, Trump is helping the rest of the world to reshape relations and that is not good news for the US. In any case, Trump is the best thing that happened to the likes of the EU and china because it's really showing what the US is all about and being made very public about it, Trump said he wants to make America great again, boy is he going about it the wrong way and likely going to have a negative impact on the US over the long run. Anyway, it really doesn't matter, the west is in decline with us having less market share of the world as time goes on and power is quickly shifting towards Asia and this is what really worries Trump and the US, the power hold on the world is quickly slipping, the irony is that Trumps action are just speeding that process up.
6
I didn't realize how far the US is slipping behind the rest of the modern world because like most, we see the US with how the movies portray it, but anyway, I lived in the US in the early 2000 for 2 years and that was a major eye-opener in how the US is falling behind in a lot of areas, workers rights, health care, food standards, safety, poverty, inequality and countless other things and it made me realize how lucky and easy we have it in EU countries in comparison. The sad thing is, most Americans, especially older generation ones have been brainwashed to such a degree with flag waving and patriotism that it's hard to convince them how far the US is falling behind, they just automatically assume the US is the best country in the world, based on little to nothing, the US isn't even close to being the best country in the world with what I saw of it and honestly, it felt like a first, second and third world country all rolled into one, something I've not seen in any other country and it's shocking that not enough Americans realize how bad things have got over there. The irony is, Americans go on about the left of politics so much, I say irony because the US doesn't really have any left wing politics and yes I know some will say the Democrats but let's be real here, the Democrats are a right wing party, more right wing than the Conservative party in the UK which are very right wing in the UK, the Republican Party in the US is seen as the loon party in other modern countries, extreme right wing, the closes the US has to left ring is Bernie Sanders and he had little to no chance of winning, that's where the real problem is in the US, the voters have little choice but that choice is because of the American people not changing the system.
6
Let's be blunt about this, the US have always been hostile to powers that could rival them, they were to Japan in the 80's when they saw Japan as a threat to the US economy, even thought Japan was never really a threat as it doesn't have the population to compete, then it's been on and off with the EU since the 90's as the EU becomes more integrated, and then with China as the US sees them as a major political and economic threat on the world stage. Regardless of ideology, political system or economic system, the US doesn't seem to want any power around the world that could become a bigger power then the US, so the US goes out of it's way to try and cripple these powers, the US have been successful with Japan, but not with the EU, even thought the EU isn't making it easy on themselves by not getting there act together with integration in key areas, and now we see the current economic battle with China, the soul idea is to cripple the economy of China so as they are not a threat, the US will go after India if India rises as a major power. The moral of the story is that the US is worried about losing its grip on the world and is lashing out in all directions, even against friends, the end result could be the US being push aside much faster as countries around the world distance themselves from the US, both politically and economically, something that is already slowly playing out now, the cost to the US could be dire over the long run and the benefits for the EU and China could be major if they play there cards right, especially the EU as they are far more trusted compared to China. It's going to be interesting to see how much damage Americans are willing to allow to the US before they wake up, but I think it might be too late that even if Trump were to be kicked out of power today, the US is rapidly losing trust and respect around the world and the funny thing is, most power don't see the fall until it's too late, and maybe we are watching history in the making.
6
Yeah, you would think that would be a conflict of interest in accepting donations from foreigners, especially when it comes to meddling in internal politics which Russia has shown it's willing to do. Donations at the best of times are usually bribes to get governments to do their bidding, it's all the worse when foreign powers are willing to do it that you would think laws would be in place to prevent that but then considering how corrupt many governments are, it doesn't surprise me why things are the way they are.
6
@sttthr Unfortunately, the ruling party has a negative impact on the Polish people. In any case, I think the real issue in Poland is because of where a lot of Polish people get their news, they get it from government controlled sources that control the narrative of what they want the people to see, it's less impactful on the younger generation, but it's very effective on the older generation that are stuck in their way, and unfortunately for Poland, a lot of the younger generation of people end up fleeing the country for a better life, which re-enforces the power of the current government to do what it wants and get away with it, at least in Poland, I say that because I think longer term that if Poland and Hungary keep heading on this path, it's going to end up with them being booted out of the EU in one way or the other. At the end of the day, it's up to the people in Poland to change the path the country is going on, if they don't, it's only going to hit them the hardest, because it always does while the ones in power get away with it.
6
@TheRealHelvetica They are but with the lack of reforms in the country and with the current government in power, it's unlikely that Turkey will join the EU any time soon and in all honesty, Turkey seems to be moving in the opposite direction on that. I can't see any of that getting back on track until a new government is in power in Turkey.
6
Just like any country in Europe could join, so could the UK. Realistically, I don't see it happening for at least 2 decades because the EU or a number of its members would likely block the UK from joining so early on. Not only that, would they really want a troublesome country like the UK in the EU again? The UK have shown to be a pain in the arse for decades that are not committed to the ideals of what EU countries are trying to achieve with the EU, the UK after all entered the EEC for economic reasons above all else and because of all that, I think many in the EU and it's members will want to see a seismic shift in public, media and political views on the EU before there's any chance of the UK joining. We should also remember that if the UK wants to join, there won't be any op-outs, the UK will have to join everything, including the Euro, if the UK even tried to ask for op-outs, think of the message that would send the EU, it basically says the UK isn't committed and will be a pain in the arse like they were decades ago. To put it another way, any chance of the UK rejoining is many decades away, and that's assuming the UK makes an effort to join, if they don't, it's much further away, but Scotland and Northern Ireland do have options, they were pulled out of the EU against their will, so they might be able to join much sooner as the EU would likely go easier on them two compared to the entire UK, but even then, both those countries would have to leave the UK, so either way, I see little hope for the UK or any of it's countries joining the EU any time soon and probably that's for the best, lessons are usually learned the hard way, basically, the UK made it's bed, it needs a few decades to learn those lessons the hard way, that with any luck, being an Eurosceptic in the UK could become unpopular by most of the public, something we are seeing small hints of change in public views, but we are a long way from it having a big impact.
6
Nspnspker With everything that's going on with the US and how Canada seems to be more of a European country then like the US and with how Canada plays second fiddle to the US and mostly gets ignored, I can actually see many benefits for Canada and the EU if Canada was to join the EU but the EU would have to open up and allow countries outside of Europe to join and I think they should because I suspect some countries would love to join given half a chance, especially with how unstable the world is and how the US and China are going, being inside the EU would feel quite safe for many countries.
6
People have been saying the EU will fail for decades and yet it never happens, wanting something to be so doesn't make it so, in fact, Trump and Brexit are likely going to make the EU stronger because now they are starting to realise that they have to stand on there own two feet when the US is so unpridictable and unreliable, Trump is the gift that keeps giving and it's sad that he doesn't see that.
6
It depends, change happens at a faster or slower pace depending on the need for change, we've seen a few signs of that with Covid and everything that is going on with the war in Ukraine, but clearly change is needed to smoother out the process and like the video pointed out, it's highly unlikely that any new country is going to join the EU until reforms are done to the veto and majority voting rules and I think the EU needs to work on this shortly after the energy crisis, so maybe summer to late next year as things ease off. If the EU countries don't get their act together on reforms, it's going to create a lot of gridlock and hold up the process of countries wanting to join the EU, whiles also holding back many reforms and changes needed doing in the EU. I'm also thinking that if the EU countries can't do this at an EU level, maybe they should put more focus on the Euro Zone as they are more likely to want change, reforms and integration compared to none Euro Zone countries, there are also areas like the military that countries in the EU could integrate already, so say France, Germany, Italy, Spain and a few others work a lot closer together on a single military, after all, you don't need all EU members onboard to allow many countries in the EU to work much closer together, in fact they did that with the Euro and Schengen zone.
6
@Donstefanaki It's not dead but it's took a major slap thanks to Brexit and like he said, Boris promised a lot but didn't deliver, farmers could be next to be thrown under a bus.
6
It more or less does, at least in economic terms because there is only so much wealth around, the more evenly divided it is, the better for everyone. The US is a prime example of that, they like to brag about how many millionaires and billionaires they have but that's actually taking wealth away from the poor and middle classes in the country, hence why the US has one of the highest inequality and poverty rates of developed countries. Or to put it another way, a video on YouTube explained it best, imagine the wealth of a country is 1 million and say there are 2 people in that country, one has 900 and the other has 100, according to GDP per capita, they both should have the same wealth here, that's what's wrong with this and why you see so much poverty in the US even thought it's supposed to have a higher GDP per capita than many rich countries, it means little when it's in so few hands, hence why Europe and many other developed countries are doing much people, especially for the poor and middle classes.
6
The EU and many of it's members got bored of Brexit about a year ago, this pandemic pretty much killed any real interest from the EU in caring, but the EU being diplomatic will continue to talk but I get the impression that they don't care what the UK does just as long as this ends one way or the other, after all, it's the UK that keeps dragging thier feet on it which is ironic for a country that keeps saying they want to leave.
6
True and the only way I can see the UK stopping the bleeding is if the UK joins the single market and custom union. Same could also be the case with Scotland if they left the UK and join the EU, Scotland and the rest of the UK trade around 300 billion pound per year, if boarders were to go up, Scotland will replace a lot of that trade from the UK with others in the EU market, Scotland can afford to do that because the EU market is massive, but I don't think the rest of the UK can afford to lose that business and again, the only way to prevent that is to reduce friction by joining the single market and custom union. The real question is, how bad do things have to get for the UK before that penny drops, under normal times I would say a decade or two but with everything that's going on in the UK at the moment, it could happen much sooner, especially as the reputation of the Brexiteers and the Tories are being hammered hard here.
6
I think further integration on military and foreign policy matters is going to be a matter of need and not want in the next decade or more, and most because of the changing landscape of the world, especially with the likes of Putin and Trump around, the EU countries need a much stronger voice to defend there interest and that can be a lot more effective at an EU level than national level. Poland is a rising star on the EU stage, but to turn that into political clout, it will need good relations with Germany and France, the reason I say that is because when the UK were in the EU, they got sidelined a lot because the UK were obstructive a lot of the times, the UK is much bigger than Poland is, so for Poland to bigger player in the EU arena, it has to be constructive and not obstructive by making friends in the EU to turn that into political clout, Germany and France are good at doing that, Poland could be, especially with close relations with the other big players in the EU, whereas Hungary are slowly being pushed aside and marginalised because of the current government, which we saw happen to the UK because they were not on the same page as most EU members, the same is happening to Hungary and could have happened to Poland under the old PIS government. Honestly, when it comes to core groups in the EU, I think they are Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland, these are the key players then can make real change in the direction of the EU, that isn't to say the other smaller members are not important in steering the direction of the EU because all the voices are, but it's clear there's a core group that can get things done.
6
@milosilic23 The markets will pick up but I don't know about the economy because it's likely going to take years to repair the damage of this as businesses are under threat in a lot of areas, jobs are at risk, governments are pumping a lot of money in the economy which is leaving them in a bad state to recover from, then when you throw in that consumers could take some time to start spending because of the risk to their jobs, I don't see a recover from this happening for quite some time and more so the longer the virus and lockdown continues. But don't get me wrong, things will bounce back but I think it's going to take longer then what some think.
6
@chrisperkins7331 True and I agree with you, GDP per capita is a poor indicator of wealth of the people, it's an indicator that assumes everyone is treated equally, which clearly isn't the case, and the irony is, the less equal a society is, the less meaning GDP per capita is, hence why I always laugh at the US and UK government when they like to brag about how well the economy is doing or how low unemployment numbers are doing, which means nothing to the average person that feels things are getting worse not better, Brexit and Trump was a clear indicator that a lot of people in both countries were getting left behind and wanted real change, they got change but for the worse. You're right though, the US is a failing nation, at least when looking at a lot of the stats that matter to the average person, the main issue in the US is too much capitalism, a government that doesn't care about the population, and a massive amount of inequality, where too much wealth is in too few hands, EU countries do have some of the same issues but nowhere near to the same degree.
6
Why blame the EU for something they don't have the powers to change? Besides, she said we need treaty reforms, it's really up to the EU members to do those changes as the EU has limited powers in that and can only deal with the cards the members have given it. I do think more democracy is needed at an EU level, but treaty change will likely be needed for that to happen, so it's really up to the members to make that happen, if they don't, then the blame firmly goes on them not the EU.
6
It's rare to get a situation where the public votes in favour of having to work longer, so it's understandable why the public would react that way. The problem for France, if they want to remain competitive with other western countries, they'll need to change because the reality is, France has one of the lowest pension age in the western world, it's also got one of the highest life expectancy and don't the French also work some of the lowest hours? When you put it all together, this is expensive for the country to maintain, it also likely makes France less appealing for investment when companies can pick any other EU country and still have easy access to the market and even if it wasn't for the EU market, many companies would likely pick other more favourable countries that offer a better deal for them. I do wonder if pension retirement should be tied into life expectancy of a country, because overall, people are living longer and if pension retirement doesn't go up, it becomes a lot more expensive for the government and taxpayers in the country and considering that France life expectancy is 83, so quite high for western standards, it's easy to see how much of a burden this is going to be on the French taxpayers longer term, especially on the young if the pension reforms don't change. So as much as none of us want pension retirement age to go up, it's probably wise that it does for the long term countries health, otherwise, there's likely going to be a massive tax burden on the people, especially the younger generation and that situation is going to get worse over the coming decades unless major reforms are done. With all that said, I don't agree with Macron trying to force this through, there really needs to be a case made to the public and other political parties on why pension reforms need to change, still, I've got to admire the French for willing to protest on these things, a lot of countries seem to lack a spine and just accept things for how they are.
6
I suspect the quality of life in a country and how people are treated, especially lower classes has a big impact on crime rate, after all, you're more likely to turn to crime in hard times than not. I think this is where the real problem is in the US, the system doesn't treat lower and middle classes that well, there is a weak social system and safety net and the way the prison system is in the US is almost barbaric by other modern countries, which likely has the impact of someone returning to crime because of having less opportunities once they've paid their dues. What we see in other modern countries when it comes to the prison system wouldn't work in the US until they fix a lot of the core issues in society which leads to a lot of crimes and I don't think that is going to be easy to fix in the US, even thought it should be because the blueprint is already there in more or less every other modern country, they've figured it out, why hasn't the US? I suspect capitalism is a big factor or the degree of how capitalism is king in the US compared to other modern countries that are more like social democracies, basically capitalism but with big governments and a lot of social protections for it's citizens and it's likely many of these factors can play into whether you turn to crime or not.
6
Can't really compare the US to third world countries, the US is bad but not that bad, but you can compare to other modern countries like European ones and that's where the US looks really bad in so many areas and we are seeing a lot of that play out with this crisis.
6
Well no because EU members can trade with the rest of the world and trade more or less whatever they want, in fact the EU have a lot of bilataral deals in place that lowers tariffs with the likes of the US to something like 3% for most goods. This is the reality of it, the UK doesn't do a great job with trade with the outside world because we don't have enough of what others want, now compare that to the likes of Germany, France and many others that does far better then the UK with trade with the rest of the world, the EU isn't the problem, the UK is. As for UK trade with the EU, we are always going to trade with the EU members the most even with a hard Brexit, the fact is most countries trade the most with close countries because it makes economic sense to do so then with countries miles away. In any case, the UK have not given the EU a realistic plan on Brexit, everything seem to revole around having a cake to eat or cherry picking a deal, the EU wont accept that because that would be like having the benefits of EU membership without the cost which would be crazy, but even to this day, the UK goverment keeps pushing that, it's crazy and also explain why we are getting nowhere fast, unless the UK goverment gets a reality check, the EU will keep rejecting all the plans the UK keeps sending them and the UK doesn't want that because hard Brexit would be really damaging dor the UK. I suspect once all the huffing and puffing from the UK is over with and the clock keeps ticking down, the UK will bend like we have so many times, everything is pointing to the single market and custom union being the best offer on the table and so far the leave side can't seem to come up with a better plan thats workable and boy are they trying hard to do but too many of them are sold with unicorns and just get rejected as pie in the sky.
6
I think longer range weapons would be useful for Ukraine to attack Russian supple lines, if they can take out enough of them, it will be harder for Russia to fight on the front line. As for Ukraine EU membership, that's a bit more complicated, there isn't such a thing of speeding up the process from the EU side and how quickly a country joins is really down to the country in question, basically, how quickly they do the changes and reforms needed to become a member, hence why some countries can join much sooner than others. In the case of Ukraine joining, the war would need to be over, I think there is a lot more political will on both the EU and Ukraine side to make it happen with reforms likely being enacted much faster in Ukraine because of what Russia has done, but there is also the EU side, there needs to be reforms on the treaties, especially veto rules and majority voting, without those reforms, I can't see the EU allowing any new country in and Hungary and Poland are a good reason for why there should be pause.
6
If Scotland does it and makes a success of it, the EU will likely go out of it's way to help Scotland and all evidence shows that smaller countries like Scotland usually do well for their people, yes others will likely follow like Northern Ireland and even Wales, especially with how bad things are going in the UK.
6
Well it's quite simply really, the EU said the UK can have a Canada style deal but the problem is that that deal is not good enough and would do a lot of damage to the UK, we should remember that free trade deals are anything but free, the EU market is one of the only ones that could be said to be truly free and very close to how trade is done internally inside a country. This is why the UK needs a far better deal then what Canada got and I should point out, Canada and other countries around the world would love to have the same access to the EU market that the UK currently enjoys. In other words, the benefits of EU membership are far more then a simply free trade aggrement which is anything but free to begin with and it's also the reason why many countries are willing to put so much into the EU pot because the benefits they get out of it are worth it. Also, a Canada style deal doesn't solve the Irish boarder, it also doesn't solve services which make up most of the UK economy, in the end, it's looking like the UK is going to end up in the single market and custom union or something like that under a diffrent name because no matter how much we try, we can't figure out a way of doing a deal that wont harm the UK a lot and staying in both of them would limit the damage even thought we would have no say in EU rules but would have to abide them, that might be a price we have to pay for signing Article 50 in such a rush.
6
my brother said that years ago when he worked at Safeway and they had many Poles working there, he said they worked harder then most of the Brits there so it's no wonder many busisnesses want them, the real problem here is that without them, prices could go up for many things we buy or busisnesses could ship out because it's cheaper and more effective to get labour elseware. Also, our productivaty level isn't that great in the UK, the Germans produce more in 4 days then the average Brit does in 5 and that to me is where the real problem is on why busisnesses push hard to bring in people from other countries.
5
Well me being English and living in the UK all my life, my view on it is that too many in this country are holding onto the past, the glory days of when Britain was a powerful country, most of which is pushed by the media to make the people feel better about themselves, most of it is crap because the UK comes across quite weak if I'm honest, more so with that so called special relationship the UK is suppose to have with the US which is more or less do as you are told, Germany on the other hand have set themselves up in a much stronger position, a position they didn't really want at first and what's ironic about this is that the UK pulling out of the EU makes Germany a stoger player in the EU and world whereas the UK becomes less relevant, it wouldn't surprise me if the US power shifts away from London and towards Berlin.
5
Problem is with many other talk shows is that it feels like they are being interrogated with rapid fire questions one after another, it's not relaxed at all and thats what makes the Graham Norton show much better, he gets them to relax and be themselfs and it works, it even seems to get us to like them better then we likely would because we get to see the real them and not the stage act they put on, it's no wonder they keep coming back for more.
5
@markcolonna6874 Actually, that's not how democracy works, democracy is always a constant moving process, your version of democracy is that the vote is final regardless of what the public thinks of Brexit afterwords, polls for the last 2 years have consistently showed that the British people would vote to remain in the EU, does that sound like democracy to you? but then people like you idolize people like Trump who is quite happy to undermine democracy. As for rejoining, we may do but the problem is that once we are out, good luck getting back in because it would only take one member to block us and I can think of a few that will, best chance for the UK to rejoin the EU once fully out will be for the separate countries of the UK like Scotland and Northern Ireland to leave the UK and rejoin the EU, I doubt EU members will have a problem with that but I highly doubt EU members will let the entire UK in the EU for decades now as we've always been the troublemakers in the EU, after all, many are glad to see us go. If Brexit ends up leading to the break up of the UK union, Brexiteers are going to look mighty stupid, the term little Englander will actually have some real meaning then because lets be honest, Brexit is mostly an English thing, hence all the noise in Scotland and Northern Ireland on Brexit.
5
A multi speed EU could work, but power will always remain in the inner core of countries, which for now is Euro Zone countries, in other words, countries that are at arm's length, would they really be comfortable with the idea of more powers shifting more towards inner core countries? Inner core countries will end up with far more advantages, not to mention that they are more likely willing to integrate, which will give them more advantages over the other core countries. I do think it can still work, but I have to wonder about the countries that are hanging back, their influence overtime would become smaller over time, it would also put more pressure on the outer core countries to want into the inner core, a bit like how gradually, more countries keep joining the Euro and to put it another way, the inner core countries make the rules, the other ones abide it, in the case of the EU now, you've got a few layers, the Euro Zone, the EU and EEC countries, it's not hard to imagine over the long run where the voting patterns are going to go, especially in Euro Zone countries as they become more integrated with each other, that puts the rest in a difficult position, especially the ones that don't want to integrate, it basically means they become rule takers or it pushes them fully out of the EU and it's only going to get worse for the likes of Poland and Hungary as more eastern EU countries join the Euro as it ends up isolating the remaining countries and that will in time translate into political power in favour of Euro Zone countries. So even though a multi speed EU can work and might be the best solution for the time being, I think eventually, it's going to lead to most if not all countries being pulled into the inner core, otherwise, their inelegance will in time become weaker, almost to the degree that they could become rule takers, which ironically could be the best way to get rid of the countries in the EU that don't want the project to work or are in for selfish reasons, after all, if you look at it, countries that drag their feet, the UK, Poland, Hungary and the likes, these will hold back on many areas like the Euro, now that might not be an issue for them now, but it's a given that more powers will be concentrated on the inner core groups of countries and that is Euro Zone countries, or to be blunt about it, the rest are not that important and let's not kid ourselves, power is always going to shift towards the inner core countries because of integration, the UK found that out by more or less being pushed aside by others in the inner core of the EU when the UK was in the EU, the same will very likely happen to those other countries unless they become more integrated.
5
So is anyone keeping tabs on all the sectors that are being thrown under the bus? we've got Northern Ireland, the fishing industry and now it looks like the farming industry could be next, did I miss anything? The irony is that Boris seems quite happy to throw a lot of the ones that backed him on Brexit which likely means he used them on the vote but was never going to do their bidding, after all, he's a Tory.
5
That seems unlikely in today's world Finland is an EU country and a modern one at that, taking them on would be a lot tougher than taking on Ukraine, also, Finland is joining NATO soon, so it would be crazy for Russia to even think about taking Finland on as it would compel the EU and NATO countries to get directly involved and considering how badly Russia is doing in Ukraine, they stand no chance against the west unless nukes are used but then nobody wins, Putin might be crazy enough to go that route but I highly doubt his inner circle or Russian people would want to go that route.
5
@Jonnythebaker That's for now, things can change, especially as the EU and US can rewrite international rules in favour of themselves. Let's not kid ourselves, both the EU and US will take advantage of the situation because they both know there is a lot of business they can take from the UK, when the UK was part of the EU, we were protected by the EU, that isn't the case now and I suspect the UK will bleed business away towards the EU and US.
5
I think a European superstate or federation is only a matter of time and mostly because of the US and China. Basically, if we Europeans want to protect our political, economic and social interest, we're going to have to work a lot closer together and the EU is the perfect tool to achieve that. The alternative will be the likes of the US, China, Russia and the likes playing games with us, dividing us for their own benefits, that would hurt our economy and could weaken our social system. The UK with Brexit could be a prime example of that where now the UK is weak, the US will likely try and take advantage of that by weakening the health care system, food standards, workers rights and so on. So Europeans have two choice, either we get together or we become irrelevant in a world where we have far bigger powers that individual European countries can't hope to compete with the likes of the US, China and India in the long run but together we can. Got to remember that the EU came about after the second world war to prevent another war from happening among European countries, but it also came about because of the US and Soviet Union, basically, Europeans were too small and a mess at the time to compete with them, it's the same story now but with the US, China, India and others and that's going to get a lot worse for smaller countries as the decades go by, in other words, they'll become irrelevant on the world stage and that will likely harm their political and economic interest, something the EU allows it's members a much bigger voice, especially on economic matters but it's clear that more integration is going to be needed if we are to compete, now the question is, when will that penny drop. Also, we've got to remember that it's not quite as clear cut on how popular the EU is among it's members or what percentage of them want to leave, we've seen time and time again how distorted those numbers become when it comes to what people think and what they are likely to do and we see that with parties in a lot of the EU countries, they say a lot when not in power but it's a different story when in power because it's them that gets hit if they get it wrong, in other words, many are just talking from the outside for political gain with some sectors of the public, but even the countries that are disgruntled with the EU, none show any signs of wanting to really leave, the UK being the exception that never truly wanted in in the first place. Also, countries leaving isn't that big of a deal as long as there are more countries joining, we saw with the UK leaving, there was a lot of noise on that but it's not really changed anything for the EU as it's likely going to continue to expand further east.
5
The EPP did better than expected, but overall, not much changed, just more compromises will be needed, but more of the same. The Greens got hit hard, which I suspect it's because consumers are not seeing the benefits of going green yet, if energy bills were coming down with all this renewable deployment, they likely would gain more support, but for all the renewable energy being added on the grid, consumers don't feel like they are benefitting from it unless they do renewable on-site. I'm all for going renewable, but it makes a lot more sense to do it yourself so that you stand to benefit from it, on the grid, we are not seeing the benefits, in fact, reports suggest it's pushing energy prices up, that and a lot of the planning permission to deploy renewable energy probably didn't do the Greens any favours.
5
At the end of the day, you've got to blame the people of the UK, not enough wanted to educate themselves on what the EU is, the good and bad points of it, and many were blind sided by the lies from much of the right wing media and politicians. We should also remember that the UK has had a very also media when it comes to the EU for decades that have constantly told us the negatives but rarely tell us about the positives of the EU, that constant banging the drum against the EU was overtime bound to have an impact in turning a lot of the British public against the EU, and it was clear from a lot of the Brexiteers, a lot of them didn't know what they were talking about. In the end, there was no accountability on the media when it comes to facts and telling the truth, the British people don't hold the government to account on its actions, we see that with Brexit where the Tories have lied there way through Brexit and yet the British people have let them get away with that, it stands to reason that the government will do the same on other policies and fob the people off because the people don't stand up and pull them into line, that for me is a big part why this country is going down the toilet, and the signs were there before Brexit, it's just made all the worse with Brexit. But seriously, I think the real threat in the UK is the right wing media that have been very effective in poisoning peoples minds, whiles at the same time, making the British public more aggressive on many policies, they are also very effective at getting the public to fight among themselves, all with the aim of a few select elites on the right to push their agenda. I don't see things getting better in the UK any time soon until the British people change and start holding governments and the media to account on what they print and what governments promise, only for them to not deliver on those promises, or to be blunt about this, the real problem isn't the media or the governments, it's the British public where the real problem is, because everything else in the country is a reflection of the people, we like to complain about the government all the time, yet we do little to nothing to make them change to benefit the people. With all that said, I think Brexit was needed, we've let the right wing run riot for too long with their lies, we needed a cold shower of reality to wake us up, Brexit is exposing a lot of the lies from the right, and it's slowly changing public views on the EU and Brexit, but far more needs to be done before this mess is sorted, I suspect another 2 to 3 decades to really hit the right and Eurosceptics hard in the UK, then who knows, we might be able to join the EU, but that's a long way off because I can't see the EU or it's members letting us back in with how we've behaved until there's a sizeable change from the public, media and political parties in how they see the EU projects, that's likely going to take decades, if it happens at all.
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Sweden did try to allow Romania in the Schengen zone, but it got vetoed by Austria and the Netherlands, so it's not really Sweden's fault. But it does highlight again that we need to get rid of or reduce vetoes rules, because clearly, Romania had clear support from the rest of the EU members as well as the EU, but it only takes one or two to hold everything up, something that is becoming a problem in many areas now.
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Eastern Europe are still developing countries in the EU but likely over the next 2 or so decades they will catch up to western standard and be better off thanks to being in the EU, as for Russia, they have energy and natural resources that the west needs until we find and start using alternative energy so not much will change in the short term but in the long run, Russia will need to stop relying on natural resources or it's going to hit their economy hard. In any case, all EU members should be considered important, big or small to the EU and to it's other members over say other countries like Russia and as for Brexit, I suspect the UK is likely going to find it's self isolated from the EU and likely isolated from the US as well, the US showed a big interest in the UK because the UK had influence in the EU, leaving the EU, the US is likely going to show less interest in the UK with the exception of using the UK for military matters, politically, the UK is already weaker and thats before we have left the EU, economically, well that depends on what deal the EU is willing to give us.
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The land mass of Europe is a bit weird when it comes to defining what is Europe and what isn't, and many people will have different views on what defines Europe. I come to the conclusion of defining it as European ideals, culture and values over geography, and I know that's not very accurate but even the EU bends the rules on what countries can join the EU, regardless of if they are in Europe or not but more based on European ideals, culture and values, and it wouldn't surprise me if the EU continues to expend, over the long run, it could expand out of Europe based on those ideals, culture and values and that the EU could probably do it on a case by case base per country, but that's going to be some time away as there is enough in Europe for the EU to chew on. In any case, it's complicated, and this debate has been going on for a long time, and honestly, I don't really think it matters in modern times.
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It's easy to blame others for one's problems, a lot of countries use others as scapegoats to cover the core problem back home, it usually just makes things worse and keeps the misery going. Many in Greece like to blame the EU for how things are, the truth is, the EU and especially the Euro, acted like a cushion on the damage that without them, things would likely be a lot worse in Greece now. In the end, what's really needed is major reforms to kick-start the economy but we keep seeing a lot of blame games and foot dragging and Greece is not the only one to blame many of their problems on others, Italy and Spain does it as well. Also, working the longest isn't the solution, working smarter is, productivity levels is the key.
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@alpineanubis Pretty much that, he's a wannabe dictator that's using his position in the EU to extract more powers than his country could normally get. The irony is, it's the EU that's keeping Hungary on the straight and narrow, if Hungary wasn't in the EU, they could quickly go the same path as Russia, Turkey or Belarus, maybe that's why Hungary needs to be kicked out of the EU to wake the people up in the country as the people are playing with fire with that kind of leadership and it's only going to burn the public in the long run, after all, when have authoritarian leaders ever cared about their own people? It's all about power and protecting that position of power, which is more or less what Orbán is all about. Hence, why I think Hungary needs to be kicked out of the EU, because just like the UK with Brexit, sometimes you need a major wake-up call to see how bad things can be.
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What I find ironic is how the numbers in the UK and US seem to come down in line with the other European countries even thought they are ahead of the curve on this, it does sound like they are cooking the books to not get left behind in opening up the economy, in other words, as the Europeans open up, it's putting a lot more pressure on the UK and US to open up even thought both countries are not ready to open up just yet. In other words, make your own judgement on it and play it safe because it's clear that the governments will push us out even if it's not safe as the economy starts to bite.
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@streaky81 We didn't get everything we wanted, now if you were talking about the EU getting what they wanted, well fair enough but think about it, the UK economy is a service based economy which accounts for about 80% of the economy, the EU give little to nothing on that to the UK while's the EU managed to have good access to the UK market in other areas, that's a very good deal for the EU. Then they also have access to UK waters regarding fish for 5.5 years, I think we know it's going to be extended in 5.5 years from now, then we have Northern Ireland and Gibraltar that are closely tied to EU rules with Scotland wanting the same thing, that's either going to fragment the UK union or put a lot of pressure on UK governments to stay in line with EU rules to keep the UK union together. This deal is a lot better than expected for the EU and likely all because they called Boris's bluff which backed fired on him, after all, this deal is even worse than the deal May could have got.
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@streaky81 By all means, keep deluding yourself, it's in black and white in those legal documents what both the EU and UK got, it doesn't paint a pretty picture for the UK but lets be honest, Brexiteers have been deluding themselves from 4 years ago from 350 million to the NHS, to the UK holds all the cards, to the EU would fail without the UK, that the EU would buckle to UK demands, that some EU members would help the UK out because of self-interest, none of this happened, the UK got a raw deal and now the government is trying to paint it as a good deal, it's no wonder the UK is looking like a joke to the rest of the world. But don't worry, reality is upon us so you can bullshit all you want, it's not going to change reality no matter how much you want it to do. But I have to admit, it's really sad how so many can delude themselves so much but then that's why Brexiteers are not as successful in life and you only have to look at the regions that voted for Brexit the most, they are mostly the poorer regions in the UK and yet thoes poor saps honestly think the UK government is going to give them hands out when we both know they don't care about them as it's all about the south for them.
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The contexts of the EU being a declining power is because of the rise of China and India, the truth is, the US is in the same boat as the EU in having to make room for China, India and other powers but these other powers still have a long way to go and could stubble along the way. The EU also has the advantage that it can expand and really, there isn't really any limits on how far that can go, especially if someday they decide to expand outside of Europe. So yeah, the EU isn't a declining power, it's a changing power just like others are having to change and let's be honest, many thought that Europeans were a declining power after the second world war, in reality, they just reinvented themselves by getting closer together and pooling resources together, something that is likely going to continue in many areas.
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@ourshit5725 To be fair, most of us don't like seeing doctors or going to the hospital and I usually only go as a last resort but it's nice not knowing about the cost factor and knowing I can go whenever I want, Covid permitting lol.
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@ottz2506 Some things just make more sense that way, especially public services like fire, health care, the police and so on, it seems odd in the US that many of the other services are government run but the health care isn't. I suspect a big part of that is because the private health care industry has got too big in the US and it's this constant fight from the government and them to change or keep things as they are but it's also a case of capitalism going too far which is harmful to the citizens. You're right, their actions or I should say lack of action has likely killed millions of Americans over the decades and probably ruined many lives because of the debt burden. On the plus side, I think it's only a matter of time before the US follows the rest of the developed world, every other developed country and a lot of developing ones are universal health care, that's putting a lot of pressure on the US to change and it's clear there is enough interest in that from the public, I suspect it's just a matter of time.
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Immigration is one of those things that as many people might not like, it's needed, the main reason being is birth rates in modern countries are too low and not enough as a replacement rate. On the surface, that sounds like a fine thing, a population decline, but the problem is that there is an imbalance on the population because of the boom after the second world war, basically, there are becoming more older people and not enough younger people, that's putting a massive burden on taxes and public services, without immigration, this problem would become far worse with governments having less tax revenue coming in, meaning either higher taxes for everyone else or lower spending on public services at a time when it needs more spending. Then there is also the job shortage, the simple truth is, there are many jobs that the natives don't want to do, and if a business can't get the workers locally, they'll end up shipping out and do business elseware, taking that economic activity with them. This is an issue that is hitting almost all modern countries that have a birthrate lower than 2.1, hence why immigration across almost all modern countries is high and likely to get higher as there is no easy solution to fix this problem until the balance from young and old is more balanced, which will take many decades for that to happen, or people start having more kids to balance it out. Eventually this will correct its self out overtime but that's decades off and in the short term, things are likely going to get worse before they get better as people are living longer and the percentage over 50 is increasing, but a solution might come about that could solve all this problem, A.I. and robotics, that could solve the cost of labour, the amount of workers needed and reduce taxes by a lot, but A.I. and robotics will bring another problem, not enough work to go around which will impact the younger generation the most, the irony being is that A.I. and robotics could flip things on it's head that the main issue isn't the older generation but finding work for the younger generation as A.I. and robotics replaces most of the jobs. But I will say one thing, even thought there's not much they can do in lowering immigration numbers, they could do far better on integrating these immigrants into society, I suspect a big problem people have with immigration isn't so much the numbers but that many of them don't integrate into society, I also feel that governments need to start facing off the rich elites and start listening to the concerns of the average citizens when it comes to cost of living and shortage of houses, a lot of these issues have been created by the rich elites that don't want as many houses being built because it pushes up the price of the ones they've bought, and with the cost of living, everything being more expensive is profitable for them, immigration is the scapegoat being used in many countries to cover up the real cracks in society which is lack of housing and cost of living. As for immigration, I find the best policy is to help develop the countries from where they are coming from, if there is less reason for them to move, they likely wont and then we have a natural flow of people movement across the world, I know that's easier said than done but that is the solution that would solve this problem over the long run, and it's something we see in the EU as the EU helps develop the eastern EU members, it reduces the influx of people moving westward and in fact, people from the west of the EU start moving towards the east in a more natural flow of people movment.
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It makes sense to have an organisation like this, crime isn't restricted by boarders of a country and nor should law enforcement. Now there is cooperation and that does work to a degree, but it would be far more effective and likely cheaper to have a pan-European enforcement agency that has teeth. The truth is, as we advance, crime is very likely going to be a lot more cross boarder and eventually, we might need an international organisation that goes beyond Europol and the FBI. But like all things related to the EU, improvements and integration will be at an incremental step by step thing, as is needed, so it's very likely more powers will go towards Europol as it's likely going to be needed as criminals will find it easier to do cross boarder crimes as we become more advanced.
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There's still a lot of division in the country, especially from west to east of the country, but yeah, this vote does indicate that a lot of people are not happy with the government, but we should remember that they still got most of the votes, even if they can't form a government, it basically means that Poland still has a lot of work ahead of it, especially in the eastern part. But with all that said, progress has been made here, maybe relations with the EU and Ukraine will get better and more constructive and not obstructive, it could also be much easier for the EU to deal with Hungary to get them to change, or maybe even kick them out if they don't change. I do know one thing, if Poland wasn't in the EU, Poland was quickly heading into being a dictatorship under the PIS government, it would have been much further along the line if Poland wasn't in the EU as the EU limits what Poland could get away with, personally, if Poland wasn't in the EU, I think Poland would have heading in the direction of where Russia is in how the goverment is run.
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It's not just unwise, but it would be reckless of the UK to choose the US with everything that's going on over there. We should remember that a lot of countries are trying to shift trade away from the US and for good reason, it reduces there exposure to these games that the likes of Trump likes to play, the UK on the other hand is trying to sign a free trade deal with the US, which if done, would likely boost trade with the US, that would give the US more leverage over the UK. Look at Canada and how aggressive they are pushing to shift away from the US, Canada is one of the most espoused countries to the US, but Canada is lucky in that it's got a lot of natural resources to fight the US on, the UK doesn't and if the UK does boost trade with the US, it will put the UK in a more vulnerable position. I think the smart money for the UK is to put that free trade deal on hold, at least until Trump is out of power, after all, you only have to look around the world to see how many countries are shifting trade away from the US and for good reason, so the UK should be careful with its dealings with the US, especially when there is little to no reason for the UK to expose it's self when it can deepen ties with the EU and Asia. In any case, what we are seeing in the US isn't just a one-off thing with Trump, after all, Trump got elected twice, this problem is much deeper in US politics with how Americans are voting, in other words, if Brits are thinking that things will blow over after Trump gets kicked out, I doubt that will be the case as the US has been getting erratic before Trump, so the UK needs to be careful with its dealings with the US and look across the world at what a lot of countries are doing when it comes to the US.
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Yep, no EU or NATO country will get attacked unless Russia becomes really reckless, because if an attack ever did happen on an EU or NATO country and they didn't respond back in a very tough way, then a lot of people in other countries will be wondering what the merits of the EU and NATO are, basically, they would have to respond and is probably why Russia doesn't want countries joining the EU or NATO because Russia likely knows it's much harder for them to play games with those countries. The irony is that Russia being so aggressive to eastern European nation is likely going to push more of them into the EU and NATO as a safe haven from Russia, basically, Russia aggressive actions could backfire on them. Also, let's be blunt about this, Russia isn't as powerful as some like to make out, today, military power is tied to economic power in being able to manufacture arms as the been arises and being able to invest in high-tech weapons, the reality is, Russia has a weak economy that's around the same size as Spain whiles also being dependent on Europe being it's natural gas, oil and other natural resources. So if Russia pushes it's luck into thinking the west is weak because of inaction, they could be in for a rude awakening, maybe that needs to happen for the Russians to get a major wake-up call when it comes to Putin that he's not as strong as he wants the Russian people to think.
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The irony is that the EU and US need to be working together more and create stronger bonds because power is quickly shifting towards Asia over the coming decades, if we want to protect western interests around the world, we need a strong EU and US working together otherwise a lot of the laws, rules and regulations are going to come from Asia, Trump is doing his best to divide the western world at a time we can't really afford it and all westerners could pay the price for that.
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I remember reading that Russia has enough reserves for the next 18 months, which by that time, a lot of European countries should have reduced thier oil and gas buying a lot from Russia, it's around that time when things could get really bad for Russia. We should remember that Russia economy is the worst hit out of the G20 and Putin created a lot of reserves years ago to help prop up the economy, so on the surface, things don't seem so bad but the reality is, Russia is bleeding money from all sides, it's only a matter of time before that filters through to the Russian people. As for the EU, they only have to share the pain for about 2 years at the most, remember that as Russia reduces it's gas and oil to the EU, other countries are looking at that void as a massive opening to profit on that, in other words, Russia lose is someone elses gain and who gets their foot in the door early to that EU market stands to make a fortune and so far the US is ahead on that one. In the meantime, Russia is being isolated from the world, the likes of China and India are seeing an opening to take advantage of Russia and as for the sanctions, if history is any indicator, sanctions tend to bite a lot harder about 2 to 3 years in, considering how badly the Russian economy is being hit already, imagine how much worse it's going to get over the coming years.
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The thing is about popularise movements, what they actually want to push and what they can push is very limited to what the people want. We should remember after all that most of them got into power because of angry voters that are not happy with the established parties, they want change but they don't want the country to be turned upside down with radical policies, hence why they tone it down to appeal to more people, in other worlds, many of them become more moderate, the only exception to that rule is if the population becomes radical in high numbers, which is rare and if that did happen, then there are far more problems than it seems, as it is, it's mostly angry voters of how the established lot are dealing with things. With that said, reforms are clearly needed to the EU, but I think it's more in integration in key areas that's needed, maybe some areas could be loosened, but if we are going to improve our effectiveness and economy, which is probably what most people complain about, the economy, that we can achieve more together. The real question is, how to go about the reforms, what areas need more integration and if there are any areas that could be done better more at a local level, and I don't mean national level, I mean local region level. In any case, the world around us is going to force change on us in directions that some want and others don't, in a world of superpowers, it's likely going to put more pressure on us to integrate more into the EU just to stay competitive and to protect our interest, at an individual EU country level, we are too small compared to the big players, which allows the superpowers to divide and play us off each other, which they do all the time, in other words, we need to find solutions of having a cohesive voice among it's members and through the EU if we really want to protect our interest, the alternative is a slow decline, and in the end, the changes we do in the EU will likely drift in the direction of more integration in key areas because of the political and economic realities of the world, especially of a polarised US that's becoming less trustworthy, an aggressive Russia that's becoming more war like and an ambitions China, the changing world is likely going to push us to integrate more even if we don't want to do so.
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I'm British-Italian living in the UK and I feel the UK is to blame, the UK government has gone out of it's way too sour relations with Europeans and take my word for it, the people the Brexiteers dislike the most are the Germans, the French and the Italians. Honesty, it's nice to see the French getting tougher on the UK, something the EU and the rest of Europe should be doing with how appalling the UK has behaved the last 5 years.
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I think the political stability is more important than the money longer term, the EU can help them create a political and economic stable environment, that will bring in a lot of forign investment in the country and don't get me wrong, the money helps to get them on track but the reforms are far more important and in any case, joining the EU would help them in all areas to becoming a modern country.
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@dotexe55games31 Sky News Australia are like Fox News or the Express paper lol, they don't even report the news any more, they are some of the worse media outlets around lol.
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How is this a disgrace? lol, you realise how hard it is to win the world cup?, not many countries and players get to do it, so what we are seeing is quite normal for celebrating winning the world cup.
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That's probably what will happen in the US isn't careful, and if a big block like the EU pulls away from the US, that will weaken US power around the world because a lot of other countries will likely pull away from the US, it would also force the European countries to combine their military forces in the EU, which in turn means kicking the US out of the EU and it would also impact US arms sales in a negative way because EU countries will build up a much stronger arms industry that will compete on the world stage, taking share away from the US, considering how many countries don't like the US, there's quite the incentive for the EU to do that. I don't think the US realises how much damage it could do to it's reputation if it pushes it's luck, ideally, we want Trump in power later this year to wake the world up.
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Honestly, it sounds like a pipe dream from Brexiteers in the UK, I mean don't get me wrong, there is some merit in it but the logistics of making that work with all those countries on the other side of the planet seems crazy and worse yet, if you look at almost every country around the world, most trade is done with nearby countries because it makes economic sense to do so, that isn't going to change any time soon and does suggest that the EU is going to remain the UK's biggest market for a long time to come, basically, it's in the interest of the UK to get a solid deal with the EU because half thier trade is with them and that isn't going to change any time soon.
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You're not the only one, we in the UK find it very confusing as well, we are wondering what on earth is going on in the US, especially because in the UK at first, the government didn't want to go into full lock down but pressure from all sides, especially the people forced their hands and many of the public want the measures to be tougher on the lock down. It's crazy seeing the difference is ways of thinking from many Americans and others like in Europe on this but I suspect a lot of that has to be with the system they live in, Europe has a more social system that looks after it's people, the US has a more capitalist system that screws them over every chance they get, throw in the rampant paranoia that set in after 9/11 in the US and you have a disaster in the making which most other modern countries are looking at the US in a very perplexed way and wondering what is going on there, in any case, we have found the real flaws in the US system and that will likely be quite damaging to the US going forward if they do some real changes after this because the system is broken and it's being shown to the world at how broken the US system really is.
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@Ghreinos If anything, it's likely more risky having multiple armies than having one, more voice and more chance of conflict, a single EU army would likely add a lot more security to Europe, Russia for one wouldn't be able to play its games with some eastern European countries and the US would likely have to think twice about a lot of its policies around the world. In any case, the US, Russia and China are the main reasons why a European army will happen, especially if those countries keep playings games like they are doing, that is just building up support among us Europeans to make it happen.
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@Klote3241 That's a fine notion, but we have to be realistic, veto rules will become unworkable as the EU grows with more members, I mean seriously, imagine if each region on a country had a veto or each US state, very little would get done. I'm not saying we need to fully get rid of the veto, but reforms are needed to streamline the process. What makes it worse is that the veto rule is being abused to carry weight in other areas that are not even related to the policy at hand, that will only get worse with more members, which is why major reforms are needed to the EU before any new country can join, otherwise, gridlock would kick in.
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I think the EU should remain more neutral on China unless China keeps becoming more hostile to more nations around the world, the US is hostile to China because they see China as a rising power being a threat to US power around the world, the EU could play them off each other, but on the other hand, I also think a strong EU-US relations is needed as these two are the core blocks when it comes to western values and democracy, especially at a time when authoritarian governments have been on the rise. As for the EU and some of its members, they need to wake up, integrate more and pool more resources together, as much as a friend the US is, they don't care that much about European interest and it's high time Europeans wake up to that fact, the EU countries have the muscle, the economy and skill set to be a lot stronger on the military, foreign policy and many other areas, but only if they act as one with one voice and they have the perfect tool to do that through the EU, the alternative will be slow decline if individual countries keep wanting their own voice on the international stage because they are too small to compete with the likes of the US and China, but the EU is big enough that they can compete and the EU has the advantage that it can expand, now it just needs the political will to do the hard decision to get real change, being that the last decade has been wasted.
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Things are probably more urgent for these countries to change with the high price of energy at the moment and the war in Ukraine, which is shifting a lot of focus around the world and especially in Europe about clean energy sources. In other words, it's very likely that a lot of countries are going to push a lot more aggressively on producing more energy by renewable means and especially in EU countries where energy is becoming a security risk and the longer and higher energy price stay high, the worse it's going to be for fossil producing nations because it's very likely going to speed up the process of change to renewable energy. It's going to be interesting to see the energy mix around the world and especially in the EU over the next decade because I suspect we're going to get some big changes and all because a mad man in Moscow got political with using energy as a weapon which is very likely going to push a lot of countries to want to produce more energy internally for energy security reasons, that's really bad news for the fossil industry because it could wipe out a decade or more of that industry which is worth trillions per year, I don't think many realize what Putin has done here and why it's great news for green energy and bad news for the fossil industry long term. Anyway, my advice to those countries that sell oil, gas and coal and a lot of the economy depends on that resource, they better diversify and fast because Putin has woken up the world and especially the Europeans that big change needs to happen and the irony is, the fossil producing nations needs to stabilize the market and lower prices fast because a lot of the world is getting angry at these high prices which is fuelling massive change in favour of the renewable energy sector, in other words, we could be changing to a cleaner future a lot sooner than it would have been before the war in Ukraine.
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They should rephrase it to a profit concern, which is really what it's all about, after all, more options and competition on a level playing field, less potential profits for Apple. But honestly for Apple, the red flags were there with that putting their own services ahead of others or by not even allowing rival services to compete with Apple's own products, that alone is reason enough for governments to go after them.
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The balance doesn't shift that easierlly and it usually depends on two factors, the economy and population size of a country, so yes, it could become more neutral in the EU away from Germany and France but it doesn't look like it's shifting eastwards, it just looks like it's being rebalanced because Germany and France held too much sway in the EU in the first place. I think the real shift in power is moving away from Italy towards Spain, the reason for that is because Italy are too erratic, with an unstable political system and quite an Eurosceptic population that blames the EU for a lot of the wrongs in the country, a bit like how the UK did, Spain on the other hand is a growing economy, a more pro EU country and a more stable political system, it's easy to see how they could push Italy aside. As for the eastern EU countries, the balance was always going to shift as those countries become more modern, but I think it's many of the other smaller eastern members that will benefit the most, not Poland unless it changes its ways as that is going to hold it back. As for vindication, no one has been vindicated, the west has shown poor judgement on Russia, going back all the way to Crimea, it's all well and good some eastern EU countries saying they got it right and yet most of those same countries are more dependent on Russia oil or gas than many of the western countries, if they really beleaved what they were saying, they would've put their money where their mount is and shifted away from Russian oil and gas years ago, yet most of them didn't and I suspect the reason they didn't, they wanted the rest of the EU countries to do it to share the risk, basically, they had the choice to do it alone but wanted it done by the EU or the western members, probably so the blame could be put on them when energy prices rises, after all, Russian oil and gas was cheap before the war, so it's easy for them to say they were right but at the end of the day, they did nothing to change it even thought they had the power to do so as each EU member can buy it's own oil and gas from wherever they want. So don't get me wrong, the balance of power is shifting and it was going to shift regardless of the war, it was going to shift as the eastern countries become richer and more modern but it's likely only going to shift towards countries that have the interest of the EU and other members interest at heart, that rules out the likes of Poland and Hungary as it stands and it's also why I think Spain could gain at the expense of Italy. In any case, the real weakness isn't in the east or the west of the EU, the real weakness is that all the countries are pulling in different directions, the EU countries really need to speak with one voice on political, military and forign policy matters, if they don't, they'll always get divided by the likes of Russia, China and even the US which are more than happy to play EU countries off each other for it's own benefit, the truth is, the EU countries need to start standing on their own feet and the only way to do that is to combine resources through the EU because let's be realistic, EU countries on their own have zero chance at competing with the likes of China or the US and even thought the US is the EU's friend, they are still a rival to European countries, especially if the EU continues to rise to power as the Japanese found out in the 80's. My advice to the eastern EU members, even the smaller ones, if you want to gain more power in the EU, you have to be a team player that wants to make the EU project work, if you do that, even smaller countries can gain more power but bigger countries will likely always have more power because of it's economic and population clout. In any case, this is quite a poor video from TLDR, badly researched and it's clearly done from a British perspective on the EU and how they think the Europeans think, I know this because I'm British and even I can see how Brits see the EU project and how Europeans on the continent sees it and to put it mildly, many Brits have a wrapped view on the EU project and see to think any slight disagreement is going to do a major shift, we saw that on Brexit and the UK got it badly wrong on that.
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Is that guy for real lol, the EU have already said the UK can have a Canada style free trade deal but the UK keeps kicking up a fuss because they know that a Canada style deal is far worse then single market and custom union access, the UK goverment keeps trying to cheer pick a deal with the EU so it's no supprise the EU keeps saying no, the UK more or less wants all the same benefits of EU membership without any of the cost and that guy wonders why the EU keeps saying no every time, what a clown lol. At the end of the day, the UK needs to come up with a realistic plan that doesn't invole cake to eat or cheer picking, the EU have already offerd a few deals, now it's up to the UK to pick one or walk away, at this rate, it's the EU thats going to have it's cake to eat if the UK is not careful, either way, which ever deal the UK picks, it's going to be worse then we already had and the UK had a really good deal in the EU with all the opt-outs and now we've lost all that. Now it doesn't matter which Brexit we pick, it's all worse then what we had, all we can do is limit the damage of Brexit and that seems to be single market and custom union because that solve most of the problems, so unless the hardliners can come up with a plan thats better without hurting the UK then that should really be the best option to pick.
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They always had a spine, they are just smarter in how to use it then the US is, in other words, the EU is trying to play a fine line with the US and China to keep trade links intact whereas the US are more or less killing their links with China, that for EU countries could be a golden banana of business going forward if they play their cards right. The EU plays the long smart game whereas the US flies from the hip, the EU is also a lot more pragmatic with China in knowing you have to work with them whereas the US is trying to do a lot of damage to it's own economic well-being by more or less being pushed out of China, the EU also likely knows that as the US gets pushed out, that could generate a lot of business for EU companies. There is a smart way in dealing with China and that is with a lot of friends, the EU seems to be playing the long game whereas the US seems to be on self-destruct mode..
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This is great news, always wanted to see the big clubs battle it out with each other week in week out.
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A lot of them come to the UK because of busisness reason and having easy access to the EU market is a big reason for many companies to use the UK as a hub, we lose that after Brexit and I suspect many big companies will relocate because common sense dictates that they will want to be inside the bigger market to where they are selling most of the goods too and thats in a EU country, from there they can sell to the UK at a higher cost, the reality is that the UK market isn't as important as the EU market is and thats how busisnesses will see it. Thanks to Brexit, many EU countries are already gaining from the UK and it's hardly even started because most will wait and see before making any moves, after Brexit is done and if it's a bad deal for the UK, thats when the flood gates could really happen.
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True and I've been hearing the west are sending in more advanced anti mission targeting systems to Ukraine and if true, more of these missiles are likely to get shot down before they hit the target, making it very expensive for Russia whereas the west can afford to do this because the economy is far bigger.
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It would be great if it does happen, but I doubt it will, but say it did, rivals will love that, because a big void in the EU market would be taken advantage off by rivals to X, that could put them in a better position for them to compete with X on the world stage. Another thing, if the EU were to ban X, you can bet many other governments around the world will follow, as many are probably waiting on a big player to do so. In any case, Elon Musk is becoming a liability for them with how he's becoming radicalised.
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@garyb455 GDP numbers are not really a good indicator of things, especially GDP per capita numbers. Regardless, EU countries dominant the top 10 indexes when it comes to quality of life, now if that is decline, give me more of it lol. As for decline in overall economics as a share of the world, that's happening to all modern countries, including the US, and it makes perfect sense, as Asia and other regions become more modernised, they are taking a slice of that pie, after all, it's crazy to think that the EU and US was going to hold onto that percentage of the world economy when the population size in Asia is far bigger and they are growing much faster, basically, it's eating into all modern countries as a percentage of world economics. But honestly, does it really matter as long as the standard of living is high? not really, in fact it's a good thing, more trading partners for all, but in any event, the US trying to keep pace with China is starting to lower standards in the US, the US since Trump has been dropping the quality of life indexes quite sharpish in just a few short years, that trend is continuing under Biden, the question is, why is that happening so suddenly? Lowering standards is something a country can do to generate more economic growth, the UK wanting to leave the EU likely wanted to lower standards lower than the EU would allow, great for economic growth, corporations and taxes, not so good for the average citizen in these countries, which let's be honest, the UK has been slipping behind since the austerity measures and further behind with Brexit. But seriously, guys, stop looking at it like an accountant would when it comes to how well countries are doing, GDP numbers are a poor indicator of the well-being of a country and travelling around is a eye-opener on why that is.
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BRICS remind me of the far right, on paper it looks like they can get along, but in reality, there are too different from each other for it to really last long term, especially with China and India as rising powers, they were never going to last with BRICS and they are the core of that group, after all, there needs to be common interest and in the case of China and India, they see themselves as a rising superpower, which is more of a problem for the other BRICS countries. In any case, with India getting tougher on its policies and wanting to steal manufacturing jobs away from China whiles also diversifying its trade away from China, it could end up dividing the interest of both countries and weaken the BRICS cooperation, but for now, both countries use BRICS as a springboard for their own interest, but as they rise in power, they will either try to dictate terms to other BRICS members or leave it entirely.
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@TremereTT As a Brit, I do kind of find it funny as now the euroseptics are going to have a rough time in or out of the EU as it's unlikely going to just go back to what it was like before Brexit where euroseptics said all sorts of lies about the EU without anyone defending it, thats very likely all changed now and I suspect the euroseptics are going to have a much tougher time of it now hence why I find this really funny.
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Good question, I would imagine that if Hungary have its voting rights removed, the other members can do whatever changes they want and probably set it up in a way that if Hungary doesn't get onboard with what the others have agreed on, Hungary gets kicked out of the EU, without Poland backing Hungary any more, that's a possibility, and as for Slovakia, they are too small and the government position of power is a lot weaker than what the PIS had in Poland, I don't see Slovakia being an issue. I do know one thing, there is a short window for the EU to act when it comes to Hungary and reforms to the EU, if the EU doesn't resolve the issues with Hungary one way or another and another hostile country in the EU pops up by election change that ends up backing Hungary, the EU will be back to square one. The EU needs to act and it needs to act fast because it's probably only got a few short years to sort Hungary out and treaty change of the EU are desperately needed.
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I always find that when it comes to pro EU or Eurosceptics, what really matters is what the public think and not what's going on in politics, the political side of things is always limited by what the public allows, being that the people of the Netherlands are pro EU and support in certain areas for more integration, will make it difficult for an Eurosceptic party to pull them out of the EU. Reforms are clearly needed on the EU, especially on the veto rules, As I can't see how the EU can expand with more members until there are changes to the veto rule or it's scraped, I also think further integration is going to be needed because of the political and economic realities of the changing world, as in, if we want to protect our political, economic and social interest, we need to find solutions to speaking more with one voice at an EU level, especially on military, defence and forign policy matters, but other areas like energy could be more streamlined. The real question is what reforms to do to the EU and how to go about it. Personally, I think more powers need to be given to the European Parliament, whereas the EU Commission and President should merge, maybe even be elected directly by the people, but I think the European Parliament should have more of a say as power is shared over far more people, making it democratic, whereas the current system of the EU Commission, feeds the Eurosceptics in making the EU look less democratic, and I think that is one area the EU needs to resolve, make the EU more democratic and more connected to the people so there is less ammunition for the Eurosceptic argument.
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You know what is really frightening for the creative industry? We are only talking around 2 short years and look at the progress we have seen with A.I. If this pace continues or potentially speeds up as we find more useful use cases for this tech, you really have to wonder where A.I. will be in 10 years. The best thing that could have happened to A.I. is the hype train around it that brought it to mass market, that on its own is bringing in a lot of investment, ideas and pushing the tech far more than what we were seeing when it was just an experimental toy in some corporate lab, you have to imagine that as A.I. becomes more useful in more areas, the ideas and investment could go through the roof. Honestly, I pity the fools that think A.I. is just a fad or a bubble ready to burst, and yes, the bubble might deflate somewhat as things calm down, but it's clear as day that A.I. is here to stay and only going to keep rapidly get better, and far more interest and money is going to be thrown at it as A.I. becomes more useful in more areas, in other words, we are only just starting, and that is exciting and scary at the same time. What's really impressed me the most is how much better small open source locally run A.I. models have got, I remember just two years ago, the quality wasn't that great, and even thought there's still work to do, the quality on many of the A.I. models we can run locally on our computers are way better than just two years ago, and I really do wonder, how far can they push the quality for a given size model.
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@NoName-hg6cc A federal strong EU would benefit the world a lot, including the US but we should remember, the US is still thinking in terms of being the sole power in the world, that just isn't the case with the EU, China and a rising India. The US is very likely going to need a strong EU even if they don't want that to keep the likes of China and India in check which have more lower standards in many areas. Everything that's going on in Ukraine is likely going to help the EU, especially on military, security and energy matters, it's a wake-up call that's likely going to push EU members to cooperate more and to integrate more, fear is always a good motivater for change and Putin delivered on that.
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@48grainsoffreedom Yep, the Soviets did a number on the Americans that they are still paying the price for to this day. Either way, I think it's only a matter of time before the US becomes more social like Europe because pretty much every other developed and many developing countries are emulating the European social system, meaning it's a massive success that others want in on it, apart from the US that is but they can thank the Russians for that lol.
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@user-xu2pi6vx7o I think a tiered system makes a lot of sense, lets countries move at their own pace without the ones that want to move forward being held back by the ones that don't. Many will say that it would be unfair on the countries that don't want to move forward as the ones that do will have an advantage but then, that would be them admitting that there is advantages to integrated but don't want to admit that, also another advantage of doing it this way is that if you get a few countries doing it and making a success of it, others will likely join, something we've seen with the EU, Schengen and so on, where a few countries started it and others joined in time as they saw it work. A lot of fear is what holds things back, many assume something won't work or would be bad but if a few countries do it and make it works, it will be much harder to fight the case against it unless they really don't want it but even that view would likely soften in time.
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I don't think any country will be allowed to join until there are reforms done to the EU it's self, especially on its veto rules. But as for who could join, Ukraine is likely the least likely country to join any time soon because of the current war but also because of it's size, there are also a lot of work and reforms that will be needed in Ukraine before they are ready to join, but because of the war, it could actually speed up the process by having less opposition from the public and politicians, which could speed up the process of doing the reforms needed to join the EU sooner rather than later, but there are zero chance of that happening whiles the war is going on and until the reforms are done to the EU, which I think need to be done before 2030, so for me, Ukraine is a bit of an unknown, the war doesn't allow them to join, but the war has also made the people and political parties very pro EU, that could do wonders when it comes to doing the reforms needed to join the EU, in other words, say the war was to end today in Ukraine, the country might have far less of an issue implementing the reforms needed to join the EU, so that could speed up the process a lot compared to many other countries that drag there feet on reforms. As for the rest of the countries that want to join, it's really up to them, the sooner they do the reforms needed, reduce corruption, stabilise the political and economic system, the sooner these countries can join, if they meet all the conditions needed to join, it will put pressure on the EU and it's members to reform the EU sooner rather than later. In any case, the more of these countries that join the EU, the better for the EU and for the country in question over the long run, it will help to create political and economic stability, as well as economic growth, it will help to reduce the risk of Russia and their political games of meddling, but most importantly, the EU will in time help to develop these countries into rich countries, that's a powerful message the EU has that Russia can't counter because they can't even develop their own country into being a rich-developed country, and they can't afford to splash the cash on these countries to keep them onside whereas the EU is a lot richer and can afford to do so, not to mention all the other incentives on why countries would rather be in the EU then to side with Russia which uses countries like pawns for their own ends. So, get a move on EU, you've got till 2028 to reform the EU lol.
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As it currently stands, the EU can only expend throughout Europe, but as we know, those lines are quite blurry. There isn't any reason why the EU couldn't expand outside of Europe and have it based on shared values and things like that, but the EU has enough on it's plate in Europe with many countries wanting to join it, if the EU does decide to expand outside of Europe, I don't see it happening until at least 2050 at least. When you look at countries like Turkey, only a small percent of the country is in Europe and yet it qualifies as being a country that could join the EU, the only reason it's not happened yet is because the country is finding it hard to do the changes and reforms needed to join and we see that with other countries that have joined the EU, some do the reforms needed to join in a short time whereas others take decades before they are ready. Basically, it's not the EU that decide when you can join, even thought they have the final say, it's actually the country that wants to join that has the real say and the quicker they do the changes and reforms needed, the sooner they can join.
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It would be crazy for any country to even try to do such a thing when people are dying all over the world. If a vaccine is found from any country, it will have to be share with all countries, so they can get this virus under control, any country that did try an exclusive deal, all the rest of the world would likely come down on that country like a ton of brick that it would do more damage to that country then the virus could ever do. The sad thing is, this is the kind of thing you could see Trump doing going off what kind of a person he is. Honestly, if any countries develop a vaccine, I'll likely trust the European countries to do the right thing and share it with the rest of the world for free.
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I feel the US is to blame on that one, they kept dragging their feet, which limited what other western countries could do, I also suspect that the US wanted a long-drawn-out war to really weaken Putin, maybe even to support the military complex in the US. It could be backfiring now, because the long-drawn-out war is a lot more costly, both the EU and US could have brought this war to an end a lot sooner than now, if they give Ukraine the equipment it needed to end the war sooner rather than later, but the dragging of their feet is putting more lives at risk, making the war a lot more costly and putting western countries in a picky situation that they might have a problem funding this war because of opposition in politics and maybe from the people if they get fed up with the war dragging on and how much it's costing. We are seeing how difficult it's becoming for both the EU and US to pass the latest funding bill for Ukraine, the public have been supportive of the war so far, but the longer the war drags on, that support will slower disappear, also, I think Putin is changing tactics, he might be thinking that if he can keep the war going till the next US election, he's hoping that Trump wins power, if that were to happen, that would divide both the EU and the US, it could also weaken the support for Ukraine, Putin knows he's won if the EU and US stops backing Ukraine and probably knows he can't win if the EU and US keeps backing Ukraine. Both the EU and US needs to show real leadership, stop messing about, give Ukraine the support it needs to end this war quickly, and in the case of the US, time might be running out with the elections being next year, so ideally, they'll want to get this war over with before the next elections, which means ramping things up a lot early next year, if the EU and US lets Russia win, it will be seen as a massive blunder on the west, it will also make them look weak, Russia and even China might play on that, knowing that they only have to drag a war out for the western countries support to falter and this is a fault of the west for not winning this war sooner.
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The EU changese and reforms all the time, Hows that, put your arguement to rest lol, in any case, I suspect we are going to see big changese and reforms of the EU and the irony being is that the big changese are likely to happen thanks to the UK not being in the EU.
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There's no reason why the Europeans can't do it, they've got a massive economy, especially if combined through the EU, they've got the resources and skills to do it, it's just a matter of having the political will to make it happen, and it does seem like the tech industry is growing in Europe, but far more needs to be done, especially at an EU level to pool resources together. In the end, if countries like South Korea can build up quite an impressive tech industry, the EU which has far more resources to play with sure can, it's just a matter of having the political will, cooperation among the EU members at an EU level and the drive to make it happen, which if they did get there act together, they've got the core ingredients to have a big tech industry like the US or China has, and having the EU as a big player in the tech industry would be good for us all as it would mean more creative ideas, competition and choice, we all would stand to benefit. Personally, I think it's only a matter of time before EU countries get onboard with the tech industry, the tech industry after all is the future so it's going to keep playing a bigger part of the world economy and this isn't just for Europe, it's the world that needs to get more involved in high-tech if they want to stay competitive long term.
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@alexanderzippel8809 They don't really have the population numbers to overtake the northern western EU countries, even if they were modern countries, the west would still be in a better position. That could change with more members going forward, especially the likes of Ukraine. But in any event, it's not really about west vs east, each country will do what's in its own interest, and that isn't a west, east thing, it's a specific thing on different policies that countries will side with others, depending on what the policy is about, and that isn't going to be a west, east thing, it's going to be mixed. In a sense, there is no west vs east, there's self-interest, the ones that push the narrative of west and east are usually the media that wants to create division.
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Sometimes true, but radical parties rarely do good unless the population at large become more radicalised, which is unlikely. A lot of it with popularise parties is mostly a protest vote because people are not happy with how the established parties are dealing with things, the problem for the popularise movement, that isn't any real power for them, because chances are, if they pushed some of their radical agendas, they would become very unpopular with the majority of the population, hence why a lot of these radical parties when getting close to power or in power, end up toning things down to appeal to a lot more people, in a sense, they become far more moderate and not a threat, apart from them being a threat to the established parties, we are seeing this across Europe and that's blurring the lines on which are radical and which are moderate.
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It's impossible to say how the world would have turned out if Rome lost or didn't exist but I suspect Europe would be very different and because European powers had such a big impact on the world, the entire world would likely be very different, for better or for worse.
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So this is Trump's idea of bringing jobs back to the US?, he doesn't seem to understand real economics that his actions with these tariffs are putting many busisnesses at risk and they will always look out for number one even if that means moving jobs out of the US. The truth is, the world is global now and busisnesses that sell a lot around the world are the ones that get hurt by tariffs and Harley Davidson just like many others have an intrest in protecting it's share holders that Trump doesn't seem to care about, in other words, he's forcing there hand because these tariffs are hurting that busisness so they are taking action to protect themself. This is likely not to be the last, more so if Trump does more tariffs and all it's really doing is hurting the US the most by forcing jobs out of the US market, Trump needs to becareful here, if he puts more tariffs on goods which will force others to do the same on US goods, this could in the longer run make the US less of an important market to invest in, the world is a big place and thats where the real market is, corparations don't have any loyaty to any country, it's all about the profits and Trump is trying to harm many American brans with his actions thats forcing them to rethink and shift jobs out of the US market to stay competative around the world.
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Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with the veto rules being used for legitimist reasons, but it's clear that Orban is abusing it for his own ends, half the time his using it to carry favours on unrelated matters and is clearly using it as blackmail. This goes against the core values of what the EU is all about, which is working together, finding compromises and solutions to move forward with veto only being used as a last resort, but clearly Orban is using it to gain favour, which considering what's going on in Ukraine and what's at stake, really tells you what kind of man Orban is.
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@jordinagel1184 The irony is about that is that the US sees the Europeans as weak for not wanting war lol, it's crazy because the US is becoming what they hated of old Europe in the past, look at Germany and Japan, the two that lost the war became two of the most peaceful countries, that isn't by accident and more because they are fed up with wars.
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That's what I think and not just with Spain, we also see the same thing with the UK, Italy, Germany and other countries, the regions in those countries that are closer to other rich regions in Europe, seem to do far better economically. Considering this seems to happen in a lot of countries and not just in Europe, it can't be by chance, and it makes sense, more trade, business and growth is usually going to happen in regions that are closer to other rich regions.
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This is becoming a problem in almost every modern country, where the quality of life is good, and it might actually get worse, because as the quality of life improves, it seems people want to have fewer kids, maybe all that could change if A.I. reduces a lot of the need of the workforce, basically, freeing people up to enjoy life, that could give people more incentive to have kids, whereas now, it's just too costly and takes too much time up in a world that work takes too much time already. The thing is, things could have been a lot worse in western countries if it wasn't for imagination, that's propping the numbers up, it's also more likely that an immigrant is more likely to have more kids than a native born in the country, I see that a lot in the UK, US and France. The question is, is it such a bad thing that the population is slowing or going to decline? Many will argue that in many countries, the population needs to shrink to create more breathing room, especially considering the boom in population growth we had over the last century, maybe this is natures way of balancing things out, and there are signs in countries like China that it could happen there, another country that had a big boom in population growth.
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I don't know, the work culture is quite brutal over there, European countries actually show more care for its citizens, hence why so many quality of life indexes show European countries dominating the top 10. I love Japan, but I wouldn't want to live there.
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@MrJaaaaake I always find it funny how people see product prices, I lived in the EU and the US over the years and living standards are quite close with the exception of one thing, Europeans are looked after a lot better, especially the poor and middle classes, as for product price, the US has sales tax and yet even with all that, Americans don't get a lot of the benefits we Europeans take for granted, I mean, did you know that calling out an ambulance can cost you anywhere from $500 to $2500 depending in which state you live in, a service that we see as free in Europe and this is the case for so many areas, it's a culture shock when I was in the US in how bad they do some things. So by your logic, because the EU has high energy standards on making good products, you see that as a bad thing? lol, have you ever wondered why energy on a lot of products have gone down a lot over the last 2 decades? that's the EU effect on the world stage and everyone around the world benefits by that. Then you go on about German cars and yet they are rated as some of the best cars in the world, Japan was up there but they've been cheaping out on a lot of the materialise they use, especially on the inside of the cares. I suggest you do your research on many things because you are factually wrong on so many things you are saying.
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It's all about reducing corruption, improving productivity and reducing red tape without reducing standards. From a per-person basis, we are not really that different from one country to another, but those 3 factors above can make a big difference in quality of life and how much you earn. Basically, emulating what modern countries do right and putting your own flair to it that makes sense for your own country and gradually, Bulgaria and all the other eastern EU countries will in time catch up with western countries, it's just a matter of how sooner it happens, which is usually down to the politics of the country and the people that are willing to do reforms to allow more growth and it will happen overtime, the EU has an impressive record of developing growth in the countries that join it, just that some countries develop much faster then others.
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If the EU was more integrated and had a single military with the union speaking with one voice, the EU could have put 20,000, 40,000 troops in Ukraine for peacekeeping reason and prevented the war from even starting. It's one thing to attack Ukraine which is a poor country even by eastern European standards, it's another to attack if the EU had troops in Ukraine, it's also something the US could have done but they tend to only care about things in self-interest, now I'm not saying the EU is different but it's clear they care more and even if it wasn't for that, it's far less likely that the EU would want an all out war on it's boarder and would be compelled to step in, as for the US, it's seen as a far away land where they see this as an opening to do real damage to Putin. It's clear that European countries in the EU need to start working closer together and stop with all the petty differences, they have the power to make a difference in Eastern Europe, to make it safer, more secure and stable and to stop Putin from intimidating countries and I think the EU could become a counterweight to America's power around the world, to balance things out. Just like many, I am surprised by how tough the western world is getting on Putin, especially the EU countries, most of us and I suspect Putin expected a much softer response on this from the west but I also feel the west needs to get tougher, Putin has to pay a high price for this, either war crimes or hanging from the Russian people and I think if the Russian people rise up, Putin is done for and that could happen once the sanctions really start to hit the Russian people. With that, my heart goes out to the people of Ukraine as well as the innocent Russian people that didn't want this war because they are all being dragged into this.
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It's part of the blame but not directly, the thing is, the Tories are going out of their way to try and be different than the EU countries, I think that is a big part on why the UK is doing so bad, the Tories are losing perspective on what actually matters, it's all about hate on the EU and trying to be different then them, even thought it doesn't make any sense to do so in a lot of areas. That I think is what's doing a lot of the damage because internationally, the UK is being seen as a radical that doesn't listen to common sense.
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I don't think there is much issue really, got to put the budget into the perspective of the overall EU economy, the budget is tiny overall and the UK's contribution even more so, still as some of the developing EU countries develop, they'll be taking less out and in the end putting money in the EU pot, the EU and it's members have many ways to rejiggle the numbers around to make it work and that is even if the UK isn't paying anything in which it's likely they will as some of the projects the UK will want in on. The truth is, the EU survived perfectly fine without the UK and will do so now. But I do wonder, why is Belgium and Luxembourg taking money out when they are rich countries? Could it be because of they are major capitals of the EU and many projects are done in each country? I also wonder how long is it going to be before Spain starts paying in the EU pot.
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@davidepozzi460 England might win a major tournament on it's 100 years anniversary, so just another 45 years to go lol. But honestly, I don't think England will win anything until they admit to themselves that they are a second tier team, too many in England think England is a top tier team like Italy, Germany, Brazil and the likes but clearly England's record says otherwise, those other teams might not always win but they usually get close.
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Truth be told, the real power is shifting from west to east, Europe and North America are still important markets but the population and growth rate of Asia is making them far more important of a market in the long run, in other worlds, the east is rising whiles the west is in decline but don't worry, that doesn't mean our living standards will get worse, it just means a lot more investments going east then west. At the end of the day, the impressive economic growth and the population size of Asia makes it a very enticing market and thats likely going to be far more enticing of a market then the US and EU in the coming decades.
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Considering how things have gone with Covid, the energy crisis, plus all the other commitments, they are actually holding up quite well, but it was never going to be easy during a transition which is what is going on in Europe right now, especially on the energy sector and military. Is it that big of a deal? Not in the short term, but changes will have to be made with reforms to kick-start the economy, after all, remember, we are in a transition that's impacting Europe far more than the rest of the world, especially when it comes to energy, but that's a short term problem, the long term problem is that Europe and especially the EU needs to start being a lot more competitive with high-tech. In any case, having debt isn't a bad thing if it's managed debt, and honestly, looking at the overall numbers, they're not that bad but could be better.
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Being in power too long usually makes that person more paranoid and they end up seeing enemies everywhere, externally and internally in Russia. It's sad really because Russia with the natural resources it's got should be doing much better on the economic front, I know Russians like to think Russia is doing well on the economic front but if you put it into context with say some eastern EU members which are still developing and have far less natural resources, Russia is doing quite poor and the sad thing is, most of that wealth is concentrated in Moscow and St Petersburg, so even by eastern EU standards, Russia isn't doing that great.
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I'm sure they will in time and that will likely be passed onto consumers.
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This is what we get when electing popularize governments and if you look around the world from the US, UK, Brazil and a few others, the people are paying a high price for listening to slogans when they mean nothing, it's clear these leaders don't know how to run a country and are just winging it and because of that, the 3 countries are some of the hardest hit, these governments are doing wonders against the popularise movements and that could impact Brexit in some ways going forward in the UK. Maybe after this, the people might not get so careless and reckless when voting next time because most of what was voted on for one or two specific subjects and yet it never crossed the minds of these people to see if these bozos have good policies in other areas and can run the country effectively, clearly they are doing a poor job at running the countries at a time when we need good leadership whiles in crisis, so lets see if the people learn but I doubt they will or will have short memories.
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In the end, it boils down to 1 or 2 things, governments in Europe have a more balanced economy and tend to listen to its citizens more, whereas in the US, it's every man for him self. For the well-being of the citizens, EU countries clearly have it better in so many areas, and the irony is, the situation seems to be getting worse in the US on so many of the quality of life indexes, that you wonder when the American people are going to wake up and change the system that is allowing too much wealth in too few hands and you do have to wonder, that Blade Runner like future where corporations are so big, they run everything could be a real possibility in the US if the US government doesn't get its act together. All I can say is thank fuck for the EU, at least they are trying to do the right thing in many areas for it's citizens, unlike the US which doesn't seem to care about it's citizens.
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Hungary needs to make its mind up, in or out of the EU, but complaining about EU rules when they agreed to them when signing up to join the EU is making the Orbán government look stupid. It's not hard to see the game that Orbán is playing, he knows outside of the EU, nobody would take the country serious, but he also knows that being in the EU gives the government a lot more power thanks to the veto. That would be fine if they used it reasonably, but clearly Orbán is abusing it and it's clear that there's a majority from Europeans for the policies he's trying to black, and normally I wouldn't be in favour of blocking a member voting rights but this has been going on too long now with Hungary that I think blocking their voting rights is needed, and if things don't change after that from Hungary, I think the process of kicking Hungary out of the EU should be seriously looked into, which should be easier to achieve if Hungary have lost their voting rights. As for blame, I blame the EU Commission, they've been way too soft on Hungary and Orbán is taking advantage of that, this is also another reason why more powers should be shifted towards the European Parliament, it's directly elected by the people and at least they want to get a lot tougher on Hungary, the Commission is being seen as weak, and that alone is why reforms are needed.
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Nah, the EU does a lot of good things, but like all governments, they can screw up, but overall, compared to many other governments around the world, the EU are pretty good.
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I'm with you on that one, the EU-Turkey relation would be intresting to see.
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@schlussmitschiss He got it all wrong last year on his forecasting on what would happen in Europe on the energy issue, looks like he's repeating it, which is ironic, because Europe is in a better position this year then it was last year, if the worse was going to happen, it likely would have happened last year when there was little time to adapt to it. The reality is, gas storage is quite high, energy prices are coming down and for the moment at least, the weather is mild, where for me in the UK, the weather is warmer than it was last year for this time of year. Also, I've not heard of any panic in the UK or around Europe of energy rationing, after all, if there were energy shortage issues, it would be all over the news by now and yet hardly anyone is talking about it compared to last year where there was a lot of talk on it and yet we were fine. Like you said, either he didn't do his research or it's clickbait.
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I don't have a problem with veto staying, but it really needs to be based on a percentage of countries and a percentage of the overall EU population. It's crazy that we actually still have veto rules where one member can block the rest, and because of that, there's no way the EU should expand until reforms are done, otherwise, more gridlock will happen with one or two members, abusing the veto rule. Majority voting needs to be more of a thing, with veto only being used if there is enough support from members to block something. I also think reforms in the EU is needed in other areas, I think the European Parliament needs to be given more powers, whiles reforms to the EU Commission is needed, maybe merge the EU Commission and President together and have it directly elected, also, reforms in bringing the EU project closer to the citizens, so they are more aware of what's going on, because for many, the EU can seem distant.
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I don't think it will make much change, just that it will be harder for Europeans to come in which ironically, Brexiteers likely won't like when they see the alternative that does come in, also, the other problem is that Brexit has left a sour taste in the mouth that a lot don't even want to come to the UK any more with everything they've seen with Brexit and honestly, I can't blame them.
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I'm thinking that as well, it also allows Brits a voice which we have been denied for so long on Brexit, if Brits turnout in high numbers for the European elections and vote for pro EU parties which I have a feeling is likely going to happen, it will send a powerful message to our goverment and the EU that we want to stay and will make it very difficult for our goverment to not offer another referendum. It's also likely why Macron doesn't want this because he seems quite happy to kick the UK out of the EU whereas most other EU members don't. I also think that now we've got past the date of the European elections, I think it's highly likely that another public vote on Brexit will happen now, it's really the only way out for the goverment and parliement because none of them want to take the blame if Brexit goes badly wrong so it's easier for them to pass that onto the public.
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Normally I would be in favour of direct elections but after seeing everything over the last decades, I'm not so sure any more, voters are too emotional and are too easily led, and the reality is, a democracy is only as good as the voters knowing the facts on what they are voting on, which unfortunately, most can be manipulated by the media and governments to think one way or another. I would overall perfect direct democracy, but for that to be effective, people need to smarten up and keep in tune with a lot of what's going on in political circles, especially on facts.
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Religion tends to be a big factor when it comes to poverty, it limits progress and puts restrictions on what can and can't be done. We see this all over the world, countries that have more religion tend to be poorer for it, even within countries we see the same with countries like the US and Italy, where the north tends to be richer compared to the south, both of which have less religion in the north compared to the south. As for the rest, the blame game on why things are in these countries are just excuses, because they don't want to take responsibility for their own actions. Even in the west, we've seen throughout history how religion held Europe back, only over the last few hundreds of years for them to reduce the impact religion has on people, growth, more flexibility can happen by reducing the impact religion has on the people. Unfortunately, for much of the Middle East, religion has such a hold on them that it's going to be difficult for them to break that hold. The irony is, a lot of these countries like to blame the west for how things are, that's deflecting blame away from where the real problem is, which is much closer to home for comfort, these countries would be poorer if it wasn't for oil and gas purchasing and at least some Middle East countries are trying to use that resources to build a better future for themselves, but unless they can reduce the impact religion has on them, these countries could be in for a rude awakening once the rest of the world are not buying their resources over the coming decades. In any case, stop blaming the rest for all the problems in those countries, there's nothing stopping these countries from modernising, in fact, many of them are in a good position because of the natural resources they have, but the clock is ticking, the value of that resource isn't going to hold with how fast renewable energy is developing, the irony being in that, all that money that developed countries spends on energy, a lot of that will become a massive windfall each year for the EU, Japan and others like that, that don't produce much fossil fuels, so not only does that money get taken away from those fossil fuel countries, but the countries buying it will end up with a massive windfall of money each year, in a sense, the wealth gap could widen a lot more, in favour of countries that buy a lot of fossil fuels but don't produce much, in other words, the EU, Japan and some others. There are other factors that play their part, corruption and too much centralised power that limits growth but in the case of the Middle East, religion is probably the biggest factor holding them back.
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@ce1834 It wouldn't surprise me but it will be at the expense of the people in cuts in other areas, unless the UK keeps up economically, but I doubt we will long term, France just has too many advantages over us. But then again, the UK could end up rejoining the EU in 2 decades, support seems to be growing with it being at 59% of the public thinking Brexit was a mistake or that they want to rejoin the EU. If that percentage keeps growing, the government will have to listen and Labour will find it hard to be silence on Brexit, question is, will they get the memo before Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the UK union. On the plus side, I find all this Brexit lark comical over the last 5 or so years. As for NATO, I think overtime the EU countries are going to build a single military, it's the only way for them to stay relevant on the world stage, but I don't expect it to undermine NATO, in fact, there's no reason why the EU couldn't be a member of it like the US is, just that the EU would have a lot more clout in it compared to the individual members. If that was to happen, it would more or less push the UK aside in military aspects in Europe and make us less relevant, especially as the US will likely want something like the EU to back them up on the world stage with a rising China around.
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@zimti7390 True he missed the point, the US likes to show leadership around the world but it's showing poor leadership at the moment, especially with how polarised things are getting with the Democrats and Republicans. Whereas European countries were found napping on Russia, but are quickly picking things up. If the US wants to be the so called leader of the free world, it needs to start leading, otherwise it could damage its reputation, especially as European countries are starting to spend more on the military and taking Russia more serious.
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Simple, it's all about the hits and I agree with you, we could do with more neutral reporting on these things, after all, there are many parties that are pro EU but Eurosceptic parties get too much coverage.
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From my impression having lived in both the EU and US, cars are something you need in the US whereas in Europe, they are something most have but are not really needed as public transports is a lot better in Europe and overall, a lot of the services that the people need is in closer reach. Also, I get the impression that Europeans prefer smaller to medium size cars whereas the US seems to prefer big cars, two different markets with different ways of thinking.
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The UK reminds me of Russia, pinning for the glory days of empire and being seen as a great power, truth is, it's just a fantasy, the real power today is the EU, US and China and that gap from them and the likes of the UK and Russia is only going to get bigger in time and yes, I'm English as well but I'm also a realist, it was a big mistake the UK leaving the EU that the cost are only just starting to be seen.
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Same, at least with the French, they've been far more pragmatic over the decades in wanting European countries to have an independent military away from the US. But personally, I would rather see countries in the EU get together and pool resources into an EU military, that would be far stronger than any independent one of the 27 countries, and it could be done where countries that want to integrate, can, whiles the others do their own thing, and if you end up with a few countries like Germany, France, Italy, Spain and maybe even Poland doing that, that would pretty much make the other EU countries military powers almost irrelevant.
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True, some might not like it but what are the alternatives with an aggressive US and China around, basically, European countries are going to have to integrate more to protect their political, economic and social interest, otherwise they will get sidelined, we are seeing early signs of this with a Brexit UK, look how much tougher some countries are getting with the UK now like the US, India, China, Japan and Russia.
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@melvinbeck5047 It's not the EU way to pull the plug, they are very diplomatic in these things and we've seen that over the last few years. All the EU have made clear is what the UK can't have without signing up to other things and that is quite reasonable, the real problem is the UK seems to want all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, that is where the hold up is, nothing is stopping the UK from walking away but they don't seem to want too because it would be too costly.
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@Slav4o911 The signs are looking promising that Llama 3 will beat GPT4 once the community starts to fine-tune them, especially looking at how big of an improvement that's been done on Llama 2, it's likely we will see some big improvements on the newer model, probably more so because these are bigger models.
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I don't think trade wars have every really worked in the past and I don't see why they would now and if I recall, I think the last time we've had a trade war where both side put tariffs on more then once was in 1930's and we all know how well that happened, ironiclly it was the US that started that too. Either way, Trump could only win this if the other players like the EU and China didn't put tariffs on US goods but they had to do that because if they didn't, Trump will think he's won and get more aggresive, in other words, tic for tac is the name of the game and we all lose out for it, the problem for Trump and the US is that they stand to lose out the most because the rest of the world is far bigger and they can trade with each other, this isn't what Trump had in mind but clearly Trump doesn't know economics. We should also rememeber that Trumps tariffs on the EU and US harm a lot of American jobs, then throw in the tariffs the EU and China puts on the US and if other tariffs go on both sides, it's going to really hurt living standards in the long run. This could also be Trump's hanging moment, if Trump goes ahead with more big tariffs, that could be enough to force him out once it starts to bite into peoples pockets. Another thing that Trump doesn't understand, the US isn't needed as much as he likes to think, the EU alone is about the size of the US, China is more or less the same and then there is the rest of the world, if Trump keeps pushing, he's going to weaken the US big time at a time the US can't afford that with a rising China.
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I think the real problem is that Brexiteers are willing to do that, they are quite happy to undermine democracy in the UK because of pure hate on the EU, as for the British public, well let hear them then, a lot can change over 3 or so years, Brexiteers are very fearful of the public having another say and with good reason, the Brexit the public voted for is nothing like the Brexit the hardliners are trying to force on them, after all, we're still waiting for cake to eat, that the EU would bend, that we would have all the good bits of EU memberships without any of the bad, how about £350 per week to the NHS, all lies to win that vote, none of which the Brexiteers can deliver on, so let hear what the British people really think on Brexit now that everything is opened up ;-)
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The funny thing is, if OPEC isn't careful and they continue to play their games with cutting production to bump up the price, it could backfire on them because most countries are not going to accept high energy prices for too long, high energy prices are likely going to mean far more investments into alternative cheaper energy sources, hence why energy crisis don't usually last that long because investments in alternatives usually skyrocket. So the problem for OPEC, they are desperate to bump the price up, but they likely know that doing so will likely kill their oil industry off and considering how some of these countries are very dependent on that revenue, it's a highly risky move to play games with that, unless they are dumb enough to think western countries will just accept high prices lol, truth is, they'll accept it short term till they adapt, but longer term, they are likely going to move away from oil and gas unless the energy market becomes a lot more stable and the price point becomes more normal.
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True, if you are in the EU, you are an EU citizen, which basically means you are able to live, work and play in any EU country as long as you want. The 3 months he was talking about is for how long people from outside the EU can stay in an EU country.
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Oh I don't know about that, negotiate is a powerful tool and it's very effective for the EU and far more peaceful of a tool than force and it seems to work, the EU regulates a lot of rules and regulations around the world and thanks in part because the standards are higher than what others offer, in other words, it's much more likely that countries will want to adopt higher standards than lower ones. Also, I think China and Russia will be very effective with it's disinformation in Africa, which is unfortunate for the African people because it's clear to see that they are being used by those countries, especially if you look at the terms China demands, it's basically debt trap which could makes those countries involved poorer in the long run or worse yet, have less control over their own country. You've got to be careful with your dealings when it comes to China and Russia because they are noons friends and are just looking at countries to take advantage off and sadly, it looks like it will work on many countries in Africa, especially from China.
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Thats the problem in the UK, not enough is told to us about the EU and how it runs and the same for the European elections, all that many in the UK think is that the EU is undemocratic and yet here we are having European elections voted by the public and the irony is that by the Brexiteers making a lot of noise about it, it's also showing a big hole in the arguement they made on leaving the EU in them saying it's not voted by the people.
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Veto rules need to go before any new country can join, some countries are holding the rest to ransom on other political areas, we're even seeing the same in NATO with Turkey playing political games.
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You have no idea what kind of passion football brings out of the fans, I've never seen that kind of passion from any other sports that football brings out of people, especially in Europe and Latin America.
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France out of the EU would leave France as a much weaker player in the world, I highly doubt most France people want that with the level of pride the France people have. Beside, just look at the UK, it's becoming a joke since it left the EU. In any case, if France or Germany was to leave the EU, that would weaken all members a lot, including France, what that basically means is that it will become harder for France and other EU members to protect their political, economic and social interest, the US would love that as it wants to water down food standards, workers rights and other things, Putin would also love that because a weaker Europe is easier to take advantage off. France also would be a less attractive place to invest because of their regulations and resistance to the English language among other things, France outside the EU would likely do more harm to France then the UK being out of the EU. Beside, if there is one thing I've learned about Eurosceptics, even harden ones, most don't want to leave the EU but want to reform it so it works better, the UK is the exception to the rule that never liked the EU from the start but France has a lot of pride and wants to project power, the EU is it's only real hope at doing that and you only have to look at the UK with Brexit in how they are being sidelined with the EU and US taking charge and in the case of France, it would likely be worse than what the UK is going through because the UK at least is on friendlier terms with the US.
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Very true, and with these eastern EU countries developing, that brain drain will reduce and eventually reverse as the economy catches up with western EU standards. In any case, the brain drain was going to happen to those countries regardless of if they were in the EU or not as people want a better quality of life and many are willing to move to get that, with these countries being in the EU, it does make it easier for them to move to other EU countries, but it also helps to develop these countries much faster which then people will want to live in those countries, something we've seen in many western EU countries that developed over time, the Republic of Ireland is a prime example, they were quite poor and now one of the richest countries in the EU and that's enticing people to want to move there, the same will happen to these eastern European countries over time.
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@bramolini4835 So you say but if you look at all the money men behind Brexit, it's all the elites that are pushing it and for good reason, to deregulate the economy, lower taxes for the rich and so on, basically things that don't help the lower and middle classes in the country, even Farage was a former banker lol, I wonder how many Brexiteers know that considering how they hare the elites lol.
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@bramolini4835 That old chestnut, most of them don't care about the UK or are more interested in seeing how they can take advantage of the UK whiles we are in a position of weakness. Lets look at the facts, the US seems to want to screw the UK over on food standards, the NHS and labour laws, they want to lower standards in the UK whiles giving more access to it's corporations to take over the UK. Then we have Japan which have already said they won't roll over the EU deal they have with Japan for the UK and now Japan threaten the UK to sign a deal in 6 weeks, what Japan is doing is striking whiles the UK is weak to get much better terms for themselves because they know the UK is desperate to sign any deal. How about India, they've said if the UK wants a good deal with them, they will have to give visa free access for its people to work and live in the UK. China? Well considering how the UK and Hong Kong are going, don't expect any help from China. The sad reality is, the rest are too small to make much of a difference in trade terms to make up the loose of the EU and the irony is, the EU is our best hope of getting any kind of decent deal if the UK is more realistic on that. Beside, according to polls, 57% of Brits want to rejoin the EU and those numbers keep creeping upwards with new polls, even with margins of errors and all that, that is quite a big swing away from Brexit and that should be quite alarming for Brexiteers because if that continues, the UK could be back in the EU in a decade with Euros in hand lol and whats better is the real impact of Brexit and this pandemic have not kicked in yet, wait till that really bites and support for rejoining could go up more.
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If we listen to sceptics, the EU's future is always uncertain going back decades and yet here it stands and continues to move forward lol. But honestly, Trump, Putin and China are doing wonders for the EU, them being so unstable, aggressive and reckless is showing us Europeans why the EU and unity among Europeans is so important and that is only likely going to continue with how things are going. We all know that Trump and Putin hates the EU and they hate it for a good reason because the EU allows Europeans to project power and to protect our interest, both of those leaders don't want that and want to pick on individual countries as they would be weaker than and more likely for them to get what they want..
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Hasn't the Euro been taking market share away from the US Dollar over the last 2 decades?
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Both are EU members so are unlikely to be at threat, after all, I suspect Russia taking on an EU member would be worse than Russia taking on a NATO member and purely based on how integrated EU members are compared to NATO members and seriously guys, the EU from the start, started out with the idea of preventing war among its members with the Coal and Steel Community, that also works for any outside threats to an EU member, in other words, an attack on one is an attack on all. Still, being in both is handy.
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Wages don't tell us much about anything really because there are a lot of factors at play from cost of living, to public service we have access too and so on. Basically, Europeans don't need as high of a wage to have a high quality of living because our taxes pay for so many public services that Americans have to pay out of pocket, hence why even with lower wages, Europeans on average have a higher quality of living compared to Americans. It also shows that GDP per capita numbers don't really tell us much and at worse, are quite misleading, especially when it comes to things that matter.
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Yeah, I always find it amusing how many times we see an article over the years when there's trouble or disagreement in the EU or one of its members and they see it as a threat of the country leaving, it would be like in the US where one state has a disagreement with the government or are having economic troubles and then article popping up saying there's a threat of them leaving the union lol. The truth is, the risk of countries leaving are quite small because of the benefits they get, a lot of the debate and disagreement is more on the functioning and running of the EU, in other words, they want change and reforms to the project, which I do agree that reforms are needed. As for the UK, they were never really that into the EU project even when joining, they always saw it as an economic only union and have always been very distance from the EU project, that it wasn't that difficult to see that if any country were to leave the EU, the UK would be the likely country, there's also the factor that the UK saw the EU project differently then other EU countries. But even with all that and with Brexit, public views on the EU are changing more favourable to levels I've not seen in decades, and all it took was the reality of what Brexit really meant. I don't see any other countries leaving the EU, but it wouldn't surprise me if Hungary are marginalised and then kicked out of the EU, but I will say that reforms are needed to the EU before new countries can join, reforms that should have been done years ago.
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The irony in all this is how quickly it could take over the creative sector, if you asked any of us just 2 years ago if we thought A.I. would take over the creative sector or manufacturing, most of us would likely say manufacturing as that is much easier to do, the creative sector is much trickier to take on and yet A.I. is becoming a far bigger threat to that industry far sooner than expected. As it continues to get better and more capable, it's going to take over more jobs in the creative sector, it's only a matter of time before it takes over manual labour as well, as that is likely easier to do once we build robotics that are controlled with A.I.
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True and as much as the EU would prefer a deal over a no deal, they are not going to bend over backwards for the UK, especially as the UK is acting like an entitled brat lol. Like you said, most would put the EU market first over the UK market and at the end of the day, the EU should just call the UK's bluff, reason being is because they keep doing that, keep threatening to walk away but never doing, it's clear they need a deal but they seem to want the EU to give them some cake, the EU won't give them any because it would undermine the single market and custom union. In the end, the UK seems to want what the EU won't offer and that is mostly much of the same terms they had in the EU but without any of the cost and that is in the end what the real hold up is here.
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As a Brit, I think the UK will rejoin the EU someday but I'm also realistic in knowing that there is little to no chance that you'll get 27 EU members to agree to that any time soon, in other words, we are talking decades off before the UK will be allowed to join and I think single market and custom union access for the UK is more realistic. In the case of Scotland and Northern Ireland, if they leave the UK, Northern Ireland could become part of the EU by becoming part of the Republic of Ireland, Scotland is a bit different but considering they were pulled out against their will, the EU might fast track them in.
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The German car industry can only slow down the switch to electric cars to a degree, but they risk losing competitiveness with the car companies that are going all in on electric cars. It's going to happen regardless of what the German car industry or government wants, so it makes more sense to push hard on being competitive in the EV industry, otherwise, they are going to end up in a situation where they lose market share around the world and in Europe as consumers end up buying more EV's from rival carmakers, a lot of which probably don't care if it's a German car or not, just as long as the quality is good and the price is right, China with BYD sees that, hence why they are being aggressive on reducing pricing. History has shown that anytime an old industry tries to slow or stop a new better industry from taking off, the old industry usually always losses, either by massively being downsized or even going bankrupt, I suspect some could go bankrupt, but many will likely be downsized if they don't wake up to the new reality that newer companies are going all in on EV cars and will end up taking over the car industry if the old industry doesn't wake up and adapt, either way, it's happening regardless of what the old industry wants, so it makes more sense to adapt, get onboard and compete in the EV market. Also, this all sounds like month-to-month fluctuations that's happening in Germany and I think overall, EV sales are on the increase, probably better to look on a yearly basis.
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I think they did mention in the video that it works with wind power as well, which Denmark gets a lot of that, also, regardless of roundtrip efficiency, it's better to have some energy storage then throwing away excess renewable energy generated, so any solution to store excess energy when renewables generate more than we need is better than throwing that energy away, especially because with how cheap renewable energy, it's likely we are going to go way past the amount of energy we use a lot of the times, we are already seeing that happening now where we generate more energy than we need for a few days or weeks, over the next decade or two, I suspect we will end up generating way more energy than we need at certain times of the year, so we need some strong beefy energy storage solutions that work. Also, this could be used for heating over electric storage, which the roundtrip efficiency would be much better.
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Would be ideal to not have that but we kinda already do with the Euro Zone, and maybe more of that might be needed as the union expands. But I think some major reforms are needed to the EU, with veto rules being scrapped or reduced a lot, majority voting being used a lot more, I also think the European Parliament needs to be given more powers and reforms to the EU Commission, maybe merge the Commission and President together and have them directly elected. Another major area the EU needs to do a lot better on is connecting with the people, for many, the EU can seem distant, whiles a lot of what's being done at the EU level, a lot of EU citizens not being aware of what's going on, and I think that would do wonders against the Eurosceptic movement around Europe, because they use ignorance as a weapon to push their own agenda and are more than willing to use the EU as a scapegoat to get what they want, so if Europeans were more clued-up on what's going on, that should be harder for them to do that.
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I'm not so sure about that, with Europe, Asia and the Middle East being connected by land, that gives them all a massive advantage when it comes to interconnect and trade, the US by comparison is a bit like Australia in the middle of nowhere and only really has Canada and Mexico as easy trading countries by land and when you throw in the population size of Europe and Asia, it's not hard to see how the balance of power will shift in those directions and historically and even today, most trade is done with nearby countries. Also, with so many developing countries in East Europe and in Asia, that's a lot of room to grow when it comes to trade and it's Europe and Asia that will benefit from that the most with other nearby countries in the Middle East and even Africa.
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Somehow I highly doubt this, the British public have been denied a voice after the last vote on Brexit that I think they will use the European elections to show what they think on Brexit and if turnout is high, it will likely drown out a lot of the Brexiteers, the turnout is key, if it's low like it has been for years, then the Brexiteers win, if it's high then remainers have a chance to send a powerful message to the goverment that could be enough to stop Brexit. Odds of them missing out on this is highly unlikely. Anyway, I never voted in the European elections in the past and I know of many others where I live that have not as well and they have said they will vote this time to send a message not only to the Brexiteers but to our goverment that we're not happy with how things are going. It will be intresting to see how this turns out but if turnout isn't high enough then we really do get what we deserve but I suspect turnout is going to be higher then it's been in past elections because the goverment refuses to give the public a voice, this election is the publics chance to see what they really think on Brexit.
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langohr9613ify I look at the EU as something I'm sure most don't like in the sense why would anyone want to give up independents, but I think we can achieve more by pooling our resources together then going it alone and this is going to be far more important with how power is shifting to the east. I think what makes sense to do at EU level should be done at that level and same for what makes sense at national level and regional level within a country, I feel that would work better. Also I feel the EU need to get rid of the commissioner and shift those powers to the EU president and make it electable. Also, as good as democracy is, it doesn't work well unless the people show more of an interest in what's going on in politics and sadly most of us don't and worse still is most of us get our information on what's going on by mass media which is controlled by very few people, people like to complain about how things are going but we're partly to blame for letting them run a muck.
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Anthony Byers They don't rule anyone, but they do have the biggest say, that's the same if the UK is in or out of the EU, if fact it might be more so if we are out of the EU, also you have to remember that with the second world war, we did kind of push them into a corner with it, it's why after world war two lessons where learned with the Marshall Plan and now Germany and Japan are some of the least hostile nations on the planet.
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That's not too bad, I think Bill Gates once said we wouldn't need more than 640k of ram lol.
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The real question is, how many of the voters actually knew what they was voting for?, most I got the impressive didn't have much of a clue and voted on fear. The ironic thing is, Scotland would likely win a vote to pull out of the UK, after that Northern Ireland could be next, and say the UK has the same kind of trade deal with the EU like the likes of Norway or Iceland have, what independents is that when still a lot of the laws will come from the EU and we still give them money, then I have to wonder who the people that wanted out will blame then. In truth, most of us wasn't informed in what we was voting for and that is a big problem when both sides where slinging mud at each other to see which stick the most, in this case the ones out got that, but really, how is that democracy?, democracy only works if people are informed about what they are voting on. Personally I think the UK needed out of the EU because I don't think we was going to learn until after that, now those same people will put the blame on other things for the same problems we're likely going to have.
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Lol, I suggest you do some research on Norway, for all intent and purpose they are a EU member with little to no say in how things get done, if that's what you want for the UK then the EU would be more than happy with that. Norway has open borders with the EU, they pay a similar amount of money per capita into the EU pot, they apply most EU laws, for the most part, Norway is a EU member without being in the EU, Switzerland is similar but they did it by bilateral agreements. I checked up about 6 trade deals that are possible for the UK, every one of them are worse than what we already have, so who in the right mind thought the UK could have their cake and eat it?, never heard of any club giving its benefits without being a member of it, which is what many in the UK thought they could get.
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To me Boris Johnson never expected the leave side to win, what he wanted was us to stay in the EU but the vote to be enough to force David Cameron out of his job so he could move in. The moment the leave side won, he went into hiding and shortly afterwards, decided not to run for PM, now some can say he was kicked out but he didn't bother to fight at all, it all seems like he took the easy way out because he knows he made a mess.
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Let's be honest, the reason the north of England voted the way it did was because of the wealth divide from north and south of England and little to do with the EU, so for the most part it was a protest vote, unfortunately for us in the north, we might get less money now, either way, most of this was down to inequality, it's usually that what always causes these problems which really we should of been blaming the British government not the EU because that doesn't really change being in or out of the EU. On the plus side, all this mess might be a wake up call for governments to start listening to it's people and doing what's in there interest.
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@markcolonna6874 The irony is that if you look at polls, they've been consistent that Brits want to remain in the EU for the last 2 years now as the lies of Brexit become more apparent to the British people, as for Brexit it's self, lets be honest with ourselves, it was sold on lies and it's been like that from the start, if the truth was told from the start, chances are, the British people would have voted the other way, hence why Brexiteers are bending over backwards to make sure another vote won't happen but that is risking the break up of the UK union. As for the EU, since Brexit happened, support for the EU has been growing, not only that, no EU member actually wants to leave now and some that had ideas of leaving the Euro or EU are having second thoughts thanks to the mess the UK has got it's self in, that and some help from Trump.
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@Karl_der_Genosse Actually the EU doesn't have that title because power is still in the hands of its members and there is little the EU it's self can do without broad support from enough of its members. The US on the other hand reminds me a bit of the UK with how the system is rigged in so many areas against the people but also against new parties taking on the two main parties in the countries, even thought they can say it's a democracy, it's a weak one at that and we've seen that in both the UK and US over the last few years, the EU and many European countries really do look like a shining beacon of light with what else is going on around the world.
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@luishernandezblonde To be fair to China, the US have been using threats on China for quite some time, way before Putin invaded Ukraine, it's hard to blame China for finding business in Russia and elseware when the US is trying to restrict trade with China. In any case, I think it's crazy to lump these countries together and should be treated as an individual case per country. China might have some hostile policies, but they are clearly not Russia, Iran or North Korea in the agenda they have, and I understand why the US would want to label them as such, because China is seen as a major threat to US power around the world, clearly, many countries from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, sees this as more of a US problem then problem for themselves, probably why most will likely play both sides off each other for their own benefit, a bit like how the US wants the EU to do US bidding on China, which clearly, there's a lot of resistance to that in Europe. In any case, it's clear that Russia is the clear threat and for two reasons, one they've invaded another country, and two, they've been interfering in western politics for over a decade now, especially in Europe and North America, and we in the west have been way too soft on Russia, probably what led to Putin invading Ukraine because we've been a soft touch.
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I suspect that was a big factor of Brexit, the key is for the Tories to pull the wool over the British eyes on watering down rights they take for granted, something the might do slowly over time in the hope the British people don't notice. Another factor on why the Tories will want to weaken many of these rights is so they can stay competitive with the EU market, after all, leaving the EU has put the UK at a disadvantage, offering businesses better terms like lower workers rights and other stuff like that might work but it's bad news for the British people that thought Brexit would mean things getting better, all the indicators are showing things getting worse and it's still early days on that. In any case, I never for one second thought Brexit was about rasing standards in the UK when the UK could have done that's whiles part of the EU, but lowering standards below EU standards is something the UK couldn't do whiles in the EU, now they can, the question is how will they get that past the British people to accept that, something I suspect they are working on.
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@manuelight True, this is just a bluff from Facebook, beside, even if Facebook was to leave, another rival will swoop in to fill that void, nobody is stupid enough to leave a market of 450 rich consumers on the table, even Facebook likely realize that but if they don't, another rival will take advantage of that.
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Same, over the last 15 years, we tried to reduce energy use as much as we can without lowering our quality of living, we managed to reduce our energy consumption by about half whiles using more tech gadgets. With insulation on the house, it mostly stays warm even in winter without using the radiator, we tend to only need heating around 2 or so days per year which is nothing really and we insulated the house even more this year so might not need heating at all. I think our next job will be installing solar panels on the roof.
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That's true, but causing chaos in society isn't the solution, it could end up turning Europeans against the farmer's cause. Down tools is probably a lot more effective in getting leaders to take note, without causing damage and other problems in society.
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Referendums would be good for democracy but unfortunately in many modern countries, they are only as good as how well-informed the public are on things, which is quite poor in a lot of countries, then the problem with referendums ends up being the echo chamber of who has the loudest voice, which the right wing press have been very successful with, especially in the US, UK and Australia. So as much as I would love to have more referendums, honestly, I think it would be a bad idea with how poorly informed the public are in so many countries, in other words, clean up the media so the public are better informed on the facts, then referendums would be more effective, until then, all we are getting is scare stories, usually from the right wing press that direct public thinking, we saw a lot of that in the UK with Brexit, we see it a lot in the US with Fox News and Trump, basically, we've got a few people in the media that are very successful at manipulating the masses, until that changes, referendums are not as good as an idea as it seems because democracy is only as good as a well-informed public that takes part in voting. As for immigration, honestly, I don't see a problem with it as long as they are spaced out around the country, they integrated and that the country can support them without putting the natives out, I find the real problem with immigration is the lack of integration by some and too many end up in too few areas in a country, which makes it difficult for those regions to cope with it.
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@yordanku They have issues, depending on which eastern EU country, but looking at the structure and the people, they are more likely to solve those issues, whereas it feels like a merry-go-round with countries like Italy and Greece, both of which should be doing far better economically than they are doing, and honestly, for all the blame those two countries try to pin on the EU, they really need to look much closer at home to see where the real structural problems are. Basically, they are two countries that constantly blame the EU for a lot of it's problems, a bit like the UK did when it was in the EU and now Brexit is showing the British people that the problems were more deep-rooted in the UK, especially with the government and had nothing to do with the EU. It's too easy for governments to deflect blame away from the mess they create and blame the EU for it, even thought, it's easy to see that the mess is created much closer to home, the UK is finding that out the hard way, I hope the likes of Italy, Hungary or Poland don't find that out the hard way as well.
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I think Norway would be better off inside the EU compared to the deal they have, I suspect the EU is quite happy with the deal they already have but for Norway, it more or less makes them a rule taker whiles missing out on many benefits.
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@paisto I never said those other EU members could get rid of the UK but that some wanted to get rid of the UK, hence the reason why it's unlikely the EU would get support from all EU members to let the UK back in any time soon, France and Spain would likely block us among some other members. In any case, it might not even matters, polls are showing support for the EU growing in all the EU members countries including the UK ironically, it's also showing that the support for rejoining the EU is growing in the UK with the latest polls saying 57% supports that, that's quite a big swing in the other direction and that support has been growing for quite some time now. I have to wonder once the hardship of Brexit and the pandemic kicks in for the UK where those numbers will be because we're not really feeling the impact of it yet but that is likely to change late this year or early next year, so much so that Labour could actually fight the next election on rejoining the EU if support is great enough, they know the Tories can't do the same because they've gone too deep on Brexit so will have to dig their own grave. Another factor is the op-outs, if the UK rejoins the EU, we won't have any op-outs, meaning the UK will have to sign up to everything including the Euro, Brexiteers might have done a massive mistake in pushing Brexit so aggressively that it could backfire on them, and we end up back in the EU with Euros in hand and all because they lied and never thought Brexit through.
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@robb5828 That's why I said the Eastern EU members are doing much better than Russia with only really Moscow and St Petersburg competing. That's the main problem for Russia, what does it have to offer eastern European countries apart from threats as we are seeing with Ukraine right now? At least with the EU, it's showing it's actually helping to develop those countries which has a far bigger impact on peoples lives and yes it takes a long time to transform countries but the EU has proven many times that it knows how to do it. It's also why more eastern European countries will want to join the EU, they will look at the eastern EU countries that are already in and will want the same thing, that is what Russia is really worried about. The funny thing is, if Russia just mellows down a bit, they could become a future EU member as Russians are not that different from other Europeans and I suspect the real problem isn't the people but the political system that's living in the past which reminds me of Brexit Britain, pinning for the good old days but it's all a delusion.
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@ЭЮЯ-о3к None, but then I don't want to get arrested at the airport lol. But hey, check the wages of some of the poorer eastern EU members like Bulgaria and Romania, they are about twice as high as what they are in Russia and remember, these are the poorest in the EU, go to others like Poland and the wages are much higher. The population started to decline in those countries because those countries wanted open boarders with the western countries, that's not the EU's fault, that's just a side effect of open boarders when there is a big gap in wealth, but in time that will change. After all, what do you really think the real threat to Russia is? they worry that the EU is offering eastern European countries something Russia can't offer and thats wealth which is very enticing for the population and the scary thing for Russia, as the Eastern EU members keep modernizing, it has a knock on effect on it's neighbouring countries and then they will want to join, thats what scares Putin the most. For the average person, they want their quality of life to improve, the EU has shown time and time again that it knows how to do that and delivers on that, Russia on the other hand only delivers on threats which does nothing for the people, hence why the EU is winning that battle and why Russia is getting desperate with Ukraine.
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That depends, if we're talking older weapons, that's true but newer weapons, well, it depends on manufacturing ability, something EU countries are good at, it's just a matter of if they want to scale that up, they probably will to a small degree but most don't expect this war to be long term. As it is, EU countries and the US are giving Ukraine just enough to give Russia a bloody nose but I do think they'll have to ramp it up going into summer, that will basically mean giving Ukraine more modern weapons.
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It's too early to say based on what we know but I do feel more is needed to be done to counter China political manoeuvring but for it to be impactful, it will likely need better terms than what China is offering, maybe even on trade terms. I also think the EU and US could work together on something like this because both have the same aim when it comes to China. But personally what I think the EU should do is foster better trade and relations with these countries, the EU is in a good geographical position to do so and that to some degree should help to counter China's power play in the regions. In the case of African countries, I don't blame them for wanting to accept all this money from China but there's too many strings attached to them which in the long run could be harmful to those countries, the EU and the US needs to offer something better to try and pull them away. As for the EU, we should remember that it's limited in what it can do and I feel like this is an intent from the EU to boost support among EU members which if they do that, that's when real action can start.
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Honestly, I didn't see any credible alternatives being presented, it's easy for people to complain and say we need someone else, but who? The far right didn't show any credible alternatives, the other mainstream parties didn't, the only other real credible one was Mario Draghi. Basically, von der Leyen won by default because the alternatives were not that compelling. Honestly, it's not that bad, she was competent in her first term under difficult times and is a safe per of hands, that probably helped her credibility a lot more than people think with how well she handled the last 5 difficult years, I mean, could you imagine how bad things really could have got if the EU Commission was from one of the far right?
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@John Galt That's Trumps job, he seems desperate enough to open up the economy so he can try and win the election, New York was always going to be hard hit because of how close people live, the population size and the amount of tourist in that region, that was always going to be a hot spot and in fact we can see that same pattern around the world.
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@bennett2874 I'm not sure about the UK, if we look at how things are turning out, the US seems quite hostile towards the UK on trade deals in that it's very likely to be very one sided, Japan have more or less ruled out the idea that the UK can't roll over the deal the EU made with Japan, suggesting Japan feels they can get more of the UK and thats been highlighted lately with Japan putting pressure on the UK to sign a deal in 6 weeks, Japan knows the UK is on it's knees and are hitting them whiles the iron is hot when if a deal happens, it will be good for Japan but not the UK. Then we have China, well looking at how things are going with the UK, China and Hong Kong, I think the UK can kiss good buy any deal from them, the irony is, the EU is the UK's only real hope of getting a solid deal, a lot of the other countries are either too small or the UK doesn't trade with them much, not enough to counter the trade the UK has with the EU and that is a major problem for the UK. In any case, it looks like the vultures are out to take advantage of the UK and the irony in that is that the EU is the only one who isn't acting like a vulture and that gives you a good indicator in who the UK's real friends are in the world, especially with all the abuse the UK have shouted at the EU the last few years..
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@ottz2506 I've heard many stories about Americans, even the ones without insurance, getting treatment in Europe because it works out much cheaper than having the same treatment in the US, it's crazy to think that an American can have a holiday in Europe and get treatment cheaper than they can in the US, you know something is wrong with the system in the US for that to happen.
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The irony is that the US keeps threatning countries and starting wars in the Middle East, why should the likes of North Korea and Iran listen to what the US says anymore when the US over the last two decades have shown not to be trusted, it's no supprise other countries want to build nukes in defence of the US, after all they said there was weapons of mass destrution in Iraq all thoes years ago, they still can't find them now. The US is comming across as a bully and hence why less countries are listening to them now, Trump is the gift that keeps giving to the rest of the world and the sad thing is that he doesn't even know it lol.
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Some things just make sense to have as a standard and this is one area. It doesn't stop progress because for phone chargers, they can do what many other organisations like WI-FI, Bluetooth and so on does, in other words, many companies get together to create a better standard as time goes on. This is just Apple being Apple and want to lock down the market and cash in on it's own standards, thankfully, we have the EU that cares about consumers interest.
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Smart people are people that can make mistakes, but are willing to admit to said mistake and change their views and actions on that view. I don't have a problem with people that make mistakes but are willing to own up to them and change as evidence shows it was a mistake, but I've no time for people that get so defensive on their views like a religion and usually because they've dug in so deep in that view, that it's embarrassing to admit they got it wrong, especially if they've been public about it. People are changing their views on Brexit in the UK, but the more hardcore Brexiteer will likely need years if not decades of more pain to come to the country for them to wake up, that and as time goes by, they hope people forget what their views were on the subject so they can change without the embarrassment. It's a sad state of affair but the EU and many of its members likely know that could need decades of Brexit to really drum the message home in how badly they got it wrong, hence the idea of rejoining the EU any time soon is a pipe dream until there's a sizeable change from the public, media and political parties in how they see the EU project, and that's going to take years if not decades, but even then, say the UK gets a chance to rejoin the EU, there will be no op-outs, we'll be signing in to everything like the Euro, and we should remember that the EU members are likely going to integrate more before the UK has a chance to join, so the EU we'll be joining won't be the one we left, the only exception to that rule is Scotland and Northern Ireland if they choose to leave the UK, Scotland might have an easier time with it and the EU might go easier on Scotland being that they were pulled out of the EU against their will, as for Northern Ireland, the best chance is unification with the Republic, they would have the same terms that the Republic already has with the EU. As for the UK, the best they can hope for is to repair ties with the EU, something we are seeing little signs off and maybe that will get better if Labour wins the next election, maybe the UK could join the single market and custom union, that would solve a lot of problems and protect the economy, but the UK wouldn't have a vote in the decision-making, so that might be a hard sell, but that could be a stepping stone for rejoining the EU, whiles also proving to them that the UK is serious about wanting to rejoin, but for now, there's little chance of the UK rejoining, because the Tories are too dug in on this and Labour are scared of the Brexiteers, that's a clear message to the EU that the UK is a long way from being ready on rejoining. As for the British people changing their tune on Brexit, well that's all well and good, but unless those views are backed up with action, it means nothing and as for the Brexiteers, I've no sympathy at all, every bit of pain that's happened and likely to continue to happen, it's well deserved for them, it's just unfortunate that they are pulling a lot of innocent people down with them, but the truth is, remainders are partly to blame, we didn't do enough to prevent Brexit, many thought it would never have happened so didn't make an effort to vote, we didn't do enough to correct a lot of the BS that was coming from the Eurosceptics and right wing press in the UK, I mean seriously, they've had a free ride for decades in twisting the narrative on the EU project, so there's a lot of blame to go around on both sides on Brexit, but again as I said above, without action, peoples views changing means little unless it's backed by action to make change.
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@Joso997 That's not quite true, the EU is a political and economic union, in fact, it was set up to be a political union in the first place but economics is much easier to agree on, but make no mistake about it, the EU is all about political and economic integration, and has been so before most EU countries joined union.
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Democracy by its very nature isn't really that stable because it allows public views from all sides, which is always tricky to get them all working well together, but it's the best system we have compared to the alternatives when it come to giving the people a voice, but with so many voice, stability was never going to be its strong point, but compared to the alternatives, it's a far better system. The only real flaws I see is that there needs to be more transparency on everything governments are doing with the voters, basically, there's too much of a disconnect from the voters and the ones in powers and it's creating a divide of mistrust, in other words, if governments actually listen to the people and actually did what they wanted, things would be a lot calmer in the west now, and this is a western thing with the far right in Europe, to what's going on in the US, the pattern is the same, lack of trust from voters in the system.
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@Keichwoud357 I don't really see Russia as a threat, they remind me of that kid on the corner that's crying out for attention, basically, they are still living in the old days and want to be the centre of attention, but as a threat, no, their economy is around the same size as Spain, if Russia was to ever push their luck too far, western EU countries and the US have far more capacity to rearm by turning it's manufacturing base towards arms, in the end, the economy is the real power as it can be used in many different ways.
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@Mineralsss Thats nothing to do with American influence and more to do with racism existing in Europe as well, so basically both of them have the same problem so the BLM movement was bound to jump on that in Europe. Beside, there are a lot of things the EU countries don't take from the US, especially on the social system.
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I always thought that what Sweden was doing was a high risk game, it could have worked if herd immunity happen but it was still playing with peoples lives when the risk was high, Europeans overall did a better job but even they did mistake in not clamping down hard on the virus and lockdown like Asian countries did and overall, western countries have not handled this that well, some better than others but looking at the record of Asian countries, it's clear we're doing something wrong but to be fair, many Asian countries had more experience on this kind of thing.
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The US could start becoming a shadow of its former self if it doesn't start showing good leadership on the world stage, and with how erratic and polarising politics is getting in the US, it's not looking good. But seriously, we only have ourselves to blame in the west, especially in the EU and US, the warning signs have been there for well over a decade of Russian interference in western democracy, and yet we in the west are not putting our foot down hard enough to clean up all the Trojan horses that are being planted by Russia, but seriously, how bad do we have to let things get before we say enough is enough? In any case, the likes of Russia and China must be laughing at the west for coming across as weak, after all, strong countries and good leadership wouldn't allow all these Trojan horses to take hold. With all that said, Russia or China are not really a threat to the west, the reason being is because as long as the west is open, democratic and empowers the people, they'll always have the edge over countries that are too centralised, controlled and restrictive on what their own people can and can't do, after all, the west from Europe to North America isn't so successful by chance, they are because of being open, allowing its people to innovate and be creative, by empowering the people, you empower the country, which is a major flaw countries like Russia and China have, they can get some level of success, but never likely to get the kind of success western countries can get on a per-person basis.
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That's religion for you, it twists reality so much that you end up with crazy laws as we see in the US. Violence at all levels is acceptable and yet nudity is a touchy subject in the US, which is strange because it's a natural thing that there is nothing wrong with it.
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MrMajsterixx Actually it does, having open access to the EU market offers a massive advantage to Poland and the eastern EU countries, it also entices a lot of investment, knowing that these countries have easy access to Western Europe. But what's really having the big impact is the reforms the EU pushes on these countries to reform and modernise, that in time develops the economic and political system to become modern, but it takes many decades, it also helps to create stability, just look at Hungary for instance, if they were not in the EU, they would be fast tracking into a system like what Russia is like, a dictatorship, in fact, Poland was heading that way, but constant pressure and checks and balances from the EU helped to get them back on track. The simple truth is, if you check all the eastern European countries that joined the EU, on average, they are doing much better than the eastern European countries that didn't join the EU, so clearly the EU is having a positive impact on them. As for Russia, they should be embarrassed with its economic performance, we are talking about a country that's blessed with so many natural resources and yet it's a poor country that only a few cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg have a decent quality of life that measures up to eastern EU standards, but go outside those cites and the quality of life drops off a cliff, so for a country with so many natural resources to still be performing poor, really shows poor mismanagement of the economy, and you can only imagine how much worse it would be if they didn't have any natural resources, basically, the eastern European countries that joined the EU are doing far better, whiles having far fewer natural resources, a big part of that is thanks to the EU putting them on the right track of democracy, a market economy and so on.
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@Akinwalesegun Really, we both know Russia doesn't like the UK because we are too close to the US, China isn't going to like that either, Spain are on less friendly terms with the UK at the moment and with them being an EU member, if they did push on taking the island back, they likely would get the backing of the EU because the UK and EU are not on friendly terms. As for Argentina, they didn't like what happened during the Falkland wars and could be just waiting for the right moment, Brexit weakens the UK around the world and Russia are known for helping others in these kinds of events, the US likely won't care because they don't benefit either way and considering we have the Republicans that want to screw the UK over and the Democrats that want to distance themselves from any popularize movement which Brexit is part off, it doesn't look good for the UK, but if it makes you feel any better, it's unlikely any moves will be made any time soon but don't kid yourself, with Brexit, the UK is geo-politically and economically weaker by that, the question is, how much weaker.
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Why blame the EU for the problem when it's clear that it's some of the members to blame, this has been a problem for some time but it's also a massive opening to go to cleaner energy a lot sooner than expected, so a bit of short term pain for a brighter future, I can live with that.
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That's the killer punch in all this, countries around the world only have to deal with tariffs from the US whiles the US is having to deal with tariffs from a lot of countries around the world. The end result of that is that trade will shift away from the US, which will reduce the importance of the US market and it's tariffs, the long term impact of this could cause a lot of political and economic damage to the US, whiles isolating them as a country as the rest of the world trade with each other and not as much with the US. The US is the real loser in this over the long run, the EU and China could be the big winners if they play their cards right, also rivals to many American corporations could become winners out of this over the long run, which in some ways, I kinda hope this drags on as it's the only way the US is going to learn this lesson
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I think the real advantage in the EU market is that it's got some of the highest food standards in the world and because of it being a massive market, it can source a lot of food internally and when you put the two together, consumers have a lot of choice when it comes to high quality foods. Food poisoning is quite rare in the EU and I can't even remember the last time I've had it but it must be many years ago, food poisoning in the US tends to be much higher than in the EU and it's probably why a lot of the trade wars the EU and US have had tend to be about food, basically, the US wanting to sell lower quality food in the EU market and the EU not allowing it. Smaller markets around the world are not so fortunate as they don't have the economic muscle to fight back like the EU can, the UK might be a prime example of that now they are not in the EU and many seems to want a bonfire on EU regulations which basically means lower standards across the board and I imagine the UK is under a lot of pressure from the US on that because the UK is in a weaker position without EU protection, there have also been some concern in the UK about the trade deal they did with Australia as they allow more things to be done with food than what can be done in the EU market and UK at the moment, basically, Brits are worried that food standards will drop with imports from Australia but if I'm not mistaken, that trade deal might get put on hold because of this.
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There have been some push over the last few years to boost tech in the EU because of what happened in the US with Trump and what's going on in China, we'll have to see if that trend continues. But there's no reason why EU countries can't have a big tech industry, they've got the economy, population and skill set to make it happen, heck even much smaller countries like South Korea can do it, just that it's not been much of a focus in the EU as they tend to focus on small to medium size companies that specialise in specific areas, but they are more than capable of getting in the tech industry, and that would probably be a good thing for the world economy and consumers considering how big the EU is.
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It's the Russians, they did a right number on the Americans that they see Socialism as some kind of evil that has to be kept out of the system, it's crazy because the US does have many things that are more socialism like the fire service, so why is it so hard for health care? Simple reason really, profit, the US has allowed a big industry to build up on health care matters and that's what US governments are fighting or backing up. In the end, you've got to blame the American people, they've got access to the world's information, they are not taking advantage of it and seem to want to live in ignorants.
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I don't see why it should, after all, they can't keep expanding that as the EU continues to expand, it becomes messy. The real question is how the commissioners are put into power, there are a few ways that could be done and it will be interesting to see what happens over the coming years.
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@alexpotts6520 Actually, it's not that, it's the government of Hungary that's the problem, the people of Hungary are quite pro EU, which is a surprise that they don't stand up more against Orban. Also, the EU doesn't hate Hungary, it just doesn't like how the government is abusing its position with the veto rule and backsliding on democracy. But, part of the blame is on the people of Hungary, because they are not really doing anything to change the situation for the better and giving Orban a free hand to do what he wants.
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Glad I'm not the only one that compares the Ferengi to the US lol where profit seems to be more important than a lot of things.
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@mihaivlad1905 I have to agree, the US is becoming the biggest problem followed by Russia and then China but honestly, China isn't that much of an issue for Europeans, they are more of an issue to the US because of China growing as a power and threatening US power around the world which why should us Europeans care about that.
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I do remember as a kid growing up in the UK in the 90's, school didn't teach anything about the EU, in fact I knew little to nothing about the EU until I left school. That opens the door for the Eurosceptics to twist and bs lies to the people on something so few know about unless they educate themselves. I think the biggest falling of the EU is that disconnect with the people and not enough engagement from the EU and the public, which the blame is really on the EU and its members, and because of this, it allows the Eurosceptics run riot with any stories they want on the EU with very little countering it, especially in the UK, and we see the results of that with Brexit. If the EU and the more moderate parties want to weaken the radical parties in Europe, more democracy in the EU, more connection with the people so they feel involved, which now most don't, it would weaken a lot of the core arguments that Eurosceptics use, which will force them to go onto more radical arguments, which will be much harder to convince people on.
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Yeah, that's my conclusion, but I'm hopeful that with all the creative ideas going around, someone will crack the urban small turbine that can generate meaningful energy for a home. Until then, it makes more sense to just oversize a solar setup with how cheap it's getting, and I think the wind industry needs to find solutions for wind turbines to work at small scale in urban areas, because it's likely as tech advances, more of us are going to want to go gridless, which for now is a massive advantage in favour of solar power over wind power. In any case, if we can get a mix of solar and wind that works well for home users, that would be a game changer as both would complement each other for more consistent energy generating throughout the year, it would allow far more of us to go gridless and it could reduce the amount of energy storage needed if we are getting a more consistent flow of energy from solar and wind.
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@john70689 You had a lot of control over it when we were in the EU, the UK choose to not use any of those powers. The reality is, Brexit had nothing to do with immigration, it was a power grab from the UK government in wanting to past things into law that they couldn't do whiles in the EU, basically, lower standards in many areas which could very well filter through over the years and decades now. Also, at the start of this year, some new tax laws came in the EU, the UK government was desperate to leave the EU before that law came in and mainly to enrich the rich elites in governments. Brexit has been one big con that doesn't serve the British people but serves a select few rich individuals and unfortunately, that message isn't going to sink in with the Brexiteers until a decade or two later when things are much worse.
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The warning signs were there from 9/11 in the direction the US was going and even more so when Trump got into power, the EU countries need to stand on it's own feet a lot more and the best way to do that is getting together and pooling resources, otherwise, the likes of Russia, the US and China will continue to play us off each other by keeping us divided and weak. I suspect sooner or later, that penny is going to drop for us Europeans and the irony is, the UK could be the first ones to learn that lesson the hard way with Brexit.
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I think most would prefer if Le Pen didn't win but it wouldn't be a disaster for the EU, many thought Brexit would be a disaster for the EU but it had little impact overall. Also, if there is one thing I've noticed about these parties is that they say a lot of things to win power but once in power, they tone it down, it's easy to say you're going to do this that and whatever when out of power but once in power, their neck is on the line. Le Pen likely realize that if you go too extreme, that party will likely never win an election again, in other words, if they win here, this is their chance to prove themselves but that also means being more of a moderate party, extreme parties rarely do well long term so once in power and if they mess this up, that could be the end of them as a party, so even if they win, reality will kick in and they'll likely tone things down because it's their neck on the line.
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Being as Finland and Estonia are an EU and NATO member, both the EU and NATO would have no choice but to intervene directly, to not do so would undermine both organisations massively, we should also remember that EU countries are closely tied together economically in the EU, so an attack on one would have big ripple effects on the others, so not intervening would be a lot of self harm and could escalate things.
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As the saying goes, you can't polish a turd, even thought you can but that's another story lol. The Conservative, I understand their position, they are too invested into Brexit that turning around would be humiliating for the party with how deep they've dug in on Brexit. Labour on the other hand are looking even worse, they are basically saying what they think the British people want to hear, they don't stand for anything on Brexit or other policies and only care about getting into power and if that means going along with Brexit, they will, regardless of how much damage it does to the UK, power is all that counts to them. Pretending Brexit isn't happening like Labour are doing is very likely going to put fuel on the fire for the independence movements in Scotland, Northern Ireland and even Wales, at the end of the day, there are a lot of people that feel they are not being listened to on this and many people in those 3 countries will be thinking, do we really want to be run by this lot, the Tories that don't care and Labour that don't want to hear all sides. It gets even better with the Tories and the courts trying to block Scotland from having a referendum, imagine if the EU said to the UK that you can't have a referendum on leaving the EU? how would the Brits take that? the last thing Scotland wants is for Westminster to dictate to Scotland on what they can and can't do, that could furl the fires on more people in Scotland supporting independence and I suspect the SNP are going to take advantage of that. But seriously, if the UK government were smart, they would give Scotland a vote, let them decide for themselves and make a case for why they should stay, but outright blocking them isn't going to go down well with the people and could actually lead to Scotland leaving sooner rather than later.
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That and it's clear the government doesn't want high profile meetings being done with many high profiled people wearing a mask, it would contradict the message Trump and his clowns are trying to send about re-opening the economy, it's remarkable how they are willing to put peoples lives at risk for profit.
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Too much of that American cool aid that distorts reality. In the US, everything is seen as a competition, in Europe, we focus more or balance and quality of life, you only have to look at a lot of metrics when it comes to quality of life to see who got the better end of the sticks, especially considering European countries dominant the top 10 whereas the US is slipping further behind since Trump and is continuing to do so under Biden. In any case, there is far more to life than how big an economy is or how low unemployment is, or how many tech companies there are, all these things means little to nothing to the average citizen, quality of life matters far more, especially from the bottom up and in that case, European countries do it far better than the US and there are countless research papers and studies online that show that, heck, even a lot of Americans that moved to Europe admit that Europe is better.
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The thing is, Trump is only in power for 4 or 8 years so assuming the Americans don't go crazy and elect someone even worse after Trump, the damage he can do is quite limited, Brexit on the other hand is much longer term damage and I suspect once the UK is out of the EU, it's unlikely the EU will let us back in for at least 2 or 3 decade, personally I think even if the EU was to let the UK stay in the EU, the damage is already done that we might not be on the same terms and would have a lot of bridges to repair with others in the EU, all I'm seeing with the UK now is damage control in how to limit the mess we've got ourselves in. You know what's really funny about all this, the Brexit Referendum was meant to sort out the divide of the Conservative Party, what it's ended up doing is making it 10 times worse for them, I do kind of like the irony of all that.
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I can say one thing, if the EU and China does start to work closer together going forward, the US wont stand much of a chance with that and it would weaken US power around the world big time, the US needs to be very careful what it's doing here before this roll of the dice is played because the US can't compete with the EU and China that have a far bigger economy then the US and also a lot more growth over the next few decades, it would weaken the US in Europe and in Asia and likely elseware.
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It's actually very smart if market share is your main aim, which it looks like it is, once you gain enough market share, they could be rolling in money, but first you've got to build the brand and gain market share, which aggressive pricing is a smart way to do it, something China seems good at doing in many other sectors and probably why the US is getting hostile on China, especially in the high-tech sector, because if China does the same there at a time when a lot of US high-tech companies are getting way too greedy, where do you think consumers will go? Price always wins in the end, hence why the US is trying to ban many of those goods from China in the US, the problem is, that only works if the US can get the rest of the world to ban them, which is highly unlikely, the end result is, the ones that allow this competition, will have the advantage of much lower prices for its consumers. In other words, we in the west need to get our act together and start being far more aggressive on pricing, because that is an easy way for China to get into a market and potentially dominant it, the high-tech computer sector is perfect for China to take advantage off because there's way too much greed there, especially from the US and if China is smart, that's the sector they should target aggressively, which would hurt the US far more than it would others, being the US dominants that sector and being a lot of those companies have got really greedy the last few years, meaning there's a massive opening for new rivals to take advantage off.
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@Matt-fl8uy It wouldn't surprise me, this isn't really about freedoms or science, it's about common sense, in the US, that is being twisted into a tug of war on protecting peoples lives and opening up the economy, in Europe, we are not really seeing that, we don't like the lock down but we understand why it's needed, we don't see it like some Americans see it as taking freedoms away, in fact, many of us see it as a long paid holiday with hardship around the corner.
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@Oilofmercy Don't get me wrong, the US isn't a bad place to live but having lived in both the EU and US over the years, European are doing a lot more things right compared to the US, especially on the poor and middle classes but also on the system of governments and social system, the European system looks after the people a lot better than the American system does and I found when living in the US, patriotism was the main problem because it blinds Americans from the truth and that makes it much harder to do real change.
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This is more about a gradual approach to integration, something that some countries might find easier to stomach compared to the current process. It also might help in getting reforms and changes done in the countries that want to join by showing them that there is hope of making progress, something that's been really lacking over the last decades and many countries that want into the EU are losing hope that it will happen and that makes it far harder for them to do the changes needed to join. A more gradual approach could be beneficial for both the EU and the countries wanting to join by having a smaller dosage of change needed for the country wanting in, which will be politically and publicly easier to do in a gradual approach compared to having a massive book of rules that they have to reform and abide by. The EU would also benefit in that you keep the countries that are not as into integrating into the project out, so the likes of the UK, Poland, Hungary and so on, the benefit of that, it becomes harder for these countries to hold back the countries that want to join, the downside for the countries on the outer ring is that they will in time get left behind as more powers end up being concentrated on the inner core countries, especially as they integrate closer together, which is probably the biggest fear some countries like the politically elites in the UK fear the most, a multi speed EU would allow that to happen far sooner by allowing core countries to get on with it, and just like the Euro, more countries will gradually join as they see it working, it would likely be the same for a multi speed EU with inner core countries moving ahead of the rest, the irony being is that the inner core countries could end up winning by default.
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Germany did, but I wouldn't say Europe, in fact, for Europe, they are seeing clearly on what the US is trying to do when it comes to China. China is seen as far more of a problem for the US then it is for the rest of the world, it's a geopolitical power struggle between the two, the US clearly wants the EU to do US bidding on China, but it makes more sense for the EU to do what's in its own interest when it comes to China, even if that hurts US interest. Don't get me wrong, I don't like many of the policies from China, but they are nothing like Russia, North Korea or Iran, and when it comes to China, it's far more of an issue for the US because of the balance of power around the world, for the EU and for a lot of the world, it probably makes more sense to play them both off each other for their own benefits, probably why the EU or a lot of the world isn't as hawkish on China as the US would like.
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@Qaianna I suspect both the UK and France regret not putting more resources into holding onto those US states and expanding on that but then hindsight is a wonderful thing and if they did, the US wouldn't be what it is today.
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We use on average around 5800kw per year in our house in the UK. The funny thing is, we went on an energy saving drive around 2 decades ago, basically, reducing our energy use as much as realistically possible, but without changing our lifestyle, we managed to cut our energy use in half and in fact, we actually use more tech gadgets around the house. There are other areas we can do to reduce our energy, but these are much bigger expenses and something we'll do when the time is right. Also, during the summer when Putin invaded Ukraine, we went on a massive insulation job to insulated the house for winter, to our surprise, it's remarkable how well it works, so much so that we rarely need heating at all and the house feels comfortable at -5C outside, which is a major improvement over what we had, the other benefit of this is that, even when you do put the heating on, you only need it on for around an hour and it's enough to keep the house warm for half the day. We did do a mistake when it comes to summer, it can get quite hot upstairs, whereas downstairs is fine, and we've kinda got used to it, but we are planning on looking into solutions to reduce the outside heat from getting in. All in all, I'm very happy with the results and even thought I know over the long run, our energy use will go up because of electric cars and heat pumps, we could reduce the energy bill a lot with solar. In any case, my advice to anyone, try and get your house so you rarely need to use heating or cooling to feel comfortable, that's probably going to save you a lot of money over the long run, but the cost to do so will depend on your house, in our case, it didn't cost too much but some house can cost a lot more to do that.
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@myvids1415 Yep sounds like he's talking about VAT which in that case, nothing is likely to change because the UK could have had a lower rate of 15% whiles we was in the EU, the UK choose not too.
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@michaelcarr2874 Thats assuming it's 17.4 million now, odds are that many Brexiteers have changed thier minds on Brexit and want to stay in, more so the soft Brexiteers that fell for the lies that ware told on Brexit and to make things worse for the Brexiteers, remainers and moderates around the country are not going to take any chances are and very likely going to vote in big numbers in the European elections in the intention of sending a powerful message to our goverment that Brexit isn't the will of the people like they want us to think. So expect a much higher turn out for the European elections and higher turn outs likely don't bold well for the hardcore Brexiteers because they tend to do well when not enough of the public bother to vote.
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@SteveBrownRacing It helps, especially in summer, but UK weather is very unpredictable, especially in summer. Wind is a better option for the UK, being it's an island nation and that the UK gets a lot of wind, but solar is also a good option, especially in summer times. Personally, I think it's best to have a mix of the two to have more consistent energy generating.
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It would make sense for Greenland to join the EU if the US continues to push for buying Greenland, it would help to protect Greenland from the US, Russia and China, which all 3 of them have plans for Greenland, and the simple truth is, Greenland has a tiny population that if any of the three continue to push, they will likely have there way with Greenland, the EU might be there only way of being protected from them and Greenland already have close ties to Denmark, which is also an EU member. Either way, any signs of natural resources in Greenland, expect an aggressive push from the US, China and Russia on them, which is really what this is all about. The question is, would Greenland join as an independent nation or as part of Denmark? If it's as part of Denmark, the process could be fasted tracked, being that Denmark is already an EU member, if it's as an independent nation, it could take years, even decades before they could join, considering the plans the US, Russia and China have on Greenland, then Greenland really need to start thinking about its future before it ends up being decided for them.
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@RAWRMAND0 It's not free, it's universal, as in we all pay but we all benefit, overall it works out a lot better and cheaper whiles having less to worry about.
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If it were to be banned, an alternative will quickly swoop in and take advantage of the situation, being the EU is a big market, I can see other companies wanting to take advantage of X's misfortune.
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There were talks of an EU-Australia trade deal but I think it stalled, whereas, didn't the EU and Australia sign a free trade deal a few years ago?
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leapsplashafrog, it doesn't quite work that way, we will have less money then more unless the UK gets a really good deal and a really good deal will likely mean putting money into the EU pot, we get more out of the EU then we put in, afterall, no country would join a club unless it benefits them. As for the 40 odd billion, thats something the UK will pay, it would be costly for the UK if we don't pay that up because it's an agreement by EU and international law, not abiding by that would do the UK a lot of damage to trust on the world stage at a time we can't afford that. As for saying Britain is past caring, funny really because if that was the case, we would be out already, the reality is that a lot of Brits do care and that number seems to be growing, say what we want about Brexit but it's been a shambles from day one and all because the Brexiteers can't tell the truth.
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It's just a matter of scale, bigger countries have more land to play with, there's no technical reason why they can't do the same, it's just a matter of having the political will to make it happen, but either way, over the next decade or so, we are likely going to get some bigger countries generating most if not all the electrical energy, especially in Europe by renewable means. Anyway, renewables has never really been the issue, having a buffer with batteries is where it gets complicated, you need a big enough energy storage as renewables is inconsistent.
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@nickeshchauhan5661 It depends, I feel that the 30 series of cards is more or less the 20 series with power usage unlocked and a few other changes, if that's the case, the drivers are likely already mature on Nvidia hardware so the gains could be quite small, AMD on the other hand has done a big architecture change with a lot of new features, a bit like Nvidia did with the 20 series of cards and look how much better ray tracing performance is on the 20 series now compared to when those cards were released. It's too early to tell for now but it wouldn't surprise me if AMD hardware gets some big gains in performance once drivers get more mature and games are better optimized for them which is bound to happen thanks to the new consoles and if AMD gets the kind of gains Nvidia did on the 20 series, it looks quite promising for AMD's new cards. The only thing I want to know is how good AMD's alternative DLSS is and when is it out, we know little to nothing about it yet.
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The problem is in Europe is the fragmentation, the US, Russia and China takes advantage of that fragmentation for their own ends, there are solutions to solve that in Europe through the EU, but a lot more of the countries are going to have to be more bold in integrating in key areas of forign policy and military matters so it becomes harder for outsiders to play them off each other. Basically, the divisions are making European countries seem a lot weaker than the economics suggest, but if they pool their resources together and speak with one voice through the EU, European countries would have a lot more clout and do their own thing. As for the US, they want the EU countries to spend more on the military as independent countries, it's easier to control them and play them off each other, but I highly doubt the US would want the EU countries to pool resources together and speak with one voice on forign policy and military matters, that would make things most costly for the US, whiles turning interest away from the US, it would also likely turn many countries that don't like the US to look towards the EU, once that option is open, a lot can change, for now, a lot of countries fall behind the US because they don't see an alternative, Russia and China are not alternatives that are appealing, the EU could be if the countries get their act together.
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@Llortnerof Putin likely had to try but it was unlikely that the EU would go for that and more likely if Putin pushed too hard that EU countries would stop buying altogether, that I suspect is the last thing Putin wants so he backed down. In any case, as time goes buy and EU countries become less dependent on Russian oil, gas and coal, it's going to weaken the Russian economy whiles embodying the EU to get tougher on Russia if things continue like this in Ukraine. Either way, it's never a smart move to threaten the ones that are paying the bills, Russia has basically lost the EU when it comes to buying that resource which was it's biggest and richest customer, now Russia will try and find alternatives like China, China knows this and will threaten Russia to lower the cost of that resources a lot, China isn't a friend of Russia, they are just there to be used and a weaken Russian has many advantages for China.
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Yep, I have to agree, if it was a peaceful protest, it would be easier to bring them to the table, but their behaver doesn't help their cause and can actually turn Europeans against their cause, especially if they disrupt society too much. Honestly, all the farmers had to do is down tools and that would get governments to take note, but escalating things the way they are doing, isn't doing the farmers any favours.
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@marcpym5251 Do power cuts happen enough times for it to be an issue in the US? Where I live in the UK, power cuts are very rare, maybe once every year or two, and in most cases, it's a blink of an eye power cut, which if you have a small battery system, would be more than enough to keep things running, the longest power cut I think I've ever seen over 45 years is around 40 mins, which ironically is around the same time frame I've seen for my internet connection.
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Total assimilation is something that happens naturally as the world gets closer together and tech advances more, thats always been the case and likely will be for the future, now the EU just like any unions does help that along but it was going to happen one way or another by globalisation, the reality is, the more we advanced, the smaller the world seems to us and the more interaction we all have with each other around the globe, thats assimilation over the long run and there is little to nothing we can do about that unless we isolate ourselfs so much that we end up like North Korea.
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For Putin, Brexit has been by far his biggest success story over the last decade, he wants to split the west and especially the EU so he can get what he wants, he knows a divided west and Europe is easier to take advantage off, the UK fell right into that trap and mostly because of the right wing media. As for the cost to the UK, considering Brexit has only started, the cost has been pretty big in a short space of time and the worse thing about it is that the cost of Brexit is mostly a long term thing, which doesn't bold well for the UK with how damaging it's been already and things could get much worse for the UK if Brexit ends up pushing Scotland and Northern Ireland to leave the UK union which I would say the chances are 50-50 of that happening over the next decade and the more this Tory lot stays in power, the likelihood of them leaving goes up as the Tories are fuelling the independence movements.
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That's partly true but I think the main problem, especially in the US is that housing and business complex tend to have their own zones and tend to be far away from each other which means you need a car just for the basics. That isn't the case in Europe, housing and business are sprinkled all around us with easy access to them. I don't see any real reason why the same couldn't be done in the US if they change the zoning rules as that is where the real problem is.
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@blondie7240 It didn't really change anything, did it? it created a lot more political noise but for the average person, things are either the same or worse.
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True but they are going up more in the UK and it stands to reason, thanks to Brexit, many companies are spending less in the UK and are reducing doing business there because of the red tape, that has the double effect of bumping up prices because it becomes more expensive to import goods into the UK then before and because local companies in the UK have less rivals from the outside so they can bump the price up. The EU being a big market has the benefit of economy of scale.
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@emeraldworldlp8828 Which is ironically because many things in the US are not even comparable to other competent modern countries and feel more second class than anything. The real problem in the US is patriotism, it blinds too many Americans from the truth and the government and companies take full advantage of the Americans on that one because patriotism automatically makes them assume they are the best without question and because of that, no research goes into seeing if that is true and you get a real sense of it if you live in both the US and EU countries for a few years, Europe is doing much better in so many ways and the irony is, the Europeans don't realize it because they like to complain about everything lol, maybe that's why things are better, complaining about things to be better lol.
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That's mostly what I think it is, just testing the waters to see how far they can push the west but personally, I think if Russia did attack Ukraine, the west would have to act and act very tough, otherwise Russia will feel it can do this to other countries, and I do feel that Russia thinks the west, the EU and US in particular are weak because of lack of action, that could be a big mistake on Russia part because the EU and US are a lot stronger than given credit if push comes to shove, just that they've becomes less war like, especially the Europeans but if it came to it, both the EU and US have the resources, economy and skill set that could wipe the floor with Russia if they push their luck. Honestly to me, Russia is quite weak economically but does love to saber rattle.
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@vkrgfan Keep telling yourself that but lets look at the facts, all the eastern European countries that joined the EU are doing far better than Ukraine and a lot of the other eastern European countries. If that's what you call exploitation, then where do I sign up? lol. But honestly, ask yourself, what is Russia offering Ukraine apart from threats? The EU has already shown it wants to help develop Eastern Europe and it's clearly working if you look at the living standards in the eastern European countries that join and the ones that are not in, the only other regions in Eastern Europe that compares is Moscow and St Petersburg and considering all the natural resources, it's easy to see why but even most of Russia is living in poorer conditions than those Eastern European countries that joined the EU, the rest of Eastern Europe that are not in the EU are in even worse condition. So again, ask yourself, who is really doing the exploitation?
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It really depends, many people are fine with smaller houses and some perfer them, bigger houses is more work and cost more and for me I feel it all comes down to whats comfy to live in, more so if the house is done up right, it also depends on what you need, a lot of people don't need big houses, some do and I can understand that but in many cases, smaller ones work out better as long as it's done up right for you.
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The term Brexiteer should probably go into the dictionary as someone that's stubborn, not very educated and ignorance. Pretty much the hallmark of a Brexiteer going on the last few years, apart from the smart wealthy Brexiteers that manipulated the situation for their own ends, which isn't hard with the right wing press backing them.
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@duwang8499 The real arrogance is in the name, Great Britain lol, what kind of a country would call themselves great? heck the Italians have achieved more in history than the UK has and yet I don't see them pomping their arse out to the world on that lol. There's nothing wrong with being proud of ones country but the arrogance of calling themselves great in the country name when we're not that different than European countries and in many ways are worse off compared to many of them.
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The US wants to be seen as being diplomatic, especially in these times but the reality is with everything that's going on with Russia, Ukraine and China, the US needs strong friends and that really is the EU, not the UK which is a declining power. The US likely knows full well that to contain China, the EU and US will need to stick together, especially in a world that's becoming more hostile, the UK could have had a place in all that but Brexit has made the UK more radical, I mean heck, the UK is willing to break international law on that Northern Ireland Protocol, that is an affront to the world order that the US played a big part in setting up and sends the wrong message that if the UK got away with that, others will feel they can break the rules, so I doubt the US is happy with the UK in how it's behaving but with everything that's going on in Ukraine, the west wants to be seen as being united.
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@MrJaaaaake Yet the EU doesn't seem to have any issues with exporting of goods even thought the EU has higher standards, that's quality control for ya, it wasn't that long ago that Trump was complaining that the EU exports a lot more than it imports to the EU from the US, product quality and being a big manufacture has those advantages, so basically, the numbers suggest the EU is doing much better on trade terms even thought it's got tougher labour laws, higher cost on products because of VAT and all that, it begs the question, where is the US getting it so wrong on that?
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They can do both at the same time. We should remember, the countries that want to join the EU won't be joining until at least 2030 at the earliest, that gives the EU more than enough time to do some major reforms, which momentum on that is already building and I suspect talks could begin on that around 2025-26, assuming all goes well, it could get implemented over the next 5 or so years from then. We should also remember that it's important to give these countries that want to join, hope that progress is being made, especially with Ukraine and everything they are going through. But regardless of all that, no country can join the EU until the EU reforms its self, especially on the veto rule, unless that's reformed, I don't think the EU and its members can afford to let any new country in as it would become unworkable as more members join with a veto, that needs reforming or needs to go before the EU can expand, but in the meantime, the EU can work on reforming it's self whiles also working with the countries that want to join, to get them ready, which is a slow process in it's self
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Poland can be a big voice in the EU, probably more so then Spain because of geographic, but realistically, it won't change much with the Franco-German engine, power comes in two forms, economics and population size, both France and Germany alone are bigger than Poland, together more so, they are also in a better geographical location, especially Germany and that can change in time as none EU countries to the east modernise, but that's going to take a long time. In any case, it doesn't matter much, there's always compromises to be made, and the main problem with Hungary and the PIS government in Poland, they have the attitude of it being their way or the highway, which goes against everything the EU is all about, working together, finding compromise to move forward. So Poland can have a big voice in the EU if it's more constructive and not obstructive, but it's not going to change much with the Franco-German engine, but maybe Poland could become part of that engine, who knows, Italy seems to be slipping on that one and Spain doesn't seem that interested in it.
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Russia and Turkey are not friends, they just use each other when it suits them, it's the same with China and Russia, as much as both dislike the west, both countries don't like each other and are using each other for their own ends, hence China taking advantage of Russia with cheap oil and gas. Another factor is this, for Turkey as well as China, the west, especially the EU and US matters a lot more to them than Russia does, especially on economic matters like trade, simply put, Russia is a weak player that's lashing out and wants to be seen to be a big boy but its economy is no match for the likes of the EU, US and China, hence why as much as Turkey and China doesn't like the west they are edging their bets in favour of the west, whiles throwing Russia under a bus and for good reason, the west is far more powerful in every sense of the word compared to Russia and we all know that we are only seeing crumbs from what the west is capable off.
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I knew Russia as a country was weak, its economy size suggests that for the overall population size, especially in comparison to the EU and US, but I didn't think they were this weak, and I don't think Putin did as well. It's the number one problem when a dictator surrounds himself around yes men that tells him what they think he wants to hear and not what is, I think Putin fell for that trap and is paying the price for it now, it's only likely going to get worse for him, and it's kinda difficult to see a way out for him, he's dug in too deep that he knows that he has to be all in or his political career could be over, or worse. In the end, Putin clearly underestimated the west, especially the EU and US resolve in this situation, and what I mean by that is how quickly EU countries are adapting to change away from Russian oil and gas so quickly, something most didn't think was possible so soon, and clearly, Putin thought the European countries would bend over backwards because he felt they needed his oil and gas, his major miscalculation is not looking at history of how well the west is capable of adapting to almost anything, it's why they are so successful. The irony is in all this, Putin was known as being a smart, tactical man that outsmarts the west, but now, his legacy is likely going to be of an incompetent fool that bit off more than he could chew by underestimating the west, and if history is any indicator, most people remember how they went out, not what they did over the years of power, all Putin had to do is sit back and his legacy in history was secure, but he had to rock the boat and now his legacy is likely going to be in ruin. On the plus side, renewable energy is surging, which will kill fossil fuels much sooner, also, Putin's mess has sent a warning to China to not get too cocky on Taiwan, basically, Putin was banking on the west to do very little here and just accept it, China was watching this to see if there would be any weakness from the west, the response the west shown is something Putin didn't expect and likely put pause on what China wanted on Taiwan, mainly because the west would likely have a tougher response on Taiwan that it is doing with Ukraine, and mostly because of the tech industry, so ironically, Putin's incompetents, might have made the world more stable in the longer run, especially when it comes to China.
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Thing is, the UK always had the power to limit migrations whiles in the EU but the UK wanted cheap labour, why would anyone think that is going change now that the UK is less competitive?
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I've always gone on the assumption that Iceland, Norway and Switzerland will eventually join the EU at some point, but only when the people in those countries decide to join. But in the meantime, the EU has enough countries in the east that want to join, chances are, as more countries join and make a success of it, it's going to be harder for the remaining countries on the outside to not want to join at some point, especially if the EU continues to expand.
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Technical you can do that on the PC with suspend or hibernation but that does the entire system and not just the game. I don't see any reason why Microsoft couldn't do it on the PC but they likely would have to work with the store fronts like Steam but that brings up another question, couldn't Valve themselves not do it with Steam on Windows? unless I'm missing something, I don't see any reason why not.
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I have to agree, we should remember that Ukraine is quite a poor country even compared to Poland and it's one thing to take on Ukraine, it's another to take on an EU or NATO country as they would be compelled to get involved in a more direct way, especially the EU countries with how integrated they are. But, Putin is looking like he's lost his marbles and when someone goes mad, they become unpredictable so it's hard to say what he would do, either way, an attack on an EU or NATO country could quickly escalate into world war 3.
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I think that's the problem for the US, it's likely going to be more difficult to build alliances with Asian countries to combat China unless China really goes off the rails and starts threatening Asian countries. Because of the geographic, most are not going to want to risk their trade links they have with China that it could be the EU-US as the two main power blocks that can keep China in check, but I can't help but feel that the US is losing the EU when it comes to China, which if they lose them, it's going to be difficult for the US to contend with China, especially as China has a few advantages in having a far bigger population with a lot more economic growth to be had, population size is a major factor in projecting power and China have been rapidly developing for decades, yes it's growth rate is slowly down now but it's still likely to outpace the west, that will make it difficult for the EU or the US alone to contend with China that I think they'll need to work closer together, Asian countries in the region will do what's in their own interest, and because of the close trade links, most won't want to get on the wrong side of China.
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I remember hearing a general, can't remember if it was a NATO or US one, anyway, he said something along the lines that the west was caught flat-footed and didn't think Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine, he said because of that, the west wasn't prepared to supple Ukraine with enough weapons without depleting their own stockpile, apparently that is changing around November with the west ramping up arms shipments, basiclly, it looks like things could get a lot harder for Russia next year. To top all that off, European countries will continue it's drive away from Russian oil and gas which longer term will do real harm to the Russian economy, it's at that point that I think western countries are going to go after countries that are profiting by buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, especially China and India, after all, there's no way the west is going through this only for China, India and others to prop up Russia, after all, the end game is to isolate Russia from the world whiles doing a lot of harm to the economy. There are a number of ways the west can push China and India to not buy oil and gas from Russia, I suspect the west could use tariffs on their goods and services to a percentage of how much they are profiting from buying cheap oil and gas, the idea is to wipe out that benefit for those countries, if they don't listen after that, more companies are likely going to move out of those countries because of tariffs making them less profitable and there are more than enough countries that would love to profit from that at the expense of China and India. The truth is, the west can afford to do this, they know there are an army of cheap labour countries that would love to gain that business, China and India can't afford to lose western markets as there isn't really any replacements for that, at least that are rich. I think all that will kick off once European countries have diversified away from Russia enough and the energy market is more stable, the irony being, Putin is speeding up that process with his games his playing by forcing European countries to fast track to alternative sources.
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It's because they are developing countries with on average higher growth rates then developed countries, that shift a lot of the focus on people, developed countries are already modern so a lot of their focus shifts onto other matters, whereas in developing countries, the economy and just getting by is a much higher focus over the other things, but to be fair, Brazil is a developing country and has one of the highest concerns on that list. That isn't to say there isn't concerns on the other matters from those two countries, but they are at a different level of development and that reflects in their focus, chances are, as they become more developed, their focus will change accordingly. Also, in the case of China, you really have to wonder how reliable the data is with how strict the government is on its own people, basically, it's hard to get an accurate reading on the Chinese people because of the fear they have on their own government, so what they want to say and what they feel they can say are two very different things. Another factor is media coverage in all of these countries on any of these issues, that can have a massive impact on shaping the public thinking in one direction or another.
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With the right weapons, training and inelegance from the west, Ukraine could do a lot of damage to the Russian forces in Ukraine and I heard awhile ago that things are going to ramp up a lot around November in favour of Ukraine as apparently, western countries will be in a position to deliver a lot more arms without depleting their own stock levels. Throw in that European countries are going to keep reducing buying oil and gas from Russia, it's not looking good for Putin over the long run, Putin might be profiting from high oil and gas prices but it's still hurting the Russian economy a lot, longer term, they are losing the western market as well as trust, which won't be easy to regain and western markets won't be easy to replace as there isn't really any other rich alternative for them, something China and India realizes, hence why they are taking advantage of Russia's weakness with pressuring them to sell oil and gas dirt cheap, that's probably only going to get worse for Russia as EU countries shift away from Russia and to make things worse for Russia, they are putting themselves under the thumb of China, something I doubt Putin or the Russian people want, basically, things are getting really desperate for Putin, hence his antics but he'll keep trying to put a brave face on defeat but the reality is, even if he got what he wants in Ukraine, the damage done to Russia is too high that iit wasn't worth it.
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In truth, so-called experts have been saying the EU is falling behind for two decades now, yet EU countries more or less dominant the quality of life index, in fact, the gap is widening over the US because the US is starting to slip in many areas. It's not as clear-cut as looking at GDP and GDP per capita numbers, they don't really tell us much about the health of an economy, especially for the average citizen, after all, the US and UK have been bragging for the last two decades how well the economy is doing, but a lot of people are not feeling those benefits, hence Trump getting into power and Brexit, those two factors are angry votes because a lot of people feel like they are getting left behind and that things are getting worse not better. Like I said, it's not that clear cut.
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It would benefit both side if EU countries work together as the EU and US are willing to sell many high-tech military equipment to each other, having the EU in the game would likely reduce the burden on the US, the EU and US could even work on many military projects together which would benefit both sides in cost saving and technical know-how on both sides. But a lot of this really needs to be done at an EU level to pool resources together and reduce duplications that would save EU countries a lot of more and have a more effective military. In the end, the EU and US really needs to stop seeing each other as rivals and should work together, authoritarian governments like China and Russia are the real threat, the EU and US shares a lot of core values together and that's what they need to work on and maybe now we've all had that wake-up call with Ukraine, maybe real change with happen, it seems to be happening in the EU but we'll have to see how that pans out with the US and EU-US ties.
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That's part of the problem, not enough knows about the in's and out's of the EU and the benefits of being a member as we saw in the UK which in a big part led to Brexit. What's needed is some kind of engagement with the public on pan-European things and I think we need pan-European politics with a lot more reporting on what's going on at European level. It's easy for the EU to seem distant to citizens of it's members but that's in big part because it doesn't get reported enough in the media and that is where a big part of the problem is. Basically, we do need more Europe with how the world is changing but the people of all the members need to be involved in that. I also do feel it needs more democracy, I know the EU is democratic but it needs to be more on the surface so the people can see that, that basically means more direct elections. It's ironic, I seem to have more interest in what's going on in the EU then I do in the UK which is funny considering I'm British, maybe because I think in the longer run, us Europeans need to band together if we are to compete with the likes of the US and China and the EU is likely our only option, regardless of what the UK might think with Brexit. Anyway, truth be told, if Europeans want the EU to be more useful to them, we need reforms and new treaties and that will likely mean more integration in some areas but I don't see what the alternatives are because we're not going to compete with the likes of the US and China if we don't get our act together and band together, that includes the UK once it gets it's act together on Brexit.
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@GoalOrientedLifting True that, especially in the UK, for decades, you rarely hear anything positive about the EU but you sure hear about the negative aspect of it, it's no wonder people think like they do when they only hear one side of the story, especially in the UK with the right wing media that's in control that hates the EU, Rupert Murdoch and co. But honestly, I think the EU are well rid of the UK, they were never really an EU member to begin with as many countries that are not EU members are more integrated in the EU than the UK was because of the op-outs.
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From the looks of it, it looks like the growth is helping the rich in the country, not the average, also I do wonder, what good is all this growth when inflation is sky-high, the public don't really stand to benefit from it unless inflation is brought back under control. I also do have to wonder what will happen if things continue as they are and people's savings start to run out, the economy might be doing alright now but if savings are depleted, people are going to spend less which won't do the economy any favours.
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More likely pushing the UK government to fold to what the EU says just like the UK has done a few times over the last few years, the EU knows how to play this game a lot better than the UK government, they see a lot of bluster from the UK government that goes no where and then the UK government backs down at the last min, the best thing about this is the virus pandemic will put far more pressure on the Tories to back down because Brexiteers are a fickle bunch, they won't care if it's the virus or Brexit that is causing the economic hardship on them, they will blame this government because that's what they do, some will blame the EU but the EU won't care as the UK is out, most will blame the UK government.
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I always find it funny how May is quite happy to ask parliement to keep voting on her deal until she gets what she wants but refuses point blank to not give the British people the same with a peoples vote on Brexit and we like to think we live in a democracy, yeah right lol, it's always double standards from the Brexiteers and everything I've seen over the last two years has really knocked my faith in UK democracy and it doesn't look like it's going to get better after Brexit. I sometimes wonder on Brexit and have been doing for quite some time that we are just going to go around in circles until reality bites and it ends up leading to another public vote, all the threats of hard Brexit seem kind of hollow from the UK because it would do real damage to us and in the longer run play in the hands of what the EU wants and the Brexiteers back will really be pinned to the walls then after Brexit because any damage done to the UK will go on them, even as they try to blame the EU, it will sound hollow to most Brits because it was the Brexiteers that pushed this agenda the hardest and they are the ones that will likely pay the price for all the damage done to the UK, the EU likely wont care if they get the blame from Brexiteers as the UK will be out of the EU. Also, the no deal Brexit idea, I don't buy it yet, I think when it comes to the crunch, panic will set in because they know in parliement and goverment that if that happens and Brexit hurts the country, there will be hell to pay for any of them that allowed hard Brexit to happen and it could do real damage to both the Conservative and Labour party so I never seen hard Brexit as being on the table for the last year or so and I still don't as I've always seen it as a bluff to try and get the EU to bend but as the EU isn't bending, it's put the UK in a major pickle of a climb down here.
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Hoggarth say remainers are trying to block the will of the people where in reality all we are trying to do is give the public the final say on the exit terms, not unreasonable really. At the end of the day, the leave side promised a lot on Brexit that they are not delivering on, before the Brexit vote, they made it seem like we could have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, cake and eat it and all that, now it's all hard Brexit, you have to wonder how many people voted for Brexit based on lies that we would get all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost and how many have changed thier minds. In the end, the remainers are just holding the leavers to account for what they promised and at the end of the day, the leave voters wanted this, it's up to them to come up with a plan that works without hurting the intrest of the public and it's up to remainers to hold them to account on all that, I'm sure they would love for remainers to shut up and get with the program but why should they?, the leave side have made a right mess of Brexit by promising more then they can deliver, they firmly own this problem.
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The more hostile China becomes around the world, the more important it's going to be for the EU and US to stick together to contain China, with the EU and US together, it will bring a lot of other countries into the fold that don't like what China is trying to do. There are issues thought, the EU or US on their own are not likely going to be big enough to contain China if China keeps growing in economic might, both the EU and US together likely can, especially because with both of them onboard, a lot of other countries will side with them. For me, the real issue is the EU, it's got the economic might to become a military superpower but the members in it are pulling in different directions that weaken its voice and we are seeing part of that with everything that is going on in Ukraine. Basically, the EU members needs to pool more of its military and forign policy through the EU if they really want to become more effective on the world stage and it's needed because with a growing China, the US isn't going to be able to shoulder the burden of that on its own. India could be another one but I feel with India, the more it's power grows, the more hostile the country is becoming, so how useful they are going to be to protecting the peace long term is hard to say, personally, I have more faith in the EU and US with other allies following their lead.
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They warned just like many other eastern EU countries, but they kept buying Russian oil and gas until last year. It's one thing to warn about something, it's another to put your money where your mouth is, basically, they wanted other EU countries to do it before they did it, mainly because of economics, the eastern EU countries liked the cheap oil and gas from Russia. In any case, there is a lot of blame to go around and that's with western and eastern European countries, as well as the US and it all boils down to the weak response to Russia after Russia took over Crimea a decade ago. But make no mistake about it, the eastern EU members are just as guilty, they kept buying Russian oil, gas and coal which is funding the war, they didn't have too but choose too and as the saying goes, actions speak far louder than words.
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If the UK wants true inderpendence then yeah North Korea does come to mind as the reality is, if we want a good standard of living, we are going to follow a lot of rules, laws and regulations that the UK will have little to no say on them, either from the EU, the US, WTO and so on, true inderpendence is an illusion in this global world and I suspect thats what we are going to learn with Brexit.
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The thing is, the UK is the one that's wasting time, you only have to look at the last 4 years to see that.
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That's not true, there are a lot of high-tech companies in the EU, just that most are specialist companies that most of us are not aware of because they are not the kind of companies that are in your face like Microsoft, Google and so on. Besides, this isn't regulating foreign tech companies, this is regulating all companies, regardless of where they come from, which the EU regulates far more EU companies then it does foreign ones. We should also remember that it doesn't actually matter where companies are from, if you want to do business in a given market, you have to follow the rules, the big players like the EU, US and China to a less degree can dictate terms because of how big their markets are and how many companies want to do business in those markets. You know what is really sad about all this, you can have an American pharmaceutical that charges 10 times more for a product to a US consumers then it does to an EU consumer, you have to ask yourself, how the hell is that even possible? That's the power of regulations doing right by its citizens, after all, with weak regulations, companies will screw you over, regardless of where the company is from, but with tougher regulations, it makes it much harder for them to do that, companies only care about profit, and they rather make some then none at all, especially in big markets, because of that, Europeans can get better deals in some areas then Americans can, even from American companies. As for the US, that wild west approach to business just means more wealth heading into fewer hands, which could lead to a Blade Runner like future where corporations rules, even over governments, none of that is in the interest of American citizens, after all, the US is already one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.
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@amateur9626 I think what you should be asking yourself is how much did the US lose in resources like troops in Afghanistan compared to what Russia is losing in Ukraine? Considering how little to no progress Russia is making in Ukraine and the amount of troops and arms lost, this is a really costly war for Russia and we can dice it however we want but Russia can't afford for this war to drag on as it's costing them a fortune in economic lose as well as troops and arms and let's be blunt about this, only a desperate country would use prisoners to fight in the war. Dictators rarely care about their own people, this is all about protecting Putin's position of power and he likely knows he's messed up with this war but he sees no way of getting out of it without damaging his position, and that is really bad news for the Russia people because history has shown how little regard dictators that are clinging to power will throw their own people under the bus to protect their position.
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There would be a lot of benefits for both sides if they did join together, Moldova would clearly benefit the most with everything that's going on in Ukraine as if they became part of Romania, they would become part of the EU, so security would be in a much better place but economic growth would be better as well, being part of Romania would help that but being part of the EU would likely help more, there is also that as well, it would be a quick way for them to join the EU if German unification is any indication and being as Moldova is quite small, it shouldn't really be a burden on Romania or the EU to help build up their economy. I think the question is, do the people in both Romania and Moldova want it, what form of system would it be with integrating them into Romania and then we have the EU, would they want them in with the issues surrounding Transnistria or would they want to work on solving that issue first.
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That would be a step in the right direction, probably something they can do before moving into the commission being directly elected, after all, a directly elected commission would need her message getting out there to all EU citizens, so they know on who they can vote for, what the policies are and so on. So through the parliament would be a better option in the short term until the EU connects better with it's citizens.
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The irony is, if we did reforms to majority voting and vetoes, Romania and Bulgaria would have joined as there is clearly enough support around the EU, it's crazy how one or two countries can block something when there is a clear majority in favour of such an action, Hungary does this a lot, sometimes it can favour one country, at other times it can backfire on them. Either way, the rules don't work when there are so many members and it would only be worse if the EU expands, hence why reforms of the veto rules and majority voting rules are needed.
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@emm_arr Look at the trade deal the EU and UK signed, it's very one sided in favour of the EU, anyone with a brain can see the EU got by far the better deal, heck even the trading amount more or less says that. But like I said, this was needed, Brexiteers were not going to learn until they feel the pain of it the hard way, now we've got a long road ahead on that, the pandemic will just help to compound it in the short term but the cost of Brexit is longer term. In any case, it's clear to see the UK government wasn't ready for Brexit that you wonder if they even read what they signed, never seen such incompetents in a government in all my life.
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Problem is in today's world, most people tend to look for flaws in things and not the good something does. The EU isn't perfect and reforms are needed, but it does far more good for its members than if it didn't exist, but unfortunately, we are living in a very negative world that's always looking at the negative of things and not the positives, most of this blame is on the right wing, from politics to the media, they are always blaming things, not being very constructive, dividing people and more or less being troublemakers, they are rarely constructive with credible solution, but are very quick to point fingers and blame, a big part of the problems we are having is because the right wing are whipping up a mob mentality from the people, a lot of which is based on lies, half-truths and disinformation, we saw that just recently in the UK with the riots and with things Elon Musk and Farage said, basically, troubles makers that were trying to put fuel on the fire to make things worse, and if you look closely, you start to realise where the real problem is.
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GPD numbers only matter if a society is very equal with the distribution of wealth, overall, it's a poor way to measure the well-being of the people in a country, this is especially the case in countries that are not as equal like the US and UK.
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In the end, the British people ended up kicking themselves, Cameron is rich so the impact on him is minimum compared to what it is for the average Brit and especially poor Brits.
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I think reforms of the EU are needed in many key areas, especially with vetoes and majority voting, as I can't see the EU expending with more members when you have Hungary and Poland braking EU rules and where it only takes one member to hold the rest of them up, something that would get worse with more members. Also, I think more integration are needed in military, security and energy matters, what's going on in Ukraine should be a wake-up call for Europeans that we need to band together to protect our political, economic and social interest, especially in a world with a rising China and the US still growing. Basically, if we Europeans don't band together, it's going to be harder to protect our interest which could weaken us and lower our standards, it also allows others like Russia, the US and China to play EU countries off each other for their own interest, something they've all shown a willingness to do at one point or another. So the question is, do we wake up now and do the reforms needed or do we wait till things get so bad that the EU becomes unworkable that change is needed anyway? Personally, I think a multi speed EU is needed, just like we have with the Euro where countries that want to integrate more, can do so without the rest holding them to ransom, this is something I think the EU should have done a long time ago and I also think it's time we see more democracy on the surface in the EU, so the EU Commission and President should be merged and be directly elected with more powers going directly to the European Parliament, the Euro Zone and Schengen has shown that you only need a few countries onboard to get the ball moving, others will likely join as they see it working in time, that's what the EU should do in other areas. The eastern European countries are actually proving the point that they fear being left behind in a multi speed Europe, so their logic is to hold back everyone else lol, in fact, this is the main reason why a multi speed EU is needed so core countries that want to integrate, can do so, overtime as other countries get reassured by that integration, they might want to join, either way, the countries that do integration will have more advantages but it seems crazy that the EU countries should be held to ransom by any one country, something that will only get worse with more countries joining the EU and the veto. If the EU countries really want to compete with the US and a rising China, they need to wake up to the reality of how the world is shaping up, the alternative is that Europeans will get pushed aside in the new world order and decline, because the current EU isn't going to compete with the US and a rising China of the future, so change is needed, so lets see how bad the hold out countries will let things go before they wake up to that reality.
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That's true to a degree, you have to find out what people want even thought they don't realize they want it, it's mostly how new markets come about. But the risk is higher and it's doesn't always pay off and I think that is where Toyota is scared off, they know they have to invest big and there are no guarantees after retooling their manufacturing plants that they would be successful in the EV world and it's probably a big part in why so many are slow to change with EV cars. But you can't stop progress, if the old industry doesn't move, new companies will spring up that delivers and push the old companies aside, this has happened many times, even to big companies, most of the other car companies seem to have got the message and are going in with EV cars but are catching up, Toyota seems to be in denial and that could be costly to the company that I have to wonder if the Japanese government won't step in and put a lot of pressure on them to change, a bit like how the German government did with having a Tesla plant in Germany, right in the backyard to light the fire under the German auto industry to change.
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@r.chavez5513 It's more expensive but I wouldn't say it's expensive if you put it in the context of life, I've lived in both the US and EU and quality of life is high in them both, just the way money is distributed around the economy is different where in Europe we are fine with paying higher taxes to gain a lot of benefits from them whereas the US want to pay lower taxes but they tend to pay through the nose for basic things that we in Europe get for free or dirt cheap. This is why overall the quality of living and purchasing power isn't that different over the two but I do think the European system is better because it looks after the poorer and middle classes a lot better whereas the US system feels like your all on your own with little help from the system.
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Farage? lol, that a good one, a former banker that tries to look hip with the public by having a image of going down the pub but he's more of an elite, you know, those people Brexiteers hate? remember, the real idea of Brexit was to stick it to the elites and that is something I can get behind but the problem is, the elites are fooling the Brexiteers over Brexit as the only people that will likely pay the price on Brexit are the poor and middle classes, in other words, most Brexiteers, apart from the elites which never cared about the Brexiteers and are using them as a tool to gain power just like Boris did to gain the PM job, it's so easy to see, even a baby can see it lol.
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I doubt that will happen, most of the readings for Poland will be because of the PIS government and it will take years to reverse that, assuming the government can and is willing to do so, but in any case, these things take time and the PIS party is fighting them every step of the way to make it difficult for the government to reverses things, but in any case, the clock is ticking on the current government, if they take too long and not done enough to reverse the damage and say PIS wins the next election, well, let's just say that the odds of the current government getting re-elected in the future will drop a lot, in other words, this government needs to get a move on with returning Poland back to a more democratic system before the PIS party has a chance of power again.
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@melvinbeck5047 Maybe but that isn't the EU way, the US will do that to the UK if the UK acts like they are doing with the EU on a trade deal, the US will likely be a lot more aggressive in getting what it wants on the UK, the EU on the other hand is a lot smarter than that and plays the game very diplomatically, hence why they target the British government and not the British people and that is likely why support in the UK is growing to wanting to rejoin the EU, it stands at 57% on the last polls I saw.
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@melvinbeck5047 Well no, the UK could walk away at any time in these talks and they've threatened to do so many times but never walked away, all the EU is saying is the UK can't have it's cake and eat it, the only reason the UK hasn't stopped talking because it wants better terms and doesn't want to walk away with hard Brexit, the EU have been very clear that the terms the UK will get will be much worse than they had in the, the UK doesn't seem to want to understand that and seems to think these talks are on equal terms when they are anything but that. Media bias was always an issue in the UK, I mean, how many of the British public even knows what it does and the benefits of it? all we hear from a lot of the media is the negatives of the EU and never any of the positives and it didn't help that UK governments always put the blame on the EU for all the wrongs in the UK even thought a lot of it had nothing to do with the EU and was the competence of the UK government, at least with Brexit, that excuse won't wash any more. If the next government does undo Brexit, it would have to be done by a referendum but if polls keep going up, they'll be all for that, in fact I suspect the last thing the Brexiteers want is another vote on this with how public views are changing. But honestly, even if Labour wins and we had another vote, it would be a hard sell for the EU and it's members to let us back in, it would only take one of them to block us and I can think of a few that would do just that, so basically, the UK might not be able to rejoin the EU even if we wanted too, at least not that soon or unless the vote was so high in favour of rejoining. I think the best the UK can hope for is single market and custom union access, that would protect the UK economy whiles keeping the vultures around the world at bay.
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This ironically could play into the hands of the ones that want independence in Scotland, after all, imagine this, the EU denies the UK a referendum on leaving the EU, for the people of Scotland, they already feel they are not being listened too and being talked down to by Westminster, this could end up putting fuel on the fire, not that different from how David Cameron called a referendum on the EU to reduce the friction in the party, it had the opposite effect but it's easy to see what he was doing. In this case, it might be better to let the Scottish people have a voice on this, after all, a lot has changed over the last 5 years and the only way to remove a lot of this fuel, is to either listen to the people or let them choose what path they want to take. The courts saying Scotland can't have a referendum can be used as PR by the ones in Scotland that want independence and they will likely use that against the UK union, I think it's high time the governments start listing to the concerns of the people and not just washing over them because it looks like things are going to get much worse over the next few years and just like on Brexit, they won't care what the reasons are for why things are worse, they will blame the government, and more so if the other EU countries do better at getting out of the mess that the pandemic and high energy and inflation is doing. But honestly, I think it's going to happen regardless of what the UK government wants, you've got the Tories that don't care, you've got Labour that seems scared to death of mentioning the word Brexit which is clearly a big part of what the problem is, on the economic and political stability front, until the major parties wake up and start listening to the people in the UK, I think they will fuel the independence movements in both Scotland and Northern Ireland and Labour are playing right into their hands by not giving the people another option, in other words, a lot of people feel powerless and feel both major parties are just not listening.
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The thing is with the vote being so close, if done many times over, they could swing either way which makes you wonder how crazy that the UK is going ahead with Brexit on such a small marging which the vote was based on lies from all side and it really does show how bad things have got in the UK.
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It really depends on what side of the Brexit fence you're on, if you're a Brexiteer, this is a real bad idea because the entire idea is to foster closer relations to the EU for those countries, a lot of which actually want to join the EU, the more countries that have closer relations to the EU and join longer term, the weaker the UK's position in Europe and the world will be. But if you're a Remainder, this could be great news, it allows the UK to repair relations, have closer ties to the EU and longer term, opens up the door for UK EU membership, Brexiteers have been trying to distant themselves from anything EU related, this forum or whatever it's called is designed to create closer relations with none EU members in Europe, the only concern many of them have is that it doesn't become a second class EU when a lot of those countries want in the EU. If the EU makes this work, this could give a lot more hope to countries that want to join the EU to do the reforms needed to join, hope goes a long way in doing changes needed and the biggest problem the EU has had with them is that it's kept a lot of them on the waiting list for year which is having a negative impact on some of those countries. I look at this as a stepping stone for counties not in the EU that want to join the EU someday, hence why many have complained that it could hold many in the waiting room that want to join the EU. As for the UK government, I don't get the impression that the Tories have any interest in the success of this, but the UK not going when 40 others have gone, wouldn't do the UK's position any favours and would just help to isolate us more, basically, I think the Tories just went to it to scoop it out and to see what other none EU countries are thinking of it. So like I said, depending on what side of the fence you're on, it can be seen as a good or bad thing and personally, I think it's a good thing as it can open up the door for closer relations but in any case, it's way too early to know if it will be a success or not and it might just fizzle out.
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Unionist, I remember my brother saying years ago when he worked at Safeway and they had many Polish workers there, I think this was early on when Poland join the EU, anyway, I remember him saying many of the natives didn't like them being there because they ware harder workers and more productive overall and it made the rest look bad, it didn't bother my brother because he always picked well above his figure anyway but it's clear to see from that and many other reports that the UK have a big productivaty problem, the Germans produce more in 4 days then we do in 5, is it us being lazy? I don't know, it might be but it also might be other things like the set up we have in this country.
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The military and the economy are fine, the real problem, at least in the EU is that there are 27 different militaries and forign policies. The irony is, Trump could be the key to solving that issue in Europe, at the moment, European countries are quite comfortable with how things are, but if the US pushes it's luck, European countries in the EU will likely take more drastic measure, basically, integration of their militaries, which I highly doubt the US wants that as it would make NATO irrelevant, it would also weaken the US voice in Europe and around the world, it would also mean the EU having a stronger arms industry that will likely take business away from the US arms industry. Basically, what the US wants is for EU countries to boost spending, but to do it at an individual country level, divided and weaker, but what the US doesn't want is for the EU countries to come together, which is likely what would happen.
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The two countries that have shown massive incompetents on this virus, the US and UK, both countries had lots of warnings from Italy, the virus seemed to have had a delayed impact on both countries and yet both have done quite poor on this that it wouldn't surprise me if the US is the worse hit country in the world with the UK being the worse hit in Europe.
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Germany already made it clear that this is a stop-gap measure because the European one isn't ready but also made it clear that the next one they buy will be built in the EU, he specifically said France but I suspect any EU country that's right for the job at the time.
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It depends on how you look at it, on the one hand, losing the UK doesn't benefit the EU by having less access to the UK market and being an overall smaller economy, but on the other hand, the UK has done wonders for the EU because of how badly Brexit is going, it's more or less neutralised a lot of the parties in some EU countries that either wanted to leave the EU or the Euro, support is also at some of the highest levels it's been in decades in many EU countries, with support going up in every EU country. So as much as the EU didn't want to lose the UK, the way things have gone, I think the EU will be happy with the result with the UK lurching from one mess after another since Brexit and support for the EU is stronger than it's been for decades, even in the UK and unity among EU countries is in a pretty decent place, partly thanks to Brexit and Ukraine. The icing on the cake for the EU is if the UK was to join the single market and/or custom union, if that was to happen, it would be like the UK is in the EU but without any say, that would reduce the economic damage being done to the UK a lot, it would also solve the Northern Ireland issue, it might even defuse the independence movements in Scotland. In any case, it will be interesting to see how the next decade goes, especially now the UK government is calming down and wants relations on a better footing with the EU, but what will really be interesting to see is when a new government is in power in the UK that has little to nothing to do with Brexit, at the moment, the Conservative Party are too deep in with Brexit that it makes it hard for them to change course, especially when the ERG movement will jump on them if the moderates try to get closer to the EU and ideally, what we want is for the Tories to get wiped out at the next election and personally, considering the mess the Tories have done on Brexit and over the last 15 years, I'm not sure why anyone would want this party in power.
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I don't see a problem with buying ARM's from overseas in specific cases, after all, the US buys many arms from Europe in areas where they specialise, but I do think EU countries need to build on their arms industries and buy mostly from themselves, for one thing, it will force the Americans to have to spend more or reduce it's military budget if we are not subsidizing them, another is that it builds an arms industry in the EU, which will likely compete with the US and other countries on the world stage, and it also brings a lot more security for Europeans in the EU. Clearly the US wouldn't want this because they would end up losing a lot of sales which would make it's military more expensive, which either means they have to spend more for the same or do budget cuts, on top of that, if there's a big arms industry in the EU, it's very likely going to compete with the US on world arms to other countries, again, again, forcing the Americans to have to spend more directly or budget cuts. For the EU and it's members, this is a win-win, for the US, they stand to lose by a big player in the EU not subsidizing them, on the plus side, both the EU and US would stand to win, both having a strong arms industry would be good for the world, they will also likely sell arms to each other.
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@bramolini4835 I wish I was but I live in the UK so I live in the toilet or soon will be moving to it with how things are going in the UK lol. You say you don't want to be dictated too and yet our own government is doing a lot of that lately lol, beside, anyone that uses the term EUSSR losing all credibility just from that because if you did your research, something people like you are not good at, you'll realize the EU is nothing like the USSR, but hey, keep self manipulating, it doesn't change anything when the polls are at 57% that want to rejoin the EU and those numbers are creeping up lol.
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@Lionfish5656 It's just simple common sense, Brexiteers are living in the past thinking the UK is a great empire lol, the truth is, we have the EU, US, China and other rising powers, these will sideline all the smaller players because they can, it also means that these will be the ones making world laws, rules and regulations around the world, at the moment that's the EU and US that does that. A lot of people don't realize it but the EU isn't here because we want it, it's here so us Europeans can compete on the world stage, so we can protect our political and economic interest and our social standards, the UK after Brexit is already showing many signs on how the vultures are coming out to take advantage of the UK in pushing them to weaken standards and the UK might be forced into doing it because they desperately need trade deals around the world. In any case, I think in the long run, for the west to have any relevance, the EU is going to have to be strong and the EU and US are going to have to work together because none of them on their own can compete with the rising Asian powers.
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Everything is pretty accurate in that video, you don't really need a car to get wherever you want but most have a car, I don't drive a car and never really felt restricted in where I can go. Also, there was a mistake in the video about the 3 months travel stay, if you're an EU citizen, you can work, rest and play in any EU country for as long as you want, I think it's only 3 months for none EU citizens, also, if I'm not mistaken, in the Schengen zone of countries, I think people can travel just as easy as they do in their own country or how an American would travel state to state, there basically is no boarders or checks in the Schengen zone of countries.
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It depends, if one's homeland is being attacked, I would be far more willing to fight then if I was being told to fight in a meaningless war. Ukraine are defending there homeland, so the motives of fighting are very different compared to trying to mobilise Russian troops that many don't believe in the war and more don't want to be part of it, so I think Russia will find it more difficult if push comes to shove, whereas for the people of Ukraine, what choice do they have? They could flee, but many will likely want to fight to defend their homeland.
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The irony is about Orban and the leader of Poland is that what they are so against with Putin is what those two countries are slowly slipping into with becoming an authoritarian government, I wonder if the people in those two countries actually see the risk of what is happening because of the policies of those two leaders and if those policies will change now there's a major wake-up call from Putin. The EU has been hard on these two countries because they were slipping into something like what Russia have now, sooner or later if they kept on that track, the EU would kick them both out, Putin might have saved them from themselves, either way, the EU has been proven right on this, you can't afford to have an authoritarian government with where that could lead and you only need to look at Russia to see the results.
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As a Brit, when I look at the UK, US and EU, I get a sense that the UK doesn't know if they are European or American lol. They keep trying to pull in both direction, which is creating an unbalanced society, in that it's got some of the good parts of Europe but it imports a lot of the negatives of the US, and if you look at a lot of quality of life indexes and other things like that, you get a sense that the UK is falling behind with the US, whiles many European countries are dominating the quality of life indexes and so much more. The silver lining for the UK is that Brexit is going sour quite quickly when it comes to public minds, that we might start seeing the UK pull more towards European ideals, which are clearly better than what the US is offering when it comes to quality of life for the average citizen. Now don't get me wrong, other European countries are not perfect, but when I look at the UK and US, the problems I see in both countries make those other European countries feel like paradise in comparison.
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You do get a sense of entitlement from farmers in EU countries, that they've been a custom to a lot of the benefits the EU offers from a big slice of the budget, to easy access to the entire EU market. A lot of countries don't do any of that. But with that said, I do feel that it's useful to have a home-grown food industry for security reasons and for high quality food standards. The truth is, if it wasn't for the EU, many of these farmers likely would have gone out of business already or would have been forced to change, and I do agree that farmers need a reality check and need to make the transition in this changing world, which I'm sure governments will help out where they can, the safety net farmers have in the EU, actually slows down the change because farmers feel protected, without that protection, it's either change or go bust.
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Yeah, considering the US numbers were shown, it would have been nice to see what some none EU countries were doing in Europe and around the world. Maybe a follow up video on this they should look into.
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I think two factors play into it, the UK have been doing some major cuts to the NHS over the last 10 years which very likely wouldn't have helped, then Germany jumped on this much earlier than we did and they also did a lot more testing whiles taking it more serious, we unfortunately in the UK reacted to this very slow and even to this date, I think tougher measures are needed because way too many people are still going out.
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I don't see much hope for CANZUK, we are talking about 4 countries that are pretty much on the other side of the world from each other, forming a union between them will be very difficult because of distance and that distance matters because the political and economic interest of the 4 will be quite different from each other. Even with Canada, they are very much tied into the US and Mexico, but with the US going the way it's going and Canada wanting to shift away from the US, it's opening up the door for the possibility of the EU and Canada becoming much closer, maybe even membership long term, but that's a big IF. I also think eventually the UK will rejoin the EU at some point once the EU and its members are open to the idea of letting them back in, so not for a while, which leaves Australia and New Zealand, both are not in the best position as they are too far away from both the EU and US and have a rising China to contend with, so I'm not sure what the best option is for them too, but Canada and the UK are easy, closer relations with the EU makes a lot of sense in a world where the US is going off the rails.
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I tend to find that the more millionaires and billionaires there is in a country, the worse off the average person is, GDP numbers go on overall wealth but if there is more millionaires and billionaires, that wealth is in fewer hands and that is what we see a lot of in the US which has some of the highest poverty and inequality rates of all the modern countries and that is likely going to get far worse once this pandemic is over with.
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There's two things I'm thinking here, either the solar industry are realizing that there is a massive opening for them to take a big chunk of the energy market or there is a lot of pressure from many governments around the world to reduce the cost of making them. It can't be by chance that there is a massive shift on this when global energy security is rattled with what Russia is doing in Ukraine and I get the feeling that many governments around the world have had enough of these games and want to generate as much energy internally as they can, it also helps that OPEC keeps playing games by trying to reduce production to push oil prices higher and I'm getting a sense that many governments around the world have had enough and are actively killing off the fossil industry a lot sooner than would have happened if Putin didn't invade Ukraine. Putin might have done the world a massive favour by getting us to wake up and act by speeding up the process to alternative energy sources, and I really do wonder if Putin even realizes the can of worms he's opened up.
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@delboyg01 That's true, but they are also too dependent on tech from the world, after all, if it wasn't for help from around the world, Russia wouldn't be able to take advantage of it's gas and oil reserve and this is the case in many areas where much of the progress in Russia is thanks to help from others, especially the west over the last few decades, and with that drying up, it's putting them at a major disadvantage. Think about it logically, Russia is blessed with a lot of natural resources, and yet they have an economy around the size of Spain, whiles having to cater to a much bigger population, that's really poor mismanagement of the economy, Russia with sound economic management would be doing far better than they are, and you really have to wonder how bad it's going to get for Russia as the sanctions really bite over the coming years. At the end of the day, the real mistake from Putin is thinking the west, mainly the EU was dependent on his oil and gas, the truth is, the ones with the real power are the buyers of that resource, not the ones that sell it because the buyers dictate what price they are willing to pay and who they are willing to buy from, Putin is finding out the hardware that Europe is looking elseware whiles at the same time, investing more in alternative energy sources like renewable, in other words, they are cutting Russia out of the picture, and if the EU can do that, the rest can as well, that's really bad news for Putin, because it forces him to sell his oil and gas cheaper, it also means the ones that do buy from Russia have more bargaining power to lower the price, which is basically what China and India are doing, in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if much of the oil is being bought for free with China buying it by selling arms to Russia, great deal for China, poor deal for Russia because it's not really having a net economic benefit when selling much of the oil for free because they need the arms to fight Ukraine.
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The thing is that we already trade with the rest of the world, many of the leavers in the UK make it seem like we can only trade with the EU or the rest of the world, the reality is that we just do a bad job trading with the rest of the world compared to the likes of Germany which does better. Also, the UK is a very service based economy, I don't think any free trade deal covers that apart from what we have in the EU, worse yet is that the EU have around 60 or so free trade deals around the world and around 600 bilataral agreements in place, the UK stands to not really gain anything with it's own deals and in fact is likely to lose out because we don't have the economic muscle like the EU to get better term, economic size matters a lot in getting what you want and the EU have that, the UK doesn't. As for the EU, I suspect they want us to leave but to keep us close to them, in other words, keep us in there orbit so we have to abide all it's rules, laws and regulations but without any say in them, that is very likely going to happen because as crazy as it sounds, that might be the best deal we can get now, the rest for the UK is just buying time to figure out a way out of this mess whiles limiting the damage done but the real damage was done the moment we signed Article 50 because the EU got what it really wants which is the UK out of EU policy making decisions.
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I suspect the EU will give the UK crumbs not a cake and as for Straw, well if the UK didn't want anything from the UK then why not just leave?, the reality is that the UK wants the same deal they have with the EU and there is a price to pay for that, if they want a Canada style deal, the EU is happy to give that with no payment but that deal is far worse then what they have now so we're screwed whichever deal we have, all are worse then staying in the EU.
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Honestly, the last thing the EU needs is another Hungary, so I doubt the EU cares that much about Serbia and what they want when it comes to joining the EU, after all, the EU has more than enough countries to chew on that actually want to join the EU and that is likely going to take the next 2 or so decades alone, which by then, other countries will likely want to join also, so Serbia isn't that important to the EU and maybe throwing them to the wolves at Russia and China might be the wake-up call they need. Still, the EU will likely keep the door open, but the more Serbia keeps playing games and playing all sides, the longer it's going to be for any chance of them joining the EU, in other words, Serbia is just making it worse for themselves. At the end of the day, Serbia doesn't really have any leverage here, playing all sides like they are doing puts them in a position of going nowhere fast, if Serbia really wants to join the EU, they have to show a real commitment that they want to join, otherwise, they'll end up like Turkey, that the door is open but might as well not be, but seriously, what makes these countries think that playing the EU, Russia and China off each other is going to carry them any favours with the EU? It doesn't Serbia is just hurting its own interest, but sometimes, countries have to make their own mistakes to learn from them, Serbia seems like one of them.
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@TheHzh82 Apple also have a cult following.
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Italy wouldn't be Italy without political chaos, it's been like that for countless decades as far as I can remember, but they seem to muddle through. The problem is, this political instability isn't doing Italy any favours, especially as Italy is lagging behind other modern countries and I feel Italians need to stop blaming other things like the Euro for the problems back home when it's clear the real issue is political instability and I feel with so many parties pulling in all directions, there isn't really a clear choice on what Italians can pick to solve many of these issues.
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The problem is with the far left or far right, their belief in their views is so strong that it makes it difficult for them to work with other parties, it also makes them stubborn on their policies, and even if a few of the far right parties do work together, how long will it last? Their views are so wide apart from each other on so many policies that even if they have a government, it would only take one or two policies for them to bicker and fall apart. Moderate parties have been so successful over the last 100 years in so many countries because they can work with others, they can also compromise a lot more, they are also more likely to listen to the views of the wider public whereas far left or far right have a very specific agenda in a few policy areas that dismiss a lot of the public. The irony is in all this, if the likes of Le Pen really wants to be successful long term, she might have to moderate her policies for her to be more electable, banking on anger and protest voters isn't a sure fire thing for success long term, especially once in power and the honeymoon is over, after all, if Le Pen gets into power, she's got 1 or 2 terms to really deliver on the concerns the French people have, after that, if she doesn't deliver, support will quickly dry up, and this is probably why so many far right parties across Europe that get close to or in power, seem to moderate there policies, because unless the public gets radicalised, the party's success will be very limited, and let's be blunt about this, the far right success isn't because of their policies, but more because people are angry, fed up with the mainstream parties and it's a protest vote, so if Le Pen gets in power, voters will expect solid results and fast, that's when the real pressure is on.
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@Leonardo555ZZZZ That's more to deal with shifting away from Russian energy then it is with renewable.
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@ilkkapasanen2005 It depends, throughout the EU counties, languages is probably not as big of a problem as you think, a lot of people speak multiple languages and English is quite common in Europe, they already have a single market, but more could be done, especially with a capital market which they don't have yet. The real issue isn't any of the above you said, it's the lack of political will and drive to build a tech sector, but there are early signs of that changing, but we'll have to wait and see on that.
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Almost impossible to enforce with open source A.I. but very easy to enforce with online closed models.
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That's true, hence why regardless of what Europeans want when it comes to integration in the EU, the realities of the rest of the world, especially the US and China will likely force countries in the EU to get much closer together, otherwise they will become irrelevant on the world stage. The simple truth is, the individual EU countries are no match for the likes of the US or China, but collectively, they are, especially if they continue to integrate and expand, that is a reality check that Eurosceptics don't want to hear, but they have no credible alternative that works in Europe's favour.
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It's ironic because I was having a conversation about this to my brother but about A.I. feeling like it's at the early stage of computers in the early 90's, where it went from a small market to mainstream in just a decade, I have a feeling the same thing is going to happen with A.I. over the next decade, and that's going to bring an explosion of developments and progress in A.I. It's kinda exciting and frightening at the same time to think how advanced A.I. could be in just another decade and what implications that have for us and the economy. With all that said, I do think we need an open approach to A.I. as I don't think it's a good idea to have it concentrated in so few hands, and I think an open source model is the only logical option long term, as that will make sure it's for everyone to use, it also means there are far fewer issues with control and privacy that we have with the centralised models online. In any event, the A.I. race has started, we're going to get a lot more rivals entering this space and it wouldn't surprise me if the real winning isn't any of the big players now.
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That's true to a degree but the what we saw in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn Labour party shows how they can fight the media by bypassing them with social media and mobilising the young voters, it worked really well in the UK and I believe it could work for the Democrats because they have the same problem the Labour party does in the UK, too much of the right wing media is bias against them.
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Maybe thats true but what we've seen happen is the Democrats and Labour parties have moved more to the right so they become more electable, in some ways, both the Republican and Democrat party are both right wing in the US just that the Republican party is a bit more extreme to the right compared to the Democrats and we've seen with Labour under Corbyn how theres is a big push to push them back further to the left even with a lot of resistance within his own party but the people seem to like what he's saying, in any case, most of the major parties the last few decades have become more or less the same, offering the public little choice which isn't good for democracy but things do seem to be changing with some good and bad results as we are seeing in the UK, US, France and the rest of Europe and should be interesting to see how all this pans out over the next decade or so.
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The problem is with this kind of tech is that if push comes to shove, it will force others to develop it and over time this tech is going to get better and smaller and more dangerous and eventually it will get to the point where it's much easier for individuals to create and with that it could get much easier for anyone to take someone out without leaving any real trace of who's done it, in other words, anyone can be at risk and we won't even see it coming. Now obviously this tech is going to keep developing but eventually anyone will be able to do them and it will be too easy for it to be abused and likely will be used on anyone, innocent or not.
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It's just simply logic, think about it, a migrants or a Pole comes to the UK to find work, the money they get from that job is many times higher then they get back home, big incentive to work very hard and that is what they do from what I've seen whereas us Brits have one of the lower productivaty level in the modern world which could mean a few things that either we are lazy or or system we are using in the UK is less effective then what other modern countries use. In any event, it's a big incentive for busisnesses to want to use migrants then us Brits because they get the job done better and for less and if they don't get that from the UK, thoes busisnneses are likely to just get thoes jobs from another country, thats just the sad reality of it all, it's all about the profits.
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BlackMilkthePunk It still amazes me how still we have people that think that way today, the German people of today are nothing like the people of today, even back then, most was trapped in a system of terror when under the Nazis and felt they had little choice.
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Gnawer Shreth It wouldn't surprise me if the UK rejoins the EU again someday in a few decades but this cooling off period might be a good thing, when I look at countries, they act like tribes do that are always poking each other with sticks, it's quite primitive if I'm honest, and I think the danger is for the human race is that we have 200 or so countries around the world and we're advancing at a pretty rapid race which which makes the human race more dangerous, I think in the longer run countries need to start working much closer together before we do something stupid to ourselves, could you imaging a terrorist attack in 100 or 200 years with the kind of advancement the human race will of made, it's scary to even think how much damage they could do. Anyway, about the UK and EU, the UK being out but in a Norway style deal might be the best thing that could happen, I know the UK won't like it but it might be the wake up call needed that the UK isn't as big of a country they like to think they are.
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Scott L You make it seem like nobody else benefits from that, honestly, the jealousy from the UK about Germany is funny, I've seen it for so many decades, even when German reunification happen there was a panic in the UK, so Germany has the most power in the EU, they are the biggest economy and biggest population. Ironically, the UK leaving will make it very interesting for the core groups of countries in the EU.
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Kelso Sunshine Nothing changes, because the EU wasn't really the problem, it just became the scapegoat, you know what's really funny, the EU has protected the British people many times from the British governments on laws like workers rights, now we don't have that check and balance and the government in Britain can get away with more.
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I don't think they are defending them but think for a second, get rid of all them and all other cheap labour from around the world and good luck explaining that to British consumers when they see everything sky rocket in price, our standard of living would take a major hit if it wasn't for them, the sad reality is that we are addicted to them doing a lot of the work for little so we don't have to do it and they also need the jobs, it's the chicken and egg we are both stuck with.
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Does anyone want to take any odds on when the UK government does a u-turn on the divorce bill?, this government is famous for chest pumping and doing u-turns and I have to say it's quite humiliating for the Tory government, if they are going to say something, then at least have the guts to stick to it but we all know another u-turn is on the way and the UK will pay some kind of divorce bill, the real question is, how much time is the UK going to waste before they realise that, the clock is ticking after all and we can't afford to waste time.
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@Writeous0ne He is right thought, joining the EU is a far bigger prize than what Russia offers them, and even thought the money is helpful, the real prize is the reforms of the political and economic system, that encourages a lot more international investment and economic growth, it also adds another check and balance on the political system and for the most part, it works really well as you see with most eastern EU countries that joined that are far better off than the none eastern European countries not in the EU. With all that said, the EU isn't perfect as we see with Hungary and Poland, but one or two bad apples shouldn't discourage the achievement of what the EU and its members have achieved. In any case, Serbia and no other country is going to join the EU until there are reforms of the EU when it comes to the veto rules, which is ironic as Hungary and Poland want the EU to expand more but they are the biggest obstacles on why it won't expand without some major reforms on the EU, reforms that will likely have to be done over the next 5 years or some of those countries on the waiting list might get fed up and look elseware, in other words, the EU can't put treaty change off for long.
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The best way to warn Russia is really for the EU countries to take action, either on trade or oil/gas, Russia can't afford to lose a lot of that trade with the EU whereas they likely can with the US. Basically, countries need to hit Russia where it really hurts and that's in the pocket.
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I don't think that's really needed, but maybe changes at the Euro Zone level could work, after all, countries in the Euro are more likely to want the project to work compared to countries that are not in it, especially the ones that qualify but are dragging their feet with op-outs. The irony is that the vast bulk of the economy and population is in the Euro, and more countries are bound to join, but you can bank on countries that are being troublesome or don't want the project to work, so the likes of Hungary and Poland, these won't join the Euro any time soon, even if they could. So maybe, if they can't get the reforms needed at an EU level to reduce the gridlock, maybe more focus needs to be put on the Euro Zone, either way, we've had well over a decade of no treaty change, the EU and it's members need to get it's act together, because the world is moving and we need to change with it, otherwise we'll get left behind.
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What Africa actually needs is know-how in building a modern economy, the EU is good at doing that as it's shown that many times with countries that join the EU. Money helps but the problem with money is that most of it gets wasted without any real change and you end up going around in circles, making little to no progress, which is really where the problem is with help from China, it doesn't really help Africa to modernize, the EU could if they push that policy with benefits for reforms, not that different to how the EU operates but without membership. I also feel because of the geography of Europe and Africa, both are in a good position to benefit the most from helping each other, Africa can benefit from EU help in creating stability, wealth and know-how, whereas the EU can benefit with better trade links, but both will have to want that for it to work and as we know, it's not as easy as it sounds, but there is a lot of potential for both sides if they are both open to it. I do worry about Africa thought, if you look at the terms of some of the agreements that China does in the continent, it looks like a land grab for China which isn't in the interest of the African people, but I have a feeling that they are only going to realize this when it's too late and China has too much control in Africa.
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That seems to be the case for most modern countries, including the US, which seems to want to have less kids, most of the population growth is coming about from immigration and by extension, immigrants tend to have more kids than the natives. If we were to cut immigration out, I suspect eventually every modern country would have a declining population.
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@ClemensKatzer It's true and I wanted to point that out because it's remarkable how many people seem to think the EU project started out as an economic only union with no intention of political integration, it was always about political and economic integration, and if I recall, I think they tried political integration at first but found economic integration easier to do. Even thought I'm not in the EU, being as I live in the UK, I like to follow the EU project on what's going on and firmly believe that our future is in the EU, not just the UK but all other EU members, we might not always agree with some of the decision-making in the EU, but that's the ups and downs of these systems and in the end, we can achieve far more together than we can apart. Being as I'm from the UK and thought it was crazy the UK left the EU, I see it first hand the BS that goes around in how some like to paint the EU into something it's not by twisting the truth or outright lying about it that so many in the UK actually felt they were lied too in that they think they voted on joining an economic only union, when it was well known before the UK joined the EEC that it was a political and economic union, but those lies in much of the media stuck with many people, which eventually led to Brexit. On the plus side, Brexit is starting to reshape public thinking on the EU, I'm seeing far more pro EU sentiments in the UK then I've ever seen over the last 40 years in the UK, and honestly, it's quite refreshing to see, but I'm also a realist, there is little to no chance the EU would let the UK rejoin, even if the UK wanted to rejoin, at least not for another 2 to 3 decades, and honestly, I don't blame the EU and it's members for that, I agree with them and think there needs to be sizeable shift from the public, media and political parties in the UK on how they see the EU project so they become more constructive and not obstructive like they've been, but in any case, that will take time for that kind of shift, but early signs look promising. On the EU it's self, we should put it into perspective, what we European have achieved since the end of the second world war is remarkable, if we were to ask anyone back then if they thought it was possible what we have today, they likely would think we were crazy, but here we have, give it another 50 years and I can see more being achieved. Also, I agree with you, many don't like the EU, but I think we will regret it if it wasn't around, as you say, the UK is getting a taste of that, but it would actually be a lot worse if the EU were to be disbanded, it would be a mess in so many areas that's we take for granted, trade, free movement, regulations and so on, imagine having 27 difference policies all pulling in different directions, it would weaken us all in these countries. One last thing before I forget, I think the EU needs urgent reforms, something that should have happened years ago, there's too much of a disconnect from the EU and it's citizens, which allows the Eurosceptics to make up any stories they want on the EU, mostly based on lies, I think more powers need to shift towards the European Parliament away from the Commission, I also think they should merge the Commission and President as one roll and make it directly electable by the people, I also think the veto rules needs to go or at the very least, become more streamlined in that it can't be used to hold others to ransom as it's being used to do so today, with 27 countries, trying to get them all to agree is a hard task, that will become harder with new members that join in the future, because of that, major reforms are needed on the veto rules before any new country can join.
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@ClemensKatzer Sorry but I do ramble on a bit at times lol, but the EU project is such an important project in European history and there's so much to say, it's kinda hard to narrow it down in fewer words.
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That's the impression I get, more money, protect them from outsiders, which creates inefficiencies. Don't get me wrong, I want EU countries to keep its high standards on food, but farming takes up too much resources of the EU budget already and I think a focus on a lot more productivity is needed, which farmers won't want because it will put many of them out of a job but it will lower cost for the EU, its members and citizens. EU farmers are already too protected as it is, they seem to want more, which I'm fine with some protection to keep quality high, but I think it should be based on them improving productivity, we in Europe spend far more on farming than other countries and I suspect it's only partly because of high food prices, I think the real culprit is inefficiencies from farmers, which they won't want to solve as it will put many of them out of work, but I think it needs to happen as it's a drag on the economy. Farmers might be pushing their luck if they push too hard on this protest, because the EU and many of its members as well as many of its citizens could turn against them if they disrupt things too much, especially if food prices start to shoot up because of the farmers actions, most of the public won't be so forgiving when it hits them personally, so the farmers need to resolve this and fast.
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@Friendly_Gamer_Mom True, wind and solar would complement each other really well on the home, solar is effective in summer weather whereas winds is effective in winter weather as well as nighttimes and at pretty much any time of the year, which if I recall, wind is stronger in winter compared to summer and is also a little stronger at nighttime when solar doesn't generate anything. The other potential advantage of having both, by having a more consistent energy being generated, you'll need less of a buffer when it comes to how many batteries you need. But we'll have to see, we've heard so many promising ideas for wind power in urban areas but most just don't work that well, but in recent times, we are seeing a lot more creative ideas on the table, so if any of them can generate some meaningful energy, be cheap enough to buy, it could become a game changer.
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Pretty much, I get a sense of entitlement from the UK that they feel the EU should bend and give them what they want, that was never going to be the case and it was always going to be the EU that dictates what the UK can and can't have, with some in the UK, that message is sinking in but there are still too many hardcore Brexiteers that are living in the past and don't realize that the UK isn't a great power any more and ironically, Brexit it's self is the perfect tool to prove how wrong they got it, especially now with how the US, China, Japan and India seem to be playing hard ball with the UK, basically, they smell weakness in the UK and are circling like vultures to take advantage of that, what's more ironic is the EU isn't really taking advantage of it and are simple saying the terms the UK can get will be worse than the terms they had in the EU which is reasonable.
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@pygmalion1963 That's true, but would it have been that much different if Labour were in charge? The Labour leader is already playing games with the British public by trying to keep all sides happy to win the next election, we don't know what his views are on the EU or wanting to rejoin or not, because he's playing politics with the British people by saying what he thinks all sides want to hear. That alone is a clear message from the UK that they are a long way away from rejoining, by Labour playing politics or being fearful of the Brexiteers, it sends a powerful message to the EU that the UK isn't ready to rejoin.
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@StudioBrock1337 Never assume that but Biden and even the Democrats are more pragmatic but I agree, relations are not likely going to go to what they were before Trump and it will take some doing from the US to repair ties because the EU is always looking else ware. We should also remember that there is still an army of Trump supporters in the US, they won't just go away and the likes of Trump got into power because of deep-rooted issues in the US which are not going to be easy to fix, at least over the short term. But with a rising China and one that can be quite aggressive, it's in the interest of both the EU and US to work closer together if they want to protect western values as well as western political, economic and social interest because that could be under threat with power quickly shifting from west to east, this pandemic hasn't done the west any favours in how badly they've handled it.
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@francie5161 True, it seems like animals of so many different species from each other that seem to get along with each other, and then we have us humans that would freak out if an alien race were to land on earth lol.
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Why? Since the UK left, it's been one disaster after another, why would anyone in their right mind want to follow that? oh I see, you want rich countries to bail out others with no strings attached so the system gets abused which we know it will so ask yourself, what incentive do rich countries have in allowing a free for all without at least some string on it to make sure it doesn't get abused? it's just common sense really.
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I think in the short term, the EU might be weaker without the UK but longer term I think the EU will be stronger as the UK always felt like a country that never wanted in the EU in the first place and only joined because they were the sick man of Europe and even once in, the UK had so many op-outs that you wonder why they stayed in at all lol. The real benefit for the EU of the UK not being in is real reforms and integration can happen without the UK blocking it as the UK was by far the most hostile to any of that change which ironically will make the EU a much greater power on the world stage and on the UK's door step which I doubt they wanted that. The irony is that in the UK, the polls are saying that 57% of the British public wants to rejoin the EU and it seems to be creeping upwards as time goes by, those polls suggest that if another vote was to be held now, the UK would vote to rejoin the EU by quite a margin and polls are rarely wrong when the numbers are that big. As a Brit, the EU shouldn't let the UK back in, not until real changes from the government, the media and public changes on how they see the EU and that will take some times, so keep the UK out for at least a decade or two or longer and if the UK wants to protect its economy and to keep the vultures like the US away, the UK can always join the single market and custom union but whatever the EU does, don't let the UK into the political decision-making, they are far from ready for that and best being kept out.
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We all knew they would be there, and Slovakia isn't really a surprise, Italy is a bit of a surprise but not by much with everything that's going on in Italy with the current government.
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That's one of the major advantages AMD has, it's long motherboard support, so anyone that does buy into AM5, they'll likely be able to get 2 big cpu upgrades on the same motherboard. That's something you can't do with Intel unless you upgrade every year which most don't so you pretty much need a new motherboard with every cpu upgrade with Intel whereas with AMD, if they support for 3 or 4 years, that's two solid cpu upgrades and when you think about it like that, it changes the cost factor.
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You do have a point, when it comes to renewables, we are already at times producing more energy than we need at times in some countries, that is likely to happen far more over the coming decades as generating energy is becoming so cheap, whereas storing it is still a problem with it being expensive, so even at 50-70% power, I can see some merit to that, and who knows, maybe they'll find solutions to improve that efficiency, either way, we need a lot of cheap energy storage, so use what ever options that work well, until better solutions in the future are around. With all that said, I don't know how effective this would be at a small scale for our homes, and looks like a better solution for the grid and for industry use that use a lot of heat.
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@rogerwinter1563 That's not true, the UK became the sick man of Europe and wanted in because it was getting left behind, the UK was already in an economic union before joining the EEC but it failed and it failed because it didn't have political oversight keeping the members in check, the EU has been so successful because it's not an economic only union, that political oversights allows a level player field and the same rule set for all were even smaller countries can take on big ones. Besides, just look at NAFTA, the US is running rings around the other members in that lol, that's an economic only union for ya lol.
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@heatea5255 True, the EU is always good about getting deals through that seem almost impossible, but they always seem to find a way even if it means some compromises. Like you say as well, the idea of the EU going back from short after the second world war was always about closer union, both political and economic to prevent another major war and to allow Europeans to compete with the US, I still find it remarkable to this day and age how so many still think they only joined an economic union, we see this a lot in the UK.
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Adolf Stalin It likely wouldn't have worked at all or would be very rigged in favour of a few big players, imagine it, over 30 countries from the EU and none EU countries in it, no political oversight to keep the same level playing rules for them all, it would be a mess where the bigger players always bully the smaller ones, a bit like how the US does it with Canada and Mexico with that NAFTA. An economic union can only go so far, ultimately you need a political union to really get the benefits of it and we know this because if we look at the EU and every other trade deal around the world, they don't even come close to what the EU has with single market and custom union access, basically, the closes thing to EU market is internal trade inside a country, no free trade deal comes even close to that. This is what's really confusing for many people, many seem to think a free trade deal is close to single market and custom union access, Canada just signed a free trade deal with the EU but they would love to have the same access to the EU market the UK currently enjoys, that's why a rude awaking is going to happen in the UK from next year.
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Adolf Stalin Norway chooses that and do have the choice in becoming an EU member or not getting the benefits it gets now. What would you suggest that Germany and France do? They are the two biggest members so are naturally going to have the most say in parliament, that's democracy. What's really funny about it if you look at it closely, all EU members have a veto, that gives smaller ones a lot more powers than they should really have, then if you look at the number of seats in parliament, smaller countries actually have more than they should, if this was done on equal share, the bigger members would actually have more seats. The smaller EU countries actually have quite a sweet deal with the EU but that isn't going to change the fact that the likes of Germany and France are much bigger and will naturally have a bigger say but again, that's democracy for ya. There is also the factor that it only takes a few of the others to block what Germany or France once, so it's not basically they get what they want and that's that, there is a lot of negotiating and compromises that go on.
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Adolf Stalin If the EU parliament says no to it then it won't happen but what that usually means is that it goes back to talks to get a few things changed and not get it scrapped altogether, which is pretty much the nature of democracy. Also, you do realize that each EU member has a veto on this, if any one of them wanted to block it, they could, if anything, that's more democratic than most countries because I don't see regions in the UK having a veto or US states having a veto over government policies, but the EU does. But in the long run and as the EU gets bigger with more members, I think the veto system would have to go in favour of a majority rule, otherwise it's going to get more difficult to get anything done.
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Adolf Stalin That was by choice, Norway voted to not be part of it so they can't complain about the deal they have. If Norway was to become a member, they would have seats in the European Parliament and even thought the numbers will be a lot lower than bigger countries, at least they have a say in shaping EU rules and can work with others in other EU countries on that, also, Norway would have a veto and that is quite powerful because it carries the same weight as the big members. From the EU's point of view, I suspect they like the deal they have with the likes of Norway and Iceland, they more or less get everything they want without those countries any real say, but from those countries point of view, it's not really a great deal and being in the EU would be better than what they have now. It will also be interesting to see where the UK ends up over the next 5 years, I suspect they will mirror most EU laws, rules and regulations but won't want to be seen to be doing so.
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Adolf Stalin That's probably when they'll join the EU, for now they have it easy with a small population and a lot of natural resources but that isn't going to last or have the same value and considering gdp per capita is one of the highest in the world, that's going to be a bit of a bump for the people of Norway's as that gdp per capital comes down more in line with Western Europe, that's probably what will bring them into the EU, same with Switzerland, for now they are a hot spot with trade and people coming and going through the country because of its position but as tech advances, EU countries will find ways around that to bypass them and the economy takes a hit accordingly. Switzerland more than Norway is unlikely to stay out of the EU long term but the EU knows it doesn't have to do anything on that and let the people choose by themselves, besides, the EU has enough on its plate by munching on those eastern EU countries and all the other eastern European countries that want to join but I think they draw the line with Russia, they don't have a mouth big enough to munch on them yet but who knows in the long run.
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Adolf Stalin Wishing for something to happen and it's actually happening are two different things, many thought the EU would fall apart decades ago and yet here it is, many thought the same about China's economic growth, they actually thought they would slow down a lot in the 80's lol, how wrong they were lol, people like to delude themselves in how they want to see things go and not look at how things are going. In the case of the EU, this pandemic is likely going to give it a new least of life and with the UK out of the EU, real integration can happen, especially among Euro Zone countries, the EU isn't going anywhere, at least not in the near future, as for China, well it's hard to say with them because of everything that is going on, all I do know is that they are projected to grow 1% this year where the west is in a massive decline in gdp numbers, basically, it's working out in their favour for the time being, especially because the US and UK are making a right mess back home on this pandemic which is hurting the economy a lot more than it should. So don't worry about the EU, they are fine, I'm actually more concerned about the US and UK becoming more unstable.
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Actually, his only real path is to bend to the EU and give some concessions, Boris has threatened many times to walk away and never does it so it seems very hollow, in truth, he knows he can't afford to leave without a deal because him and the Tory party is what will get it in the neck once the British people start complaining when things get worse for them and that could be the case from both remainders and Brexiteers alike. Truth be told, the UK governments used the idea of bluffing to try and get the EU to bend and give more but they are not buying that and in fact it looks as if they are getting tougher on their own terms, from the EU's point of view, they want a deal but they wont bend to British demands, if Boris wants no deal, that will be fine by the EU, they still have their own trade terms with all the countries in the EU, they still have all their free trade deals around the world and they still have all their bilateral agreements around the world, basically, the EU can afford a no deal a lot more than the UK can. Another factor is that no deal could play right into the hands of the independence movement in Scotland and Northern Ireland, especially as no deal would harm their interest, it's no wonder Boris doesn't look so well lately, the pressure from Brexit and Covid is really start to impact him. Now I'm hoping these clowns are stupid enough to go for no deal as we'll learn a lot quicker from that than we will if we got a deal, hence the real pressure is on Boris now and he knows it hence his ageing process is speeding up lol.
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@ruairievans Trump says a lot of things but it's clear that the US wants to take advantage of the UK after Brexit and I'm not just talking Trump but many Republicans and Democrats do as well, besides, the Democrats won't want to be seen as friendly to any popularism governments with how Trump has been the last 4 years, the UK Tories with Brexit is seen as a popularise government, so the UK can't really expect any favours from the Republicans or Democrats, they will both do what the lobby groups tell them which is to screw the UK over for American corporation, ironically, this pandemic will make that even more urgent. The UK left the EU at the worse possible time so the next 5 years are going to be very interesting to see.
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Business is business, if there were no rules and regulations, companies in the EU would treat Europeans just as bad as they do in the US, it's only that we have tougher rules to protect the public in Europe that changes that. The same can happen in the US or anywhere if the government actually did its job in protecting its citizens and not the rich elites and corporations like they do in the US.
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I bet the virus must love these people lol, and at this rate, a second wave is likely to hit big time with how low IQ's are. If only these people educate themselves that all they are doing is prolonging the pain for them and the economy over the long run. The real question is now, will the government lie about infection and death rates going up over the coming weeks or months to push people out regardless of the risk to their lives or will another lock down happen? I suspect the government will try and cover the numbers up and let it burn through but if a second wave is a lot worse then the first, good luck to the government in trying to cover that up. At this rate, if a second wave happens which seems quite likely, the US is a primary target. Also, it does beg the question, why is the US out of all the modern countries so different on this, others like Europe and countless others are not having these problems at staying at home for the most part, I suspect it's the system, it's broken in so many ways from rampant paranoia, lack of trust in government, low level of education and weak social system that isn't supporting people when they need it the most.
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True, and I think that is one of the biggest flaws of the EU right now, it feels too distant for most citizens, and too confusing, that reforms are needed to streamline the process so that it's easier for citizens to understand what's going on and for them to connect with the EU better. That would also very likely reduce Eurosceptics, as they play on the confusion. But honestly, these reforms are long overdue and should have been done years ago and I do feel that a lot of what is proposed needs to be done before 2030, even if some of them are watered down, after all, too much time has been wasted over the last decade or so.
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The UK is like that, it's all doom and gloom, not just on the Euro but on the EU as well, if you were to listen to them, the EU and Euro would have fell along time ago so clearly it's fear that's getting the best of them because there is no real signs of the EU or Euro falling apart any time soon even with all this pandemic going as well as Brexit and in fact, it seems like support for the EU and Euro is growing among its members and growing quite fast in the UK in wanting to rejoin the EU according to many polls.
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@imarchello The UN would be the logical choice for them to make contact, assuming they wouldn't make contact from space. But it's highly unlikely an alien race would make contact with us as we're still too primitive and divided as a people. But it wouldn't surprise me if they are keeping an eye on us and seeing how we develop, and I suspect they probably see us as a hostile specie, which would be quite accurate going on our history that's show that we only seem to change and become more civilised when tech progress forces us to change, and an example of that is after the second world war and the atomic bomb, we're still a war like people, but nukes have forced us to change how we do wars. It also wouldn't surprise me if the next 100-150 years is our make or break period on if we make it or not, as we will likely get to the point where we have to become a lot more civilised than we are or our own advancement could wipe us out, and it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of alien races go through the same process, only for most to not make it, which sadly could be our own fate over the next 100 or so years unless we do some radical changes in our mindset and not papering over the cracks because tech advancement is forcing us to change our ways.
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I always find the right are always blaming others for how things are, yet a lot of the times, they are the ones that make a lot of the mess, and not just in Europe but around the world, the right wing are also far more likely to lie to push their agenda. With all that said, I'm not left or right wing, it's a stupid term really because a lot of our views span over what they would call left and right wing politics, basically, it's more complicated than how either the left or right wants us to think and I have a sense that the left and right wing of politics is mostly designed to dismiss the other sides arguments, something we see a lot of in the UK and US, where one side or the other dismisses the others sides idea because of the source, even if it's a good one, the right wing does it a lot.
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We don't, but in the end, it's up to the US to raise standards and not expect others around the world to lower standards.
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This is a case of the Brexit lies starting to bite the Tories on the arse and now they know it, they knew it was a bad deal when they signed it and yet they still did it, there is little to no reason why the EU should open up talks, at least for a few years because the EU has more or less got what it wants with this deal and I don't see why the EU should waste it's time entertaining a bunch of clowns in the Tory government. I think it's time the EU played handball on this, make sure the government realizes how bad Brexit is for us, maybe they might start to learn something but I doubt that.
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Lei P What's that got to do with the EU when it's some members saying that beside, Germany and some of the other rich countries do have a point.
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These were some tough questions for anyone, but I did get a few of them right but most I got wrong lol. That Antarctica got me, it kinda felt like a trick question because of the water being frozen, in any case, I got it wrong lol. Also, you're right, being as English isn't their native language, that does make this challenge harder for them and you could see on the first guy, he knew the answer but almost tripped up over understanding the question, he got it right in the end.
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I think most of the world was, but honestly, when winter did happen, it felt like any other winter, and yes the energy bills were higher but I don't know of anyone that was freezing, it was more or less normal. What Putin didn't understand is how quickly modern countries can adapt if they needed too, Putin's blackmail forced European countries to adapt a lot sooner than they wanted to do on energy sources, but they showed they could, and honestly, even I am surprised how quickly the change is happening, energy bills are dropping, inflation is coming down, in such a short space of time, things are almost back to normal. Then there's the US, I think the US expected the EU countries to buy LNG long term from them, in the short term they will, but we are already seeing signs of how quickly EU countries are reducing its dependency on gas, which is putting downwards pressure on the price point, and it stands to reason, if gas stayed expensive, Europeans would look for an alternative, which I think the US didn't see it happening so soon.
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@fulconandroadcone9488 The first year was always going to be the toughest, the EU countries got through that better than expected, with gas storage at the end of winter being around 50% full, far higher than most expected, this year, they are in a better position to handle it and looking at the weather forecast, it looks like it's going to be a mild one and so far in the UK, it's actually warmer then it was last year at this time. On top of that, energy prices have started to come down, not much in the UK but that's different from country to country and the policies they enact.
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So the moral of the story is that Brexit was a protest vote to get our national government to listen to them and had little to do with the EU and the problem with that, why would our government listen to the UK public outside the EU when they won't have that check and balance from the EU to keep our government in line? In other words, the British people shot themselves in the foot, thinking if they did that, our government would listen and things would get better, the smart thing for the British public to do was vote for any party that isn't the Conservative or Labour party if they wanted to send a message but what they did is only going to hurt the poor and middle classes in the UK. At the end of the day, Brexit and Trump is all about the power of the right wing press and how they've not been kept in check for decades to allow them to manipulate the public with an agenda that serves the top 1% and not the rest, the irony is that most don't see that and what makes it even better is that most people that voted for Brexit can't honestly say how the EU did any harm to them personally for them to hate it so much, in fact, most know little to nothing about the EU apart from what the right wing press want them to know and that is a major failing of democracy and the best way for us to learn from that is to have the hardest of Brexit so it hits the poor and middle classes hard only for the UK to rejoin the EU a decade later, that is the best way to send a powerful message to people that don't want to listen.
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With how cheap and better solar is getting and with how they can now integrate solar into surfaces without even looking like a solar panel, I think it's only a matter of time before many EV carmakers integrate solar into their cars. For many, it could reduce how much energy they need for charging it up or not need any at all for the ones that don't use their cars that much and because of how cheap solar is getting and how it can be applied to almost anything, I wouldn't be surprised over the next decade if a lot of tech gadgets that we buy have solar on them to either extend their life or to fully charge them. That Sion car looks the best one and mainly because of the price point which is key to adoption, a lot of the others are just too expensive to make any real difference in the market, but once they can make cars that most consumers can afford, that's where the real game changer can be and the Sion is hitting that market, assuming it's mileage on solar is as they say. Another advantage of that car is that it actually looks like a car whereas some of the others look like a spaceship from the future, the key to adoption is to use new tech on designs that we are a custom too and this is why the Sion looks the more promising to me, it looks like a car and the price point is reasonable, if it delivers on the miles as the company says, it could become a game changer as long as they keep the price point low for the average consumers to afford.
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@medrecs He might expose some problems but he actually created a lot of the problems the UK faces. Also, I do love how the media, especially the right wing media makes it seem like there's going to be no power at all in Europe this winter lol. I'll tell you what will happen, there will be no power cuts or nothing to write home about, consumers and businesses will have to tighten their belts a little but overall it shouldn't have much impact overall, The real thing I think that will have is big protest movements over the price of energy, which is basically going to force price capping and diversifying away from fossil fuels long term. So at the end of the day, yeah it will be a tight winter but the lights will stay on and it will more or less be business as usually for the most part but hey, according to the right wing media, it's going to be the end of the world lol, I mean seriously, how many times through history do they have to get it wrong before people stop listening to them? lol.
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@Arsenic71 I don't and I'm British living in the UK, I think a bad Brexit deal is what the UK needed because so many lies about the EU have been told for decades from the media to government that it stuck, now the British people will get a reality check and hopefully in time, that will change views in that the EU was never really the problem and the problem is much closer to home. Basically now, the British people have no excuses, they've deflected blame else ware and now that would be a lot harder to do, that's when things will really get interesting when it dawns on people that things are not getting better and could be getting worse, we might be seeing early signs of that already but it will takes years, maybe even decades before the message sinks in.
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I remember hearing stories about ambulances, yes it seems there is a cost for that, anyway, many avoid them and go to the hospital themselves because of the cost, so much so that I remember hearing one person having to give a piggyback for a friend because of the cost of an ambulance, I've even heard stories that it's cheaper for an American that has no health insurance to have a holiday to Europe, get Medicare and it all ends up being cheaper, you know something is wrong with the American system for that to be the case.
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It can't, the world has changed where power is being a lot more focused on big power blocks like the EU, US, China and other potentials in the future. The UK alone can't compete with any of that, even if birth rates were higher because now it's all about economy of scale and economic growth that defines power. The US got there first with being a modern country with a far bigger population then the rest, but others are quickly catching up, and then we have the EU which is like a hybrid country, political block of countries. Realistically, I think the best the UK can do is to become part of the EU again and at least that way, they are one cog in the big wheel in shaping the world, as it is now with Brexit, the UK has very little voice, on the one hand, we always hang on the coattail of the US which makes the UK weak, and on the other, we are basically shut out of EU decision-making. What all this basically means is that the big decisions, both politically and economics around the world on rules, regulations and laws are being decided by the EU and US as their market size commands power that can be used to shape the world, which both the EU and US does.
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I do think rules should be changed when filling a lawsuit, after all, it's just easy for big companies to sue smaller ones and get their way. Maybe we need a system that if they lose a case, it cost them a percentage of their profits for wasting government time, the idea being is to stop a lot of these stupid lawsuits from happening, after all, if there is a cost to them if they lose the case, many will think twice before filling it, and the idea is, they should only be filling a lawsuit if they have a really good case, which reduces the risk of them losing it. The way it is now, it's just too easy for big corps to file lawsuits on pretty much anything, without any risks to themselves, it wastes a lot of time and money, whiles putting smaller companies at a disadvantage.
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Same lol, I used to like summers when I was younger but give me winters and milder weather any day. Thing is where I live in the UK, summers have been hotter and more humid over the last decade or so, in the past, it used to be milder, but nowadays, when the sun hits, it hits hard, and the UK by European standards is quite northern, so basically, in just 40 years, I've gone from liking summers to preferring winters more, mainly because in winters, there are many ways to warm up whereas in summer, you just have to sweat it out.
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Even if Russia did win, the cost is so high that it's likely not worth it, as long as Russia is having to spend a fortune on the war and they are bogged down, that's going to be really damaging for them long term. As for Ukraine, they likely can hold out for now, but both the EU and US needs to step up their game and speed up deliver of arms they need.
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The irony is, they always banged on about red tape and wanting to cut it, but common sense tells us that Brexit was going to add a lot more red tape by having different rules in the UK than the EU have and the more those rules diverge, the more red tape and more expensive it becomes, the government is starting to wake up to that reality in mirroring EU regulations, but that's making the UK into becoming a rule taker not maker, something many of us predicted would have. Could you imagine if all EU countries had their own regulations and laws in many of the areas that the EU sets the standard? It would be a mess and be far more expensive to do business. Say what we want about the EU, but having a single set of laws, rules and regulations across those countries, reduces red tape a lot, so yeah, like you said, the UK with Brexit went out of its way to do economic harm to its self, which I don't know if it's a first, but it's right up there and reflects badly on the British public for allowing it to happen, after all, we can put the blame on the government all we want, but at the end of the day, the people are to blame for the mess they got themselves in and it's them paying the price for that.
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On the plus side, now it looks like that process will speed up a lot because it's now a security issue, guess who loses out there? Fossil producing nations. Putin has done more here to get us to go to cleaner energy sources then the greens could have ever done, the next 5 years are going to be very interesting, especially in the energy mix in Europe. this is genius that Putin is a big advocate for clean energy, too bad he doesn't realize it lol. Beside, this is going to impact the world because that's how energy prices happen, as the Europeans get their energy from other sources, it bumps up the price on the world market, making it more expensive across the board, that could put a lot more pressure in finding alternative energy sources, that's the real genius part of all this, a bit of short term pain for a big gains in a shorter space of time. What a clusterfuck from Putin to force the Europeans to speed up it's alternative energy plans by decades lol.
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@wafflesarebest1702 No one knows how it's going to play out but what I do know is that EU countries are moving full steam ahead to alternative energy sources, that's what happens when energy becomes a security risk. The second world war showed how much progress can happen in a very short space of time, you'll be surprised how quickly things can change when there's a need to change. Either way, it's going to be interesting to see the energy mix in the EU by 2030, in the short term, others around the world will fill that void that Russia losses out on, there will be many takers on that because the EU is a massive market, it's easy money for any that want to fill that void but that's short term as I suspect the EU countries are going to push hard on renewable energy sources. In any case, there isn't really a risk but it's got to be seen as a risk because that is what gets things moving much faster, fear does wonderful things in that sense.
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We'll have to see if it's got momentum and if the people actually feel the improvements. But it does look quite promising on the surface, debt is going down, inflation is low, growth is picking up, there's also those billions from the EU which I don't think Italy has used yet, so that could help growth. In any case, what I find with modern, open democracies, they don't usually fall behind too much to other modern countries, and if they do slip behind for some time like Italy and Japan have done, they are likely going to have a small period of economic boom to catch up, as long as the fundamentals are there, which they are usually with open democracies, they don't really fall too far out of line with each other, but in the case of Italy and Japan, the situation hasn't been good for decades now, but as they fall behind, more pressure from the public on governments kick in to do more radical changes to kick-start the economy, it's one of the major advantages a democracy has, it eventually corrects its self, some take longer then others like Italy and Japan, but it happens in time. Also, Italy does have the advantage of being in the EU, which in time will pull them back, even if it means kicking and screaming, but it would help to have a more stable political environment, reduce corruption and far less red tape to encourage more investment.
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The US zoning system might actually be by design to weaken smaller businesses whiles helping bigger ones, it wouldn't surprise me if the car industry played it's part, after all, if you have to travel more to get anywhere, that's good news for the car industry, it's also good news for bigger stores like Walmart because chances are, if you're travelling more, you're more likely to go to bigger stores than smaller ones. The end result is that the US as a country is quite disconnected, not very friendly for people to live in and where you really need car just to get around, it's also very wasteful in needing a lot more energy per person and like many have said, it never made any sense to have shops and other services so far away from where people live. The irony is, in Europe at least, when picking a location to buy a house, services, shops and other things become a factor in where you buy, people like things to be nearby.
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Having a lot of oil, gas and other natural resources is a blessing and a curse, it can be a blessing with sound economic management and planning but in most cases, it tends to be a curse because the countries that have a lot of these resources tend to be very wasteful and don't do the major political and economic reforms to modernize the country and they end up being too dependent on that natural resource. I think the real lucky countries are the ones that have little to no natural resources because they have to do the reforms to be competitive, that longer term could also give them a major economic advantage in the future when they generate a lot more of its energy means internally as they would get a massive windfall of money that isn't being exported to other countries and can be used internal on social programs and we're talking a lot of money. Almost all countries that have a lot of natural resources should really be doing a lot better economically and most are doing quite poor with the exception of Norway which are doing the reforms whiles using its natural gas wisely, hence why they have one of the best living standards in the world, but they are the exception to the rule, most are very wasteful with that resource and these countries need to worry because with everything that is going on in Ukraine and the EU is very likely going to change the entire energy market a lot sooner than expected, basically, a lot more countries are going to want to generate most if not all their energy internally because of energy security reasons. The EU countries could lead on that thanks to Putin forcing their hands, in other words, I think short term, EU countries will find alternative sources to oil and gas but over the next decade or two, I think they are going to ramp up producing a lot more of their energy internally by renewables and other sources. To put it another way, Putin might have helped to kill the fossil industry and decade or sooner than it would have been and the longer the price stays high, the quicker it's going to kill that industry, especially now that there are a lot of angry people that are putting a lot of political pressure on governments to change, in other words, no more foot dragging on renewable and they are likely going to go all in, with that, it's going to be very interesting to see the energy market over the next decade, especially in the EU.
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China and India are too different from each other for that to work, and trust plays a big part in world currencies. The US Dollar became the world currency because the US was trusted and dependence, but things are changing, US politics is becoming too polarised and the US is using more threats to get what it wants, it's making a lot of countries around the world rethink its policies on the US, in other words, to distance themselves from the US, which would be really damaging to the US Dollar if that were to happen, especially with how the reserve currency is set up to favour the US and probably why Trump is using threats, but threats could do more damage to the US in pushing countries away. The only other credible currency is the Euro, but honestly, those countries are not integrated enough for that to work, so maybe a new currency that isn't tied to any country is needed, if that is feasible, it would probably get support from the majority of the world, except from the US.
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Solar and wind could work well together as they complement each other with a more consistent amount of energy generating, but you do need a healthy amount of battery storage as a buffer for it to work effectively, with a big enough buffer, we can generate more than enough energy by renewables, as long as we can store enough of it.
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@dominuslogik484 That's not quite true, the real problem in the EU is that you've got 27 separate militaries doing their own thing, that creates a lot of waste, if combined and reduce a lot of the waste and duplications, the EU has more than enough of a military to prevent any threat to it, it is after all a modern economy with a high skilled workforce and military tech, with a strong manufacturing base, if threatened, the resources they could throw at the military would be far higher than it is now, just for now, it's not that important. Those pet projects, if you mean the social programs, calling them a waste of money is crazy, very few Europeans would agree with that and even many Americans wouldn't agree with at view, the real problem isn't the military budget, the problem is having 27 divided militaries with so much waste, a single military, whiles reducing a lot of the duplications would be a far more effective military even with the current budget. So come on guys, let's get back to reality, Putin is taking on an easy target with Ukraine, one of the poorest European countries that isn't in the EU or NATO, they were an easy target, taking on an EU or NATO member as most EU members are, Putin would have to be insane to do that because that could escalate into a major war, which if history is any indicator, will drag in a lot more countries, whether they want to be in or not, which if that were to happen, we've all got problems.
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@Toreadorification Most of the issues in Italy are mostly down to the government in the country and corruption, Italy leaving the EU wouldn't solve that problem, in fact, it would likely make it worse. Italy needs some major reforms because they are slipping behind other EU members.
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Looks like the US wants to take over Greece and even catch up to Japan when it comes to debt levels, it could end up being a major drag on the economy and could even spell disaster for the US if there's a real threat to the US Dollar reserve currency, being. The problem for the US, by trying to reduce the damage Trump is doing and to try and compete with China, its debt levels are likely going to keep increasing, considering the shift that's going on around the world away from the US and trust is evaporating in the US system, this could have major ramifications for the US political and economic system over the coming years and decades and it's likely the American people that will bear the brunt of that. What normally happens when the economy goes down the toilet? The radicals gain more powers because the voters because more desperate as things continue to get worse, just like Brexit in the UK, it had little to do with the EU, a lot of it was to do with people feeling like hey were getting left behind, especially up north of England, well we are seeing the same in the US, Trump is a clear sign that a lot of Americans are not happy and feel like the system is leaving them behind, Trump uses those people to lash out against the world, but he's making the situation worse for the US. I hope the American people understand what they are doing to themselves because I don't think they realise how much of a slow burn all this is going to be on them, and even once Trump is out of power, so much damage to the US has already happened that it will be difficult for the next government to repair, and I suspect it's already too little too late, at least for the next few decades, trust after all is easy to break but can take years, decades even to gain, the US is doing major damage to its self under Trump, most Americans are blissfully unaware of that until it's too late.
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Say what we want about the Germans but they have a knack for always bouncing back regardless of how many times they get knocked down. Today they are one of the most successful economize in the world and the biggest in Europe, it's a major player in the EU which extends their clout outwards but as power goes on an outwards projected scale, Germany can't really match the US or China but that doesn't matter thanks to EU integration which the EU is already a major economic power and could be a major political power if it's members got it's act together and integrated, something I'm sure the US and China will push the Europeans into doing as we get left behind.
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@xELYAHUx I wouldn't rule it out, Spain and Argentina will fancy their chances on that with Brexit being more isolated, think about it, the EU is more likely to side with Spain, Russia would likely help Argentina out, the US likely won't care because with the Republicans, they seem more interested in screwing the UK over and the Democrats don't want to go anywhere near anything that is seen as a popularise movements with how things have gone with Trump and sadly for the UK, Brexit is seen as a popularise movement, we're even getting on the wrong side of China now. A lot of countries will see the UK as weaken after Brexit and many will likely fancy their chances to take advantage of that. Another factor for the US, from their point of view, they likely like the idea of a weaker UK because it likely puts the UK more under the thumb of the US to control.
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It's also getting more expensive and unless we find ways to reduce cost, maybe A.I. can help on that, the alternative is that a lot of high-tech is going to become very expensive to do that very few like the EU, US and China can do and even then, it could get so expensive that many countries and companies will have to cooperate to get anything done. We are seeing it with chip making, the cost just keeps going up and unless we find a new way to move forward, the cost is going to get crazy. Still, new ideas, A.I. and other tech could help but I can't help but feel we're getting to a stage where it's going to continue to get more expensive for companies and countries to be on the bleeding edge, which could push for a lot more cooperation among nations and companies to share the cost, something I suspect the EU and US will do among other countries.
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Not just Taiwan, but even China and Russia are looking for weaknesses of resolve from the west, especially from the EU and US. Both the EU and US started out well with the support of Ukraine, but have been slow ever since, both of them should have been more aggressive in giving Ukraine the means to end the war sooner rather than later. As for Russia winning and taking over Ukraine, that would be a disaster for the west, it would damage their reputation and credibility, it could also make NATO less valuable, both China and Russia are likely keeping a close eye on both the EU and US and on what measures they are willing to do to push Russia back, if those measures are two weak, Russia might end up thinking, why stop with Ukraine when there are many other tempting targets in the east of Europe that are not EU or NATO members, making them easy targets, China will also be thinking that America talks a good deal but when pushed, its resolve is much weaker, that might tempt China to take Taiwan on or other small countries in the region. The west needs to put its foot down and do the right thing, sooner rather than later before things could escalate into something much worse, because like it or not, we in the west look weak on the support for Ukraine, mainly being bogged down in political infighting and being too slow to give Ukraine the means to defend it's self and push Russia out of Ukraine, and it's probably not just Russia and Ukraine that are keeping a close eye on western resolve here, probably other countries around the world are also, things can escalate if there is no push back over what Russia is doing. As for the EU, there is no real threat to any of those countries from Russia, there's likely no threat to NATO countries as well, Putin might be stupid but he would be crazy to go against an EU or NATO country which considering how much trouble he's having in Ukraine, being one of the poorest countries in Europe, he wouldn't fair well against the EU or NATO, so there isn't any threat there, and if there were to be a threat, that could quickly escalate into a major war which I doubt any of us want as it would likely drag much of the world in.
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I never understand this mentally of being British, Italian or something else, I mean really, who cares, at the end of the day, we're human and what really matters are standards and trying to improve those standards that benefit us all. I find the idea of saying I'm British or something else is a bit tribal and when you think about it, countries are not that far off like that with us vs them mentalities which is kind of primitive when you think about it. At the end of the day, I'm human and I likely have a lot more in common with the average Brits and other Europeans then I do with say the upper elites from the rich and politicians and if you go down to basics, all we all really wants is for a better quality of life and to be treated fairly in the system, that resonant in pretty much all countries, more so modern ones. In the end, if I have to be something then I'm human first, European second, British third and English fourth and all this nationalist and patriotisms does is divide us as a people which is probably why things are so messed up today as insaid of fixing a lot of the problems, we're fighting each other over primitive ideals of my gang is better than your gang isn't too far from the truth with countries, and we see a lot of that with the UK and US.
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If losing 4 tanks is being done for, most wars would end before they begin. It's expected more losses are bound to happen once major offensive happen. In truth, Ukraine is probing for weaknesses, it's smart to send in a small force and assists the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian army, it also keeps the Russians guessing on where the next attack could be, which helps to divide them. Clearly Ukraine isn't sending in the full force, and it's smart to not do that just yet, especially as the Russians have had months to set up defensive lives.
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One thing I learned many years ago is to ignore GDP and GDP per capita numbers as it has little relevance to the quality of life for the average person, especially the lower and middle classes. Seriously, I've heard many Americans that have moved to Eastern Europe and say they are having a better quality of life, that wouldn't make any sense if we went off GDP numbers because eastern EU countries are still developer and have a much lower GDP then western EU countries or the US, and it's clear we need a better system for measuring quality of life from the bottom up, after all, if we had a better system, a lot more people would be aware of areas that need fixing and that will put pressure on governments to fix them. All we have today is governments like the UK or US that boost about how well the GDP is doing or how low unemployment, it's so detached from the reality of real life from cost of living to shortage of housing and so on, and we know they are detached from reality, why do you think Brexit happened in the UK? or the rise of the far right in Europe or Trump in the US, these are all signs that something is wrong and a lot of people are not happy with how things are and how they are going, and if the mainstream don't listen to the concerns, it's going to lead to a rise in the far right across Europe and North America that could become dangerous if we are not careful. In any case, I will say one thing, EU countries need to do better in the tech sector and maybe a capital market in the EU could help a lot in that area, but when it comes to quality of life, Europeans are doing better than Americans, especially in the EU where Europe more or less dominant the quality of life indexes whereas others like the UK and US have been slipping down the tables over the last decade or so.
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Politics is like that, it always swings in roundabouts from left to right of politics, and not just in the UK, but across Europe and even in the US. Basically, it goes something like this, voters elect a left wing party, hoping for real change, a few years in, voters start to realise that not much is changing, anger builds and 1, 2 or 3 terms, people get so angry that they vote for a right wing party, thinking the grass is greener on the other side, only for the pattern to repeat it's self every few elections with not much really changing when it comes to listening to voters concerns. In the UK, we are swinging to the left because the right wing have made a mess of it, especially the Conservative Party, and with that, voters have swung to the left, until the honeymoon wares off and people start to realise, there was a lot of bluster, hot air and promises made but not much is actually changing to improve the quality of life and reduce the cost of living burden. Many European countries are going through the same process but moving to right wing, rinse and repeat and the cycle continues every few elections. As for the US, it happens every 4 or 8 years on rotations from the Democrats and Republicans, throughout all of this, people are getting more angry as they feel their concerns are not being listened too, and it's opening cracks in the democratic system that is allowing the radicals through the door, we saw much of that in the UK with Brexit, we see it a lot in the US with Trump and the Republican Party, and we are seeing it with far right parties in Europe. The undertone throughout all of this is simply, people are getting fed up, they feel their voice doesn't matter, the cost of living is getting worse, the quality of life doesn't seem to be getting better even thought they like to brag about how well the economy is doing and they feel they are being squeezed, especially younger voters, this is dangerous if we allow the radicals in too far, history has shown us that many times, but honestly, the real blame are the voters for voting so recklessly and the mainstream parties for not solving the core issues and concerns that people have, that is allowing the radicals to get a foothold as voters are getting really angry, this is happening in the UK, throughout the EU and in the US, and I suspect it will get worse before it gets better.
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@lorycolombo9600 I always blame the people, it's easy for us to pin the blame on the government, the elites and so on but in the end, it's the people that have the real power to make changes, unfortunately, the public are not very good in making the right choice and get manipulated very easy, especially near election times where governments promise the earth and rarely deliver on those promises and at the end of the day, governments are a reflection of the public, if we want them to change, the public has to change.
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The problem is with these radical groups is that they rarely work well in their own party and less so with other parties because the views from them all are all over the place, it wouldn't take much from a policy for them to fall out. This is where the real problem could be with these parties, when the tough decision start to happen, will they be able to hold it together? and say what we want about moderate parties, but they are more likely to be able to compromise and work with other parties than the far right parties, now it's just a matter of which policies light the fuse with them, and I've noticed that some of these far right groups are starting to moderate there views, probably because that's the only way to appeal with voters long term and the only way for them to compromise more on policymaking, after all, too many hardliners will make it difficult for them to get things done and voters will quickly lose interest in them if things don't get better.
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@BigAlCapwn You would be right but the irony is about that is how many people around the world mistake the EU as Europe.
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Valerie Watson Icehole? that's a new one, did you spend some time thinking about that one or was it a natural gift? lol. As for the EU failing, how many times do euroseptics have to be proven wrong on that for them to get it in their head that's it's not failing, they've been saying that for decades on the EU and Euro and it just keeps getting stronger and stronger. There's a difference in wanting something to fail and it failing, one is based on reality, the other is wishful thinking, I'm sure you know which camp you are in. What's funny is you saying it's a dictatorship, if you look at the EU system closely, it's more democratic than the UK system is. Why would they crush any member that wants to leave? any can leave at any time they want but they can't expect to get the same benefits of EU membership like the UK wanted, I think you are confusing the UK getting a bad deal because the EU didn't bend and give them the same kind of benefits that EU members get, that would be like joining a gym and then leaving but expecting to get the same benefits lol. The reality is, support for the EU has been growing since Brexit started and a number of reason why that is the case, Brexit being the clear one, Trump aggressive nature and Putin playing games, they all played right into the hand of EU unity in that even some of the popularise movements around Europe that wanted to leave the Euro, don't want to any more, in that sense, I thank you Brexiteers, Trump and Putin, you've been a good friend to the EU even thought you don't realize it lol.
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I remember hearing that Picard is much older then the actor so he made him seem older and more frail, so yeah most of it is acting and acted well because it's quite convincing.
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@dutchman7623 The problem is that NATO is mostly under the command of the US and that was fine in the past but the US is becoming more aggressive, hostile and less reliable as a country and because of that, I suspect European countries will band together with an army in the same way they created the Euro which is the last thing the US wants, after all, the US want European countries to spend more but they don't want them combining their resources together.
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I think we're counting our chickings before they've been hatched, lets see what happens next year first, now that Boris doesn't need to listen to remainers or leavers and that he doesn't need support of any of the other parties and for the most part doesn't even need to listen to the ERG in his own party, that could change how he thinks on Brexit and if that does happen, we'll likely know about it mid to late January.
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@Ikkeligeglad Probably why Musk is moving his operations out of California and into Texas because of lower standards there, which we in the EU should be grateful that many standards are set to a high level at the EU level whiles allowing members to have higher standards if they want but not lower. In the US, you get a sense that each US state sets its own standard, sounds good on paper but in reality, it allows corporations to play them off each other with the aim of lowering standards and the federal government in the US is kinda useless for setting any standards and because of that, corporations will get pulled towards the states that are more profitable to them, in other words, to hell with standards, workers rights and quality, it's all about the profit, and because the federal government isn't willing to set high standards, it leaves it up to the states to do it, but corporations play them off each other like Musk is doing.
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Considering how close the election was, the government will likely be worried about the next election in 3 years if things get worse in Poland but for the time being, not much really changes. The good news is that Poland should consider it's self lucky it's in the EU because if they were not an EU member, the clear signs of dictatorship would likely take over Poland with the way things are going, ironically, it wouldn't be that different from when the Soviet Union had them, as it is, the EU and it's members will only allow the Polish government to go so far before putting it's foot down and that is what the government in Poland really worries about because they suspect the people of Poland will turn on the government if the EU takes a more hard line on them. But I don't think it will come to that, Poland is new to all this democracy thing just like a lot of the eastern European countries and it was never going to be easy to adapt to that as that takes time, still they've made a lot of progress already even thought they are stumbling at the moment but that just likely means the other eastern members will likely do better in the long run, especially on the economic front and that's what the people really care about.
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It's quite misleading to say what the EU has or hasn't done because it's got limited powers in what it can do, a lot of powers in these areas remain with the members of the EU and not the EU it's self and I think it would make more sense to combine the EU and all its members in what they have done.
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@zemom.a.8171 That can be based on investment in the idea but in most cases, 10 years should be enough to profit on an idea and as an example, look and movies, music and computer games, most make their money within weeks months of the product being released, in their cases, wanting to profit on them decades later is just pure greed and probably why so many pirate a lot of that stuff that's decades old without seeing anything wrong with it.
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@zemom.a.8171 It's not so much how long it takes to develop which is rarely ever 10 years and usually just a few short years. What matter is how quickly they make their money back on it and that is usually pretty quick and within a matter of weeks or months. 10 years seems more than fair enough before it goes public domain and beside, this has nothing to do with how long it takes to make a product but how quickly it takes to recoup that investment cost back which is usually very quick. The real question you should be asking on games and movies is how many times over the investment have they made back on them? I suspect it's at least 5 to 10 times the money they put in, it's pure greed, either way, people make up their own rules, hence why piracy is still around.
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The irony is that they have a lot in common with each other.
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Tim, easy way to sort that one out is to make it a final vote on the exit terms for at least 10 years, that way whichever way it goes, we wont see another vote for at least another 10 years. Beside, we wouldn't be seeing so many calls for another vote if the leave side didn't tell so many lies and they deliverd on what they promised the British people. Either way, does it matter if we did have an 100 votes, the leave side seems so confident that the will of the people is to leave the EU, lets test that and see if thats true, it wouldn't matter how many votes we had if the people truly want to leave, the vote will be the same, in fact it would likely be higher for the leave side. What I think is that the leave side fear another vote because they know they had to tell a lot of lies to win the first vote and feel that the British public wont fall for the same lies a second time round, more so with two years now passed and we know a lot more about Brexit and if a vote was to happen, it would likely be on the exit terms so there would be no excuses from any of us not knowing what it means.
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CAP protects European agricultural produce because of cheap labour, if it was a free for all, European workers wouldn't stand a chance agaisnt cheap labour from the likes of Africa and China and in some cases you need some protection to protect jobs and industrys, at least until wages are more reasonble in the other countries, it's not ideal and I would perfer if the protections ware gone but we are not living in an ideal world. No goverment would pay so much into the EU pot unless we was getting a lot more out of it, ironiclly, Brexit will make that all the more clearer. We also need to start realising in the UK that these talks with the EU are not on equal terms, the UK is the much smaller player but we keep acting like we are an equal to them, it's sad and funny to watch, the EU is holding all the cards, all the leverage, they have every since we signed Article 50 which by the way was always designed to put the one leaving on the backfoot like it's done to the UK. Also people seem to think that if remainers get onboard or if we had a Brexiteer PM and start talking tough with the EU that it would change anything, it wont because the fundermental problems are still there, the UK wants cake to eat and the EU wont bend on it's fore freedoms as that would risk a brake up of the EU, sooner or later we will realise this in the UK.
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True and if I'm not mistaken, it's not just EU law but internatinal law that we have to settle our payments with the EU, if the UK doesn't pay that, how wiil that look on the world stage and will the UK be able to be trusted after that at a time when we will need trust around the world. The reality is that we will pay that 40 odd billion no matter what happens, the rest is just bluster from the UK goverment because the EU wont give them any cake but then cake was never on the table and if we are lucky, they might throw us a few crumbs.
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Also, unlike Canada which are not leaving the EU, the EU needs to be seen as giving the UK a worse deal then we had in the EU, in any event, the EU already offerd a Canada style deal if we wanted that but clearly that deal is far worse then the deal we have in the EU. As for the 40 billion or so the UK have to pay the EU, that isn't really debateable or can't be taken off the table by the UK because if they don't honor that, the UK would be braking EU and international law, good luck getting good deals around the world if we can't be trusted to honor deals we've made, anyway, the best the UK could do with that is to lower it so it's not 40 billion. James, the EU have most of the leavage in these talks, hardly any EU member seems to want to help the UK out like the Brexiteers thought they would, as for the likes of Italy, boy how you people get it so wrong, yes they are unhappy about the current running of the EU but thats a far cry from the EU sinking, it's mostly just disageements among members in the EU not a sinking ship as you like to think and how you can tell that, for all the talk of these popularist movment gaining ground in the EU, did it really change anything? All we are seeing on Brexit is a disunited UK and a united EU, who would've pridicted that before the vote when Brexiteers thought the EU would be on it's knees now wheres it's the UK thats on it's knees, it's high time you wake up to reality James and see whats going on, you don't realise this but Trump, Brexit and Putin have been a big help for the EU and they don't even realise that yet which is funny.
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You have to be careful how unemployment numbers are calculated. For example, in the UK, you could be unemployed but on a job program or collage course and be classed as employed, but are still being supported by the unemployment benefits, so a burden to the system, I don't know what the state of that is in the UK at the moment, but I do remember years ago that this happened a lot, which gives the wrong impression on what the unemployment numbers actually are, it wouldn't surprise me if this happens in the US to make the numbers look good, but this doesn't actually solve the problem of unemployment and getting people in the work, it's shifting the problem. I can't say for European countries in how they calculate these things, but maybe some are being more honest about the numbers.
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We might not need the EU for peace any more but Europeans do need it if we are to compete with big powers like the US and China when it comes to protecting European economic and political interest.
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The internet is opening peoples eyes, especially among the younger generation, the irony is, we are seeing that in the US with the young but also in the UK with the young and Brexit, which has created quite the divide in public views and why Brexiteers are getting worried about the public mood changing on Brexit against the Brexiteers.
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For me, LNG is a short term solution, the cost alone will end up pushing that aside for cheaper alternatives, likely renewable energy sources being created much closer to where it's used. In the case of Europe, there's a bit of a spike in buying up LNG since the war in Ukraine, but when looking closely, it looks like they are shifting their economy to an all electric system, which opens up more options on what energy sources you can buy and favours renewable energy sources, because of that and because LNG is so expensive, unless the ones that produce the LNG gas find ways of reducing the cost a lot, I can't see them being competitive with other energy sources, especially renewable energy that's getting better and cheaper all the time. There's also the security issue, since the war in Ukraine, more countries want to produce more of the energy they use internally, the only real issue with renewables is the inconsistency, but that can be solved with batteries acting as a buffer. Basically, there's a short wind fall for LNG because of the war in Ukraine, especially in Europe, but it seems short-lived just to fill the void that Russia is missing out on, so unless LNG becomes a lot cheaper to buy, I can't see it being that competitive for long and cheaper alternatives, likely renewable will replace it, at least in Europe, because Asia is a bit different, in many areas, they need as much energy as they can get from any source as they are a growing economy, whereas Europe is more developed and settled on its energy needs, so even thought it's going up, it's much more manageable with cleaner energy sources like renewables, especially as battery tech continues to get better and cheaper.
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Not sure what Morrisons was thinking as there was no need to mention the EU on the package if it was made in the UK, they simply could have said made in the UK or something like that, mentioning it's not got EU in it sounds like an anti EU stance which is strange considering that half the UK population is against Brexit. Businesses should be careful to not mix politics with business as it can backfire and they can lose customers, especially when half the UK population doesn't like this and many of them likely saw this as an anti EU stance.
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I'm British and I would love for the UK to rejoin the EU, but realistically, I don't see it happening for decades. For one thing, support is growing for rejoining the EU, but a lot are under the impression that rejoining means rejoining under the conditions we had before, that won't happen, if the UK rejoins, they will be joining everything at that time, including the Euro and Schengen, and there won't be any op-outs. Once the British people understand that, support for rejoining will likely drop, and for me, I support rejoining and signing up to everything, but realistically, I don't think most Brits will be ready for that and it could take some time before they are. Realistically, the UK has a better chance of rejoining the single market and custom union, something that might be possible in less than 10 years if both sides work at it, but rejoining the EU is likely going to be much longer than that and honestly, the UK should never have left the EU, but I think they needed to leave to really damage the credibility of the Eurosceptics in the UK, which Brexit is doing just that.
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What we should remember is that Europe was getting around 50% or more of it's gas from other sources than Russia before the war in Ukraine, that percentage has gone up since the war. When you take into account the gas they are buying from other countries, the gas storage level and the cuts to consumption, it looks like Europe should be fine through winter and as winter eases, it gives them more time to adapt for next winter. Russia tried almost everything they could to divide the west and Europe but it looks like it's failed, the good news is that there is little chance of going back, Russia has lost Europe as a customer for the most part and that cost is in the trillions over the many years. There is also the factor that as Europe becomes more secure on energy, the EU and US could get a lot tougher on countries that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, maybe with tariffs on goods to the amount they are profiting on cheap oil and gas from Russia, after all, the western market is far more valuable to them than Russia is and it's highly unlikely that the west is going through all this only for the likes of China and India to prop up the Russian economy, I think the west are waiting on the EU to secure it's energy away from Russia before pulling that card out with the aim of total isolation of Russia from the world. As for Russia and if they are attempting to sabotage European infrastructure, that could very easelly be seen as a declaration of war against EU and NATO countries, if the EU and NATO gets directly involved, things would get a lot worse for Russia and maybe the world as well. But truth is, the damage is limited for now but if Putin tries to escalate a lot more, the EU and NATO would have to get more directly involved militarily and considering how poor Russia have been in Ukraine, I don't fancy Russia's chances against the EU and NATO and considering how Russians reacted to mobilization, I don't fancy Putin's chances of survival if he escalates this into a direct war as that will impact Russians a lot more in a direct way, but truth is, Putin is finished and desperate, he's clutching at straws, desperate for the EU to back down on all this, remember that Russia only has reserves for about 18 months going off estimates, in other words, the damage being done to Russia is likely going to skyrocket late next year. As for that adverts from Russia in Spain, it's funny because Russia tends to be a lot colder than Europe and more so Spain, why would anyone from Spain or the west of Europe want to move to Russia with everything going on? but in any case, winters tend to be mild in a lot of Europe, where I live in the UK, we rarely need the heating on because it doesn't get cold enough but that's mostly thanks to the house being well insulated, so we tend to only need heating for about 2 or so days per year, which is nothing really, also like many others, we've cut our consumption, it's remarkable how easy it is to cuts 5% or 10% without changing our lifestyles with a bit of thought put into it and the good thing is, many Europeans are going to carry these habits on after the energy crisis.
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This is where reality will eventually kick in, we in Europe have very few limited choices, we can further integrate and pool resources together, which will allow us to protect our political, economic and social interest around the world, especially in a changing world with the US and China, which quite frankly, are going to ignore the EU countries at an individual level because they are too small and there voice doesn't carry much weight, but at an EU level, well that depends on how much of a say we give the EU, and the EU voice carries far more weight because of the pooled resources of all its members. Like you said, there's only two ways I see it going, either we further integrate or we disband, if we disband, then we more or less become irrelevant in the world, if we integrate, then our voice will carry a lot more weight than it does even now. The real question is, there are many different ways to integrate, some better than others, and it's important that if we do, we do it the right way that's fair for its members and the people, but either way, many of the policies of this party are clashing with reality and intentionally left vague.
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I suspect it's all the sugar in the food and drinks that's the cause, it usually makes you want to drink more. Also, Europeans tend to be more active than Americans and usually eat natural, fresher, healthy food which contains more water in it than junk food
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@christianstachl It's probably best to switch, but it depends on your situation. If you're quite deep in a project, then it's probably best to continue working on that in Unity, unless you're willing to go through the porting process, which can be quite time-consuming depending on the size of the project. But any new project or if you're just starting out, I wouldn't do it in Unity, even if they roll things back, because trust has been lost and they've shown their hand. So if you're just starting out on a project or just learning, it's best to switch before you waste too much time, but if you're knee-deep in a project, it's probably best to continue with that project through Unity, unless you're willing to go through the process of porting the game across to another engine, either way, any new projects, it's best to switch.
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@rosh3000 That's fair enough but that isn't as easy to do with the EU, you have so many different countries, different languages and all that, but I do think in the long run, the EU needs to go pan-European with elections, political parties and all that trying to win our votes all over the EU, the problem is now, too many see things from a lens in their own country and not pan-European, that is what really needs to change to have more democracy in all this.
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Simply answer is no, for all the noise that the likes of Russia and China like to make, the results of their actions have to have a positive impact on a lot of people around the world for it to have any real impact on the world order. For all the faults of the world order we have today set by the west, especially the EU and US, it's still far better than what Russia or China is offering and to change the world order, you need to get a lot of countries onside, the EU and US are in a far better position to do that then Russia and China is and seriously, what is Russia and China really offering? threats?, intimidation? very weak foundations in changing the world order, in other words, Russia and China are no threat to the world order because they don't really offer anything better than the system we have in place and unless they do, good luck convincing enough countries to change that order. In fact, I'll go one step further, Russia is lashing out now because it's not getting it's way, China is smarter than Russia and playing the long game but even then, it's not offering anything better than the west is offering, that's what really counts in all this and until anyone else offers a better system then the world order we have, countries are going to continue to line up behind the EU and US, probably more so now with Russia trying to destabilize things.
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They seem to have many policies that conflict with each other, like they want more EU and don't want more EU, and too many things are left a bit vague, which doesn't encourage me to want to vote for them. As for Belarus, I wonder what the views are from the people of Belarus, we all know what the government thinks, but as we know, there are two sides to every story, the government and the people, if there is enough support among the people to want real change, then I can see merit in supporting that, but it won't be easy with the current government and because of Putin, which the last thing he will want is to lose Belarus, which for Putin, he sees them as a satellite state, basically, a country that does as it's told and does Putin's bidding, so unless there's a major uprising from the people, I don't see much changing.
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Speaking of which, A.I. could very well change the rules in favour of countries that don't speak English natively, because A.I. eventually won't have any real issue translating movies into any language and making it seem very natural in the voice of the same actor. Basically, it could level the playing field which would mean movies, tv shows and so on from other languages could get far more exposure and compete directly with English-speaking movies and with how quickly A.I. is developing, it could happen over the next decade, and if it does, that's going to bring a lot more competition to the movie and tv show industry, where English-speaking studios could lose out as others gain. The same could happen for music and other contents, all of which is going to be great for consumers because it will mean a lot more choice and could improve the quality across the board and maybe lower the price as there will be a lot more competition. Honestly, I'm looking forward to this, a new injection of blood in the media could do wonders, especially with how crap Hollywood movies are getting nowadays.
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It depends, we are getting close to where many of us can generate most if not all our energy needs on-site, especially homeowners and small businesses. The interesting thing about that is the panic going around to upgrade the electric grid to cope with higher demands as EV's and heat pumps are thrown onto the electric system, the irony being is that by 2035, I can see a lot more of us being able to generate our own energy without being connected to the grid with how cheap renewables are getting, and the tech is going to continue to get better, and once we have cheap and good enough solutions to store enough energy, we could end up in a situation where many of us go gridless, putting less strain on the grid network, energy storage is the key which will have ripples effect across the entire energy industry in favour of renewables.
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That wouldn't work that well-being as there are too many countries, and more likely to join. But what could be done better is a more balanced approach to the EU Commission, for one, it's high time it's directly elected, two, a lot more of the key positions in the Commission could be more evenly spilt over the EU members, but that will never be perfect because you want to pick the right person for the job and not because of what country they come from.
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@deviantaffinity1626 The reason that still happens in the US is to protect greedy corporations and you only have to look at the key corporations that benefit from that, the truth is, they are screwing over the American people by playing on their hate of anything but capitalism and the irony is, we are seeing a kind of socialism in the US now, but it's for the rich elites only like the stock market and big corporations, funny how they change their tune when it benefits them but the average American isn't really benefiting from that, they are more or less getting crumbs, compare that to what is going on in Europe and it's clear to see something is wrong in the US.
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@deviantaffinity1626 That's true, there is a lot more to it, I think the US could learn a few things from the northern European countries and in fact countries in the south of Europe could learn a few things from the north in so many areas.
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@deviantaffinity1626 But that is by design, the system is design to keep Americans ignorant of what is going on around the world, hence why so many Americans don't have passports and why so many know very little about what is going on around the world apart from what the system tells them, it's designed like that because the system can feed them any information they want and most will want to buy into that because it sounds good but in a lot of ways, it's lies and that is doing harm to the American people.
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That's where the real problem is but the EU needs reforms and to be given more powers in key areas for it to be effective. The problem we're actually seeing in Europe isn't the EU's fault, it's the members that are pulling in different directions whiles always being worried about domestic issues, something the EU wouldn't have to worry about if it had the powers to deal with the situation. What we are actually seeing in Europe is why we need more EU, not less, to speak with one voice in key areas like the military, forign policy and energy matters, until we Europeans learn that, we're very likely going to go into decline, pushed aside by the likes of the US and China. The simple truth is, the members of the EU are too small to really matter on the world stage and even then, they are all pulling in different directions on many things, in other words, EU countries need to start pooling their resources together a lot more if they want to protect their interest and I think the best way to go around that is with Euro Zone countries. Forget the eastern European countries, they are not ready for that level of integration and that foot dragging is bringing us all down and longer term that's likely going to damage living standards, our political, economic and social interest which will impact living standards in a negative way. The fact is, if we Europeans want to stand up to the likes of the US, Russia, China, we're going to have to band together and not argue over such petty things like we keep doing, the alternative is decline.
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It's not so much about the EU hating big tech but more about the EU listening more to the public interest, big corporations rarely do what's in the interest of the public, in fact, history has shown it to be the other way around where they harm public interest with buying up smaller rivals to give consumers less choice and higher prices, they also try to monopolise the market they are in, giving consumers little to no choice, they also make it difficult for smaller companies to compete, which smaller companies and many of them usually gives the public more choice at a lower price point compared to bigger companies, unless they have major competition in that given sector. In the end, a lot smaller to medium size companies would likely benefit us all compared to having a few massive big corporations that control everything. We should also remember, the EU goes after far more companies in the EU then it does US tech companies, it's just that you tend to hear about the big tech companies in the news a lot more, so this has little to do about the EU going after US tech companies, they go after big companies in general, from around the world. The simple truth is this, in the US, lobbying has got to such a level that big companies almost have a free ride in the US and can do almost what they like, the US government has become weak when it comes to regulating its own companies that it's taking outsiders to do it for them, and it's not just the EU, a lot more countries are getting tough on big companies and it's long overdue, considering the power and consolidating that big companies have been doing over the last few decades that if left unchecked, it could become a threat to the public and even democracy its self.
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In the end, we are all human so really what does it matter if white or black, we are all more or less the same.
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Sometimes people only learn when something bites them on the arse, in other words, the UK needed Brexit to happen so that a reality check kicks in. That was needed because there have been a massive push from many UK governments and much of the media in the UK to make the EU look bad, that's been going on for decades, and when you throw in the fact that not much is reported on the good the EU does for its countries and citizens, I'm honestly surprised it was only 52% that voted to leave. We tend to learn a lot more from our mistakes not our success, the UK is finding that out the hard way, and who knows, maybe over a few decades, they'll have turned over a new leaf, with a more balanced public, media and government when it comes to the EU.
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@midas1929 I agree that direct democracy would be the best form of democracy but you need a better educated and well-informed population that takes note of what is going on in politics and I also feel that voting should be mandatory for everyone of voting age as politics impacts us all. Anyway, if it works over there, great and over the longer run, I do suspect more European countries will go that way but many things will need to change before that can happen, the media will need to be clean up a lot, politics would need to be cleaned up, the voting public will have to be better informed on what they are voting on. Some European countries could do that already but countries that are a along way from that is the UK and US, giving the people more direct say with all the information they are being fed would likely end badly as we've seen on Brexit and as we are seeing in the US with Trump.
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True, it's highly unlikely that Europeans will go back to Russia for it's oil and gas buying and even if they did, it very likely would be short term till they find alternatives. It's like this, if you were a business and your supplerer threatens you, would you continue to buy from them? Unlikely, you would seek out alternatives from them. Russia has more or less lost Europe as a market for at least a decade and by the time trust is back, it will be too late for Russia as Europe will be well on it's way with it's alternative energy sources.
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Wasn't always for Europeans but world war two was a major wake up call for many in Europe and it really shows, the irony is that the US and UK didn't benefit from that major wake up call because the Nazis did't take over thoes countries.
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We also voted for cake and eat it with cherries on top and I don't see that happening as well so Brexit is still up in the air.
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I suspect the Eurosceptics don't want a more democratic EU because it will make it a lot harder for them to argue their case against the project, which is basically, many of them don't want the EU project full stop. The way the EU is now, makes it a lot easier for Eurosceptics to make their case and point out the flaws, a more democratic one would actually be worse for them because it would weaken the hardcore Eurosceptics whiles pulling a lot of the moderate ones away from them. Personally, I do think the EU needs to connect more with the people and I do think there needs to be more involvement from the EU and the people as the EU feels very distant for many Europeans and it's that what is fuelling the Eurosceptic movements. Reforms to the EU are needed but we don't want to copy another system that is already there like the US or UK because both look like a poor democratic system that rarely seems to listen to the people. Europeans in the EU have a golden chance to create a new much better democratic system if they fight for it.
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@stalker5299 Ture and it's expanding and when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense to do it slowly as a transitional effect because it's easier for people to get their heads around it.
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@rw3899 I suspect by 2050, the EU and most of it's members could be on the verge on some kind of United States of Europe or some federation, a lot of younger generation of people are much more open to the idea of integration than older generation of people so it might just be a matter of time and with all that, the quality of living should take a boost with the efficiency improvements of integration.
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The pandemic, as damaging as that was, it's very short term and limited, Brexit on the other hand is long term damage and there are no easy ways to fix that. It's quite alarming how some of the media and both the Conservative and Labour Party don't pipe up about that, both parties are playing right into the hands of the independence movements in both Scotland and Northern Ireland because they are simply not listening to what a lot of the real cause is and that is Brexit. Hence why I didn't expect much change with Sunak being in power, I don't expect much change from Labour being in power until they are willing to open up and admit Brexit is the problem and start changing course accordingly. In any case, don't expect things to get better for another decade or at the earliest, at the next election, but considering that Labour are going with the slogan of making Brexit work, things don't bold well for the UK regardless of which party is in power.
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They do have scale, at least in the EU, companies have open access to the EU market of all its members, so over 450 million people. Regulation isn't even that much of an issue. There are two things that are really needed for a tech boom to really take off in the EU, one is the political drive to make it happen and two is having an EU capital market.
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Basically it's deception to fool the people into thinking they are one thing when they are something else, it reminds me of military marches where the ones that do it like Russia, China and a few other countries do it to show power but countries that really have power don't have to show that, it's a primitive way of thinking but that's how some countries are but that is also the reason why those countries are developing countries.
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@grumblewoof4721 They are not openly supporting Russia, well apart from the government of Hungary, but people will get angry because of the high energy prices and that could lead to protest movements around Europe, either way, it's highly unlikely that many if any of these European countries will want to buy oil and gas from Russia after this, all the trust has gone and Europeans will actively continue to look elseware for it's oil and gas whiles boosting renewable energy production long term. In any case, if we did as some countries suggested in the early days and stopped buying oil and gas from Russia, things could have escalated very fast in a negative way, even leading to war and at the end of the day, what was needed was to buy time to adapt. In any case, once European countries diversify away from Russian oil and gas enough, that's when Russia is very likely going to pay a high price because the hold out countries will likely get more onboard to punish Russia and at the end of the day, each country had its own exposure to Russia at different levels, I don't blame them for wanting to buy time but I do feel that the west should have got a lot tougher on Russia after they took over Crimea, the west, from the US, UK, EU did very little that amounted to a slap on the wrist for Russia, that's where the real mistake was which lead to Russia thinking it could take all of Ukraine because the west has been a soft touch on Russia for the last decade, so there is a lot of blame to go around.
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@DenUitvreter That's true, more needs to be done on democracy with the EU and connecting better with the people, but such a low voter's turnout doesn't look good for democracy, basically, less than half of the voting age public are being represented, and this is assuming that the polls are right with voters turnout rising compared to the last elections. In the end, a democracy is only as good as the people turning up to vote and having the facts on what they are voting on, the pattern in western countries from Europe to North America is showing a poor record on both accounts. I wouldn't say that's a threat to democracy but it's not helping the democratic case, in fact, from what I've seen, it allows the more radical elements in society to take power, which might be why the far right are doing so well, less voter's turnout, likely opens the door to the radical elements to do better, especially as they are more likely to vote because they are angry and a lot of the times it's a protest vote. The same more or less happened in the UK with Brexit, a lot of voters that wanted to stay in the EU thought we were never going to leave so didn't bother to vote, the Brexiteers on the other hand were not going to miss this once in a lifetime chance to leave the EU so they came out in force, the end result is they won because the remainders took it too lightly and are paying the price for it ever since. I also find it amusing how hostile Brexiteers were to having another vote, they likely know that the remainders would come out in numbers, so they didn't want to give them that chance, that's democracy, Brexiteer style lol.
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@heldenopfern5605 Probably about 2 years for things to really settle down but we should remember, Russia lose is a massive opening for other countries around the world to benefit from, after all, with EU countries reducing the buying of oil and gas from Russia, that leaves the door open for others around the world to fill that void but they have to act quick because the window is short and contracts for these things tend to be long term. Basically, other countries that produce oil and gas are licking their lips at selling to the EU market, being as it's a massive rich market. It's highly unlikely that Russia will ever get EU countries to buy oil and gas from them after this and especially because by the time trust has returned, EU countries will likely be on the way generating a lot more energy inside their countries by alternative means. Normally this kind of change would take many years, a decade even but because of the situation and desperate need to find an alternative source, it will happen a lot quicker than people think, especially because this is a massive opening for countries that do replace that oil and gas from Russia to make a lot of money, we are talking hundreds of billions per year, hence why that void will get filled up quickly. As for the coming winter, yeah things will be tight, people will have to tighten their belts but overall, things will likely be fine, it's highly unlikely we'll see power cuts or freezing homes this winter like some of the media like to scare people.
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Yep, you get one set of ads every 15 mins in the UK and I think in most of Europe as well, ads tends to last longer than they do in the US, about 5 mins but that's better because it allows you enough time to make a drink, something to eat or go to the toilet. In the US, it felt like you get around 10 or 15 lots of ads per hour lol, it might be a bit less but it was a lot, compared to the UK and I think the rest of Europe where it's 3 lots of ads per hour, unless you are watching something that drags on longer than an hour then more than most of us don't watch ads at the end of an hour-long show lol. So basically, an hour-long show has 3 lots of 5 min ads which is far better than the US where ads are almost constant.
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It's always better to play it safe when it comes to the foods we eat, the EU does that whereas the US seem to have it where it's got to be proven unsafe to not sell on the market. The truth is, food poisoning is much higher in the US than it is in other developed countries, especially EU countries which have high food standards. I also have to wonder if any of this has any impact on fat levels of people, the US clearly has a problem compared to other developed countries, that might just be bigger positions, but lower food standards in the US could also play a part. At the end of the day, the US is very capitalistic, money is all that matters, if they can cut corners to reduce the price of things to generate more money for businesses, the US seems to allow that regardless of safety issues with consumers, the EU on the other hand is much tougher on these things and I prefer how the EU does it by putting people first.
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Humans only think they are bad arses because we are comparing ourselves to ourselves and what we know on this planet, in reality, we likely mean little to nothing to a alien race and they likely think of us humans as very primitive, not so much in a technological sense even thought we likely are in that as well but in how we think of ourself and our arrogance of our place in all of this.
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You do realise that all countries end up giving up their veto rights, it's not just the small members. Besides, what are the alternatives? As the EU stands, there's no way it can expand with new members, Poland and Hungary have been a massive warning message on why reforms are needed. In any case, I can see this going two ways, one is that all EU members find a solution to do reforms, even if it means watering them down, the alternative is that a core group of EU members could move ahead without the rest, a two speed Europe in other words, if that happens, that will put the outer core countries at a major disadvantage, especially the smaller ones.
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Thats true and thats why the vote is being invalidated because we don't know how many of the leave voters voted leave thinking we would stay in the single market and/or custom union and the only way to find that out is to have another vote, something the hardliners fear because they know the lies they told to get us into this mess are not likely to work a second time round now that the British public knows a lot more about Brexit.
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Well as we know, talk is cheap, we keep hearing a lot of whats they will do but not what they going to do and so far the UK keeps backtracking on a lot of what it's saying because reality is kicking in, the same is slowly starting to kick in with Italy now that they are rolling back on some of the things they said before the elections, it's easy to say they will do this or that, it's another thing putting it into action want the markets have there say and thats what we are seeing in the UK. The truth is, the UK messed up big time with Brexit and we are paying the price for it now, everything keeps pushing us towards a deal like single market and custom union or something like that because we can't find any alternatives that protect the UK and thats what it all boils down to now, limiting the damage done.
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Let's be honest, to a lot around the world, the US isn't that great, it's just the lesser of two evils and China is worse, but honestly, I suspect most would prefer a third option around the world, which realistically, there are only two options, the EU or India and to be fair to the EU, it does a better job at soft power then the US does, but it's much weaker on hard power when needed. We should also remember that in the developed world, the US is the odd one out in so many areas from social programs, health care, workers rights, food standards, sports we play and lots more, something the EU is doing a much better job on then the US in exporting around the world, simply put, it looks a lot more appealing as a social model over what the US offers, but soft power works in many ways, both the EU and US are good at that but clearly, the EU is winning the hearts and minds of countries in what kind of system they want to develop, which like I said, the US is the odd one out in so many areas compared to almost every other developed nation. At the end of the day, soft power is very effective when you're liked around the world, it's much harder to do if you're not liked, the US have been slipping on that one over the last two decades, but are still better than what China offers, that's left an opening for the EU to take that role. As for China, I think it's zero policy on Covid did the countries reputation a lot of damage, after all, it's all well and good saying you're going to shut down your economy, but China took it way too far that many countries are not actively looking for alternatives to set up a lot of their manufacturing or planning on bringing a lot of it back home, basically, China's zero policy on Covid, made them an unrealieable trading partner and that, as well as lack of trust in China, is pushing many to pull their business out of China to safer options.
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More likely that Putin saw it was going to happen and wanted to get the foot in first, European countries have been reducing what they buy from Russia from month to month and it's not hard to see where it was going over the next year or 2, this is just speeding up the process but it was going to happen anyway, the irony is, this kinda helps the EU because they wanted to do this but some EU members didn't, this forces the matter so real change can happen. Longer term, this is doing a lot of harm to Russia, no country, not even China or India will want to be too dependent on Russia with the games they are willing to play and it's unlikely Russia will get European countries back onboard, this is massive economic self harm for Russia.
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So guys, which is worse, Sky News Australia or Fox News US? I'm not being funny but both stations have got to be some of the worse I've seen when it comes to reporting the news or in a lot of cases, making the news up to fit an agenda and I've got to feel sorry for the people that buy into it because they are only fooling themselves. It's also funny seeing a lot of the comments not being happy with how the vote went which is ironic because Putin, Trump and Farage would be the first to congratulate Le Pen if she had won lol, in other words, they are taking you for fools just like they did with the UK on Brexit which ironically, is starting to bite hard on us Brits.
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@Gianni I suspect it's shortcuts and pressing needs, especially when you look at the case and death numbers in the UK, I also have to wonder if this Tory government even cares going on everything else that's gone on over the last few years with them on Brexit and the pandemic, after all, this government have shown many times how they seem careless or don't even care about the peoples well-being in the UK from care homes to hospital staffs and so on.
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You also voted for a higher quality of living with cake and eat it and cherry picking but it's clear that the EU isn't giving us any of that hence why many in the UK are having a rethink on Brexit, now if the hardliners deliverd on what they said, the remain side wouldn't have a leg to stand on here but it's clear that Brexit is going to hurt the UK bad so another vote is likely going to get pushed because I suspect thats the only way to solve this mess one way or another.
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The problem with exports of manufactured goods is that A.I. and robotics is on the horizon, then throw in security concerns on China, it's probably not a smart move for China to double down on exports at a time that they need to rebalance the economy to a mix economy that puts more focus on consumerism. To make it worse for China, as the economy developers, there cheap labour isn't what it used to be, other alternatives like India are popping up, and then we have A.I. and robotics that's going to reduce the cost of labour a lot over the coming decades, once you throw in security concerns that manufacturing can be brought home, that puts China in a difficult position unless they do major reforms to the economy, in other words, moving away from manufacturing to a mixed based economy. Either way, I suspect if China doesn't allow wages to rise, other countries around the world are likely going to use more protectionist measures on a sector by sector bases as they adapt overtime, with maybe the exception to green tech as there's an urgency for that tech, but a lot of other sectors are likely in the firing line as other countries will want to build their own manufacturing base because of the security base, and thanks to A.I. and robotics, that's going to become much easier to do whiles getting a lot of the same benefits of cheap labour. Basically, for any modern countries that want to move a lot more manufacturing back home, advancing robotics is likely the key.
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It's not as big of a deal as some would want us to think, yes longer term it could be if things don't stabilise and reverse but it's not a major issue for now. Also, projections on population growth or decline by 2100 means nothing, so many things can change over that course of time that will likely change that outcome, those projections are going on the assumption that nothing changes, but that's not how the real world works, things get countered, depending on need to counter something, for now, it's not that important, but if it grows as an issue, more effort will going into reversing it.
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@stephengraham1153 I agree, the UK could of played a big roll in shaping the EU for the better but the UK have beem putting up too many road blocks which over the long run has lost us a lot of trust.
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@joeshmoe4671 Actually, it could happen a lot sooner than you think, renewable is already cheaper than fossil fuels, now that energy is becoming a security issue, a lot of countries have a big motive to generate as much energy internally. The irony is, cutting oil production, pushes up the price of oil, that makes it less competitive compared to renewable energy and if we look through history, when theres a energy shock, it doesn't last that long, usually about 2 years because the fossil industry panics because a lot more investment in those times happen in renewable. The advantage today is that renewable energy is in a much better position than the past, it's quite cheap, it produces more energy and it's getting better all the time, if the likes of OPEC keeps playing these games, it's going to kill their industry off sooner rather than later. As for some saying it won't happen any time this century, the truth is, the pace of development in any given area, depends on need, if there is a massive need to generate a lot of our own clean energy, it can happen a lot sooner than people think, the truth is, governments have been dragging their feet on alternative energy sources, if energy prices stay high, they won't be able to drag their feet and will have to push hard on alternatives, especially in democratic countries because they answer to the people and they have a low tolerance to high energy prices. Personally, I want fossil energy to stay at a high price, yes it's a bit of short term pain but the long term benefits of that will be massive for us all, history has shown that when there is a need, we can advance more in any given field in just a matter of years that would normally take decades and the truth is, as long as fossil energy is cheap, there wasn't a pressing matter to change, now that it's expensive, watch how quickly change can happen, especially in the west and very likely more so in the EU because of everything that's going on. With that, it's going to be very interesting to see the energy mix over the next decade because I suspect we're going to get some radical changes that would normally take many decades and all it took was Putin to make energy a security issue, got to love Putin for that, he's done what the Greens have been trying to do for decades lol.
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@saxman Oh I don't know, I'm from the north of England and I'm seeing food prices going up and shortage of some food, mostly meat stuff that's becoming a bit harder to find. The real question is, why is the government putting up taxes to fund the NHS? shouldn't that £350 million per week lies fill that void?, that would be 54 billion over 3 years which is more than the tax rises is producing, also, why is Wales only getting 20 million from the UK government when the EU was giving them 400 million per year? That's a massive loss of 380 million per year for Wales. Wasn't Brexit suppose to make us richer? because so far all I'm seeing is that we are becoming poorer.
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@KhaalixD Actually you do, when you join the EU, you are joining all the treaties, there are no op-outs like some countries like the UK got for newer members, they sign up to everything of the time and as for Romania and a number of other eastern EU members, they don't actually qualify for Schengan just yet on the economic front but when they do, they have to join.
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I agree, but then, it doesn't matter as much, because the EU commission can't come out with crazy laws or regulations, because they will need the approval of the parliament to become law, so it's check and balance on the system. But I do think the EU Commission needs to be elected by the people, maybe merged into the EU President and just be called the EU President, that could go along way in beating down the Eurosceptics around the EU that always pick on these areas.
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In politics, the more things change, the more nothing really changes, regardless of who is in power because of political realities that limit what they can and can't do. With that said, I do wonder if Macron might want to either spook the French people to vote for him or maybe he wants Le Pen to win because of that political reality, after all, it's easy to promise the earth on the sidelines, but once in power and reality kicks in, it's another ball game, and basically, you only have to look at the UK with Brexit to see that, a lot of talk and promises were made but very few were kept. Macron might be banking on that if Le Pen wins, it could expose the flaws of the party as times goes by and things don't turn out how the French wanted, in other words, Le Pen will have a short window of one or two terms and the French will expect solid results that benefit the people, if they don't see that or if Le Pen starts to create too many waves that are not in France's interest, it could damage there reputation a lot and maybe even make the party unelectable in the future. I have a feel why so many of the far right parties tone down their policies if they get close or in power, because they likely know they've got one or two chances to prove themselves, mess that up and I doubt the voters will be so forgiven, especially considering that a lot of voters are voting for them out of a protest vote over the mainstream parties, there's a lot of anger around, but now if Le Pen wins, voters will expect results and solid results within the first two-year term, otherwise they could very quickly turn on her, basically, once in power, there's no more excuses and they'll have to do policies based on the realities the country is in, not on wishy-washy talk that anyone can say on the sidelines. As for the European elections, the right did well, but overall, it looks like not much changed overall in the balance of power, with the surprise being how well the EPP did, basically, I don't think much changed, maybe a tougher response of migration and more compromises being done on policies to get things through, but overall, I don't think the far right gained enough to change much, even assuming they actually all work together which is unlikely.
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True, as more renewable energy sources come online, it's going to reduce how much oil and gas is needed for those countries and with everything that is going on in Ukraine and the EU, it's very likely that the EU countries are going to ramp up renewable energy production a lot more over the next decade with the aim of producing most of its energy internally. The pace of change is always dependent on need, before Putin used oil and gas as a political weapon, the EU and many countries around the world could afford to foot drag on renewable energy, now it looks like that is changing where energy security is becoming a real issue and that's very likely doing to reduce the need for fossil fuels a lot sooner than it would have been, especially in Europe and as they do it, others will follow just to stay competitive. Putin's aggressive might have wiped out a decade or more of the fossil industry which is trillions being wiped out over the coming decades for those countries and the funny thing is, countries that buy a lot of oil and gas from external sources and they in time produce a lot of their energy internally by other means would stand to save billions per years which could go to other social programs whereas countries that depend on that fossil energy stands to lose a lot of money. Honestly, it's in the interest of the fossil producing nations to stabilize the price of energy before rich countries go all in on renewable and alternative energy sources, to put it another way, the longer and higher energy prices goes, the quicker that industry is going to kill it's self off with the renewable energy industry being the likely winner, so as painful as it is having these high energy prices, I actually love it because this is what allows real change to happen in a much shorter space of time then it would have happened and the EU countries are primed to take advantage of that because they have to change now.
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@Nonowness Actually it's more to do with not following the rules they signed up too, going on your logic, what if Scotland was to break the rules of the UK union of a German state was to do the same, would you support that? Because that is what you're saying with Poland, unless you're a hypocrite that simply doesn't like the EU.
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I think why it shows a poor showing for the Russian military is because you're in a position that you've got Ukraine surrounded from almost all sides and yet they are making things difficult for the Russians, the west is watching this and analysing Russians capabilities and honestly, it looks weaker than a lot of us expected, now fair enough, Putin is likely holding back, but still, Ukraine isn't exactly a power, they are quite a poor country even by eastern European standards, that Ukraine is able to give them a fight at all is quite impressive and shows that Russian military capability isn't as strong as they would like us to think, it also shows a lot of poor planning. I really have to wonder if EU, US or NATO troops or techs went into Ukraine and how would Russia fare, but honestly, Russia looks weaker than many of us expected that they are finding it challenging to take on a poor country.
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This seems more like a correction to the housing market than a crash, especially with how well housing prices have done the last few years, which is quite normal and we see that on the stock market from time to time.
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@user-gz7cj3zc7x Simply, look at where most of those bailouts are going, it's mostly being used to prop up the rich elites and big corporations, who do you think is paying for all that, it might sound like free money at the moment but it's the average people that will pay it will higher taxes or lower spending and in this case, the burden looks to be really high with how crazy they are going on the printing press, in other words, expect a few years hardship for about 5, maybe 10 years unless that tax the rich a lot more, fat chance of that in the US lol.
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@user-gz7cj3zc7x That's how the system always works throughout history, get us fighting among ourselves so they can run off to the bank, it's much easier for them to manipulate the public when we are divided because they know we are a threat to them if we stand together, hence why they like to keep us fighting among ourselves on anything they can, this trick has been known going back all the way to the Roman times, it's effective and it works but it shouldn't work today with the level of information the public have access too and that it still does, suggest there is something really wrong with public thinking for them to get mislead so easierlly.
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There's not actually anything wrong with the Schengen area, the actual problem is that EU members have control over their outer boarders and immigration policy, which doesn't make sense in a union of open boarders. To solve these problems, these powers really need to be given to the EU to protect the boarders and for it to handle immigration, which a big part of that problem at the moment is that there are different policies from different countries pulling in different directions, whiles the areas that need more help isn't getting enough, a lot of which could be solved more effectively if the powers of these areas were handled at an EU level. So Schengen isn't the problem as such, but it is exposing the problem of having those powers at members level in areas that are transnational.
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And rightly so, as much as I like to feel sorry for them, it's hard to feel sorry for them when they voted in this idiot, the EU and China are playing this game smart by targeting Trump's support base to damage Trump and the Republican party and if Trump pushes with extra tariffs, the EU and China is just going to get a lot tougher on the US, no one is going to win this one and in fact, we all lose.
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Yep, it's not that simply, just like it's not as simply as people saying EU countries should stop buying Russia's gas and oil. What would likely happen if the EU did what many suggest is that gas prices would shoot up across the world and it would be everyone paying a high price, especially the poorer countries and middle classes of the world, hence why gas and oil prices are shooting up already in a lot of countries that on the surface shouldn't be affected by what's going on in the EU, Russia and Ukraine but that's just not how the world works, we're all interconnected and that causes ripple effects on us all, especially for big players like the EU, US and China. So as much as I would love for the EU to ban Russia's gas, oil and coal, I hope people around the world know what they will do for living standards and if they are willing to pay that price because I get a feeling that many think it won't impact them. The truth is, what's needed is time, time to adapt and we should consider ourselves lucky that summer is around the corner so that should ease a lot of the pressure on that and buy us more time to adapt and with any luck, before winter sets in, we should all be in a better position, but yeah, the EU and US have a lot of work to do over the summer.
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Bush didn't help matters with its go it alone thing, even most of Europe distanced themselves from the US at the time and yeah, that is probably a big factor in Putin's changed views on the west, the way the US acted back then.
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@badluck5647 Hungary biggest problem is backsliding on so many things and it's been doing so for some time now, the UK like many have said isn't in the EU any more, but even when they did bend the rules, it didn't take long to pull them back into line, as for Poland, the Polish people voted in a pro EU government that's set out to reverse a lot of the policies of the last government. Hungary is the only one that's been going down this authoritarian path for quite some time now and doesn't look like the people or the government have the will to turn things around, because of that, I think the EU and its members need to find a way to kick Hungary out of the EU, after all, it's not like the people of Hungary have not had a chance to change course, they choose not to take it, that makes Hungary incompatible with EU and it's other members ideals and it's clear to see with how close the country wants to be with Russia.
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@SeedemFeedemRobots It's true thought, just look at the UK, the Conservative Party are the right wing party but they are nothing like the Republican Party lol, Labour which is the left wing party and yet in comparison to the Democrats in the US, the Democrats are more like the Conservative Party than Labour Party, but we do have the Lib Dems in the UK which are more to the left even then Labour is. In the US, the choices are quite limited so it doesn't surprise me that the system screws over the people so much and even the UK doesn't have that much choice compared to many other European countries. Besides, the left and right of politics is defined by the people, like in the UK, when Tony Blair got into power, he got it by re-inventing the party into New Labour but in truth, it just became more like the Conservative Party which says a lot about the people that keep saying they want change but won't vote for change, same is happening in the US.
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If we're going to have more direct democracy, a lot more of the public are going to have to be involved in what's going on in politics and being informed on what they are voting on. A democracy is only as good as the people in it, in other words, the people actually turning up to vote and actually voting on facts, being informed about how things are and not how they want to see things. A badly inform public can actually be worse for a democracy, just look at the UK and US over the last 5 years to see that.
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@dererik9070 Worsening conditions for people always feeds the extreme elements in society. If they really want to reduce the risk of these radical parties, they really need to start sorting out the social, economic issues that people are facing from the lower to middle classes. I always get a sense that a lot of these people vote out of protest for how the main parties are doing things, so a protest vote because people are not happy with how things are and how they are going and feel they are being left behind, and this is happening in many countries in the west, in Europe and the US, and unless they start listening to people and fixing the problems people are complaining about, it could get worse. In the end, reduce the problems people have in life, and they are less likely to vote for the radical parties, after all, the radical elements in society feed on anger, disinformation and division in countries to push their agenda, and over the last 2 decades, there's been a lot of this, being feed by the right wing press to get people angry, and we are getting to the point in some countries where it could become dangerous, the UK had Brexit, but that seems to be calming down, the US seems to be getting more radical, there are popularise movements all over Europe, but many of them are moderating many of their policies to appeal to the mainstream, but in any case, the centrist, mainstream parties need to wake up and solve the issues people are having in society before things get out of hand.
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True and I can't help but think he's using America as a benchmark on how to do things which doesn't work for many other countries around the world. Europe for instance isn't that big on building big corporations and prefers to build small to medium size companies, whereas the US goes for big corporations at the expense of medium and smaller one, personally, I prefer the medium to small companies as they are less likely to dictate terms to governments and there tends to be a lot more of them which is great for competition. I also can't help but feel that the US is trading in democracy for big corporations which more or less rule the country now, great for those companies in it, not so great for the people in the country and probably explains why the US is falling so far behind other modern countries on so many social benefits and rights.
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@davidgreen5994 Russia reminds me of the UK, clinging on to past glories, Europeans in the EU seems to have more common sense on that and realize they are just a middle power that needs the EU to channel more of that power around the world, basically, ones opened their eyes, the other two still have them shut.
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@davidgreen5994 True but not on the scale we have now.
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Actually I do, especially the Euro Zone countries which are the main block in the EU and to stay relevant on the world stage, to protect EU and it's members political, economic and social interest, more integration is needed, many EU countries have integrated more without everyone being onboard, we see that with the Euro and many other things, it's high time that the countries that want to push ahead, can do so, the Euro Zone is the key. As for the EU every being a United States of Europe, well we don't know what we want but never say never, after all, imagine telling the people shortly after the second world war that European countries would live in peace, with freedom of movement, cooperation and having a lot of out rules, laws and regulations done at an EU level for its members, they would think we were crazy and that it would never happy and yet here we are. Pushing on the rest is just a matter of time and on what kind of union the European people want, but if we want to stay relevant on the world stage, more integration is needed.
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The UK did the same thing, everything wrong in the UK was because of the EU, at least that's how they made it seem, now the Brits are getting a reality check that the real problem wasn't the EU and was their own government, I think we need this reality check on Hungary and maybe even Poland, but I think Hungary will do, as I think Poland can be saved but Hungary looks like a lost cause and needs to be ejected from the EU one way or the other.
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I was kinda the opposite, I suspected Russia was weak but I didn't expect them to be this weak, I looked at it based on the economy and military spending, the economy is the size between Spain and Italy, military spending I think is less than the UK or France and far less than the US or China, I put it all together and saw a lot of bark but no real bite and now they are being tested, it doesn't look good for them and it's likely going to get worse for them as the sanctions really start to bite and the Europeans overtime stops buying their oil, gas and coal which would likely have a massive damaging impact on Russia to finance this war, either way, I think Russia is finished now or they are going to be in the pocket of China, I doubt the Russian government or people want either option but unless they pull back on this war, it's looking like it's going to isolate and bankrupt the country. We should also remember that the help the west are giving Ukraine is tiny compared to what they could do, if they went full in on supplying Ukraine, they would likely wipe the floor with the Russian military which would either force them out or if they get desperate enough, nukes could become an option even thought I think that is unlikely but desperate times, you never know, either way, over the year as EU countries reduce the buying of oil, gas and coal from Russia, that will likely have a massive impact on Russia. With all that said, I think the west did many mistakes, they should have got a lot tougher on Russia over the last decade, they should have also had peacekeepers in Ukraine the moment Russia signalled any indications of invading Ukraine, there was a lot of time for the west to make him think twice. I also think with everything that is going on that European countries in the EU really do need to look at security and military matters more seriously with working closer together, integrating more, pooling resources and getting rid of a lot of duplications they have and I think we might start to see that with core EU countries, especially on military, security and energy matters.
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Geographic and Poland's size gives it importance, its population size is around the same as Spain but its location gives it more power because of everything that's going on with Russia. So yeah, Poland could be a key player under this new government, but then, so could Italy or Spain, it really all depends on how constructive a country is over being obstructive, the UK for example when in the EU were an obstructive country and got sidelined a lot by a lot of the other EU members, Germany and France know that you need friends to get things done in the EU, Poland could be heading in the same direction by repairing ties with Germany and France, which should give Poland more clout in directing the EU path and honestly, I think Poland could be a good key core member in helping to shape the EU. We should also remember that with the departure of the UK, there was a vacuum to be filled by another country or two, that opening was there for Italy, Spain and Poland to fill and it's still open, after all, it doesn't have to be 3 countries in that group, it could be 4 or 5, but the countries in it need to be constructive in moving the EU forward, hence why the UK was left on the sideline, because it opposed almost everything, which is ironic, because the same thing is happening to Hungary with them being marginalised, and the key to power in the EU is having friends and being constructive, that rules Hungary out on both accounts but Poland under the new government has a big opening here.
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@outerspace7391 True, especially when it comes to countries like Russia and China which are power hungry, threatening other countries and using hardline tactics, it's high time the countries that can put their foot down on this. Also, maybe a democracy club could be formed where those countries get a lot more benefits on economics, politics and stability.
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American sports are so boring that you need cheer leaders to keep the fans awake lol, the truth is, you have to look at sports on a global context and real football is by far bigger then any other sports, most Americans sports don't do that great outside of America. The facts are the facts, real footbal brings in far more viewers then any other sports.
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That would be great for me, my house has big windows facing south that at a rough estimate in space terms, could probably generate around 900-1000 watts if they work like panels on the roof, chances are they won't generate as much energy, being as they are shades and facing vertical but still, it would generate quite a lot, especially on south facing windows.
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The reality is that if the US wants Europeans to buy more oil and gas from them then they need to be more competative on price, we should also remember that distants plays a part as well, Russia is much closer to the EU, as for Trump saying Germany is controlled by Russia lol, yeah right, everything over the last 10 years says otherwise. So why doesn't Trump just admit it, what he really doesn't like is that Europeans are buying Russia oil and gas and not American oil and gas, thats what this is all about.
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@t.n.h.ptheneohumanpatterna8334 Frome what I recall, the idea behind the EU Coal and Steel Community was designed to make it far harder for its members to go to war with each other as the resources are pooled together, so going to war with an EU country would actually harm your own interest. Today, it's almost impossible to imagine an EU country going to war with another EU country, they are too integrated to make that very difficult to happen, which was a big part of what Europeans aimed for after the second world war, to make sure a repeat can't happen.
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I was wondering how long it would take the hardcore Brexiteers to say bots are pushing these numbers this high, they'll say anything just as long as it goes the way they want it as we've seen over the last two and half years. I suspect these numbers are likely real because we are getting to the point where Brexit is becoming real and it's scaring a lot of Brits across the country so the high numbers are not really that much of a supprise, in fact as it becomes more known, the numbers are likely to keep shooting up. Anyway, I signed it, I told everyone I know that doesn't want Brexit about it and most of them signed it and I suspect a lot of others around the country are doing the same thing and in any event, if that number keeps shooting up the way it is doing, the goverment and parliement would be fools to ignore it because that could be really damaging to them in the longer run as this petitions is already far higher then the last highest one that I know off and it keeps rising by around a million+ per day so far. As for Brexiteers, most of them are moderate but clearly we keep hearing the hardcore Brexiteers shout the loudest and they want us to think that all Brexiteers are like that when that isn't the case. We've seen enough evidence that a lot of Brexiteers don't care now and just want Brexit to be over with even if it means staying in the EU, they've shown over the last two and half years that they are not willing to fight for the Brexit cause like the hardcore Brexiteers want us to think, remainers keep outnumbering them every time with protest march and petitions, maybe all this suggest that the British people don't want to leave the EU like some Brexiteers want us to think and I only see one way to prove that, another public vote.
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In historic context, we are getting so close to being able to produce all out energy needs and to be able to store it, even at a localised level, which I suspect will push most of us to want to go gridless to have more control over what we produce and use, as well as the cost, after all, for all the talk of how much renewable energy is going onto the grid, consumers don't feel like they are benefitting from it in lower bills, which kinda holds back renewable deployment, but gridless or attached to the grid but producing your own energy, you're in control of the energy you produce and the cost. Over the next 2 to 3 decades, maybe sooner, we are going to have a revolution in the energy sector, I suspect most of us will produce our own energy on-site and probably won't need to be connected to the grid, especially once battery tech is better and cheaper and we have a good mix of solar and wind power at a local urban level. That we are getting some downbeat reports or underselling of renewable energy, that doesn't surprise me, the fossil industry is big and they will protect their profits by any means they can and renewable energy is a major threat to them. In any case, I still find it remarkable about all the debates around renewable energy, it's clear that it works and works well, it's a cheap long term form of clean energy, the only issues it has is that we need a buffer of storage energy, but that's quickly developing with better battery tech and other storage innovation, as renewable energy continues to get better and cheaper, and the same for energy storage, it's going to be everywhere that I think it will supple all the energy we need and more. I also think that by 2030 onwards, many countries will supple 100% of their electrical needs and likely export energy, they are also pushing more towards an electrical system with EV cars and heat pumps, meaning, there's going to be far more demand for electricity and far less for oil and gas, this will set off a chine reaction as more countries do it, others will follow until eventually the entire world is clean energy, but I think as tech advances, I don't think it will be grid energy that wins out, it's likely going to be gridless because that gives the owner far more control on what they produce, use and on the cost, that would also have massive savings if we don't have to maintain the grid network, which I think I heard cost around 40% of the entire cost of energy, which if true, that's a lot of money to be saved just there. One last note, I also think renewable energy will be a game changer for developing countries, especially on the African continent, after all, once you can produce enough clean energy for your needs, it's going to be much easier to produce clean water and food, that will open up the door for them to develop in other areas, we'll all benefit from clean renewable energy but developing countries stand to benefit a lot more.
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Capitalism isn't bad as such, but in the US, they've gone too far with it that it's really having a negative impact on citizens, with too much wealth being in too few hands. EU countries are capitalist, but they have a better balance in that there's a lot more social programs and protection, but even there, capitalism is failing people. But don't get me wrong, I'm all for free markets economics, but there needs to be limits because free markets usually means the ones with the brains will eventually hold the majority of the wealth at the expense of everyone else, this is clearly evidence in the US where so much of the countries wealth is in so few hands. Surely there's a better way to have market progress, innovation but a system that looks after all citizens. In any event, with the advancement of A.I. and robotics over the coming decades, we are likely going to need major changes to the capitalist system, as I don't think it would do well as A.I. and robotics ends up taking over the majority of jobs if not almost all jobs, and it's going to be interesting to see how we tackle that problem, which I suspect governments will let things get worse, especially in the US, until things get so bad that it leads onto or close to a revolution that major change is needed. EU countries might fare better on that because they've already got a strong social program in place, they also have the mindset from the people to support it, it would just need expending in the decades to come, whereas in the US, it would need a major overall of a lot of the system, which won't be easy to do when Americans see the cost of that. If I were to say what I think the real problem is, it would be the cost of living, simply basics like housing, food, energy bills and so on are quite the burden, especially on younger generations of people, wages have gone up but so has almost everything else, housing and the running cost of housing is probably the biggest burden for younger generations whereas when I was growing up in the 80's and 90's, it was an easier time in those areas. To put it another way, in the late 80's, if you had a half decent job, you could buy a house in around 5 years, today that is almost impossible unless you've got a really good job, today it would take 10-15 years to do that, unless you get a big mortgage, but then that ends up being another bill you have to pay for years, and another thing I noticed, back then, a single person could afford to buy a house, today that is a lot harder, you need to be a couple to be able to afford to buy the house and the running cost that goes with it. So on the one hand, younger gens have it easy with all the tech and options that are around, but on the other, they are getting a raw deal on the basics that are needed in life.
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Spain is doing pretty decent, they've still got some way to go but I feel Spain will overtake Italy unless Italy gets its political act together
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ricky gore How do you come to that conclusion? lol would love to know, go on, lets see how big of a plonker you really are by giving a good reason why remain would have killed 5 million lol.
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@ai-d3982 Unfortunately, that's the real problem with democracy, it's only as strong as people are in taking interest in it and that's the case at EU, national and local level, we do quite poor at that in the west, especially in the bigger countries, smaller ones seem to do a better job and maybe because they are more inwards looking.
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@Dash101 True and a big part of that was because of the media that reported all the bad but rarely reported the good on it, basically, we mostly heard the negatives about the EU and none of the positives that I'm actually surprised the Brexit results was as close as they were considering all the brainwashing going on. In any case, Brexiteers are of the same mindset even after Brexit, as in they always blame others for their misfortune in life, hence the reason why the UK government is desperate to keep the spotlight on the EU as the bad guy because they know eventually the Brexiteers will want solid results from Brexit, something the government can't deliver on because Brexit was a lie. The problem for the government, a lot of those Brexiteers will turn on them once they realize things are not getting better or have got worse, that's when the Tories really have to worry because the northern regions in England have borrowed the Tories the vote based on Brexit, that won't last unless things get much better in those regions, thats not likely to happen as the Tories have always been about the south and as Scotland and Northern Ireland might leave the UK union in the near future, the government will need more resources to make them happy, meaning the northern part of the UK gets thrown under the bus just like the fishing and farming industry are being thrown under the bus, the irony is that the sectors that voted for Brexit the most are being shitted on the most, I say irony but that was the plan all along by the government, Brexiteers didn't want to see that but now they'll find out the hard way. In any case, things are not going to get better in this country until this government is out of power, they've burnt too many bridges and will find it difficult to repair ties with the EU, in other words, we've got at least 4 or 5 years of decline and maybe more depending what the next government does.
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@paulolsen4430 Trump probably though S was for Spain, when clearly it's South Africa. In any case, as a European, I support this move from Cuba, the US is losing friends fast and from all over the world.
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Wind turbines are so hit or miss on if they work or not or if they are a scam, it's also hit or miss when it comes to the rated power and what power you'll actually get. For these test to be more useful, real world numbers are needed on the average power being generated, the wind speeds over that time and how high the turbine is or if there were any obstacles in the way. Without this kind of information, these videos don't really tell us much. I also find with these smaller turbines, they don't work that well in urban areas, which makes solar a much better choice unless there are wind turbines that can work well in urban areas without having to be really high.
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Because staying in the EU and leveraging it's veto is the only real power it's got, leaving the EU would make Hungary irrelevant, or worse yet, Russia's new play thing lol.
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The EU countries give out more aid money then the US does, also the EU gives out even more then you think because western EU members throw a lot of money to help develop eastern EU members, now imaging if the US did that with say Mexico and how much better that would be, in any case, the US tends to use aid money as a political weapon with countries to get them to do what they want, the EU doesn't as much, either way, it really doesn't matter anymore, all the power and weslth is quickly moving towards Asia so really the EU and US needs each other a lot more then some would like to admit.
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Religion divides seem to be based on wealth than anything else, basically, richer countries having less religion compared to poorer countries and the irony is that we see that in the west with countries like the Republic of Ireland that is slowly becoming less religiose with them becoming more modern, that seems to be the theme around the world, the exception being the US which seems like a weird nation when it comes to religion but even there, you can see the dividing lines from rich states to poorer ones, richer ones tend to have less religion in them. Basically, it seems like giving people more wealth is slowly killing religion.
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@darrenbellenger1 Remember, it was the UK that started this game and it was the UK asking for unrealistic demands, the EU didn't want to make it a game but they are just humouring the UK government now because there is little point in talking any more, in other words, letting the clock run down, letting the UK bluster whiles not really giving the UK government what it really wants, the worse that can happen is hard Brexit but the more likely thing that will happen is the UK government will fold at the last moment like they've done about 3 or 4 times already over the last few years. At the end of the day, the UK isn't that big of a deal any more to the EU and it's members now they are dealing with this pandemic, but for the UK, Brexit has a far bigger impact on us so it's still a big deal even thought we are dealing with the pandemic as well, we can't afford to deal with both whereas the EU can, especially if it's the UK that choose to go that route because politically speaking, it's hard to blame them where it's very easy for us Brits to blame our own government for any hardship ahead.
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I think the real advantage of being in the Euro is that it puts all the members in the same boat where they really have to help each other out for the sake of the currency, that is a big benefit for weaker economies that struggle to do the real reforms needed to keep up but it also means harsh measure will hit them if they don't get to grip with things.
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@pavlinpetkov8984 The UK was never in the Euro, besides, the UK is slowly sinking since Brexit that as a Brit, it wouldn't surprise me if the UK becomes the sick man of Europe. Either way, leaving the EU didn't make things better in the UK like many thought, it actually made things worse, because the real problem was never the EU, it was the UK political landscape and lack of economic structural reforms, which ironically, seem to be going backwards not forward in the UK and probably why public views on the EU among Brits is changing more favourable. Still, the UK has a long way to solve the mess it's got in and I doubt Labour will solve the problem, in fact, I suspect they will put the UK into a lot of debt.
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We've been using induction hobs for about 12 or so years where I live in the UK, before that we used electric hobs, as for the noise he was talking about, ours only does that if you're cooking 3 or 4 pans at the same time and at a high heating setting, cooking 1 or 2 pans on an average setting is quite quiet. For me, the biggest selling point going induction hob is if you're going renewable with solar panels on your house and a decent size battery setup, you could more or less reduce the bill to nothing on cooking on the hob. On another note, since Putin invaded Ukraine, during the summer last year, we did a lot of insulating in the house to reduce how much we need to use heating, anyway, to our surprise, we managed to reduce it so much that we hardly ever need to use heating at all and as long as the temp is 0c-5c and above, we don't need any heating at all and it still feels comfortable inside and even when it's lower than that, you don't need as much heating as it last longer. Basically, all we really use gas for is for the shower and hot water and there are options to move to electric on that. Say what we want about Putin but he's helping to kill gas use a lot sooner than expected and mainly because of how expensive it is to transport LNG and as we know, pipelines are dependent on location, so basically, we're going out of our way to push everything to electric as that fits in nicely with renewable energy. Also, if you do go induction, cooking tends to be quicker, so you have to adapt a little by cooking things for less and for some reason, at least in the UK, they don't tell you on the package how many mins to set it for induction, but it's usually a few mins less than what it says, depending on what you are cooking, but overtime, you get used to it and it becomes second nature.
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Recent polling in Russia, that's a good one lol, considering the government more or less controls everything in Russia, those polls don't mean anything and will always spin it in favour of Putin. The truth is, we don't really know what the views of the Russian people are on Putin and this war, what we do know is that more people seem to be rising up in protest against the war, so much so that Putin came up with some tough laws of 10, 15 years prison terms for people that protest or tell the truth about the war, that's the biggest indicator that enough people are rising up against Putin for that kind of law to come in but if I was Russian, that law alone would tell me something is up and that the government is lying, imagine in a western country that the government tries to punish you for speaking the truth and protesting, especially with a 15 year prison term, that would alarm most people that something is wrong, that the government is lying about something and that they don't want the truth to come out. The brain drain could be a real problem for Russia long term, they can't afford to be losing well-educated young Russians, many of which are heading towards EU countries, Russia already has a declining population problem, this is likely going to make things worse with younger people leaving and the economic harm that's happening in Russia.
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I'm thinking that, as long as the west continues to support and arm Ukraine, they can continue to fight the Russians for quite some time, which will continue to make the war expensive for Russia. Also, if I was from Ukraine, there's no way I would accept any more land lose, where does it end, first it was Crimea in 2014 and now the other regions in Ukraine, I would be willing to fight for all that lose regions, maybe even going as far as fighting for what was lost in 2014 if the west continues to arm and support them. If Ukraine gives up any more land, where does this end?
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For the same reason that most modern countries feel the same. It's not a wealth thing, the wealth is there in all these countries, but the distribution of that wealth is quite poor, and when throwing in other factors like not getting to grips with cost of living, we are seeing a lot of anger in European countries as well as the US. The rise of the far right in Europe, Brexit in the UK, the rise of the likes of Trump in the US, these are all symptoms of a much greater problem in society and a lot of people are angry. We hear it a lot how some countries, the US and UK likes to brag how well the economy is doing, yet all that means nothing to the average person that isn't feeling the benefit of that growth, all they see is cost of living going up, bills, food, housing and so on, and many are finding life becoming harder because of this squeeze, this is especially the case for the lower and middle classes and unless the political mainstream gets to grip with this, the far right is going to continue to rise across Europe and North America that it could rise to dangerous levels if we are not careful. So forget migration, immigration, Brexit, Trump, the far right and all that, these are just side shows that are clouding over the real problems in society as people are getting fed up with the mainstream not delivering, so are voting in the more radical options like Trump, Brexit, the far right, but unfortunately, these radical options are actually making the situation worse, but either way, the mainstream best start listening to the peoples concerns and fast before things really get out of hand.
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That's a good one, a deal with countries that are more or less on the other side of the planet from each other in a world where most countries do most of their trade with nearby countries because it makes economic sense to do so. What's really sad is how some are so deluded to think it can work when in reality, it would probably still be cheaper to trade with the EU with tariffs on goods then it is with Australia with a free trade deal lol. Basically, it's a pipe dream dreamt up by Brexiteers dreaming of the glory days, besides, it's only really England and Australia that would want it because Canada and New Zealand don't seem interested.
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@stonehengeminstrel I'm sure he did but economic says otherwise, it's not that simple to transport food from so far away, cheaply and keep it fresh. A free trade deal doesn't change much on that because we still have the problem of long distance, the reality is, it doesn't make much sense for most companies to trade with each other over such a long distant if they can get it cheaper and more locally, the only time it actually makes sense is with cheap labour or on goods that you can't get from anywhere else. Just look at Australia for example, look at where most of it's trade goes, in fact look at every country on the planet, you'll see that most trade goes with nearby countries because it makes economic sense to do so, this is why the CanZUK is such a laughable idea, at least when you start to look at the logistics of it.
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@sewerrat That doesn't end any debate, people from both Europe and America flock both ways, in fact, the numbers have been going up a lot since Trump got into power, so much so that some EU countries have thought about putting restrictions on how many Americans can move over, especially in the southern countries which seem to have more issues with that. Either way, immigration has been a major problem in EU countries now for almost 15 years because too many people want in but Europeans are turning against letting so many in. In any case, for the average citizen, quality of life is what really matters, not the wealth of rich corporations or how many millionaires there are or what the unemployment numbers are, these have little impact on the average citizen in the EU or the US, and the simple fact is, European countries dominants on quality of life, hence why they dominant the top 10, whiles the US is actually slipping further behind on that since Trump and continuing to do so under Biden, there are countless research papers, studies online that shows these indicators, heck even a lot of Americans that have moved to Europe say the quality of life is better in Europe over America.
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Jedediah, they wont get to wiggle out of it, many Brexiteers seem to think that after Brexit, thats the end of it and we wont hear anything on it anymore, if anything, thats the start of it, the Brexit debate will likely go on for years after Brexit because the remainers will want to make sure that the Brexiteers are held accountable to everything that goes wrong with it if Brexit goes badly wrong, it will likely mean us rejoining the EU again a decade later or so if Brexit goes wrong and the remainers keep them to everything they promised us.
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All the remainers are doing is holding the leavers to account on what they promised us, I've not seen them weaken our hand with the EU because in truth, we didn't really have much of an hand to begin with. The irony is that the EU seems to do best when it's in crisis mode and allows for real change, we should also remember that a lot of the problems the EU and it's members are facing, the US is facing also, this is a much bigger problems thats affecting a lot of the west not just the EU and to me it boils down to inequality. As for Brexit, the EU have really not had to do anything, just wait and listen to whats going on in the UK which seems to be all consummed by Brexit and doesn't seem to know what it want. I have to say, the way the UK is acting, you would think they want to join the EU not leave it because they seem to want all the benefits of EU membership but can't seem to accept the cost of it, this is why the EU isn't bending to the will of the UK because what they are asking for is too high, the EU was never going to give the UK any cake.
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What's laughable is that I don't think any EU country on its own can be a superpower, whether that be economic, political or military. The EU is there for a reason, so these European countries can compete better with the likes of the US and China. In other words, the EU is already a superpower in economic terms, but it's not in military terms because it's fragmented, but it could become a military superpower if they got together and pool resources, but on their own, the best they can hope for is modest military status and to be blunt about this, the western EU countries can't become a military superpower, never mind the eastern ones which are weaker economically. Seriously, this channel is getting a bit deluded on all this superpower status, when the truth is, to be a superpower, you need a big economy with a big population, Poland doesn't qualify on either, unless it's willing to spend more than it can afford, in other words, putting its people out, which probably won't go down well with the people.
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@thomasmerlin4990 True, from the sidelines, it's easy for them to say anything they want, but when close to power or in power, reality kicks in on what agenda they can realistically push, hence why a lot of these popularise parties have not been much of a threat. A lot of these popularise movements are gaining votes because a lot of people are angry with the established parties, so basically a protest vote, but that's a long way away from wanting to leave the EU or the Euro and more likely want to reform it. In the end, it all boils down to what the people want, if they are very Eurosceptics, so like the UK have been for decades, then there can be a problem, but most are just protest votes for how things are, which is basically what was going on in the UK, a protest vote for how things were going over the last decade and half, in the case of the UK, it was easy for them to blame the EU, they've been blaming the EU for decades on almost all the wrongs in the UK, now with Brexit, that fell flat on it's face where the British are starting to realise that the real problem were not the EU but the national governments in the UK, but in the case of the UK, they had to learn that lesson the hard way, it's unlikely any other EU member will want to follow that example. The irony is about the UK, they left the EU at probably the worse time they could, the US is going off the rails, becoming more erratic and less predictable, then we have Russia stirring things up, and then we've got China, if there were ever a moment that Europeans need to band together, now is it.
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Out of all the powers in the world, the EU seems to be the only one making much sense, the US is going off the rails, Russia is playing up to it's old tricks and China is trying to be seen as the good guy with a lot of misinformation, so far the Europeans for the most part are the only ones of the big players that have not gone off the rails yet. The EU is also pragmatic unlike the US, they know they have to work with China because of the size of the market and trade is important on that count, in other words, the EU is playing the smart longer game whereas the US is playing to start a Cold War with China.
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The simple answer is yes, if the code improves on the current work, it will likely be accepted, but even if they didn't accept A.I. code, how would they know if it's human or A.I. code? Valve just recently got into a huff with A.I. on its store front, at first banning it, but I knew they would have to back track because it's going to be almost impossible to prove if work is done by humans or A.I. and considering that A.I. is going to be used everywhere, it would be crazy to not accept that work if it's better than what's already there. For the time being, A.I. code is likely to be worse than human code, especially from a pro, but that is likely to change overtime where A.I. code becomes better than most human code, if not better than the best, so for now, it's handy for people that are not good coders or are just learning, but eventually, I suspect it's going to code better then even the best.
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There is little risk of war with Finland, they are an EU member and a war with Finland would be a war with all the EU members with how integrated they are, heck there is a much better chance of Russia going after a NATO country than an EU country but Finland wanting to join NATO adds another layer of security to the country so it's a wise move on their part. Still it would be bold of Russia to try and take on an EU or NATO country with how that could quickly escalate into a major war, after all, an attack on a NATO member would more or less force other NATO members to get involved otherwise it would discredit the NATO organization and as for the EU, shortly after the second world war, the Coal and Steel Community was born with the intention of preventing war from happening among its members by pooling resources together, it works the same way for countries that attack an EU member, in a sense, an attack on any EU member is an attack on all and unlike NATO, the EU members are far more interpreted into each other so the cost would be felt by all which would compel them to get involved. So basically, there is no panic in Finland like the video wants us to think, but as I said above, joining NATO is a wise move to add that extra layer of security.
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If I recall, Putin won by 87%, now does that sound like a fair election?, to put it another time, when was the last time you remember seeing anyone win an election by that percentage in a democracy? It's almost impossible or at the very least, very rare, even landslides are quite rare and they are only around 70% It's highly unlikely that 87% of the votes went to Putin if the democracy was fair, which we know it wasn't because opponents could not compete without fear of being killed or jailed, in other words, Putin got 100% of the vote and there was no risk of him losing the election, it was all designed for show to the Russian people to make them think they have a say, they don't, hence the 87% was to make it seem voters could vote for others, and the reality is, it was a forgone conclusion, we all knew Putin won before the election started, because Russia is a dictatorship. Still I do find it amusing how the state has to try and make it seem legitimate to the people by having an election, the state is taking the Russian people for fools, and you really do have to wonder with its history, when are the Russian people going to wake up and fight for better conditions for themselves, history does suggest that the Russian people prefer to be ruled over them to control their own lives, which is a shame, because Russia as a country, has so much potential, but it's never going to realise that potential under a dictatorship, after all, countries that are democracies are not so power and rich by chance, they are because the state empowers the people, and the real power is the people. Putin likely inflated the numbers because he wants to conscript more Russians into the war, he'll probably use this popularity as a motive to do so, the real problem for Putin, one the one end, the election likes to show he's popular, but if the Russian people protest or riot in big numbers because of not wanting to be part of the war, it would suggest that he's nowhere near as popular as the election makes out, after all, with that level of popularity, there should be very little resistance to the government, so it's going to be interesting to see how desperate Putin gets over the coming years.
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Chasing Unicorns , not two years as I doubt the EU would let us back in for at least a decade, they are going to want to make sure views with the public really change before even entertaining the idea of letting us back in and considering any EU member can block us from joining, it might take far longer then a decade, once we are out, we might have a hard time getting back in and clearly it will be on diffrent terms then we have now. I think the best thing the UK can do now is stay close to the EU and that likely means staying in the single market and custom union, that would make it much easier for the UK to rejoin someday, apart from that, I see little chance of the EU letting us stay and even if the UK had a vote and voted to stay in the EU, it's not a given that the EU would let us stay, I suspect there would be a price we have to pay for the mess we've created over the last two years and I suspect it will be losing some or all of the op-outs the UK enjoys now. In other words, I highly doubt the UK can just change it's minds and thats the end of it, the EU are unlikely to do that because other EU members could threaten to do what the UK did with no risk as they could change thier minds also, so the UK is already paying a price on Brexit, the real question is how high that price will be.
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@2909dk It wouldn't surprise me if the EU would want to let them both join at the same time. As for Turkey, it would be a wake-up call for them, countries don't just join the EU because they want to join the EU, there are a lot of political and economic reforms needed to join the EU, Turkey keeps making excuses up, dragging its feet on reforms, blaming the EU for not letting them in, they've even been going sideways and backwards over the last decade. If you look at the history of countries that joined the EU, there's a pattern when it comes to speed, the countries that do the reforms needed, join far sooner compared to the ones that drag there feet and make excuses, Turkey is a long way from joining the EU because of the actions of the current government, which is actually going backwards on the reforms, and even when Turkey was making progress, it was painfully slow, in other words, they've only got themselves to blame for the current situation.
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When it comes to the economy, I usually ignore most of what's being said on it, especially from the UK and US, the economic growth stats don't reflect on what's going on with the real people, and unless the people are feeling that growth, it might as well not exist. There's a reason why Brexit in the UK, Trump in the US and the rise of the far right are happening across Europe, a lot of people are not happy with how things are going, the economic data is saying one thing, but the reality of what people feel is another, and we need a new system that measures growth from the bottom up that actually improves the quality of life, because governments talking about how well GDP growth is doing or how low unemployment is, means nothing to the average person. But seriously, the UK and the US have been beating the drum on high growth and low unemployment for well over a decade now, and yet they both seem to have a lot more social issues and anger from the people when it comes to voting, clearly something is not right and the numbers are not telling us the real figures. In the end, we need a new measure of measuring growth that works from the bottom up to life standards for the low to middle classes onwards, in a way that's measurable that improves the quality of life, because GDP per capita numbers are not working, and would only work if the system was fair where everyone had there fair share of the slice of the economy, which is clearly not the case in the US or the UK which have quite a lot of inequality.
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True, but the unintended consequences are with the smaller players will find it much harder to compete, it's easy enough for the EU, US or China to do the same thing but a lot of smaller countries around the world don't have the muscle to do this and if we are not careful, a lot of countries could do a lot of protectionist policies to protect themselves, which could unravel free trade, something that would actually hurt the US and others. I don't think the IRA has been well-thought-out from the US and the can of worms that this can open up.
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I remember a lot of so called expects on the EU when it comes to Russian oil and gas, before the war and even early in the war, they said it was more or less impossible for the EU to shift away from Russian oil and gas and that it would take at least 5 years, the EU did it in around 8 months. It's impossible to know how the EU or US would respond, but one thing I do know, the path of change can speed up rapidly if the need arises. China very likely wanted to see how the west would respond with Russia's war in Ukraine, if it was a soft touch, China might have tried to take Taiwan on, but because of how tough the EU and US have got on Russia, it's likely give China a moment of pause on Taiwan and let's make no mistake about it, Taiwan is more important than Ukraine is to the EU and US, the response would likely be tougher, maybe even direct.
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I hope you realise, it won't change anything, if you look through history of left to right wing politics, which always swings every decade or so, not much actually changes, and the truth is, people that give one side or the other a chance, get fed up with them because they don't deliver, then they give the other side a chance and then they don't deliver, it's a cycle we love to keep repeating in the west, hoping for some radical changes that rarely happen. Now the swing is to the right, but it won't really change much, there are, after all, political and economic realities that both sides have to abide with, in any case, the swing from left to right always happens every few elections or decade or two, but if you check through history, not much changes, a lot of promises will be made but not much changes, anyone here old enough will have seen it all before.
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I think the ones that do the most damage are the right wing press, just look at the lies, half-truths and disinformation they feed the population, it polarizes society and gets groups of people fighting among themselves and that is exactly what you are seeing in the US, it was more evidence when Trump was power, we are also seeing the same thing in the UK with Brexit, again, pushed hard by the right wing press. The right wing press have realized that to push their own agenda, they need to keep the people distracted, fighting among themselves and blaming others for how things are, Trump blamed the rest of the world for taking advantage of the US as a scapegoat, Brexiteers on Brexit in the UK blamed the EU as a scapegoat. The reason things are the way they are is because a lot of people buy into the lies being told and it's easy to understand why, a lie can be twisted to sound as good as they want it to be, the truth is usually colder and harsher, the problem is, things are not going to change for the better until people wake up and see things for how they are and not how they want to see things, when you admit there is a problem, it's a big step in the right direction in fixing that problem, but for now, most tend to prefer to blame others for how things are which is polarizing society in many countries, the US, UK, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Australia just to name a few. What I find amusing, the people are the ones with the real power to do real change but we are piss poor at using that power because the right wing elites divide us because we're easier to control when divided.
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It's ironic, because over the last 100 years under capitalism, we've been slashing jobs in massive numbers in almost all sectors of work as tech advancement goes on and it's what is allowing us to do so much today than we could 100 years ago. Now thought, there are some that are fearful of too many jobs being taken away, especially with the rise of A.I. and robotics, the simple truth is, progress and slashing jobs go hand in hand, if advancement allows us to do more with less, it will be done, regardless of resistance to it because we are living in a competitive world that if we don't progress, we get left behind by the ones that do, which forces us all to get with the program. A.I. and robotics is going to have a massive impact on the job market that we've never seen in history, and unlike automation an 100 years ago that took over a lot of jobs, it was slow to bring in, expensive to do and not very flexible in manufacturing, at least not as low cost, A.I. and robotics is a different ball game as eventually, that will be able to do pretty much any job we can do, any future jobs we try to create, there's no reason why A.I. and robotics won't be able to do them as well, that could be a major problem under the capitalist system we live under, because it would put far more wealth in fewer hands and push the rest of us under a bus, this is especially the case under countries like the US that have little protection for it's people or some developing countries like China, the EU countries on the other hand could get around this with a human basic income, much of the system is already in place to allow that with the social aspect and social programs, it could just be a matter of expanding on what's already there, but trying to sell that idea in the US or China, well they'll need a miracle and would rather throw the people under a bus then help them.
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Fall comes about when you assume it won't happen, a lot of Americans assume the US will never fall, that is where the real risk is because if you don't see what is going on or you ignore it, you end up allowing the fall to happen and only realize it when it's too late, a bit like what happened with Rome and countless others. Also arrogance plays a big part in that if you assume you are the best without question, you end up ignoring what is going on else ware around the world. The US has a lot of problems ahead of it and Trump is the figurehead of those problems, so getting rid of Trump doesn't solve the problem because a lot of Americans voted him in, in other words, the problems in the US are very deep with a lot of people to create such a divide and that isn't going to be easy to fix no matter what leader to have because the real issue is in US society. Once the dream that was once Rome isn't there any more, why should the people fight for a system that doesn't work for them any more?, that is the case with the US and the American dream, a lot more people are starting to see it as a nightmare not a dream.
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Every time I think of these right wing nationalist, I think of opportunist, basically playing on the tune of what they think people want to hear and not what they can deliver, anything to gain any kinds of power. I keep seeing this trend where some see these groups of political parties as a threat, but the closer they get to any kind of power, the more they tone things down, basically reality kicks in, they know they can't BS the people with unrealistic outcomes when their neck could be on the line, when in opposition, they can more or less say anything they want to the people with no consequences, but when close to getting power or in power, it's a different ball game. Basically, it boils down to them saying anything, regardless of lies, just as long as it helps them win power, once in power, they have to tone things down a lot, mainly because most people don't want radical outcomes, they want a stable ship that improves things for all, they also know that they've been given a chance of power by the people, if they mess up, they might not get back into power again, so all the talk on what they said they'll do, gets toned down a lot once in power, we are seeing that in Italy, we've seen it in other countries. The only time these political parties are really a threat is when there's a majority of people in the country that thinks like them, which is rare, and if that were to happen, there's far more problems in the country than they realise, so don't worry about these political parties in what they say they want to do, worry a lot more if there's a majority of people that think the way these radicals think, that's when it could become a real problem So in the end, I take all this nationalist rise with a pinch of salt, as in, not really changing anything, apart from scaring the established parties, but the irony in all that, these radicalism parties seem to end up toning things down so much that they look more like a moderate party, makes sense, if they appeal to the people a lot more, they are more likely to win more elections and hold onto power.
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@Eduardo de Vera The truth is, that's the price that needs to be paid if you want to modernize as a country, major reforms to modernize a country will turn a lot of sectors in the economy upside down, but if you want a modern living, the reforms are needed to keep pace with the first world and in fact, it's a common trend we keep seeing, southern EU countries keep falling behind the northern economically ones and having to do more major reforms and to get bailouts from the EU and other EU members to keep pace with them, this would be far less of an issue for the likes of Greece, Italy and others if they actually implemented the reforms when they should as it's a lot more manageable to do in small bite size reforms if they do it at the time but many fall behind so the reforms become bigger and bigger where it has a big impact on the people, but the alternative to not doing these reforms is that the country will suffer a lot longer term.
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Good luck telling that to Brexiteers and euroseptics but you are right ofcouse, the EU does need to get stronger and more integrated, the irony is that the US and China is what will help that to happen.
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Lower quality food in the US, and they seem to go for mass production on food whereas in Europe, we are more localised with fresh produce. The US system is more efficient but it's of lower quality. With that said, I do think efficiency needs to go up a lot in the EU on food production, whiles not reducing the quality, being that too much of the EU budget goes towards farmers and in some ways, it's not giving them much of an incentive to improve productivity, so something needs to change.
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Yeah it surprises me how long it's taking Microsoft to migrate from the old control panel to the new and early on with Windows 10, I could understand but years later and it's still a mess and confusing to find what you're after. Now tried Windows 11 yet so not sure if it's any better with that.
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I usually find insults in a debate the first signs of losing an argument, something we see a lot on the right of politics and even the right of the media, and for me, the moment they start throwing insults, they've lost the argument, which happens a lot because people that are right wing from politics to the media, tend to get too emotional and use insults a lot to try and push there point across, which means they don't have a good point to start with.
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All that Brexit has done is gain more support for the EU project among the EU countries, Trump and Putin are helping that even more, if the EU plays it's cards right over the next 10 years, it could gain the most out of all this, Trump, Brexit and Putin are the gift that keep giving to the EU and to think, those 3 factors wanted to break the EU up, how wrong that went, what makes this even funnier is that I'm sensing more of a pro EU vibe from the UK population thanks to how bad Brexit and the Conservative government is handling it, wouldn't it be funny if over the next few years that Brexit turns much of the UK public in more support of the EU.
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It wouldn't surprise me but I do sometimes wonder where Trump fits into it when he seems more then happy to see the EU fall, in any case, the US will need a strong EU, the EU will likely need to integrate more going forward especially the Eurozone, some might not like this but if the west want to protect western values and interest, the EU and US needs to be strong and work together as they are both the big power houses in the west, power is quickly shifting towards Asia and the EU or the US on there own are not powerful enough to protect western interest on their own going forward, both the EU and US together might not be enough with how Asia is developing.
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I doubt that will happen, tech progress speeds up or slows down depending on need. If water was to become an issue, watch how much more resources would be thrown at the problem to solve it and that would speed up the tech development a lot and this is the case on any tech, it really depends on need and how desperate a situation becomes, so it's very likely this problem will get solved before it even becomes a problem.
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True lol and worse of all, if it does go to arbitration, they will likely side with the EU because it's clear the Brexiteers plan doesn't work.
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To be fair, it looks like more of the public are changing their tune on Brexit, but it's going to take a lot more than that for real change to happen, and honestly, I don't see any big changes under this current government, they are too deep in on Brexit, so we need a new government with a fresh start on this. Personally, I highly doubt the EU or its members would let the UK back in the EU for at least 2 decades, and even then, they'll want to see a massive shift in how the public, the media and the EU sees the EU project, after all, they won't want a hostile UK in the EU with all the problems the UK have shown over the decades. I think it's best for the UK to build relations with the EU and it's members, something we are already seeing, then at a later date, maybe join the single market and custom union, that would solve many of the problems the UK faces, it would also be an indicator that the UK is serious about wanting to rejoin the EU, but in any case, all this is going to take time and in the meantime, the UK is likely going to be a weaker player, both politically and economically.
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@yourmum69_420 To be fair, in Europe, you don't need to travel as far as you do in the US to get places and in many countries down south, they get a lot of sun, but it would be interesting to see how it performs in regions where there is less sun.
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Ryan McRae True but the problem is that it isn't that simple, there is a reason why most countries trade with nearby countries the most and it's because it makes economic sense to do so, trading a lot more with Asia will cost more, might even cost more if it was tariff-free and there are tariffs on EU goods. In the end, most of our trade is going to be with nearby countries and as the EU is our biggest partner, it makes a lot more sense to get on good terms with them than with others half way around the world.
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@jhunt5578 It depends, it can be as easy or as hard as we make it. I'll give you an example, we insulated the house over the summer, now we hardly even need to use the heating at all and only did so when it was -9c for about a week and half, it's never got -9c here since I moved here 15 years ago, so that was rare, anyway, as long as the temps are around -3c or warmer, it's warm enough that we don't need heating now, it's remarkable how much of a difference insulating your home can do in reducing your heating use. As for renewables, we've not done that yet but if I was doing it, I would have more solar panels than I need, I would have battery storage with the aim of storing as much for the night which isn't that much in my case and it should reduce my energy bills a lot, but it's not perfect, if it was, I would go gridless, but it's good enough to reduce the energy bills a lot, anyway, the real problem isn't solar, it's the battery tech to store that energy, that isn't cheap.
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I think longer term, more and more countries are going to continue to join the Euro because of stability and economic sense, I also think longer term that power in the EU is going to shift in favour of Euro Zone countries, something it's kinda already doing but that's going to be more the case in the future as more countries join it and none Euro countries become more isolated. Also, from a business investment point of view, I suspect most would rather invest in Euro countries because they don't have to worry about currency fluctuations unless they have their own currency pegged to the Euro which kinda reduces a lot of the flexibility those countries have if it's pegged, after all, think about it, if a product is being manufactured in a Euro Zone country with the aim at selling to EU consumers, those businesses don't have to worry about currency fluctuations in those Euro countries and that creates price stability, in other words, Euro Zone countries are always likely going to get more inroad's investment over none Euro countries, more so as those eastern EU members modernize and become richer, because they won't have the advantage of cheap labour any more. Still, with I think the video said 20 countries being in the Euro out of 27, it's by far the most dominant when it comes to balance of power and I think that's why others will join in time, even the ones that don't want because the alternative is that they get more isolated in the union.
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A snap election is kind of pointless, does it really solve anything?, I suspect the EU will say we're still back at square one even if the Conservatives win and put someone new in charge and even if Labour wins, things are not that much better, so really, another public vote is the only real option now but lets see how long our goverment and parliement will dance in a circle before that message sinks in. A snap election might of worked if Corbyn was a lot more clear on Brexit and more so if he pushed more for another public vote and to remain but as it is, it's hard to trust him so I doubt anything will change with another election whoever gets into power.
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@gediminaskucinskas6952 It's not so much that patents and copyrights are bad, it's how long they last which is all messed up. They need to find the right balanced where theres a incentive to invent something but not enough to profit on it for too long as that holds progress back.
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I think that's one of the big differences in Europe over America, in Europe, we like to open things up so the smaller guys can compete, being that more competition is always a good thing, wherever it comes from, the US on the other hand seems to look at these corporations as a geopolitical power play over other countries, especially China. The problem is with that is that in the US, they are allowing corporations to get too powerful that it's undermining the US government, hence all the lobbying, that could quickly lead into a Blade Runner like future, which is a very American like thing that I couldn't see happening in the EU because more common sense is being used in regulating big corporations before they become too big of a threat that it could weaken democracy, which lets be blunt, has already started in the US.
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What went wrong is simply, the Tories got into power and stayed in power for an extended amount of time to really send the country into the gutter, and the list of achievements from the Tories is as long as my arm when it comes to making a mess of this country. But if I'm honest with myself, we only have ourselves to blame, we've had countless elections and yet the people kept voting in the Tories, we had a referendum on the EU and decided to leave, and there are countless other failings, the main one being that for some reason, the British people don't hold our government to account on their lies and broken promises, we saw enough of that with Brexit and it's quite shameful. Basically, the failings in the UK are because of the British people, and I know a lot will want to blame the government for the mess, but the truth is, we put them there and they are a reflection of the people, if we vote recklessly, we are going to get reckless results. But in any case, the cracks were showing before the Tories took power, it just went into overdrive once the Tories were in power, but there might be a light at the end of the tunnel now that Labour are in power with a big majority, and they are going to need that big majority to push some major policy changes to get the country back on track, and honestly, they've got a mountain to climb, but I feel now the worse is over with the Tories being out of power that were lurching from one mess to another, but we'll see over the coming years. What the UK needs is some major restructuring of the economy, less dependency on the service sector whiles investing more in other sectors, the UK also needs to repair relations with the EU because Brexit is doing harm to the UK economy and reputation, and now that we have a Labour government with a big majority that can push through big policies, I don't expect to see big improvements for UK citizens for many years to come, even if the government pushes all the right buttons, because the task at hand is big and we are talking years, if not decades to repair and rebalance the economy.
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Russia more or less already has lost even if it turns things around in Ukraine, which is looking unlikely. The reality is, the cost of the war, Europeans not buying their oil and gas, the sanctions and the west actively isolating Russia is making this war very costly for Russia long term that any victory in Ukraine is more or less a pyrrhic victory and let's be honest, it's looking more like that Ukraine is getting the upper hand with being trained, better equipped, thanks to the west whereas Putin is having disciplinary issues, low moral and now they are trying to send people into the war that are not as well-trained, probably not as well-equipped and likely less disciplined, basically, they are being sent in as cannon fodder. As for nukes, Putin is using every scare tactic he can come up with to scare the west in not supporting Ukraine, I don't think Putin understands that he's gone too far with this war that the west can't back down without looking weak and beside, if they did back down, Putin wins and would likely get more aggressive on nearby countries, which would also send a powerful message out to the world that there are limits that the west can handle, China is watching this to see how far the west is willing to go and if they see weakness, Taiwan will be a tempting target for them. In the end, it doesn't matter what threats Putin gives out, the west can't afford to back down on this and history has shown that if you're a soft touch with dictators, it usually escalates things a lot more, this has to be made crystal clear to Putin and the Russians that support this war that it's going to be very costly to them, economically and in terms of lives and if it does come down to nukes, we all stand to pay a high price for that but if Putin is stupid enough to push that agenda, his inner circle or the Russian people will likely kill him, after all, this is Putin's personal war, I highly doubt millions of Russians want to die in a war that is meaningless. In any event, the biggest mistake the west could do here is to go soft on Putin and to give in to his threats, Putin created this personal war, how it unfolds is on his head, not the west.
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I never really thought about it, but there are a few potential advantages to this, keep them clean would be much easier, being that snow and dust won't stick as easy to vertical panels, maintaining them will be easier, especially if they are not on a roof, being that a lot of us don't have easy access to our roofs. Another potential advantage is being that they are vertical, you could stack them up and have more solar power generating ability for the given space, they probably could be done in a way where they can tilt to a certain degree to capture more sunlight, and when it comes to deploying, these would be far easier to deploy and maintain, after all, you could more or less put them anywhere. But like the video points out, I would like to see a bit more research on the potential power it generates compared to rooftop panels, and how effective they are at different latitudes, but count me interested, because when I look at my house, from the roof to the garden, the amount of panels I could put up and how cheap solar is, I could potentially generate 2 to 3 times more power than I could if it was just on my roof.
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It's probably going to be more the case going forward with more countries going neutral, after all, most countries around the world see the coming Cold War as a US-China conflict for world power, even the Europeans are far more neutral on China then the US would like and it's easy to understand why, the US feels threaten by a rising China being bigger than them, most of the rest of the world don't like China so much but have become a lot more distance on the US over the last 2 decades, that is a major problem for the US then it is for anyone else, because the US is what China is targeting whereas most of the world are more neutral.
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True, so even with elections looming, with how controlled the system is in favour of the government, it might not change much, which might leave only one other option, revolution. Sometimes, governments that don't want to listen to the people, need to be forced out, the real question is, how strong is the support against the government? We might see over the next 2 years.
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I think what is likely going to happen is a lot of the manufacturing force is going to move out of China towards other cheap labour economies over the next 5, 10 years, especially if China shows any real signs of supporting Putin. The damage could be massive against China but it would take a little time, whereas for the west, they've got options on this whereas China is very limited in what it can do, hence why China needs to be very careful on it's actions on Russia because look at the EU, they plan of fazing out Russian oil and gas over the next few years, if they can do that, you can bet the west can look for alternatives to China for manufacturing as I'm sure there are more than enough countries that would love to take that business away from China.
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What really needs to happen is European countries need to spend around 2% on the military whiles the US really should be spending less, 3.6% with that likely going to go up is just passing on the cost to the American people and they are already suffering with poor workers rights, food standards, health care. Even at 2%, the US would still have a massive military and much of those savings could go to improving Americans lives. With all that said, I think EU countries should poor their resources together on the military, if they did that, they would have a much stronger military whiles getting rid of a lot of duplications that there are, It wouldn't overshadow NATO no more than the US doesn't, the EU would just be a member of NATO with a lot more clout in it and with the rise of China, the US is going to need a strong EU to keep China in check. In the end, the US can't have it both ways, if European countries are going to spend more, they are going to want a bigger say, the US doesn't want the EU to take the main role of the military on EU members but that would have a lot of benefits for Europeans and Americans, basically, we would have another major power with like-minded thinking that would help to reduce the burden on the US, in other words, the US needs to stop seeing EU integration as a rival to the US even though to a degree it is but they share a lot more values with each other and need to see where the real threats are from China, Russia and other authoritarian governments. Maybe now with everything going on in Ukraine, we start to get our priorities straight, this could also open up the door for the EU and US to work on many military projects and share the cost which would benefit both side in cost and technical know-how.
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@r.chavez5513 Probably taxes to pay for the social benefits Europeans get.
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Qwfwq66 Boris is a opportunist that will say what he thinks people want to hear to get the top job and the top job is what he really want, he used Brexit and the Brexiteers to get the PM job just like May did, the real problem is for him holding onto it and that wont be easy because now he's smart enough to know that hard Brexit isn't a option as much as he likes to keep telling us that but he also knows that he needs the ERG onside. Boris is trying to find a way to keep his job whiles keeping the ERG onside and without messing up the country with hard Brexit and that is why he's desperately trying to deflect blame away from himself onto the EU, he's got nothing left and he needs the EU to offer better terms, if the EU doesn't, Boris could be out sooner then we think. In any case, I doubt we will get Brexit this year, the more Boris and the ERG push for a hard Brexit, the more of a hard wall will hit back to stop that and it could be worse because there are many moderate leavers that didn't vote for this and could turn on Boris, the only one he's making happy are the hard core Brexiteers that want Brexit at any cost but many Brexiteers are more moderate, if Boris keeps pushing to undermine parliament and the UK system, we could find he's got far less support then he realises and we are likely going to see that before the year is out. As for Corbyn, he's a complete joke, any half decent leader would have made mince meat of this Tory lot, that he's doing so poor when the Tories are such a mess really shows how bad Corbyn is as a leader but on the plus side, it's leaving the door open to other parties to take advantage off and they will likely take advantage of this well after Brexit for years to come.
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If I recall, the original footage of TNG was shot at higher quality over DS9, also, TNG was the more popular show and had less work needed when it comes to remastering the special effects. DS9 on the other hand was shot at lower quality and had far more special effects going on, especially during the war, the cost to remaster that would be far higher and DS9 wasn't as popular as TNG was, but eventually all shows will get remastered as A.I. tech continues to advanced to make it easier to do. Don't get me wrong, I like DS9 as a show, but it wasn't as popular as TNG, and being as the TNG remaster didn't sell that great, there were little incentive to remaster all the other shows as TNG was the most popular of the classic Treks, especially as the shows after TNG likely would cost more to remaster then TNG did, mainly because specially effects went up in leaps and bounds in the 90's and were being used far more than we saw in TNG.
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@bemusedpanda8875 True and the UN reminds me of the African Union, where they just let any African country in which is a mistake for both organizations, the EU did things differently by getting countries that want to join to do a lot of economic, political and social structural changes in the country, it's not perfect as you can see with Poland and Hungary slipping a bit but it's a lot better for getting real change that helps to develop the countries that join. The UN like the African Union just feels like a talking shop with no real power whereas the EU does have a lot of power and a big part of that is because of alignment among the members.
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At the end of the day, to get around these games that companies and politicians will try to pull, you really have to go gridless, but the problem is with that is that you need a lot of battery storage or a reliable consistent amount of renewable energy being generated each day. I think if you have the space on the roof to put a lot more solar panels than you normally need so you generate enough energy even when conditions are not ideal and have a decent size battery storage, it could work but it won't be cheap.
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True, it needs to be cheaper in the US because cars are needed whereas in Europe, cars are just nice to have but you can get by in most cases without one.
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That wouldn't be the case with an EU military, I mean could you imagine the US military if each US state could decide if they take part, it would be a mess and wouldn't work that well, an EU military would only work with a lot more integration in those areas, in other words, the EU takes care of our defence not the national governments as it is now.
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@melvinbeck5047 Maybe but again, the reason the EU works at all is because of how skilled they are at diplomacy, they wouldn't be able to build the EU union without being really good at that but the EU have learned that the carrot can be mightier than the stick if used right, the stick is only used if needed and when all other options are used, this is what I really like about the EU, they seem very good at getting things done without using aggression or force, they are very skilled at diplomacy, maybe some of the best in the world.
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Maybe, but there wasn't really any credible alternatives presented, the only one I can think off is Mario Draghi, but I didn't see any credible ones from the far right and at least with von der Leyen, she's proven to be competent and a safe per of hands. Personally, I would have liked to have seen changed, but the alternatives were not that great.
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Well if a war does happen, at least leave the Europeans out of it and let the 3 evils, the UK, US and Aus fend for themselves, after all, this could real destabilise things as it's putting the UK, US and Aus on a war footing with China and thankfully, the UK is out of the EU so it's less likely to drag them down with it.
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It's a way of representing more of the views of the people, hence proportional representation compared to many other democracies that group most of the people into 2 or so political views, whiles any vote for a third views, ends up being a wasted vote, basically the US and the UK usually groups people into fewer camps whereas a lot of European countries have multiple options that are credible for voters. On the surface, it looks more chaotic, but it's more democratic as it listens to a wider range of voters concerns, it also forces governments and parties to compromise more, compared to the US or UK which is more like a winner's take all, which ignores a lot of the voters concerns because they are playing to their base. This is also a reason why I think it's crazy how they say one country is a democracy and another isn't, it's not as simply as that and countries should be rated on a score of 1 to 100 in how democratic the system is in representing the people, some are more than others.
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That's not quite fair, a big complaint in that eastern EU members are not taking enough in, apart from with everything that's going on with Ukraine. Besides, the western EU countries have more reason to be concerned because most migrants if given a choice would pick western countries over eastern countries, the irony is in all that, eastern countries need more migrants because of the declining population. Besides, let's be honest, the real problem isn't that, the problem is that we've got a union of open boarders and yet we have different policies on immigrations over 27 countries, it's easy to see how that can be a mess, and I only see two solutions to that problem, either the EU is given more powers to deal with these things, or EU members close their boarders on each other. Either way, it seems crazy to have open boarders in the EU, only then to have each EU member having its own policy for outside countries, it just creates a mess that we keep seeing.
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Considering the history of Germany, it doesn't surprise me that they rather be more timid than hostile but that's history and I think Germany should come out more and become more bold in it's policies on the world stage and not hide behind the shadows of the second world war, after all, Germany of today and it's people are nothing like the Germans during the second world war. Still thought, if Germany did become more bold, some countries, namely the UK and some eastern countries might end up fearing that kind of Germany.
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I think the real problem with the UK union is, what are the actually benefits for its members? I say that because if you look at Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, they are all doing much worse than England is doing and even England, too much of the wealth is focused in the south of England, that is where the real problem is in the UK. If you look at GDP per capita of each of the member, Scotland and Wales are doing worse than almost all EU countries in the west of around the same size and in the case of Northern Ireland, their GDP per capita is almost 3 times lower than the Republic of Ireland. You get a sense that the south of England is bleeding the rest of the union dry, after all, this union has been around along time so this gap in wealth shouldn't be there any more and it's ironic when you look at the EU and how it develops members once in the EU, it seems they do a much better job of it. As for the UK union falling apart, well, I think with Brexit and now the poor handling of the pandemic from the UK government, I think the odds are quite high that Scotland could leave within 5 years and Northern Ireland to follow, the worry for the rest of the UK is if those two rejoin the EU and become more successful for it as then Wales might want to leave. I've always seen Brexit as an English vanity project that's mostly living in the past of the glory days and with a government that keeps getting things wrong time after time and them likely being in power with a majority for the next 5 years, the damage they can do the UK union is likely going to tip Scotland over the edge to leave and with that, a domino effect can happen. So yes, I do think the days are numbered for the UK union and this is mostly because as a country, the UK has changed a lot over the last few years and not for the better. On another note with the special relationship with the US, I have to ask, what does the UK gain out of that that France doesn't have? It seems to cause the UK more problems than it's worth, also on another note, Brexit weakens the UK in that we have no say in the EU and that matters to a lot of players around the world, especially the US because they want a big player in the EU that can get things done, now the UK isn't that player being outside the EU and that could change the balance in that the US might want to have a special relationship with France or Germany, any country that can help shape things in the EU as that is far more important to the US than the UK is as we are too small as a country.
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I've noticed the tone on some of the other papers like The Sun and the Daily Mail is less hostile on the EU, before Brexit, they were rampant on being hostile on the EU, and I wouldn't say they are neutral on the EU yet, but the tone has softened. The Daily Express on the other hand are still ranting and raving against the EU, but the truth is, facts and the impact it has on society and the people don't lie, Brexit is having a negative impact on the UK and it's far harder to lie around all that, and it does look like it's reshaping public views on the EU and on the ones that pushed Brexit the hardest, we'll have to see if that is followed by actions to actually make a difference to correct or at least repair some of the damage Brexit has done. As for the UK getting back in the EU fold, it makes a lot of sense for both the UK and the EU, the world is getting more erratic and unpredictable, the US is becoming more polarised and less trustworthy, and that will likely get worse as China continues to rise as a power, the reality of the changing world will likely push the UK back into the EU or very close to it. It's high time that Europeans face reality, including the UK that the US doesn't care about us, and if we want to protect our interest, we can do so more effectively by banding together through the EU, Trump, Putin and China have shown their hand, they want to divide European countries because we are easier to take advantage off when separated, the last thing the US, China and Russia wants is a united EU because they can't take advantage of that, it also allows us to protect our political, economic and social interest, which the US would love to water them down if they could, and in the case of Russia and China, well they don't care about so they will be fine with watering things down.
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The problem is that we need the EU a lot more then they need us and because of that, it's not as easy as you would like to think to just walk away, the damage to the UK would likely be far higher than just a one off payment to the EU and in any case, it's probably not relevant anymore with all the u-turns the UK government is doing, the more I see of Brexit, the more I'm seeing the UK wanting to try and replicate what they already have in the EU but out of the EU from what we've seen over the last few weeks papers the UK government released, it does beg the question, if the UK wants to replicate all the same policies of the EU then why not just stay in the EU and have done with it. I suspect the real reason is because the UK government knows the EU won't let the UK stay now unless we give something up like the rebate thanks to signing Article 50, now it seems the UK government wants to stay in the single market and custom union, temporary they say but I suspect long term, in other words, the UK stays in the EU all but in name but has no say in EU policy making, it's crazy but it's looking increasingly likely thats could happen.
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I have a feeling that when it comes to modern country, quality of life improvements are encouraging couples to have fewer kids because they want to enjoy life more, and for many, kids can be a massive burden, and a costly one, I also feel that a lot of couples feel they don't have enough time to have kids, with the work-life balanced, which is ironic, because Europe in the EU does well when it comes to work-life balance, but I suspect with more time on their hands and more support by the system, probably more couples would have kids. As for some developing countries that have low population growth, it's probably because of emigration and because of the political and economic situation on many of those countries are not very favourable for wanting to have kids. If it wasn't for immigration, every modern country would have fertility problems, as it's likely that those immigrants that move to another country are more likely to have more kids than the natives bumping up the numbers, but take out the immigration and the more natural kids they have, the population decline in modern countries would likely be far worse. Depending on the country, population decline isn't that big of a deal, depending on how many people the country can support, the real problem is the imbalanced from old and young, but that's probably not going to be as much of a problem as some think thanks to A.I. and robotics. Either way, population growth couldn't keep going indefinite, since the second world war, we've had massive population growth that isn't sustainable in the long run, not unless we start living in space or on other planets, there are only so much resources on Earth, so there were needs for slowing the population down a lot, but now we are faced with an imbalanced that needs correcting, but let's not make any mistakes about it, almost every modern country, including the US and many developing ones are facing this problem. Personally, I'm more concerned with countries like the UK that its population is still growing but there's not enough land and resources to go around, that could make life quite uncomfortable for Brits unless there is major changes to accommodate it's population growth, but either way, it's likely going to make things more expensive, whereas other countries like France have far more room to grow.
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Pretty much what I've been thinking, it would be highly risky of the US to do this and for no real benefits as the European countries are moving away from Russian gas and were already buying US LNG, but if it was them and they were found out, the damage to the US would be massive and long serving and like you said, it seems a bit too farfetched. As for Ukraine, that seems unlikely because if it was them and they got found out, support for Ukraine would dry up pretty quickly in the EU countries and probably in the US, it would also mean there is little chance of Ukraine joining the EU and NATO, so no, it's unlikely to be Ukraine. My money is on a third party which would be more difficult to trace or Putin, after all, desperate times delivers reckless actions, even if they don't make much sense with Europe moving away from Russian gas anyway which with the pipeline having issues could speed up the process of Europeans moving to alternative energy sources.
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I think an EU elected president would be a good idea, it could be done with merging the current president and EU Commission together and have it directly elected by the people, that would help to remove a lot of the sigma that Eurosceptics use against the EU in saying it's not democratic, I also think that merging the two would reduce a lot of the confusion in the EU and around the world, something that really needs to happen. I also think the European Parliament should be given more powers, especially in being able to create new laws and regulations, whereas now that is with the commission. I think those two things would help the EU in the eyes of the citizens when it comes to supporting the project, it would also be bad news for Eurosceptics, because it will reduce their arguments down on why they don't like the EU or will push them into the more radical thinking on why they don't like the EU, in other words, fewer people will listen to them.
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Considering Brexit, that's not surprising, but the economy overall is growing. Besides, quality of life matters far more for the average person over the well-being of the economy, there's too much focus on the economy in many parts of the world, especially the US, but that means very little for the average person if they don't feel that growth, and it's probably why EU countries dominant the top 10 when it comes to quality of life. Also, I get a sense that some of these other powers want to lower standards to create more economic growth, after all, if you lower standards and cut corners in a lot of areas, you can generate more economic growth, but that's not good for the citizens of a country. Say what we want about Europeans but at least the citizen are put first more times than they are in other countries, in other words, not economic growth at all cost, which is what we see in the US and China.
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That's basically it, Europeans don't have a problem with smiling, but we do with fake smiling which comes across as creepy and weird, especially with strangers and as we know, it's fake.
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It's more like a declining market and it's just been one disaster after another for the UK since we left the EU, it's like it's a bad omen for the UK where people think things can't get worse, only for things to get worse lol.
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@AB-zl4nh True, and many of these proposals will get watered down, that's why the bar is set high, so even if watered down, progress is still made. But I do think when it comes to veto rules, that needs to go, if that doesn't go, there's little to no chance of any new country joining the EU, and it very likely will end up pushing towards a two speed Europe, if that happens and many of the big countries are on board with it, that's going to leave the smaller countries at a major disadvantage. To put it bluntly, if some of the smaller countries are hard-nosed about blocking everything, it's going to force the rest to go ahead and form their own core union, if that happens, the ones on the inner core will have a major advantage and it would eventually push the outer core members out, in the end, it's better all the members try to find a solution to move forward, but make no mistake about it, major reforms are needed.
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I'm sure I heard talks resumed recently, unless they've stalled already lol. But the EU can wait, there's far bigger fish they can do deals with.
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@Sharyf NATO membership won't change anything in fast tracking EU membership for Ukraine, like the video above said, there is no fast track into the EU, apart from how quickly the country is willing to do the reforms needed and we've seen with other countries that have joined the EU, the ones that get stuck in and do the reforms, tend to join much sooner than the countries that drag their feet. NATO membership should be a lot easier for Ukraine to join but EU membership is a lot more valuable as that has tangible benefits for everyone in the country when it comes to lifting living standards. We should also remember that before the war, Ukraine was pulling in two directions, towards the EU and towards Russia, because of the war, it would be brave of any politician in Ukraine to push for closer relations with Russia now, because of all that, it's very likely that reforms to join the EU will be easier for Ukraine to achieve, from a political and public level and that can speed up the process a lot.
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Peace talks should always be an option but it should be under the terms of Ukraine taking back all its land, including Crimea. Anything else would be difficult for the people of Ukraine to accept and would be seen as a sign of weakness from the west, after all, Russia needs to learn that there is a high cost for its actions, so any gains for Russia should be seen as unacceptable to the west and for Ukraine as well, as we could end up seeing a repeat of this in the future if Russia stands to benefit in any way from this. So peace talks are fine under Ukraine's terms and that seems unlikely with how Putin is, and I suspect the war will continue with further advancements from Ukraine as they seem to do quick advancements to gain land, take a pause for a few weeks or months and then advanced more, now that Russia is changing tactics, Ukraine and the west will likely do the same, but I suspect the same plan is in place, to push Russia slowly out of Ukraine, inch by inch. I am also starting to wonder, Russia can attack any sites in Ukraine, yet Ukraine can't attack Russia targets in Russia, seems like a massive advantage in favour of Russia, Ukraine have every right to attack Russian targets in Russia the moment Russia attacked Ukraine but the west is preventing that because they are scared of escalating things, I think something has to give on that one to favour Ukraine at some point or there is nothing stopping Russia from Bombing Ukraine from afar whiles Ukraine can't do the same back.
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We are starting to see the moral compass on many countries and how it treats it's people from country to country, the US doesn't look good at the moment looks like it's getting worse with the rest of the world looking on and so far the US is showing poor moral leadership with this crisis, that could have long term ramifications for the US and how the rest of the world sees the US. As for Cuba, they should be proud of what they are doing, helping others when they have limited resources tells us a lot about the country and people and with any luck, other countries will pay them in kind if Cuba needs help.
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I can see them wanting to bring Terry Silver back, he would fit into the story now that Kreese is back, as for Elisabeth Shue, I don't think it would make sense to bring her back, shes moved on and is married to a doctor or something, beside, likely too expensive, but honestly, I don't see how she would add to the story like some of the others do.
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It's not just NATO that's benefitting from Putin's mistake, the EU is also benefitting with more support among its members and serious talks of reforms and expansion, basically, safety in numbers is helping EU countries and all it took was a threat from the outside. But the EU and NATO are not the only ones benefitting from this, we are all benefitting, because now there's a big push on renewable energy in the 3 major markets, the EU, US and China, that's going to benefit us all in the long run by making renewable energy cheaper and better, the only ones losing out here is Russia and the fossil industry and it might not seem like it at the moment, but with the big push away from the fossil industry, it's going to put downwards pressure on the price until it eventually squeezes them out. China if they are not careful could be another major loser in all this if they back Russia too much, especially as the EU and US among others are pushing hard to diversify away from China and China is making it easy for these countries to do so as long as China continues to support Russia and if they continue with hostile actions around the world like on Taiwan. It's going to be really interesting to see what the next 10 years look like, and I suspect EU and US relations could get much closer, especially with the rise of China.
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The fear is pretty strong on the protest march and the petitions, the likes of Farage knows it's showing a lot more support for another vote and for staying in the EU and are trying everything they can to try and discredit it, they seem very desprate to me now. They know the tables on Brexit are turning and are seeing thier dream go up in smoke, they know this is likely there only chance they'll get at leaving the EU, hence why they will fight tooth and nail to try and pervent the public having another say on this because they fear the public wants to remain in the EU. This will of the people they keep saying is old news that means nothing, they know that they are in trouble if another vote happens and the will of the people is to stay in the EU whiles many Brexiteers tried to force us out of the EU and like I said, you can smell the fear from them now because now it's becoming all too real.
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Same in the UK, I think there is a video on YouTube about that, basically, 25C feels much warmer in the UK than it does in the US for instance.
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@baird5682 He is right though, considering that the EU is an open border among its countries, that kind of power makes a lot more sense at an EU level over national level and a lot of these issues are a direct result of the national governments that have a spill-over effect into other countries because of the open borders, closing the boarders isn't the solution, handing the powers to the EU or having a more coordinated policy in place to manage this is needed, doing all this at an individual EU country just creates a mess, as we keep seeing.
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@xax8918 True, especially as they become closer to joining the EU because that will create political and economic stability, it will bring in a lot of inwards investment and the EU alone will throw a lot of money at the country to help develop and modernize the country so they catch up with the west. On top of all that, there is likely going to be a lot of money from the west to help rebuild Ukraine after the war.
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I take it you didn't watch the youtube clip because it was clearly political even back then, in fact it was even before the UK joined the EEC, in fact part of the reasons the ones that didn't want to join at the time was because of the political union aspect of it so it boggles my mind at how many people seem to think we joined an economic only union when it was a political and economic union for a long time now but then that's what happens with a right wing press drumming the same message over and over, people take it as fact even without checking to see if it is lol.
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Fair deal with much bigger powers? lol that's a good one. Bigger powers always have more clout and dictate the terms on deals, just look at what happened to Canada and Mexico on the NAFTA not so long ago. It simply works like this, the bigger power, the EU in this case dictates the terms, then it's up to the smaller players to either accept them or walk away, it's not fair I know but that's how the real world works, all the bluster in the world isn't going to change the reality of that.
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@Minimmalmythicist That's just, and the real failure of the west was over 10 years ago with Crimea, the west should have put its foot down far harder for what Russia did back then and that could have avoided the war in Ukraine altogether. Basically, the west was too much of a soft touch, Putin saw that as weakness and took advantage of it, China probably sees it as weakness, which makes them more bold on many policy areas. As for Scholz, he's shown poor leadership, at a time when the EU needs strong leadership, and unless things change, the balance of power in the EU will likely shift away from Germany towards other EU members, which to some degree is probably already happening. In any case, what we saw with Crimea over a decade ago was a warning to the west, we didn't take that warning so Putin pushed his luck again by trying to take over all of Ukraine, if we in the west are stupid enough to allow that to happen, it will likely escalate things further down the line as Putin will see that as the west being weak and will likely look at other targets to invade, China might also get more embolden around the world and the west needs to put its foot down hard to make it really costly for these countries to do these things, after all, they won't stop unless the cost is so high that they can't afford to continue, so in the case of Ukraine, give them the means to end the war sooner rather than later, whiles making it very costly for Russia, maybe they might learn something then.
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EU countries have a modern military, do they spend enough? Probably not but the real issue in the EU isn't the budget or the military, it's the division of having 27 different militaries pulling in all directions, whiles having a lot of waste and duplications. Considering the EU countries are a modern, high-tech, high skilled economy with a lot of manufacturing capability, it would take much for them to throw a lot more resources into the military if threatened, but the simple truth is, Russia isn't a threat to the EU or its members and like history has shown, things can change fast if need be, so Americans really need to stop worrying about Europeans in the EU, because we Europeans are not worried about Russia, we've got other things to worry about. But seriously, Putin is having a nightmare in Ukraine, which is one of the poorest countries in Europe, eastern EU country which are poorer than western ones would be a nightmare for Putin, in the end, Putin isn't an idiot, he picked an easy target with Ukraine, one of the poorest in Europe, not an EU or NATO member and this is the result, but if Putin were to take on an EU or NATO member, which most members in the EU are also NATO members, it would be a disaster for Russia. If a threat were to happen to any EU country, the resources are there to mobilise rapidly.
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@giftedtheos Yeah I suspect Ukraine is getting a lot of intelligence from European and American allies, they can after all give Ukraine intelligence without Russia knowing so it doesn't seem like they are directly interfering, but it's clear to see that Ukraine seems to know a lot of primed targets to hit and that's very likely thanks to its allies.
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Imper 5 That can change, in fact it will have too if they want to modernize because religion tends to hold economic growth back.
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It's not really up to France to stop them if they want to go to the UK and why should the French do the UK any favours with how they've behaved with Brexit? As for the fishing licence, it wouldn't do any good if the UK did that because France and likely many other EU countries would do the same to the UK or worse so it's self-defeating just like Brexit is. Truth is, this problem could be solved much easier if the UK government wasn't so hostile and arrogance because that's where the real problem is.
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To be fair to him, would he really want to be president with what is coming up over the next few years? even a good one is going to get it in the neck because of the economic hardship ahead of them and the funny thing is, the Democrats could do better to actually lose the next election to make sure the Republicans own this mess, otherwise the people will likely blame the Democrats for the mess the Republicans created, voters tend to blame whoever is in power no matter who created the mess.
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@sandrocorales If we are talking about Cuomo, I would like to see him try but he's leaving it a bit late now, as for Trump, he's been trying before this pandemic even started lol but honestly, I don't think the US can afford for Trump to win a second term with the damage he's already done and the bad reputation he's building for the US as I suspect many around the world are waiting on the election before deciding on what action to take on the US.
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Ynwa6 How is higher taxes on business better, that's what WTO rules more or less are, is that Brexit logic 101? There is no way WTO rules are better if you do any trade with other countries.
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@tanishqsinghbajwa4542 Who said anything about judging? and yeah I do live in Europe and would love if the EU could help more developing countries to develop but it's got enough on its plates with the countries it's already helping to develop for now. Solving wars around the world wouldn't be that hard to do if big powers stop creating new ones.
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The problem with that thinking is that China has a far bigger population than the US and even if it does shrink, it's likely not going to change much, beside, China have had a hard line 1 child policy, something it can change at any time to slow and even reverse the population decline, basically, China went out of it's way to slow its population growth down, they very likely can reverse it.
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Same, it was cold about a week ago in the UK, but it's warmed up by around 10C and the forecast looks quite good for the next 2 weeks. Also, so far, it's not got as cold as it did last year where for 2 days it went to -9C but was averaging around -5C. Things looks better this year.
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Jason, the EU is just doing what they said they would do right from the start, this shouldn't be a supprise to anyone, at the end of the day, why should a non EU member have the same benefits that a EU members got?, because thats what the UK seems to want and why the EU keeps saying no to us. We in the UK need to stop with all this cake and eat it and trying to cherry pick a deal because the EU isn't buying it, so that leaves us with very limited options, hard Brexit is already clearly ruled out, staying in the EU is more or less ruled out unless the UK is willing to give 1 or 2 things up for that, the only realy options we have is a Canada style deal which would do a lot of harm to the UK or single market and/or custom union, thats the best way to limit the damage but it will also mean us having little to no say in EU policy making, that might be the price we have to pay for rushing to sign Article 50 when we didn't need too, in any case, we are worse off which ever deal we pick now. As for the fish, we really do need to sell to Europe because of the shelf life of fish, we can try and sell further upfield but most of thoes markets are likely to give us less money for it or thoes markets already have enough fish, so if we don't sell to Europe, the fishing industry will just decline in the UK.
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I think we will get that at some point but things are still developing quite rapidly in the EU.
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I don't think it was that, it's mostly that he miscalculated the western response to the war in Ukraine and expected it to be a lot weaker than it was, he also miscalculated the resistance from the people of Ukraine, a massive oversight considering that Ukraine was preparing for this for years with western help. The irony is, the ones that have benefitted the most from this are the EU and NATO, we are seeing a lot more unity in both organizations and more countries wanting to join them both, longer term, Ukraine and some eastern European countries could benefit from this with a faster road map into the EU and NATO than would otherwise be possible, especially as the EU and even NATO wasn't too keen on bringing in any new members any time soon, that door is opening up for both the EU and NATO, which is the last thing Putin wanted.
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I don't think a world war will happen but a Cold War with the US and China does seem likely with how things are going, things have been building on that for quite some time, the pandemic has pushed it to another level and the real issues on that is fear from the US of China becoming a super power that is bigger than the US, basically, the more China keeps growing, the more erratic the US is becoming and to top it all, Trump is dividing the west which is making the US weaker at a time it's going to need friends, especially the EU. In any case, I suspect Europeans in the EU will try and stay out of it all because they've had a gutful of wars going back centuries.
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Orban is making Hungary relations with Ukraine colder, considering that if Ukraine does join the EU at some point and becomes modernise, it doesn't seem wise for Hungary to get on the wrong side of them, because they will very likely remember this and longer term, Ukraine has far more potential than Hungary does. I know Orban is doing all this because he wants that money from the EU, but giving money under blackmail is never a good idea, they'll keep demanding more in the future and worse yet, other EU countries could play the same game which would paralyse the EU. There's no doubt in my mind that the EU and its members have to find a way to kick Hungary out of the EU, they are not a team player that corporates any more, it's all about selfish means now from Hungary, which goes against everything the EU is. Seriously, EU, stop messing about and try and find a way to kick them out, which might be easier to do with the shift to a pro EU government in Poland, in the end, kicking Hungary out is the only way they will learn, after all, it's not like the people in Hungary have not had many chances to kick Hungary out, let Russia have their fun with them and see how well that works out, in the end, Hungary just isn't worth it any more and the quicker the EU and its members wake up and realise that, the better. Whatever the EU does, don't give Hungary any of those funds, they are asking for trouble in the future if they do give in to Hungary demands, save that money for Ukraine. Also, I'm starting to wonder if the EU members should try to shift powers towards the Euro Zone, they are the vast bulk of the EU block after all and they are more likely to be more comparative than none Euro Zone countries, after all, countries that enter the EU but are at arms length are more likely to not want to integrate, either way, the EU and its members need to grow a spine and start standing up to these countries that break the rules, all it does by giving in to them is make the EU look weak and likely will cause more problems down the road.
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Trumps not been in power enough to have that big of an impact on the economy yet, it takes at least a year or two for the real impact to kick in so most of what we are seeing is from what Obama did but we should get a clear idea of what Trump's policy's are really like next year.
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True, in any case, we'll get a real idea of how well Trump is really doing once in office for 2 years, until then he's living on the lagacy of Obama which he likes to keep bash, it would be funny if things really go south for Trump in the economy after being in offices for 2 years, that will be gold for Obama and others that don't like Trump, it will also send a powerful message of how bad Trump's policy's really are.
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I suspect a lot less Brits will blame the EU after Brexit because it will dawn on us that the EU was never the real problem and most of the problems the UK faces are down to it's own making. The UK for decades have been blaming the EU for all the wrongs in the UK and taking credit for all the good the EU does, after Brexit and assuming the UK leaves the EU, the only blame game will squarely be on the UK and I suspect thats where the real fear is for goverment and to a less degree, the smart euroseptics. I say that because before Brexit, they've had it easy with using the EU as a scapegoat, good luck to them trying to do that after Brexit, in other words, Brits are very likely going to refocus in other areas on where the real problem is in the UK and that is a bit too close to goverments in the country which I doubt they are going to like. Brexit is also likely going to be a tough time for euroseptics in the UK, in or out of the EU, I think they will have a real fight on thier hand because Brexit has shown that they are a threat that needs dealing with where before Brexit, they ware just some loons ranting and raving on the side, that will likely mean pro EU folks in the UK are likely going to give euroseptics a much tougher time now and it wont matter if we are in the EU or not, in other words, they have crossed that line with Brexit. As for the EU, they really shouldn't give the UK an extension unless it's for a very good reason that resolves Brexit once and for all like another public vote, otherwise it will be just wasting time.
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@ricardorolho7810 True but to be fair to them, they've not really needed too, but they are more than capable of doing so, they've got the economy, the skill set and are high-tech, it's just it's to have the political will to do it, especially with pooling resources together to get rid of a lot of waste and duplication. It will be interesting to see how things pan out because of the war in Ukraine and like you said, the Germans plan on spending 100b more, other EU members are also planning to up military spending, but to me, that isn't the issue, they need to pool resources together, build a single EU military and speak with one voice, without that, it doesn't matter how much the individual countries up their spending, it's going to look quite weak compared to the US and other big powers of the future like China. Our biggest weakness in the EU is that we're divided, speaking with many voices, that's showing with everything that's going on in Ukraine, that's the major reforms that needs to change and I think that is more achievable with Euro Zone countries not the rest of the EU countries.
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To be fair, Cyprus is a small country, so it's got to be realistic on the voice it can have. I do agree that the Euro zone crisis could have been handled better and I do feel that we need more direct democracy in the EU, either by shifting more powers away from the EU Commission towards the European Parliament and/or merging the Commission and President together and having it directly elected by the people. There were talks recently that this is what they wanted to do on the next reforms, but we'll see.
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@uf_6395 Simply really, if the entire EU does it, Poland will expect the EU and richer members to bail them out whereas if Poland does it on it's own, well they are on their own and cutting out that much dependence isn't easy, more so for Poland than it is for Germany. The realistic solution is to keep buying from Russia whiles reducing it as aggressively as possible, a lot can be done in a short space of time of just a few short years when there is enough political will to do it like we have now because now energy has become a security issue. The only alternative I can see in speeding this up is if the west works together to help fill that void in the EU market, that's doable if oil and gas producers ramp up production and they would stand to profit a lot from this at Russia's expense but until there is a secure means of getting alternative energy for the EU market, it's unrealistic to cut that out just yet.
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Let's be honest and say it for what it is, Russia doesn't like NATO or the EU because it's creating stability and wealth in the region which in turns takes away control and power to divide from Russia. For most people from any region, what they really want is stability and wealth growth, the EU and NATO offers that whereas Russia doesn't, in fact Russia is doing the opposite and because of that, Russia is destined to lose, unless Russia really gives the eastern members like Ukraine what they really want, they will always keep pulling towards the west because what they offer is far better than what Russia offers, that's the reality of it and Russia either doesn't understand that or doesn't want too. The real long term winner out of all this is the EU with it's long term expansion, the more it keeps modernizing eastern EU countries, the more eastern European countries are going to want to join, the only way I can see Russia countering that is if they offer something better which is highly unlikely because Russia isn't doing that great on a GDP per capita level for it's self, never mind in being able to life others up, people are fed up with all the crap and games and just want to live in peace and have a good life, the EU and NATO offers that, Russia seems to just offer threats and division with the aim of keeping Russia in control and creating division among the eastern European countries to keep them weak, at the end of the day, it's the economy that really matters on a per-person basis. The irony is, Russia could benefit from a lot of the benefits the west offers from the EU and NATO if it wasn't stuck in the past and in that sense, Russia kinda reminds me of the UK with Brexit, living in the past, trying to hang onto the glory days that don't exist, in the end, it's only hurting it's own people.
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@LTNetjak It really depends, GDP per capita isn't really a good measure of quality of life, I know this first hand with living in the EU and the US. European countries, especially western ones tend to have some of the highest quality of living in the world, it becomes an eye-opener when you live in other wealthy countries like the US in how much better EU countries treat their own people. That doesn't mean Europe doesn't have problems, but compared to many other regions, Europeans, especially in the EU are the lucky ones that don't realize how good and easy they've got it, even compared to Americans and I only realized that when I lived in the US for a while.
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Thing is, the UK has been so hostile towards the EU that as a Brit, I wish the EU would get a lot tougher with us as it's well overdue with how our government has behaved. So yes, it's high time the EU shows it's true colours as you put it as I suspect a lot of the world would say it's well deserved it happened. But seriously, there is no defence of the way the UK has behaved the last few years and only a harden Brexiteer would think otherwise.
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Pretty much, people are falling for the hype but that doesn't surprise me, Sony is very good at doing that with each gen and yet they never really compete with the PC. Basically, I suspect you will be able to build a PC for around $300 more than what the next gen consoles cost after the consoles are out, not on todays hardware prices but on the hardware prices at the time which we should remember that this is a big year for PC gamers as well, AMD and Nvidia are releasing new cards, AMD are releasing it's new Ryzen cpu, memory is dropping in price where even 32GB of memory is quite cheap and many fast M2 drives are coming out that are as fast as the PS5 SSD. Watch the impact all this will have on prices either late this year or early next year and mainly because they have to do it to compete with the next gen consoles because not many gamers are going to pay $500 or $600 for a gpu that is a match for the next gen consoles when the console cost around that, that's going to put a lot of pressure to lower prices, especially on the low and mid end but for now, they've got no reason to do that because the PC is blowing the consoles out of the water but once the new consoles are out, companies have to change tact. The moral of this story is, never compare prices of a PC of now to a console of the future, that is the main mistake a lot of people are doing.
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US peak as a power was probably just after world war 2 with Europe in ruin but Europe rebuilt itself, as for Rome and the US, they are not really comparable, as powerful as the US is, there are many powers in the world and unlike the Romans that for the most part could do almost anything they wanted and was feared by those that knew them, thats not the case with the US, also, Rome compared to what there was around is a lot bigger than the US, I think you would need something like a modern day China in today's world to compare to what Rome was back then and a modern China would be around 4 times bigger than the US in economic terms.
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I have to wonder if they will get advance enough where you could 3D print almost anything like a tv or mobile phone, that would be a all new meaning for online shopping, buy online and have it in your hands in 10 minutes, come to think of it, it would be an all new meaning for piracy. Does anyone not think something like 3D printers could morph into something like Replicators from Star Trek?, I know they are not the same thing but the principle behind them are similar.
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The real problem I'm seeing with the US is that over the last 20 years, the US is becoming less predictable, less reliable and hard to truths, Trump is just one leader but then, Americans picked George W Bush as well, it will be hard for the US to have leadership role if the American people keep picking these kind of leaders and I think Trump was the last straw, we are already seeing the likes of the EU and China shifting away from the US and this could only be the beginning. As for Germany, what can you say, they are dependable, reliable, they seem far more stable then the likes of the UK and US and more consistent, a lot of countries in the west can be quite erratic at times. France should be interesting to watch with Macron winning a landslide but it's early days for them and only time will tell if they do the real reforms needed in France. As for Trump, all he's really doing is shifting power from the west to the east quicker, it was already happening before Trump but now it's accelerated and worse yet, he's dividing the west when we can't really afford that with how quickly Asia is developing, in a decade or two, I suspect we are going to look at Trump and Brexit and think, what a disaster and what were they thinking at the time, Putin must be laughing his head off with how the west is weakening itself.
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Try telling that to the scandinavian countries that are probably some of the most socialistic countries in the modern world and yet they have some of the highest quality of living in the world, they also have some of the highest taxes in the world which means spreading the wealth out more evenly among the population. It's ironic but most don't realise that lower taxes just means wealth ends up in fewer hands because the smarter people take advantage of the less smart in society, higher taxes gives the government more of a role in distributing the wealth more fairer and it ends up being the poor and middle classes that benefit the most from that.
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I wasn't sure about Corbyn until the snap election, with that he seems to have a new lease of life and his charisma seems good to me, he's managing to mobilise young voters, a lot of what he says, he's been saying for decades which likely means he's more trustworthy and he's offering change unlike the Conservative party that seem to be offering more of the same.
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Álvaro Lopes That's true, I also think that a lot of these artificial barriers that we have up now with countrys are causing more problems than people realise, it's like tribes being set against each other, hopefully someday in the future we'll be able to work and live wherever we want too on this planet but for that to happen, the standard of living will have to rise a lot around the world and be similar to each other, considering we have places like Africa and the Middle East in the state they are in, we're talking at least 100 to 150 years off from now, still I rather live in that world than the world we live in now.
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A lot of us know that a lot of the real money these people make is after they get out of power by some of the bribes they took whiles in power, the actual wage they get whiles in offices is usually loose change compared to what they get when out of power.
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Big Ray So what you are saying is that you don't want a fair debate from both sides, you remind me of the mass media, corrupt. Also don't worry about the EU, from all the sign I'm seeing, it doesn't look like it's going anywhere, you should be more concerned with what's happening in the UK because that union could fall apart.
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Scott L Germany just like Japan have been so successful because of the aftermath of ww2, it got them to be much more effective in how they work, also unlike the likes of the UK, US, France that are temperamental at times, the Germans come across as more stable in government.
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Scott L It's not like the Euro is doing any serious harm to the German economy, in fact the ones that like to blame the EU and the Euro are mostly countries down south which find it hard to reform so there economy runs better. We might not like Germany being at the top, even most Germans didn't want that position in Europe but it kind of got pushed onto them and I can understand why, they are very pro EU, that helps a lot, they are also very level headed compared to many other big countries in Europe.
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Who said anything about the Germans ruling us?, it sounds as if you are jealous of the Germans and when you think of it, I can understand why, they lost the war and yet they have a very successful economy, are one of the key players in the EU and I suspect the UK would love to be in that position, even though I'm A Brit myself, it does come across that many in the UK are jealous of the German success.
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Eileen the Crow That floppy is better than what I had, I had an Amiga and you could store around 880k per disk lol, mind you it's amazing what they could do with limited hardware and storage, I did get a hard drive of 60MB and thought I had more storage then I would ever need, ah such simple times lol.
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The real problem is the consumers demand this by wanting goods for less and if we can't get them by British made goods because they are too expensive, we'll end up buying them from other countries that are willing to do it for much less, thats the reality of it and if that was taken away, our standard of living would nose dive, good luck explaining that to British consumers on why everything is a lot more expensive.
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Yeah I know what you mean, a gameshow called the Chase is rigged like hell in the UK, chances of winning anything on that show is so small that it's not worth going on that show because you either win something or nothing at all and 9 out of 10 times it's nothing. What makes it worse is the Chashers that seem to know more or less depending how much money is on offer, I feel they already have been given the answers because they walk out and back on Stage with each contestant, in other words, they have a chance backstage to memorise the question that are on there way. Another indication that the show is rigged is that some of thoes chashers went onto the American version of the show and to say they did poorly on the questions is laughable at best and insulting at worse, so they should rename the show as the Cheat not the Chase lol. Oh and another little thing I've noticed is how Bradley, the host speeds up or slows down saying the questions depending if he's asking the contestent or the chasher and depending how much money could be won.
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We have to remember, the UK is trying to have its cake and eat it by wanting to negotiate without signing article 50 depending on the deal they get from the EU, Germany is right in saying no negotiating until article 50 is signed, in the end, we wanted out and should pay the price of that. On the other hand, a lot of people didn't know what they was voting for, even on Google top trends was "what is the EU", after the event, also, the leave side are backtracking on what they said, £350 to the NHS, now we know that's a lie and more. Most people honestly didn't know what they was voting for and most of this was a protest vote that had little to do with the EU and more to do with our own government, a lot of what people are complaining about are problems that are happening elsewhere like in the US. But if there is one good thing to come out of this is that governments around the world might start waking up and listening to the people, that's where the real problem is in the UK, EU, US and so on, a lot of us have become disillusioned with politics, but I still think the UK is better off inside the EU then out.
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Can't blame Scotland for wanting to leave, they feel they are being taken advantage of by the south, even the north of England feels the south takes advantage of them and now the UK is suppose to leave the EU, we might have less resources for the north, more so considering London is the area that could get hit hard by leaving the EU and they voted to stay, makes me wonder, are they really willing to divert enough resource up north to keep them happy. Also if I was Scotland and Northern Ireland, I would take full advantage of all this and get as much as you can from the government, milk it for all it's worth.
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Try telling that to the people that live and work near the border and cross over on a daily basis.
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They probably see it the other way in that the UK is the sinking ship, in reality, none the EU or UK are sinking but I suspect the EU will do better out of this then the UK will long term.
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New challenge to land on the sun, odds of completion, 0.01% :)
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Tsungai Murahwi True, I'm sure someone will try lol.
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I have to say after seeing Corbyn and May in many interviews, Corbyn does feel a lot more down to earth with the people whereas May seems scared and quite robotical in how she's talks. it's ironic because Corbyn might be able to get us a better deal from the EU then May or the Conservative government can because May used many threatening terms with the EU, Labour have not, I also suspect the EU would be willing to extend the 2 year deadline if Labour was in power whereas it's unlikely to do so with May and the Conservatives in power, the EU knows that as things stand, a bad Brexit deal will firmly put the blame on May and the Conservative party.
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Either way, the likes of Norway and Switzerland pay into the EU pot, have open borders with the EU and applied most of the EU laws, so really they might as well be EU member but without any say on how it's run.
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No denying that there that others power at the time had an impact but it's clear that at least in the west, we built our system on the Romans and Greek system, hence why so many things today are quite similar to what they had back then like the government system, laws, courts, military and countless other things.
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Not only way better but it's getting cheaper and better all the time and is already cheaper or price competitive with fossil fuels in many countries, I also suspect it's why we are seeing downwards pressure on oil price because they can't afford to push the price up with how good renewable energy is getting and the only real snag is battery tech which needs to improve a lot and I suspect election cars will help that a lot.
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@seemorebutts292 Weak argument and Europeans are not going to kiss American arse for billions of years because of help from the past, that debt has been repaid. Beside, the US didn't help out of the goodness of their heart, they did because they got pushed into it, the Nazis likely would have gone after the US once they took Europe and Russia out and they would have had a lot more resources to take the US on, self-interest is the only thing the US showed, in that sense, you should be thanking the Japanese for that. Silvio Berlusconi, whats he got to do with the EU? the EU isn't crazy enough to allow him anywhere near power in the EU, that he was the leader of Italy is a different thing but Italy have been paying the price for not getting it's act together, hence the slow growth, what they need is a lot of reforms. So next time, don't compare an apple to an orange lol.
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A war with China is likely never going to happen, no war since world war two has happened with any modern country and always happens with countries that can't really fight back and for good reason. We are at a tech level that we can't afford another major war with modern countries as the destruction and lose of life would make world war two look tame in comparison. The only war that can happen with modern countries is economic warfare which ironically is happening, the US with it's trade wars with China, the US have had many trade wars with the EU but the US backed down on them all and if I recall when Japan was a major power in the 80's, the US had economic warfare with them as well. The truth is, no country is going to invade China as they are too powerful now, they have a massive economy, they have the population size and they are building a high tech industry really fast and as they keep modernising, who would be crazy enough to take on China?
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It's full circle, the US started out well, doing many of the things that Europe wasn't doing, but then the second world war happened, which was a seismic shift in how Europeans think, basically, they knew that major changes were needed going forward, and even thought the rest of the world benefitted as well, it had a far bigger impact on Europe because of how impactful the second world war was on Europe, basically, it was never going to be business as usually, and governments knew that massive change was going to be demanded from the public. Much of that thinking continues today and it shows in countless things from workers rights, food standards, universal health care, better work, life balance and countless other benefits that Europeans take for granted, much of these benefits have been exported to a lot of countries around the world, but the US is the stand-out country that's missing out on a lot of these benefits. As for Americans moving to Europe in higher numbers, I've been hearing that the numbers have been going up a lot since Trump got into power years ago, it seems it's still rising whiles Biden is in power. If I were to put money on it, I suspect many Americans are starting to open their eyes and are starting to realise that the US isn't the promise land the system wants them to think, which is ironic, because Europe and especially the EU is becoming that, there's a lot more information online that opens up peoples eyes to the differences around the world and I think Europe is benefitting from that. There's also another contrast, if you look at a lot of the core indexes in a lot of areas like quality of life, the US is actually going backwards not forwards whereas EU countries more or less dominant the top 10 spots around the world. What I do also find ironic is how the US and UK puts so much focus on things like how well the economy is doing or unemployment rate is doing, things that have little impact on the average person, quality of life and how well the system looks after its citizen is what I suspect most of us care about and Europe just does it a lot better. What's alarming is that the US seems to be falling further behind other modern countries in a lot of areas that matter, and things seems to be progressively getting worse in the US and chances are, unless things radically change in the US for the better for the lower and middle classes, it's likely the numbers are going to continue to rise on people leaving the US for the EU and that's not a problem for now, but it could become an issue if the numbers keep rising, an issue for both the EU and the US.
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Assuming that any new country can join by 2030-35, that's likely enough time to allow enough of the current eastern EU members to have closed the gap with western EU countries for them to not be as much of a burden, some could even be paying in the EU pot by then, that should help to make it easier to bring in new countries. But for me, money isn't the real issue and isn't really the selling point of why countries should want to join the EU, the best reasons are stability, security, rules change, all of which will create a lot of economic growth, that's far more important than hand-outs from the EU to those countries, as it will create a lot of stability which will in time bring in a lot of inwards investment. The real problem I find is the EU institutions, major reforms are needed before the EU can expend, especially on veto and majority voting rules, and until those reforms are done, I don't think it's wise for the EU to allow any new country to join, I also think if some countries become stubborn on trying to stop reforms, a core group of EU countries should find a way to go ahead and do the reforms in areas that they can, either way, it's crazy for any EU country to think things can stay as it is, because even thought it's working, it's creaking under its own weight, reforms should have been done years ago but now it's becoming urgent. Regardless of how reforms or the attempt to reform the EU goes over the coming years, I see no reason why the EU and its countries can't create closer relations with the countries that want to join, the more hope giving to the countries that want to join, the more likely they will reform themselves, so that they are in a better position to join the EU, that would be a win-win for both sides, the countries wanting to join will have better economic growth and EU countries will have richer, more stable trading partners on its door. As for the candidate countries wanting to join the EU, there isn't really a thing of fast tracking countries into the EU, apart from what the country in question does when it comes to reforms, in other words, the quicker they do the reforms needed to join, the sooner they likely can join, we've seen that play out over many decades where some countries take much longer then others to joins, whiles some join far sooner because they do the changes needed, ironically, Ukraine might find it much easier politically to do the reforms because of the war that's going on, after all, you would have to be a bold positions to go against any of the needed reforms with how strong public support, political support and the impact the war is having, which could speed up the process a lot more than in other countries that keep going back and forth.
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@ShadeColdfang That's got nothing to do with the EU and it's just Germany being overly sensitive about a few things and in the case of Steam, Germans can still buy games from other EU counties, thanks to being in the EU single market, so it's easy enough for them to bypass that.
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Is it just me or is this government throwing sector by sector under a bus on Brexit? First we've had the fishing industry and now it looks like it could be the farming industry, ironically, industries that backed Brexit hard are starting to get the worst of it, it's sad in a way but well deserved. So anyone wants to predict what other sections of the economy will get thrown under the bus? Workers rights could be prime for it to make the UK more competitive as we start to struggle. Also, it's rich Boris saying they shouldn't fear a deal when he's said that on countless other things on Brexit which are taking a big hit like the fishing industry and Northern Ireland, what Boris says is meaningless because he consistently lies about things and yet the British people reward him and not punish him, Boris must be laughing his arse off at the British people in thinking he can do no wrong and hence why he doesn't really have to listen to the people, remainders or Brexiteers.
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True and anyone that it's more or less labaling them all as the same which we should never do, but then racist people are like that, simply minds that look in terms of black and white and not shades of gray.
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To me a lot of this problem is been created by some political groupes and the right wing media, every since 9/11, they are pushing hard to label some as the enermy, from terrorist to migrants to immagration, they keep using scapegoats to scare the public and it's a big part of why we are in such a mess we are now. To me, migrants and immagration is not a problem if managed right but it was clear that the UK wanted cheap labour and more or less opened the flood gates for anyone to enter, we saw this when the eastern EU members joined the EU and the UK was the first to open it's doors, we've seen this with the UK not wanted to use any of the powers we have in the EU to limit people coming in on things like if they don't find work after 3 months, then there is also the factor of immagrations coming in from outside the EU which the UK goverment have always had full control over yet thoes numbers have always been sky high. The real problem is national goverments not the EU. As for the EU, I do feel it needs some reforms and changes, more so for the Eurozone, we are very likely going to see some big changese over the next 10 years but I do feel members in the EU really need to stop using the EU as a scape goat for all the things that are wrong in a country which most of whats wrong are wrong because of national policies then it is the EU but as we know, it's easy to deflect blame for ones own mess, the UK does this a lot over the last few decades, Italy is doing it and so are some of the eastern EU members now.
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I always had a sense that Brexit was about lowering standards in many areas, and because the UK economy isn't doing so great, the government has more of an incentive to lower standards to boost economic growth, that might look good on paper for the economy, but it's not good for the British people as standards drop, and the Tories have always wanted to lower standards even whiles we were in the EU, now the UK doesn't have the check and balanced from the EU, the Tories might get away with it by doing it slowly, hoping the British people don't notice and accept it. One thing I do know, Brexit was never about higher standards as the Tories wanted us to think, the EU sets a high standard in many areas already, EU members can have higher standards than the base EU standard, but they can't have lower standards, so the UK could have higher standards than EU standards whiles in the EU but can't have lower, and I think that is what Brexit is really all about, after all, there have been many cases where the Tories have been pulled back into line by trying to lower standards in the UK, only for the EU to pull them back into line, now the Tories can get away with it if the British people let them, which they probably will. In the meantime, they are going to continue to weaken the NHS so it gets so bad that more Brits go for private insurance and honestly, I think most Brits are unaware of what's going on and if was you, I would keep a close eye on the government in any areas where they try to water down rights and standards, because they will try to do so to boost economic growth.
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For Meloni, since getting into power in Italy, she's been moderating her and the parties policies in many areas, that's a smart decision because moderate parties are so successful because they are more likely able to work with others and are more likely to compromise in many areas compared to hard left or hard right parties, which rarely can get along with each other. The smart money would be on Meloni backing Ursula von der Leyen, as that would likely boost Meloni's influence in the EU, after all, it's probably not by chance why some of the far right parties have moderated their policies in many areas, they likely know, that's the only way they are going to gain any real power, after all, anger and protest votes at the mainstream parties will only go so far, most of the voting public wants moderation in their politics, not extremes and because of this, if any of the far left or far right parties want to be successful over the long run, they have to moderate there views and become centric parties, meaning they are not a threat apart from the current mainstream parties. This isn't the case if the majority of the voting public becomes radicalised, but we are a long way from that and it's clear to see that many of these radical parties are only doing so well because of anger from the voters at the mainstream parties, basically, it's a protest vote to teach the mainstream parties a lesson, but protest votes can only go so far, if many of the radical parties followed through on many of their views and make a mess of it all, let's just say, they likely won't hold onto power for too long and unlikely to win going forward, hence why Meloni toned things down since getting into power, she's been given a chance, but if her parties are to be successful on future elections, the policies had to be more moderated. With all that said, you can't rule anything out with politics, we've had crazy times throughout history with some bad decisions, but I think things would have to get a lot worse before people start voting too recklessly, so basically, it's a protest vote to teach the mainstream parties a lesson, but if the parties that do gain because of that protest vote, they will likely have to deliver on sound policies and likely will have to tone things down if they want that success to continue.
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What we are seeing thanks to Putin is how well the invasion in Ukraine is backfiring on Putin, it's pushing more countries towards the EU and NATO, there's real talk about more integration in the EU and military spending is going up, it's basically doing the opposite of what Putin wanted and it's clear that Putin didn't do his homework on how things would pan out. As for the EU, I suspect its members are going to integrate one way or the other even if we don't want it, and mostly because of the reality of the changing world, Putin's war in Ukraine is a wake-up call for Europeans but the reality is, a rising China on the world stage and a continuing growing US is pushing us Europeans to get closer together if we want to protect our political, economic and social interest, in other words, if we don't stand together, we're going to find it more difficult to protect our interest and I suspect it will take a few cases of that weakness being shown to really be the wake-up call for Europeans, something many countries really need. Personally, I don't have an issue with further integration as long as it's done right but I do feel the EU needs to engage more with the European people in the EU, I also think more reforms are needed, especially on the Commission which I think should be merged with the EU President and be directly elected, I also think the European Parliament should be given more powers, basically, its high time the EU starts cutting out a lot of the excuses that Eurosceptics keep coming out with and not feeding them which is more or less what the current EU does.
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For all we know, advanced aliens might already be on this planet observing us as a advanced alien race would have many ways of seeing how we are up close, they could create a human body like a clone and put their mind in one and interact with us as if they ware human and it would be very hard for us to detect them. An advanced alien race could be millions of years more advanced then us that if they really wanted to find us, I suspect they would at some point but it's more likely that we are of no interest to them. I also think, the more advanced humans or alien races become, the more civilised they have to become as technology advances, they become more of a threat to themselves and that will likely mean two things, either they wipe themselves out or they become a lot more civilised. That is likely the case for humans as well, the more advanced we become, the more civilised we likely have to become just to survive as tech will get to such a point that we could do a lot of harm to ourselves.
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Does bold well that if the younger generation still have that thinking as they get older than real change in your health care might actually happen in the long run. Anyway, I think it's only a matter of time, if you look at the world, pretty much all the rich countries around the world have universal health care and the US is one of the very few odd ones out
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This almost always happens with companies that get too big with too much market share, they start to push their weight around by monopolising the market, making it harder for rivals to compete and giving consumers less choice and at a higher price point, this happens almost every time a company gets into a position of power that they can abuse and they usually do so. I do wonder if laws and regulations should be different and based on market share.
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I was watching a video a few months ago about the decline of malls in the US because of online shopping, so it wouldn't surprise me if they are not as packed in the US as they used to be, in most places around the world, it's rare to see them without a lot of people in them, especially in summer. In the case of Russia, this has been a very recent thing over just a few months, so clearly the sanctions are having an impact.
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This is becoming the case in pretty much all modern countries because of the boom in population growth decades ago and now we have a bit of an imbalance from young and old, throw in that people are living longer and it's easy to see how that can put a strain on the younger generation of people when it comes to taxes and supporting public services. The irony is, it's probably not as big of a problem as we might like to think, we are quickly entering into a A.I. robotic world over the coming decades, if this ends up taking over the majority of labour and jobs, we could end up in a situation that having more of a younger generation could become more of a burden if we can't find jobs for them. Either way, one thing I've learned through life, anything that gets highlighted as a problem and grows as a problem with time, ends up not really being that big of a problem over the long run because of policy changes over time to counter the problem, so being aware it's a problem and having time to fix it is likely enough for it to not really be a problem when we think it will be a problem, and I suspect that A.I. and robotics will be the solution as that could solve all these issues apart from one, finding work for the younger generation of people, hence why the issue could flip on it's head over the coming decades and it ends up being a much bigger problem for countries with a much bigger younger generation of people, especially if they can't find them work because A.I. and robotics is taking over the jobs. As for the older generation of people, A.I. and robotics will likely be able to deal with all that, after all, governments might need far less taxes if A.I. and robotics can do a lot of the jobs we do in the public sector, but taxes are unlikely to go down much, if at all, it just means a lot more can be done with that money then we can today, which will probably end up with a human basic income as it's unlikely we'll be able to find enough work for everyone in a A.I. robotic world, and even any new jobs we do create, A.I. will likely be able to replace us in that. But honestly, I'm far more worried about the job losses that A.I. and robotics is going to do over the coming decades than the issues of the young and old generation., the reason I'm more worried about A.I. is because governments are slow to change and a lot will need to change with the impact A.I. will have on the world, I suspect many governments will let things get so bad that it could lead to revolution, whereas some countries, probably European one could fare much better because of the social structure of the society and higher taxes will make it much easier for them to create a human basic income, in other words, they are less likely to let things get really bad before they change, whereas I think the US and many developing countries will let things get really bad before they change, the end result in those countries is that far more wealth will end up in fewer hands and not enough jobs to go around as A.I. and robotics takes over.
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The lack of accountability from the Republican Party to keep Trump in check really does make them a big part of the blame and should be dragged down with him, but if I'm honest, I feel the Republican Party are the ones pulling Trump's string, let Trump be the face whiles the strings get pulled by many in the Republican Party, they hope that the true blame stays on Trump and it doesn't impact the Party and this is why it's not just Trump that needs to sink, the party needs to as well, otherwise this could happen again, but worse, it could happen with someone smarter and more charismatic than Trump, which lets be looking, the US is lucky that Trump is a blundering idiot, if he was smart, things could be a lot worse right now.
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@nathanaelsmith3553 If Scotland and Northern Ireland was to leave the UK, yeah I can see the EU would welcome them in and might even fast track them in as they were pulled out against their will. But as for the UK it's self, there's little to no chance the EU would let us back in for at least a few decades, too much bad blood has been created from the UK side and not just over the last 5 years but over decades where it never felt the UK wanted in at all, the UK was too obstructive and not constructive to the EU project and the truth is, there are some EU countries that are likely happy to see the back of the UK and considering it would take the EU and every EU member to say yes to letting us back in, the odds are highly unlikely the UK could rejoin any time soon unless they see a major shift in the UK from the public, media and government in how they see the EU project. The UK made it's bed and now has to accept it with the only real hope is that we could join the single market and custom union but I suspect there is little to no chance of the UK joining the political body of the EU, in other words, they'll let us in the single market and custom union because the UK won't have a say in making all the laws, rules and regulations but there is little chance of them letting us back in the decision making part of the project, especially now the EU and many of it's members see this as a big opening for the EU to do some real changes and reforms without the UK blocking it.
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I'm surprised the law hasn't changed on that because in a sense, people being reckless like that woman is doing could end up killing countless other people if she spreads it to others, that should have a very stiff penalty for those people that have been confirmed to have the virus, I mean in some ways, she could be a mass murderer without even realizing it so yeah the law should be very tough with them. It also begs the question on if she spread the virus to any of the other people in that protest movement, I bet some are worried now if their iq's can process what is going on.
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Well she did ask for treaty reform, it's kinda ridicules to blame the Commission for how she's put into power when she can only deal with the cards the EU members have given the EU. In other words, treaty reforms are needed to make the EU more democratic, but that blame really falls on the EU members, not the EU, and honestly, these reforms should have been done a long time ago and now it's becoming more urgent with everything that's going on in the world.
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@OnlySlightyRadioactive Needs to be done at the top and not just saying it, but policy changes to repair a lot of our relationship with the EU, otherwise, I think the UK is going to continue to chase a fantasy that doesn't exist, which is going to hurt living standards, destabilize the political and economic environment of the UK. Personally, I don't think the penny has dropped on the British people or our political parties that I think things are just going to get worse.
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@jvgama That's usually how the markets works, even when you've got enough storage to weather the storm for a while, prices go up to try and reduce demand until the situation settles. Basically the storage isn't about reducing the price but making sure there is no cut off point where little to no gas at all which would harm the economy.
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The more I see over the years with the issues and divisions, the more it's becoming clear that more needs to be done collectively through the EU than we are doing. On the economy front, it sounds like a nice idea wanting more control at a member's level, but when competing with the likes of the US or China, they've got the collective edge that gives them a major advantage in being more adaptable and creating economic growth, and I think we need a capital market with reforms in other areas, otherwise, we are going to slowly slip behind the other major powers and that will make us in Europe less relevant and make it more difficult to protect our political, economic and social interest, so the question is, how much of a decline is needed for the penny to drop to get real change? On the military front, considering that the goal is the same, defence of the EU countries, we can achieve far more at the EU level then member level, we come across as weak because of our division, because there are 27 voices pulling in all directions, and again, that's all leading to decline, the solution is to find ways of pooling resources together and speaking more with a collective voice, which likely means more integration at an EU level in key areas. As for immigration, this one is a tricky one, EU countries are surrounded by a lot of poor countries, and I can understand by wanting to do the right thing by them, there is only so much we can do and so many resources, the ideal solution would be to help create economic growth in those developing countries, but that's a long term solution that would take decades or longer to solve, but in the short term, I'm seeing the same problems as above, we've got 27 policies, doing their own thing, whiles at the same time, having open boarders in the EU, it's clear to me that if we want open boarders among Europeans, then we need stronger measures at an EU level, for now, there are too many loopholes in how people can get in, the EU has limited powers in what it can do, and I know the EU gets a lot of the blame on this, but we should remember that each EU country decides how many to let in, they then have freedom of movement to move throughout the EU, it's easy to see how that can be a problem, and this is one area where we need more being done at an EU level on boarder controls, immigration and so on, and for now, it's all disjointed with each country doing its own thing that's causing a lot of the issues.
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The problem I see now with the US pulling out of the Iran deal, why would North Korea trust anything the US say, the US are not reliable anyone, any deal made with North Korea wont be worth anything and this is the real problem, this could get much worse if the EU and others stay part of the Iran deal and sideline the US which makes you wonder what Trump is thinking because this could backfire on him big time.
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If you say so, but you would have to be a fool to think that China or others won't pull the same trick on any of the BRICs countries, there are many industries that China could target in the BRICs countries and probably will overtime to give them an edge, let's see how your own countries respond with that when industries and jobs are at stake. Basically what I'm getting at, it's easy to talk when you have little to protect, it's a different ball game when your livelihood is being targeted, for nor, the EU and US have more to protect, but even BRICs countries have a lot to protect, just that they are not the target yet, but give it time, after all, it's not hard to see what China game is.
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@icecold9511 That could work but they'll likely create their own internet, I also have to wonder if it would work at all with satellite internet. Personally, I think just beefing up security and more cooperation among EU and NATO members will do.
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There not flimsy but they are made cheap compared to European houses, a dead giveaway is the plywood they use for separating the rooms where in many of thier houses, it's quite easy to hear what's going on in other rooms, thats less the case in Europe apart from on some of the newer houses which can be built cheap.
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@benitolopez8762 Maybe not, but that doesn't mean they should be given more money, they get enough already, and honestly, I think it might be better to let the free market deal with it, under strict rules of high food standards, and ideally, within the EU.
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@Peregrine1989 To be fair, the EU isn't Australia or New Zealand, those two countries have a small market and limited resources, so for them, it's a lot harder for them to subsidise food or grow a car industry, the market just isn't big enough and the resources from the government are limited, the EU on the other hand has a far bigger market and a lot more resources to play with. Still, in the case of food subsidise, I don't have a problem with the EU supporting them with a few conditions that farmers get a lot more efficient, and the sense I get from them is that they want more from the EU whiles not improving on efficiency, and probably because in the long run, it will put many farmers out of work and make the farming industry more lean, but for consumers and the economy, that would be a good thing. Like you said, the solution isn't more money, it's better policies that push more efficiency.
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@R3lay0 But food is also less expensive in EU countries compared to the US, even with the price hike over the last year. Food prices are less likely to go up a lot in countries where it's already expensive to begin with, and that's the case in Switzerland and the US. Still thought, that doesn't mean consumers don't feel it because you get used to something, regardless of how much it cost, so any price hike is always felt, even if the starting base was lower than the above 2 countries.
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That's kinda how decline happens and usually it's not noticed at the time until it's too late. In the case of the US, I wouldn't say the warning signs of decline are there yet, but the signs are clear to see that the US could implode from the inside out, which ironically, the EU and China could be the ones to benefit the most from if they play there cards right. In any case, the US is showing bad leadership and I think it's going to get worse because Trump isn't just a one-off, the problem is with the American population that's allowing these loons into power, especially among the Republican Party. I'm starting to really think that the more enlighten countries around the world need an alternative to the US and honestly, the only alternatives there are the EU and China, and in the case of China, they are a poor choice for most, and the EU has potential if the countries in the EU get there act together and start working more as one, and until then, I think the world is going to become more unstable mostly thanks to the US and Russia, which China is likely going to take advantage off.
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Two houses of equal powers never seemed like a good idea to me, especially when so many times you get where one house is controlled by the Democrats and the other by the Republicans, it can create a right mess in getting things passed, but in the case of the EU, there are a lot more parties to choose, so that's far less of a problem, but if political parties overtime start to consolidate, the EU could end up with the same problems the US have with two parties dominating, but the EU could have safeguards in place to make sure there's a mix of choice. Also, for Americans, it's probably in the interest of the US to have a strong united EU, especially in a world where China is rising as a major power and authoritarianism on the rise in a world that's becoming less stable, for the time being, the US can deal with China, but because of the size of its population, it's highly unlikely that the EU or the US alone will compete with China as the Chinese become wealthy. For all the differences Europeans and Americans have, we also share a lot of things in common, democracy and freedom, looking at the alternatives, these are values we should be protecting, and I think the EU and US will have to band together to keep China in check, with the EU and US working closes together, they will likely get most of the world onboard.
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Religion tends to slow down economic growth all over the world, you only have to look at countries where there is more religion compared to others that have less, in fact you can even see that within many countries by regions like the US where the deep south has more religion than the west and have a worse economy for it, in fact we even see this with the EU, developing countries that join the EU tend to have more religion but in time as they develop, religion becomes less important, the Republic of Ireland is a prime example of that and are now one of the riches countries in the world. Getting rid of the shakes of religion, at least in government is a sure fire way to boost the economy.
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One thing I've learned throughout history is that any new tech that comes along that's better, faster and cheaper, it's only a matter of time before that ends up replacing a lot of jobs in the given field. In this case, we are talking about A.I. which overtime is going to be hooked up to robotics, the impact that is going to have on society and jobs is going to be revolutionary, more than any other invention we've created, and I suspect most of us are unaware of how big of a deal this is going to be over the coming decades. With that in mind, fighting it is pointless and doomed to fail, as it's always been when something comes along that can do a better job, cheaper and faster, which A.I. is quickly developing into doing so. The irony is, if actors, musicians, author, voice actors and countless others are not careful with this, they could kill their own industry a lot sooner if they try to cause too much trouble, in the end, many from games publishers, movie studios among others will simply bypass them as being too much trouble and not worth employing, especially now that there are cheaper alternatives on the market. If these people are smart, don't bother fighting it, you're destined to lose over the long run, try and take advantage of what A.I. offers and incorporate it into your workflow, but make no mistake about it, this is going to cheapen the value of their work a lot, simply because it's going to become too easy for almost anyone to create a lot of the same work in a fraction of the time and for far less money, whiles having advantages of being far more flexible. I'll give you an example, if you were a game publisher and you wanted a voice actor, you could pay an actor for the job, but that's recorded voices, it's not flexible at all, there's also the factor that it would be a lot more expensive than using A.I. and not as flexible, then what if the publisher wants to do some DLC game contents, they have to go back to the actor to record more voices and pay them? It's easy to see why many will just bypass actors and create their own using A.I. and then there's the final nail in the coffin, what if a publisher wants to create a game with interactive voice conversation? You can't really do that with recordings, that's where A.I. will have a massive advantage. That's just with gaming, a lot of these advantages are going to translate to books, movies, music and countless other things in one form or another, and A.I. is advancing fast that it's going to get more capable in what it can do over the long run. I will say one thing, I knew eventually we were going to create A.I. but I never thought for a second that it would be a threat to the creative industry before it is to manufacturing, but the threat is real to both, just for now it's much easier to do in software over doing A.I. in hardware that needs a physical form, but it's a given that is on its way and that will be a massive threat to a lot of jobs. Personally, I don't see this as a bad thing, things change, and boy is this a massive change, it should evaluate living standards to levels we've never seen before with how much more productive we could become, but the real worry is the system of capitalism we have isn't likely going to cope with it that well, our system is designed around getting everyone to work, that's going to be difficult in a world that A.I. and robotics can likely do more or less any job we do, cheaper, faster and better, there's going to be little to no incentive for businesses to employ humans, and here is the kicker, consumers will be the driving force in all this, we consumers always want goods on the cheap, basically, humans are going to price themselves out of the workforce because we always want goods cheaper, we keep demanding higher wages and better working conditions, whiles A.I. and robotics continues to get better and cheaper, it's easy to see where this is going, we are not going to be competitive in the workforce over the long run, and it only takes one company in any given field to use A.I. and robotics to force the rest to do it just to compete. I really do have to wonder if we humans are ready for this, because I suspect most are not.
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I'm not even sure if remainers need to make much of an effort here, the Brexiteers have made such a mess over Brexit that it's likely convinced enough of the British public to vote in the European election anyway and I suspect with the aim of sending a powerful message to our goverment and the Brexiteers in the country. One thing we should remember, far left and far right parties tend to do better when turnout is low and I highly suspect turnout is going to be much higher this time round and that will likely push the euroseptics to the fringes. Any Brits that either want the UK to remain in the EU or another public vote, the European elections is the best chance of getting that because if the British public votes in high numbers for pro EU parties, that will make the UK parliement a lot more bolder and likely will force another vote for the public on Brexit. So as long as we get a chance to vote in the European elections, it's all down to the British public now. Also, I find it ironic how some Brexiteers like Farage are making a song and dance about the European elections when it's people like him thats been saying the EU isn't democratics and now we're getting a vote in the European elections, he's kind of insulting the Brexiteers that didn't do thier research on the EU with that that thought the EU wasn't democratic and really thoes people should ask what other lies these people have told. Anyway, I'll be voting for Change UK as I don't trust the Tories and Labour don't seem much better and at least with Change UK, they are a mirror of the Brexit party that Farage set up, also I really do think pro EU parties in the UK need to work together here on the European elections.
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@awalker2723 Come on lol, surely you're not that blind lol, the pound dropped, the political situation in the UK has more or less been deadlocked for the last few years, billions on the UK economy have been wiped out by the mess that was created and yet we are still not out of the EU in the full sense. It's all well and done to say Brexit should be done but it paralysed the country and risk braking up the UK union with Scotland and Northern Ireland the likely candidates to leave and it gets 10 times worse now we have this virus to contend with because not only has the UK to deal with 10 years of austerity measures, we now have Brexit and the fallout of this virus to deal with, I don't think people realize how hard times are going to be ahead because of these 3 factors and that isn't good news for Brexiteers because they promised summer uplands, the British people won't want to hear excuses like virus and other things like that just like Brexiteers didn't want to listen to facts. In other words, all 3 factors could blow up in the Brexiteers face, especially because of the promises that they made that they never could deliver on even at the best of times never mind the worse of times. These have a way of changing public views in ways you do not want to know.
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I go for further integration and not because of wanting it or anything like that but because of geo-political and economics around the world. Basically, I feel that if Europeans want to protect their economic, political and social interest, they are going to have to band together a lot more than we already have in a world that is being dominated by big powers like the US and China. If we don't do that, I suspect it will become harder for us to protect our interest on all 3 fronts, we are already seeing signs with a Brexit UK with how the US is wanting to water down food standards, open up access to the NHS and countless other things, the US is trying that because they are seeing weakness with the UK being out of the EU and want to take advantage of that, in other words, without the EU, the US would likely pick off European countries one by one to open up it's markets to the US at their advantage, further US interest and weaken social standards in Europe. So I don't look at the EU on liking or disliking it, I look at it as something us Europeans need if we want to protect our intrest or we will get sidelined and that will make it more difficult to protect a lot of what we value in Europe like social standards, health care, workers rights, food standards and countless other things. The UK could be an interesting case to watch with how other countries treat them after Brexit.
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I do think Scotland could rejoin the EU, it already qualifies in many areas and it might also be fast tracked as Scotland was pulled out of the EU against its will. But, Scotland will likely have to sign up to everything of the EU at the time, so no op-outs on the Euro for instance. As for Scotland's trade with the UK, the irony is, even thought there will be an adjustment, it's the rest of the UK that would stand to lose the most if borders are too strict, basically, Scotland would likely move more trade towards the EU and other countries that the EU has good trade deals with, the market being so big should allow for that adjustment, whereas the UK would lose that trade, the irony in that is that it could put a lot of pressure on the UK to sign up to the single market and custom union to protect that trade. But lets not kid ourselves, if Scotland wants to join, they will be joining as a new country with no op-outs, but it might be able to fast track it because of the circumstances that Scotland got pulled out of the EU. Can the UK afford Scotland leaving? Maybe but if you look at it, Scotland accounts for about 40% of the UK land mass, around 5 million people and around £300 billion economy, population and economy shouldn't do much damage to the UK but it won't help them, the land mass and resources that come with that is where the real loss is, it almost cuts the UK size in half and I suspect Brexiteers will worry that if Scotland makes a success of it, which they likely would be going on other comparable countries that are doing better than Scotland, others like Wales might want to follow., Northern Ireland is already half in half out so it wouldn't take much of a push for that to go further if the benefits become clear. The biggest threat to the UK is Brexit it's self, unless that starts to deliver on the lies they told, it could really backfire on the ones that told them. Personally, if Scotland really is committed to rejoining the EU, it will have to get over its operation to joining the Euro and everything else, having operation to all that will in the eyes of the EU and many of its members make Scotland an awkward country that wants the economic benefits of the EU but doesn't want to push the project forward with more integration, that for many in the EU and its members will make Scotland seem like the rest of the UK in being Eurosceptic and a country that isn't easy to deal with, in the end, they might come to the conclusion that Scotland isn't worth having, after all, they've just got rid of one troublesome country, the UK, they don't want another one when dealing with Hungary and Poland. So yeah, Scotland needs to be realistic in what it wants, if they truly want to rejoin the EU, they best make a strong commitment to that, otherwise they've got a long wait that might result in them never joining.
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@dw8609 Well Poland is braking the law so what do you expect? After all, they agreed to the terms when signing up to the EU, if they don't like those terms, they can try and gain support from other EU members and have those terms changed or they can leave the EU, but braking them whiles in the EU will get them into trouble and rightly so. For the record, support for the EU in Poland is actually quite high, it's just the government that has beef with the EU not the people. As for Greece, they lied to join the Euro, they created their own problems and mainly because they wanted cheap money that the Euro created for them, basically, their problems are of their own doing and that's the case for Italy and Spain as well for lagging behind with reforms, but hey, it's easy to blame others for your own mess, the UK does it all the time for the mess it gets it's self into lol. As for the EU economic and military power, it's still very strong on the economic front and can be on the military front with more integration, the UK leaving the EU is a setback but there are many others that want to join the EU so it's irrelevant in the long term, in fact, getting rid of countries like the UK that holds the project back could be a massive blessing for the EU in the long run. Denmark's op-out is also irrelevant, as they can change their mind at any time in the future. As for the Germans, I think you misunderstand the EU project, as countries modernize by joining the EU, they need less money from the richer EU members and in time they end up paying in the pot, in other words, the burden on Germany and other rich EU countries becomes less as the eastern EU members close the gap with the western countries. Beside, I think you really misunderstand the EU project, most countries join the EU not because of the money but because of the security it brings which brings in a lot more investment which helps to modernize the countries, the money helps bit the other things are far more important over the long run. Stop thinking like a Brexiteer in thinking a few billion is a big deal to economise that are massive in comparison to those billions. Unelected dictatorship, that's a good one, I really hope you're not a Brit because that's really funny considering the government the UK has when it comes to unelected position lol.
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@KRYMauL It doesn't really matter if they are called a country or state, it's just a name, what matters is the institutions that run over them which in the case of the EU and it's members, it's a hybrid country. Personally, I think it's better we all get together in areas that makes sense, some things can be done better at an EU level by pooling our resources together whereas other things can be left at a domestic level, it's getting the balance right that matters the most which is the real area where the EU and many of the members keep arguing over, getting the right balance.
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@Pidalin Dark humour isn't a problem if done right and is usually both ways but it can be wrong if it targets a specific group of people like it's picking on them, but if it's both ways and making fun of one's self, it's not as bad, still it all depends of the dark humour we are talking about. I don't know if it was a thing in other European countries with whites painted their faces black but it was in the US and UK and was mostly done because they didn't want to pick a black actor, thankfully, a lot of that has changed and we're a lot more open, still, I'm only 42 and even I remember it as a kid it being like that and it was around that time when it was being phased out, but still you can still see the struggle continues with the Black Lives Matter movement, so we've still got some way to go. As for EU countries cultural differences, really we're not really that different from each other, the UK for instant likes to think they are closer to the US but if you look at how they live and the system they live under, it's far closer to the European norm in countless areas like the sports we play, the cars we drive, the social system, laws, government and countless other things, the only real thing the UK shares with the US is the language but apart from that, they are very different from each other.
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@Pidalin Dark humour can work of it's poking fun at both sides and yourself but it's bad if it's poking fun at a specific group of people and keeps going at that, it's probably why political correctness came about but now they are going overboard on that. In the end, it's a fine line in getting the right balance of humour without it being offensive to some people.
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Reforms are needed to the EU, especially on veto rules before the EU can expand, but I do agree that the ball needs to be moving faster, but that isn't a green light for countries joining the EU in a fast track way, those countries that want to join still need to do the reforms needed to join. Geopolitics is another reason the EU really needs to expand, you've got Russia to the east that their values are very different from western values, which are more controlling than open, then we have China, which is an expanding power, the EU longer term is going to have to expand a lot to compete with them longer term and the EU and US might have to get a lot closer together to compete with China in the long run. Then we have the US, the US are friends with Europeans but it's clear there is a drift in many areas, and the US seems to be getting a lot more erratic over the last two decades that makes them less reliable, there's also the factor that the US doesn't really have European interest at heart, we're on friendly terms but there are many times when the US is more than happy to try and hurt European interest, only for the EU to counter it, not to mention that when it comes to social democracy, US values are very different from European values in the EU and if we want to protect that, we're going to have to become bigger, otherwise I feel the likes of the US and China will try to force us to water them down, the US has tried that over the decades, especially when it comes to health care. There's also the factor of more integration, expanding the EU is all well and good but more integration is needed, especially among Euro Zone countries, because like it or not, they are the core of the EU, the rest don't matter as much and the ones in the Euro are more likely to want to reform the EU than the ones out of it, with the exception of a few none Euro Zone countries that want in but don't quality yet. Also, normally the pace of joining the EU isn't with the EU its self but with the country that wants to join, they can speed up or slow down the progress depending on how quickly they do the reforms needed, which sounds easy on paper but in reality, we are talking about reforming a lot of the political, economic and social system of a country, with the aim of modernising them, that transformation takes decades, but some do it much quicker than others because they don't drag their feet. Normally that's how it works, but now it's a bit different in that the EU can't let new countries in until it reforms its self so it can manage with more members, these reforms should have been happening years ago and are long overdue, and I do think a solid message needs to be sent out but inside the EU and to countries that want to join the EU that the door is open to that, basically, for quite some time, it felt like it didn't matter what reforms those countries did, the EU door was shut tight, if those countries start to give up on the idea of joining the EU, they will look elseware or it could allow the kind of government to gain power that we see in Turkey, the EU needs to send the message that if those countries put the reforms in, they can join, that would pull many of these countries from drifting towards Russia and China and I think there needs to be serious talks on reforming the EU by 2025, with it being concluded, well before 2030 and with the policy that countries could potentially join by 2030, likely starting out with the smaller countries, either way, send a message of hope to these countries and not gaslight them and they might be a lot more cooperative in doing the reforms the EU asks of them, whereas at the moment, they feel the EU door is shut and not opening any time soon, that makes it much harder to get the political will for those countries to do the reforms needed to join the EU. Also, I'm well aware that many will say that the EU isn't ready to expand because of the troubles with Hungary and Poland, but we should put things into perspective, around 13 countries joined over the last 20 decade, most of them have been successful in integrating, because we've got one or two bad lemons, doesn't mean that expansion hasn't been a success, it's been a major success so far, but the EU needs to get a lot tougher on countries like Hungary and Poland that break the rule, something the European Parliament has wanted to do for some time, so clearly the EU Commission is the problem, which has allowed those two countries to get away with too much which sends the wrong message to other members, that the rules can be broken, the EU really needs to get it's act together in holding countries to account when they break the rules that they agreed to when joining the EU. In any event, the deadline has been set for 2030, a lot of these countries that want to join the EU will be looking at that deadline and will be thinking, if there is no major reform from the EU side and a clear message that if the countries that want to join, can if they do the reforms needed, I suspect a lot of those countries will give up on the idea of EU members and look elseware, maybe even form their own mini EU, in the end, these countries are not going to wait around for every for the EU to get its act together, there's needs to be a strong and clear message that if enough reforms are done, they can join and for me, the EU Commission is the major problem here, because they keep constantly putting blocks in the ways, regardless of what reforms these countries do, it's not hard to understand why these countries are losing faith in the idea of joining the EU and why reforms are becoming difficult for them, because they are losing hope in the idea.
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The impression I'm getting going on what I've seen, Europe will be fine during winter, yes they'll have to tighten their belts a little this winter but we should remember that they are getting around half or more of their gas from other sources than Russia, also, a lot of the storage tanks are nearly full, put it all together and you'll probably won't notice much of a difference apart from the protest this winter from the public over the high energy prices, something that could happen around the world and not just in Europe. After this winter, the real threat starts to go down a lot as we all adapt to this and I think, longer term, Russia is the one that's paying a high price here and for a few reasons, one, they've lost one of the richest markets in the world with the EU, two, using fossil energies as a political weapon, makes Russian natural resources far less valuable to them because a lot of the world won't want to buy too much from them in case Russia gets political with it, trust is hard to earn and that's probably Putin's biggest mistake here which will be damaging for at least a decade I suspect. I think the real damaging part of all this is that Putin has awakened this clean energy revolution, that is very likely going to ween us off fossil fuels a lot quicker than it would have happened, especially in Europe as energy is now a security issue so a lot more countries are going to want to generate a lot more energy internal or inside the EU market, that good be damaging not just to Russia but any fossil producing nation as it could wipe out trillions in revenues from those countries. Personally, I think Putin's actions have wiped out about 10-15 years of fossil fuel revenues on those countries and Putin has likely done more than the Greens could have possible done to get us to clean up our act around the world and all it took was the threat to energy security and high energy prices and with that, it's going to be very interesting to see the energy mix around the world in a decade and especially in the EU because I'm expecting some radical changes over that time.
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From what I find and this is more or less the case across different countries, the more ignorant and less educated someone is, the more the right wing are able to manipulate them against their own interest, the right is also much more likely to blame others for problems back home than to take responsibility for much of the mess they helped to create, this is especially the case in the UK and US, that deflecting blame always happens, we saw a lot of that under Trump in the US and Brexit in the UK, it archives nothing but to make the situation worse, which those same people that helped to create a bigger mess, end up blaming others for the mess. Democracy as a system is a fine idea, and it works as long as the people in it are well-informed on what they are voting on, take part in the voting process, which higher turn outs tend to keep the radical elements at bay, but unfortunately, too many in society get too emotional when it comes to voting, they vote on what they want and not what is realistically possible, they fall for lies very easy, especially on the right which are much more aggressive on cutting social systems and letting people fend for themselves, whiles also being more aggressive on the world stage. I also find the left and right debate is stupid, it's a stupid way to group someone with the aim of dismissing all their ideas, this is especially the case in the US, where it's not really about good or bad ideas, but from which side the idea is from that seems to count, the truth is, there is no left and right, everything is gray, and most of us have political views that span from left to right, the irony being is that a lot of people don't realise that. In any case, in a democracy, if you want the system to work better for your interest, people need to wake up and start voting responsibly, the people have the power, they just do a poor job of using it.
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It would help if it was more coordinated through the EU, but a lot can be done at members level, you only have to look at the likes of Japan or South Korea, which are far smaller as economies go. It all boils down to drive and having the political will to make it happen, which in Europe, there hasn't really been much of a push in that whereas there has in heavy industry.
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To be fair, most many decades ago would have thought what we have in the EU hard to believe now, things can change, especially in a changing world, we've got the US that's becoming more unpredictable, we've got a rising China that scares the hell out of the US whiles the EU has concerns on China in other areas. All the jigsaw pieces are falling into place to allow more integration in the EU, especially on military, forign policy and security matters, and the irony is, Trump and Putin could be the ones that make that happen, and to a less degree, a rising China, after all, everything has a countermeasure, Putin invading Ukraine, Trumps antics, all of this will end up focusing minds of governments and the public to allow the creation of an EU military. But personally, I think the EU should do it like they did with the Euro and Schengen treaty, try and get as many countries onboard first, but then go ahead with it and allow other countries to join in the future, at least that gets the ball rolling and I suspect many EU countries would go for that already.
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The problem for Switzerland is that the country is too small, landlocked and too dependent on the EU market, that makes it very difficult for them to unbind ties without it being costly and that is likely going to be more the case as the decades go by. I think with all that, I think it's only a matter of time before Switzerland is integrated more in the EU, possibly becoming an EU member but that seems to be happening anyway, even if it's in name only. I suspect from the EU's point of view, they want to combine their relationship with Switzerland into a more simple agreement than the messy one they have now, so something a bit like Norway. Honestly I would like to see Switzerland become an EU member some day as I always find it odd a country slap bang in the centre of the EU isn't in it which could become harder to maintain in the longer run but in any case, whether Switzerland joins the EU or not, I would like them both to have close relations as that is in both parties interest.
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Depends on how you look at it, joining the EU will mean a readjustment for the country joining and it will also mean their companies will have to up their game to be competitive in the EU market, but that also benefits those companies by being more competitive on the world market. The brain drain thing was probably going to happen regardless of joining the EU or not as people seek a better life, but it's a temporary thing that will reverse over time as these countries that join and develop into modern wealthy countries, we've already seen that with many western EU countries that joined over the years. As for independence and making your own laws, independence is a bit of an illusion, the world structure, the laws, regulations and rules are more or less made by the big powers like the EU and the US, smaller countries around the world can make their own rules within reason, but the ones that want to do well usually have to play ball with the big players in the world, there are 3 big players, the EU, the US and China, all 3 are shaping the global rules how they see fit, the rest, for the most part are along for the ride, independence to a degree but in reality, they are in the bubble of power of these big players, we see a lot of this going on in Europe with the EU and Russia with Russia wanting influence in the region but the EU winning out because what it offers is more appealing, this is playing out on a global scale, just look at Australia or Japan, independent on the surface but they are practically in the pocket of the US since the second world war. This is only going to get worse for small to medium size powers as the EU, US and China continues to dominant and become bigger over the decades, and maybe if India gets its act together, maybe they can be part of that club, but for the rest, they are more or less at the mercy of the big players on what laws, rules and regulations they make, and usually, ignoring them usually has a very high economical price. So in the case of eastern European countries that are deciding on whether to join the EU or not, the real question they should ask themselves, do they want to be a decision maker or follower, if they are in the EU, they are one kog in the wheel that can help decide and make these laws, rules and regulations, if they are on the outside, they become followers, we see that already with none EU members, including the UK which is more or less mirroring EU laws, rules and regulations out of self-interest, and clearly geographic plays a part, the EU has more influence in Europe, the US in the Americas and China in Asia with other pockets scattered around the world for them all, some of it is because of history and other ties.
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@heatea5255 The EU and it's members will likely change depending on geo-political changes in the world, basically, a rising China and India, the US still being around, all of this will push Europeans to integrate more if they want to protect their political, economic and social interest, otherwise they will just get sidelined, also, a big part of the EU is to allow them to compete with the US and in economic terms, it's been very successful at that, now they just need to work on the political side of things. I suspect this pandemic is going to change a lot when it comes to all that.
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Adolf Stalin That's true and these things are never easy and honestly, it's remarkable the progress they've made because if we said the EU would be at the stage it is now just shortly after world war two, we both would have said it was a crazy idea and would never work and yet here we are.
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@rogerwinter1563 The common market is just one thing, the UK wasn't just joining that as much as some like to think they were lol. The project was always about political and economic integration well before the UK even joined the EEC, I mean really, do some research before looking dumb.
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@rogerwinter1563 Thanks for proving my point in that you can't counter what I said, you've just made yourselves look like an idiot lol.
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@kenneth.dl87 No problem ;-)
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@amm287 No problem, not had any abuse yet which I usually get when talking about the EU lol.
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If you think about it and look at all the natural resources Russia is blessed with, have they really been doing well on the economy front? Most countries would love to have the natural resources Russia have got and with a competent government, would very likely be doing better than what Russia is doing already. Russia isn't doing any better than the eastern EU members which are still developing and have very little natural resources and we should remember that a lot of the wealth in Russia is concentrated in Moscow and St Petersburg. So is Russia really doing well? Considering its natural resources, I would say no and would say they are doing quite bad, Russia as a country should have a far higher GDP per capita than the eastern EU members and yet they don't and that's down to two things, mismanagement of the economy and not much trust in the economy because of the government which harms foreign direct investment. So it never came as a surprise to me that Russia isn't doing well in Ukraine, Russia has a pretty weak economy and it's the economy that projects power.
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@adriansmith5241 Australia are in a very weak position that need are at the mercy of the US a lot more than even the UK is and with China rising as a power, Australia is looking a bit dicey to me, if I was Australia, I would start to make political and economic alliance around the world and fast and their the best option is likely the EU being another strong power in the world that hasn't lost the plot like the US has.
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@adriansmith5241 Australia is too weak, that's why they keep looking for others for protection and that's going to be more the case with the rise of China. As for the EU, many more countries are joining the EU and Euro over the next 5 years, it's only getting bigger as time goes by regardless of what the UK does because lets be honest, the only reason some of you are talking about the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand forming together is because you're too weak on your own and even all them together would be too weak to take on the EU, US and China. Face reality guys, it's not going to happen, the UK and Canada will make sure of that for many reasons.
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@adriansmith5241 Hardly, they are too small to even care about the geo-politics of the world. But I do find it ironic how the popularise governments around the workd are making a right mess of this pandemic from the US, the UK, Brazil and so on, people voted for clowns that don't have a clue how to run a goverment and they wonder why things are so bad in those countries, the blame firmly goes on the people in those countries, I mean like the UK, did people even consider other policies of this government and if they were good for the countries, was the vote just purely about Brexit?, at the end of the day, these people are getting what they deserve and maybe next time they won't get so reckless with voting but I would put my money on it. The other irony is, the EU and it's countries seem to be the more stable out of them all, the US is going off the rails, the UK already went off the rails lol, China is getting more hostile, the Europeans seem to be the more senseable ones that still have any real power left.
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@adriansmith5241 Something many in Australia want to scrap but that's a different debate, but in any case, all those 4 countries together are still too small and spread too thin around the world for it to really work, the only real power out of them is the UK and they are in decline thanks to Brexit, the UK had a lot more clout for it's size by having a big say in the EU, that is all gone and now a lot of countries are ignoring the UK and trying to take advantage of the UK, a few I can mention are the US, China, India, Japan and so on. Ironically, the EU is one of the only big players that isn't trying to screw the UK other, all the EU is making sure that happens is the UK doesn't have as good of a deal that they did in the EU which is very fair really, a lot of the issues the UK have had over the last few years is wanting the same deal they had in the EU, that is never going to happen.
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That depends on a few factors on how the economy is structured, but if done right, the Euro should help the economy grow more, but either way, I think Euro zone countries are in a good position long term because the longer they are in the Euro, the more if forces them to restructure the economy to align with other Euro countries, that over the long run will have a lot of economic benefits for those members, it will also very likely push more EU policymaking towards Euro zone members at the expense of none members, especially as most countries are in the Euro. Because of all that, I think all EU members will join the Euro some day out of self-interest, but for some, it could be awhile off, decades even, but the ones that join sooner will be able to reap the economic benefits by doing the reforms needed to benefit from it.
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I suspect paranoia comes with the job and Putin does see enemies everywhere, even inside Russia.
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Every other modern country has figured this out, many developing countries have figured it out, and it's not that the US can't figure it out, it's that some of the rich elites are pushing back against it, and I think that comes down to the core problem that the US has got, you've got a pretty weak overall government in how in can intervene in life, whiles at the same time, got a lot of rich elites that more or less act like mini dictators. There's a reason they call it corporate America, and it's because they run the show, not the government or the people and that undermines democracy, hence why it doesn't matter who people vote for, not much changes overall. Basically, by the Americans people wanting a weak government, they are basically handing power to the rich elites and big corporations to rule over them and the results speak for themselves in so many areas where the people play second fiddle to the interest of the system. It also kinda sounds like that the US needs to get rid of the US reserve currency to help resolve many of these issues, the irony is, that what seems like a blessing on the surface, is ending up being a curse for the average American, and if you look at a lot of the quality of life indexes in so many areas, it looks like it's progressively getting worse in the US and personally, I wonder how bad are they going to let things get, maybe they need that to happen to kick off a revolution to get real change, either way, it looks like things are going to get worse not better over the next decade or two.
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They could but I don't think they can afford too, the last thing they want is to speed up the change to alternative energy and high energy cost will speed up the demise of the fossil industry if it drags on long enough. What these energy companies need to do is stabilize the energy market and fast before enough public pressure builds on government to do real change to the energy sector and not the foot dragging we've been seeing for decades, in other words, investment in renewables and other alternatives could go through the roof if the fossil industry doesn't get their act together because there are a lot of angry people and that's putting immense pressure on governments to do real change.
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These negotiations were never going to go anywhere, it's mostly a smoke screen by Putin to see what the mood is like in Ukraine for backing down in this war. As for being a natural country, well I think Putin can kiss that idea goodbye, there might have been a chance of that before the invasion but I suspect there is little to no chance of that now with Ukraine likely going full steam ahead for EU membership just to get away from Russia. NATO on the other hand is a different thing, Ukraine might forgo that if they get EU membership, in the end, EU membership is really what they want not NATO membership as EU membership more or less offers the same protection whiles offering a lot of other benefits, stability, economic wealth and so on. As for the damage done in Ukraine, the assets that the west have frozen of Russia, around $300 billion, use them to rebuild Ukraine, basically, Russia did the damage, they should be held to account and pay for the damage done.
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I think realistically, we are not anywhere near peak China, yes they are having a few step backs thanks to the US and some of China's own policies, but that's very likely short term, which is unfortunate for the US, because China could become far more aggressive on the US as China becomes more powerful, which could lead to a major conflict between the two or a new Cold War, the main difference this time is that China potentially has the advantage with having a much bigger population, and if the economy keeps growing, population and economy equals power. We also have to remember that Europeans as well as much of the world are not as hostile towards China as the US is and is probably what is causing much of the divide between the EU and US, the US wants Europeans to be more aggressive on China, but a lot of Europeans are fine with being more neutral on China, probably because from other perspective, China is far more of a threat to US power then it is to others and the US has shown through history that it will be aggressive towards anyone that threatens its power around the world, they did so against Japan in the 80's, they tried against the EU in the 90's and onwards, they won against Japan, but are getting nowhere with the EU. Do I like China and it's policies around the world? No, they are too aggressive with many of its policies, but that doesn't mean it's an automatic green light to back the US side, especially as the US is becoming more aggressive and unpredictable, because of that, many countries will likely have a more natural stance on them both and the only way I see that changing is if the US starts listening to concerns from other countries around the world to win them over, especially with the EU which is the other big power block in all this. The simple truth is, China is still a developing country, it's got far bigger population then the US has got, that means there is still a lot of room for economic growth with the right policies in place, so unless the US finds a way to keep China's population poor, which is unlikely as the world is slowly modernising, then it's only a matter of time before China becomes a bigger power then the US and it's very likely what's going on recently is a temporary step back before and honestly, I think longer term, the only way to contain China is likely going to be with close relations with the EU and US, both together likely could keep China in check, but ironically, the US seems to be going out of it's way to ruin relations, which is exactly what China wants, to pull the EU away from the US and it will be interesting to see if the US falls for that trap.
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One thing I always ignore when it comes to governments around the world is when they brag about how good the economy is doing and how low unemployment numbers are doing, a lot of governments like to brag about these things, the US and UK are prime examples of that and yet, to the average person, it means nothing. What really matters is growth from the bottom up that lifts the quality of life for everyone, seriously, in the US and UK over the last decade, they've been going on about how well the economy is doing and yet, a lot of the public feel things are going backwards, not forward, it's all meaningless unless it impacts the people, especially the low and middle classes. So even if Chain or other countries are lying about it's GDP numbers, it's only fooling its own people and the best way to lift the quality of living is from the bottom up, clearly that isn't going so well in the US or UK, hence a lot of people complaining, don't know if that's the case in China but it wouldn't surprise me.
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@hellgorama Quite true that, another thing about those regions is that they are built on a house of cards, it's mostly money shifting without really producing much which isn't really that great for job and the people in those regions but it is great for the super rich and corporations. As for the Euro Zone, that's unlikely to fail because there is too much of an incentive for the members in it to make it work no matter what, it's also in the interest in the none Euro Zone countries in the EU for it to work because it keeps their options open it's always better for them to have a strong currency on their door step that they can join then being ruled by the likes of the US. Basically, the EU and the Euro has always been a project about protecting European political, economic and social interest in the world, that's why it's unlikely to fall because none of them can afford for that to happen, even the more sceptical countries and this is more the case with the US being a power, China and India rising as a power.
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Not only is football very accessible regardless of where you are in the world or the wealth of the country, but it's also accessible for the individual person, if you're short or tall, fast or slow, you can still make it and be a good player, in many American sports like American football, you usually have to be big and musclier, or basketball where being tall is a big advantage. Now I'm not saying that extra speed doesn't help with football or being taller doesn't help, it does, but there are a lot more other factors that plays their part in being a good play, skills, positioning, level-headed and so on and why we've had players over the years of all backgrounds become really good players, so easy to access and anyone can take part, that's a major advantage for the sport over many American sports.
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It depends, escaping won't solve the problem, in fact it could make it worse because the ones trying to escape are likely more modest Russians, if they escape, it's going to leave more of the hardline Russian in Russia which gives Putin more power in the country. To make things worse, them escaping likely means the protest moving could get killed off quickly, when really these people should be rising up to depose of Putin, after all, these people did nothing when people were dying in Ukraine, they only started to care when it personally started to impact their lives, It's hard to feel sorry for them when they are part of the problem by sitting silence whiles people are dying and at the end of the day, Putin didn't get into power by magic, a lot of Russians supported him and put him there, so It's time they wake up and do something about it before Putin drags them all down and running away isn't the solution.
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Left, right, centre of politics, it really doesn't matter much, most of us will switch depending on who delivers what we want, most parties don't deliver, so we switch to another party, thinking they'll deliver but they rarely do, the cycle continues and things don't change in areas that people really want, regardless of which way we vote, hence why, pretty much every modern country isn't that different from each other, even thought people in these countries vote quite differently. Personally, voting for any of the mainstream parties, whether it be on the left or right, doesn't really change much, if people really want big changes in society, they'll have to vote very differently than how they are doing, and that doesn't mean voting for the loony parties on the left or right of politics, basically, things are the way they are because of the way people vote, in that they say they want real change but keep voting the same way, so it's hard to blame the governments, the real problem is the public, and it's voting patterns, and this is a flaw we see in most modern countries. At the end of the day, a democracy is only as good as the people's voting patterns, having access to facts on what they are voting on, something most do a poor job on, even thought in this day and age of the internet, we have access to all the information we could want.
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For me, it seems more democratic because people are quite different across the country and have different views but if you look at the system of the US or UK for that matter, you only really have two choices whiles all the rest are wasted votes, basically the system more or less forces voters on one or the other with two party systems which ends up getting people to vote for many things they want but many things they don't want because of lack of choice. The system isn't perfect in Germany but given the choice, I would take their system any day over the US and UK system which groups people into two camps which just isn't how a lot of the public thinks but the system more or less pushes them in that direction.
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Turkey is a prime example of how not to run an economy, and since Erdoğan took power and consolidated his position of power to make it difficult for alternatives to compete, Erdoğan has been getting bold with sticking his nose in areas that he doesn't understand, the economy, central bank and all that, to make it worse, he's using the religion card to justify his actions, we've seen over centuries how religion and the economy is a bad mix, it can put an anchor on the economy that can drag it down, which is more or less what we are seeing in Turkey. In hindsight, the Turkish people probably shouldn't have elected Erdoğan, now that he's elected and consolidating his position of power, it might be difficult for the Turkish people to get him out of power, and I feel this is going to be one of those situation that things need to get worse over time for the people to get so angry with the government that he gets forced out, but usually, that can take a long time, which is unfortunate, because during that time, Erdoğan is sinking the economy.
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That's more or less how it is and the irony is, the EU isn't so much the problem here, some members in the EU are and at the end of the day, there's only so much the EU can do when some countries in it are either blocking things or pulling in all directions. Unfortunately, it's easy to use the EU as the scapegoat, but in this case, they don't have the powers to fix this, all they can do is try and get it's members to come up with a deal that works, this mess is being done because members are pulling in different directions in a union that has open boarders, it's clear to me what needs to be done, either the EU is given more powers so it can enforce it's boarders and immigration policy, or the internal boarders close in the EU, I suspect the first option is much more likely.
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Thats true but this made it easy for them to do, what did Trump honestly expect Harley Davidson to do, take the hit to it's profits around the world? or do the smart thing and move jobs out of the US market to avoid these tariffs so they can serve thoes companies whiles staying competative. This is likely not the last and could get much worse for the US if Trump does push with extra tariffs, it's doing what Trump didn't want to do when he said he wants to bring jobs home, it's pushing jobs out and this is really showing that Trump doesn't have a clue about economics.
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Which means nothing as the Democrats still control the house even if Trump wins the election and that is where the real problem is because the house can block a trade deal with the UK which is in control of the Democrats.
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The EU regulates far more EU companies than it does others from around the world, it's just the tech companies like to make a lot of noise about it, especially American corporations that are not used to governments sticking their nose in. In truth, this is normal, and in the case of the EU or any country, they have every right to say what can and can't happen in their own market, regardless of if it's an EU company or not. Besides, it really doesn't matter if it's an EU company or not, as long as the market is big, it gives them the clout to change companies around the world that do business in the EU market, the US can do the same and to a less degree, China can and they do, but in the case of big tech, the US have been doing a poor job regulating its own companies that the EU is doing it for them. Regardless of whether you agree with it or not, you want to do business in those markets, you have to follow the rules they set, and being that the EU and US are such big markets, almost all companies want in on those markets. We should also remember that EU and European values are quite different from the US, it's not about profit at all cost and boosting GDP numbers by any means, it's about value to the citizens, in Europe, we regulate big companies a lot more, especially if they have a lot of market share in any given field and for good reason, companies with a lot of market share tend to abuse that position, they change the rules in favour of themselves whiles making it harder for smaller rivals to compete, which isn't in the interest of consumers or smaller companies. The US on the other hand feels like the wild west where there are regulations but they are so weak that corporation can do almost anything, to make things worse, there's powerful lobbying that goes on in the US that does the bidding of corporations and it seems the US government is scared of them or are taking bribes, if the US got it's own companies in order, the EU wouldn't have too, and besides, it's not just the EU going after them, a lot of governments around the world are starting to wake up and go after big corporations.
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I don't sense the EU wants to lead the free world even though they are capable of doing so, as for some of the issues some are saying about the EU, well most of them are short term, the demise of the EU has been talked about for decades and it never happens, it just gets stronger, Brexit is likely to make it stronger because the UK was really holding it back, in any case, thanks to Trump, it looks like political alliances are changing around the world and it doesn't look good for the US especially with the EU and Asia looking closer towards each other, the US was forgiven with George W Bush but I think Trump is the last straw for many around the world and I suspect the ones to benefit the most from this is going to be the EU and China.
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Financially the UK have helped in the EU but it wasn't what I meant by holding it back, the UK have held the EU back when it comes to integration which in turn has made it less effective to benefit all it's members, something ironically many in the UK keeps complaining about, we should also remember that a big chunk of the money that goes into the EU from the UK ends up back into the UK so we are not putting in as much as some would like us to believe.
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The irony is, smaller governments are much more likely to bend to the wishes of corporations then bigger governments, if hard Brexit happens, the UK government will have to bend over backwards just to try and keep many businesses in the UK, especially if given company trades a lot with the rest of the EU, in other words, you need big governments like the EU and US to face down corporations because the smaller ones are less likely to do it because the market of the country isn't big enough of a threat to businesses to take much note of it, the EU and US are, also, the EU is much tougher on businesses then the US, the US does need to do more, so does the EU as well, but they are kind of limited by the given powers the members countries have given them, also, they have to be realistics, they can't hit down on them too hard otherwise it might end up kicking off a trade war, in the end, the US needs to do more if you want the EU to ramp things up.
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Russia is still a young democracy and are still finding their feet so pitfalls were to be expected, I think it would be in the interest of both the EU and Russia to work more closely together because they can achieve more working together then being rivals, it would always likely improve the quality of life for Russians if the two worked closely together. On the plus side, as the EU shows how it's helping to modernise the eastern EU members, that will put pressure on other eastern European countries including Russia to learn from that and that will likely benefit them all.
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Star Trek started to go into decline with the end of TNG and during the run of DS9, you only have to look at the viewing figures and popularity at the time to see that Star Trek was going in decline, hence why DS9 and VOY had to do some drastic changes through the run of those shows to try and boost viewing figures. When TNG ended, everyone was surprised because Star Trek was at the height of its popularity then, and don't get me wrong, I love DS9, but I can see that the tone of Star Trek changed, it's darker, more moody and more war like, which went against everything that Star Trek is all about, a more uplifting future, a bright future where humanity comes together to build a better future and explores space together, that vision got lost through DS9 and the shows and movies afterwords, and it's been downhill ever since. Will they ever get back to the true vision of what made Star Trek great in the first place? I doubt it, if it was going to happen, it likely would have done by now, but the studios behind Star Trek seem tone-deaf to the fans and have been killing Star Trek ever since, heck, even the last 2 episodes of Star Trek Picard Series 3 on the Enterprised ship, they couldn't help themselves but to make the ship lighting look dark and moody and yet that was the highlight of the show but yet they are trying to mess it up with darkening the lights, and someday these studios will realise that most of us will want to live in a future that's well lit, peaceful and a bright future, but seriously, when they can't even get the lighting right on the Enterprised ship when they already have a reference to it on TNG, what hope is there for the future of Star Trek when such basic things they keep messing up. All I can say is roll on the advancement of A.I. that eventually we could make our own episodes, so like you could feed it every TNG episode and have the A.I. create new ones, maybe going on the better episodes you like, this isn't possible yet but with how A.I. is improving, it could become a real thing over the coming decades, then, who cares what the studios want to do, we'll just make our own shows and bypass them as they are so disconnected from the fans.
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It's called the veto rules, until that is reformed so no one country can block the majority, I don't see any country joining and for good reason, as we've seen with Hungary and Turkey. There is little to no chance the EU or many of its members will want other countries to join, only for them to have a veto vote that can hold everyone else to ransom, as Hungary is doing lately, and we are even seeing that with Turkey with NATO, it's a flaw in both organization that's needs to change, after all, the more members that join, the more these ransom games will happen. The irony is about all this with the EU, the eastern EU members are the ones that want the EU to expand the most and yet it's some of them are the reason why the EU won't expand, clearly, treaty change is needed with reforming or getting rid of veto rules before I can see the EU expanding and this really needs to happen this decade, because countries that want to join are not going to wait forever, if they see the door not opening to EU membership, some of those countries could look towards Russia or China, in other words, the EU and it's members needs to get its act together on this and likely once things settle down on the energy and inflation crisis, some either next year or the year after. I do agree that the single market and/or custom union could be used as a stepping stone for EU members, it might, as you say, create stability and reforms in those countries, which will help bring them closer to EU membership and the main thing the EU needs to show is a message of hope to these countries that they can join, many are probably losing hope in thinking they will never join, and that makes it much harder to do the reforms needed to join. It's the same for Ukraine, there are talks about granting them membership talks this year, I think the EU should offer that, any message of hope will be helpful for them, but clearly, Ukraine can't join until the war is over and a lot of reforms are done, but there is no reason why the EU and Ukraine can't get the ball rolling this year and I know it will take many years, but what many of these eastern countries needs is a sign of hope that progress is being made that they can join, so it's the EU side that has to make the move on that whiles also pushing hard for reforms of the EU, especially on veto rules.
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@arno_nuehm_1 politicians are a reflection of the people, besides, there is no fuel shortage, we're just talking about a dices winter which it looks like the Europeans are ready for and that after winter, things should start to ease off a lot. Also, we should remember that there is a lot of blame to go around on all this, the west has been too soft on Putin for the last decade when he invaded Crimea, Putin was banking on the west to just do another slap on the wrist for invading Ukraine. The question is, would Putin have invaded Ukraine if the west was a lot tougher on Putin when he invaded Crimea? Probably not. Also, it's not just the Germans that bought a lot of oil and gas from Russia, a lot of countries did, so there is a lot of blame to go around the west but in any case, this could start an energy revolution which isn't a good thing for countries that either depend on fossil fuel revenue or that sell a lot of them because the change away from that system could happen a lot sooner thanks to energy being a security issue, in other words, I suspect a lot more countries, especially in Europe are going to want to generate a lot more of their energy internally and in that sense, Putin might have done the world a massive favour by getting us all to clean up our act and use a lot more clean energy sources, after all, things can change pretty rapidly when there is enough motivation and political will do drastic changes, which a lot is changing in Europe because of the energy crisis and with that, It's going to be very interesting to see the energy mix over the next decade, especially in Europe because I have a feeling they are going to speed up the change a lot, which is good news for Europe but bad news for countries that produce fossil fuels as it could wipe out a decade or more of that revenue which would be worth trillions to those countries.
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There isn't a thing as special relationship, ask a lot of Americans and they won't know what we are talking about, it's a thing they like to talk about in the UK to make it seem like we have more power and relevant then we actually have, and even if there was such a thing, it's very one-sided in favour of the US. The irony is, when we were in the EU, it didn't have to be that way, we could do what was in our interest and the EU's interest, even if it's not in US interest, but now with Brexit, the UK is in a much weaker position that we can't afford to get on the wrong side of the EU and US, and we've not exactly been on friendly terms with the EU of late
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The problem is with fringe parties, especially the more radical ones, is that it's harder to form a coalition, because their ideology of them all are very different from each other. It's something that more centrist parties that are moderate have the advantage on, a lot of the policies of them all blend together and are not as radical, which makes it far easier for them to form a coalition, and unless the more radical parties in society can get enough votes to form a government without a coalition, then these will always be limited in what power they can get unless the population at large becomes more radical, which if that happens, then there are a lot more problems in society then some care to admit, and fortunately, we are not at that stage in any western countries, and if history is any indicator, hopefully, we'll never get to that stage.
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Will be interest to see the next decade because of Putin's actions in Ukraine, Macron has been vindicated in what the EU really needs to do thanks to Putin and now we are seeing some sizeable shift in policies around Europe as well as from the people, as you say, this could open up the door for more integration, especially on security and military matters. It's all ironic really because I said to my brother a few years ago that Putin, Trump and Brexit are the best friends of the EU and they don't even realize it, them messing up will show the Europeans in the EU why they need to work closer together which is helping the EU out, sometime it's these events that happen that become a major wake-up call.
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I think the real issue isn't so much the EU its self, but each EU country having its own policy when it comes to immigration, many of which are pulling in different directions. Normally that wouldn't be an issue, but in the EU, we have a single market with freedom of movement and no borders internal and becomes more of an issue when more immigrants bottle up in a few countries. This is one of those cases where you need a central policy at the EU level, but they don't have the powers to enforce that as it's left to individual members and basically, this is one of those areas that can go 2 or 3 ways, 1, either more powers are giving to the EU so it can enforce the borders better whiles having more control over immigration policies, which include a more even distribution of them across the members, 2 is closing the boarders internally, that's highly unlikely, the third option is to try and figure out a deal among the members, something they've been trying to do for over a decade now and it ends up with a patch up job that kinda works in the short term but doesn't long term. Personally, this is one of those areas that I think the EU needs more powers in these areas, I know the EU gets a lot of the blame on this but the truth is, they have limited powers in what they can do here, it resides with the members and that is where the real problem is and I also feel it's crazy to have an EU union of open boarders among it's members and yet have an immigration policy that's controlled by the members, clearly that needs to be done by the EU and I don't think this problem is going to be resolved until either the EU has the powers to enforce the boarders or the members close their boarders, the first option seems a lot more likely. So the moral of the story, the EU isn't really to blame here, the members of the EU are, the issues we are seeing are caused as a by-product of having open boarders in the EU, but without the powers to control the boarders and immigration policies, there are limits to what the EU can actually do here apart from what it's doing in trying to get the members to come up with a deal that works, but that is a mess and it's become clear that the EU needs the powers in those areas so it can deal with this mess without individual members pulling in all directions. Now the question is, how bad do things have to get before that wake-up call calls home?
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Separating would weaken them overall but this is likely a bit different from Brexit in the UK, the regions that want to separate from Spain, likely want to remain part of the EU, whereas with the UK, it was all out of the EU, which ironically is fuelling the separatist movements in Scotland and Northern Ireland. In truth, a lot of these separatist movements are very emotional and a lot of what is promised is usually based on lies or half-truths, promising so much more if they get independence but just like with Brexit, not delivering. I think it's in the interest of those regions and Spain to find solutions and work together to make it work, and reducing inequality and boosting the economy is usually a good way of reducing these problems, at least if the people actually feel the benefits of economic growth. We are seeing the same pattern around Europe and North America, a lot of angry people that feel life is getting harder, the economic growth isn't being felt by the average person, and that's fuelling the rise of the popularise movements, it's also not helped by the right wing media that seems to want infighting among the people when really, they should be pushing for solutions to make things better, not getting us all to fight among each other.
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@dariusgunter5344 No countries are going to attack any modern countries, they would be crazy to even think it never mind do it, the damage that can be done from both sides would be crazy, that's why pretty much every war after world war two has been with countries that can't fight back, never with any modern countries, besides, the new tool of warfare is economics. Basically, nobody really wins if a major war was to break out, especially with modern countries.
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@dariusgunter5344 The people are always the problem in any system, just look at what is going on in the UK or the US, those governments are a reflection of the voting patterns of the people, it's easy for people to deflect, but they tend to be the real problem in a lot of cases. As for Poland and Hungary, as for which direction they go, that is up to the people to decide, the EU can help them out but the people have to want that help, we should also remember that these countries are new to democracy so mistakes were going to be made, the EU is fine with that but if things continue to get worse, I suspect much stronger measures will be used on those two countries, maybe even giving them the boot. What I do think needs to happen is the rules need to change, money that goes to them should be reduced or stripped down, even political say in the EU should be reduced but I think the EU might be doing the right thing for now and waiting to see if the people rise up to change things in those countries themselves, if they don't then the EU will likely get much tougher on them, if the EU did that now, the governments of those countries will use that to turn the people in those countries against the EU, the EU knows how to play this game, getting too tough with them now will only likely backfire but getting tough with them once people in those countries start to realize how bad things are going in those countries is the right time to strike, basically, let them have their way for now, it will do some economic damage but that is what will likely change things. The EU does this smart, look at Brexit, have you noticed how the EU goes after the government but not the people? They always like to keep the public onside and that's smart because now they are making the UK government look stupid whiles support among Brits is growing for wanting to rejoin the EU, it's a careful fine line in going after the government without the government turning it's own people on the EU which they will if they can but the EU is making it hard for them to do.
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@petersebok9284 Hardly lol, I think you assume inaction as weakness, the Europeans are more than strong enough to defend themselves if they want, they just don't like to boost about it because they've had a long history of wars and quite frankly, they had enough of them, but inaction isn't weakness and beside, look how the US is becoming like the Europe of old, they could be repeating the aggressiveness of Europeans of old. In any case, no modern country is at risk, highly advanced, adaptable with the resources to boot, it would be crazy for any modern country to go to war in this day and age.
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@robyclay Really, so explain why the EU countries have just done a bailout that most of the money goes to the countries in the south? Explain why a lot of development funds go to eastern countries to help develop them? Does that sound like mobster rule to you, if you look at the EU and all the countries that joined it, the EU has an impressive record in developing countries over time. I do find it remarkable how ungrateful some can be, it's like they expect all this money and resources without any strings attached, fortunately, most know better and don't see the EU as mobster rule, but it does beg the question, who is feeding you all this bullshit lol.
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@robyclay Don't make me laugh, the EU helps any country that isn't keeping up or any developing one as they join the EU regardless of where they are from. The immigration issue is something else entirely and yes I agree that I think the EU countries need to work together but the problem on that is that the EU has limited power in those areas and EU members are bickering over silly things, if the EU had more powers in those areas, the immigration issues would be far less of a problem, so basically, don't blame the EU, blame many of the members that are bickering because that is where the real problem is, the EU could actually be the solution if the members get onboard. Also, at the end of the day, a big part of the mess in many of those countries was made by the US and UK, they destabilized a lot of those regions and EU countries are having to clean up the mess they did whiles the likes of the UK and US wash their hands of the problem.
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It wouldn't matter by then, because by the time we get to that, the value of oil will be little to none in that most of us won't need it. But in the end, higher prices on fossil fuels is a good thing for killing that industry off sooner rather than later as renewables keep getting better and cheaper. If the fossil industry were smart, they really need to slash prices with the aim of extending their life another decade or two, but personally, I'm grateful they are trying to push the price up, whiles trying to price fix, as that will help to kill there industries off sooner rather than later, and in the case of Europe, fuel cost is already more expensive than many other parts of the world because of taxes on it, but that encourages a bigger push away from fossil fuels towards cleaner energy sources. The fossil industry might have 2 decades left at the most where after that, the downwards pressure on the price point will be immense thanks to how cheap renewable energy is, and more so as the world shifts to EV cars and heat pump, basically, going all electric and reducing the need for oil and gas, as we can generate electric by many other means like renewables. History has also shown that when the fossil industry tries to push prices up and try to control the price, it usually ends up favouring the renewable industry as more investments happen. The Irony is, China is probably doing the most damage when it comes to the fossil industry, mainly because of how aggressive they are on pushing renewable energy on both the tech and pricing, that's followed by the EU and the US, so in the end, let the fossil industry play there games with trying to fix and push up prices at a time when alternative clean energy is getting cheaper, it's only going to end badly for the fossil industry sooner rather then later.
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Yeah it does seem like we had a more optimistic view of the future in the 60's onwards, now it all feels like doom and gloom. I think the reason for that is the internet, it opened up a lot more eyes to how the world is really run and how corrupt it is, we see that a lot in politics and the only difference before the internet, we're none the wiser about it, so things seem a lot more gloomy, even thought we're advancing faster than we've every done and the future should be bright. Basically, we need to clean up politics, corporations and the media, as that is what is bringing the gloom by trying to manipulate minds and to shape them to the vision the elites want.
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When it comes to the EU and Eurosceptics, I can understand wanting change to it, but I can never understand those people that want to abolish the project, that wouldn't serve any purpose but to make us weaker, which we can't really afford with big powers like the US and China knocking on our door. What we should want is wanting changes so the EU can function better for all our interest of its members and its people. As for Eurosceptics, you do get a sense that a lot of their views are being misled when it comes to the EU project, either by twisting of the truth or outright lies on the EU project, especially from the right wing media and right wing political parties, a lot of that led to Brexit in the UK from the right of the media and political side, and clearly most of what they told were lies, and many Brits are starting to wake up to that, basically, a lot of the problems Brits were blaming the EU for, were actually problems the UK government created, something that is becoming evident outside the EU for the UK. I do get a sense of the same thing happening in many European countries from the right, and this is undermining democracy, after all, a democracy is only as good as the information and facts the people get, as well as the public taking part in the voting process, this is where I'm seeing a lot of problems in a lot of western countries, including the US, too much of the narrative is being all twisted up that most don't know what's true or not, and now it becomes an echo chamber of who can shout the loudest that is more likely to win. I do also feel that reforms are needed to the EU to reduce the arguments that Eurosceptics use, the easy one is democracy, shift more powers away from the EU Commission towards the European Parliament and/or merge the EU Commission/President together and make it directly elected. I am also wondering if new laws are needed on the press, I'm all for freedom of the press, but clearly, we are seeing too few rich individuals that have too much power over what the people hear, especially on the right, Rupert Murdoch once said, he doesn't like the EU because they don't listen to him whereas he likes the UK government because they bend to his will, if you have a media that's too powerful, it can undermine democracy, and as I said above, democracy is only as good as the facts the people get.
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I think in the short term Spain could help to fill that role, but I think over the longer term, more of us are going to want to be energy independent and want to generate and store energy on-site, renewable energy is getting cheaper and better all the time, once we solve the battery issue in being able to store a lot more energy and at a low price point, it becomes far more feasible for more of us to generate what we need locally, and for energy security reasons as well as very low price of energy, I suspect most of us will want to go that route.
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@jonathanwilliams1776 It's not really about outvoting the Labour Party, we all knew it was going to pass regardless of what Labour does, this is about dragging the Labour Party down which the Tories will try to do if Brexit goes sour. Basically, Labour supporting this deal will make it much harder for them to pin a lot of the problems that Brexit brings up on the Tories without the Tories spinning it around on Labour and saying they supported this deal. Now I'm not saying labour should have voted against the deal as that wouldn't work but I think thier best option was to stay out of it to make sure the Tories own that mess. In any case, as deals go, this deal is worse than I expected, it's even worse than the deal that May had about 2 years ago, the EU more or less got what they want whiles giving the UK very little, they kept access to UK waters, trade in goods whiles more or less not giving anything on financial services, a very sweet deal for the EU, they also kept Northern Ireland close to the EU with Gibraltar and Scotland wanting to be close to the EU, the UK is even paying in the EU pot whiles having to abide many of their rules. The Problem is, this deal is only going to dawn on people how bad it really is when it's too late. In any case, it will be interesting to see how the next 2 years turn out because I suspect this isn't the end of Brexit by a long shot with how this deal has been set up.
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@cosmicraysshotsintothelight But China is a developing nation so they can get away with giving to themselves.
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Wendy A. Smithon It's free market, something the US likes to push a lot but clearly, a lot of flaws are showing in that kind of thinking, free market is good up to a degree just like freedom of the press is, if it's too free, it gets abused and that's what we are seeing in both industries. Now if people really want things to get better, reforming both industries would go a long way in doing that.
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This and also, the EU doesn't really move that fast, being that it needs to take into account the interest of 27 members, unlike the US where you get a sense that Trump just puts tariffs on other countries without considering the impact it could have on US states. In any case, this is all favourable for the EU, it's showing the US as untrustworthy and unreliable, that over the long run will likely have major political and economic consequences for the US the longer this drags on, and all the other countries around the world have to do is adjust to it, shift trade towards more friendly and reliable countries. I don't think most Americans realise the damage this is doing to the US reputation around the world and the cost of that politically and economically could be major over the long run, and I think it might be too little too late for the US in that they've crossed a line here that will be difficult to return from, once you lose trust and become unreliable, the balance of power can shift around the world, now it's just a matter of other players like the EU and China taking advantage of the situation. Either way, there are going to be a lot of openings for them to take advantage of this the longer it drags on and countries shift trade around, and the irony is that US corporations could get clobbered because of this, because of the tariffs, but also because of the boycotts of US goods and survives that are going on around the world, which is looking like it's going to continue to ramp up and why many US corporations are looking at shifting production plants out of the US and into other countries to protect there interest, in a sense, Trump wanted to bring jobs back home but his actions are likely going to have the opposite effect.
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@MrKakibuy Even if that is the case, that's still costly for Russia and in the meantime, EU countries are likely looking for other sources to source their energy means on the international market and will likely push up their renewable energy drive, so yes, a few years can be quite damaging for Russia. After all, after all this, it's highly unlikely that European countries are going to want to get oil and gas from Russia with all the political games they play, they are very likely going to look else ware in the coming years. In the end, if you keep threatening your customers and not being reliable, they are going to look elseware.
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We should remember that joining the EU isn't just a quick switch you push to join, there are a lot of reforms and changes needed in the given country before they are ready to join, if you let countries join too soon when they are not ready, you could have a situation like we see in Poland and Hungary. With that said, I think the EU can show a much stronger commitment for Ukraine to join, help them out in areas they can, even maybe lets them in the single market and custom union but ultimately, it's really up to Ukraine how soon they can join depending on how quickly they are willing to accept the reforms needed, the same for other countries, Turkey is a prime example of that, they've been foot dragging on reforms in the country, decades later and they are still not in, so how soon a country can join the EU really boils down to the country in question doing the changes needed to join. With that said, the EU has it's own problems, I think the EU needs a few reforms, especially on veto rules where it needs to either be scraped or where you need 50%-60% of EU members for it to block something and not where it is now where just one member can hold the rest to ransom and with that, I think a lot more majority voting needs to come in, it could work on 60% population and 60% of EU members countries that are needed to pass something, at least that way, you would need a decent amount of the EU population as well as EU members countries to vote on it, that basically means a lot of smaller countries would have to vote for it as well, it would also mean leaders would have to argue their case to the EU people and win them over in passing a giving law and if say it is 60% and not 50% votes needed, it would likely create less division, Brexit is a prime example of that, because it was just 52%, it created a lot of division in the country, if it was over 60%, it would be hard for remainders to argue against Brexit and it would reduce a lot of the division, votes that are very tight tend to divide countries. Basically, the problem isn't about if the EU will let Ukraine join, the real problem is Poland and Hungary, as long as they keep trying to backslide on democracy, there is little chance of Ukraine joining until them two are sorted out and the reforms above are done, so as much as I would love to see Ukraine join the EU, Poland and Hungary are the main reason holding that back. My advice to the people of Ukraine, take advantage of a lot of the good will you've got with the EU and rest of the world because of this war, once things settle down with the war, if enough of the real reforms are done in Ukraine to join, I think Ukraine could be fast tracked in the EU but it really is up to the people of Ukraine how soon that happens, on the plus side, because of this war, assuming Russia loses and pulls out of Ukraine, I suspect the reforms needed in Ukraine will be much easier to achieve after the war because wars are usually a big wake-up call to do things that normally would be very difficult to do, in other words, there is every chance that Ukraine could speed up the process a lot once the dust settles, but I have to stress again, it is entirely up to the people of Ukraine to make it happen, the EU can only do so much for them.
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I don't know if the EU should become a federation or not, but clearly things need to change in the EU if the EU countries want to be competitive with the US and China long term. There are many ways EU countries can go about achieving this with further integration and federation isn't the only way, but EU countries need to wake up and face reality that if we don't change, we are going to get left behind, and there will be a price to pay for that when it comes to protecting our interest, politically, economically and social. In other words, we've been able to protect our interest in all 3 areas because of banding together through the EU, we are going to have to do more of that over the coming decades if we want to protect our interest long term, and whether we like it or not, the EU has been a counter-balance to US capitalism, without it, we very likely would have weaker policies when it comes to social programs, workers rights, trade deals and countless other things, basically, the US would get its way far more with EU countries if it wasn't for the EU, and by extension, would put pressure on other modern countries to weaken social programs more in line with the US, mainly to further US interest and especially corporate interest, the EU being strong enough has kept the US at bay, but that won't last forever unless EU countries get there act together. There are 3 paths going forward with the world, you've got the US of pure capitalism, which quite frankly, is a sinking ship, especially with the rise of A.I. and robotics over the coming decades, then we have the EU which is capitalism but a more humane version of it with lots of social programs, rights and protections, then we have China, not really much to say on that one, but I highly doubt many around the world would want to follow that kind of leadership, and I pity the fools that do, so the EU and the US are the only logical ones, the EU has been winning out in the sense that almost all modern countries apart from the US are social democracies, with a lot of social programs and protections, but if the EU starts to falter, pressures will likely build from the US on all those countries to weaken those policies for US corporate interest, so people need to wake up in EU countries before the balance tips too far away that it's too late. As for where powers should be when it comes to the EU and it's members, I think some powers are better suited at the EU level whereas others are suited at the members level, forign policy, border control, immigration and a few other areas are clearly better suited at an EU level, but there are other policies that would be fine at a members level, either way, we need to be working much closer together if we want to protect our interest and stay competitive on the world stage, and the current model is clearly not working, so more integration in key areas are needed, and I wonder how far the EU and its members have to fall behind on the world stage before we realise that things need to change.
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@blackoak4978 That's the case for many countries, if you have the economy to back it up, you can quickly adapt and put your economy to work on a war footing quite quickly if the need arises. In the case of Canada, there is no threat for now but if that were to change, military spending would change and things can change quickly, same in Europe, for most countries, especially western European countries, there is little threat to them, even with Russia making a lot of noise in the east, there not really a threat, but many are seeing this as an opening to boost military spending and many are seeing the opening on integrating the militaries into an EU based one, first starting with arms production, support among the people and many political circles seems to be growing on that, so we could be seeing the early signs of that. The irony is, I think Trump is the one that's far more effective in reshaping European thinking than Putin is.
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@Clodaghbob Thats been the case for quite some time, I've heard many euroseptics in the UK blame the EU on things that had nothing to do with them as that power was in the hands of national governments, unfortunately, that's the level of ignorance we've had to deal with on Brexit, but the good news is, Brexit is done so the real lesson begins for them and thats when the real fun begins.
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@Clodaghbob Actually if you look at the numbers, immigration numbers have not changed over the last 4 years apart from that a lot less are coming in from the EU but a lot more are coming in from around the world, if Brexit was about lowering immigration, then why has the UK not lowered it yet when they've always had the power to do so with immigration coming in from around the world. Because Brexit wasn't about that, it was used as a scape goat for other agenda's, most likely to want to water down laws like workers rights, food standards and so on but the irony is about Brexit, the UK might need more immigration now just to stay competitive with the rest of the EU market.
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@doyouwanttogivemelekiss3097 3 winter months whiles also getting 50% plus gas from other sources then Russia, looks like they'll be fine, especially as the target was 80% and that would have been to have more than needed, especially with gas tankers hanging around Europe and gas storage is around 95% When you take into account that Europeans are reducing their consumption, it's likely they are going to have more energy than they need, which should be good for lowering gas prices.
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I think many European countries will tap into the less clean energy sources like nuclear, coal and so on to fill the void for the short term and even thought it's not the cleanest of energy, it's only temporary to fill that void and come up with longer term solutions with alternative energy sources, either from the world market or generating a lot more energy back home with renewables. At the end of the day, is it that big of a deal? Yes solution will be higher but it will be only for a short space of time till they adapt. I think at the end of the day, what Russia is doing is likely going to push a lot more countries to want to become energy independence for energy security reasons, that could become a major issue for fossil producing nations long term. So my prediction is this, the Europeans will switch on more coal and nuclear plants short term, whiles buying other energy sources like oil and gas from the world market, but I think the real aim is that EU countries are going to push hard for energy independence and probably do this in a much shorter time frame then would have happened if Russia wasn't playing games. What all that basically means is that the fossil industry is profiting short term with everything going on but the higher energy prices stay, the longer term damage that will do to the fossil industry and because of everything going on, it could wipe out a decade, decade and half of the fossil industry then it would have done if the war didn't happen, that would be trillions being lost every year to those fossil producing countries. So a bit of short term pain for long term gains, well worth it if you ask me because the change over when it comes to energy was never about the tech being ready, it was the political will to do drastic changes, before all this, governments were foot dragging, now I suspect they are going to push much harder on this, especially in Europe and that can do changes that would normally take many decades to happen in much less time, so it might be painful in the short term in Europe for now, but they could become the real winners out of this because of the massive changes they have to do and with that, it's going to be very interesting to see the energy mix in the EU over the next decade because I think we're going to see a revolution in that field, great for everyone apart from the fossil producing nations which stand to lose a fortune thanks to Putin playing politics with energy and of all the regions to play those games with are the rich ones of the EU which have the resources to do drastic changes on the world market in a much shorter space of time than would normally happen. To put it another way, Putin might have actually done more than the Greens could possibly dream of achieving in getting us to all clean up our act and if the Europeans show it can be done, the rest of the world will follow, hence why all this might be really damaging to the fossil industry and at the end of the day, the biggest mistake Putin made here was to threaten the customers on energy, more so with them being rich customers, you lose trust and not with just the Europeans but from around the world when it comes to energy, but more importantly, you give them the political will to do massive changes in the energy sector, that something that would normally take 30, 40 years could now happen in 10 years.
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This was always going to happen, it was a given that the EU held all the cards, they are by far the bigger player and where the Brexiteers really got it wrong is in thinking the UK could create its own laws, rules and regulations that are too different from the norm in the EU. In some ways the UK can, but politically and economically, the UK can't and it's not in the UK's interest to diverge away from EU rules, as it would hurt the UK economy more. Like the video points out, the UK has more or less become a rule taker from the EU, without any say in creating those rules, pretty much the worse thing that could have happened to the UK and many warned the UK of this and now, we are seeing a situation where the UK does laws, rules and regulations under a different name, trying to make it seem like it's its own thing, but if you look closely, it's more or less mirroring rules the EU did, this is a bad position for the UK to be in and there is little to nothing to UK can do to get out of it, as the EU and its members are not going to let the UK back in the EU for at least 2 decades and that's assuming there is a massive shift from the government, media and the public view on the EU in the UK. Also, as the video pointed out, the UK leaving, actually helped the EU in many ways, the UK ended up being the scapegoat for why countries shouldn't leave, it's weaken the resolve of the Eurosceptic movement in a lot of EU countries, and support for the EU is higher in every EU country, including the UK, this couldn't have gone any worse for the Brexiteers, whiles it's going quite well for the EU. The question is, what can the UK do from now on? I think the UK needs to build relations with the EU and it's members, I think over the next decades, maybe joining the single market and custom union could be an option, it would solve a lot of problems for the UK and would protect the economy, it could also be a big stepping stone for wanting to rejoin the EU at a future date and so far, the current government has become less hostile on the EU, but I think we'll need a new government for real change.
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Not just for the EU but for the world, I suspect OPEC are happy with the profits for now but longer term, this could be a disaster for them, especially if energy prices stay high because that gives governments around the world the political will to do some massive changes into alternative energy sources and they'll do these changes because governments must know how bad it is for them when it comes to elections, so yeah, expect massive investments and deployment of renewable energy sources over the next decade, OPEC and the other fossil industry counties can thank Putin for helping to kill that industry sooner than it would be.
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@alexfang6784 If only it was that simple lol.
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@mididoctors The problem is about Corbyn, he's shown his hand over the last year or so, he doesn't seem to care about the well being of the UK, his main him is to get into power at all cost and he is more then willing to use Brexit to get there and for me, both Labour and the Conservative parties have become unelectable. Either way, both Corbyn and May are delusional when it comes to Brexit and what they think the EU will give the UK, it's like they are talking in a small bubble, not realising that it has to be agreed by the EU and thats where both of them are getting it wrong on Brexit and because of that, it's going to lead to either another public vote or May's deal.
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The EU and its members need a capital market and need to be far more aggressive in high-tech as that is the future, especially being that the US and China are going full steam ahead when it comes to high-tech investment, the EU countries are lagging behind. If the EU countries really want to compete with the US and China, they have to do it at an EU level, those two have the major advantage of being a single country, whereas the EU is a union where a lot of policies are done at a country level at much smaller scale, that's the major disadvantage EU countries face and I do wonder how much decline is needed for the countries in the EU to wake up and realise that they need to work closer together though the EU to get better results on the world stage. In any case, Draghi is right, major changes are needed and too much time has been wasted already.
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You know, I keep hearing about the decline of Europe or in this case, the EU, and I've been hearing about this for decades, mostly from the US and UK. Yet, when I look at a lot of the statistics that matter to the average person, EU countries are actually doing really well, especially when it comes to quality of life, something that Europe more or less dominants the top 10 spots. Now if we are talking about the balance of power shifting, then yes it is shifting away from the EU, but it's also shifting away from the US and pretty much every other modern country, and mainly because of Asia, the simple truth is, Asia is growing at an impressive rate, they also have a much bigger population than what we see in the EU or US. So this isn't so much about the EU or US going into decline, but more about the balance of power and economics is changing in the world, in other words, Asia is likely going to be far more important than either the EU or US, unless the EU does some major expanding with new countries, the simple truth is, Asia has by far a bigger population than the EU or US, as the economy keeps closing the gap with the west, it's unrealistic to think the EU or US could hold onto power or be the main blocks when it comes to economics, that's shifting towards Asia. With all that said, that doesn't mean the EU or US citizens are falling behind, as an individual, the quality of life is still going to be high, especially in the EU, but it does mean as a group, both the EU and US will slowly fall behind, simply because we just don't have the population numbers to compete, but for the average person, it really doesn't matter. At the end of the day, GDP numbers are becoming a poor indicator of the well-being of a country and a big part of the reason is with how it's calculated, as in, the more equal a society is, the more meaning GDP has, the US isn't very equal by modern standards, hence why the US has been said to be a first, second and third World country all rolled in one, it's crazy that any modern country can be classed as that, but it goes to show that there are a lot of problems in the US, far more than other modern countries, and since the Trump years, those problems seem to be getting worse, now ask the average American, do they actually care about GDP numbers or how much of a share it's GDP is to the world? Somehow I doubt it, I suspect most don't even know what the numbers are, but they do care about living standards and the quality of life.
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The thing is about decline, history have shown us that the ones that make the most noise near the end are the ones that push decline onto them selfs, the US is doing it since 9/11, mostly thanks to China and to a less degree, the Euro, you only have to look at the actions since then to see things are getting desprate in the US, Trump is just another indicator of that. In any case, all Trump is doing is weakning the US whiles the EU and China can take advantage of this and likely will. Joyce, Trump wants others to spend more so they take the burden of the US, the problem is that a lot of these problems are US problems, the EU doesn't feel the need to overspend on the army, all they really need to do is unite the members together, but I can understand why the US wants that because they see China taking over, it's all about fear now in the US because they see thier grip on the world being lost.
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@zbigniewp1810 That's not really the point I was getting at, it's the economic muscle is there and can be diverted away from one thing to another if needed, you only have to look at the second world war with Germany and the US to see how that happens. Just for now, western countries don't see much of a need to spend that much on military production capacity just like the US didn't until the second world war started and they became a big manufacturer of arms for the UK, US, Soviet Union and other friends, that's what economic muscle does and after the second world war, it went from building tanks and the likes to building cars. So if it comes to about production capacity, western countries have a massive advantage over Russia and even over China for that matter and then there is the factor of investment in high-tech, again, it all boils down to the economy. In other words, don't think of what they do now but how they can divert the resources of the economy in the areas they need, if it went down that route, Russia wouldn't stand a chance, especially on the money factor.
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France have had quite a good track record when it comes to being right when it comes to the US, at least compared to other countries like the UK and some eastern EU countries. The EU countries would probably be in a much stronger position now in a few key areas like the military, forign policy and independence away from the US, and that's not to say the French gets it right all the time, they clearly don't on CAP, which needs major reforms, but France certainly gets it right more than the UK does, which jumps to the tune of the US way too much that you sense the UK is more interested in protecting US interest over UK interest. As for Germany, they've been lacking in key areas over the last 2 decades, for a country that has the biggest economy in Europe, they sure are lacking when it comes to leadership in the EU and on the military front, even with having bad judgement on Russia before the Ukraine war, but to be fair to Germany, the eastern EU countries and even the UK have had bad judgement on the US, which with everything that's going on in Ukraine and with how Trump doesn't seem to care about those eastern European countries, it's put them in a position that they have to spend far more on their militaries, out of fear of Russia and the US abandoning them, the smart move would be for all EU countries to focus on a common EU military, that would mean not being dependent on the US and the military would be far more powerful than having 27 individual militaries.
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@Toreadorification To be fair, would most of the public even understand most of this stuff? Probably not. I'm all for more referendums and giving the public more of a say in politics, but the public really needs to clue up on what's going on in politics, because we do a poor job of it, and you only have to see the elections to see that play out. In the end, democracy is only as good as the people in it and how they hold governments to account, we do a poor job of that in the western world.
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From what I understand, a lot of the asset freeze totalled around $300 billion from Russia could be used to help rebuild Ukraine, in the end, Putin started this war, makes sense to have Russia pay to help rebuild it. But clearly that's assuming many things like Ukraine kicks Russia out and that Ukraine has closer ties to the EU but there are many ways the west can help Ukraine once the dust settles.
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@noobster4779 The sad reality is, it usually takes these big events to do big shifts in public and political circle, in European circles, it looks like big changes are on their way, that's likely going to be more spending and integration in the EU to reduce duplications. But I do agree that it shouldn't take a war for these changes to happen, many of these changes should have been happening 2 decades ago but the problem in the EU over the last two decades is the Eurosceptics and popularize movements, which is making it more difficult to get anything done.
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@v_cpt-phasma_v689 Never say never, public views in the UK are already turning on that and that's before things really start to bite on the economy but I don't think the UK will rejoin any time soon, the EU won't let the UK back in for at least 2 decades I think so Scotland and Northern Ireland have a better chance of rejoining sooner if they choose, the UK is likely at the back of the queue of all the other members that want to join which if I recall, 4 more countries want to join the EU since the war in Ukraine.
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That deal with Canada is a prime indicator that the UK is a weaker country and has less leverage, the UK was trying to get a deal in line or better than the EU got, but Canada knows it can get a better deal out of the UK then it could with the EU and Canada pushed on that, basically, the UK give Canada and every other country in the world a stronger hand against them thanks to Brexit and many are taking advantage of it. The EU might be on the slower side of getting trade deals, but it always gets deals that are favourable for themselves, and it's easy to sign a trade deal, it's another thing to get a good one, the UK since Brexit is basically getting worse deals then what the EU could get them and the Canada deal is a prime example of that, among others. Anyway, has there actually been any tangible benefits to Brexit, you know, the ones that actually have value? Because all I keep seeing with Brexit is disadvantages it's giving, and we really need a website that shows the benefits for and against Brexit in all areas, I suspect the list against Brexit is massive now and growing. For me, the real crime on Brexit is the ones that pushed hard for Brexit, pushed a lot of lies are not being held accountable, we live in a democracy, but a democracy is quite weak if we don't hold the ones accountable, and this is a real problem I find in the UK public, the people pretty much give them a free hand to do what they want, tell any lies they want, push through with them and not hold them to account, it's no wonder they keep lying, they know the British people will do nothing anyway. The sad thing is, I don't think much is going to change and might get worse, you've got a Tory government that can't change its tune on Brexit because they've dug themselves in too deep, you've got a Labour leader that seems scared to mention the word Brexit and is playing all sides to try and win voters, it's clear that momentum among Brits is changing, that they see Brexit as a mistake and many have changed their minds, but unless any leadership is being shown from any of the major political parties, it's going to mean nothing unless the British people show leaders, which unfortunately, we have a poor track record of standing up to governments to get what we want, so expect things to continue to get worse unless something drastic changes among the British people, so a wake-up call.
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I think it's more about population readjustment then collapse, I mean seriously, the human population has exploded since after the second world war, that was never sustainable long term, at least not on Earth and sooner or later, we were going to need to slow that down or even reverse it, but eventually, that will settle down and stabilise, as for when that happens, who can say, but I don't see it happening for the next few decades. The real problem that could become a major problem is that we've had explosive population growth over the last few decades and we can't afford to have the same thing in reverse, boom and bust so to speak, as that would cause economic chaos around the world, maybe even a major war. The pattern I tend to find with population growth is that it's a major issue for developed countries, the EU, the US and so on, after all, if we take immigration out of it and the natural birth rates from immigrants, the population decline would likely be much worse in the US and EU as a lot of the population growth is from immigrants moving in and they are a lot more likely to have more kids than the natives. Some countries are having a worse time of this because they don't allow more immigration, but in some countries like Japan for instance, reversing the population is probably not a bad thing long term because the country is too populated whiles not having enough room to have a good quality of living, that's not an issue for the EU or the US, there's a lot of land that's still free, but far less people seem to want to have kids now, probably because it's too expensive, takes too much time that's jobs end up taking up, and when you throw in all the toys and things we can do in life today, it's no surprise that far fewer of us want to have kids now. Personally, I think the cost of living and lack of time that's the real factor that fewer of us are having kids, government support can only go so far in reversing that, giving people more time free from jobs whiles having government support would probably have the biggest impact in reversing this trend, but for me, we've got too many things we want to do in life, not enough time to do it, that for me is why a lot of us don't want kids, and that will likely get worse going forward as we have a lot more options to do more things, but there is a silver lining, A.I. and robotics is very likely going to put most of us out of a job, if that happens, the structure of society will have to change to support that, basically, a lot more people could end up finding they have a lot more time to do more in life without being pressured by job security and money, that could encourage more people to have more kids. Oh and one other factor, religion, that seems to have an impact on population growth, usually when a country has more religion, they have more population growth, not always as we are seeing in Eastern Europe, but many time it's the case, people in the developed world care far less about religion now.
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Macrons intentions is to get the UK out of the EU and he wants it done sooner rather then later so he and the rest of the EU can get on with reforming the EU, many in the EU on the other hand are setting things up to make sure it's very hard for Brits to be able to blame the EU for however Brexit goes, they are playing this smart and it's tightning the nose around the Brexiteers necks.
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I don't think it's anything to do with Europe dying, that's ridicules considering that a lot of the countries are modern and democratic, there's no reason why they can't continue to have a high quality of life just like many other small to medium size countries around the world. What Macron is saying is about European influence around the world, being able to shape our own destiny, being able to protect our political, economic and social interest, and Macron is right, at an individual country level, we are limited in what we can do just like most nations around the world, it also means a lot of international laws, rules and regulations being made by big powers, which currently are the EU and the US, and maybe China someday. Macron is right, we need to get our act together considering how the world is shaping up with a hostile Russia, a growing power in China and a less reliable and unpredictable US, and in the EU, our biggest weakness is our division, having 27 voices pulling in all directions, which other powers are more than happy to take advantage off and divide us more. We in the EU countries need to find common solutions, to find ways to come together and pool resources to protect our interest, that will likely mean pooling more resources into a common EU military, foreign policy and capital market. But in any case, this isn't about decline or dying, this is about protecting our interest, because even if we don't pull together, we can still have a high standard of living, it's just that the global rules will be made by bigger powers around the world, which will be able to pressure us to change our rules to fit their own interest, the EU can protect our interest, if given the means to do so, but it's up to us in the EU countries to figure out a way of doing that which is fair to all EU members and it's citizens, but either way, the clock is ticking and we've wasted way too much time already.
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It's clear to see that voters are not happy about the political parties and performance of many of the governments in Europe and North America. The rise of the right is because of people getting fed up with the lies and under delivering from mainstream parties, so much so they are willing to protest vote for far right parties to teach the mainstream a lesson, but ultimately, not much will change, in fact, things could get worse if the far right got there way with some of their policies, but the problem is for the far, I suspect most voters are unaware of most of their policies and are mostly voting for them out of protest and because of immigration. That sounds fine on paper, but if the far right parties gain enough power to push through many of their policies, it could backfire on the voters and ironically, backfire on the far right groups as voters could turn off on them after 1 or 2 elections if they make a mess of things, probably why so many of the far right are moderating there policies to appeal to more voters. Either way, it's clear something is wrong across many European countries and others like the US for voters to be willing to vote in the more radical elements, and it's clear to see where the problem is, cost of living, the divide from rich and poor, and too many people from the bottom up feeling like they are getting left behind, that's been a major failing of the mainstream parties across the west over the last 2 or so decades and people are voting accordingly, but to think the far right are the solution, I think voters are in for a rude awakening over the next decade, which could be dangerous to democracy if the far right gain too much power. If the mainstream and moderate parties want to get back on track, they need to earn voters trust, they need to start delivering on policies that actually matter to the people, especially from the lower to middle classes that feel they are being left behind, if they don't listen, politics is going to become more radicalised over the next decade which could become dangerous, we have already seen signs of that in the US, we saw signs of that in the UK with Brexit, we are seeing signs of that in many European countries, and the pattern is the same in them all, too many voters feel like they are being ignored and left behind whiles the cost of living continues to rise, so expect voters to vote in more radical elements until the more sensible parties actually start listening and delivering on what matters to the people, but in the short term, I expect things to continue to get worse, the far right is on the right in Europe, there's a chance Trump could win election in the US, the last time we had this kind of rise was in the 1930's and that didn't end well for the people, and ironically, it was people getting left behind that helped that situation with the great depression, it does make you wonder if we are doomed to repeat history but on a much bigger scale.
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How true, it's not normal what we need whatever that is, what is really needed is change and big change, not papering over the cracks like they've been doing for so long which just gets us into a bigger mess in the long run.
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@HebrewsElevenTwentyFive It won't have anything to do with the Military, it will boil down to economics and Spain have Gibraltar where they want them on that, if they play hard ball, they could cripple Gibraltar, as for the EU, well what they do is hard to say but it's unlikely they would side with the UK with how the UK has been the last few years. I should also point out, this has nothing to do with what's fair and everything to do with how things are, look at Hong Kong for instance, as value goes, that is far valuable then Gibraltar to the UK and yet the UK give it up to China and all because of economic pressure, Spain or the EU could do the same to Gibraltar and what can the UK really do about it? Very little really. As for the Falklands, well the UK isn't on good terms with Russia or China at the moment, that could be easy pickings for Argentina if any of those other two powers step in, the US likely won't care so don't expect much help from them, in fact the Republicans seem to want to screw the UK over and the Democrats will say the UK is getting what it deserves by leaving the EU, even the EU will likely turn a blind eye on that one. Basically, Brexit is a big opening for others to take advantage of the UK, now it's just a matter of timing on when they pull the trigger on that, I suspect they will wait and see if Scotland leaves the UK over the next few years as the UK will be even weaker then.
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@HebrewsElevenTwentyFive I suspect it could happen but in any event, the EU wouldn't assist directly, they'll just turn a blind eye to it, even the US would likely turn a blind eye because from their point of view, a weaker UK is easier to screw over and control and the US does like doing that. But personally, I don't think anything will happen until we see what goes on in Scotland with its independence movement, if that continues to pick up Steam, vultures will likely wait till they leave because the truth is, they don't really have any beef with Scotland, it's mostly England and the UK government they have beef with. You know the irony in all this Brexit farce, the EU is looking like the ones we could get a decent deal from if the UK isn't so stubborn because looking at all the other players, it looks like the terms are going to be worse. Even the US, if Trump wins, the Republicans have already shown they want to screw the UK over, if the Democrats wins, they will want to repair ties with the EU and will want to distance themselves away from anything like Trump, they see Brexit as part of that popularize movement, the UK can't afford to be on the wrong side of both the EU and US and it's looking like that is the way it's going.
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@Yoshimitsu420 Most of those countries don't care about the UK any more, as far as they see it, the UK stabbed them in the back in the 70's and beside, most of them see the UK as a declining power, why do you think Canada speeded up it's trade talks with the EU? They want to be less exposed to the US and they see the EU as the only other power thats like them in a lot of areas like the social system, economy and political view points, Japan did the same thing because they see the US as going off the rail so are creating closer ties to the EU. The only country that might get close to the UK is Australia but that's more out of fear of China, basically, many of the others are seeing the UK go off the rails just like the US is doing, so why would they want to get close to a country that is becoming more fanatical when the EU isn't? As for the Commonwealth, it's just a talking shop, it's got no legs, the countries in it are so different from each other and spread so thinly around the world with very different view points from each other a level of economics that it would never work.
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@mranonymous5550 I wouldn't count on that, support is pretty high in Scotland for leaving the UK and polls rarely get it wrong by that much, throw in Brexit and the harm that will do and support could go even higher. It wouldn't surprise me if Scotland has a vote either late next year or early the year after and they won't need permission of the UK government because just like Brexit which was an advisory vote turned into a real vote, Scotland could do the same thing because they know if the people vote to leave the UK, there would be little to nothing the UK could do to stop them without creating a revolution. If Scotland leaves and the EU lets them back in which I suspect the EU would be over the moon to crave up the UK, Northern Ireland would likely be next. I also find it ironic how Brexiteers kept telling us how the EU would brake up over Brexit and yet there are no signs of that but it does look like the UK union could fall apart, if that happens, that would be seen as humiliating for the UK from the outside world.
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@piotrcurious1131 The good news is, now we have the political and public will to change that, we also have the economy to make it happen, renewable energy could advance more in the next decade than it has in the last few decades, that's what happens when energy becomes a security risk but in the short term, EU countries will fill the void that Russia loses out on by switching on coal plants and other countries around the world filling those needs. But yeah, Putin has probably done more for clean energy with his actions than decades of talks from governments could have done and as we saw in the second world war, a lot of progress can happen in a very short space of time if the need arises.
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I feel sorry for eastern European countries that lean towards Russia, whether that be the people or the government, it usually means voting for a lower standard of living, living at the mercy of Russia and it's political games. I mean seriously, just look at the eastern European countries that joined the EU, the quality of life is improving in leaps and bounds compared to the eastern European countries not in the EU, they also don't have to live in fear for what Putin might do. The gap is going to keep widening with the eastern European countries that are in the EU and the ones that are not in the EU, sooner or later, that knock on effect pressure will build where the countries not in the EU will want what the ones in the EU have and that is something Putin can't deliver for his own people, never mind the other eastern European countries, basically, prosperity, equality and not living in fear, something the EU can offer, Russia can't. So even if Russia wins one or two games with a few countries to the east, they are losing the war, which is of hearts and minds, something the EU does a lot better.
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The irony is about Brexit is that it might not be the will of the people now and our goverment could be forcing the UK out when the British people don't want it. I always find a clear sign of corruption when a goverment is single minded in pushing an agenda no matter what the facts are as we are seeing with Brexit and they are using the vote we did 3 years ago as a pretext to push that agenda when it's clear that a lot has changed since that vote. The great news about Brexit is that if it goes wrong and the British public didn't get another chance to be heard on this, it could do a lot of damage to the ones that are pushing this agenda and pretty much wipe out a chunk of the euroseptic movment in the UK. This is why I suspect Brexit wont go ahead, the cost to the ones pushing it is too high, they've sold a lie to the British people on something they know they can't deliver on and however we see things now, the British people are likely going to blame the ones that pushed Brexit the hardest. I also get the feeling that Brexit was always about getting more out of the EU then leaving the EU, much of the language and delays from our goverment gives the impression that as much as they say they want to leave the EU, the actions says otherwise and I say goverment which also means parliement. Anyway, the real question is, what will they do now, for me I only see two options, another public vote or May's deal with another vote having the question of remain or May's deal. Hard Brexit doesn't seem to be on the cards as much as they like to keep telling us as it's got far less support then all the other options and a general election doesn't really solve anything if May is in power or if the Conservatives put someone else in power or even if Labour wins power as they are all trying to square a circle which isn't going to work. It's clear that both the Tories and Labour as well as parliement can't decide what to do with Brexit, likely out of fear of a backlash from the public and because of that, I don't see any other option but to have another public vote, that way the goverment and parliement can wash thier hands of it and even put the blame on the public.
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@lianborgiademedici1016 The EU isn't based on religion ideals, it's based on moderation, in other words, if Turkey becomes more moderated on it's religion policies, there is little to no reason why they couldn't join the EU and as it happens, countries that modernize tend to reduce religion across the board.
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@kino6395 It's highly unlikely that threat would happen unless things really got bad, but during the Brexit mess, the UK was becoming very hostile towards Europe, and even then, it was highly unlikely that France would cut power to the UK. We find difference ways to resolve our differences.
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The EU on the political and military front will change as the need arises, for now, they feel they don't need to change, unlike on the economic front, they saw a need to change many decades ago to compete better with the US after the second world war. Longer term, EU countries will come to the conclusion that they will have to speak more with a single voice in a lot more political, foreign policy and military areas if they want to protect their interest against the likes of the US and China, which are only going to get bigger and individual EU countries are too small to compete with them, so those countries getting bigger will likely push EU countries closer together to protect their political, economic and social interest, the alternative is that they get pushed aside. The rest is just foot dragging, trying to maintain more power at a country level but in the end, economics is what comes first and like it or not, EU countries need the EU, without it, you're basically pushovers for the US and China and that is only going to get worse until these countries wake up and band together in a lot more areas, after all, they have the economic muscle, the skills, the population to make it happen, they even have the advantage of the EU expanding, now they just need the political will to make it happen, either that or decline to wake them up. As for NATO, it's got its uses, but Europeans need to start looking after its own interest, not US interest, there is no technical reason why an EU military couldn't be part of NATO, on the one hand, the US would want that as an EU military would be far more useful than the individual countries, but on the other hand, the US could see it as a threat to its power base around the world, in any case, the US needs to wake up and see China as the real threat, not the EU and the EU and US should band together to protect western values, democracy and free speech, something that's been under threat the last decade.
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@theChaosKe Maybe, but I think rolling the parliament and commission is a step too far, but the parliament should be given more powers.
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@zoisantonopoulos7999 That's just wishful thinking, in fact, historically speaking, Europe has been by far the most successful around the world and a big part of that is how well they adapt, hence why the EU is here, that's adapting to the US becoming a superpower after the second world war, they could have easierlly fell by the wayside at that point but didn't, now the next challenge is China but for them, I think the EU and US will have to work together.
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@zoisantonopoulos7999 There's a difference from death of civilization to having troubling times which is what is really happen. Besides, it should be a lot harder for things to fall apart in todays world with all the knowledge people have access too and that's only going to get better as the younger generation of people replace the older gen as younger people tend to use tech a lot more than older people, as well as not being stuck in their old ways, but clearly, this takes time, decades in fact.
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I tend to find that countries move in cycles in that when a country is doing bad, there's more urgent need for reforms that usually happen, the impact of which can create a small economic boom, when things are going well, countries get more careless and wasteful. In the case of Germany, they need to transform its energy industry, but even with that, the country is already in pretty good shape for the near term future and Germany is in a good position to benefit from the wealth being generated by the eastern EU countries as they continue to develop, because Germany is in a central location in Europe, which is good for trade.
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I think the problem for Russia is that they've got so far on the wrong side of the west that it's putting Russia more in the pocket of China, I doubt that's a position Putin or the Russian people will want because it puts Russia in a weak position with China having far more power over Russia. We should also remember that as friendly as China is with Russia, they are seeing the situation as an opening to take advantage of Russia whiles they are weak. I think if Russia isn't careful and continues to get isolated around the world, they could end up becoming a vassal of China where they have far more say over things than Russia does, after all, the west actions on Russia is pushing Russia more into the arms of China and going on China's policies around the world, they very likely will take advantage of that. Now the question is, what can Russia do about all this? Honestly, unless the Russian people depose Putin so he can answer for his war crimes and Russia builds its relations and trust with the west, I don't see any other avenue than that, otherwise Russia is likely going to get more isolated for the remaining friends it does have to take advantage of them, it's a very weak position to be in.
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PatchesRips That's the irony about Brexit, many thought it would be the downfall of the EU, what it ended up doing is reducing euroseptics around Europe and with Trump about to be evicted from the White House, things are looking up, especially for the EU. Brexit, Trump and Putin have done wonders for the EU that the irony out of all this that the UK union is far more at risk of braking up then the EU is, who would have thought that 4 years ago? lol.
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@zenoist2 The question is, why do you hate the EU so much? if you ask most Brexiteers on why they hate it, most can't give a clear answer and many that do, get it wrong as the issue they complain about is a national issue that has little to nothing to do with the EU, it's shocking how many times I've heard Brexiteers complain about something on the EU that had nothing to do with them as that power was with national goverments. The truth is, the reason so many in the UK hate the EU is because they've been programmed to hate it with decades of manipulation in the media, after all, say a lie enough times, a lot of people will buy into it without even checking to see if it's true, that's where Brexit really went wrong. The real interesting part is what happens after Brexit as the lies start to get exposed and things don't get better but in fact get worse, that's when the real problems could kick off because the government could have a fight on it's hand from both Brexiteers and Remainders.
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@garyfardon8841 Yep that's pretty much how Scotland feels right now under the boot of this Tory government lol. It's remarkable that people still peddle that crap but what's more remarkable that people buy into it but then 3 or 4 decades on constant EU bashing by the media and governments in the UK would do that for ya lol. The real best thing about Brexit is that now the UK has no excuses left, they can't blame the EU for all the failings in the UK and thats when it's going to dawn on many that the real problem is much closer to home.
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@karlnadin1554 Come on, let's not kid ourselves, this was never aimed squirely at just the EU, it was aimed at those pesky foreigners from immigrations to jobs they take, just to them being different, we see it all the time in the media, from the government and from many of the British people, it's a superiority complex thats going on where many Brits think they are better than everyone else, I'm born and breed in the UK and lived here all my life and can see that, especially in the northern part of England and is it any wonder when the media pumps up the British people at every chance they get with a lot of crap that isn't even true. What makes it even worse is how many of the Brexiteers want to form a kind of deal with Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the message that sends around the world is loud and clear, the real question is, why would the Canada and New Zealand want any point of it? Australia I can understand with the Murdoch press over there, they'll fit in perfectly but the others, not likely lol.
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Unless there is government intervention, I'm not sure food prices will come down much and if they do, it will likely be slow, companies are quick to push prices up and slow to push them back down when they can. Still, I suspect there will be a lot of pressure from consumers for government intervention if companies don't reduce prices when they can as governments will want to get the economy moving again so the voters don't stab them in the back, especially if there are any elections in the near future in any of the given countries.
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Sounds like Japan got a bit too dependent on US software whiles, at the same time, making their own custom software that individual companies had their own standards and not a universal one, it doesn't surprise why the US had Japan over a barrel, especially in the 80's when the US feared Japans rise as a power. The problem with Japan throughout history is that it's been a very closed off society, very secretive, whiles the rest of the world adopted the internet, Japan was slow to jump onboard because the internet is open and that doesn't go well with Japanese thinking, that slow adoption in the 90's likely contributed to Japans economic problems back then, and today, Japan is a little more open but not by much. Today, when it comes to software, there are far more options from the EU, US, China and even open source options for Japan to choose from, and diversifying is always a good thing which I've always felt that Japan was too much in the pocket of the US and paid a high price for that. Now software is more or less dominated by Europe and North America, with China quickly rising, Japan could have been a big player in this sector but they messed it up on policy matters and especially getting too close to the US at a time when the US wanted to do Japan harm because of it's rise in power. To be fair, Japan have been getting so many things wrong since the early 90's that they are still paying the price for today, but the groundwork of those problems were set many decades before the crash and a big problem for Japan is the mindset of the Japanese people that are very closed off and secretive, unlike Europe and North America which are far more open.
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Democracy is anything but dead in the UK, in fact what we are seeing is looking really good, afterall, the remain side are fighting to give the British public another vote on Brexit now that we know what it's really all about, this is democracy in work and it's that what the hardliners don't like.
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At least unlike when the US did it months back which seemed a very political move considering the countries they blocked whiles leaving out the UK which had higher infections rates, what the EU seems to be doing seems about right considering the infection and death rate in the US compared to the EU and in the case of the infection rates, that seems to be sky-rocketing lately so really the US should have it's borders shut to everyone until they get it under control which isn't going to be for at least 3 weeks to a month or longer. We should also remember that the EU wants to open up it's borders to the US and the US wants the same for economic reasons but the risk seems quite high for now in the US and it's too bad that some states can't be left out of this like New York that have done a lot of the hard work to clean things up but unfortunately, it all works as one and with infections rising in so many states, it wouldn't be wise for countries to open up to the US just yet and see how things go every 2 weeks.
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@epicjorjorsnake2525 I don't have a problem with the American people, just the government and it's policies around the world, that and their backers. As for the second world war, you don't honestly think the US entered the war to save Europe do you? I doubt they even cared back then, they entered out of self-interest, they knew that the war was going to get much bigger if no one puts a stop to the Nazi, the UK would likely have been easy pickings without US help and then the Nazi could put all their focus on the Russians, it's not hard to see that the Nazi would in time make the US a target. Lets look at it for what it is, the US doesn't like any powers rising that could become a threat to the US, in the 80's, Japan was becoming a threat so the US put them down, in the 90's and continuing, the EU became a threat, hence all the trade wars with the EU and US which by the way, the US has backed down on every single one, now there's China, it's clearly to see they were becoming a threat to the US so the US is going after them, regardless of system of government, the US will go after anyone that threaten the top spot, they'll go after India if they rise up, that's just how the US is and unfortunately for the US, they've taken on more than they can chew.
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@liberator101 The US, Russia and China are the ones showing a lot more hostile actions but I see Russia and the US as more of a threat to Europe than I see China, the US doesn't like any powers rising up regardless of system of government, recent history going back to the 80's show that with how the US put Japan down when they saw them as an economic threat in the 80's, in the 90's onwards, they've seen the EU as a threat because of its integration and expanding, the US have not been able to put the EU down so that one is still ongoing, as for China, that's a more recent one and mostly to do with its economic rise, I get the impression that if India was to rise as a power, the US will go after them as well, this is making the US seem the biggest threat to the world.
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@liberator101 Actually, if you check history, most wars are started by the Republicans not the Democrats, this has been one of the few with Trump that it's been relevantly peaceful in that sense but that is probably because Trump has to defend himself at every turn because of who he is. But out of interest, why would military operations start in December and with whom? that's highly unlikely, if anything, if the Democrats were to win the elections, they would likely want to calm things down with China whereas the Republicans are pushing the US into a new Cold War with China, hence the history of the Republicans in trying to start wars.
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@TheExplorder The US won't leave NATO, that would weaken US interest in Europe a lot and I doubt they are that crazy to do that, they might be temped to leave if the EU becomes a powerful force by combining their armies together as that would weaken the US position a lot in Europe and in NATO. I agree with you that with how China is going, the EU and US should be working together, Russia I don't see as a threat, just a country that likes to lash it's tail around thinking of the glory days of the past, a bit like the UK with Brexit in that sense lol, China is the real power going forward and with how big they could become, I can see the EU or the US being able to match them on their own but together they might have a chance, especially with others around the world.
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It's hard to say, but we can't expect a major shift overnight, these things takes years, even decades. The problem is that this could be a long term trend because the real problem with the US isn't just Trump, it's the entire political system is broken, the signs were there way before Trump and the mess is still going to be there well after Trump unless there's a major change from the American people, the media and political system that is polarised in the US, these are not quick fixes and could take years but more likely decades to fix. At the end of the day, many are getting fed up with this seesaw effect when it comes to politics, some seem to think that once Trump is kicked out, things will return to normal, they might in the short term, but with a powerful right wing media, then a far right Republican Party and many Americans voting for them, the odds are pretty high that another lunatic like Trump will get into power again over the next decade. So this trend away from the US could be long term because the problem isn't Trump, the real problem is much deeper in the US which is much harder to fix, and let's be honest with ourselves, does anyone think the likes of the EU, China, Canada will just forgive and forget the US after Trump is out of power? I highly doubt they'll be quick to do that, they will hedge their own bets by shifting away from the US on both political and economic matters. I don't think some people realise how much damage the US has done to its self here, and I've seen enough evidence to see that this isn't short term thinking from many countries around the world, many of which are making big deals that are far longer then 4 years, so yes, I think it's long term thinking when it comes to this trend, and the longer Trump is in the White House, the worse this is likely to get for the US.
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Not quite, this is what happens when they have to lie so much to win a vote but then when they win the vote, they can't deliver on what they promised the people, have they managed to deliver on anything they promised the people on Brexit? because this is getting to be a bit of a joke now.
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jack tarr Simply really, it's called reality, you might not like this but the EU serves the prepose of protecting our interest in a world that is changing, in other words, the US, China and other unions that are forming, what hope does European countries think they have with all that happening? in fact, we might find out as the UK wants to be the test subject in that, the first to take advantage of the UK will be the US and they are showing many signs of that already, the EU will do the same and you can bet many other will.
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Protest movements are fine and should be encouraged, but there are different ways of doing a protest. What the farmers are doing, if they disrupt society too much, they could end up turning Europeans against them, any protest that gets violence, sets fires, blocks roads and creates damage, is a quick way to turn people off the policies the farmers want to change. There are many ways of getting change, getting governments to take notice, but honestly, because of the behaver of farmers lately, it's hard to empathy with them. In any case, I think farming in the EU market needs some major reforms, especially when it comes to the funding of it from the EU budget.
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True Dusk but it's not just that, the leave side also made it seem that we wouldn't lose anything and that the EU would give us anything we want, cake and eat it and all that, thats another major lie from them and the EU have little reason to give us anything, most things the Brexit vote was based on was a lie and because of some of the cheating that was going on and the mess we've got ourselfs in, it doesn't supprise me that support is growing for another vote and for staying in the EU even thought I doubt we can stay in the EU now because I doubt the EU will let us. As for Trump, I find it remarkable how two US presidents, both Republicans became leaders, Trump and W Bush even thought most of the public voted the other ways, sounds like a crazy system to me.
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It's hard to say but don't underestimate the change that's going to happen once the war is resolved, Ukraine has had a political and economic earthquake because of the war, that's very likely going to allow reforms to happen much faster once things settle and mainly because of the scare the political side and public side have had with Putin invading Ukraine. In other words, it will be brave of any political parties to try and hold back or black reforms to get closer to EU membership, so once the war is resolved, reforms in Ukraine are likely to speed up a lot because there will be a lot more public support as well as political will, by Putin invading, his scared the country half to death as well as other eastern European countries that opposition to joining the EU is likely going to melt away, that's going to do wonders for reforms and could slice off many years. As for the economic cost of the war, it's hard to say because too much is in the air at the moment, but Ukraine will likely get a lot of help, in or out of the EU union, but it's the political and economic reforms that are needed the most over cash handouts, as that will allow future growth and inroads investments. But let's not forget, we can't judge Ukraine the country before the war because the war has changed everything for the country, so a lot of change is going to happen in Ukraine across the political and economic landscape and that's a massive opening for Ukraine to clean up it's political and economic system, which will go along way in helping the country and helping them join the EU.
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I would be for the first option, but that might be a step too far for now, the European Parliament having more powers in picking an EU Commission should be good enough for now with future reforms on a directly elected EU President at a later date, basically, I don't think we are ready as Europeans to do a good job in electing the right person to lead the EU, at least not yet, but with the reforms proposed, that could go along way in bringing the EU and it's citizens closer together. As for the veto, that has to go, but there is room for safeguards for special cases for things that can have a negative impact on a few countries, not a veto as such, but some kind of protection that they don't just get ignored by being overruled by majority vote.
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@dannyfeller7034 I don't have all the answers but clearly what we have isn't working, the likes of Trump getting into power, Brexit and the popularism movement around Europe happening is because a lot of people are angry with how things are, with being left behind in society, the problem is that the public are misfiring and putting the blame in the wrong areas. Equality in the UK isn't that great, we have one of the worse records in the world out of the modern countries with the US being even worse and by some distance too but I'm talking about equality in the terms of wealth and well-being of the people so can't really say in the areas you pointed out above. As for the sense of belonging and differences in the UK, we do overall do good in the UK on that one but there are sections of the UK from many in the right wing media to many in the Tories party that try to create waves and discrimination among us to get us fighting among ourselves, it's an old tried and tested trick, so they can keep running off to the banks whiles we keep fighting among ourselves, it works quite effectively in keeping our eyes off the ball, hence why governments love deflecting blame for what they do wrong onto others like they use the EU as a scapegoat for what's wrong in the UK even thought a lot of what is wrong had nothing to do with the EU and was part of national government policies, it will be interesting to see who they use as the next scapegoat once the UK is fully out of the EU because they will find one so they can continue to screw over the people.
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To solve much of these problems, they need to make politics more transparent whiles also making all the money and donors that MP's and political parties get public so the voters can see where the money is coming from. They are suppose to repensent the intrest of the public but they rarely do and this is why Brexit, Trump and the popularist movment happened in the first place, people are getting disilusioned with politics and what we are seeing over the last few years isn't making things better and if we are not careful, this could really end badly because history has shown how people can vote when they don't care anymore. In any case, the only time it seems we have democracy now is when the public rises up and forces the goverment to listen because they rarely listen to the people anymore, they promise the earth when it's election time only to brake a lot of thoes promises and the good news is, people are starting to realise how broken our democracy is in the west hence Brexit, Trump and the popularist movment around the EU, it's all a sign that the public are fed up with how the system doesn't work for them anymore and the irony is, goverments don't seem to realise that yet which could really end badly for them and the public if we are not careful.
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I remember hearing awhile ago that it last awhile after death but can't remember where I heard that or from where but it wouldn't surprise me and I can understand why some would be worried about getting close considering a lot of these people died from the virus.
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@Klote3241 That's true, but we are talking taxpayers subsidizing corporations, I can see why the US and the EU would do that, but it can lead to a race to the bottom, and goes against the ideals of free markets, it's also quite insulting to the taxpayers that are subsidizing corporate greed without getting anything back, which I know some will say jobs creations, but in the end, most of the people that are paying for it, don't get to benefit from it. Many corporations are already threatening governments that unless they give them a better deal on subsides, they'll invest somewhere else, in other words, they want taxpayers to pay for much of their investments, in a sense, it's almost like the public are subsidizing the rich, that would be fine if the public had a stake in it but it's clear we don't. The thing is, there are limited options to get around this, unless governments by regulations put far more pressure on corporations to manufacture far more goods within the economy the goods are being sold in, meaning they would have to invest in the markets they sell goods in regardless of subsides.
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Thats the smart thing about this, this is finally giving the British public a voice, what how hard the Brexiteers try to block that from us, it's also setting things up so it's hard for us Brits to put the blame on the EU for however Brexit goes has they've given us every chance to deal with it, the EU is playing this smarter then some realise.
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It's like a feedback loop, the more advanced A.I. gets, the more it's going to speed up the pace of A.I. and it's something we see with technology overall, the more we advance, the more that advancement speeds up the next advancement. The difference with A.I. compared to any other advancement we've done is the pace this could change things, we are in effect, talking about putting a lot more brains on the stage to assist humans and to do its own thing, that is bound to have a massive impact on our development in ways we can't see yet, and it's likely to happen fairly quickly over the coming years and decades that I have to wonder if we are ready for it. Some are fearful of A.I. and there might be reasons to be so in the wrong hands, some don't want to accept how big of a game changer A.I. is going to be and others are excited about the possibilities that A.I. offers. My take on it, A.I. is just a tool, how we use it is up to us, some will use it for good, others will use it for bad, governments, corporations are doing what they do best, trying to control it to have an advantage over everyone else and to control the narrative, but the irony is in all that, the real advantage is going to be from the bottom up, not the top down, in other words, it's the governments and big corporations that should be scared of A.I. and especially open source A.I. because A.I. is going to empower the little guy, whether that be an individual or a small company, it's going to give them a far better chance of taking on the rich elites, in government circles, it will likely make it much harder for them to BS the public, whereas for corporations, it's going to allow companies with far less resources, money and people to do far more than they normally could, which will put a lot of pressure on products, services and the price point of a lot of these things, which is great for consumers as it will likely mean a lot more competition and lower prices, it will also mean alternatives to ideas and tech will spring up a lot faster on the market, meaning if a big company release a product or service, rivals will be able to counter it a lot faster than they normally could.
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@neildoerdan2298 The problem with that is that the UK goverment had the power to prevent much of that but did nothing to slow the tide, they had full control over people coming in from outside the EU, they did nothing on that, they had powers that we could of used to slow down the tide of people coming into the UK from other EU members unless they find a job within 3 months, again the goverment never used that power. The truth is, the real blame lays with our own goverment not the EU, they wanted cheap labour, hence why the law allows for cheap labour to be used, after all, how hard can it be for the goverment to patch up the laws so immagrants get the same pay as natives? Also, the same thing happened in Germany when they opened up the flood gates, low unemployment tends to have that impact. Again, you are putting the blame on the EU for something that some members did like the UK and Germany, remember, the UK was one of the first countries to open up it's boarders to the eastern EU countries even thought France and Germany advised the UK not to do that but the UK didn't listen because the UK wanted cheap labour. Also, I do feel the EU does need to do more on this but the problem is, the power is with EU members not the EU, I think we need a much stronger EU wide policy on immgrations but that will likely mean handing over some powers to the EU, in other words, the real problem isn't the EU but some EU members, the UK being one of them and because of that, it will still be a problem after Brexit because of cheap labour.
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The amount of energy we produce is a big factor in controlling our pace of development in all areas. You are right that once we get to the stage of producing more energy than we need, that's going to push us onto the next stage of development, but any amount of energy we produce, we'll always find a way of using it, it will just allow us to do far more than is realistically possible today, which potentially sends the human race into the next level of development, and there's a fair chance of this happening over the next 2 to 3 decades in many countries around the world, maybe even sooner than that.
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I live in the UK and seriously, the way the media goes on about summer weather, especially with heat waves, they make it seem like we are vampires that have never seen sun before and that we should avoid the sun unless we want to combust lol. We get quite a bit of sun each summer and yeah the heat waves and weather has become more erratic the last decade or so. The other day for instance, it was 39c outside and 47c in my room and it felt fine apart from getting asleep that which it was in the upper 20's which is quite hot for sleep time. On the other hand, we should remember that the UK gets quite humid in summer, the temperature can feel much hotter than many other places with higher temps, especially because houses in the UK are design to keep heat in, but I always find it amusing how Brits cry for summer and yet when summer is in, they cry for it to end lol. Anyway, I think the real issue isn't that summers are getting hotter and winters are becoming milder in the UK at least, but more to do with how erratic the weather is becoming which isn't normal and for me, it started around a decade ago.
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I don't have a problem with an EU superstate, there are many ways that can be done whiles keeping our individual cultures of each members. I don't think we should follow what the US has done, their system is a mess and it's easy to see the flaws in the system, but I do think we Europeans need to integrated further in the EU if we want to protect our interest around the world, as individual members, we are too weak and overtime, we are going to get pushed aside by the big powers, the US and China, and potentially others like India, if we want to protect our political, economic and social interest, we need to speak more as one in more areas. With all that said, there are a lot of things that can be done at an EU members level and not EU level and personally, I think at an EU level, setting minimum standards for all the EU countries in a lot of areas is a good idea, many common standards, and I also think external factors like the military, forign policy and other things like that are better done at an EU level. It's a balancing act, the things that can be done at a nation or even region level would be better when it comes to democracy, but we also have to be realistic that there are many things we can do better together if we pool our resources at an EU level, and it's getting the right balance we need to figure out, and one thing I do know, we shouldn't follow the US system, that is a mess that doesn't work well for the people.
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Volker Hett, I suspect they will wait till after March next year so it wont matter about the UK as they will not need to vote on this as they will be pushed out of decision making in the EU and that will likely be the case even if the UK gets an extention, it will likely mean the UK having no say in EU policy making after March. The other EU members are key to getting it passed and that will take some time but thats democracy for you, it's painfully slow. James, it's a contract that was made, the UK can't afford to not pay it no matter what happens with the Brexit talks, the UK goverment is trying to use it as levrage but it doesn't wash with the EU as they know where they stand with that, in any case, even if the UK doesn't pay that, the EU will likely get a lot tougher on the UK and get it out of us by other means and as we know, there are many ways to skin a cat. The reality is, the UK will pay because they can't afford it's word to take any damage after Brexit as they will need to get a lot of good deals once out of the EU, how many of them will be up for it if they can't trust what the UK says will stick? In any case, the EU is playing this game very smart, a lot smarter then the UK goverment, have you noticed how the EU keeps the British public on side but wont give the goverment what it really wants?, the EU for the most part don't really have to do anything here because the UK is in such a mess with bickering among ourselfs.
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Silencio, it's a bluff from the UK goverment but it's a very risky move as the EU doesn't seem to be buying it, the UK have already wasted too much time on Brexit and the clock is ticking down, the goverment needs a plan that isn't pie in the sky that the EU can buy. As for the UK goverment, the problem with the Switzerland or Norway deal is that it brakes the red lines the UK goverment have and I doubt the EU is going to brake with it's four freedoms for a leaving member, in other words, the UK goverment needs to be more realistic with what deal it can get because so far it's doing a bad job at that. In any case, the only one that seems to work is single market and custom union, that solve our trade deals with the EU and the rest of the world, it solves the Irish boarder, it does the least harm to the UK but the problem for the UK is that it more or less makes us a vassal state of the EU, which begs the question, why not stay in the EU and have done with it if the EU and it's members will let us stay because it's clear that all deals we get are going to be worse then what we had in the EU and the UK had a very good deal thanks to it's op-outs, something we have lost now.
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@alexguiness7035 They've got more than enough and beside, it's not really about that and more about the economy and tech that counts in modern warfare, something the EU can do much better if they put their minds to it.
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@Doggle Bird The harm hasn't been done on an economic front which is really what matters when it comes to public views, that happens once we are fully out of the EU next year, for now we are more or less still an EU member with no say and as for the polls, too many are pointing in the same direction that people would vote to stay in the EU and have been saying that for few years now, the latest is 57% and that seems to be rising, imaging what that could be if Brexit starts to hurt peoples interest once we are out. As for control over the country, the problem is with that is that Brexit doesn't really give us much control, what the laws, rules and regulations, I'll put money on it now that most of them will be adopted in the UK because of economic interest, as much as the UK likes to say they want to diverge away, that isn't that easy to do if we want good trade with them and would be a lot more costly for the UK if we did because we would have a lot more red tape which is ironic because part of Brexit was to reduce that, as for the money, the UK will be at a net lose not gain by Brexit, there is no new money. Immigration could have been cut at any time even whiles in the EU, the UK had full control over immigration from outside the EU but did nothing on that, we also had some control on immigration from within the EU but never used any of those powers, worse yet, look at the immigration, as EU numbers come down, numbers are going up from around the world by around the same number, the numbers in total are not coming down but are coming from other areas, now ask yourself, do you think Brexiteers would prefer European immigration or immigration from around the world that will find it harder to integrate. The Tories do have 4 and a half years to run assuming they don't get forced out if things really get bad but considering they have Brexit and the pandemic as well as Scotland to deal with, I suspect they are going to need much longer than that, worse yet, this pandemic is getting a lot of countries to close up shop, the EU is one of the few that isn't closing, in other words, it's going to be harder for the UK to sign any good deals around the world when they are looking after their own because of the economic damage of this pandemic. As for Scotland, if Scotland was to leave the EU, some kind of deal would be used with the rest of the UK, after all, the UK can't afford all that trade not having easy access, Scotland doesn't like being talked down too and that is all we've seen for the last few years on Brexit and now even on this pandemic, we are seeing clear differences from Scotland and the UK government, as the UK is trying to diverge away from the EU, many of the UK members are diverging away from the UK government, that doesn't bold well for the future. Beside, what you are suggesting is that the Scot should put up with the abuse by the UK government because of trade, Scotland can use the exact same argument the Brexiteers used on Brexit to leave the UK. As for respect of the vote, well I would if the Brexiteers respect what they promised to deliver, the Brexit that was voted on and the one we are getting are nothing alike, many Brexiteers even said we could stay in the single market and custom union, the cake and eat it, if they want respect, they best start delivering on what was promised or support is going to keep rising to rejoin the EU once reality kicks in. As for democracy, that allows people to change their minds if enough things on what they voted on changed, almost everything on Brexit has changed since the Brexit vote.
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Yeah I'm the same, sometimes too much choice can be a bad thing, but don't get me wrong, you do want choice but to not get overwhelmed with too much choice, I feel smaller stores tend to do a better job at that which makes them more appealing to shop at.
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@morebeer4skippy1066 Which is a massive problem because we need solid access to either the EU or US market after Brexit and perferablelly the EU market because it's a lot closer and more in line with UK standards.
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@alanedwards6491 Those tariffs will likely drop from the US because the EU is hitting the US just as hard, beside the US has forms in starting trade wars with the EU in the past but they always seem to back down, now with the pandemic, it's in both sides interests to settle this. As for regulations, depends how you look at them because a lot of them are about things like food standards, workers rights and countless other things, it's easy to say lets water them down but that can have a negative impact on the people.
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@lacdirk Throw in that any big company that is planning to do business in Europe with the intention of selling to all of Europe are not likely to pick the UK and are more likely to pick an EU country because of less restrictions over a lot of people, from there they can still sell to the UK but at a higher cost because of the tariffs, they'll likely pass on that cost to UK consumers. This is also the reason the UK refuses to walk away from talks, they know they need a good deal with the EU otherwise investment in the UK could start to dry up.
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ClickNSpam Not very likely, think about it, all those countries are spread so thin around the globe that it wouldn't work and beside, I highly doubt Canada or New Zeeland would want to be part of that, that is more of a dream of the UK and Australia but then they have a lot to fear around the world, the UK with Brexit and Australia with China. I mean think about it, even with tariffs from the EU, it would still likely be cheaper to trade with them than with Australia because of the distance lol.
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@ShamanMcLamie Well no, because in the EU, we was a equal partner, we voted, we had a veto and all that, with the US, you don't have any of that, you'll do as the US demands of you. The irony is, the UK has put it's self in the same position where both the EU and US can take advantage of the UK.
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The domestic issue is a clear indicator on why the EU needs to be given more power, let the members rule in their own countries without having to worry about the military and forign policy which pooling the resources through the EU would make it a lot more effective for the EU and it's members. If the EU had more powers in key areas, it wouldn't have to worry about domestic issues unless it's widespread over a lot of its members but most of those issues will be managed by the countries themselves. This is where the real problem is in Europe, people complain that the EU or its members are not doing enough but in the case of the EU, it's not really got the powers to do much and in the case of the members, when domestic issues rise, governments start to look inwards to their own problems, mainly out of survival instinct of the next election. If we want Europeans to be more bold and to do a lot more, we're very likely going to have to empower the EU to allow it to look after our interest better, especially on military, forign policy and energy matters, the alternative is what we are seeing now with each country pulling in different directions and being much weaker for it. As for the likes of Poland, Denmark and others, these are too small to really have much of an impact overall and it's still got the same issue I said above about them pulling in all directions, the real problem in the EU is not having a single voice in many key areas and until that changes, EU countries are always going to be weaker and pulling in all directions compared to the US and this is why I think key EU countries in the Euro Zone really should be looking at more integration, because they are being held back by other countries that don't want to integrate and that is doing a lot of harm to all the EU members as well as the EU. The EU has the economic might like the US but are really bad on the political side of things and until we stand banding together and stop arguing over petty things, European standing in the world is going to decline in favour of the US, China and other world powers, now let's see how bad things have to go before the penny drops.
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You make it seem like Europe is the only one going through this, maybe you have not seen energy prices skyrocketing around the world as well as inflation. Basically, a lot of the world is paying the price here, but that's great news because it isolates Russia more whiles at the same time, should help to find solutions to these problems quicker. Anyway, I live in the UK, we're nowhere near as exposed to Russia as the continent is and yet energy prices as well as inflation is sky-high here, we're seeing much of the same in the US and this will only ease once European countries secure alternative energy sources around the world because as they look on the international market, it bumps up the price for everyone else which is more or less what we are seeing. The solution is the energy market needs to stabilise in Europe before we see real price drops around Europe and the world.
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Pretty much all countries that join the EU have done well out of it, some more than others, but we should remember that the EU is like a guide, it helps its members create political stability, economic growth, whiles having open access to a big trading block, but ultimately, it's up to the national government of each member to do it's part, hence why some do better out of the EU then others, southern countries for instance have erratic policies, too much red tape and too much corruption, whereas eastern EU members are much closer in line with norther western EU countries and hence why they are catching up fast. The EU does a lot of good, but in the end, a lot of the work is done at a members level.
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@rjfaber1991 Politics shouldn't really be about being exciting, it should be about policies that work and make things better for the people. In the case of the EU, they always seem to find a way around obstacles that I suspect a lot of other countries would fail on and I have to give the EU credit, they seem to always find a way, after all, just after the second world war, they would have thought we was crazy if we said we had a union like we do today, it goes to show what can be done if enough political will is there to make it happen. It will be interesting to see how the EU develops now the UK is out of it, probably more integration, especially the Euro Zone countries.
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So let me get this right, Imagine Scotland were to break many of the UK rules, would you be alright with that? You are after all suggesting that members can do what they want, wouldn't that be fine if Scotland or Wales were to do the same? Hungary knew full well of the rules it were signing up to when joining the EU, if they don't like that, they know where the door is, but braking the rules when signing up to them in good faith is asking for trouble, and honestly, the EU should have got tough on Hungary years ago.
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I do remember when they tried to do region locks for dvd's for each EU country but the EU stepped in and put a stop to that so it's one region for all the EU countries which is better for the consumers, nowadays it doesn't really matter as dvd's and bluerays work anywhere.
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The problem isn't the EU, the EU wants to allow both countries in but because of the veto, it only takes one or two countries to hold the rest up, in other words, the real problem is the veto rules and that really needs to be reformed because too many policies in the EU are being held back because of one or two countries. As for the US, yes Europeans should remain on good terms with them and consider them a friend but we should also remember that they are a rival and don't serve European interest only they stand to gain from it, to protect European interest, we really need a strong EU in more areas then we have at the moment. At the end of the day, the sooner Europeans in the EU countries realize that the veto rules are going to hold us back, the sooner real change that could benefit us all can happen, I mean, look at how many things are being blocked by just one or two countries or where one or two countries are using the veto to carry favours in other areas, it's easy to see how messed up it is and why some EU members don't want to allow more countries in the EU until these veto rules are reformed, otherwise it would be a mess of gridlock where little to nothing gets done, we see that a lot with Hungary and Poland and in this case, it's Romania and Bulgaria paying the price.
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@helmutzollner5496 Maybe all that needs to happen, us Brits need to learn that the US doesn't care about us and rarely have, they use the UK to get what it wants and thats how it's been for decades. At least in the EU, we was part of the block which made much of our intrest the same as other EU members intrest, that more or less pushes them all to look after each other as it becomes in everyones intrest to do so out of self intrest, the US doesn't have that with the UK and will look at how they can screw us over and the warnning signs are already showing even before we have left the EU and if the UK ignores that then we deserve to be screwed over, maybe thats when the penny will drop.
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But the EU made it a lot easier to trade with each other whiles also making it a lot easier for people to live and work anywhere in the EU union and that does generate a lot of wealth.
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This is interesting because we are talking about an EU and NATO member and could change the dynamics of the west response, especially if this isn't a one-off. Question is, was this a mistake on the Russian side, if so, why would they be firing rockets so close to the boarder, knowing the risk? Was this Putin's way of sending a message to Poland and the west? It's hard to say at this stage but a lot more news on this is going to roll out over the coming days. If this ends up not being a one-off, things could escalate very quickly as the EU and NATO would have to respond more directly, otherwise, it will weaken the resolve of the west and many countries will start to wonder, what is the point of NATO and the EU if they don't act and respond to protect its members. It's going to be interesting to see how the EU and NATO responds to this and if this is a one off from Russia or if we'll see more in the near future, if it's a one-off, things can be defused quite quickly, if it's not, things could escalate just as quickly, either way, Russia needs to be very careful with its decisions here, because they are no match for the EU or NATO, especially if either one are forced to use their economic muscle on the military.
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It seems highly unlikely that Russia could attack Poland, after all, Poland is much richer than Ukraine but more importantly, they are in the EU and NATO, both organizations would be compelled to respond to an invasion with a lot more force than we are seeing with Ukraine, Putin very likely knows that, hence why he's targeting vulnerable countries like Ukraine and Moldova but taking on an EU or NATO country, if the EU or NATO didn't get involved in a much tougher way, many will question the point of the EU and NATO and it could unravel, so basically, it would be all out way if Russia did attack an EU or NATO country and with that said, the best thing for protection to those none EU and NATO countries in the east is to join the EU and NATO as quickly as possible to get away from Russian aggression.
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@britishmgtow7251 Actually thats not true, there are hardcore Brexiteers that don't care and there are moderate Brexiteers that fell for the lies, the moderate ones will care once it starts to hit them in the pocket, the hardcore Brexiteers, well there is no hope for them. In any case, as Brexit starts to bite, it's likely going to swing many of the moderates more on favour of closer ties to the EU either by rejoining it or joining the single market and/or custom union. I suspect that could happen once we have a new government in power, think about it, a new government in the future that has nothing to do with Brexit could wipe out all these bad trade deals the UK is signing around the world and replace them with good deals the EU has signed, that will be quite tempting for a future government, so hear me hoping the UK continues to sign one bad deal after another lol.
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If there is one thing I've learned about Eurosceptic parties is that they say a lot of bold things to try and win elections but if they get into power, reality kicks in as a lot of what they said isn't realistic and all of a sudden, it's on their head if things go wrong, hence why things get toned down. Truth is, it doesn't really change much for the EU no more than how Brexit didn't change much for the EU, after all, according to the Brexiteers, Brexit was supposed to shake the EU to the core and yet it changed very little. We should also remember that the British have always been very different when it comes to Eurosceptics compared to other European countries, mainly in the British ones want to dismantle the EU whereas European ones want to change and reform the EU, hence why the UK didn't get any help from a single EU member even thought the UK government tried hard to play them off each other. Mind you, if Le Pen does win, it would be music to Putin's ears, being as Brexit is his biggest success so far but as I said above, watch what happens after the election, especially as they tonne things down. Also, have you seen the viewing figures of GBNews? it's sinking lol.
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@DaniRaj666 Maybe but the reason the west is so successful and winning is because what they offer the world is better than the alternatives that the likes of China and Russia offers. In the end, you have to ask yourself, how many people would want to live under a world order from the likes of Russia or China?, the west are no angels and the system isn't perfect but it's far better than what others are offering. Because of all that, the EU and US won't have any problems getting countries lining up behind them whereas the likes of Russia and China will have a hard time getting countries onboard and even then, half the time, those countries are screwing each other over just like China is doing with Russia in pushing them into selling oil and gas really cheap to them. Simply put, if we want a new world order, it has to be a system that is better than what the west currently offers, that isn't China or Russia, hence why those two countries are destined to lose, heck, let's be blunt about this, if trade from the west was to stop with China and Russia, it would cripple them, whereas the west have alternatives to those two countries whereas these two countries don't really have alternatives to the rich west. What I think is going to happen is the EU, US and countless other countries will become closer together, Russia will be much weaker and in the pocket of China, many countries will stay out of it all but most that want a better future will likely side closer with the west, after all, I suspect not many countries want to live under the rules that China and Russia offer.
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I think you are speaking of the UK which is self-destructing, the EU adding more members is only going to make the union more powerful in the longer run because those eastern EU members are quickly catching up to the west in economic terms for the most part. The irony is that this help to make the UK less relevance in Europe, after all, when the likes of the US or China or other big powers want to talk, they rather go through the EU then go through so many different countries, especially troublesome ones like the UK and the only exception is when they can take advantage of the weakness of the UK by being on our own. The irony is, I'm British and even I see all this, the UK has become a joke thanks to Brexit and it's just getting worse with the Tories lurching from one disaster after another, the Tories have been a joke for the UK going back to the austerity measures they did a decade ago that it's actually got to the point whereas much as I don't want to see them leave, I think Scotland and Northern Ireland would do better outside the UK because our political system has lost the plot whiles the rivals with Labour are a lame duck. In any case, Ukraine won't join the EU any time soon, first the EU is going to have to deal with Poland and Hungary, as well as do reforms of the EU on vetoes and majority voting before Ukraine can join, there's also a lot Ukraine will have to do before they are ready to join so it's going to be some time off, but if the war ends in Ukraine, there might be a lot of political will to do real change in the right direction to fast track things.
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The art of papagander to make another system look worse then it is to justify the existing system back home is to try and make other systems around the world look as bad as they can, in other words, the powers that be in the US only point out the negatives around the world but stay well clear of the positives and even then on the negatives, they highlight and go over the top to make it sound worse than it actually is, this is how brainwashing works, especially on people that don't travel or do any research as they buy into whatever the system tells them and that happens a lot in the US hence why so many assume they are the best without checking if that is true or not which governments love because it's easy to screw the people over when people are ignorant of the truth.
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To me, I think what is important is having a cheap way of installing renewables, whether that be solar or wind and low price for buying of that, for personal use. Consumers are much more likely to push this renewable revolution over governments if the cost of installing and the price point of buying is cheap enough to do, whereas governments keep dragging their feet with the fossil industry lobbying them to slow down the adoption, consumers don't have that issue because they will do what's in their interest to lower cost. This is why for me, having a low-cost installation could do wonders for the industry, at the moment, it's too expensive and complicated which puts a lot of us off, even thought the cost of solar isn't that expensive now and is getting cheaper, the installation cost and complexity is a mess for most, sort those problems out and the adoption rate would likely skyrocket and consumers are much harder for the fossil industry to lobby against. The icing on the cake will come about with improvements to battery tech so we can store weeks or even months of energy per household. As for this wind tech, even if it doesn't generate as much energy as they say, does it really matter if it can be done cheap enough for consumers to use? Mixing things up with solar and wind could be quite useful for many, especially as solar doesn't generate energy at night where wind can. Still, we need more information on this tech in real world use cases but it does look like the tech shows promise and could be made better to take advantage of wind from all directions.
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@Joso997 You're not really taking the voices out, it's reorganising the institutions. Besides, smaller countries already have more powers than their economy and population should have, if things were done more evenly, the bigger countries would actually have more powers than they've got now. This is all about reorganising the system so it functions better, it still looks after all the members, in fact, it likely would be able to do a better job, because the main problem now is that it's hard to get things done because of all the vetoes and if you did that in countries, nothing would get done, so majority voting is needed, and more so if the EU wants to expand, because if it's becoming difficult to get things done now, imagine how much harder it will become with more members. Major reforms are long overdue, but I wouldn't worry, looking at a lot of these proposals, it would do a lot of good for all EU members over the long run by streamlining the institutions, which should make it a lot more effective in getting things done. The irony being, a lot of the complaints against the EU is that it doesn't get much done or takes too long, that's not the EU's fault, that's the member's fault, voices pulling in all directions make it difficult to get things done and it makes us Europeans look weak on the world stage and the reality is, if we want to compete long term with the US and China, we are going to have to do some big changes, in other words, more integration and speaking more as one, if we don't do that, we will eventually be pushed aside which will lead to decline and make it more difficult to protect our political, economic and social interest, which would be bad for all EU citizens. To put it another way, a lot of our laws and regulations are protected by the EU, others like the US and China would be more than happy to lobby us to water down those rules, the US tries it all the time, only for the EU to stand up to them, to get a bit of an example of that, just look at the UK and how it's being taken advantage off since Brexit, they don't have the clout like the EU does, so countries around the world are taking advantage of the UK and it's only just started with them, it's only going to get worse over the coming decades.
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@nyberprivate555 It should always be based on the population size above everything else. The way the system is set up now, it actually gives smaller countries more powers than they should have, more seats in the European Parliament and a veto. If we truly want a democratic system, then the system will need to change, and especially so on the veto rules as that will make it almost impossible to get things done as more countries join, it's already getting challenging with the current 27. As for the smaller countries thinking they will get pushed aside, it doesn't have to be that way, there are many ways to reform the EU in a fair and balance way that looks after the interest of all its members, whereas the veto rule doesn't do that, some countries abuse that, it creates a selfish attitude that some countries use it to hold others to ransom, which goes against everything the EU union is all about..
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@Lando-kx6so I don't see why the EU needs to loosen up, it's the UK that created its own mess and it's really the UK that needs to get to grips with the situation. The EU have always been open to more trade but the reality is, trade terms are always done in favour of the big powers, the EU, US and China in most cases.
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I think you are talking about the UK, I'll give you an hint on what going to happen, the EU and US are going to play ping pong with the UK to get as much out of us as they can, the UK will be desperate to get good trade terms with both the EU and US and they know that, because of that, a lot of laws, rules and regulations will be done from them two powers and the UK will have no say in them, that is the reality and you only have to look at other countries that are not part of the EU or US to see that, in other words, we more or less are becoming a vassal and that will be great news as that will send a powerful message of how stupid we was in the UK, the term Brexiteer will end up meaning stupid lol.
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The irony is that it's coming home was meant to wind up rivals and now Italy turned that around in saying it's coming Rome to wind up the English lol. Now all we need is a new song, It's coming Rome whiles pushing it hard in the UK charts with help from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland lol.
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The simple answer is no, population control can be controlled in modern countries with immigration, but it's more complicated than that. Same with birth rates, there are many things governments can do to encourage or discourage people having kids. The truth is, it's not really a big issue for EU countries at the moment, that could change over the long run but so could a lot of policies on encouraging people to have more kids by creating a better environment to do so, but for now, it's not a big deal, in fact, some will say downsizing a little is a good thing for some European countries.
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@robertlee8805 The government is part of the problem but to me, the real problem is the system people are living under in the US, it's created a lot of rampant paranoia and mistrust in almost everything and Americans are paying a high price for that now, in other words, the government is partly to blame but there is a lot more going on in the US that is to blame and that isn't going to be easy to fix and what we are seeing is the system braking down where it's showing it's not looking after the public interest, the problem was there for a few decades now but this virus is bringing the problem to the surface that it's hard to not see it even for the average American and in some ways that's a good thing because as more see the problems, it allows bigger changes in the long run.
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Karen Byrd Maybe but the problem is that no human has that much Individualism, we like to think we have but we don't, not really and because of that, it's best to make the system work better for all.
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True, that would have a big impact over the long run, and the cost of solar panels are dirt cheap now, but the real problem is everything else from inverters to installation is crazy expensive, which puts a lot of us off. I also think we need solutions on small scale wind power that can work well in urban areas on houses, many ideas are being thrown around on that over the last few years, but until we start seeing real world evidence that actually produces meaningful energy, can be done cheap enough and in urban areas where the winds are more erratic, then for now, solar is a better option, and it's a shame really because wind and solar would complement each other really well to deliver a more consistent amount of energy, which in turn, means you need less batteries as a buffer.
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@toma9976 True, what we should remember that the void that Russia is leaving is a massive opening for other oil and gas producing countries to profit on at the expense of Russia.
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@petem6354 Things are different now and that means they need to decide now on what's best for them, your logic is as flawed as the logic that Scotland shouldn't get another vote because they voted to stay in the UK but this was before the Brexit vote happen, a lot has changed since then and many Scots would likely want to re-think things. Personally, I think Gibraltar and all the other 3 countries in the UK should get that options which I think will happen regardless of what the government says.
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Whether the UK wants to join the EU, it's likely too soon under the likely Labour government, for one, the EU isn't likely to allow the UK back in and I can think of a few EU members that would block that, and two, I'm not so sure if it will go down well with the people to try to rejoin so soon, and three, and this is the most important one, the British people need to realise that rejoining the EU, there will be no op-outs, in other words, the UK will have to adopt the Euro, Schengen, no rebate and so on, but I think the UK and EU could work something out on the rebate. Realistically, the best thing the UK can do under a Labour government is heal wounds, create closer ties and maybe even join the single market and custom union, which I think that could be possible over the next 10 years, maybe sooner, but rejoining, I don't see that being a possibility for at least 2, maybe 3 decades with how hostile the UK government and many of the people were, there's also another factor, I can't imagine the EU and many of its members wanting the UK back in unless they see a sizeable shift in how the UK public, the media and political parties see the EU project, in other words, a more constructive member, not obstructive as the UK have been over the last few decades. Because of the geopolitical situation that's changing around the world with the US, China and Russia, I think it's in the interest of the UK to rejoin the EU, but I also think it's in the interest for the EU to further integrate in key areas like defence and forign policy matters, as well as capital market if we really want to stay competitive and protect our interest, we can do that much better by banding together, but first, the EU is highly unlikely to let any new countries join until there are some major reforms to the EU, especially on veto areas. Anyway, 14 years of Tory government, you really have to wonder why the people would vote them in when they keep lurching from one mess to another, the Tories over the last 14 years have done major damage to the UK, that the future doesn't look promising, and even with a Labour government, until we know what there real policies are, which we won't know until they are in power, then I wouldn't expect much change, but I would love for Labour to prove me wrong, but history has shown us, not much really changes. In any case, let's not delude ourselves, there's no way the EU would let the UK rejoin so soon, think of the message that would send to others, that you can just leave and rejoin at will, and as I said above, some in the UK seem to get this impression that if the UK does rejoin the EU, it would be under the terms they had before leaving the EU, there's no way the EU would allow such special treatment, the UK will be treated as a new member, which means no op-outs, if the EU were to allow the UK back in with op-outs, other existing members as well as countries that want to join will set their own conditions, there's no way the EU will want to open up that can of worms, so yes, the UK can rejoin, but it won't be any time soon and it will be as a new member with no op-outs, that message really needs to be drummed in with the UK population so you have a more accurate picture on what rejoining the EU means. Also, the UK can try to rejoin the EU, be on the waiting list and that will still send a powerful message to other countries to not want to leave, the EU doesn't have to let the UK back in for that message to be heard loud and clear by other members, the UK wanting in will be enough.
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I think what Macron might be saying is that if French and other allied troops are in Ukraine, they wouldn't need to engage Russian troops, they could be put into specific regions like the north and other regions to free up Ukrainian troops so they don't have to defend a wider area and can be more effective on pushing Russia back. It could be a smart move as it's highly unlikely that Russia would want to take on any allied troop because of the risk of escalation, but them just being there in Ukraine in specific locations would do a lot of good for freeing up a lot of resources on the Ukrainian side, it would mean they could be more effective in pushing Russia back. I also think it was a mistake in some countries coming out and saying no to the idea, the US, Germany, the UK and so on, that shows weakness on western resolve in how far we are willing to go on Ukraine, and even if it was a bluff, the option should always be on the table to make Putin think twice. Considering everything that's going on around the world, it's remarkable how so many countries are bickering over such little things when they should be looking at the big picture, all democracies should be standing together at a time when dictators are on the rise around the world.
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If there is one thing the west is very good at is adapting to these kinds of things, basically, they'll find solutions around these problems if need be. The truth is, it won't come to that because China as a lot to lose as well, far more than what Russia is facing.
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It will be interesting to see if LLAMA 2 goes through the same process that LLAMA 1 did, I remember that in the early days, LLAMA 1 wasn't that great, but over a matter of months, the quality went up a lot, as well as the performance, if LLAMA 2 goes through the same process, whiles LLAMA 2 is already starting off from a better position, the quality of LLAMA 2 by the end of the year could be crazy good. I think over the coming years, these open source A.I. are going to be a major threat to the online models, the locally run open source models have a few major advantages over the online ones, privacy, security, far fewer restrictions or no restrictions if you want that, and the performance is already at a good stage where you can run upto 30b on a cpu or gpu and 60+ billion if you have enough system memory but it's a bit on the slow side but still useable. It also looks like Qualcomm are pushing it's next gen chips with A.I. in mind at a local level, probably because many of the phone companies want to have a locally run version on their phones, and I suspect most consumers, businesses and governments would on the phone or PC. There are too many advantages to the locally run models, and I suspect it's going to become more of an issue for the online ones as A.I. becomes more useful and integrated in our lives, basically, government regulators, the public and even many companies are likely going to ramp up the pressure on the online models when it comes to privacy and security and honestly, I don't think they can win this one whiles the open source A.I. doesn't have any of these issues. It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft and Meta already knows this and are edging their bets with closed and open source A.I. they probably realise that public, media and government pressure could build to such a level against the online models that it's not worth them doing any more, and there is also the factor that over the long run, A.I. is going to be very important to the economy and our lives, that basically means it's a high risk thing for so few to control it and again, open source has none of these issues. On the other side of the coin, open source does have it's risk in having unrestricted A.I. but I think it's better to go that route with more transparency over so few controlling A.I. with how important it's likely to be for us all.
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That's why Scotland is very likely to have another vote even if the UK doesn't agree to it as leaving the EU changes a lot for Scotland position in the UK and probably even more so after this economic fallout from this virus kicks in but either way, it would be very hypocritical of the UK government to not allow the Scots to have another vote when the UK is leaving the EU as that changes a lot and a vote will likely happen, they don't need the UK governments promession to do a vote so it's just a matter of when not if.
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@robertt3545 I'm sure they will try but it wouldn't be wise of them to do so, at least not public as most people don't like being talked down to or being dictated too, it could backfire on the UK government if they try and stop a vote from happening. All the UK can really do is let a vote happen and fight for the reason for Scotland to be part of the UK, that will be hard work for them considering the UK left the EU, Scotland can simply say we will be better off without the UK just like the UK government says they are without the EU and they'll have one heck of a job trying to argue around that one, especially now because the EU is more open to allowing Scotland back into the EU. As for big companies, it really depends, if Scotland can leave and rejoin the EU quickly, many big companies in the UK might relocate up north for better access to the EU market whiles being on the mainland on the UK to trade with the UK, that could be a big opening for Scotland in the same way that the Republic of Ireland became a bridge to trade from the EU and US. The way I see it, if Scotland leaves the UK but with no signs of EU membership, it will cause a lot of changes and the first few years might be hard, but if an independence Scotland can re-join the EU quickly, things could pick up very fast, there is little reason why Scotland couldn't join the EU quite fast because all our laws, rules and regulations are the same as the EU so it likely would be a simple process overall, that's only the case if we joined them soon because once the UK is out and starts diverging away from the EU, the longer it would take for Scotland to rejoin. Either way, I think the chances of Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK are pretty high with how Brexit is going, throw in the mess of the pandemic and the hardship that is going to bring, that's likely going to push both countries to want to leave, even Wales might contemplate the idea of leaving the UK union because it's clear that the England part of the union is out of step with the rest.
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That's the only realistic way they could move back to the west, automation but that doesn't do workers any favours and even then with automation, cheaper laboured countries still have the advantage because they can use the same tech, but at the end of the day, consumers will dictates where companies go and consumers for now demand goods on the cheap, that is likely going to be more the case with the hard times we are likely to face over the next few years.
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If history is any indicator, currencies tend to go up shortly after sanctions because the government gets desperate to prop them up, but the damage of sanctions is longer term, years in fact. Russia isn't doing well already if you ask the common Russia but things are very likely going to get much worse as Russia becomes more isolated, untrustworthy and the Europeans don't buy any of its natural resources, in other words, the real damage is likely to kick in either later next year or the year after and even the likes of China will not want to buy too much from Russia because Putin has shown to be willing to use natural resources as a weapon, so China, India and others won't want to be too dependent on Russia but they are more than happy to take advantage of Russia's weakness by blackmailing them into selling oil and gas dirt cheap to them, either way, that's hurting as well. So basically, give the sanctions some time to really bite and I think the real biting moment will be around when European countries buy little to no natural resources from Russia, that isn't going to happen till at least next year at the earliest but the percentage of what they buy from them will continue to drop, ironically thanks to Putin playing games by cutting the pipe which ironically is playing into the hands of the EU that wants to ban gas but can't because of some EU members, Putin is helping to force that issue by shooting himself in the foot whiles at the same time, forcing bigger changes in Europe that I suspect longer term, fossil fuel countries are not happy about because we might see a decade or more of the fossil industry wiped out thanks to Putin, that is a lot of money. As for oil and gas prices, that can't stay high longer than 2 or so years, the longer the prices stay high, the more money and investment countries will do into alternatives, in other words, they'll go out of their way to kill the fossil industry if they don't bring prices down to a normal level, they might have 2 years on that before governments really start to push back aggressively against the fossil industry which if they do, that's the beginning of the end of the fossil industry. So just grin and bare the high prices for a year or two before things settle down and if the fossil industry tries to get cleaver at the time, don't expect countries all over the world to just accept the high prices, it doesn't work that way, they will find alternatives, especially the rich ones that have the resources to make it happen
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Italy needs two things, it needs reforms on the political side to try and create a more stable political system that helps to reduce corruption. On the economic side, Italy needs some major reforms, they are falling behind other EU countries and other modern countries around the world, and unless anything changes, will continue to do so that it wouldn't surprise me if Spain and many of the eastern EU countries become bigger than Italy on a GDP per capita basis. I think another part of the problem in Italy is the blame game, too many times we see Italy and Italians blaming others for how things are, whether it be the EU, the Euro and so on and the truth is, the EU or the Euro are not the problem, other countries in the EU and Euro are doing fine with it, the real problem is deep-rooted in Italy, hence the major reforms needed politically and economically, otherwise I feel Italy will fall further behind other EU countries. The irony is in all this, Italy wasn't the only country to use the blame game, the UK did the same thing which led to Brexit, now the UK is getting a valuable lesson in that the EU was never the problem, the real problem in the UK started with the financial crisis, too much austerity measures and under-investment, which is creating a sense of decline in the UK which many are noticing, but in the case of the UK, they also did a lot of self harm by leaving the EU. As for Italy, I really do hope Italy gets back on track, being as I'm half Italian living in the UK, but getting back on track isn't going to be easy and won't be a quick fix, it's going to take some time to really see the impact, but you've got to start somewhere, if Italy starts doing major reforms now, it should start to pay off over the next 5 or 10 years, whiles also putting Italy on a better footing for the future. Also, this is one of the best videos explaining the situation in Italy, I hope a lot of Italians get to see this, as eyes really do need opening.
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@SaintKimbo Political right or left is always something that swings from either side in most countries over the decade, but if we are honest with ourselves, the US is the odd country out of all modern countries in a lot of areas, especially when it comes to being a social democracy, the US is basically on the extream end when it comes to capitalism whereas almost all other modern nations are capitalist but they tame it with social programs and a lot more equality, so in a sense, Canada as well as most modern countries is far more in line with EU countries then they are with the US.
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Like any tech, A.I. can be used for good and bad and you can bet it will be used for both because that's human nature, but unlikely other tech we've invented, A.I. is very different, we've always created tech with a specific purpose in mind, A.I. is kinda like building a brain and the potential of what that could do for the human race is mind-blowing, especially as it advances, which it quickly is doing and we should remember that we are still in the early days of A.I. it's scary and exciting to think where it will be in the next 5, 10, 20 years from now. In any case, pandoras box is open with A.I. and there's no going back and like you said, we'll find ways to adapt to it, assuming it doesn't wipe us out at some point. As for A.I. and control, I've always felt that it would be dangerous for the human race for a few governments, corporations or individuals to control it, that would give them a massive advantage over the rest, but fortunately, we're seeing the big risk with that, hence the massive push on open source A.I. but that brings its own risk as it's a free for all, basically, we all have access to advanced A.I. and can do what we want with it, but given the alternative, I think the open source route is the best course of action, and hopefully the human race makes the right choices with it going forward. As for A.I. and its potential, it could elevate the human race to levels we can't imagine, and that is exciting and scary at the same time because we humans seem to be slow to adapting to change, at least most are, and once A.I. really starts taking hold, the pace of development is likely going to go through the roof in every sector. Personally, the way I see it, A.I. will assist humans in the work we do, but as it continues to get better and more capable, it's hard to not see that it's going to take jobs away at a level we've never seen before, and I know some people will say we'll create new jobs, but A.I. is different from any other tech we've created in that it can adapt to anything, in other words, any new job we create, chances are that A.I. and robotics is going to be able to do it better, faster and cheaper than we can, and considering how the capitalist system works, we could have a major problem in that there might not be enough jobs to go around that I think some kind of human basic income is going to be needed as the jobless rate starts rising, but on the plus side, this could reshape society to allow us to do the things we want to do and not worry about the basic things in life, but either way, I don't think most of us realise the implication of what's on it's way over the coming decades, depending on the pace of A.I. advancement.
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I was thinking that, there are many times throughout Europe where wind generates more energy than we use and that excess energy would be ideal for this and as you say, considering we're building more renewable energy sources like solar and winds, it's likely we're going to see a lot more periods of excess energy being generated. Storing that energy is where the problem is and this could be one solution to that and even thought the efficiency isn't that great with that storage option, it's better than nothing and it's likely only going to get more efficient in time. Also, because of everything that's going on with Ukraine and Russia and the energy market, it's very likely we're going to get a massive boost in renewable energy in Europe, in other words, it's very likely at times that we're going to be generating a lot more energy than we need.
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I've never really put much stock in GDP per capita numbers, it doesn't really tell us much about the quality of living in countries, and like you said, there are a lot of multinationals companies in Ireland for the size of the population that distorts the GDP per capita numbers. The irony being, the more billionaires and millionaires there are in a country, the more it can distort the numbers, the US is a prime example of that, which clearly the living standards are not living up to what the GDP per capita numbers suggest. Not sure what the best measures is to use, but we clearly need a better option that's more accurate for the living standards in a country, especially from the bottom up.
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Just like the US and China show self-interest, and in many cases, at the expense of others, I don't see any reason why the EU shouldn't be more independent, and follow its own path, regardless of what the US or China wants. That doesn't mean the EU should cut the US, but it does mean the EU shouldn't follow them absolutely, the fact is, US interest are different from EU interest, and what we are seeing with the US towards China is more of an issue for the US then it is for the EU, basically, the US fears a rising China, displacing US power around the world, the EU on the other hand, doesn't share that notion about the US, but the EU doesn't like many of the policies that China have been showing. At the end of the day, the EU should do what's in the interest of the EU and it's members, and not what's in the interest of the US or China, let the US and China play their games with each other, the EU can do its own thing, after all, it's high time that Europeans, especially eastern Europeans in the EU learn that the US rarely cares about anything that isn't about the US, unless they stand to gain from it, the EU countries need a single voice if they want to protect their political, economic and social interest, otherwise, others like the US and China will try to pull our strings in many directions, and rarely for the benefits of Europeans, but for their own ends.
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I think Merkel running for another term would be ideal, she's reliable, dependable and trusted by a lot of the population and with the hard times ahead for the next few years thanks to the pandemic, I think Germany and the EU overall could do with someone like her, at least for another term but then again, I can understand why she would want to step down, 15 years as leader is a long time in politics, I guess it's just the timing of her leaving that isn't good with everything that is going on but then on the other hand, maybe a new start might be a good thing.
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I think the real problem in the UK is that the pro EU camp have given the Eurosceptic camp too much of a free hand to spread their lies about the EU for decades. If all the British people are hearing from a lot of the media and governments over the decades is constant EU bashing, eventually that was going to translate into people thinking it's true, and because of how long that's been going on, it won't be easy to convinced them otherwise. So as much as I want to blame the Eurosceptics in the UK for the mess, the pro EU camp shares a lot of the blame for being too silence over the decades on showing the benefits of EU membership and countering the lies from the Eurosceptic, we give the Eurosceptics a free hand and they ran with it, and now we see the results. Do I think the UK will rejoin the EU? Yes, as for when, realistically, I don't see it happening for at least 2 or 3 decades, unless there's a major shift in public, media and government support on the EU project across the board in the UK, that's unlikely to happen any time soon, it's also unlikely that the EU and a few EU members will let us in any time soon. The best the UK can do is create closer relations with the EU and its members, maybe if Labour wins power, and who knows, maybe we could rejoin the single market and custom union, that might be possible in a decade, and that would resolve a lot of the problems Brexit is doing, but it would also mean the UK gets the benefits of EU membership but without any voting rights, honestly, that might be the price the UK has to pay if the UK is serious about wanting to join the EU in full, sooner rather than later, being that if we were in the single market and custom market, it would send a clear message to the EU that we are serious about wanting to rejoin, and it might speed up the process of rejoining. But personally, I don't think it will happen for many decades, you've got the Conservative party that are too deep in on Brexit that they can't change their tune on that, then you've got a Labour leader that seems scared to even mention anything in favour of rejoining the EU, all that is saying to the EU is that the UK isn't ready to join any time soon when you've got the Labour leader so fearful of the Brexiteers, and the irony is, the Labour leader might be doing more damage to our chances of rejoining then the Conservatives are, at least with the Tories, we know where they stand, whereas Labour are trying to appease all sides, that's a powerful message he's sending to the EU that the UK is a long way from ready to rejoin and that the UK is too divided. On the other hand, Brexit has actually been good for the EU, it's been like a proof of concept on why not to leave the EU, a now, no EU countries want to leave the union, even the ones with more radical elements have changed their tunes on not wanting to leave the EU, Brexit has led by example of why not to follow them, it's just unfortunate that the Brits are the ones that are paying the high price for it, but the UK has been one of the most hostile EU members for decades now so it was always likely going to be the UK that pays the high price.
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He quit because he's a loser, think about it, they know they are losing Brexit and they also know that May has got enough support among the Tories to win a no confidance vote, this also pushes May to fight the hardliners head on, this is great news :)
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Even if Trump got back in power, what on earth makes some of the Brexiteers think that he would give the UK a good trade deal?, he'll give the UK a deal, but I can't imagine it being a good deal for the UK with how Trump always puts America and himself first. The UK probably has a better chance of getting a better deal out of Biden than Trump, but honestly, it's in the interest of the UK to rebuild relations with the EU and work on getting better trade terms with them, maybe someday rejoining the single market and custom union, which would solve a lot of the problems the UK faces when it comes to trade. Another factor, the UK creating disunity in Europe at a time when unity is needed among the west because of China and Russia, doesn't exactly look good for the UK and the US views on the EU might have their ups and downs at times, but they likely know that a strong EU is needed to help the US counter what China is doing, which honestly, I don't think the EU or US on its own are going to be powerful enough to keep China in check long term, after all, where is China economy and power going to be in 30 years from now? A strong united front from the west is needed, and the UK creating waves isn't doing the west any favours, Biden likely sees that whereas Trump see an opportunity to take advantage of the UK, after all, a divided Europe is easier to take advantage off and we saw with Trump when he thought he could do individual trade deals with each EU country, he wanted that because he knows he can screw them over, whereas he can't with the EU because of it's size. Brexiteers pinning their hopes on Trump are in for a rude awakening, and they should know better, I mean seriously, how many times have they got it wrong on Brexit? I've lost count. A big part of Brexit was about wanting to create their own laws, rules and regulations, a fine notion but not as realistic in a globalist world where the EU and US make the rules, the real problem for the UK is this, the more the UK tries to diverge from EU rules, the harder it's going to be to trade with them, the more barriers that go up, especially if the UK lowers standards, which we are already seeing early signs of that happen and is likely a core part on why the Tories wanted Brexit. At the end of the day, because of geographic, it's in the UK's interest to have good trade terms with the EU, as the EU is more or less going to dominant most of our trade, it's all well and good the UK saying it can trade with the rest of the world, but economics always goes for the cheaper option, most countries trade the most with nearby countries because it makes economic sense to do so, the only time that isn't the case is either because of cheap labour or goods you can't buy nearby and another major factor is investment, the EU and US are massive markets, where the laws, rules and regulations cover a lot of consumers, that's enticing for investment, if the UK were to change rules too much, the UK would become a less enticing option for investment, especially big investment where companies invest with the intention of selling Europe wide, the EU makes far more sense in that case because it covers a lot more people whiles at the same time, many countries not in the EU follow the same rules more or less, that's the reality for the UK in why it's easy to say we want to create our own rules, it's another story to do that.
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It's what they call strong and stable, but let's be honest, I don't blame the Tories, they are just a reflection of the people, the British people have had many chances to push these out of power and yet they keep voting them back in, that's where the real problem is, the people, so don't expect change and for things to get better until the people change.
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I don't think it would be wise for the west to give anything that is seen as a gain for Putin, any gain, even small gain will be seen as a victory against the west which could embolden others like China to try their own land grab. The only language dictators know is loss, the west needs to make sure that Ukraine wins and gains its land back, including Crimea and with no strings attached on weather Ukraine can join NATO or the EU. It's got to be made crystal clear to Putin and other dictators that there is a high political, economic price as well as lives loss for what he's done. Also, lets be blunt about this, after the actions of Putin and how many eastern European countries that will be fearful of Russia, the west not allowing them into NATO would be seen as selling them out to Russia and in the end, Putin started this war, he's been interfering in the west for over a decade now, there needs to be a high long-lasting price Russia has to face or they won't learn from this which could mean repeating it again in the future. Also, lets not delude ourselves guys, Putin has been dreaming about restarting the Soviet Union for a while, no way for a second would he accept peaceful terms and if he did, it likely would be to buy time, it's a hostile government, it's been hostile for quite some time and the west has been too soft on Russia, it would be a mistake to show Putin weakness now, after all, the west did that over the last decade and look what that got them.
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Over the last 2 decades, the US has become less predictable, not as reliable and more hostile. It would be smart for Europeans to start building more on its forign policy and military capabilities through the EU if they really want to look after their own interest, more so as Europe and America are diverging away from each other in some areas, in other words, what's in their interest, doesn't means it's in your interest. Some European countries, mostly countries like the UK and many eastern EU countries really need to wake up and see the situation for what it is, which is basically, keep the US as friends, but don't count on them for your own security and interest, the only ones that can do that are Europeans themselves, and if they really want to be credible at that, they need to pool resources through the EU and that is only going to be more the case as the US continues to grow and China becomes more of a power, basically, if Europeans want any credible chance of competing, they are going to need to pool far more resources together, the alternative is that we'll just get pushed aside, which will have negative impacts on European countries when it comes to political, economic and social interest, it will be harder to protect them from outside pressure, but through the EU, we can, especially if the EU continues to expand with more countries, which will likely be needed long term. Also, let's be honest with ourselves, Europeans don't need to spend more as such on the military, what it needs to do is pool resources together to get rid of a lot of the waste and duplication, you would have a far more effective military without needing to go crazy on the spending, the budget as it is, is fine already, if that resource was allocated properly, basically, the real weakness isn't the budget, it's having 27 EU militaries, with all the waste and duplication that gives, that's where the real problem is, not the spending as the US wants us to think, I mean seriously, does anyone think Russia or China would be a threat to the EU countries if the EU countries pooled their resources together? The military won't be as big as the US, but it would still be massive compared to what the individual countries can offer, because at the end of the day, the EU doesn't need to police the world as the US wants to do and that is a lot more expensive to do, all the EU needs to do is secure its own boarders, which the current budget is more then enough if pooled together.
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Testing more isn't a sure way of reducing deaths but it can help to identify who has the infection and that can help to reduce the spread of it but in the end, if we try to socialize with each other, death rates are going to climb regardless of what we do until we find a vaccine or something else that reduces the death rate, in the meantime, everyone wearing a mask in public would be a good idea in reducing the numbers which us westerners are finding it hard to do whereas Asian countries are dealing with it much better thanks in part to wearing a mask.
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@fitzstv8506 Pretty much that, Russia needs EU money so can't afford to play these games too long but even if they did, the EU would buy gas on the international market which would likely push up the price for everyone else around the world. Russia needs to be careful about fulfilling it's contract, because if it makes it's self an unrealizable partner, EU countries will just look elseware and Russia loses out, in fact Russia is probably already losing out because things like this will just speed up the EU to find alternatives, if Russia isn't careful, they could lose out on around 10 years worth of gas and even oil sales to the EU. It's never a smart move to play games with the ones that have the money.
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Thing is about politics, when in opposition, it's easy to make bold promises and promise the earth to the people, once in power, it's a very different story, regardless of party and the reason for that is that anyone that's not in power can say anything they want without getting it in the back from the people but once in power, they have to be careful what they do because they are the ones that get it in the back if they get it wrong. This is why so many promise this and that whiles out of power but rarely deliver when in power as reality bites them on the arse and we see this a lot with Eurosceptic parties on the EU and Euro, the closer they get to power or in power, they quickly change their tune because the cost of their actions would be massive on the country and the people will always put the blame on the ones that's in power that caused it. It's the irony of politics, promise the earth to win an election, knowing full well they can't deliver on it and people fall for it because they want too, after all, lies sound much better than the cold harsh truth.
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It did come across like that from the Tories, I suspect they thought they could kill two birds with one stone, pensions and save on the health care, but if there is any truth in that or not is hard to say but what we do know is that the UK government is being slow on this and putting the economy first over the well-being of the public, Trump is doing the same in the US, this could blow up in both their faces because they are really showing their true colours at a time that people are dying which could be very costly to both of them once the dust settles.
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Basically, the Brexiteers thought they were being smart in trying to get one over the EU ended up getting one over themselves, the Tories don't care about the Brexiteers, they only care about what they can get out of them and having many useful idiots is handy to push one's agenda. Truth is, the Brexiteers have been had but good luck getting them to admit that because no one wants to admit they've been taken for a fool, at least not early on. The thing is, you have to wonder how bad things have to get in the UK before they wake up to what the Tories are doing and I have a feeling that wake-up call will be with Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK union which by then it will be too late for the Brexiteers as the real damage is done. Putin played a blinder on the UK with Brexit and that is likely his biggest success.
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@michaelotieno6524 We can never be too certain about these kinds of things, but as the video pointed out, Russia does have form on this, and desperate measures are not usually rational. But honestly, I don't think it will change anything in favour of Russia, in fact, it could backfire if the west ends up supporting Ukraine more or if some of Russia's friends start having doubts about them. Even in war, there are rules, at least most of the time, braking them can be costly for the ones doing so, but this is to be expected, many expected Russia to get more desperate as they get pushed back.
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I think we already knew it wasn't about moving closer to Europe, for that, we'll need a new government that doesn't involve the Tories. What this is really about, is the UK not being isolated in Europe, it's all well and good saying they don't want to move closer to Europe but the reality is, if the UK was one of the few countries in Europe that wasn't involved, it would isolate the UK in Europe and around the world more, basically, the UK couldn't afford to be one of the few left out when the EU countries and most of the none EU countries were there. In any case, depending on what side of Brexit you sit on, it could be seen as good or bad news, good news in the sense that if the EU makes this work, it's very likely going to pull more countries that are not in the EU, closer to the EU orbit and also likely to speed up the process of EU membership for many of them, after all, a lot of countries want to join the EU but some have got fed up with waiting, this middle grown could give them hope to speed up reforms to join the EU sooner rather than later and that is bad news if you're a Brexiteer, because the more countries that join the EU, the more isolated and less relevant the UK becomes and very likely will push a future UK government to either have much closer ties with the EU or ask for EU membership. The biggest threat to Brexiteers is the EU being around whiles the UK is not in it and the EU continuing to expand because regardless of all the arrogance of going it alone, the more countries that join the EU, will leave the UK more isolated in Europe and will more than likely push the US and other international partners to want to have closer relations with the EU over the UK. In any case, it's early days and we don't know what this European Community could morph into, but don't kid ourselves, the Tories are not happy about this as it means more Europe which the Tories on Brexit have been fighting to be the opposite of that. So read between the lines guys, this is the Tories going there to scope it out and see what other countries that are not in the EU think about this European community as they know it could be a threat to the Brexit movement if the EU makes this work as a springboard for other countries wanting to join the EU. Still, it's funny the Brexiteers can't read between the lines in what's going on and I've got to say, it's a master-stroke move from Macron, but then, the EU has always been a few steps ahead of the Brexiteers, just look at Brexit, Brexiteers keep seeing victories where there is none and the end result is the mess the UK is in right now, so keep digging Brexiteers, you're just making it worse for the UK and yourself.
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What the heck, what's going on with solar pricing in the US? I've heard they were more expensive than other parts of the world but those are eye watering numbers for that kind of setup that you could get much cheaper in a lot of other countries, especially in Europe. Are companies really screwing over Americans with those sky-high prices? Because where I live in the UK, if I were to spend that kind of money on a solar setup, it would be overkill by a long way. This is probably worth a video in it's self on solar setups in different countries around the world.
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@tomaszfalkowski7508 I think many are deluding themselves, yes Poland can be a military power if they spend enough on it, but no way can it become a military superpower, it just doesn't have the economy and population size to make that happen. It can be a modest military power at best and even if Poland had the wealth of western European countries, it can only be a modest military power unless it's willing to put its people out by spending way more on the military then its economy can handle, in other words, the Polish people start to suffer for it. Seriously, let's get back down to earth and look at what makes a power, which at the core is the economy, population size and skill set, so the superpower term is a crazy term to use on Poland when it just doesn't have the economic and population muscle of a real superpower like the US, the only ones that do are the EU and China. Heck even a country like Germany, which are in a much better position than Poland to be a military power, can't become a military superpower, so let's get back down to earth shall we? lol.
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@midas1929 The real question is, which is the best form of democracy? I say that because direct democracy with the people is only really effective if the voting public has all the facts on what they are voting on and are clear-headed, that isn't really the case in a lot of countries, just look at the US and UK, if they went more direct, it would be a disaster. I think representative democracy is a better fit because we elect governments to do our bidding, it's up to them to know all the technical stuff on what's right for the countries as it's quite difficult to get the public onboard with everything that is going on and that makes them easy to manipulate by governments and the media. So direct democracy would be better but only if voting is mandatory and everyone of voting age takes part in debates on what's going on in politics so they can make an informed decision, the sad truth is, a lot of people don't have a clue what they are voting on and are led by what governments or the media tells them.
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@ireminmon In your view it is but in reality it's not, besides, why do you think it's a shit show? Also, why do people that don't like the EU keep thinking it's going to collapses? Many have been predicting that for decades only to get it wrong, maybe wishing for something to happen and it's actually happening are two very different things. The EU will eventually collapse someday just like everything does but it doesn't look like it will be any time soon so enjoy the ride.
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@FrikInCasualMode I don't, I'm British so I know there's a big difference at times from public thinking and government thinking on things, as we saw with Brexit in the UK. I know most Polish are pro EU, whereas the government isn't so much anti EU but are playing a game of power grab, which is a dangerous game if the Polish people don't step up and put a stop to it, and I do feel that if Poland and Hungary were not in the EU, these two countries would be turning into an authoritarian system a lot sooner, but being in the EU, it's giving the government a lot of pause. The truth is, the people in both countries need to step up and hold the governments to account, if they don't, longer term it's going to lead to both countries being forced out of the EU, which is probably what both governments want because they can enact their changes without the EU blocking them, history has shown that it usually impacts the people in a negative way. At the end of the day, the EU can only do so much to keep both countries on the straight and narrow, the people need to wake up and hold their governments to account, otherwise it's going to be the people, not the government that pays the high price, just like the UK is learning that lesson the hard way on Brexit, because the pro European lot didn't turn up in numbers to keep the UK in the EU, now the UK is paying a high price for that, the price for Poland and Hungary would be much higher than the UK, because they are still developing their economy and political stability, there's also the factor that Russia would take advantage of both countries if they see them as being vulnerable. At the end of the day, the EU and its other members are only going to take so much crap from Poland and Hungary before bigger calls are heard to push them out of the EU, in the case of Hungary, I think it's already too late and that they will get kicked out over the next decade, unless something radically changes in the country, but in the case of Poland, I think they can be saved, but that really depends on the Polish people, either way, both countries are playing with fire and it could end badly if they are not careful. Also, I know some will say there isn't any legal ways for the EU and it's other members to kick these countries out, one thing I've learned about the EU and politics, there are always loopholes around a lot of these kinds of problems, and if push comes to shove, they will find a way to boot both countries out if the two countries don't get their act together, and what we are seeing in Poland and Hungary, isn't that different from what we are seeing in Russia, people say a lot of the population doesn't support government policy, and yet they are standing on the sidelines doing little to stop the government, it's not really that different from in Russia and the war in Ukraine, many Russians don't agree with the war, but they are doing little to nothing to stop it, and fair enough, in Russia, there is the fear factor from the government, but that isn't the case in Poland and Hungary, so there are no excuses for the people to continue to let this happen, especially if the people don't support their governments, and I think the next two elections are going to be critical depending on which way the people vote.
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So lets get this right, the EU is a fascist, socialist regime, think for a second what you just said there and you might realise you need to go back to school to understand what that means, for one thing, if the EU was a socialist regime as you say then why do Europeans have some of the highest standard of living in the world?, isn't that a contridiction on what you are saying. As for the fascist bit, funny considering no other goverment around the world thinks it is and considering we vote in the European elections, but really, go back to school and learn on what you said and you might realise what that means. I should also point out that the EU came about because of the mess that world war two created, first they started with the Steal and Coal Community by pooling natural resources togerther, making it very hard to go to war with each other then because it would do each other too much harm, then they did the EEC which was mostly focused on economic trade with political union begining to show, now we have the EU which is more or less both, a political and economic union, all of which was the intention after world war two and was no secret, best wat to prevent war is to bring the people together, now the idea of war in Europe or I should say EU members is unthinkable that most people would laugh if you said it could happen.
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Democracy doesn't just end after the vote, thats more like dictatorship the hardliners in the UK are talking about because we know they will not want to open up the case for another final vote on the exit terms because they fear the what it could mean, beside, why do they feel the British people want to leave the EU and yet they fear another vote?, if leaving the EU really is the will of the people, another vote wont change that.
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Actually it's more like the Scots trust the EU more than the UK to put their interest first and honestly, can you blame them with how the UK has been acting the last few years lol. Basically, this isn't about independence, it's about trust, something the UK has lost a lot off with the EU, the world, Northern Ireland, Scotland and so on.
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@123_1 Lol these comparisons are funny, I mean seriously, you're comparing a rich developed country like Germany to a country like Hungary that's developing and getting a lot of help from the EU, I mean seriously, if they were not growing faster than the rich developed EU countries, they would never close the gap and a big part of the idea of being in the EU is to help these developing countries to become modern rich ones. The real problem is for Hungary and for any developing country is that there are limits to that growth, what I mean by that, they'll never catch up to the likes of Germany if they don't do enough reforms to modernize and that means being more open and democratic, this is the case for any developing countries and it's the reason why western countries are so successful because they are open, stable, have enough freedoms to allow innovation and freedom of expression, which allows a lot of growth in the economy. To get a bit of an idea of that, look at Italy, a modern country and yet they are slipping behind other modern countries, when you look closely, they have a lot of corruption, lack of reforms and too many regulations which are not allowing the economy to breath and grow. Success in an economy comes down to a well-educated population, that has enough freedoms to explore and do what they want, throw in democracy, a well-balanced system and you will get a lot of economic growth, so yes, Hungary is growing more at the moment but the reality is, they are starting at a lower bar so it's easier to grow, now if they were modern and still growing at that rate, now that would be impressive, but it's a lot harder to grow when at the top whereas climbing the ladder is much easier because the modern countries already have the blueprint there for you, it's just a matter of those developing countries emulating and doing the reforms needed to allow that growth. Hungary are setting in motion policies that longer term will hurt its economic growth, this takes time, many years, just like we are seeing in China, the current government is reversing a lot of the good the last government did, it's taken many years but now we are starting to see the damage it's having on the economy, same in Turkey.
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I find that weird even in the UK, you have so few parties, and for the most part, the UK and US are a two party system, yes there are other parties but when was the last time they got into power. A two party system is only a little better than a one party system, and it's not very democratic because the public views are quite diverse to cram them into just 2 parties, and I hear this a lot in the UK where it's said not to vote for the Lib Dems as it will be a wasted vote that would favour the Conservative Party, how on earth is that democratic when you're pressured into voting for one bad party or the other, which not much changes whichever one you vote for, and a big part of the problem is the first past the post system that the UK and US has got, it basically rigs the voting system by invalidating many votes by grouping them together, and they wonder why so many don't care about voting any more, problem is, not voting usually empowers the corrupt in the system. As a Brit, I look at many of the European systems and wish we had that, I know they're not perfect, nothing is, but the systems the UK and US have got are a joke that rarely represent the interest of the people.
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Blair was a deluded fool trying to be the bridge between the EU and US before the war in Iraq, about 70% of the British public didn't support the war, as for Bush, yes I agree he was a warmonger and played on the emotional state of the American people with 9/11 and yet they still didn't find any WMD lol, the Iraqi war was based on lies either because of unfinished business of Bush's dad or because of the oil. That doesn't excuse them and they should be held to account and that doesn't give Putin the right to invade another country, all of them should be held to account.
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Seems like Trump wants to push jobs out nevermind bring jobs home, the reality is that Trump could only ever win this if the likes of the EU or China didn't put tariffs on US goods but they had to do that because if they didn't Trump will think he's won and get more aggresive, in other words, Trump is starting something that he can't win and if he pushes his luck with this, the Republican party and the people will end up hanging him by a lamp post if he really tries to go ahead with more tariffs, it's a no win game.
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I think he's great for getting up the noses of euroseptics, but I can understand people desprate to leave the EU hateing him but then who really cares.
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I do agree that Germany could do more but I understand why the country is a bit cagey on that, considering the history of Germany and I really do wonder how the situation would be if the EU had a single military, after all, the biggest weakness we are seeing is division and infighting among ourselves with no single voice and direction, we have the EU that could be that but it's not got the powers in those key areas, Putin knows that and saw us in the EU and the west overall as being weak and divided. I think it's high time we Europeans in the EU to get our act together and start pooling resources in areas that makes sense so we can protect our interest better and do more to help around the world, we really need to start working much closer together on the military, foreign policy and energy matters, otherwise others like China will play games with us with the aim of trying to divide us and keep us arguing among ourselves, pretty much what Russia has been doing the last decade and our division is our major weakness and if we really want to send a powerful message to the likes of Russia, standing together and speaking as one voice would go a long way in that.
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Plans change depending on outside factors, in other words, Europeans will do what needed to stay competitive in the world and with the likes of the US getting bigger, China developing fast, other unions forming, us Europeans are going to find out that to protect our economic and political interest, we'll likely need the EU or something like it, this isn't about what we want but how the world is changing and how to protect our interest in it, remember, the US are showing aggressive signs that they will take advantage of the UK after Brexit, expect the EU, China, Russia and countless others to do the same, that the reality.
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The problem with the US now, as China continues to rise as a power, the US is becoming more radical, unpredictable and less trustworthy, at a time when the US is going to need friends to keep China in check. That is likely only going to get worse for the US as China continues to rise, and because of this, EU countries really do need to start looking after their own interest and not US interest.
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Joey Bobby That might be a good thing because if you were getting anything, it likely would be the slop they are serving in the US considering the trade both countries do with each other.
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@kingcp0878 It's really up to the people really, no matter what system any of us live under, the people are the ones that have the real power, just that in most cases, we do a poor job at using it because too many of us are divided with in fighting among ourselves, hence why the super rich elites and corporations keep running to the bank at our expense.
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@spicytunaroll2437 The irony is, these big events tend to force movements in ways most of us don't realize, I always suspected the EU members will get their act together, a lot more than they have done now but there is always horse-trading going on to get there, it's ironically why really the EU needed more powers in a few areas because this virus has shown many flaws of national governments in how they go about it their own way on a selfish footing, the EU gets a lot of the blame in areas where it doesn't have the power to help and yet the real problems are the members not the EU, arguing only so much and not cooperating and that alone shows us why things need to change for the future. Also, what's going on in the US with US states not cooperating enough to help combat this virus? I'm seeing where states are going it alone and in many cases without much help from the US government, even as far as US states outbidding each other for medical supplies, I could understand this more with the EU countries as we are not as integrated yet but it's surprising to see that in the US.
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They did, but people didn't listen, it was all seen as project fear, the irony being is that Brexit had to be done for them to learn the hard way.
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@Robert_DeVille In the case of England, I suspect around 20 years but in the case of Scotland and Northern Ireland, it really depends on the independence movement in each country, if they leave the UK, I suspect they could be fast tracked into the EU. Either way, I think the next 5 to 10 years is going to be hard on the UK thanks to Brexit and the damage of the pandemic that I suspect is going to make the Tory austerity measures look tame in comparison and the problem is, those austerity are a big part of what led to Brexit as a lot of people saw things get worse and felt left behind and needed a scapegoat to blame, it ended up being the EU even thought most of the mess was at the hands of the Tories.
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@jamesoneill2933 True, I remember some tax laws coming in at the start of this year from the EU, when I saw those tax laws, it all became clear why the likes of Farage and many of the Tories were so desperate to leave the EU at any cost by the end of last year to avoid those rules and now we're starting to see the grand plan from the Tories come into action, a weakening of laws, rules and regulations in the UK, just look at that protest law, if we was in the EU, that would likely have been taken to the ECJ and struke down, now the British people will have a real fight on their hands with all the watering down the government plans to do. The irony is, it's the Brexiteers that it will impact the most and they don't even see it lol.
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Also, it makes it much harder to maintain the lie that this is a special military operation to the Russian people if so many Russian troops are coming back in body bags, especially considering that it was sold to the Russian people that the troops would be welcome in Ukraine. Time isn't on Putin side, from the sanctions biting into the economy, to Ukraine getting better armed and trained by the west, it's all looking like Russia is going to get bogged down in Ukraine and end up losing a massive humiliating defeat if they are not careful. Also, the west is taking note of Russia's capability in Ukraine and Russia is showing a lot of weaknesses, a lot more than most of us expected, many expected it would only take a few weeks for Russia to take all of Ukraine, they are nowhere near that and it's very likely it would be a much tougher battle for Russia in the west part of Ukraine being closer to west, that's likely where the better military equipment is, better trained troops and so on, if they are having these problems on the east, god forbid how bad it will be for them if they try to take the west of Ukraine.
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Which was probably the biggest reason they wanted Brexit but they needed to find a way of selling that to the British people because clearly lowering standards wouldn't sell with the public, the idea is to find a way to lie to them and get the people to vote for things that are not in their interest, give it a few decades of slowly turning the screw and they can do a lot of damage to the country and decades in, the British people will wonder why living standards have been hit so much which by then it's too little too late. The good news is, as these things happen over the years, it should help to open peoples eyes that the EU wasn't as bad as some in the media and government wanted the people to think and it also becomes clearer that the real problem in the UK is much closer to home with our own government, the EU was basically used as a scape goat for all the wrongs in the UK, something the UK can't really do now, well not effectively anyway. Scotland and Northern Ireland should take note before they get dragged down with them and they are the lucky ones because if the Tories do push hard on this deregulation, at least they can leave the UK union. In any case, they make it seem like deregulation is a good thing, in a lot of cases it's not, you only have to look at the US to see that from workers rights, food standards and countless other things, it's great for businesses but for the average person, it's stripping away your rights and I think that is really what Brexit was all about, after all, we could always have standards higher than the EU minimum which they have a high bar but the UK could not have lower standards than what the EU sets. In any case, it wont take long to prove that case and I think the Brits best watch our government like a hawk on deregulation and stripping away of basic rights that we take for granted.
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Yep it used to be quite close on how much both the EU and US were giving to Ukraine, but the gap is widening, probably because of the political games that's been going on in the US, but that's no excuse, the EU had it's own issue with Hungary, but they found ways to get around that.
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The government maybe but what about all the people in China that are innocent?, have we not learned anything from history on how that can backfire if the world takes it out on them? don't get me wrong, the government will have to change on this but the last thing we should be thinking about is trying to punish the people of China because we've been down that road with Germany in the past and look how that ended or are we doomed to repeat history?
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It's desperate times for Russia, they know they've already lost the European market and they know it's just a matter of time before most of Europe is sourcing oil and gas from alternative sources. The problem for Russia, it's going to be very difficult to replace the European market because there isn't really any alternative rich markets the size of the EU to sell too, yes they can sell to China and India but these are poorer countries and will threaten Russia to reduce the price, also, those two countries won't want to buy too much from Russia because Putin has become political with energy resources, in other words, it would be crazy of China, India or anyone else to get too dependent on Russia with the games they are playing because Putin would likely play the same games with others to get them to bend to his will. Basically, Putin's biggest mistake is energy trust, Russia isn't trusted any more and it's going to take years if not decades to get that trust back, that's going to be massively costly for Russia long term and I don't think they realize how damaging that is to Russia yet. As for the EU, they'll be fine, gas storage are in a good state, they get more than half their gas from other sources than Russia and they will be likely to tighten their belts this winter, after that, things should start to ease. In the meantime, more countries want to join the EU and NATO, there's real talk about further integration in the EU, especially on military, foreign policy and energy matters and there's a fair chance that we are going to see an energy revolution over the next decade, especially on clean energy thanks to Putin's actions in Ukraine. What I find amusing in all this, someone like Putin that likes to think of himself as a smart man, how could he have got this so wrong? this is one of the biggest shooting in ones own feet I've ever seen.
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I think that will have to happen at some point, a veto per member is likely to be unworkable as more members keep joining the EU in the future, it would just create grid lock where nothing gets done.
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@Letsthinkaboutit-mb7nn Demand does seem to be growing over the last few years, but yeah, I think we've still got some way to go, but personally, if we don't get our act together, then the US and China are going to continue to grow in power whiles we Europeans will get marginalised which will make it harder to protect our interest, so either decline or we get our act together and pool our resources together to protect our interest. The real question is how long is it going to take for the penny to drop that with have limited choices here, simple because European countries on their own are too small to compete with the likes of the US and China, but together through the EU, we can.
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It's a given thats what it's going to be used for, we're already seeing early signs of that from both remain and leave camps and expect that to really ramp up over the next few weeks and I suspect thats what May is banking on, if Brits vote in the European elections and say the turnout is high with most votes going to EU parties, that would more or less force the issue on having another public vote back home because there is no way the goverment can say that they are doing the will of the people after that.
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@geoffpriestley7310 I'm from the UK also and I rarely ever see a iPhone, almost everyone uses Android. All I can think is that it must be other regions of the UK that use IOS devices because I thought Android dominated the UK market like much of Europe.
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It's probably to keep those social programs at bay, I mean seriously, the Republicans and right wing press in the US are always banging on about universal health care or other social programs that would benefit the American people. Basically, the right wing in the US need a bogeyman, anything that's even remotely to the left when it comes to social programs is turned into this communist, socialist debate, it's all designed to scare the American people into not even thinking about any of the social programs that pretty much every other country benefits from, all with the aim of enriching the rich elites at the expense of the rest of the American people, and I've got to say, they've been very successful at it. Microsoft years ago used to call Open Source and Linux communist lol, you know theres some major issues in the US for it to go that far and it doesn't surprise me, during the Cold War, there was this constant message beaming into American minds about communism being evil and anything even remotely like that, this is a problem that Europe and most of the modern world doesn't have, and probably why the US is the only developed country in the world with such weak social programs, the end result is that the American people are paying a really high price now for that conditioning that went on for decades and continues to go on today, especially from the Republicans and right wing press like Fox News.
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It's not so much could they but at what cost? if the US was to invade the UK, they would very likely win but the cost in lives and money would be crazy to not be worth it unless there was a good reason. Also remember, the UK is a modern country, the last war that happened that I can remember with modern countries was world war two and look at what Germany alone did and it's the reason why since world war two, no two modern countries have gone to war with each other as what we saw in world war two, it would likely be a lot worse today because of the level of tech we have now. All wars since then from modern countries have been with countries that can't really fight back and for good reasons as the cost is too high now.
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Debt level are coming down, but it's going to take some time before it can get to 60%
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Yeah, I get the impression that Ukraine is probing for weaknesses in the Russian lines, it makes a lot more sense to do this before sending in a well armed force, especially as the Russians have had months to set up defensive lines, so it would be risky to send in a full on attack this early on without assisting the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian lines. It's quite smart from Ukraine, because not only does it prob Russian lines, but it also keeps the Russians guessing on where the next attack is, that can divide the Russian forces.
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Yep, the UK for decades have used the EU as a scapegoat for all the wrongs in the UK, now the UK isn't in the EU, Brits are starting to get a reality check that the real problems are much closer to home in our own government, especially with the Tories, but if they really want someone to blame, they only have to look into a mirror, because the governments we've got, we put them there. I didn't vote to leave the EU, I am firmly in believing the EU is our future, but the simple truth is, us pro EU lot in the UK didn't do enough to spread the message on the benefits of the EU, we allowed the Eurosceptics to run rampant for decades, poisoning peoples minds, so even thought we are not directly to blame, we are partly to blame for not countering the message the Eurosceptics were spreading, decades of their lies worked in the end because we didn't do enough to counter that message, and honestly, Eurosceptics in the UK have had a free hand to say what they want on the EU with little in the way of countering that, so there's a lot of blame to go around and us pro EU lot are not entirely innocent in all that.
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Ultimately, what most of the public want is stable politics and a growing economy, they don't care who delivers it just as long as it's done. It basically means that far left or right parties need to moderate to gain or hold onto power, because if they turn things upside down in a negative way, people will quickly turn on them, whereas if they come across as more moderate and get things done, the public will start to look at them over the well established parties, but in the end, their policies have to be more moderate if they want to appeal to a wider public, unless the public at large become more radical, which if that happens, the country in question has far more problems than just politics and economics, which we've been seeing little hints of that in the US with Trump and the UK with Brexit, but it looks like things have stabilised somewhat and it's not got out of control, but it wasn't hard to see how things in both countries could have got out of hand if the voters were not careful, that would have backed fired on the people.
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Greed is one part of it but it's not so much the greed from corporations but greed from consumers, consumers want good on the cheap, China and others can deliver that whereas we in the west can't, good luck changing that mind set on the average western person and even if that mind set was changed, it would just make us poorer at a time we can't afford because hard times are around the corner. It gets even worse, as a consumer when buying products, if one company is offering a phone at $300 and the other is charging $800 for the same kind of phone, which would you buy? that puts a lot of pressure on companies to go to cheap labour countries because us consumers demand it and we end up punishing companies that have a higher price tag and that is where the real problem is, without a shift on the mind set of people, companies have little incentive to not keep doing what they are doing and we in the west can't do all the labour back home because there isn't enough people for one and the cost of everything we buy would shoot up, in other words, our standard of living would nose dive, good luck explaining that to voters lol.
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@johncmiles1 The truth is, free trade works, it reduces cost, red tape and lowers the price that consumers pay for us, removing barriers is always a good thing if done right, the problem ism too much of that wealth is ending up in too few hands and that is what needs to change. The US was most powerful in the 60's because there were no rivals, Europe was still rebuilding and paying off it's dents, China was nowhere to be seen, The Soviet Union paid a high price in the second world war and the US benefited the most as being the manufactural of a lot of products mainly thanks to the war effort, but that was never going to last as the others catch up. Also we should remember, because Americans produce 90% of it's goods back then doesn't mean Americans couldn't of been better off if they outsourced to cheaper labour because standards of living likely would have been higher than they were. I think you are being a bit short-sighted, short of the US becoming like North Korea where no trade and people go in or out, that virus was always going to happen, goods being made in the US wasn't going to change that unless you shut down your entire country and don't let anyone in, that would be a disaster for the tourist industry in the US. I do agree with you on the vulnerable part, it was crazy for the US to put themselves in a position where so many vital goods are in the hands of others but we know why the US did it, because it's cheaper, but as for none vital goods, that's always going to be global because there are too many advantages to that system and unless Americans are willing to take massive pay cuts, that isn't going to change but there is another option, automation, robotics and A.I. but that won't help the job market out, in fact it would more or less kill it once it's advanced enough and the reason that will take over is for the same reason we outsource now, cheap labour, well you can't get much cheaper than automation and giving the boot to workers.
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I think with everything that gone on, it would be the right democratic thing to do but there is zero chance of that happening with this government and I fear that is going to lead to Scotland and Northern Ireland pulling out of the UK union whiles what's left of the UK union leaves the EU with little to no deal, this is clearly not what Brexit was supposed to be about and if they said this is what could happen, I highly doubt the British people would vote to leave the EU 4 years ago. On the plus side, at least Brexit and the pandemic could destroy the Tory party once all the damage really kicks in because Brexiteers and Remainders will likely turn on the government then and that could start as early as next year.
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@QuietBatperson96 I suspect Brexit and the pandemic will be the downfall of this government, remember that the real damage of Brexit and the pandemic isn't felt by the average people yet, that begins next year, once the average person starts to feel the pain of governments actions, that's when they start to turn on them, it will likely start next year with Brexit and government support drying up for workers. The referendum at first was just advisory not law biding but the Brexiteers have turned Brexit into a circus where the law doesn't seem to matter any more, we only have to see that with the UK government willing to break international law, that could be very costly for the UK if we are not careful because if we break our word on something we signed in good faith, our word means nothing, the US is already threatening the UK that there won't be a free trade deal if the UK goes ahead with that, others around the world won't be able to trust the UK if we don't stick to what we've signed into law. The UK government is falling into the hands of the EU, the independence movement in Scotland and Northern Ireland, the EU would have the legal right to punish the UK with sanction if we go ahead with this, Scotland and Northern Ireland will likely want nothing to do with it and this sends out the message that those regions are better off running as an independence country because the UK government is taking us down the wrong path. Personally, I think the UK government will do a big u-turn because the cost is too high on this one and I don't know what the UK government is playing at, surely they must know they can't win this one, if they do an u-turn, it will be quite humiliating for Boris, if they don't, we could end up becoming a rouge state in the world, not a good image to have for global Britain, basically, the UK won't be trusted any more.
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Let's be blunt about this, Reform UK are not doing good because of anything Farage is doing, they are doing good because the Tories are messing up so badly that it's hard for a rival to not gain on it, even if the rival isn't impressive, which lets be honest, Reform UK are not that impressive, but it's easy to look good when your rivals is the Conservative Party. But if the Tories get their act together after an election or two, they will more or less wipe out the Reform Party, after all, Reform and the Conservative are taking voters from each other which is playing into the hands of what Labour wants. Also, if you really think Farage and his merry band will change anything, you're deluding yourselves, I mean, just look at all the lies that he told on Brexit that's made the UK worse off, he's doing the same now, playing on peoples fears, telling them what he thinks they want to hear, only to screw them over, it's the age old trick from the right wing to BS there way to power by telling the people what they want to hear and not what they can deliver, hence why there are so many anger voters because the right wing keeps promising so much but keep underdelivering, as we saw with Brexit and as we saw with Trump in the US and likely will see with the far right lot in Europe, lots of bluster and promises of real change but nothing much will change.
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Lets be blunt guys, Brexit is falling apart in the UK and all the UK government is trying to do is paper over the cracks and worms it's way out of what it signed too, almost all the trade deals the UK signed are worse than what the UK had with the EU and yet the government is trying to make it seem like they are great deals lol. Then we have the disunity in the UK where there is a real risk of the UK falling apart with Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK, the irony being that the Brexiteers thought it would be the EU that would fall apart lol. As for the EU, Brexit hasn't really changed much for them, I thought it would a bit more but overall, it's business as usually and in the long run, Brexit could actually benefit the EU when it comes to progressive integration that the UK always been a block on. At the end of the day, all Brexit has done is make a laughingstock of the UK, not just to Europeans but to the rest of the world, it's also exposed a lot of Eurosceptics around Europe that some wanted to leave the EU or Euro, that tune has changed thanks to the mess the UK made for it's self, now hardly any of them want to leave the EU or Euro, the Brexiteers have been a massive blessing for the EU and they don't even realize it lol. In the end guys, what has Brexit actually achieved for the UK?, the list is as long as my arm when it comes to all the negatives on Brexit, where are the so called positives that the right wing media and government kept bragging about? at the moment, the people are still waiting whiles things slowly get worse in the UK and ironically, in the regions that voted for Brexit the most.
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@notinthislife451 It depends, all they have to show is the blueprints of how to make it and it will be a lot easier to create, if any company or government tries to profit on it when people are dying, it could look really bad for them. This isn't a case of profit but doing the right thing.
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The EU isn't a country yet but it could become one someday, as you point out, many of the fundermentals are already in place to do that but we should remember that it wont happen unless most of the EU members want that, in any case, the EU only works by repensenting the intrest of the overall EU, it's how it was designed in the first place afterall, no country would give up so much power to the EU otherwise. Some mistakes have been done over the last 20 years, to me Greece and Italy should not of been allowed in the Euro because they are clearly not ready for that, the eastern EU members that joined should of had it's freedom of movment closed until the economics of each eastern members gets to around 70% gdp per capita of the west EU members, then that would of been far less of an issue. Most of the other problems the EU members face are mostly down to national goverments then the EU but it's just easier to blame the EU for everything as we've seen the UK do that for decades, also the US which isn't a EU member are facing a lot of the same problems we in the EU face so it's clear the problem isn't the EU but something much bigger, my guess inequality devide, too many people are getting left behind whiles the rich elites get richer and big corparations get away with paying little taxes, I think thats part of the bigger problem, the irony that the EU is one of the few trying to solve that problem.
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True, change was needed before this virus because the human race was slipping back to its old wars that started world wars, this virus might be a major wake up call to change before things really got bad, so out of something bad, maybe many good things can come out of it. In any case, I highly doubt it's going to be business as usual once the dust has settled, this is big that is impacting a lot of people, that will likely allow a lot of change that was hard to do before because of how it changes how people think and see things. The next 5 to 10 years are going to be very interesting for everyone around the world.
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Russia is trying to convert these people by force and pressure whiles the EU and the west are winning the hearts and minds of these people and it simply boils down to one simply think, the west is offering more security, stability, wealth and all that good stuff whereas Russia is mostly offering threats to toe the line which isn't so much in the interest of Russia but more in the interest of keeping the powers that be in power in Russia, in other words, Putin is protecting is position of power, I highly doubt he cares about the well-being of Russians. At the end of the day, if you go to the common people, all they really want is stability and a good standard of living, the west and especially the EU offers that, what does Russia offer those eastern European countries? lots of threats to toe the line, this is why Putin and Russia is losing, they are not winning the hearts and minds of people whereas the EU is and an invasion of Ukraine isn't going to change that reality unless Russia offers Ukraine a really good deal, something they can't do because they can't even do it for it's own people. In the end, all this is doing is pushing more countries towards the EU, which is the last thing Russia wants but what do they expect, you keep threaten countries to toe the line, they are going to shift away from them and with the EU on the door step, it looks very appealing to many of those countries. So yeah, I don't see what Putin aims to achieve here as it looks like it could backfire in the longer run, especially if the west arms the rebels in Ukraine to make it as painful and costly to Russia in a bogged down war and it might be the reason why some western countries could be daring Putin to invade because they see this as an opening to turn the Russian people against him over the longer run by having a costly, bloody war that could turn the Russian people against Putin, I suspect that's what the US and UK are pushing for, knowing that the west was never going to give the concession to Putin that he demanded and now it kinda feels like they are egging Putin on to invade. After all, lets be blunt about this, it's highly unlikely that the US or UK cares about Ukraine but they are seeing a big opening to do Putin harm and seem to be gapping it with both arms by backing Putin into a corner where he either has to back down which won't go down well in Russia or enter a costly war in Ukraine, hence why it's been delayed and delayed, Putin was trying to figure a way out of the mess he got himself into but there isn't any, the irony being, it looks like sleepy Joe might have outsmarted Putin. As for the response, if the west didn't respond, it would embolden Putin to not just take Ukraine but other vulnerable countries in the east, the west will have to put it's foot down with much tougher measures to send a message to Putin or he won't stop with Ukraine. It could also undermine NATO and the EU if no strong actions are taken on Russia, so in the end, they have to respond, the question is, how do they respond. The irony is, it's these kinds of events that could lead to another major war if we let it escalate, and especially with China backing Russia on this.
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A lot of conflicting views on what leave voters really voted on but it's clear they didn't vote for hard Brexit like many of the hard liners keep telling us so it does kind of make the vote invalid. Either way, only way to find out what the real will of the people is is to have another vote once we know what the Brexit deal is.
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Remember how many on the leave side said it would be crazy to leave the single market and/or the custom union before the vote? it's funny how they seem to change there tune on that after the vote. What about all this cake and eat it stuff, none of that involed hard Brexit because they make it perfectly clear to the voters that we would get most of the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, clearly the leave side left and hard Brexit wasn't what people voted for. The ones who betrayed the public on Brexit are the ones that pushed to leave the EU based on lies, if the leavers deliver on what they promised the British people before the vote, you wouldn't be having these problems now but as it is, the remain side are holding the leave side to account on everything that the leave side promised the British people, thats why soft Brexit is very likely and maybe even another vote on Brexit that might turen Brexit around, the leave side have themselfs to blame for the mess they are in.
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A few options could be on offer, hard Brexit being one of them, soft Brexit could mean many things from a Canada style deals to single market and/or custom union, also staying in the EU should be an option, assuming the EU will have us back. Either way, I feel every option is going to be worse then what we had in the EU the EU isn't going to give the UK it's cake it really wants and if we did want to stay in the EU, thier might be an high price to pay for staying in because I doubt the EU and it's members will let us stay as if nothing happened. Shortbus, I am English and you are right, I did mean cherry not cheers, I sometimes wonder when I re-read what I said and think to myself, did I really write that lol, thats what happens when typing so fast lol.
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@Jabber-ig3iw Can't argue with common sense, the less people that spread it, the less likely the ones that don't have the vaccine to catch Covid, sounds like the smart thing is to wait it out and not take it, after all, why take any risks on any of the side effects when vaccines usually take around 10+ years to develop, basically, this was rushed through because of the pandemic, who knows what longer-term effects it will have on people so my logic is simple, why take it if I don't need too and I suspect many others are thinking the same.
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Yep, the way he said it was a bit perplexing, the entire nature behind universal is that everyone qualifies for it, regardless of wealth or status. Basically, you could be homeless, not paying any taxes and still qualify for health care, that's universal for you.
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Thats all well and good if thoes others don't put tariffs on US goods but as we know, they are doing and this is hurting the US far more and more important, Trump is making the US market more risky for investment because of his actions, the world is a big place and they don't need the US as much as the US likes to think they do and if Trump isn't careful, things could change here thats got a lasting damging impact on the US and it could be the EU and China that benefits the most out of all this. So a word of warning, don't push all your friends away because it will be really costly when you need them, also, if the EU and China gets closer together, the US wouldn't stand much of a chance agaisnt that, so the US should be careful what it does here or not, just do what you want because who really cares, power shifts all the time anyway and this is no diffrecnce.
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I think it's safe to say that things will get worse in those regions because Brexit will likely mean that money is even more tight now, especially with the pandemic and debts that are piling up. Many of those people might think they are at rock bottom and have nothing to lose in that things can't get any worse, how wrong they are as things can always get worse. The sad thing is about Brexit, it needed to happen for these people to realize what they've missed and as for our government, good luck them funding these regions as they rarely show any interest in the north of the UK as it's all about the south and that is likely going to be more the case now as money is likely to be really tight and the only exception to that rule could be Scotland because of the threat of them leaving the UK, in other words, the UK government might play extra nice to them to keep them onside but in truth, it would just be a bribe as the Tories never care about the common people that it amazes me that people still vote for them lol. But honestly, these people can't complain, they are getting exactly what they deserved and what really makes it sad is that I've always felt for decades now that the EU cares more about those regions than our own government does and with that, some painful lesson are about to be learned.
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All the options the UK offerd are crazy, the UK is more or less trying to have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, that would be like me being able to use the gym equipment for free and them accepting that because thats more or less what the UK is asking for lol and you wonder why the EU keeps saying no, beside, the EU have already said the UK can have a Canada style deal but that is nowhere near as good as what the EU offers by being in it and that is the real problem the UK have.
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The EU or something like the EU was bound to happen with how global and interconnected the world is becoming and expect a lot more of this over the next 100 years, not just from the EU but around the world as well, the world is changing and we need to change with it and ironiclly, the UK and US are trying to go backwords on that which likely wont end well for either of them.
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What lol, whats alians got to do with this, oh I see, you can't argue the case at hand so you'll change subject, a clear case of what eurpseptics do when losing the arguement and can't argue it back. Anyway, so far the EU have been consistant in these talks, have not used any threats and have layed down all the options on the table, the UK on the other hand keeps using threats because it's not getting it's cake it wants, sooner or later the penny is going to drop for people like you that we only have about 4 options on the table, pick one then leave but stop complaining that the EU isn't giving you what you want, people like you keep saying the UK should just leave then do that, it will hurt the UK far more then it will the EU and likely will speed up the process of the UK rejoining the EU. You really don't have a clue do you?, the leave side promised the earth with Brexit and now they don't want to deliver on all thoes promises because they ware lies, all the remain side is doing is holding the leave side to account on all that, thats what you really don't like :)
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@vulpo This isn't about Hungary and Russia, not directly anyway, it's about Hungary constantly breaking EU rules that it's agreed to when joining the EU, all the Hungary-Russia thing is doing is exposing Hungary for who they are.
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I hardly call this the EU and it's members betraying Ukraine, we should remember that it's not a simple process in joining the EU, there are a lot of economic and political reforms needed in a country before a country becomes ready and that takes years. Also, with everything going on in Hungary and Poland, there is not much incentive from other EU members to want to expand until those two members are sorted out as well as some reforms in the EU on vetoes and majority voting. The reality is that the EU is not ready to bring Ukraine in yet and a big part of the blame on that is Hungary and Poland, as long as they keep backsliding, there's going to be limited support from other EU members in bringing in any country never mind Ukraine. So basically, until the EU gets it's own house in order with sorting out Hungary and Poland and doing a few more reforms that makes it so the EU can go after countries more effectively when they are backsliding on democracy, Ukraine will have to wait, I don't blame the EU for this, I blame Hungary and Poland for this, after all, it's hard enough managing the EU with 27 members, adding more in the mix will make it harder until there are some big reforms in the EU institution.
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Austerity isn't a bad thing in moderation, the problem is, the Tories did it for too long which did a lot of damage and I suspect that played a big part in leading the UK to Brexit, which did a lot more damage and the sad thing is, I think it needs to continue until the penny drops that even Brexiteers have no excuses left, after all, as long as they keep chasing this fantasy on Brexit, the UK is likely going to continue to sink, so maybe harsher living standards might wake them up, but that's likely many years of pain down the road.
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As long as the countries are open, democratic and free, it would be difficult to fall behind other modern countries because that openness forces countries to adapt and change, hence why if you look at all modern countries, the difference from them all isn't really that different, apart from the US which is a bit of a weird one when it comes to public services, equality and well-being of its citizens, especially when it comes to lowering standards in so many areas, whereas Europe, well EU countries, quality of living is more or less in line with other modern countries around the world.
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@ChilapaOfTheAmazons It really depends on the deal the UK wants, they keep saying they are fine with no deal but clearly that isn't true because they keep threatening to walk away but never do it and they keep talking and trying to get a deal. A deal will likely happen but it's going to be on the terms the EU sets out, that's what the UK doesn't like, the rest is just waffle and bluster from the UK government.
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Russia couldn't afford to do that, we should remember what Putin is doing now is out of desperation because he's not getting is way, he didn't want to do it because it's very costly to Russia but he's realizing that Europe isn't bending to his will over the pressure of high prices and reduce gas flow, he hoped the EU would back off but it's not happening, hence why after the G7 summit, Putin threw in the towel. Also, if he did do as you suggest, that could've started a major war as it would have done a lot of damage globally, everything Putin did was all about building pressure on the Europeans to back down and accept the war in Ukraine, that didn't happen so he's getting desperate and in any case, it's too late for Putin and even for Russia if the Russian people don't depose Putin because as long as he is in power of Russia, he's going to drag Russia down with him, lets see how long it takes for the Russian people to realize that.
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tlieu12 Yep, some people need to understand the difference from the government of China to the people of China as some are making it seem they are both the same when it couldn't be further than the truth. What I'm saying is, don't punish the people of China for how the government is because most of the people are innocent just like most are in other countries.
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The problem I see with the UN is more or less the same problem I see with the African Union, by letting in every country with no incentive to change, it archives very little and becomes far more of a talking shop that might as well not be there for all the good it does and to be fair to the UN, the US with the Iraqi war opened up a can of worms that others around the world are following by making the UN far less relevant. Personally, I think the UN needs to be scrapped and a new organisation built, based on countries that are democracies, whiles offer countries that are not, many incentives to want to change, in a sense, a bit like how the EU works, it encourages countries to want to change with the carrot and stick approach, and the EU have been quite successful with that. The UN is too much of a talking shop with very little power to archive anything, it's made all the worse because it's not a very equal talking shop because of the permanent members and like the video pointed out, there's little chance of it being reformed with how the world is shaping up, which means we either stick with what there is or we start a fresh and that seems unlikely. Maybe we need world war 3 to wake us up, because if you look closely, many countries are making a lot of the same mistakes that we've made through history, we are not learning from them and could be doomed to repeat them, I say we are not learning, it does seem like Europeans in the EU have learned more, but considering the history and the major world wars being destructive in that region, it doesn't surprise me that people there would think differently, contest that with the US that is actually starting to remind me of Europe of the past, hostile, erratic and unpredictable. With the way the world is shaping up, with a US that doesn't seem to care any more, a hostile more powerful China, a Russia that sees the good guys as weak so is pushing its luck and countless others that are starting to ignore internally rules, unless we do something to keep things in check and calm things down, we could be sleepwalking into something major and the signs are all around us with how unstable the world is getting, even places like the US isn't as stable as it used to be with it's polarised political system and angry public, its these little things happening all around us that mushroom into something bigger that gets out of control, which ironically, if you look closely at how the second world war started, all the warning signs were there for well over a decade or so before it started, we didn't do enough to reduce the risk and it led to the second world war. Maybe like they say, 3 times a charm, maybe a third world war is needed for us to really wake up because clearly we are not waking up from the lessons of history.
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You know we see a lot about disunity in the EU with it's members but after seeing what is going on in the US, is it really that different with states? to a degree yes and no but overall, most of it is just bickering about stupid things and overall on both sides of the atlantic, they stay together because it's in their interest to do so but it does go to show on both side that there are issues when it comes to unity and helping each other out and to me a big part of that problem is the rampant paranoia the right wing media does and selfishness. On the plus side, I don't think there is going to be any break up of either union, just lots of bickering lol. What shocks me the most is some of the things, Trump, some Republican governors and Republicans Americans are saying, as well as Trump, it's quite sickening really.
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That spine was ripped out decades ago in the UK, US and Australia that I actually admire the Europeans for willing to stand up for their own interest whereas the other 3 countries mentioned, seem to just roll over and accept what the government gives them.
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@Snappingturtle 267 It isn't that far off the truth and it's more or less the same in the UK where it really doesn't matter who you vote for, nothing much really changes, they like to make a lot of noise when it's election time because that is the only real time they have to listen to us, after that they don't care until the next election and the irony is that they always spin the same lies, lower taxes and more spending and people fall for it almost every time lol.
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@pablosaintmarr3223 Wouldn't surprise me and I think the UK is going to end up being one of the hardest hit countries because of Covid which is overall short term and then Brexit which is a long term cost unless something major changes with future governments of the UK, the future looks bleak.
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I suspect a big reason for them to want to release open source is because for one, the community themselves will help to improve the model a lot, which over the long run would save Mata a fortune, and two is probably to level the playing field, being that A.I. is likely going to be important in so many areas that it would be dangerous to allow so few governments and corporations control them, so open sourcing them, blows that open and puts everyone on the same playing field. If we had a situation where eventually one or two closed models dominant the market, that would give that corporation and probably the government of the country a massive advantage over everyone else, it's a given that they will use the uncensored version of the model whiles everyone else gets the restricted one, because of all this, open source is very important for A.I. models. There is also the advantage of open source models that will lower the cost for consumers and gives consumers far more control and privacy when running at a local level.
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Bernie Sanders more or less want to import a lot of European ideas into the US and that wouldn't be a bad thing considering the high quality of living, standards and protections they get in Europe. Some will say there is a downside that is higher taxes, but is it?, lower taxes mostly ends up with more wealth going into fewer hands whereas higher taxes tend to redistribute wealth among all the people, especially the poor and middle classes and more so with competent governments. This virus could be a massive wake up call that could push many of these things that Europeans take for granted up the political ladder in the US but I suspect the American people will have to fight for it because I doubt the rich elites are going to make it easy as they have much to lose from that, it also makes me wonder what changes Europe is going to make because I suspect some big changes are on the way after this. Bernie Sanders is more or less a European in the wrong system but as a European myself, got to give Bernie credit for trying all these decades but ultimately, the Americans have got to want that he's trying to sell, for so long, that hasn't got anywhere, maybe this virus will be the real wake up call.
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@abdullahalkandari2976 Regardless, this is far more embarrassing for Russia then it is for Ukraine, before the war, Russia was seen as a powerful military in the west, 2 and a half years later, Russian progress in Ukraine has been extremely poor for a country that likes to boost that it's a superpower in military matters. What this war is really doing is exposing how weak the Russian military has actually got, and yes, I'm well aware that western countries are helping Ukraine with arms, but let's be honest with ourselves, what the EU and US have done so far is token gesture, they've basically only helped with crumbs and could do far more if they wanted too, yet with that little help, it's causing hell for Putin, and if that isn't bad enough, Ukraine has many restrictions on them in how they can use these weapons, whereas Russia can strike any target in Ukraine, Ukraine where limited in what they could target and were held back by the west in not targeting Russian soil, that's changing somewhat over the last year. In any case, war is war, the moment Russia attacked Ukraine, then Ukraine had every right to attack targets in Russia, and in fact I would go as far as saying they had that right when Russia took over Crimea a decade ago, but let's not kid ourselves, this war could have been prevented if the western countries were tougher on Russia a decade ago, that soft touch approach from the west basically allowed Putin to go for another land grab, and if the west is stupid enough to allow Russia to take over all of Ukraine, it won't end there and will likely escalate into something far bigger that could drag us in kicking and screaming, history has shown that you have to nip these wars in the bud early on before they get out of hand, and the west have been quite poor on that front with being way too slow to give Ukraine the arms needed to end the war sooner rather then later.
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Imagine if Russia were to invade Hungary and another EU members says they shouldn't arm Hungary and settle for peace, something that very likely could mean Hungary giving up land to Russia, in a sense, it's kinda what Orbán is suggesting to Ukraine, would Hungary do the same if the shoe was on the other foot? I highly doubt that and it makes Orbán look like a fool. As for Hungary term as EU President, the policies look fine on paper from Orbán's government, but it's how serious he is about them and willing to work with others, which likely means compromises, something that Orbán hasn't been that good on. Personally, I don't think it will change much overall, maybe some bluster and threats but nothing will change.
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@KrisTheKrisMan That's true and it voices us to vote for Labour or the Conservatives, which means voting for anyone else becomes a wasted vote. In any case, reforms to the system are desperately needed and that is unlikely to happen under a Conservative or Labour government because the system works well for them.
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Have you ever known a peaceful solution to an invading army of another country without giving up something? Do you honestly think there is a peaceful solution that Putin would accept without giving up the land that they currently control? Do you suggest that Ukraine should have a peaceful solution where Russia keeps control over the current land it controls? If so, that's appeasement, and that rarely works with dictators. To put the shoe on the other foot, how would Hungary react if other EU members suggest that Hungary give up some of it's land to Russia because of a peace deal? Come on, let's not delude ourselves, there is no peace deal to be had apart from Putin giving up all the land that he currently controls in Ukraine, that is highly unlikely to happen without Putin being forced out with western help. More importantly, Putin already invaded Crimea, the western response was appeasement, now you are kinda suggesting the same on Russia with Ukraine, where does it end? If you are not careful, Hungary could be the next target for Putin with all this appeasement, and because of not having many friends in the EU, most will probably not want to come to the aid of Hungary and probably think you are getting what you deserved. In any case, appeasement rarely works with dictators, a forceful pushback is the only language they understand, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for a peaceful solution, but do you think there is any chance of finding a peaceful solution that Russia leaves all of Ukraine back to Ukraine? That's highly unlikely as that would be extremely embarrassing for Putin to start a war that cost a fortune, only to get nothing back from it, the point is, there is no peaceful solution with Putin, not without Ukraine giving up a lot, which if they did, Putin will come back for more many years down the line, western countries have already been fooled by Putin once with Crimea, a second time would make us look weak, and if another war were to break out with another eastern European countries by Russia, it would make the west look like idiots, which Hungary are not doing themselves any favours.
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We'll see, but what surprises me is the people of Hungary, why are they sitting by why all this is going on? don't they realise that the economic harm is going to hit them all if they are not careful.
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The current leadership of China are coursing on the last leaderships reforms, the last government did a lot of reforms over the decades that were setting China up on the right path when it comes to economic growth and opening up its economy, the current leadership has been going in the other direction, locking things down, restricting the economy and reducing the freedoms that the people have, whiles also being more hostile on the world stage. The ripple effects of this takes time but China is going through the current mess that the current leadership created themselves, after all, centralising too much power has never worked in the past and likely wasn't going to be that successful over such a massive population. Whether they can turn this around is debatable, but unless the current government loosens up, reduce a lot of the restrictions they've put on the people, open up it's economy more in allowing the people to be more creative and also reduce the hostility around the world, I don't see much chance of China recovering. History has shown it time and time again that the most successful economies are the ones that are the most open, open as in the economy and freedoms for the people to express themselves and be creative, open in as to not be fearful of your government, what we are seeing in China is being done to themselves by the current government, the current government is also making it very easy for the US to turn much of the world against them, basically, the biggest threat in China is the government and that threat is by far the most on the people of China, because it's impacting them far more than it does the world and in the end, the people of China have created a monster in the government, I wish them luck in overthrowing it because it's not going to be easy. As for the west and east, let's not kid ourselves, the east is still rising, China is only one country in the east, a big country, but because of the size of the population in the east and with how quickly it's modernising, it's still very likely that the focus in the future is going to shift from west to east, there's just too big of a gap in population size and growth for the west to really compete with them in the long run, especially as they continue to modernise. In the case of China is still growing, that's true, but we should put things into perspective, on a per capita basis, they are still a long way behind western countries, there's still a lot of easy growth to be had by just following what more successful economies are doing, having much slower growth at a time when growth should still be fast should be alarming for China, to make things worse for China, there's an active push from a lot of countries around the world to be less dependent on China when it comes to manufacturing, and worse yet, we are on the verge of a A.I. robotics revolution over the coming decades, cheap labour in China isn't going to compete with that and with that, a lot more jobs are likely going to be pulled out of China, mostly for security reasons and to a less degree, economics, the only solution I see for China is that it needs to open up far more, but that seems unlikely with the current controlling government.
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@kieran5191 That depends on where you live, most places I've been in Europe seem to have reliable and fast public transportation, that the difference from car to public transportation in getting somewhere is quite small, with the exception of rural areas.
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That's exactly what's needed, but what they want is the opposite of that, they do after all serve the interest of the likes of Trump and Putin, and to a less degree, China, which I suspect the last thing they want is a strong EU that can protect European interest. Simply put, the likes of Putin and many Eurosceptics are tractors to European ideals, they might not even realise it but they want to dismantle a lot of the good we've done in Europe since the second world war, Trump and Putin likes these people because they sing to their tune, so anyone with half a brain can see that they don't care about European interest. There's only really one solution, EU members that want to move forward and integrate more, should go ahead with it, that would be a nightmare for the ones that don't want to move ahead because it will change the balance of power in the EU in favour of the countries that move ahead, eventually making the ones that don't irrelevant, especially because overtime, more countries will want to join the inner core as they prove that it works, that will be really bad news for countries like Hungary that would for the most part have no power in the EU and be pushed so far to the outer ring to be irrelevant. If they get countries like Germany, France, Italy and Spain moving forward, maybe even Poland, then it's a done deal and the rest need to be really worried, as it will make them irrelevant or force them to integrate into the inner core over the long run. Either way, enough with these half measures and let the countries move forward that want too, it will be worth it to see the panic set in from the ones that don't want to move forward lol.
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Ask yourself what would the US have done if it had little to no natural resources and had a cheap source on it's border even thought it's not the most reliable source, they very likely would have done the same thing. I do agree on the reserve things, they could have done better on that and I think it's high time that they push hard on renewable energy with energy becoming a security risk, it makes a lot more sense to generate it in-house, all it needs is the political will to push that agenda hard. But let's be blunt about this, energy has been an issue for decades for many countries, hence the US when it invades Iraq and other countries mostly with the aim of opening up that resources or securing it for its self. On the plus side, the big silver lining in all this, the longer energy prices stay high and the more insecure energy becomes, the quicker the fossil industry will kill it's self off, people will only put up with high prices for a short time, 2 to 3 years at the most before real pressure builds on governments to give them the political will to do real change, that could wipe out a decade or more of the fossil industry around the world which would be trillions wiped out for those fossil countries. So in a sense, I don't like the situation the way it is now but in another, I do, the higher and longer the prices stay high, the bigger the change is going to be against fossil energy and yes I know it's painful for the world as this hits most of us even outside of Europe, I think a bit of short term pay for the long term pay off will be worth it, the pain for countries like Russia will be far worse longer term.
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@claymate202 Spot on, the US should be compared to other modern countries not selective countries and when done like that, the US doesn't look that good overall unless you are rich, but then if you are rich, you're good almost anywhere.
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@user-gz7cj3zc7x I never understand the logic on why people bring left or right into a debate, it's designed to dismiss what the other said, as it happens, I did a test once and my views were all over the place from left and right, that some still use the term left and right in todays age is quite shocking. As for the rest, just do your research and a bit of advice, get the news from many sources from around the world, the west isn't very reliable on that one because most tend to paint the same narrative, especially in the US, it's a eye opener when you read news from around the world and you get a real sense of what is really going on.
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Are you for real, what do you expect the EU to do, give the UK everything it wants over Brexit?, get real, that isn't how the real world works, Brexit was always going to be worse for the UK then staying in the EU, more so as the UK had a very good deal inside the EU with so many op-outs. As for that £39 billion, you do realise that it's EU and international law in that the UK has to pay that, all that can be changed is how much the UK pays but if the UK tries to not pay it, good luck getting any good deals around the world because the UK would be braking international law lol. As for partners, I know the UK likes to think we have a special relationship with the US but ask yourself, what does the UK gain out of that that say France doesn't? all I see is the UK getting dragged into wars we don't want when the US says so, I don't see any real benefit from this so called special relationship apart from the US getting help from the UK when they tell us to jump like a poodle. The reality is, we already had a special relationship and it was right under our nose with the EU, they did far more for the UK then the US ever did and it wasn't out of the kindness of the EU's heart, it was simple reality's in that being a EU member means our interest becomes there interest, that far stronger of a bond then the US gives us which seems to want to screw the UK over after Brexit.
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@mesolithicman164 That was because of our own fault, the UK was a very obstructive nation in the EU, France, Germany and countless others wasn't, the UK should of been a big power in the EU but we was always seen as trying to hold the project back so we got pushed aside by most of the other EU members. There is nothing wrong with having criticism about the EU, even I know it does many things wrong but the UK always focuses on the wrong and not any of the good and it rarely tries to help make things better, that why we don't have any real power in the EU. We never originally voted to join a trade based Common Market, that was a lie from the right wing media and some in government, the reality was that the EEC was a political and economic union well before the UK joined, in fact the UK of all should know this better because the UK did try it's own economic union before joining the EEC to rival it but it failed and it failed partly because the UK tried to bully smaller members in it, in other words, a economic union without political oversight doesn't work as it doesn't protect the smaller members from the bigger ones, that why the EU works because it's both a political and economic union. Richard, it's not about international police, it's about international law, do you really think the EU would be stupid to sign something like that in just EU law so if a EU member did leave, they wouldn't have to pay because they don't abide EU laws any more?, no it doesn't work that way, they made sure it was EU and international law because that makes it very hard for the UK to get around it and we don't want to brake international law at a time when we are going to be desperate to get better trade terms around the world, the EU knows they have us by the balls on that and the only thing we can do is maybe lower how much we pay, but pay we will.
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@mesolithicman164 But that the thing, when we signed up to the EEC, we signed on for a lot of what you think we didn't sign up to, remember that Labour didn't want us to join the EEC for the very reasons you are saying but we did join so there is no excuse that we didn't know what we was signing up to, it was well know before the UK joined but we did because we was the sick man of Europe and was getting left behind. The UK doesn't have the power to change NATO, that a US based organisation that serves US interest in Europe and isn't really needed in today world and if the UK really wanted to change that, it would need member other NATO members onside to do it. As for the EU as a country, maybe you haven't been keeping up to current events but the world is changing, unions are popping up around the world, many of which are modelled on the EU and want to emulate what Europe is doing, the US, EU, China and other powers are not going away and others are likely to join them like India. The UK and all other EU members are not in the EU because they want to be, they are in because of self interest in that working together we can protect our political and economic interest better then not working together. The vast bulk of laws, rules and regulations for rich countries and for many poorer ones are done by the EU and US, it's also the reason why even with Brexit, most of our laws, regulations and rules will be done by the EU and US but the UK wont have any say over them whereas we did in the EU. Also, have you ever wonders why the there is such a desperate move to leave the EU before the end of the year? do some research and you'll realise that the EU have done a law that comes into effect at the start of next year that hits elites that try to avoid paying taxes or try to hide a lot of their money, look at the key people pushing Brexit the hardest and follow the money, you might realise that they are using Brexiteers to enhance the wealth of the elites even more. As for democracy, come on, Brexiteers have shown very little respect for that over the last few years, all we hear from them is threats, intimidations, trying to override the courts, parliament and not wanting to give the public another chance to see what they really think on Brexit over this time, In truth, some Brexiteers are acting very much like the Nazis used to do in how forceful they are on Brexit and using whatever means they have to to get it, the irony is, Hitler would be proud of how some Brexiteers are acting because they show little respect for democracy. In the end, you can't say we are leaving the EU to respect democracy, sovereignty and take back control only for the Brexiteers to be willing to put a sword in the heart of UK democracy. As for NAFTA, don't make me laugh, just check Canada out to see how well that goes, trade is so one sided, it's not even funny and that was before Trump got tough on NAFTA, beside that wouldn't work for the UK, most trade is always with nearby country so even with Brexit, most of our trade will still be with the EU.
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This is to be expected, sanctions don't usually have a big impact at first, it's a long term damage impactor, in the case of Russia, Putin was preparing for this war long before it started and had a rainy day fun to prop up any damage the west would do to them. Unfortunately for Putin, this was supposed to be a quick war and the west wasn't supposed to be so tough on Russia, clearly Putin miscalculated and underestimated the west. Experts said early on in the sanctions that it would take around 12-18 months for the sanctions to really start hurting the Russian economy, basically late this year, Putin can only prop up the economy so much with that rainy day fund, as that starts to run dry, things could do south fast for Putin, after all, he's doing his best to try and insulate the Russian people from the war, that's going to become harder to do later this year and throughout the next year. Putin has already had a few scares, things are just going to get worse, especially next year as Ukraine is probing the Russian military for weaknesses before committing its full force, the west is likely going to continue to support Ukraine, and the Russian government and millinery looks very disorganised and not very united, as the pressure builds on this war, it could start to crumble all around Putin, that if he's not careful, it's going to lead to an early grave for him, as he's not the kind that would likely step down, in other words, he could get forced out by many of the top brass in Russia, I don't see any way out for Putin whiles saving face, if he steps down, he'll look weak to many Russians, if he doesn't, there could be an organised assignation attempt on him by his own people, likely the inner circle of government, after all, this is Putin's war, he knows he will take the brunt of the blame whiles many of the rest in government and military, have a few options out. Anyway, I'm not quite sure why some thought the Sanctions would have a negative impact so quickly, sanctions usually take time, years, even decades to really have a massive impact, and in the case of Russia, they had a lot of money put away in case the west puts sanctions on them, but that money is running dry, that's when things really start going south for the Russian government and people, the west likely knows this, and clearly, Putin fears an uprising from the Russian public, which could happen as it starts to impact them in a negative way, many analyse have predicted this, so I don't see how this is such a surprise when you only have to look at the history of sanctions to see how it plays out, which is basically long term decline on the Russian economy, not an implosion of the Russian economy like many expected, in fact, that might have been worse if that happened.
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@uncleadi That's because they don't just magically join the EU overnight, those countries were being prepared for EU membership long before they joined, many in the early 90's, in other words, they got a lot of the benefits of EU membership before being a member with a lot of the reforms they had to do and easier access to the EU market. At the end of the day, you only have to look at the countries that joined the EU and the ones to the east that didn't, there's a big gap in the economy with the exception of Russia but Russia has a lot of natural resources that the others don't and even with Russia, most of the wealth is kept in Moscow and St Petersburg. As for Ukraine, yeah it's failing but that's because the prospects of the country don't look good and as for the money, that plays a small part when developing countries, security, stability and reforms plays a massive part, especially when it comes to investment in countries, the EU offers that whiles also throwing money at them to help speed up the process, so reforms, changing the system and mindset of the people is how you really change a country from being poor to modern, something easier said than done but when you have big brother like the EU pushing you in that direction, it makes it a lot easier and less likely to go off the rails which so many countries do. In fact we see that within the EU it's self, if you look at the countries that do well and the ones that are lagging a bit, Spain, Italy, Greece and the likes, you can see by the reforms or lack of reforms why they fall behind northern European countries.
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@vkrgfan Brexit was conducted for many reasons that had nothing to do with how great the EU is, anyone with half a brain should know that with all the noise that comes out of the UK. Beside, before the UK joined the EEC, they were the sick man of Europe, whiles in the EU, they became one of the richest countries in the world and now with Brexit are already starting their slow decline with even mighty Australia having fun with the UK.
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@theemperorofmankind7706 Problem is with Turkey is that they've got an authoritarian government, that rarely ends well and Turkey have been paying the price since.
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Yep I agree, that bridge has been cross now with the threats Putin has done that I think they've lost European countries as customers on oil and gas longer term and even if they managed to gain it back longer term, it will be too little too late as European countries are very likely going to push full steam ahead on alternative energy sources, why would they go back to Russia at all now? The same for China and India, yes they are taking advantage of Russia's weakness in getting cheap oil and gas from them but China and India won't want to be too dependent on Russia because they likely know Putin can use that energy as a political weapon against them, this is the problem when you lose trust, you end up hurting yourself in the long run. The west are playing the long game, sanctions on Russia which by the way, usually take 2 to 3 years to bite and considering the damage being done to Russia already, that's going to get a lot worse in time, then we have the European countries and especially the EU countries, as they shift away from Russian oil and gas, that's hurting to be another nail in the coffin for Putin because there are no other alternative rich markets to buy that stuff from and Russia is finding out that if they sell to poor countries, they expect a massive discount because they see Russia being in a weak position here and are taking advantage of them. As long as the west keeps arming, training and giving intelligence to Ukraine, that's likely going to do massive amounts of damage to Russia over the long run and that is unfortunate for Ukraine as it drags the war out but longer term, Ukraine will likely be in a better position, EU and NATO membership will open up, the west will likely give Ukraine a lot of aid to rebuild and if they join the EU, the EU will help to develop the economy, so in the short term, things look grim but Ukraine are likely going to come out of this a lot stronger thanks to the west and whiles all that is going on, the west will continue to isolate Russia from the world and that is only going to get a lot worse for Russia once the EU countries diversify enough oil and gas away from Russia, basically, the EU and US will put a lot of pressure on China, India and other to reduce buying cheap oil and gas from Russia and as those two countries are far more dependent on the west than Russia with trade, it's easy to see how that's likely to go and even if it doesn't go how the west wants, the west will likely look for cheap labour in other countries, a lot of countries around the world, especially in Africa would love to steal that business away from China and India, so the west have a lot of options whereas China and India don't have any other rich markets to sell too.
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I don't think this is going to save the party, it might ease things in the short term but the real problem with the Conservative party isn't the leadership and it's more the party it'self, it really started to fracture over Brexit and it's got worse overtime and some of the problems were there before Brexit, hence why David Cameron called for the Brexit referendum in the first place to heal the party infighting, but it didn't work and in fact, Brexit exposed the problems a lot more in the party. What the party needs is a general election and for the party to get wiped out at that election, the idea being is to wipe out the fanatical elements in the party like the ERG group, I think that's the only way to save the party, otherwise they will drag the rest of the party down and what's needed is the moderates to take control of the leadership but to also pull the strings in the party and that just isn't likely to be the case with anyone that leads the party. Basically, I suspect Rishi Sunak is going to be a bit like Theresa May, more of a moderate but couldn't get much done over Brexit because her strings were being pulled in all directions, that could happen to Rishi Sunak. It's really high time that the party start to realize that the leader isn't the problem, the party is and has been for quite some time now, it's only now the British people are starting to wake up and realize that. But in any case, we need a leader that can repair ties with the EU, that's unlikely to happen with any Tory leader, so expect things to be smooth for a few months, after that, the infighting will kick off, especially if Rishi does try to repair the damage done to the UK by bringing the UK closer to the EU which I think is needed to stop the bleeding on the economy.
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For the most part, that's true, and usually, American car companies redesign cars for the European and international market because US cars wouldn't sell that well around the world because of there size and because the mile per gallon of US cars is usually poor compared to cars around the rest of the world. There is also as you say the quality, US cars are usually cheaper quality and in the EU at least, there are usually much stricter controls on quality when it comes to cars, as well as a lot more checks.
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Both are lame ducks, after all, Starmer isn't much better, he's just better than what the Tories are offering and the problem with Starmer is that he doesn't really stand for anything, he's trying too hard to please everyone whiles pleasing no one, we saw a lot of that with his views on Brexit and it's hard to have confidants in someone that keeps trying to play it safe by saying what he thinks we want to hear and not being bold and standing up with some real bold policies, which to me makes Starmer worse than Boris, at least with Boris, you knew what you was getting but with Keir, you don't really know where he stands on any major policies which to me makes him look weak as a leader but looking at the weak choices the UK has, he's probably the best on offer.
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I'm sure we all know that rivals are more or less going to do much of the same thing to rob them of that advantage, probably even integrated into cpu's or gpu's. On the plus side, this could have a big impact on reducing the price of A.I. chips, which is distorting the entire gpu market at the moment. From what I understand of it, from performance per watt, it's already much better than what Nvidia offers, if so and considering that this is 14nm, I do wonder how much faster and lower power consumption the 4nm will be. I also think that because of the task that this chip does, which is far more streamlined compared to a cpu or gpu, it's likely that a lot of rivals will be able to enter that market much easier than the traditional cpu and gpu markets, especially because for A.I. the drivers are much more streamlined and easier to do, that's great news because it very likely in the coming years will put a lot of downwards pressure on the price whiles boosting performance and with that, we might end up with some kind of A.I. chip that we can slot into a consumer grade PC, which I think locally run A.I. models are going to be far more important then the online centralised models, because of privacy and security reasons, which has A.I. because more capable and useful, it's going to be more involved in our daily lives, which I suspect for most of us as well as businesses, it wouldn't be that appealing to share so much data with an online central database/
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The funny thing is, many people like to think things can't get any worse and how bad can he really be, but the reality is, it can always get much worse as we are seeing with Trump, what should worry the American people is that Trump won't sort out what needs sorting out in the US which is mostly inequality, because of that, it increases the chances that someone worse than Trump can get power because the public gets more reckless the more desperate they get, but we do have a silver lining, with whats going on with Trumps America and with Brexit in the UK, a lot in EU countries like France will of seen what a mess the UK and US have got himself into and are not following the populist movement, same could happen in the US once Trump gets the boot, as for the UK, it's hard to judge with that because the damage of Brexit is more longer term, in any case, current and future leaders need to start listening to the public and start sorting out inequality before it gets worse.
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Honestly, does anyone honestly think if NATO didn't exist that Russia would be less hostile? History says otherwise and it's more likely that Russia would be more hostile and play more games, especially with someone like Putin in charge of Russia which his aim is to divide the west so he can get his own way with them, hence why he hates the EU and NATO because both organizations are quite united and strong, more so after the invasion of Ukraine by Putin. Either way, Russia's actions are having the opposite effect Putin wanted, more countries now want to join the EU and NATO and both organizations are more united because of Putin and it wasn't hard to see this happening, you threaten people and countries like Putin keeps doing either with war or cuts to oil and gas, what did he honestly expect to happen? That they would just accept that? All Putin is doing is pushing these countries closer together on military, security and energy matters whiles also pushing European countries to look for alternative energy sources which could start a revolution in renewable energy over the next decade. All Putin is doing is hurting Russia by isolating them whiles at the same time, making trade with them less trustworthy, especially with its natural resources because Putin has shown to be willing to use them as a weapon to get other countries to toe the line, in other words, even closer friends like China and India won't want to get too dependent on that but they are more than happy to take advantage of Russia by pushing them to sell oil and gas dirt cheap, in any case, this is putting Russia in a bad position and if they are not careful, they could become a vassal of China.
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The UK also has the highest inflation out of the G7 countries at 9% and I also heard that the UK is losing around £170 million a week thanks to Brexit. You have to wonder how many lies are too many before the Brits wake up and say enough is enough already, because the way it is, the Tories are laughing at the British people for accepting bad terms which longer terms is going to hurt the British people, especially the lower and middle classes and even more so for the north of England because the Tories never care about them. The irony is about Brexit, the ones that pushed for Brexit are the ones being thrown under a bus, apart from the rich elite Brexiteers. The sad reality is, the decline that is happening is going to be a slow burn that most Brits might not even see until a decade or two later, they wonder why so many other EU countries are doing so much better, it sneaks up on them and that's what the Tories are banking on, they want the people to accept it and shut up, accept worsen conditions, living standards and likely worse workers rights, food standards and so on which make no mistake, that the real plan of the Tories, something that would have been difficult to do in the EU. The end result of this is Scotland and Northern Ireland will likely leave the UK union because they don't want to be dragged down by England, the Tories don't see this because they've got blinkers on and only see the here and now when it comes to Brexit but the risk is really high, the Tories are dividing the British people and have become a real threat to the UK union. Also, what makes me laugh is that bold face lie of £350 million per week the UK would save with Brexit, I find it remarkable that the British people are not going crazy over that lie and holding the government to account and it doesn't bold well for the UK because if the British are willing to roll over on that, they will likely do the same with other things like weaker workers rights, lower food standards, I feel there is little fighting spirit from the British now that they've subdued, the future doesn't look good for the UK and not because of the Tories but because of the British people not waking up to what's happening under their noses.
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Patriotism is the real problem in the US, it's almost designed in a way to blind Americans from the truth of how things are around the world and to ignorantly buy into thinking the US is the best at everything when a lot of the facts say otherwise. I've lived in both the EU and the US and it's quite shocking how much better Europeans do so many things compared to Americans. It's ironic because you wouldn't think so with how Europeans complain a lot about a lot of things but maybe it's that complaining that is getting real changes in the system whereas in the US, they seem to think they are the best and accept the system doesn't need to get better. The real problem is, unless Americans get a more broader view on how the rest of the world is and not how they want to think it is, things won't get better for Americans and as the video points out, the system in the US is working exactly as expected for corporations and the rich 1% I also think another big part of the problem in the US is how Americans view socialism and communism, the Cold War has distorted the views in how they see those systems and that is probably part of the reason why the US is one of the few modern countries that lack a lot of the benefits that rich countries expect.
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@martinmendl1399 I suspect it will be going on many of the things Biden has been saying and he seems to realize that the best way to keep China in check is for the EU and US to work together as they are not that different from each other in most areas. As for China, Trumps way of doing things won't work as it will push most of the population in China more in the camp of the government which is exactly what they wanted, after all, the policies Trump tried is only hurting a lot of innocent people, it rarely works and has been tried many times with other countries. The best solution is to work with China and try to convince the people to change whiles also the EU and US keeping most of the world on side in case China becomes too big and aggressive. Remember that the problem with China is with the government and not the people and that's where other countries need to be careful when dealing with China to not punish the people as that would likely backfire on the west.
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If anything, it makes it a lot harder for Russia to win the war, winning a successful war is all about winning the hearts and minds of the people, Russia targeting civilians could end up getting Ukraine to harden its stance a lot more whiles also boosting the number of troops Ukraine could recruit. But we should remember, Putin is a desperate man, rational thinking is going out of the window, this is basically a revenge attack but it serves little purpose and won't help Russia in winning the war, in fact it does the opposite because the moment they start targeting civilians, Russia could end up with uprisings in those regions in Ukraine it's already taken over and if that happens, Russia will have a hard time fighting this war. Also, all this does is encourage the west to send more advanced military hardware to Ukraine, but seriously, the more Putin keeps trying to raise the stakes, the more the west sends more arms to Ukraine and in the end, if Putin isn't careful, he could be digging his own grave because I'm seeing few options left for him to get out with is skin intact, so just dig your own grave Putin, you wont be missed.
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I think support from both the EU and US will be there for quite some time and things could get better as the economic situation gets better in the EU and US, as well as inflation and energy cost comes down. But I do also think the EU and US needs to do more to help Ukraine, especially as the weather starts to warm up, as I suspect many in both the EU and US expect Ukraine to make some major gains against Russia this year, if not even taking back all of Ukraine with the winter being a moment of pause for both sides. Anyway, I don't think support will drop much if at all from both the EU or US, a lot of the hard work has already been done from them both and the situation is likely going to improve for them both overtime, in other words, the impact of what Russia is doing will have less of an impact on both the EU and US, that's good news for keeping support high and it could also means both the EU and US could be willing to support Ukraine with more military equipment and aid money, especially on the EU side because they've had to deal with sourcing energy away from Russia, as that eases, they will likely be in a much better position to help Ukraine and to a less degree, this is also the case for the US but on inflation. I know some people in EU countries and the US will complain about high inflation, energy and food cost but its nowhere near as bad as what the people of Ukraine are going through and we've been through rough times before and it's going to ease overtime and the main thing is, the west can't afford to let Putin win this war as that could open up a can of worms for other authoritarian governments, basically, a powerful message needs to be sent to these governments that this isn't alright, otherwise, if Putin wins, we could end up with the likes of China taking a chance on Taiwan, knowing that the west has limits in how far they are willing to go and that is what Putin is banking on, he's banking on the west to back down so he gets what he wants, the west doesn't learn their lesson and Putin ends up doing the same to another country and I hope the west isn't stupid enough to fall for that game, otherwise, it could backfire on us all in the long run.
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@MrRishik123 Same, too much focus goes on GDP numbers and not enough on how that wealth is being distributed to the people. For most people, GDP per capita rising means very little to them if they don't feel the impact of that on their lives, which is why we need a better measure of quality of life that measures from the bottom up.
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The problem is with Serbia is that it's trying to play all sides for its own interest, Russia and China don't care about Serbia policies in a lot of areas because they don't care how the government in Serbia treats its own citizens, this is more of a game about empowering the government, not the people. The EU on the other hand have a proven track record of empowering the people, whiles lifting living standards, so the real question is, which is more important, the people or the government in the country? Either way, from the EU's point of view, it doesn't really matter, the EU knows that as the eastern EU members continue to develop, it puts more pressure on the countries outside the EU to want to join, mainly because they want to develop into a modern country, China and Russia can't do the same thing because they can't even develop their own countries, at least not on a per capita basis, which is what really matters to the average citizen of any country. So basically, all the EU needs to keep doing is developing the countries that are in, whiles allowing others in overtime and develop them, that has a massive knock on effect that others will want to join, the countries that play games or drag their feet, they are only hurting their own citizens, in fact, we see that even inside the EU, the countries that do the reforms sooner rather than later, benefit from economic growth and investment, hence why you even see it with EU countries how some develop faster than others or how some join sooner than others. As for Serbia, they must be crazy to want to be too dependent on Russia or China, you know that will bite them on the arse at some point which could leave the country at the mercy or one or both of those countries, but those are the kinds of lessons that need to happen for people to learn and change, just like the UK with Brexit, arrogance got the best of them, and now they are paying a high price for that arrogance that could drag on for decades. Either way, countries that want to join the EU, the sooner they do the reforms to join, the better off those countries will be, and not just for joining, but also whiles in the EU, in other words, the eastern EU members, that's how they can close the gap sooner rather than later with the rest of the modern world.
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Yeah my brother said the same thing in 1991 when he visited the US, now everything seems so expensive in the US.
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We've had enough faith from the leavers promising us the earth with cake and eat it and cheer picking and saying it will be alright on the night, thats just not good enough. What we really need is a solid plan that works that isn't pir in the sky and something the EU and it's members can agree on because so far, the UK is asking the EU to accomodate the UK and to change for us which they wont do, it's up to the UK to decide what it wants and fast.
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@motox2416 That's it, it's not that we are not advanced enough to do it now, but what is the incentive in doing so? At least during the Cold War, there was more or a reason to push the space program, it was after all a dick waving contest between the US and Soviet Union, but since the end of that, there's been far less of an incentive, but maybe China could put fuel on that fire. Either way, I think we will colonize the moon and other planets, once we are advanced enough that the cost in doing so is cheap enough that we end up saying, why not lol. But I will say one thing, I don't think it's a good idea to colonize other planets as individual countries, that likely is asking for trouble in the long run which could start a major war, after all, the only thing that stops us using nukes is that we are all on the same planet, change the narrative into space and the rules change, and because of that, I think we should do it together as a single people, united.
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Yep and the more they keep saying it and don't follow through with it, the more they look weaker to the outside world. Basically, don't threaten unless you know you can follow through unless they want to look like idiots which many in the UK government are doing a smashing job at that lol. In the end, this is just the UK government trying to keep the EU as the boogeyman because they are scared that attention will come closer to home with our own government and then people start to wake up that most of the problems in the UK had little to nothing to do with the EU and a lot more to do with the UK governments, it's desperate in a sad kind of way how the UK is turning out.
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In the case of South Korea, it's easy to understand why they would want to be able to defend themselves, especially with some of the hostile countries around them. With everything that's going on in the world, I wouldn't put too much stock in NATO being that useful for defending its members, we keep seeing with both the EU, US and the west where they keep making excuses to limit what help they are willing to do and keep watering down support, if it comes to the crunch, would they really come to the aid if the stakes are high? The US is already making excuses on Ukraine, who is to say they wouldn't do the same on South Korea or Taiwan? As for the EU and it's members, I don't think they need to worry, because of how integrated those countries are, both politically and economically, it puts far more pressure on other EU members coming to the aid of the other out of self-interest, because attacking one EU member would do a lot of damage to other members because of how tied together those countries are, this is in contrast with NATO, which the countries have nothing holding them together, so we only have the world that if a NATO country is attacked, others would come to the aid in a direct way, and honestly, with how the US is behaving, I wouldn't put too much faith in that for defence. As for the EU, well, it's more complicated, they have the potential, but they need to speak more with one voice through the EU, they need to pool more resources together on the military and forign policy side, there are signs of building an EU arms industry, but we'll see how that goes, so the potential is there to be a major military power but the political and public will need to be there to make it happen, and probably many countries around the world would want that as an extra option away from the US which is becoming more radical, less trustworthy and unpredictable, but on the plus side, Putin, Trump and China are focusing minds in Europe, so we might start seeing real movement in areas to really make a difference, something that's long overdue, something you've got to respect the French on, because they've been pushing on this for a long time whereas Germany keeps showing weakness, Germany needs to grow a pair and wake up to the realities of how the world is changing or get left behind by other EU members. As for South Korea, there are limited in what they can do with the resources they have, especially when it comes to China that is far bigger, that doesn't mean they should not try, but really, they need the US, but with how the US is changing, I think we need a strong EU as another option, being they have the economic power, as well as population size to be a major power, if they get there act together, and because of how the US is going, especially with the likes of Trumps, we need another powerful alternative, and the EU is the only potential credible one, which is where Trump winning the next US elections would be good news for the EU to push more aggressively on integrating EU arm forces, they need that wake-up call to get the political and public will to get some real change, Trump, Putin and China are very likely that call, and we are seeing early signs of that, but there's still a long way to go for it to become a superpower in military, forign policy terms and with the way the world is shaping up, we need another option on the world stage.
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That's part and part of being part of the EU, you can't have your independence whiles having all the other benefits a union offers, it's give or take, with the positives and negatives. Poland and Hungary are acting in a way that the UK went, which is me me me, without any give or take, which is basically not how the EU and most EU members work, which is team player and cooperation to get things done, even if it means watering things down. At the end of the day, it just leads to isolation in the union, with few friends and influence, the UK found that out when they were in the EU, it always got overshadowed by Germany and France and simply because the UK was all about me me me, whereas Germany and France were smarter in being a team player and working with other members to get things done that's of interest to them, Poland and Hungary are going the same way the UK went, with the exception that Poland has recently bought some good will thank to everything that's going on in Ukraine, but that's not going to last unless Poland changes.
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It would do wonders if most Americans lived in Europe for just a year, it would be a real eye-opener in how their own system and elites are lying to them but isn't that the art of politics? Getting people to vote for things that are not in their interest, the right have got very good at that. In the end, if you really want change, you have to start opening your eyes to change and seeing how things are done else ware and not dismissing it outright as socialist which is basically what a lot of Americans do back home and that's why they take advantage of that, keep people fighting among themselves so the rich 1% can keep running to the back and it's happening right under our noses.
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I think if the people really get behind the government in pushing the reforms through, it could happen sooner rather than later, especially if there is a strong government that sides with the people on getting the reforms done and exposes the ones that don't want to do the reforms, guilt trip them into doing the reforms basically, after all, I suspect after the war, the people of Ukraine will want a lot of political and economic reforms, the ones that want to push the reforms should expose the ones that don't to the people and considering what Russia has done here, it would be brave of any politicians trying to hold back the reforms as they could look like a puppet of Russia and I doubt any politician will want to be seen as being close to Russia with everything going on. So yeah, I think reforms could happen a lot quicker than they could before the war.
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Quality goods are usually expensive but that's another story. As for trade deals, they should take time, these things are complex that cover a lot of areas and should have checks and balances on them from both sides so that it doesn't harm any industries interest. It's easy to sign a bad deal quickly, the trick is signing a good deal and that usually takes time, especially for the deal to be good for both sides..
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@perry714. They don't actually, but they do if a country wants better terms than others are willing to give around the world, after all, can you name a single trade deal around the world that offers anything like what the EU offers with the single market and custom union? even some of the better free trade deals are poor in comparison, the EU is able to demand those terms because the deals they offer are a lot better but that is most;y for European countries because for now, they don't offer thoes terms to others around the world, just European countries. The UK is complaining because it doesn't want a standard free trade deal with the EU, it want something closer to what the UK has with the EU now, that is where the deadlock is and why we are going around in circles even thought the UK likes to threaten to walk away but never does, it can't afford too basically.
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@iedco4 Well as a Brit, I have my popcorn ready to enjoy the shit show next year, Brexiteers and the Tory government are in for a rude awakening next year. I remember the UK threatening to go tariff free, it would be funny if they did because not only would the UK lose a lot of revenue, but there would be no incentive for any country around the world to give the UK a trade deal as they are getting everything they want out of the UK whiles given them nothing, Brexiteers are dumb and that was just one indicator of that. In the end, I suspect a deal will be reached with the UK and EU but it will likely be favourable for the EU, it might not happen at the end of the year but the EU is fine with that because it's hand is stronger after Brexit but I suspect the UK will want to limit the damage to the UK economy, especially once the hardship of the pandemic kicks in.
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@thedave7760 I hope so even thought I can't stand Trump but I do enjoy watching the carnage he does over there, it's like watching the Titanic lol.
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@stormtruppen4039 The UK seemed desperate to get a deal that is better than the one the EU got with Japan, Japan put it's foot down and said no to that and for good reason, they don't want to mess up their relations with the EU by giving the UK better term, especially as the US and UK are going off the rails and China is becoming more aggressive, Japan and Canada for that matter needs strong friends around the world and the EU seems to be the only one around, hence why both Canada and Japan speeded up their trade deals with the EU so they are less exposed to the US. The real interesting thing will be if Joe Biden wins, will he try to repair the damage or is it too late, I suspect it's too late but some of the damage could be repaired.
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Russia has far more to lose than others have, think about it, EU countries can adapt and find other sources of energy or even generate a lot more back home, it only takes a few short years to do as well, Russia on the other hand will find it very difficult to find other rich markets and even the likes of China and India have Russia over a barrel in that they are taking advantage of Russia by pressuring them to give oil and gas dirt cheap. The reality is, until Europe finds another secure alternative energy source, energy prices are likely going to stay high around the world because of the way the international energy market works, in other words, as Europe sources energy from the rest of the world, it's bumping up energy prices all over the world, hence why countries far away are seeing energy price spikes and high inflation. This is likely going to last another year or two before things settle down, but lets not kid ourselves, this is hurting countries that are not in the EU pretty bad so it's better we all find a solution and not blame games and personally, I think we could end up seeing a renewable revolution over the next decade, especially in the EU as I suspect a lot more countries are going to want to source their own energy internally. To make things worse for Russia, as the EU moves more away from Russia on oil and gas, I suspect the EU and US will go after China, India and others that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, after all, there's no way they are going through this only for them to prop up the Russian economy and unfortunately for Russia, the west is far more valuable to China and India than Russia is. All this takes a bit of time, just like the sanctions which what most don't understand about sanctions, they usually take about 2 to 3 years to really bite and I am surprised how hard the Russian economy is being hit considering it's still early days and Russia is eating into it's reserves, basically, the real damage for Russia is yet to come.
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I think it's 60% of all renewable energy generating and just for electric energy, not total energy. Those numbers are likely to go up a lot over the next decade and many European countries are already getting close to generating most of their electric energy by renewable means. What's really needed now is a big push of EV cars and heat pumps, as well as battery tech so there's a bigger buffer to store energy for when it's needed and fortunately, all the pieces are falling into place to remove oil, gas and coal out of the mix.
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That doesn't make any sense, the reality is, by Putin reducing gas to Europe, Europe is giving up Russia gas, not by choice but the end result is the same. As for long term, only an idiot would say they couldn't give up their gas as that is always possible given time. In any case, this is a good thing, real change in the world happens when there is real need to change, in other words, the higher and longer energy prices stay high, the quicker the world will adapt to killing the fossil industry off. History is a good indicator that when energy prices spike, it doesn't last long, maybe 2 or 3 years because that industry knows that the longer it last, the quicker they kill their own industry off, basically, people won't just put up with high prices, they will put a lot more pressure on governments to find an alternative, that's the last thing the fossil industry wants as that could shorter the fossil industry by a decade or more which would be a loss of trillions to those countries that produce it. So a bit of short term pain for a lot of gain in the long run, the pain is really on the countries that are too dependent on fossil fuels.
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Under normal measure, probably months, under desperate measures, things can be done in a much shorter space of time.
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@qwertyuiopzxcfgh It's not as difficult as you think, the EU and US gets involved in many of the regulations of each other quite a lot and they both can do that because of the size of them both. In fact I remember years ago a US senator complaining about the US having to adopt many EU regulations without having much of a say in them, this is the same but from the US side, basically, if you have big markets, you have clout over each other.
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Actually, the Polish people support being in the EU, the problem is with the government, not the people. Still I do love all the desperation from the Brexiteers on here, they know Brexit is going bad and need the EU to fail for Brexit to be seen as a victory, how sad for a country like Britain to drop so low. What's funny about all this, what you actually support with Poland would be like supporting Scotland in braking the rules of the UK union and doing what they want. At the end of the day, they knew the rules they signed up too, if they don't like it, they can leave, but good luck with that considering that unlike the UK, most Poles support staying in the EU, but hey, keep dreaming lol.
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@Sakahasthescore Hey, don't tell the Brexiteers that, they'll freak lol.
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@augustagleton3715 The problem for Italy is that they were the first western country to get hit hard, this was at a time when most western countries thought the virus wouldn't have much of an impact in western countries because of past viruses like SARS, it was a big miscalculation and western countries fell like domino with a few exceptions like Germany and some small countries that did better on this. On the surface, what Sweden is doing has already failed, the infection and death toll is a lot higher on a per million bases compared to Norway and Sweden, both of which are in the same region but did lock downs, it does beg the question how much worse the death toll could be in places like Italy if they followed what Sweden did but for Sweden, it's a bit too early to tell, maybe more of the population will get herd immunity but in any case, it seems like a reckless policy for the government to take that route because it could easierlly backfire and I wouldn't want to live in a country that was willing to do that.
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@buddy1155 The problem is, we don't know how long this virus has been lurking in the background, it might have been for months, especially because China wasn't exactly open about it in the first place. We should also remember that Paris and London are top destinations for tourist and it's easy to see how it can spread being as we have open boarders, but this isn't about blame but if we are going to put any real blame then it might as well be on more or less all the west because even Germany that did much better still should have done a lot better than it did when we look at Asian countries. In any case, tough questions will be asked on why the west didn't take this virus serious enough until it was too late and what we can do to prevent that from happening again.
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@buddy1155 Not quite, the problem is that Sweden is likely to be hit hard on the economy simply because the rest of the world is being hit hard, the damage will be less for Sweden but it will still be big and this is all assuming a second wave doesn't hit in Sweden because of not closing down on it. Too many assume that if enough get infected, that's it they are alright but that doesn't always work when the virus mutates and it really depends on how it mutates, in any case, I'm glad I don't live in Sweden with the kind of gamble they are doing on peoples lives, it might work but it could just as easierlly backfire, either way, why take the chance, it's reckless and looking at the numbers, Sweden is doing far worse than Norway and Finland are doing.
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@buddy1155 The countries are not the deciding factor, the people are, if we look at many western countries, what we saw is the public went into self-isolation before the government did a lock down, the public are the ones that will dictate that depending on how safe they feel out and about and the same could happen on a second wave. There is no way any country will follow what Sweden is doing if you look at the infection and death rates in Sweden on a per 1 million basis, they are way higher than Norway and Finland that did a lock down and now they are paying the price because the other countries don't want to open its boarders with them because they see Sweden as a high risk and honestly I can't blame them. Herd immunity might help in the long run but it might not do anything as the virus is mutating. Anyway, I hope we don't get a second wave but going on history, second and third waves seem quite likely and worse is that they tend to be a lot worse than the first wave, so it won't matter what governments do, if the public feels it's not safe, most won't go out and back to work, so lets just hope a second wave doesn't happen or if it does, it's not as bad as the past but I think part of that will depend on how successful the lock down was and how careful we are to open up, hence the reason Sweden might have to have it's boarders closed with other countries much longer than the rest, the US could be in the same boat because the lock down they did is poor and most countries won't want to open the boarders with them too early on with the high risk and lack of trust going on.
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@hanneselch1843 Depends on the window, but yeah on some it wouldn't work, but I don't think it would be that difficult to do a slight redesign for it to be more flexible with more windows. But honestly, the price point of 3 grand is crazy high for that, especially as it looks like you will need more than one of them as it looks like it's on a per-room basis or landing base, so the cost really start to add up in buying them and running cost, and I'm not sure if it's just a US thing having such a high price point, but for 3 grand, there's no way I would buy that.
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@QueenLioness1 Nobody said they will but if I was Australia, I would be careful if what the country says when it comes to China because you're too small of a power and you're among the few western nations in the region, never bank on the US to come to your aid because they will always do what is in their interest not what is in the worlds interest so Australia might be on their own on that one. My advice, Australia best start making more friends, especially in Europe because Australia is going to need all the friends it can get with how the US is going because Australia have a lot of natural resources, both China and the US will want some of that and both are willing to bend and break the rules to get that so Australia is in no position to threaten China. As for the government, they are doing what they can to stay out of it, the last thing Australia wants is to get on the wrong side of both the US and China.
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I have to wonder how much different my life would have been in the UK if I didn't have the freedom in the late 80's and early 90's to go out and explore without worrying about my safety. As a young kid, I took the bus on my own, which was about 5 miles from where I live, furthers I've been away from my own as a young kid is around 10 miles, either on my bike or by bus, and parents never had anything to worry about. The only time they would be concerned is if it's late and I've not come home or let them know where I am, apart from that, I felt as a kid I had enough freedom to explore the world in my own way, and I feel my life could have been very different if I was brought up with the restrictions that Americans put on their kids.
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That's not quite true, unions are about protecting the interest of its workers, whiles also getting better conditions and higher pay. The problem here is that A.I. and robotics is getting cheaper and better all the time, and that's likely going to put the squeeze on the human workforce. But make no mistake about it, union or no union, A.I. and robotics is still coming after our jobs, unions just make sure we get better conditions in the meantime before our jobs are taken over, but it's going to happen even if there's no union, simple because we keep demanding higher page in a world where A.I. and robotics is getting better, cheaper and more capable all the time, so the squeeze is on regardless of union or not.
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@Pragmatic_Optimist_MCR I agree, parliament should be the real power with temporarily power for rare instances that it's needed. The head of state doesn't need to have that power if most power is with the parliament, but either way it should be more directly elected so it more accountable to the people, after all, how many times do you hear Eurosceptics say the EU isn't democratic because the commission isn't elected by the people? it happens all the time. I mean personally, I would be fine with a much weaker EU president and commission with the real power being in parliament, populism would be far less of an issue if the leadership is held to account by the parliament, in other words, the leadership has very little to no power apart from what the parliament gives them. In any case, regardless of what we might think of the public vote, the people should have the ultimate say for better or worse but as I said before, I think it's better if a lot more power is shifted towards parliament over the executive branch as power shared over a lot more hands make it harder to control and corrupt things, it also makes it easier to expose things.
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One thing you find in common with these kinds of countries is that you tend to get leaders that want to run like a dictatorship and only seem to care about their position in power and not the well-being of the people, then they use much of the media to twist the views of their people to keep the governments position in power. It's an old trick but it's a very effective one because they play on the fears of the people in many areas to push their own agenda. Not much good comes from it longer term for the people as those kinds of leaders are not interested in growth of the people and are more interested in consolidating its position in power. As for Hungary, they should be kicked out of the EU and made way for other more deserving countries that want to join the EU, Poland are showing signs of change so I think they are salvageable and they are the key to pushing Hungary out and unlocking the door for future members as the EU isn't likely going to let any others in until that problem is solved as well as reforms to the EU. Personally, just let these countries be puppets with Russia, they'll learn quicker when Russia screws them over and keeps them poor, people tend to learn a lot more from their own mistakes than they do from others trying to help them and it's the same for Russia, a country with so much natural resources to still be poor is really poor performance from the leadership, I mean, the eastern EU members have a GDP per capita as high as the richer regions in Russia which tend to be Moscow and St Petersburg, other places in Russia, the drop-off is big, it's a really poor showing from the leadership but then looking at Putin's leadership in Ukraine, it's easy to see why.
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They'll blame anyone but themselves.
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Never say never, but it's highly unlikely that Turkey will join any time soon, especially with the current government which are actually going in reverse when it comes to joining the EU. But long term, who knows, so much can change in the EU and Turkey that we just don't know. But either way, the EU is likely to continue to expand eastward, as they do and it shows promising results on developing those countries, more countries are likely going to want to join, possibly even outside of Europe, but for now, there's no framework in the EU to allow that, but as I said, never say never, so much can change overtime.
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Who is to blame for the problems, simple, it's the people, I know some like to think it's not but the people are the ones that have the real power to make change either by voting for it or by big protest movements. I know it's easy to put the blame on others but deep down, the real problem is the American people and unless they change, don't expect the government or the system to change because the system is working exactly as they want it. So the moral of the story, if you really want change, the people need to change, until then, expect more of the same, basically, throw out patriotism, accept you're not the best and maybe people will want to change for the better because if a country assumes they are the best, there is little reason for the system to change and that is the real problem in the US, too many think of the US as being the best when it's far from the truth in so many areas.
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The problem is in the US at least, they don't really have a left wing party, at least not creditable to vote them in and I know some will say the Democrats are left wing but if you look at them, they are more right wing then the Conservative Party is in the UK which is very much a right wing party in the UK. The reason this is a problem is because it limits voters choice or more accurately, you have the illusion of choice but it amounts to very little when it comes to real change, it also doesn't help that the US is a very two party system which I've never felt to be very democratic and it tends to create a lot more division among the people with them vs us mentalities and we see a lot of that in the US and even the UK that's a two party system. If Americans actually had real choice, maybe some real change could happen but until then, I suspect we are going to see the same thing happen over and over with every election, promises of lower taxes and higher spending whiles braking a lot of those promises once the election is won and that cycle continues with almost every election and mostly because you've got the extreme right in the Republican Party and a more moderate right in the Democrat, with that kind of choice, it's no wonder Americans feel their votes amount to little, still the UK isn't much better, you only have to look at the mess of the last 5 years with Brexit to see that lol.
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We should never want any company to go bankrupt, as it just means less choice and less innovation. We should remember that Tesla isn't our friend and they will screw us over if there is less choice as that is the capitalist way. What we really want is the other car companies to wake up and change and that will happen as EV's becomes more mainstream. But in any case, I'm old enough and wise enough to not pine over a company like Tesla because they seemingly are doing the right thing now, over for us to screw us over in the long run if there is less competition in the market. In any case, with the kind of pressure being put on governments to change, it's going to put a lot of pressure on the car industry to change as I suspect most governments won't allow them to fail, after all, the German government main reason for wanting a Tesla plant in Germany was to put a lot more pressure on the German car industry to change by having a big rival in its backyard, basically, it's a message from the German government to the German car industry to change because the industry is changing regardless of if they want to or not. Truth be told, we need the rest of the car industry to change Tesla isn't big enough to satisfy all the car market and nor would we want that and if if they tried, it would take forever to do, all Tesla needs to do is light the match under the arse of the rest of the car industry and with a little government help to really get things moving much faster than they are now on EV's and battery tech and renewable tech for that matter but that's likely going to get a lot more investment over the next decade anyway with how the energy market is.
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By law?, laws change and always have, the fact is, that man did a brave thing and it's only fare he get rewarded for that, whats the alternative that you deport him and that sends out the wrong message to others like him which if something like this was to happen again, people will just watch so that child lands on his head?, really, some of you guys really make me wonder about the human race at times lol.
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This isn't breaking French law, it was in fact part of French law to allow them to do this, but even if it wasn't, laws change all the time, the main thing is doing the right thing by them that really counts. Raptor, if this sends out the kind of message that gets a lot of migrants to do a lot of good then where is the problem?, you make it seem like this is a ploy, the fact of the matter is that guy did good and should be rewarded, noone else was trying to help that child, a lot of people just stud there watching, you make it seem like he should just left the child to land on his head because if these people don't get rewarded for helping out then why should they help out?, treat them as human and they will act human. In any case, it's clear that many people don't like the fact that a migrant and a black one at that did a good thing because it puts a big hole in the arguement that many have been trying to lable migrants as all bad, thats what this is all about.
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@Jennyeq The irony is about that, all the fear and confusing message that's been going on with Brexit and other things to manipulate the people for their own ends is now backfiring because now when the governments need the people to listen on this pandemic, a lot of them are not doing so and honestly, can you blame them? the government keeps braking it's own rules it sets and expects the public to follow them? lol, this government is a disaster that has created a lot of it's own problems that is impacting the country and people and the sad thing is, the worse is yet to come next year. Also, maybe some of the young are being selfish, many of them did vote to remain in the EU whereas the older generation voted mostly to leave, maybe they are not listening just like the older gen didn't on Brexit, goes both ways.
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This doesn't send a good message to the world that the UK can be trusted at a time that the UK is good to need a lot of trust with the rest of the world. Our word in the UK won't mean anything to the international community if we break it and that will make it much harder for others to trust the UK even on things that are supposed to be legally binding, it's a very risky move from the UK government if it goes ahead with it because not only would it allow the EU to get a lot tougher on us, it would send the wrong message to the outside world, it could brake the peace process in Ireland and it could also push both Northern Ireland and Scotland to push for independence. I suspect this is just bluster from the UK government, the more I keep seeing of all this, the more it's becoming clearly that the UK government needs the EU to bend and it comes across as being desperate for a government that keeps saying they can walk away with no deal, if that was a good deal, it would have happened a long time ago but they seem desperate to get the EU to bend and give a better deal which the EU isn't bending, that to me suggest the UK government is getting desperate now that time is short and if that is true, it's going to be a lot clearer over the coming weeks.
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They are scared of a 2nd referendum because unlike they want us to think that leave support is going up, all the evidence is suggesting that support for remain has sky rocketed over the last few months and it's ironic that our goverment likes to keep telling us it's doing the will of the people but it's sounding like they are trying to force us out of the EU when most of the British people want to stay and if that is the case and say Brexit goes badly wrong, the damage this could do to the ones that pushed this agenda and the ones that had the power to stop it but didn't could be immense. In other words, this could do some real damage to the Conservative party, Labour, the euroseptic and the right wing press in the country as they are betting highly on Brexit being a big success and as the British people only care about the well being of themselves, it's clear to see who they will blame for when things go badly wrong. May is in damage control mode, shes pushed so hard for Brexit that offering another public vote and if the public votes to remain in the EU would do a lot of damage to her but her forcing the country out of the EU is likely going to do much more damage to her, either way shes finished and it's high time she uses her head and do whats in the intrest of the country and it's sounding like hearing the public out with another vote is the best option now.
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Well I'm from the UK and Brexit or no Brexit isn't going to stop me buying German goods if they keep delivering good products but like Mini said, the UK doesn't produce much that the world wants and that should worry the UK when we leave the EU because it will be much harder to trade with the rest of the world when it's much easier for thoes others to trade with each other because they are much closer to each other. We might not like this but most trade is always with nearby countries and in this case, thats the EU and because of that, the UK really needs a good deal from them.
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That's a big deal, because public companies are usually all about trying to earn more profits at almost any cost, privately own companies motives can be different depending on who owns it. Another example of a privately own company is Valve that owns the Steam store on the PC and they show a different mentally in how to run a company compared to most.
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@jethamillionviews560 It's actually better for all it's members but poorer ones benefit the most.
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@harrypadarri6349 Everyone region benefits from EU membership to some degree or another be having easier access to trade. Have you ever wondered why most of the biggest companies in the world tend to also have a big market back home? the EU, US, China, that's the real advantage they have, it allows the people and companies to grow whiles having the advantage of the rules being more in their favour to allow them to grow at the expense of outside rivals. A big part of the reason the EU was created was to level the playing field with the US as the US used it big market to give it's own companies a leg up which they used around the world, so the EU did the same for it's own market, this is really where the UK could suffer the most because they don't have that advantage now. But yeah, truth is, the EU is needed for us Europeans, including the UK because if we don't integrate and work together, we're not going to compete with the likes of the US and China, the UK is likely going to find that out the hard way.
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@SgtAndrewM That's pretty much every government on the planet. But in any case, the good thing about the EU is the way it's being formed back to front, it basically takes time but it ends up making it a lot more accountable because members are not going to be willing to give power up unless it's very accountable and democratic. Shame as well because we could see more of that in the UK and US where too much power is being controlled too centrally.
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@SgtAndrewM Probably not and that's because in the end, it's the end result that matters, the UK started out of the gate fast but it's who finish and who does it correctly that matters. If you look at the numbers, it looks like the EU will catch up to the UK and might even overtake us by the end of summer and unlike the UK, they are using the better quality vaccine on more people which is trusted a lot more by the people, even in the UK. Also, lets not forget that some countries like the UK and US played games on the vaccine procurement process, the UK for instance delivered little to no vaccines out of the UK, the EU have delivered 200 million out of the EU, the EU is set to have 1.9 billion vaccines by the end of the year, enough for the EU population 4 times over. In other words, don't jump the gun just yet because it's still early days and with the talks of a third wave in the UK, if a third wave happens in the UK but doesn't in the EU, that will be seen as a disaster for the UK on a number of fronts, one it could mean the vaccine of choice isn't as effective, two it could be that the UK kept the door open with India for too long, that door should have been shut 4 or 5 weeks earlier than it was but you know our government, it's the economy above the well-being of the people, in other words, they wanted a good trade deal with India and was willing to put peoples lives at risk in the UK. If a third wave happens, this could blow up in the governments face because they are 100% responsible for that mess, after all, what was it they said, a jab per arm is a way to freedom?, basically, the government in the UK can't afford another lock down whereas other EU countries can and all because of how the government has conditioned the people, basically, this is one lie the government isn't going to be able to spin.
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True, it would be disrespectful to thoes other countries that want to join. The truth is, how quickly or slowly a country can join the EU is really up to the country in question, how quickly they are really to make the reforms needed to the political and economic system. The EU isn't like the UN where they let anyone in or the African Union which is trying to let everyone in but it's a mess because there is little incentive for the countries to do any real change, the EU makes sure the countries that want to join are on a fast track in becoming a democracy and modern economy, hence why there are problems with Hungary and Poland at the moment, because they are backsliding on that. Clearly, a lot of people don't seem to understand how the EU works, it's nothing like NATO or the UN, it's actually closer to something like the US union but in the making.
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There's always usually two patterns when it comes to voting habits, cost of living and quality of life, for younger generations, the cost of living of basic things are much more expensive compared to decades ago, this is fuelling the far right, not because of the far right policies, after all, immigration and anti EU views are a sideshow, it's a protest vote because people find life harder than it used to be, and in the case of the younger generation, there's a lot of truth to that, this isn't just a European thing, it's also happening in North American, especially in the US. So the rise of the far right isn't a big deal, but it could be for the far right if they don't fix the concerns that voters have, and they'll have a short window to do it in, we should remember that there is a lot of protest voting going on because a lot of voters are angry at the mainstream parties for not fixing the core issues they have, in other words, the far right might have 1 or 2 elections to fix those core issues, if they don't, they could get wiped out, in other words, political parties across the spectrum really need to start listening to voters or they will continue to vote more recklessly, until eventually, one of them gets into power that does some serious damage. A bit of advice for the far right or any radical parties, if they want to stay in power and be credible, they really do need to soften their policies into a more mainstream mindset, many voters are only listening to them because they are fed up with the mainstream parties and want to teach them a lesson, but most of the population are not radicalised enough to want the policies the far right are offering, hence why so many that get close to power or in power end up toning down there policies to appeal to a wider voting audience, basically, if they want long term credibility, they need to become more mainstream, hence why they are not really a threat, unless the majority of the population becomes radicalised, which we are a long way from that, but if that were to happen, we've got far bigger problems to worry about.
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I know some will say this is a sell out but that depends on what side you are on, the UK always needed a deal and the EU knew the UK wasn't going to walk away no matter how many times the government threaten to do so. Now the real question is, how many concessions did the UK have to make? I suspect a lot to gain that kind of access to the EU market because I can't see them giving the UK that level of access unless the UK abide by a lot of EU rules, this is something Boris and the UK government are going to try and keep quiet as long as possible to pull the wool over the Brexiteers eyes to try and sell Brexit as a victory but in reality, it's looking more like it's in name only where the UK ends up following most of the EU rules by rubber-stamping them but with no say in them. The real question is then, what was the actual point of Brexit if for the most part we are still ruled by the EU?
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No, I think after the dust settles, we need to put aside the blame game and start working together, after all, China might not have been open about this because of the threat of Trump in that he was just itching for a fight with China so China might have covered it up to protect themselves knowing that Trump likely would use this to punish China and in fact that is exactly what he's trying to do, so yes, there is blame to go around but I think we need to put that aside and work together on dealing with the coronavirus before the damage gets really bad.
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The idea of asking Sun readers on what regulations they want to scrap is as crazy as it sounds, now if it was the Financial Times, I would be more forgiven given the difference in education but the idea that they even have to ask the public shows how incompetent this government really is, they are basically winging it. As for that article in Les Echo, that perfectly sums up Brexit and the mindset of Brexiteers, I've not heard it being said any better than that and naturally, it needed to be said from an outside view that doesn't have their judgement clouded by all the bull that's been going on in the UK.
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I don't see how this can be seen as good for Putin in any sense of the word, NATO boosting its capacity a lot of the eastern flank is a direct result of Putin's aggression in Ukraine, the end result is a weaker economy and more isolation for Russia, at least longer terms as the sanctions start to really bite, which we should remember, can take 2 to 3 years for the real damage to kick in. If I was Russian or an outsider looking at this, Putin is directly to blame for NATO ramping things up, which isn't a good thing for Russia overall because now the western countries have all the excuses they need to beef up military capacity on the Russian boarder, something I doubt Putin or the Russian people wanted, in other words, it backed fire on Putin. As for Putin trying to say NATO is an aggressive alliance by doing what it's doing now is a weak argument when Russia attacks Ukraine, NATO is just responding in kind to Russian aggression, in other words, the real blame is on Putin himself and he can spin it however he wants to the Russian people, the reality is, NATO is ramping things up because of Putin invading another country, that's the reality of the situation.
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Also, culture plays a big part in that, especially in Southern Europe were living at home is a very normal thing compared to northern European countries and the US, but either way, I'll imagine those number are higher today in both Europe and the US with everything that's gone on with cost of living over the last 5 years.
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No country is likely to join the EU until reforms to the veto and majority voting rules are done and that really needs to be done over the next 3 to 5 years, otherwise, a lot of countries could lose interest in joining the EU. If it comes to it and Hungary continues to play games, I think the EU and other members will have to get creative in finding a solution to kicking Hungary out of the EU and unless there is some big changes in Hungary, I think they are heading on a one way path to being booted out of the EU. I would have said the same for Poland before Putin invaded Ukraine but Poland might be salvageable, there is still some work to be done on Poland and getting them back on track, but as for Hungary, I hold out no hope for them, apart from there is high public support for the EU in the country, but unless that translate into giving the current government a good kicking, it won't mean anything. In the end, there are many countries that want to join the EU and I think it's unfair to them that they should get held up because of one or two troublesome countries and personally, I would be happy to trade in those troublesome countries for countries that actually want in the EU and wants to make it work, the EU and its other members need to grow a pair and get a lot tougher on countries that are braking rules, because it's setting a bad example to the others by being soft on them.
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That's pretty much it, the west didn't want the war, but they are going to make sure Russia pays a high price for it on the economy and it's resources. Another factor we should remember that the economic situation in the EU and US should start getting better later this year with inflation dropping a lot, that's likely will allow both the EU and US to help Ukraine in a number of ways, more than they are doing now. History will likely look at this war and wonder what did Russia actually achieve in Ukraine? Russia are having to throw a lot of lives and resources at it, it's not really achieving much, Russia has become more isolated in the world and EU as well as many other countries are buying far less resources from Russia, to top it off, Putin has created a renewable energy boom a lot sooner than it would have happened, that isn't good news for Russia, especially with many Russians leaving the country, many of which are young talented people and the longer the war drags on, the more it's going to continue to drain the resources of Russia. I suspect the US wants that, to weaken Russia as a power around the world and to weaken its economy, and a long war with isolation is likely to do that. The problem is, Putin can't afford to end the war without looking weak to the Russian people, so the ones that really pay the price long term are the Russian people themselves for not trying to prevent this war in the first place and if there is anything well known about dictators is that they don't usually care about their own people, they are quite happy to take their country to ruin if it means protecting their own position of power and history has shown how bad that can actually go for the people and maybe that needs to happen because the Russian people don't try enough to prevent these kinds of crimes from happening.
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You wished, if that was the case, the US could more or less do anything it wants around the world which it clearly can't, the reality is simply, both the US and EU are in decline with China and the rest of Asia taking over, honestly, I don't see both the EU and US working together being able to compeat with Asia and this should worry the west because for now, we make up most of the worlds laws, regulations and rules both the EU and US, but that is likely going to shift towards Asia where they end up making the worlds rules, it all boils down to economic might and Asia have a major advantage by population numbers with a booming economy compared to the west, it's also the reason why the US have been in a bit of a panic since 9/11, they know there grip on the world is slipping hence why they've tried to do a lot of what they did over the last 20 years, it's despration to try and hold on but the reality is, we just don't have the population to compete with Asia in the long run.
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When talking about defence, I can understand that some want to keep it in national hands, and there might be some ways we can do that whiles being more effective than we are, but realistically with how the world is changing and with superpowers like the US and China, as well as others on the horizon, we have to be honest with ourselves, our military, defence and forign policy is always going to be limited at national hands because of the limited resources, if we really want to protect our interest, we really need to find a solution of doing it at an EU level and there are many ways of achieving that, which works and works in the interest of all its members, but I think doing it at an EU level is the only way we can protect our interest whiles having a bigger voice, the alternative is likely a slow decline. I don't have a problem of fewer regulations on companies, as long as it doesn't reduce standards on goods and conditions for workers, I also think rules need to be different depending on the size of a company, especially if a company has a large amount of market share in any given sector, in other words, make it easier for smaller companies to compete with bigger ones to spur more competition and growth. I do agree that reforms are needed to the EU and they need to be quite big reforms, especially on veto rules, until reforms are done to the EU, I can't see how any new country can join the union, so ideally, a lot of decision on that should happen after the elections later this year, with them concluding at the latest before 2030, if that happens, it sends a powerful message to countries wanting to join the EU that the door is open, because the reality is, it's firmly shut and won't be open until reforms are done, with that said, the EU should open up negotiations with countries that want to join the EU, being that it's not a quick process so it's better to get them ready for joining sooner rather than later whiles the EU can work on its own reforms, I also think the European Parliament needs to be given a bigger role whiles the EU and its members need to find ways of bringing the EU closer to its citizens to reduce the risk of popularise movements, they after all feed on Europeans not having much idea on what's going on at an EU level so a lot of lies are told, in other words, we need more democracy to the EU, by expanding the European Parliaments powers whiles reforming the EU Commission.
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I always wonder if the EU countries worked together as a single EU military and say puts 20, 40,000 peacekeeping troops in Ukraine before the war started if it would have prevented the war from happening, after all, it's one thing to attack Ukraine which is quite a poor country, it would be another to attack if the EU had a lot of troops in there, that likely would have been enough to prevent war from happening. In any case, it's high time us Europeans start looking after ourselves, we have the economy, the skills and capabilities to do so, do we have the political will to speak as one voice? that's what is really needed so it's much harder to divide us which is what many others like Putin, Trump and even Brexit tries to do.
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This is the reality, if you look at all the rich countries and mamy developing ones, they are trying to emulated the European system not the American one, in fact, is thier any other country like the US? I look at it and most are following the European social system because overall it's better. Now don't get me wrong, it's not perfect and could be better but given the choice from the American and European system, I would pick the European one every time because it does a better job of looking after the poor and middle classes and not just the rich. Also, whats really shocking is that an American that doesn't have health insurance can get better care in Europe and for less money, think about that for a second, you go on a plane, have a little holiday and it works out cheaper then getting the same health care in the US for many things and as we know, health care is free for Europeans living in thoes countries. You know something is fundermentally wrong in the US system for that to happen and at the end of the day, you only have to look at a lot of countries and which system they are adopting and it doesn's seem to be the US. Still it's funny some trying to defend and protect corparate intrest as if they really care about you, health care and capitalism should never mix because it will always lead to it being about profit over everything else.
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Seruselly, if you were Russian, would you want to go to war as cannon fodder, because that is what they are being used as. This is Putin's mess, there is no need for more Russians to lose their lives in a pointless war that is Putin's personal war. The Russian people need to rise up on mass and depose of Putin, after all, how many love ones need to die before the Russian people realize that this is dragging them all down with him. These new Russian troops are likely to be less trained, less motivated and poorly equipped, if they are not careful, it could become a bloodbath on the Russian people and I think the west needs to offer them options out of this by taking in the ones that want to defect, after all, for every solder took out will save lives in Ukraine and their equipment can go to Ukraine to continue the fight, after all, it's clear a lot of these people don't want to fight and the west should offer them a way out, it's a good way to drain Putin of his resources and if enough do defect, Putin will have to ask for more reserves in Russia which could lead to an uprising against Putin. In the end, the Russian people didn't think this war would impact them personally but clearly it's going in that direction, Putin doesn't care about the Russian people, he cares about protecting his position of power and is very likely willing to use the Russian people as cannon fodder to keep that power, so now It's up to the Russian people to wake up and get rid of that lunatic Putin before he drags everyone down in Russia.
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The thing is with the EU, all it needs to do is deliver on the goods, in other words, countries it lets into the EU, develop them, help them create a more stable political and economic environment and that will speak for it's self. In other words, by the EU helping to develop the eastern EU countries, their success is going to have a ripple effect on other countries in the region that are not in the EU, in other words, they will want to join. Russia won't like that because they will see it as an encroachment into their region of power, unfortunately for Russia, the people in many of these countries don't care, most of the people want stability, both political and economic, and they want a good quality of life, the EU is proven to be able to deliver on that, which acts like a magnet for other countries to want to join, now don't get me wrong, the EU isn't perfect, but if you look at every country that joined the EU over decades, they've developed a lot, contrast that to countries that are outside the EU in Eastern Europe and they are far poorer, including Russia, except for some regions like Moscow and St Petersburg, most of Russia is quite poor. This is the real threat Putin faces as he doesn't have the economic muscle and political knowhow to deliver on the same, and in fact, Putin is actually playing into the hands of what the EU wants, by threatening countries in the region, Putin is pushing countries more into the embrace of the EU, which will end up weakening Russia whiles making the EU stronger, Putin's tactics of threats, intimidation and control isn't doing Russia any favours when the EU is far more diplomatic, Putin is pushing more countries towards the west, already 2 countries joined NATO and many are lining up to join the EU. As for the countries that want to join the EU, they should take advantage of that as the EU door is starting to swing open to allow countries in, but we should remember that reforms to the EU are needed, especially on veto rules before any country can join, I suspect reforms will be talked about in the EU after the European Parliament elections with a possible conclusion before 2030. Then we have the countries that want to join, ultimately, how quickly a country can join the EU is really up to the country in question, how quickly they do the political, economic reforms needed to join, some countries are quite quick on that, others drag there feet, the sooner the reforms are done, the more likely sooner those countries can join, Turkey is a prime example of dragging there feet, sometimes they make progress and then they go backwards, some other countries do the same, hence why it can take years or even decades to join. When it comes to Ukraine, once the war is resolved, Ukraine might be able to join the EU sooner rather than later, I suspect with what Russia have done to the country, it would be bold for any political figures to hold back reforms to join the EU, especially with how favourable the people are behind joining, so even if the reforms are hard, the war will likely give the political and public will for Ukraine to fast track a lot of reforms far sooner than it would normally take, so I don't expect them to join any time soon but, once the war is resolved, I suspect we will see rapid progress in Ukraine, in a sense, Putin will give them focus to do what's needed to join without the foot dragging. As for Armenia, I don't see much of a reason why they couldn't join, but, geographic does play a part in what countries can join, in that I suspect the EU would want countries that are boarded with other EU members to join before bringing in countries that are a distance away, normally, that's how I think the EU would be on this, but times have changed, Russia is making noise and I think the EU needs to be more flexible in helping to stabilise the region, joining the EU would go a long way in doing that, so yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if they let them in at some point, it would also have the effect of putting more pressure on Turkey to get its act together if they really want to join the EU some day, it sends the message that they can join if they do the reforms needed.
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I've always suspected that we don't really know what Labours policies on the EU really are, they seemed so scared of talking about the EU or Brexit before the election in case it divides the votes that they were keeping their cards close to their chest. Now that the elections are over with and they've won by a landslide, they can open up without worrying about the election, but don't expect much for around a year, then after that, who knows what there policies are on the EU are, but we'll find out over the coming years and I suspect they won't be in line with what they've said, and much of that could depend on where the wind is changing with the public, which seems more favourable on the EU then it was when the UK was in the EU. In any event, realistically, the EU won't allow the UK to rejoin for at least 2 decades, the best we can hope for is closer relations, which can happen right away, single market and custom union access might be doable over the decade, but that really is dependent on how much the UK pushes on that, because it will be under EU terms, not UK terms, so if the UK even tries for any op-outs, it's going to stall the negotiations for decades.
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True, also, other rivals to Facebook will be licking their lips at filling that void that Facebook leaves behind. A market the size of the EU, other rivals will jump at the chance to fill that void and that isn't good news for Facebook and worse yet, threatening any government could very well get a lot more governments around the world to get much tougher on big corps, showing a need why many big companies need to be cut down in size. This isn't a threat against the EU, this is a threat against any government if Facebook were to get away with it because it would embolden big corporations that they can get away with a lot more if there is a soft touch from governments, something they already do in the US but that's likely going to be tougher for them around the world. At the end of the day, they have to follow the rules of the market they are doing business in, they might not like it but with big markets, they have little choice, the threat of pulling out is just that, a threat, I highly doubt Facebook would leave the EU market as that would do a lot of damage to the company, it would also leave a big void for a rival to fill, which that rival will use that to compete better against Facebook on the world stage, but more importantly, no government around the world is going to be too happy about any big corporation threatening any government, regardless of the reason, many will start to realize that much tougher action is needed on big corps, even cutting them up, so this could backfire not just on Facebook but on big corps all over if they are not careful.
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The brexiters are losing there rag because they are not getting there way on Brexit and the EU is and all because the leave side had to lie so much to get the Brexit vote and now can't deliver on all thoes lies, you really have yourself to blame over all this mess so it's high time you own this mess.
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Not as bad as the UK been embarrassing it's selve e by sticking to the coat tail of the US no matter what, we really need to grow a pair of balls in the UK and do what's in our interest and not what's in the US interest and it's not like the UK can't do that as France and Germany does it all the time, in the end, it just makes us look weak in the UK.
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@vsiegel True but it's these kinds of events that can do seismic changes in the market and yes it's painful short term but it's likely going to be a lot more painful for the fossil industry if they are not careful, especially in democratic countries because people will only put up with so much before a lot of pressure builds on governments to do something, that brings in a lot of political will to do changes that normally would take decades that could happen in a few short years. Putin thinks he's being smart but he's actually shooting himself in the foot longer term whiles at the same time harming the entire fossil industry and they might like the high profits now but if real change happens, it could wipe out decades of revenue from those countries that produce fossil fuels and we are talking in the trillions. Because of that, I'm in two ways on the price point, on the one hand, I want them to drop but on the other hand, I want them to stay high because I know the higher it goes and longer it last, the bigger the revolution in change will be and will happen sooner rather than later. History could look at this point as the moment we really started to clean up our act with clean energy and all it took was a mad man in Putin to get things moving, no one will thank Putin for it as he's still a dictator that's doing war crimes.
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Religion is always a weird thing to me, people's belief in it can be absolute, based on no evidence whatsoever and yet, when you look at the evidence, a lot of countries around the world with a high percentage of religion, tend to be poorer countries and this is even the case with regions in countries, so like the US with some southern states or Italy's south, the pattern always seems to be the same, the more religion, the more poverty, whereas you look at countries with less religion, they tend to have some of the highest quality of living in the world. I really do wonder how well would the south of Italy do if it was it's own country or those US states that are more religious do if they were not part of the US, I bet they would be a lot worse off now. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with religion as long as it's not pushed onto other people, but come on people, we are in the 21st century, religion has no really place in today's world, but in any case, the best way to kill religion is to modernize the world, religion tends to feed on poverty, desperation and inequality in society, we've seen that in the EU where countries that join the EU, religion becomes less important as the wealth of that country grows. In any case, if you look at the countries with the highest quality of living, they tend to be countries that have less religion.
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Yeah, I feel GDP numbers is a poor indicator on quality of life in a country, for instance, the UK and US over the last 2 decades keep bragging about how well the economy is doing, yet, yet for the average people, things seem to be getting worse not better, probably the reason Brexit in the UK happened and why so many support Trump in the US, a lot of people are not happy with how things are. Then, when you look at European countries, many of them dominant the top 10 quality of life indexes, and it's clear we need a new measure for measuring wealth and quality of life in a country, ideally, from the bottom up, because by improving from the poor to middle classes, you improve all of the society, I think that's where GDP numbers are failing and where the US and UK is messing up, there's too big of a divide in wealth and quality of life among the people. I mean seriously, Estonia has a better quality of life compared to the US going on many of the indexes, you have to wonder how that is possible when Estonia is still developing and catching up to western standards, but it really does indicate how GDP numbers don't tell us much about what the quality of life is like in a country that it's quite misleading.
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Simply answer, no. What's likely to happen is like-minded countries group together on specific things of interest to them, that blurs the lines from west to east, in other words, there is no west and east, there's only self-interest, and that is different on a country to country basis. In other words, some like to make a divide between west and east, and to a degree, there is one, but that line will become a lot more blurred as the eastern countries catch up with the western countries and with that, countries will group together with countries that have shared interest on any given interest, regardless of west and east. In fact, we already see part of that today, it's likely going to become more the case as the eastern countries catch up with the western countries, then each country, west or east, will lobby for what's in their interest, and group with countries that share that interest, that's where the lines blur from west and east. The truth is, there is no west and east in the EU, there's only shared interest, it's some in the media and some people that want to create a division, but the reality is, whether west or east, all the countries in the EU want to try and improve things, move forward and find agreements at an EU level, it's not perfect, but that's part of having so many countries and people, there are bound to be division, but they usually always find a way forward, even if it means watering things down. So enough with this division thing, it's a narrative that some in the media and some groups of people want to happen, with the aim of creating problems. With all that said, there are problems, the veto rules need to go, the more members in a union, the more problematic the veto rules become, and that has nothing to do with west or east, it's simply to do with numbers, the more there are, the more likely the veto is to be used to block things, and this is why major treaty reforms are needed, especially before the EU can bring in any new countries, because it would become worse with more countries in the union if we still have the veto rule.
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Turkey is a prime example of what happens when you let the religious loons into power, the economy takes a big hit and decline sets in. Something most of us probably expected and which is a shame because Turkey was making progress in the right direction until Erdogan got into power and it's been downhill ever since. To think, Turkey was making steady if slow progress in joining the EU, Erdogan put many road blocks in stopping that happening and most of which was based on arrogance and religion.
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@stonehengeminstrel The problem is with that, the UK will face the same problems it hand in the EU, the more countries open up to each other, rules, laws and regulations have to be a lot closer together for it to work, otherwise one side or the other will have a big advantage. This is something many in the UK never understood and it's the same with free trade deals with any country around the world which boggles my mind that they even call them free trade deals because they are anything but that, ironically, the EU countries are the only ones that have a true free trade deal among nations.
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@inco9943 Thats true, but it's still a pipe dream in the same way that the UK thought they would have their cake and eat it with the EU, reality turned out very different than that where it's mostly the EU having it's cake and eating it if you look closely at the deal that was signed, hence the UK panicking and trying to roll back on that deal, even going as far as braking international laws lol. Never sign anything when emotions are high or you get the mess the UK is currently enjoying.
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@WillieFungo That would be fine if it really was love taxation, but there's evidence that Americans pay a similar or higher amount of tax then Europeans do, it's just done differently and far less equal with higher earners getting away with more than middle earners, it's also much more complicated, based on taxes paid and benefits gained from them. Lower taxes on the surface sounds like a good thing, but in reality, it usually means more wealth in fewer hands that can take advantage of the loopholes, lower taxes also means that the low and middle class gets screwed over far more, whereas the upper class gets away with it because they are wealthy enough to be able to find a lot of the loopholes to avoid paying much tax, in a sense, the middle classes are having to pay more because the rich are paying too little, or you're basically getting poor quality of service because the money isn't there to fund them. At the end of the day, when it comes to quality of life, Europe dominants the top 10 spots, from a citizen's point of view, what do you really care about?, your own well-being or the well-being of big corporations or the economy. As for immigration, that's been a major problem in EU countries for some time that too many people want to live there, in fact, there have been complaints about too many Americans moving to Europe since Trump got into power, so much so that one or two countries are looking into putting restrictions on them moving into those countries. As for the UK and health care, that's like one of the worst case examples of universal health care and many will tell you that the UK is the wrong way to do it, especially over the last 15 years how the UK is under funding it, as for young unemployment, that is a problem in some southern countries, but you have to be careful how unemployed numbers are calculated, especially in countries like the US and UK which use a lot of tricks to make the numbers look lower than they are, from job support to unemployment benefits where you are more or less working a full time job, being paid by taxpayers and being classed as employed, the taxpayers are still paying them thought.
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Depends on how much they are willing to put the people out, taxes are taxes at the end of the day, if more is going on the military, less is likely going on public services and other benefits for the people. 4-5% spending on the military might look good to the outsider but that will only hurt the Polish population, more so because Poland is a declining population so getting less taxes. Heck, even the US puts its people out and at least with them, they are rich and not going too crazy on the military spending for its size. Personally, Poland would achieve more as well as other EU countries if they pool a lot more military resources together, not only would the military be a lot more power, the likes of Poland wouldn't need to spend 4-5% out of fear of Russia, after all, Russia is highly unlikely to attack an EU, Nato country as it is, and they sure won't if EU countries pool resources together. Spending 4-5% on the military is just paranoia in that they don't think the EU or NATO would protect them if Russia were to attack, which the EU and NATO would protect them, after all, if they didn't, it would devalue both organisations a lot, so both would likely have no choice but to step in, hence the paranoia going on in Poland, but still, it's their money, they can spend it how they want, but it's got to be hurting the overall population, after all, it's taxpayers money, and going from 2% to 5% is a lot of money that could be used on many social programs.
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I always wonder that, a lot of people outside of Europe confuse the EU for all of Europe, which if it keeps expending, it more or less is.
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@michaelgoetze2103 Power is always with the economy, the bigger that is, the more power you have because the economy runs everything, with that you can direct resources towards the military, high-tech innovation or whatever you want. Germany is the big power in Europe because of its economy and population size, the US is a superpower because it's the only modern country with a population that is far bigger than any other modern country. Economy and population size is what dictates power in this world. But in the case of the EU, they could become a military superpower if EU members pool resources together, so in some sense, Poland could become a military superpower, but only through the EU, but on their own, there is little to no chance that Poland can become a millinery superpower, it just doesn't have the economy and population size to back that up, unless it wants to bankrupt it's self like the Soviet did during the Cold War, which I highly doubt would go down well with the Polish people as a lot of resources would need to be diverted towards the military, in other words, the Polish people would suffer for it.
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There was also the aspect that if I recall, the EU ended up shipping out a lot of vaccines, about half to none EU countries in the early days whereas the UK and US kept most for themselves.
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@Swift-mr5zi Without NATO, the EU countries would combine a lot more of their resources, it's the US that would lose out without NATO because for one the US would have less power in Europe and two, the EU countries would get together more out of self-interest, NATO gives them a reason to not do that for now but they are more than capable of doing so. Truth be told, both the EU and US need each other as power is quickly shifting towards Asia and it's in the US interest that we have a strong EU, that basically means more integration both politically and economically, it's either that or we're just going to get pushed aside by the Asian powers. In the end, for all the differences between the EU and US, we are a lot more alike than we are different, Trump did a lot of harm to the transatlantic alliance at a time when China is gaining more power, the EU and US either wake up to the threat or we're both going to get pushed aside as we're not big enough on our own to compete with Asia.
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It does seem unusually for one player to get so dominant, but at least it's in safe hands, being the EU market is stable. We're also seeing with chip fabrication, where major investments are being done in the EU, US and Asian markets, all the major players are wanting to secure these major supple lines internally in their own market and it makes a lot of sense to do so in the EU and US because they are rich markets with a lot of consumers, it also reduces risk by spreading the risk around the world whereas TSMC is to focus on Taiwan which was always a risk and now governments are waking up to that in Europe and America.
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As a Brit, I remember all the jokes the Brits did on the Germans, but if you look closely, it was envy of Germany being more successful. Being as a Brit myself, I don't have any problems with the Germans or Europeans, in fact, I think it was crazy that the UK left the EU, but I do know that many Brits are petty, especially on the Germans and the French, and they cover that up with jokes and humour. As for the German political and economic problems, these are very likely short term problems that the Germans will recover from, Germany after all has an impressive record through history of recovering from far worse and coming back stronger, and the problems they face today are tame in comparison. I will say that I think Germany needs to shift away from manufacturing to something else, because I think manufacturing will get taken over by A.I. and robotics, in the sense that it will be able to offer cheaper labour, be more productive and because of those two factors, manufacturing can be done much closer to the markets the goods are being sold in, meaning far fewer exports needed, because of that, I think Germany needs to start investing in other areas, high-tech seems like a logical choice as that is the future, and Germany are more than capable of being the Silicon Valley of the EU if they put in the right policies, and high-tech is one area that the EU countries are lagging behind compared to North America and Asia.
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today is not yesterday I say the odds of that are almost zero to nil on the US but then the Roman Empire was very different. As for slavery, we can't compare Empires of the past to countries of today on moral standards because it was a different world back then in that they saw things differently but I do have to wonder if Romans didn't use slaves, they likely would have been a lot more inventive because of the need to be, there have been many stories during Roman times that inventions have been scraped because it makes things more efficient in taking jobs away from slaves and that for some in powers worried them.
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It's more the system has created such rampant paranoia for decades that some people don't know what to think and some think the government is out to get them. It's crazy really because there is no way this is a cover up for something else, not on this scale over so many countries and people, humans are smart, but we are not that smart to pull that off and yet many still think there is something going on but that's mostly because many don't trust governments no matter what they do even if it's for our own good and really you have to blame the media and governments for telling so many lies over the years.
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This is how I see it with the Lords, yes it needs reforms and needs to be more electable by the people but the problem is with the hardliners wanting to scrap the lords because they are not doing what they want, where do they draw the line on that?, if the house of commons votes the same way as the lords, will they want to scrap that as well? what about the public on if they have another vote and want to either stay in the EU or have a much closer partnership with the EU that the hardliners don't want, will they brand them as trators? It's clear for anyone to see that the hardliners only care about one thing, hard Brexit at any cost and they don't care how far they have to go to get that or who they have to over rule to get that goal from the UK courts, the commons, the lords, even the British people themselfs, to me, the hardliners could be a threat to UK demoarcy if we don't keep them in check because you can't keep sidelining everything on Brexit that isn't agreeable to you and if they can do it with Brexit, they can do it with any policy in the UK.
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The problem is thaT Brexit was always about the Tory party, they've had issues with the EU for decades now and this vote was meant to sort that problem out with the Tory party, at least thats what Camaron wanted, it backfired and made the Tory party even more extream and the irony is that this could do a lot of damage to the Tory party because if Brexit goes badly wrong, they are firmly in the fireing line and Labour with Corbyn will likely take part of the blame because of not making it's mind up on which way to go, the public expects results, we ware told that Brexit wont hard living standards in the UK and we would have our cake to eat, it's clear the leavers and Tories can't deliver that.
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@wwondertwin True, an EU wide solution would be the best option but that might be difficult because of Hungary.
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Tony IN SOUTHWARK What chaos is that? They look quite stable compared to the US at the moment and the UK isn't exactly looking promising, the chaos seems to be in popularize countries like the US, UK and Brazil, irony, isn't it? lol, vote for clowns and wonder why the results are poor lol.
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Tony IN SOUTHWARK I never said it was right or anything like that, that is just how the world is, the bigger players are the ones making the rules, the smaller ones have to abide by them if they want good term with the bigger players, that is just the way the world is, small countries always get sidelined or end up adopting the rules, laws and regulations of the bigger ones, that is a simple fact and the ones that don't abide end up becoming North Korea or Iran, I never said it was fair, it is what it is and the UK is going to find that out the hard way.
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In truth, democracy should be slow, everything should be done with careful consideration in how it impacts people of one group or another, The EU can be slow but I see that as a good thing for democracy, but they can also be fast if needed. We should also remember, the EU as an organization was never going to be fast, you have 27 members, each with votes and a veto as well as direct elections in the European Parliament, it's actually remarkable how well it works considering all the different groups of people but the EU does show us one thing, if they can do it, I suspect any groups of people around the world could come together if they tried hard enough and in the case of Europe, it took the second world war to wake us up to that.
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@JeroenDoes That's because it's not an easy problem to solve, on the one hand you can't let them all in without doing damage to ourselves but on the other, we can't really turn our backs on them as that isn't the right thing to do, the best solution is to help the regions that they are coming from, help them become more stable and help to build their economies but that takes a lot of time and resources. As for the 2008 crisis, a lot of countries including the US didn't fully recover from that, why do you think we got the Brexit movement? the Trump movement? and so on, these are a reflection that people are not happy with how things have gone over the last 10 years, for all the boosting by the UK and US governments about how well the economy and unemployment numbers are, a lot of those people in those countries are not feeling that and feel they are getting left behind. It's going to get a lot worse after this pandemic, especially for the US and UK that have made a right mess on this and in the case of the UK, they have Brexit to deal with on top of everything else and lets not forget that the UK have done cuts in almost every sector of the economy for almost 10 years now, that is hardly recover from the crisis of 2008, the US isn't much better, cuts have been made all over the place. The truth is, we've not recovered from that yet and now we have it a lot worse because of this pandemic, the next 5 to 10 years is going to be really tough for many, especially once government support dries up, in any case, I'm not worried about the Europeans, they seem to be doing a much better job on this pandemic and opening up much better than the US and UK are doing, I'm more worried with what is going on in the UK and especially the US and if a second wave hits which could seem likely in the US, the damage of that on lives and the economy would be crazy.
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Majority rules are very likely to come in at some point as I highly doubt the EU would let any new country join the EU until those rules have changed. The question is, how do they bring those rules in, I think personally, they'll try and do it over all EU members but if some countries continue to be stubborn, the other EU countries will likely get creative in finding solutions around it, maybe even going to the extent of doing in over a core group of EU countries maybe the Euro Zone as they are more likely to pass these rules than none Euro Zone countries, but the EU and it's members will try to do it for all it's members but if it keeps getting blocked by one or two countries, I think the rest will get creative in finding ways around it, something we've already seen a few signs of last year.
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How you can really tell how the US is getting it so wrong is that no other modern or developing country is following the US system, they are looking towards the European social model of how to do things, the US is the odd one out of them all and it really shows with how bad some things are over there, still other areas have there problems as well.
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I have to wonder if he'll be laughing once governments start coming down on a lot of big companies, after all, with the hole this coronavirus is putting the economy in, it's going to take a lot of money to repair the damage and taxes can't really go up much on the public so governments are likely going to go after the rich elites and cooperation a lot more. This virus is a big wake up call for the human race and I highly doubt it's going to be business as usually once the dust settles, so expect many changes over the next decade.
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I think the problem is with that kind of deal is distance, all those countries couldn't be any further away from each other if they tried and most natural trade tends to go with nearby countries. It's a nice aim but I don't see it amounting to much and I have to wonder, wouldn't it still be cheaper for the likes of the UK to just buy from the EU market even if they is tariffs then to get from half way around the world? Even a deal with the EU, Australia and New Zealand will be quite limited because of their distance, for all of them, it still makes more sense to find closer trading partners but in the case of Australia and New Zealand, I suspect they want to offset some of its dependency on trade with nearby countries and the US, especially with how things are going with the US and China and the EU is a natural partner for Australia and New Zealand.
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It all looks like a recruitment agency to scare the shit out of the Russian people to kiss Putin's arse right before an election. The message is clearly design for Putin to try and get more backing for the war in Ukraine from the Russian people, and fear can be a good motivator on that, if the Russian people fall for the propaganda. The reality is, there is little chance of NATO attacking Russia unless Russia pushed its luck and attacks an EU or NATO country, which would escalate things quite sharply. But even if NATO were to attack, you have to put things into context, the economy of all NATO countries are far bigger than Russia, the EU or US alone is far bigger than Russia on the economy front, and that matters, because the economy is the real power in this world, with the economy, you're going to have the resources and skills to push in any direction you want and for now, at least in EU countries, that economy isn't being used for war, but it wouldn't take much to redirect parts of the economy to ramp up a lot on manufacturing of arms and other military equipment, especially if they felt threaten. Bill Clinton said it best, it's the economy stupid, and he's right, the economy is power, the ones with a big economy can direct those resources in any given direction depending on need, and unfortunately for Russia, they are no match for the EU, US or NATO, unless Putin is willing to use nukes, but if he was that stupid to go that route, there will likely be a nice rope around Putin's neck to hang him, after all, Putin might be crazy enough to go that route, but I highly doubt the top brass in the Russian military or the Russian people are willing to go that route, knowing it would impact them directly, and to put it another way, the only way I see nukes being used is if Russia was directly threaten by an invading army, which isn't the case here, the objective is to kick Russia out of Ukraine, so nukes are highly unlikely to be used, even if Putin wanted to use them, it would be too high risk for him. What Russia should be worried about is the incompetent leader they've got in Putin, think about it, since Putin started this war, 2 countries have joined NATO, countless countries are lining up to join the EU, this is the last thing Putin wanted and yet he's the direct reason on why it's happening, Putin by scaring countries is giving more powers to the EU and NATO, which is reducing Russian power in the region, so Putin tried to be smart, but it ended up backfiring on him, with the real winner being the EU, followed by NATO.
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@davesbibliotheca6107 That's a long time ago and not relevant to today's world and let's be blunt about this, the US didn't help Europe out of the goodness of there heart, in fact they didn't even want to be involved for a time, they got involved because the risk of the Nazis taking over the UK and the Soviet Union would very likely escalate the war into something worse than what happened, in other words, the Nazis likely would have gone after the US directly once it consolidates in the UK and Russia. It was in the interest of the US to intervene before the war escalated that it would directly impact the US. The truth is, Europeans are being kept weak because of NATO and because of a lack of need in building a strong military, basically, if the US is willing to protect them, why bother themselves doing it and I do think it's high time EU countries band together on military and forign policy matters by pooling resources together, they've got more than enough resources to do it, especially once you get rid of waste and duplication. But don't get me wrong, I don't think we should scrap NATO, but I do think the EU countries need to build up a much bigger voice in a lot of these areas when the US is becoming more erratic and polarised, the irony is, it's probably in US interest that the EU does this because the US is showing many signs of what we saw in Europe 100 years ago and many Americans will say it will never happen there, but seriously, look at the infighting among the democrats and Republicans and among the voters when it comes to elections, the signs are showing that things are becoming radicalised and that's dangerous, especially for Americans and a lot of this is thanks to the right wing and much of the right wing press that's radicalising the people, with enough push, that can escalate into something dangerous if history is any indicator.
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@johnhamilton286 It looks more like the US is pushing for war than China is but I doubt it will happen because the damage it would do would be immense to both countries, after all, we are not talking about a country that the US can roll over, China is big, it's got a lot of economic power and also has nukes, a war would be a disaster for both sides so it's unlikely to happen and that would be the end of the US as a power in the world as most of the world will see the US as the aggressors, there will likely be no way to recover from that.
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@classicallpvault That's probably because of bad policies, also, many goods don't have the standard 20% VAT and is much lower I think on certain health things and foods. I also find it remarkable how many goods you can buy in Europe actually hold up well compared to the US when it comes to price, when these goods include 20% VAT.
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@Omnifarious0 I have to agree with you on that and you would think it's common sense to do so as it would likely sell more hardware.
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Exactly that so no wonder those people think Vinyl sounds better when they are going out of there way to make it sound better, digital can sound very good by giving it the right hardware to play it.
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Thats debateable at best, Brexit has really shaken things up in the UK in that many people that didn't care much about the EU or vote in European elections, likely will now, I never voted but given half a chance I will for a pro EU party. Also, euroseptics in the UK have had it too easy for too long and have been able to shout out crap about the EU without anyone really defending the EU, if the UK remains in the EU, you can bet that the euroseptics will have a much tougher time on it's hands now from pro EU Brits because the euroseptics have shown themselves to be a threat and that changese everything considering that euroseptics used to just shout things from the sidelines but didn't really matter. Euroseptics in the UK have shown how much damage they can really do with the fanatical views and that is mobalising a lot more moderates around the country and with that, I don't think euroseptics realise how hard they are going to have it now, in or out of the EU, in other words, they've crossed that line in being a minor pain in the arse on the side line to being a real threat to the UK and that will wake up a lot of moderates in the UK to clean up that threat with time. So the UK staying in the EU now could end up making the UK a more moderate and more pro EU country over the next decades as it's clearlly not going to be busisness as useual for the Brexiteers after what they've done over the last 3 years. Also, if the UK stays in the EU now, we are going to have to do some major arse kissing before we get back into the good books with most EU members and that could easierly take a good decade, the reality is, the damage is already done for the UK, now it's just a matter of trying to limit that damage and the best way to do that is to stay in the EU but by another public vote.
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I've notice that how they seem to be keeping a low profile but boy will they come out of there hole if the public demands another referendum on Brexit, thats the last thing hard leavers would want because there is a fair chance that people would vote to remain in the EU the longer Brexit goes on and it's worse for them because the lies that were told to get us into this mess are not likely to work a second time round, in fact, those lies are more likely to help the remain side.
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@connla I suspect an EU military would likely happen in the same way the Euro did, voluntary by countries that want it to happen because of what you said, some members would block it no matter what so to allow it to happen, some members do it themselves, the others get left behind with the option of them joining at a later date, that's how I suspect it will happen, Germany, France, Italy, Spain are already likely candidate that would go for that. Basically, if it needs to happen, they'll find a way to make it happen.
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@connla Who knows, but it's clear there is interest in this from France, Germany and Italy, how that would work with the legal text with the EU system as of now, I don't know but the system is always changing and I suspect there are ways around that for countries that want to go at it with others but not all EU members are signed up for it yet. In the end, if it needs to happen, they'll find a way of making it happen, for now there is no real risk to Europe, but that could change with everything that is going on with the US and China and with Russia getting more bold, it's also likely that Europeans are going to have to do this just to protect our political, economic and social interest, otherwise we could get pushed aside, especially with how the US is going of late.
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@monig5350 It's not that big of a surprise really, the second world war made a mess in Europe that impacted us all, that alone demanded some big changes hence why so many big changes happened in Europe that benefited the people, the US didn't get as impacted on home soil like Europe did so change would have been a lot harder to do. On the plus side thanks to this virus, we might be going through our world war two moment around the world as this virus is impacted almost all of us and that could change views in a lot of ways, in other words, a lot of positive could come out of something negative, we'll just have to wait and see but I'll be shocked if the events of this virus doesn't demand some big changes from the public in a lot of areas.
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@robcain8865 True and that's the case for many other jobs in the UK like farming and growing crops, many Brits don't seem to want to do those jobs, even at a time like this where more are needed, Brits still don't want to do it so they have to bring in workers from Eastern Europe which thanks to Brexit and this virus, hardly any of them want to come back and with that, it looks like a lot of food is just rotting and going to waste, that's another one of Boris success stories on Brexit lol.
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@1956paterson That's the conservatives all over, they've done cuts to the NHS for 10 years, likely with the intention of braking the system so another more private system takes over because it's more profitable for their criminal friends. Problem is, it had almost zero chance of success before this virus and now it's got no chance of success, health care systems are going to get a lot more attention and investment thanks to this virus and there is little governments can do to stop that as the pressure from the public will be off the chart on that. As for the Conservative Party, some tough questions need to be asked, they've left the UK in a very bad position to handle this virus and the economic fallout after it with 10 years of cuts, Brexit and the slow reaction to this virus, I love to see how the Tories are going to swing this one to pin the blame on others for the mess they've created because that will be very difficult to do when people are losing their lives, normally they would blame the EU as they normally do but that won't work this time. That's why we are seeing real panic in many of the faces of the Tory party, they know they've really messed up and know the public isn't going to be so forgiving once the dust settles, I suspect Boris will likely want to stay away as long as he can because the get well cards will only last a week or two before he really starts to feel the heat and gets it in the neck for the mess that's been created in the UK, the buck always goes to the top and Boris must know that, it's always part of the reason why Trump keeps deflecting blame on anything and everything in the hope it will stick, he knows he's messed up big time on this virus so he needs a scapegoat.
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I think that's the problem, in countries like the US and UK, you usually have a majority government that rules, on paper that sounds fine, but in reality, it's grouping all the people into two camps, which means ignoring a lot of their views and concerns, something that happens a lot in the US and UK and isn't that democratic really. Then we have what we see in many European countries where the system is more fair that far more parties have a chance of power, the problem with that is that public views are all over the political map, that creates a lot more fragmentation which leads to grand coalitions and in many cases, gridlock, but it is far more democratic as you can't group so many people into just two camps like they do in the US and UK and think that represents the interest of the majority, because in reality, they are ignoring a lot of the voters. I think we need a better system because democracy is failing the people, especially the lower to middle classes of people, hence the rise of the far right in Europe and North America and this will probably get worse unless some radical changes are made to society, especially on cost of living.
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As a Brit, I always found it amusing when Brexiteers say the EU isn't democratic when it clearly is, it's not a perfect democracy but then, which country is? I also found it amusing because if you look at the UK, it's got the House of Lords, it's got first past the post and a queen, which yes has some powers but in practice, can't really use them without getting abuse from the British public, but I find it funny that you get the British Eurosceptics saying the EU isn't democratic whiles they don't look at the issues of the UK governmental system. Heck, the UK just got a new leader, did any of the British people vote for her? I know some will say people vote for the party but in truth, a lot of people actually vote for whom the actual leader is. As for the EU, I do think there are areas that could be done better and I think the EU should be putting more focus in those areas that Eurosceptics keep making excuses on, I think the EU Commission and President should be merged and directly elected and I also think the European Parliament should be given more powers, also, the veto needs to go or at least reformed before any new country can join the EU. I think another problem that the EU and its members need to solve is connecting the EU project with the European people, for many, it feels too distant, which isn't helping the EU project and in fact is fuelling the Eurosceptics and right wing press to create negative news on it, the EU needs to connect more with the people whiles also doing reforms to reduce the excuses that Eurosceptics come up with or make them look radical.
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True, there's no such thing as being neutral, any event that happens will either impact a country that's being neutral in a positive or negative way and I always feel that countries that want to be neutral are picking the coward way out, not wanting to put any political or economic clout behind an idea or doing the right thing and want other countries to put there necks on the line whiles taking more of the burden. I can understand many countries not wanting to get involved in many situations, but sometimes, you just have to do the right thing when needed, after all, imagine if most countries were neutral and didn't get involved, the countries with dictators would have a field day out there lol.
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That only the case depending on the level of technology, as that advances, geography plays far less of a role.
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Personally, I don't think Scotland will do anything for the time being with independence as they know they can wait it out and see how Brexit goes, they also know that they can get billions out of the UK goverment as a bribe just to keep Scotland in the UK union and I expect Scotland and Northen Ireland to take full advantage of that. As for them leaving the UK union and being better or worse off, lets be honest with ourselves, Scotland and Northen Ireland do quite poor in the UK union, more so with Northen Ireland that have a gdp per capita almost 3 times less then the Republic of Ireland. Other countries in Europe of around the same size as Scotland seem to be doing better off inside the EU so there is no reason why Scotland can't as well but I do expect the first few years of independence to be a bit rough. At the end of the day, does the UK union do well for it's members and honestlly, it doesn't look like it does, all the members apart from England are much worse off, too much of the wealth is kept down the south of England. Personally, I think Northern Ireland would have the best chance of leaving the UK by rejoining the Republic of Ireland, they would likely get a lot of development funds from both the Republic and the EU and standards of living would likely get much closer to what the Republic have over the longer run. Scotland is quite diffrent and it really depends on what they do, I suspect if Scotland leaves the UK, the EU will offers Scotland quite a good deal if they want to rejoin the EU and the irony in all that is that it could very well push the UK into getting a much closer deal with the EU just to protect trade from the UK and Scotland, Scotland as a new member of the EU could end up being what the Republic of Ireland became and the EU did really good for the Republic and in this case, the EU will have a big incentive in making Scotland a big success as that sends a powerful message to the people and to the euroseptics around Europe, also, with Scotland only having around 5 million people, it wouldn't cost the EU that much to help support them. One thing I do know is that Scotland have been playing on independence for decades now and Brexit will likely give the ones that want independence from the UK a lot more ammo to get that, more so if Brexit hurts there intrest, in other words, the UK goverment best bend over backwords and keep Scotland happy over the next decade or so and you can bet your arse, any money for that wont come from down south, it will likely come from the north of England as they are always the scaprgoat and in this case, it's more the case as they mostly voted for Brexit.
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@anonnemo2504 Where have I heard that one before? lol, I'm British and I've been hearing the British Eurosceptics say that for decades and yet the EU is still here. There is a difference in wanting something to happen and it actually happening, Brexiteers in the UK for instance wanted Brexit to be a success, but the reality is that it's been a shambles for the UK that even mighty Australia are taking the piss out of the UK.
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@TheSuperappelflap Personally, I think we need a different approach when it comes to immigration, as it is right now, each country has its own policy in that area, which leaves many back doors for people coming into any EU country by picking the easier route, whichever country that may be. I think we need an approach at the EU level without each individual country doing its own thing, it's creating division and confusion, it's also creating a mess. I also think it might be a good idea that immigration being done at an EU level, where it's spread out over all the members, the problem is with the current system is that too many end up going in a few select countries, which causes a lot of issues for those countries, so maybe a system that immigrants that are allowed in are legal to the country chosen at the EU level, to spread the load and reduce the impact across all members, how that could be done legally is hard to say, but if it could be done in a way where someone that immigrates to the EU, have legal rights for the country chosen at the top for say 5 or 10 years, most would likely stay in the given country as they've likely settled. Immigration isn't the issue in the EU, the real problem is having 27 different policies that are pulling in all directions in a union where people can move to any EU country, it never made any sense to me to have an open boarder policy, only for a lot of the rules when it comes to the boarder and immigration to be done at a national level, that was bound to cause problems over the long run and I only see two solution, either we close all boarders in the EU, which probably wouldn't be popular among Europeans, or the EU needs to be given more powers in these areas so it can deal with the problem, the third option could be if EU countries come together and hammer out a deal, but we've seen that one done a few times already, and even thought it can work in the short term, it's just a quick fix, what's needed is a long term solution and I don't think we are going to get that unless we have much stronger policies at the EU level, which probably means treaty reforms.
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@A.Martin Being landlocked around the EU, there's little reason for Switzerland to join NATO but with that said, there is little reason why they can't join it. It would be very difficult for a country to attack Switzerland as they would have to get through EU countries. Still, I think it's more likely that Switzerland will join the EU at some point but not any time soon as I think as the EU expands, it's going to be more difficult for Switzerland to stay out being as they are surrounded by the EU, also Switzerland already have close relations with the EU with abiding many of it's rules and laws.
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Yeah, I'm actually surprised by the Russian military, it seems weaker than many of us expected it to be and I know Russia is holding back but the amount of problems they are having is quite shocking, the west and I suspect China are watching Russia's military capabilities here, probably more so China because they likely see an opening to take advantage of Russia in the long run because the sanction the west are putting on Russia are doing a lot of damage, that could push Russia under the thumb of China which I doubt the Russia government or people want that but Russia is being weakened a lot here.
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Ryan McRae It's not that simple, food is only one area we come short on, in truth, the real problem is man power, we just don't have enough to cover all bases as we're not big enough, the EU, US and China are big enough that they can make almost anything internally to be self-sufficient, we in the UK don't have that luxury, also another factor when it comes to food is the weather, the UK isn't suited for growing many foods, at least not without using a lot more energy but that would bump up the price of those foods which would defeat the purpose of doing it. We have to be careful about deregulation in the UK, it sounds like a good idea to reduce red tape but deregulation is just another word for watering down rights from workers rights to food standards, safety standards and so on with the aim of reducing cost, that's something I can see the UK doing as we are at a disadvantage now we've left the EU but in the end, it's the common people that pay the price. Investment in tech has been booming for a while, not just in the UK but across the EU for the last 5 years and very likely because of Trump and his policies, it's likely pushing others to be less dependent on others for tech, in other words, the EU and the UK are building a tech industry in big part thanks to Trump and his antics. At the end of the day, the UK is screwed, out of the EU doesn't stop other countries dictating terms to us, just now we have a weaker hand to fight back on, in the EU, we had a lot of protection because of the size of the EU market whereas now sharks are circleling to peck at the UK, after all, a lot of countries around the world see a big opening to get a better deal for themselves at the expense of the UK, something that was much harder to do whiles the UK was in the EU because of economy of scale, the size of the market means a lot more want to trade with them and that gives the EU clout to getting better terms for it's self, as for the UK, we're in a slow decline now and the sad thing is, we're not going to see it until it's too late.
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@takoto2610 It depends, Putin is doing everything he can to try and protect the economy, but the longer the war drags on in Ukraine, the bigger the drain is on the Russian economy. We don't know what the true numbers of the Russian economy is, but it's certain that Putin is lying about the numbers to make themselves better than they are, but that's a short term thing that could backfire once the economy starts to hit the Russian people. In any case, Putin is desperate to avoid hitting the richer regions of the economy, knowing that once those regions get hit, the people could turn on him, the problem for Putin, the longer the war drags on, it's just a matter of time before it hits those regions, and remember guys, history shows that long-drawn-out wars usually have a big negative impact on the economy, so the real question is, how bad will things get and how bad are the Russian people willing to let things get bad before they wake up, either way, that nest egg for fuelling the war early on is running on fumes now, in other words, Putin will likely have to start tapping into the economy that hurts the Russian people to push the war effort, it's just a matter of when not if that happens if the war drags on.
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Many around the world were surprised at how quickly Europe adapted to Russia blackmail, but honestly, I wasn't surprised at all, modern countries can adapt very quickly if there is enough incentive to change, we've seen that throughout history, the second world war was a prime example of that, more recently, European countries adapting to Russia gas and oil, which was always going to take a few short years, but that's quick. Putin on the other hand thought they couldn't adapt and would have to bend over to the will of what Putin wanted, that was Putin's first biggest mistake, which he keeps making many of them, among his other mistakes is the drain on the Russian economy that the war in Ukraine is having and now there's a much bigger push towards alternative energy sources like renewables, which long term is damaging to Russia as it puts downwards pressure on the price they can sell its fossil fuels, whiles also reducing the need for that. On Ukraine, I do feel that both the EU and US needs to do more in that they need to give Ukraine the arms needed to end the war sooner than later, the help both the EU and US have done so far is useful, but so much more could have been done to speed up the process and bring the war to an end sooner, and once the war is over, the EU can help to rebuild Ukraine.
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@gr33dy_ph4nt0m Yep, Samsung is already releasing a 6.5GB M2 drive in 2 months, that's faster than the PS5 SSD and there is already a few 5GB M2 drives on the market already. The reason the PC has been so successful for so long is because it adapts to anything thrown at it and going on the rumours of new PC hardware later this year, the next gen console might not look as impressive as some think. Either way, lets judge them once released and see what the difference is in prices but I've heard this time and time again from gen to gen only for the PC to win.
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This was always going to be a problem with the Brexit vote being so close, it doesn't help with all the lies being told from both side but it's also clear that the British people know a lot more about Brexit now then they did two years ago, I think it's only fair that the British people get a final vote once the exit terms are known, at least then we know exactly what we are voting for without any of the bull from either side.
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The same thing was said last year and yet they were fine, in fact, more than fine with how well gas storage lasted. This year, they are in a better position, so I doubt there's any major problems on energy. But seriously, if Europe were going to have any major problems when it comes to energy, it was going to be last year and also, I'm not hearing any reports of energy supple issues around Europe. He should do a bit more research on this because is forecast is well off the mark and it seems most in the comment sector agrees. As for the UK where I live, this winter is warmer then last winter so far, energy prices are lower, but not by much but that's more to do with our government not intervening to lower prices and letting the market correct it's self, whereas many EU countries, governments have intervened.
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The problem is for them is that by trying to cut oil production to push the price up, they are playing into the hands of the renewable energy sector that's getting better and cheaper all the time. It's very likely thanks to renewable energy that there's going to be constant downwards pressure on energy prices, and considering the EU, US and China are investing big in renewables, countries that are either too dependent on fossil fuels or get a lot of revenue from them need to adapt and adapt fast, because the good times are quickly coming to an end, especially since Putin invaded Ukraine and made a big push to have more energy security, which renewables can deliver. What countries like Saudi Arabia and others like them need is smart investment choices, which they seem to be wasting a lot of money on projects that don't deliver a good return. The irony is in all this is that countries that sell a lot of fossil fuels are going to have a major headache maintaining the economy without major reforms and changes, which are not going to be comfortable with the majority of the people in those countries, on the other side of the coin, the countries that benefit the most from this cheap clean energy are the ones that have very few fossil fuels and are already paying high energy prices, Europe and especially EU countries could be in a good position to benefit a lot from that, producing a lot of that energy internally, which means that money isn't being exported, and eventually, the cost of energy should be a lot lower, throw in booth together and EU countries could go through an economic boom, far more money to invest whiles energy bills are much lower, other countries like Japan could benefit a lot for the same reasons. I've always seen countries that have a lot of fossil fuels as being more of a curse than a blessing, most are not very good at taking advantage of it in a responsible way, Norway being the exception to the rule, whereas countries that don't have fossil fuels are forced to do the reforms to stay ahead and competitive, so imagine that these countries don't have to spend hundreds of billions in exports to buy energy and then energy prices come down a lot internally, it's got all the potential to do an economic boom. In any case, the likes of OPEC trying to cut production to push prices up is a fool's game, by doing so, they are making renewables far more competitive and giving countries a bigger incentive to move away from fossil fuels sooner rather than later, in that sense, Putin being a buffoon in Ukraine has done the world a favour by waking us up and pushing the renewable agenda up the ladder.
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Not very likely, in fact if I recall, isn't the EU the second-biggest manufacture behind China? The US is also a big player, it just all depends on need and urgency, as we saw in the second world war, basically the EU and US could ramp up manufacturing of arms a lot but they don't see the need when they see the war probably ending next year. They'll likely boost arms slightly to cover the short fall but nothing major. Also, the west has a far bigger advantage, they are a lot richer and there are more of them sharing the burden.
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In the case of these two countries, they got op-outs that they don't need to join but I suspect Sweden will join at some point and even the UK if they stay in the EU but that is up for debate. As for the other none Euro countries, they have to join at some point and the irony is, the more that do join, that will put more pressure on the ones that have not joined to join at some point.
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It's the Soviet Union, it really did a number on the American mind set in how they see Socialism, many of which can't seem to see the difference from how Russia was and how Europeans are. As for them attacking Denmark, it makes perfect sense, attack what you fear, Denmark system is very different from how right-wingers in the US want to see but in truth, it's a better system for the average citizen and the easy way to find that out is to live in both Europe and America for a few years and see the actual difference..
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Unlike the UK, most Poles support staying in the EU, which is a big problem for the government of Poland because if push comes to shove and there is a real threat of Poland being booted out of the EU, what do you think will happen to that government?
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@deeptoot1453 The flaw in your argument is thinking you can have an economic only union without a political union. What you are actually talking about is free trade deals, which are anything but free and are more like deals with lots of terms on them, the simple truth is, you can't have a true free trade zone unless a lot of the economic rules across the countries are harmonised with each other, otherwise, you'll end up with one country taking advantage of another by changing the rules in favour of themselves, in the EU, that's not possible, because the EU sets the rules for all its members, so they all play on the same playing field. To put it bluntly, the EU free trade zone is the only true one around the world which trade flows around the EU countries as if it was one country, free trade zones are anything but that, they are restricted zones that allow more trade on conditions, terms and amount. My point is, it would be impossible to have the economic zone that the EU has without the political zone to keep the rules of its members in check, and if those so-called free trade zones around the world were truly free, they would have unrestricted access to each other's markets on all goods, now imagine the UK and India having that kind of terms, it would be really bad news for the UK as they won't compete on wages, hence why the EU does it differently, countries have to meet certain standards before they qualify for that.
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True, higher inflation and a bit of discomfort is a small price to pay for doing the right thing which we in the west, especially North America and Europe like to keep making it seem like we are the good guys, well it's high time we start acting on that and do the right thing for a country that's invaded. Which to be fair, the EU and US have done some help, but we really should be doing sooner rather than later to end the war sooner, dragging the war on is making it more costly for everyone, especially for the people of Ukraine. So the sooner we get some leadership with real balls, the better.
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I can understand why the EU would want to clean up it's deal it's got with Switzerland as it's a mess and looks like better terms than others are getting, I can understand why Switzerland isn't happy about those changes. I think in the long run as the EU keeps expending and integrating, it's going to be harder for Switzerland to stay out because of its geographic position. On another side, the more I look at countries like Switzerland and Norway, the more it's looking like it would make more sense for them to join the EU because they are having to abide most of its rules without any say in creating them, at least inside the EU they would have a say and a veto.
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No doubt the west have really messed up and should have taken action much sooner and should have done a much harder lock down but that doesn't change all the disinformation going around and it's not just China that is guilty of that, the US and countless others are as well.
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It's actually quite surprising that the west did, at the end of the day, Russia only has an economy in the size between Spain and Italy, so it's quite small really and why Russia isn't a threat to the EU or NATO countries unless nukes are used which god help us all if the world went that route.
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Qwfwq66 I know that but have you noticed the image he likes to show with him having a pint at a pub and all that? that is designed to fool people into thinking is one of them, a average bloke, the reality is that he's an elite and saw an opening to gain power by taking advantage of the Brexiteers, that what this is all about, May did the same, Boris is doing the same now, they have to tell the Brexiteer what they want to hear not what he can deliver as if he told them the truth, it's unlikely he would be PM now. The art of politics is about telling the people what they want to hear and not what they can deliver, hence why we rarely see honest politicians because we don't elect them because a lot of people prefer lies over the hard truth, Brexit is a perfect case on that, same for Trump supporters in the US. In the end, the only thing that should really matter to us is the truth, no matter how much we might disagree with it, ignoring the truth is just a fools game because it doesn't change what those people want and that is more or less why Brexiteers can't seem to win on Brexit even do they thought many times they have won, I suspect they think they've won with Boris but reality is a funny game. What Boris might end up doing is forcing the country to revoke Article 50 if Brexiteers push too hard for hard Brexit, the irony is that we could have the Brexiteers to thank for staying in the EU, so the moral of this little story, don't push too hard for hard Brexit or it could back fire and in some sense it already has done.
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@Same--xb3rb I suppose we could all say the same thing about the cavil servant in the UK which are not elected and more or less do the same thing but in the case of the EU, they prepose laws and can't really make them as they have to past through the European Parliament to become law, not sure if that is the case in the UK, I suspect it is but if it isn't then in a sense the EU is more democratic then the UK on that one. Either way, many Brexiteers are complaining about a lot of things about the EU that are about the same if not worse in the UK, should that mean Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and heck why not, London brake away from the unelected UK system? Speaking of corruption, have you seen what been going on in the UK the last few years? I've never seen anything that bad in the EU that we are currently seeing in the UK, I mean really, a small margin win on Brexit that was promised to give us a great deal with no hard Brexit in sight and yet the Brexiteers are trying to force hard Brexit on the country without parliament or the public having any say on it when both need a say because a lot has changed on Brexit over the last few years. When you look at what going on in the UK system and who is really pushing that, you start to realise where the real problem is and it's not the EU, the irony is, Brexiteers are so blinded by hate on the EU that they are willing to undermine UK democracy, very risky considering that impact of that will linger on well past Brexit and could really damage UK democracy if we are not careful and that the Brexiteers seem fine with that tells us where the real problem is in the UK as this is going far beyond Brexit now.
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I tend to find that any country that has to hype its self up in how good they are, tend to be less secure in themselves, or there is a lot of brainwashing going on to condition the ignorance in thinking that. The kind of conditioning you see in the US is high up there to countries like Russia, China and other like that, which begs the question, why does the system feel the need to do that if they truly are the best? Probably because they are not but they want the people to think that so they don't question the system, we see that a lot in the US, China, Russia and many countries like that and it works, it's usually designed to protect the power base at the top or the super elites, which the US does have a lot of issues when it comes to inequality and how too much wealth is ending up in so few hands.
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@baileyyule2333 True, Labour in the late 90's with Tony Blair had a golden opportunity to reform the election laws in the UK which the way the system is designed now, it favours the Conservative party at the expense of everyone else, Labour missed that opening and have been paying the price for it, now the only chance they've got at changing that is by winning by a clear majority which is quite rare.
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Immigration and migrants is always used as a scapegoat by the right or far right, the truth is, the issue is a lot more complicated than that and is likely more to do with cost of living issues and how so many people feel they are being left behind even thought the GDP numbers say things are doing great, the people don't feel it, and this is becoming an issue in a lot of western countries where economic growth isn't measuring up with quality of life improvements, especially for the lower and middle classes. The ones that benefit from this is the far right as they benefit on division, chaos and infighting among the population, in other words, western leaders in Europe and North America better wake up and start listening to concerns of the people, which immigration and migration isn't the real issue, cost of living, feeling left behind is the issue, and unless the mainstream political parties do major changes to improve that, they are going to continue to feed the radicals on the far right until it gets to a point where it could become dangerous for us all, the pattern isn't that different throughout other European countries and isn't that different in the US, a lot of people, especially the lower and middle classes feel left behind and disenfranchised in society, that's feeding the far right and it's only going to get worse unless real change happens, and time is running out with some of the radicals we are seeing in Europe and North America already, how much worse does it need to get because the political mainstream wake up and do real change? In any case, immigration and migration isn't the root to the problem, it's the scapegoat being used by the right to push their own agenda, the actual problem is much deeper in society of capitalism and how so many people feel that it's not delivering anymore for so many people, that's creating more desperation, crime and many other issues, which it's easy for the far right to blame immigration and migration, but if I were to put money on it, I bet these people are treated worse in society then the natives in almost all modern countries that likely contributes to the crime rate rise and other issues that seem relation to migrants.
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Russia has little to no chance of displacing the Dollar, there are 3 things that are needed to do that, economic might, population size and trust, Russia has none of those. China has the economic muscle and population but a lot of the world doesn't trust them so that rules them out, India are just not developed enough, maybe someday but it's a long way off. The only realistic one is the Euro, but in truth, I don't think any of them will replace the Dollar but I don't think the US Dollar will remain the reserve currency, I think a new system will come about, either a new international currency or a basket of currencies or maybe a currency based on democracy, after all, it's unrealistic for the US to hold onto the reserve currency when the rest of the world is developing, that in time is likely going to put a lot of pressure on coming up with an alternative.
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Brexit still remains an unknown and I still think it might not happen the way some want it or happen at all, I suspect when all is said and done, the UK is likely going to stay in the single market and custom union because that will solve many of the problems we've got ourselves in but it also more or less means we are in the EU all but in name with little to no say on EU policy making but since signing Article 50, that might be the best we can get.
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@vitas75 If you say so but then people thought its economic growth would slow down decades ago and look how wrong they got that lol. At the end of the day, China isn't going anywhere and will likely get bigger, that is part of the reason why the hawks in Washington are so worried about them, they see them as a major threat to US power around the world, the more noise the US does on this, the more they see China as a threat. Beside, I am not worried about China, I'm European and even I can see they do a lot wrong but I'm not going to bull shit myself with how the real world is, I leave that for the Americans and Brits. Personally, the EU's best move is to play neutral in all this and stay out of it, let the US and China have their Cold War and drag down the likes of the UK and Australia with them if that's what they want, but most countries are not stupid enough to get on the wrong side of China with a market of that size. I'll give you an idea of what China could do, say they ban some US companies from trading in the US like Boeing ? You really think Airbus would say no to China with how many hundreds of billions they could make?, China can play all these games in so many areas with so many countries, this is why the EU, Germany, France and Italy want to prioritize trade with China, they see as the US gets pushed out, there is a massive opening to take a lot of that trade away from them, if the Europeans are thinking that, you can bet a lot of the world is thinking that as well. The simple truth is, China is moving away from a manufacturing base to a consumer base economy, no country or business is going to want to miss out on that and any that do would likely be at a disadvantage compared to rivals that are in that market, the simple fact is, the market is too big to ignore, this is why the US is finding it hard to get many to go against China. If the west really wants to contain China, the EU and US will have to work together because on their own and with how China is developer, neither the EU or the US will be able to do it on their own, too many of the others are either too scared of them or don't want to harm trade links with them, so it really doesn't matter what the US does, it's not changing China as a country, at least not in the way the US wants.
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Budget talks are always hard work in the EU, you have the ones that put money into the pot wanting to put less and then you have the ones that take out of the pot wanting more in and then you have all the wrangling over it, this happens with almost every budget they do, but they always seem to find a way forward in time, now Brexit complicates things a bit but it isn't really that big of a deal to the budget overall. Still, I will be interested in seeing how this budget turns out once they come up with an agreement and what will likely happen is that they lock all the leaders in the room and keep them locked in though all hours till they come up with some kind of an agreement, they've done these late sessions many times in the past to get past difficult things before and it seems to work pretty well and better when staved of food and drinks lol but it's when they start getting tired in the early hours when the fun really begins, many end up agreeing just so they can go to bed lol. Either way, this is no threat to the EU like some Brexiteers want to think, it's just business as usually in the EU, but I do think a better way is needed in doing this in the long run but for now, it works.
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Yeah, many of their policies were conflicting with each other, it makes it difficult to know where they stand when on the one hand, they want more EU but on the other, they want less. It's not exactly a clear message to send out to voters, and considering they've left so many areas vague, it looks like to me that they are intentionally leaving things vague to try and appeal to more voters on all sides but without really delivering on much when it comes to real policies, basically, I don't know what they stand for going on it's policies and that makes it difficult to vote for them.
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Lets look at this from a tactical point of view, if you are smart, would you want to be PM just before Brexit happens and you have little to no time in stopping in? It doesn't make sense for Corbyn to want an election on Boris's terms, Corbyn wants the PM job but after Brexit so he can firmly put all the blame on the Tories, not when he has a chance to stop it which deep down Corbyn wants out as well. In other words, Corbyn knows he's got Boris by the balls and all he has to do is run the clock down, Boris has backed himself into such a corner now with very limited options left that he might be dead in a ditch at this rate lol, I think he might have to resign as I don't see how he can get out of this as he's only in that job because the ERG put him there but clearly he can't do his job because he's not smart and played the game all wrong.
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@melvinbeck5047 I don't see why not, those deals can be scraped just as easy as other countries that join the EU or as the UK joined the EEC in the first place, in any case, if the UK rejoins the EU, that deal with the US would be scrapped. As for the UK and US, I think the UK needs to see how unspecial that so called special relationship is with the US, the trade deal will be perfect to show how little the US actually cares about the UK and in fact wants to screw the UK over, maybe then the UK might start to realize that it had friends that protected it's interest a lot closer to home in Europe but first I think the UK needs to learn this lesson the hard way and the good news is on that, all the big powers, the US, Japan, India, China are all lining up to take advantage of the UK.
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@melvinbeck5047 That's the EU way, in fact, the EU has been so successful because of it's diplomacy, they seem to be able to get things done that most governments would find hard to do, also, the EU is being smart about this, they are targeting the UK government but not the British people and it seems to be working because the UK government looks like a joke on Brexit and this pandemic and according to polls, support for rejoining the EU among the British is rising, the EU knows that if they acted like the US and all hostile, they would be falling for the trap that Brexiteers want by turning the British against them but the EU is smarter than that and will continue to talk until either a deal is made or the UK walks away which then it will look bad on the UK from around the world.
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@discipleofhermes563 But they are not saying that, all they are saying is that the terms you get will be worse than the terms you have in the EU, they've been very clear on that from day one and rightly so, it's arrogant that the UK even thought it could have it's cake to eat when that was never going to happen lol. Beside the EU is smart, they are targeting this government in the UK whiles leaving the British people alone, that is why support in the UK is growing for rejoining the EU, you would think the UK government would be wise to this by now being as they've been in the EU for decades but the EU is outsmarting them and it seems to be working, polls are showing a rise in support for rejoining the EU, Scotland's independence movement is surging, this UK government isn't smart enough to see what is going on right under it's nose because they don't do sound policies but slogans and sound bites, that's why Boris is looking mighty stupid now on this pandemic because his usual ranting and raving isn't working on the people any more and because of that, his popularity is dropping fast. This pandemic came at the worse possible time for Brexit and over the longer run could unravel it, throw in the Russian connection and that the UK government refuses to investigate it gives the impression that some in the government are in on it with the Russian government, that could be explosive if found out.
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@discipleofhermes563 They might be outdated but they are still a power, if they really how outdated, I love how they still give the likes of the US and UK the run around, not bad for an outdated OS lol.
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@captcrunch7961 The EU won't say no to UK cash but they centrally don't need it, the money the UK puts into the EU pot only accounts to around 0.2 of the EU gdp, yes I'm sure they are losing sleep over that lol. In any case, even with the UK being out of the EU, there is a fair chance that the EU will get cash out of the UK if we want a solid trade deal with them or lets put it another way, is there a modern country in Europe that doesn't pay into the EU point? because even the modern ones outside the EU pay into it, so is the UK an exception? lol.
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@captcrunch7961 And how do they do that when the real powers are the members states? lol.
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It's still quite low but chances are, they are likely going to be higher this time round and maybe a lot higher because the stakes are high and this is the first time since the Brexit vote that the British people have had to see what they think on Brexit, in other words, is Brexit really the will of the people or not, the European election is very likely going to be used as a springboard for another public vote on Brexit and surely remainers must see that.
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@iakona23 True I suspect that but as for remainers, they really need to get thier act together and have a single voice on this because at the moment, they are too split on who to vote for and that could play into the hands of the Brexit party if we are not careful.
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@Lando-kx6so I doubt that, for one, I doubt Canada and New Zealand would want to be part of it especially with how the UK is going, Australia would but they are scared of China so they have their reasons, as for the Commonwealth, it's just a talking shop, all the countries in it are too different with very different views and to spread across the world for that to work. If you look at every country on this planet, almost all have closer ties and does most of it's trade with nearby countries, that isn't going to change any time soon because of economic interest, it makes a lot more sense to trade with nearby countries because of cost saving reasons with the exception of poor countries that have cheap labour. So really, this Canzuk and the Commonwealth is just a pipe dream that won't amount to anything.
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A lot of Europe was very hostile towards the US on the Iraqi war, even the UK which are known as America's boot licker, the population had around 70% that were against the Iraqi war but the UK government at the time had this idea of wanting to be a bridge between the EU and US, all it ended up doing is pushing the UK further to the fringes of the EU, which probably led to Brexit over the long run, but in any case, the Europeans were proven right, the Iraqi war was based on lies with all that weapons of mass destruction.
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@deasttttt I've been using this argument in the UK but it's like talking to a brick wall, The EU commission is a bit like the civil service in the UK, not elected but can suggest laws, just like the EU, the laws have to go through parliament, so basically, the commission can't just come up with any crazy laws as it would get shot down in the parliament, so they come up with reasonable laws that they feel can get enough agreements, basically, democracy in work, in this case, over many countries. On Germany being big, if I recall, the smaller countries actually have more voting rights than their population warrants, if everything was done equal, all the bigger members would have more votes in the European Parliament but bigger members are always going to have more say and so they should as they have a bigger population, but it's not really an issue, it only takes two big of medium size countries to block what Germany wants. Smaller countries tend to work closer together to protect their interest, so they have more clout than they would on their own and we saw that just recently with the frugal four
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@dvklaveren I think the real mistake the EU did was in 2004 with letting in 10 countries in one go, they should have let them in one at a time when they are more ready to join but I can understand why the EU did it, it was a grand idea to heal wounds from the past from west to east and the division. In any case, it doesn't look like the EU is going to bring in any big countries for a while, all the ones that are close to joining are small and that's less of an issue if they stick to that until we sort out the internal problems in the EU and develop many of the eastern EU members. The thing is, the EU will have to keep expending to stay relevant on the world stage, especially now the UK is out of the EU and with the US and China going at each other, the EU is going to have to keep getting bigger to keep up and unfortunately, time is quite short on that one so I don't think Europeans can afford to put things on hold, in fact we really need to start pushing more integration. There is a silver lining in all this, the UK was the problem state in the EU, they blocked too much and didn't want any integration at all, that is less of an issue with other EU members so more progress could happen now the UK is out.
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@dvklaveren The truth is, European social norms could be at risk without the EU because others will likely want to water them down as the US is trying with the UK, EU countries have very high standards in a lot of areas, to protect that, we need a strong EU because none of the countries on their own can do that as they are too small, the UK likes to think they can do it but they are likely going to find out the hard way that they can't either buy the likes of the US watering down many of the laws in the UK or the UK becoming tied to a lot of EU rules without any say in them. As for Iceland, Norway and even Switzerland, I think it's only a matter of time before they join but the EU doesn't really have to do anything on that, let them join when they are good and ready because the EU has a list as long as our arms of countries that want to join already. In the case of Norway, oil is likely the main thing keeping them out because it helps to push their GDP per capita over EU norms but that won't last forever and sooner or later they will become like any other EU country or even lower, that's when pressure on them will grow for them to join the EU, as for Iceland, fishing is their main issue but again, as tech advances and we find ways of making fish without fishing, all of a sudden, Iceland will likely want to join, basically, these two countries have a small population and big advantages for now but that is likely going to be taken away from them over the coming decades and with that, public mood on the EU will likely shift in those countries, as for Switzerland, I can't see them staying out of the EU long term as they are surrounded by EU countries, I think they will want to join as EU countries find better trade routes that by pass Switzerland.
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The more reckless the US becomes, the more aggressive China and Russia becomes, the more likely that Europeans will support such an idea. Europeans have been quite passive on the military front because of the US and NATO but the US is becoming more aggressive and reckless that sees the Europe as more of a rival than friend, with that, I think it's just a matter of time that it happens, maybe small baby steps with some of the core countries going that route and others joining over time.
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The irony is, a no deal for the EU could work out really well for them, any economic hardship can be clouded in with this virus pandemic and it would do far more damage to the UK then it would to the EU, as for the UK, they will find it very hard to cloud the damage of Brexit in with this virus because one, the UK choose to do that damage, two, the damage will be far greater for the UK then the EU, three, Scotland and many remainers will keep reminding the public on every little account of damage this UK government did, it will also speed up the process of them leaving the UK union. We all know once the economic hardship kicks in from Brexit and the virus, the Brexiteers as well as remainers will turn on this government, Brexiteers especially because they always deflect blame away from themselves, they'll try to blame the EU but the EU won't care as the UK is out, then they'll go after the UK government because that's what they do, the Tories can't afford for the economic damage from Brexit and the virus to really hurt the public before the next election or midterm elections, it would likely do massive damage to the government. Because of all that, Boris will likely fold near the end of June because this government has always been about trying to bluff the EU into giving what the UK wants but when they don't, the UK folds, we've done it about 3 or 4 times over the last few years so why would this be any different? all the EU has to do is sit back and wait for the UK to move.
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Yep, I doubt the EU would go for that, in fact the EU are trying to scrap that with Switzerland, it's highly unlikely they want to open up that can of worms with the UK. I think realistically, the UK has a few options, try and create closer relations with the EU as a third country, try and get a better free trade deal, try to get a Norway like deal or join the single market and/or custom union. As for rejoining the EU, that just isn't going to happen for at least 2 decades as there is little chance of the rest of the EU allowing us back in so soon after leaving, single market and custom union access is a far better bet if the UK wants to join the EU longer term, the reality is, you've got the Conservative Party that are still bitter about Brexit, then you've got the Labour Party that the leader is scared to death of saying anything positive about the EU, you put it all together from the EU side, would you let the UK back in? I'm English and even I would say no to the UK because we're a long way from being ready. But the truth is, the EU and many of its members will want to see a big shift from the public, the media and political parties in the UK in favour of the EU and what it's trying to achieve before there is any realistic chance of the UK rejoining and the only way I can see of fast tracking that is for Scotland or Northern Ireland to leave the UK and rejoin the EU, because of the situation of how they got pulled out, they likely could join much easier than what the UK could.
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Oh you'll be surprised, I live in the UK, not exactly known for sunny weather lol, but even here, if battery tech was better and we could store a lot more, I can produce enough electricity on my house that's around two and a half times more than I need, the problem is, a big chunk of that energy is in summer, but even in winter, if we could store a month or two worth of energy, it would be enough because we still produce about 3 quarters of the home electricity. Because of how much energy is being generated on a 9kilowatt solar setup, I think it's enough to power all the electrics, a EV car and maybe a bit of heating, depending on how much you use the car. Anyway, what we need is a revolution in battery tech, that would be the game changer because solar is already good enough now if we can store a lot more of that energy, especially for home use, the good news is, solar tech is only going to get better and cheaper, it looks like we could be on the verge of big changes with battery tech over the next decade or so thanks to electric cars taking off, even in colder countries, there is more than enough solar energy and even if that wasn't enough, there's wind energy. I think people are starting to see the light now, especially since the war in Ukraine that's having on high energy prices, solar adoption is rapidly being adopted around the world, especially from consumers, but it's still clear many governments are playing games, very likely because of lobby groups, after all, there's a lot of money in the fossil industry and they will throw a lot of money to delay this transition, the good news is that high energy prices and energy security is killing the fossil industry sooner rather than later, so regardless of what governments do, I think we are going to get massive changes from consumers as solar is already cheaper than fossil fuels, it's only going to get cheaper and better overtime, so the irony is, it's in the interest of the fossil industry to reduce energy prices and stabilize the market, because the longer this drags on, the sooner governments and consumers will look for alternatives.
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The EU isn't unelected, we vote in the European parliment, the EU Commission and President are apointed by EU members which are elected, it sounds quite democratic to me.
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Not quite, what Camaron was asking for was another opt-out for the UK, what Macron is trying to do is a EU wide reform, it's clear which is the better of the two and thats Macrons idea.
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What we are seeing are more global than just in Europe and the world has been in a bit of a weird place the last few years that started with Covid and more recently, high inflation, energy prices, food prices and the war in Ukraine, we are not seeing a breather in the economy to really recover and it's having some unusually impacts across the world in many sectors. Normally we usually get one impact at a time that has a negative impact on the economy, but the last few years, we've had a few back to back and the cost of that might be massive for future generations that are burnden with it.
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The thing is, if another war was to happen, it's very unlikely to happen in Europe, as it stands, it's more like the US or China that would start it, in any case, the damage it would do as well as the lose of life but be widespread and would likely effect us all on the planet with the tech we have today. The EU even thought it's not perfect, it's done a lot of good in Europe and created peace among us.
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Thing is that even if the UK did get tough with the EU, the EU and it's members just get tougher on the UK, we're not gaining anything by that and because the EU market is much bigger, they can handle it a lot better then a small market to the UK so it's only hurting the UK a lot more. The truth is, I get the impression that Brexit was a big bluff to try and get better terms out of the EU, the EU didn't bite on that and the UK keeps thinking it can have it's cake even now, it's crazy but all the UK have done is give the EU all the power in these talks and it's clear to see because the EU have not really moved on any of it but the UK keeps bending to the demands the EU lay out, the UK are in a weak postion with these talks and it was one of it's own making by signing Article 50 in such a rush. In any case, whatever deal the UK gets now, it will be worse then what we already had, we have already lost this battle, now it's just a matter of limiting the damage and the only realistic way of doing that is single market and custom union, unless someone can come up with a better alternative that doesn't harm the UK then thats our best shot of getting out of this mess.
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There is a massive difference from Ukraine to Finland and Sweden and that is Ukraine isn't a member of either NATO or the EU whereas Sweden and Finland are. Attacking any EU member would be an attack on all because of how integrated the EU members are, far more so than even NATO members, this is a big part of how the EU came into being, to prevent another war among European nations with the Coal and Steel Community and it worked, but it also has the same impact for any country that attacks an EU member, meaning it's highly unlikely. Still, with that said, nothing wrong with them being in NATO as well and what Putin is doing has backfired on Russia because now we are seeing many countries that want to join both the EU and NATO.
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Josie, thats the real problem in the UK and the US for that matter, the media is in too few hands and it's having a negative effect on democracry, they really need to shake that up because the media is in too few hands and that is never a good thing. As for Brexit, all it's going to do is put the UK more into the pocket of the US and make us even weaker, the UK is known as being America's poodle when we didn't have to be when in the EU as France have shown us, but out of the EU, the UK is going to need all the friends it can get and that means bending over backwards for them, so we think the EU is being tough on us, wait till the US and China gets a hold of us when we want deals with them.
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@roman648 Pretty much, we see that with big new projects, a lot of the time they are down south in London or close by but it's still true that England benefits more from this union than any other members, just that in the England, there is a massive north-south divide, it's almost a mirror image of Italy but the north is rich compared to the south. If Scotland and Northern Ireland does break away from the UK, money is going to be tighter in the UK and that likely means less money for the north of England, basically, there's a good chance that Brexit could screw over the people that voted for it the most, after all, a lot of the south voted to remain just as Scotland did so why should they pay for the mess the north of England created? They likely won't and we'll likely see that over the next decade.
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@roman648 But let's be honest, it's been happening for quite some time already with devolution, basically, each of the UK members are going in different directions, the long term conclusion of that is likely them leaving the UK union, Brexit is just another spanner in the works on that but it was building even before all that. All I do know is that if you look at Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and compare them to other western European countries, the UK members are actually doing worse and you have to wonder where the benefits of the UK union are when others that are not in the UK are doing better off, Scotland size and population is close to the Republic of Ireland, with a lot of work, there isn't much reason why Scotland can't emulate their success, especially with EU help. Anyway, the problem is that the south of England are not going to listen that a lot more investment is needed up north, even more so because of Brexit and this pandemic, money is going to be a lot tighter now so expect more wealth to be kept down south, that's a sure fire way for Scotland to want to leave but then the UK government will try to bribe them with a lot of money and resources and then the rest of the other countries as well as the North of England will kick up a fuss and want much of the same. The UK has some major problems ahead and this could go two ways, either the south has to give up a lot of wealth which is unlikely or the other members slowly leave one by one.
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@roman648 The thing is, those 3 countries in the UK should be doing better being inside the UK then countries going it alone but clearly it's not working and for me that doesn't bold well for the UK with Brexit because there are many signs that Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales can go it alone without the UK and do better, especially inside the EU. As for the UK union, I think it depends on Brexit but we should remember that the cracks have been showing on the union well before Brexit, the UK leaving the EU just puts fuel on the fire and throw in the arrogance and poor handling of this pandemic from our government, many are starting to wonder if they can deal with it better themselves then having the UK government make a mess of things but even if it does happen, I doubt it will happen quickly and part of it could also be the message the EU gives out to them. I already think the UK is weaker on the world stage thanks to Brexit, a disunited union will be even weaker but I do have to wonder with the US, I've always sensed that their interest in the UK is in part with what the UK can get done in the EU, the UK being outside the EU makes the UK less useful for them now and the US will likely want some kind of special relationship with France or Germany, someone that can help shape policies in the EU, that I feel is a lot more important to the US than the UK is. Anyway, it will be interesting to watch the next 5 years on Brexit and the pandemic, it will be very interesting to also watch how closely the UK mirrors EU laws, rules and regulations to reduce red tape because ironically, it's in our interest to be as close to them in a lot of key areas to reduce cost and friction for businesses and the economy but that does fly in the way of what Brexit was supposed to be but the problem with diverging, it adds a lot more red tape.
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Remember, profit over well-being, that's where the real problem is, the US is too capitalistic which only cares about profits and not the people, after all, look how the system tries so hard to discredit other systems around the world on health care, they are not doing it for the well-being of Americans, they are doing it for a few wealthy in the US, it's pure greed in the end and it's the American people that are paying the price, ironically, most don't know it because the system tells them they are the best and most assume it to be true, it's sad in a way. The real sad thing is, this isn't going to change until Americans open their eyes and see how much of the world is doing a better job in many sectors.
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The EU and many others around the world made the deal that Iran is abiding too, the US is the one in the wrong here by trying to change the rules when by all accounts, Iran is sticking to the rules made in that deal.
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You know, the more I keep seeing on Brexit, the more I'm starting to realise how broken UK democracy really is and it's funny because Brexiteers like to go on about the EU being undemocratic lol, Brexit is a major wake up call for us Brits thats showing us that we need major reforms in the UK political system and with that, another public vote on Brexit and the way things are going, I think I perfer to be ruled by the EU then this lot in the UK, what a joke the UK is becoming.
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It wouldn't surprise me if other European countries do more cooperation on defence and the military, I also suspect many EU members will do a lot more cooperation through the EU. At the end of the day, the ultimate aim is defending one's homeland, cooperations makes us stronger in being able to do so, so I suspect we'll get a few of these smaller groupings working together that over the long run could lead to much bigger groupings of countries working thought the EU, which I don't think the EU will have much of a problem with none EU countries like the UK, Norway and Switzerland working with it, the aim is all the same, to prevent an aggressive force from messing with us, they are far less likely to do so if we work together.
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There's hot and there's 46 degrees hot lol.
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I think Putin himself made it clear that a price cap would work when he made a song and dance about it at the start of it, after all, if it wasn't going to work, why would he complain so much about it? Truth is, the G7 is by far the biggest buyers, getting on the wrong side of those countries isn't in the interest of the fossil industry, even if they control the tap and it's becoming less in their interest as countries are pushing ahead to alternative energy sources at a faster rate, the last thing those countries that control fossil fuels can afford to do is play games with the price and energy security as that will kill those industries a lot sooner than it normally would happen. Simply put, it's in the interest of the fossil industry to stabilize the energy market and bring down energy cost, the higher the price is and the less stable the energy market is, the quicker countries are going to move to alternatives and it might already be too late because even with low prices, it looks like a lot of countries are going full steam ahead with renewables, Putin has opened up a can of worms by invading Ukraine and given the world a major wake-up call to get our act together. Also another reason why it works, Russia being forced to sell at a lower price and to less customers means countries that do buy from Russia have more leverage to squeeze Russia more to bring the price even lower, the likes of China and India knows Russia is desperate to sell to anyone that will buy and these countries are more than happy to take advantage of that and the lesson Putin should be learning, China isn't Russia's friend, they see this as an opening to take advantage of Russia and if Russia becomes more isolated, China might end up getting Russia under the thumb.
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Brexit Britain having the last laugh?, that's a laugh in itself, especially the ones that buy into that cobblers lol. Let's face it guys, Brexit is a disaster, support for the EU is highest in the UK then it's been for a decade, maybe even more than it was when we joined decades ago, so who are you going to trust, GB News or the overall public? After all, there's far more pro EU sentiments from Brits online now then I've ever seen when the UK was in the EU, in other words, Brits are starting to see through the lies on Brexit and are changing their views on the EU, something that likely scares the hell out of hard core Eurosceptics in the UK, because if that trend continues, it could very well end up with us rejoining the EU at some point, Euro included, so the Eurosceptics have something nice to look at lol.
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True that, with the right clothing, you don't really feel the weather unless it's throwing it down with rain, I always feel that.
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The EU doesn't need the UK, thats clear enough, as for the UK, they don't need the EU as well but the UK seems to want every benefit of the EU without any of the negatives, the latest papers the UK government released almost seems like the UK wants to join the EU then leave, we should also remember, politically and probably economic the UK will be weaker outside the EU then in, so it's not if we need the EU or not but what's in the best interest of the UK and the way the world is going, being in the EU seems like a good idea. Anyway, when all is said and done, I suspect the UK is likely going to be in single market and custom union because that will solve a lot of the issues that the UK will face whiles also being outside the EU but in a sense, it's not really out of the EU, it's EU membership all but in name, but that might be the best option the UK has got now because the EU might not let the UK stay in the EU at least not on current terms.
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Funny, I never knew there was a law saying once you have a referendum, you can't have another lol. Truth is, they can have as many as they want and more so when big things change like Brexit. Beside, could you imagine if the UK tried to stop Scotland having a vote, imagine this, how would the Brexiteers feel if the EU said you can't have a vote? lol.
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They likely have that already, probably much higher considering the low testing and so many people being so reckless and wait till the business interest puts real pressure on them to open things up, that's when it could really get crazy and at this rate, I suspect most countries are not going to open up boarders with the US for quite some time.
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Most probably do if they are planning on staying long term and it would benefit them when it comes to integration if they learn the local language, but there's no doubt that English is quickly becoming the language of choice in the EU, probably because if you can speak English, you can more or less communicate throughout any of the EU countries, the free movement of people in the EU is quickly creating a common language, and English is looking like the early favourite.
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To be fair, he didn't want to sack him but he was becoming too much of a liability to Boris and the government that they had no choice but to give him the push, a risky move considering how involved he seemed to be in government and probably has a lot of dirt to spill on many key government figures.
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E T There's quitting and being pushed out, pressure was mounting on the government for months to sack him, in the end, he quitted before being pushed. The real question is, why didn't they push him much sooner? I suspect he has a lot of dirt on Boris or the Tory party, something it looks like he wants to start spilling the beans on now.
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That's one way to balance the books lol.
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Yep, a lot of people seem to forget that countries trade the most with nearby countries, Russia had a lot of what Europe wanted and could deliver it cheap, the only real mistake is that Europe should have had backup options in case Russia plays games, especially considering how Putin has been over the last decade. But let's not kid ourselves, if this was the US, China or India, they likely would have been dependent on Russian oil and gas if they were in the same location that Europe is. The good news is that Europe is an advanced economy and can adapt to this fairly quickly and once this winter is out of the way, things should start to ease after that. Also, it's high time we stop messing about with renewable energy, it's proven to work, it's not perfect but it can generate a lot of our energy needs, especially if you have the right mix of solar, wind and wave power. Also, I think it's crazy how oil, gas and renewable pricing is linked together, it's no wonder we don't get any savings from renewables when it's tied to gas prices, separate them and that will make it a lot clearer on how which is cheaper and would likely favour renewables as that is cheaper already and getting cheaper overtime.
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@LD-rs1oj True and the real problem is the people, they are corrupt and don't show enough interest in politics and facts and they use that against the people for self-interest, hence why it's quite common that someone that goes into government ends up leaving a lot richer than the payslip should allow.
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For the most part, they are just thugs that use patriotism as a cover for their actions, I saw a lot of the same in the UK with hard core Brexiteers that cloud themselves in wanting to do what's best for the country but their actions actually do the country more harm and basically what we've seen in both the UK and US because of all this is a lot more division among the people, something that they want as it plays into the hands of what these movements want, confusion, paranoia to build up their ranks. It's scary how quickly history could repeat it's self if we are not careful.
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It's a double edge sword, on the one hand, it takes resources to help develop countries that want to join, but on the other, there are a lot of benefits in helping them, it creates stability in the region, it creates economic growth, which in turn will create jobs in those regions and in the EU by having more trade with richer countries, long term, it's a win win for both sides, but we are talking decades of long term. Also, you have to wonder if the EU and NATO were more open to Ukraine, would the war have started? Putin after all attacked Ukraine because they are one of the poorest countries in Europe, with a lot of natural resources and are an easy target by not being an EU or NATO member, if there were more progress in those areas, maybe the war never would have started, and regardless of whether you think the EU should help or not with Ukraine, the reality is, we are involved, whether we like it or not, countries that are so close to us have a direct impact on us, politically and economically, and even if we didn't do the right thing in supporting Ukraine, what do you think will happen? Russia will take over Ukraine, consolidate it's power there and look for other targets in the region, most of which are smaller countries so are likely easier targets. In the end, by not helping, it could escalate the war into something much worse, and I feel it's kinda the same thing with the countries that want to join the EU, help to create political and economic stability, that over the long run will make life easier for EU countries and will in the long run create economic trade as those countries become richer, a lot of that trade will be with EU members, so it's a win win for both sides if done right.
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Let's remember that Russia economy is tanking pretty hard and this is with Putin using a lot of Russia's reserve to keep the economy afloat, on top of that, Russia performance in Ukraine is poor to say the least, after all, the west are sending Ukraine crumbs and that is doing a lot of damage to the Russian military in the region. The reality is, the cost of the war in Ukraine, the sanctions and Europe moving away from Russian oil and gas is having a big impact on Russia and that is likely only going to get much worse as Europe shifts away from Russian oil and gas and Russia reserves start to run out, which it's estimated to be around 18 months from now. The EU and the US are playing the long game here, sanctions usually take 2 to 3 years to really bite and the reality is, Russia is already being hit much harder than the west is and unlike Russia, the western countries can adapt to this over the next few years, Russia on the other hand doesn't really have any other rich countries to sell its oil and gas too and the likes of China and India knows Russia is in a weak position and are taking advantage of that by pressuring them to sell oil and gas dirt cheap. If that isn't bad enough, it looks like military aid to Ukraine will ramp up a lot in November. However we look at it, Russia is in deep trouble, the war in Ukraine is costing them a fortune, they are making little to no traction in the region, their reserve are running out, the EU countries are shifting away from Russian oil and gas, ironically, faster than they wanted to thanks to Putin. This is only going to get much worse for Russia whiles the EU only has to grin and bear it for about 2 years until they adapt, something that will likely happen sooner rather than later thanks to Putin.
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But didn't the Brexiteers want independent from the EU? I wonder if they are starting to realize how the real world works in how interconnected we are, especially with the big players like the EU, US and China, hence why energy prices and inflation are sky-high around the world, even thought a lot of those countries are not as exposed to Russia like the EU countries are. As for the UK, we're not very united any more thanks to Brexit, in fact, I've never seen the UK so divided which is ironic as the Tories called the referendum to heal the division in the party, it only made it 10 times worse and not just for the party but the entire country lol.
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The problem is with many of their policies is that reality gets in the way, the world is changing, Europeans have to change with it and the sad truth is, we can achieve a lot more by pooling resources together then the members can do on their own, so reality will push us into working closer together in some form or another. Then there's the veto rule, well, again, reality will kick in, the EU is becoming difficult to get things done because each member has a veto, if the EU were to expand, it would become almost impossible to get anything done because nations will use the veto to get concession in areas that are not related to the current policy, it's not realistic for the veto to stay, especially if we want the EU to continue to expand, and again, reality will force our hand as the decades go by and Europe becomes marginalised because we keep putting blocks on pooling resources together at an EU level to protect our interest. Many of their policies are on both sides, pro and against the EU, but many of the policies are intentionally left vague, basically, what they are saying is that they don't want to tell voters what there real policies are so are keeping things very vague until after the election, it's hard to have faith in voting for them when you don't know what you are getting in so many areas.
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@tomorrowneverdies567 That's another issue, but in any case, all countries are led to some degree or another, more so smaller countries, bigger powers like the EU, US and China lead the show by creating the global laws, rules and regulations that most of the world follows, and the irony is, if there were no EU, European countries would be much weaker and it would likely be the US setting the standards for European countries, likely in watering down food standards, workers rights and putting pressure on the health care industry to give more access to corporations in the US. Thankfully, that doesn't happen because we are protected by the EU and the EU is big enough that it can stand up to the US, but the countries in the EU are too small that it wouldn't take much pressure from the big powers to get them to change their ways, if we were individual countries with no EU. The EU also has the impact by leading by example, basically, the EU and its members are social democracies, because we have a big player in the EU that's doing it this way, it's allowing other countries around the world to follow, the US is after all the odd country out of all the modern countries with how it's structured, and if they could, the US would pressure these other countries to change in such a way to favour the US, especially it's corporations, and to a degree, they still can to none EU countries, but it's a lot harder for them to do when the EU countries are protected by the EU and are showing an alternative compared to US capitalism with a very weak social system.
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That's highly unlikely but keep dreaming lol.
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@ryltair I wouldn't say we are easy pickings but we're not as strong as we could be, the EU offers it's members a lot of protection in many areas like trade where others like Australia, the UK now are easy pickings when dealing with the likes of the US. Economically, the EU countries are strong but politically, we're too divided with too many different voices and that makes us weaker than we could be. In the end, just like the Steal and Coal Community, the EEC and now EU came about with the aim of making European countries more competitive with the US, the same thing will likely happen on the political side to keep us in the game with the US and China, the alternative is to be pushed aside.
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That's the case for any country, or in this case, the EU, anything being sold in a given market, has to accept the local rules, then it's up to the businesses to adapt to those rules if they want to sell in those markets or not enter that market and leave money on the table. In the case of the US trying to dictate its own rules on other countries when out of all the modern countries, the US has some of the lowest standards, is quite insulting, and yes, the EU has some of the highest standards in the world in many areas, but it's really up to the US to raise its own standards and not for the EU and other modern countries to lower them to US standards, so in the meantime, the rest of the world benefits whiles the US is missing out. Also, it would be political suicide for any European government in EU countries to lower food standards or social standards like the US wants, any government that tries would likely get an uprising from the public and that was before all of Trumps antic, now it's almost impossible for the US to get its way with how much trust it's lost. Also, the reason why it's so difficult to lower these standards because many sectors are tied into each other, you've got universal health care, which also means the system has a big incentive in looking after the health of its citizens as the system is paid by all, that puts a lot of pressure to raise food standards as well as many other standards, and I don't think the US understands why it would be so difficult for them to get European countries in the EU to lower them, the big reason is the people are highly unlikely to allow it.
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That's true, but with EV cars and heat pumps taking off in a big way, it ends up replacing oil and gas with electricity for most of our needs. So as long as renewable energy generating is going higher as a percentage of all energy whiles we dump a lot more on it with EV's and heat pumps, then it's only a matter of time before fossil fuels get pushed out.
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@THE MURDOX The EU falling apart is the dream of some euroseptics, you might not realize this but most euroseptics don't want the EU to fall apart, most just want it to change, British and European euroseptics are quite different on that one and that is why the UK couldn't get any help from any EU member on Brexit, not even the euroseptic ones. As for what will happen, not much will happen but sooner or later, they will realize that they need a pan European immigration system as that would reduce the burden a lot of all the countries by spreading the immigration out because lets be honest, the biggest problem is a cluster of them building up in just one or two areas and that is where it becomes a problem.
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@Lionfish5656 True but Trump is only one part of the problem, I know it's easy to blame Trump for a lot of what the US does or how things are in the US but a lot of Americans voted him in and could do so on the next election, that is where the real problem is, the American people, unless they change, countries around the world are just going to turn their backs on the US and we are seeing early warning signs of that from EU countries and even the UK, the US can't afford to lose these with the new Cold War that is building with the US and China. Basically, the problems are much deeper in the US, Trump losing the next election won't change much for many outside the US because the US has become less reliable, hostile and unstable for the last 2 decades and that could continue to happen as China rises as a power because they seem to be the ones making the US more unstable but it's the American people from within that are causing the problems for the country, China is just setting fear for the stage of how power is shifting from the west to the east, so there is a fair chance the US could get more unstable as China rises.
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@importantjohn I think the real problem is that the lock down has been too soft where many are braking the rules, either way, I think we should have acted sooner rather than later with what we was seeing in China and Italy so yes there is a lot of blame to go around and I hope the key people are held to account on that.
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@angelaortenzi-maccoll2917 Italy did two lock downs much sooner than the UK did it, one was the region of Lombardy region and about a week or so after that, the entire country, from what I remember, it took another 2 or so weeks before the UK went into lock down which wasn't good enough.
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Yeah I suspect Silver will be back if the actor is willing to do that role again, I could see it working out quite well with him and Kreese and Jonny and Dany boy team up with Chozen being on there side, that way it's 3 vs 3 with Mike Barns likely to be on Kreeses side.
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The problem is, France has one of the highest life expectancy in the world, it's also got one of the lowest pension retirement age and if I'm not mistaken, don't the French work fewer hours? When you put it all together, it makes France less competitive on the world stage, it also very expensive on the tax system because people living longer and retiring earlier, the system has to support that, it also means less tax revenue coming in and if the current system continues, it's likely going to put a much bigger burden on the French taxpayers, especially the young over the coming decades. Reforms are clearly needed, but these kinds of things are always going to kick up a stink with the people, and usually the only way around that is to do these things very slowly over a long time, but I do think change is needed, otherwise France could lag behind other countries.
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Basically, leaders across the board are unpopular, even in Italy, she's just the best of a bad bunch lol. As for why she's popular, that's hard to say, but her party is a new party in power, Macron when he got into power in France was popular early on, but that can change overtime, maybe in Italy they are giving her the benefit of the doubt for the first year or two to see what she delivers, after that, Italians will likely turn on her and the party if things do start improving in the country in a big way, after all, just like Macron, she got into power because people want change and people expect to see results over the first term. The alarming thing for her, even thought she's the more popular of the leaders, it's still a poor approval rating and this is happening in a lot of countries around the world, voters are getting fed up with the current crop of leaders and parties that are not doing enough to improve things from the bottom up, much of which led to Trump getting into power in the US, Brexit in the UK and the popularised movement around the EU, voters want major change, and they are willing to vote more radically to get them. Also, moderating as a party will appeal to more voters, parties that stay to the far left or right, they might have a chance of gaining power at times, but it's unlikely they will hold onto it, most of the public are moderates and want stability, far out views from the far left and right would rock the boat too much and likely would become very unpopular with the public, hence why her and the party has toned her views down a lot and why many far left or right parties are becoming less of a threat if they get close to or get into power, because they are not really far left or right any more, they've moderated enough to appeal to voters, we are seeing something like that across Europe, which is good because it's giving voters more choice, without the crazy views that would turn a country upside down.
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@davidmurphy563 It also helps that when you get the likes of Steve Bannon, an American and Nigel Farage, A Brit trying to divide the EU and EU members up, they are actually helping the EU out with their actions because it rarely goes well when outsiders try to interfere, most of the locals don't like that, that's why I love what these clowns are doing as they are falling why into the EU's hands lol.
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@brendai7530 Loony detected, you're basically picking countries that you don't like the policies of the government and yet I bet would be fine with the likes of Trump lol. Trump and Boris have been a joke for the UK and US, some of the others have not been great but are way better than what the UK and US has had to go through.
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I don't know, I suspect war was coming regardless of the energy situation and in big part because Russia feels threaten by EU and NATO expansion to the east, that's really what this is all about. As for Germany, France and some others, nations in the EU wanted to act independent on military and foreign policy, it doesn't surprise me that you get countries pulling in all directions and looking after their own interest and the only real way I see to resolve that is for the EU to be given more powers in those key areas so these countries can speak with one voice. Russia for decades have played the game of divide and conquer and this is the end result and actually shows why us Europeans need to start speaking more as one voice through the EU, otherwise, these things will continue to happen because others will pit countries against each other to divide us. Also, come on guys, you really have to understand the German position considering it's history, they are relucted to get involved but are being pushed to get involved, it can't be easy for them with how passive they've been after the second world war. But in any case, what's going on in Ukraine's is evidence that EU countries need to work much closer together, especially in key areas like the military, forign policy and energy security, after all, there is nothing stopping others like the US or China playing these games in pitting the countries against each other, something in fact China and the UK has actually tried to do already but failed. So the quicker Europeans learn to speak with one voice through the EU, the bolder these countries can be, until then, complaining about them all pulling in different directions when we are divided is laughable at best and sad at worse.
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@wolfgangrenner4152 Actually it is, it's part of the Lisbon treaty and an attack on one EU member is an attack on all and unlike NATO, all the EU members are far more politically and economically integrated together, so it's more likely that they would have to band together because of self-interest, an attack on say Poland would hurt the interest of the other EU members, not that different from how an attack on say New York would impact the other states in the US, it's about how integrated the countries are and in the EU, they are quite integrated which offers a lot of protection, still, being a member of NATO also helps. Longer term, the EU would be far more valuable for Ukraine than NATO because the EU will help Ukraine to modernize, create political and economic stability and bring in a lot of inwards investment, the economy is the key, boost that which the EU have a good record in doing that and you boost the power that Ukraine will have in all areas including the military, whereas NATO is just a defence pact, it helps but it's not going to change much for the average life in Ukraine whereas the EU can have a massive impact on the country long term. In any case, it's likely once the dust settle, Ukraine will become a member of the EU and NATO over time so it's all good.
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Normally I would agree with you but the problem is that these clowns are spreading the virus to other people without them knowing it so it's a problem for all Americans.
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A reduction from 40% to 20% isn't too bad overall, I suspect because of the high political pressure, they'll probably get that down to 10-5% by the end of the year or early next year.
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I remember when I was a kid in the 90's, when I was like 10, I felt like I had freedom to go out and explore, even a few miles from where I live without my parents freaking out, I never felt I was in danger at any time and I can't imagine how much worse my quality of life would have been if I didn't have that freedom to go out and explore for my self. The only real conditions I had from my parents is that I don't do any stupid things and that I'm back home by 10pm. The US and Canada had a massive oversight when developing its towns and cities for cars, they overlooked kids freedoms whiles also overlooking people that don't have cars, it also makes it more expensive because everyone needs a car and everything is much further away to get too, it's not really somewhere you would want to live and don't want to bring up kids in a place like that.
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Maybe thats some eastern European countries or the nordic countries but I've been to many places in western European and I've never seen it get -12c never mind -30 lol.
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@Pidalin In the UK, we get around 0-5c, sometimes we get below 0c but usually no less than -5, I can't say much about Eastern Europe but I think they get colder than that but I doubt it's -30, as for Western Europe, the western in both winter and summer tends to be quite mild. As for the t-shirt thing, yep, I'm one of them, I wear them even in winter because it doesn't really feel that cold, at least not to me anyway.
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@michaelfitzgerald651 It's one thing being trained by NATO, it's another in how effective that would be, France on the other hand have had decades to train and perfect it's military, they also have a much stronger military and economy to back that up. But this isn't really about France, this is about gathering support for Ukraine from allies, which France is doing a better job then others, but I do think France could do more on direct support of Ukraine. Also, we should remember, this is likely about allies helping to free up Ukrainian troops in certain areas in the country so they can fight more effectively in other areas, after all, it's highly unlikely that Russia would want to take on an EU or NATO country directly.
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They would if people actually showed more interest, but unfortunately, they go for ratings and violence, hate and gossip sells far more than tech and scientific discoveries. At least that the case for most people, we are probably the exception to that rule, after all, we are here because we have an interest in this kind of stuff and want to learn.
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@deleteduser1877 He has a point, just look at Poland and Hungary which are backsliding on democracy, it's not a smart thing to bring in a country too soon until they do the reforms needed to become a real democracy, the irony is, Poland and Hungary could help Ukraine a lot here if they stop backsliding on Ukraine because it's those two countries which are giving a lot of other EU countries pause when it comes to the EU expanding which is ironic because Poland and Hungary wants the EU to expend but they are the two countries which are more or less blocking that happening.
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Going off what we've seen over the last few years, I wouldn't trust either the Tories or Labour to do whats right on Brexit, I'll wait and see what other parties are taking part and see who are the most pro EU of the lot before deciding on who to vote for and that rules out both the Tories and Labour.
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I suspect SATA SSD wont be enough and M2 drives would be needed, the good news is that there are a lot of them which are quite cheap and fast and there is also the option of raid formation to double the speed, like if I did that with my drive, I could get 6.8GB read speeds and it would only cost me £130 just by getting two of them at half the size and putting them in raid formation. As for if IO's is an issue which I doubt it is, no problem, PC gamers have a lot more memory than console gamers, 32GB of memory is quite cheap now, developers could read data ahead of time and dump more into memory, that gets around that issue for gamers with slower SSD drives and can also be done cheap. The hype around the PS5 SSD is crazy but I can understand why Sony is focusing on just that and that's likely because the rest of the hardware seems weaker on paper compared to the Xbox Series X so Sony is latching onto the PS5 SSD and making it seem like it can do magic lol..
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@lynf5562 True and you have to wonder how that will go now, especially because the world is a lot more interconnected now so what happens in one part of the world has an impact in others, especially the big players like the EU, US and China, the world economy can't afford any of those 3 catching a cold as it would bring the world economy down with it.
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Some said that about Brexit and look how that turned out lol.
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So the virus kills blacks more than whites and it seems quite effective on the older generation of people, I don't want to entertain conspiracy but it wouldn't surprise me if some governments or governors as well as some people support that idea, this about it, racism is still quite a thing in the US and then throw in the cost of health care and pension on older people, many in power might be seeing this as a big way to save a lot of money in many areas. Many in the UK suspect the UK government of doing the same thing and it wouldn't surprise me because the virus mostly targets the old and people with medical issues, in other words, people that are more of a burden on the system. God forbid if any of this is true and it comes out because that would shatter any trust people would have in the system of goverment and they are already on shaky grounds as it is, I'm any case, we are starting to see the real evil in some governments and people and it doesn't look good when it comes to reflecting on all this someday in the future, we should also remember infighting, governments do this all the time to keep us fighting among ourselves so the rich elites can keep us distracted and keep running to the banks, it's working a treat on many Americans at the moment and the irony is that it will be those same people that will be crying once the economic hardship hits them on the arse.
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This is it, the electric car industry is moving ahead, regardless of the old guard trying to hold things back. If these companies are not careful with dragging their feet, they could put themselves at a major disadvantaged compared to rivals that do push hard on electric cars. What the EU is doing is trying to light the fire under them so they move quickly to electric cars, otherwise, rivals from the US and China will eat up the market. My next car is going to be electric and because of that, the ones that don't push in that sector won't get a look in from consumers like me. In any case, if these companies and governments are worried about job losses now, imagine how bad it will be if most consumers end up only wanting to buy electric cars and these companies are not ready for it, most consumers could look at rivals from the US and China for their next car, I certainly would if these European car companies don't get their act together and this is going to be more the case as more consumers put more solar up, many will want to power their house and electric cars by that, if they produce enough energy. All that is going to make petrol and diesel cars very unappealing, especially on running cost. But seriously, how many of us are really going to want to buy a petrol or diesel car by 2035? By then, electric cars should be quite good and decent price.
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@mweskamppp If Turkey did all the right reforms and changes needed, there is little reason why they couldn't join but clearly, doing those changes are not as easy as it sounds for them like it is for eastern European countries, hence why they are joining much sooner, the door is always open to Turkey but Turkey will have to change in a lot of key areas for that to happen and so far they seem to be heading in the wrong direction on that with Erdogan in power.
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@s13hgp Really? With this pandemic going on, most economies in the west are in the shitter lol, the US and UK especially. As for the EU, wanting something to be and it happening are two different things, how many times have people like you predicted the end of the EU? I've heard it all before for decades only for it to not happen.
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It depends, I think this will get the go ahead but I also think it will be a one off because I suspect many of the northern European countries suspect that if there is easy money going to the southern European countries with no strings attached, there is little real incentive for them to change so the ones paying out have to be very clear that this is a one off grant and any more will have a lot of strings attached, reforms in other words. It does also suggest that more integration in the Euro Zone countries is very likely to happen once the dust settles on this virus and that was needed for some time now, so maybe some good can come out of something bad.
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@davidbennett60 Oh I don't know, if I was an elite, I would be very worried with how things are going especially in the US because the tax payers are bailing out the rich and corporations, wait till the penny drops and the people realize what is going on, we could be talking revolution if we are not careful and if that happens, I would want to be rich in that world because they are likely the prime target of the anger, Trump is putting all the bits in place to really kick things off.
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Yep, if there's one thing I've learned is to ignore GDP numbers and unemployment numbers. You get many countries that like to brag about how well the economy is doing it, but if you listen carefully, the people in those countries are saying a very different thing, we see this a lot in the UK and US where, we hear it a lot how well the economy is doing and how low unemployment is, yet for the average person, they feel things are getting worse not better. We need a different measure of quality of life that measures from the bottom up, because to the average person, GDP numbers don't mean very much and half the time contradict themselves, and the current system makes it far more difficult to get an idea on what the quality of life is like from one country to another. Like you said, economic growth doesn't mean the people feel it, it's quite common in the UK and US that for the last 2 decades have bragged about good economic growth, yet for the average person, they feel things are going backwards not forwards, Brexit, Trump, these are clear signs that a lot of people are not happy in those countries and want big changes that they are willing to vote in ways they normally wouldn't. Popularise movements usually rise when people are not happy with how things are going, considering we are seeing it in the US, UK and many European countries, it suggests there's something not right and the mainstream parties are not solving so voters are getting more desperate and voting in more radical elements in politics to see if that will shake things up. If the mainstream political parties want to reduce the risk of the far left and far right, they better start delivering on growth that people actually feel.
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@mushogi It will likely take a lot longer than a couple of weeks to really see the impact of Brexit, yes we'll see a sudden impact next year but the negative impact will be felt long term, especially for the UK. Also like Perp said, the EU is quite happy to continue to talk, the UK seems to want too regardless of all the threats of them walking away that they never do. Personally, with the way the UK government is acting, if I was the EU, I would stop all talks and only start talking once the UK government grows up as they are acting like entitled little brats that think the EU should give them a good deal. Best way to teach this government a lesson is to give them what they think they want, that will hurt them overall and then the EU can continue the talks at a future date when the UK is even more on the back foot.
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@donaldboughton8686 That's just the near term future damage, Brexit is a long-lasting thing that the damage is continually, basically, unless we get a good deal with the EU or manage to replace that trade else ware, we all in the UK will be worse off for it but then I think that needs to happen for the real penny to drop as the message isn't sinking in with Brexiteers, that will begin next year unless Boris backs down which he might do.
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The problem is with the UK being an island nation and a small country is that we import a lot of goods whiles we don't manufacture much. Contrast that with the EU and US that does build a lot of its own products because of the size of the market, the currency dropping becomes an issue for countries like the UK as it makes everything we import more expensive whereas the Euro or Dollar, it's less of an issue because as external goods become more expensive, more goods are bought at home, that is only doable when you have a big market that creates a lot of goods like the EU and US have, so currencies going up or down are less of an issue for the EU and US compared to smaller countries that depend on exports. Now it's not as clear-cut, the EU countries will be buying a lot of oil and gas from external sources but as they stay expensive, it's going to make renewables look cheaper and a lot more appealing which in turn will likely mean a lot more investment in those areas. The UK can't afford a weak pound, especially with Brexit because we're too dependent on others for many of the things we buy and a weak pound means a lower standard of living. The irony is, say the EU was still in the EU and say we joined the Euro, it would be less of an issue because as goods from outside sources become more expensive, more will be bought from internal sources in the Euro Zone as there is no currency fluctuation and likely works out cheaper and in the business world, price stability is a must.
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@VCYT The EU is nothing like the Nazis, it's an organization of shared political and economic interest where they all work together for the common good of its members, very different from what the Nazis were and in fact, the EU came out of the ashes of the second world war with one of the main aims to prevent another war in Europe.
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To add to that, over the last 700 years of reserve currencies, they tend to last around 80 to 110 years, so make whatever conclusion you want on what that could mean for the US dollar in the very near future in that if history is any indicator, the Dollars time could be close to being up.
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It's one thing to attack a poor country like Ukraine, it's a very different story to attack a rich country like Sweden or Finland which are both EU members, that would compel the EU to get involved in a more forceful way which could escalate the problem and could even lead to a world war and unlike NATO which is just a bunch of countries together that say they'll come to the aid of each other, EU members likely will have to do so because of how integrated they are, in other words, an attack on any EU member would have negative ripple effects on other members, that would likely force the other EU members to come to the aid of the one being attacked and do so in a more forceful way whereas NATO is just an alliance that says they'll come to the aid of said country, so I think the EU is far more valuable for them then NATO is, but with that said, I think they should also join NATO as well. Now unless Putin has really lost the plot, it's just an idle threat that he can't carry out, after all, no modern country has been invaded since the second world war and it's always been rich countries attacking poor countries or poor countries against poor countries. Still, the Russian people need to wake up and depose Putin before things do get out of hand because Putin is dragging all the Russian people down with him and sadly, this is going to impact a lot of innocent Russian people that didn't want any of this mess in the first place and they are likely the best chance of pushing Putin and his cronies out of power. I also think the EU and US needs to get tougher on Putin than they have done, you can't give mercy to these kinds of leaders because they always see it as weakness and clearly Putin needs to go whatever way the outcome of this mess goes.
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ME lol.
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Out of all the western countries, Germany seems to be doing much better, many Asian countries are doing pretty good as well and I have to wonder with many of the decision made by many governments that some real tough questions need to be asked because most governments were way too slow to react to this and in the case of China and Italy, it's more understandable but the rest of the modern countries at least have no real excuses and should have done better. I think other factors are at play as well like many government wanted to protect the economy at the expense of the well-being of the public and I have to wonder if many of the countries that made so many mistakes will do the same kind of mistakes by opening up the economy too soon when the time isn't right and the virus spreads again. The real worry is the poorer countries which I think are going to need a lot of help to contain this virus and wealthy ones really should step up to the plate on that one if they can.
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I suspect that might be part of the reason Americans are finding it more difficult to accept this compared to say the Europeans which don't like how things are but accept things for what needs to be done, at least for the most part. I also get the impression in the US that because of the weak social system in place which isn't doing enough to protect workers and wages like we see in Europe, it's causing more problems in the US, a lot of us in Europe don't like how things are but we understand for the most part what needs to be done, a lot of us in Europe are seeing this as a long extended holiday whiles being paid for it and even thought we know hard times are likely coming after the dust settles, what are the alternatives? We just go out and countless lives get lost? it's a bad situation we are all in but we have to make the most of it until things settle.
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@miss_typo_a_lot Very true, I always find it amusing when in the US they seem to think lower taxes is good and to a degree it can be but overall it makes things worse for the Americans because lower taxes just means more wealth going into fewer hands and it always rises to the top elites because most of the public are not very good with money. So even thought the US has some of the lowest taxes in the developed world, they also have some of the highest poverty and inequality of the developed world, that speaks volume of a system that isn't working that well for the many and likely the reason why the likes of Trump got elected in the first place because people are not happy with how things are and want change, now contrast that with countries up north of Europe, they have some of the highest taxes in the world and yet have some of the highest standards of living in the world, higher taxes is not a bad thing as long as it's balanced, higher taxes likely mean a better distribution of wealth among the poor and middle classes.
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Not very likely, many thought that with Brexit and the UK but overall it's not really changed anything and in truth, Poland and Hungary are far less enticing than the UK was and are actually more of a drain on EU resources unlike the UK was. Basically, they are not that important to the EU overall but that doesn't mean the EU and it's members won't hold them to account if they do wrong. Personally, I think EU countries that are in the Euro are going to integrate a lot more in the decades ahead and leave the ones that are in the EU but out of the Euro behind.
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This will be difficult to push for in the US because of the individual nature of the people that puts themselves first and not the collective whole whiles in Europe, especially EU countries, it should be much easier to achieve because of the different way of thinking of the people and the strong social system. One system tries to look after everyone whiles the other is really up to yourselves. I do have to ask, do people in the US see homeless people a lot on the streets? In the UK in my 42 years, I've never seen a homeless person in my entire live but I know they exist in the UK, especially in London but it seems such a rare thing to ever see and in my case, I've never seen it. Also, doesn't the US system seem a bit short-sighted? if the system helps people to get back on their feet, they are likely going to be less of a burden long term and a productive member of society, buying products, producing goods and so on, yes it cost money to help these people but in the long run, it will likely help the economy and will clearly help the well-being of many people.
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The EU is doing what it should be doing, protecting the intrest of the EU and it's members, the UK seems to think it's still a member and should be protected, it's crazy really but everything we've seen from the UK goverment over the last two years seem to be about cake and eat it this, cheer pick that, it's like the UK wants everything the EU offers but doesn't want any of the negative aspect of it, why would the EU give us that? At the end of the day, the UK called the EU's bluff and the EU didn't bite, because of that, it's put the UK in a very bad and weak postion in these talks, a lot of which was betting on the EU being in a mess now and bending to the wish of the UK, none of that is happening and it's the UK thats in a mess whiles bending to the EU. As for Galileo, I suspect either the EU will give back the money the UK put into that project or the UK might end up having some special rights to that project, in any case, future projects, we have to expect the UK to be at a big disadvantage because most are likely going to go to EU countries so the UK is mostly being pushed out. The truth is, the UK really should of thought about all this before the vote, everything thats been said and learned on Brexit over the last 2 years really needed to happen before the vote, we likely wouldn't be in this mess now, in fact I suspect we would of voted to remain in the EU because this is becoming one big headache for the UK and we end up at a lost not a gain for it, whats the real point in all this? We should also remember that the UK was betting on the US and other trade partners around the world to help the UK out, it looks more like many of them want to screw the UK over after Brexit and I can't really blame them really because once out of the EU, we are a much smaller market and much easier to pick on and without the back of the EU and US, that leaves the UK in a very weak postion around the world, if leaving the EU isn't enough of a wake up call for us, Trump should be.
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@steveosborne2297 Yep, the UK economy got hit hard with Covid so the bounce back was bigger which make the growth look better, but in reality, the UK is in pretty bad shape and part of that is because of Brexit.
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I can understand the reason for Poland wanting to do this, but I think the risk to them from Russia is quite small, after all, Poland is an EU and NATO member, it would be a brave or stupid move of Russia or anyone else to want to take them on when a war with Poland would directly force the EU and NATO to get directly involved. We should remember that Ukraine was an easy target for Russia, they are one of the poorest countries in Europe, they are not an EU or NATO member, and they also have a lot of natural resources. I welcome Poland beefing up it's military, but personally, I think EU countries should pool resources together, they've got the economy, population and skill set to be a military superpower, but having 27 different militaries makes us weak and keeps us divided, not to mention that there are a lot of waste and duplications over the 27 members, so like I said, I welcome Poland spending more, but economics is always key and there are limits to what Poland can do on its own, especially compared to bigger countries or if the EU members were to pool resources together. At the end of the day, the goal is the same for these countries, the defence of these countries, they are in a far better position to do that if they work much closer together than they are doing right now, and I know they won't get 27 members onboard, that's unlikely, but maybe they can do like they did with the Euro and Schengen zone, get as many countries onboard and move ahead regardless of what the other countries want. The simple truth is, the geopolitical landscape around the world is changing, Russia is more aggressive, China is a rising power, the US is more erratic and unpredictable, Europeans really do need to wake up and starts doing things to protect themselves, and the reality is, they can do that far better if they pool resources and work together through the EU.
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@Fredric_Cedrich Exactly, he's getting out because the ship with the Tories is sinking with the pandemic and Brexit, hardly a sign of having a moral compass lol and I suspect others are going to follow unless things get better. After all, the lies only go so far on both Brexit and the pandemic and the British people are getting fed up on both, hence why Boris could very well get the boot over the next 6-12 months because many of the moderate Tories are seeing that he's sinking the entire party and personally, I hope they don't give him the boot so they sink good and proper lol.
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@michaelcoward1902 I don't get drunk or lets just say, I rarely do and have not been for years now, even at Christmas. As for the corpses, well you've really got to blame the incompetent government we have or if you prefer, the people that put these clowns in power.
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@Buckets1000 It's a term that idiots use to think they are being clever but in reality, they are making themselves look like a kid.
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You can't really, not with the hardcore worshipers, so don't bother with them, but everyone else are swing voters that are willing to listen to reason, as for the economy, it moves a bit like a big oil tankers, very slow to turn but it does move, thats how the economy is, Trump is benefitting on what Obama did in is last year in offices, we'll see how well Trump's policy's really are 18 to 24 months in the offices when they kick in. Greg, China is another thing and I can understand some restrictions with tariffs on them but the EU, Canada and all the rest?, it's hard for the US to argue they are getting a raw deal when Trump doesn't even understand how VAT works in the EU which isn't really that diffrent then Sales tax in the US, he seems to think thats a tariff on American goods lol. As for the US economy, is it really doing well or are the debts just getting worse?, it's easy to get the economy moving again by passing on the problem to the younger genearation to sort out at a later date.
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True, the young genaration of people are really getting a raw deal now and the older genaration wants to stick the boot in even more with Brexit, so far, I've not seen anything of Brexit or what the leave side have said that makes us better off but we are seeing a lot on how it will make us worse off. The good news is that if Brexit goes really wrong, the young genaration are not going to forgive the older genaration easy and because thoes numbers will swell with time, it's just going to mean we end up rejoining the EU at some future date anyway. Brexit can only work for the leave side if it's a success on improveing the quality of living for the public, thats where they are really stuck on.
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It's kinda arrogant for any outsiders to tell Ukraine to stop attacking Russian oil sites, Ukraine after all is the country being invaded and are going to do whatever is needed to survive. At the end of the day, if other countries want Ukraine to stop attacking Russian oil sites, the best way to do that is for western countries to give Ukraine the means to push Russia out of Ukraine and end the war sooner rather than later so there's no need for Ukraine to attack Russian sites and in the end, from Ukraine's point of view, the oil sites are prime targets, taking them out could do serious harm to the Russian war effort. Considering the restrictions that western countries have put on Ukraine in what weapons they can use or what to only attack Russian sites in Ukraine, it gives Russia a big advantage being that they don't have any of these restrictions and can attack any sites they want. But seriously, less talk from the west and more action, we have it in our means to end this war far sooner, but all the talk and division is making the west look weak to Russia and China. As for concerns over inflation and higher oil prices, sometimes you just have to do the right thing, even if there is a slight cost to it and let's be blunt about it, to western countries, the cost would be quite small, if there is a cost at all, Russia has done it's worse when it comes to using energy as a weapon and the European countries have adapted in just 2 short years, so a slight increase in oil prices isn't that big of a deal, in fact, it could help to push more renewable energy. I've got to also say, this is shameful on the US, the energy crisis didn't hit the US that hard, whereas it hit Europe far harder, and yet support in Europe and especially among EU countries is quite strong, but seriously, the US needs to start showing some leadership, because this is not showing the US in a good light to allies and to its enemies which could take advantage of the situation if allies don't trust the US as much and if the west stopped talking and got into action sooner, we likely could have ended this war in Ukraine already, which would be better for Ukraine but would also be better for the world on cost and political stability, dragging the war out like the US seems to war is going to make things far more costly, it could also escalate things into something worse if we are not careful.
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True, getting rid of the UK for me is a bright side for the EU and now it looks like EU expansion is back on the table and even talks about treaty change and more integration. Things are not easy now with high inflation and energy prices but I think what is happening in Ukraine is a wake-up call for real change in Europe, especially in the EU. We always keep hearing about the decline of the EU, have been hearing that for decades and yet they've got some of the highest quality of living around the world, but if we are looking at it in a percentage term, yes, both the EU and US are in decline and it's not because of anything we're doing wrong but more because the rest of the world is catching up, especially in Asia, the fact is, they've got a far bigger population than the EU and US and that cuts into the percentage. The EU does have an advantage the US doesn't and that's expansion, that's something that longer term could go on for decades throughout Europe and maybe even beyond with like-minded nations, the irony is, the likes of Russia and China are pushing more countries closer to the EU, as for the US, it's a bit unknown, they tend to be an overall good country but they are starting to become more radical as the decades past by, that's should be quite alarming because if that continues, we've only got the EU as a major power that wants to improve standards for the people.
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The UK government has been threatening to leave and the EU isn't holding the UK back from doing so, so the real you should ask, why does the UK government keep talking? More important, why does the UK government seem to think they are entitled to better terms when the EU can give whatever terms they want? Let's be honest with ourselves, from an outside view, the UK comes across as that kid that says they are going to do something but never does, it's clear as day light that the UK government can't afford to walk away no matter how much bluster they do and the more I keep seeing the UK say they'll walk away but never do, the more it's becoming clear that the UK can't afford to walk away. Anyone that's good with watching body language, what closely a few key people in the Tory government as Brexit gets closer as that will tell us a lot more than all the bluster they do. ;-)
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It's true for the most part, most just want to come to Europe for a better quality of life, to me the real problem is the right wing media and some political groups have been demonising them for so long that some people almost look at them as sub human or something when they are anything but that, they are human just like you and I are and are just trying to better ourselfs.
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It's hard to say because the real problem is governments in the western world reacted way too slow on this because they would have been seen as crazy if they shut down the economy early on, hence why none really did, in other words, this was always likely going to happen, even if China was more honest about it, the western countries would have made jokes about it being the common flu and saying it won't happen here, in other words, they all reacted when it was too late.
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We should remember that in a lot of cases, the quality of food is higher in the EU compared to the US because of regulations, and I find that remarkable because I always thought the US processes a lot of it's food to make it cheaper but clearly, companies are either profiting the difference or it's not cheaper to produce, either way, it's remarkable how the quality of the food and it's cheaper to buy in most cases in the EU compared to the US, more so when you take into account the energy cost difference which usually is added to the cost of everything.
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I can't help but feel that Israel have been overstepping the mark when it comes to Palestine, I can understand them wanting to defend themselves and wanting to retaliate to what happened recently, but for me, I think Israel is going too far, and I can't help but feel that Israel is playing on sympathy from around the world with what happened to it's people throughout history, but that sympathy can only go so far if it's abused and a lot of people are starting to think that Israel is abusing it, which could lose them a lot of support if they are not careful, especially among the people around the world. So defending ones self and wanting to strike back at what happened recently, fair enough but many are starting to see that Israel is going too far which if not handled well, it could escalate into something bigger, and I do wonder if that is the plan with some of the paymasters around the world.
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The European Parliament did say it, it was the Commission that was holding back, and all it's doing is embolden both Hungary and Poland to break more rules, why making a bigger mess for the EU longer term. If that isn't a clear indication that the European Parliament should be given more powers in the EU, I don't know what is.
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It likely is having an impact, the cost of the war in Ukraine for Russia, the brain drain, the reduction in oil and gas sold to the EU, which is forcing Russia to sell to other countries at a discount. All of this is resources being drained from the Russian economy that wouldn't be if Putin didn't start the war in Ukraine, so it's very likely having a negative impact, but being as Russia is a dictatorship, there's no way to know how bad the economy is doing because of fiddling with the numbers which is mostly designed to appease the Russian people, but one thing you can guarantee on, Putin has self-interest in making the Russian economy look better than it is for his own personal survival, so the economy is likely doing worse than it appears, and over the short term, those cracks can be covered, but long term, the damage could be big, especially if there is no conclusion in Ukraine and Russia has to continue to spend a fortune to fund the war. Personally, I think the biggest threat to Russia now is this massive renewable drive in the EU, US and China, this is reducing the value of oil and gas sooner rather than later that Putin might have weaned up off fossil fuels a decade or so earlier than it would have been, and if so, that's massive revenue loss for Russia, but we should also remember that as renewables continue to take a bigger percentage of the energy sector, that's going to put downwards pressure on fossil fuel prices until eventually it's not worth anything, that's probably the biggest mistake Putin did with the war in Ukraine, it's speeded up the process away from fossil fuels, and it's all fossil fuel producing nations that will pay the price for that over the long run, where ironically, it's the countries that have no or very little fossil fuels that will benefit the most with a big windfall every year to the economy, in other words, that spending to buy fossil fuels will stay in the economy, whereas fossil producing nations stand to lose that revenue. Either way, from Russia not reporting on the economy or reporting far less, suggest it's having a negative impact, if they had nothing to hide, they would be singing from the rooftops on how well the economy is doing, but when Putin is being so cagey on that and trying to appease the Russian people into thinking the economy is doing better than it is, which I suspect far more resources are going into the major cities like Moscow and St Petersburg to try and shield them from the worst of the economic fall out whereas the rest of the country is probably going to the dogs. Also, just like a natural disaster boost economic growth, so does a war, on the surface, the Russian economy might look like it's doing good, but in reality, this is resources being shifted away from the Russian people towards the war effort in Ukraine, that's bound to have a negative knock on effect on the Russian people, especially if the war drags on, but in any case, we don't know how the economy is doing, but considering the expenditure on the millinery and lower revenue from fossil fuels, that will have a direct knock on effect on the Russian people in a negative way, regardless of how the state wants to paint how well the economy is doing.
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Hardly, shes just more of a figure head now that doesn't really serve any relevents in the world, even in the UK a lot of us don't care about all that anymore.
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I would normally agree, but with how quickly A.I. is advancing, I'm not so sure any more. The truth is, since early this year, pandoras box has been opened and that's very likely going to have far more rapid progress on this tech as it's going from the lab to mainstream, progress is always far more rapid when that happens because a lot more money is thrown at it, we're starting to see that with A.I. now. So I wouldn't worry just yet, but I suspect the tech is going to advance more over the next decade than it has in all our history of robotics and A.I. and with that, it's going to be interesting to see how much progress on it has been made over the next decade.
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The reason so many say EU as Europe is because there is so many countries in Europe that most prefer to just use the term EU for Europe because it's easier to understand and remember, that's likely not going to change and in fact, it's likely going to be more the case as the EU expands in the future. We should also remember that a lot of countries are very closely tied to the EU, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and so on follow a lot of the same rules that the EU create, it's easy from the outside why most use the term EU for Europe and like I said above, it's going to be more that case going forward because the EU is the major power block in Europe. This isn't about whether you like it or not, it is what it is.
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That's the thing, Russia is a big country, but economically, they are a weak power compared to the EU, US or China and power in this world is based on the economy, what's even worse for Russia is that they've become too dependent on a lot of its natural resources to fill its budget, now that should be a blessing but for most countries, it ends up being a curse because of mismanagement of that resource. The problem for Putin is that he's having to throw a lot of resources into the war with Ukraine, whereas the EU, US and other western countries are throwing a tiny amount of resources to support Ukraine, which I feel the west should do more to help Ukraine end the war sooner rather than later, but in any case, the west can afford to support Ukraine long term without it having much of an impact on them, mainly because they are a lot richer and the resource is being shared by a lot of countries, Russia can't afford the war to drag on because it's bleeding resources away from the Russian people to support the war effort, the longer it drags on, the more of a negative impact it will have on Russia and the Russian people. With all that said, the Russian people need to wake up and stand up to Putin, because in the end, it's always the people that end up suffering, not the leader, so the Russian people standing ideally by are hurting their own future.
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Yeah I always wonder about how the media goes on about the threat from the likes of Poland and Hungary, but most in the west don't seem to care, in fact, they welcome more voices. With that said, the UK was a much bigger player in the EU than Poland and Hungary are combined and they got pushed aside by Germany and France. The key to success in the EU is cooperation with the EU and it's members, working with other members and compromise in many areas, this is where it's becoming a weak point for Poland and especially Hungary, after all, anything that tries to hurt EU and other members interest, will likely get stiff opposition from other members, this is where Poland and Hungary are getting it all wrong, a bit like how the UK did when it was a member, and because of that, I don't see power shifting that much, apart from to a few eastern EU members that have different views on the EU project then Poland and Hungary have
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It's not so much on if Spain can take Gibraltar, they likely can but would they?, not likely when there are other means of doing that, mostly economic means. We should remember that the UK was pushed to give up Hong Kong to China, Hong Kong was worth way more then Gibraltar is to the UK, I think Hong Kong have a population of around 8 million whereas Gibraltar is around 60,000. So it's not about if it can be done or stopped but more of the value of Gibraltar to the UK or Spain, in the case of Spain, they likely have the backing of the EU on side and likely Russia and China and I suspect the US wont care either way. In the end, I suspect after Brexit, Spain is going to put a lot more pressure on this with the intention of joint ownership of Gibraltar. I also suspect Argentina will make a move on the Falkland Island with the backing of Russia, the UK will be weaker after Brexit and many around the world will take advantage of that, including the US. Remember guys, this wouldn't be the UK vs Spain, Spain would likely have the backing of the EU and Russia have an axe to grind with the UK now so Spain knows that Brexit is a big opening for them on Gibraltar.
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In the short term, maybe, but the ideology of each party is so different from each other that it likely will only take one or two hot policy decision for it to all come crumbling down. Far left and far right parties rarely get along with other views, they have these strong views for a reason after all and it makes it a lot harder for them to compromise and work with others, that makes it difficult for a coalition to work well together, it is after all why moderate parties are so successful, they are more likely willing to work with other parties and more likely willing to compromise on policymaking to get things done, so basically, the hard line approach of the far right could very well be their own downfall, but if they moderate like some have already done, then they are far less of a risk. The simple truth is, the majority of the people don't want what the far right are selling, but voters are angry at the mainstream parties, so are teaching them a lesson by giving the far right a chance, but that chance will only go so far, 1 or 2 elections, if they mess up by messing up the economy, being too hard line on policy decision by not compromising and basically creating gridlock, the public could quickly turn on them. The simple truth is, a lot of people are not voting in the far right because of their policies, they are doing so because they are angry with the mainstream parties, so it's a protest vote to get real change, and in fact, if you ask most, I suspect they can't even name any of the policies of the far right parties apart from the ones they keep banging on about like immigration or being hostile towards the EU, but if they are in power, all there policy areas will be in the spotlight, that's where they need to be careful because if they do anything that hurts the economy or living standards, the public can turn on that quite fast. To put it another way, look how easy it is for a moderate coalition to fall apart, what chance does a bunch of hard line parties coming together and forming a coalition have? Forming the coalition is the easy part, but wait till the tough decisions and policymaking are being done, that's when things could really fall apart because they have little in common with each other apart from extream views in many areas, which ironically makes it harder for them to work well together and the best way to expose that is to give them a power by giving them a term for them to fall on their own sword, unless they moderate that is, which if they do, then they are far less of a threat. As for EU further integration or not, at the end of the day, it's not really a matter of any of these political parties to decide on that and political realities and geopolitics around the world will be the deciding factor, in other words, the US and China, the rest is just noise in the background of what some want to happen, but political reality will likely force the issue to protect our political, economic and social interest, after all, a divided EU is a far weaker one, and that's the case for all its members and people, so further integration is likely to happen in some key areas, not because of want, but because of self-interest, that is probably one of the biggest weaknesses of the far right, a detachment from reality and we in the EU should be grateful that we have a credible option that we can pool resources together though the EU, most countries around the world don't and will simply get left behind by the big players, the EU, US and China.
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@vexingrabbit1824 Depends on how you look at it, both the EU and US are sending arms and aid to Ukraine, the EU is sending more aid than the US whereas the US is sending more arms, but like he said, there's EU aid and then there's the individual countries aid, which overall, EU countries are doing more than the US is doing, and it's looking like that gap could wider. Considering the EU economy is smaller than the US, that shows poor leadership on the US part. I do agree that the EU and it's countries could do more on arms, and it looks like that will happen in times with many boosting military spending, but that's going to take time to get things into position, the US is in a better position to deliver arms whereas the EU is in a better position to deliver aid, Ukraine needs both.
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Imaging if this was the English papers like the Daily Express, the Sun and Daily Mail, the gloating would go on for the next 50 years, thankfully, Italy put them down lol.
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Things are moving alright, downhill.
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Free trade can only work with a lot of political and economic integration, basically harmonizing a lot of laws, rules and regulations like we see with the single market and custom union. Without the harmonizing of rules, no country in their right mind would have full on free trade with no restrictions when a country can change the rules to have an advantage at the expense of another, that's where the EU single market and custom union solves that problem by harmonizing the rules at an EU level for all members.
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@viperking6573 That's not true, economically they are not that different and I should know because I've lived in both the EU and US over the years, there are differences but overall the standard of living is high in both but I would say the EU market looks after the people better than the US one, especially the poor and middle classes with all its social benefits, the US is pretty much a system that's built on where you have to fend for yourself and if you can't, tough shit. It's a fine line from regulation and free for all, in the US, it's too much of a free for all where big corporations rule everything, that isn't a good thing for American consumers and that likely will get a lot worse as corporations get bigger and end up bending more of the rules that the government makes. Basically, the big weakness I am seeing in the US is weak government institution when it comes to dealing with big corporations, the EU is willing to take them on but the US seems quite happy to take a bribe from them to push it under the carpet.
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@aryanbhuta3382 It's more the food thats being played with that Europeans have a problem with, something that the US wants to import into Europe but the EU and it's members keep blocking it. Even the UK with Brexit doesn't want any of that with around 75% of the public against that kind of food entering the market.
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@viperking6573 It's always regional, in the US for example, I saw most of it in New York and California and it's usually always in big cites in the US or EU but I see far less of it in the EU, especially north-western EU countries. I still find it shocking in this day and age that people are still homeless in rich countries in Europe and America with the kind of resources both have, it shouldn't really be an issue in this day and age.
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If they can't get it through the normal rules, a compromise in having super majority might be needed to move things forward, but we also have to be careful, too much of a majority could very well end up giving Germany a veto by simply having the biggest population, but that can be countered by the need of multiple countries needing to side with Germany to block something.
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Maybe this was May's cunning plan all along, knowing that the hardcore Brexiteers in the ERG would never go along with that plan and that puts a big road block in front of Brexit which then pushes the only other real alternative, which is another public vote and let the public decide, the irony in all this is that the red lines the Brexiteers keep coming up with could save the UK and keep us in the EU and if that does happen, I'll have a drink for the Brexiteers lol.
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China position is a bit funny, on the one hand they really want to support Russia because they don't like the west, especially the US but on the other, it would be really costly for China when it comes to trade, especially with other regions like India itching to take that trade away from China.
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Actually, if history is any indicator, the tariffs are probably a stop-gap measure to allow the European car manufactures to adapt to the new reality, the EU has probably warned the European car manufactures that these tariffs are only a stop-gap measure, so adapt or die, the EU has done this many times before to light a fire under a specific industry to change. Sometimes also, the tariffs are done in such a way that they reduce the percentage of tariffs on the goods by a small amount each year until they are phased out, the idea is to keep constant pressure on the companies in the EU market to force them to change, so in the short term it's painful, but long term they could come out stronger on the world stage for it, whereas without the tariffs, many of these companies could go under because they've been asleep, but this is the case for a lot of companies in the west that need to wake up, especially when it comes to pricing of it's goods.
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@Admin-gm3lc That was a by product of freedom of movement, something all those eastern European countries wanted, it was unfortunate that so many left those countries but remember that those countries were in decline even before they joined the EU and in fact most of Eastern Europe that isn't in the EU is in decline, that's a different issue but as those countries develop in the EU and some sound policies, their population should stabilize and even grow with the right policies in place. Russia by the way are one of the richest eastern European countries, especially in Moscow and St Petersburg but also remember that Russia has a lot of natural resources that those other eastern European countries that joined the EU don't, that their GDP per capita is matching the richest parts of Russia so soon is quite impressive. Russia would be in the toilet if it wasn't for it's natural resources and beside, you only have to look at the eastern European countries that joined the EU and the ones that are not in with some wanting to join, there's a massive gap in GDP per capita in favour of the ones that joined the EU, I've travel around many of the Eastern EU countries and they've already gone through quite a transformation, imagine over the coming decades where they'll be. At the end of the day, what is Russia doing for it's so called friends? all I'm seeing is fear from Russia, poverty and exploitation, in fact, it's why so many countries want to join the EU to get away from all that. Russia is a country that is clinging onto the old days of being a power, truth is, Russia is quite weak that even just a modest EU member like Spain is comparable economically, if the EU puts more resources towards the army, what could Russia do about it apart from complain? the fact is, the EU has a far bigger economy, population and resources to push more aggressively if Russia pushes it's luck. The irony is about Russia, they are being squeezed from both sides, the EU on the west and China from the east, who do you think would have Russia interest in mind? Russians after all are pretty much Europeans and are not really that different to western Europeans if we get past all the political bs, China on the other hand is a different story that I'm sure they would love some breathing room just north of the boarder, probably something for Russia to worry about longer term. Also, you do have to wonder, what is Russia going to do once Europe doesn't need it's natural gas and oil as well as other resources, which could start to happen over the next few decades? Russia is becoming too dependent on the west for it's living standards and even then it's doing poor, EU countries have little to no natural resources and yet they've got some of the best standards of living in the world, now that's impressive.
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Cameron resigned because he knew he messed up big time and knew there was no way of winning this, he got out because he knew that Brexit was going to create a shit storm which is more or less what it's done and it had to be a brave or stupid person to want to take that on and May got the stupid job and the irony is, no matter how Brexit goes now, she could be rememberd as one of the worse PM's the UK have ever had and it's made all the more funny because she wanted to be rememberd like Maggie was lol. In any case, May is finished whichever way Brexit goes and surely she must know that now and if she doesn't then shes more stupid then I thought, either way, I think her only escape is to give the public another vote and let them decide, that would take a lot of the blame off her but it will still damage her but it might limit the damage because the other options are likely going to finish her off.
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@tomorrowneverdies567 It will very likely happen over the next 5 years, they'll have an all night session, lock the doors and don't let anyone out until they all come to an agreement. 9 out of 10 times that works and we should remember that the eastern EU members want the EU to expand more than the western EU countries, so there is that card in play. If it comes to it and there is no movement, more drastic measures might be needed, either by finding a solution to kicking out countries like Hungary or centralizing power more at a Euro Zone level, the Euro Zone is the vast bulk of the EU and countries that are in that are more likely to want the EU project to work compared to countries that drag their feet. In any case, if the EU doesn't get its act together and offers some kind of sign of hope that those countries can join, they will eventually give up and turn to Russia or China, they are not going to keep waiting for the EU and it's members to get its act together and I think the EU has 5 years to find a solution to this.
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You know a system has failed when you can get people living on the streets with little to no money and then have someone with 100 billion to their name, no country can honestly say they are the best with that level of divide and I can understand there's always likely going to be some level of inequality but the level of inequality we see in the US is crazy, even by other modern countries standards. I suspect the reason for that is low taxes, yes something people assume is a good thing but, is it? Lower taxes means less public spending, less social net and more wealth going into fewer hands whereas higher taxes act as a redistribution of wealth whiles also having a lot of public services that are free to use which help the poor and middle classes out the most which is what we see in Europe and pretty much every other modern country. The US is a weird country of rich and poor to the extreme but you really want to know what the sad truth is, it's not going to change unless the people change, think about it, look at the people the Americans elect? These people can't be more detached to what real life is like if they tried, Americans and the rest of the world for that matter needs to elect people that know what real life is like if you really want change because the likes of Trump don't have a clue because they are in their own little bubble where the rest don't matter and that is why nothing changes election after election because the people are not changing.
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I think over the long run as battery tech gets better and cheaper, this form of energy storage will likely become redundant, but in the short term, we need all the energy storage solutions we can find, and this is a cheaper solution that works on repurposed land that's not going to be used for much else. So in the short term, I see merit in this until battery tech gets really advanced and cheap that you can buy enough to power your home for like a month and it cost very little, so quite some time off lol.
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@davidpaterson2309 We should remember that a lot of that FDI is partly because of being in the EU, part of it being stability, but also these new members having easy, open access to the other EU countries. You only have to look at the eastern European countries that joined the EU and the ones that have not, the ones in the EU are doing far better than the ones that are not. If I was investing in a country, I would want to make sure there is stability and my money is safe, being in the EU creates a lot of that stability to want to invest in those countries, having easy access to the rest of the EU market is another big incentive, something the UK is finding out now as less want to invest in the UK because it doesn't have easy access to the EU market.
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Like any technology, it can be used for good and bad, robotics and A.I. are no exception to the rules and will be used for good and bad. That doesn't mean there are no ways of trying to make it safer and for some that want to abuse the situation, make it harder for them to do so and I do think some regulations are going to be needed, something governments around the world tend to be slow at doing until things go wrong. As for job losses, the very nature of capitalism is to improve things, earn money and be more productive, A.I. and robotics is very likely going to put most of us out of work, simply because it will be able to do more or less any job we do but cheaper and faster and here is the kicker, businesses will be pushed into pushing the human workforce out as they want to cut cost, human labour is a cost that is getting more expensive all the time and the real kicker is that consumers will likely gravitate towards products that are made by robotics, because they likely can be made a lot cheaper than human labour can produce, just like cheap labour. The question isn't will robotics and A.I. take over most jobs, the real question is what will we do with our time as I don't think it's a good idea for us to be idle, doing nothing, humans tend to need some kind of centre of gravity, a purpose and structure in life and work for all its fault does give a lot of people structure in life, you only have to look at people that retire or are unemployed for a long time to see that. Personally, I think we're going to have to redefine the capitalist model, as the current one won't work, maybe we'll need a basic universal allowance for everyone, but I do think we'll need something to occupied our time, work isn't going to be it, maybe education could be it as we can always continue to learn new things throughout our lives. On the plus side, it will allow us a lot more time to work on projects that we actually want to work on, a lot of us have interest and hobbies in many things but either don't have the time or skills to work on them, robotics and A.I. could assist us on that whiles freeing out time to work on things we actually want to work on, without the pressure on earning money for food and other basic things. One thing I am sure off, I don't think most of us are aware of the massive changes that are on their way over the next few decades, maybe even sooner with how quickly A.I. is advancing and I get the feeling we are at the early 90's stage of computers but for A.I. which exploded through the 90's from a nerd thing to mainstream, I can't help but feel that A.I. is going through the same process now and if I'm right, we could be talking revolution level of progress over the next decade or so and I seriously hope we're ready for thing because I doubt most are or are even aware of what's coming.
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It doesn't work that way, for one thing, the EU countries don't need a defence anywhere near what the US have got, we are not that bat crazy and paranoid to spend so much on the military. Also, even at current spending, if EU countries pooled their resources together into a single military, that would be quite a powerful military that would be more than enough to defend it's self, it would also have the benefit of scale and reducing the duplication that is wasting a lot of resources by having 27 independent militaries with all the duplication and waste that give. Basically, what I'm saying, EU countries defence spending isn't the issue, having 27 militaries is, boosting spending isn't going to make much of a difference as each EU country on it's own are too small to really matter to big power on the world stage, but an EU military would be a different story, in fact, EU countries might be in a position that they could reduce spending on the military if they pool resources together, after all, how big of military do you realistically need to make sure no country messes with you? you don't need anything like what the US is spending, the US spends a lot because it's a very paranoid country when it comes to the world, the EU doesn't have that issue.
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Christopher Moore The UK could always rejoin the single market or better yet, single market and custom union, that would solve a lot of these problems whiles also wiping out all those so called good trade deals the UK is signing up to make up the numbers. Irony being, if we keep signing so many bad deals, it's going to make it easy for a future UK government to make the case of joining the custom union, in a sense, trade in lots of bad deals for good deals the EU has signed whiles also having much easier access to the EU market, that from a political standpoint of a government that has little to nothing to do with Brexit down the line could be a easy sell, especially as Brexit hits living standards.
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I always find the US is too emotional as a country with big swings, one moment they are your friends, the next they're not, the last 2 decades have shown how the lines blur with the EU and US on that. If EU members really want to protect their own interest, they are going to have to work much closer together on political and economic matters, in other words, more integration. As you say, the US doesn't care about Europe, they've shown that countless times throughout history where it's always about self-interest and not about doing the right thing, I find it remarkable how many Europeans don't see that or don't want to see that, that the EU is our best shot at protecting our interest. With that said, the rise of China is scaring even the US that the US needs a strong EU that shares a lot of the same values, so Putin is uniting the EU, China would likely unite the EU, US and many other countries around the world if they really start to get hostile.
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I think I'll just stick to emulation, it offers far more options and cost a lot less and I know we have a gray area when it comes to playing emulated games but personally I think if it's a game is over a decade or so old, the value is much less to the developers and I see it as being public domain, common sense and not what the law says, many of them should do what we see on the C64 and the Amiga where a lot of the developers of games made at the time give the game away for free on the developer's homepage, that to me is the right way to do it, what most of the others are doing is just pure greed.
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I have to wonder if there is a end point in the universe and if there is, does it go aroud like say Earth does so if you go all around it, you end up back where you started.
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All very true, the US was one of the only ones that didn't get impacted as much at home by ww2 but as we know, it didn't take long for Europe to rebuild because the knowledge was already there to do it and as for today, I think the problem in the US is the tax system, lower taxes just means not enough money to go around compared to Europe which pays higher taxes but gets a lot for it and it probably doesn't help that the US spends much more on the military and unfortunately, I don't see it changing anytime soon because the US is about individualism whereas Europe and most of the modern world is more about working together for a better future, higher taxes also seems to bring less inequality because the wealth gets spread out more.
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That's true but I remember reading up that just after 10 years after the war, it looked like a war hadn't happened in Germany at all, that pretty impressive development and fair enough that the allies helped out but as we knew, the Germans were and are still very efficient. To be fair, California is the exception to the rule in the US, they are almost European like in many of its laws but I agree that the rich elites plus corporations need to pay more to help balance things out better. In the UK, the Labour party almost won the election and they were pushing on taxing the top 5% more and even though they didn't win, it seems like they might of started off a revolution, for one, more young voters voted then we ever had from what I recall and two, Corbyn the leader of the Labour party had most of the media against him especially the right wing media but he got around that with social media and it seems to of worked, both the Conservative party and Republican party have been forcing the Labour and Democrat party more to the right over the last few decades and I think what happened with Labour could work for the Democrats, so mobilise young voters that tend to be more progressive because they have their future ahead of them and find ways to get around the bull of the mainstream media. I wouldn't say Europeans have less, overall the standard of living in western Europe and the US is similar but it's how the taxes are being spent, Europe shares it out more with the people with all kinds of social benefits where in the US, money seems to end in in very few hands but I agree that Europe is more efficient in many areas but thats mostly because they have less natural resources to play with. To me, the Scandinavian countries are some I think the US, other European countries and the rest of the world can learn a lot from.
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Not sure if it was largely built by the US military, I would think it was a combination of them and the German people but the socio-political aspect I agree with that, it was pretty much rebuilt from the ground up to make sure no aspects of the Nazis were part of it. I think what you are talking about is gdp overall which yes the US will be higher on that simple because of it's population size but that has little bearing on the well being of the average person in a country, I lived in New York, Manchester UK and Paris over the years and somethings are better in one place where others are worse but overall the standard of living is quite similar. As for California, I was thinking they are more in line with bigger EU nations then Norway, Norway is an exception to the rule even in Europe, as for California, a lot of rich people live there and I suspect many don't pay their fair share of taxes, irony is that the more rich people in a given area, it bumps gdp per capita higher than it is, even more so if taxes are quite low because wealth isn't spread out as evenly. In any case, I think big changes in both EU and US are on it's way over the coming decades thanks to robotics and A.I. The system we have now would likely fall apart if automation ends up taking over most of our jobs and I suspect some kind of universal basic allowance will be needed which will need more taxes, especially in the US but I suspect a bit more in the EU as well, but a lot of the services in EU countries wouldn't be needed if we had a universal basic allowance so it would likely be easier to achieve in the EU than US but I think it will happen in the US at some point.
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We shouldn't underestimate what Corbyn did here, he was fighting many in his own party, he was fighting against three quarters of the mainstream media and was starting out at a low base of around 20 points and managed to mobilise enough younger voters to vote by bypassing the mainstream media and going through the internet and showed younger voters that they can make a difference. Younger voters are usually more progressive in that they want change because they have there life ahead of them compared to older voters and the likes of Labour, the Lib Dems, the Democrats in the US should learn from this, mobilise young voters, try and bypass the mainstream media which is too corrupted and maybe thing can actually get better for us all and in any event, if people want change then we have to be willing to vote for change.
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So far the established parties around the world keeps offering us fear and keep making inequality worse, if people keep voting the same way then we are going to keep getting the same results and what we are seeing with Corbyn is a positive sign but more momentum is needed, same in France with Macron, his party didn't even exist a year ago and yet he's more or less destroyed all the other parties in France, now in France, Macron has a great chance of changing things but he's got a short window, people will expect results before the next election, so only time will tell but but things do seem to be looking up, especially in Europe and if they get it right, the rest like the UK and US will likely follow over time, in any case, change is needed and if they don't listen then we will get worse then Trump in the future.
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Nationalism isn't good, more wars and problems the human race have had are down to that and religion, now I know globalisations isn't perfect and needs a lot of changes to benefit all but I think it's better to have a outer looking world then a inner looking one.
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Ganjiblob Flankis Well the way we're doing it now isn't working so that needs to change, nationalism isn't working because it's almost tribal that causes more problems than it solves, we can't realistically keep doing things the way we are doing because the world has around 200 countries, the human race is advancing at a rapid rate, it just seems like a disaster waiting to happen with how fragmented the world is, somehow the world needs to find ways of putting our differences aside and working closer together. I think the first thing is inequality around the world and within each country is a good starting point, next is politics, needs to be better represented by the people, another is the media, they need to stop being so manipulative with the people or at the very least be more accountable to what they say.
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xbox gamer Oh no doubt about it that it had it's place in the past but the way the world is changing, it's becoming a relic of the past, the world is opening up and becoming closer together and I'll probably say that nationalisms causes more problem by helping divide people of this planet, also I suspect the more we advance with technology, the more dangerous nationalisms becomes because quite frankly, we've got around 200 countries and are too fragmented, the advancement of science and technology will make this world more dangerous with how divided we are.
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xbox gamer To me the Euro currency isn't really a failure, I always suspected before it started that it would take about 3 decades for it to work well for the economy thats are using it, the alternative could of been those countries change before the Euro was introduced but that would never work so they went the other route which forces them to work and aline closer together because it's in their interest to do so but that takes quite some time, we're talking at least another 15 to 20 years. As for the EU, it's always been a political and economic project, thats no secrets like some in the UK like to think, I suspect in the long run it will become some kind of United States of Europe which I don't think is a problem if done right, a lot of arguments that go on in Europe are more on what form it should take and to make sure it represents all members interest in a fair way. It might surprise many in the UK that the EU or EEC at the time was a political entity before the UK joined, in fact at first they tried to do a political union before an economic one but found it easier to do a economic one first, the UK knew it was a political union even back then, the UK tried it's own economic trade zone with a few other European countries but it failed and it failed because it had no political oversight, without political oversight, bigger members will bully smaller members, thats pretty much when the UK wanted to join the EEC, the UK government might of lied to the people in making them think it was an economic union only but thats not the fault of the other members states. In the end, the world is changing and European countries will struggle to compete with how power is shifting to Asia which is why most are being pragmatic in working together to protect their interest both economically and politically, and as the decades go by, we're going to need the EU more than we do now.
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walperstyle Separation doesn't help, however we look at it, we're stronger together, if that wasn't the case then a lot more would go for independents, not just countries, but states and cities, also it's not just about trades, it's about common rules that helps trade. We've got over 200 countries all with their own rules and trade barriers, in a ideal world, getting rid of all those and having common rules that make sense would benefit us a lot but that can only work when the standard of living is similar for us all.
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walperstyle Problem is that cultures are being pushed together and mostly thanks to science and technology, I agree with you with that governments need to bottom up, more power should be done at a local level like cities and towns because it's more likely going to represent the local people and then you go up in stages to like the country, then unions like the EU and then the world, maybe the UN, give power that makes more sense at each given stage but try and have as much at a local level so people feel more represented. Problem is in this world is corruption, greed and inequality which to me is what is causing most of the problems we have in the world, inequality is really the key, and i find it ridiculous that we have in the EU and US the wealthiest people in the world and then in Africa we have the poor, made even worse that even in rich countries we have such extremes with inequality that shouldn't really happen in a civilised world, if I was looking at the human race from a outside view, I wouldn't say we're civilised yet, not even close.
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walperstyle It's a balancing act from people's rights and government control and we've not really got that right yet, in the US the government is becoming too weak and thats just letting corporation control everything, in effect it's like trading in democracy for many dictatorships and the bigger corporations become around the world, the worse that gets, but then on the other side of the coin, we don't want governments to have too much power, at least unless they are very open with the people and more transparent with what they are doing.
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walperstyle If only, corporations seem to run rings around them, lobbying is at such an high that it's ridiculous and they don't do that for the fun of it, I find it ironic that a lot of the times it's the EU that ends up cleaning up and going after big corporation where really the US government should be doing more.
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walperstyle How ever it is, the rich elites and big corporations have have too much say over them at the expense of the common person, inequality since the 1980 has been getting out of control in the west, progressively getting worse.
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walperstyle I agree with you, the rules need to be where need to help the common person to be able to compete better with the elite and the elites needs to stop being protected by the law, we all would benefit even the rich because more competition means better services for everyone. I still find it remarkable how corrupt the system is and looking through history all the way back to Rome and how the similarities are to today, in political sense, not that much has changed.
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kevin parmar If the human race has the same mentality it's had for thousands of years that we could be, but from what I've seen from history, science and technology has a habit of changing the human race even if we don't want to change and being an optimist that I am, we're likely going to be forced to become far more civilised to each other then we think is possible, either that or the future might not look bright.
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It's too early to say what Scotland should do yet, I suspect they might be at the negotiations when or if Article 50 is signed, after all that Scotland will have a clear idea on what's what, Also Scotland being part of the EU shouldn't take that long considering most of the laws are already in place to allow that and I would be amazed if westminister doesn't allow Scotland a choice because that could open up a right can of worms, in any case it's too early to tell.
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Democracy only really works if people are informed on what they are voting on and as it is, a lot of people didn't know what they was voting for, that to me is a real problem.
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Gnawer Shreth That's true, the UK was in a pretty good position in the EU with how many concession it got, but in the end, I think the EU would be better without the UK, we've not really been a team player and we've held it back too much, I never really sense the UK wanted in the EU to begin and only joined the EEC because at the time the UK economy was doing really badly.
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Thats basicly whats going to happen when we leave the EU anyway, it's the big countries in the world that run the show now and thats likely going to increase, a lot of the laws and regulations that the UK will have to do will be because of trade with the EU and other big countries around the world, true independence is an illusion, so basically we are still likely going to be ruled by the EU by have no say in it, it's pretty much the case for most other European countries not in the EU which if we are fine with that then thats ok, the EU will be fine with it but the UK shouldn't.
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Laws for the most part are mostly a top down thing in this globalised world, it's the big powers, the EU being one of them that makes up the bulk of the laws that most have to follow, that doesn't mean the smaller players can't make their own laws because they can but mostly in areas that doesn't affect the bigger players, trade being one of the areas where most of our laws have to be similar to the bigger players just so we can trade on a more even playing field. I also suspect that as the decades go by, the bigger players in the world are going to have more say over the smaller players in the world, so the EU, US, China, India and a few others, the rest are kind of along for the ride, which is why the UK both politically and economically are likely going to be weaker out of the EU, in the EU we have the chance of shaping the rules, out of it we're going to be told what the rules are weather we like them or not, thats the nature of globalization in today's world.
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We might as well be 20th for what it matters, the gap from the bigger players to us is too big for us to be a big player, we should also remember that the US shows interest in the UK mostly because we had a say in the EU and because we are easy to use for American military adventures, we only have to look at the last few decades to see that, the US says jump and the UK says how high, now we are likely going to be more under their thumb. It's the EU and US that will likely force it's laws on us simple because of how much we need them, the UK wants a free trade deal with the US, there is no such thing as a truly free trade deal apart from the EU market and internally inside a country, the US will demand a lot from us when it comes to negotiating that deal simple because they know we are on the back foot and in a weaker position, that special relationship that the UK keeps thinking it's got is really going to be tested, anyway, my guess is that the US will demand much greater access to the NHS and a watering down of labour laws.
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We could of already traded with those countries whiles we are part of the EU, a lot of us in the UK don't realise this but the EU has many bilateral deals with countries around the world which whiles not free trade deals, it's quite close to one, the US is a prime example, the EU has about 20 bilateral trade deals with them which cuts tariffs on most goods down a lot, to about 3% if I'm not mistaken. Also, every trade deal the UK strikes out around the world is very likely going to be worse than what the EU could of got us, it's simple economic clout, the EU market is a lot more enticing than the UK market is and because of that, the EU can get better trade deals for it's people, the UK are likely going to get a worse trade deal not just with the EU but with most of the world as well. Also, Canada just did a free trade deal with the EU, Japan and I think Australia are doing one with the EU too, Also not so long ago the US said they would rather strike a free trade deal with the EU before the UK. It's always about economic clout and that is why our hand is weaker, there is also the risk of the UK breaking apart especially Northern Ireland and Gibraltar and possibly Scotland, in 10 years time we could look back at this and what's left of the UK could be a shadow of it's former self and all thanks to some eurosceptics that are pushing a hardline agenda which doesn't seem to have the British interest at heart but their own interest and it boggles my mind with all the backtracking and lies that have been found out that people are not asking question on if we should leave the EU at all, if it wasn't for those lies, chances are we wouldn't be in this mess and really those people should be held accountable because it's the man in the street thats going to feel this not the rich elites. I also suspect US interest is going to shift away from the UK towards an EU country, probably Germany because whether we like it or not, the US wants a country thats an EU member in Europe to be dealing with so how relationship with the US could get worse over time.
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Trade deals with big countries or in this case the EU are rarely fast, the UK doing a trade deal with the US will likely take many years and we will be starting on the back foot, the US as the advantage of not only being bigger but the UK being in a more desperate position to need a trade deal once we leave the EU so that special relationship the UK seems to think it has with the US is really going to be tested now and as I said before, I suspect the US will demand much greater access to the NHS for American companies and a watering down of labour laws for US companies. Some don't realise this but the EU protected us on many of these things and now we are likely going to have worse standards. Trump has said many things and has flipped flopped on many of them, if the UK is relying on him then they are in trouble, also, with how long trade deals take and with the UK not being able to negotiate one till it leaves the EU, Trump is likely not going to be in power anymore. Also, Trump only wants Brexit and the EU to fall apart because a divided Europe is much easier to take advantage of than a united Europe, remember that he's about putting America first, in any case, the UK might be the first test case of the US taking advantage of the UK's weaken position, we'll see over the next 10 years. As for us trading most with the EU, thats likely going to be the case after the EU leaves the EU, countries trade the most with neighbouring countries because it makes economic sense to do so, almost all countries around the world do the same thing, we should also take into account that many businesses picked the UK because of it's access to the EU market, if we lose that, many of them are likely to leave and we also lose potential future investment, the UK is going to have to make up a lot of ground just to get what we already have and that will likely take decades if we get there at all. We was never going to go to war over Gibraltar, that would be insane, no country has gone to war with a modern countries since world war 2 because the risk is too high and because Spain has the EU backing and Gibraltar is much smaller and less important than say Hong Kong, 3 things are likely to happen, joint sovereignty with Spain, independence of Gibraltar so they can choose their own path or they become part of Spain, remember, the UK give up Hong Kong which was worth far more than Gibraltar, so Northern Ireland and Gibraltar are almost certain to leave with Scotland being 50/50, it's funny really because many in the UK wanted to break up the EU and it's looking more likely the UK is going to break apart over the next 10 years, Brexit has united the EU and its members more than I've ever seen in my life, definitely not what the UK wanted.
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It's not really about being obsessed, it's simple looking at the facts, bigger nations have a much greater advantage over smaller ones and usually use it if it's in their own interest to do so, the UK did it before we joined the EEC, we tried to do a trade union to rival the EEC at the time but it failed because the UK tried to take advantage of the other members, so an economic union can only work with a political union, hence the EU, also, the UK only joined the EEC because it was falling behind, we was the sick man of Europe and needed help, we got it and now others from the east need help, we don't want to help them, it says a lot about the UK really. Also, since being in the EU, we have a high standard of living, something we couldn't say before we joined, if you want to talk about real harm done to the UK, it's not the EU doing it but our own government thats doing that, for decades wealth isn't distributed around the country enough, there is a big north south divide, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are much poorer than England, if fact they are poorer than almost all western European countries of similar size which begs the question, what has the UK union done for them?, Northern Ireland and Scotland would likely be better off out of the UK unless something big changes with the UK government and thats unlikely to happen, also, every country that joined the EU are much better off than before they joined, personally, I'm more concerned about the UK falling apart then the EU, especially now the French elections are out of the way. In any case, I actually like what is happening, the UK is a very arrogant nation and we are likely going to learn a few valuable lessons over the next decade or two, the UK is living in the past clinging on to past glory and wants to be seen as someone on the world stage, in reality, we come across quite weak with how we cling onto the Americans a lot and overall it's not given us any more benefits than what the French gets, in fact, it's got us in more trouble then it's worth. Trump even flipped flopped on the EU, notice how quiet he's been about it and he's not been as critical about it anymore, a reality check clicked in with him especially when Merkel went over there and shortly after that, someone in their own government said they want to focus on a EU trade deal over the UK. Trading with Asian countries is fine but as we are already finding out with India,they want greater access to the UK market for it's people, that will go down well with the ones that want out of the EU, the trade negotiations are going to almost be as tough with other big countries around the world as they are with the EU and they will demand a lot in return, ultimately, I think we will likely have a Norway like deal because that solves a lot of problems with trade deals around the world, trade with the EU and border issues in Northern Ireland and Gibraltar, the real question will be is how will the UK government spin that to the people. As for the Falklands, Argentina was a poor country back then and to some degree still is now, as for Hong Kong, the Chinese government put a lot of pressure on us to get that back, we didn't give it willingly, as for Gibraltar, unless we get a good trade deal with the EU and some kind of easy freedom of movement with them, Gibraltar might end up realising that they have no choice but to leave the UK when most of it's trade is with the EU and a lot of the jobs relies on easy access to the EU market both with goods and people, so those views can change very quickly if the UK gets a bad deal. The reality is this, every country that joined the EU are better off then what they were, they are more secure from Russian aggression and American meddling and they can trade more fairly with the world because the EU gets them better deals than they could on their own. P.S., you didn't debunk anything, you just got angry because Le Pen lost in France, to think some in the UK wanted Le Pen to win simple to stick it to the EU, how stupid people can be, it would be like voting for Hitler and expecting a good result, nationalism is rarely a good thing for it's people, something thats being played on in the UK and something we might find that lesson the hard way.
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You say they won't take advantage of the UK and yet they have done since world war two, the US only has to say jump and the UK says how high and thats with the UK being a part of the EU which really shows how weak the UK is internationally, France similar size to us doesn't bend over for the US and with the UK out of the EU, we are going to be more under the US thumb. Not saying any of this is fair but it's the world we live in, in the EU we were protected both economically and politically but out of it we are on our own and likely going to find out we're not as big of player as we like to think we are, the world is run by the EU, US, China, India and a few others, the UK size is way behind these big players to take any notices. No, standards of living always improve but the UK as well as other EU countries when they joined improved a lot, it also adds political stability, look what's happening in Turkey, if they was part of the EU, that likely wouldn't happen because the EU acts like a check and balance on it's members where it's members are a check on the EU which is good for democracy, also, how long do you think it will be before UK labour laws are watered down?, the UK tried in the past but the EU stopped them, out of the EU and a trade deal needed with the US, labour laws are likely going to be one of the first things to get watered down just so we can stay competitive. Scotland accounts for about 40% of the UK land mass, I doubt the UK government's wants to lose them, also, if Scotland pulls out of the UK, they would be among the top players to steal a lot of jobs from the UK simple to have access to the EU market, there's is a golden opportunity for Scotland and Northern Ireland here or they can be at the mercy of the UK government that doesn't seem to care about the north, not saying it would be easy but if they play this right, they have a lot to gain. We are a arrogant nation, what kind of a country calls himself Great Britain?, yes we've achieved a lot but so have many other countries like Italy and yet they don't call themselves supreme Italy, we are too pompers in the UK and think we are better than the rest. The referendum wouldn't of been an issue if it wasn't an advisory poll and it wasn't so close, shouldn't of really needed 60%+ to pass then the country wouldn't be so divided as we are now, we've open up a right can of worms that risk breaking the UK union apart and most of it based on lies, if it was a clean and honest debate then I wouldn't argue about it, still would think it's a bad idea but would leave it at that but as we know, the people got lied too on many things and those lies was enough to win the vote, in a way, we are leaving the EU based on lies and what a story this will be 10 years from now. Try telling that to most of the people that voted for Brexit, most voted because they wanted change, less foreigners, Europeans integrate much easier than Asians or other regions and yes, I suspect the boarders will still be open even when we leave the EU so all we've done is traded Europeans that integrated easily into society for others around the world that are much harder to integrate, I'm sure that will go down with the Brexit lot. Hong Kong went smoothly because China is a growing power, the UK had little choice but to give it back, which does beg the question about the Falklands and Gibraltar, Argentina will likely fancy their chances of taken it back someday in the future, Spain have a good chance of getting a good deal on Gibraltar now thanks to EU backing. Spelling looks fine to me but it says a lot when you feel the need to bring that up that you are losing the argument, in any case, you've still not debunked anything, I always find it how people like you are fine with lies like we had with the EU referendum when it's convenient to your agenda, a bit like how some Brexit and Trump supporters wanted Le Pen to win, what idiots these people are, these people seem to think having hardline governments around the world is a good thing and they only thinking this way because they want to stick it to the EU, even in the UK, if we are not careful, democracy could get undermine and yet the Brexit lot don't seem to care, hence why it would be great if the Tories win by a landslide because it doesn't change anything with the negotiations with the EU but it would give May a stronger hand to do what she wants in the UK, in a way, with no real opposition, the British people might be at the mercy of the UK government, good timing as well.
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No doubt about it, both sides did lie but it shouldn't be dismissed that a lot of the lies that got us to vote leave are being backtracked on and you have to wonder with how close the referendum was if those lies was enough to tip it over the edge to get us to vote leave, I suspect without those lies, we wouldn't be in this mess. As for the economy, we can't say how negative of an impact it will have until we leave the EU, for the moment nothing has really changed and we are still an EU member, the real impact will be about a year after the negotiation are done with, and as for us running our own nation out of the EU, that remains to be seen, I suspect we will likely have a Norway like deal which the EU would be over the moon with, nothing really changes for both the EU or UK but the UK will have little to no say on EU policies, that would solve the Northern Ireland and Gibraltar issue with movement of people and trade, it would defuse Scotland's independent movement, it would also solve the 50 odd trade deals we need to do around the world just to get what the EU already has and in the process we have open access to the EU market which is right on our door, May will talk a tough deal but reality will kick in sooner or later. From the outside world, the UK looks like a poodle to the US, the Iraq war, most Brits didn't want it but we went in under flimsy evidence, France look like a stronger country because they don't bend to the US and they have a bigger role in the EU which is impressive considering economic and population size is similar to the UK. In any case, I've not really seen much in how Brexit will be better for us, most of what we hear could already be achieved whiles part of the EU. It doesn't work that way, a country that joins the EU doesn't suddenly because better off but the policy are put in place to help them become better off, usually after a decade or two it starts to show but it depends how quickly the country is willing to push through reforms, as for Greece, they can keep blaming the EU all they want but most of it's problems are self inflicted, same with Italy. Scotland can only really leave if they are back into the EU shortly after leave or right away, I know in the UK they want to scare them into leaving but thats fear mongering, last thing the UK government wants is the UK union falling apart which the risk is there, in any case, the UK leaving the EU will in the longer run give ammunition to the ones that want to leave the UK unless the UK government bends over backwards for those regions, the north of England is going to get a real raw deal out of all this. Nothing wrong with being proud in one's country but a lot of people have blind patriotism which just blinds us from how things really are, but honestly, I probably say Italy have achieved more than the UK have in the western world. You say we live in a democracy, that also means the people should have the choice to change their minds once we know what the real deal is, thats democracy, why are the leave supporters so fearful of that?, if you really believe the British people want out then another chance to vote won't change anything, but the reason they are so fearful of that is because a lot of the lies have come out, the vote was close, a lot of people that didn't vote likely will now and that would likely change the outcome, leave supporter only seem to support democracy when it suites them. In any event, all will be clear in about 10 years from now but here are my predictions, the UK will be worse off both politically and economically, those trade deals around the world are not going to be as easy as some would like to think and are likely not going to be favourable, the US special relationship as we like to think of it is likely going to shift to an EU country, Germany is the likely bet with France a possibility, the UK will likely want to rejoin the EU but the EU won't let us in, not for at least a few decades anyway and we would be signing up to everything, we have a pretty good deal with the EU already, we won't get that chance again and we will also lose a lot of business and talent which much of which relied on us having easy access to the EU, pressure on the UK union will keep building unless the north south divide is sorted out but I suspect, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar will leave the UK with Scotland being 50/50 but ultimately unless the UK government bends over backwards for those regions then they might leave, I suspect they will take advantage of the UK government because they can threaten them to leave and as we know, the UK government can't afford for two or 3 or them to leave as it would be really embarrassing for the UK and during all this process, the EU and it's members are going to pick off businesses from the UK, it could also be much worse then that, it really depends on what the EU is willing to give us and how they are willing to treat us after Brexit is done. Anyway, don't you think it's time we agree to disagree, otherwise we'll keep argueing indefinitely.
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When you think about it, Germany should have more votes considering its population and economy size but I can understand why it's the same as France, UK and Italy mostly because of the past.
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I wouldn't say the Brits are racists against the Germans but I definitely would say they are disgruntled about them, they see it that Germany lost world war two and are both politically and economically more successful than the UK whiles also playing a big role in the EU unlike the UK which is too much of the fringes, the UK can't seem to get over the past and in particular world war two. In the end, the UK is coming across as quite weak in the world, they bend over backwards with the US, they don't do the right thing even when they know it's the right thing to do because of fear of the US like we saw with the Iraqi war where as we know, France and Germany stood up to the US and was proven right about it and the sad reality is that if the UK leaves the EU, the UK is going to be a lot more under the thumb of the US. I'm a Brit and even I can see that the UK looks weak on the world stage and when you look at others like France, at least they stand up to what they believe in and don't bend to America's will like the UK does and yet in the UK we like to talk about that special relationship with the US, where does the UK benefit for it?, all I see is that France are just as well off as the UK but don't get dragged into a lot of the troubles the US creates around the world. I know some of us Brits don't want to accept this but since world war two, the UK comes across as weak.
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I suspect if WW3 was to happen, there wouldn't be much left of the US, Russia or Europe, including the UK but thats the main reason it's not happened because the risk is too high and no one really wins. As for the UK, I'm a realist and looking at how the world is developing, European countries are going to be weak in the world on their own, we are simply too small to compete with the EU, US and the other emerging powers like China and India, it's clear that power is shifting from the west to the east and I suspect if western countries want to protect western values and interest, the EU will need to be strong but more then that, the EU and US will need to work much more closely together because over the coming decades, none of them on there own will be powerful enough to protect their interest with how quickly Asia is developing. This is also why the UK leaving the EU would lose a lot of political clout around the world.
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I suspect the EU will become a single country before the century is out, probably sooner, the changing world will likely force a reality check on Europeans that it's the best option if they want to protect European and western values.
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I doubt anyone would win a nuclear war, if a nuke was to go off anywhere, it could escalate very quickly into full scale war, the real worry for the human race is that we are too divided and are advancing at a fairly decent rate, over the next 100 years, I suspect any country that wants nukes will be able to easily get them but I also suspect that terrorist and some big businesses will be able to do the same, the more we advance, the easier it will become for them and the human race is too divided with over 200 countries. Unless the human races works much closer together or unifies the world as well as become more humans, there is a fair chance that the human race will wipe ourselves out because the more we advance, the easier it is to do and the more hands that have this power.
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I doubt it somehow, you don't honestly think the likes of France, Germany, the UK and so on will be able to really compete longer term with how big the EU, US, China, India and so on are getting, not to mention that other groupings of countries are forming up all over the world, over the next 100 years, a lot of countries are very likely going to get bunched together because they will have to if they want to compete, European countries on there own are not big enough so that leaves the EU. Beside, the EU has had freedom of movement for quite some time and it's not really been a problem, all they really need to do is get a bit tougher on the external borders of the EU and have better immigrations laws.
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***** I remember how expensive they was at the time, I think I paid £130 for 60MB drive and that was on special offer, I think it was around £160 originally, how things have changed.
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Jeff DeWitt My brother bought a 1.2GB drive in 1995, can't remember how much it cost but all the PC cost £2500 so a lot of money back then, I find it remarkable when I was growing up as a kid in the 80's and 90's and seeing how much progress has been made with technology, in them days, people would of thought we was crazy if we said computing power would make the leaps it's done and that almost everyone will be using one in one form or another, all in the space of about 30 years.
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Jeff DeWitt I remember reading up a story about a 5 MB hard drive IBM did in the 60's I think, it was big, but the thing is, it looked like a normal hard drive with needle and spinning platter, it kind of looked the size of about 4 big records, the picture I saw was where it was on a crate being moved onto a fan, I think it cost $100,000 at the time, just goes to show how much progress has really happened over the last 50 years or so. progress seems to be speeding up as well, I suspect the human race is going to advance more in the next 100 years then we have in all our history.
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Jeff DeWitt I would of loved to of seen one of those hard drives at the time run, being that they was so big, I couldn't imagine them spinning at a fast rate still must of been noises. That's true about storage capacity, we're almost at that point already for many people and I suspect it will be something people don't worry about.
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Jeff DeWitt I'll have to check on YouTube see if I can find any, I would imaging that it spins at a much slower speeds than modern hard drives do considering the size of them.
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encycl07pedia Thats progress for ya.
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The problem I see with all this is Theresa May, the election revolved around her and it didn't go down well with the public and it's probably in the Conservative party's interest to get rid of her asap because the Brexit clock is ticking and I doubt the EU will extend that deadline because they know the blame will firmly go on May and the Conservative party if things go wrong and because May threaten the EU a few times, it's not looking good and ironically, Labour might be able to get us a better deal from the EU then the Tories can, Labour have not threaten the EU and because of that, they might of been able to get us a better deal as well as extend the 2 year deadline if needed. Personally I think things are just going to get worse, especially with the DUP in play and if another election is held later this year, it won't look good for the Conservative party and like Alastair Campbell said, the UK is looking like a complete joke to the rest of the world and I can't help but think when all is said and done, we are going to get a Norway like deal which makes me wonder what the point of leaving the EU at all but unfortunately, we are going to get pushed out now anyway since Article 50 was triggered, because I can't see the 27 EU members plus the European parliament agreeing to let us stay not without a price being paid but even then I get the impression they want to get rid of us as we are more trouble than we are worth and in any event, I doubt many of us expected things to get like this with the EU referendum and it's ironic because the EU is a lot more united than the UK is, something I didn't see coming.
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@inconvenienttiming8930 There was one on youtube but I don't know if there is any more.
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Whats crazy is that it's usually the older generation that screws over the younger generation but with Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, they come across as believable that they would try to deliver for the young and all the country, it's just a shame that people in both countries don't see that, after all, if we keep voting the same way then we won't get change, what happened in the UK especially with young votes is a positive step but they need to keep the momentum up for real change to happen.
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Can't really blame Trump, in the end, enough American people was willing to vote him in and that is where the real problem is. We had a warning sign with George W Bush and that didn't turn out too well, Trump is on another level, with Bush, the damage could be repaired but now I get the impression now with Trump that it's too late and we are seeing signs that the US is losing leadership role in the world with the likes of the EU, China and others likely to take over that role, Brexit in the UK is even worse and I have to sometimes wonder what is going on in these two countries for them to want to do so much damage to themselves and if I was to guess, people are fed up, inequality in both countries is quite bad, politicians are not serving the people and just there own interest and unfortunately, the choices the Brits and Americans have made are likely going to make things worse for them, now France on the other hand avoided this look like they could be on an upwards curve, all three, the UK, US and France will be interesting to watch over the next decade with whats going on. Also, don't underestimate the damage Trump and Brexit can do to both countries both politically and economically, the US can recover because Trump is an here and now president but it will take a lot of good will from the next president, but with Brexit, I can't see how that wont hurt the UK both politically and economically and it's the biggest self harm I've seen both countries do and it's looking like the EU, China and Russia stands to benefit from all this and I have to wonder when the dust settles if we'll get a movie on all this with whats going on in the US, UK and France.
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truth defender True but many people have gotten used to being able to cross borders without any problems, many people do it just to do their shopping or go to work, now it could be more awkward for them, but I think once everything is done and said, I think boarders will still be open so probably won't matter.
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truth defender True but now Northern Ireland might want the same, but in any case like I said before, when all is said and done, I suspect the UK will have full market access to the EU market with freedom of movement, even Scotland is making a big deal on that one and I think May will realise that to keep the UK union together, she might have to go for that kind of option, a few hardern leave supporters won't be happen but I suspect most are moderate and can be turned, at least that way no economic harm will happen to the UK and people can come and go as they please, I'll admit, even though I didn't have any plans of moving to another EU countries, I found it very appealing that I could and quite restricted if boarders go up.
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I think the problem is the tax system in the US, there isn't enough money to go around and upgrade enough of the infrastructure and it probably doesn't help with how much the US spends on the military and when we compare to Europe, they pay higher taxes but they get a lot for it especially continental EU countries.
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It's blatantly obvious that the EU isn't bluffing, we only have to see of everything thats been said over the last year, now the UK on the other hand I'm not sure, either they are on a suicide run with hard Brexit or they are bluffing to try and get better terms out of the EU, but the EU doesn't seem to be biting, in fact I get the impression that many in the EU wants to get rid of us which isn't a good sign for the UK but one thing is clear, over the year, the EU has been toughening its stance on the UK whereas the UK hoped it would soften it, in truth, this is all backfiring spectacularly on the UK which is great because arrogants must be punished :)
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Willkott How do you figure that one out?, from what I've seen, support for the EU has gone up since the UK wanted to leave, not seen any EU country wanted to renegotiate its terms and thats unlikely to happen, in truth, many have seen the mess the UK have got themselves in and don't want any of that. Even if the worse happens and a few members pulled out of the EU, it's not the end of the world, the EU will still be EU, infact it might get much stronger because if a few was to leave, it would likely be the ones that didn't want political integration in the first place, be careful what you wish for because that could end up creating a much stronger EU then we already have.
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Whats it matter if there was an American show like this or not?, the main thing that matters is that there is a show like this and it really doean't matter what part of the world it comes from just as long as we all enjoy the show which many of us do.
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It's not bad and it's one of the better ones but still it doesn't come close to Graham Norton.
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Corbyn and Bernie get a lot of stick from the media because a lot of what they say makes a lot of sense, the media and many politicians want to try and discredit them to make them look like a joke to the voters because the establishment doesn't want the system to change, for them it's working wonderfully but for the average person it's not, inequality is getting worse all the time and people want change then we have to vote for change but that can also backfire like we saw with Trump, there is good and bad change, I suspect Labour with Corbyn would be good change, it looks like Macron from France is another good change, only time with tell but at the moment, France are in the best position to realise that change with the clear majority he got, still he will have to work fast because voters are very unforgiving.
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That's not true, it was a protest vote, a lot of people in the UK don't even know what the EU is nevermind what it stands for, what was it on Google, top trending search "What is the EU", really, now the funny thing is, many people said they would vote to stay and not leave now they are seeing what impact it's having.
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ThatDutchguy Thats hard to say really, what amazes me the most is how many people have changed there mind on it, it wouldn't surprise me if the vote was done today if the outcome would be 55% to 65% to remain, either way it doesn't matter, I get the impression the EU doesn't want the UK because we're more trouble than we are worth. In any case, if we stay in the EU or not now doesn't matter, I think the damage is done, the UK have lost a lot of respect and trust not just in Europe but around the world, signs are already showing that the US is realigning with the EU more than the UK. To me this is just the next step in the decline of the UK over the last 100 years in how much of a impact we have around the world.
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Does seem that way like a movement is growing to keep us in the EU, can't really blame them really with how much of a mess the debate was in the first place based on lies and backtracking from the leave side, it's given the ones that want to stay in the EU a lot of ammunition.
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Thats basicly it, she's comes across as robotic and keeps saying the same slogans that mean nothing, like Brexit means Brexit could mean anything and yet shes says no deal is better than a bad deal and yet she won't explain what that would mean, it's crazy but the reality check hasn't sunk in yet in the UK and I suspect it's only going to kick in when it's too late.
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Hey single life isn't that bad, with being in both, I'm still debating which is better, being single or in a relationship, tough choice lol.
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It wouldn't surprise me if we join the EEA, that solve the problem of Northern Ireland and I'm sure Scotland and London will be happy with that as well, trade can go on without any real trade, even free movement wouldn't be affected which I'm fine with that too but politically speaking it could be problematic for the government to past that with some of the hardern leave supporters, still given the choice from that and the alternative and I know which I would pick.
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DrMontague I was just going to say that, a lot of people with intelligence and talent would stay up north for long if there wasn't as much of an economic divide from north and south, now there are more reasons to get, also he's kind of proving the point of what's wrong with the region.
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DrMontague I agree and it's only been getting worse, inequalities been getting worse for along time now and governments are doing little to nothing to stop that, I sometimes wonder, what are they waiting for because if things keep going the way they are doing, there's going to be a big revolution in the decades to come. But I have a funny feeling in the UK and EU, the wake up call might of already happened, they can't do business as usual or things will get worse, so things might start improving for all of us in Europe, but we'll only know over the next decade or so. But as we know, most of the vote had little to do with the EU, it was a protest vote because people disillusioned with how things are, the feel the rich are taking too much of the wealth and politicians don't listen to the people anymore, ultimately, all this boils down to inequality.
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DrMontague I agree, the working class just want someone to blame and I don't blame them for that, the EU became a easy scapegoat because of how it's portrayed in the media, politicians don't help much either, we've pretty much had a one sided debated about the EU for the last decade or two. But nothing is going to change for the working class in or out of the EU unless the British government's listens to what the people want, I like to know who they will blame if the same problems are still there when out of the EU, maybe they might learn after that that they've been taken for a ride, either way, we might end up with less resources to sort those problems out of the EU than in. The next 10 years are going to be some interesting times over here.
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DrMontague Yeah there is that, Labour need to get back into the game because it's not good for democracy to just have the Conservatives as the only credible choice, but with everything up in the air at the moment, if Liberal Democrats play there cards right, they might become a credible force in politics. So far I've heard that Corporate tax is being cut and tax rise and spending cuts, I can't see how this isn't going to hit the working class people, I can understand Corporate tax, that's being done because the UK government is scared that some companies will pull out of the UK and into the EU market, but businesses paying less tax won't go down well with the working class people, more so because it could be there taxes that have to cover the lost tax that businesses should be paying. What I find really ironic, this is part of the problem that got us into this mess in the first place, the rich and big businesses not paying their way, will governments every learn because it seems like they are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
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DrMontague I think we're pretty much out of the frying pan and into the fire already in the UK, well no to be honest that's not true, the fire begins if and when Article 50 is signed, I would be curious to see how markets react to that because that's would be the point of no return.
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DrMontague It's not really the Brits as such, I'm English and lived in the north of England all my life, it's the mass media, since 9/11, the media have been going on a hate campaign with anything that isn't native with the UK and have really ramp up their hate for the EU, most people are only getting one side of the story and as I'm sure you know, tell a lie enough time and many will believe it, the mass media is doing a lot of harm in the UK and US and should really be held accountable for lies and twisting of the truth.
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DrMontague Who knows, maybe they did more research on the EU and thought it was better to stay in then leave or maybe they didn't fall for the lies the leave side was saying, but what really surprised me was the young generation of people voting more to stay in, that got me by surprise, I expected them to fall for the lies and be hostile towards the EU but I can understand why they would want to stay in, being in the EU gives the younger generation of people more opportunities in life in the UK and throughout Europe, if these views resonate long term then it's good news for the future.
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Richard Bradley What's that got to do with the EU?, what you are complaining about is more to do with the Conservative government, Margaret Thatcher to be precise, most of that was Westminster that decided all that and the same with how wealth is divided in the UK, none of that actually changes outside the EU unless the government rethinks its way of thinking, also a lot of problems people complain about in the UK, the US have the same problems as well as many other countries that are not EU members. What I want to know is who is the next scapegoat people like you will use to blame now that you we could be out of the EU, I'm sure you'll find one, it's what people like you like to do, deflect blame elsewhere and not look in the mirror.
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DrMontague I kind of look forward to that because they never like to look in the mirror.
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I tried this once in the past and no it's not even close to a desktop PC, it felt like I was jumping through hoops many times just to do some of the basic things and in the end it felt like my productivity level when down a lot compared to a PC, there's potential in the idea but personally I prefer my mobile phone for mobile use and keep my desktop PC for home use, we also have to remember that PC's will always be more powerful than mobiles phones so they can do more, I suspect in the long run mobile phones will be able to tap into your home PC's power and use it remotely anywhere by the internet.
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The real problem I find with the death penalty is that under certain circumstances the state is saying killing a person is fine, what kind of a message is that to the people of the country that under certain circumstances that killing someone is fine, it's not really the right message to send out and I would think modern nations would be above all that.
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The thing is with democracy, it's only really effective if the public shows enough interest in what's going on, sadly, not enough people do in the western world and because of that, the public are easy to manipulate by politicians and the media. Politicians are usually always power hungry, if the public doesn't keep them in check and democracy gets weaken or worse yet, we end up with a dictatorship, we only have ourselves to blame and ultimately, the public needs to show more interest in what's going on in the political world and need to do more research in getting to the truth and not the bull, also more of the public need to turn out to vote because not enough are and Trump and Brexit is a warning sign, both to politicians to listen to the people and to the people to start waking up and show an interest in what's going on. We like to think we're living in a democracy and always will, democracies can easily change and can end if we are not careful so yes, things need to change, both from politicians and the people.
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It's a double edge sword, on the one hand we all want things as cheap as we can get but on the other we all want higher wages, it's hard to have both without automation, the reality is that in the west at least, we are addicted to cheap goods and the likes of China can do a much better job at delivering that, if it wasn't for that and everything was say made in the UK, our standard of living would nose dive.
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That helps to a degree but then that could've been the same for all eastern European countries, but if we look at it, the standard of living of the ones that join the EU is much higher then the ones that didn't, Ukraine used to be a powerhouse decades ago and look at them now, you have to wonder how much better off they would be if they ware in the EU now, in fact we don't need to wonder, just look at the gdp per capita of the eastern members in the EU and look at the ones that are not in the EU.
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Migration of people is natural and have been happening for along time, just now it's becoming political because of control and fear. As for the eastern EU members, I don't see a problem with them working in western EU members and taking much of that money back home, it helps them to develop whiles learning new skills, it's also good for having people move around the EU.
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Not for them but it's kind of is for the natives of the country, it's just enough to get by really.
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It's remarkable from a Brit looking at all this because in the UK similar things happened to Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour party and when Tony Blair won the election in 1997, he did it by rebranding Labour as new Labour but all they really did was move Labour more to the right in line with the Conservative party, so in a sense, they are both more or less the same, I suspect the Democrats are moving more to the right just to try and win elections but that isn't good for democracy, it's offering the people less choice. People say they want change, well voting for more of the same will keep getting us the same results, Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders look like people that would offers us real change if we was to give them a chance and I know some people will say these people are a bit extreme but then, maybe thats what we need because who we keep voting for isn't working for the average person.
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True smart phones can never really match a PC in power because anything they can do with a smartphone, they can scale it up many folds more in a PC, it will always have that advantage but it doesn't matter, I suspect PC's will become house computers that are interconnected with more or less everything in the house in the future whereas smartphones take care of all our mobile needs which should also be able to tap into the power of the home computer over the internet, to me there not really a threat to each other but I do think both are a threat to all the ones in between like consoles, smart tvs and other things like that.
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It's hard to say when it comes to long term growth because so many things can change overtime that changes the outcome, I think in Europe and the UK, a lot is going to change over the next few decades because of the wake up call of Brexit which to mean had more to do with inequality then it did the EU, the next few decades should be interesting to see but I think the EU will be fine.
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Hence why he called Labour as New Labour but all it really did was move Labour more to the right which in the end made Labour and the Conservative party more or less the same, Corbyn on the other hand seems to be taking Labour back to it's routes which is a good thing for democracy and for the people, it means we have more choices which can only be a good thing.
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What I find with getting accurate news sources is that it's best to get as much as you can from many sources and put it all together and ideally from different sources from around the world as it helps to get a more accurate picture on the truth, also, you have to be open minded, I find a lot of people gravitate to media that fits their worldview which isn't good, a lot of people self manipulate on news because of what they want to believe, personally, I prefer to hear the truth even if it goes against my views, I rather know the truth then delude myself with faults information, the more accurate the information I get, the more I can change my views accordingly to that information, that we should all aim for but sadly, most of us hear what they want to hear because it fits their worldview and agenda.
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It's just another nail in May's and the Conservatives coffing, they kept telling us not to vote Labour because of a coalition of chaos and yet May and the Conservative party are doing exactly that, it's funny how many lies they keep telling us and it's even funnier the ones that believe them. Hear is another lie, strong and stable, does May and the Conservative party look strong and Stable to anyone?, Labour to my surprise actually does now, who would of said that a few months ago.
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The real problem is if there is some back tracking going on with either getting us to stay in the EU or very close ties with them might be more to do with the way the leave side did things with all the lies coming out and back tracking, in truth they've given the ones that want to stay in the EU a lot of ammunition to go on so I don't think this is over by a long shot, anyway, should be interesting to see how it turns out.
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It's true that throwing violence at violence isn't working, I saw a youtube clip a few months ago showing terrorism of the last 30 years and it was quite steady until 9/11 where it skyrocketed, it's clear to see that whats being done isn't working and they need a radical rethink because it's getting worse.
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@somecallmeblue That's what makes it messed up as a system with her winning the popular vote but Trump ends up in the White House.
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@MoonShadeStuff I 100% agree with you on that one, I'm from the UK and we mostly see the same kind of thing here with the Conservative and Labour Party, a two party system ends up not being much of a democracy because it because a personal battle of sides, left vs right, red vs blue and so on and even thought the UK does have other parties like the Lib Dems, they hardly get a look in and most don't give them a chance because of the way the UK system is set up, it would be a wasted vote, in other words, the system is rigged to protect the two main parties which makes it difficult for new parties to gain power. I prefer the system Germany has got, over there it seems any party could win and we do see many times when grand coalitions are formed with 3 plus parties.
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@LuminousSpace Unfortunately, that is high enough of a number to ruin it for the rest, maybe the people that don't vote if they did could turn the tide, I sense that in the UK with Brexit that if it was a mandatory vote, it's unlikely the UK would be leaving the EU now, the problem is, most didn't think it was going to happen whereas the euroseptics wasn't going to miss their chance of voting to get us out, so the numbers end up being messed up and hence why the government wont give another chance because all the polls have said the public would vote to remain in the EU if we had another chance, we like to think we are in a democracy, it's not really, it's a sham.
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In truth, we have nothing to offer them, we would be at best just a curiosity to them. An alien race could be anything from a few hundred years more advanced then us to being millions or even billions of years ahead of us or they could even be less advanced then us which would likely mean they would be stuck on their home planet. An alien race that advanced enough likely would have as much natural resources, energy, labour as they want, Earth or humans wouldn't really offer them anything. It's also possible that the universe being so big that they might not even know we exist. One thing I do suspect, if alien races do become advanced enough, I suspect they will have to become civilised a lot more then even us humans are because the more advanced they become, the more of a threat they can become to themselves, we are seeing that pattern here with humans and that is likely the same for them so the likely outcome, an alien race would have to become a lot more civilised just to survive and it's the same for humans otherwise them and us are just as likely to wipe ourself out if they don't become civilised enough. Another interesting point is that aliens could be watching us as we speak and there are many ways they can do that, either from orbit, from a far or they could just as easierly create a human body and transplant there brain into that body and observe us as a human and that would be very hard for us to detect because they would look human and even to scanners would read as human. If I was interested in observing an alien race but don't want to be detected and are advanced enough to do it, that how I would do it. Also, if they do make first contact with us, it likely would be once we are advanced enough and that would likely be when we can travel in space a lot easier then we do now, but for now, they are more likely curios to see how we develop and do we develop to that stage without wiping ourselves out.
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The bubble might burst in them sending a crazy amount of money into A.I. but A.I. isn't going anywhere and is only going to get bigger and more integrated into our lives as it develops and becomes more capable, but I also think it's going to be at a local level and not these massive online A.I. systems that are centralised, at least with A.I. at a local level, resources management is far more manageable, it also gets around a lot of the security and privacy issues. But without a doubt, A.I. isn't going anywhere and we've only just started.
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@ynk1611 Actually that's not true, everything more or less has to go through the European Parliament which the public has a vote on, there is little to nothing the EU Commission can pass without getting the go ahead from the European Parliament, think of the Commission a bit like the Civil Servants, in fact when you think about it, it's worse in the US because they can pass laws without the public having any say or Parliament for that matter. Because Poland and Hungary are slipping on the democratic front doesn't mean the EU isn't democratic, it just means some regions are slipping on that front and that could happen in any nation with regions, beside, there is a lot of pressure going on those two countries to change and if it comes to it, I suspect the EU would boot them out if needed but chances are, the people in the countries will put pressure on the governments to change, hence the longer game over the next election or two.
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@thetechoasis2179 I wouldn't even rate the UK that high with everything that has gone on in the UK the last few years.
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At first, I have to admit, I did think it would be an easy victory for Russia, but a lot of things have changed and a lot of weaknesses have been exposed on the Russian military. For one, the response from the west has been a lot tougher than anyone expected, more so Putin as he likely thought it would be a slap on the wrist, in reality, the west are hitting Russia hard with sanctions, military help to Ukraine and isolating Russia from much of the world, long term that is really damaging for Russia. Another factor is that Putin was betting on a short term war, the longer the war drags on, the more crippling it's going to be for Russia, not only in just the cost for Russia being in Ukraine but even the cost of losing European revenue on oil and gas sales which will bite over time. I think what a lot of us really misunderstand about Russia is that most looked at Russia's power based on its history, the truth is, Russia is a weak economy, it's got an economy in-between the size of Spain and Italy whiles having to cater to a lot more people, basically, too many people looked at Russia for what it was in the past and not what it is today, which is a weak power trying to lash it's tail and getting a harsh lesson in reality and the only thing that Russia has going for it is it's natural resources but even that isn't good because the moment Putin used that as a political weapon, you lose trust on the international market, basically, no one is going to want to be too dependent on Russia now in case they get political, so even thought the likes of China and India will buy cheap oil and gas from Russia, they'll likely make sure to not buy too much in case Putin plays games with them, that for me is Putin's biggest mistake as trust is hard to come by and takes a long time to repair. As for Putin, I see no way for him to get out of this, he's built an image of himself in Russia as being a hard man, backing down in the war would make him look weak in the eyes of the Russian people and could actually be the end of him, the problem is for Putin, the longer this war drags out, the same results are very likely as an uprising builds in Russia, we might be seeing early signs of that already in Russia and we should remember that the Russian people are being protected by that rainy day fund that Putin built up, that will run out which on top of European countries moving away from their oil and gas, that's when things will really get bad for Russia. If that's not bad enough, it looks like Ukraine will be better armed going into winter, meaning the cost of the war for Russia is likely going to get higher. I do also get a sense that Putin has already lost this war and now it's just a matter of running down the clock, this is under the assumption that the west keeps training, arming and giving intelligence to Ukraine which is very likely as the alternative in letting Russia get away with this is likely another invasion of another country, the price has to be so high for Russia that they'll think twice next time, hence why it looks like the west are in this for the long term.
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I think the EU should aim for around 80% of military spending in EU countries and with a few exceptions, friendly nations around the world, especially in Europe. Clearly, getting those numbers won't happen overnight, but year in year out, they can trickle those numbers down away from the US. Another advantage of the EU building up a strong arms industry is arms sales on the world market, I suspect even before Trump, there would be a lot of countries around the world that would love to buy European arms over American arms, this is likely far more the case with Trump playing politics with trade, because of this, if the EU plays its cards right, not only will hundreds of billions per year in arms sales be taken away from the US, but it would also mean European arms stealing arm sales from the US, considering how hostile the US is becoming, the Europeans would almost guarantee sales on arms that are good enough, the cost to the US could be around half a trillion per year, just look at how well Airbus is doing compared to Boeing the last few years, it would be even worse if the Europeans could keep up with orders. Anyway, my point is, there is a lot of anger around the world at the US, this is a golden opening for the EU and even China to steal a lot of trade from the US and potentially isolate the US as a nation, after all, no one really wants to trade with a country that uses trade as a political weapon like the US is doing, it will over time end up shifting trade away from the US to more reliable partners, the EU countries are in a strong position to take advantage of that if they play there cards right, but even China is likely to win out on this. I have to say, it's going to be interesting to see how much trade countries shift away from the US to alternatives around the world, because let's be honest, Trump is a symptom of the problems in the US, the problem was there even before Trump, and it's just getting worse over time, in other words, anyone thinking things will get better when Trump is out of power are deluding themselves, I mean in the short term, things will be better, but US politics is going off the rails, that problem is there regardless of Trump and because of that, it's better for countries to reduce there exposure to the US and find more reliable partners, which is already happening, so if the US doesn't change its ways, the economic damage to the US could be immense over the coming decades. In any case, the real winner in all this is China, as the US and EU hit each other on the head, China sits back and smiles on the sideline as it's two major rivals weaken themselves, and by extension, the west, Trump and the Republican Party are thinking very short-sighted and could do a lot of damage to the US and the west.
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Yep and for me, it all started with the austerity measures about 12 years ago but Brexit sent it into overdrive that it feels the country is sinking fast under the Tories, they've lost all perspective on reality. It's sad really because the term the country is going to the dogs is really happening and many like to think things can't get worse and yet things continue to get worse and I don't expect things to get better until the Tories are out of power, because the problem is, Brexit allowed the lunatics to take over the party with the ERG movement and with that, they keep lurching from one disaster after another. Honestly, from the EU's perspective or remainder in the UK, they must be rubbing their hands with glee with the mess the Tories are doing, especially for the EU because the Tories keep giving ammo to the EU and the sides in EU countries to not want to follow the UK out of the EU. I knew things would be bad outside the EU but I didn't expect a thing and the sad thing is, it's only going to get worse, we've got the long term cost of Brexit, then Covid, the high energy price and inflation and now the war in Ukraine, the cost of all this on the country is going to make the austerity measure look mild in comparison and considering that that played a big part in radicalizing a lot more people on Brexit, it doesn't bold well for the future, at least the next decade or two.
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I only see 3 solutions when it comes to Ukraine, either the western countries give Ukraine the arms so it can fight the war effectively, or western countries step in directly, or Ukraine ends up losing the war to Russia. The last option would be a disaster for the west, especially the US, it would show the likes of China and Russia that there are steps the west are not willing to cross, it would basically show us as being weak and then the likes of China and Russia knows that all they have to do is drag a war out, knowing the west doesn't have the stomach for it, that would be bad because it would basically mean the west isn't as committed with its resolve that they want us to think, it would also mean Russia could pick another target. As for direct intervention, well I don't see that happening unless things start to escalate, which it likely would if the west does what I said above. The only real option is that the west and especially the EU and US needs to beef up it's support for Ukraine by giving it the arms to end the war sooner rather than later, after all, the longer it drags on, the more costly it gets. Macron might be a bit over the top in what he says, but many of the other leaders are showing a weak hand, by basically other leaders coming out and saying we won't send troops into Ukraine, that emboldens Russia to keep going, I'm not saying the west should send troops in, at least not yet, but at least keep Putin guessing, all we keep seeing from western countries is weakness and a lot of talk but not enough action, it's no wonder why Russia feels that if they keep going, they can win. As for Germany, at least grow a spine, you've already been fooled once by Russia, do you want it to happen again by inaction, only for Putin to take over Ukraine and then pick up another target? Germany needs to wake up and start showing leadership, otherwise another EU country will and if Germany isn't careful, geopolitics could shift away from them unless they start showing real leadership, especially if the west allows Putin to take over Ukraine, that would look bad on Germany, the US and the west.
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Filmdude Russia self-sufficient? if you cut out all the western tech, they would likely go back to the Stone Age, as for oil and gas, if Russia didn't sell it to Europe, they would just buy it on the world market, many are selling oil and gas around the world.
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@shawnushyarov4584 I'm sure they can with nukes, but it would also destroy their own, no one wins basically, but in economic terms which is really what matters, the EU are far bigger then Russia.
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@John-hu9qg It doesn't need it, it just prefers it as it's cheaper and closer, but EU countries could buy it's gas and oil from other places around the world if Russia plays too many games, after all, the US has wanted to sell to Europe for quite some time, there are lots of options but the problem is that it would push up the price on the world market so everyone else would complain, but then they can take it out on Russia lol. The fact of the matter is, it's not in Russia's interest to cut oil and gas to Europe for a number of reasons, one it would hurt the Russian economy a lot, two it would brake a lot of trust, not just with the Europeans but with the rest of the world because nobody is going to want to do business with Russia if they did that and 3, Europe would just buy it's oil and gas on the world market and push it's renewable energy drive harder, in the end, it's Russia it would hurt the most and lets be blunt about this, if Russia ever did that, it would spill over into other areas, Europe would play games with Russia on access to a lot of other techs and I'm sure you know the US would be more than happy to join the party. This is why Russia threatens but never really follows through, they like to play games but thats about it.
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@sexynelson100 China doesn't care about Russia, Russia is just a tool to be used against the west when it comes to China. In fact, It's Russia that should be worried about China with it's economy expanding, after all, you might not like to admit this but Russians have far more in common with Europeans than they do with China,
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It's not about stopping China, it's about balancing things out to allow Europeans car manufacturers to survive. Tariffs are usually a stop-gap measure to buy some time to adapt, but the tariffs will likely go up if it's not enough, but the EU should also warn the European car manufactures, wake up and adapt as we won't protect you over the long run, in other words, use this time whiles the tariffs are in to adapt.
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You want to know something funny about Brexit? the more the Brexiteers fight for the hardest of Brexit, the more likely we will revoke Article 50 and stay in the EU as Brexit at all cost wasn't what the people and many Brexiteers signed up for. Pretty much everything that was promised on the first vote has been proven to be a lie and we all know that if the Brexiteers make it clear to the public that this was the kind of Brexit they ware aiming for, they would never get enough public support, hence why they are scared to death of going back to the people on Brexit and also why Boris and co are trying everything they can to avoid parliament, the irony being is that Brexiteers said Brexit was about taking back control and democracy, yeah right lol, the real criminals are the ones that look into a mirror and know what going on in the country is wrong but ignore it because it's not what they want to hear.
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It wouldn't happen during it, this is all about once the dust settles in Ukraine and the war.
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It's clearly Putin to blame, in the end, it's up to the people of Ukraine if they want to be closer to the west or Russia and that goes for them wanting to join the EU and NATO, none of Putin's argument should ever mean an invasion of another country to try and force them into Russia's pocket. Now I'm not saying the west are angels, far from it, you only have to look at Iraq and Afghanistan to see that but they are clearly better than what Putin Russia is. At the end of the day, if Putin really think's the people of Ukraine want to have closer ties to Russia, let the people decide that in the country, the hostile reception in Ukraine to the Russia invasion is suggesting Ukraine doesn't want what Putin wants, in other words, Putin couldn't convince the people of Ukraine to have closer ties to Russia so he's trying to do it by force and with that, it's clearly Putin's fault. In other words Putin, do like the EU is doing, try and win the hearts and minds of the people by offering something that improves the quality of life for the people of Ukraine and you might have had a chance. At the end of the day, the reason so many countries in Eastern Europe are sliding more westwards is because the people in those countries want stability, security, a better standard of living and so on, the west, especially the EU and NATO offers that, all Putin is offering is threats and wants those countries under the thumb to do his bidding which doesn't help the common people in those countries, that's where Putin is getting this all wrong, you want to win the people over, you've got to offer them something substantial and in the case of the EU, it is doing that.
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That isn't as much of a problem as it sounds in the EU, a lot of Europeans speak multiple languages and English is quite common among Europeans. Many regulations are already done at an EU level for its members, and others can be done at an EU level to kick-start a tech industry. It's just a matter of them having the political will to make it happen, they've got the economy, resources and skills to make it happen, now it just needs the political will and drive to make it happen.
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I'm noticing a trend in Europe of many of the radical parties becoming more mainstream parties by rebranding, changing their policies and becoming more centrist parties. Makes sense really because they'll appeal to more of the voters, but they also become a lot less radical in their policies, we have seen this happen time after time in other European countries and it's all because the voters are not radical, if they were, then we would have real problems, but because they are not, it's forcing the more radical parties to be more mainstream parties, which makes them far less of a threat, after all, if they got into power and tried to push many of their radical policies, how long do you think they will stay in power? or for that matter, would they ever get back into power after that? Many of these radical parties know they have to make a good impression with the voters, they've been given a once in a lifetime chance to prove themselves, if they mess it up, that party might never get voted in again, because of that, they are going more for the middle ground with voters, these radical parties are only a threat if the public becomes radicalised, but if that happens, then we've got far bigger problems. We also should remember that people want stability, they want things to improve for their lives, they don't want the system turned upside down that could create a lot of problems for the people, and the truth is, a lot of these fringe parties are getting their chance because the mainstream parties are not delivering, so the people are giving other parties a chance, but only because many of their policies are being moderated, something we saw in Italy, and something we are seeing in France.
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The problem is for Putin now is that he's backed himself into a corner that he's unlikely to win, on the one hand, Putin likes to be seen as the hard man to Russians which means backing down could make him look weak in Russia, on the other hand, if Russia does invade, the west has to respond and a lot tougher than it has done, because if it doesn't, Russia is going to feel bolder with other eastern European countries that look weak, after all, Russia will see it as the west will do little to nothing so why not. Basically, the west has to put it's foot down so that Russia thinks twice otherwise it could just happen again and again, so yeah, I don't see how Putin can win this one and ironically, by scaring the eastern European countries half to death, he's actually helping to push those countries closer to the EU and NATO, the last thing Putin wants, if Putin wants those countries closer to Russia, he's going to have to try much better with diplomacy and not scare tactics because it's working in the favour of the EU and NATO.
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Not quite, Russia even before invading Ukraine had a weak economy, its economy was about the size in-between Spain and Italy, whiles having to cater to a much bigger population. Russia have not been a power for decades and people viewed Russia of its legacy and past, not on the cold hard facts that it's economy and population doesn't measure up to be superpower, the only ones that can say that are the EU, US and China, which all have the economy and population. At the end of the day, there are two factors that really determine power and those are the economy and the population size, a bigger population can have a bigger economy and with the right kind of economy, it becomes a superpower. China has a major advantage over the US and EU with it's population size, but it has two major disadvantages, it's government is too centralized and it's public are not that free, which strangles the economy, but even with that, because of the size of the population, it's very likely going to be bigger economically than the US, as that happens, the EU and US will have to work much closer together to protect western values, political, economic and social values, because it's the one with the big stick that rights global rules and for now, that the EU and US.
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Zaydan Naufal Not being a neighbour of Russia does help a bit, being part of the EU would help them a lot more but even without that, having close ties with the EU would help. Honestly, with the reaction from the west and especially the EU, I doubt Putin expected such a tough response and that's probably put his other plans on hold about invading Moldova unless he's really gone crazy which we can't dismiss that but with the sanctions on Russia and the EU actively looking for alternative sources away from Russian oil and gas, it's going to end up bleeding the Russian economy which will have a big impact on living standards in Russia, that's when Putin really needs to worry. As for the other eastern European countries, I think if any others gets attacked, the EU and US will likely have to take a more active role against Russia, other Putin won't stop until someone stops him. But honestly, the way things are going on in Ukraine and how slow the advance from Russia is in taking over Ukraine, they might not have the resources to take another country on, especially if Russia gets bogged down in Ukraine.
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Looks like she got him rattled lol, it was a fair question that she asked but it hit a bit too close to home on how bad Trump is doing in this pandemic, hence why he stormed out lol. He's like a kid that only wants to hear things that pump up his ego, the truth is, the US is handling this quite badly, they had many weeks advanced notice from what was going on in China and Italy and yet most of that was waiting, the UK isn't much better and now they are the worse impacted country in Europe, serious questions need to be asked on both governments because the level of incompetents being shown is off the scale from both governments and it's making both countries look like a laughingstock on the world stage. Honestly, it's like watching Laurel and Hardy with these two clowns lol.
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@Gorilder Russia always does this, especially in winter and have been doing it for the last 15 years, it's nothing new and Europeans expect it now, hence the much greater storage for it. Truth is, Russia can't afford to do it for too long as it's them who would lose out the most and the Europeans would look for alternative sources but in the end, Russia is shooting it's self in the foot because the games they keep playing is making them unreliable, that will push the EU countries to look for alternatives regardless of what Russia does and could speed up the process by around 10 years, in other words, Russia playing games could cost that billions.
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@MostIntelligentMan Sad thing is, major reforms usually do hurt many groups of people, but in many cases, they are needed to boost economic growth. Being in the EU, puts pressure on them to adapt, which will boost their economic productivity. We should also remember that eastern EU countries have the advantage of cheap labour over western countries. But in any case, reforms usually do turn a country upside down, in a lot of cases, they are not popular with the public, but in most cases, they are needed, after all, there is nothing special about modern countries, just that they are more willing to do the reforms needed to stay on the edge, the eastern EU countries are starting to learn that by being in the EU, and over the long run, will be better off for it and a lot more competitive on the world stage.
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@JP-sm4cs There was very little case for leaving but they didn't care, the sad truth is, I think we needed Brexit as that is the only way the UK is going to learn from this, especially after years once the impact becomes more known.
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@X3R013 They'll try and deregulated but the problem is, the EU and US would get on the UK's back if they push too far, basically, the more advantage the UK tries to get by watering things down, the more the barriers will go up from other countries to counter that advantage, in the end, it will be the UK that suffers.
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@X3R013 It will take years but it won't be forgotten that easy with everything going on in Scotland and Northern Ireland, Brexit is likely going to be reported on for at least another 5 or 10 years and as sector after sector keeps getting hit hard thanks to Brexit, it's likely going to stay fresh in peoples minds. What I think will happen, the real threat of the UK falling apart could end up pushing the UK back in the EU or at the least single market and custom union just to protect the UK union, this won't happen whiles this government is in power, they are too hostile, too arrogance and have burnt too many bridges already, the healing process can only happen once a new government is in power so we're at least 4 or 5 years away from that which by then it could be too late for the UK union. In the end, Brexit was ideology, the government and the Brexiteers don't care about Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales, they are quite happy to throw them all under the bus to push their Brexit agenda, many are starting to realize that now. The real irony is, so far Brexit seems to be hitting the sectors that voted for Brexit the most the hardest, got to love that.
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I don't think we are going to get back to normal at least until next year and maybe even later than that and if we are lucky, maybe some kind of normality can happen at the end of summer but I doubt it because governments won't want to open up the system too quickly and likely will do it bit by bit and see how it goes, it's likely going to be slow going and then there is also the hardship we have to deal with after the dust settles and that isn't going to be easy, throw on top of that, that this has been a massive wake up call for many of us, I can't see things going back to the way things were before this virus and that might be a good thing is some good can come out of this. We also have to take into account that many have been scared by this virus and that will play out in many ways once we are back out, I also think many will be more reserved with their savings in that they will likely save more and buy less which that alone will hurt the economy but that this is a wake up call that most people live pay check to pay check which isn't a good position to be in when these things happen so people are likely going to want to save more for a rainy day.
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Sanctions always hurt both sides at first, but the west is far more adaptive and can weather the storm far better than what Russia can. Remember that we are the ones buying Russian resources, we can use that money to buy from other areas or invest in renewable energy, Russia on the other hand have limited choices when it comes to rich customers. There's also the factor that a lot of the tech in the world is built by the west, besides, Euro Zone inflation is already around 2.4% that's only 0.4% higher than the target rate they aim for, that's quite remarkable how they adapted away from Russia energy so quickly. At the end of the day, rich countries have the advantage of capital, they can buy from the world market as European countries are quickly doing away from Russia, Russia on the other hand have limited options, for one, the country is being isolated around the world, it's not easy to export gas and the countries that Russia is exporting gas and oil are taking advantage of Russia to lower the cost, that's putting Russia in a weak position with the likes of China in a strong position over Russia. In the end, the cost to the west was always short term of a few short years, the cost to Russia is long term, that's the reality of the situation and also let's remember that Putin banked on the European countries couldn't afford to not buy its oil and gas reserve, after all, what the EU and many European countries have done is remarkable to be able to shift so much so quickly, Putin thought it wasn't possible, yet he underestimated European resolve, now Russia is paying a high price for that both politically and economically.
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It stands to reason that it's only a matter of time before the US dollar isn't the reserve currency around the world, there are around 200 countries on the planet and many countries, friend and foe would be quite happy to see the reserve currency change, many of which are actively going out of their way to change that. With that said, it won't be China that does it because they are not trusted, the Euro? maybe but honestly, I think it will be some kind of new system, a basket of currencies like the dollar, euro and a few others that takes that power away from all countries as it should never really be in the hands of just one country and as the rest of the world is modernizing, there's going to be more and more pressure from the rest of the world to dismantle that system and put a new one in place. For the rest of the world, it won't actually change anything but for the US, it could mean they have to start living more within their means so standard of living could take a hit.
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True, Russia can't really complain about this when they've invaded Ukraine and Russia should consider it's self lucky that targets in Russia are not being hit, which Ukraine has every right to attack as Ukraine are being attacked by Russia. You have to wonder where the end game is in all this but if Putin keeps trying to escalate this war, he could very well find out that Russian cities could be bombed, because in war, there are tolerance levels, if push comes to shove, Russia could directly be in the firing line on this. As for Putin and his bluffs, the west isn't really listening, every time Putin tries to ramp up the threat, the west sends even more military aid to Ukraine, it kinda feels like every time Putin tries to escalate things, it seems to backfire on him, this could be another one of those occasions. As for western countries and especially the US, nobody is saying they are angels and have not done wrong, but that doesn't make what Russia is doing right, also, this is a clear land grab from Russia, I don't recall western countries doing that over the decades, it's usually regime change, which isn't great but annexing a country is far worse.
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@chickenfishhybrid44 He's right thought, Eurosceptics use the US and NATO as a shield to block the EU from further integration, Trump could do a lot of damage to the Eurosceptics that want Europe to be dependent on the US. The EU countries are more than capable of building a much stronger military, especially if done through the EU, they just need an incentive to do so, and no, Russia isn't that incentive, Russia is seen as weak and have shown that in Ukraine, they are basically little threat to the EU and it's members, whereas the US is seen as a bigger threat because of it's radical policies over the last decade with the US becoming less reliable, and this isn't just a case for the EU and it's members, but for a lot of countries around the world that will likely want an alternative away from the US, and China or Russia isn't that alternative as they are not trusted, the EU could be if they get there act together and Trump could be the asset needed for real change in the EU, threats after all go far further than diplomacy to getting real change.
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How is it a game, remember that you voted for the UK to take back control and now you are complaining that our own system is doing things you don't like, I mean really, you need to get a grip. Lets look at it for what it is, over the last two years, the hardliners have tried to sidelive and threaten the courts, the lords, the commons and want to bypass the public by not allowing them another say on the exit terms, the leavers have used a lot of threats to anyone that tries to get in the way of Brexit, this isn't democrarcy when you have to threaten to get your way, it's also part of the reason why the leave side is losing Brexit because they are being exposed for what they really are, fanatics.
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Problem is for Boris, he's trapped on both sides now, he bluffed his way into thinking the EU would back down and give concessions, but the EU is toughing it's line and hence why Boris looks so stressed out lately, he knows he can't win here, if he goes for no deal, both remainders and Brexiteers will turn on him once things go sour after Brexit, if he gives concessions, the Brexiteers will go after him, he's backed himself into a corner that isn't easy to get out. I suspect he's going to back down because I suspect he can deal with the hardcore Brexiteers but can't deal with them and the remainders going after him next year. Brexit from this UK governments has always been about bluffing to try and get the EU to give more, the EU didin't fold and are in fact getting tougher as of late, this puts the UK, Boris and the Tories in a very bad position. It's also very likely that Scotland will leave the UK without a Brexit deal and Northern Ireland could follow them shortly after and 10 years from now, many will ask where the UK got this so badly wrong and it's quite simple really, we let the fanatics take control just like the Americans did with Trump but in the case of the US, they can undo the damage, that isn't likely for the UK. So anyone getting excited about goods going up in price next year? we all know the Brexiteers will be the first to complain about that lol.
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Problem is with that is the ones that integrate more will have a big advantage over the ones that don't, especially the smaller countries. I mean, imagine if Germany, France, Italy, Spain and a few other countries get together and build a single army, do you think the others will be happy about that?, they'll more or less be sidelined, this can be the case in many areas that EU countries decide to integrate and work together. But I do agree with you, I think this needs to happen, the EU is never going to work if you have to get everyone onboard to get some movement, something that is becoming harder to do the more members are in the union, majority voting is clearly needed and some members should be allowed to integrate without the rest stopping them, a bit like they did with the Euro.
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@silentbob5566 That's a different issue and ironically, many of those want independence from their country but want to be in the EU, suggesting there is something wrong with those countries, not the EU.
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@silentbob5566 The reason it's hard to reform the EU is because you need every member to be onboard where really it should be majority voting, in the end, if it comes to it, you're going to get a few EU members that will reinvent the EU as a new organization and leave the ones that are holding it back behind, many EU countries want to move forward but there's always a few stubborn ones not allowing it. Either way, as long as the US and China are around and growing, the EU isn't going anywhere and mainly because of self-interest of European nations, basically, we stand little to no chance against them without the EU clout and that would be a threat to European political, economic and social interest, after all, think how much easier it would be for the US to lower European food and workers rights if it wasn't for the EU, in fact they are already starting on a Brexit UK. As for Brexit and the EU, lets be honest, the UK was never comfortable being in the EU so it didn't surprise me that they would be the first to leave, it's not the end of the world, in fact it's a good thing for the EU, get the troublemakers out as that will make it easier to reform the EU for the better. As for the Euro Zone, many have said it was a bad idea and yet it's working, some countries have had issues with it, mostly down south but that's more because of lack of reforms then it is the Euro, northern countries where they did the reforms are doing fine with the Euro.
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Trump was so desperate to get Biden out of the race that Trump shot himself in the foot, Trumps best chance of winning the election was if Biden was still running as neither Biden or Trump is that appealing, but now someone younger which can probably connect better with more voters is exposing that Trump isn't as popular as he wants us to think and that he only looked popular because the alternative in Biden wasn't that great. But I wouldn't worry, Trump will probably stage another assassination attempt close to the election, as if that would help, after all, the first one didn't go the way he wanted in turning voters in his favour, or he might do like he did last time and say the election was rigged if he didn't win and try to raise a mob to storm the institutions, classic dictatorship like moves that with what he tried to do at the end of his last term, I'm surprised any American would vote for Trump and the only saving grace is that Trump isn't too popular, because if he were, he could have been a threat to US democracy, especially if he were smarter, and I think it's a given that if Trump were to win the next election, he very likely will try to change the system a bit like how Russia is, so on the surface, it looks like a democracy, but in reality, it's anything but one.
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The west isn't perfect, far from it but when you look at it and look from the average person of pretty much any country, which rule would you rather live under? Simply put, the west offers a better future than the likes of China or Russia offers, what they offer is threats, intimidation and fear and because of that, I can't see them ever really being a rival to the west because countries that actually want better for their people will always likely flock under the umbrella of the west and I think this is where a lot of these countries like China and Russia doesn't understand. On top of that, these countries are too controlling even over its own people, it's highly unlikely they can be as successful as an open society like the west. Just look at the debt trap that's going on in Africa from China, what's the likely outcome from that over the long run? A lot of debt for the African people that they can't afford, the aim being is for China to take full control but all that is going to do is turn the African people against China which the west will be more than happy to step in and help. Ultimately, the ones that will likely win out when it comes to alliance building are the ones that offer something worth fighting for, something that benefits and makes peoples lives better, now ask yourself, does that sound like China or Russia? like I said, the west is far from perfect, but they can help to enrich peoples lives across the board for countries that get close to them, that's far more valuable than what Russia and China offers. In any case, it would be amusing to see Russia under the bootstrap of China, a country with such pride like Russia, I doubt the people or government would like the idea of being second fiddle to China but that's how it's likely going to go.
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I remember just about a year ago playing games on my friends Amiga 500 computer, he had a lot of games, many original and many copies, he's had that Amiga since around 91 and what we noticed is that all the original disk worked without any problems even after 30 years whereas about half the copied disk worked, the rest failed. I suspect the original disk were higher quality whiles the copied ones were cheaper disk, still I was surprised how well the original disk lasted, especially considering that I've seen original CD's fail in a shorter space of time.
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2014, the big mistake from the west was not putting its foot down harder on Russia, I mean seriously, what did they expect Putin would do? He took over Crimea and the west response to that was very limp, so much so that I'm surprised it took Putin this long to take on another country. It's the same with Ukraine, if the EU and US lets Putin win, it's not going to end there, I mean seriously, how many times have we seen this through history that the soft touch doesn't work with dictators, you need a firm hand to make them think twice and to keep them in check, in other words, both the EU and US can't afford to let Putin win in Ukraine, yes things might calm down shortly after, but it's only a matter of time before things escalate in a bigger way that over time could drag both the EU and US directly into it. To reduce that risk, you've got to put your foot down hard sooner rather than later to make Putin think twice, and not just Putin, but also China, because they are watching for weaknesses from the west, if we show we don't have the stomach to support Ukraine long term, China and others could end up thinking it's worth taking on Taiwan, knowing it might be costly in the short term but the west will lose heart and give up, meaning the likes of Russia and China gets what they want.
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What freaks me out about the US is all the adverts selling drugs, it's like they are vultures praying on the vulnerable in society that need help. I'm surprised in this day and age that this is still allowed in a modern country, but the reason it's allowed is because the people allow it, basically, it's the wild west approach to capitalism, which works well enough but as corporations become bigger and more controlling over more industries, it actually ends up being a really bad thing, because it reduces innovation, it pushes prices up, it gives consumers less options and it weakens the governments power in being able to bring these companies in line, which is more or less what we are seeing in the US on health care and many other sectors, corporations are running the show not the government or the people, and that is only going to get worse as corporations get bigger unless the people and the government puts their foot down like they've done in Europe and most of the developed world.
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All of these are pretty much quality of life improvements for the user, and it's funny that it's a government that's doing it and not the company it's self. Microsoft should roll this out worldwide, maybe they will at some point but for now, it looks like Europeans are the ones to benefit from this.
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It's what you get used too, like here in the UK, food prices have gone up, most of us don't like it but it is what it is, but when I look at many of the same foods and drinks in the UK and then compare them to the US, a lot of them cost a lot more in the US than it does in the UK, even thought inflation is much higher in the UK than it is in the US. In the end, it's what you get used too and how that changes in a short space of time what most of us don't like. In any case, the price will have to settle at some point and I'm kinda seeing signs of that happening with many goods already, if it didn't settle and keeps going up, we'll end up finding other ways of creating foods, as there are always alternative options when push comes to shove, just for now, the price hike isn't too drastic for a major change to happen,
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No offence to Poland and the Polish people, but Poland doesn't have the economic muscle or and population size to become a major power like Germany or France. They can be a sizeable power inside the EU, but not on the scale of the other big powers, and a big reason for that is cooperation, compromising and working together with other members, something Poland is building a bad reputation in the EU. Think about it, why were Germany and France so much more successful compared to the UK in the EU? It wasn't economics or population size, the UK had both, but what the UK didn't have is that it didn't do well with working with other EU members Germany and France are so successful, because they know how to play the game in the EU, whereas Poland and Hungary could do the same, but they are going out of their way to isolating themselves, you don't make friends by doing that and won't get what you want by doing that, the UK found out that over decades in the EU, and the UK is far more successful than Poland. If Poland really wants to be a big player in the EU, it's going to have to change its ways, being more cooperative and not confrontation with other members, what's going on in Ukraine has bought Poland some breathing room, but before that, Poland was heading in the same direction as Hungary, which is isolation in the EU and that weakens them as a power. Personally, I think Spain has got a far better chance of being the next power in the EU, the population is around the same as Poland, I think it's growing as well, it's got a bigger economy and it's more cooperative in the EU, which will go a long way in them being a bigger power, and I suspect Spain will overtake Italy as a power because Italy can't seem to get it's act together with a stable political system which is impacting the economy. Spain also has the advantage that it's population growth is likely going to be higher than Poland for the next few decades, population growth is power when it comes to the economy and politics. With all that said, Poland and even much smaller players can have a big say, but you have to be more amendable when it comes to compromising and working with others, Hungary and Poland have been going backwards on that one over the last 5 or 10 years, so unless that changes, there is little chance of them changing the balance of power in Europe.
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Early signs are already showing about Brexit being reversed, you can tell with how the likes of GB news and many of the hardcore Brexiteers are getting more in a panic. But we should remember that rejoining the EU isn't up to the UK, it's up to the EU and its members, that is likely going to be a long and slow process, of at least 2 decades, and I think it makes more sense to create closer ties with the EU, repair the damage the Brexiteers did, maybe even join the single market and custom union, it would solve many problems whiles also showing the EU and its members that the UK is serious about wanting to rejoin. Another thing we should not forget, if the UK rejoins the EU, we will be signing up to everything at the time, so no op-outs on anything, that will be the real true test on the British people on if they really do take rejoining seriously. In the meantime, the UK has to pay the price, the arrogance is what got the UK into this mess, now we need to go through the mess, with the hope that it changes the public, media and political landscape of how the British see the EU project, because one thing I do know, there is little to no chance of the UK rejoining the EU unless there is a massive shift in how the UK sees the EU project. So the UK can try to join, make the changes needed, but in the end, it's not really up to the UK on if they can join or not, the UK burnt a lot of bridges with the EU and with many members, that's going to take a while to repair that damage, and as we know, it will only take one EU member to say no to the UK and then we can't join. The irony is out of all this, the Brexiteers were so desperate on the hardest of Brexit, taking us as far away from the EU as possible, that they might have doomed themselves in changing public views in being more in favour of the EU project, support in the EU members and in the UK is at the highest it's been for decades, that is partly thanks to the Brexiteers lying and not delivering on those lies, they promised a lot on Brexit, now the British are feeling the pain of that, many are turning against the Brexiteers, probably the worse thing that could happen to the hardcore Brexiteers, because if this continues, it wouldn't surprise me if the UK becomes a very pro EU country over many years and decades.
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Trump really should step back and actually listen to what he is saying because he doesn't seem to have a clue.
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I know, talk about double standards lol, honestly, Ukraine has every right to attack Russia, the moment Russia attacked Ukraine but that won't happen because the west have give Ukraine firm warnings not to attack Russia as the west could pull back support, but if Putin keeps trying to escalate things, Russia could become a target, it really depends on how much of a threat his bluffs really are. But Putin needs to get it out of his thick head that it's clear that the west isn't going to back down on this.
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There are a few simply reasons why the UK will stay close to European norms, it's the simply political, economic and social norms of the UK are much closer to the EU then they are with others around the world from countless things like health care to workers rights, food standards, human rights and so on and these are things British people value a lot just like Europeans do and it's what will likely keep the UK close to EU standards because what are the alternatives? the US? lol, Russia? China? Africa? Brexiteers in the UK might not like this but we are far closer to Europeans in a lot of ways then they will want to admit, heck even the cars we buy, the sports we play and a lot of the holidays we take are more or less the same and this is why even with being out of the EU, it will be difficult for the UK to diverge away from the EU because most Brits don't want that, especially with what the alternative is offering like the US on so many things. We should also remember, the more the UK diverges away from EU rules, laws and regulations, the more red tape there is in the UK which is the last thing the UK wants, businesses don't like that and will see the UK market as less enticing when there is a massive market on its door step, further more, that will likely push the UK to something like Norway where we are technically out of the EU but might as well not be because most of the new laws, rules and regulations the EU makes, the UK will likely abide them because it will likely make good economic sense to do so, in other words, the UK rubber stamps what the EU makes. I also think Brexit will get delayed this year as I can't see a deal being made with this coronavirus going on, getting a deal by the end of the year was going to be hard enough at the best of times, with this virus pandemic going on, it's almost impossible, so expect Boris to announce a delay in late June, what happens after that is too early to tell because this virus is a major wake up call for us all and that could shift public views on a lot of things, so that will be interesting to see, I do know one thing, the economic fall out from this virus is likely to be massive, the UK can't really afford that whiles having to deal with Brexit as well so Brexit might be delayed a lot longer than some things, it might even be called off if public views in the UK change a lot over the next year.
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@toothpick9799 Well unless the American people have short memories, that wont happen, after all, it's only a short lock down of a few months, if the government did as you like to think they will, ask yourself, how many millions of Americans will go onto the streets in protest on that? it would only take a few to break the back of the government and you can bet you would likely get them in the millions, so the threat isn't even there but the threat of this virus is, the virus doesn't care about stupidity or ignorants.
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Se A The problem is, more will be born, the problem isn't the people as such but the system they live under and unless that changes, nothing will change.
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The more Russia keeps using threats and fear, the more countries that are going to want to join the EU and NATO. What Putin is doing is actually backfiring on him and the more he keeps doing it, the more countries are going to tilt towards the EU and NATO. It's remarkable that Putin doesn't see this as his actions are making the EU, NATO and the west stronger whiles having the opposite effect that Putin wanted.
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It doesn't matter if they are making a profit or braking even, they are clearly going for market share because they are seeing rivals, especially from the west being slow on pushing EV cars whiles they are also being too greedy, they are taking advantage of that in one sector after another, looks like EV cars could be another if the west isn't careful.
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Does it really matter who becomes the leader of the Tory party? The problem was never Boris, he was just at the top of the tree to put the blame on, the real problem is the Tory party, especially thanks to Brexit and how the party has become more radicalized thanks to the ERG. Having another leader in the short term might help them but longer term the same problems are going to pop up, after all, we've had like 3 or so Tory leaders thanks to Brexit and nothing has actually changed for the better, so why do people think it will now? Seriously thought, changing the leader is like changing the coat of paint, it's not changing the fundamentals in the party in what people are not happy with them, the irony is, they are setting themselves up for a bloodbath at the next elections which I'm sure Labour is over the moon on, but even Labour are useless, they are basically trying to appease all voters on all sides in the UK, basically, they don't stand for anything and are saying what they think most Brits what they want to hear, personally, I think that's even worse than the Tories, because at least with them, you know where they stand, with Labour, you don't. What the UK really needs is fresh new blood, new parties to really shake things up because clearly the Conservative and Labour Party are not going to change things that much and unfortunately, the UK system is designed to make it difficult for a third party to gain real power. With all that, I don't expect any real change whoever becomes the next Tory leader, I don't even expect much change if Labour won power under the current leader and I suspect things are just going to get worse for the UK over the next decade because we've got the cost of Covid, the long term cost of Brexit and now the high inflation cost with the war in Ukraine, it's a bad combo that I see no real light at the end of the tunnel until we get some competent leaders that actually want to make things better, I have a feeling that might only happen if Scotland and/or Northern Ireland leaves the UK, because the penny has still not dropped yet that real change is needed in the UK.
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The funny thing is that the Conservative party are part of the establishment, if we really wanted change, we had to vote for something very different and new and I suspect over the next few months that we are going to realize that nothing has really changed, the irony being now that Boris doesn't need to listen to either side of the argument on Brexit now as he's got a majority and that can change things a lot as I suspect he only listened to the Brexiteers because he needed their vote, now he's got them for the next few years, he can do whatever he wants. The real interesting thing is what he'll do in January because he said before the election that the UK will leave the EU at the end of the month, now because he's secured his position, there is a fair chance he'll delay Brexit and come up with some excuse on why it needs delaying now that the pressure is off as the thing is with Boris, he's an opportunist, he'll tell us what he thinks we want to hear, not what he can or wants to deliver and he knew that he had to scoop up the Brexiteers votes from the Brexit Party, now he's got them, he can change his tune on Brexit and I suspect if he does, it will likely happen mid to late January. Next year is going to be a very interesting one for the UK and personally, I think Boris will delay Brexit with the aim of trying to get a better deal than is on the table as he knows he's in the firing line for any damage that Brexit does for the UK and he knows that now there is no excuse on who gets the blame as it will clearly go on to the Conservative Party, now that they have a majority, before that, it was easy for them to pin the blame on Labour, the remainers and so on, they don't have that excuse now, so year, next year will be interesting to see, lets see what lies he'll come up with now.
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Considering the likes of Trump and Putin are big supporters of Brexit should tell you quite a lot really, they basically support it because they want to weaken Europe by dividing us, the UK fell for that trap with Brexit, some other countries are falling for it by sucking up to the US or Russia. It's high time that European countries, especially in the EU start waking up and start working together a lot closer in this changing world with the US and China.
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@sanitycheck2375 If I recall, I think the death toll from the flu is around 1,500 per day whereas this coronavirus is around 6,000 per day and it's rising quite fast, this is clearly worse than the flu, it's remarkable that so many people keep comparing it to the flu when it's clearly much worse and it would be far worse if we aren't containing it.
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@Bartwon There's nothing managed about what the UK government was trying to do, it was reckless and crazy, heck even Trump thought so and he's crazy at the best of times lol.
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@itsRue Some countries are using this virus to further their own political ends, in his case, he's likely to get a major slap down either by the EU or the people of the country but some other countries should be worried about the games governments are doing.
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There is no such thing as a good billionaire, think about it, to get that kind of money, you really have to get up to some crooked shit and we know Bill Gates got up to a lot of that in his Window monopoly days and yet some people call him a legend, legend my arse lol, what he's doing now doesn't wash away the bad he did in the past and that matters a lot. I mean really, does anyone really think you can earn billions in any moral way? I know the law says you can but the law is hardly a good compass on right and wrong, the truth is, to get that kind of money, you have to stomp on a lot of people to get there, it's the same as like if you have a business and say have 100 people working for your company, you as the boss cream off the vast bulk of the profits and yet the workers doing all the hard work gets peanuts lol. It's crazy that more people don't work for themselves because that's how you really make money. In any case, taxes should be much higher for the rich and they should be limited on how they can use that wealth when it comes to gaining power like in politics which they do all the time to rig the system in their favour. Anyway, we should ask ourselves a simple question, how much can we realistically earn throughout a lifetime without stepping on others and having a high moral compass? I suspect 5 to 10 million, and we'll be more or less in our grave at that point, there is no way you can earn hundreds of millions or billions by being good, they play the system, rig the system in their favour and in many cases, stomp on the little man to get there with the law allowing it to happen, loop holes and all that and yet people seem to think it's normal to have someone that has little to no money living on the street and another with over $100 billion to his name, you know the system is messed up to even allow that lol. Also, what is it with leaders in the US where now it's becoming an exclusive club where if you want to be president, you best make sure you've got a lot of money, power or connections, it's becoming rare now where an average person can get into that position and that isn't democracy, it's more like an exclusive club for the rich like a monarch and people wonder why they never deliver what people want lol. As for the rich giving more in taxes, I always love when they say they are willing but if that was true then why not throw a lot of their money towards good causes, they don't need the government to tell them to do that, if they are really good people, they would be more proactive before even making that money whereas all I see is people like Bill Gates trying to buy a legacy because of all the bad things he's done in life, in other words, he wants to be remembered as a good person before he passes on but that's like me doing horrible crimes and asking for forgiveness and some can be done but in the case of these rich people, the damage they do is to millions or even billions of people, it's hard to forgive on that but people will because there are many fools on this planet and that's why they are the 1% with most of the wealth whiles everyone else has little. In any case, if it makes people feel any better, the less taxes these rich pay and the more they screw the system up, the more taxes the average person pays or gets less public services and as for the super rich saying more needs to be done on the system, all they are trying to do is take some of the heat of them, they know they are guilty, they also likely know people are angry, after all, why do you think Trump got elected in the US, why do you think Brexit happened in the UK, why do you think there is a popularise movement in Europe, people are angry and it's mostly with the inequality divide so some of the rich want to look good in case the pitch forks come out in force. As for the rich giving to charities, that would be like me giving pennies to charities and expecting a medal lol, it doesn't change their lives, it doesn't impact them in any real way, they do it to look good to the public, if these people did a lot of good whiles growing and developing their wealth, I would have more respect for them but it's hard to respect people throwing money around when the money they throw around doesn't change anything for them, hence me throwing pennies around.
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@questionmark3219 Never say never, after all, people thought the same thing about the EU we have today shortly after the second world war that it would never happen and yet here we are. The reality is that things change depending on need, in the case of the EU, it came about so that it could compete better with the US and to prevent another war in Europe, it was very successful in that but clearly more work is needed on the political side of things if Europeans are going to compete with the US, China and India in the long run, they are going to have to integrate a lot more, it's that pressure that's pushing the issue and it's not about whether we want it or not but that we need it if we are to protect our political, economic and social interest, the alternative is being pushed aside. You've got to also remember that none of the EU members want to leave the EU or the Euro, their main problem is how to reform the EU to work better, that's where they need some work on and it's why the UK clearly didn't understand the EU and it's members in why they got no help from a single EU country on Brexit, mainly because the UK wanted to dismantle the EU whereas the EU members want to reform it. In any case, what we see with the EU integrating more will in time happen on the world stage with a world government and trust me, it won't be because we want it, it will be because the alternative would be a lot worse with how quickly we are advancing, after all, imagine tech in a 100 or 200 years with 200 countries, I don't fancy our chances of survival as a people as tech filters downwards and becomes cheaper and more advanced.
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@questionmark3219 It wasn't so much the aim of a common country but more integration, which in the longer run likely leads to the same thing more or less. We've got to also remember that the reason it's happening isn't because the people want it but more because we need to do it to compete on the world stage, it all started after the second world war when Europe was in ruin, they knew back then that they could only compete with he US by banding together, they also knew by doing so, it's very likely to prevent another war from happening in Europe and it's becoming more the case with how the world is developing that more integration is going to be needed if us Europeans in the EU want to protect out political, economic and social interest around the world. The alternative is that we would get pushed aside by the big players like the US, China and India in the long run and if we do get pushed aside, that will weaken our economy, our political interest and our social welfare system as the likes of the US will try to weaken it for their own ends, something they've already tried to do a few time only for the EU to hit back at them. So I don't look at the EU as an option but more of a need, sooner or later, we Europeans will realize that when others take advantage of us and who knows, maybe Brexit for the UK will be the perfect test case as many countries are already taking advantage of them.
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@LaFonteCheVi Where do you figure that? Beside the war in Ukraine, Europe is at peace and have been for a long time. Besides, there are many other regions in the Middle East and Africa where hot spots are building up at an alarming rate, that could escalate if the countries that can, don't help to stabilise things, mainly the EU and the US that have the economic clout to make a difference.
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You would have to be as blind as a bat to not see the evidence all around us if you live in Europe and much of the other parts that Rome ruled. I live in the UK and I don't have to travel much to see the impact Rome had on us and it's the case around Europe as well. Still I get the impression she's doing it for clicks and attention then actually buying into what she's saying.
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In truth, we probably don't know how bad the Russian economy is doing, but it's likely doing worse than Putin wants us to think, after all, when a government has top to bottom control over a country, it's hard to take them serious on the truth on pretty much anything. Ultimately, what really matters is the impact it's having on the people, especially the lower and middle classes, and more in regions beside Moscow and St Petersburg, which I suspect are being hit much harder because Putin will want to protect his base, which are in the major cities like Moscow and St Petersburg. Putin has already shown he doesn't care much about the well-being of his own people, he's hardly going to care about the ones that are not in the major cities, but he will care about the ones that keep him in power, he needs to keep them onside, otherwise the people could turn on him. So basically, the impression I'm getting is that Russia is hurting more than Putin wants us to think, he's using whatever reserves he's got to prop up the economy in the cities that are strong supporters of Putin, that likely can only go on so long before the reserves run dry and that's when things really get desperate for Putin and when the light at the end of the tunnel for the Russian and Ukraine people starts to shine. In any case, I take economic data from authoritarian governments with a pinch of salt, so Russia, China, Turkey, there is no independence on that data, and when the government has an incentive in playing the numbers to appease the public, you know how that's going to go.
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I think it would be much easier to come up with some agreement on this among EU nations, being as they are far more integrated with each other, politically and economically, so a cyberattack is likely to have an impact across the region, especially if it's a big cyberattack that shuts down a utility company. As for cyberattacks overall, it's clear that rouge nations are using that as a weapon and that could become much worse as the world becomes more interconnected, so maybe EU and NATO countries should cooperate and beef up online security. As for article 5 of NATO, the problem I find with it is that there is little holding the countries in it together and it would be a bold step for other members in it to come to the aid of any that gets attacked, at least in a meaningful way, but on the other side of the coin, if others don't, the value of NATO becomes redundant, which reduces it's usefulness a lot. The EU on the other hand is a different ball game and not because it's better as such but because the members in it are integrated a lot more with each other, that likely means that an attack on one would put a lot of pressure on the others to help in a meaningful way because it's in their interest to do so because of how integrated they are together, in fact, the idea behind the Coal and Steal Community was designed to prevent another major war from breaking out among EU members, that likely is also the case for any country that attacks an EU country, in other words, EU countries would likely have to come to the aid of the one being attacked, a lot more so then we are seeing in Ukraine right now, to not do so would really undermine the union and to a less the degree, it's the same with NATO but there is far less holding the members of NATO together compared to EU members, which have very close political, economic and social ties together.
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I don't have a problem with A.I. in the OS or other software, but there's no way in hell I would want to use A.I. if it's sending data back and forth to an online server. This might not sound like a big deal now, but A.I. is going to continue to get better and more useful, that basically means we are likely going to want to use it a lot more in more areas, that's where the online models become very invasive when it comes to privacy, security and other concern. For A.I. to really take off long term, it's going to have to be entirely done locally on the device, where no sensitive data is being sent online and the A.I. has online access to retrieve information depending on what you are asking, but none of the information is going to a corporate server, which no doubt will have back doors to many governments. If that's not bad enough, imagine online A.I. models with robotics around the house, I suspect a lot of the public, corporations and even many governments around the world will have issues with that once A.I. really starts becoming useful in our daily lives, and for me, this is a major weakness these online models have, the more useful they become, the more of a privacy, security issue they become and then many will want alternatives that run locally that don't have these issues, and honestly, I don't think there's anything the corporations can do to get around this problem. To put it simply, A.I. will continue to get better and more useful in more areas, that will mean we will want to use them more, it's also a given that A.I. and robotics will link up, and the real icing on the cake will be once A.I. has a long term memory so it can build a profile on you as a person, that would have advantages in the A.I. being more personalised to you, but that would also be a major privacy and security issue for a lot of us, because of all this, I think the more useful A.I. becomes, the more of us will want to use locally run models on our hardware so we have more direct control over what's going on, which thankfully, A.I. is developing rapidly in the open source community, that I'm surprised at the quality that can already run locally in just over a year.
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Whatever model works, whether an existing one or we create a new one, we Europeans in the EU need to find a solution of working much closer together, especially with everything that's going on with the US, China and Russia. If we don't get our act together, we are going to eventually get pushed aside, or worse, be manipulated by the likes of the US and China for their own agenda, this is something that's already being shown with how China is trying to pull the EU away from the US and how Trump is trying to pull the UK away from the EU, they are trying to divide us with the aim of taking advantage of us, after all, the more split we are, the easier it is for them to get what they want from us, after all, Trump, China and Russia are over the moon that Brexit happened, that alone should give anyone pause on what they really think and I'm sure it's not in our interest.
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It's highly unlikely any modern country will run out of food, the real problem we are seeing is panic buying where people are buying a lot more than they usually do and that is causing problems, then throw in that a lot more people are doing online delivery, it's easy to see where the problem is. As things calm down and people start realizing they have too much food at home, supermarkets start to have a lot more food as we are seeing in many European countries. The real problem isn't the lack of food because there is more than enough, the problem is getting that food to people when in self-isolating and more so for people that don't want or can't go out because of the virus and that is overloading the delivery system. So don't worry, the last thing any country will do is let the food supplies run down because that would do far more damage than the virus can do but people will panic buy but over a few weeks or month or so, that calms down as well.
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As PR goes, this war has already been a disaster for Putin, it's exposed his hardline image at home, shown how weak the Russian military is to the west and as Putin is likely pulling a lot of the strings on the military, showing his lack of judgement and intelligence, the war couldn't have gone any more wrong if he tried, losing Crimea could be enough for him to get deposed or even killed. Putin knows he's messed up here and you can tell by his body language, he looks a lot more stressed and looks to be ageing more than usually, a clear sign that he's going through a lot of stress the last 8 months or so and in hindsight, if Putin could go back, I bet he wouldn't have started this war.
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I think with everything that's going on, there's a fair chance that big changes can happen in Ukraine once the dust settles on the war, also, with the EU being more open in allowing more countries to join, that should help to develop the country and improve a lot of the political situation on things like the rule of law, but it will take time, the EU for one isn't ready to allow other countries to join until it reforms its self and even then, the situation with the war will need to be resolved before EU membership can begin but it's not going to happen overnight and will take years. But from what I've seen over the decades, the countries that do the major political and economic reforms needed sooner rather than later, tend to benefit by joining the EU a lot sooner and having impressive economic growth, the EU can only open the door, it's really up to the country to make a lot of the changes needed with the help of the EU showing them what changes are needed.
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Got to wonder what developers can do with this engine on a higher end PC considering the results the consoles are getting. Also, the engine is likely going to get more optimized in being able to deliver more in time. But as for photorealism, I still think we are a long way away from that, it's all well and good having a pretty picture, which is mostly what games are, they look good on the surface but they are an empty shell which is really lacking in interactivity in the world, as well as physics, A.I. and so on. So on the surface we are getting close but we are a long way off in countless other areas which too many developers have been neglecting with games.
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I think what the EU should do is take Hungary's voting rights away, the money that goes towards Hungary, reserve that for Ukraine. But seriously, there's nothing wrong with a few infractions of the rules but Hungary is going too far, especially now that it's using its veto to blackmail others to get more favours. The EU should have got tough with Hungary years ago and the European Parliament wanted to do so, but the EU Commission seems more interested in appeasing Hungary, that rarely ever works because they just keep coming back for more, sooner or later, they'll realise that you have to put your foot down and say enough is enough. There's also the bad example the EU is setting by allowing Hungary to get away with this, if Hungary can do it, others might feel they can do it. This is also another example on why I think powers need to shift away from the EU Commission towards the European Parliament, for one, it's directly elected, which will go a long way in helping to reduce the Eurosceptics, two, the European Parliament seems to have EU interest at heart whereas you feel the Commission seems to be more concerned with not rocking the boat, but the fact is, Hungary is rocking the boat, and normally, a bit of that is fine, but the way Hungary is doing it is doing real harm. It's also amusing that Hungary says they don't give in to blackmail and yet it's Hungary that are blackmailing the other EU members, what hypocrite, strip them of their voting right, reserve their funds for Ukraine and let Hungary talk all it wants on the sideline, if they leave the EU, great, let Russia and China have their fun with them, either way, they are not our problem any more.
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@0xCAFEF00D Nah I doubt that, Trump was a wake-up call for Europeans, Biden being president won't change the reality that the EU countries will have to distant themselves more from the US but that doesn't mean the EU and US can't work closer together in many areas now Biden is in power, but it won't be a return to normal and I think Europeans understand that, basically, the EU and countries are going to look more after their own interest and not American intrest and we are already seeing early signs of that already, that deal with China for instant or that deal with Russia on that pipeline. In any case, the real thing that will force the EU and US to become closer will be China, as much disagreement the EU and US might have with each other, they both see China as a threat and that threat is only going to grow in the coming decades that the EU or US on their own will find difficult to contain and that will likely force the EU and US to work closer together as they are the two main players when it comes to western values.
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@swanpride Yeah can't really fault Germany, it was a difficult time with a lot going on and they handled it quite well, for me, Germany was the right country at the right time to take over on that.
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Now that Trump has shown his tariffs, all the other countries are very likely going to return the favour with tariffs on the US, considering how many countries we are talking about, this could be painful for the US. Over the coming weeks, these countries will start rolling out their tariffs on the US, I think it's a given that Elon Musk businesses and red states are going to be a primary target, also, when you throw in all the boycott going on around the world of US goods and that's likely to get far worse because of these US tariffs, you really have to wonder about the future of Tesla and many US goods if this continues, but either way, if Tesla shareholders are smart, I think they need to find a way to kick Musk out of the business before he either sinks them or does a lot of damage. In any case, the real fun begins as all these countries start putting tariffs on the US, I say fun because it's going to put a lot more pressure on Trump as Americans start complaining more as a lot of things start shooting up in price. In any event, tariffs are self-defeating if both sides enact tariffs on each other, in this case, it's far worse for the US as there are so many countries involved that are going to put tariffs on them, so the moral of the story is to expect a lot of pain in the pocket for Americans, less for the other countries as they shift trade away from the US to more reliable partners, the long term cost to the US could be major, both politically and economically if this continues.
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Long term, Ukraine would modernize, the country would become a lot more stable, politically and economically, a lot more inwards investment would happen in the country by being in the EU and basically, the average person in Ukraine will be a lot richer but these are long term goals that don't happen overnight and take decades and that can only start once the war is over.
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Trust is earned and over a long time over many policies whiles being as open as you can, if China wants that, they'll have to show that over many other things in the coming years and decades.
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@Katuvan Not sure what you're talking about but it seems you misunderstood what was said.
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@Katuvan Things change, look how the US went from being trusted a lot to not being trusted that much in just 20 years.
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Lukashenko is a bit of an idiot, barking like he's got teeth when we all know he's weak. If Belarus was going to enter the war, it very likely would have happened by now and with how badly things are going for Russia in Ukraine, it's less likely that Belarus will want to get directly involved. On top of that, People in Belarus don't like Lukashenko or support the war, it would be very risky to Lukashenko power if Belarus enters the war and takes a lot of casualties, but if he did enter the war, we could end up taking out two dictators in one go. In any case, personally, I think Lukashenko is just making noise to try and distract Ukraine with their offensive in the south, in other words, with Belarus being so dependent on Russia, Putin probably put a lot of pressure on him to enter the war but Lukashenko isn't willing to do that so he's doing the next best thing, make it seem like there is an attack from the north so Ukraine has to divert troops away from south, the idea being is to buy Russia more time and ease the pressure on the south and other areas, that's what I think is really going on here. We've got to remember, Putin is a desperate man, he's being humiliated here and losing this war, he'll use every trick and bluff he can and as for Ukraine, they can't really ignore this bluff in case Belarus does attack from the north.
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The reactive and not proactive is why I suspect a Trump president in the US would actually be a good thing for the EU, not in the short term but over the long term. If Trump follows through on half of what he's saying, that would be music to the pro EU lot in Europe, and a bit of a nightmare for the Eurosceptics that use the US and NATO as a shield to block the EU from further integration, a Trump US would make it very difficult for the Eurosceptics to push there point across and the fear factor of that the EU countries need to depend on themselves more could go a long way in building an EU military, capita market and reforms to allow the EU to have a bigger say in foreign policy matters, just look at what Putin's war in Ukraine has done to push things along in the EU and the irony is in all that, most Europeans don't really see Russia as a threat, whereas a more radical unpredictable is being seen as a far bigger threat, especially under Trump leadership, that could go a long way in passing reforms and other policies in areas that some Eurosceptics won't like. Fear can go a long way in getting major change and it can happen fast depending on urgency. With that said, a Trump US would divide the world in many ways, mostly not in favour of the US, the EU will likely be forced to become a more global player in more areas, China wants to divide the EU and US from each other as that makes the US weaker, a Trump US would likely go a long way in helping China and the pro EU lot and as for Russia, I don't think any of these changes matter, Russia is too weak to matter to the big players, so China will continue to use Russia, the EU could become a much bigger force in Europe and around the world, which I'm sure will be music to Putin's ears lol, and the US won't care about anything but the US, which could isolate them and make them weaker over the long run as countries around the world will end up looking for an alternative to the US and as we know, China or Russia don't stand a chance on that one because of there system and because hardly anyone trust them, the EU has a much better chance if they get there act together on the political side with further integration in key areas. So ideally, you want Trump to win the election and you want him to follow through on his threats to leave NATO and not care about the rest of the world, the reactive ripple effect of that around the world would be massive and very likely would change geopolitics around the world and not in US favour, the likes of China and Russia will try to take advantage of that, but not many around the world trust them or want to live under that kind of rule, the EU on the other hand, has a lot to gain here if they play there cards right, just like Putin is an asset to the EU, but not a big one, Trump could be a massive asset of the EU, as we should never underestimate fear in getting radical change done in a short space of time.
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This is politics 101, the moment someone is seen as a threat, rivals to them start digging up any kind of dirt they can find on them to try and discredit them, this always happens in politics and it happens a lot with the right wing media to push their own agenda. Now I'm not saying she's not done anything wrong but it was a given that more dirt would come out on her and the party as she becomes more of a threat, we see it all the time, especially in the UK and US. This is also what is wrong with politics today, too much is based on leadership roles and not enough on policies that actually matter.
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I'm not being funny, but the EU still does that, it looks for common ground, the EU wouldn't get very far if it didn't do that. As for the rise up, the rise up is simply and has little to do with the EU, countries are very good at blaming others for the mess the country gets its self into, the EU tends to be the scapegoat for many EU countries, just look at the UK, they constantly blamed the EU for all the wrongs in the UK, yet now the UK is out of the EU, the UK is going down the toilet, many in the UK are starting to wake up that the real problem wasn't the EU but the UK government and the UK is a perfect example of that. Italy's problem is that they keep lagging behind on reforms, they've got a very corrupt government that is hurting the country and the economy, the current government in Italy is the Italian people lashing out and blaming anyone they can for the situation in Italy, naturally, the government will blame the EU because it's easier to do that and deflect the heat away from their own mess but it doesn't change anything in Italy unless Italy changes. This is the case with many countries, if you look closely, you end up realizing that a many of the problems are created at a national level not EU level, the sad thing is, the more they keep blaming the EU for all the wrongs in their country, they are just hurting own countries, really, they should be doing changes needed in their own countries whiles finding solutions at an EU level that make sense, the blame game doesn't help anyone.
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So basically, either Ukraine is doing all this damage to the Russian military or the Russian military is highly incompetent and sinking their own ships lol. Russia's arguments are getting a bit laughable now, it's becoming clear that Ukraine is doing a lot of damage to them but Russia is trying to put on a brave face and don't want to admit that Ukraine could do that to them. Whatever the case is, this is quite humiliating for Russia but for me, it's looking like Ukraine did this to Russia.
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@awalker2723 Do your own research as you are more likely to buy into what you research than me telling you here as you'll just dismiss it.
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mad Rascal Well actually, the world got exposed but hey, lets make this an EU only thing because you're a fanatic with an agenda lol.
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It really boils down to Poland moving westwards on why the quality of life is better in Poland, and it's not by chance, if you look at all the eastern European countries that joined the EU, they are on average doing much better than the countries that are not in the EU, with some doing better than others. Then we have Russia, which have a lot of natural resources, and yet the quality of life can only match some of the eastern European countries and even then, it's usually in big cities like Moscow or St Petersburg, for a country that is blessed with so much natural resources, they are doing really poor on the economic front when countries that are still developing in Eastern Europe that joined the EU are doing quite well whiles having far less natural resources, a big part of that is the EU, it's rules, laws and regulations that are having an impact on reforming these countries to become modern countries that eventually, eastern EU countries will be as well of as western countries. I also suspect with the war going on in Ukraine, that will over the long run have a negative impact on Russia, the war is costing them a fortune and the longer it drags on, the more costly it gets, it's a drag on the economy, which Putin has managed to shield the Russia people so far, but that won't last as the cost keeps building, and either way, the cost to the economy in economic terms, lives loss as well as people leaving the country, will have a long term negative impact on the Russian economy and people, as that is growth that's being pulled out of Russia.
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Next year's tourist numbers will be more interesting because many have booked ahead of time and it's difficult to cancel them without losing your money on it, so many of those people might still go. We should remember after all that all this carnage from Trump has only been going on for a few months, but next summer, people around the world will be clear on what they think of the US, so I suspect it will be worse, maybe a lot worse if Trump keeps his threats with his tariffs.
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There only one real advantage the US have is population numbers, that about it, it's the only western modern country with that size of population and population size is a big factor in power and if any modern western EU countries had that size of population, they would have far more power and the same could be said for Australia, Canada or Japan. But over the long term of history, Europe have probably been one of the luckiest regions mostly thanks to the Romans and the decline of Rome which left a lot of mini powers in Europe that competed with each other by trying to outsmart one another and all that likely help them to become the power they became, the US are mostly Europeans so they basically built on that but with a overall bigger population as a single country. Now the real question is China, they are rapidly building a modern economy and are more or less building it how the Japanese did when they wanted to catch up to the west but in the case of China, they have a massive population size which is a scary thought to think off because a modern China would have the economy of 2 EU's and 2 US's all put together, now that would be real power and the only ones I can think of in history that had that kind of power compared to others around them was the Romans at it's peak.
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Considering everything that's going on in the UK, the UK is a bad example to follow, I mean seriously, since Brexit, the UK has been sinking far faster than we're whiles in the EU, the UK wanted back control, so why are things going so bad in the UK? Could it be that the real problem wasn't the EU and the problem were much closer to home? Just look at the UK with the Tories, they are lurching from one disaster after another since Brexit, it's funny to see in a sad way because now many of the Brits are starting to see where the real problems are in the UK, it was never the EU, but deluded people always blame others for their own mistakes, in other words, people like you will continue to lash out and blame others as the UK continues to sink, not realizing that you are a big part of the problem why the UK is sinking, it's sad in a funny way that your pride is shooting yourself in the foot and that pride if you're not careful is going to brake the UK union up and the term little Englander will have real meaning then. So come on guys, see things for how they are and not how you want them to be because you're just deluding yourself, but by all means, continue to delude yourselves, it's not really changing much, after all, according to Brexiteers like Andy, the EU should be falling apart with the UK leaving, if that isn't being deluded, I don't know what is lol.
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I agree with that, power should be at an EU level where it makes sense, boarder control, the military, foreign policy, currency, many laws and regulations and so on, basically things where it makes sense, the rest could be left to each EU member to run however they want within reason. But clearly there are many areas EU countries could do much better if they work together as one and in a polarizing world where we have superpowers like the US and China, as well as India rising, I think us Europeans are going to have to integrate more if we want to protect our political, economic and social interest, otherwise, the other powers will take advantage of us just like they are starting to do with a Brexit Britain which is ironic that the UK is a valuable lesson to other EU members of what could happen without EU protections.
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@Pidalin Dark humour isn't really a problem in the EU as long as it's not offending others or it's both ways. Anyway, I do think the world needs to unite but I don't think we've got a few hundred years to do that, probably 100 years but at the end of the day, I think tech progress will force us together because it's becoming more dangerous as we advanced more, basically, we don't have to worry about aliens, at least not for a while, we should be a lot more worried about ourselves because we got 200 countries, all of which are advancing at a decent pace, it's not hard to see as we advanced more with 200 countries how bad that could end up for us all. But anyway, clearly the UN doesn't work for a world government, the EU is showing promise that it could work on a world scale but that's a long way off, the irony being, many others around the world are trying to emulate the EU but are not doing it as successful and mostly because they are letting anyone in and rushing it.
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@KRYMauL Switzerland is an odd country that's surrounded by the EU that if the EU wanted, it could strangle trade going in and out of Switzerland that I suspect in the longer run, I think Switzerland will find it very difficult to not be in the EU, especially if the EU or others start getting tough on banking secrecy, it's tolerated for now but I suspect it's only a matter of time before they clamp down on it.
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@KRYMauL Well yeah it's great for criminals, that's why it's so secret but it's not doing the common people any favours with these crooks hiding all this money as I suspect a lot of that is supposed to be paid as tax revenue, in a sense, they are stealing from everyone else. As for the EU, I don't mind what it becomes, a United States of Europe, a Confederation or whatever, just as long as it works, it's balanced and fair and improves the living standards then it's all good. Sooner or later it will likely happen so the EU countries can compete better with the US and China because our biggest weakness at the moment is having a divided voice and others do take advantage of that, especially the US, Russia and China.
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There are a lot of ideas of small scale wind turbines that are being worked on around the world that could work at a local level on your home, but until we start seeing real evidence of them working that actually produce meaningful energy and are also cheap enough to compete with solar, then I don't see much of a future in wind power long term. The reason for that is because as solar becomes better and cheaper, more of us are going to want to provide our own energy at a local level, probably off grid, which reports are going around that around 40% of European homes in the EU could go gridless by 2026, which is earlier than I expected, if most of us go gridless, it would save a fortune on not having to maintain the grid network and would be a major problem for wind power unless they find solutions that can work well enough in urban areas. I'm hopeful that solutions will happen, but it's taking too long and they are too expensive, solar on the other hand is marching ahead, it's getting cheaper at a rapid rate, it's getting better, and can be used almost anywhere, hence the reason why solar is getting far more investment, but I'm grateful that a lot more small scale wind turbines are being worked on, they would complement solar really well, being that winds tend to be stronger in winter and at nighttime when solar is weaker, the two could allow for a more consistent amount of energy generated, especially if you have enough battery storage as a buffer.
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It kind of sounds like Nvidia is blaming us for stoping GPP and making it seem like they wanted to do us a favor, how insulting is that, Nvidia needs to get a grip, the only reason they pulled back from this because of fear of the EU and US investgating them and is scared them that they might look deeper into Nvidia's other underhanded tactics over the years, thats why I think Nvidia pulled back on this quickly before it got out of hand and really hurt them. In any case, I think the EU and US should still investgate Nvidia because even thought they've stopped GPP, they've been upto some shady things now for years.
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Raising taxes is needed in the UK, the unfortunate truth is that since Brexit, budgets have been squeezed, and the Tories have made a right mess of the UK, public services have been starved for well over a decade now, so as much as I would love to have lower taxes, realistically, higher taxes are needed to fix a lot of the problems that Brexit and a Tory government over the last decade and half have done to the UK. What really makes me laugh are those people that seem to think we can have better by lowering taxes, all that ends up doing is creating more poverty, inequality and worse public services, and me personally, I don't have a problem with higher taxes, as long as it's being accounted for and being used in useful ways that all can benefit from, but in any case, lower taxes creates a lot of the mess that the US is facing in so many social areas and at the end of the day, you can't have your cake and eat it, you wanted Brexit, well money is tight since then, which is putting the squeeze on Brits and on the government in what they can do, higher taxes unfortunately are probably the only way to solve many of these problems, and if you really want anyone to blame, then blame the Brexiteers and Tories, not Labour, which are coming into power with a country that's been ripped apart by the Tories and Brexiteers and it's going to take a lot of capital to repair the damage done, so expect more higher taxes in other areas.
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Politics is always about telling the people what they think they want to hear and not what can be delivered, the right wing of politics does this a lot, only to not deliver on their promises It is, after all, far easy to say anything on the sidelines to win the people over, but far harder to deliver on that once in power and reality kicks in. Basically, the reason migration numbers don't seem to want to drop much in pretty much any western countries is because of birth rates, the natives are not having enough kids and a big problem is brewing in that there's a widening gap from the young to old generation, that's likely going to get worse unless more births happen or more immigration. This on the surface might not be a problem, but it could become a major problem over the coming decades in either higher taxes on the younger generation or less money for public services, basically, the younger generation could get hit hard with higher taxes and lower quality of living whiles the older generation could end up with weaker public services. There might be a silver lining in all this, A.I. and robotics might solve this problem over the coming decades, but for now, governments need to be honest with the public in that lower migration numbers will ultimately lead to higher taxes and less money for social programs, at least until the balance on the population settles down, but considering that birth rates in pretty much every modern country is way below replacement rate and that I suspect much of the birth rates are from immigrants, things don't look good.
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What Cameron wanted was another opt-out when the UK have by far the most of them already and even now with Brexit the UK seems to think they are special and should have it's cake and eat it and be able to cheer pick any deal it wants without any of the cost lol. If you want reforms, you are better off doing at national level and at the EU level by gaining support by other EU members, as it is, it looks like big reforms of the EU and Eurozone will happen over the next 10 years.
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Really, thats funny considering all the papagander from the right wing press and the hardliners in the UK on Brexit lol, what I'm saying is common sense but clearly people like you don't like that because it's not agreeable to hpw you want to see things happen, in any case, it's clear for anyone to see that the leavers are losing this one because they can't deliver on what they promised the British people with Brexit with cake and eat it and cheer picking, it's all coming back to bite you on the arse :)
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Sometimes with dents people you have to repeat things, they are a bit slow like you, in any case, why don't you read up on history on how things really work and not on how you want things to work because that where you are really getting things wrong, not just on Brexit and Trump but in life overall, that might fly right over your head, never mind lol.
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Can't argue it eh?, thats what losers like you do, deflect away when you can use logic, keep it up ;-), you are making youeself look like an idiot and showing everyone else that you've already lost before you even started lol.
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What a loser lol, now run or fly for the hills you loser lol.
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This is part of being a democracy, money and corruption go hand in hand and even thought we should always try to minimize it, there will always be corruption when there is money involved. The good news is when it becomes a big scandal and gets exposed because it allows for rule changes to clean up a lot of this whiles also cleaning house, so on the surface, this might look bad for the EU but in fact, it's actually a good thing because rules are likely to change to strengthen democracy in the EU and sometimes you need this to happen to clean out some of the bad blood that are taking bribes. Truth is, when money is involved, the only way to really clean that up is for money changing hands to be made public for everyone so there are no secrets on that, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon, but at the end of the day, as long as lobbying is considered legal, many will continue to do it inside and outside of the EU, especially when there is money involved and lobbying is a big problem around the world because it allows the rich to distort democracy and usually at the expense of the average citizen.
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True, it's embarrassing really, I mean, surely he must realize with Russia taking such a beating, Belarus stands no chance, but he has to keep his people in line, but say he did join the war, that could become a major threat to Lukashenko power base, unlike Putin, Lukashenko isn't really that popular in Belarus and he probably needs those troops in Belarus just to protect himself from his own people lol.
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Keys & Locks Not quite but I do agree the EU should become less complex but Switzerland could join at any time regardless of its complexity and I think because of its geographic position it's in, it's very likely it will join at some point.
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Adolf Stalin That's not true, the EU was always about political and economic integration right from the start, they found economic integration easier to do but at first they did look into political integration with the intention of preventing another major war in Europe, the EU as always been about political and economic integration where it makes sense, going back all the way to the Steel and Coal Community. Even many in the UK don't seem to understand that and thought they were joining an economic only union when it was clear even back then it was a political and economic entity.
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@mikenijboer1292 They already do that lol, because they are outside the EU still means they pay in the EU pot, in fact I'm sure the video above touched on that bit.
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@rogerwinter1563 How so?
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Adolf Stalin If that was the case, they might as well just have a deal like Norway has or single market and custom union access which more or less gives them all that, they don't actually have to be in the EU for all that.
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@rogerwinter1563 Go on then, counter what I said, unless you do that, you're the one talking out of your arse, it's easy for you to say things like that but point out where I am going wrong so I can counter your argument ;-)
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@diako8263 Norway is more or less already in the EU for the most part but without really any say, in fact they are more in the EU than what the UK was with all it's op-outs they had but I think it's only a matter of time before Norway joins, that leg up with oil won't last and once that is gone, standards of living will drop over time, that will put a lot of pressure on change and will bring Norway's per capital more in line with EU norms and all of a sudden, joining the EU becomes less of a problem for them. Same for Iceland, the real thing holding that back is fishing but things change, especially as we advance.
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@karskerik I think we have to be realistic here, can you name a single rich European country that doesn't have the EU that plays a big part in the economy? all the ones that are not are to the east and tend to be poor and here is the kicker, as the EU keeps expending and the US and China become bigger and more aggressive, a lot of smaller countries will want protection, as much as some might not like the EU, being inside it does offer a lot of protection, in fact we are already seeing signs of that with the UK on Brexit, the US already wants to take advantage of them, something they couldn't do whiles in the EU, it's looking like others will do the same. We just have to accept that the world is becoming more global, countries are grouping together so they can compete with the big players, we might not like it but that basically means the likes of Norway are likely going to join the EU out of self-interest, especially with these other unions around the world forming, by the way, Norway would have around 15 or 20 seats in the EU and would also have a veto, that is actually more seats than the country should be getting if we measure it by population so it's a pretty good deal for them, after all, you can't expect to have the same amount of seats as Germany which by the way should have more seats if everything was done equal by population size, in other words, smaller countries have more seats per population then bigger countries do.
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@amm287 True but I don't mind really, if someone wants a debate, I'm quite happy to give them one, even if it is someone that will never change their tune no matter what facts are on display. Personally, I like to stick to how things are and not how I want to see things, too many unfortunately delude themselves in seeing what they want to see, Brexiteers, Trump supporters and the likes.
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@amm287 I agree that patience is key and that is one area the EU does well on compared to most but things are moving pretty rapidly around the world and we have to change and adapt to all that if we are to keep up, we are seeing early signs of that with the EU, have you noticed how the EU is signing more free trade deals since Trump got into power? Basically doing the opposite of what the US is trying to do and for good reason, to create stronger ties with more around the world, the EU and other countries like Japan and Canada are speeding up the talks because of self-interest, they see the US as becoming reckless, aggressive and unstable so many countries are wanting to create closer ties to others and be less exposed to the US, Canada and Japan see the EU as the perfect replacement in that, especially Canada and Japan which are too exposed to the US and China. Trump is just a power hungry man that if he had the power in the system that allows, he probably would be as bad as Hitler, lucky for the US, the system is holding him back but he's shown many signs that he wanted to override the systems from trying to discredit the media, judges and so on, if he was more popular with more charisma, he might have been able to overrule a lot of those systems and that is when things get really dangerous, the US are playing with fire with leaders like that, it doesn't take much to overrule a democracy system with the right person in power and a rabid population that doesn't know the truth from fiction which is basically what Trump is trying to do in the US but failing at that. But honestly, you have to blame the people for all that, they are the ones that put these loons into power, they are more than capable of researching and finding the truth, if they don't then quite frankly, they deserve everything they get, Trump is making life pretty miserable for a lot of Americans but maybe that needs to happen for the penny to drop, same with the UK on Brexit.
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@amm287 Canada and Mexico became too dependent on the US when it came to trade and that put them in a weak position as we saw with Trump renegotiating NAFTA to a worse deal for Canada and Mexico, now Canada wants to be less exposed to the US by trading more with the EU so it becomes less off an issue for them, now that Canada has a free trade deal with the EU, they can diversify it's trade between the two and that puts Canada in a better position in case either of the two powers play games, Japan is likely thinking along the same lines. I don't think it will be that difficult for Canada to adjust to EU regulations, Canada is quite different in a lot of areas and kinda reminds me of a European country in comparison to how the US is which is quite different, Canada will likely be fine with higher standards that the EU does and that doesn't cause any problems to trade with Canada and the US at least not in the short term but in the long run if Canada start to raise standards, some US goods might not qualify for trade in Canada. I agree, the deal with the EU and Japan was quite easy because very little regulations need changing and a lot of the standards are already in place, but overall, the EU, Canada and Japan benefit from this and it could have a shift in where trade goes. The EU could become like the US but I don't think it's a good idea, the US is showing a lot of flaws and the EU system should be it's own system developed in time, it doesn't have to be a carbon copy of how the US system is, I think we Europeans can do better than that system now that we have hindsight as an advantage, the real tricky part is balancing the balance of power from the EU and it's members and that isn't as easy as it sounds, on the one hand, it's better to have most powers in the hands on the local governments but on the other, the EU can be more effective with some powers centralized, especially when protecting EU countries interest around the world. I agree that we need to get rid of the veto system in a lot of areas, especially as more countries become members of the EU but it will be tricky to do because a lot of smaller countries like the power of having a veto but in the long run, it's just going to create a stand still where nothing gets done. Trump to me is part of this popularize wave that is going on from the likes of Brexit, some in some European countries, the leader of Brazil and so on, what the supporters of all these have in common is rage, tend to be off a poorer background and worse education and seems to be easy to manipulate them with lies as most don't really know much about real policy making, one thing all these have in common is the inequality gap in all those regions that support those causes, basically, Brexit and Trump supporters tend to be from poorer regions in the country, the irony is, Brexit and Trump is making them even poorer. Don't get me wrong, change is clearly needed but Trump and Brexit are not the answer. The truth is, people don't want to hear this but the reason things are like they are in the UK and US is a direct result of the voting patterns of the people in those countries, in the UK, governments and much of the media uses the EU as a scapegoat for all the wrongs in the UK, after Brexit, they won't have that excuse, Trump is using the rest of the world as a scapegoat for all the wrongs in the US, both have the same thing in common, deflecting blame on others for the mess they create in those countries. In the case of Brexit, they are likely going to find out that the problems are a lot closer to home with it's own governments and not the EU thanks to Brexit, in the US that might take longer for it to sink in, either way, the UK won't have any excuses left next year and then all the blame firmly goes on the government for how the UK turns out, that's when it really gets interesting as that is when the penny will start to drop with many Brexiteers that they've been had.
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@amm287 The problem for the US, this isn't the first time, we had W Bush around 2 decades ago and now Trump, even if some kind of normality happens after Trump, it will likely only be for a short whiles because these leaders are being elected by the people which suggest the real problem is in American society and that isn't easy to fix, same for the UK with Brexit. Canada and Japan are edging their bets, want less exposure to the US by trading more with the EU and in the case of Japan, less exposure to China also, the EU was the logical partner for them both in an unstable world where the big powers seem to be going off the rails. The US needs an overall to its system, two party systems are rarely a good idea as it offers limited choice to the people. It will be interesting to see how the EU turns out but it's unlikely to be like the US system, they'll likely try and invent a new system that works better for Europeans and the way the EU and it's members are trying to form a union with countries that are already well-developed compared to states in the US that wasn't when the union was done. Nationalism and patriotism is a big problem in the US, something that many see as a good thing is actually a bad thing because it blinds a lot of people from the truth in how the system screws the people over compared to other systems by blind loyalty, we Europeans don't realize how good we have it as we like to complain about everything but maybe that complaining is why we have it so good, people in the US seem quite subdued by the system and the system takes advantage of that. For me, Globalism isn't much of a problem if done right, in fact it can offer a lot of benefits to the countries that are more open, history has shown that going back all the way to the Roman, the more open a system is, the more they tend to benefit from ideas from all over, the US seems to be wanting to close up shop whereas the EU seems to be opening up and speeding up trade deals around the world, if history is any indicator, the EU likely will get it right compared to the US. As for Brexit, well I live in the UK and I think the damage is already done, we have another 5 or so years of this Conservative government that is going off the rails on both Brexit and the pandemic, the odds are going up that Scotland and Northern Ireland will leave the UK union over the next decade, I don't think things are going to get better any time soon, in fact they are likely to get a lot worse in the UK with Brexit next year and the impact of the pandemic which for now most people are not feeling because of government support but that will dry up soon enough and that's when things really could get bad. Basically, the UK has the wrong government at the wrong time and the British people are starting to pay a high price for that, something that will show from next year onwards.
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@amm287 Sorry about that, didn't actually see a message on here from yesterday for some reason, youtube does this at time and I don't know why, it's been doing it for years now. The worshipping of Trump is where it really gets bad, I am seeing the same thing in the UK with Brexiteers on Brexit, common sense, facts go out of the window then and it becomes like some kind of religion where they beleave absolutely in their cause no matter what is said on it, these people are very easy for the system to manipulate and that's what is going on. In the end, these people will wake up in time because their actions is likely then that will pay the highest price, I'm seeing signs of that already in the UK where most Brexiteers are in the northern part of England, a region that the Conservatives have never really cared for and they are showing just that on this pandemic with most resources going down the south of the country, I think some Brexiteers are starting to realize they've been had, as for Trump supporter, you only have to look at the policies, most of the bailout funds are going into supporting big corporations and the stock market, not the poor and middle classes that need it the most, it's always the poor and middle classes that pay the price and unfortunately for them, that is most Trump and Brexit supporters. Honestly, looking at many of the systems in the west, the US and UK seem one of the weakest and a big part of that has to do with the two party system controlling everything and making it difficult for others to join the race, contrast that with Germany and that system looks a lot more democratic but that is likely because the system was rebuilt after the second world war. You have to wonder if a vote should be counted on the vote regardless of the region you are from in the country, at the moment, it seems to lump you in the region and as you say, if you are a Democrat in a mostly Republican state, your vote means nothing, I think that is a big flaw in the system and it's the same in the UK, it should be one vote per person, regardless of what region you are from. Have to worry about what's going on in the US and UK because the more I'm seeing of the two, it's not about policies anyway, like you said, it's just about flinging mud at the other side, the US and UK have a popularise government, thanks to that, our economy is being hit the hardest and we have some of the worse results on the pandemic, 3 of the biggest countries with popularise governments, the US, UK and Brazil all have popularise governments and are doing quite bad on the pandemic, that isn't by chance and it does reflect badly on the public of these countries. I have to worry about what's about to come over the next 4 or 5 years, the Conservatives are in power for the next 5 years in the UK and with Brexit in full force next year and the impact of this pandemic on the economy, times are going to become hard for a lot of people and I don't think they realize that yet, same in the US, regardless of who wins the next election, the damage is already done, but Trump being re-elected could make things even worse over the next 4 years. I think the EU will be fine, they seem one of the few level-headed out of all of this, especially in the west but I do think a lot of changes are going to be need over the next 10 years, I would like to see more European countries adopt more of the policies of the Nordic countries up north, they have some of the highest standards in a lot of areas from around the world and the system seems more fairer and balanced for the people. As for the UK, I think the UK is done for, a bad deal Brexit looks to be on the horizon, the pandemic isn't doing so good, support for the independence movement in Scotland and Northern Ireland is gathering pace and now the UK government wants to break international law on an agreement that it signed in good faith, I doubt the EU or the US will let that go unpunished because they can't afford to send out the message to others that it's alright to break international law or others will do it and that could make a right mess for the rule of law around the globe. I think the UK will re-join the EU again but it won't be any time soon and I suspect it will be with Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK union and then re-joining the EU, just like in the US, feelings are high on these things so I think things are going to get much worse before they get better.
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@amm287 I think the real problem is patriotism and nationalism, it blinds people from the truth of how things are, it tells people they are the best and things don't need to change, a lot of countries do it but the US is well-known for using that on the people a lot, I don't think it serves anyone's interested in blinding people to how things really are, people tend to learn and change based on the facts, unfortunately, that just isn't happen in Trump's America and it's not happening in the UK with Brexit, we are getting a lot of wishy-washy things on how people want things to go and not how things are actually going. As for Brexit, it's mostly the north-east and north-west part of England and quite a chunk of Wales as well, much of the south of England, a lot of Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. As for why they wanted out, a big part of the media and governments over the decades have painted the EU in a negative light, more or less blaming anything wrong in the country as something the EU did even thought they had nothing to do with it, governments have used this to deflect blame away from the mess they create, the media is quite right wing in the UK, much of which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch, so the owner of Fox News in the US, basically, their logic is, keep saying the lie over and over and people will buy into it regardless of if it's true or not, that's what has happened here and it's more or less the same thing Trump is doing, hence why facts and reason doesn't seem to work on these kinds of people any more. The German system might look messy from the outside with having grand coalitions and all that but at least there is more choice and it also forces the different parties to compromise in many areas if they want to form a government, that isn't a bad thing overall considering the difference from people all over the country. I don't know the full info on how the system works but basically as it's a two party system, they've both more or less rigged the system in their favour so it's much harder for new parties to enter the race, this is mostly done by having it where regions of votes are what count and not individual votes, the idea being is that some regions will vote one way or the other almost every time with some regions being swing votes, it's not that different from the US is that sense and for me, it's not really democracy, not in the truer sense anyway. Out of the 3, the US, UK and Brazil, the UK might be the more fortunate one even thought we have Brexit around the corner, the government isn't as far gone and a lot of the policies are mirroring a lot of European policies even if a bit late on that, I think the Conservative Party is going to get hit pretty hard over the coming years with both Brexit and the aftermath of the Pandemic. I wouldn't say expensive but over the last 10 years, there's been a lot of cuts, austerity cuts and I think that's has played a big part in why Brexit happened, a lot of people are getting left behind, the thing is thanks to Brexit and the pandemic, I suspect things are going to get much worse before they get better, at least for the next 5 years, the US is already making it clear that there won't be a free trade deal with the UK if they break international laws, I think the UK government is bluffing and are trying to get the EU to give more concessions, something I doubt they'll give so I'm expecting a big u-turn from the UK government over the coming weeks. As for defining a popularise government, that's a tricky one but I think it boils down to a bunch of angry people that feel they have been left behind in society and feel their voice isn't heard any more, they also tend to be poor and middle classes, I don't want to say it but I will, they tend to be of lesser education and seem easy to manipulate by the system, from governments and the media, basically, facts and evidence doesn't seem to have much impact on these people. Nah I don't think Texas or any other state will want it's independence but I wouldn't rule it out over the long run if this divide continues from Democrat and Republic states, after all, Scotland has been part of the UK for over 300 years and it looks like they want out mainly because of too many differences, signs are showing of that in the US from state to state but if that does happen, it's quite some way off and I doubt it will happen but I wouldn't rule it out, especially if figures like Trump keep getting elected. Northern Ireland actually reuniting with the Republic would solve a lot of the problems on Brexit but this is an ego thing from the UK government so that won't be easy unless the people of Northern Ireland push hard on that, the union would still exist, but it would have two less members if Scotland and Northern Ireland was to leave, the flag would have to change as well because it represents all 4 members. As for wealth, too much of it is kept down south, mostly in London, there is a big north-south divide and as much as governments say they are going to try and fix that, they never do, anyway, I think this pandemic open up the door for real change in a lot of countries if the people push hard on that, the UK and the US clearly need that but so do some European countries like Italy. Out of the big western powers, the EU is doing much better overall, not perfect by a long shot but with everything else that's going on around the world, the Europeans are probably the more lucky ones out of all this.
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@amm287 They are two different things but both are always used by people that want to manipulate another group of people, many governments and much of the right wing press does it a lot to great effect with the intention of blinding people from the truth to make them feel better than they are, but ultimately, it to control these people to get them to do the bidding of what the powers that be want, just look at how much patriotism, nationalism and flag waving is done with Trump supporters, Brexiteers and the likes, it's clear to see. Self-confidence is fine as long as it's based on reality but it rarely is with these people, I've never subscribed to that way of thinking with patriotism and nationalism in assuming it's automatically given, it has to be earned, I look at how the system is, the society is and if what's being done is right or wrong to make a judgement, I don't automatically support Brexit because I'm British and the system tells me to do it or how many Americans have been seen as unpatriotic because they don't buy into what Trump is selling. As for the EU, there is that news channel called Euro News, that could be the kind of platform used for its media. Actually, it partly is their fault why they are being left behind, a lot of these kinds of people are the ones that vote for the likes of Brexit, Trump and so on, thinking it will help them but it rarely does, in fact it usually hurts them, many people have tried to warn these people but they won't listen, so they do take a big part of the blame for being left behind, especially the ones that always like to deflect why things are for them on others. I'm actually happy the EU doesn't use that powerful tool, I want it to earn our trust on sound policies and not based on a sense of belonging, it's like a form of respect, earning it or having it given but one thing the EU and national governments could do is moderate the media somewhat, freedom of the press is all well and good if it's being used right but much of it is a mouthpiece for a few powerful people, I think there needs to be more accountability in what is reported in the media to clean it up, they are supposed to report on the news but it's gone well beyond that for many. I think a democracy is only as good as the people in it, the education system, how well-informed they are and how much they take part in political debates, as well as even bothering to vote at all, this is likely the results we are seeing in the US and UK, not enough people taking enough interest in it all and the spin doctors are twisting things up for their own gains. Germany is actually a country I admire as a Brit, the system and governments always seem more level-headed when it comes to politics compared to many other big countries, it didn't surprise me at all that Germany should be one of the few big countries in the west to do a much better job on this pandemic, to me, there is a lot other countries can learn from the German system and the Nordic countries. It's hard to say about the Brexit Bill, I do know that if it passes and the UK is braking international law, the price could be very high for the UK, the EU would have the legal right to get a lot tougher on the UK with sanctions, the US won't like what the UK is doing because it's mostly the EU and US that creates most international law and don't want smaller players braking it, they also have a big Irish community in the US, hence why the Democrats are also to what the UK is trying to do and why the Republicans are because they don't want to lose those votes with it being an election year, the UK can't afford to get on the wrong side of the EU and the US so I think it's a bluff to try and get concessions out of the EU which won't work, the UK will likely back down at the last moment, personally, if I was the EU, I would put the talks on hold until the UK resolves this whiles still having the deadline of when the UK leaves, ramp up the pressure on the UK government to stop playing games, also, it might not go down to well with Scotland and Northern Ireland if the UK does break international law. As for the pandemic, it was bound to happen, as we open up, infections will start to rise again, that could happen 2 to 5 times over the next 2 or so years, the question is, is this a second wave or still part of the first wave on just opening up? From the looks of it, things might get quite grim in winter, I think we will be doing well if we get this virus under control by the end of 2021.
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@amm287 That's true but unfortunately, the human race doesn't seem that great at learning from history and we are quick to repeat it, when I look at a lot of the popularise movements going around, they've got a lot of the same tone that people had before Hitler got into power, full of rage, hate and anger, if people are not careful, it can be a slippery slope back into the dark ages of history and the real problem is that too many have forgotten history and why we might be at the risk of repeating it. My love on countries is based on rights and wrongs, on them doing the right thing around the world and for their own people, I'm British but that doesn't mean I'll automatically follow the tune that the system wants me to follow, I see the UK doing a lot of wrong that I don't agree with and I judge on their actions not on history or patriotic duty. As for the media, Rupert Murdoch is a prime example of the media going wrong, he owns around 200 papers and news stations and almost all of them have the same message on a lot of things and he really hates the EU for not allowing him to expend his media empire in Europe much, he's not reporting the news, he's reporting his views and that is where the real problem is. Not sure what the situation is on English in EU countries but I'm sure I read awhile ago that around half the EU population can speak English good enough to get by around the EU, also, I think it's going to become less of a problem over the coming decades because auto translation tools are getting better all the time, it's only a matter of time before they get so good that they can translate on the fly any language we want as we talk, that would be a game changer around the world. I can understand the German point of view in not liking it's money going to other EU members, but I actually like that richer members help poorer ones out but I do think more strings need to be attached, especially on reforms or it just ends up becoming a waste of money where they become dependent on that money, that money should be there to help them get on their feet to stand on their own feet, overall, the EU does have a pretty good track record on that but improvements need to be made, especially with countries down south that keep lagging behind. The Pandemic and Brexit does feel like it's bringing EU nations closer together, it's too early to say for now but it's just a feeling, I also think with the US going off the rails and things heating up with the US and China, many are starting to realize the importance of the EU, especially if Europeans want to protect their political, economic and social interest, the EU is the only way to go because on our own, EU members are too small but together, we're big enough to not get pushed around. Many governments make the EU their scapegoat because of how poorer they are handling things in their own country, it's much easier to blame others for one's failure, the UK does this all the time, Italy has been doing a lot of it the last decade or so, in the case of the UK, they won't have that option next year and that's when a lot more pressure will go on the UK government as they won't have any excuses on why things are not that great in the UK, that's the silver lining to me on Brexit, they won't have any more excuses, anything wrong in the UK is down to the UK, that is probably the only way they will learn that the EU wasn't the problem after all and the problem was much closer to home in the national government. I think when it comes to politics, voting should be mandatory as it impacts us all, I also think better teaching of politics and debates at late stage is school should happen, in the UK at least, most know little to nothing about it until they've left school and even then, they have to figure it all out themselves, a good healthy debate on what's going on in politics on a weekly basis would likely do wonders for educating people when it comes to voting. To me, the changes the UK government want to do to that Brexit bill is the UK government trying to pressure the EU into giving concession, the EU can't afford to give any as the euroseptic will use that as a banner around Europe and in this case as it would be the UK braking international law, the EU doesn't have to give anything because if the UK goes ahead with it, that would give a much stronger hand for the EU to hit the UK hard, even the US might go cold on the UK, it's a risky or desperate game the UK government is playing and I can't see how they can win this one. The Democrats have already made it clear that if the UK breaks international law, there won't be a free trade deal with the US, the Democrats control the house that can block any trade deals so that's a big problem for the UK even if Trump was to win the election, it's even worse if the Democrats win the election because they see Brexit as the same as Trump as being part of that popularise movement, the US under the Democrats will likely want to repair ties with the EU and calm things down with China before they get out of hand, that likely could mean closer relations with the EU and US and especially Germany and France and likely at the expense of the UK because out of the EU, the UK becomes less useful to the US. The next 5 or 10 years is going to be a bit crazy, it should be interesting to see how things turn out because I'm expecting a lot of changes.
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@jayc342009 If the people want to rejoin the EU, it will happen regardless of what you say but it won't happen any time soon mainly because it's unlikely the EU and all it's members would allow that, many have wanted to get rid of the UK for some time, they won't want to risk letting them back in any time soon. Beside, the UK is a democracy, if the people change their minds and there will be a lot of reasons for them to want to change their minds once the reality of the lies kick in, the odds of rejoining are pretty high because Brexit was sold on a lie, something the Brexiteers can't deliver on, once that reality kicks in for most Brits, watch how their views change, in fact it's already changing, 57% of the public already want to rejoin the EU and that number is creeping upwards lol. At this rate, Labour could fight the next election on rejoining the EU lol, the Tories can't because they've dug their own grave on Brexit and have to see it through, this could cut deep on the next election, but you know what is really funny about it, even if the UK wants to join, the EU wont let us back in and likely will let us in the single market and custom union, they won't want us in the political decision-making, not for quite some time anyway, even better, if we do join, the UK would have to sign up to everything, the Euro, no op-outs. The way Brexit was handled could backfire in so many ways because too many promises were made that can't be kept and the public is turning on Brexit now, the UK could end up finding it's self with a worse deal in the EU then what we had as an EU member and it's all thanks to the Brexiteers lol. In any case, if public supports keeps going up for rejoining the EU, there is nothing you or me can do to stop that and ironically, the EU is the only one that could stop that, in any case, it suggests the UK will rejoin the EU a decade or so from now once the reality of being out isn't any greener or in fact, is much worse.
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Change is coming, you can bet on that but this is mostly because of the political and economic realities this virus is pushing us in, that is very likely going to change a lot of public views on many things and create a lot of reforms, especially on the EU and European countries, it also likely means the UK is going to need as much help as it can get once the economic fall out kicks in as the UK have had 10 years of austerity measures, now Brexit and now we have the economic fallout from this virus, this is going to be painful for us Brits and that isn't good news for the Conservative Party. In any case, what interest me is what real changes happen after this virus passes on, we are all in a much bigger hole thanks to this virus but the EU countries have a massive edge in economic clout and being able to pool their resources together to dig themselves out whereas the UK have quite a few things to contend with like Brexit, it also makes me wonder about public views in the UK on Brexit after this because views could change a lot over the next year thanks to this virus.
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@psarnack It's actually about the people, the system it's self can change if there is enough support from the people to change it.
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@ph5056 No one said they can't leave but looking at the Brexit example, countries would have to be crazy to want to follow that, especially because Poland is far less developed, in other words, they can leave but it would be very costly for them economically and politically could become more unstable as Russia starts playing games with them as we both know they will, after all, Russia wants a divided Europe so he can take advantage of individual countries, that is much harder to do whiles the EU is around. In any case, when it comes to Poland, who cares what the government wants, what really matters is what the people want and that's where the government has a big problem now.
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@psarnack Problem is for North Korea is the control of information, most in North Korea know little to nothing of the outside world apart from what the government wants them to know, that's not the case in Poland and it's also the reason why Russia and China are trying to control the feed of information the people get with the intention of manipulating them for their own ends which rarely benefits the people and usually benefits key people in power. The irony is that Russia and China could be more powerful if the countries were more open as it would bring in a lot more investments from around the world and in the end, the people in those countries are suffering because the governmental system is trying to protect key people in power.
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Could Facebook pull out of the EU market? Yes, but would they? Highly unlikely. If they did, other companies would take full advantage of that void they leave behind and use that clout against Facebook on the world stage, it could also get other countries to get tougher on Facebook if they play those games. The truth is, markets like the EU are too big for big companies to pull out off, they can threaten to do it but they likely won't do it because others will fill the void they leave behind, at the end of the day, companies have to put up with laws and regulation big players like the EU and US put out there if they want to be in those markets, most will bend over backwards to do just that, this is the advantage of a big market like the EU and US, something China is quickly building on having. We should also remember, if Facebook takes a hardline on the EU, other governments could take a hardline on Facebook because I doubt any government would like corporations thinking they can dictate terms to a government, basically, if Facebook was to pull out of the EU, it wouldn't end just there, other governments would likely step in on getting tough on Facebook, it's a chain of reaction that I doubt Facebook want. Also, doesn't this seem kinda ironic with the US trying to ban TikTok and Wechat on security grounds and now the EU is basically saying they want data on its citizen to be held in EU countries whiles also not allowing them to send that data back to the US, likely because they don't trust companies to pass that data onto the US government, the irony in all this is funny and a lot of countries could jump on this with it opening up a big can of worms if we are not careful, something the US started could come to bite them on the arse.
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No way, they seem to be more corrupt, seriously, have you seen the Conservatives in the UK or US, it's far worse than what we are seeing here.
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The boarder controls are not that different than with any third country around the world, the UK wanted Brexit and that's where the problem is, the UK could have had Brexit whiles not having this problem but it would have meant the UK being in the custom union or custom union and single market. In the end, this really became a problem for the UK because the UK is very divided on Brexit and because we have 4 countries in a union, that and because of the free movement the Republic and Northern Ireland used to have has been yanked away. The truth is, either the government is really stupid and didn't see this or they saw it and didn't care, I suspect they thought they'll wing it and hope people forget but clearly that isn't going to happen, the UK government seems to think they are at war with the EU, it's really sad to see how things have got in the UK.
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Actually, killing the fossil industry is a good way to speed up the alternative energy industries. We've got to remember that if push comes to shove, the process of change in the energy sector could happen in less than a decade that would normally take countless decades. In other words, the energy sector can't afford energy to stay high as that is going to put a lot of pressure on governments from the people that will force real change and not foot dragging, in other words, we could be seeing the start of an energy revolution in the coming years that is very likely going to favour renewable energy sources and battery tech and the longer and higher energy prices stay, the better in that sense.
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I'm all for that and I'm pro EU who thinks we should stay, think on that for a second. What I mean by all that, hard Brexit might be the best thing that could happen because it only works for the hardliners if they can deliver a successful Brexit that doesn't hurt the UK and people, it's clear they've lied a lot to get the vote and can't deliver on almost everything they said, so think for a second, what do you think will happen if Brexit goes wrong, we very likely will rejoin the EU much sooner then the leavers would want and that would be signing up to everything, the leavers have really set themselfs up here and don't even realise it yet.
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The moment we can actually generate and store enough clean, cheap energy, that's going to be a game changer for so many fields, renewables can do it, but we need much cheaper and bigger energy storage batteries.
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For me in the UK, I can travel around a mile on foot without any problem and it only takes around 25 mins, beyond that, I take a bike, bus or car, and for me, it's normal and I don't think anything of it. As for meals, I've never had any issues with meal sizes, for me at least, the portion size are about right, but I do remember my brother saying when he went to America that the portion size are much bigger, and that was in 1991 when there was far less of an overweight issue in the US, but clearly, it's portion size and not doing enough exercise that's likely leading to the overweight problem in the US, whereas we Europeans probably don't realise it, but the amount of walking a lot of us do, it's exercise in its self, which probably helps to having a healthy lifestyle, especially when the quality of food in Europe tends to be higher quality in the US. I think it also helps in Europe that it's a much nicer place when it comes to walking, so much so that I don't feel the need to rush, whereas the US isn't very walk friendly apart from major cities.
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The real problem in the US is patriotism and always assuming you're the best without realizing it's not the case, it ends up blinding people from the truth and that is hurting a lot of poor and middle class Americans whiles the rich keep running off to the bank, after all, has Americans ever wondered why the US system has to keep broadcasting how great the US and Americans are? Patriotism is sky-high in the US compared to many other countries. Could it be that the system is lying to them to keep them in line? it's designed in a way to breed ignorants for how things are and to not question one's greatness as a country and it works quite effective in the US just by looking at the inequality from rich to poor in the country, don't expect that system to change until Americans realise there are massive flaws in the system. The real question is, will Americans wake up and see the light after the dust settles on this virus? so far it's not looking good but there is hope, at least in some blue states but it's early days to get any idea on if real change will happen.
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@paisto That's true, also, there will be no op-outs, that's why it must be a worry for the Tories and Brexiteers in the UK because the polls are showing support standing at 57% and growing for rejoining the EU, people will accept a lot of things once hard times kick in and in the case of the UK, they've got Brexit and the economic fall out of this pandemic to worry about, this is probably the worse time the UK could have left the EU and clearly people are having second thoughts on that. In any case, If Brexit hits the economy and the pandemic adds to that, expect public views to keep shifting, after all, Brexiteers don't care for excuses on why things are going south, they were promised sunny upland and will turn on the government if they don't deliver, in other words, that percentage to rejoin the EU is likely going to continue to rise as things really sink in and it wouldn't surprise me that it could be so popular by the next election that Labour fights the election on rejoining the EU, how a short space of just a few years can change a lot. Beside, lets be honest, even if the UK wanted to join, the EU won't let us back in that soon, one or two members will veto that, some have wanted to get the UK out for some time, they are not going to mess it up by letting the UK back in until the UK really changes, in other words, it could be decades before the UK can join and the best the UK can hope for short term is single market and custom union access as that will protect the economy. The real reality on Brexit will start to kick in next year because for now, most of the public have not felt the impact of it because we are more or less still in the EU. You know what the real sad thing is, I don't think the UK would even qualify to join the EU if we were to try, most EU countries will want to see a shift in views from the government political parties in the UK, the media and the public, the last thing they want is a hostile country in the EU, so the UK has a lot of work to do if they want to rejoin, the US and China will help them on that by scaring the UK. Beside, the EU has other things on it's mind with other countries planning to join the EU before 2025.
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@undefined6341 So some are not having a jolly old time, that doesn't change the reality that living standards are some of the best in the world in the EU, many studies have shown that over the years. As for the deck of cards, we've heard that one so many times on the EU, heck many keep predicting the EU to fall apart with each crisis and yet it's still here even thought it's had many crises, got to give the EU credit, it's very resilient as the British found out with Brexit.
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@ЭЮЯ-о3к Both did the same mistakes of not preparing for winter which give the Russians a massive advantage. Also the game is very different today and it's based on the economy and advancement of tech, EU countries have a massive advantage over Russia on that and more so if they combine resources. Got to remember that western countries spend very little resources on the army, if a real threat did happen, they could ramp that up a lot, Russia on the other hand can't and they did try to do that against the US, it bankrupted the Soviet Union which was the main aim the US had, outspend the Soviet Union and let it fall apart overtime and clearly it worked.
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@c.augustedupin8860 The eastern Europeans got help because they were doing the reforms needed to join the EU, Russia have shown no signs on wanting to join and won't get any help. Russia could get a lot of help from the EU but Russia would have to change a lot, especially at the political level, but until then, Russia is going to get squeezed by the EU expanding eastward, the US and China becoming more powerful and other players like India once they get their act together. You keep making excuses for Russia, remember they've got a lot of natural resources from oil, gas and other natural resources that a lot of those other eastern European countries didn't really have, with those kinds of resources, Russia is doing really poor even compared to the eastern Europeans that joined the EU. So ask yourself, what on earth is Russia going to do when a lot of countries are not buying their oil, gas and other natural resources? Without that, Russia would go into reverse, thats why it's poor how bad Russia is doing considering the natural resources they have.
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@andreyakovlev8332 EU countries don't need protection from Russia, only Russia and the US to a less degree thinks that lol, hence why Russia mostly plays games with countries that are not in the EU and if they do with EU countries, it's very short term that doesn't really have any impact and it all boils down to the economy, if push comes to shove, the EU can muster up a powerful army if needed, just for now there's little need, the economy opens up lots of doors and options, the EU and US has that, Russia doesn't and the main difference from the EU and US is that the US is more united whiles also willing to spend more on it's army, but like I said, if push comes to shove, the EU countries can quickly change on that, hence why I see Russia as a game player but not a threat. Besides, let's be honest, Russia fears the EU far more and mostly because the EU is expanding eastwards, Russia doesn't have an answer to that apart from threats which ironically is pushing more countries to want to join the EU so they are safe from Russia, in that sense, you could say Russia is doing the EU a massive favour by scaring those eastern none EU countries to become closer to the EU.
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@engelgirl7360 Debt levels are pretty much a thing for a lot of countries now, especially with the pandemic and more so with western countries but then they can afford to pay it back over the long run.
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@ЭЮЯ-о3к When it comes to salary figures, you've got to be careful on which sector you're looking at because some sectors, the salary figures are not that drastically different from rich and poorer countries whereas a lot of other sectors, the difference can be massive which usually hits the poor and middle classes the hardest. Also what you said at the end is true to a degree but it misses the point that richer countries have a lot more options when it comes to buying things, especially from outside the countries because at the end of the day, many items are sold in Russia at western prices and clearly that would be a problem for people that have much lower wages than others that don't. Either way, GDP per capita isn't a good indicator of the well-being of a country.
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The EU made the right choice, 3 weeks ago things were bad in the US but they've got a lot worse now and overall, the infections and death rate in the EU is quite low whereas it's rising sharply in the US, some small regions in the EU are seeing a rise in cases but that's a far cry from what it was like a few months back and can be dealt with a lot better than having to shut everything down again. All in all, both the EU countries and the US handled going into this badly but the EU countries are doing a much better job getting out of it, the Asian countries are doing the best overall.
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What you really need with these readings are 3 things, 1 is the overall renewable energy production by sector, 2 is the production of energy per person and 3, the amount of overall electricity generated in the country by percentage of overall electricity needed. Smaller countries overall are going to need less solar because the population is smaller but many small countries could be generating a high percentage of their energy they need by renewables. I think it would be more useful to see the numbers of energy generated as a percentage by each country and not how much overall energy is being generated because countries with bigger population are going to need a lot more energy but it doesn't tell you on a per-person basis how much energy renewables is generating, it would also be interesting to see the energy mix by sectors, so solar, wind and so on.
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Very true, she's still too early in her term, being a new party in power, she could be riding the wave of support on that, just like Macron did, but in the end, voters will expect results over the first term in office, if things get worse, her popularity and the party will drop a lot, if things stay the same, her popularity will still likely drop, just not as bad. In the end, she got voted into power because the public wants real change for the benefit, so the clock is ticking on her, and it's no different from when Trump got into power in the US or Brexit in the UK, people want real change to improve things, unfortunately, as we've seen in the US and UK, voters tend to misfire and make things worse, so the jury is still out on Meloni, but voters will likely start expecting some positive results over the next 2 or 3 years.
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That's basically is, Sweden and Finland will likely remember this for when Turkey wants something from the EU, either more favourable trade terms or longer term EU members, Finland and Sweden could turn the screw on Turkey and play games with them, after all, there are many ways Sweden and Finland could turn this to their advantage against Turkey on many different agreements longer term. That's the problem with veto rules and Turkey should know better that this can be used against Turkey at an EU level in the future, assuming EU veto rules are still in place, which if they are, it's unlikely the EU will continue to expand until there are reforms to it.
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It's not that scary, at least not when it comes to real political matters that change thing. I've been noticing a trend and not just in Europe, people that feel disenfranchised are voting more for the radical parties, in most cases as a warning message to the mainstream parties, but most of the voters voting for these parties don't actually want a lot of their policies, hence why we keep seeing in EU countries were when a far right party wins or is close to winning power, they tone their policies down a lot. Basically, it's easy on the sideline to shout out any policy they want, but once in power, it's a different ball game because their neck is on the line, these far right parties also likely know that if they mess things up, they might not get elected again. The simple truth is, these radical parties are only an issue if a majority of the population becomes radical, but if that were to happen, we've got far bigger problems than most realise, thankfully, we are nowhere near that stage, we've got a lot of people that are angry at mainstream parties and are willing to give others a chance to see if they can shake things up, but most of them are no real threat, because in most cases, the closer they get to power or into power, the more they moderate things, so much so that they look more like a mainstream party, we keep seeing the same thing happening in many EU countries.
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That's exactly what Boris can do, with such a majority, he can decide to ignore both sides of the argument on Brexit and do what he wants, at least for the next 5 or so years and this being Boris who is about self-interest not public interest.
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I'm 43, I tested myself out and got 1 min pretty accurately at 1:02, also that car and dog thing, I thought I missed something until he said what it was because both the car and dog seemed to be onscreen about the same amount of time. So for me at least, time seems to be going pretty accurately to how I see it but on the other hand, it's funny that when I was a kid, time used to drag on, especially with the summer holidays, even thought I had a lot of fun back then, 6 or so weeks felt like 3 months whereas now, 6 weeks passes quite quickly, it just seemed like it dragged on, whereas now the same time frame passes quite quickly now that I'm holding, so on the one hand, my perception of time is accurate but time feels faster now that I'm older.
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Part of the problem is weak leadership from the major powers like the EU and US to assist and stabilise the world, especially over the last two decades. Then there's authoritarian, which is being allowed to rise by the big powers that could step in to slow or put a stop to it. For the most part, the EU and US are stable, but we've seen in both how the radical elements in society could change things for the worse and if this spread continues with authoritarian and wars around the world, the EU and US could find themselves quite isolated, whiles at the same time, opening the door for Russia and China to push their ambitions and god forbid if the radical elements actually take hold in the EU or the US, things could get much worse, which things do seem to be getting worse and less stable around the world and part of that blame is on the leadership of the powers that could make a difference, so the EU and US. The real question is, will the major powers continue to isolate themselves from all the problems around the world? That might work in the short term but is likely to bring a lot more problems longer term if stability continues to get worse around the world. In any case, I think there needs to be real effort from the democratic nations in helping to resolve many of these issues facing the world, otherwise we could end up finding ourselves becoming increasingly isolated, which could allow the more radical elements in democratic nations to take hold and turn those countries into a more authoritarian system, something we've already seen warning signs of in the EU countries and in the US over the last decade, seriously, we need to wake up and start creating stability before there's a chance this could escalate into something worse.
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I suspect whats going on is that Trump is being boxed in, he knows he can't win this one but never wants to be seen as a loser, his ego can't take that lol, anyway, I'll be supprised if the US system will even allow Trump to put more tariffs on goods because it's one thing to do it onces but do it again and things can really go bad. Others like the EU and China have little to no choice but to hit back otherwise Trump is egotisical enough to think that if he's won, he can get away with doing it and will continue to do it again, in other words, to really hurt Trump, don't hit him directly but target his support base and the Republican party, that if push comes to shove might end up getting them to hang Trump by a lamp post if Trump pushes too far, hence why he's being boxed in with this.
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Trump really thought that others wouldn't dare to stand up to the US on tariffs and what ended up happening is that all of them did with more or less equal messure which does more harm to the US then it does to the others because the others can trade with each other without any of the tariff issues. Trump is learning economic 101 that others will fight back if pushed and now because he's boxed himself in with these tariffs, the US can't really afford to put any more tariffs on top of whats already on because that would send a powerful message to many busisnesses to invest less in the US whiles forcing many US ones to ship jobs out of the US, the last thing Trump wants. But I have to admit, it would be fun if Trump does try and push more tariffs on the EU and China, that could be Trump's hanging moment because either the Republican party will hang him or the American people will once things start to bite. Worse yet for Trump is that he's living on the lagacy of Obama's economic policies, wait till 18 to 24 months in his term and lets see how he's really doing and so far it's not looking good.
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@pauldunne5230 Might be true for quite some time but the real problem is the Republicans, even they are cagey on getting behind the UK on this one because of the big Irish community in the US, it doesn't look like the UK will get support from either the Democrats or Republicans regardless of what Trump says. The way the US see it, they can brake international law just like the EU can but they won't stand for any smaller player braking the rules and could come down hard on them because of the international rule of law which the big players created, mainly the EU and US.
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@kylebolton8147 Nothing wrong with peaceful protest and if they stick to getting right at the point they are getting at but sometimes they tend to morph into something else and becomes crazy. Either way, it's clear to see there is something wrong in the system for how things are going and that's something governments need to take note off and change otherwise things can get a lot worse.
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@pauldunne5230 We'll have to see, either way, I don't actually care who wins the next election but you have to wonder what kind of message that would send out if Trump wins the next election, the American people can be forgiven for making the mistake once, doing it twice is just pure incompetents with all the mess he's done so far, I doubt much of the world will take too kindly to that, even the UK, so the cost for the US are very high on who wins. As for the UK. isn't it funny how the UK is one of the worse hit countries with the US on this pandemic, how about Brazil? Popularize governments are showing their incompetents at a time when they need real policy making and not slogans and that is reflecting badly on the people in those countries. Even the northern parts of England that voted the most for the government are being shat on by this government now with the pandemic, most of the support is down south, emergency hospital are opening up down south, it's the Tories all over that only care about the south now and the Brexiteer fell for it like they always do lol, it's no wonder support is growing in Scotland and Northern Ireland for leaving the UK, the loons are in control of the UK government lol.
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@pauldunne5230 Actually I don't watch tv apart from a bit of the news and wild life documentaries. The real question you should be asking, what has Trump done right?, lets look at the facts, the US has a popularise government, the UK and Brazil also have one, 3 countries that are doing really bad on this pandemic, what are the odds? it's just pure incompetents from the 3 governments and sadly that reflects badly on the people of those countries as they voted in these clowns. The real sad thing is, most have no idea how much worse it's going to get over the next year or so before it gets better.
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I think the US needs to be careful on what it does over the next few years, if the US plays too handball on the world stage and especially on the EU, they could end up pushing the EU to invest a lot more in high-tech whiles also changing the rules that are not as favourable for the US and the EU have the resources to invest in high-tech, it's just a matter of them having the incentive to do so. Also, if the US isn't careful, Trump could be playing right into the hands of what China wants, which wants to pull the EU further away from the US, so not only will the EU get tougher on the US, but the EU might end up being on much friendlier terms with China, in other words, doing things that are not in US interest, and if that does happen, it's very likely that a lot of other countries will follow. The US is playing a dangerous game that it could lose a lot of friends over the next few years if they are not careful, and that plays perfectly in what China wants, which is to divide the west, so the real question is, lets see how really dumb Trump really is lol.
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This launch is even worse than how Microsoft launched the Xbox One lol, you have to wonder what Google was thinking to make something that should be a simple process so complicated.
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I think we should remember that sanctions usually take a few years to really bite, Russia might be benefitting by the high oil and gas prices but we know that isn't going to last and with the foundations of what the west is putting into place on Russia, it's the long term damage Russia really needs to worry about, after all, their reserves are running out, the EU countries are moving away from Russian oil and gas and the EU and US are actually isolating Russia from the world which in time will also put pressure on other countries to not do business with Russia, very likely once the EU countries have diversified away from Russian oil and gas enough. Even with all this, Russia is still hurting quite badly and it's still early days where it's only going to get much worse for Russia and I see no ways of Russia getting out of this unless the Russian people get rid of Putin and bring in a new leader that tries to repair ties and even then, it's going to take years, even a decade before trust comes back. In any case, there's 3 things that are going to hit Russia hard, it's money reserves running out, EU countries moving away from it's oil and gas and the better arms that are being delivered to Ukraine for winter, that's when things really start to go south for Russia and that's when Putin needs to worry, because as long as he can shield the Russian people from the war, his position is protected, the moment that changes, revolt could start to happen in Russia against him and that's when Putin could really get desperate, after all, he doesn't care about the Russian people, he cares about his position of power and the Russian people are pawns in that game and unfortunate for them, it's the Russian people that will pay the highest price for Putin's aggression but then, they do share a lot of the blame in all this, Putin didn't magically get into power by accident, he got in because enough Russians allowed him to grab power.
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@illi1238 Truth be told, we could have a small percentage but if it was combined with the EU countries, it would be a big player on the world stage, I suspect the US and Russia wouldn't be best pleased about that, the US wants EU countries to spend more but to keep them separated not combined, Russia fear EU expansion to the east. Either way, I suspect it will happen at some point because of the changing realities of the world, mainly the US and China. In any case, diplomacy should always be used first before the military which seems to be the preferred way of thinking of the EU and most Europeans.
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@1995pieter True, the irony is that the US could have built strong relations with the EU and much of the world after 9/11 but they more or less wiped out a lot of that good will and it's been in decline ever since, Trump as you say is just a mask of the real problems the US faces, the problems are still there even with Biden in power. The thing is, both the EU and US can't really afford to drift apart with a rising China looming, it's in both the EU and US interest to work a lot closer together because they both still share a lot more in common than they are different but more importantly, the EU or US on their own are likely not going to be powerful enough to contend with China in the near future with how quickly they are developing. I suspect Biden knows that whereas Trump didn't have a clue, the problem is now is that it needs to be put into sound policies, maybe a free trade deal between the EU and US, they were working on one a few years back but that stalled, they could bring that back, take out a lot of the controversial things in it and do a few other changes to make it more acceptable to each side and that might work.
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Actually, Europeans are right, we don't need a big military, what they do need is to pool their resources together in a single military through the EU, even at current budget, that would be far more powerful and effective compared to what we have now and it would reduce a lot of the waste and duplications. Now I'm not saying that we don't need to do more, but you'll be surprised at many of the voices in Europe, Putin is seen as a threat but quite a modest threat, many are actually seeing the US as a threat, especially with its polarised political system that's getting very emotional and erratic, but the irony is, what's really making Europeans think, it's not Putin, it's actually Trump. Spending more on individual militaries in EU countries will make them stronger somewhat, but it won't make them that much stronger or effective, at least not compared to the far bigger players, the simple truth is, the countries are too small on their own that there are limited resources to use, but if we combine those resources, we can achieve far better scale, it could even work out cheaper for the given capabilities we want. Not saying we shouldn't be allies with the US, but to trust them with everything that's gone on over the last decade, well that would be reckless, but we have to be realistic, we'll have limited success at an individual country level in the level of power a military can be unless the country in question is willing to go crazy on military spending, which if they did, the population won't thank them long term, the better solution is to find a solution at an EU level, it would be far more powerful, and could work out cheaper, in fact, if we did build a strong EU arms industry, it would likely be in direct competition with the US on the world stage, that would be a lot of money to fund into the military that doesn't need to come from taxpayers. It's high time we start thinking big in a world that's getting less stable with big powers like the US, China and Russia, all playing games and all have their own agendas, if we in Europe wants to protect our interest, we can achieve that far better working together through the EU, the alternative is that we stick as we are, the other powers will play games with us, divide us and play us off each other, something the US, China and Russia does all the time for their own ends.
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@John Galt Coumo did as well as he could considering the mess that started and with very little support from the US government, New York was always going to be hard hit because of the population size and how they live so close together. The real guilty ones on this is the US government, some US governors and some of the media, they've made a right mess of all of this and it's costing more lives than needed as well as more economic harm because the lock down is likely going to last longer or go up and down in stages as spikes in infections keep happening and god forbid if a second wave happens and it's much worse. To me, the US needed a nationwide shutdown, a hard shutdown, if they did that, they likely would be able to open up sooner rather than later and I suspect a lot of lives would have been saved.
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The US and UK are coming out of this really badly, the US government have shown a massive level of incompetents that it keeps trying to deflect blame in the hope that something sticks, that is unlikely to happen as the problem is clear to see and that is mostly at a governmental level, especially when it comes to Republicans at government and governor levels, they have a lot to answer to on this one the dust settles. In the UK it's a bit different but the problems have been more long term with the Conservative Party, for one, they did 10 years of austerity measure that cut the budget down a lot on the NHS service, two, they had Brexit to deal with which was mostly a Tory vanity project and three, they've been way too slow on this virus, so much so that we had weeks advanced warning from the likes of Italy and others and yet now the UK is on the verge of being the worse hit in Europe with the US the worse hit in the world. There are no excuses for these two governments, this is not something they are going to be able to spin and shove under the carpet in the hope we forget about it, this is likely going to do a lot of damage to both governments and countries with how the rest of the world see them. As for Europe, they are partly to blame as well, they could have reacted faster on this but to be fair to them, the virus hit them first among western countries and likely thought like with SAAR's that it wouldn't happen in the west, also the impact was likely to hit hard in the EU countries because they get by far the most tourist around the world which is perfect for a virus, still I give a lot of European countries credit, they are dealing with this a lot better than the UK and US are doing in many areas but the real star of the show is the Asian countries, they took it serious and are benefiting from that now. Another flaw we have seen, a lot of infighting in the US from the government to US states and mix messages being sent out to the public, it isn't helping anyone, in the EU, we've seen the flaw where the EU has limited powers in how it can help it's members here and that is mostly because euroseptics wanted everything to be done at a national level, well they paid the price on that once because at a time when more cooperation was needed, you got members being petty and more or less doing what US states were doing, it also does suggest that Europeans need more integration so the EU can help it's members and people out more effectively after this. Us in the west need to hold our governments to account and ask some real tough questions, especially in the US and UK that had weeks of warning on this but did very little, it also will be interesting to see how the world turns out after the next 5 years because it's not going to be business as usual like some like to think, big changes are on their way.
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@habi0187 It depends, like the UK for instance, the UK public wanted a lock down before the government did one and the public wanted a tougher lock down then what the government did, now polls are going around where 80% of the public don't think the time is right to open up. I'm not sure what it's like in other European countries but considering their social nature, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are around the same for most. The US seems to be the odd one out that seems to think the government is out to take away their freedoms, add on the extra pressure that the US government isn't doing enough to support the people and it's easy to see where the real problem is. In Europe, we don't like the lock down but we understand it, most of us are seeing it as a kind of long holiday at home, we're not seeing much of this rampant paranoia that's kicking off in the US and it makes me wonder what on earth is going on in the US because from the outside, it looks like a civil war is brewing, Trump doesn't help with his mixed signals he keeps telling people. In any case, a lot of mistakes have been done on this, a lot needs to be learned from this, especially in the west but in the case of the US and UK, they are coming out of this not looking very good to the rest, especially because these two countries had weeks more time to prepare for this than many European countries and that looks really bad being as the US is the worse hit in the world and the UK is on the verge of being the worse hit in Europe, it shows a massive amount of incompetents on both governments.
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@habi0187 From a UK perspective, the UK handled this crisis quite badly, the government was slow on almost everything and it was only because of public pressure that a lock down happened because the government give the impression they didn't want a lock down but was forced to do one by the public, anyway, a survey was dome a few days ago and about 80% of the public supports the lock down being continued, maybe we haven't all lost the plot in the UK with things like Brexit lol, which by the way I didn't support as I think it was crazy for the UK to leave the EU. The US to me looks like a mess, you've got Trump that seems to care more about the economy, his re-election bid and saying all sorts of crazy stuff that doesn't make sense, then you've got US states that are doing their own thing with no boarder controls and then we see all the rampant paranoia that is going on where many Americans think the US government is attacking them lol, it's crazy to see and I agree with you, the US is failing in so many areas on this crisis that it looks like a failed state. To think we thought in Europe we had problems with the EU, it's members and all the petiteness that's been going on but looking at what we are seeing in the US, it kinda looks like they have far more problems than we have in Europe. As a Brit, I wonder if this crisis will have a shift on public mood in the UK, after all, this is a massive wake up call for us in the UK and for the rest of Europe, it will be interesting to see views on the EU project after all this.
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@habi0187 The thing is, if we were to listen to the euroseptics, you'll think the EU is on it's knees and going to fall apart, they've been saying that for decades and yet it never seems to happen, wanting something to happen and it happening are two very different things and clearly they don't understand that, especially British euroseptics which are very different compared to European euroseptics. As a Brit, I agree with you 100% with what you said about the UK leaving, they never wanted to be part of the project, hence all the op-outs and have held the project back and even thought I am English, I wouldn't have a problem Scotland and Northern Ireland braking away from the UK and re-joining the EU because the real problem in the UK is England it's self, too many are still living in the past of glory days and a hard reality is needed to set that right. Personally, if I was the EU, I wouldn't let the UK back in and the best I would give them is single market and custom union access, that way they can't meddle in the political side of the project and the UK should never be let back in until these things happen, one is the governments in the UK become more balanced on the EU, two, the media becomes more balanced on the EU and three, the public become better informed on what the EU is and what it does because most Brits know very little about it and what they do know is mostly disinformation, most of which is lies being spread by the right wing in the country. It might sound harsh, especially with the hard times ahead with the economic fallout from this virus but us Brits need to learn this lesson the hard way because too many have been reckless and if it makes them feel any better, they can always join the single market and custom union, that would limit the economic damage a lot but whatever the EU does, don't let the UK back into the political side of the project until the UK really changes for the better. As you can tell, I'm not the typical Brit, I look at rights and wrongs and what is in our interest and not in what side I'm on and I see the EU project as being in all our interest in Europe if we want to protect our political and economic interest as well as social standards in a world that we have the US and a rising China, Europeans need to stand together if we are to stand any real chance on that.
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@habi0187 I don't have a problem with the UK being in the single market and custom union, that would more or less offer the same benefits they get as an EU member but without any political say in how the project is run, in other words, the UK becomes a vassal state and the sad thing is, that might be the best the UK can hope for now, especially now because the UK is going to need all the help it can get with the economic fallout from this virus and the hard times is likely going to push the US to get more aggressive on the UK when it comes to a trade deal. The UK are in a really bad position with 10 years austerity measures, Brexit and now the economic fallout from this virus, I don't think people are going to realize how hard things are going to get in the near future. As for Italy, I'm not worried about them, they'll get all the help that's needed from the EU and it's members once the countries stop complaining, but Italy needs to change as well, other countries in the Euro zone don't have a problem helping Italy and others out just as long as those countries help themselves out by reforming, otherwise 10, 20 years from now, they are going to want another bail-out, help is at hand for those countries, but they've got to want to help themselves out. The irony is, the Euro is the only thing that's kept Italy from falling apart, that keeps confidence in the country and investment flowing in, if they didn't have the Euro, a lot of investments would likely pull out of the country because for now, Italy is backed by a strong Euro which is backed by many other countries and that's why they are unlikely to leave, self-interest basically, now don't get me wrong, change is needed for the EU and all the EU members and that is likely to happen once the dust settles on this virus because this is a massive wake up call for us all that we need to do better, to work better together. As for Scotland and Northern Ireland, I suspect they are both going to put a lot of pressure on the UK government for more resources and money, they likely know they can get away with it with a strong movement to want to leave the UK, the UK government can't afford to not bend over backwards for them, who will get it in the neck is the north part of England which is ironic as that is the strong base on Brexit, one thing I do know, most of the resources will be kept down south of England like it always is and more so with the economic hard times ahead so the northern part of England, the part that voted for Brexit the most is likely going to face some real hard times ahead, but then they did vote for it.
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It's one thing being calm, it's another being intelligence with it, he says a lot of Brexit but he doesn't really back a lot of it up with substance and facts, wishing for Brexit to go the way he wants and it going that way are two very difference thing. The truth is, someone that is intelligence will see things for how they are and not how they want things to be and that is a major flaw we see with Brexiteers, they talk a good deal and how things are going to go but they never back it up with facts and this is why Brexit is going so badly wrong for them.
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@Sue-Eliz Yes we voted but look at all the lies that ware told on the Brexit vote, very little of what was promised is being delivered and the fact is, the leave side only won by a small margin, clearly not enough to push for hard Brexit when the Brexit camp said we would get a Norway like deal or what was it, we would have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, clearly the deal the Brexiteers are trying to force is not living up to that. At the end of the day, the ones that have really frustrated the process are the ones that lied to win the vote in the first place, the remain camp are just holding the leave camp to account, you might not like it but the Brexiteers have themselves to blame for not having a solid plan in place that actually works and is better for the UK. The Brexiteers fear another vote because they know they had to lie a lot to win the last vote and they know the same lies are not likely to work a second time and with how close the first vote was, clearly the Brexit side and government doesn't have a mandate to push for hard Brexit when that wasn't what was promised before the vote. So remember, yes the country voted to leave the EU but we voted with the intention of things being better, deliver a solid plan on that and remainers might listen but the reality is, you can't, the Brexit tried have tried desperately to paint Brexit as a good thing but everything is saying it's bad for us and that is why the Brexit side is losing on Brexit and if you're not careful, this hardline approach is only going to push the government and parliament into having another public vote to resolve this as they are just going around in circles and trust me, the Brexit side doesn't want another public vote.
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That wouldn't make any sense, there's no way the EU countries would have a contract to buy a specific amount when you don't know how much you are likely to use, the contract is likely set over a term limit to buy a certain amount depending on need, so the EU isn't braking any contract but Russia could be by changing the rules in wanting them to pay in Roubles and not Euros. Either way, Russia is playing a risky game, when you mess with your customers, good luck getting future investment in the country lol.
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The real problem with Russia is the centralized and authoritarian rule which can work well with competent leaders but history has shown us time and time again that it's only a matter of time before a bad leader is running the show that makes a mess of it all. Democracy is a better system but even thats got flaws because that system is only as effective as people turning up to vote and actually getting the facts on what they are voting for, what we are seeing in the western world is that too much of the population is manipulated by the media and politicians and it's not doing democracy any favors. As for Russia, I would like to see them work closer with the EU and not see them as a rival, both Russia and the EU would benefit a lot out of that, so far, the quality of living for all the eastern members that joined the EU has skyrocketed from what it was before being in the EU. As for oil, I think it's in Russia's interest to get off that dependency because it's not really doing Russia any favors by relying too much on oil, gas and nature resources, the need for oil and gas is a short term thing that Europeans are quickly working to get around. In the end, I suspect over the next 100 years that pretty much all of Europe including Russia will be modernised as well as most of Asia and the American continents which leaves the Middle East and Africa as the last ones to develop, Middle East because religion will hold back progress and Africa because the poverty is so bad that it would take a lot of work to develop them, in any case I think the world will develop and will get much closer together because the more we advance with technological progress, the more dangerous we are to each other especially with how divided the world is.
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The signs and cracks were showing even in the 90's in the US, but they were doing much better than now. Where things really started to fall apart for the US was with 9/11, that moment in time changed the US in a bad way, which is ironic, because at the time, they said they wouldn't allow terrorist to change them but that's exactly what they did, from then on, the US became far more paranoid and untrusting, the US was slowly becoming more like a police state, I mean seriously, just going through airport checking is a major ordeal in the US compared to other countries around the world. On top of all that, this left and right wing of politics and media went into overdrive which created a major division among the population, a bit part of that was pushed by the Republican Party and by the right wing media in the US and it's progressively been getting worse, and Trump getting into power was partly to blame of past actions in the US and it's likely going to get worse, in other words, Trump isn't the problem, the US system is, and that's going to be much harder for Americans to fix, it also means that there's likely the chance of other Trump's becoming presidents in the future because the system allows these kinds of people to take power. To be blunt about it, if countries around the world think things will go back to normal after Trump is out of power are deluding themselves, the real problem is the system in the US, and because of that, countries around the world should reduce there exposure to the US by trading more with other more reliable partners around the world, a bit like what Canada and a lot of countries are doing now, that will weaken the leverage of what the US can do to those countries.
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@chodex1 Even so, it's in the west interest for Ukraine to gain all Ukraine back, including Crimea, with the aim of sending a powerful message to China on Taiwan. If Russia makes any gains in Ukraine that they get to keep, think of the message that sends around the world, it could actually escalate things and embolden some governments to take the chance because they will see the west as weak and that they have limits in how far they will go. With dictators, you've got to make this as costly as you can for them, you've got to make it crystal clear that there will be no gains from your actions, after all, have we not learned anything in the west from when Russia took Crimea? In other words, there should be no peace talks unless it's on the terms of Ukraine gaining back all of Ukraine, including Crimea, anything else would be seen as unacceptable for Ukraine and be seen as a weakness for the west.
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This wasn't Trump backing down but the ones pulling the strings behind him that backed down, pressure was coming in from all sides and they knew it was only going to get much worse once a lot of those countries around the world rolled out their own tariffs on the US over the coming weeks and months. In any case, Trump isn't the kind to back down on these kinds of things and probably would have been happy to sink the US, egos rarely listen to common sense after all, but anyway, I think it might be too little too late for the US, this isn't something you can just forget about, the US went way too far here and lost a lot of trust and respect and it's very likely that a lot of countries around the world are still going to shift there political and economic interest away from the US, after, all, this is just a pause, not an end to the tariffs and it would be careless to think the US won't try again in a different way. In any case, I feel sorry for the innocent Americans that didn't want any of this mess, but let's be honest with ourselves, this isn't an end to the madness, it's just a pause to it and I suspect the majority of the world realise that and will continue to shift away, in any case, I highly doubt this is the end of it and we would have to be fools in thinking it was.
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It might do for an election or two, but extream parties rarely last that long unless the majority of voters become extream, which we are a long way from that. If Le Pen wins, she's going to have a heck of a headache delivering on a lot of the promises made, and we should remember, the far right are only doing so well because voters are fed up with the mainstream parties under delivering, that honeymoon for the far right won't last long if they don't turn things around in a big way that improves the quality of life of the French people, and I suspect that if they do win, they'll have one or maybe two terms to prove themselves, before they could potentially get wiped out. After all, most of this is a protest vote based on angry at the mainstream parties, and I suspect most voters are only really aware of one or two of the policies of the far right, which will be interesting when they try to push some of their other hardline policies through which I doubt will be popular with the people. Either way, I think Le Pen needs to win to defuse the situation, yes there will be a few rough years, but just like Brexit in the UK, voters angry were being channelled at the EU for all the wrongs in the UK to such a degree that almost nothing could be said to some of the hardline voters to sway them, we are probably seeing the same thing with many voters across Europe that are fed up with mainstream parties, hence why it might be best to let them win, let them make a mess of things and that could defuse the situation like it did in the UK with Brexit, so much so that Labour could win the next election by a massive landslide, which is rare, in fact, the last time that happened was in 97 when Tony Blair got elected.
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Things change and the latest polling are showing a big rise in favour of wanting to rejoin the EU. The reality is, Brexiteers had their chance, they lied to get us into this mess, they overpromised and things have just been getting worse and worse since Brexit. It's no wonder the British people are having a change of heart on Brexit but fortunately for the Brexiteers, there is little to zero chance the EU would let the UK back in for at least a decade or two. But you Brexiteers need to be very worried, because unless things get better, public views could very likely turn more against Brexit and it's highly unlikely things are going to get better for years, if not over a decade with all the mess and debts the UK has got its self in. To put it another way, the austerity measures that helped the Brexiteers pull the UK out of the EU, the mess the Brexiteers and Tories have been making since we left the EU, could very well put the UK back in the EU long term, Euro included as there won't be an op-outs and all this could have been avoided if the Brexiteers were more reasonable on Brexit and not trying to force a hard Brexit which they more or less did.
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@kddatrapmane Depends how we see it, if the EU and US continue to keep arming Ukraine, they can cause a lot of damage to the Russian military and make it really costly for them, it's unlikely that Russia can afford a bogged down war with the tough sanctions on them, I suspect the hope is that it does so much damage to the Russian military that they have no choice but to leave or the Russian people turn against Putin as more Russian troops return to Russia in a body bag, especially considering in Russia they seem to think this is some kind of peaceful operation, good luck to Putin explaining all those body bags to the relatives and friends of those troops in Russia, maybe that could be enough to get the Russian people to think that something is wrong here.
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@pyotrberia9741 They could but Putin has put himself into a corner on this, he's seen as a hard man here, it won't look go for him to back down here unless the west gives him something which seems unlikely now. Either way, Russia had a chance of being on really friendly terms with Ukraine before this, now they've got little to no chance on that, Ukraine is very likely going full steam ahead into the west and the EU will very likely help them on that. There's another factor we should understand, the sanctions on Russia might not go away even if Putin withdraws from Ukraine, he's clearly shown to be a threat, not just in Ukraine but with all the meddling in the west over the last decade, why should the west go easy on Russia unless the Russian people depose Putin from power? Also another factor, Russia has lost a lot of trust here, whatever happens in Ukraine, Russia is going to find it hard to get investment in the country and the EU countries are going to go full steam ahead to alternative sources of energy away from Russia no matter what Putin does. In the end, the west idea is simply, supple Ukraine with arms, train them and make the war in Ukraine as bloody and costly for the Russian troops as possible whiles at the same time hitting the Russian economy hard with sanctions, the idea is simply, to bankrupt Russia and make them less of a threat overall. So my point is, it doesn't matter what Putin does now, he overplayed is hand and the west is likely going to be tough on Russia until the Russian people wake up and get rid of Putin.
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@pyotrberia9741 It's not really about weakening China but getting them to change and be less hostile around the world, that was true for Russia as well but Putin crossed the line with invading Ukraine and because of that the west will go out of it's way to weaken the Russian economy as that makes them less of a threat. Maybe because of everything going on with Russia and Ukraine, the west and China could hit the reset button and restart relations on a better footing but China will likely have to make the first move on that one, especially when it comes to Taiwan. Either way, I think the rich countries need to re-evaluate who they do business with, a lot of the wealth of these countries like Russia, China and many others is because of the rich open countries, we shouldn't be funding these clowns, there are many other countries that would love to take our business. Isolating Russia could push them in China's harms, but I doubt the west cares about that, in the end, I doubt the Russian government or people would want to be a vassal of China but that might be the wake-up call they need. As for China, they are a bigger problem than Russia but again, they depend on a lot of trade and tech from the rich countries, there are a lot of other countries that would love to take that labour away from China, basically, rich countries have choices on China whereas China is very limited in what it can do, either way, it's high time rich open countries need to stop funding these dictators.
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This is a tricky situation on what is the right thing to do, after all, a lot of these people are innocent and don't want anything to do with the war. The problem is, if the European countries let these people in, we're letting in the more modest Russian's, whiles the radical remain, that's a problem because it gives Putin more support. On the other hand, these Russians shouldn't be fleeing and should stay in Russia to fight the system and get real change, by them trying to leave, it will make it harder to get real change in Russia and will likely prolong the war but I do understand and don't blame these people for wanting to leave, especially with how harsh the Putin government is on them. Also, all Russian't should bear some responsibility for this, not acting is as bad as acting and many Russians were quite happy to say and do nothing when it didn't impact them personally, also, Putin only has the power he's got because enough Russians put him into power. So yeah, as tricky as the situation is, European countries shouldn't let these people in unless it's a specific circumstance, these Russians should rise up, fight the system, create a revolution and get real change that actually benefits the people and not the super rich and that means the Russian people need to depose of Putin before the Russian people are used as cannon fodder, because it's clear that Putin doesn't care about the Russian people and only cares about his position of power, the quicker the Russian people wake up to that fact, the better for us all.
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Can anyone name any fair elections that have had 87% of the votes with such a high turnout? it's almost unheard off, if not almost impossible because voters views are all over the place and are rarely going to back one party in such mass numbers, heck, even getting a landslide of 70% of the votes are quite rare. We all knew who would win the election, it was never in doubt because Putin was the only candidate with rivals either being killed or jailed, with others not really being a threat to Putin. The 87% win does suggest that Putin is insecure about his position to want to inflate those numbers so high, he also likely did that to send a message to the Russian people to not question his position, probably with the aim of recruiting from the public into the military, the problem for Putin is when he tries to recruit from the public, the high vote should suggest there is little resistance to the war effort, if the Russia people protest on the streets or riot in big numbers, it wouldn't look good for Putin, and would suggest the election was a lie, after all, Putin was very likely waiting on this election before bringing in new conscriptions, in a sense, now the Russian people could be primed for the slaughter, let's see how well that goes once Putin pushes that agenda. Basically, the high vote might have set Putin up for a fall because of the agenda of what the high vote was meant to do for his position and considering things are likely going to be heating up again late this year going into next year in favour of Ukraine, that's where Putin could have a problem with that high vote number when it comes to conceptions, it's going to be interesting to see how he spins that against the Russian people, because with such a high percentage vote, there should be little to no resistance to the war effort and the Russia people being conscripted to the war, I think many of us know how that is going to turn out, considering Putin is already scared of the war impacting the Russian people more directly, hence the set-up Putin might have done on himself.
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When it comes to power in this world, it boils down to two factors, population size and the economy, just look at the US, they are nothing special but they had one thing that other modern countries didn't have and that's a big population, in the 80's, some in the US thought Japan would become bigger, but that was never going to last long term because they didn't have the economy, the advantage Japan had at the time is that it was obsessed with high-tech whereas the west was less so, that changed in the 90's, then we have the EU, if they got their act together and integrated more in key areas, that could be a bigger power and the EU has the advantage that it expands, something that might not have any limits, apart from the ones it puts on its self. China already has a massive economy and as we know, its population is bigger than the EU and US combined, twice over, but what China has against it is that it's not trusted around the world and its government is too controlling and too centralized, which will hold back the economy to what it could be, with that said, it would be difficult for China to not be bigger than the US because of its population size and as long as China doesn't go off the rails on the economy, it's only a matter of time that China will get bigger and widen the gap over the US. Because of the style of government China has, the EU and US really need to work a lot closer together with other like-minded nations to protect western values, democracy, free speech and so on, because like it or not, most rules, laws and regulations around the world are made by the EU and US and that's only because their economy is big and the standards are higher, that could be under threat long term as China continues to grow, but the EU and US have the advantage that they are a lot more trusted than China, if the two work together with other like-minded countries, I think it should be enough to contain China. The irony is, if China was a democracy, its economy would likely be a lot bigger already and the country would likely get a lot more investment, western countries are not so successful by chance, they are because the system allows creative freedoms for the people whiles allowing the people to keep the government in check so they can't go too far off the rails. At the end of the day, you only have to look at US reaction to China over the last decade and many of its policies, it's a clear indication of fear of the rise of China, no different from the fear the US had with China and to a less degree with the EU in the 90's, hence a lot of the trade wars, the question people should ask themselves, if China was no threat to the US, why is the US trying to put China down? you only have to look at recent history to know the answer to that one.
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Thats not how the EU works even thought in this case it would be fun if the EU was to do that lol, but the EU will just wait and let the UK make it's own mess worse, the EU really doesn't have to do anything, the UK is all over the place on Brexit and it's clear that Brexit isn't working, only solution I can see is either another vote on Brexit or the UK stays in the single market and custom union, maybe thats why Boris and Davis resigned because they see the writing is on the wall with Brexit.
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I must be one of the few people that's never played a GTA or RDR game in my life and it's not by lack of trying, it's just after seeing others play them, I couldn't get into them but I did play Max Payne 3 but I think that is the only game I played from them unless you include a few from when they were DMA Designed Games and made games on the Amiga.
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A war with NATO, still seems unlikely for now, but if both the EU and US doesn't get there act together in helping Ukraine win the war, it could very likely escalate things, after all, if Putin wins in Ukraine, he will see western resolve as being weak, that if pushed enough, they'll fold, because of that, I highly doubt that Putin would just stop with Ukraine, he'll likely target other countries in the region, none EU or NATO members as they are much easier targets, then there's China, they will be watching to see what resolve the west have, if they see us fold so easy on Ukraine, that sends a powerful message that China might think it's worth taking on Taiwan, knowing the west resolve isn't as strong as they say it is. In other words, Putin winning in Ukraine could escalate things into a much bigger war further down the line, and surely the EU and US must realise this, appeasement with dictators rarely works and history has shown that they keep coming back for more, which escalate things into something much worse. For the EU's part, they were not ready for this, but are quickly going onto a war footing, but that will take some time, the US on the other hand needs to get its act together, otherwise we could end up in a situation where the US gets dragged in weather they like it or not as things escalate, the only difference being is that the cost would likely be far higher than if we pushed Putin out of Ukraine, so it's in the interest of all the west to neutralise the threat before it escalates, which if we did the same thing before the second world war, we might have prevented it from happening, but we did a lot of the same mistakes we are doing now, dragging our feet. If we are talking about 3 to 5 years before Russia attempt to take on a NATO country, then it's probably not much of a threat, but it's best to make it seem like a threat to get things moving in EU countries, what I mean by that, the economy, the skill set and even the manufacturing capabilities can be put into place in a short space of time if there is enough urgency, EU countries have not seen much of a need to do so because there's not really been any major threats to them, but with Russia making noise, things can develop in EU countries quite quickly, depending on urgency. With all that said, I do think EU countries really need to pool resources together through the EU into a single military and foreign policy, that would reduce cost, duplications and have a far more effective military, even on current budget, but that seems to be going up in many countries, we might be seeing early signs of that with an EU arms industry, but it's too early to tell, either way, the pace of change will depend on the situation in Ukraine, as long as Russia is bogged down in Ukraine, the threat to the EU or NATO is quite small, but if Russia were to take over Ukraine, that threat will grow and the changes in the EU would likely pick up pace to respond to that threat. History has shown how quickly countries can change depending on need and urgency, we saw that with the second world war, today with the advancement of technology, we can actually change quickly then we did back then, it all boils down to urgency, and for now, the threat to the EU or NATO is quite low, hence why we are seeing movement in EU countries but not fast movement, but that can change if the situation in Ukraine changes or if Putin gets more threatening towards the EU or NATO.
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This is likely a test, not just on NATO but on the EU and the west, accident or not, there needs to be a response, otherwise, Putin will see it as weakness, which means more of these things can happen.
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@strofikornego9408 Problem is for Switzerland is that they are so central in the EU that it would be difficult for them to remove free movement of people and goods without it hurting them a lot as a lot of trade and people likely travels through Switzerland to get to other EU members, I highly doubt that Switzerland would want to upset that considering how profitable it must be for them.
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@nelyrions1838 Actually that's not true, members of the EU can close their borders at any time and have done a few times when needed like when Covid hit, it's just that most prefer not to do that because of the benefits open borders offer, but that power is in the hands of the countries. Poland and the fines go far deeper than migration, in fact, it has little to do with that and is mostly to do with them backtracking on the rule of law, basically, Poland under the last government were turning into what Russia is today. At the end of the day, you can't have an open union while having members doing their own things when it comes to enforcing the outer boarders, it creates a mess and doesn't solve the problem when people can get into the union from any country and make it to the ones that try to put boarders up like Poland did, basically, it archives little, the only silver lining for Poland is that most that enter the EU will likely want to move to western countries. In any case, do you honestly think that Poland putting its border up solves the situation? It doesn't, unless Poland was willing to do that across its entire border that EU citizens can't cross, that's unlikely because Poland would lose out a lot by doing that. The only solution is this has to be done at an EU level but they need the powers to be able to do that, which they don't have at the moment, the only other solution is that all EU countries put up their borders, but then all stand to lose if they did that and it's unlikely that any will go that route, so unless you can come up with a solution that works and doing what the EU and its members are doing at the moment isn't working and even if the members come up with a solution over the coming months, it's likely going to be a patch up job with the mess returning at some point in the future. In any case, what you suggest with countries closing their boarders, doesn't solve the problem, it just puts it on hold until the boarders are open again, unless the boarders stay closed all the time, which is unlikely, at the end of the day, you can't square a circle, you can't have the benefits of open boarders across the union and then have its members doing their own thing, it creates a mess, it's easy to blame the EU but the fact is, they don't have the powers to do anything about this apart from getting the countries together to try and hammer out a deal, in the end, this problem is created by the members themselves, not the EU, it's a by-product of the benefits of having open boarders in the EU and the only solution I see working is when it's done at an EU level, because this issue is transnational, in other words, it's crazy to think this problem can be solved by the members alone when there are open boarders and members pull in different directions.
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There's potential in offshore solar, but I have a feeling that the more advanced solar gets, the more on sites it's going to be deployed, in fact, there's already talks about how many could go gridless over the next decade, and as renewable and battery tech continues to get better, it's likely a lot more will want to do that to cut out the middle men and reduce cost. So I'm not saying there's no use for solar offshore, but I suspect the future is going to be more on-site as the tech continues to get better and a big reason I think that will happen is because it's really expensive to maintain the grid network. But for me, I think we need a hybrid approach of both solar and wind power with much better and cheaper battery tech for it to really work, especially when it comes to more consistent energy generating. On the plus side, it looks like solar is starting to be adopted in areas like car parks and farming, which there is a lot of untapped land that would be ideal for use and just like solar on the water, in can serve multiple purposes, at car parks, it would be ideal for charging EV cars, it's also much closer to building infrastructure, so should be easier to tie it into the energy network, on farming, apparently it seems to work well for protecting crops from too much sunlight. When you throw in that solar is developing in such a way that it can be used almost anywhere, I doubt space for deployment is going to be an issue and I think longer term it's going to make a lot more sense to deploy close or on-site for where the energy is being used, something that can actually be done now, but there are a few hurdles needed to overcome before that can be used widespread, which likely as solar and battery tech gets better, it's going to be a lot more viable for a lot more of us.
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@007jmsg That problem can be solved with batteries or other energy storage solutions. Renewables work great already but we do need a big enough buffer with energy storage so there's a consistent power flow, with a big enough buffer, renewables could fill all our power needs.
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I wouldn't worry about it, the impression I'm getting from many of these far left and right parties is that they are becoming more moderated to appeal to voters, and even the ones that do slip through the cracks and stay more far left or right, they usually only last one term and get kicked out of power. The simple truth is, most voters want stability and things to get better, the far left and right parties, promise a lot of good things on the sidelines, but it's easy to talk when not in power where the pressure is on them, it's why we keep seeing, any time a party gets close to gaining power or gains power, they moderate a lot more, something we are seeing in Italy, which from the outside, they don't look as crazy as they were made out to be, and that's mostly because they become a lot more moderate and central as a political party to appeal to voters. Basically, they are not something to worry about unless the voters become a lot more left or right wing, then we have something to worry about.
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I think some form of Universal Basic Income will likely have to happen, if we look at how things are going with robotics and A.I., they will with time be able to do more or less every job we can do and do it better and for less, which begs the question, why would a business employ a human that smells, begs for pay rises, wants holidays and holiday pay, wants workers rights and countless other things. I suspect they will get rid of humans the first chance they can. Now I know some people will say that if there are no jobs, how are consumers going to have the money to buy products from these companies, I suspect over the next 100 years or less, labour will be so cheap that it's more or less free, energy sources are likely going to go the same way and as for raw materials, recycling is likely going to become big and if that isn't enough, space mining and if you put all 3 together, they could more or less give us most things for free as there is little to no cost involved and I know it's not that simple but you have to wonder how the system we live in today will cope with the onslaught from robotics and A.I. and with that, I suspect a lot of big changes will need to happen at government level and on the social system we live in. The funny thing is, I was just thinking to myself the other day and asked myself, would I be willing to work for free and contribute to society and I said yes if I felt the system looked after me and I have to wonder how many others would think the same way.
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@dariusgunter5344 They could but that isn't the EU way, they are very diplomatic on these things, it's actually a big part of its success. But I do think Euro Zone countries should go it's own way, integrate more and have more benefits for themselves then the wider EU, countries in the Euro Zone are more likely to want that than countries out of it, basically, that will likely happen if the likes of Poland or Hungary try to stop progress in the EU, the others will end up side lining them.
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@rjfaber1991 I doubt it really matters much, both those countries are too small to matter and in truth, Russia wouldn't likely hold onto them for long because of the people in those countries, it's easy for the government to want things to go in one direction, it's another thing getting the people onboard. Basically, as things start to get worse in those countries because of the governments, the people will likely turn on them, the EU doesn't need to rock the boat on that when their own people will do it for them and beside, the EU is smart enough to know how to play this game, the last thing they want to do is have the people in those countries to turn on the EU because the governments in those countries will use every trick in the book to do just that, the UK is a prime example of how the EU targets the government but leaves the people out of it and it's working because support among Brits is growing in wanting to rejoin the EU, if the EU was hostile and it was seen against the people, no chance would support grow and it's the same game being played out in those other 2 countries, keep the people onside and target the government as that is where the real problem is.
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@markdickson3820 Exactly that, the EU is there to help them but not impose it's values on them, it's up to them to decide on that and in the end, both countries have too much to lose by the alternative to the EU, all the EU has to do is give them warning signs of what's going on and let the people in those countries bring their own government down once the penny drops and they realize what the governments in those 2 countries are trying to do, it won't be easy but sometimes people have to find out the hard way.
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@11Survivor And an economy that blows them away.
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@homebrewinstrumentals7700 I think we'll find out more accurate numbers next year by looking at the over all deaths for the year with death certificates and if there is a big spike in the numbers compared to other years. I might have known of two people that had the virus but it's hard to tell if it was the virus or the flu but one of them did have it for much longer than what most get the flu for. I think the problem is with mandatory lock down is that westerners, especially in the US are not very good at obeying what the government say and that is likely why we are doing much worse than Asian countries are doing. It's also shocking to see that in the west, we rarely see people with masks on in public whereas in Asia, it's rare to see them without masks on, it's clear to see why they are doing so much better than us in the west, they clamped down on this virus hard and early on and most of the public took it seriously with using masks in public and they are benefiting a lot more from that whiles we in the west are paying a very high price on this, especially on the economy and death toll. Some tough questions need to be asked on a lot of governments in how poor they did on this.
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@homebrewinstrumentals7700 I hope I am wrong but I suspect the numbers are much higher than the numbers they are telling us to not create fear and to open up the economy sooner rather than later as they know it's up to the people on if they will go out not the government and if the people don't feel it's safe, most won't go out, so yeah, I suspect a lot of the numbers are being played on because of the economy factor and not just in the UK but in many countries and we see this if we look at the pattern on some countries that don't make much sense.
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Problem is, some of those countries are pulling in different directions, some towards the EU and some towards Russia, which makes it unlikely that Balkan Union could happen. In the end, I doubt it really matters because the countries that become closer to the EU and eventually join the EU become richer and better off and that becomes a magnet to other countries in the region that want the same thing, some it's likely that all the Balkan countries will join the EU and by extension, solve all the issues they have with each other, but some will drag their feet which isn't doing their own people any favours as it's holding them back. It's probably why the EU is probably Russia biggest threat because the EU can offer these countries something Russia can't and that's wealth and a better quality of life, that's a magnet for bringing in more countries from the east, basically, as the wealth in those eastern EU members keeps growing, other none eastern European countries will want the same and slowly, that's pulling a lot of those countries towards the EU which is the last thing Russia wants. It's easy to understand why, the EU offers political, economic stability and most of the people want to live in peace without the political bullshit that some governments, mainly Russia keeps throwing at them, so as long as the EU offers tangible benefits, countries will sway towards the EU which Russia can't compete with that as it doesn't have the wealth and personally, I think it's best to let these countries figure these things out themselves, the ones that figure things out sooner will very likely have a better quality of living for it, the others can drag their feet all they want and play to Russia tune, it's only hurting themselves in the end so who really cares, that might sound harsh but sometimes people need to learn the hard way and that usually takes a long time and in the meantime, countries that keep pulling towards the EU, their wealth will widen more compared to the countries that pull towards Russia which Russia is only interested in controlling those countries for its own ends.
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That's very likely true, as most don't upgrade but replace all in one, so integrated ram isn't an issue for them. Also, there's no technical reason why the option to add more ram can't happen, but performance will likely be better when using the integrated ram when it comes to the cpu and igpu, the igpu could benefit a lot from that, and also, energy use will likely be lower, but if you do add memory yourself, then you'll have all the overheads you get now, slower performance and higher energy use. I would love to see beefy APU's with a decent amount of memory integrated into them and see how they perform.
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I'm going to say it, I'm 100% sure there are aliens lol. I'm not saying it because I'm sure there are, I'm using logic in the sense of how much life has developed on this planet, it seems a bit far-fetched that life wouldn't develop on other planets, especially as Earth is made up of much of the same stuff that other planets are made off. So basically, I'll be shocked if Earth is the only planet with life on it and that seems highly unlikely with how big space is that I think with a bit of logic, I can say it's 100% chance that there are alien lifeforms out there at different levels of advancement and intelligence, we know life can evolve right here on Earth and a lot of different lifeforms, I think I can say 100% that life exist on other planets in the universe. In the end, we have to put things into context, our own galaxy is tiny compared to what's out there and even in our own galaxy, we are not advanced enough to be able to detect alien races, either because they are too far or don't want to be detected by us being primitive, but it wouldn't surprise me if advanced aliens are watching us, seeing how we develop, after all, if they are far more advanced than us, there are countless ways they can learn about us without us having a clue that they are watching us, it's also likely that any alien race that advances enough, will become very civilised, the more advanced they become, the more the tech becomes more dangerous to them, the more it forces two conclusion, either they wipe themselves out or they change enough because advancement in tech forces them, a bit like it's doing to us. With all that said, this debate will continue to go on until we do make contact with whatever is out there and if I was to put money on it, that would be a really dark day for religion. But yeah, I'm 100% sure aliens exist, just going on what we know of how big the universe is, it would be shocking if life only exist on earth, it could be something that happens quite rare, hence why the likelihood of us discovering alien lifeforms at our level of advancement, very unlikely, but as we keep advancing, our capabilities will go up, we'll explore space, the odds of discovering other lifeforms or them discovering us will keep going up, and that's when the fun starts with a war lol, nah even that's unlikely because of what I said above, the more we or they advance, the more likely we have to become more civilised, otherwise there's a high chance that we or them would wipe ourselves out by our own tech.
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I don't know, I think Trump could be the best thing that could happen to the EU, not in the short term but over the long run. There are too many arse kissers of the US that see them as the good guy, when in truth, the US is always about self-interest and don't really care about the well-being of European countries or any country around the world unless it furthers their own interest, and even thought there is nothing wrong with that view, there are some countries around the world and in Europe that think the US has there interest at heart, especially in Europe and NATO countries. These countries need a major wake-up call that Trump could be the one to deliver that, in other words, the EU countries need to start speaking for themselves on military matters, as well as forign policy matters, and that will mean having a much stronger voice through the EU, and if Trump can be that wake-up call, the EU could be the one to benefit the most from it, that is assuming Trump wins and is able to push through his agenda, that for the EU will be music to their ears, not in the short term but over the long term as it will be a major wake-up call for those countries that depend on the US too much and don't want the EU to have a stronger voice, Trump could be the perfect man to force that issue, which is long overdue. With that said, I do think the EU and US should have strong relations with each other, especially in a world where we've got the likes of Russia and China, but seriously, the EU countries need to wake up and grow a backbone and start speaking for their own interest and not US interest, even if that interest conflicts with US interest, because we already know that the US is willing to do things that hurt European interest, so EU countries need to start speaking more with one voice, so if Trump can do enough damage, that could be a major wake-up call and big win for the EU.
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The problem for Google is that they kept talking a good deal over the last few years but wasn't really delivering anything to Market, Microsoft on the other hand are making waves because they are bringing it to market and any tech is only useful once it's on the market for consumers to use and not in a lab as Google have been. As for the question that news reporter asked about A.I. taking our jobs, there is no real way he could answer that one because we just don't know, one thing I do know is that A.I. and robotics is going to get better and cheaper as time goes on, for now it will be used to assist us on projects, but I suspect longer term, it will replace us in most if not all jobs, simply because it will be able to do it better and cheaper than we can, the only jobs that could be left to us is jobs we actually want to do like hobbies, but in a productive sense, I just don't see us humans competing with A.I. and robotics long term as there is technically no reason why it won't be able to do pretty much any job we can do but better and faster and for a lot cheaper too and just like cheap labour, businesses will gravitate to that and consumers will gravitate towards cheaper goods, which will put a lot of pressure on other businesses to get rid of the human element in the business if they want to compete. The irony is, we have the perfect capitalist system to make that happen, businesses are all about cutting cost and improving things, consumers will always gravitate towards companies that deliver the goods at a lower price point, it's not hard to see how humans could be squeezed out of the job market because we just can't compete, throw on top of that we keep demanding higher wages, conditions and benefits, it's not hard to imagine a lot of businesses will find ways to push us out if they can and the funny thing is, consumers will love it because productivity will go through the roof, which means the cost of goods could become a lot cheaper.
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For me, the biggest problem of wind power is that they are not that good at a local level, say on your home compared to solar and that might not matter that much for now, but it's a given that as renewable energy gets better and cheaper and battery tech continues to improve, more of us are going to want to generate more of our energy at a local level on our homes and reports are going around that solar is going to be cheaper than all the alternatives, so much so that it become cheaper to not be on the grid any more. The solar industry is already bigger than wind, I suspect over the next decade or so, that gap is going to widen a lot unless the wind industry finds a solution to generate enough energy that's useful without the need for them to be massive and low noise enough that many of us wouldn't have a problem using them on our homes. The advancement of solar is likely going to keep advancing that it could be everywhere and blend into a lot of buildings without impacting the visual makeup, I don't see wind power competing with that in the long run as the advancement of tech continues, most of us are going to want to go gridless so we have full control over the energy we use and what we pay, which will end up more or less being free in the long run.
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@DavidHalko That isn't the case, just try a car from the 80's or 90's and you'll know what I mean. But the legacy industry have tried almost everything to stop EV cars coming to market, that in the end, it needed new companies to shake things up and force them to get onboard, which some are slowly doing. The irony is, the longer they take to get onboard, the more they are handing the car industry over to the EV industry, but this is nothing new, old usually always tries to stop new, which usually fails is the new is better, it also usually means some of the old going bankrupt, whiles some new players take their place. I understand why the legacy auto industry tries to hold things back, but in the end, they are just harming their own interest, the more they try to fight it, the more likely the new replaces them, they really should just accept it, get onboard and push forward, unless they really want to be downsized or worse, bankruptcy.
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One thing about them predicting the future, especially 50-100 years in the future, is how wrong they get it, and by quite a margin. But what I find funny is how they get it so wrong, in many areas, they expect we'll be a lot more advanced than we are by that time, in other areas, they underestimate the progress that will happen, computing power is a prime example of that, they expected us to do far more with far less computing power, they also didn't see the computing revolution that began in the 90's, that pushed computing power to levels that I don't think any predictions got right. Predicting the future is always difficult, especially far off future, because many factors throughout the course of that time changes the path we take, it can also speed up the process or slow it down, especially as tech filters down for mass use, progresses rapidly happens then in that sector, and again, computers are a prime example of that, the more mainstream and affordable it got, the more rapid the pace of development in that area, that seems to be a common trend with how we advanced, basically, affordability and mass market usually equals massive development in that area, especially if there is a lot of untapped potential left. We are going to see the same thing with A.I. and robotics, the more accessible, cheaper and useful they become, the more rapid the tech will develop, that seems to be the only prediction that seems to pan out. Anyway, one area that disappoints me is space tech, we had a peak period in the 60-70's and then it more or less dried out, things have started to change now with private investment, but it makes me wonder if we keep the pace going that we saw with space programs in the 60's, how much better space tech could be now. But in truth, we have enough problems on Earth we need to resolve before settling on other planets, it would also be messy with how fragmented the world is, basically, we're going to need some kind of international order before we can realistically colonise space, otherwise, we could be asking for a lot of trouble down the road, in other words, the idea of 200 countries colonising space sounds ridicules. Anyway, the main reason we're not that good at predicting the future far off is because, any new tech we invent, changes that prediction in areas that are hard to see right now, there is also the human factor on what path we want to change, after all, because we can change in a given direction, doesn't mean we want too. When it comes to predictions, it's best to stick to 10-30 years when it comes to accuracy, further out and predictions can be all over the place, unless you get lucky with a prediction, but that's just luck.
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They could join someday, the problem is under the current leadership, they are going backwards not forwards on EU membership. There is also the religion aspect, which is holding them back in doing a lot of the reforms needed, hence why after 50 years of them trying to join, they are no closer now then they were back then. The truth is, when it comes to joining the EU, there is no fast tracking to speed things up as such, the pace at which a country can join the EU is really dependent on the country in question doing the reforms and changes needed to join, some countries implement the reforms needed a lot sooner than other, some take forever like Turkey, you see this with the current crop of EU members, some joined a lot sooner than others once talks started, mainly because they got stuck in with the reforms, this is also the case for Ukraine or any other wannabe EU member, there is no fast tracking apart from what they do themselves to fast track things. Another factor in why Turkey or no country can join the EU at the moment, the institutions of the EU needs reforms with treaty change, especially on veto rules and European Parliament powers, which really should be expanded at the expense of the Commission. The rest from countries wanting to join the EU but it's taking so long for them to join, maybe they should look in the mirror at the reforms, or lack of reforms that need to be done, but the simple truth is, joining the EU isn't a simple sign up and you're in, you have to overall your entire political, economic and social system to qualify, for countries that are less western, the reforms needed are massive, but the benefits are massive as well. In any case, Erdoğan really shot himself in the foot if he honestly thinks threats and holding other countries to ransom on joining NATO is going to fast track EU membership talks, in fact, it's likely to do the opposite, because the EU is a club of cooperation, working things out to find a deal that most or all are happy with, even if it means watering things down, what Turkey did with Sweden's NATO membership is no different from how Hungary is willing to use unrelated policy matters to carry favours in other areas, Hungary is a country that is likely going to get kicked out of the EU one way or another unless they change, so what made Erdoğan think that tactic would bring Turkey closer to EU membership? He's actually pushed Turkey further away from EU membership with that tactic, and maybe that was his plan, because as a dictator, being in the EU won't be in is interested in protection to his position of power and will very likely use this tactic on the people of Turkey to turn them against the EU, all in the name of protecting his own power base, something that would be much harder to do if Turkey ever joined the EU. So the reality is, Turkey is further away from EU membership it's ever been and it's all thanks to Erdoğan and his games.
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It will end once enough people naturally get immune to it but like you, I suspected it could be short live because vaccine or no vaccine, we're not really seeing if it all works yet and we'll only know that about a month or two in the real opening and going on the alarm bells the government is setting off, it either suggests another lock down is possible or the vaccine isn't working as good as they are telling us
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@JAG-xf2hm They are not worried about how lethal the disease is, they are worried that if they let people run wild, it will mutate into something more lethal, the more people it gets to spread with, the more chance of that happening and we are seeing a small sign of that with what's going on in India but lucky for us all, it just transmits more and isn't more lethal, that's just luck, the next time we might not be so lucky. Truth be told, governments are screwed either way, we're going to give them hell if they try to lock up but we're also going to give them hell if they open op and things get out of control. I think the real question is, why are so many Asian countries dealing with this so much better than western countries are.
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@JAG-xf2hm True, but got to admit, the west have dealt with this pandemic really poor compared to many Asian countries and I think that's going to be the long question that's going to be asked in the coming years.
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A lot of those issues are not that big of an issue, English as a language is used a lot among Europeans and is becoming more common with the younger generation of people, the rest is just a matter of harmonizing the rules and tech together, getting rid of duplications and merging them together into a stronger overall military for the money spent. I suspect the best way to do it is over time, so gradually over years, maybe even a decade, reduce the national military whiles boosting the EU one, given time it would have the same impact without the shock factor and it's a lot more manageable that way, the only downside is that in the short term it would cost more but longer term it would be cheaper by getting rid of duplications.
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Not really sure what Putin hopes to achieve by taking Bakhmut, if the losses on the Russian side are as high as we're hearing. Any war is all about what you gain over what you lose, and I can't help but feel that Russia is losing more than it's gaining with this war, from the sanctions that a lot of countries have put on them, to the loss of human lives and the hit to the economy and this is very likely a long term thing for Russia if the war drags, the end result is going to be, was it even worth the effort? Especially once the Russian people start to feel the impact on the economy, which could start later this year because that money reserve can only shield Russians for so long. Personally, I think the west really needs to ramp up its arms to Ukraine, to make the cost of war to Russia so high that they'll think twice next time, that's the only language Russia understands, the cost for them has to be really high, otherwise, this will continue and could morph into something bigger.
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@stephenobrien5909 It's true thought isn't it, you only have to look at all the regions that voted for Brexit the most, most of them are poor regions and honestly I don't blame them, governments over time have left them behind but they are dreaming if they think this Tory government is going to look after them now when the EU did a better job looking after the Brexit regions then the Tories ever did, in the end, they only care about the south of England and that's what we are going to see going forward.
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@streaky81 The point is, that money was never available for the NHS, Brexit is a net lose that there's a better chance of budget cuts not money being thrown around, but the government might splash the cash early on to make a good impression but in the end, it's mostly going to be debt money that the young have to pay off, basically, there is no real dividends from Brexit, only loss, the question is, how long will it take us before it dawn on the country what's been lost. The UK wanted full control over UK waters, that got watered down by the EU where they have great access to UK waters for the next 5.5 years which will likely be extended at that time, the UK only got access to the EU market in trade terms on goods because the EU sells a lot to the UK market, they didn't give us anything on what the UK really wanted which was financial services and as that makes up 80% of the UK economy, that's a major blow to the UK and a big coup for the EU to steal business away from the UK. How about Northern Ireland? For the most part, they are following EU rules, they are in the single market and overall they are on better terms than the rest of the UK, how about Gibraltar, they are mostly an EU member for the most part, in fact they are even in the Schengen zone, the UK has never been in that lol, how about Scotland? They passed a law that wants to mirror EU rules in areas that they can. So tell me, how does that mean the UK got a good deal? lol.
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@karlnadin1554 Well Biden wasn't exactly a good candidate, but Trump was much worse, the same could happen in the UK even with Labour's failings. Basically, if Brexit starts to hit hard and people start to feel the negative impact of it, who do you think the people will blame?, the Tories are right in the firing line on this as this is their pet project, in other words, even a poor performing Labour could win the next election if things go sour in the UK over the next 5 years.
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@Martyntd5 Maybe but I doubt the Conservatives would vote against it, even with it being a bad deal for them, this has been the moment they've been waiting for so they would likely vote threw any deal regardless of how bad it is and try to deal with the fall out afterwords as their main aim was leaving the EU at any cost. As for Labour, they might have set themselves up for a fall here, before this vote, they could have used Brexit to hammer the message home to the people of how much of a mess Brexit is and really hit the Tories hard but by voting for it, the Tories can simple turn around and tell the people that Labour also supported it, that takes a lot of the sting out of it for the Tories, also, if Labour did vote against it, all the major parties in the UK will have voted against it and if Brexit did go sour, it would have been owned by the Conservative Party whiles being hard to argue against that. Another factor is this is playing into the hands of all the other parties that didn't vote it through, especially the SNP because they will use every inch of damage that Brexit does to us to push for independence.
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@streaky81 Yes but the point is, 350 million per week was never going to the NHS, at least not from that money because that was more or less the total money we paid into the EU pot, it never took into account the rebate or the money that we put into the EU that ends up back into the UK and it's quite a lot of money. There is a good chance that a lot of that money that did go into UK regions from the EU won't go in after Brexit or will get watered down with hard times ahead, especially with the northern regions which the Tories never care about. In any case, the real one the UK can't afford to lose and which seems the most likely to lose is Scotland, if the UK loses them, that would be seen as a disaster for Brexit and quite humiliating for the UK, the land mass of the UK would be sliced by 40%, the population by around 5 million and the economy by around 200 billion, now I know Brexiteers might not care as they are single-minded but it would be bad for the UK, it would also give that little England term some real meaning.
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@stephenobrien5909 Condescending goes both ways, Brexiteers have been awful over the last 4 years, I treat them as they treat others, they are quite happy to change on that one. As for wages, they are going to fall anyway regardless of Brexit, they are still going to be flooded also, after all, have you not noticed that immigration numbers are not coming down even thought a lot less from the EU are coming in?, it's being balanced out by the rest of the world, Brexit was never about lowering those numbers, it was all about deregulation, lowering standards and all that, after all, why do you think the UK made such a fuss over the level playing field? if the UK wanted to have higher standards, they should have a problem with that but it's a major problem if they want to lower standards and that is what this is all really about. So don't be too surprised if the government in time tries to lower workers rights, food standards and take other benefits away as that is what you really voted for which is ironic because it hits the Brexiteers the hardest but then, politics is always about the art of getting people to vote for things that are not in their interest and in this case, they've succeeded on that. As for the British industry, it was the Tories that killed that going all the way back to the 80's lol, that had little to nothing to do with the EU.
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@Martyntd5 Actually, the reality is, they were voting for the given deal which I should point out is worse than the deal May got and which Bo Jo voted down, the alternative to voting against that deal would have been more talking for a better deal, the reality is, the UK has been sold out, the EU more or less got what it wanted but let's be honest, Brexit wasn't really about the interest of the British people, it was always ideology, hence why common sense rarely works on those people, what does work in letting them have what they want only to see how wrong they got it, unfortunately the innocent pays the price for that too.
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@Martyntd5 3 days into Brexit means nothing, we are talking at least a month before the supple lines go back to normal, remember that a lot of companies were stock Pilling a lot of goods ahead of Brexit just in case, we'll get a clearer picture in February onwards but we should also remember that Brexit is a slow puncture of damage to the UK. As for the pound climbing, that's only because of stability, regardless of good or bad deal, more businesses just wanted to know where they stood on this, now they know, that is a far cry from saying this deal is a good one, after all, the German stack market has double over the UK once since the Brexit vote, that gives you an indications on where the money is flowing, the UK market has been one of the worse performer over the last 4 years. As for getting what you wanted, you got access to where the EU wanted, the EU manufactures a lot more than the UK, they wanted easy access to the UK market but they didn't give the UK easy access to financial services which accounts for 80% of the UK economy, the reason the UK didn't get that is because the EU saw this as a golden opening to steal a lot of business away from the UK, the EU also got access to UK waters, they kept the UK more or less in line with EU rules where it counts, especially on level playing field, this is a really good deal for the EU, better than I even expected and what's laughable about all this, May's deal was better than this deal, the reason the deal got worse in time was because of Boris and arrogance, the EU got tougher on the UK so we ended up with a worse deal than we could have got, that's the reality of it.
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@streaky81 That's the pandemic not Brexit lol, basically, money from other areas was going to the NHS also and are you really that surprised by it considering a pandemic is on the loose?, anyway, I've checked in many areas from the development funds to that Erasmus, less money is being put in by the UK government then what was going in by the EU but that's to be expected, Brexit was always about loss not gain and now it's time for the UK to tighten it's belt, but you really want to know what's funny about that, it will be the Brexiteers that will complain about that the loudest because they like to deflect blame away from themselves but what makes it even worse, the northern England regions that voted for Brexit the most looks likely to be the regions hit hardest from it.
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@Martyntd5 I never said the pound would crash but lets be honest, the value isn't great from where it was before the Brexit vote. I never said we would be sent back to the stone age and as for banks, that will be a slow trickle which has already been happening since the Brexit vote. I also never said they would be chaos, remember, Brexit isn't about that, it's like a slow puncture of decline, some might not even notice it for a decade or two. I never said there would be a shortage of medicines but there is a fair chance that goods will cost more across the board, in fact that's already happening. Also never said anything on traffic jams even thought there were some. Never said anything on food shortage, but some food has been in low supple or hard to get hold off. Now be honest with yourself, either you are mistaking me for someone else or you are bullshitting because you said a lot of things about me that I never even said lol, hence why I'm thinking you've mistaken me for someone else lol.
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@Martyntd5 Which would have been a better deal for us then what we got, you make it seem like being in the custom union is a bad deal lol, also being under the ECJ would make sure the Tories can't water down worker's rights, food standards and so on. This has nothing to do with accepting if I am wrong or right, this is about looking at the reality of the deal, it's far worse than what was promised by the Brexiteers, it's actually worse than I expected and better for the EU than I expected them to get, the EU are laughing their arses off at people like you that bought into this being a good deal. Also, we didn't get access to the single market, there is still a lot of red tape when trading with the EU and we still don't have access to financial services which account for 80% of the economy, in that sense, we almost got a no deal Brexit lol. Also, we do pay into the EU pot but it's on a project to project basis, I think we both know there's a fair chance the UK will sign up to more in the future as governments change and mostly because of self-interest, either way, the EU have got us into a position where we are abiding a lot of their rules without having any say in them, we are rule takers, that's the reality of it and if you want to see that, watch as the EU comes up with new laws and regulations and how quickly the UK rubber stamps them, that's when it will dawn on you that you have been had lol or maybe not because Brexiteers will see what they want to see regardless of reality lol.
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@Martyntd5 So what was the point of all this if you didn't mean me directly when it came across that you did? In any case, what is the actual point in all this, we're never going to agree with each other so it's best to agree to disagree and move on wouldn't you agree? And for the record, I'm not a remainder or Brexiteer, I like to see things for how they are regardless of if I like it or now and in the case of Brexit, things don't look good but I hope I am wrong but I rarely am on these things, more or less everything over the last 4 years on Brexit has come true and now I suspect Scotland will leave the UK at some point over the next 5 years. As for the vote to leave, it was mainly based on lies, many faults promises were made that we would be better off, now it's time for the government to deliver on those lies and if they can't which I suspect they can't, things could turn quite quickly against Brexit that we could rejoin the EU much sooner then some think, after all, it's very easy to lie, it's another story to keep that lie going once it comes to delivering and that's the real problem the government and Brexiteers face now.
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@Martyntd5 I'm British born and bread, but I didn't vote on the first vote as I thought Brexit would never happen like many others thought, if we did have another vote, I would have voted to remain and I know many others that had the same views, hence why Brexiteers were so hostile towards the idea of having a second vote and wanted an election as that was much easier to split the votes which is what happened. As for how you voted and being happy with it, give it time, we've hardly even started Brexit yet, it will take at least a few months to start feeling the impact of it and longer term, that's likely to get worse, I'll give you a hint, keep a close eye on labour laws, food standards and other things like that's as there is good chance they will get watered down, hence the big fuss from the government on level playing field, after all, think about it, if they planned on keeping high standards for us, they wouldn't have made such a song and dance over the level playing field, they did so because they wanted to water them down and in fact, if you look at Tory history over the last few decades, they've tried to water down workers rights a few times only for the EU to put a stop to it. Without the EU in the way, there's a fair chance these things will get watered-down in time, the spanning in the works for the UK government is the clauses in the deal that the EU can punish the UK if we try to do that, the irony being is that the EU is protecting workers rights and food standards by making it difficult for the UK to lower them lol. Even if it's not about money and was all about sovereignty, where is your sovereignty with the deal the UK got? They still have to abide most EU rules without a say in them just to be on good trade terms with them, when the UK tries to do a deal with the US, the same will happen there, real sovereignty is a myth in today's global interconnected world, the truth is, the big players like the EU and US makes most of the international rules and regulations and most have to follow them, in other world, we've become a rule taker and if you don't think so, watch very closely how a lot of the rules and regulations in the UK end up mirroring EU rules, maybe that's when the penny will drop. So not only are we worse off but in sovereignty terms, we are actually weaker by the deal we got because we have to abide by a lot of rules without having a say in them, very sweet deal for the EU but a bad one for the UK.
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@Martyntd5 I agree that I should have voted and that was my mistake, voting should be made mandatory as it impacts everyone, but unfortunately, the government doesn't want that because usually with higher turn outs, it's harder to push more radical agendas like Brexit. Beside, who said anything about complaining, I'm having the time of my life with what's coming up, it will be the Brexiteers that will have something to complain about when reality starts to bite them on their arse, after all, they tend to be less educated and not that well off, perfectly primed for Brexit to hit them, it's less impactful on upper middle class and richer people as it has little impact on them, Brexit will hit the middle lower class and poor the most which ironically is a lot of Brexiteers as most are angry by getting left behind by the system, now they have a lot more to look forward too with Brexit and the hardship of the pandemic and who will those people blame, well they'll blame everyone else but themselves, it's sad to watch. But hey, who cares, I'm well off enough that Brexit has little impact on me, it's people like you it hits the most.
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@Martyntd5 It wasn't 80% lol, it was high but it wasn't that high lol, in fact, have any turns out been that high for any elections? I don't blame anyone, in all honesty, Brexit has little to no impact on me but I do like to defend the stupid in the world even thought many don't deserve it. In any case, I do find it funny how Brexiteers are still frantic about the EU even thought the UK is out of the EU, there is a clear reason for that, Brexit will be seen as a massive failure if the EU is still around and growing, the UK will be seen as that little country in Europe that gets sidelined, hence why the Brexiteers keep ranting and raving about the EU even after Brexit. In any case, you should be more worried about Scotland and Northern Ireland, the set is all in play for them to diverge away from the UK and more towards the EU and with that, I've got to hand it to the EU, they played a right blinder on the UK government with this deal, the real question is, when does the penny drop for Brexiteers? Probably awhile off because they are painting victory in defeat in almost everything with Brexit, it's laughable if not sad to see but hey, can't beat reality and that is the only thing that matters.
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You're a member of both the EU and NATO, Putin might be an idiot for starting the war in Ukraine, but he would have to be insane to take on an EU or NATO country. We should remember that Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe, it's also not an EU or NATO member, they also have a lot of natural resources, basically, they were an easy target, that isn't the case for any EU or NATO member, even small ones, basically, if it's an EU country that's invaded, the EU and its members would have to intervene directly, same for a NATO member, if they don't intervene, it would undermine both organisations and could even lead to disbanding them, and in the case of the EU, there's too much political and economic interest in keeping the project working for its members, but NATO, well that's an unknown, we only have the promise that an attack on one is an attack on all, will other NATO members come to the aid of another? Who knows, one thing I do know, there's far less holding NATO members together unlike what's holding EU members together.
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@cosmicraysshotsintothelight That doesn't mean they are not a developing nation because they likely will be for at least another 2 decades.
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@cosmicraysshotsintothelight If you say so but the fact of the matter is, the average wage in China falls far below rich developed countries and until that changes, they are still seen as a developing country to most of the world, after all, if they were first world, the economy would be 4 times bigger than the US.
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@cosmicraysshotsintothelight The real advantage China has for now is the cost of living being much lower than the west but more importantly, they manufacture a lot of their own goods, that makes their living standards higher than it seems but even with all that, they are still some distant away from modern countries. As for standards of living, we need a new system for calculating how well people are in a country because GDP per capita doesn't cut it, going on the logic of GDP per capita, if one guy in the house earns 10 grand and the other earns 100 grand, according to GDP per capita, both of them are well off and that how it works for countries. Have you ever wondered in the US and UK for all the talks of how well the GDP is doing over the last 20 years and yet, we are seeing far more discontent with people and many being left behind, Trump didn't get into power by accident, he got in because people are fed up, it's the same for Brexit in the UK, people are lashing out because they feel they are being left behind as more wealth ends up in fewer hands. A new system to calculate wealth that takes into account the poor, middle classes and rich. Anyway, this rich poor divide started to got out of control from the early 80's and it's been getting worse ever since, sooner or later, it's going to blow up in all our faces which could lead to revolution if governments and the rich elites are not careful, we are seeing early signs of that warning with Trump, Brexit and the popularise movement around the world, it's a cry for change from a lot of people. Another factor of why things look more grim the last 2 decades is thanks to the internet and smartphones, things were bad before that but now a lot more people are aware of how bad the system really is and that's what creating the real division and problems now, especially in the west and if we are not careful, I suspect it's going to get much worse before it gets better.
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So let me get this right, the UK leaves the EU because it doesn't like it but now wants to create its own version like it? it sounds like sour grapes from the Tory party that they know Brexit hurts the long term interest of the UK but can't be seen as saying that because they made this mess, they also know that they love the idea of the EU but they wanted to be in charge of it, it gets on their goat that it tends to be the Germans and French that pull a lot of the strings. What's funny about all this, the UK already tried this before joining the EEC, when the UK was the sick man of Europe, it didn't work then, what makes them think it will now? but seriously, the high level of delusions in this Tory government in the UK is shocking. Now don't get me wrong, the EU isn't perfect and could do with some reforms, but the alternatives that are presented by the likes of the UK are a joke, sounds good on paper but in practice, crumbles in a heap and the irony is, with everything that is going on with Russia and Ukraine, it's shown that we actually need more EU not less, the biggest weakness we are seeing in Europe is countries pulling in all different directions, if we were speaking with one voice through the EU on military, aid, energy and forign policy matters, how different things could be now. The reality is, Putin saw the west as weak and divided before the war and in many ways, he was right, with the EU and US having ding dongs, then we have Brexit, then we have the Eurosceptics in Europe, all perfect seeds to create division, which is exactly what Putin wants and ironically, Putin's biggest success story was Brexit in the UK.
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Wendy A. Smithon What's new is people are starting to realize that the system is messed up and not working for them but is working for the very few. Have you ever wondered why over the last 2 decades, people are getting a lot more cynical about the system and governments? Especially in the west, it's the internet and smartphones which is making it much easier to expose all the going ons in the system and it's waking people up. It's the reasons why the likes of Trump got into power and why Brexit in the UK happened, people are pissed but the problem is, they are voting in the wrong way.
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To be fair, there is a massive difference from the well-developed western European countries to the eastern countries that are playing catch up. But I think the eastern countries will catch up with the west, especially with EU help.
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Just like we are seeing many solutions to generate clean energy, it's nice to see we are seeing many solutions to store energy and as for which is the best one for the future, I don't think it matters, what matters is having a mix of them all, do they work and the supple chain, basically, using common materials.
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@MrKakibuy Well you can't just switch that off overnight, it takes time but it's clear that there's a big push from EU countries to move away from Russian oil and gas and there are talks that they could lower it by a quarter by the end of the year, basically, in just a matter of 5 years, the EU countries might not be buying any gas or oil from Russia because Russia isn't a reliable partner any more. There are ways of speeding up this process, especially if the west works much closer and more coordinated on this and that would be better to hit Putin where it really hurts. As for the sanctions, they are anything but toothless, in fact they are a lot tougher than most of us expected they would be, especially Putin as he didn't see this coming, Russia is bleeding money at a rapid rate, they can't hold on with this for long, maybe a matter of weaks or months before going bankrupt, Russia is being isolated from the west of the world and the Russian people are seeing this, hence the protest, people rising up and the tough new laws Putin brought in against the Russian people, he knows his time is limited and is doing everything to try and protect his position, especially from an uprising from the Russian people. It wouldn't surprise me if Putin is killed over the coming months, either from his inner circle or the Russian people as this has been one of the biggest miscalculations I've seen in a long time.
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Does economic data have any reality on the well-being of a country and its citizens? For 2 decades, I've been hearing the US and the UK beat the drum on how well the economy and unemployment is doing, yet when you look closely, things are actually getting worse for a lot of people, not better, many of the quality of life indexes indicate that, and a big part of Trump getting into power and Brexit happening in the UK is because a lot of people feel like they are being left behind in both countries. But seriously, there's something wrong with the way we measure economic data, especially with how it's distributed among the people, because the economic data and the reality the people face are very different from each other. It's also strange that if you look closely, the US and UK that over the last two decades have had decent growth, have actually been falling further behind on quality of life indexes, whereas the European countries with lower growth actually dominant the top 10 when it comes to quality of life, with only 3 countries from outside of Europe making the top tend, I think they are Australia, Canada and Japan. We need a new measure for measuring growth that actually impact the people for the better, from the bottom up, because the current system of economic growth and GDP numbers doesn't really tell us much that I kinda ignore them now as they are not based on reality to what people face.
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I've always suspect that easy access to slave give Romans less incentive to industrialized, they had all the building blocks to do it but didn't do it and I have to wonder how the world could have turned out today, would we be a lot more advanced? Would the world be united by now? Would humans even exists now or would we have gone into space a long time ago, so many things would be different that we wouldn't even recognize the human race. Basically to me at least, slaves what seemed like a big strength to Rome ended up being one of it's major weaknesses that likely held it back in exploring over avenues of advancements and creativity.
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In some ways I do agree with you, especially with how the rich elites and media can manipulate the situation, but with that said, I think it's always a better idea with having the people elect its leaders. What really needs to happen is the media needs to be cleaned up, whiles also having more accountability on the ones that use disinformation to get what they want, if the people were getting all the facts with less disinformation, they are more likely to vote with a clear level head, whereas now, a lot of voters don't know what they are voting on or whether it's a lie or not, it also doesn't help that many don't even bother to vote because they feel their vote doesn't really count. So cleaning up the message voters get would go along way in cleaning up democracy, and this is more or less the case around the world, after all, a democracy is only as good as the information the citizens get.
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I think what people seem to forget is that the problem is far deeper in the US then health care, it's a fundamental mindset of the people that think more in individual terms and not collective for the benefits of society and all. The idea of a fellow American helping another is kinda seen as communist, and this is where the real issue is, not just on health care but in all social benefit programs in the US, and this isn't just health care, it's school education, the way the system treats its poor, how they treat prisoners and countless other things. The resources are there to change things, but unless the American people have a major change in their mindsets in wanting to create a better system for all and not always thinking about self-interest, then nothing will change. We should also remember, once you pass the burden of health care onto everyone by taxes, the system has an incentive in looking after the health and well-being of all, that basically means better working conditions, sometimes fewer hours, higher food quality and countless other things, basically, anything that reduces the burden on the health system as the cost is on all, and this can also translate into many other things like better funding for maintaining cities, the road network and so on, it's a mindset thing, without changing how Americans think, then universal health care won't work, and with that, nor will a lot of the other benefits that other modern countries take for granted, and this is probably a big part in all the division, poverty, inequality and other issues that are going on in the US, a system that shows little to no care for its citizens, it's more likely to create far more problems for society. I wish Americans luck on changing all this but honestly, I think a revolution might be needed, because all they are doing now is refining things around the edges which is doing very little to nothing overall, or maybe individual states could go ahead with a universal health care system, but the federal government would likely fight that, and even if the state did manage to pull it off, they would likely get flooded with Americans from other states, so that wouldn't work unless the state has it where you have to be a resident of that state for 5 years or more for you to qualify for universal health care to prevent the flood, if they didn't do that, the state would end up paying the health care of far more Americans from other states which isn't workable.
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Not just the EU but the world overall, short term this hurts but thanks to this, there's going to be a lot more political will to do big changes with alternative energy, very likely renewable energy and the longer energy prices stay high, the bigger the change, the irony is, the fossil industry is killing it's self here and I wonder if they are aware of it because people will only put up with high prices for a short time, 2 to 3 years before real pressure really builds on governments to do big changes, something that might have already started, especially in EU countries. So on the one hand, I want energy prices to come down but on the other, I want them to stay high so we get real change to clean energy sources.
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This is a funny one really, technocrats are usually better experienced in their field of work compared to politicians which are usually more opportunist and not that good at listening to voters wishes, a big part of that is because they tell so many lies to win elections that they can't keep once in power. Technocrats are usually not connected to any party and are usually better experienced at their job, whether that's a good thing or not, I can't really say, but it's clear that the democratic system is failing people by not delivering. The irony is in all this, technocrats are more likely to happen in countries that are more democratic in allowing so many parties gain power, the same would likely be the case in the US or the UK if the system was more democratic that votes are split over many different parties, which makes it more difficult to have a functioning government, but that is the nature of real democracy, voters have such wide views on so many topics, it's unrealistic to group them into 2 or so camps as they do in the US and UK as that dismisses a lot of the voters concerns. So European politics like look like a mess, but that's a direct reflection on how people vote and is actually more realistic on views from the voters than what we see in the UK or US where they push the majority of voters into two camps, which out of so many voters, isn't realistic or fair. With all that said, a different system is needed, the US, UK like system doesn't work, but nor does the one that many European countries use that have multiple parties and grand coalitions when they rarely function well together, and maybe we just need a better educated population that votes more on facts and not fiction that a lot of the right wing like to spread, either way, democracy is failing so many people in Europe and North America and a lot of voters are getting disillusioned with it that's allowing the rise of the far right. Also, what I always find amusing about democracy is how one politician can switch rolls into a very different role as if it's normal, we see this a lot in the UK and it's ridicules, it would be like a footballer all of a sudden becoming a Formula 1 driver lol, this is one area that technocrats are better as they are far more likely to be experts in there position compared to politicians that seem more interested in power then serving the people, but in any case, it's clear many of these democratic options are not working that well, especially for the low to middle classes of voters that feel they are getting left behind in both Europe and North America.
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@Moosemoose1 Not sure how it works in the UK on that, never really had to worry about it.
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With A.I. and robotics developing so fast and getting cheaper, it's a forgone conclusion that over the long run, they are likely going to take over the majority of jobs, including future jobs we create because A.I. will likely be able to adapt to any new job we try to create. The kicker in all this is the capitalist system which will push companies to push humans out of the workforce as we keep demanding higher wages and better conditions, whiles at the same time, consumers will continue to want goods on the cheap. The end result is that most companies will be forced to push humans out of the labour market just to stay competitive, in the same kind of way how so many go for cheap labour. Basically, capitalism, competition, companies wanting to cut cost to compete better with its rivals, consumers wanting better quality goods and at a lower price point will put the squeeze on us all in the workforce, and the kicker in all that is that it will only take one company in any given field to force the rest to do the same just to compete. So yes, as the tech gets better, cheaper and more capable, I can't see many jobs being safe, which brings us to the question of us, what do we do? The current system isn't really setup to allow so many people to not work, so I think we are going to need a radical overall on the system, probably with some kind of human basic allowance, and at the pace of A.I. and robotic development, the pressure is likely going to build quite quickly over the coming decades or sooner. Also, I know some people will say we'll create new jobs, and I'm sure we will, but unlike automation of the past that is to a specific task, A.I. and robotics is very broad in its use case, basically, you could throw it at pretty much any task, which means any current job and any future jobs we create, that's likely going to be a major problem under the current system because once companies can reduce cost, they will do so and the icing on the cake is that the ones that do use A.I. and robotics, will have a massive advantage over the ones that don't, in other words, there goods are likely to be better and cheaper than rivals, either forcing the rivals to go bankrupt or to do the same and adopt A.I. and robotics and before we know it, there's likely going to be an avalanche of job losses, the real question is when and how aggressive the job losses are. There is a silver lining in all this, A.I. and robotics will allow far more goods to be made much closer to where the goods are being sold, the ones that lose out by far the most are cheap labour countries, especially the likes of China, because the advantage of cheap labour and weaker working conditions will be gone once A.I. and robotics is good enough and cheap enough to replace even the cheapest of labour on the planet, so from a trade and security point of view, there's a lot of good to that. It's also going to be interesting to see how different countries around the world response to all this, I have a feeling that many countries like the US, China and many others with weak social safety nets will throw the workers under a bus, which means a much bigger divide from rich and poor in those countries, whereas countries with stronger social protection, which is more or less every other modern country and many developing ones will likely have far more pressure from the people on the government and the government will likely have far more pressure on corporations to change how business is done, in other words, it's highly unlikely to be business as usually for corporations in those countries or corporations around the world that want to do business in those countries, so expect far more intervention from government on corporations in those countries that have strong social safety nets. I also find it ironic how a lot of fear about robotics and A.I. have been on wiping humans out, which is still a possibility, but it's ironic that what they really want is to take over all our jobs, apart from a handful, which won't be anywhere near enough to for the entire population, meaning we are going to need a radical rethink on our system around the world.
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The US is a weird country in how many Americans see the outside world, on the one hand, they have access to pretty much any information they want but on the other, it feels like Americans are as closed off like countries like China are in what's going on around the world. That's got to be the system, starting with the education system, indoctrination and ignorance. I don't expect people to know everything but we are talking basics here and it puts into question on what are they teaching Americans at school.
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@hattix7233 For a market that hasn't grown, it's remarkable how they have some of the highest standards of living around the world and come close to the top in many other measures. As for the protectionist racket, don't be a fool, all big powers do that, the US does it and they do that because they can, they have bigger muscles than the smaller players and they like to flex those muscles, that's just the way the world is as the UK is going to find out with it's dealings with the EU, US and China, hence why most international laws, rules and regulations are dictated too by the EU and US. Now I'm not saying I like that because I don't, but it is what it is and I'm not going to delude myself like Brexiteers do to think otherwise. Now your next argument is 90% of future growth is outside the EU, the problem is with that argument is that it's always done in isolation as if the UK is the only one doing that, the truth is, EU countries have that also, in fact they have it better because of the trade deals they have and the extra clout the EU gives them in getting better terms for them around the world which gives them a competitive advantage over British companies. It's too much of a simpleton way of looking at things in a bubble that Brexiteers see things.
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Anything that sounds too good to be true, is usually not true, and if it was, it would be getting far more headlines and money thrown at it. Big leaps in tech over what we have are quite rare, think of the atomic bomb compared to what we had before that, and these things do happen but they are very rare, whiles most development is usually slow and in small stages.
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That would all be found and dandy but if you look over the last few decades, the Democrats in the US and Labour in the UK had to move more to the right to become elected, Tony Blair in the UK almost made Labour seem like the Conservative party which as we know now which ever party you vote for, nothing really changes and the real problem why both moved more to the right is because of the powerful propaganda machine on the right that are twisting everything and the irony is that they stand for the rich not the poor or middle classes and you only have to follow the people that push a lot of the agendas on the right to see that as most are very rich.
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@seraphina985 Thats how I see it, anothe election isn't going to solve anything because Labour is just as stuck on Brexit like the Tories are and Corbyn doesn't help matters by staying on the fence all this time. If I was the EU, I wouldn't give the UK any extra time if another election in the UK is the only solution because it will likely mean just wasting a lot more time and likely getting nowhere, the EU should force the EU on either the UK having another vote or the UK leaving, either with May's deal or hard Brexit.
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What Boris says is irrelevant, if the numbers keep rising, another lockdown is likely even if he or the public don't want it, after all, there's no way around reality. Also, didn't he say something along these lines last time only for us to go into lock down? Still, if another lock down does happen, it won't be a national one and will be regional, after all, the last thing the Tories want is to shut the economy down, regardless of risk to people's lives.
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@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines Things change, numbers are rising, rules change. I hope it doesn't happen but I'm smart enough to know the government lies all the time, beside we've been down this route before only for another lockdown to happen and if infections and death rates keep rising, another lock down might happen at a regional level. Either way, people need to wake up to how bad this government is handerling the situation as they are treating the British people for mugs.
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@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines It's not about whether we can afford another lock down or not, if those numbers get out of hand, it might be forced onto us. Beside, who cares if another lock down happens, it's not like the people are listening to the rules anyway, which is why we keep getting into this mess.
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@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines That wasn't the case at the time and that's what we was arguing over, what's happening now is that things seem stable but we'll have to wait and see how things go throughout winter, it's still early days. Basically, my point still stands, if the numbers get high enough, another lock down would happen, but I never said it wasn't going to happen, you was the one that said it wasn't going to happen regardless of the numbers.
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@Old Skool Bodybuilding Routines Thats good, lets hope it sticks that way but we are still early in winter and I don't really look at numbers on a weekly basis as they can be a bit misleading. Vaccine were supposed to be a way out of this mess but as we are seeing, numbers are rising across the UK and Europe even thought most of the population is vaccinated, it will be interesting to see the numbers early next year as winter fully kicks in.
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I think it's stupid to think the EU can't survive without Russia oil and gas, clearly they can, but in the short term, it does mean doing a few cut backs until they adapt. Russia on the other hand will find it difficult to adapt, they are alienating all the rich markets around the world whiles Russia is putting its self in a position that the likes of China and India can take advantage of Russia by pressuring them into selling oil and gas dirt cheap, that's not the position Russia wants to find its self in because globally, it weakens their position whiles China could have them under the thumb. Another factor is that China and India won't want to buy too much from Russia in case Russia gets political if those countries become a bit too dependant, that's the problem when you lose trust, hardly anyone will want to depend on them too much, not even friends like China and India but that won't stop those countries taking advantage of Russia which is more or less what they are doing. So yes, Russia will find other buyers but the problem is, Russia can't sell at the same rates it could to rich countries and this is all assuming the EU and US doesn't go after those countries that do buy from Russia, after all, would the likes of China and India want to risk a trade war with the EU and US, reality is, those markets are far more important to China and India than Russia is and to make things worse, a few policy changes in the EU and US could make the likes of China and India a very unappealing market to invest in, the EU and US knows they can source cheap labour in other countries in Africa and I suspect they would love to steal that business from China and India whereas China and India have very limited options in finding rich markets to sell goods too. The thing is in all that, it takes time but the truth is, the EU and US hold the better hand in all this, in fact, Russia being desperate with cutting oil and gas isn't because Putin is being smart, he just wants to get the foot in the door before the EU countries cut it all out anyway, basically, it was going to happen regardless of what Putin did, the irony is, Putin's actions will speed that process up, which is great news because it's these moments where real change can happen.
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@fischersfritz468 They don't have to extract, all they need to do is fill the void in the short term by looking on the global market, in the short term that pushes up the price for everyone because of how big the EU market is on the globe, longer term the EU countries are going to push hard to become energy independent. What Putin has done here is given a massive shot in the arm to speed this process up by a decade or even 2, in other words, Putin is a Green advocate and he doesn't even know it lol. In any case, of all the countries to threaten, it had to be the European ones which were already more in favour in pushing to cleaner energy sources, now they've got the political, economic will to push hard on that and all because energy has become a security risk, that's probably going to be Putin's legacy, he helped to push cleaner energy sources on the world a lot quicker then they would have been.
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It's doable, it's having the political will to do it, ironically, Russia is helping to speed that up at its own demise lol.
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Isn't it funny how Sky News in the UK is more balanced than Sky News in Australia, it says a lot about how it's not about reporting the news in a balanced way but who is doing the reporting, Sky news in Aus is quite fanatical like Fox News is in the US and my oh my, both are owned by the same person lol. In other words, they are not reporting the news, they are reporting the views of Rupert Murdoch and if people are stupid enough to fall for it then more fool them. Either way, it's in everyone interests to get a more balanced view on anything even if it's not agreeable to what you want to hear, lying to one's self is only fooling the person that is lying to themselves as it doesn't change how things really are. Also, have you seen some of the panic in the UK now that the EU is getting a lot tougher in these talks? it's priceless how the UK is complaining about the EU cheer picking lol, it's like they don't get it, the EU can do that but the UK can't because the EU is a lot bigger and now thanks to the UK being out of the EU, the EU now hold all the cards on these talks, they are the ones setting the rules and it looks like they are getting a lot tougher on the UK because now they know the UK can't threaten the EU to revoke Article 50. Hence, why many EU members support tough measures and some like France wants even tougher measures, it also says a lot that the vote in the European Parliament votes by a big number for much tougher measures in these talks. Anyway, I'll tell you how I think it's going to go, the UK will huff and puff but it won't achieve anything, they have no clout with the EU any more, the EU will likely drag this out because they know they can, the EU knows that the UK is more or less a vassal now, either of the EU, US or China and even most Brexiteers in the UK don't want to follow Chinese or American rules, laws and regulations which puts the UK back in the fold of the EU without the UK having any real say over laws, rules and regulations which is perfect for the EU because they get everything they want without the UK having any say in them. The real funny thing about this is that it works for Boris as well, think about it, he can say he delivered on Brexit, not on what kind of Brexit and this being politics, he can wing it past the British public because Boris want to do any real harm to the UK economy and he knows that staying close to the EU and getting a good deal is the best way to protect it, the last thing he wants is the UK to be in the toilet come next election, and he gets the boot as that will play right into the hands of remainers and support for rejoining the EU would grow. In any case, getting out of the EU was the easy part, making a success of it isn't and that is why the fun really begins now.
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Saying Europe is falling behind because others around the world are catching up doesn't make much sense, the truth is, as the rest of the world modernizes, Europe will make up a smaller percentage of the world economy, but that is also the case for North America, that isn't falling behind, that's just others catching up. Beside, Europe and especially EU countries have some of the highest standards of living in the world, if that is falling behind, give me more of that lol. The truth is, the modern world is around 1.5 billion people, if all the world was to modernize, that's going to lower the percentage that those modern countries today have in the world, that isn't a bad thing, in fact, it's a good thing as it means more trading partners and ideas on the world stage that we all stand to benefit from.
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Macron has been pushing for more cooperation and integration of the EU, especially on foreign policy matters and on the military, Putin's invasion of Ukraine has been a massive wake-up call for Europeans that they need to work closer together and the EU is the best starting place to do that, for Macron, he's been vindicated here because he's been pushing for the EU to have a bigger role in many areas for years, it took Putin's aggressive behaver to wake people up, I suspect that why it's helping his position in France. At the end of the day, Europeans in the EU need to start standing on their own feet and not keep relying on the US and the EU is the best place to pool their resources together so they are a lot more effective, Putin has handed a gift to Macron and also to pro integrationist around the EU, now the question is, what happens over the next 5 and 10 years because I suspect a lot will happen. Now don't get me wrong, we still have NATO but imagine if we had an EU military, they likely would be willing to be more proactive on Ukraine compared to NATO, that doesn't mean getting involved in the war directly but I suspect the EU could have put 20,000, 40,000 troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers before the war happened, the idea being, it's one thing for Putin to attack Ukraine which is a poor country, it's another to attack them if a powerful neighbour has troops there, that could have been enough to prevent the war from happening as I doubt the EU wants a war braking out on it's doorstep whereas I doubt the US cares what goes on in Ukraine and sees this as an opening to hit Putin where it hurts. Remember that Putin invaded because he thought the EU was weak and divided, he also thought the same about the west, he didn't expect this rallying cry around Ukraine but that might not be enough, sometimes you have to go more forceful with these things and as for NATO, the EU being a military power wouldn't take anything away from it, what it would do is that the EU would become a much bigger player in that with the US. Putin shot a warning shot to Europeans, something we need to listen to because if Russia can do this, imagine what China can do which have an economy and population far bigger than Russia, basically, we need to start working a lot closer together to protect our interest because as friendly as the US might seem to come across, they don't really have European interest at heart, only the EU can do that if we pool our resources together.
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@rafail2303 To a degree yeah but if prices rise too high, European countries would speed up the process in looking elseware for it's energy means, the high prices and energy security is already speeding up that process, the last thing Russia can afford to do is play games with it's energy, otherwise it's going to kill off that industry in Russia. So yeah, the EU could do as Krpi said but I doubt they will, I suspect they will keep things stable and as they are now whiles actively looking for alternative energy sources, a lot can be achieved in just a few short years.
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@rafail2303 It really depends, short term it would be painful, not just for Europeans but for the world as EU countries would scramble the world to find alternatives and fast, that would likely bump up the price in the short term on the world market and because of that, almost everyone around the world would end up paying more for it, in the end, it's the poor and middle classes of the world that would get hit by that. Also, it's being said that EU countries seem to have enough energy to fill the void if Russia did switch off the tap by switching on coal, nuke and other plants that were planned to be phased out, apparently they are on standby just in case but they really don't want to bring them on because they pollute a lot more. I think the smart move is more or less what the EU countries are doing, rapidly accelerate it's renewable drive, find alternative energy sources on the world market to plug that gap, within a matter of just a few short years, they could become more or less independence of Russia oil, gas and coal and with each passing month, it's going to be doing more and more harm to Russia as they buy less from them. Out of all this, there is some good news, EU countries are going to rapidly boost it's renewable energy drive, because of Putin, we could be ending up in a cleaner future a lot sooner than expected and all because energy has become a security risk, now we have the political and public motivation to make it happen, also, we're likely going to see more integration at an EU level among the EU countries on security, military and energy matters which will likely mean bigger military spending whiles reducing a lot of the duplications we have among 27 countries. Macron was proven right that EU countries need to band together and that should be good news for the US because a stronger EU would be a lot more useful when it comes to China.
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Lab grown meat should be a lot cheaper than meat we eat today, it could also be a lot healthier for us depending how they change it. One thing for sure, it will free up a lot of land and in the longer run, if we end up growing meat in labs, it's only a matter of time before we do that with pretty much any food.
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It stands to reason, if you feel like you are looked after by your job and the system in the country, you're more likely to put more effort into being more productive, whereas if you feel the system doesn't care and the job is just a means to an end, that they don't care about your well-being, then you're more likely to do the minimum you can get away with. In the case of the US, that ends up meaning Americans having to work longer hours and in many cases for poor wages, and it's not an ideal situation to be in, unless you work for yourself and then your productivity goes through the roof, but that's the case wherever you live in the world because of self-interest. The irony is, it's also the case for lower hours, if the job had a set target of tasks I needed to do in a given time, I bet most of us would find ways of being more productive if it means we could go home an hour or two earlier. The simple truth is, corporations are their own enemy, they are so desperate to gain profit at any cost by screwing over everyone, that they don't seem to see the big picture that a lot of workers are making very little effort in their job because of lack of respect from the company, and honestly, it's hard to blame these people, after all, respect goes both ways, me for instant, I could probably do 8 hours work in 6 hours, maybe even 4 hours depending on the job and I suspect a lot of us would be willing to do that if we were looked after better.
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True, especially a skilful player, they can clear up and keep you seated, but if playing for fun and who you are playing against isn't too good, it's fine to open the reds up just to speed up the game.
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The simple answer, no, but by building A.I. capabilities in all computers going forward, that will allow developers to integrate A.I. into their software stack from anything from the OS to apps and games. In other words, the use case is limited for now, but by building the foundations that every computer will have A.I. capabilities, developers will find ways to take advantage of it, it's the simply build it and they will come, so I think they are doing the right thing with pushing hard on A.I. even thought for many, it can be seen as a waste of silicon that could go towards the cpu or gpu, but if they don't set the foundations, software will never really take advantage of it, so over the next 5 years, the majority of computers and smartphones should be quite capable of doing A.I. in limited ways depending on the hardware, that for me is where the game changer with A.I. will happen. The thing is with A.I. is that it needs a lot of ram, gpu's don't seem to want to give it and even when they do, it cost an arm and a leg, so APU's might be a better option for A.I. over the long run.
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@godogs89 That was a very different time and it's only becoming more of a pressing matter the last decade, besides, the EU does take a lot of EU countries to tasks on these issues if you actually look but in the case of big tech, a lot of them are American.
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@spudbencer7179 It looks like a lot more pressure is building on big tech and not just from the EU but also the US and many other world governments, they are finally starting to wake up to the threat they could become to peoples mind set, democracy and having too much control over information. I do agree that the US should regulate their own companies but the US has been asleep and that makes it easy for others like the EU to go after them, but truth be told, the world is very interconnected now, any company that does business in another country, that allows those governments to regulate them, hence why if two US companies want to merge, they need approval from the EU, some will think, what on earth does that have to do with the EU? it's simple really, if any of those companies does business in the EU market, it has a lot to do with them, this goes both ways like if two EU companies want to merge, the US could stick it's beak in and even stop it.
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@mididoctors I don't know about that, all the signs say otherwise about May but then thats because she got too close to the Brexiteers which was a big mistake on her part, considering the Brexit vote was so close, she should of played the middle ground and maybe she would have fair better then she is doing. As it is, May is being left as the scapegoat on Brexit and I doubt it matters what Brexit we get or if we remain in the EU, it looks like she is finished either way. With that, she can at least do the right thing for the country as it's clear the goverment and parliement can't decide on Brexit, that just leaves it up to the public and I think thats how it's going to go, another public vote.
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From what I've heard, the west needed a bit of time before they can supple arms to Ukraine on a constant basis without depleting their own stockpile, someone high up in the US military, forgot his name, anyway, he said it should be around November this year, if what he said is true, things could get a lot more painful for Russia late this year because for now, Ukraine have only been getting the crumbs from the west.
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War fair today isn't really about how many troops you have, it's about the level of tech you have that really matters, 300 hundred thousands seems too many for a country like Poland with it's economy and population size and I think they would be better putting more of that resources into higher tech military equipment whiles also integrating more into the EU plans on military matters. Either way, it doesn't matter as much because it's one thing for Russia to attack Ukraine which by the way is quite poor even compared to Poland, it's another thing to attack an EU and NATO country and especially with the EU because of how that was formed after the second world war to prevent war among it's members, in other words, unlike NATO, an attack on an EU member would more or less force the other members to get involved in a more forceful way because of how tightly integrated these countries are, so an attack on one EU member would be an attack on all, even Russia would have to be crazy to do that. NATO is a good idea on paper but it's not tested, the countries involved that are not really linked together that well, so we don't really know if they would respond if a NATO member gets attacked, the EU on the other hand, they would have no choice but to respond and all thanks to the Steal and Coal Community that was set up after the second world war that ties the members economies tightly together.
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@stephenjenkins7971 Maybe not, but let's be blunt about this, what do most people care about when living in any country? it's not going to be how much money they make or how well the GDP is or unemployment numbers, they are going to care about quality of life, safety and many other factors like that, and when you look at a lot of indexes online, the EU countries dominant the top 10 in those areas, whereas the US has actually started to go in reverse, especially when Trump got into power, but that trend is continuing under Biden. You also have to put things into context, in the US, workers rights are quite poor compared to the EU, there's no mandated-paid holidays and countless other standards are lower than in the EU, in other words, the US is lowering standards to try and boost economic growth to keep up with the Asian powers, the EU countries are not doing that and you only have to look at many of the indexes online to see how the US is slipping behind other modern countries at quite an alarming rate over the last 10 years. Now if profit is all that matters, knock yourself out, but the reality is that in the US, so much wealth is being concentrated in so few hands that the GDP numbers are not really telling you a clear picture, more so that the numbers of Americans leaving the US for the EU is rising, but more shocking, there are countless videos of Americans on YouTube saying the same thing that they are leaving the US because they want a better quality of life, but what shocks me the most is how many are saying eastern EU countries have a better quality of life then the US, seriously thought, how can that be? Eastern EU countries are still developing and catching up to western EU countries. You want to know something ironic about all this, what's happening in the US with lowering standards to try and keep up with the rising Asians powers? Japan tried the same thing to try and keep up with the US decades ago, it didn't end well for them and it's looking like the US could be going down the same path in trying to lower so many standards to try and keep pace with what's going on in Asia, the EU thankfully are not following that model, there's more to life than that, which ironically, even in Europe, it's the smaller countries that dominant the higher quality of life index. Also, for the record, Asia is rising regardless of the EU or US, there's a reason why the US is getting tough on China, it's because they fear them rising as a power, basically, the US is trying to prevent that from happening, but the reality is, both the EU and US put together are not going to be able to prevent Asia rising, simply put, they've got by far a bigger population then us and as they continue to modernise, it's shifting the balance of power from west to east, the EU isn't concern by that but the US is, hence why the views on China are quite different around the world then they are in the US.
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@ArzhurG If AMD really wants to gain any real market share, they have to go a lot more aggressive on pricing, just slightly undercutting Nvidia isn't changing anything on the market share. Also, it's very likely that AMD can produce RDNA 3, cheaper than Nvidia can produce their chips because of the chiplet design and likely a smaller die size, so AMD are in a better position to undercut Nvidia and I think with all the bad PR Nvidia is getting, this is the perfect time for AMD to strike, if they don't, Nvidia will laugh all the way to the bank because it's unlikely the market share will change much if at all and it's market share AMD really needs.
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The real problem with Brexit is that no one in goverment and parliement can agree on what path to take on Brexit and thats been painfully clear to see for over two years now and because of that, there is only one real solution, a peoples vote and hope that with all the new information we have, they make the right choice this time because a hard Brexit is likely going to do a lot of damage to the people that could of stopped it, so the goverment, the Tories, Labour and so on, they are the ones that will likely get it in the neck if Brexit does any real damage to the country so there is that risk for them with going for hard Brexit. In any case, we are going to see over the next few weeks if the powers that be are smart or stupid, so far we've seen a lot of bluffs and threats, lets see now that thier backs are pinned to the wall if common sense or cliff edge that wins out, either way, it's all very entertaining and I'll be sad to see the back of Brexit.
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Bluffing or not is irrelevant, and the reason for that is because the west can't afford to back down on this with what Russia is doing, if the west backed down, Putin will likely get more hostile in Ukraine and with other countries, surely the west has learned its lesson over the last decade that dictators only understand one thing and that's strength, the last thing the west needs is to show Putin weakness because he will take advantage of that. So is a nuclear strike possible? Well anything is possible but for Putin to go that route would be very risky for him because he might have lost the plot but I suspect a lot in his inner circle and the Russian people have not, in other words, if Putin pushes his luck on the nuclear threat, it's his life that could be at far higher risk than anyone else. Personally, I think it's just a bluff, everything Putin is doing is bluffing his way through with the aim of trying to get the EU countries to back down and not support Ukraine and to create disunity in the EU and the west, the idea being is that he wants to divide the west to try and take advantage of us. The truth is, the west can't back down because if they do, Russia won't stop with just Ukraine, also it sends a powerful message around the world that if pushed enough, the west has limits, think of the message that would send to China on Taiwan, in other words, the west backing down could escalate the war globally and we've seen from history, you can't appease these clowns, you have to put your foot down and make their choice as painful for the economy and people as possible and that is what the west is doing with sanctions, isolating Russia and helping Ukraine to defend it's self. Also, Russia should consider it's self lucky, how easy it could be seen with them playing all these games with the energy market in Europe, how easy that could be seen as a declaration of war against those countries, a lot of which are NATO and EU countries, Putin wanted to play this game, now his going to suffer the consequence of it and if he keeps pushing on these threats, it's going to mean him digging his own grave.
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I highly doubt Russia would attack an EU or NATO country, either one is a lot more powerful than Ukraine is and it would be a declaration of war, but there's a madman in charge of Russia and he's desperate at the moment, so can't rule anything out. Studies have been made a few years ago that if a war was to break out with NATO and Russia, it said Russia wouldn't last more than 36 hours, that's under normal times, Russian is a much weaker force now with their economy being hit hard and the resource drain on the military in Ukraine. Truth is, Putin went for Ukraine because it's resource rich and is one of the poorest countries in Europe, going up against a modern European or NATO country is a very different story and considering how poor the Russian military is fairing in Ukraine, I don't fancy Russia's chances against the west.
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Joining the EU isn't as simply as just turning up to the door and becoming a member, there are so many changes and reforms Ukraine would have to do to be ready for membership that it takes years. With that said, I think once the dust settles on this conflict with Russia, I think the EU should open talks with Ukraine on membership, I think it's the least they deserve but also be realistic with them and make it clear that how soon or how long it takes for them to join is really up to how quickly Ukraine does the changes needs and not small changes but real big reforms to become a member. We've seen it time and time again from Turkey that drags it's feet on reforms, hence why they are taking so long on EU membership, we've even seen with Poland and Hungary backsliding on some of the reforms. What I'm saying, it's not a good idea to let countries in the EU until they are ready with the rule of law, democracy, freedom of the press, rights for the citizens and many other things, if you let a country in the EU too early, there is little incentive for them to do the real changes needed for them to modernize and become a rich country, worse yet, you could get backsliding as we've seen in Poland and Ukraine. On that note, I do think the EU should open up talks with Ukraine once things settle, give them hope that they can join, I also think them joining NATO would be a good idea with how Putin is being.
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Try telling that to the millions of people that have solar or wind energy on their homes that it's irrelevant. The irony is, for about £6,000, I could build a solar system on my house that would cover all my energy need and generate way too much in summer, assuming you install the setup yourself which works out much cheaper. The problem isn't renewable energy, the real problem is storing that energy, if battery tech was much better, a modest solar setup would be enough to generate all the electric needs of your house and push a little more, you could cover all your energy needs, heating, electric car and so on. So yes, renewables isn't irrelevant but it's not prime time until battery tech catches up so we can store a lot of energy.
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In hindsight, I bet Putin wished he never invaded Ukraine, he had it easy before that, in was in power for lift, had high support among the Russians and looked like a man that didn't do many mistakes, now with Putin invading Ukraine, all his reputation is being wiped out, the Russian military looks a lot weaker than most in the west expected, Putin has been getting one thing wrong after another, from the oil and gas issues with the EU countries, to the military tactics in Ukraine, to the resolve of the west, what a way to wipe out 20 years worth of reputation building in just a year. In any case, the longer the war drags on, the worse for Putin, because this is a massive economic drain on their economy, sooner or later, that going to have a big impact on the Russian people in a negative way, the government can only suppress that problem to a degree that it wouldn't surprise me if Putin loses his grip on power over the next year or two and probably will be killed off by either the inner circle of government or the Russian people, especially as the reserves run dry and the Europeans stop buying Russian oil and gas, that's when it's really going to impact Russia hard, it's very likely what Putin fears the most and going on western estimates, we're going onto mid to late next year for those reserves to run dry but this was said just before the war started, so it could be sooner than that if the cost of the war and Europeans not buying their oil and gas is really biting.
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@sinoroman Nor can NATO for that matter, it's really up to the national governments to decide but what the EU and NATO can do is help to bring these countries together so they are on the same page, so basically, there is a lot they can do.
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@tommcguire6472 Considering all the wars Europeans have had throughout history, cowardice is not the word I would use but more like common sense Europeans have a much better sense of what war is really like and are fed up with it, that's not weakness, that's just the second world war being a major wake-up call, but all that can change and change quickly if they felt they were threatened, truth is, the see Russia as a mild threat at best.
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@zbigniewp1810 A lot of it is already built, it's just not as organized as the US is but that can quickly change if the need arises, in fact, it's threats like these that can create quick changes if needed. The truth is, it's not even an issue, after all, there's a reason why no country takes on any modern country because the damage that can be done back is too high to take the risk, all wars since the second world war have either been rich countries taking on poor countries that can't really fight back or poor countries taking on another poor country, we've not seen a single rich country take on any other rich country since the second world war and for good reason, no one really wins and it could very quickly escalate into world war 3 which no one wants that with the weapons we have today. Let's be blunt about this, the EU and US doesn't see Russia as a threat, they just see them as a small pain in the arse that likes to poke the west in the sides at times, if Russia really became a threat, the economic might that the EU and US can bring to arms would be frightening to Russia and if Russia keeps poking, they could be in for a shock. Now China on the other hand could be a different story, they've got a big economy, big population and could be a real threat in the future but that threat could be for everyone including Russia. In any case, I find it all very entertaining, Putin backed himself into a corner on Ukraine, now he's put himself in a position that if he backs down with no concessions from the west, Putin could look weak in Russia which is the last thing he wants considering the image he shows in Russia, if Putin does invade Ukraine, the western countries will likely supple the rebels in Ukraine to make it as painful for Russians as possible, in other words, Russia will likely lose a lot of lives in Ukraine and it will likely be really costly for them. Have you not noticed how the US is egging Putin to invade Ukraine, almost like they are daring him to do it, the reason why is because the west see this as a big opening to push Putin out of power by bogging him down in Ukraine, Putin trying to be smart has actually backfired on him because the west are offering no concessions which puts Putin in a difficult spot that he can't really win and I am surprised, I thought Putin was smarter than that but it looks like he's been outsmarted by sleepy Joe lol. Now I'm not saying it's right what's going on, especially for the people of Ukraine but in the end, Putin is bringing this onto it's self and when the west says Russia will pay a high price if they invade Ukraine, they are not kidding but it's not for the reasons the news is letting on.
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@jahjah1577 Does seem like it, now I've got to wonder how much these sanctions are really hurting Russia, are real big hint is the protest in Russia and the tough 15 year prison law that Putin brought in if anyone protest or speak out against the war, Putin wouldn't have done such a tough law unless there is a big movement rising in Russia that he sees as a threat to his power base. Basically, the sanctions are biting and it's likely going to get much worse until the Russian people rise up and hang Putin by a tree, best thing for him really.
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@mufflejoy I have a feeling that's what Macron was playing for, likely knowing he was going to lose the election, but if he gets enough votes to be difficult whiles Le Pen is in power, the French people are usually very quick to turn on governments, even popular ones if they don't deliver on the goods. In other words, Macron might be banking on Le Pen winner so that they can mess up so much that they fall on their own sword, allowing Macron or someone else to win on the next election, which could be an early election. As for Le Pen, if she wins, she's got one or two terms at the most to prove themselves before the French people really turn on them, and most of the anger isn't immigration that she's playing on, it's the cost of living and the economy that concerns most people, which will be more difficult for Le Pen to fix without playing nice with others, in other words, she likely will have to moderate a lot of policies to get things done, otherwise we could see gridlock. In any case, the UK with Brexit was massively focused on immigration by the far right, yet even with Brexit, they didn't solve the issue, in fact, they made it worse, in the end, it's easy on the sidelines to shout and bluster on many policies that are focused on voters anger, it's another thing to implement good policies once in power, a valuable lesson Le Pen could find out that being in power isn't as easy as it sounds when it comes to policymaking, and with no major progress being done on the concerns of the French people, voters could quickly turn on Le Pen if she doesn't deliver solid results that work for the people, and the French are very quick to turn on governments, even popular ones, so Le Pen has an uphill struggle on her hands winning over the people for another term.
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Overall, I get the impression that not much really changed, the EPP gained more seats than expected, the far right gained, but looking at the overall picture, it's quite balance which is going to force a lot of compromises to be done to get things done. I do think tougher policies will come in on migration, I also think the Greens losing so many seats have not helped the green agenda, and I think a bit part of that is because for all the renewable energy being thrown on the grid, consumers don't seem to benefit from that in lower bill, so green clean policies are good, but if you want real savings, I feel you have to do it yourself. The rest is kinda up in the air, but overall, not that much has changed, but with that said, I do think reforms are going to be needed on the EU, the irony is, it would be difficult for the far right to oppose reforms that make the EU more democratic without making them look bad. Another factor to remember, the term far right is being used too loosely, almost losing its meaning, we've already seen many on the far right tone their policies down to be more appealing to voters, it's likely we will get more of the same, because if the far right ends up being too stubborn and holding everything up, it's them that could pay the price on the next election, basically, they've been given a taste of power, they best tone things down to appeal to a wider voting public if they want to continue to be electable going forward, especially because most of us didn't vote the far right for there policies, people did so because it's a protest vote and they are angry at the mainstream parties for not listening and improving things, in other words, if people don't see solid results from the far right, peoples interest in them will quickly evaporate. In any case, this left to right swing in politics is kinda normal and happens every decade or two, and the pattern is always the same, one side or the other doesn't deliver, so voters get angry with them and vote the other side, rinse and repeat and the same will continue to happen, and ultimately, governments rarely seem to listen to the people unless there's such a majority that forces them to listen, this is why in politics we have this merry-go-round that we make progress but it's so slow and so much more could be done if governments actually listen and represent the interest of the people, either way, mainstream parties are taking a spanking now because they didn't listen to voters.
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I wonder if this is early signs of cold feet from voters, after all, a lot of the fringe, radical far right parties usually do well on protest votes when voters are angry, but it's not a solid foundation for real policies, basically, some voters might be getting cold feet on the far right, but are still angry and want the mainstream parties to change and listen to their concerns, in other words, using the far right parties to teach the mainstream parties a lesson. Another factor is turnout, usually a higher turnout doesn't favour the radical far right parties, they play on people's anger, it's more likely that people that are angry and going to go out in numbers to vote, we kinda saw that in the UK with Brexit where a lot of people that wanted to stay in the EU didn't bother to vote, whereas the Brexiteers were not going to miss this chance to vote, and the UK got the mess we are currently in, a higher turnout likely would have had a different result, and I see the pattern across Europe, a higher turnout usually gets more common sense when it comes to voting, and that usually isn't good news for the far right, but this isn't always the case, but it stands to reason, higher turnout, you're more likely to have a higher range of views across the political landscape, and that usually favours the centre parties. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this plays out with the final votes and how it plays out in other EU countries, it will also be interesting to see if voters turnout really rises, if it does, that could be bad news for the far right, especially as voter turnout has been in decline for some time which plays into the more radical elements of society. It does also make me wonder if mandatory voting should be a thing, I know it would kinda infringe on your freedoms to vote or not, but politics is so important to all our lives that maybe it should be a mandatory thing, which I suspect the far right would be very hostile to that idea, as if everyone of voting age were voting, you're more likely to get a wide range of views, that usually doesn't end well for radical parties that have a specific political vision compared to centre parties that are more likely to listen to views across the board and are more likely to get along with other parties, probably because there's a lot of compromise that goes on with centre parties.
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The real problem I find, especially in the US is that governments push quite hard for big corporations to form, merge and so on with little help for small to medium size business and I suspect US governments do that because bigger corporations are more effective on the world stage at dominating, the problem is that small to medium size companies are the ones that are likely to give consumers more choice and likely to listen to us more. What's really needed is a big slashing of big companies, cutting them into smaller companies but I highly doubt that will happen in the US unless the public rises, now the EU and EU countries on the other hand, I'm more hopeful for them, Europeans are much more social in putting people first before other things and with everything that is going on with this virus now, some big changes could be coming. This is also the same with democracy, I look at the US and there seems to be very little choice in who you can vote for, it's always the Democrats or Republicans and that isn't much choice when it comes to a democracy, especially when a lot of the views from the two are not really that different from each other, contrast that with European countries like Germany and there is a lot of choice for people to pick. The system is broken in so many ways that it isn't going to get fixed unless the people wake up, rise to it and pressure governments to change and represent their interest, that in the US seems unlikely but as I said above, I'm hopeful for EU countries as we are seeing massive differences in policies in how EU countries and the US treat big corporations and the public, in Europe, they seem to be doing a far better job at looking after the poor and middle classes whiles protecting jobs whereas in the US they seem to be giving massive bail-outs to any big corporation that want it whiles giving crumbs to the public and it will be interesting to see unemployment numbers over the next 6 months to a year in EU countries compared to the US.
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You have to wonder how these people get elected but then Trump got elected and then you have to wonder what is really going on in the US for so many people to elect these whack jobs, just listen to what they are saying, they don't care about the well-being of Americans, it's all about the mighty buck. As a European watching from the outside, I like to say I feel sorry for what is going on over there but come on, something must be really screwed up in the US to even let these kinds of people into positions of power.
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Yet both major political parties smile and say nothing about fixing the Brexit problem, which is quite insulting, especially from Labour when you consider that now around 59% of the public either think Brexit was a mistake or want to join the EU. You have to wonder, how high does that percentage have to go before Labour wakes up? because the way things are going, Labour are just as accountable for Brexit by going along with it, trying to make a lame duck work when we already know Brexit has failed the UK. What's even worse with Labour is that they are not giving the people of the UK an alternative on Brexit, they are just going along with the Tories with Brexit and for a lot of Brits, they feel none of the major parties are listening, that could backfire, especially in Scotland and Northern Ireland as they none of the major parties listening on this could fuel the independence movements and if Scotland and Northern Ireland do leave the UK at some point over the next decade, the blame is firmly on the Conservative and Labour Party for ignoring so many people. But seriously, as painful as it is to talk about Brexit again, more needs to be done because it's doing a lot of harm to the UK and putting our heads in the sand like Labour is doing isn't going to make the problem go away and it's clear that Brexit doesn't work, regardless of what the Labour leader wants us to think.
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@traestorm He does have a point, military spending is all based on risk to one country, the risk to Canada and many EU countries is quite small, hence the lower military spending. The US on the other hand wants to project power around the world, it uses military bases as a form of doing so, it's also got to contend with China, which by the way, is far bigger of a problem for the US then it is for other, being as China wants to take the number one spot in the world away from the US, that puts far more pressure on the US then it does on others. As for the Europeans, part of boosting military spending is because of Putin warmongering, but if you ask a lot of Europeans, especially in the western part, they see the US as becoming more unstable, polarise and less trustworthy, so basically, Trump and Putin are doing wonders for the EU, but not for the reasons many think. Russia is more of a risk to eastern European countries that are not in the EU or NATO, but Russia isn't really a risk to EU or NATO members, countries that are not in the EU or NATO are usually far poorest and a much easier target, EU and NATO countries both have a defence clause that an attack on one is an attack on all, so the risk to them is quite remote, but I understand why there's more panic in eastern EU countries, they were after all behind the iron curtain decades ago, but it's understandable with them, but for western countries, Russia isn't really seen as much of a threat to them, the US on the other hand, especial a Trump US is being seen as a far bigger threat. So this isn't about European countries pulling their weight, this is more about an unstable, erratic US that's reshaping minds in Europe, as for what that will do to transatlantic relations, it's too early to say, but I do know one thing, the US is likely going to need a strong EU to contain China long term, the problem for the US is that they want European countries to spend more but as individual countries, not as a single EU entity, as that would be far more powerful than what any of the EU members can offer on their own, it would also compete more directly with the US in many areas, especially arms sales, which could force the US to either have to spend more or to cut the military budget if the EU is taking a slice of arms sales around the world, probably why the EU is focusing on arms production first, it basically boils down to a lack of trust in the US from a lot of Europeans, and if Trump were to get into power, that would be the icing on the cake the EU needs. From a geopolitical sense, both the EU and US really need to stand together because of a rising China, because overall, we are not that different, but a Trump president would likely wreak any of that from happening, it could even get to the point of that NATO could fall apart if Trump had his way, which again would fall in line with pushing what the EU wants, after all public views are gaining traction of more EU military and forign policy matters thanks to Trump and Putin.
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To be fair, in aid money, both the EU and its members and the US have given roughly around the same amount of money, the EU more towards humanitarian aid whereas the US towards military aid, is it enough? Not really from both side and both side can afford to help in many ways and should be doing so sooner rather than later. But we also should remember that the EU is a complicated beast, getting 27 countries to pass things when each member has a veto is no easy task, hence why the EU and it's members are having to find loopholes to move things along because of a few stubborn members. As for the US, they want to be world leaders, it's up to them to step up to the plate and lead, which just like we are seeing in the EU, there's a lot of infighting going on in the US with the Democrats and Republicans. As for the threat, Russia is no threat to EU members, Russia is having a hard time dealing with Ukraine which is one of the poorest countries in Europe, Russia would be crazy to take on an EU country because most are in NATO for one and two, just like NATO, there's a defence clause in the EU that an attack on one is an attack on all, in other words, it would force the EU and NATO if it's a NATO member that's attacked to get involved more directly, that's the last thing Putin wants with the military might the EU countries could bring to the table if threatened, just for now, they are not threatened, so we see a lot of horse-trading just like we are seeing in the US.
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@amunra5330 Being elected and keeping the system open and fair are two very different things, Orbán and Putin were elected, but whiles in power, they changed the system to make it much harder to lose power, Hitler more or less did the same thing. In the end, you have to blame the people, if they can't be bothered to keep governments in check, then they get what they deserve, and it's rare for those kinds of governments to not backfire on the people, because these kinds of governments are all about protecting there position of power, even at the expense of their own people, I mean seriously, just look at the policies of Turkey on the central bank and inflation or Putin with the war in Ukraine, or even Orbán in Hungary which inflation is doing far worse than EU norm, when it comes down to it, they are quite happy to throw their own people under a bus to protect there position of power, and it's just a question of how much the people put up with before saying enough is enough.
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GDP per capita numbers are probably some of the worst ways to measure quality of living, there are too many other factors involved like cost of living, social benefits and the overall quality of living. European countries overall dominant the top ten indexes when it comes to quality of life, which I think the only countries outside of Europe to make the top ten is Australia and Canada, and last I remember, the UK and the US were slipping further behind. Overall, you need a high enough GDP per capita to have a good living, but there is far more to it than just that when it comes to the quality that citizens feel and heck, I've even heard many Americans that have moved to eastern EU countries which are still developing and catching up to western EU countries and saying the quality of life is better in those eastern countries then in the US, there's a massive difference on the GDP per capita of the two, so clearly, GDP per capita is a poor indicator and for eastern EU countries to even offer a better quality of living then the US suggest there is something wrong with the US. I think a big difference in what determines quality of life is the extent of social programs in a country and cost of living, European countries have far more social protections and programs that in a sense means you don't need as high as a wage like you do in the US, the US has very little in the way of social programs so Americans really need higher wages because you're out for yourself and the government doesn't offer much help. Overall, countries with much stronger social programs and protections tend to have a higher quality of life because it covers everyone, which is a massive benefit for the lower and middle classes, whereas the US and many other countries that offer very little, you literally have to fend for yourself and the results show for themselves with the difference with poverty, crime and many other metrics. I remember it once being said that if GDP per capita was 1 million and there were two people in the economy, GDP per capita would divide it equally at 500k per person, and clearly, that isn't how real life works, the more of a wealth divide there is, the worse GDP per capita becomes, the more billionaire and millionaire in a country, the worse GDP per capita becomes, if everyone was treated equally, then GDP per capita would work but clearly that isn't the case, especially the case in the US where there is a massive wealth divide and the same for many developing countries which make GDP per capita almost useless as a measure, either way, there are a lot of countries that on paper look poorer but yet they are offers a better quality of living to its citizens, which ultimately is what really counts. Another major flaw with GDP numbers is that a natural disaster is seen as economic growth lol, in the long term it could generate more growth with the redevelopment, but in the short term, it's a hit to the GDP, yet the current system sees it as economic growth lol, another thing I've noticed, higher taxes within reason usually means higher quality of life, probably because of a much greater social safety net, lower taxed countries seem to be on the other end of the scale, looks good on paper but in reality, it actually hurts the citizens far more, it's the major contrast I see between the EU and US. If GDP were to measure from the bottom up, so lower and middle classes, it would be much more accurate, but as it measures everything as an equal basis, it's not accurate at all for the average person, but it becomes a bit more accurate for countries that treat its citizens more equal, which none do on a 100% scale, just some do better than others.
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So because the UK wants to sink and become irrelevant, you want to drag Ireland with you? lol that really desperate, it's as desperate as trying to divide EU members to think along the lines of the UK, you would have a better chance of having Brexit and making a success of it as a example to others but we all know that wishful thinking, all Brexit options are worse then what we have now, all the smart people know that. The reality is, even the countries in the EU like Italy and some eastern countries don't want to follow the UK with Brexit and you've got little to no chance of getting the Republic of Ireland to follow with how much they've benefited from the EU, not to mention just looking at the disaster over the pond, why would anyone want to follow that? lol. Boris is hanging by a thread, if he gets tough on no deal Brexit after what happened yesterday, it likely will mean another election happening and there are many ways that can happen now that he's only got a majority of one. It's time for the Brexiteers to come back to reality and see things for how they are and not how they want to see things, after yesterday, the odds of Brexit happening this year are very slim and it might not happen at all because the pressure on Bo Jo now will be immense which is likely going to force another election or another public vote on Brexit and god forbid if the British people vote to stay in the EU, the shame of the Brexiteers would be immense, in some ways, they would be classed as traitors because they tried to force us out of the EU without knowing if that what the British people want after all this new information on Brexit. No wonder Brexiteers are so fearful of another public vote but that fear is a good sign that the British people don't want to leave the EU and some Brexiteers know that but don't want to give the public a chance to change it's mind on it and they say Brexiteers support democracy, yeah right lol, if this was the other way round, the likes of Farage and Brexiteers would be screaming from the rooftops for another vote until he got the result he wanted.
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I think the numbers from Sweden, Norway and Finland are quite telling and seemed to be more about protecting the economy over the well-being of the people but even the economy can't really be protected that much with everything else going on in the world. Herd immunity is another thing that isn't a given if the virus mutates. Now the law not having the power to close the country down and trust in the public is another story and that explains a lot on why Sweden took the path they did, the problem is, can we really honestly expect the public to practice social distancing when it's done by choice? even the more careful of us are bound to make mistakes at times and looking at the numbers of infections in Sweden compared to Norway and Finland look quite grim really, also, we can't really compare to many of the countries on the mainland of Europe like Italy, France, Spain and so on because these are top tourist destinations so it was always going to be harder to control and worse in those, we even see that at a more local level within countries that the parts that get the hardest hit are the regions that have a lot of people coming and going.
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@peterw8532 It's actually the capitalist that think more like that, after all, just look at the Tories policies on the older generation of people during this crisis and even before it. What's crazy about it as well is that a lot of older generation of people give the Tories their support on the election and Brexit and now this government is stabbing them in the back with poor support.
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Over the last 2 decades, we've slowly replaced almost everything in the house with energy efficacy in mind, whiles not reducing the quality of life. Over the last 2 decades, we managed to reduce our energy use in half, whiles also having a lot more tech gadgets around the house, and it really shows how you can slash your energy use without really changing your quality of life, in fact, in our case, it's improved by having more tech gadgets and lower energy cost. With that said, there's still more room for improvement we could do, this dryer for one is something I've not heard off and will have to look into that when replacing the one we have, then there's heat pumps to replace the boiler, but that's really expensive and then there are solar panels. When it comes to heating and depending on your home, insulating your house can save you a lot in winter, where I live in the UK, winters can get cold but since insulating, we rarely need to switch the heating on and even when we do, it's only for around an hour that keeps the house warm for quite some time, since the insulation, I've noticed that the temperature can drop as low as -5C and still feel comfortable, winters where I live is usually around -5C and 5C, so it's rare we need to use the heating, apart from last year when we had a record cold snap of -9C for 2 days. Insulating probably works out a lot cheaper than buying a heat pump system, depending on your home and how much work is needed, but having both would be ideal. In the end, there are a lot of things you can do to really slash your energy down whiles saving a lot of money and I've found it's best to do it over a long period of time, just by putting some thought into things that you replace overtime, makes a massive difference over the long run.
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@mucruzz1886 Not sure how you figure that one out, all Putin has done is scaring a lot of countries to wanting to join the EU and NATO, what Putin is doing is the opposite of what he wanted and more countries that join the EU and NATO is only going to make those organizations stronger. But seriously, what did Putin expect to happen, you threaten countries and they will adapt, same with energy, you threaten your customers, they will look elseware and considering there are not many rich markets for Russia to sell too and with Russia being isolated, even a lot of companies from China and India are pulling out of Russia because they don't want to harm their business in the west, the reality is, the west is far more valuable than Russia is. Putin for someone that likes to think he's smart has made one of his biggest mistakes with this war and Russia as a country is paying a high price for that and what makes it worse for Russia is that Putin setup a lot of reserves to help the Russian economy, that's what's being used now to limit the damage, but those reserves are running out fast, that's when things become really dire for Russia and it's probably around that time when a lot of Europe has reduced buying oil and gas from Russia, basically, around that time, Russia could become a basket case that defaults on it's debts whereas the west only as to weather this storm for a few short years before things go back to normal.
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I think the real problem is trust in the system and in the vaccine, over here in the UK where I live, there is very few people that actually want to take it and I have to wonder what that's like across the country and world. We should also remember that the UK is pretty much one of the leading nations in cases and deaths and that likely is putting more pressure on the government to act, regardless of how safe the vaccine is. Personally, the Tory government has lied so much on Brexit and on the pandemic that it makes it difficult to beleave them on anything any more and that could be a major issue once we reach the people that refuse to take the vaccine. Personally, I rather wait and see, hope I don't get the virus and if I do, see if my body can deal with it and only as a last resort take the vaccine and even then, I don't think I would want to take the UK vaccine in case they've cut too many corners with god knows what side effects long term. In the end, I don't have the virus and because of that, I don't see why I should take the vaccine which would be like having an operation to fix my leg that isn't broke lol. Now I hope these vaccines are safe but considering the pressure on governments to get them approved in under a year for something that takes years, even decades, I have to wonder if it could backfire if many people get side effects or even die because of the vaccine and because of that, I would rather wait it out, hope I don't get the virus and if I do, see if my own body can deal with it before putting a vaccine in me.
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The thing is, now the cat is out of the bag, and it's firing up people's imaginations, progress on A.I. is likely going to advance a lot faster now than it's ever done, and I'm not sure most of us are aware of the massive impact this could have on our lives and the economy in a short space of time of just a decade or two. Personally, I think we're sleepwalking into it, governments are naturally very slow on these things, maybe the wake-up call will be when things go wrong and that's likely to happen because there are enough people out there that will want to abuse the tech. Problem is, we just don't know how to regulate this kind of tech without restricting its usefulness, we'll probably just take baby steps as things happen and change accordingly.
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@Tdr-jv2nc Most governments are run like that, the UK especially, but given the choice, I would trust the EU over the UK to look after me better.
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@Tdr-jv2nc It's not so much bad-mouthing the UK, I just see things for how they are and don't get blinded like so many people in seeing what they want to see because they live in that country. As for leaving, why should I? I was born in the UK and as for the country being freer, well that's debatable, if anything, we are less free since Brexit.
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@732daven That's true of any modern country but I always love the narrative the UK plays when it comes to migrants, they make it seem they are all trying to get in the UK when in reality, there's a lot more trying to get into other EU countries and it makes perfect sense because they are easier to get into. The only thing Boris has done is make a fool of the UK and it's sad that you don't see that because most of the world does.
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@thebigoriginal8607 What you on about, the UK seems desperate to get a bad deal by coming up with unrealistic demands, the UK should count themselves lucky that we got the deal we got because it could have been much worse but the sad thing is, there were better deals on the table. Beside, why would the EU give the UK the benefits of EU membership without following it's rules? it's not punishment, you left the club so you lose on the benefit, after all, if you left a jim membership, do you honestly think they would let you use their equipment? the EU isn't punishing the UK, the UK did that all to it's self. In any case, let me know when we start seeing the so called benefits of Brexit because so far we are seeing a lot of the negatives of Brexit.
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@DaveNeve No lol, I live in a Brexit region and trust me, that didn't even cross most Brexiteers minds lol. The real reason the UK left is because there's been a massive push by the right wing media and Conservative Party to push the UK out and that's been going on for decades and what's the old saying, repeat the same lie enough times, people end up buying it as truth even thought they know little about the subject, it's easy to see that with how ignorant most Brexiteers seem to be even on the basics of things on Brexit.
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@thebigoriginal8607 Free trade deal and single market/custom union are vastly different things. Besides, Norway actually has freedom of movement and real free trade with the EU but that comes at a price that Norway has to follow a lot of the rules and regulations the EU sets whiles having little to no say in making them. A free trade deal is anything but free, it's more like a quoter system in how much quantity of trade can come in and out without or with little tariffs and even then, there's still checks and paperwork, the EU single market and custom union does away with that where trade among EU members is not that different from trade among US states or different regions in the UK, there's no real restrictions or paperwork but the only way that can work, the rules and regulations have to be more or less the same among the countries, otherwise, those countries wouldn't open up so much as one country or another would abuse the situation. So don't confuse a free trade deal with the EU single market because they are vastly different and in fact, a politician from Canada once said that he would love to have the same terms the UK had with the EU whiles the UK was in the EU but that's not going to happen for Canada or any country unless they went through the same process that EU members go thought and that means a lot of the laws, rules and regulations have to be the same for it to work and what always makes me laugh about those people that want an economic only union which wouldn't work unless you have a political union keeping it all together, so basically having the same rules for all the members.
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I can see the merit of the idea, but over the longer term, it's probably a waste of money because as battery tech keeps developing, it's only a matter of time before they can have enough power to power the truck. Maybe a better solution could be having solar panels on the top and side of the trucks to give it more juice on the go and whiles parked, not sure how much energy that would deliver or if it's worthwhile, but with how cheap solar is getting, it might be a better solution, especially because of the size of trucks, they will be able to add a lot of panels on the top and both sides of the truck. With all that said, it really depends how expensive it is to have a network of power lines on the roads and if this is just for newer vehicles or if there are cheap solutions that would work on existing vehicles.
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True and even for defence as well because as good as NATO is, the countries in that are not really integrated whereas the EU, countries in that are very integrated with each other, that compels the countries in the union to come to the aid of any one of them out of self-interest whereas NATO, well it's not been tested yet.
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@terefefeyssa877 If that was true then why does the EU and US go at it with economic sanctions at times, both the EU and US have shown a lot of disagreements over the years and have hit each other accordingly. If as you say the EU is a pawn of the US, why would the US hurt it's own interest, basically, you don't know what you are talking about.
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@terefefeyssa877 Much of the media has an agenda and that is the case around the world and more so in countries that are run by dictators or authoritarian governments. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is facts, regardless of what we might think of them, Putin got himself into this mess because he isolated himself in Russia so much with so much paranoia that he didn't see what was actually going on whiles seeing threats from everywhere, inside and outside the country, that's quite common with dictators compared to democracies and hence why Putin miscalculated in Ukraine. But we get much of this in the west, you only have to look at Brexit in the UK with all the lies that were told on that from much of the right wing media or in the US when Trump was in power, again, the right wing media, I tend to find that the right wing media isn't about reporting on the news but making the news up to shape public views for their own agenda, they are probably the biggest threats to democracy and ironically, Putin took advantage of that. Democracy is only as good as the people in it, being informed with facts on what they are voting on, much of the media, right wing again likes to distort reality.
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To be fair, the UK was always very distant when it comes to the EU compared to a lot of other EU members, that doesn't mean most Europeans voters understand what party sits in what block, but I suspect it's higher than what the British knew when we were in the EU. Also, we should remember that EU and national politics are bleeding into one, it stands to reason, because both have a massive impact on our lives, so it's important for Europeans to take national and European elections serious if they want better results.
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I can already see it now, Russia builds pipelines to send gas and oil directly to China and India, naturally, China and India will demand Russia pays for it all, after all, Russia desperately needs this, whiles all that goes on, the EU and US will wait till Russia spends billions doing all that works and then get really tough on China and India to not buy from Russia, maybe even sanctions on many of their goods to reduce the benefits of buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, the idea is to get Russia to spend the maximum amount, only to cut them out at the last moment. After all, let's be blunt about all this, we don't honestly think the west is going through all this only for China and India to prop up the Russian economy do we?, no, there's going to be a lot of pressure on China and India and probably even threats if they support Russia too much and the reality is, China and India need the western markets a lot more than they need Russia, so total isolation is on it's way for Russia and that's only going to get a lot worse on Russia once EU nations have diversified enough away from Russia for them to really get tough on Russia. The problem now for Russia is, even if the war was to stop or Putin gets deposed, it's highly unlikely that EU countries will buy oil and gas from Russia after everything that has gone on, at least not in the same amount they have been doing, there won't be any political or public support to go that route any more, Russia has lost these markets long term and for good reason, if a suppler was to threaten you, what are you going to do? You're going to look for alternatives, and that is what Europe is doing. This was a massive miscalculation from Putin that is weakening Russia as a political power, weakening the economy whiles also isolating the country, what a blunder from a man that likes to think he's smart. As for the pain a lot of the world is facing, that's short term of about 2 or 3 years before the markets settle down and they adapt, the damage to Russia is long term and in the process, this could start a revolution in alternative and renewable energy deployment and development over the next decade.
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It's hard to compare this to past events because we've never shut down the entire economy and more so on a global scale so we have nothing from the past to compare this too. What we do know is that people are not working, governments are getting very little in the ways of taxes, debts are going through the roof whiles the government is having to pay to keep everything a float, this is unheard of in any part of our history on this scale so there is no way any of us can predict what impact this will have on the world economy and our lives and worse yet, the longer it goes on, the worse this is likely to get. But on the silver lining front, this virus could get a lot of us to change course of how things go, at a social level, political level and economic level so as the saying goes, don't let a disaster go to waste, so even thought we are likely going to get some hard times after this, a lot of good could come of it.
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What the heck was he thinking about flying back into Russia after making such a threat to Putin? Dictators rarely take these threats likely and he should have known better that Putin was gunning for him, he likely was buying his time to take him out. The moment Prigozhin made that kind of threat against Putin, he had two choices, either follow through with it or defect away from Russia, going back into Russia when he must have known what kind of man Putin is, was crazy. On the plus side, this shows the world what kind of a man Putin is, he'll take out any opposition in Russia or out of Russia if they get in his way, the Russian people need to wake up that they are being used by him and if any of them get in the way of him, he wouldn't hesitate in taking them out, unless there is enough numbers to overthrow Putin, and at the end of the day, the Russian people have themselves to blame here, they allowed him into power, they allowed Putin to gain this level of power. It's also clear that Putin fears the Russian people, if they actually stand up against then clown, this situation could get resolved quite quick, if they don't, it's the Russian people the most that will pay the highest price as sanctions really start to bite into the economy and being passive about something doesn't do them any favours, Putin wants support or passive behaver from the Russian people, he doesn't want them to stand up to him, and it's also the reason the west is targeting the Russian economy, they know that to target Putin, you have to target the Russian economy, it takes much longer to do but overtime it continues to cripple the economy like sanctions have done in the past.
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Hopefully? lol, is that all you've got, hope, unicorns, cake?, what about facts?, people like you have thought the EU would collapse decades ago and yet here it still is. The reason the leave side are losing this debate is because they don't deal with facts, almost everything is hope things turn out this way but with no real plan on how Brexit is going to work out. Two years in and the leave side still can't show us a plan that works for the UK without harming our intrest which is quite shocking really, it's also the reason why the remainers are slowly chipping away at Brexit and pushing the UK to a very soft Brexit.
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Probably won't hurt the EU at all, they don't really have the power in these areas, the members are the issues that some want to ban, some don't, I suspect if the EU had its way, they would want to ban oil and gas but politically speaking, that's not possible because of a few members. Longer term, this could really benefit the EU, it's showing why we need to stick together, it's also very likely the real starting point in truly going to alternative energy sources and not foot dragging. In other words, the longer the fossil industry keeps the prices high, the more damage they'll likely do to themselves, and it might be too late for them already because now energy is a security issue that many countries are going to want to generate it back home.
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Why would they do such a stupid thing like that? if anything, it should be the other way around because the damage is short term to the EU whereas the damage to Russia is long term. We're talking about Russia losing access to one of the richest markets in the world right on its door step, on top of that, the EU and US are actively isolating Russia from much of the world. It would be crazy of the EU to do as you suggest and the moment Putin used energy as a weapon, he lost access to hundreds of billions in revenue from the EU market every year, whiles at the same time, enriching the rival's energy sectors of Russia, after all, there's a big void to fill in the EU market, other countries around the world are licking their lips in wanting to get into that, in other words, Russia's lost is someone else's gain. The fact of the matter is, the EU market is too big to fail and because of that, other countries will swoop in and take the profits that were going to Russia, in other words, there is a massive opening for other fossil producing nations if they secure energy contracts with the EU and we're talking in the hundreds of billions per year and who ever secures those contracts early on are the real lucky ones because these contracts tend to be long term of like 10 years, that's a lot of revenue over that time, so a lot of these others countries are thanking Putin for being an idiot and opening up that energy market lol.
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@alexdutier That's kinda true but NATO is also a big reason why the EU countries don't build a single EU military, so NATO isn't really doing us any favours, it's actually holding us back and you have to wonder if the EU had a single military and one voice, would Russia have invaded Ukraine? Probably not because I doubt the EU would want a war zone on its door step. The biggest weakness of the EU and its members is that it's got 27 different voice, Putin knows this and took advantage of that and the irony is, Putin is doing the EU a massive favour here, more countries want to join the EU and NATO, there's real talk of treaty change in the EU with integration on the table and Putin is showing why the EU needs to start speaking with one voice.
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The UK can reject all it wants, the reality is, the EU is calling the shots, we saw that throughout Brexit and we are seeing it now. But seriously, how many times are you guys going to keep peddling the same BS on the EU, even a lot of the British public are starting to turn against you lol. In the end, the Brexiteers keep waffling on what they want, they keep lying on what they can give, those lies are catching up to them that public views are becoming more favourable in the UK on the EU, so keep rolling on guys with your BS, you're actually turning the British public into becoming more EU, which could eventually lead to the UK rejoining the EU lol. But seriously, you guys fucked up majorly on how you wanted the EU to be seen, now that we are not in the EU, pinning all the wrongs in the UK on the EU isn't working any more, in fact, more Brits are starting to realise that the EU wasn't the problem after all and that the real problem is much closer to home, by keep peddling your lies about the EU, if you're not careful, you guys could end up being the cause of why we end up rejoining the EU, and all because you couldn't deliver on the lies you lot kept peddling, so I insist, keep peddling all your lies, you're turning public opinion in favour of the EU, you guys have already scared off most EU countries from wanting to follow your lead in leaving the EU, now you're turning the British public in favour of the EU. So guys, anyone want to take bets on when the UK will rejoin the EU? I reckon around 2045, reason being is that there's no way in hell the EU and it's members will allow us to rejoin for at least 2 or 3 decades with you loons around, they are going to wait until you more or less wipe yourselves out with all the BS you keep peddling, which is far less effective on the outside of the EU, hence why public views are turning against you, and the more you keep pushing without any major improvements to the UK, the more you're likely to lose, so as I said before, keep doing as you're doing lol.
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@lucadesanctis563 Far left or far right are just as bad as each other, extream views that are not really shared by the majority, they rarely compromise on policy areas and hard to work with across parties. Also let's be blunt about this, the far right are not doing good because they are doing anything special, they are doing good because the mainstream are messing up by not listening to the concerns of the public, especially on the economy and cost of living, but I suspect the majority of us don't want far left or right or politics, but we do want to wake the mainstream parties up to start listening to the concerns of the people, in other words, if the mainstream parties want to wipe out the far right, then start delivering on the concerns the people have, if they don't, the far right will continue to rise until it gets to dangerous level that could be bad for us all. Also, have you noticed how Trump thought he was doing well to win the election? All of a sudden, sleepy Joe backs out of the race with Harris likely to be the main runner and Trump's popularity starts to decline, my point being, not many want Trump as president over there, but when you look at the alternatives like sleepy Joe, it give Trump a much better chance of winning, now that he's out of the race, Trump chances of winning the election are much weaker now, it's the same with the far right in Europe, they are not doing good because of their policies, they are doing good because the mainstream have been doing bad, so it's up to the mainstream to get their act together.
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@edsiles4297 Clearly opportunistic, he went where the wind was going and said what he thinks the people wanted to hear, basically anything to get into power. Boris Johnson is the same, swinging from being pro to Eurosceptic on the EU depending on the mood of the British people, basically, he more or less said what he thinks the Brexiteers wanted to hear to get into power and getting into power was his real agenda, I doubt he cared about Brexit one way or the other but he saw an opening to power and took it, history has shown many times are leaders do this.
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I do love how some people are letting rampant paranoia get the better of them and not just seeing the good in things, the truth is, we do need to cooperate on this because we're not going to get to a sense of normal until we get rid of this virus globally and that means a lot of developing countries are going to need a lot of help from the developed countries. It's a good thing it's the Europeans pushing this because if there are any kind of powers that would share this without trying to profit on the vaccine, I trust the Europeans then many of the others, especially others like the US with Trump in power and it's a good thing they are looking at the big picture and not just at a national level, we could be talking 2 to 3 years before things really become normal around the world and that matters to us all because it will slow down our recovery, so cooperation is needed. As for the ones that are letting rampant paranoia get the best of themselves, they are the ones making things worse for themselves as they'll find out in about a year from now, especially in the US, the actions from the government is shocking in what they are doing and that's likely going to have a very high price on Americans going forward once the dust settles.
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@canzuk6621 Actually I was meant to say they rarely get it wrong when the margins are big, if it's close they've been getting it wrong but the polls for Scotland are massive that it's unlikely they've got it wrong there, they usually only get it wrong by a few percentage point and going on the polls in Scotland, that would be a easy win for independence, hence the rush to have a vote.
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@canzuk6621 Scotland doesn't need permission from Boris on this, Scotland can simply have an advisor vote a bit like we did with Brexit and if the numbers are clearly in favour of leaving the UK, good luck to the UK government in trying to stop that. Beside, tactically speaking, it would be a bad move for the UK government to not give them that vote as that would likely get more Scots to vote to leave if they feel the UK is dictating things to them, best thing they can do is give them a vote and make a case on why they should stay but this government isn't that bright and will likely use hardline tactics on them which will likely backfire. Anyway, the reason Scotland deserves a vote is because they voted to stay in the EU whiles the England part of the union voted to leave, a lot has changed over the last few years that another vote is warranted, a lot was promised on Brexit that isn't being delivered and that is playing right into the hands of the Scots that want to leave the UK union. I suspect a vote will happen either late next year or early the year after depending on if we sort this virus out, Scotland will likely want to wait to allow the damage of Brexit to really kick in as that is likely going to make it easier to win the vote. Now normally I would agree with you in the once in a lifetime vote but Brexit was a right shit show with so many lies that it's not as clear cut as Brexiteers want, chances are, Brexit is going to rage on years after Brexit is done, especially if living standards take a hit, in other words, getting out of the EU is the easy part for the Brexiteers, the hard part is making a success of it and that doesn't look good so far.
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@canzuk6621 Maybe so but so much has happened over the last 4 years and polls are showing close to 60% of scots wanting to leave the UK, whatever you might think of polls, they rarely get it wrong by that margin so those numbers are very alarming and that could get worse once we start to feel the impact of Brexit at a personal level. But in the end, what's really playing into the hands of the independence movement in Scotland is that Northern Ireland are more or less following the rules of the EU and Scotland just recently passed a law to mirror a lot of EU rules overtime, it's clear to see that they could end up diverging away from the rest of the UK or more likely, it puts a lot of pressure on the rest of the UK to mirror a lot of the rules of the EU, in a sense, we are becoming rule takers without any say and that explains why the EU seems so happy about this deal, they more or less got what they wanted from us. As for Wales, they voted for Brexit so it will be a tougher sell for them to break away from the rest of the UK, not to mention that they are closer to the rest of England but it could happen there as well but it seems unlikely any time soon.
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@alanmcgowan3457 The EU would likely help on that and beside, the population of Northern Ireland is quite small so it shouldn't be much of a problem absorbing them, especially with EU help. The real threat is Scotland for now but Northern Ireland could follow shortly afterwards, especially because the rule set in both Northern Ireland and Scotland are likely to be closer to the EU than the rest of the UK if the UK tries to diverge too much from EU norms. Anyway, the next 5 years are going to be very interesting.
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@canzuk6621 We're not done yet lol, in fact, it looks like we might be just starting, think about it, Scotland and Northern Ireland are more or less mirroring EU rules, the EU has full access to our waters for 5.5 years, likely to be extended at the time and more importantly is the concession the UK government ended up making in having such open trade with the EU, in other words, we more or less have to follow a lot of their rules without having a say in making them to have such access to the market. Brexiteers have been sold down the rival that the smarter Brexiteers can see that lol, it's no wonder the EU seems over the moon on this.
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@kamanashiskar9203 Spain can do a lot and now with EU backing, I think it could be only a matter of time before we see joint ownership of Gibraltar. Or lets put it another way, Hong Kong was given away to China and the value of Hong Kong is far higher to the UK than Gibraltar is, the UK won't want to lose it so they'll likely make a deal with Spain on it, either way, Spain are in a much better bargaining position now thanks to Brexit, made all the worse because Gibraltar is very dependent on Spain for trade and workers.
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@kamanashiskar9203 I'm sure they will but pressure does wonders in the art of negotiating, after all, do you think the UK wanted to give Hong Kong to China? Especially as the value of that is far higher than Gibraltar is. Now don't get me wrong, the UK won't want to give up Gibraltar and maybe the best they can hope for is joint ownership of the island, this is also not the only thing that's likely going to get contested, Argentina could very well make a play for the Falkland island, with Brexit, many will smell weakness from the UK and will take advantage of it, especially now they know the EU members won't help us and the US under Biden won't care as he's more interested in repairing ties with the EU. In any case, if any of these moves play out, it won't happen overnight as they know they've got all the time in the world to play on this as the EU is likely only going to get stronger whiles the UK gets weaker, heck it wouldn't even surprise me if Russia helps Argentina out as they don't like the UK.
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@alantan9863 The idea that the UK would use gunboat was laughable to most never mind nukes lol, still it's going to be interesting to see when Spain makes a move on Gibraltar now that they know they have a much stronger hand and likely have EU backing on that whereas when the UK was part of the EU, the EU stayed out of it whereas now they'll likely do the bidding of it's member, in this case, Spain.
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@shihtzu291 Really, so Margaret Thatcher didn't ask military adviser on if the UK could hold onto Hong Kong if a military conflict broke out? I remember it at the time and the pressure China was putting on the UK to hand over Hong Kong, I also remember how they were not happy about it at the time, especially the royals. So the real question is, what's next, Gibraltar? Falkland Island? with Gibraltar, Spain all of a sudden has a much stronger hand as the EU would likely back Spain if they put a lot of pressure on the UK, as for the Falkland Island, well Argentina can buy their time on that one, heck even the Russians would help them out on that, many countries around the world will smell weakness from the UK and could take advantage of them and worse of all, we don't have the EU to help us out and have a US with Biden that is more interested in repairing ties with the EU than getting into bed with the UK which he sees Brexit in the same light as Trump.
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@shihtzu291 Now now, put your toys back in your pram, I know you don't like what I say so you say you don't want to waste your time on it which usually translates into not being able to argue the case at hand, that's a very Brexiteer thing to do. But really, do your research.
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@shihtzu291 Why should I fight for a country? that reminds me of the Iraqi war where many did fight even thought it wasn't for a just cause, if I'm going to fight for something, it's going to be something that is right and not for a country based on bad policies, I'll leave that for the mugs out there. Why would I want to piss on Britain? I'm British, born and breed here and living all my life here, but in any case, I'm not going to lower my intelligence because some in the media and government wants us to be stupid, it's always best to have critical thinking, something Brexiteers do a poor job on, hence their position in life. As for respect, well respect is earned, both the UK with Brexit and the handling of it and the US with Trump has lost a lot of respect from many around the world, respect is not automatic or given because of past achievements, it's earned.
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@shihtzu291 You want to know something funny, I did consider joining the military when I was a kid but changed my mind once I found out they could send you to war even in wars you don't beleave in, if I did join, I would have been in Afghanistan or Iraq, 2 wars I didn't beleave in so I dodge a bullet there. The 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York were a very different thing then invading Iraq and Afghanistan, most of the British people at the time didn't approve of those actions and it ended up being the downfall of Tony Blair. Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem defending my own country for the right reasons but I'm not going to be a mug and do the bidding of the Americans in an unjust war, beside, have you ever wondered why they force people into those wars that have signed up to the military? because it's much easier to do that then to win those troops over in a just war, basically, they want mugs or if you prefer, cannon fodder.
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@vodkabullet4066 It wouldn't be Spain vs the UK, it would be Spain with EU backing vs the UK and you can bet the EU would back Spain with how the UK has been with the EU over the last 4 years.
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@vodkabullet4066 It's hard to say, but I think things are going to get ugly with Scotland and maybe Northern Ireland and if they do pull out of the UK, it will very likely be within 5 years.
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@shihtzu291 Not saying it was, but Britain didn't want any part of it, there was even mass protest against it at the time with around 70% of the public against it but it happened regardless. It's one thing to go after the terrorist on 9/11, it's another to invade Iraq and Afghanistan which Iraq had nothing to do with it but they came up with some crap about WMD which they are still supposedly looking for and you want me to be a mug and fight for that? Don't get me wrong, I will fight for the right cause but I'm not going to fight to enrich some elites which is really what that was all about. Now don't get me wrong, I would love to see liberal democracy cleans up the world from countries that are in war or under dictatorships and that's a cause I would support, but lets not kid ourselves, western governments are quite happy to support those dictators if it suits their agenda, they do it all the time and in that sense, I would have joined the army if I had the choice in choosing a just war and not being forced into any wars which half the time are designed to enrich the elites.
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@shihtzu291 The Afghanistan war was more just I'll agree but they only really went in because of the trigger of 9/11 and I'm not asking you to care what I think, I'm simply saying, I ain't being a mug.
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@JackTheSlayer-ok5eq I remember reading up a few years ago that the UK didn't want to give Hong Kong away and was even willing to go to war over it, during the Margaret Thatcher days, she even asked if the UK could take on China's military which ended up being a resounding no so the UK when for the next tactic of delay with the intention of delaying all the time but China didn't play ball and only allowed the UK to delay till 1997. You have to wonder, if the UK had to give up Hong Kong, it wouldn't take much of a push for the UK to have to give up Gibraltar or the Falkland Island as Hong Kong is worth way more than those are.
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@JackTheSlayer-ok5eq True Spain doesn't have nukes but that's by choice, they are advanced enough that if they wanted nukes, they would build them but for now, there's little to no reason to do so. What we should remember about Gibraltar and Spain is that Spain is an EU member and it's the task for the EU to do the bidding of it's members and protect the interest of it's members, whiles the UK was an EU member, the EU stayed out of it and was neutral on that, now the UK has Brexit, that changes the dynamics in favour of Spain. That doesn't mean they'll attack of anything like that, they don't have too, they can put a lot of political and economic pressure, knowing the EU will likely have their backs, sooner or later that could push the UK into either giving it up or more likely, joint ownership of Gibraltar. That's not the only ones that could be at risk, the Falkland Island could be as Argentina might fancy their chances on that as now the UK doesn't have the EU backing, the US likely doesn't care either way and the UK isn't on good terms with the likes of Russia which could help Argentina out. When the UK was an EU member, we was untouchable, no country was really going to mess with an EU member knowing what that could mean but now the UK out of the EU is in a much weaker and more vulnerable position that many around the world will take advantage of in time but most will likely wait till the UK declines some more, some at least a decade off before anything major happens.
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@JackTheSlayer-ok5eq Don't worry about it, I'm usually slower when it comes to replying lol. The EU isn't a military defence pact yet but it's clear they are moving in that direction, NATO is good for what it is but it's too centralized around American interest and beside, there's nothing stopping a EU military being part of NATO, in fact, it would actually be a lot more useful in helping the US out around the world. The EU would never just stop trading with the UK, economic war fair doesn't work that way any more, the EU will change the rules that favour it's self at the expense of the UK, basically, there are many ways to skin a cat and there is little the UK can do to stop the EU from doing it as they are a lot bigger. The sad reality is, the UK hasn't made any friends in the EU or it's members, if they get tough with the UK, there's not much the UK can do apart from complain but considering the UK is making it easy for the EU to get tough and tough by legal means, it's not looking good for the UK and I don't think things are going to settle until the Tories are out of power because they are the problem.
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@geox8485 For now but look at the worry going on from DUP supporters in Northern Ireland, what do you think is going on there? They know that the deal the UK signed with the EU is pulling Northern Ireland closer to the Republic and by extension, closer to the EU, give that time and it's going to be easier for Northern Ireland to leave the UK and become part of the Republic. Gibraltar is in the same boat where it's interest are being tied to Spain and the EU, again, give that time and that will change views of the people in that region, especially when it comes to economic matters. In any case, the EU played a blinder with the deal it signed, the UK fell right into it and now the UK doesn't know what to do because it can't renegotiate unless the EU says so and they are not likely going to do so shortly after it was signed, basically, the EU has the UK exactly where they wanted them and now it's just starting to dawn on the UK how bad the deal is for us, in the sense that it's creating more division in the UK and friction among it's members.
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@geox8485 From the research I've done, most don't care apart from DUP supporters which is a small percentage but among the young generation, there seems to be more support for rejoining the Republic and it seems to be growing, Brexit is likely helping that too. If you look at standards of living, Northern Ireland has a GDP per capita 3 times lower than the Republic and it's very low compared to England, Scotland and Wales, if I was Irish living in Northern Ireland, I would be thinking, what on earth is the UK union doing to Northern Ireland. Think about it, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do worse them almost all small modern European countries in the west or in the EU, people should be asking why are these countries performing so poorly compared to other western European countries? could it be the UK union is holding them back? who knows but it doesn't look good for the UK for them to be performing so bad. As for Gibraltar, they will do what's in their own self-interest, like it or not, trade with Spain and the rest of the EU is going to be very important to them and now the UK is out of the EU, that could pull Gibraltar further away from the UK just like it's doing with Northern Ireland and that will change public views on this.
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@geox8485 Houses are usually always expensive in countries with limited land mass and that are rich and beside, I've been to Northern Ireland and the Republic, Northern Ireland is quite poor in comparison and you see that with the towns, too many are run down. As for Gibraltar, it's too early to say but they are being pulled away by trade thanks to Brexit in the same way that Northern Ireland is being pulled away from the UK because of Brexit, that in time pushes their interest more in line with the Republic of Ireland and Spain, hence why the DUP is so worried in Northern Ireland. In any case, it will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next 5 or 10 years because almost all the predictions the Brexiteers said have not come true whereas a lot of the ones remainders said are but got dismissed as project fear, in fact, many in the UK thought the EU would fall apart without the UK, it's looking more like the UK is at risk of that. It all boils down to people seeing what they want to see and not seeing how things are, hence why the EU got by far a better deal out of Brexit and why the UK side is constantly complaining about this so called great deal they signed.
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@geox8485 With Gibraltar I agree, that will take some time if it ever happened because the UK might be back in the EU by then lol. Northern Ireland is a different story, among the younger people, there is a lot less opposition to unification with the Republic, thanks to Brexit, now there is a lot of economic sense in doing so. As for Scotland, they don't trust the English and Brexit doesn't help on that, then throw in the pandemic which is going to be costly for many years, that will likely play into the hands that want independence in Scotland and Northern Ireland and it might even with some EU members but it's unlikely with them because, what's the alternative? Scotland and Northern Ireland have a clear alternative, EU members don't.
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@martinrye712 Depends who you ask, most I've seen shows more support for independence in Scotland with support growing for that moving in Northern Ireland to rejoin the Republic, hence the DUP going ape lately. Beside, polls have not been very accurate the last few years, hence Breexit. The irony is, the longer this Tory government is in power, the more likely Scotland and Northern Ireland will leave, they are basically making the situation worse by keeping divisions going in the UK, keeping the war going with the EU to try and pin the Brexit blame on them for all the mess the Tories are doing in the UK and it gets even better now the Tories have lied about levelling up the North with that train expansion, who didn't see that coming? This is the Tories we are talking about, expecting them to care for the north when it's mostly London that matters to them will be the day, the irony is, the ones that put them into power are the ones that are being shitted on and rightly so and with any luck, lets hope that continues, maybe then those people might learn a few things, either way, those people are playing perfectly into the hands of the independence movement and I have to say, it's shocking how stupid the DUP have been, I mean really, did they not see it coming? lol.
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@martinrye712 It doesn't work that way and it's wouldn't be by force, it will likely be by economics, beside, I don't think Spain will get Gibraltar outright but there's a fair chance that the UK and Spain could get joint ownership of it and clearly the EU will be on the side of one of it's members, now it's just a matter of when it happens and what form it takes but the UK isn't in a good position to defend it both politically and economically. Political pressure from around the world, really, most of the world don't care about the UK and are not going to come to the aid of the UK over such a small island, especially with how the UK has been the last few years, the US won't care and will want friendlier relations with the EU to keep China in check, the UK is pretty much on their own on that one. Now the real question is if Argentina makes a play for the Falkland Islands, they likely fancy their chances now the UK is a lot more isolated, the US didn't want to help decades ago when that happened and it ended up being the French helping the UK out on that at the time, good luck getting their help this time. The truth is, the UK has not conducted themselves in a good way that very few countries will come to the aid of the UK now, the UK wanted to go it's own way, wanted independence, that pretty much what is happening but not just from the EU but pretty much the world as a lot of countries are seeing weakness in the UK which many have or will take advantage off.
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@martinrye712 I listen to any opinions if it makes sense, unfortunately, most don't, basically, most see what they want to see and not what is, hence why what we are seeing with Brexit is happening which is basically the EU has a far better deal over the UK then the other way around, hence the UK government keep getting desperate to change the deal, the truth is, the EU always had the better hand and still does. The real question is, how much will the Tories sink the country before the Brexiteers realise they've been had, to get a bit of an idea on that, look at that train expansion in the north or lack off, that's Tory 101, use the north to get what they want which was Brexit then discard them after, you have to wonder what made the Brexiteers think the Tories cared about their interest when we've had decades of them showing the opposites, so yeah, I am smug about that lol.
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@martinrye712 It's not much of a democracy if the Conservatives and Labour Party are our only options, maybe we need to grow a spine in the UK are start voting differently, after all, look what happened in France with Macron, is party has never been in power until now and in fact, I don't think they even existed 10 years ago, if they can vote for change, so can we. That's the problem with the UK and US, the system is rigged in favour of the two main parties that make it difficult or almost impossible for others to become elected, that alone should be a good enough reason for Scotland and Northern Ireland to want to leave the UK to have a proper democracy where our votes actually count.
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@martinrye712 The US wouldn't give the green light but they likely wouldn't really say anything on the subject because they don't care unless it's in their interest, in fact, if it weakens the UK, they might actually want that so the UK is more under their thumb. But my main point is that the UK is in a much weaker position thanks to Brexit and others might take advantage of that knowing the Europeans won't likely come to the UK's aid and they likely know the US won't care. This could also be a lot worse for the UK if the UK loses Scotland and Northern Ireland, which is a real possibility thanks to Brexit.
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I don't think the Dollar is under threat just yet, but I do feel that pressure will build on it in the future, basically, I highly doubt the US will be able to maintain its position in the world as the rest of the world is modernising. But clearly China isn't the solution, they are not trusted by a lot of the worked and feared by some, another solution is needed, maybe a basket of currencies like the Euro, Dollar, Yen and so on could become the international standard of a reserve currency in the future, but honestly, with the Euro being around and a rising Asia, it's likely going to be harder for the US to hold onto it's position, the question is, how and when does the change come about.
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We don't really know what the will of the people really is, but say what you want about the remainers, at least they are willing to give the publc another say on Brexit, can you say the same?, in any case, it's really sad that the only arguement leavers seem to have left is will of the people, things must be really getting bad for them if they can't argue the merits of why Brexit would be good for the UK and people.
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Well Nigal Farage said he would fight for another vote if the leave side lost so it's only fair, beside, whats it really matter, if the British people truly want to leave as some like to think, having another vote or even 100 wont change that, in fact it would comfirm it which would mean the remain side wouldn't have a leg to stand on after that, but the truth is, a lot of us sense that the British people either don't want to leave the EU now or want a very soft Brexit after all the lies from the leave side have been exposed and Brexit is far more clear to us as being a lose and not a gain for us. Beside, as Davis said once, a democracry that can't change it's mind isn't a democracry anymore, this coming from the leavers camp, Brexit can always been turned around or softern if the people want it to be, the question is what are the British people thinking on Brexit after everything we know now. Either way, none of this would be a problem if the vote wasn't so close, it being close also meant it could go either way with margin of errors swinging both ways by about 5%, in other words, the vote wasn't clear enough. As for the EU flag waving, can't really blame them, I know I'm a Brit and all that but after seeing everything I've seen off our own goverment over the last two years, I have more faith in the EU doing right by us then our own goverment, shocking I can say that but I mean really, look at our own goverment over the last two years, I wouldn't trust them on anything to do right by the British people, so yes I can understand the EU flag waving, this isn't about being unpatriotic but it's about doing the right thing. The leave side on the other hand are doing the wrong thing, they won the vote by a small marging based on countless lies and then they start to change the arguement from everyone voting to leave the single market and custom union when many leavers thought we would stay in one or both of them, then we have the leavers that are trying to sideline the courts, lords, commons and even the public now simply because they are saying things the leavers don't want to hear, I thought Brexit was about taking back control? it doesn't look like it to me with how our entire political system is trying to be sidelined by a handful of ministers, so where is the democrarcy in all that?, there is only one way to solve this mess and thats another vote.
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This is why Ukraine is more interested in joining the EU over NATO, the thing is with NATO is that it's around mostly to protect and project US interest around Europe but it's kinda limited in what it can do for European members that are in it. The EU is quite different in the sense of integration and geopolitics, basically, EU members are a lot more integrated into each other that makes it much more difficult and costly on each other when it comes to war among them, that is also the case for an outside invader on an EU member, it was in fact the idea of the EU when they created the Coal and Steel Community shortly after the second world war to make it much harder for its members to go to war with each other, the impact is the same for any country attacking an EU member, it truly is, an attack on one is an attack on all, that is something that's not been tested with NATO and in truth, very little holds NATO together unlike the EU. As for the geopolitical situation, well the US rarely cares about things outside it's boarder and is likely using the situation with Putin and Ukraine to do a lot of damage to Russia, the EU on the other hand wants to expand and doesn't want a war on it's border, that likely makes them more caring for what's going on in Ukraine and Europeans overall tend to care more about the outside world than Americans do at the best of times. The only problem for the EU is that they don's speak with one voice in key areas like military, security and energy, I have a feeling that the war in Ukraine could have been prevented if the EU members pooled resources together into a single military, the EU could have put around 60,000 troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers which likely would have been enough for Putin to not invade, because it's one thing to attack Ukraine, which is a poor country even by Poland standards, it's another to attack if there is a powerful military in the region. Now the US could have done the same thing but the US rarely cares about things outside it's boarder unless it's in self-interest, the EU on the other hand highly likely wouldn't want a war zone on its boarder. So yeah, as good as NATO is, the Europeans in the EU need to get its act together and start pooling resources together into a single military if they really want to protect their interest, after all, Putin invaded Ukraine in part because he sees the west as weak and divided, so this isn't about Europeans being more caring but more about them not wanting a war zone on its door step which if they spoke as one with its own military, this war could have been prevented before it started and what Putin is doing in Ukraine is a major wake-up call for Europeans that they need to band together, the EU is the perfect tool to do that through. Also, let's be blunt about this, being neutral is an easy way out of letting wars happen, if too many countries did that, there would be little to stop the likes of Russia, China and many others going on a rampage around the world, it's the chicken way out. With that said, the military should be used mostly for defensive purposes in most cases, something the US rarely does, this is where the EU if the members get their act together could be a game changer, but in any case, being neutral isn't the solution when we've got hostile powers like China and power, in fact that would weaken us all a lot.
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@lgbtskylar740 If this is their best, I love to know what their worse is, this government is a disaster on almost everything it touches and mostly because it lies about everything, like many have said here, it's shocking that so many voted for these clowns and it does make me wonder if Scotland and Northern Ireland would be better off with independence just to get away from these clowns we keep electing. It's sad but we need to face reality, these governments are a reflection of public thinking and that is where the real problem is.
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@TONY DPHAX KING This is a big test for us all and not just Americans, the hardship ahead is going to be pretty big but it does seem a lot worse for the US because of government policies and I don't think many people are aware of the pain that is ahead but we will be, either over the next few months or next year but all this printing on money is going to be paid back by the tax payers and in the US at least, that means the poor and middle classes paying the highest price, this can drag on for many years. A revolution isn't a bad thing if it's for a good reason and maybe that is what is needed because the system is broken, the elites have too much power, corporations feel they can get away with anything, governments don't really listen to the people any more unless it's an election year or the people rise up in protest, the system is broken and the sooner we learn that, the better.
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What a mess the Brexiteers in the ERG have done by trying to kick May out a few months back when now is when they need that card the most and funny of all is that they can't use that card again till the end of the year when it's too late. In the mean time, the British people get a soft Brexit vote by the European elections and we'll get an idea of what the British people really think on Brexit and not what the Brexiteers want us to think, they must fear this big time because they've been trying to block the public having a say on Brexit since the last vote 3 years ago. I suspect with the European elections that turnout will be higher then normal because this is the only voice the British people have had on Brexit since this shambles started to go south and if the British people turn out in numbers and vote for pro EU parties, that will send a powerful message to our goverment that they can't ignore because it will more or less be saying Brexit isn't the will of the people like our goverment is saying, thats what the Brexiteers really fear, people power.
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There's not really much Putin can do, any EU or NATO country are well protected, and it would be crazy for Putin to think about attack any one of them as that would escalate things rapidly and not in Russia's favour. In my view, Ukraine should be given a lot more means to defend it's country and to kick Russia out of Ukraine, if that means Ukraine has to attack sites on the Ukraine boarder in Russia, so be it, Putin can make all the threats he wants but at the end of the day, he started this war, Ukraine has every right to retaliate however it sees fit to defend it's self, but Ukraine needs more arms from the west to do so.
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Russia has become a big joke in the west over the last year and mainly because of how weak they've shown themselves to be in Ukraine. Regardless of what some might say, this has been massively damaging to Russia's credibility and capabilities that now Russia is being seen as weak compared to the west and its actions continue to show that. Basically, many might have thought Russia was a superpower before the war, now most don't think that and truth be told, it wasn't one even before the war, the Russian economy is too small to really be a threat to western powers and it's not like Russia isn't trying to be a threat, Putin is throwing almost everything including the kitchen sink to get the west to not support Ukraine and yet it seems to have little impact, it's desperate from Russia and tells us how the west really sees Russia, as a mild threat but nothing more. The truth be told, China is probably the real threat and mainly because it has the economy and population to back it up unlike Russia but China also has a lot more to lose by getting too hostile so things will likely stabilise in that area.
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Console gamers are the ones worse off because they are forced with all this garbage, PC gamers at least have many options to switch a lot of this garbage off for a cleaner image at the expense of needing more power, that is usually done officially in the game or by mods that alter the game, either way, the PC is the way forward for most games because of how much cleaner it can be, console gamers are getting a massive raw deal and it seems to be getting worse as time goes on. On the plus side, I mostly like playing games that are a few years old, usually when they go on sale really cheap, the advantage of that is that the games are patched up and driver ready for better performance and fewer bugs, the game cost a fraction of the release cost and with mods, it's usually quite easy to clean up the garbage on the image for most games, assuming the game it's self doesn't allow an easy way to do it, the other advantage, I don't have to be on the bleeding edge of hardware and I'm quite happy to stick a little behind the curve, it's cheaper and better overall once games are patched and driver ready and it's a heck of a lot cheaper whiles not feeling like I'm missing out on much.
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It's long overdue, especially from the EU and the US, at the moment, they are giving them just enough to hold the line and survive but not enough to turn the tables on Russia, I think it's high time that western powers get serious and give Ukraine the means to push Russia out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea, taking Crimea back would be a powerful message to Putin and other that want to start conflicts that there is a price to pay for your actions, if all of Ukraine land is gained back including Crimea, then Putin will have lost more than he started with, that's the kind of message you have to send to these people.
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Most of which was the right wing press but goverments over time ware not much better and in truth, no one in the UK really defended the EU and corrected the bull that the euroseptics kept saying about the EU and that overtime led to so many Brits thinking a lot of thoes lies ware true when it was mostly just crap. The good news is, that has ended now, if the UK stays in the EU, the euroseptics are going to have a much tougher time of it now because they've crossed the line in being a minor pain in the arse to being a threat that needs dealing with, in other words, they are going to get counterd on pretty much every bit of bull they say about the EU from now on with facts and I also suspect with time that new laws are going to come in on the media to clean it up, that might take some time but the media are showing they have too much power over goverments and the frame of thinking of much of the public which is a threat to democracy.
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I always have my doubts on these claims, too many make these kinds of claims but a lot of time, little comes of it, or it takes forever to reach the market. For me, there are a few condition for any tech to be game changing, 1, it needs to be using materials that there is abundance of it, 2, it needs to hit the market where it's affordable by the masses, and 3, it needs to be a product that is close to getting out of the lab and onto the market, no more than 3-5 years at the most. Once those conditions are met, then we can get excited about it, until then, it might as well be a pipe dream that might happen someday out of the lab, and even, cost an arm and a leg to not really change much for the world. We hear a lot of bold claims, but a lot of them don't get released or take forever before being released or cost too much to have any real impact, it's hard to get excited about these things when there is a lot of BS going around, unless the new thing hits the market where any of us can buy at a reasonable price point.
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Highly unlikely, the irony being that the UK with Brexit has created a lot more support for the EU then before it, even in the UK, support for the EU is higher than it's been for decades. Lies can only take them so far, unless the Brexiteers actually delivered on what they promised, it was always going to backfire, the UK is worse off in so many ways since Brexit and the irony is, Brexit actually helped the EU out.
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Trump shouldn't have any allies in the EU, after all, it's easy to see what his agenda is, divide and rule, basically, he wants a weak EU or no EU at all, because it would be easier for the US to take advantage of individual EU countries compared to EU countries sticking together for their own overall interest, so let's see which countries in the EU are stupid enough to fall for that trap. Also, we are already seeing it with Trump, how he wants to give the UK a much better trade deal, that isn't with the aim of benefitting the UK, it's an aim of dividing European countries with the aim of hoping that other countries leave the EU and Trump's agenda is clear, he's going to play EU and none EU countries off each other with the aim of dividing us and weakening us, the ultimate aim, a divided EU and Europe is easier for the US to take advantage off, so lets see which countries are stupid enough to fall for Trump's trap, after all, we would have to be fools to think he cares about any interesting in European countries, especially considering he doesn't seem to care about the interest of the American people and is more interested in gaining power. If EU countries are smart, they'll stick together, if the EU and UK are smart, they won't allow Trump to divide them, this is also the case for many countries around the world which Trump will play games with to further his own interest at the expense of everyone else and you would have to be a fool to not be able to see the signs of that.
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With Russia getting more isolated, it's likely going to make them a puppet of China, that will be one hell of a knock to the pride of the Russian government and people to be a vassal of China.
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The problem I see, Israel had a right to attack Gaza when they were attacked themselves, the real issue is that Israel are taking this way too far, some would even call it genocidal, and the US shares much of the blame here by embolden Israel to feel like they can do whatever they want with no risk and I can't help but feel that the US is toning things down on Israel not out of wanting to do so but because there's so much international pressure turning on the policies that Israel is using, which kinda makes the US look bad by backing Israel on it. It really boggles my minds, how many deaths were needed before the US realised that Israel were taking this too far, or do they care at all or just reacting to international pressure, knowing that by the US backing Israel on these policies, it makes the US look bad. Either way, the US should be doing far more to get Israel in check, because it's hard for them to not share much of the responsibility when they've pumped Israel up so much that Israel feels they can get away with anything and the US will let them.
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True but it makes a lot more sense to see it as the EU as that's the rich block, most that are not in the EU are either poorer countries are very closely tied to the EU in either the single market and/or custom union that they might as well be in the EU.
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@Jackson Hughes We're European even if you're British, some British euroseptics tried to twist that into making them think they are not European, it's really sad to see how deluded some can get on that, but yeah, in or out of the EU, the UK is still European.
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I'm all for more renewable tech but I can't help but feel that over the coming decades, more and more households and businesses are going to want to go gridless, because most of us like having control over what we generate and use. With the way renewable and battery tech is developing, it's not hard to imagine over the coming decades that a lot more households will go gridless, because most of us will like to control how much we pay for our energy and being connected to the grid will always give companies an incentive to charge as much as they feel they can get away with whereas gridless could become free energy. I feel because of all this, solar power is well in the lead as it can be done on a small scale whiles generating a lot of power, wind could also be used but in a lot of ways, it's not suitable for a lot of households, solar also has the advantage of having no moving parts. Renewable energy is already a lot cheaper than fossil fuels and yet consumers don't seem to benefit from it, gridless is likely going to be the best way to control how much you spend and as the tech is continuing to get cheaper and better, as well as battery tech is getting better, I suspect most consumers will go gridless as the tech allows as that can allow free energy which I doubt being connected to the grid will as the entire grid network needs to be maintained.
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@rickducharme7429 How is that related to the debate at hand? all you've proven is that you have no argument so you deflected on other things that are not related, so good job lol.
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@rickducharme7429 What, so laughing is insecure now? lol, that's a good one, I actually understand phycology, what you are doing is deflecting because you don't have an argument to counter what was said, a lot of people that don't have an argument do one of three things, they either get angry, they either walk away or they deflect. But don't worry, you're in good company, a lot of people deflect things when it's something they don't want to hear because it doesn't fit their world view, in other words, they delude themselves in how things are.
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It depends how far it had spread in the UK by February but yeah I agree that if governments acted sooner, it likely would have saved countless lives, the lockdown likely would be shorter and it would likely be less damaging to the economy but all governments have done by waiting until it's too late is let more people die that didn't need to die and done a lot more damage to the economy and that is almost the case for all western governments so some real tough questions need answering from them, especially from the countries that got a lot of advanced notice from the likes of China and Italy.
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@xzenderx An early lockdown would have bought us more time which is key to help saving lives on this, it also likely would have meant less people getting infected by this virus, now I'm not saying it would have prevented it longer term but it very likely would have saved many lives that are being lost now. Beside, look at some of the countries that did jump on this early, the life lost is less and I don't mean just China, there are many others in Asia that are showing better results, even Germany is doing better so farm, so early measures does seems to work unless all of these countries are lying which is highly unlikely.
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@xzenderx I highly doubt that as it wouldn't make much sense to inflate the numbers as we know how easy people can panic, they are more likely to underestimate the numbers, the real question is, are some governments going out of their way to play down the numbers or is it just a lack of resources and the correct numbers have not been counted as of yet. In any case, the amount of cases of people getting infected and death rates isn't meaningless because until we get those numbers down, the economy can't really open, even if governments try to push the public back to work, a lot won't do it if they feel there is a risk to their lives so more accurate reporting is needed to get to grips with what is going on.
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@xzenderx True there is a lot of scare stories going around at the moment, you only have to look at those 5G towers being set on fire because of fake news spreading on social media sites, maybe even mainstream media as well but I've not checked. What I do know is that the case numbers and death numbers are likely to be higher and maybe a lot higher than they want us to see. I'm also starting to wonder about free speech and freedom of the press if there needs to be some accountability on that, especially with the press because in many areas, they are doing a lot of damage with what's being printed.
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@xzenderx I think the numbers will become clearer in time, especially in western countries because numbers are being reported in from many sources from hospitals, regional governments and national governments so it will be harder for them to fudge those numbers, even then I suspect the numbers are lower than they actually are, as for other countries that are not democracies, it's very likely the numbers are a lot higher in those countries then is being reported and as for developing countries, they don't have the medical equipment to cope with this so numbers will be erratic in many of those countries and I really hope the rich countries help them out because they are likely going to need all the help they can get. Even death numbers can be fudged because it's too easy for the system to tell us that someone died of the flu, cold or any other thing that shows the same signs and those numbers are not added to the death count of this virus even thought it likely was this virus that killed that person, I suspect this kind of games are happening to smooth out the numbers and make them look lower than they are, I suspect a lot of family and relatives of those people will come out public saying they suspect it was the virus that got that person and not the common flu, and we might see a lot of people come forward which will put the official numbers in doubt. In any case, I suspect all countries are going to get investigated on this with the numbers being looked at very closely to see if it all makes sense to what was going on at the time, I also suspect that many governments are going to get some tough questions on this once the dust settles because a lot of blame is going around, especially with how slow governments have been to react to this so many will want to hold them to account. I really hope that once the dust settles that we learn a lot from this and a lot of good can come out of something bad.
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@xzenderx But that's the thing, the UK was slow to react, I remember Boris joking about it almost like Trump was doing and was going on with his life as if it didn't matter, shaking hands and all that, is it any wonder he ended up catching the virus?, heck they even went with the idea of Hurd immunity, considering the virus hit the UK and US late on, we have no excuses as we saw enough advanced warning from other countries, Italy repeatedly warned us all to get ready but hardly any of us did and we paid the price for that. Lets be honest, the only reason the government changed tactics was because of public pressure, the people were taking actions in their own hands, we saw the exact same thing play out in the US, that shows a very high level of incompetents from both governments or worse, they put the economy before the well being of the people, either way, it doesn't look good for them both. The truth is, by not doing the lock down earlier, all it's done is kill more people, prolong the long down and done far more damage to the economy then needed, if we reacted to this sooner rather than later, less people would have got infected, it would have been much easier and quicker to contain and the lock down would likely be less. But we didn't handle it as bad as the US did, they've got some real problems in a few key areas, one they are doing lock downs at a state level and not country level, that's a problem because hot spots are building in different states at different speeds, in other words, even when New York gets in under control, hot spots are likely to build up else ware and it would be too easy for the virus to get back into New York, the US had either fully lock down US states where people can't come in or out or they had to lock down the entire country as painful as that might be, it was the only sure way of reducing the risk of this virus could come back but because of the way the US did things, it wouldn't surprise me if the US becomes one of the last out of this pandemic which is ironic with how desperate Trump is to open up the economy, but lets be honest, he doesn't care about lives and will try to open up the economy even if people die because of it, the problem is for Trump, the people and the states are likely not to listen to him and if he tries to force the issue, well that could backfire in so many ways.
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@xzenderx Misrepresented? and it took the government 2 days to correct something that big? don't make me laugh, that was government policy, and they would have gone through with that if the public and media didn't kick up such a fuss on it, especially considering most of the world wasn't doing that. That was one of the governments early major mistakes that got them flat-footed and wasted time we didn't have, it likely cost lives as well. Either way, many experts are predicting the UK to be one of the worse hit in Europe, now think about that for a moment, we was one of the last to get hit by this virus, there are no excuses for this government, we should have been more ready for this but it's look really bad. As you say, we are not as bad as the US, they are really messing up over there, Trumps new idea is to get people back into work as the case count and death rates is still climbing, crazy but if a few million Americans follow through on what Trump is saying, the death toll in the US could sky rocket and all because Trump is desperate to kick start the economy in time for his election bid, it's quite sickening to watch how he doesn't care about American lives and worse is how many Americans are buying into it, that alone could do massive damage to the US in leadership role around the world because the rest of the world are looking at the US and are rolling their eyes in the back of their heads, wondering, are they really that stupid. The EU does have the advantage of economy of scale when it comes to buying things and we are seeing that with how poor the UK is at sources medical equipment and I don't mind, the EU offered help to the UK 3 times and yet the UK didn't seem interested, that is a massive mistake on the UK apart that could be costly to the Brexiteers because it's putting lives at risk and if more people die in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, it wouldn't surprise me if support for rejoining the EU shoots up in the UK, it comes across as the UK government putting petty idles in front of common sense, the EU wasn't being petty and wanted to help, hence why Farage is very worried at the moment, it's a lot harder to bullshit your way past people losing their lives and that can be very costly for the Brexiteers because we all know it's that frame of thinking why the UK didn't accept help.
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@xzenderx So everyone else around the world is wrong and the UK is right, even a lot in the UK admits we were too slow on this, pretty much every press breaking each day is the government getting stick from all sides with how slow we reacted to this, and we see a lot of the same in the media in the UK and a big reason the UK is getting a lot of flack is because we had advanced warning with what we was seeing in China and Italy, the virus started out slow in the UK and US so we have no excuses for our actions and that is why our government is getting a lot of stick, with Italy, I can understand more, they were the first western country for it to really take off so you can be more forgiving with them. Beside, I was there at the time, I was looking at the numbers in other countries and looking at the numbers in the UK and US and was wondering, what the heck are our governments waiting for? lol it was crazy that people and businesses were taking action in the UK because of how incompetent our government was and in the US, state level governors took action first because of the incompetents of the US government, there are no excuses and tough questions need to be asked because you have to wonder how many lives could have been saved if they both reacted quicker. In the UK it's much worse because not only were we slow on Brexit, but now we are on this virus, it's painting a picture for the world to see how bad things have got in the UK. So you say I'm trying to spread fear by telling the truth, what an idiot you are, so you suggest I should lie because it might be more soothing for the public to accept? are you for real lol, the only thing that matters is facts, evidence, and we did poor on that in the UK, the rest, you can twist as much as you want but the government isn't going to get off the hook that easy on this one when people are losing their lives.
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@xzenderx The only protest I've seen is mostly in the US and that is likely because of the massive distrust Americans have for governments where rampant paranoia takes over common sense.
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@xzenderx You call that preparing? And even there it was way too slow as for the lockdown, I don't underestimating the negative impact of a lockdown, I'm well aware it will hit hard but then what is the alternative? We take a chance, push people back into jobs when there is a risk to their lives? I love to see some governments try that and see the results because most of the public wouldn't even listen. At the end of the day, the economy can be rebuilt, people lives can't and I know which one I would put first. You didn't disprove anything on the UK, we both know the numbers are much higher than what the government is telling us, they've been getting it in the neck for some time on that lately and why are people from care homes and other places not being counted in the numbers? You remind me of what some Brexiteers are like where the truth has little meaning and anything that is seen as scaremongering is creating fear, the truth has little meaning in that sense and you are showing those hallmarks that you care about the economy over the well-being of the people, lucky for us, even thought we did have some fanatics in government, even they are seeing sense on this virus and not because they want too but more because of fear of the wrath of the public coming down on them hard if they didn't act on this. Herd immunity, what a joke lol, I bet you supported that idea where almost all the experts around the world say that would have been a disaster for the UK if they went ahead with that, heck even Trump said it would be and that's saying a lot from him lol and this is why the UK government quickly changed tactics on that in just under 2 days because the pitch forks were coming out. By the way, it's remarkable the views some people have on peoples lives, how little they care and let rampant paranoia take over their judgements, lucky for us, the public isn't as far gone as you are.
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@xzenderx That's not preparing, that's crumbs and even after all that, the end results was pathetic when compared to a lot of Asian countries that did far better than the west did. Yep, some emergency hospitals were built when the damage was done, not very smart when it was clear we knew the virus was on it's way but we left it too late, Italy was warning everyone else and yet many western governments joked about it and you know what is really sad, if you look at the US and UK leaders, they weren't going to shut down the economy, the only reason they did is because of pressure from all sides and this likely explains why the a lot of experts expect the UK to fair the worse out of all of Europe and the US to not be much better, prepared my arse, the UK and US have become the laughing stock of the world with how poor we've done so far on this. As for protest, I should have said modern countries because in poor developing countries, their support network from the government is poor so what choice do they have, they have to get out and work but western countries, that isn't the same but then the US does have a poor support network for the people so it's more understandable. Also saying the people wouldn't listen is a weak argument from the government when it was a lot of the public that was pushing for the government to do a tighter shut down, in fact a lot of us in the UK did it before the government did and there have been a lot of calls to tighten the shut down at times because some people were taking advantage by going out a bit too much and putting peoples lives at risk. There is going to be some very interesting comparison from western countries and Asian countries after all this and it's not going to look pretty for the west because it's showing arrogance in how so many western governments tried to put the economy before the well-being of the public or worse yet, it shows the lack of trust westerners have in governments compared to Asian countries or worse than that, our lack of discipline in the west, however we look at it, we had debts coming out of our arse in the west, we've piled on a lot more now thanks to this botched up shut down whereas Asian economies for the most part are doing far better on its debts and didn't have to shut the economy down as long because they jumped on this virus early on, also, you want to see incompetents, how many westerners do you see with a mask on in public? Compare that to Asia and it's shocking. Now don't get me wrong, I don't like what I'm seeing in the west as I'm a westerner but I'm not going to bullshit myself when I know we handled this really poor and the price we are going to pay is going to be high, especially the tax payers.
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@xzenderx That video isn't credible coming from the Sun. As for 12 to 18 months on a vaccine, that is an impossible number to put on it as we assume we will have a vaccine because we are throwing money at it to develop one but we really don't know how long it will take to develop one that works effectively, it could take months, years or we might not develop one in time for it to matter any more, but I suspect because of the need, the desperation in opening up the economy, we'll likely develop one in a reasonable time but do know one thing, I wouldn't want to be one of the early test subjects because I suspect many will take risks to get to that stage because of the desperate need to open up the economy. Personally I think it's just going to run its course before we find a vaccine and can get it to enough people to really matter but finding a vaccine is still important because this virus will likely be here with us for years but in a small way. Either way, the damage is already done because even if a vaccine was found today, it would take months to get that out to all the people that need it and I'm sure we both know that even once things start to open up, things are not going to be the same as they were before this virus, borders, holidays are not likely to pick up for at least 2 years, big events likes football games, well I've already heard many saying they won't go to any of them this year no matter what the government says. Basically, even when things do return to some kind of normal, I suspect a lot of people will be playing it safe, saving money and not gathering in big numbers and that could last for around 2 years, maybe longer, hence why big sporting events next year, I'm not 100% convinced they will get the go ahead as a lot of people won't want to go so it might be televised only or the crowds will likely be a lot smaller, in any case, we are still a long way off on this virus. As for the rest of what you say, we are talking about a government that is showing very high levels of incompetents from Brexit, to the economy over the last 10 years to this virus, why on earth should we trust a thing they say when at first they wanted herd immunity? Most of the world thought the UK was crazy at the time, hence why it only took 2 days for the UK government to change its tune on that one and they've jumped from one disaster on another. Another few more suspects, the EU procurement program, considering the UK government keeps changing it's story on that, it sticks of Brexit pettiness in not wanting anything to do with the EU and that is putting peoples lives at risk in the UK, something some real tough questions on this government need to be asked. As for Boris, does anyone think he will stay away as long as he can? he must know he's going to get a lot of stick on this from so many side, his get well Boris thing will only last a week or two before the vultures go after he and you only have to look at all the others in government and the flack they are getting. So stop being an ignorant fool by reading the Sun newspaper, just bringing that up as a source told me all I needed to know. By the way, do you not think that public mood on Brexit could shift because of this virus? it's hard to say at the moment but these kinds of events can change how people think on a lot of things, especially because the older generation of people are really being let down badly with this government which was it's strong support base on Brexit, it doesn't look good for this government at the moment, hence why they seem so defensive, they know they've messed up but are trying to paint over the cracks but that won't matter to the public with peoples lives being lost and the hard times we face after all this.
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@xzenderx He's not very reliable as he's been against the EU for quite some time now so he's just using any excuse to try and pin the blame on the EU, beside a lot of the sources he credits are the right wing press, not very credible lol, you'll have to do a lot better then that. As for the UK, I even remember seeing it reported on the news stations at the time when the UK was saying they knew nothing about the EU procurement program lol, there are no excuses, the UK knew but Boris being Boris wanted nothing to do with the EU and was willing to put peoples lives on the line, you only have to look at how the UK government changed it's tune around 3 times at the time, clearly something was going on. Now your biggest fear is this, how many lives could have been saved if we accepted EU help and more importantly, why are the Tories being so careless with it's base? it doesn't seem to care about people in care homes or the older generation, a lot of which are hardcore Tory supporters and yet the Tories are dumping on them hard here. As for that it's not delivered any equipment yet, you do realize that the idea of doing it at an EU level was to reduce price and get a lot of quantity of equipment, that takes time. Beside, what was all that about with Turkey? I suspect Turkey might have had a better bid either from the US or maybe the Russians got involved, they do love sticking it to the UK, something was going on that the UK got desperate enough that it was sending it's own planes over to collect the goods. You're right we should be holding the right people to account on this and that is national leaders, the EU has very limited powers in where it can help and even much of that is channelled by the EU members so if you really want to hold anyone to account, it's the members for playing petty games and we are seeing the same thing in the US with states and the US government lol. All this mess is showing is that national leaders are doing quite poor in this crisis, they are also showing their petty nature and that is costing lives, now you don't want to realize how bad this looks for euroseptics and Brexiteers, this has exposed a massive hole in their core argument of wanting to go it alone at a national level because that has been a disaster here that is costing countless lies, good luck trying to wing that past the public because they are now seeing why we need more international cooperation, hence the need for more integration in the EU. You don't have a leg to stand on with your argument because all the complaining we are seeing in Europe is actually about solidarity, in other words, being closer together, the UK on the other hand has zero excuses left and made a right mess of this.
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@xzenderx I don't get people like you, even I saw the invite on the news stations at the time, there is no way the UK government didn't know about it at the time and beside, you can tell something stinks because the UK government changed it's story on it 3 times, it only took 2 days for it to change it once and I suspect the reason for that change is because it looked bad on the government at a time that people were dying, it looked that the government was putting petty Brexit vindictiveness before common sense and that didn't look good to the British people, especially because this virus is impacting a lot of the older generation of people which is a core of their support base on Brexit, a lot of which likely feel massively let down by this government in so many areas. So anyway, keep getting desperate with your weak e-mail argument because that isn't how governments conduct business, for one it was all over the news at the time when the government said it didn't know anything about it lol, two, the EU likely would have contacted us by phone or other officially channels, not just e-mail, what a pathetic weak argument you had there to try and deflect blame because the Tories know they messed up on that at a time that people are losing lives, those kinds of actions could be enough to swing things a lot on Brexit and that is why so much of the story from the government kept changing, it's panic. As for all the links you've shown me is showing incompetents of the UK government or worse, they didn't want help because it was coming from the EU, it's clear there was no mix up because the EU offered us help 3 times lol.
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These clowns are going to start a second wave and if history is any indicator, the second wave is usually a lot worse than the first. So did they lose their licence? I suspect so and if not then something is wrong considering the lack of respect these people are showing others.
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It depends, I think Poland might have to give up on Hungary because sooner or later, it's only a matter of time before the EU and it's members say enough is enough already and find a way to kick them both out if they don't get their act together. After all, we don't honestly think the EU and its democratic countries are going to allow authoritarian governments to stay in the EU long term do we? Sooner or later, their actions are going to end up leading to them getting the boot from the EU, maybe even from NATO in the case of Hungary. As for how to do it, well clearly as long as Poland and Hungary keep backing each other up on the veto, the EU and many of it's members will not allow other eastern European countries to join the EU, something both Poland and Hungary really want, they are the main obstacle to that, also, the EU won't expend eastward until some big reforms on the EU are done in areas of veto and majority voting, if that doesn't work, the last major option they could do is all the EU members except Poland and Hungary could move ahead with it's own integration, a bit like the with the Euro which would weaken the ones on the outside of that, it could even get to the point where the members in the EU leave this project and reinvent the EU which in a sense kicks both Poland and Hungary out by default. Either way, both Poland and Hungary are not safe and there are going to be a lot of pressure on them to get their act together, not just in the EU but likely even from the US. We should also remember that Poland and Hungary are more or less mirroring the authoritarian style of government we see in Russia, it's up to the people in both countries to see why that is a real problem for them both and in the case of Poland, there might be real hope of change but I think Hungary is a lost cause and should be pushed out of both the EU and NATO unless the people in that country rise up against the government which seems unlikely.
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@madmanwithmasck I think in time, the EU will kick Hungary out or give them an ultimatum to change or get the boot. Some will say the EU can't do that because of the legal system but there are always ways around that if it comes to the crunch. Either way, let's not kid ourselves, the EU isn't going to let a country stay in the union that is sliding on democracy, the EU's main fault is that it should have got a lot tougher with both Hungary and Poland a long time ago, nip these things in the bud before it gets out of hand. On the plus side, the people of Hungary and Poland are strongly in favour of staying in the EU, if push comes to shove, the people of their own countries could push out the current government, but yeah, it's high time the EU gets much tougher on them because they are the main obstacle on why Ukraine and many other countries can't join the EU because there's little hope of EU members letting new members in until they sort out Hungary, Poland and reform the EU, France have been quite clear on that as other members have.
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@peterkereszthury9998 If it was just conservative and anti progression, that wouldn't be a problem, but clearly it's a lot more than that by taking control over the media, the court system and so on, that isn't a democracy which in time will lead to them being kicked out of the EU and maybe even NATO. Either way, Ukraine wants to join the EU, so does many other eastern European countries, the EU won't let those countries in and many members have said they will block them until Hungary and Poland stops back sliding on democracy as well as some reforms that are needed at an EU level to prevent this from happening again. Think about it logically, why would the EU allow more countries in only to create more problems like we are seeing in Hungary and Poland? They won't, that is on permanent hold until Hungary and Poland are sorted out or kicked out of the EU and after that, some reforms at an EU level to prevent this from happening again, then they will be more open to allowing other countries in the EU but for now, there's very little chance of any country joining in the short term and the irony is, the real blame goes on those two countries that want the EU to expand.
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Yep, we started out fast, but of late, we are wasting too much time. It's been clear for years that Russia is a threat, from the invasion of Crimea, to the invasion of Ukraine, to the political meddling in US and European politics that's been going on for around a decade now. It's no wonder the likes of Russia and China sees the west as weak, they are basically messing with us and all we do is give them a slap on the wrist. History has shown us that dictators always take advantage of soft touch or weak responses and we in the west keep doing the same thing, responding tought at the start, only for the response to get much weaker overtime until it's forgotten about and then the impact on the ones that started the incident, they get away with it.
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That and how they view the left, probably because of the Cold War and the Soviet Union, Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that anything on the left is evil that it's distorting their views on reality and it's the lower and middle classes of Americans that are paying a high price for that in comparisons to other rich countries. In the end, it's hard to convince them, especially the older Americans and I feel if they just lived in other rich countries for a few short years, it will be a real eye-opener to how the American system is really screwing them over.
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Orbán knows this, he does enough that he can't be kicked out of the EU but also enough to twist the knife in to get what he wants. If Hungary were to leave the EU, which really that's what should happen, investment in the country would likely dry up because of not having easy access to the EU market, but also because of the government style that Hungary has got, investors wouldn't feel so confidence in investing in a country and risking there money on a government that has little respect for democracy. Also, if Hungary wasn't in the EU, Hungary would be in a much weaker position when it comes to Russia and China, in other words, those two countries would likely take advantage of Hungary for their own ends, basically a client state that does as it's told. The EU is the only thing that's keeping Hungary in check on the economy and it's rule of law, as well as democracy, take that check away and things could get much worse in Hungary, which is why I think the EU needs to find a way to kick Hungary out, that is I suspect the only way the people of that country will learn, a bit like how Brits are learning from Brexit.
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I would love to see it happen, but in 5 years, it seems unlikely, for 1, the war in Ukraine would need to come to an end, 2, Ukraine would have to do a lot of the reforms needed to join the EU, which might be easier to do then normally because political and public support for joining the EU is sky-high thanks to Putin, so there should be little in the way of resistance to doing the reforms needed, 3 and this is the big 1, the EU will need to do some big reforms to it's self before they let any new country to join the block, getting all this done in 5 years seems unlikely, but there is an incentive to get it done on both sides. In any case, the war in Ukraine needs to be resolved before there's any chance of it happening, then the EU needs reforms to its self, especially on veto rules before letting in new countries, could all this be done in 5 years? Yes, if there is the political incentive to make it happen, will it happen in that time frame? I doubt it, but don't get me wrong, there are ways of speeding up the process as the video above points out that will bring Ukraine much closer to the EU, but it's not full membership and I highly doubt that will happen until we have EU reforms, so the EU should focus on its own reforms and helping Ukraine to get closer to the EU, a lot can be done over the next 5 years to bring Ukraine a lot closer to the EU, but no country should join the EU until there's some major reforms to the EU and that could happen over the next 5 years, but getting the EU reforms and Ukraine joining the EU in just 5 years would be a major tall order, and that's assuming the war in Ukraine ends before 2030.
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There are a few problems I see that's turning against the US, 1 is political deadlock when it comes to support of Ukraine, 2 is what most of the world sees as US unconditional support of Israel, regardless of what Israel does, 3 is US policy on China, which doesn't always line up with other countries interest around the world and 4, the US is showing poor leadership at a time when it really needs to be doing better with everything that's going on, throw in the idea that Trump could win the election, and it's easy to see why trust in the US is declining. This might not be alarming for the US for the time being, but if this trend continues, it will likely have a negative impact on US power around the world and will push other regions around the world to change tactics on who they see as friends, Europeans for instance are not as hostile on China like the US is one example. With all that said, the likes of the EU and US will likely remain allies, but I suspect the EU will do more in its own interest, even if it hurts US interest, especially when it comes to China which is far more a US problem then European problem, being the US sees China as a risk to its own power, whereas the EU could see this as an opportunity to take advantage off by playing them off each other if the US continues with its own self-interest policies. Either way, the US isn't doing its self any favours, a Trump in the White House again could be enough to damage relations with a lot of allies around the world and that would weaken the US position around the world whiles other powers will likely build new allies whiles rebalancing existing ones and honestly, this might be needed, the EU countries will get there act together and likely form an EU military, and a lot of other policies in the EU and other powers around the world could change, many of those policies not being too friendly with US interest. The truth is, the political divide among the Democrats and Republicans are doing a lot of damage to the US and it's image around the world, it's also making the US far less of a reliable partner, unless the US gets it's act together there, it could end up meaning slow decline, something that if it did happen, we probably wouldn't notice it for decades to come.
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@zoisantonopoulos7999 Nothing wrong with socialism if implemented right, the problem getting the right system that works and so far from what I've seen, social democracies countries with a mix of capitalism and socialism seems to be what works best. As for brainwashing, from what I've seen, a big part of that comes from the right wing which tend to support extream capitalism but there is brainwashing at all level and we are all sceptical to it to some degree or another.
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@zoisantonopoulos7999 In truth, a mix of a few systems seems to work quite well, capitalism and socialism, the trick is to get the right balance, European countries seem to do a better job of it than America does.
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@zoisantonopoulos7999 Actually what I meant was social democracies, which is more or less what they are.
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@zoisantonopoulos7999 True and I think other terms should be made but in this case, got to use terms that people will understand.
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@zoisantonopoulos7999 Who knows, I don't know what the solution is but I don't subscribe to all this left vs right bull, that's designed to dismiss an argument from one side or the other and I don't mind, people that say they are on the left or right, a lot of them don't realize that they have views that are on both sides, in the end, I prefer the grey area because life is complicated.
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I think you're trying too hard for the like button lol, you might get more likes if you let the videos do the talking and not begging for a like lol.
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What the government should have said, we understand you're angry and that you want to protest, by all means protest but try and social distance of 2 meters. What they actually did was say not to protest which most are not going to listen to governments on that one, especially when it comes to a protest. In other words, the government should have supported the protest but tell the people to remember there is a virus on the loose, telling the people not to protest always backfires.
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I've not watched the video yet but I will and will edit my comment if needed after I've watched it. But I suspect the reason smaller countries do better than big countries is because of having less of an ego, less arrogance and not as wasteful on forign adventures like many big countries are. Basically, smaller countries are more inwards looking compared to big countries, that offers the advantage that the government can put a lot more time, effort and resources on its people, smaller countries seem to do better for its citizens than bigger countries. This isn't always the case for small countries, they still need to be modern with a competent government, but when you look at Europe, the small countries are dominating the quality of life indexes and for most of us, that's what really matters in life. The other factor is that smaller states are more likely to listen to people's concerns in the country compared to bigger states, where your voice gets lost as a statistic, also, like the video points out, bigger states should be a lot more successful, but there's so much waste and corruption that a lot of that wealth ends up being lost or ends up in too few hands. When it comes to natural resources, that can be a blessing and a curse, depending on the country, it's a blessing with a well competent government like we see in Norway, but it can be a curse for many others that get wasteful with that resources and more important, start to take that resource for granted and end up not doing reforms to the economy to become more productive, it's ironic that countries with less natural resources tend to do better, except for Norway, countries without that natural resources have to adapt, that puts their economy on a better footing longer term compared to other countries that have a lot of natural resources or that depend on it a lot. Speaking of natural resources, oil and gas for instance, countries that buy a lot of it from external sources will overtime have a massive windfall each year in savings once they move to cleaner energy sources they can generate internally, the two areas I can think of are EU countries and Japan, these stand to benefit by massive amounts of money each year as more energy is generated internally, whiles at the same time, the ones they buy that resources from, ends up losing out, this is the blessing and the curse thing, in the case of the EU and Japan, it's a blessing, for Russia and much of the Middle East, it's a curse. and the sums of money, we are talking close to a trillion Euros saving per year just for the EU countries alone, now clearly that won't all be savings, there will be a potion of that going to alternative energy sources, but it will be a fraction of what it is now., that money being saved could go on social programs, military budget or many other things. Also, recycling is going to be another area that developed countries will likely save a lot, once we can do that effectively enough, we'll end up buying a fraction of resources from around the world we do now and end up recycling and reusing a lot of it, all countries should benefit from that but especially countries that buy a lot of natural resources from external sources stand to benefit.
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It takes a brave man to backtrack and admit you got something wrong and a stupid man to keep digging a hole for yourself with the mistake made, Putin is digging his own grave literally, because how far are is the support from the Russian people going to go to protect him when he's already lied about the status of the war to them.
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I'm a big supporter of the African Union as I am of the European Union and it's clear to see that they are trying to emulate what the EU is doing which isn't a bad idea but there are problems and it mostly to do with how the African Union is doing it back to front in allowing any country to join it regardless of government style or rules set it and that gives those countries little to no incentive to change or come up with common standards and as we see with the EU, getting those changes are not easy and take time, there needs to be a carrot to get a lot of big changes, basically, it will be a lot harder for African countries to do those changes because there isn't any set common standards over the countries and no carrot to get those changes and enforce them. I feel African countries should take a step back and work on the countries that are more stable and more willing to make it work than bringing everyone onboard, overtime they can expand and bring other countries onboard but for now it feels like it's a free for all with little to no rules and common grounds, so I wish them luck but unless they do some big changes, I don't hold much hope on its success. Anyway, I don't see the African Union as a rival to the European Union, I see them as trying to aim for the same goals but going about it differently, a more stable and rich Africa will benefit both Europeans and Africans.
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The problem is with passing over the torch, you have to have a system that is better than what's being replaced, 100 years ago, passing on the torch from Europe to the US was an easy thing, especially after the second world war, the US system looked like a better system then what the Europeans were offering at the time so it was much easier to gather support from around the world, nowadays, the European system, especially in the EU countries looks more appealing around the world compared to the US, probably why almost all modern countries emulate them on so many social policies, whereas the US out of modern countries is the odd one out. It's clear to see that the US fears China, US actions on China is a clear indicator of that and it's easy to see why, population size and economy equals power, China has a massive population size and are building their economy, but the problem is with China is there system isn't that appealing to most around the world, especially the people in the countries, so from a political point of view, China can win limited friends over but from the public point of view in a lot of countries, it's unlikely China will gain much traction in that area, simply put, the US is no shinning beacon, but compared to China, it's much better and honestly, we need an alternative away from the US and China and the only credible one is the EU if they get there act together and integrate more. A lot around the world gets behind the US not because they like them, but because it's the lessor of two evils, rather the US then China, but most I suspect want an alternative from somewhere else. As for the EU, they will likely play the US and China off each other, no different from how China is trying to play the EU off the US, there is a lot of disagreement from the EU countries and the US, China knows that, but there are also a lot of disagreements on the EU with China, so unless China finds ways of repairing those relations, I don't see things getting very far. At the end of the day, wanting another power in the world doesn't mean much unless they offer something better, I don't like the US much, but China is much worse and if China really wants to win friends over the long run, it needs to soften a lot of its policies with countries around the world, because China seems to appeal to people that don't like the US or to countries that are run by a dictatorship, which isn't a good indicator on the rise of China and countries getting too close to China should be careful of that. With all that said, we do need an alternative away from the US, but China isn't the answer.
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If this was a court of law and going off the evidnce, Brexit would have been scrapped along time ago going off the lies and faults promises the hardcore Brexiteers have said but are not keeping too and they have the cheek to try and force a hard Brexit on the UK even thought I suspect many Brexiteers have changed there minds on Brexit because what was promises isn't being deliverd on. Whats really funny about the Conservative party is that David Camaron called the Brexit vote with the intention of sorting out his own party, all it's done is made it much worse and it could end up doing a lot of damage to the Conservative party because the loons are taking over it and if that continues, that party is more or less dead. Whats even more funny about all this, the ones that pushed Brexit the hardest like the right wing press, the Tories and other elites like them got away in the past with spreading crap about the EU, thats all changed now and they are well and truly in the fireing line for any damage that happens because of Brexit and it could really do some real damage to them.
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@aikighost Actually that's not true, the treaty was changed enough that if I recall, Ireland had another vote and voted it through on those changes made, which is basically democracy at work.
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I always suspected that it would be either Russia, China or the US that would unite the EU, especially the moment they try to play games or divide countries, it ends up pushing them closer together in the EU which is what we are seeing, more unity, more countries wanting to join the EU and NATO and it looks like over the next few years, some big political changes are going to happen.
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I think it's reality that's dawning on Serbia, at first, they thought they could back Russia, that Russia would do well in Ukraine and Russia could weather the storm. The truth is, it's been a disaster for Russia in Ukraine, it's hitting the Russian economy hard whiles having impact on human life, they are also seeing that the EU and US are in this over the long term and with all the sanctions and banning of oil and gas being put on Russia, it's putting Serbia in a tough spot. Serbia could be thinking, do they want to be on the wrong side of history? They backed the wrong horse but it's clearly not working out and probably what worries Serbia the most is how weak these sanctions could make Russia as it continues to hit the economy, plus Russia being isolated from the world. Serbia likely knows that the EU is going to continue to expand in the future and as more countries join that, Serbia doesn't want to be the meat in the sandwich, with bad relations with the real economic powers on its doorstep. The truth is, Serbia is getting a reality check, they likely see Russia as a declining political and economic power whiles seeing the EU continue to expand eastwards, with Russia going down the toilet and the EU growing in importance as an economic power in the region, many in the Serbian government are likely coming to the conclusion that they can't afford to get on the wrong side of the EU and the west and need to build stronger ties with them. Still thought, it would be interesting to see the EU continue to expand, only to have Serbia surrounded by EU countries, a bit like Switzerland, but in any case, Serbia have got a long way to go to redeem it's self here.
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@karlnadin1554 Actually it is and if you live in the UK from region to region, you even get to see it first hand, the south part of the UK has far less of a problem with it but then they are much more multicultural whereas if you go to the north of England or Wales, it's a difference store, there is far less multicultural going on, hence the votes on Brexit by the different regions. But then I don't really blame the people as such, it's the media thats manipulated things so much for their own ends, many of the people, especially in the northern regions bought it and many did so because they wanted it to be true. The irony in all that, it's the northern England regions and Wales that are likely going to be the hardest hit by Brexit and going on Tory tradition in not caring about the north, I doubt they can expect any help from this Tory government, especially with money being tight because of this pandemic and Brexit, throw in the threat of Scotland leaving the UK, the north part of England and Wales could be left out in the cold as they don't really matter to this government that only cares about the south and now maybe they care about Scotland because of the threat of independence, but in truth, they don't care about the Scots but they don't want them to leave as that would look really bad for the UK.
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@hattix7233 You wouldn't think so when immigration was one of the big selling points they hammered home on Brexit and no doubt about it that other countries have issues with immigration as well but a big part of that issue is that there is no unified stand from the EU members and basically, EU members are doing their own thing, the irony being, it would be far less of an issue if the EU had control over that as immigration would be spread out more balanced across the union.
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It's very difficult to do business in a country that's got erratic policies, which is what the US is going through. But as for the US pushing the EU closer to China, maybe, but it's more realistic to say that the US is pushing a lot of the world away from the US towards other trading partners, which includes China, which isn't a smart move being that the EU and China are the two other major powers on the world stage, and it's no secret that China have been wanting to pull the EU further away from the US, which Trump is helping to do, China likely knows that pulling the EU away from the US weakens and isolates the US, making it easier for China to push its own agenda, the end result is, this big split with the EU and US is weakening the west. As for the EU, well they are coming across as the shining bacon, at least when it comes to liberal democracies, and it's looking like many countries are wanting to rally behind the EU. The US under Trump has broken a lot of trust and lost a lot of respect for the US, but let's be clear, this was happening before Trump, just that with Trump, it hit with a sledgehammer and that's a major makeup call for many around the world, that trust and respect takes years and even decades to build and can crumble very quickly as we are seeing now, the consequences of that both politically and economically for the US likely going to be big and hard to see at the moment, and I don't think Americans realise how much damage this could do to the US over the long run, and it's probably too little too late to reverse this trend, basically, the US has crossed a line that's will cost the US a lot, it's likely going to put a lot of pressure on the US Dollar reserve status, being as that's built on trust. Personally, what I think will happen, countries around the world will slowly shift trade away from the US to more reliable partners, that will over the long run have a big cost to the US economy, but it's also likely going to go further than that when it comes to politics, there are also major boycotts of US goods and services going on around the world, that's likely going to continue, this could also be the first real threat to the US Dollar reserve currency, especially as the Euro already sits at 20% and that was before all of Trump's antics, so chances are, it's likely going to speed that process up, and the end result of this is that history could mark this moment in time as the moment the US starts going in decline, something that isn't sudden, and is quite a slow process that most will probably not notice until it's too late, and I hope Americans realise what they've done here because these antics of Trump have really backfired and the irony is, the ones that Trump wanted to hit the hardest are likely going to be the ones to benefit the most from this, mainly the EU and China.
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I don't know what the UK was honestly expecting, the EU was never going to give us a deal as good as we had in the EU and even if we get something like a Canada style deal, that is far worse than what we had in the EU. If we look at the last 3 or so years, the EU In the first phase of talks had three objectives: 1. Getting the UK to pay any outstanding commitments. Boris Johnson initially said they could "go whistle" but has since agreed to pay £39bn. 2. Keeping the border in Ireland completely open. Boris Johnson caved in and agreed with the EU’s preferred option, in the process undermining the territorial integrity of his own country. 3. Maintaining the rights of EU citizens in the UK. Boris Johnson agreed to this, including for any citizens who come to the UK during the transition period. In other words, just to get to the trade talks, the UK had to cave in on almost every issue. And during this first round of negotiations the UK had 2 PMs, 3 Brexit secretaries, two foreign secretaries and 31 ministerial resignations. The EU’s red lines for the trade talks include, but are not limited to: 1, Access to UK fishing waters 2. A level playing field These are not opening negotiating positions to be bartered away. Either the UK will cave in, or there will be no FTA and considering the EU is getting much tougher now the UK is out, I suspect we are going to see a lot more last minutes caves-ins from the UK near the end of the year because the EU has a lot more clout over these talks now.
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@fredrika27 Softer is one thing but you can tell he's acting an older person as Picard then his real life and if Picard is 94, that would explain it.
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@fredrika27 Exactly that, I forgot he played a much older person in that movie lol.
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@Nick Finan He could never get away with that, could you imagine the reaction from the rest of the world, they would come down on the US like a tone of bricks that would do more damage to the US then the virus could ever do, so it was never going to happen even if Trump wanted that.
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THE DARK TITAN THANOS Well actually, there is, think about it big picture, if any country tries to profit on this or hold it back for it's own people when there is no reason the blue print can't be made free so it saves lives around the world, we could end up seeing a lot of countries turn on that country and that would likely do a lot more economic damage long term than this virus could ever do. It would be reckless of any country to play games when people are dying, more so because this kind of thing sticks in public mindset, Trump so far isn't doing good on that one and that could have a longer term impact on the US from the world if they are not careful and at a time when the US can't afford that with a rising China on it's way.
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If you really want to look at where the problem is in England, it starts from the top with Bo Jo, how many times has he insulted other groups of people like calling them letter boxes and so on? then you've got the right wing media which has shown many times over Brexit in what they think. Is it any wonder why so many English are the way they are, they've been programmed by a toxic Tory government and right wing media for decades, that's where the real problem is. In any case, the Euros has been a massive PR disaster for England and it's exposed to the world what a lot of Europeans already knew with their dealings over Brexit. Also, what was UEFA thinking giving England so many favours? it reflects badly on them now.
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True, and also, if it could be dual purpose and do cool as well as heat, it would work well in summer for cooling homes, but in summer, there are many times when you'll generate more energy than you need, so even with a round trip of 50-70% efficiency, it's better to store it at that efficiency then not at all.
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Personally as a Brit, I don't think the EU should take us back with everything thats gone on the last few years, the UK have never really been committed to the EU project and only went in for selfish reasons as we was the sick man of Europe at the time. I think the EU should let us stay in the single market and custom union and judge us on how we behave over the next decade because if the EU lets us stay but we have the same issues we have in the UK for the last few decades, I suspect many in the EU and it's members will be glad to see the back of us, in other words, if the UK stays in the EU, the UK will have to change, now don't get me wrong, I know the EU needs to change but thats another issue, in other words, the UK needs to decide if we are fully in the EU or not because we never really have been.
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@uweinhamburg Sometimes you have to be brutal as the UK seems to feel like we are entitled to take take take without giving much back and always seem to want all the best bits of EU membership without any of the negatives and even after these two years of talks, the UK goverments seems to think we are entitled, it's just pure arrogaces from the UK side and yeah, I think the gloves should come off and the EU should cut us loose, we'll learn as a country a lot sooner that way whiles also doing a lot of damage to the euroseptic movment in the UK. Anyway, like I said before, I don't think the UK should stay in the EU until it knows what it wants and the best option is for us to stay in the single market and custom union, that solves most of the economic problems, it solves the Northern Ireland boarder and it also solves our trade deals around the world, for the most part, not much would change apart from the UK wont have a say in making EU rules even thought we would have to abide them. After a decade or so of that and lots of soul searching, maybe we might be ready to rejoin the EU and be more of a construtive member and not a member thats always objecting to everything other EU members are trying to do.
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@uweinhamburg The irony is that I'm not bitter, I think I might of been before the Brexit vote because no one really defended the EU in the UK, the debate was always one sided for decades with the right wing media slinging mud at the EU and the goverment more or less doing the same without really anyone defending the EU and correcting the lies. Now thanks to Brexit, I'm very excited because now the euroseptics can't just talk, they have to deliver and we already know they can't deliver, thats the real exciting part because Brexit is likely going to do a lot of damage to the euroseptic movment in the UK, but it's a shame that it's going to hurt the country to find that out. I've always been in two minds on Brexit since the vote happened, part of me is saying, we should have the hardest of Brexit just to prove a point in how wrong the Brexiteers got it, but another part of me is saying to fight this because a lot of innocent Brits are going to get hurt over Brexit, it's a double edge sword. Personally, I think the right thing to do is to fight them on this and not just because I think Brexit is wrong but more importantlly, if they win this, the likes of the ERG in the Tory party will use that power on things that have nothing to do with Brexit once Brexit is done and dusted. Brexit has opened up a can of worms that might be hard to put back and all the signs look negative for the country so far and all in all, I think the only real solution is another vote and see what the public thinks now that we have a lot more information on Brexit, problem with that if the public votes to remain, the Brexiteers will be ranting and raving for the next 20 years on this but I think I can live with that :)
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@geoffmcclelland2663 If you live in the EU schengen zone, going from one country to another in the EU is basically like going from one US state to another, there isn't really any restrictions or borders, you just go as if you are travelling to another town, I don't think any other country offers anything like that to other countries.
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@mark63424able Yep and have you seen the trade among them? it's hardly the same as creating a close alliance that the UK is desperate to create and I don't mind, the countries are even further apart with that CANZUK deal lol. Basically, you are just talking normal trade, nothing special and it's the same kind of trade like the EU does with countless countries around the world, that isn't going to change anything for the UK because to really create a power block, you need to be a lot closer, to create a political and economic union were far fewer restrictions, what you are talking about isn't even close to that. The truth is, the EU is an example of how to create a power block the right way, it's highly unlikely the UK is going to be able to do that with others, especially going on the message of what Brexit was all about, so yes, it's a pipe dream. Besides, what happened about the Commonwealth? I though that was supposed to be the dream for Brexiteers until a lot of those countries showed they didn't care, but ask yourself one simple thing, why is the UK latching on to things like the Commonwealth, the CANZUK and all that? it smells of desperation that they know the UK is in decline and are trying to cling onto any thing. On the plus side, at least a lot of this is coming from Brexiteers so maybe they know they've messed up big time on Brexit and now are getting desperate.
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@Will-ul9oc They can if they lock them in a room, don't feed them, don't allow them to sleep until a deal is made, it seems to work well for them lol. As for the UK, the EU doesn't seem to care any more about what the UK wants, it's old news for them now, I suspect they are more interested in fostering relations with other countries around the world, including Russia and China, especially with how unstable the US is getting. The real risk I am seeing is with the rift between the EU and US, if they don't sort that out, it's going to be harder to protect western values and that will impact all western countries as the EU and US are the only things really protecting that and with a shift in power from west to east, the EU and US really need to work together before it's too late.
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We always do re-votes in democracys, what do do think elections are?
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Normally I wouldn't agree with stripping a country of it's power but the reality is, Hungary signed up to join the EU, knowing it's rules, which it's braking many of them. Anyone saying the EU doesn't have the right to do this, don't understand what signing up and agreeing to rule means, and honestly, the EU should have been doing this years ago with how Hungary have been going.
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This is kinda normal, if you look at the big picture, politics usually swings from left to right, it goes something like this, the left wins, they get 1, 2 or 3 terms to deliver the goods, voters get fed up with them and then vote for the right, then the right mess-up and rinse and repeat the cycle. The UK moving to the left is mostly to do with the right being in power for so long and through a period of time that's not been that great, Covid, Brexit and now the war in Ukraine. We see this seesaw effect in the UK every 2 or 3 elections, we see the same in the US every 1 or 2 elections, and we see much of the same to a degree in Europe as well, but ultimately, regardless of who is voted into power, not really much is going to change because of the political realities of what they can and can't do, lots of promises will be made, many of which will be broken, but if they got your vote, it's a job well done, the Tories doing the usually, lower taxes, higher spending, they are like a broken record on that one that I'm surprised people fall for it lol. Anyway, like in the UK where we got burnt with Brexit and all the lies, maybe the same thing needs to happen in some European countries, especially France, after all, a dose of reality is always the best wakeup call for angry voters.
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@jessicaigbodika8571 Anyone with any decency and common sense can see what Putin is doing in Ukraine is wrong, this isn't about taking sides, this is about what is right and wrong regardless of what you might think of the west or it's past actions. Also, let's be honest with ourselves, Putin doesn't care about India or China, they are both there to be used as a pawn just like I'm sure India and China will use Russia for cheap oil and gas but let's be blunt about this, I highly doubt you care about the innocent lives in Ukraine or anywhere else for that matter, it's basically a game to people like you because you don't like the west so you're picking sides and not looking at this in an objective way of rights and wrongs which can lead to India being on the wrong side of history longer term. Also, you're being very short-sighted, these kinds of events tend to hurt the poorer countries the most because of the limited resources and poor system in place when it comes to adapting which is what I fear the most that what's going on could destabilize a few poor countries but I doubt you care about that.
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Tell a lie enough times, you'll be surprised at how many people will end up believing it on blind faith, based on no evidence or facts and in many cases, because some want to believe it to be true. It happens in politics all the time, especially from the right wing of politics and media which throw a lot of crap out there, hoping some of it sticks, and much of it does because sadly, a lot of the population is ignorant. The Republicans do it a lot in the US, the Conservatives do it a lot in the UK, heck, they went crazy on the lies when it came to the EU and Brexit lol, Putin is doing it now on the Russian people by banging on about the same message and eventually enough people will end up believing it and in the case of Putin, it's all about protecting Putin's position of power, whiles at the same time, trying to gain more support from the Russian people on the war effort, at the moment, Putin's abilities in Ukraine are limited because of the degree of support from the Russian people, Putin can't afford for too much damage to happen in Russia and can't afford for a big impact on the quality of living on the Russian people as they will overtime likely turn on him. So he's going to continue to twist the message and make everything and anything linked to Ukraine with the aim of the Russian people believing it, so Putin can push his agenda in Ukraine and on his own people in Russia, it's not that different from what the Eurosceptics in the UK did to turn a lot of Brits against the EU, that it got to the point where evidence and facts didn't mean anything, Trump is doing the same thing in the US, he's trying to get the American people to believe what he says and to dismiss facts and evidence that counter what he said. The irony is, Hitler did much of the same thing to condition the German people in such a way with the aim of gaining more power and to push a specific agenda, these people are really dangerous and many countries in the west are playing with fire with these popularise movements that we are not learning from history, and maybe we need to get burnt again to wake us up.
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Competition was always going to happen in a market where there's a lot of demand, and especially with how greedy Nvidia have been getting, they were asking for new companies to pop in and pull the rug from under them, and that's likely going to be specialised chips just for A.I. What's really needed is some kind of add on chip for the desktop market, there is a lot of potential in that market but the likes of AMD, Nvidia and Intel are not likely going to give us gpu's with enough memory to be that useful for big A.I. at least not at a reasonable price point. Even the next gen gpu from Nvidia for the consumer market might have 32GB for the top tier gpu, that might sound good on paper but it's way too low for big A.I. and even then, it will cost an arm and a leg, gpu memory isn't that expensive, if we actually got on current line-up's of gpu's, 64 or 128GB options, that would be a game changer, but they won't do that for a decent price point, so roll on the specialised A.I. chips.
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Germany and France are helping in Ukraine in many ways, so are many other EU countries, the problem is that countries are pulling in all directions and it does make you wonder how much more help the EU countries could give if they speak with one voice through the EU and had a single military, a lot of the weakness is because there are too many voices pulling in all directions.
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Reorganized maybe but not disbanded, after all, have we not learned anything yet with this virus that really we should be expanding things like the WHO so it can do it's job better with more accountability.
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OhPlease a Let's not disband anything and let's learn from the mistakes made and try and improve on them but I do agree that tough questions are needed to be asked many governments for being so slow on their actions on all this, and we know many of them messed up that it's costing peoples lives because many are trying desperately to deflect blame which is a classic move to try and remove heat on themselves, for me so far, the real guilty ones in the west that I've seen is the US, UK and Sweden, their response has been quite shocking but there will be more of them that I don't know about out of the west, in any case, they should be all held to account.
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@onthetoilet8397 In what way did it go according to plan?
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@onthetoilet8397 Hey, you're more than welcome to go back out there and test it out for yourself but don't complain to anyone if you can't the virus. I mean really, are you for real? lol, so basically, you think this virus is a scam that every country is lying about it, all the experts are lying, all the hospitals in every country? come on lol, that's way too far fetched, this is impacting too many people at so many levels that there is no way this could be a cover up. Now don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean this virus might not have been manufactured by humans because it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case and if that was the case, the US or China are the very likely ones that would do that but either way, the impact this virus on people is very real and because of how far and wide spread it is, it would be almost impossible to cover that up as if it wasn't happening.
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Maybe, but if there is one thing I've learned from history, if the far right want to do well and keep the public onside, they've got one or two elections to do it in, if they mess it up with too many extream views, the public could quickly turn against them. In other words, the far right will likely have to tone their policies down to appeal to more voters and to be able to work with other parties across the EU, which means more compromising. At the end of the day, a lot of Europeans are only voting in the far right out of a protest vote because they are fed up with the mainstream parties not delivering, most probably don't even realise what the policies are of many of these far right parties apart from the core ones like immigration, but there's far more to a government than just that, so if they mess it up by gridlock or not delivering on what the people want, the public could very well turn on them quickly, hence why I think the far right have one or two terms to prove themselves before the public turns on them, which could wipe them out, after all, a lot of the complaints in many European countries as well as the US is people feeling like they are being left behind and the cost of living, these are the core things that need to be solved to cool public anger, immigration is a bit of a smoke screen for the far right to focus public anger on, but the real meat on the bone is the economy, cost of living and inequality divide, this is the core issue in many countries in the west and whiles these radical elements are on the rise, which ironically is mirroring what we saw in the 1030's in Germany. Basically, the public should be very careful with the radical elements if history is any indicator, it can backfire on the public spectacular, in other words, I understand there's a lot of anger going around, but if they think the far right is the answer, well we could be in for a surprise, maybe not that different from how many Brits deluded themselves in thinking Brexit was the answer, only for it to make things worse for the UK, but in any event, mainstream parties need to get a grip and start listening to the concerns of the people, there's a lot of angry and that isn't going away until solution are in place to solve many of their concerns, but either way, I think this is a lesson we have to learn the hard way by allowing the far right to run wild and make a mess of things.
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@Wilhelmofdeseret Most do commit, but it only takes a few to make a noise for the media to scream blue murder and make it seem like it's a lot more. If most didn't commit, we would be seeing far more problems than we do when it comes to immigration, but you know how it is, the media likes to sell news and bad news sells better than good news, throw in that they blow things out of proportion and you get the situation playing out as we see it, especially from the right of the media which loves to spread fear.
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@CherubiJubell I've lived in both the EU and US, my biggest take is in the US, patriotism and fear of the government seems to get the best of many of Americans, there's rampant paranoia in the system on a lot of things, in the EU, it's very different, yes we mistrust governments, but we don't really fear them, and we're not as paranoid that they are about to enslave us and take our freedoms away lol. Europe also has a much bigger social systems that look after the people a lot more than the US and that builds a lot more trust from governments and the public, in fact we are seeing that as we speak with what is going in the EU and US with this crisis, many Americans seem to think it's an invasion on the people from the government whereas in Europe, we mostly see it as an inconvenience, something we don't like what is going on but we understand, most of us are also well aware of the hard times ahead but then what's the alternative, we just get on with lives and let more people die like some in the US seems to want to do, that's showing the difference from both systems in how they see people and in the case of the US, it doesn't look good from the outside world, in fact it looks shocking how a first world country has come to this.
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Kayla Pounds True but the numbers are tiny in comparison compared to what's going on in the US, it's like Trump and some US governors want to push a revolution lol. A big part of it for me is the safety net, European countries have a strong safety net that is protecting most workers, Americans are not seeing much support from the government and that is putting a lot of them under pressure to get back to work, developing countries are different in that it's harder for the economy to support the people in the way EU countries are doing, hence why we are seeing such difference views around the world.
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What caused this problem is quite simply, the right wing media have. They've poisoned the British people minds, made them more paranoid and cynical of everything from the EU, the system, the government. Now it's got so bad that facts don't mean anything, the truth has little meaning and it's all about who can be more convincing with telling lies. A lot of this allowed Brexit to happen, this government to be in power even thought they keep stumbling from one disaster to another, they still remain in power as if nothing sticks whereas in normal times, someone like Boris wouldn't even get close to becoming PM. A big part of this problem is focused on England which is a major problem for the UK union because the way things are going, it's looking like Scotland and Northern Ireland would be better off leaving the UK. Honestly, I keep thinking to myself, how bad can things get, only for them to get worse, the right wing media and the Tories have done major damage to the UK with getting the British people fighting among ourselves, more divided than I can remember and yes, I think it's only a matter of time before this union breaks up, many Scots and Irish are looking at everything that's going on in the country and with the government and thinking, we've got to get out of this and the option is open for Scotland and Northern Ireland to leave and even rejoin the EU if they like. In the end, the real problem boils down to lies, people are poorly informed about things and are quick to buy into the lies, that's what really started this mess over the last 2 or so decades now and since Brexit, it feels like the UK is just getting worse and worse as time goes by and when you look at everything that's going on around the world, I don't have much hope for the next few years and I suspect life is going to get quite hard for the poor and middle classes in the UK thanks to Brexit, Covid and now the war in Ukraine that's helping to push up living cost, the cost of all this is only just started and very likely to get worse over the coming years. You know what the real sad thing is about all this and I say this as an English man living in England, I think Scotland and Northern Ireland needs to leave the UK union just to shock the English people and government, we've lost our way in being diplomatic and senseable people and now it's all about rage, we need a major wake-up call to shock the English people because clearly they are not getting it with how bad things are going.
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Many western media have shown this, it's just that with everything that's going on, other things have been more newsworthy for much of the media. Also, a lot of the protest is against the current government in the country and not the EU or NATO, not sure why some are twisting all this to be against the EU or NATO when it's about the current government in the country, well actually I do know why some would twist it, they have an agenda against the EU or NATO because they don't like it so they link anything bad to them lol, I know that well because it happens in the UK a lot for decades that anything bad that happens in the country, it's the EU's fault even thought it had nothing to do with the EU, scapegoating is the easy way to deflect blame away from the government in power of the country, basically the ones that create most of the mess in the first place, the UK with Brexit are finding that out the hard way that things have got much worse for them even thought they are not in the EU lol, the funny thing is, many there are still trying to blame the EU for all the wrongs in the UK, when will they wake up and learn where the real problem is lol.
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True but what makes this diffrent is that it's bubbled up to the surface where it can do real damage to the party, in the past it was always there but contained and that kept the party viable, now they are looking a bit crazy.
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@dutchman7623 They should fit right at home with an EU army with how well they pool resources already with NATO. I think we should also remember, NATO isn't likely going anyway even with an integrated EU army, the EU will just be one big part of it and not so many smaller European countries in NATO as we have now.
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@martinbury3418 And how would they do that?
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@buddy1155 Turkey could join the EU but the last 5 or so years, they've been heading in the opposite direction on that, the problem for Turkey in why it's taking them so long to join is because they are taking far too long to do a lot of the changes needed to join the EU but that was always going to be harder for them than a European country because of religion which tends to hold things back.
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@liberator101 It's all up in the air really and I don't know who is right or wrong but I do suspect if Turkey makes the right policies, reforms and all that, they could join the EU someday but under the current leadership, they are actually going backwards on that.
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@TheExplorder When I say a threat, there is limited damage Russia can do, they don't have the economy or population size to be a real threat and they depend too much on oil, gas and other natural resources which isn't a good sign. Russia reminds me of the UK that likes to think they still are a great power, lashing it's tail around but the truth is, the EU, US and China are the real powers of this world for now. But to be fair to Russia, they seemed worried about the EU because it keeps expending eastwards, that is likely going to continue because the EU can offer what those countries want, a better standard of living whereas Russia offers them threats.
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@TheExplorder The problem is that a lot will want to trade with China because of that massive consumer base so they are not as along as some think.
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@nickryan4975 If it wasn't for the US, Germany likely would have taken over Russia but the truth is, the Nazis would have fell in on its self even quicker having to deal with so many countries and people, it's not easy to control people with such harsh messures so they we're doomed to fail regardless of what help was on hand. At the end of the day, Hitler did need stopping because I doubt he was going to stop at Europe and Russia, he likely would have gone after the US as he would have seen them as a threat.
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Dean Lion I wouldn't say they are falling apart but they are slipping, Russia likes to think of its self as a great power but they don't have the economy and people to back that up, the EU, US and China does and India could in the future if they get their act together on the economy. I don't see Brazil being a major power, they've still got too many problems to sort out, the population size isn't big enough and the economy is too small for them to really matter, real power is shifting from west to east, the Asian powers are likely to dominant in the future, they are getting their act together, they've got the population numbers and are quickly building on the economy. The US is by far the ones to lose out the most of all this, hence all the noise from them, the EU is a bit of an unknown because it's not all set in stone with that union as it can keep expending with new members, in 50 years time, the EU could be a lot bigger than it is now because it's expended with countless other countries and ironically, these bigger powers could push many smaller countries into the safe hands of the EU.
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Dean Lion I don't know about civil war but the rest of what you said is pretty much spot on, most birth rates in Europe and America are thanks to immigration and then having kids, westerners seems to not want as many kids as they did in the past, fortunately for the west, a lot of people want to live in those regions so it's not an issue but that can change in time. As for China, they are quickly becoming a big superpower and ironically, this Corona pandemic is speeding that up at a time when the US is messing up a lot. India have too many problems they need to sort out because they can show true signs of becoming a major power and many of those problems won't be easy to fix so the jury is out on India. The EU will likely keep expending with new members regardless and I think another 5 are joining the EU over the next 5 years.
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Dean Lion Go on then, name these other nations that want to follow? There is no evidence that any others want to follow the UK, especially since Brexit happen and with everything else that's going on around the world with the US and China. I think you are confusing Europeans wanting change in Europe then wanting to leave, Brexiteers in the UK seem to think every slight disagreement is a brake apart moment lol, if it was that simply, the US and UK would have fell apart a long time ago lol. The reason westerners are not having as many kids is because of lack of time and so many things people want to do, kids are a big drain of peoples resources and many don't want kids because they want to enjoy life, it's a sad reality but as countries become more modern, kids become less important, after all, this is happening in pretty much every modern country, including none western ones. So let me get this right, going on your logic, the EU main purpose is to form a world government with the intention of destroying the white race? You do realize the EU was mainly created by that white race, none of what you said made much sense. As for the EU, what they actually want is a union that brings people together from all backgrounds, regardless of where they are from, the EU came about out of the ashes of the second world want to prevent another war from happening and it's been mostly successful on that, now its main purpose is to protect the peace, promote democracy, further integration and boost the economy as well as protect European interest, politically, economically and socially in a world that is becoming dominated by big powers.
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Dean Lion You do realize that most Brits are not native to the UK land, I know most like to think we are Brits because we've been assimilation by the system but most have origins from other lands, migration is a natural thing that's been going on for a long time, the real key is that the people integrated in the system, that is where the real cracks are starting to show.
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@buddy1155 They can close the borders and likely would if Turkey played that kind of game, there is only so much EU countries can help those people but if won't let it become a free for all.
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@buddy1155 Oh don't worry, if they really wanted to get tough on it, they could, but they are being diplomatic about it for now, it wouldn't be that hard for them to set up a fortress Europe where it would be difficult for anyone to get in without permission but that is taking it to the extreme. For now, the numbers coming in they can handle so it's not as much of a problem for now but If Turkey threatens the EU with opening the flood gates, the rules of the game would change on the EU side which could create a humanitarian crisis of the making by Turkey.
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@buddy1155 A lot of things are against international laws and yet the big players still break those rules many times, especially the US and EU and in this case if there was a mass flood of millions of refugees trying to flood Europe, EU countries and the EU would have a legitimate right to get a lot tougher on this unless other countries around the world are willing to help. These laws are designed for modest amounts of people coming into a region, not millions and that is where the real problem is and why the EU and EU countries would brake international laws if it got to that point, either that or other countries around the world step in to help deal with the refugees.
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@mrplease66 You can't compare the EU to Australia, a country that is quite isolated in that region that is tiny compared to the EU, going on your logic, China should be able to bully the US as the EU and US are comparable in size.
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@mrplease66 For me, the US changed after 9/11, they used to say it won't change the way of life for the US but it did just that and for the worse and it's just been downhill ever since, especially when Trump entered the White House. A lot of countries and people around the world used to look up to the US but now a lot don't care about them and see them as a joke. Now I don't know what the future is but I'm quite sure it's not China, that system of government won't be acceptable to most of the world, the EU could be a good contender but they need to integrate more for that, the US might get it's act together with Biden in power but there is still a big divide in the US and a lot of Trump supporters still. I do think it's in the interest of both the EU and US to get on much friendlier terms now because like it or not, China is a rising power and I don't think either the EU or US alone is big enough to contend with that but working together, they should be able to keep them in check, especially as a lot of other countries fear China also so those would likely fall in line behind the EU and US.
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@kevinlspg3135 The EU isn't perfect but with how the world is shaping up and how the US has been going over the last 2 decade, the EU actually looks quite good in many areas like workers rights, food standards, privacy laws and countless other things that even the US is slipping on but who knows, maybe Biden can change that but I have my doubts because the problems in the US are more deeply rooted in their society that won't be easy to fix. Like you, I don't see Russia as an enemy, Putin might see the EU as an enemy because of EU expansion in the east but the EU and Russia could make natural allies and Russia could in the longer run even become an EU member. If the US and EU are smart, they would work a lot more closer together to keep China in check because it's expected that China will have the world's biggest economy by 2028 and they are likely going to keep growing from there on, in the longer run, the EU and US on their own won't be big enough to contend with China and with some of the aggressive moves that China has done, the EU and US will likely have to work closer together to protect western values, this doesn't mean China is an enemy but if left unchecked, they likely will become more aggressive in the region and around the world as they are already showing signs of that. But in the end, the EU isn't going to fall apart like some want, the reason is self-interest, Europeans know that without the EU, it's a lot harder for European countries to protect their political, economic and social interest, something the UK could find out the hard way in the coming years, basically, the world is quickly changing with mega powers or blocks of countries joining force, in that world, countries like the UK would have little to no power compared to those other powers and that could be the main reason the UK ends up rejoining the EU once they get a taste of life on the other side and see the grass isn't greener.
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Jack Jack History isn't relevant to the here and now, beside, going on what we are seeing from many governments in the EU countries and with the US and UK, the Germans look far more level-headed when it comes to running a government, I'm British and even I would have more trust in the Germans then I would in the UK government with this bunch of clowns we've got running the show. Beside, you do realize that the EU isn't ran by Germany? they are just one player in it, a big one that gives them a lot of clout but still one player in the game.
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I think there needs to be a balance approach but I don't see the US changing its tune on China, being that the US is fearful of a rising China that I suspect the US will get tougher on them. The EU and the rest of the world will likely strike a middle ground with China that's more practical, but as for the US, they are going all in like they did on Japan as they feared them rising in the 80's.
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Why don't the blue states stop bailing out the red states, lets see who cries first as we all know the blue states are the richer ones. The arrogance on show by some Republicans is shocking and the sad thing is, they have many supporters and if he gets his ways, maybe blue states should band together. It also says a lot that I thought the UK union was dysfunctional but what I am seeing in the US at the moment is quite disgusting the way the government is treating all this and the way some states are at each other's throats, where is the unity in any of all this? and to think, I actually thought the EU had problems but looking at what is going on in the US lately, the EU doesn't look that bad. Hey, here is an idea, New York and other states like them could save those billions and put them back into the state on something more useful like universal health that New Yorkers would benefit from and not giving it away to states that are arrogance and selfish. It's a shame you don't have Andrew Cuomo as your president, he seems far more humain and competent that wants to put Americans first, all we are seeing from Trump is self-interest and corporate greed that is going to leave a very high price on the American people longer term with higher taxes and unfortunately, I'm starting to see a massive spilt among Americans that won't be easy to repair.
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@elifuentes7070 I think he means on a per capital basis not overall basis, which the reserve currency messes up those numbers. In fact, when you look at the stats, the US isn't doing so hot on quality of living per person, it's more or less dominated by European countries with Australia and Canada being the only none European countries in the top 10. Either way, I find GDP numbers to be a poor measure of measuring the well-being of a country and it's people that I'm actually surprised it's still a measure we use today.
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He's hitting the nail right on the head here, yes the economy going down the toilet is likely to create hard times but what do we value more, our lives or the economy? Personally, I value lives because the economy can be rebuilt, lives can't if we are six foot under. So as much as there is a balancing act on protecting lives and the economy, I'll go for lives every time even if it does mean some hard times ahead. There is also the factor that others are a risk to others and that takes the choice out of it when dealing with a virus, some people might not care about the risk and want to go to work, but they become a much bigger risk to others that do care and that is where the real problem is and why a full on lock down is needed, at the end of the day, what is the alternative, we all just go back to work so countless others die in the process? That would likely cause more chaos because a lot of people are scared and don't want to be pushed into something that can threaten their lives.
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@anonymousanonymous4510 The UK had by far one of the best deals out of all the EU members with the most op-outs and yet they still wasn't happen and thought they ware being taken advantage off, honestly, the EU should get a lot tougher with the UK because we're asking for too much whiles being selfish about it and I look forward to Brexit with seeing the EU and US play ping pong with the UK being the ball lol, that might be the major wake up call the UK needs.
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@kebjenkins Removing sovereignty isn't such a bad thing when patriotism and nationalism is what causes a lot of the problems we have in the world as it makes countries become very trible and we see that with Brexiteers and Trump supporters, look how they act, it's like it's one tribe versions another, it's so primitive lol. As for EU democracy, the irony is that if you do some research on the EU and the UK, you'll find the UK isn't as democracy as you like to think and the EU is more then you want to think. In any case, lets look at the process the UK is going through with Brexit, does that look very democratic to you, would forcing a hard Brexit without the public or parliament having any say be democracy to you? Brexiteers like to talk a good deal about bringing powers back home and sovereignty and yet how quick they are to dismiss that when the system does or says something they don't want to hear like we are seeing on Brexit, Brexiteers have shown they are willing to by-pass the people, parliament, the lords, the court system and so on to force Brexit at any cost, the real threat in the UK isn't the EU, it's much closer at home and right under our nose.
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Imagine that, you're a business and there's a lunatic in the White House that's playing political games that impact those businesses, what would you do? Trump with his games is scaring away business from the US and scaring off investment in the US, no corporation wants to deal with instability and rules that keep changing, the US, it's kinda difficult to make long term investment plans into the US when the rules of the game keeps changing every few weeks or months, hence why many are seeking alternative, more stable environments to do business in. Trump is showing first hand in how he managed to bankrupt so many businesses, now he's trying his ultimate achievement in trying to do the same to the US economy. But seriously Americans, wake up before that clown does serious damage to the US, which he might of already done and it might be too little too late, but considering we are only 6 or so months in his term, another 3 and half years of this will very likely do serious damage to the US.
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I have to wonder with the hole so many countries in the world are going to be in after this crisis is if many will get together with the intention of freezing interest debt payments, so they pay their debts off but not the interest on their debts because otherwise I can see many defaulting on them and that will make things worse for the world economy and after all that, we need to change how we live because it's crazy how much debt people, governments and countries are getting into, it's not sustainable and not really healthy for the economy and people as it puts a massive burden on both.
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@FNLNFNLN Well no, I mean capitalism works well enough if contained by governments and not a free for all as we see in the US, look in the EU countries, governments have more of a hand in the capitalist market and even then I think EU countries could do more on that, in other words, bigger companies that have a sizeable market share should have different rule sets compared to medium and smaller companies because companies with big market share always tend to abuse it and use that market share to extend a monopoly into another market, something we see a lot of in the US. That's capitalism where the US isn't even trying to contain it and everyone pays the price for that with less competition, progress and higher prices for goods. Now if we can come up with another system that replaces capitalism then that would be even better but for now at least, no one has come up with a system that produces progress at such a rate that capitalism does but I'm sure there is better, Europe likely have a better idea on it's mix of socialism and capitalism, but I think a bit more socialism is needed with governments intervening more in big corporations whereas the US version of capitalism is a bit of a joke where it looks like the US governments just lets happening in a free for all market, that is never a good idea because it's like trading in democracy for many small dictators which end up buying democracy in small chunks which is ironically what is going on in the US with all the lobbying. On the plus side, because of this virus and the impact on the world and more so in Europe, we might see a lot of big social changes and Europe will be very interesting to watch on that one, these events that impact a lot of public lives can be game changers in the same sense that the second world war did and the aftermath of that brought a lot of benefits to Europe and the world.
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@FNLNFNLN To a far less degree but what makes Europe different is government intervention in big ways and in a lot of cases in the right ways, just look at how both the US and EU countries are dealing with this virus and the economy when it comes to the well-being of the people, the US could be in major trouble with the path is taking and even thought European countries will are in trouble as well, they are protecting key areas that make sense to protect, the rich are getting worried in Europe whereas in the US they know the government is going to bail them out and they will to a degree in Europe as well in key areas but a lot of them are likely going to be on their own. Macron's efforts in France to weaken pensions make some sense considering the retirement age, Italy has the same problem whereas the UK seems to be going in the other direction. As for the EU copyright law, it's not really changed anything, as for Amazon, I agree on that but even then, workers at Amazon Europe have more rights than in the US. The thing is with capitalism, it's known to work, it's generated a lot of wealth in the world, the real problem is that wealth isn't being spread out even enough with the population and that is what needs changing and maybe this virus will be a massive wake up call, at least in Europe because it will be very difficult to pass the burden of this onto the public with how the last 10 years have been when the rich have more than enough wealth to pay more, so in Europe, there is a good chance that the tilt wing swing a bit more towards socialism in Europe, capitalism isn't going to go away until we come up with a better system but the balance of the two is likely going to get better. Just look at the Eurozone, now there are talking about Eurobonds, just a few weeks ago that was unthinkable and yet now they have all the Eurozone countries except two of them, one of them being Germany which I suspect don't want a transfer union from rich to poor with no strings attached and I agree on that one, help should be given with big reforms in mind, so they can stand on their own two feet. In any case, there is a real risk with capitalism in the long run, this virus is showing some major cracks in it but what will really likely crack it is robotics and A.I. taking over most of the work force and the irony is that this virus could speed that up because robotics wouldn't be effective by this virus and a lot more of the economy would be still running if we had a lot more automation.
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@FNLNFNLN My point still stand, the system isn't working for most and the cracks are starting to show.
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True, Putin doesn't really care about the Russian people, he cares about his position of power and his inner circle, just like any dictator, which are more than happy to throw their own people under the bus if it means staying in power or extending it, it's going to take some time for the Russian people to wake up to that reality and when they do, it's likely going to hit hard because sanctions usually only bite hard about 2 or 3 years in and by then, most of Europe will stop buying Russian oil and gas or at least reduced it a lot. Once that happens, the west is going to focus on China and India, with the intention of isolating Russia and there are many ways the west can go about that, after all, Russia isn't that important to China or India and both countries can't afford to get on the wrong side of the west when it comes to the economy. Who knows, maybe the western countries will put sanctions on both China and India as a percentage of how much oil and gas they buy from Russia, basically cancelling out the benefits, should be quite easy to do and that would encourage a lot of manufacturing and services out of China and India, other countries would be more than delighted to take that business away from them. I suspect the west is waiting for the European countries to diversify away from Russian oil and gas before they pull that trigger but there's no way the west is going to put up with China and India benefitting from buying cheap oil and gas from Russia whiles people are dying in Ukraine.
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@vanmantalks Remain was bad but the real problem is that remain was divided and Labour was useless, they are not much better now as they've made themselves accountable to Brexit. As for the warnings, Brexiteers were never going to listen, you could throw all the facts in the world at them and it wouldn't change thier views, they wanted to beleave in fantasy and and the reality of that is the only thing that will change view, unfortunately, it's likely going to be long and painful and likely to break the UK union up, that's probably going to be the real legacy of Brexit.
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It's one thing voting for something, it's another thing to deliver on it, in the case of Brexit, almost everything the leave side promised the people have been a lie so that gives a good reason for the people to have a re-think on Brexit with another vote, thats democracy my friend unless you really fear the people have changed there minds on Brexit.
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To be fair, it's a two-way thing, yes the US royally messed up under the Bush Administration which is likely a big part of why Putin thinks like he does, but Russia would have to want to change a lot if it really wanted to be western. The irony is, if Russia did become western and with the natural resources it's got, it would be a lot richer than it is today, After all, Russia isn't really doing any better than the eastern EU members which are still developing, Russia has a lot more natural resources compared to them and to make it worse for Russia, a lot of the wealth is concentrated in Moscow and St Petersburg. So yeah Russia isn't doing that well and could have been a lot richer with the right leadership and policies in place, so on the surface Putin did well for Russia, but in reality, he's not done that great for Russia considering its natural resources and you only have to look at the eastern European countries that joined the EU to see that.
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@mrantipatia1872 Not really, the EU doesn't need the US, but the US is hell-bent on pushing countries around to do its bidding, Europeans don't have the same concerns on China that the US does, but it does have its own reasons to not like China, but in the case of the US, it's concerns with China all boils down to power, they see China as a threat to its power base whereas the EU see China pushing its weight around too aggressively and other human rights abuses, so the EU should look after its own interest, many of which won't be to US interest, after all, that's what the US always does. I do know one thing, if the US isn't careful, it could lose the EU and a lot of European countries support at a time when the US needs international support to keep China in check, so keep pushing that aggressive tone and Europeans will turn away from the US, that will weaken the US voice in Europe, it will weaken it's resolve on China, the EU countries will do what in their interest, regardless if it's in US interest or not.
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@hunterjohnson6849 Don't kid yourself, the US entered the war out of self-interest, basically, the US knew that if they didn't enter the war, it was only going to escalate and the Nazis had a big advantage over the rest whereas the US had the advantage of being far away from the war, the US likely knew that if they stayed out of it, it was only a matter of time before the Nazis went after the US once they've finished with Europe and Russia, the Nazis would have been in a much stronger position to do so, so it was in the interest of the US to enter the war. Beside, using your logic, we could say the same thing about the French coming to the aid of the US when the Brits invaded, so enough with the pettiness and like it or not, the EU or the US isn't strong enough to take on China long term, they simply have the advantage of having a much bigger population with a fast-growing economy, so the EU and US will likely have to get closer together to protect western values, but let's not kid ourselves, the US has far more to lose with a rising China then the EU does, hence the panic and actions the US is trying to do to China with the aim of putting them down before it's too late, the US has a history of doing this, only this time, Japan is no China.
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This is why regardless of what the polls show, countries around the world should continue to shift trade away from the US, mainly because there's still too much of a big divide among the American people, in other words, the problem isn't solved once Trump is out of power because the real problem is with the American voters. The sad reality is about that is that the American people are not going to learn until it hits them hard, in other words, continue with shifting trade away from the US, boycotting US goods and services, fewer tourist visits to the US, all of that is a negative to the US and a positive for the rest of the world, especially the EU and China as it's them that will likely pick up on a lot of that business. I know some of this might sound harsh but the American people are not going to learn until it hits them hard, and even if they don't learn then, the US would become much weaker whiles other powers like the EU and China become stronger as they capitalise on America weakness. If you want me to put it another way, look at the UK with Brexit, there's much greater supporter for the UK wanting to join the EU, but there is little to no chance the EU would let them in for at least a few more decades, the EU is being smart, they want to drum that message into the UK so it's felt from the public, the media and governments so they learn from there mistakes, that takes a long time, and it's clear just looking at the current climate in the UK and the current government, there's a long way to go before the UK really changes, it's the same with the US, Trump is just a symptom of the real problems the country is facing, the real problem are the American people, that takes a lot longer to change, in other words, the UK needs to wake up like Canada did when it comes to it's approch to the US.
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For me, there isn't western and eastern European, we're just European in the end and I don't see the point in creating dividing lines between us which is what it does. Now don't get me wrong, there is a divide with the western countries not being in the Soviet Union at all in the past and the western countries being much richer but these lines are slowly being removed as time goes by and with any luck in the longer run, western and eastern Europeans won't see a dividing line between our people as it's artificial in nature and doesn't need to be there. Still it's interesting to see what people think as western and eastern European with and without a map.
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If anything, considering how slow the UK government was to shut down the country, I suspect the odds of independence have gone up not down, the UK government showed us that they value the economy above the well-being of the British people, that doesn't bold well for the UK union, more so because we had it bad with Brexit alone, now we have to contend with the damage to this virus, so some hard times are ahead and I suspect the likes of Scotland will want to flee the UK to find Safety in the EU market.
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@dannyfeller7034 Problem is with Brexit was the way the first vote was done, it made a mess and divided the country and it didn't help that it was based on lies, now with the coronavirus raging on, it's hard to say how Brexit will go because the damage it's doing to the economy is massive, throw in Brexit and this is something the UK can't really afford now and because of that, it wouldn't surprise me if Brexit gets put on hold or if we become a lot closer to the EU then some Brexiteers want, the political and economic realities have changed a lot thanks to this virus and it's difficult to say how those changes will turn out.
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divorcedme Actually, it was the lies that split the country, Brexiteers promised so much but started to roll back on a lot of it after the win, that's where the real divide came about, remember, Brexiteers said we could stay in the single market and custom union, that we would have our cake and eat it, that we would have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, where is any of that? The truth is, it was the right wing media that did the damage and worse yet is that this virus is likely going to do a lot more damage that we might not be able to afford Brexit after this, in other words, don't assume it's going to be business as usual once the dust settles because this virus is likely going to change a lot of government policies and likely Brexit could be one of them. All in all, this virus is the worse nightmare for the Brexiteers because the public are very fickle, they won't want to hear excuses on why living standards are taking a hit because of this virus, they will turn on the people that helped to make it worse, in other words, this government and the hardcore Brexiteers. By the way, enough of the bull that Brexit happened and the sky didn't fall, we are still a full member of the EU, we abide all it's laws, pay in the point, the only thing difference is that we don't have a say in making those rules so you can't say the sky did not fall when we've not fully left yet, wait till we are fully out then we can talk on that.
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divorcedme Problem is with schools is that they are all closed at the moment so lets leave that one out lol. Beside, lets be honest, Brexit was always going to be half in half out, the real trick is to trick the hardcore Brexiteers in thinking we have actually left in any meaningful way when no modern European country isn't under EU rule so why some think the UK will be the exception to the rule is funny, let me guess, we are great and that's why lol, all Brexit did is make the UK a vassal of the EU in that if we want freer trade with them which we really do, it means abiding a lot of its rules, laws and regulations and that is a simple fact we can't get around. As for hardcore Brexiteers, they are stupid, they are racist, and they are ignorant, we've seen tons of evidence on that, I could go on the streets and ask people at random and when I come up with a Brexiteer, ask them why they vote for Brexit and what has the EU every done personally that they hate it so much, most can't give a clear answer and if you push them enough, the racist card of foreigners comes out, it's predicable because it happens almost every time, even Farage has fallen for that a few times when pushed on tough questions lol. It's the same on the other side of the coin, remainers come up with facts and yet Brexiteers ignore them because it doesn't resonate to what they want to see and this is the real problem with Brexit, it's based on bullshit but reality doesn't care about that, it goes on how things are and hence why the UK is in big trouble, not just on Brexit but now on this virus. As for the EU, I've learned from history to never listen to Brexiteers and euroseptics on the demise of the EU, they have an impeccable record of being wrong on that going back decades so why would this be any different? Wanting something and it's happening are two very different things and what I've seen with the EU, it seems to be at it's best when a crisis happens where big changes come from that, something you should be very worried about because we are in a big crisis right now. Italy and Spain still want to be EU members, you logic is flawed in trying to blame the EU in areas it doesn't have power to help in, in fact you could blame the euroseptics on that for tieing the EU's hands behind it's back, many European countries are starting to realize and more so Eurozone one that for the EU to be more effective, it needs more powers in a few key areas that would be help in this crisis, so yes, you can't blame the EU for areas that are things where the power is in national government but you can blame the people that kept it like that. This is why this virus is a nightmare for Brexiteers and euroseptics alike, it's a massive wake up call to the public that we need to work closer together, hence why you should be worried because this could have a big swing in views in the UK that we might end up rejoining the EU a lot sooner than some think, more so because of how deep the hole is we have gotten in that we are going to need all the help we can get to dig ourselves out, and we already know the EU will help, they've already showed they are willing to help the UK even thought they didn't have too, that tells us a lot that the EU isn't petty whereas Brexiteers are and we saw that with the UK government on that EU procurement program which if people in the UK dies because we don't have enough ventilators, that could be really damaging to the Brexit movement, this isn't a time for Brexiteers to be petty when people are dying because there could be a high cost on that.
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divorcedme You too and yeah, some conversions do go that way and thanks, you stay safe as well.
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@jasonkingshott2971 Actually, they want to rejoin the EU, they just want to get away from UK rule and you can't really blame them really because look at the standard of living in Scotland and compare that to other modern European countries of around that size, it's a poor showing really and it's even worse for Northern Ireland that have a gdp per capital around 3 times less than the Republic of Ireland, it begs the question what on earth is the benefit of the UK unions to these members, Wales isn't much better and as we know, there is a clear north-south divide in the UK where most wealth is kept down south. You wonder why some want to leave, now you know, at least with the EU, it does improve the quality of living for it's members whereas the likes of Scotland have been in for hundreds of years so they should be very modern now with a high quality of living but are still lagging behind, compare that to EU members that join the EU which does the vast bulk of modernizing in about 40 years with some members taking a bit longer than that, a far more impressive record when you think about it and likely why the likes of Scotland and Northern Ireland are thinking about leaving the UK union with the intention of rejoining the EU. Speaking of corruption, have you seen it all in the UK on Brexit and how that went, you can't get more corrupt than that and you wonder why Scotland and Northern Ireland are not happy at the moment, more so because both voted to remain in the EU but are being talked down to by the UK government, that won't end well unless the UK government throws a lot of money at that to keep them happy, money that will likely be redirected from the north of England because it sure won't come from the south, it rarely every does and the irony is, the north of England is Brexit land so I doubt the Tories will care about that because they are good at pulling the wool over their eyes lol.
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@jasonkingshott2971 Probably a low price if it got back at us Brits, beside, if you understand the process of joining the EU, you wouldn't of said what you said lol. The irony is, a lot of what you describe is very much the UK system not the EU system lol, just look at the mess we've got ourselves in with the UK from Brexit to this virus pandemic and a lot of that mess is because of the way the system is so dysfunctional, it's no wonder there are talks of Scotland and Northern Ireland wanting to leave and honestly, it's hard to blame them really.
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@taekwanlew The EU isn't perfect but it is quite democratic, more so than the UK system if you look at them both closely, but there are things that could always be done better with the EU but to be fair, it's a work in progress project, the UK system doesn't have that excuse as it doesn't represent enough of the population the way it should do, especially it's members in the union. In any case, this virus has exposed a massive hole in the argument that euroseptcs keep talking about, they keep telling us they want powers at a national level, well look at the mess that has done here, lives are being lost that could be saved, if we had more EU where they could help more effectively, lives likely would be saved but because members were bickering, we got the mess we are in, I love to see how euroseptics try to wing that one when it's clear where the real failing in dealing with this crisis is. I also do feel that this crisis could change a lot of views on people on many things going forward and I doubt Brexiteers want to hear that because views in the UK could swing in support of the EU after this by quite some margin, we just don't know yet but it's unlikely going to be business as usual like some think, this virus is a massive wake up call that impacting most of us, that will likely create a lot of change in the country and how people think and that is a threat to Brexiteers, more so because we was already in bad shape before this crisis, Brexit alone was going to put us in an hole economically, throw in the fallout from this virus, the hardship we are going to face over the coming years is going to be immense, a lot of people will blame Brexit for making that worse and a lot of people won't want to hear excuses, Brexiteers promised us uplands not down the toilet, good luck on delivering that now when the task was almost impossible before this virus hit and that is where the real swing in public views could kick in once it hits us hard.
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@jasonkingshott2971 You're too defensive my friend, beside, I'm not seeing much propaganda from the EU at the moment, it's mostly coming from the US lol, beside, now you are putting words in my mount and using an old debate to on an argument of now which isn't realistic when this virus is likely going to change a lot of things. Another weak argument, now you say Europeans have never really understood democracy when it was there where it was invented but hey, you want to play that game, why not look at the US, UK and German democratic system and see which look the more democratic, I'll give you a hint, the UK comes worse off lol.
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@jasonkingshott2971 You say that as if you know that as fact lol when clearlly you don't, the truth is, things are in flux at the moment on Brexit and many other things and could swing in any direction because of the impact on this virus, hence the excitement building in the air and why the likes of Farage is quite quiet of Brexit, does he know something we don't? lol. Anyway, now that it seems BoJo is back, that is great news for us all, he's been in hiding the last few months with a rotation of other ministers taking their turn per day, the idea being so they can't get pinned down with how bad they are doing on this, Boris must know that his good will only last about a week or so from the public with him getting the virus, assuming he got it at all, then after that time, the public and media are going to go after him on many things from the poorer handerling of this crisis, to Brexit, he can bullshit his way around most things like he did with Brexit and like he tried to do with this virus but as people are dying, he knows he's in big trouble and this is likely to stick to him for the poor showing on this crisis and not just him but the Tory government, that could brake the back of this government and even Brexit if they are not careful. In any case, keep a very close eye on Boris, if he really did have a close encounter with death, he should be quite changed and more mellow after this, if he's just the same as he was before, people should ask questions on why and so far it doesn't look good for him, Brexit hasn't been put on hold which it's clear it's not going ahead this year but that he's still playing games till the end of June speaks volume to many people, then we have Dominic Cummings, what on earth is he still doing with this government? That alone suggest he's not changed and that doesn't look good for BoJo. It wouldn't even surprise me if BoJo getting the virus was fake with the intention of taking him out of the spot light because he know a lot of tough questions were heading his way and these kinds of things tend to give them more public support, it was a win win for BoJo in that sense and considering all the lies he's told over the years, I wouldn't put it past him, but personally I don't think he faked it but we will see over the next few weeks or months because it should have changed him to some degree. As for the EU, what makes me laugh about people like you, you go on about how corrupt the organization is and yet you are quite happy to accept how corrupt the UK organization and you wonder why the likes of Scotland and Northern Ireland might want to leave the UK, such hypocrites some people are and what's really said, if you look at the EU and UK much closer, the UK is actually more corrupt, that's the real sad part lol, so do some research before waffling.
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@jasonkingshott2971 I don't need to dream, I just look at how things are and with the virus pandemic going on and the economic fall out from that which could last years, the government isn't in a position to push ahead with Brexit knowing the economic damage that will do, you might not like it that Brexit is being put on hold which it will be very close to the end of June so mark that in your calendar lol. The truth is, we are not in a position to deal with Brexit whiles dealing with the economic fallout of this virus and most of us know it because the deadline to getting a deal before this virus hit was almost nil, now it's more or less impossible and the last thing the UK government can afford to do is put more hardship on the British people when enough of that is on it's way anyway and more so because public mood is very likely to swing in many directions because of the impact this virus is having on us, anyone that assumes it's going to be business as usual once the virus passes on are living in cloud coko land lol. So just so you know what is coming, Boris and co will say Brexit is still going ahead just so people like you don't go ape, the EU on the other hand won't care any more than they have far bigger fish to deal with and I suspect they will be quite happy to put Brexit on hold without caring what the UK decides to do, in other words, put the ball firmly in our court. With that, the UK government would look very reckless if they didn't put it on hold with everything else that is going on and I suspect even a lot of Brexiteers will understand that, but for now, BoJo doesn't want to deal with it for now and will leave it right to the last minute, so the end of June where it's the point of no return. Also, this Tory government needs to be very careful, this virus is hitting it's core in so many areas that it really looks bad for them, we've had 10 years of austerity measures which has left the NHS and UK in a bad position on this virus, then we've got Brexit to contend with and now the poor showing from this government on this virus where it looked like they were trying to put the economic interest first before the well-being of the people and if that isn't insulting enough, the Tories with it's poor showing are impacting the older generation of people the most from care homes and so on, they must feel that this government is stabbing them in the back when these are it's core supporters on Brexit, you have to wonder what many of these must think of this government, especially the ones who feel this government wants the virus to take them out so the government saves on pension and the NHS because that would be a lot of money to be saved, I know that sounds sick but look at the government we are dealing with, would you put it past them with all the other lies they've done, I wouldn't. So keep dreaming my friend, a lot of changes are on the horizon and that could be really bad news for people like you.
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Yep, considering the hard time Russia and the Wagner group have been having in Ukraine, they would be crazy to think about attacking an EU and NATO member, it would be the excuse needed for western powers to go in more forceful. If it was to happen, Belarus would likely be the sacrificial lamb lol, with probably more of a forceful push against Russia in Ukraine, something we should realise, the resources the EU and US are giving to Ukraine are more or less crumbs, they could do far more if they wanted too, or more accurately, if given the excuse to do so by a country or organisation that's foolish enough to attack an EU or NATO member.
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That message is for the Russian people, Putin wants them to think they are at war with the entire west to get more support from the Russian people. In reality, Putin is at war with the Russian people and the west, the Russian people are partly victims in all this too by a system that is abusive, but the Russian people are also partly to blame for not standing up to Putin, either way, Putin can't afford to escalate this war with the west, but desperation is kicking in, what the west and Ukraine is doing is highly humiliating for Putin, it's also exposing how weak the Russian military is.
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I always find it funny how euroseptics blame the EU on things that it's got little power on and the fault of that is the euroseptics, after all, think about it, this virus is exposing a lot of the flaws in the argument that euroseptics come up with and in a really damaging way, this virus is showing the pettiness of nationalism and why we need more Europe and less, if the EU had more powers in key areas, a lot of lives could be saved here but because it's hands are tied behind it's back by euroseptics, more people are dying then needed. Look at Boris for instance, his Brexit stance on that EU procurement program is putting British peoples lives at risk, the EU invited us on that program, the UK government made excuses from saying they're not interested to just 2 days later saying we didn't get the memo even thought it was all over the news lol, it looks really bad for the UK government and Brexiteers because it's showing they are putting Brexit pettiness before peoples lives, heck even Tim Martin showed us a lot of that lol. By the way, have you seen all the talks about Eurobonds? just a few weeks ago that would have been unthinkable and now they have most of the Eurozone members onboard, history has shown us that the EU and it's members seem to come closer together when a disaster happens, and we are seeing early signs of that now. Worse yet and this is what really should scare the Brexiteers is Brexit being put on hold early in the summer because there is little to zero chance talks will be done by the end of the year and talks might not end even next year depending how things go with this virus, public views can change a lot on many things thanks to this virus, we might end up seeing massive support to rejoin the EU once the dust settles, more so because the UK will be in deep trouble from Brexit to the damage of this virus, we are going to need all the help we can get, so expect us to be very close to the EU after this.
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steve gale Actually it's more of a redistribution of wealth, something that if done right benefits us all, the thing is, if they do something like Eurobonds, it needs to be tied in with major reforms, it should be used to help countries get back on their feet but not to support them long term, doing the needed reforms will likely allow them to stand on their own feet. In any case, I think a lot of countries are going to need to help each other, including the UK because the hole we are all getting our self in isn't going to be easy to get out so I think we're all going to have to work together, hence why I think the EU countries, including the UK will get a lot of help once the dust settles, after all, the EU isn't vindictive, so they won't not help us if we ask but there will be a price to pay for that help as it won't come for free.
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No one can predict the future with any real accuracy, especially the more in the future we try to predict but personally, I think Socialism would likely win out for the most part and the reason being is that as we advance more, we're going to get to the point where we pretty much have as much energy we could ever need, then we're going to have robotics and A.I. that can do pretty much any job better than we can and then if we throw in recycling and space mining, we're likely going to have more natural resources than we know what to do with. Throw all that together and we basically have a society that energy is more or less free, labour cost is free and natural resources is so cheap or as good as free to not matter, it pretty much wipes out the main things that add any real cost or value to something with the exception of land but then in the future, I suspect people will live in space on ships or other planets so that's not an issue, so putting it all together, there is little reason why we couldn't create a perfect society for the human race. That's the ideal situation of how things could go but then humans have a long history of being corrupt, greedy, short-sighted and self-centred which are slow to learn from history and are quick to repeat it, in other words, as much as what I said above could happen, we're just as likely to wipe ourselves out if we don't change enough as a people, especially as tech keeps advancing and filtering down to the common people. Either way, a new reckoning is likely upon us over the coming decades as robotics and A.I. takes over a lot of jobs and in time, take over almost all jobs, after all, if a business can replace humans with robotics, they will the moment they can because they are cheaper with no rights, benefits and can work 24/7 whiles being a lot more productive than us, in other words, we wouldn't stand a chance in the job market and with that, I can't see how capitalism can survive that, question is, will governments react to that by creating some kind of human development fund for everyone or will they only react when things get so bad with so many people being unemployed that it starts to destabilize the entire system, the scary thing is with how quickly robotics and A.I. is developing, many of the younger generation of people are likely to see this in their lifetime and it could start over the next 2 decades.
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Braking up of big companies is bound to happen at some point, think about it, look at big companies 50 years ago, look at them now and it's not hard to see how big many can be in 50 years time which is way too much power in the hands of so few that it could even be a threat to many governments and rarely is in the interest of the public. The video alone said youtube isn't braking even so it's being supported by the rest of Google, that alone makes it a lot harder for smaller rivals to compete with it because Google is using resources from other products to help another. As for breaking up big companies, would it really be that hard? Many of them have different divisions, Google have search, Android, youtube and so on, all of which could be broken up as different companies, same could be said for Microsoft, they have Windows, they have the console division and so on and this is the case for many of these big companies because they bought out a lot of smaller companies.
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When they say where is the best state to work, they mean for businesses and not for workers lol. Basically, businesses are looking for the best state that has the lowest taxes, workers rights and so on, in other words, hell on earth for the workers and paradise for the businesses lol. Anyway, from a European perspective, it's clear that the US needs much stronger federal laws to protect workers rights, at the moment, they are too weak and it's leaving it open for states to decide that, that's actually bad because it puts a lot of pressure on those states to lower standards to attract businesses. I feel the EU does a much better job at that, where the EU has a high worker's right bar that members in the EU can't go below it but can have higher standards than it if they choose, the advantage of that is that it's not a race to the bottom and without that, the EU would be facing the same problems the US is facing with countries lowering standards to attract businesses, the high standards make it hard for businesses to avoid and being the EU is a big market, it's a market businesses can't afford to not be in, the US could do the same as it's a big market but the US is going to need much stronger policies from the federal government to get real change.
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If the UK wants to get back on it's fit, they've got to get these Tory loons out of power, they've shown over the last decade, decade and half, going back to the austerity measures that they've been a disaster for the UK and over the last 5 years, the Tories are a running joke. The second thing that needs to happen is the UK needs to repair its ties with the EU, whether we like it or not, we trade a lot with the EU and we need good links with them, in other words, we need to get rid of the Tories because they keep picking fights with the EU to deflect blame away from their own incompetents. Basically, don't expect things to get better until the Conservative Party are out of power and even then, it depends who is in power and by how much of a majority they win by to get things done. As it is, the Tories are the biggest risk to the UK union with there being a real chance of Scotland and Northern Ireland leaving the UK over the next decade and now there are talks in Wales about having an independence referendum, I don't think this Tory lot and the Brexiteers realize how much damage they are doing to the country and to themselves and like the video points out, it's going to be a slow burn of decline that at first, many won't notice, but longer term, we end up falling behind other modern countries. Personally, I think we need an election with the Tories getting hit hard, we need EU-UK relations to get on a much better footage, maybe even the UK to join the single market and custom union as that would solve many of the problems the UK is facing, maybe even longer term, rejoining the EU but realistically, I doubt the EU would let the UK back in for many decades, especially as you need every EU member to agree and I can think of a few that would say no to that for at least 2 decades, from their point of view, they've got rid of a troublesome member, why would they want us back? in other words, the UK can only rejoin once the political, media and public views on the EU change, otherwise, the EU will just have the same problems it had with the UK before it left and honestly, I think the EU would rather have Scotland, Northern Ireland and maybe Wales, but not England as that is where the real problem in the UK is.
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I have an idea John, as we are a democracy, how about we do the right thing and once the exit terms are known, the British people should have a final vote on Brexit to see if it really is the will of the people to leave the EU, we really don't know what the views are of the people after everything we've learned over the last two years, so are we a democracy?, if we are, the British publc deserves the final say and it needs to be clear that we wont get another chance after that, so far from what I'm seeing, hardliners seems very fearful of giving the British public another say on this matter because they fear the lies that got us into this mess wont work a second time round, more so after everything we've learned on Brexit over the last two years, you talk demoracry but we both know the hardliners would fight tooth and nail to not let the British people have another say on this.
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A lot was said from both said, it doesn't mean much because a lot of lies and fear was told, now if the leave side kept to the promises they said that won the vote, the remain side wouldn't have a leg to stand on now but it's clear they can't keep to thoes promises, hence why we keep going in circles on Brexit. Oh don't be sorry for me, I'm doing fine, in fact I even have dual citizenship so if things do go bad here, I could easierly jump ship but I don't see why I should, in any event, it must be clear as mud to you that Brexit isn't going to happen the way you want, it's very likely that we are going to stay in the single market and custom union or something like that, EU membership all but in name but with little to no say and why?, because thats the best way to protect the economy and intrest of the UK without being the EU, you leavers promised us cake and eat it this, cheery pick that but you are not delivering on that so it's people like you that have very likely ended up making the UK a vassal state and the EU doesn't even have to do a thing about it but wait. So anyway, now the European parliament is not electable?, next you'll be saying the queen is put into her postion by the people lol. In any event, there is only one thing thats going to sort this mess out, another vote, if you truly beleave in democarcry then let the Public decide in a final vote, if they vote to leave again, you wont here me say a would on it and I would accept it, after all, two votes saying the same thing would mean the remain side wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but if they vote to stay then that changese everything, in any case, we need to be clear on what the public wants because a lot of fear and lies ware told from both side before the vote.
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Well no, it's all about giving the public the facts with another vote on either they want hard Brexit, EU membership or whatever deal the EU offers us, all terms that we get are going to be worse then EU membership, thats clear for anyone to see and if that wasn't clear enough then why have we not left the EU yet if hard Brexit was such a wonderful thing?, the reality is that we can't afford too and that is dawning on us all now. This is how I suspect things will go, we'll end up in the single market and custom union or something like that, that will very likely leave the door open for the UK to rejoin the EU at some future date and we likely will because it would be much better then being a rule taker when we can be a rule maker. In any case, the leave side have had almost two years to show us how Brexit will work without hurting the UK, two years and they still can't come up with a realistic plan that works, it always boils down to cake and eat it and cheery picking which the EU is denieing us on that and for good reason too.
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@missymoonwillow6545 Considering how long they last on surfaces, I suspect they last on the body even longer.
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Even without what's going on in Ukraine, there is little Russia can do as it would be crazy of them to go up against the EU and NATO, Ukraine for Russia is seen as an easy target and yet they are having a hard enough time there, an EU or NATO country is too much for what Russia is capable off, at least going on what we've seen so far. Truth is, Russia will do what's it's been doing, it will complain and make threats, something it was going to do anyway. At the end of the day, Russia is violating a sovereign nation with Ukraine, they have no right in complaining about getting hit back for their own actions.
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From Putin's point of view, he will want to blame Ukraine in the hopes of hardening the stance of the Russian population to support the war, it's a risky move from Putin, considering all the evidence and warnings pointing to ISIS, it could backfire on Putin that Russians might start asking question in that, if Putin is willing to lie about this to them, what else is he lying about? Still, from Putin's point of view, he's in a desperate situation, he needs to protect his position of power by keeping the Russian people onboard, and because of how committed he's got on the war in Ukraine, he can't backtrack on that without it being humiliating and maybe even ended his leadership role in Russia. So basically, anything negative that happens in Russia, it's Ukraine's fault according to Putin, and Putin will keep pushing that agenda to keep the Russian people onside, in this case, considering the US warned Russia last month and that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, the credibility of Putin could take a hit if he pushed this lie on the Russian people and it could be a risky move for him. It's going to be interesting to see how the Russian people react to that over the coming weeks and months. Also, the police response of 1.5 hours was way too slow for this kind of incident, you have to wonder how Putin will explain that to the Russian people, probably lie to them, but it wouldn't surprise me if the slow response was on purpose so the terrorist could do more damage, Putin aiming to blame it on Ukraine and Putin hoping it gets the Russian people more angry to back the war effort, this wouldn't surprise me at all as dictators throughout history have used these tactics on their own people to push an agenda, and let's be blunt about this, Putin doesn't care about the Russian people, he cares about his position of power and knows he needs to keep the Russian people onside to keep that power, so he will lie, cheat and do whatever is needed to keep his position of power and the people onside.
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In total, I think the EU and its members have spent around the same as the US when it comes to Ukraine, with the US spending more on military aid and EU countries on humanity aid.
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Can anyone name any elections or referendums that have legally every had over 95% of the votes in favour of their policy? If you give people a real voice, there will be division, there is no way over 95% of the people voted in favour of Russia in those regions, especially with everything that's going on. I mean come on Putin, at least try and make it look more convincing of around 60%-70% lol, the over 95% vote doesn't mean anything when it's at gun point or when a lot of the votes don't even count and at the end of the day, Putin has an agenda for taking over these regions, there was no way in hell he would give a voice to those people as he couldn't afford it going the other way. In any case, is this really going to change anything? I doubt it, Ukraine is still likely going to continue it's offensive in those regions and probably into Crimea as well, a lot of countries are not going to recognize this scam vote, so Putin can say all he wants about it being part of Russia now, it probably won't matter because if the west allows Putin to get away with this, think of the message that sends around the world, all a country has to do is a quick invasion of some land, hold a quick scam referendum and then that land is yours lol, the west can't afford to allow Russia to keep those lands unless there is an independence referendum with international monitoring to see what the people actually want. You know what is funny about these vote, if Russia actually did take over Ukraine by now and did a shame referendum, I'll put money on it now that it would say around 95% of the people want to join Russia lol, what a load of crock from Putin lol. As for Turkey, China, India and a few others, they can't be seen to endorse these votes, they likely know that if this is seen as acceptable in the international community, there will be little to nothing stopping Russia or other countries doing the same thing to others around the world, this is one area where the international community needs to put its foot down hard on Russia as it's not hard to imagine how this can become a real issue longer term for others.
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It's a complex issue when it comes to corporations having enough freedoms to do what they want and consumers making their own choice. The problem is that I don't think it's a good idea to allow some corporations to get so big and powerful, that they control so much information that people have access too, that could become dangerous and could become a threat to democracy, in the case of the US, corporations already more or less run the show and have the government in the back pocket, that's only going to get a lot worse in the US unless the government and the people put their foot down on regulating them. Clearly, this won't happen in the US that easy, but pressure is building thanks to the EU and other countries getting tough on these corporations, but clearly, a lot more needs to be done, because if we allow corporations to grow unchecked, we are going to end up in a Blade Runner like future where governments are too weak and corporations run everything, and because of how the system is designed in the US, we are talking about a few hand-picked corporations that run everything, that puts all other companies at a disadvantage and that is too much power in too few hands that the public have little to no say in the running of them.
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Never understood the logic of a country trying to be natural, it usually always favours the countries that are aggressive, in this case, Russia, that stance can also bite you on the arse as I don't get a sense that Russia is loyal to any country and uses them as pawn in the wider game, on top of that, it does look like Putin might have big ambitions of expanding Russia, he's already made it clear that the fall of the Soviet Union was a disaster for Russia, he's also shown that he wants to do land grabs, any country including China or India could be a future target at some point if Putin gets away with what he's doing in Ukraine and I suspect that's the reason why so many countries around the world have gone cold on Russia since that shame referendum, they are starting to see the risk it could mean to them. No offence to any natural country but the way I see it, it's a coward act, not willing to stand up for the right thing, it must be clear to anyone that what Russia is doing in Ukraine isn't morally right, so being natural, it might as well be those countries supporting Russia because if every country was natural, Ukraine wouldn't stand a chance against Russia. At the end of the day, things should be looked at in terms of rights and wrongs and not based on political, economic advantages, Europe for instance are willing to pay a high price to stop reduce, question is, why is India and China not willing to do that? History could look bad on countries like India and China because whiles others are willing to do the right thing, even at a high cost, India and China are trying to profit on it by buying cheap oil from Russia, in a sense, supporting the Russian war effort, that could have longer term negative political and economic impacts on both China and India if they are not careful. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the west are perfect and they have done many things wrong throughout history, in the end, this is about wanting to do the right thing in the world and being seen on the right side of history and so far, the countries that support or stay neutral on Russia, are looking bad.
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I have to agree with you on that, a big part of democracy is about compromising on policies as it's representing a wide range of people whereas, I find UK and US democracies to be one extreme or another in the choices that voters have whiles limiting choice at all as less parties get a chance to gain power, hence in the US, it's either the Democrats or Republicans or in the UK, the Conservative or Labour, it's one extreme to another and doesn't seem very democratic to me and it's also probably a big part in the mess the UK got it's self into with Brexit and the US with Trump.
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The irony is, getting rid of Boris doesn't really solve anything, it might look good in the short term but the real problems are still there that were brought up from Brexit, the irony is that Brexit was supposed to unite the party, it's done the opposite lol. Unless the Tories get rid of a lot of the rotten eggs in the party, mainly the hardline Brexiteers in the ERG group, I don't see much changing otherwise, after all, Brexit has got rid of 3 leaders, the party has become more radicalized because of Brexit, good luck to the Tories in fixing that because that isn't going to be easy. Basically, whoever the Tories pick next, have to face the same issues in the party the past leaders faced which ended up pushing them all out, so whoever they pick for the next leader, unless they solve the real problems in the party that was created by Brexit, the Tories are just setting themselves up for a bloodbath at the next election, after all, changing the leadership is just changing the coat of paint, the real problem people have is partly the leadership but a lot of it is the direction the party is going and I don't think the Tories realize that.
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Far left, far right, they are both as bad as each other, so come on guys, enough of this BS about blaming the left or right for how things are in society. If you really want to blame someone, look in a mirror, especially in a democracy, because most of the blame falls on the people, and all this left, right BS is too simple group a bunch of people to pin the blame on anything that goes wrong on one side or the other. Also, you know what the sad reality is, most people don't even realise that they have views that span both the left and right of politics and the sad thing is that very few people realise that.
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So many things can change over that time to change that list but I think it's safe to say that China and India will be first and second, the US will continue to drop down that list, the UK an unknown because of Brexit so things could get worse for them, the others is hard to say and a combined EU would be hard to say because by then, countless other countries will likely have joined it that it could have other 50 plus members in it, so too many unpredictable things can change the outcome of this list in so many ways for many countries, especially because there is usually counter measures to change outcomes over time.
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We're going to be massive progress, we should remember that gpu's where the best we had when it comes to accelerating A.I. but it was only a matter of time before someone invents a chip that is designed for that task. The irony is, because of the task of processing A.I. an A.I. designed chip is likely far less complicated and a lot cheaper to manufacture compared to a gpu which has a lot of fluff around it, so it wouldn't surprise me if many more companies enter the A.I. specialised chip market which should drive the price down a lot and what will fuel that is the high growth demand and the current high prices, which I think will get slashed massively in the next 5 or so years.
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Actually, you've got it back to front, you want evidence of that, just look at the UK since it left the EU, it's got more bureaucracy and red tape. You might not like this but overall, the EU reduces a lot of that by harmonizing a lot of the rules and regulations over many countries and just imagine if you lot had your wish and there was no EU, imagine each EU country having its own regulations, red tape and other barriers, what a mess that would be and it would hurt living standards. Basically, the EU doesn't add more bureaucracy and red tape, it takes a lot of the bureaucracy and red tape that is already there at a national level and comes up with a common standard throughout the EU countries, which actually reduces bureaucracy and red tape. In any case, the UK is doing wonders in proving a lot of your points wrong.
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Thats the irony of Brexit, the hardcore Brexiteers are trying to push for hard Brexit and making it seem that all Brexiteers voted for that when I suspect a lot of Brexiteers voted to leave the EU with a soft Brexit and I suspect many of them have changed thier minds and want to stay in the EU, we know all this with all the lies they told us before the Brexit vote, most of which was for a soft Brexit, they changed thier tune after the vote but I suspect a lot of Brexiteers fell for that, it's also the reason why they are scared to death of giving the public another vote because they suspect that the public want to stay in the EU now. In other words, they are trying to force us out of the EU even thought it's very likely that the people want to stay in the EU, thats UK democracy at work which is quite broken as we can see.
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@neildoerdan2298 May was never really in charge of Brexit, the ERG are with the backing of some very powerful people in the media, the real blame with Brexit goes squarely on the hardcore Brexiteers and the red lines, thinking the EU would give us what they wanted, thats where the real blame is and the EU is setting things up to make sure it's very hard for Brits to be able to blame the EU for however Brexit goes.
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The actual term democracy is too black and white, where people judge a country to be democratic or not, it doesn't tell you anything about the quality of that democracy from country to country or how well it represents the people's interest. I think people should start looking at the quality of the democratic system from country to country, look at what some do right and what some are doing wrong, by having a better understanding of the degrees of democracy, maybe people will wake up and push for real change. Personally, from what I've seen, countries that are more or less two party systems, with a winner takes all and first past the post is quite a weak democracy, so the US and UK, yes on the surface you have choice, but how much of your voice actually matters? Truth is, these systems are designed to group people into two camps, so the Democrats and Republican Party in the US or the Conservative and Labour Party in the UK, the problem is that it limits choice and people's views are not so black and white, worse yet, it makes it very difficult for other views, as in new parties to gain power, hence why it's always the same parties that win in the US and UK, which just goes on rotation every few years, throw onto of that all the money in politics and it's no wonder people feel their voice isn't heard because it isn't unless there's a big protest to force change, which ironically seems to be the only time those governments actually listen.
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I have to agree with you and I say that as a Brit, the UK with Brexit, Trump in the US and Putin of Russia have done wonders for the EU in a positive way which is ironic as they tried to do it harm but it woke a lot of people up to how important the EU is politically, economically and socially to protect European interest around the world.
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@theSPUDereHD I would hardly call that being shambolic, remember that we are talking about a vaccine that has only been tested for around half a year, these unusual takes years, even decades. Considering the government we have in the UK and the pressure on the economy, I expected we would be one of the first to approve it but that means nothing really if it's not safe and let's be honest, we both know the EU puts the well-being of it's people more than the UK government does. You say the UK is leading the way but other could say we are the real guinea pigs on this and let's be frank about this, with all the lies this government has said over the last few years, why would anyone in sound mind think the government has our interest at heart when their backs are against the wall because of the economy taking a beating? Basically what I'm trying to say is that it's very likely that many corners were cut to pass these vaccine because of the damage to the economy but as for how safe it is for us, well we'll find out over the next few years. Another problem is, what about those people that refuse to take the vaccine no matter what? Remember that with Brexit, the government has stirred up a lot of mistrust in the system, we could be talking millions of people in the country that refuse to take it and the irony is with that, most could be Brexiteers because they are the ones that don't trust the system. With that, the real interesting thing will be on the last mile, for now it's easy to get people vaccinated as there is enough people that will come forward, lets see what it's like on the last mile where we start getting to the people that don't trust the governments motives on this. Or lets put it another way, I would have a lot more faith in taking that German/US vaccine over the UK one, which begs the question on if they'll let us know which one we are taking.
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@theSPUDereHD Facts and this government rarely add up, they've got a credibility issue when it comes to that as we saw on Brexit and the same is likely true on the pandemic, after all, look how slow the government is to shut down, they are always one step behind other European countries and only make the hard choices once they feel the pressure building on them from the people, that's poor leadership from our government that are following and not leading. That the UK has vaccinated more people than the rest of the EU doesn't mean much when we have a government that is quite happy to bend the truth, there is a lot of people in the UK that don't trust the governments motives and won't take the vaccine no matter what the government says, that's the real problem, they've lied so much that it's hard to trust them on anything and considering how they were the first to approve the vaccine doesn't encourage confidence, remember that times are desperate for the government, they need to get the economy moving and are likely willing to cut corners in many areas, in other words, on the vaccine approval. Now when the Germans approve them, it gains a lot more trust but even then, I suspect many in the UK will want to know which vaccine they are taking, in other words, many won't want to take the UK vaccine because it's not really been approved by many around the world, the German and US one has so that's more credible but even then, I still wouldn't take any unless I was on my last legs. Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy there are many vaccines around and I hope they work but because of the pressure on the economy and the short time to approve them, how safe they really are is unknown to us, at least over the longer term as vaccine usually takes years, even decades before being approved and for good reason.
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@theSPUDereHD Questioning governments is always healthy for a democracy but taking part is always a good thing, not enough do. As for the style of lock down, the UK is being seen as a disaster zone to many outside the UK, we are right up there with some of the worse infection and death rates around the world and it seems to be going out of control the last 2 weeks, the UK style of lock down is too soft, if you call it a lock down at all because where I live, it almost seems like normal times where there isn't a lock down, that wasn't the case of the first wave, so either the government is too soft or people are ignoring the rules, hence the poor results in the UK. Regulators can be twisted by governments, the UK vaccine for instant seems to only be approved by the UK and other developing countries, I don't think any rich modern country apart from the UK has approved it, even Australia is questioning it and lets be honest, with all the lies our government in the UK have told over the last few years from Brexit to the pandemic, you really think they can't tell lies on the vaccine? it's one thing to approve one, it's another on if it's safe to take and that is where the real problem is, there is enough people that won't take it no matter what. The irony is that all this rampant paranoia that Brexit and Trump has created in these two nations could backfire when it comes to taking the vaccine because people don't know what to trust any more, in other words, it's one thing having the vaccine approved, it's another getting the people to take them, especially on the last mile as the first stage is always easy. Would I take the vaccine with all the lies the government have told, no I wouldn't, I would rather wait and hope I don't need to take it and if I do get the virus, see if my body can deal with it and if it can't, even then I would prefer to take the German/American vaccine over the UK one as I have a lot more trust in them than our own government. As for the EU, the approval of vaccines was always going to be slower, but then they do care about the well-being of it's people a lot more than Trump does of the American people or the Tories do of the British people, this isn't a race on who gets there first, this is about which ones work and which are safe, something we really don't know yet because these vaccines got approved in like 6 months where usually they take years even decades, now if there is any side effects or deaths because of the vaccines, the lawsuits are going to be massive.
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@zgtman2134 They likely will, films, tv shows, documentaries once the dust settles, and they have enough of a good story to tell, maybe in about 5 to 10 years so it's not so close to home
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@kyzersoze8408 My advice to the US once the dust settles, you really need a better educational system, less rampant paranoia and far less patriotism because that is where the real problem is in the US at the moment and that won't be easy to fix.
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@sethchiaroproductions2171 I don't mind, it's only a couple of months of lock down, it's not the end of the world but these people seem to think it's an invasion from the government on their freedoms lol. But I do understand the other side of the problem, the government is doing quite poor in supporting the people where it seems quite happy to bail out the super rich, contrast that with Europe and they are having far fewer issues on this because the governments are paying people most of their wages to stay at home, it's costly but it's far more humain and this is showing the real weakness in the US system in how it doesn't look after it's people like the European social system does.
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All I know is that the system in the UK is rigged in favor of the Conservative and Labour party, the two party system whiles others don't really get a look in and for another party to be a success, it's a big up hill battle. That doesn't mean it can't happen but it wont be easy and I have to say that this could be the best chance they have at shakeing things up, with Labour moving to the left and the Tories moving to the right, there is a big hole in the central ground of politics, it's made all the better because a lot of Brits feel like the two main parties never listen to them. We need a new moderate party because the two main parties seems they are becoming less moderate and if us Brits really want change in the UK, this might be one of our best chance of getting it because I bet after Brexit, both the Tories and Labour will tighten up the rules to make it harder for any rivals to gain power. Brexit has opened up a big can of worms in British politics and if MP's don't take this chance now with everything thats going on with Brexit, the time will pass and it might be almost impossble for a new party to rival the main two, so it's likely now or never if we have enough brave MP's and the public gets behind it, still the odds are not great at the moment but that can change quite quickly thanks to Brexit. Beside, I never really understand politics like we see in the UK and US where we only really have the choice of two parties, it's not really healthy for democracy and people really need more viable choice in our democracy, in the case of the UK, our system needs to change to allow that which I highly doubt the Tories and Labour would get behind that.
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How can you put limits on expansion of NATO, I mean yes they can but in the end, something like that changes on a yearly basis depending on need and importance, for one, it's not really up to Russia to dictates if eastern European countries want to join it or not, it's up to them and considering the geopolitical games Russia is playing with so many countries, you could say Russia is the biggest advocate for NATO expansion by scaring countries. It's the same for the EU which I suspect Putin fears the EU a lot more than NATO because the EU is far more integrated than NATO is whiles offering real benefits and not just a simple treaty, basically, the EU by modernizing eastern European countries has a ripple on effect to other eastern European countries that want the same thing, I suspect Putin fears that the most but there isn't really anything he can say to stop that, more so now because of Putin's aggression, more countries want to join the EU and NATO as a safe haven. At the end of the day, it's not really up to Russia or the west to dictate which way those eastern European countries want to go, they can choose for themselves and I think it's that choice what Putin doesn't like, simply put, the west is offering a much better deal compared to what Russia is offering which is threats and intimidation, you only have to look at the last few weeks where a few countries have said they want to join the EU and NATO because of Russian aggression in Ukraine, Russia's aggressive behaver on many countries are pushing many eastern European countries into the EU and NATO and with what is going on in Ukraine, Putin has more or less given a gift to both the EU and NATO when it comes to expansion but also likely when it comes to integration.
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He's hoping the public doesn't care, that would be like me doing a crime and the law doesn't care that I did a crime lol, Boris should be held to account on things he's done and not try to deflect on how well the pandemic is going which is still too early to say on that. Or to put it another way, imagine I murder someone but I've done a lot of charity work, should I tell the courts to focus on my charity work? lol, what's what Boris is more or less saying lol.
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@veritaspk I've no problem with NATO, but I do think the EU countries need to get their act together and speak more with one voice on military and forign policy matters, at the moment, having 27 voices pulling in all directions is a major weakness, also, if Trump did gain power, it would make the US far less reliable as a partner, it would also reduce the usefulness of NATO, unless the EU beefs up it's military, but either way, a lot of countries would likely want to distance themselves from the US, that likely means they'll make new partnerships with others around the world, many of which won't be in the interest of the US. It would be a shame because the EU and US are culturally the same, but the US is becoming too aggressive and unpredictable with its policies. On the plus side, it would likely weaken US power around the world, whiles forcing the EU countries to beef up their powers at an EU level, it would also give countries around the world an alternative to the US, the real winners in that would be the EU and China, which China have been wanting to weaken the US for some time by dividing the EU and US, the other winners would be every other country around the world that would have a choice, the EU or the US, where now, many don't have a choice, if they did, you have to wonder which direction they would go.
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In western countries, especially western European countries, the quality of life being so high doesn't give much of an incentive to have kids even thought the system is very kid friendly, most people just want to enjoy life and having kids is a massive burden. Immigration seems to be the main form of population growth in the west, after all, many immigrants that move to western countries tend to have big families because of how they've been brought up in their own country, I suspect without immigration, population decline would be happening in pretty much every western country by now. The question is, is it really a problem? In the short term, no, long term, maybe but life is going to change in so many ways with robotics, A.I. and other advancements that will likely free up a lot of people's time and make it less expensive to raise kids, there's a fair chance that as people have more time and live longer, people will start having more kids and government policies will likely change to encourage it if needed. Truth is, population needs to slow down a lot because it's growing too fast around the world but the modern countries are not the problem on that, developing countries are and there are no easy fix for that.
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Lol true.
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I think cashless society will happen and is already happening and overall can be a good thing for us, the problem is, we need to open up governments so the public knows more on what they get up to and where our taxes go. Also, big companies need to start paying their way, tax loop holes need to close as it's the poor and middle classes that are paying for the big companies not paying, either by paying more taxes or getting less public services. I can understand why so many are cynical about these things, governments and companies give us many reasons to be so the best solution is to open up governments and companies, make them far more transparent so we know what they are getting up to as I find it crazy that governments are suppose to do the public bidding and yet they are so secretive, all money that governments deal with should be public and on the net so the public can see it, in other words, we want to know how they are spending our tax money, that might do wonders for cleaning up the system and a cashless society might push people to force governments to go that way.
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I think the real problem with the US is that it could fall into the same trap the Soviet Union fell into, basically, the US out powered the Soviet Union by spending more than they could afford, that's fine when the US had a bigger economy, but in the case of China, it's more likely that China could do the same to the US as China outpaces the US in economic terms, the US already spends too much on its military at the expense of the American people in many areas of social programs and if history is any indicator on how the US will respond, it's probably going to end up spending more than it can afford on the military, whiles the American people pay the price with cuts in other services and probably why the US is desperate to try and slow China economic growth because they likely know that 300 million people isn't going to compete with over a billion people as the economy continues to modernise and power in this world is based on population size, the economy and becoming modern, China has two of those things are quickly developing the third. If the US is smart, they would create close relations with the EU, the other big powerful block in the world to protect western values, but ultimately, China can't really win because its system of government and economy isn't that appealing around the world, even the US isn't that appealing, being as they are too capitalistic, the EU on the other hand are winning hearts and minds around the world, if you look at developed countries, most are in line with the EU, the economy, social programs and so on, even a lot of developing countries are going that way and as more countries keep developing in that direction, it's likely going to have a spill-over effect on political interest. Basically, the US is becoming too radical, too war like, China is too much of a bully, the EU seems to be the only power block around that has strong principles on democracy, rule of law and doing the right thing, externally and internally, that could be putting them in a stronger position then it might seem at first glance. But regardless, the EU and US needs to stick together, because I doubt either one on their own is going to be powerful enough to take China on and longer term, it could be challenging for both of them together, but with both together, it's likely they will get a lot more countries to fall in line behind them, that's likely enough to keep China in check. As for the US, they started out as a good country but have gone far too much to the right that now they look more like a war like country, I mean seriously, since the second world war, the amount of wars directly or indirectly the US have been involved in is shocking and it's not really that surprising, when you build up such a military complex like the US have, you need wars to keep that funding going, otherwise you end up with budget cuts as what was happening in the 90's, it's hard to trust a country that creates a lot of instability around the world for its own ends
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I find it ironic how some Brexiteers said that Brexit would make the UK more nimble and able to adapt and change to things going on around the world quicker than the EU and yet it seems to be the EU that is being more nimble to these changes. Maybe just maybe, that Brexit dislike in the Tory party has steep in so much that they don't like anything that's foreign, especially anything related to immigration and refugees. I honestly have to wonder how low this country is going to go before we see what's going on because I thought Brexit was embarrassing with how the country conducted it's self but the UK's response to Ukraine is taking it to another level. A lot of the other European countries are willing to take the burden, the hit to the economy with helping Ukraine out, even a lot of the British public are willing to help, why don't the Tories see that? Simply, they are still in Brexit mode and don't want to upset it's core voters with Brexiteers. Sometimes you just have to accept a few harsh truths, sometimes even take a bit of short term pain to do the right thing, clearly the Tories don't care and with the UK already having a bad enough image around the world because of how our government has conducted its self on Brexit, do we really want the image of not caring about what happens to people in a war torn country? You've got to wonder about all that money in the Tory Party, London and the Russian government connection, maybe it's getting a bit uncomfortable for the Tories, especially as it's likely got connections to Brexit.
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@meneither3834 Yet the Germans and many other EU members said just a few weeks back that they are prioritizing trade with China, they are not stupid, they know as the likes of the US and UK gets pushed out of China, it leaves the door open for others to take advantage off and you can bet the Asian countries will and it's looking like the European countries are planning the same. In that sense, China isn't really losing as others are filling the void but the US and UK are losing out because they are offering a massive advantage to other rivals in the market place. That doesn't mean the EU trust China or that change isn't coming, far from it but the EU is a lot more pragmatic than the US is and will stay out of it for the most part and play both sides whiles getting the best of both worlds as the likes of the US and UK get pushed out of China. In the end, there is a massive opening for the ones that take it as the US and UK gets pushed out of China, the EU and others would be crazy to not take advantage of it and if they don't, you get bet others around the world will, that is the advantage China has, they have a massive market that almost everyone wants in and in the case of the EU, they will likely stay out of it and trade with all.
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@gordusmaximus4990 Trump isn't the issue in the US, too many people assume things will go back to normal once Trump is gone, they seem to forget that the likes of Trump has a massive base of supporters and what that means is others like him have a good chance of getting into power, Trump isn't the real problem in the US, a lot of the voters are the real problem and that isn't something that is easy to fix, hence why the geo-political and economic world is changing because the US isn't what it used to be and likely won't be for some time without some major changes in the way Americans think.
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I think he makes a good point, many seem to think that OpenAI with ChatGPT is the one to beat, and even thought they have the best model for the moment, the rapid pace of the open source models and the amount of investment and resources being thrown at it, is growing fast, that I think these closed online models won't compete with the open source models over the long run. The open source ones have many advantages, an army of people working on it from many companies, governments and individuals, it also doesn't have the issue of privacy or security, being that it's open source and can run locally on your home PC, it makes it a lot more transparent. But the biggest advantage the open source ones have, is that no one controls it, rivals to any A.I. company that doesn't want to build their own or can't, it makes sense for them to help the open source community to build A.I. systems that anyone can use, and that's the key, A.I. is going to be so important to the world economy, hardly any governments or rival corporations are going to want a few governments and companies controlling the vast bulk of A.I. and open source gets around that by decentralising it. The irony is about OpenAI, that the biggest downfall could be that they've become closedAI and are becoming too greedy so early on when we are seeing clear signs that other alternatives can deliver the goods for far less money. I have to admit, early on in this year, there was a lot of excitement about the online A.I. models, but as time went on, and we've seen the games and restrictions the companies have put on their services, the open source models look a lot more appealing on many fronts, being open and transparent, no trust issues or restrictions and can also run locally on your PC. Early this year, I didn't think it was possible to get a good chatbot running on your PC, but with how rapidly open source A.I. is developing, I'm surprised at the quality it's already delivering, and we are still at the early stage, you can only imagine how much better it's going to get over the next year, 5 years and so on. It's easy to understand what happened, with the release of ChatGPT and Bing Chat, A.I. is starting to creep into the mainstream, whereas before, it was mostly a lab toy, as it becomes more mainstream, a lot more resources is thrown at it, and any rivals to OpenAI, Microsoft and Google, they are not going to want to be too dependent on their service, so open source is a logical step, then we also have governments, many governments around the world are thinking, we could either build our own A.I. or we could fund open source A.I. in other words, to take that advantage away from those corporations, and I suspect many governments around the world don't like the idea that the big A.I. corporations are American, that gives them a big incentive to fund their own or fund open source ones, that's more or less what we are seeing, and because of that, I can't see how the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft and Google will compete with that army of resources in the open source community. For now, the only real advantage the big corporations have is they've got a head start and online computing power, but that's being eroded quite fast with how quickly these open source models are developing and personally, I think the companies that's going to pay the highest price are the ones that have much of their service behind a pay wall, that plays nicely into what open source A.I. wants. For now, the only drawback open source models have when running locally, they really need to sort out the mess of what system it can run on, most of the time it's Nvidia only or cpu only, for open source A.I. to really take off, it needs to just work on AMD, Intel, Nvidia, ARM's and cpu as a fallback, they also need to clean up the installation process, as it's a bit of a mess at the moment, also, a nice and clean interface would go along way with getting adoption. A lot of those problems could be resolved this year, but until they are, for now, it's just easier for most consumers to use online models.
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@Dont_care_4_U He's hardly beating anyone, cutting off the gas would hit Russia hard whiles gas prices would skyrocket around the world, in other words, Putin would be beating on everyone, especially the poor countries around the world because they can least afford gas prices going up, so even thought it will impact EU countries in the short term, it's going to bump up gas prices for everyone because that's how the global market works. Basically, too many people, you I'm assuming seems to think that if the EU does stop buying gas from Russia, it won't impact you, it will likely impact most of us around the world with higher energy prices as the EU will buy from the world market and will likely be willing to pay a higher price if needed, hence why energy is shooting up pretty much around the world because that's how it works. Anyway, personally, I hope Putin does cut the gas because it would create a lot more change in a shorter space of time in moving to alternative energy sources then we've been going, so short term pain for a lot of gain.
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At the end of the day, almost every other modern country has higher standards than the US in a lot of areas, it's clear to see that European standards are winning out and that it's the US that needs to change not the other way around, and if the US pushes this too hard, other countries around the world will shift more trade away from the US, in the end, the US is the one that loses out.
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Well imagine that, countries turning away from the US before an idiot insults so many around the world, I mean seriously Trump, what the heck did you expect? lol. Trump's legacy could turn out to be a disaster for the US, especially if he serves a full term and keeps doing these antics, so much so that it wouldn't surprise me if Trump ends up being rated as one of the worst or worse president in US history, what a legacy to have lol. The American people are partly to blame, we all knew the history of Trump and how bad he's been with business, what the heck did they expect to happen with him being in charge of the US? Like it or not, a lot of the American people are to blame for the mess that's going on in the US, they didn't fight hard enough to contain that clown, and this is a big reason why so many countries are turning away from the US with will have major political and economic damage to the US that will likely impact most Americans over the coming years. To put it another way, the real problem with the US is the polarised and emotional nature of Americans when it comes to politics, throw in the dysfunctional institutions and a right wing media that's lost the plot and you have the mess you are seeing, the only way to get real change is to impact the American people directly, hence why so many countries are shifting away from the US, many have woken up and realised that the American people didn't learn and the only way for them to learn is from the harsh reality that's coming up over the decades, and it not that different from the arrogance we saw from European countries before the second world war and now the US is going through its own shit show which was so predictable from the outside, now we have to see how this turns out, does Trump manage to cancel the mid-term elections? If he does, that would be a clear sign to the road of dictatorship, if he doesn't but last a full term and continues with his antics, that's likely going to cause decades worth of damage to the US, which will hit the lower to middle classes the hardest, so if they thought they had something to complain about before Trump, they'll really have something to complain about after him, and honestly, it's well deserved, Americans have been too arrogant since 9/11 and now they are paying the price for that.
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Hard to say, if anything this could play right into her hand, shes got enough support in the Tory party and this could really push May to fight the hardliners in her party head on, this is great news for the remainers, afterall, these two only resigned because they knew the writing is on the wall and Brexit isn't going how they want it.
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What did the people vote for? and are the leave voters even delivering on what the people voted for?, I remember many of the leave side saying only a mad man would leave the single market and custom union, funny how people forget what they said after the vote. Beside, if you really want to see what the public wants with Brexit, lets have another vote, thats what the remain side are fighting for, lets see if Brexit really is the will of the people now that all the leave lies have been exposed and there is no cake and cheers at the end of the tunnel. Think about it, if the leave side deliverd on everything they promised, the remain side would find it hard to argue with the leave side but what the remain side is doing is holding the leave side to account on everything they promised the British people.
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That really does depend on who you ask, I get the impression that things have got harder for the younger generation over the last 2 decades, just recently with inflation and higher energy bills, probably for almost everything. Personally, I get a sense that things seem worse in a lot of countries for most, especially western countries, but some countries are being impacted harder than others, Italy and the UK are prime examples of that. Also, I never take much stock in GDP per capita numbers, they tend to be a poor indicator on quality of life and have too many flaws when it comes to measuring the wealth of the people. Italy needs some major political and economic reforms to clean up the political corruption and to make the economy more streamlined and productive, especially when it comes to enticing inwards investment, without any of this, I feel Italy will continue to fall further behind.
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I highly doubt that May will want us Brits to take part in the European elections because every step of the way with Brexit, the British public voice is being silanced. The European election would be a way for Brits to show what Brits are really thinking and I suspect if the UK was given the chance to take part in them, turn out would be very high and I suspect a lot of Brits would vote for pro EU parties in the EU. All that would make it much more likely that another public vote on Brexit would happen if the public votes like that in the European elections because it would be a very clear sign that Brits are not thinking along the lines that the goverment keeps wanting us to think and it would be very hard for them to not give the public another public vote on Brexit after that. So all in all, remainers if given the chance are likely going to vote in force in the European elections mainly to put Brexiteers in thier place and to send a powerful message to the goverment.
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The Tories have been in power for over 10 years, get a grip Boris, the only blame for the problems in the UK are down to the Tories themselves, I mean, how many years do they need to put their plans into action? It's quite pathetic of them to blame Labour when they've not been in power for over a decade, heck, next he's going to blame Labour for Brexit and the NHS problems lol.
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Putin has probably done more for clean energy than the greens could ever have done, so yes there is a bit of short term pain but what is going on here is very likely going to kill off fossil fuel a lot sooner than expected and for two reasons, Europeans were among the forefront in wanting to go to clean energy already but now it's become a security issue, thanks to this, we might have knocked a decade or even 2 off the fossil industry, the ones that benefit the most from that are the ones that buy a lot of energy from external markets whereas the biggest losers in this are the ones that produce a lot of that energy. It's going to be interesting to see the drive to clean energy over the next few years.
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We can't even save ourselves lol, beside it was the US and Soviets that saved Europe not the UK, we was more or less begging for help.
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If there is anything this virus might have done is that maybe some real change might happen in the US once the dust settles but I think the American people are going to have to wake up and fight for it because the rich elites and big corporations are not going to give it easierlly, and they already have the government in the back pocket.
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@haidouk872 Putin has clearly miscalculated here, the EU is more united than I've seen it in a long time, that will likely make it easier for more integration in foreign policy matters as well as on the military, he's also helped to heal the rift between the EU and US and even the UK to a less degree, he's scaring eastern European countries to want to join the EU and NATO and he underestimated the response from the people of Ukraine, it couldn't have gone any more wrong for Putin if he tried.
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@Sir_Gerald_Nosehairs. The problem is for the UK, being out of the UK weakens it's position a lot in these matters and that's likely going to be more the case going forward, we are very likely going to see more EU countries working closer together on military matters, maybe even integration, the UK can't even come close to competing on that and it's a given that project on building new military equipment will go to an EU country, pushing the UK out. That doesn't mean the UK doesn't have it's uses, it will just likely get used by the EU just like the US uses the UK. As for the UK, they could never isolate themselves, like it or not, they are European and will get dragged into matters that happen on the European continent as we are seeing now but it's clear to see that the UK is taking a back seat role here, the EU and US are leading on this and I have to admit, I am surprised how tough and how quick the EU is responding on this. Also lets not forget, there's a fair chance that many EU countries will spend more on the military now, Germany has already shown it's willing to spend big, the UK isn't likely going to be able to keep up thanks to the cost of Brexit and especially if the likes of Germany, France, Italy and Spain start working much closer together on military matters which they have shown interest in wanting to do so.
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@TransoceanicOutreach Thats true but for a lot of people from outside of Europe, they see the EU as Europe, I know it's not but that is how it's seen and it's easy to see why, the EU is the real power in Europe, something Putin doesn't like.
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@rexthewolf3149 Yep, the world is so interconnected now that a knock on effect on one has an impact on others, especially the big economies like the EU, US and China. So it's in the interest of all to keep things moving for the global economy.
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The problem is for China, buying political clout around the world only goes so far, what the people in those countries really want is a better quality of living and more wealth, the west is in a much better position to deliver that if those countries emulate what the western countries have done to become wealthy, in other words, become more open, China on the other hand wants satellite states to basically do it's bidding around the world and even thought that might work in the short term, longer term it's not likely going to amount to much. The EU could be by far in the best position here, they know how to develop countries, we see that as it expands and brings in poorer countries into the EU and develops them, something along those lines could work in Africa, that's not something China would want to do because it makes those African countries more powerful with the political clout and wealth that comes with it, whereas the EU might want to do that because it stands to benefit in a more stable Africa and trade, being as Europe and Africa are so close, both parties will benefit the most when it comes to trade. That for me is the key from China creating debt traps for African countries, the west should help to develop the African continent in countries that are willing and open enough to be developed, Africa as a continent has a lot of potential if shown how to develop, the EU are in a good position to help on that if they are willing and the EU is in the position that would benefit the most from it with trade, it's a win win for both sides. Now I suppose it really depends on whom the Africans trust the most, the EU, west or China which could have a big impact on how their future is shaped and personally, I think longer term, the debt trap diplomacy that China is doing could backfire on China as African countries become more hostile against China, maybe that's the lesson needed to learn for them but it is unfortunate for the people, so really, it really boils down to whom the African countries trust the most.
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I remember saying years ago to my brother, Putin, Trump and Brexit are the best friend of the EU and they don't even know it lol. Anything that creates division or threats usually unites people and we are seeing a lot of that in the EU and not just with the EU but with NATO also, now we are seeing countries that want to join the EU and NATO, it's looking like the bound with the EU and US is getting stronger, this couldn't have gone more wrong for Putin if he tried. The EU has a lot of wealth just like the US, if they channel that right, reduce duplications in the military and pool their resources, they are more than capable of having a powerful military, that would benefit the EU and US because the US buys a good deal of military equipment from the EU just like the EU does from the US. This could also help the US to reduce the military burden it's self if the EU works as a single entity which then the US could spend in key areas like better health care, workers rights and so on. In any case, the EU and US needs to stop seeing each other as rivals and work closer together, maybe even on many military projects as that would reduce the cost and with the know-how from both sides, likely improve the quality of the tech, the real rivals aren't the EU or the US, its authoritarian governments like China and Russia, these are the real threat.
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@condotiero860 Movement on these kinds of things always change depending on threat to themselves from around the world, I suspect it was going to happen over time anyway with the US still growing as a power and China rapidly rising as a power, Putin might have really pushed Europeans in the EU to come together on military, security and energy policies but it will take time to see if that happens but in any case, I expect we will see a lot more talk on that in the coming years, maybe sooner then that.
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And that is just the EU and US, throw in the other western democracies and that number goes up. The thing is with China, they've got too much to lose by going up against the west, they likely know that if they get on the wrong side of the EU and US, a lot of other countries will likely follow them around the world. China as much as they want to help Russia are looking after number 1 which is China's economic interest and the reality is, they don't like the world order the way it is, but they are willing to abide by it because someday they hope to be a bigger player in that order, but if they get too close with Russia here, that could ruin China's plans, basically, China could throw Putin under a bus.
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Translation, Boris hopes the EU will bend and give him cake lol, how is that seeing sense from the EU point of view when they clearly have the upper hand being as they are by far the bigger player. The truth is, it's the UK government that needs to see sense not the EU because it's looking like the EU is calling Boris bluff and that is a massive problem for Boris and the Tories as both Remainders and Brexiteers will turn on them once they start to feel the pain of Brexit from next year onwards, that's when reality really kicks in.
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@7mriwantlightning710 Since the end of the second world war, Europe, especially Western Europe have been a lot more tame when it comes to war, some consider that being weak but it's more to do with them living through war and being sick of it. The truth is, the economy is the real deciding factor when it comes to power and where that resource is use, it's not hard from them to push that manufacturing capabilities towards the military if needed, Germany and the US showed how quickly that can happen during the second world war., the EU countries have that but hey choose not to invest into the military but that can change quickly if a real threat arises, but even with how things stand now, Russia would be crazy to take on an EU country, hence why they only make noise and usually with countries that are not in the EU, probably why so many eastern European countries want to join the EU, likely knowing Russia can't touch them then.
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@talisikid1618 Not quite, they would just have to shift things about by a few percentage which would have little impact on day to day living and in the case of EU countries, they might go a step further with combining EU militaries if needed, some are already in favour of doing so. As for voting for it, people change their tune on what they vote on depending on need, if Russia or anyone else for that matter became a real threat, you can bet the people will get onboard with changing that threat. For now, Russia isn't really seen as a threat from the EU and US and just a baby throwing it's toys out of his pram because Putin isn't getting his way in Eastern Europe.
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A.I. is one of those things that is going to continue to develop, regardless of the risks, humans are very curious and want to see what's possible. Are there risks? Yes, A.I. like any other tech can be used for good and bad, and we already know A.I. will be used for bad, likely from governments and the military. With that said, the economic benefits that A.I. can offer us all are massive and could change the world for the better if done in a smart way. I think the biggest risk with A.I. could be if it all can interconnect with each other, which would allow the possibility of a rouge A.I. or human to take control of a lot of them and a lot of what they are connected too through the internet. Truth be told, there is little to no reason for A.I. to have remote access to sensitive areas like nukes, energy grid and so on, something they usually show in movies in how they take over and it's very possible that we could create A.I. that have access as restricted like humans are in society or having each A.I. that's independent of each other, which would make it much harder for it to become a hive mind. Personally, I think the critical areas we need to get right is the access to remote servers and safety protocols at the root level of the A.I. weather it's a A.I. online or in a robot, maybe that part needs to be hard coded into robots and can be altered by remote without you physically changing it manually, that would make it much harder for a rouge A.I. or human to take over millions of them. In any case, the real danger of A.I. isn't the A.I. itself, it's the remote access we give it to control other things where the real danger could open up, a few A.I. or robots are quite limited in what they can do if the access is restricted to sensitive areas, but it's ad different ball game if we allow it access to everything like movies usually show us how they take over. For now, I think the real risk is A.I. being centralised in too few hands with either big corporations or governments and I do think we need another approach, a more open approach so A.I. can benefit us all without it being controlled by a few, I think an open source solution is the only way to go, which ironically, was what ChatGPT was meant to be, hence the name, OpenAI, until they went for profit, that for me is the biggest risk we face with A.I. at the moment, especially as A.I. keeps getting better and more useful, it's not a good idea to have that gateway concentrated in so few hands with how big of a change it's going to have on the world, we need a much more open approach, something governments might push hard on over the coming years with regulations.
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The damage is done but anything can be reversed but in the case of Brexit, rejoining the EU is a pipe dream for at least 2 or 3 decades because the EU and some of it's members would likely block us, single market and custom union access is likely the best the UK can hope for and that would solve a lot of the problems the UK is facing.
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This reminds me of the early days of the European Union and yeah I think it could be a good idea if done properly. The African Union was trying to emulate the EU but the problem with that is that they pretty much let anyone in regardless of political system, economic system, status and so on which isn't very effective in getting real change and reforms that would help the people, the EAF looks like it's learning from the mistakes of that and seeing how the EU did it which is a slow process and becomes slower the more countries involved but I think it's worth it. I hope it works out for them but it's early days and there's a lot of pitfalls along the way, as the EU has found out, creating a union over many countries isn't an easy thing to do.
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Either way, the leavers are losing this one because they had to lie so much to win the vote in the first place that now they can't deliver on any of the promises they made, hence why the leave side won the battle but are losing the war.
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Well the leave side have tried to sideline the democratic process with Brexit, they seem to want to bypass the courts, the lords, the commons and even the public, I thought Brexit was about bringing control back home?, now that the hardliners don't like whats being said, they want to sideline all that process and force the issue. As for will of the people, that doesn't wash anymore, a lot of lies ware told to win the vote, most of which have been proven to be lies over the last two years, Brexit has brought the EU and Brexit into the spot light and it's looking like less people either want to leave the EU or want a really soft Brexit, in any case, this have done the UK a world of good because now more people see the EU in a better light and not in the light the euroseptics wanted us to think. As for how we joined the EEC, can't really comment on that but I do remember the UK thinking it was a economic only union at the time when it was anything but that, the EU, EEC at the time was always a political and economic union well before the UK joined, also, the UK was the sick man of Europe at the time, that was the real reason why we joined and being in the EU made us one of the richest countries in the world, in fact the EU's got a really good record for helping to develop members that join. As for the remainers, it's clear what they voted for, to remain in the EU and reform it from the inside, that wasn't really hard to see, the leavers on the other hand didn't seem to have a plan with Brexit, in fact they seemed supprised they won the vote which is telling because if you think you wont win it, you can tell any lie you want knowing you don't have to deliver on them, in this case they did win and can't deliver on what they promised the British people, thats whats really got them, thats whats really turning Brexit around, they promised the earth but are delivering little to nothing of what they promised us, hence why Brexit is slowly being reversed or going into a soft Brexit. The moral of this story is this, if you are going to lie to try and win, you best make sure you can back up whats being said, the leave side won the battle but are losing the war because of not being able to deliver and that is a problem of there own making, but lets be honest, if they didn't lie so much, the remain side likely would of won the vote, so they ware screwed either way, the reality is, what the leave side want and whats reality are very diffrent things and this is why Brexit isn't going the way they want it.
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Another factor of capitalism is to keep people busy, after all, idle hands gets people to think more and as they think more, they question things, the rich elites don't want that because the real power in the end is the mob if there are enough numbers, the system is designed to keep everyone busy to not question how things are and not to give them enough time to fight back, it's a system that keeps you under threat from being on the edge with basic things like just surviving with paying bills and buying food. In the end, especially in the US, it's creating a system that's a lot more divided, where the rich become richer at the expense of everyone else, capitalism isn't balanced at all when left unchecked which is something the Europeans understand a lot more as with having the state intervening in a lot more areas and it's clear to see that the Europeans are benefitting a lot by that and I think the Europeans could go much further with the right push.
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@Doggle Bird Yet the numbers keep rising in the polls and you should be more worried that we are not out yet because that basically means the people have been protected from the harm of it for now, that changes next year, once people start to feel the negative impact and then throw in the pandemic economic hardship, support is likely to grow to rejoin the EU. Remember, Brexiteers are a fickle bunch, they don't care for excuses, they were promised sunny uplands and are going to blame the government when they can't deliver on that, that is likely going to turn some of the moderate Brexiteers in favour of rejoining and that is all you need, forget the hardcore Brexiteers, you'll never convince them even if the UK was to blow up but lucky for us all, they are a small number, a lot of Brexiteers are moderates that can swing both ways. Basically, the real hard work begins once the UK is fully out because then the government has to make a success of it or it could all come crashing down, that's when the real fun begins because Brexit is based on so many lies that it's going to be very hard to deliver on them. All I can say, if things go really bad, it might be in the interest of the UK rejoining the EU before the likes of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales leaves the UK union because that will truly be humiliating for the UK government, they can't afford for that to happen and Brexit is likely going to push the odds up on that happening, especially with how the UK government seems to ignore the other countries in the UK union, it's the perfect storm that's building.
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@Stevesteve_ Worse yet, much of that money goes back into the UK, I think in total the UK pays in around 11 billion and as you say, we get far more benefits than we lose, too many Brexiteers always see it in simple terms of what we put in and forget what we get out which overshadows any gains we get by leaving.
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@Doggle Bird You know, tariff on those goods will add up and beside, even with the so called money being saved, look at all the post that the UK government is having to fill, work that was done by the EU, just recently the government have said they are investing 700 million on immigration checks on goods and that's just now, there's been a lot of that over the last few years, at the end of it, there isn't going to be any money left. As for NAFTA, it's too one sided in favour of the US and that is because there is no political oversight, just recently, Trump changed the terms on that which are better for the US at the expense of the others, I suspect Canada is very happy to have a free trade deal with the EU now because they can divert trade away from the US towards the EU now so they are not at the mercy of the US as much. Economic only union don't really work that well, there is no political oversight to keep all the members in line and to keep things fair, the UK of all countries should know that because before we joined the EEC, we was known as the sick man of Europe and was also in another economic union with some other European countries, what ended up happening is that the UK took advantage of the other smaller members in that trade zone, that's the problem with economic only zones, the bigger members always bully the smaller ones, that's a lot harder to do in the EU because of the political union which gives each EU member a veto, votes and clout.
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@Doggle Bird Well no, what most polls showed at the time is that it was very close but remain would win, what we are seeing now is too many polls showing remain would win and by quite a big margin, even with margins of errors, the odds are that if a vote was done now, it would very likely be to rejoin the EU, polls very rarely get it wrong when the gap is so big. But thats the thing, the UK can't choose, if the UK want good trade with the EU, it will rubber stamp what the EU comes up with, a US senator once said, why is it that the EU is able to create a new law and the US has to adopt it? Mainly because of the size of the EU, the EU made it a global standard which pushed others to adopt it, if the EU can do that to the US, you can bet that will happen a lot to the UK that is much smaller and much more tied to the EU with trade but the UK government will want to be seen as being in charge but it doesn't change much, the EU laws, rules and regulations will mostly pass on to the UK without the UK having any say in them, a bit like some other European countries see already. It's hard to say on the Immigration and how much a country can realistically support but a big promised on Brexit was to reduce that number which hasn't happened even thought the UK always had the power to change that and the reason is won't happen is cheap labour, with Brexit around the corner, the last thing they can do is reduce cheap labour when trying to attract new companies in, Brexit is scaring many companies away from the UK, less cheap labour will scare more and that's why the numbers are not changing. I never said it would be easy for Scotland going it alone and rejoining the EU, the first few years will be hard but after that, they'll likely be better off, have you every wondered why Scotland and Northern Ireland are a basket case? when so many countries of around that size are doing really well in the EU? it suggest the UK union is holding them back, basically, too much wealth is being held down south, so much so that even a lot of northern England complain about that, basiclly, what the Republic of Ireland did, there is little reason why Scotland can't have the same and in the case of Northern Ireland, they could rejoin the Republic, have you seen the gdp per capita of Scotland and Northern Ireland? in Northern Ireland, it's about 3 times lower than the Republic, it begs the question, what on earth is the UK union doing to its members because they are all doing below par compared to most European countries of that size. You didn't promise anything but the message was clear on Brexit that a lot was promised but hardly anything is being delivered, if Brexit was sold on what we are getting, it's highly likely that we would have voted to remain, basically, Brexiteers lied to get what they want and started to lie after they got what they want and that is a major problem because a lot of the most moderate Brexiteers the government won over wont last unless the government delivers on toes lies which we both know they can't and that is why support is going up on rejoining the EU, expect that to rise even more once we are fully out of the EU and the people start to feel the negative impact of Brexit, Brexit hasn't been won by a long shot because the hard work is still ahead. As for rejoining the EU, the time isn't right, Labour might push on that at the next election depending on the polls and how bad the Tories handle Brexit and this pandemic but even then, it's unlikely the EU would let us in but that might lead to the UK signing up to the single market and custom union, especially once the likes of the US have their way with the UK.
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@Doggle Bird Because it gives you an idea on what people are thinking, most of the polls in the past were very close with a slight edge in favour of remain but that could swing either way at the last moment when it comes to voting, now the polls are not even close, that is a major difference and those are rarely wrong, they don't also move much when it comes to voting time, that's why it's different, it's never been this high in favour of remain or joining the EU so clearly something has changed in the UK. The reason the remainers keep banging the drum on Brexit is because the leavers have delivered little to nothing on what was promised, deliver on what was promised on Brexit and remainers will shut up, but keep lying, especially after Brexit and support for rejoining will likely grow, you can only fool the moderate Brexiteers so far but once they see the reality of how they got misled, that when the hardcore Brexiteers need to worry, basically, next year and onwards. As for the reason more seem to want to rejoin is because they are seeing Brexit as a very costly adventure, the idea was that it would save us money, allow us to do out own laws, lower immigration numbers and get great trade deals around the world, all we are seeing is the government is having to throw billions to cover the work of areas that the EU did for us, immigration numbers have not come down at all, they've just moved from the EU to the world, the free trade deals seem like a nightmare with the likes of the US, China, India and Japan gunning for the UK and as for our own laws, lets wait and see on that because I suspect we will rubber stamp a lot of them that come out of the EU. So where are these so called benefits of Brexit? you'll have no excuses after this year and that's when the real panic on the government and hardcore Brexiteers kicks in. I remember when my brother worked at Safeway, they brought in some Polish workers, a lot of the natives didn't like it and the main reason was because they worked harder, it didn't bother my brother because he worked hard anyway but I've heard these stories a lot around the UK, we have a real problem on productivity per person in the UK compared to a lot of other modern countries, that's a problem because Brexit is already enough of an incentive for companies to leave, weak productivity levels is another, reducing immigration and not allowing them to use cheap labour would give a lot of companies a good reason for them to leave and set up shop somewhere else and import those same goods to the UK, basically, UK workers have had it too easy for too long that they might have to start working hardware to keep up. If you look at Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, they do poor compared to England, now if you look at those countries to other European countries of around the same time, many of them do better than England, it begs the question, what on earth is the UK union doing to them? why are these countries so far behind? From Scotland point of view, they could become something like the Republic of Ireland if they rejoin the EU which are far better off than the UK overall, at least with the EU, it improves the quality for all it's members but the UK union seems to drain there's which is ironic because you seem to think they are a drain on the UK government, those members see it the other way round where the UK government is the problem. In any case, the real entertainment begins next year, the lies wont work from then on, Brexiteers will have to deliver with no excuses and they can't blame the EU for all the wrongs in the UK, our own government is the one that will get it in the neck then, throw in the pandemic and it's going to be rough, especially for the poor and middle classes up north of England as they will likely be the scapegoat of the UK government as they voted mostly for Brexit and you can bet they will want to keep most resources down south and a few crumbs to Scotland to try and keep them from leaving the union.
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@Doggle Bird Actually they are, most of the time they are very accurately but when polls are really tight, any number of things can swing it one way or the other at the last moment and the Brexit vote was quite tight, the new polls are not even close with 57%, no smart Brexiteer would want another vote with those numbers because the odds of losing that are very high and that's why Labour has an opening for the next election if that number keeps rising as they know the Tories might have dug their grave on Brexit and they can take advantage of that, especially now they have a competent leader, besides, do your own research on it, it should be hard to find the information you are after. You might not have promised but a lot of Brexiteers did, time for them to deliver because at the moment, the Brexit people voted for and what we are getting are two very different things, you are basically suggesting that lying is find as long as it fits your agenda and you are right, we are not fully out of the EU yet, that's when you should worry because a lot of moderate Brexiteers won't want to hear excuses, they were promised a lot and will expect a lot so good luck to our government in delivering on that with hard Brexit looming and the economic hardship of this pandemic, Yes the answers is to make British workers work harder but as we are seeing, that isn't easy to do, look at the fruit pickers, the UK government was having a hard time in getting enough British people to fill those roles at a time when most wasn't even working so they had to bring in people from eastern Europe where very few wanted to come over and understandable so considering there is a pandemic on and how the UK has been treating them, beside, do you think those British workers will thank you for making their life harder at work?, because either they work harder or many companies will look for alternatives that do look harder and that is made easier thanks to Brexit. As for the 3 other countries in the UK union, just check up the GDP per capita numbers of all 4 nations, Northern Ireland is the real shocker compared to the Republic of Ireland, England are doing the best, especially the south of England, don't you get the impression that the UK union is screwing the other members over? even the northern part of England are complaining about and north-south divide which is a big part on why a lot of northerners voted for Brexit in the first place because they feel they are getting left behind and think the EU is the problem not realizing that the real problem is the UK government, something they'll find out the hard way, but at least for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, they can escape, go their own way and rejoin the EU, the northern part of England will find that much harder to do. Also, it's not just the UK that is having that problem, even the US is as well, hence Trump, a lot of people feel they are getting left behind so are getting desperate in how they vote, hence Trump and Brexit but as we are seeing with Trump, he is a disaster for the US, the UK is next with Brexit and don't you find it ironic how the popularise governments like the UK, US, Brazil are doing so bad on this pandemic? the people of those countries are suffering because of their voting patterns, basically, the people are getting what they deserved, vote stupid and expect good results, when does that every happen lol. As for wealth, that isn't the EU's doing but some countries doing, especially the likes of the US and the UK, have you ever wondered why the US and UK have some of the highest inequality in the modern world and some of the worse poverty to boot? the countries that won the second world war are looking more like the evil ones as time goes on, expect a lot worse in the UK thanks to Brexit because now we won't have that check and balance from the EU so the UK government can reduce food standards, labour laws and countless other things and the US will make sure that happens if you want any kind of trade deal with them. A lot of what you are talking about with the 1% is a very British and American thing, hence why both countries want to strip down a lot of social benefits that benefit the poor and middle classes because they are about the rich and have been for some time now. I suggest over the next few years you keep a very close eye on our government when it comes to food standards, workers rights and many other things we taken for granted because there is a fair chance they are going to try and water them down, this is what Brexit was really all about, think about it, have you ever wondered why the UK government is so desperate to leave the EU, part of it is because the EU brought in a new law that goes after the rich to get them to pay their fair share in taxes, the Tories didn't like that lol. Now the real question is, I wonder when Brexiteers realize that they are being screwed over by the government they elected, that penny drop moment, I suspect 2 years after Brexit, maybe just after the midterm elections.
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alan jones Really, so where are all these great trade deals? so far all I've seen is crumbs whereas the EU is the one signing more beefy trade deals around the world, the UK so far have little to show for it even thought they can do talks on that for a few years now but can't sign anything into law just yet, well at least till after this year, that's when the iron boot from other countries will kick in on the UK lol, Japan and India have already shown they are going to be a lot tougher on the UK than they could with the EU, I mean, 6 weeks to sign a trade deal lol, clearly Japan is calling the shots on that one with the UK because they know the UK is desprate so they are putting the UK on the clock to sign anything that is more in the interest of Japan then the UK, expect the same from the US but they will demand more from the UK lol. Brexit is going to be a lesson in realizing who the UK's true friends really are and they've been right under our noses in Europe all this time but many couldn't see them, thats why hard Brexit is the best thing that could happen to get that point across sooner rather then later.
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@Doggle Bird I'm not going on that, I'm going on history of polls, most of the time they tend to be right, especially when the margins are big, they are only a bit off at times when the votes are very close as was the case with Brexit, in any case, the UK lives in a democracy, at least for now so if the British people want to change their minds and the polls suggest they do, it's only a matter of time before another vote on this happen and we both know that if those polls widen, Labour will jump on this because they know the Tories can't and also know it would do a lot of damage to the Tories as Brexit is mostly owned by them. If that was the case then why are so many Brexiteers changing their minds on Brexit?, I've heard countless people over the last few years that have said if they had another chance, they would vote remain, there is a reason why the Tories don't want another direct vote because it's very risky for them, they prefer the election because they knew the votes would be spilt with Labour and the Lib Dems, allowing the Tories to win, but that doesn't last, now the Tories have to prove to the people that Brexit was the right thing to do and that's where the real hard work is. Brexit is a symptom a bit like Trump is, both countries have a lot of people getting left behind and they are blaming everyone but themselves for that, in the UK they blame the EU for all the wrongs in the UK, in the US, they seem to blame everyone around the world for taking advantage of them, both are misguided and the good news in the case of the UK, the government won't have any excuses in deflecting blame onto the EU any more, everything that happens in the UK will firmly go onto the UK governments, that's the real good news because that will likely open up eyes to where the real problem is. As for the exodus from Labour, that doesn't mean much for now because it likely is a temp vote, most of those people don't like the Tories and now they will want to see solid results on Brexit, if that doesn't pan out, they can quickly turn on the Tories and considering we have a pandemic, Labour are probably thinking they are glad to be out of power because this is a massive opening for them on the next election. Also, have you noticed how all the popularise governments are doing really bad with this pandemic, the UK, the US, Brazil and so on, what a message that is sending out to people and the world, lies are catching up to them and all the bluster and slogans don't work with a pandemic and all 3 governments tried that early on with this pandemic, it hit them all hard in the ratings and hit all 3 countries hard, that you have to blame the voting public for being so reckless in voting in these clowns when they have little to no real policies apart from on one or two fanatical things and the people in those countries are paying a high price for that and rightly so, the real entertainment begins once government support dries up for worker and in the case of the UK, add Brexit on top of that next year. As for food, yes and no but the US has made it very clear that they don't want us knowing what we are buying, as in, if it's been genetically modified because they know if it was clearly labelled, most wouldn't buy it so they want us to buy blind, basically, if the US got it's way, we might not have any choice in knowing if the food has been messed with. In any case, you've still yet to prove any real benefits of Brexit and there is a long list of disadvantages, that list is going to become more evidence next year as the British people start to realize they've been conned by people like you, people like you are going to have a very hard time on your hands next year and the year after once the people realize the government isn't delivering on those promises on Brexit, that's when the real entertainment begins, it's easy to promise a lot, it's another thing to deliver, the Brexit camp promised so much on Brexit that it's almost impossible to deliver on that, especially now thanks to the pandemic.
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alan jones Is that the best you can come up with? I know Brexiteers are simpletons but come on, even you can do better than that lol.
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alan jones Simple, because he feels the case hasn't been won yet on Brexit and we all know it's not because a lot of promises were made but the real hard work on Brexit happens once we are fully out of the EU, that's where it can all fall apart on Brexit because the British people won't want to hear excuses, they will want results, they were promised a lot and if they don't get, support can turn on Brexit, something that is already happening before we are fully out, that could get worse for hardcore Brexiteers next year. Basically, you won the battle but we've not even started the war, that begins next year, that's when the real entertainment begins because bluster, slogans and cheap talk won't cut it then, people will want solid results on Brexit, even a lot of smart Brexiteers know they can't deliver on what was promised but figure they'll cross that bridge when they come to it and in the meantime, support for rejoining the EU keeps going up, at this rate, Labour could fight the next election on rejoining the EU knowing the Tories can't and Labour would know that would be very humiliating for the Tories if they won on that basis and this is why the real hard work begins next year and what makes it so special is that this pandemic has made it a lot harder for Brexit to be a success for so many reasons. People like you are such idiots, the Brexit camp told countless lies on Brexit and honestly think that is the end of it lol, like I said, you've got a lot to prove the next few years and remember 57% because that number from next year could likely rise.
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Wasn't this the idea of why the German government wanted the Tesla plant there? To light the fire under the arse of the German car industry, as a lot of the old guards are being too slow to change, which will be costly if they don't get a move on. Basically, Tesla being there is to put pressure on the German can industry with the intention of saving them before It's too late and they lose too much ground which is pretty smart of the German government because the car industry around the world have been dragging their feet on electric cars for decades, they can't afford to keep doing that if Tesla races ahead. I suspect over the next decade, we're going to get some big movements from the traditional car industry into electric cars just to survive and the German ones could be the lucky ones that are force to adapt sooner rather than later thanks to Tesla putting pressure on them right in their backyard.
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The problem is, unless there's a credible alternative to Ursula that can work with all sides, then she might win by default, because there isn't any other big names. With that said, Draghi would be a credible alternative, but either way, a lot of horse-trading with go on until they all can come up with some compromised deal that works better than nothing, that will likely mean watering down some of the demands on all sides, or maybe it's high time that we have reforms to the EU so the people themselves can elect the Commission, or better yet, merge the Commission and President together as one electable position by the people, that would solve the problem of picking a Commission and would make the EU more democratic, which is something it needs to work off to fight off the far right that take advantage of divisions and lack of accountability in the EU, especially when it comes to the Commission. In any case, unless Merloni and her far right mob have a credible alternative that is workable for all, then it's probably going to end up with Ursula by default with probably Draghi being a credible alternative that could work.
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I can understand Macrons position before the war, it's always best to try and prevent war by peaceful means, but the warning signs were there for quite some time that Russia under Putin is an aggressive nation. Some countries in Europe, namely Germany and France didn't want to take that warning, but Macron is right about one thing, the European countries in the EU need to get there act together on military and forign policy matters by banding together through the EU. Many eastern EU countries like to lecture western EU countries of the warnings of Russia, but are they taking the warnings of an unpredictable US that doesn't care, especially if Trump were to get into power, we could end up in a situation where some western countries like France could be lecturing eastern EU countries on the US in how they got it so wrong. Now don't get me wrong, I think the EU and US should be allies, but some countries are blinded in thinking the US have our interest, in truth, it looks like they don't care and there are many signs that show that, and because of that, Europeans really do need to start looking after their own interest and they can do that far better through the EU by pooling resources together. But honestly, I think Trump needs to win in the US to drum that message home to some in Europe that think the US is the good guy, and like I said above, be allies with the US but not puppets of the US, as that only serves US interest not European. In any case, Putin and especially Trump are the best allies the EU could hope for and ironically, I don't think either one of them realise that, them two alone are focusing minds in the EU and it's members, they are encouraging more talk on a push for cooperation in many key areas like the military, they are also turning public views more favourable in the EU having a more active military to the point of it having its own military by its members pooling resources together, both Trump and Putin are being seen as a security risk to many in Europe, and many Europeans are waking up to the reality that the best way to protect there interest is through the EU.
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Nigel Farage also claimed that Brexit would be a big success, look how that turned out lol. The guy has zero credibility with all the lies and twisting of the truth he's done over the years. Also, let's be blunt, Reform UK didn't do well because of anything they did, they did well because the Tories have been messing up big time, they basically made it easy for Reform to do well, but now that the Tories have been wiped out by Labour, the Tories will likely go back to the drawing board and try to remove a lot of the radical elements in the party that is sinking the party in the first place, it is after all, them that pushed Brexit and got the Tories in the hole they are in, and I don't see them recovering unless they get rid of all the lunatics in the party and become a moderate sensible party again, which if they do that, they will likely gain back most if not all the votes from Reform UK.
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It's only natural that European militaries wouldn't be that strong when the US is willing to be world police and having bases all over Europe. But we should remember, that European militaries will still be weak even if they spend more on their militaries, after all, do people honestly think that spending 2, 3 or 4% on the militaries will really make a real difference? It will make little difference, but it would be more useful for the US to take advantage off, the US doesn't want European countries to spend more so they can defend themselves, they want them to spend more so they buy more arms from the US and are more useful to the US when they invade other countries around the world. If the European countries are actually smart and want to make a difference, building a single militaries and arms industries through the EU would have far more of an impact, for one, even on just 2% defence spending, that would be more than enough for the EU to defend its countries, two, the arm's industry in the EU would be far more powerful that there would be far less need to buy from the US and would in fact be selling far more on the world market, stealing arms deals from the US. The US doesn't want an independent EU that can stand up to them, they want an independent Europe that spends more but stays weak and divided, the last thing the likes of Trump and Putin wants is for the EU countries to become far more closes knitted together in the EU, as that would be a far more potent power that would likely be a rival to the US and would actually give a lot of countries the option to drift away from US policymaking around the world, basically, the EU would steam US good will, which by extension will have a lot of political and economic advantages, to the extent of even potentially replaying the US Dollar reserve currency. Countries are looking for an alternative to the US now, China and Russia are not credible, India isn't ready and probably is not credible, the EU is the only real alternative that has the economic power behind it and that's backed by a big population and is modern, now it's just a matter of the EU countries having the political and public will to make it happen, otherwise, they'll always be divided and weak and never be able to stand up to the likes of the US and China over the long run when they are speaking as one, Europeans in the EU countries need a major reality check if they want to compete with the big boys of the US and China, Trump and Putin are warning signs of what's to come, it's only going to get worse with the rise of China, so EU countries need to get a grip and need to start working a lot more through the EU if they want to protect there political, economic and social interest, otherwise, decline is on it's way.
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@alanedwards6491 That depends on the Americans and what they want, they are the ones that will dictate the terms to the UK just like the EU is doing to the UK now, the only real option the UK has is if they agree to those terms or walk away and in the case of the EU talks, the UK clearly doesn't want to walk away. It's one thing Trump wanting to separate the UK from the EU but support in the UK is already growing to rejoin the EU before we have even fully left, if the US screws the UK over which Trump seems to want to do, the UK could end up rejoining the EU a lot sooner than some expect.
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ClickNSpam Still, the distance is a major issue, almost all countries do most of their trade with nearby countries because it makes economic sense to do so.
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@karlbassett8485 But that's the thing, it would be the UK making the demands, it will be others and we are already seeing early signs of that already, Japan have made it clear that they won't allow the UK to role over the EU trade deal they have with Japan for the UK, then Japan have put pressure on the UK to sign a deal in 6 weeks, they are putting the pressure on the UK because they know the UK is in a weak position, they've also made it clear the terms will be worse for the UK than what the EU got with Japan, hence not rolling over the same deal as a starting point. Then we have India, they've demanded visa free travel for its citizen to travel to the UK and the US has so many demands on the talks that it's not even funny, they are dictating the terms to the UK and they will say, take it or leave it, the UK is desperate to sign any trade deal to make it seem it can stand on it's own two feet so they will likely sign worse deals and other countries around the world know that, hence why they are taking advantage of the UK now. The next 2 or so years is going to be very interesting to see what demands other countries make on the UK, especially now with this pandemic that matter countries are going to want to protect their interest even more, this pandemic came at the worse possible time for signing good trade deals. The irony is, the EU is the only one that isn't making unreasonable demands, they are just being clear that the UK can't have it's cake and eat it. Now the UK can walk away from any of the deals but clearly they don't want too as we've seen with the talks with the EU, the UK threatens to walk away when it doesn't get it's way but never does, that is showing a lot of weakness to the world, expect other countries to take advantage of that to further their own ends.
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@RoadRashSpirit The Tories are already being sneaky about food standards, at first they said that was off the table but now it seems it's back on the table, the UK is already bending to pressure of the US even before we are out of the EU fully, that doesn't bold well for standards in the UK because if the government sneaks in lower food standards, you can bet they won't stop there, maybe this was the real intention of Brexit all along, to deregulate the economy, a Tory wet dream, naturally, it's the poor and middle classes that pay the price but maybe that needs to happen as it was mostly them that voted for Brexit. The TTIP like deal, I suspect the US will want to push that onto the UK but unlike the EU that had the clout to say no to that, the UK might not be able to do the same, not without getting on the wrong side of the US which is the last thing the UK can afford with being out of the EU and that's why the US will make high demands on the UK because they know they can.
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@grassygnoll3345 True and I've heard many of them say they don't want to get on the wrong side of the EU because they value that market a lot more than the UK market, that might mean they can't afford to give the UK a better deal than what the EU got without getting on the wrong side of the EU, something they are unlikely to do. Basically, I suspect almost every trade deal the UK gets will be worse than what the EU could get, Japan, India and the US are already showing signs on that one. But truth be told, the UK needs a solid trade deal with the EU, that is where most of our trade is and it's likely to stay that way after Brexit because most countries trade with nearby countries the most because of economic reasons, the EU knows this and that's why the EU isn't bending to the UK but the UK is bending, hence why the UK hasn't walked away yet even thought they've threatened to do so countless times. The next 2 or so years is going to be very interesting to see on Brexit and the pandemic because the US and UK are dealing with it quite poor compared to the Europeans, also they don't need to worry about all the trade deals they have around the world where the UK does.
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Germany as a country have been quite weak on the EU and world stage over the last decade, they've not been great on defence, they've been quite poor on EU leadership, whereas France have done far better. Germany as a country and with it's economy should be doing far more, should be showing much better leadership and really should be pushing for big reforms of the EU like France and many others want, after all, Germany has been fooled by Putin's Russia, the US is going off the rails, we need strong leadership in the EU and Germany have been quite poor at that over the last decade.
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@mahive2097 Sooner or later, a crack in one or the other country will open up as new governments come in, but really, the EU shouldn't wait for that and get a lot tougher on them now, hold back funds, investments in the countries and so on, in other words, isolate the countries. If it really gets to the point of not being able to get anything done in the EU because of those two countries, that multispeed EU that Macrons has talked about seems very likely, because the countries in the EU that want reforms are not going to wait around for these two countries to get their act together, they might find ways of doing the reforms at a Euro Zone level which will leave none Euro Zone countries more isolated. But let's not kid ourselves, reforms of the EU are needed if the EU wants to expand and they can't afford play to the games of those two countries as too much time has been wasted already and personally, the EU should have been multispeed a long time ago to allow countries that want to integrate more to do so while the ones that don't, can stay as they are, the downside of that is that the core power in the EU will move with the countries that integrate but maybe that is what's needed to get others to get a move on, either way, the EU needs to get its act together and stop wasting time because the last decade feels like a waste.
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Actually they do but it's not that simply with how the energy market is.
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A good trade deal with the US would still be a good idea but it needs to be fair and not with all the demands the US wanted, these talked might have only stalled until Trump is out of power because he is a big part of the problem in those talks so we'll have to see what the future holds. It will be also interesting to see how things go with the UK because the US will have a lot more clout over them whereas with the EU, the EU was negotiating as an equal, that isn't the case from the UK, worse yet is that the UK is in a weaker position in needing a deal as it loses all the trade deals the EU has and has worse access to the EU market, if the US is going to strike, right after Brexit is the perfect time to make strong demands on the UK.
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@dfuher968 The US doesn't consider anyone an equal but it doesn't change the reality that the EU is very good at dealing with the US and getting many things out of them, after all, the UK likes to think of themselves as an equal to the EU or US when doing trade talks when it's clearly not the case but in the case of the EU and US, they both tend to hit back as hard on each other and that's to be expected considering the size of the economy, where the EU is weaker is political integration but that matters less on economic matters as we see with trade wars where the US has backed down every time going all the way back to the early 90's and mostly because the EU hits the US with tariffs just as hard. I still think the EU and US should do a good trade deal but the US has to be more realistic, it isn't going to be on their terms when dealing with the EU, it would have to be a fair deal to get real support in the EU and it's members or it will just stall like that TTIP did and the EU and US are going to have to act quickly because with a rising China, they don't share the same kind of values we do in the west and the EU or the US on their own are not going to be big enough to contend with China in the long run. Basically, the only realistic way the US is good to get a good trade deal with the EU is if they drop their aggressive attitude when it comes to lowering standards, that just isn't going to work on the Europeans, heck even the Brits that are in a much weaker position might balk at that one. In any case, with a new Cold War with the US and China on the horizon, the US can't afford to push friends away and the EU can afford to stay out of this and play both sides, the EU won't back down on it's high standards because it's got too much support from its people, so either the US backs down on that or there won't be any deal and as the US is trying to start a new Cold War with China, they are going to need all the friends they can get as it's estimated that China will have a bigger economy than the US by 2028, that was before the pandemic but considering how bad the US is dealing with the pandemic and China is already moving alone, that might happen sooner than 2080 at this rate.
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Hell of a way for the translator to get it wrong lol, but I have to wonder, what was it meant to say because it clearly wasn't meant to say cow, at least I would hope not.
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Didn't know that but from a English point of view, it does look quite bad like she was being called a cow.
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Makes sense when you think about it, electric demand goes up almost every year, a lot more is being thrown onto it, EV cars, heat pumps and in the near future, we are going to see a lot more A.I. and robotics, all of this is putting more demand on the electrical grid as we go through the transition in the energy sector. But there are signs that as renewables get better and cheaper and the same for battery tech, more of us are likely going to be able to go off grid, which should help to reduce demand on the grid. There was a report I remember reading about that said by 2026, around 60% of EU homes could go gridless, which if true, that's sooner than I expected and far more houses than I expected, but renewable and battery tech is getting better and cheaper all the time that's going to allow more of us to do that. Because of advancement of tech, it's hard to know how much demand is going to be needed on the grid, but in any case, we can't afford to take the chance that more of us will go gridless, but honestly I'm not worried about all this, there are already solution around the corner to solve these problems and there are more options opening up for consumers in case it does become a problem and we still have some time left, which will allow renewables and battery tech to get better and cheaper.
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Yep, too many kangaroos and not enough humans lol.
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That Windows in the cloud doesn't make much sense to me. Wouldn't it be better to have like one PC with a Windows licence or with Linux on it and stream that to other dumb terminals? for the kind of tasks that are done in schools or office, one PC could serve 10 or 20 people and I don't think it's a good idea having that kind of stuff in the cloud when it comes to privacy. In fact, the above could be used across a home environment, one PC across multiple users, it would likely work out cheaper and be more powerful than buying 3 or 5 PC's across the house.
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I have to admit, I've really been enjoying Brexit over the last few years, it's a laugh week in week out and it's getting even better of late, a lot of my predictions on Brexit have come true and Boris did exactly what I wanted him to do and he did it very early on where I knew he backed himself into a corner. Brexiteers might not realise this but as a remainer, I cheered when I heard Boris got the PM job and i only hoped it was Mogg that got it but hey, you can't have everything lol. Now you have to wonder why was I so excited that Boris got the job? simple really, the best way to resolve Brexit is to put a fanatical hardliner in charge of it as that person will turn a lot of the public and moderate mp's on both side of the fence against him and Brexit and he's doing a wonderful job at that. The more he and the Brexiteers push for the hardest of Brexit, the less likely the UK will leave the EU, hard line views rarely win in the long run and this is why Brexiteers can't seem to get what they want, all they are really achieving is pushing the country towards another public vote which is the last thing the Brexiteers want for obvious reasons. So much so that now some in the Brexit camp are trying to push for May's deal, too late, Brexiteers had a chance of getting some kind of Brexit as a soft Brexit which May likely would have got enough support for it but no, the hardline Brexiteers wanted the hardest of Brexit and because of them, there is a fair chance we wont leave the EU because this is looking like it's going to head back to the people and god forbid if the public votes to stay in the EU, the ones that pushed the hardest for Brexit and have been public about it will look like traitors, so much so that I suspect many of them will flee the country like rats they are lol. In any case, ask yourself a simply question, if Brexiteers truly think the British people want to leave the EU, why are they so scared of the public, parliament and so on having any say on Brexit? Brexiteers are trying to force a hard Brexit without any input from the country, it begs the question, what do they have to hide, more so the rich Brexiteers who stand to profit from it. Follow the money my friends, you'll realise they don't have your interest at heart or don't and keep ranting and raving, what do I care, remainers are clearly winning on Brexit but Brexiteers don't want to see that.
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Much of the news, especially from the right wing, isn't about reporting the news, it's about having the loudest voice and repeating it like an echo chamber and as the saying goes, say a lie enough times, people end up buying into it. There are some of the media that are more balanced, but unfortunately, the more popular media isn't that balanced, they sensationalise things, whiles twisting the truth and sometimes outright lying, but I don't blame the media for this, the real problem are the people that buy into it, after all, a democracy is only as good as the people in it, that take part in that democracy. From an outside view, it's easy for me to see where the real problems are, the Republican Party is seen as a far right party from the outside, Trump is seen as a fascist and I get the impression that most Americans don't realise how they are playing with fire with its own democracy. With that said, the US isn't the only one to see a rise of these lunatics, I'm from the UK and we've gone through Brexit recently, and let's just say it was a shit show of lies and twisting of the truth, most of which was pushed again by the right wing in politics and media and the irony is, one thing the UK, US and Australia have in common is Rupert Murdoch, his media is popular in all 3 countries and he's been twisting the narrative for decades and I'm surprised the government regulators allowed one person to have so much power over the media and we are seeing part of the results of that.
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Trump is an enigma, he keeps going on about fake news all the time and yet he's one of the biggest spreaders of fake news, what he doesn't like are facts, especially when it's not in his interest, hence why he's always going after some of the media because they are saying what he doesn't want to hear. The real scary thing is, this mix message that is going on in the US is killing more lives that could be saved and a big part of the problem on that is Trump, the Republicans and the right wing media, you have to wonder how many people these guys are killing and are getting away with it because the likes of Trump will get away with it. The UK where I am from isn't much better, at first the government wanted to do herd immunity which if they did, likely wouldn't have ended well and even to this day, they keep making excuses from care homes to medical supplies, we are starting to see which countries care about the well-being of the people and which don't and I suspect some real tough questions are going to be asked once the dust settles because there is no way they are going to push this under the rug as if it was nothing.
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Of course Germany can recovery, they've been through far worse throughout history and come out swinging. How they recover, well there are a few options, but maybe this could be the right time for Germany to push hard on a high-tech industry, and could end up as the Silicon Valley of Europe. The export market is always going to be temperamental because of outside factors, but then there's also robotics and A.I. that's very likely going to have a massive impact on manufacturing, in the sense that a lot more manufacturing is going to be done much closer to the markets the goods are being sold in, being that labour cost will be much less of a factor. Manufacturing is still going to be a big industry and Germany shouldn't pull out of that, but the world is changing and they really need to get into new areas, high-tech is probably the best one, an area that Europe have been lacking compared to the US, South Korea, Japan and China, and it's likely that high-tech is where a big chunk of economic growth is going to be. In any case, I don't think Germany needs to worry just yet, but I do think they need to transform their economy to be on a better footing to compete in the future. As for the EU and it's countries, I think they should play both sides, the US and China and do what's in its own interest and not what is in the interest of the US, which clearly don't care about European interest and just want us to do America's bidding on China because the US fears a rising China. With that said, in some areas that are sensitive, it makes sense for the EU to decouple from China to reduce risk, but in many other areas, it doesn't make sense because the US wants us too, after all, the US is willing to do actions that harm European interest without any considerations, Europeans should start looking after their own interest thought the EU, even if those interest hurts US interest, that basically means having a more neutral line on China, because China is more of a problem for the US long term, but that doesn't mean the EU shouldn't have concerns about China, just that the concerns are different then what the US are.
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It's a nice dream but it's unrealistic over the long run, the EU isn't going anywhere, as much as these clowns want it to disappear. The simple truth is, the global political and economic landscape is changing, all EU countries on their own don't stand a chance in this changing world against the big powers like the US, China and eventually India, and if you don't stand a chance, it's going to be them making the rules for you, so the question is, do Europeans in the EU really want the Americans or the Chinese making the rules for them? Weakening their social programs, watering down workers rights, lowering food standards and many more, all in the name of benefitting their corporate bottom line. Some might not want to admit this but the EU is our best defence against all that, working closer together makes us a lot stronger, so Orbán and his clowns are destined to lose on the simple factor that Europeans want things to get better whereas the Americans and Chinese are more likely to want to make things worse for their own benefit, or more accurately, for there economy and corporations. Because of this, the EU isn't going anywhere, in fact, it's only going to get stronger as the new reality forces Europeans to work closer together to protect their interest, so let the clowns like Orbán dance to the Putin tune, all he's doing is a lot of damage to his own country over the long run and if push comes to shove, we're going to end up with an EU where countries that want to move forward and integrate more will do so regardless of the rest, the end result is that more powers will shift towards the countries that integrate more, whiles pushing the rest to the outline of the EU and potentially making them irrelevant. In any case, enough of this BS, the EU countries need to stop messing around and work with the countries that want to move forward and go ahead with that, the end result of that is that most EU members will likely move forward in one way or another, others that are not sure will likely come onboard over the long run, that will be a major problem for countries like Hungary, because technically they are still in the EU, but they would hold no powers and be pushed out so far that they might as well be out of the EU, it could also make it much easier to kick them out so Putin can have his fun with them, either way, its high time the EU members that want to move forward start getting there act together when we have an unreliable US, an aggressive Russia and a rising China, if Orbán were to get his way, it would be a disaster for EU countries, fortunately, that's unlikely to happen and it's more likely to be a disaster for Hungary, if the people in Hungary are not careful, this could hit them hard over the long run.
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@kosinusify It's hardly rude, just pointing out the clickbait nature of the headline just like many others are, after all, half the comments here are about the headline.
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You can tell he's lying, he's using the 3 word phase which is designed to sound good and isn't built on anything, you only have to look over the last few years to see he does that a lot, especially on Brexit.
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Tone Loc Probably not long, the problem is, if we open op and death rates skyrocket, the people will blame the government, in other words, they can't really win as they are going to get it in the neck on the economy and from the people. Truth is, we in the west have handle this pandemic really poor compared to most of Asia and I think a lot of soul-searching needs happening on why that was the case.
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Fair enough but with everything that is going on in Ukraine, once the dust settles, it's very likely going to be much easier to get the reforms needed to abide EU standards, after all, imagine any politicians going against those reforms with everything that's gone on with the war and Russia. All the EU has to do is give them the hope that they can join the EU, keep that door open and I bet Ukraine will do a lot of the reforms needed to join a lot quicker than they could before the war, everything has changed because of the war and public support for joining the EU will likely be high, that's going to put a lot of pressure on the government and politicians to do the reforms needed and the ones that try to block those reforms could easierlly be labled as a Putin supporter, basically, politicians will either be too scared or brave to not back these reforms now, as long as the reforms are reasonable. With all that said, the EU will need some reforms before any new country can join, the EU needs to sort out Hungary and Poland and it also needs treaty change, especially on veto and majority voting, until those changes come about, I doubt any country will join the EU as it will get blocked.
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That wouldn't work as most power is still with EU countries not the EU.
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It's because governments like to focus on things like how the economy is doing or how low unemployment is doing, you know, things that have little impact on the average person. The fact is, the like of Trump, Brexit and popularise movement have been happening around the world because too many people keep getting left behind, that situation could be worse because of the recent high energy bills and inflation. Quality of life improvement needs to be done from a bottom up approach, which clearly GDP per capita doesn't do, it's also far more important to focus more on quality over wealth, just look at the Europeans in the EU, the quality of life is better for them because they put more focus in that area over wealth and ultimately, what really matters to the average person, wealth and real happiness? We need new ways of measuring progress that focus on quality from the bottom up, GDP numbers don't work as it considers everything equal in an economy, which clearly isn't, especially in the US, which is one of the least equal countries in the modern world.
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With the US going off the rails and with a rising China, it's not looking good when it comes to the more enlighten countries that are democracies. We really need an alternative to what the US and China are offering and honestly, the only credible alternative I see is the EU, but the EU countries need to get their act together and fast with working much closer together in key areas. In any case, what's going on in the US becoming less democratic and China rise doesn't bold well for the other democracies around the world as I suspect there's going to be pressure from both the US and China for these systems to change, especially on the social systems and workers rights, which both the US and China have a bad record on and both will likely want to weaken the systems in other countries to benefit their own corporations and unless the EU gets its act together, I don't see anyone else that can stop it.
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@rjfaber1991 That's true but considering what is at stake here, it's unlikely they will block it, maybe ask for a few small amendments but that's about it, even in a democracy, common sense tends to override rights or wrongs or if a deal is perfect or not and it's not that different from other countries with parliaments or a senate where they do have free will to decide on these things but it can look really bad if they block it or are being stubborn on it, especially considering the need for this rescue package.
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We should remember that EU countries were already getting over 50% of it's gas from other sources than Russia before the war started, and that percentage has gone up and will likely continue. When you throw in the gas storage they've done, I suspect they'll get through winter fine with just a few protest movements because of the high energy price, but that will start to ease a lot next year. All the EU countries have to do is tighten their belts a bit in winter, which shouldn't be that difficult to do because it's remarkable how reckless and wasteful people can be when it doesn't matter and how much we can save without it really impacting the quality of life. What really interest me is not the short term impact of this, because that will pass quite quickly, I'm more interested in the long term impact of this, especially on the energy sector, because thanks to Putin, we could be on the dawn of an energy revolution, especially in Europe because I sense that a lot more countries are going to push much harder on renewable energy and because of energy security reasons, many are going to want to produce as much energy internally, so in EU countries and with all that, it's going to be very interesting to see the energy mix in the EU over the next decade because I think we're going to get some big changes.
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@carlosdaroza In truth, the UK never had a special relationship with the US, it was all made up to make the Brits seem more relevent on the world stage but in reality, I don't see how it benefits the UK anymore then say France. Also, speaking of special relationship, we had one already and it was right under our nose with the EU but many didn't want to see that because of blind hate, in truth, our intrest was protected far more inside the EU then the US would do for the UK. As for trade deals, the US is about profit and because of that, they will want a better deal with the EU then the UK and the EU could if they wanted too play hardball on that in that they could put pressure on the US to not give them a good deal if they want a good deal with the EU and the US will always follow the money and leave the UK out in the cold. Back on the special relationship, if there is any, it's likely between the EU and US not UK and US and more so as power is shifting from west to east, Trump doesn't realise that but many smart Americans do and as power continues to shift is, that special relationship between the EU and US will likely become stronger because of self intrest in protecting western intrest in the world. In any event, it's looking like the UK is being cast aside by both the EU and US and clearlly we don't want that.
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@everready2903 Thats a abusive relationship the UK is in, we do as we are told and the US tells us to jump and the UK says how high, we in the UK needs to grow a pair of balls and become like France that doesn't take shit from the US, anyway, the irony is that this so called special relationship is about to get much more abusive after Brexit as the UK is going to go cap in hand to the US on it's knees begging for crumbs. Then we are going to realise that we already had a special relationship with the EU that looked after our intrest and it was right under our nose all this time but many didn't want to see it.
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@helmutzollner5496 I'm sure they will but outside the EU, the EU wont care who the British blame and it will soon dawn on us Brits that the EU was never really the problem, our own goverment was and that will really kick in if Brexit hurts the UK a lot. In any case, the UK have used the EU as a scapegoat for everything thats wrong in the UK, after Brexit and the UK has full control, if things don't get better in the UK and fast, there could be hell to pay for the ones that pushed Brexit the hardest because then the British people will realise that it wasn't the EU that messed the country up but it was our own goverment that did it like it's always been. In any case, I think the UK could be screwed whatever happens now, we've let this mess go too far now that even if we did stay in the EU, we have already lost billions and a lot of trust thats likely going to take over a decade to regain, the Brexiteers have made the UK look like a joke in Europe and on the world stage and many around the world have noticed that, that view wont change even after Brexit and even if we stay in the EU, so in that sense, the damage is already done, all we can do is limit the damage and the best way to do that is remaining in the EU.
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The real silver lining in all this is that many are doing insulation jobs on their homes over the last 8 months, we did it on our house in the UK years ago and thanks to that, we hardly use gas at all because it doesn't get cold enough in winter to need it. If a lot of people do this, the savings longer term as things settle will be massive and clearly, it's better to passively keep your home warm in winter and cool in summer without needing no heating or cooling or very little of it and for us, on average, we use heating about 2 or 3 days a year and even then, it's only for an hour or two, any more than that and it would be way too hot. Now all we need to do is a solar and/or wind setup to reduce our electric bills a lot. So yeah, things might be tough at the moment in Europe but these events usually mean big changes and people do big changes when they have too. Another plus is that it looks like the winter is going to mild in Europe, going on the weather forecast
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The flag waving, patriotism and conditioning when pushed onto the people on a constant basis and especially at a young age is actually something that's common in dictatorships like Russia, China and heck, even Nazi Germany in the past. Now clearly the US isn't a dictatorship, but it's not as free of a country or as good of a country as Americans want to think. The question Americans should ask themselves, why does the system need to constantly bombard the American people with patriotism and flag waving? Simply, by doing that, you make sure the people don't question the system as much, you also make it where people feel guilty for even saying bad things about the US, kinda like being Un-American. It's designed to create ignorant people that don't question the system, to think they are the best so there's less reason to push to make things better, and basically, it's designed so that the government and corporations can exploit the American people for their own ends, and they've become really good at it, and probably explains why the US has such weak standards as well as low standards in so many areas, as well as weak safety net. If the average Americans realised the high quality of life in EU countries and all the benefits the citizens get from social programs, it would probably allow big changes in the US, unfortunately for Americans, the system wants to keep them ignorant so they don't demand those changes, and even if momentum builds up to push for change, Americans are going to have one hell of a fight against the government and corporations that will fight tooth and nail to block those changes, and the real damning thing about all this, Americans have given corporations too much power, whiles at the same time, weaken the US government to keep corporations in line, the irony is, that Blade Runner like future where corporations rule, that's a very American thing, and the US is quickly racing ahead on that one, which is kinda like throwing democracy away and having many big corporations that act like dictators, and from an outside view, it's easy to see, but clearly most Americans don't see how it's going, but to be fair, the Germans didn't see the Nazis coming until it was too late and hit them on the nose, and you have to wonder, how far are Americans going to let corporations take over before doing something about it, maybe the A.I. and robotic revolution that's on its way over the coming decades will be the major wake-up call, as that could consolidate far more power into fewer hands, mostly corporations and the government, at the expense of the average American person. Also, I'm 44, I live in the UK and I've never seen a homeless person in my life, but I do know they exist, stats show that, but I suspect they are more down south in places like London, and the irony is about that, the UK by European standards doesn't fair that well when it comes to homelessness, many of the stats show that most European countries in the EU have lower homeless rates then the UK.
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It's not so much that businesses in Europe don't try to pull the same tricks they do in the US, but governments and the public tend to be tougher on corporations in Europe, the public tend to hold governments more to account and seem to be willing to stand up to them in many European countries. You throw it all together and you have a more equal and happy society, whereas the US feels like it's one big corporation, that profit is the only thing that matter, whereas the people don't seem to matter to the system, they are basically there to be used and abused, at their own expense, to enrich a few elites at the top. Basically, the US reminds me of the Ferengi in Star Trek, whereas the EU reminds me of the Federation, whereas Russia/China reminds me of the Klingons or maybe even the Romulans with how paranoid they get.
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What if the world we live in that animals are smarter then humans but don't like to brag about it like us humans do lol, nah it's unlikely but it's clear that a lot of animals are smarter then we thought they ware.
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@3mKay The west are no angels, especially the US and UK but they are far better than what the likes of Russia and China offers to the world. Personally, the EU is the more balanced force in the world but they are too divided politically which reduce what they can do. As for China, they could be sanctioned just as well as Russia is being, remember that these countries profit a lot from the west that without them, they would be a lot weaker than they are, there are a lot of countries around the world that would love to steal that cheap labour away from China, my point is, the west have options if need be, China has very limited options because it needs the rich markets of the west to sell goods too whereas the west doesn't really need them because it can source it's cheap labour in other parts of the world and yes I know that doesn't happen overnight, it would take time but it's doable just like they are doing with pulling out of Russia.
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It seems that most countries that are adaptable, do well in the Euro, the northern countries are a good indicator of that and if the UK was in the EU and Euro, the UK would likely do well with it. Whereas southern EU countries like Italy or Greece, I get the impression that they use the EU or the Euro as a scapegoat to blame for how their own governments are running their own countries, probably why these countries keep lagging behind.
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The thing is with democracy, it's only as good as the people in it, how well they take part in it and how informed they are, we are seeing a lot of flaws in democracy around the world because of how badly informed a lot of people are on things. As for Poland and Hungary, both countries want the EU to expand, the EU is highly unlikely to expand without reforms to the veto and majority voting rules, if some countries like Poland and Hungary keeps blocking any change, they risk being isolated further that their power will be weakened, it's highly unlikely that the other countries will continue to be held to ransom over one or two countries and the rest will likely get creative in finding solutions around it, something the EU and its members are very good at doing. Personally, I think we need a multi speed EU with the Euro Zone being the main focus of power, after all, countries that join that are more likely to be countries that want to make the project work compared to the ones that don't want to join it and to be blunt, the Euro Zone is by far the biggest group of political and economic power in the EU and things get really bad where some countries continue to block things, it wouldn't surprise me if the Euro Zone countries split from the others and leave the rest to fend for themselves. Hungary is playing a very risky game of isolating its self whereas Poland might have a lifeline thanks to Ukraine in getting back into the fold and personally, I think Hungary is a loss cause that needs to be kicked out of the EU.
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So basically, what Putin has done, is got two countries to join NATO, many more likely to follow in time, it's got the EU to take expansion more seriously, with many countries wanting to join. It's also got the EU to take military and foreign policy matters more serious at an EU level, which could very well lead to reforms of the EU and likely more integration in key areas. Putin's war in Ukraine has done what he feared most, he's got the EU to encroach more on Russia, he's also got NATO to do the same, and no one should be surprised by this, after all, what the hell did Putin think was going to happen when you threaten other countries? They will counter it with their own measures, and considering the EU is far bigger than Russia, it was a tactical blunder on Putin's part, which is ironic, because he had the image of being this tough smart man image, now he's likely going to be remembered for pulling Russia into decline, and it's usually the last actions that history remembers the most. The moral of the story is that Putin massively miscalculated here, in other words, he's not as smart as some thought he was, and as we've seen by his military, it's far weaker than the west thought it was. Also, let's be blunt about this, Putin fears the EU far more than he fears NATO, both the EU and NATO have a defence clause that an attack on one is an attack on all, and considering EU countries are far more integrated into each other, it makes it far more compelling that other countries would come to the aid of other EU members because the economies of those countries are so tied in together, an attack on one hurts the interest of the others, which puts far more pressure on the others to intervene more directly, NATO on the other hand, well we only have the word on that others will come to the aid of its members, but very little is holding its members together and it's unproven. But I think what Putin fears the most with the EU, as it continues to expand, it helps to modernise the continues it expands it, that has a ripple effect on countries in the region that want the same thing, from Putin's point of view, he sees that as the EU taking these countries away from Russia, making these countries more powerful by building up there economy and building democracy in them, that for Putin is a disaster, being that he sees that as the EU taking these countries out of Russia orbit, and he's right in that sense, but the simple reality is, the EU offers far more to these countries then Russia does, security, economic growth, democracy and freedom, and Russia can't counter that because it doesn't have the economy to do so and Putin's ideology doesn't allow that. With that said, it also makes sense to join NATO, it adds that extra layer of security on top of what the EU already offers.
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I take it you agree with the EU aspect of it but not with Trump?
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A.I. was never going to get banned, at least not long term, but clearly there are concerns around A.I. As for adoption, A.I. will likely be adopted all over the world in areas it makes sense for boosting productivity. I honestly think A.I. could become far bigger of a problem for the US than it will be for the EU, and the main reason for that is once A.I. really gets good and starts taking over a lot of jobs, taking over more jobs than we can create, you really have to wonder how the social system in the US would cope with that, would it throw them under a bus? Probably unless there's a big uprise. In contrast to EU countries, they've already got a far better social system in place compared to the US, it wouldn't take much to push it further to supporting a universal basic allowance, something that A.I. could force on us by pushing a lot of us out of work and I think EU countries have a major advantage over the US in how the system is structured. It's going to be interesting to see how the EU, US and others around the world deals with A.I. taking over so many jobs and how they adapt to it and honestly, going of the systems we see around the world, I think the Europeans in the EU are the lucky ones as they are unlikely to be thrown under a bus like the US seems to throw it's citizens under.
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It's very effective isn't in? and you know how you can tell it is, you can't seem to argue it and you don't even seem to try, you try to dismiss it because thats all you can do, I know the truth hurts but putting your head in the sand and pretending this isn't happening wont help you, beside, if you want to put me in my place, argue your case and show me what I'm saying is wrong because you've done nothing yet.
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You can never say never, but I doubt Russia would attack a NATO member and especially won't attack an EU member, both organisations have a defence clause that an attack on one is an attack on all, and in the case of the EU, they are far more integrated into each other, so an attack on one would have a ripple effect on the rest, meaning they are more likely compelled to get directly involved, which in the case of NATO, it's got very little holding it together apart from the world that others will come to the aid of the country being attacked. With all that said, I think it's highly unlikely Russia would take on an EU or NATO member as that would open up a can of worms and could escalate things quite quickly, in the case of the NATO, if the other members don't come to the aid of the country being attacked, the value of NATO would quickly die out, in the case of the EU, those countries are already very integrated both politically and economically, because of that, they very likely would have to come to the aid of the country being attacked out of self-interest because of the ripple effect, whereas with NATO, say Poland were attacked, what impact would that really have on the US? Minimal, and because of that, too many have too much faith in NATO coming to the aid of the country being attacked, which they might, but I have a feeling countries will make excuses up in the name of de-escalating things, a bit like the US keeps doing on Ukraine, meaning, we only have the word of others that they would help in NATO, but it's never been tested, hence why I have a lot more faith in the EU countries because self-interest kicks in with how integrated those countries are, so it's not a matter of if they want to help or not but more of a necessary out of self-interest. With all that said, I doubt Russia would take the chance taking on an EU or NATO country, because they don't know how the other side will respond, Putin already massively miscalculated on the west response to Ukraine, he's not in a position that he can take on more powerful countries, which EU and NATO countries are, especially when you consider that there are much easier targets to the east that are not EU or NATO members and are a lot poorer, these are the countries that I think could be at high risk if the EU and US lets Putin take over Ukraine, as I highly doubt Putin will stop with Ukraine. Also, where do we define an attack on the EU or NATO as being direct? You get the impression that Russia can get around that and do damage to power lines, internet cable and other things like that without directly attacking, but taking these things out would do a lot of damage, I mean, imagine if Russia were to take out most if not all the internet traffic cables from Europe to North America, the damage to the world economy and especially Europe and North America could be massive, especially with how interconnected the world is with the internet., yet you get the impression that both the EU and NATO would see that as not escalating things to not need a direct response, when clearly it should be seen as a direct attack. As for Trump, well let's be blunt about this, he's an idiot, this isn't about whether he thinks it's not important to the US that some parts of Europe get attacked, it's more about the threat of escalation, the second world war shows us that by doing little to nothing, it allows things to escalate, in other words, if things were to escalate, it would drag the US and much of the world into the war kicking and screaming, whether they liked it or not, history has shown us that and with today's advancements, it probably would be far more so, so Trump is an idiot for not seeing the big picture, something we already know, because ask yourself, what kind of person would encourage a country to attack another? Regardless of what Trump thinks of if some European countries are doing too little, encouraging a country to attack another is showing how the US is losing its way and that kind of talk could be really damaging for the US when it comes to allies, because it will in time lose a lot of respect and trust, which in turn, those so-called allies will do their own things, even if it hurts US interest and like I said, Trump isn't a big picture man, he's an idiot that's hurting the US in ways he doesn't even see. but with all that said, I would love if Trump does win the election, that's the wake-up call the rest of the world really needs to distance themselves from the US, and not so much that I want that to happen, but many around the world need to start seeing that the US isn't the country it used to be.
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The actually propaganda is that the actually numbers are probably much higher than the numbers they are giving us and that will likely come out once the dust settles, after all, it's in their interest to make it seem the numbers are smaller than they are so they don't get it in the neck from the voters but because of the scale of this, it will be almost impossible to hide the true numbers long term, either way, the people are paying the price for being so reckless when voting and not just in the UK but also in the US and Brazil which ironically are all popularize governments, this is doing massive damage to the popularise movement because of how much damage they are doing to those countries when in crisis and the people are paying the price for that and well deserved when they get reckless when voting, it's hard to feel sorry when they treat elections like a joke.
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@derser6 So we should ignore it because it's lower than the flu even thought we've done a lot of measures to lower those numbers? Speaking of dumb, listen to what you are saying, do you really think the numbers would be this low if we didn't do the lock down? Come on guys, use your noodles lol. Even looking at it on the basis of the flu, it's only been a few months and we are close to the numbers that the flu kills in an entire year and this is with crazy measures to contain this virus and you say I'm dumb, look in the mirror and then you'll see what dumb really looks like lol.
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@johnjoe1934 So you can't counter it so you don't even try, good one lol.
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Just a bit more time before another vote is on the table because the ones pushing Brexit need a scape goat and they know the people wont buy the EU being that scape goat. They know that Brexit could wipe out many of the ones that pushed Brexit the hardest if Brexit hurts the UK and that alone is likely going to push all this to another public vote where they hope to win another leave vote because then if Brexit goes sour, they can blame the people whereas now they can't, the goverment, Labour and the right wing media are right in the fireing line with Brexit and they know it, hence the real fear they are feeling. Also, the real problem with the UK is that we are not as undemocratic of a country as we like to think we are, the last 3 years have been a major wake up call to many in how our system works and it's not a pretty sight, major changese are needed with our system and Brexit is likely going to give us change but likely for the worse.
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That's the main problem, with someone like Trump that changes his mind from day to day, it's almost impossible to make a deal with and it just makes the US look unstable and not worth investing in. Even if you make a deal with Trump, months later it might mean nothing because Trump woke up on the wrong side of bed lol. The best solution is to shift trade away from the US to become less exposed to them, that weakens the US and isolates them, it also means Trump's tantrums have far less impact. Basically, countries around the world should seek out alternative reliable partners that want to work together and do business, not with a country that keeps changing the rules every few weeks. Also let's be honest, Trump doesn't want a deal, what he really wants is for the EU to bend the knee and give a lot of concessions, which no country should do because Trump will come back for more if he sees weakness, with Trump, you have to fight fire with fire, whiles at the same time, shift trade away from the US, the end result is the US will come out far worse than the rest of the world will.
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@qinby1182 I think you are misunderstanding the idea of compromise and not linking one thing with something else that's not related. The veto rule should only be used if it's something that could harm their interest, but even then, there should always be talks to find a compromise. What Hungary is doing is using it as blackmail on things that are not even related to the decision that's going on, that's blackmail however you look at it, with the intention of extracting favours from the EU. That goes against everything the EU is, which is all about finding common ground and compromises. Normally the veto rights isn't a problem, but when it's abused and to such an extent, it is a problem, and this is a case where the EU and it's other members have the right to strip Hungary of it's voting rights, and honestly, I think the EU should go further and reserve the funds that go to Hungary and deliver them to Ukraine, and not just the money from the Covid fund but the development fund. The EU Commission has been too weak when it comes to Hungary, whereas the European Parliament has wanted to get much tougher on Hungary, it's high time they send a powerful message to Hungary that what they are doing isn't right.
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Let's look at the stock market the way it is, the more it goes up whiles most businesses are not trading, the more wealth from the tax payers is going to the wealthy and that should have people alarmed. It's crazy that the markets are going up whiles the economy is more or less shut down for the most part so the real question is, how much of this burden are they going to put on the tax payers? Personally, I think they should let most companies fend for themselves and only support vital sectors, the rest should be left to their own devices, that might sound harsh and create some hardship but a good clean up of the system with new companies might do us some good, I say that because if we keep bailing them out, they won't learn and will keep repeating the same mistakes, expecting the public to pay for it through taxes, this is probably one of the biggest crimes I've every seen and most of the public don't even realize that it's happening right under their nose lol, but they will find out next year or the year after once hardship hits them on the arse lol.
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The biggest blunder of Trump is Biden stepping down, with Biden in the running, Trump actually had a good chance of winning, now that Biden stepped aside and someone younger took the spot, Trumps odds are dropping. But let's not kid ourselves, this isn't the end of the story, Trump or Harris, if Harris wins it will only create stability for a short time, the cracks in US democracy are really starting to show and the problems are much deeper then what's going on with this election, so unless they fix the core problems that concern people, this radical rise is going to continue until eventually someone like Trump but smarter gains power and enough support to change the system in such a way to harm US democracy, maybe even turning it into a dictatorship, so that threat doesn't go away with a Harris win, unless major changes are done, and at best, it's just delaying the radical rise that's going on.
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It really depends on your house, where I live in the UK, I've got enough space on the house that I can have around 40 400 watt panels on the house and the garage, and I'm fortunate enough that I've got no obstacles from trees or anything else blocking the light. As you say, the actual hardware is quite cheap now, but you have to be careful on the ones doing the installation, that can make a massive difference on the price from one to another even on the same setup, so you have to be careful with the scams that will charge way more than the setup is, but ideally, if you can do the setup yourself, then it would be really cheap, but there are many options where you can get good deals on installations, there's also tax incentives to lower the overall cost a lot, which if I'm not mistaken, I think some new ones just started this February which according to my friend, would reduce the overall cost in half for a lot of the average solar setups. But like you said, it really does depend on your home in the UK for how many you can have, but with how cheap solar is getting, it's opening up more options in how we can use solar, so not just on the roof.
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This was never about Donbas, this was about Putin's obsession with rebuilding the Soviet Union, in other words, it's unlikely that Ukraine is the last unless the west gets it's act together and puts it's foot down with Putin.
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Lies can only take you so far and boy has Boris stretch that out, now the titanic is sinking all around him and it's easy to see why, the Tories are starting to realize that if they don't get rid of Boris, it's going to be a bloodbath for the Tories at the next election. The irony is, it might still be without Boris steering the ship and mainly because this isn't the Tory part of hold, it's been taken over by the loons thanks to Brexit, in other words, unless the Tories get rid of the hard line Brexiteers in the party, I don't see how getting rid of Boris is going to help the Tories much, at least longer term because we all know whoever replaces Boris will be another hard line Brexiteers that wants to create problems and division. I find it ironic that the Brexit vote was designed in a way to solve the infighting in the Tory party, all it's done is make things a lot worse and if they are not careful, they could implode in on themselves because they are losing a lot of credibility whiles also creating a lot of division in the UK, fuelling the independence movements in Scotland and Northern Ireland and just recently, even Wales. The Tories are becoming a disaster for the UK going back all the way to the austerity measures they did a decade or so ago and if they are not careful, they could be the main reason why the UK union falls apart and I feel like they are sleepwalking into that. In any case, this looks like it's the end for Boris as I can't see him surviving this for long, good riddance as far as I'm concern.
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That isn't the real issue, the EU and northern countries don't want to constantly keep bailing out the southern EU members, which would be the case without major reforms. Red tape and reforms are needed in those countries so they are more competitive on the world stage and as for the EU and richer members, if they keep having to bail out the weaker ones, it's going to drag them all down. In other words, stop making excuses, reduce red tape, reduce corruption in politics and decision-making, boost investment in the country, especially forign investment and most importantly, stop blaming others for the mess your country is in, the EU and northern members can only do so much to help, you've got to be willing to help yourself if you want things to really improve. As for Russia and China, they just want to take advantage of you, even you must see that. But seriously, I've got relatives in Italy and know how difficult it is to get things done because of all the red tape that hurts the Italian economy, but in any case, you are doing the same mistake the UK did, blaming others for the mess that their own governments did, which the UK has been making a mess of its own country since the last financial crisis, naturally, they blamed the EU because they didn't want to take responsibility for the mess they got themselves in, now Brits are realising that the real was much closer to home, it's not that different from what's going on in Italy where there's a constant blame on others for the mess the country is in. So what you think of as a cure with Italexit would likely make things worse for Italy, just like it did for the UK, after all, Italy is in a weaker position than Italy on the economy and investment environment, so if Italy were to leave, investment and confidence in the country would dry up quite quickly, one for not having easy access to the EU market, two, by being out, it's less likely that the needed reforms will get done, in other words, Italy would fall further behind. Don't get me wrong, the EU isn't perfect but always blaming them for your own mess is getting tiresome now, so grow up and start fixing the structural problems in the economy, reduce corruption in the political system and entice more investment into the economy, all of these issues are at national government level not EU level.
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@Philippe MARTINEZ We can't just say that through, nothing forced those other countries to buy oil and gas from Russia, they choose to do so because it was cheap, yes Germany played it's part but so did many other European countries. I also find it kinda arrogant of the eastern EU members saying they told you so on this and yet they still bought oil and gas from Russia, under EU rules, individual EU members can pick and choose where they buy their oil and gas, the question is, why did they still buy from Russia? so there is a lot of blame to go around and it involves all the west for going soft on Russia after Putin took over Crimea.
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A lot considering that he could become the next US president and even if he doesn't the Democrats can still block it as they control the house, so this is a big problem for Boris regardless of how the US election goes.
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@danielbones3072 Glad you couldn't denie it lol.
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@kgw72 Problem is for Gibraltar is that the heart is screaming Britain but their mind is screaming Spain because most of their trade and work is dependent on Spain, now even thought they are part of the UK, they are just too far away to matter to the average Brit on that island, whereas Spain is on its doorstep and that matters a lot when it comes to the local economy. Basically, they do need some kind of good deal with either the EU or with Spain or it could hurt the local economy a lot and it wouldn't surprise me if Gibraltar goes it's own path away from the UK. As for the UK and it's legacy, I don't know, I think it's done a lot of harm around the world by divide and conquer, spitting countries up so they have conflicts together, many which still do to this day, India and Pakistan and much of the Middle East is just a few example.
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@FOLIPE That's the sense I get from the Brexiteers in the UK that they don't care what happens to Gibraltar, they see this as a us vs them kind of game with the EU and don't care who gets hurt in the process, hence the reason why the likes of Gibraltar, Scotland and Northern Ireland should look out for themselves because clearly the UK government isn't going to do that.
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@glynnwright1699 Actually from my understanding, they want the French back since the Chinese moved in because things seem to have got a lot tougher with workers rights since, apparently, the French treated them a lot better than the Chinese are.
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@glynnwright1699 It's not so much that they don't give but that they work them very hard whereas the French didn't, I've heard many of them would prefer the French back compared to what they've got now, even thought at first they wanted the French out. The EU doesn't keep Africa down, in fact the EU has very open access trade with them were basically there are no tariffs on goods they export to the EU and also throw a lot of aid money their way but I do think more could be done on building that relationship. The US doesn't seem to have much interest in Africa even before Trump got into power and with Trump in power, they had less interest, I doubt that will change much with Bidan in as his focus is very likely going to be else ware, the EU and Africa are in the best position to foster stronger relations because of their location and trade.
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@glynnwright1699 I never said it was but I can only go on the information around and the US have pulled back a lot from Africa, China have pushed a lot in and many in the region don't seem to happy about it, I've heard many stories where they want the European back but China offers cheaper labour and in poorer countries, that matters a lot but unfortunately, it means less rights, worse conditions and worse treatment as China are far less friendly on human rights than Europeans are.
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If it's open conflict, it would be reckless of Russia and China to gang up on Finland, considering they are an EU and NATO member as things could escalate very quickly, but if we are talking about economic damage, that's kinda different, NATO likely wouldn't be involved but the EU likely would have to be to protect Finland, but it depends on what kind of economic war we are talking about and the level of damage attempting to do. For now, what's being done is pretty minor damage, if any at all and no reasons to escalate things when Finland can deal with this on their own, but if things do start to get out of hand, I think the EU will have to step in.
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I wonder why people in countries like Russia and Chiba don't see what's happening here, these laws are designed to keep the government in power, to shut the people up when they try to be a threat to the government and the end results is a poorer country with people that have less right, less equality, a poorer standard of living and so on. When limiting the access to information for the people, you end up doing harm to your economy and because of that, the likes of China and Russia can never really catch up to the west, at least on a per-person basis because they are limiting it's greatest asset, which is it's people. It's high time these people start to wake up and see what the government in those countries is doing to it's own people without them using the excuse of blaming the west for all the problems back home, in that sense, they remind me of Brexiteers, blaming the EU for all the wrongs back home lol.
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I don't think it makes much sense to band countries together, doing so could end up pushing far more of their policies closer together and it's better to treat the countries on an individual basis. China for instance is clearly not Russia, North Korea or Iran, which are mostly trying to cause trouble, and some in the west and especially the US sees China as a threat because it's a growing power. Now I'm not saying China doesn't have their own agenda and use some aggressive policies around the world, but when you look at others like Russia, they've invaded another country, they've also interfered in western politics for over a decade now especially in Europe and North America that I'm actually surprised that the west is still a soft touch on Russia, I mean yes, we've ramped things up a bit with the war in Ukraine, but considering how Putin has been interfering in western elections for around a decade now and the west did very little to push back on that, it made the west look weak, which probably led to Putin invading Ukraine. When it comes to China, I think we need to cool heads to not escalate things and to use diplomacy to cool things down, China after all could be far more powerful than Russia could be its economy behind it, so it doesn't make much sense to lump China in with Russia, North Korea and Iran, doing so could actually make things worse by backing China into a corner, which it's better to not go down that route. Also, when it comes to China, it's clear there's a big divide on people that support or are against them around the world, so cool heads are needed as China is far more of a problem for the US then it is for other and as for others like Europe, being more tactful on what trade we do with China would probably be wise to reduce the risk of dependency.
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Yep, that will happen with further integration in the EU and all it will take is the US or China to abuse its position by trying to divide European countries with the aim of making them weaker for their own ends, it's just a matter of when other big powers try to take advantage of the division.
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I'm hoping the same for the UK union considering how the government is acting the last few years 😀
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@milan431r The EU isn't really having issues holding it's self together but the EU and it's members are having issues in what direction to take but that's a different thing. As for some independence movements, that's from some of the countries and not the EU, there isn't a single country that wants to leave the EU or Euro and in fact, support has actually gone up since the UK left with Brexit. Where the real issue is, what direction does the EU take in future, that's where the real problem is as some countries are pulling in one direction whiles others are pulling in others, still the EU have shown it's really good at finding ways forward with all it's members but clearly the system needs to change as more members join.
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What makes me laugh is how so many seem to think Reform UK is the cure, they are more likely to make more of a mess of things that what Labour or the Conservative could ever do, after all, there leader is Farage, look at the mess he helped to make with Brexit, which by the way is helping to put the squeeze on the budget, you can't have your cake and eat it, public services have been stripped a lot over the last 15 years, there's need for a lot of capita to repair the damage the Tories have done over the last 15 years and because of Brexit, and unfortunately, that will likely mean higher taxes in many other areas. My point is, if you really want anyone to blame for this, then it's the Tories, followed by the Brexiteers, both groups have done so much damage to the UK that it's going to take a miracle from Labour to repair it, in other words, a heck of a lot of capita, so let's not delude ourselves with Reform UK, there leader played a big hand in helping to create a lot of this mess with over promising on Brexit whiles helping to leave the country in a much bigger mess.
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@drops2cents260 The impression I get on Brexit is that the government is buying time but don't want to be seen to be buying time because of the hardcore Brexiteers, hence the tough talk, but I think a delay in a few weeks will happen because the UK can't afford to deal with Brexit whiles dealing with the economic damage of this virus and not to mention all those golden trade deals the UK government was talking about, I think they can kiss good buy to that because of the economic impact on the world economy could push many to look after themselves, this virus came about at the right time to do a lot of damage to the UK and the problem for the government, they know the Brexiteers will pin the blames on Boris and this government for any economic hardship they get over the next few years. As for Scotland, I think they will buy time, there is no reason for them to rush things at the moment, they can try to get a lot of cash out of the British government and leave at a later date but I do think the way the UK government has handled this pandemic has played right into the hands of the ones that want independence in Scotland and likely Northern Ireland as well. As for the UK, for all the arrogance and greatness they like to tell us, it's not showing with how they are dealing with this virus, we and the US have become a laughing stock on the world stage and the irony is, we get some Brexiteers thinking this virus can be used as cover to push for a hard Brexit, not realizing that the EU is thinking the same thing, the EU can now afford to go for the hardest of Brexit whiles knowing it will do a lot more damage to the UK economy and for the EU countries, it gets clouded up with the economic damage of the virus. The Brexiteers in the UK are deluding themselves if they think the EU will bend, they have little to no incentive to do so and will sit back and let the UK choose to either fold or go with hard Brexit, either way, the EU knows the UK have form in folding at the last min. As for the US, I think the UK can kiss good buy to any good trade deal with them now, thanks to the economic damage of this virus, the US is going to look after number one and many other countries are going to do the same which likely means less trade deals around the world, something the UK pinned a lot of it's hopes on.
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@robertt3545 Nothing would surprise me in the UK any more, either way, thanks to Brexit and now the mess of the pandemic, Scotland is very likely going to vote again on independence and not care if the UK government allows it or not, in fact I hope the UK government does go hard on Scotland in trying to not allow them to have a vote, that would backfire in so many ways that it would be a given that Scotland would leave the UK, especially now that the EU is more open in allowing Scotland back into the EU.
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@surgeland9084 2020 is too early, it would make sense for Scotland to screw the UK government out of as much money as they can over this pandemic and then have a vote on leaving in 2 to 3 years, I suspect the UK money will be willing to throw a lot of money at Scotland just to keep them in the UK so Scotland should take full advantage of that and with that, the south won't pay the price, they never do, it will be the north of England that really pays the high price for that, the heartland of Brexit lol.
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@Ja-uu9ep They can but they might as well take full advantage of the UK governments desperation to keep Scotland in the UK union, it's a given that they will be willing to offer a lot of resources and money to keep them happy, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales should take full advantage of that because they've been screwed over long enough by UK governments. You say Scotland can't go it alone and yet there are countless other European countries of around the same size that have a better standard of living than the UK never mind Scotland which is below par in the UK, it seems to me that if we look at Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, they seem to be held back by the UK union, I mean, look at the gdp per capita of them all, they are way lower than England, now compare that to other European countries of around the same size of them, they are doing far better. The UK union is supposed to benefit them but all the evidence suggest it's screwing them over. In any case, Brexit and the pandemic impact is likely going to speed up the process of them leaving, why would they want to sink with the sinking ship that is England? After all, Brexit and a big part of the mess on this pandemic is a very English thing of arrogance, those other countries would likely be better off out of it.
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@Ja-uu9ep The simple truth is, economic clout afford big players in being able to get a lot more out of smaller player, the EU, the US and China can do that, other smaller ones can't, as for Scotland, the idea of them wanting independence is so they don't have to be dictated too by the UK government which is getting out of touch with reality by the day and also to rejoin the EU which protects and helps them in a lot of areas. As for Spain, they say they would veto it but if Scotland was to leave the UK and want to rejoin the EU, there's a very high chance that Spain would back down on that, after all, in the long run they can't really stop Scotland joining because the EU and other members would put pressure on Spain to back down and there are countless ways that can be done. Northern Ireland will be easy to do if they join the Republic of Ireland, they automatically because an EU member, their standard of living would go through the roof in time if you look at the GDP per capita numbers of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, they would also likely get a lot of help from the EU and Irish government, likely far more than the UK is willing to give. The North Sea oil is an excuse, you only have to look at GDP numbers for all the UK members going back 100 years now to see most of the wealth is kept down south of England, beside, even the north part of England are complaining about too much wealth being held in the south, a big part of Brexit was because of that, they feel they are getting left behind, Wales isn't much better either, if you look at it, the only member in the UK union doing well is England and even then it's the south of England, so this is not just a Scotland thing and has nothing to do with oil, this is our UK government that is messing up either by not caring or incompetents, either way, it's pushing some of the other UK members to want to leave because they likely trust the EU to put their interest first then the UK and looking at history, can you blame them? Basically, if the UK union is to survive, the UK government is going to need some major reforms and a lot more powers given back to it's UK members, otherwise I think it's just a matter of time before the UK union falls apart and going on the latest news going around, it looks like the UK government is trying to do a power grab on Brexit, that will go down well with the other 3 members, expect support for their independence to grow over the next few years, so they've got Brexit, the pandemic and the UK government to contend with, can't blame them for wanting out of it all.
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You must be watching fake news, not many in the UK like Trump and the ones that do are arse kissers that are desprated to kiss his arse for a trade deal, think how thats going to look when the Democrats get back into power, likely when the UK will need the US the most after Brexit, I love how stupid people can be :)
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For one I'm not a yank and two, I've got a passport and three, at least try and argue the case, only losers use insults which is what lord dong is, losers that don't try to argue the case at hand or throw there toys out of the pram, what a loser mr dong in and with a name like that, it's no supprise :)
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That doesn't sound like a mistake, of all the things they could send, they send body bag which could suggest they don't care and going on what we are seeing with the US government and some state governors, that doesn't surprise me.
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I get the impression, at least from the US that they want the war in Ukraine to drag on to bleed Russia of its resources to hurt its economy, which happens on two fronts, man power and economic resources Russia is having to throw into the war effort. Both the EU and US are more than capable of supplying the arms needed to Ukraine to end this war far sooner than it's likely going to be and really, both the EU and US needs to get their act together because things are getting unstable around the world, it's going to be costly for both the EU and US having to deal with the conflict in Ukraine whiles other wars are braking out and I know some will say we won't intervene but things are braking out in a lot of regions around the world that if we are not careful, things could escalate that it forces us into the war. If there is ever a time where we need strong leadership from the EU and US, it's now, because I suspect a lot of these wars are braking out because of poor leadership from the powers that have the clout to do something about it, and I'm wondering, how far are we going to let things escalate before we put our foot down, basically, nip these things in the bud before it gets out of hand, which we are seeing early signs of that now.
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@RM-ov8gk Things would have to get quite a bit worse then they are for that to change but if this drags on, we could be talking about our world war two moment in modern times in that the end of the second world war brought about massive changes in many areas, more so in Europe with the social system and cooperation, this coronavirus could do the same thing as it's a massive wake up call for the public, something that likely was needed because the human race was starting to revert back to our old ways which led to the second world war, so with any luck, some massive reflection on this will happen once the dust settles and the first should be in stopping the blame game.
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@iyappan6254 With any luck, the rich countries will help them out but the problem is that they are going to be in a dire situation themselves after this.
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This is why a United States of Europe is needed, could you imagine Turkey doing any of this is the EU was a full on political and economic country? It would be like Turkey doing oil drilling in Alaska lol. As it is with how the EU is designed, it's got limited powers when it comes to political matters and this leaves the problem mostly on Greece unless other EU members want to help but that's always hit or miss, it's also another reason why a federal EU would be a good idea to protect both political and economic union.
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@popelgruner595 That's true but let's see how well that works in practice, I suspect it won't work very well. İstila-i Tatar, as for the EU and a unified military, this isn't about the numbers game, it's not about resolve or how many troops or tanks you have, that means very little in today's world, it's all about the economy and the technology and the EU countries have that, in other words, if Russia or anyone else became a threat to the EU, the EU countries could throw a lot of money and minds at the problem, Turkey wouldn't stand a chance, nor would Russia for that matter but the problem is in today's world, a hot war isn't likely to happen because of the damage it can do on both side, hence why modern countries don't go to war with each other any more, they only do with countries that can't fight back.
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My take on it, the more advanced a civilization becomes, the more dangerous they become to themselves and others and I suspect that leads to one of two things, either they wipe themselves out or they become so civilized that they are no threat to themselves or others. A bit like the atomic bomb, when that was created, many thought that would be the end of us but what actually happened is that it changed us to become more civilized, now I'm not saying wars don't happen but they are usually with countries that can't fight back, so rich countries against poor ones and given time, the entire world is going to modernize which would make war very difficult without a massive cost to the ones starting it and I can imagine with tech far more advanced than us, that becomes more the case. So my take on it that I think it's unlikely to have a really advanced alien race that's hostile as if they are hostile, that ripple effect would play out on their own people and would likely end in disaster and as for us humans, the next 100 years could be our make or break moment, either we get past our divisions and come together as a people or we end up doing so much damage to ourselves that we more or less wipe ourselves out, after all, imagine 200 countries with tech 100, 200 years more advanced than we have today with the nature that tech filters down in society, that doesn't bold well for humans with our mindset we have today and throughout most of human history. In fact you see it with sci-fi shows, they basically imprint how humans would react on an alien race which isn't realistic, in fact we do that with movies like Jaws where's he's on the hunt to hunt humans down which is a human motive not a shark motive. But truth be told, we don't know how an alien race would be like or how they would act to us or for that matter how we would act to finding out we are not alone in the universe. Also, if I was an advanced alien race and wanted to learn or interact with humans, I think the best way to do that would be to create a human for that task, maybe even be able to implant an alien mind into a human minds, that would allow an alien race to explore Earth and us humans without us being any the wiser about it and on that note, there's a fair chance that humans will split off into other alien races thanks to genetic engineering, which there might not be any limits in how far we can change ourselves or other animals on the planet and clearly in the wrong hands, that could be a really bad idea but in the right hands, there's a lot of benefits to that.
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I had the same feeling, let them win where they are in a position that they have to deliver and then let them fall on their own sword, kinda like what Brexiteers in the UK did to themselves with Brexit in the UK which is helping the other side to create more pro EU sentiments. Basically, it's easy to bluster and say anything they want on the sidelines, but when they win and have to deliver on real policies, that's where it can all fall apart and where voters can quickly turn on them. Le Pen isn't doing good because of any of her policies, she's doing good because the French are fed up with the mainstream parties, basically it's a protest vote, but if she got into power, she would have one or two terms to deliver solid results before the French people turn on them, that's when the reality of their policies really kick in on the people, a bit like how it's doing on Brits with Brexit. To put it another way, the grass isn't greener on the other side, and I understand there's a lot of anger going around, but the far right are not the solution and the only way to expose that is to allow them power only for them to make a mess of things, a bit like in the UK, nothing was going to get through to the Eurosceptics, but Brexit is really starting to change public views on the EU, reality is kicking in, I think that is needed in other countries like France, yes we need solutions and change, but the far right are not the solutions we need.
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@Browe2546 Yep, Canada is in a far worse position, probably why they are trying to divert trade from the US towards the EU because the US is using trade as a political weapon, which makes them far less reliable. With that said, Australia is not in a good position, with a rising China and being so close to the US, which is becoming less reliable, things don't look good for either Canada or Australia unless they can find alternative trading partners.
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Not sure about Russia falling apart over the next 10 years but it becomes harder to keep a country together when too much power is centralized which is what the Putin government has been doing and Russia being a big country, it makes it difficult to keep it together as information is easier to access, unless you deliver the goods on the economy to the average Russians to keep them quiet. Personally, I think over the next 10 years, Russia as a power will become much weaker and more isolated unless the country changes direction, the west is very likely going to continue to keep the heat on Russia and isolate them, there is a big push to alternative energy sources which considering how much the Russian economy depends on outside revenue, it doesn't look favourable for Russia. From the west point of view, I highly doubt they care what happens to Russia, but they've seen Russia under Putin as a threat over the last decade with meddling in western democracies that the west main intention here is to weaken and isolate Russia and I don't think that policy will change much until Putin and much of his government is out of power, basically, Russia invaded Ukraine was the last straw but Russia have been playing games for well over a decade and because of that, it's unlikely the west is going to go easy on Russia until there is a major shift in the governmental system and until then, the west will continue to weaken Russia so they are less of a threat, now it's just a matter of how long it takes the Russian people to wake up to that reality because it's them that will pay the highest price, not Putin which doesn't care about the Russian people and only cares about protecting his position of power, just like any dictator. Also, lets be blunt on this, the real damage of sanctions are usually long term, at first, sanctions look quite mild but over many years, they do a lot of damage and if the west continues to sanctions and isolate Russia over the long term, that will do the Russian economy a lot of damage which could destabilize the country, throw in the factor that a lot more countries are fast tracking to alternative energy sources and Russia not really trusted any more, the damage that is being done to Russia is longer term, not short term and we should also remember that Russia is being cushioned by that reserve fund that Putin created, something that's likely going to run dry later this year and with that, it becomes harder to shield the Russian people from the damage this war is doing on the Russian economy, so basically, Putin doesn't need to worry just yet, even thought he will with how bad the war is going, he really needs to worry about the next few years. As for the school of thought thing, on the one hand, it would be nice if they can keep it all together for world security reasons but on the other hand, Russia comes across as a failed state and its history shows too much aggression, whether that be during the Soviet Union days or the last 2 decades with Putin, they always like to meddle aggressively with others and maybe the break-up of Russia would be a good thing for the people in those regions and I think the real problem is that Russia and the Russian people still like to think of themselves as a major power in the world, they are not and what we are seeing in Ukraine is proving that, the truth is, there are only 3 major powers in the world, the EU, US and China, as for Russia, they don't have the economy, the population to match them and now a lot of the talent is fleeing Russia, it doesn't bold well for the future of Russia.
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Depending on how it's done, the current system is unworkable, and even if they come up with a patch up deal, it will likely only work for a short time. Personally, I think reforms are needed on the EU, especially on the EU Commission, I also think the European Parliament needs to be given more powers and I think it's crazy that we have a union with open boarders among it's members and yet we have borders and immigration policies control at a national level, it's easy to see how that can be a major issue in a union of open boarders and I only see one solution, the EU needs to be given the powers to enforce it's borders and immigration policy, until then, individual members will continue to pull in all directions. Basically, the issue we are having is a by-product of freedom of movement in the EU, but the real issue is the EU not having many powers to do anything about the external borders or immigrations as that is a national policy and with the fragmentation it's showing, you get the mess we see the last decade. If you're going to have a union of no internal boarders, it makes a lot of sense that external boarders to that union, as well as immigration policy is control at an EU level, in other words, there is little the EU can do here apart from work with it's members to try and get a deal done, but even then, it's likely a patch up deal at best.
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What you do is simple, you don't upgrade until things settle which is what I'm doing, I was planning on doing a full rig upgrade this year but have put it off because of the gpu and memory prices are not worth the upgrade and because the PC I've got now can still do fine for the next year or two. Sooner or later things will settle either by the bubble bursting or AMD and Nvidia ramping up production, this could also be an opening for a thrid competitor in the market if AMD and Nvidia don't do something about this, I also think the longer this drags on, the more harm it will do to PC gaming but even worse is that it will impact console gamers as well because they are tied into what development happens on the PC and AMD and Nvidia have little incentive to push new hardware when all there cards are selling out. Console gamers are protected for now because Sony and Microsoft buy in bulk over a long term at a fixed price but if this drags on, it wont look good for the PS5 and next Xbox because AMD and Nvidia will be able to command a much higher price even for mid range gpu's, so yeah it's not a good time for gamers that want to upgrade but it could be much worse in the longer run for PC and even console gamers if this continues. In my case, I wont upgrade till things settle so no big deal really but as for cryptocurrencies, I don't think it's a fad and I suspect it's going to get a lot bigger over the next few decades, so the only real solution is either AMD and Nvidia ramps up production a lot or they both design cards designed for cryptocurrencies but what we really need is more competion in the market, the irony is that the high prices could be a big opening in the market if it drags on long enough.
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@tomorrowneverdies567 A few things define a global power, soft and hard power, political and economic muscle and population size. If you have the economy with a big population, you're a global power, because your economic and political muscle expands far out into the world. The only ones that really have that kind of power are the EU, US and China, whereas the likes of India and Brazil could have that if they get their economic and political act together. As for the reason for having it, it helps to protect political, economic and social interest, after all, look at how many times we've seen the US try to pressure the EU to water down many things from regulations, workers rights, food standards and countless other things, without the EU, the US likely would get its way, but the EU is big enough that it can stand up to the US, it's also big enough that it can set the standard around the world, something it does a lot with regulations that start off as an EU regulation but a lot of the times become a global standard, we are seeing that in the high-tech field a lot. As for Russia, they are not a global power, they used to be and like to think they are now, but the reality is, their economy is too small, I think it's around the size of Spain, which is embarrassing when Russia has a far bigger population and far more natural resources to take advantage off, they also have a fast shrinking population. Russia's performance in Ukraine isn't a surprise for me, they have a weak economy and that filters down into everything, including the military, now if Russia was a modern country, they would have been in a much better position, but it's far harder to become a modern country when run by a dictator, and however we like to see it, that is what Putin more or less is.
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The EU knows that plays in their favour because they know a lot of lies are told about the EU, if everything was fact-checked, it would be harder for the ones telling the lies to get away with it.
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Simply answer, no it's not, it doesn't have the population numbers and the economy to be a major European power and isn't it's population been in decline for a while? I do see Poland growing in power and being like Spain or maybe Italy but that's about it, there are many factors that will hold it back from its close borders to Russia, to the weather and to the current government, many factors that makes the country less appealing for people to want to move there compared to places like France, Germany or Spain and this matters because power is based on the economy of a country and the economy is based on the population size. Don't get me wrong, Poland is growing in power thanks to being in the EU but I don't see them being as powerful as Germany, France, Italy or even Spain for that matter and we should remember that it's much easier to play catch up with modern countries, especially with a lot of help they are getting from the EU, the question is, as they close the gap with western countries, do they maintain healthy growth rates? Some countries struggle on that like Greece. But in any case, I like to look at the contrast to how countries like Poland are doing compared to other eastern EU countries and also look at how these eastern EU countries are doing compared to none eastern European countries, there is a clear line that the countries that joined the EU, it's helping their economy a lot compared to the countries that are not in the EU. Also, the comparison with the UK isn't a good indicator with the country going into decline since Brexit, it's much easier to close the gap on an economy that is really struggling, but in any case, it will be interesting to see where Poland develops, as well as the other eastern EU members, but apparently, there are signs that Hungary could be slipping, probably because they've become far less of a team player in the EU and that could hurt its economy, Poland seems to be slowly changing, mainly thanks to the impact of the war in Ukraine, but before that, Poland was heading in the same direction as Hungary.
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@ChristianIce It should be for its population, but it's not the kind of power that Germany or France have in the EU. It takes more than just population numbers and the size of an economy to determine how powerful a country is. In the case of an EU country, to really have power, you need to have friends, you need to be more cooperating in dealing with other members and you need to be willing to compromise, Poland just like Hungary is showing very little of that, which limits their real power in the EU, regardless of economic growth and basically, soft power goes a long way in the EU and even around the world, something Poland and Hungary are doing a poor job on whereas Germany and France are doing a good job on it. But it wouldn't surprise me if some of the other eastern EU countries grow in power at the expense of Poland and Hungary, unless they change. As for Italy, I'm half Italian, but even I know that Italy is clinging onto dear life, they are in the G7 and many other organisations from a time that Italy was more powerful, it's a lot weaker around the globe today that if they were to try and join, they likely wouldn't be able.
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If you want to get the news, Fox News is the last place you would want to go as that doesn't report the news, it shows view point of a few specific people with power to want to shape the news to their agenda. I wished we had a lot more of this going on where a lot of what is being said is debunked with facts, reporters should get a lot more tougher with these and governments and arm themselves with facts to make them look stupid just like he did here with that woman on Fox News.
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True but then it's rare for them to spread so rapidly and if we do as you say, the odds of it mutating into something far worse goes up, but either way, we can't be in lock down for too long, 2 or 3 months at the max where if things don't get better, tough decisions will have to be made.
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@TremereTT It really depends on if they are moderate euro skeptics or not, moderate ones are not that bad and are willing to listen to reason, lucky for us, most are that, the hardcore ones come across as fanatics and would be quite happy for the country to burn just to hit the EU on the end. Hardcore Brexiteers have shown time after time that they do not have the British intrest at heart, they don't even seem to care about the UK, this for them is all about hating on the EU, nothing more. In any case, Brexit, Trump and the popularist movment around Europe is a major wake up call that things need to change and if things don't change, things will get a lot worse before they get better.
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@transsylvanian9100 Unfortunately, democracy is all about the will of the people, no matter what their views are, the real problem isn't those parties but that so many people actually want to vote for them, that's where the real problem is in society and this plays out in almost every country. Basically, far left and far right parties play on the weakness of what's going on in a country, they take advantage of that for their own ends which rarely are in the interest of the people, if we only want moderate parties to be elected then the public needs to have a more moderate mindset, that will mean reforming of the media to be more truthful and of governments to stop spinning everything.
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@transsylvanian9100 Actually moderates doesn't have anything to do with status quo, it's actually more to do with listen to all sides of an arguments and going on from there, hence why they are some of the most successful governments because they try to listen to more people. Now don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind seeing more radical politics to shake things up but there's is always a risk to that as we see with Brexit and Trump and it can lead to far worse if we are not careful. I think we should also understand that many of the so called moderate parties are anything but that, just look at the Conservative Party in the UK, they didn't listen to half of the population on Brexit, look at Trump in the US, he didn't listen to anyone lol, these are more radical groups and as we see, the results are not that great. If we really want change, then it's up to the people to vote for that change, so far they do a really poor job on that because they are easily manipulated, misled and bought off, basically, these kinds of governments use scapegoats to further their own agenda, we saw that in the UK, we saw that in the US, it's always others faults and not their own on why things are like they are, the truth is, the real fault is with the voting public, the governments after all are a reflection of the voting public and that is where the real problem is. If these governments were really moderates, they would listen to all sides but in some countries, namely the UK and US, they rarely listen to the other side and that is why we are seeing a big divide, in other words, don't blame moderate governments when they are not even being elected by the people, some governments might say they are moderate but they are anything but that.
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Fortunately, god doesn't exist, beside, if god really did exist, why does he shit on people that pray to him the most and yet gives a high standard of living to people that don't really believe in god like northern Europeans.
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In an industry that is under threat, saying we should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas sounds like an admittance of fear. Alternative energy sources like renewables is a big threat to the oil and gas industry because it keeps getting cheaper and better, also battery tech is getting better and cheaper, which allows renewables to have a bigger buffer when it comes to storing of that energy for more consistent power. What the oil and gas industry really fear is that they can't keep playing the games they used to do with jacking up the prices a lot, that is a lot harder for them to do thanks to renewable energy sources, the moment they try to do so, they encourage more investment and deployment of renewable energy, which will end up killing off the oil and gas industry sooner rather than later. The oil and gas industry are in decline, it might not seem like that to some but you can tell there is real panic in the air, they'll try there best to push up prices, but they know it's very short-lived because of alternatives that are around, they also know that the percentage of oil and gas use in the economy is going to go down over the coming years, until these companies either have to adapt into new industries or go bankrupt. Either way, these clowns have been trying to control the energy industry and control the price we pay, fixing the price we pay and the amount they produce for too long, it's high time we finish them off for their corruption, which basically means more aggressive price cuts on renewable energy and battery storage, which is the ultimate fear the fossil industry has. I mean, seriously, what were countries around the world thinking about with being so dependent on fossil fuels when we have organisations like OPEC that artificially control the price and production. As for countries that are too dependent on fossil fuels for the economy or even countries that make up a sizeable part of the economy from fossil fuels, you better start diversifying your economy, because the good times are limited, chances are, the value you can charge for fossil fuels is going to be under constant downwards pressure thanks to renewables, eventually that's going to lead to the point where fossil fuels have little to no value, especially as renewables, battery tech gets better and cheaper, and then there's energy security, since the war in Ukraine, more countries want to produce more of the energy they use internally, renewables and battery tech can do all that if done right. The other nice thing about this is that with EV's and heat pumps on the rise, especially in Europe and other modern countries, it fits perfectly with the renewable sector that all our energy could eventually be renewable until something better than that comes along.
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@elyrexo It's a balancing act, some areas do need more integration to work better, others less so, I do think EU countries will need to pool resources together more and to integrate more, especially on security and military matters, I also think we need to speak with one voice, we've seen many times from the US, China, Russia, Brexit that try to take advantage of that division and many times they are successful with that. If Europeans are really going to want to be more effective in protecting their interest, they are going to have to work closer together, regardless of what system of government the EU becomes, I suspect the US is starting to realize that they need a strong partner in Europe with the rise of China and the EU is the logical one. For now, the EU is very strong on economic matters because we more or less speak with one voice, but we are pretty weak on political matters because each members speaks on that which creates a lot more division and allows others outside the EU to take advantage of that division, we've seen a lot of that with Putin, Trump and Brexit. Either way, it's nice to see that Macron has been vindicated here, he's been warning us for a long time on what we need to do, it took a war to start to wake people up.
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I'm supprised he didn't mop it up with his mop on his head lol but whats funny is that I kind of hoped he would become PM, With Trump and him it would be like watching Laurel and Hardy all over again lol.
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Long-term interest? What, like 50 years as Mogg puts it? lol. Are these clowns for real? They basically say we'll see the benefits of Brexit so far in the future that by the time we get there, it will have been forgotten about that it won't matter what the state of the UK is by then. The truth is, we are levelling down and we are already seeing early signs of that and I don't expect any change on that until the Tories are out of power and even then it really depends on what Labour does, as in, sorting a lot of this mess out by rejoining the single market and custom union. Personally, I think these clowns are stupid enough that change won't happen until it's too late, as in, Scotland and Northern Ireland has left the UK, that's probably going to be the real legacy of Brexit and the word Brexiteer could end up meaning a stupid person. In any case, they are going to keep fobbing the people off, ignoring the cost of Brexit and telling us it's done and we should just accept levelling down.
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For me, it all started with the austerity measures over a decade ago, that created a lot of anger among the population, they were looking for scapegoats to blame and the government in their usually wisdom, blames the EU for all the problems in the UK, many Brits not knowing their arse from their elbow bought into it and then Brexit happened and not just any Brexit, more or less a hard Brexit and with that, things have just been getting worse and worse from Brexit, the pandemic mismanagement and now the war in Ukraine which has sent energy and inflation up. To make matters worse, Brexit opened up the door to letting the loons take over the Conservative Party with the ERG movement, that's when things really got bad, hence why it doesn't matter who the leader is when the ERG are pulling the strings and people wonder why they keep lurching from one disaster after another and the thing is, it's not going to be easy to remove them, Brexit allowed them to get their foot in the door and now are taking full advantage of that, Brits thought it would only impact Brexit matters but that's not how it works, it impacts pretty much all political and economic life and that's more or less what we are seeing. The only way I can see solving this is an election and even then, the conservative Party will need to be wiped out at the elections to clean out the ERG, otherwise they will bring that Party down over the long run, it's remarkable that the Tories and the British people didn't see the can of worms Brexit was opening up and now it's too late, the damage is done and it's not going to be easy to fix.
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Nothing is impossible to break, it's just a matter of how much commitment whoever wants to break something they are willing to put into it. We should remember that the US and Boeing thought it was unlikely that Airbus would be a threat to them, that arrogance is what opens up the door to new rivals, basically, Boeing got greedy, didn't innovate as much and got complaisant, that allowed a rival to enter the market and eat market share from Boeing, which is what Airbus did. But for new rivals to enter, they will need deep pockets, the EU countries that formed Airbus have deep pockets which allowed it to happen, other countries like Japan and Canada tried to take them on but got outmuscled, China is the only credible one that could break the duopoly or if a group of countries around the world pool there resources into a project to rival them, in the case of China, they've got the resources, the economy, population to make it happen, now it's just a matter of getting the skills and having the political will to make it happen, but I think it's only a matter of time before China enter the arena. Another advantage is that the EU and US have a massive home-grown market to leverage when it comes to sales, it doesn't take much political pressure on companies to push them into purchasing one brand or another, the only one credible enough to be able to do the same is China, and we all know the government will put pressure on companies over there to buy home-grown plains, and this for me is the major advantage the EU, US and China have, which others will find difficult to replicate.
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@michaelcarr2874 37% of the British public and remember, leavers only would by a small margin, something that could easierly be overturned with all the lies and faults promises the Brexiteers have told on Brexit. After all, is there anything that was promised being deliverd by the Brexiteers on Brexit? At the end of the day, there is real fear from leavers about letting the public have a say on Brexit and thats because they had to lie thier arses off to win the vote in the first place, they know thoes lies wont work a second time round. In any case, it doesn't really matter, our goverment can't decide what to do, Parliement seems to be stuck on this, it's likely going to mean they push it back to the people so as to not take the blame themselves whichever way the public votes. Also, Brexiteers keep telling us that the British people want to leave the EU and yet that are scared shitless of another vote, do they realise that if another vote happens and the British people vote to leave, it will be done, remainers wouldn't have a leg to stand on after that, the truth is, Brexiteers are not convinced the British people want to leave the EU and want to force us out without giving them a chance.
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On mine, Windows 10 loads up in about 9 seconds but I do have a decent M2 drive that can do 3.5GB per second but as for games, there is little to no difference from this drive and a SSD drive, if my M2 drive was really being used with games, games would load up about 7 times faster than they do and they already load up really fast compared to consoles. Anyway, every benchmark I've seen, performance of M2 drives don't seem to benefit games over SSD, I suspect it's the way games are designed because it doesn't seem to matter how much cpu power you throw at it, it doesn't change anything, that is likely to change next gen which will do wonders for even my M2 drive never mind the newer faster ones on the market, basically, even the slowest games should load almost instantly.
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@ChronoPixelGaming Two mins seems a bit high, my memory might be a bit fuzzy on this because I've not used a mechanical drive in almost 10 years but I don't recall it taking longer than around 1 min to load Windows up, mind you that was with the Windows at the time which was either Windows XP or Vista but I don't recall seeing any PC take 2 mins to load up but to be fair on that, Windows 10 might be more demanding and take longer to load up. What I do know with my M2 drive, Windows 10 takes about 9 seconds where I have access to windows, that doesn't mean everything on the taskbar is loaded up but it doesn't matter because you have access in using Windows which is really what counts.
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This doesn't bold well for Russia, if the well-trained, well-equipped troops are being deposed off so easelly, what's it going to be like for the ones that have had little training and are likely equipped with worse equipment? If you ask me, they are being sent in as cannon fodder, because it's clear Putin doesn't care about the Russian people, this is all about protecting Putin's position of power in Russia, regardless of how many Russians have to die for him. On top of this, it's going to be much harder for Putin to use the cover story of what's going on in Ukraine when a lot more Russians from all walks of life are being pushed to go to war. If this doesn't get the Russian people to rise up against Putin, especially as the casualties start to pile up, nothing will except maybe the real threat of nukes being used which will impact the Russian people more directly. So the question is, how many of the Russian countrymen have to die before the Russian people wake up and depose Putin?
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I think the main difference is the regulations in what they allow in both the EU and US, in the EU, they are far stricter when it comes to quality, and by having stricter quality control, it raises the overall standard across the board, but that doesn't mean you can't get good and bad food in both the EU and US, but it does mean that the minimum standard in the EU is higher than in the US. Food tends to be fresher in Europe, that's likely because of buying habits, food that's better for you tends to be cheaper in the EU compared to the US, whereas junk food is the other way, and the last one is the chemicals that are allowed in foods and drinks, which the US allows far more whereas the EU are much stricter on that, you put it all together and it does mean a higher quality across the board when it comes to food and drinks in the EU. Another major factor is the health care system, in the EU, it's universal whereas in the US it's not, by shifting the cost burden to taxpayers, there's a big incentive on governments to look after the well-being and health of its citizens, whereas in the US, it's the other way around thanks to the for-profit nature of the US, where it benefits corporations by people getting sick when eating foods or drinks, it also allows them to cut corners when producing their goods at a lower standard, which allows them to gain more profits at the American peoples expense, it also has the side benefit that the more people that get sick, the more that have to use the health care system, which because of the nature of how US health care works, it feeds the health care corporations profit, it also explains why food poisoning is much higher in the US compared to the EU. It's a circular system that feels like it's designed to screw the American people over. By shifting the burden to taxpayers as we do in all the EU countries, it puts a lot more pressure on the system to raise standards in a lot of areas, and that's more or less what we see.
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@AK-df2ve I suspect the numbers are higher than what governments are telling us because they always like to make it seem things are not as bad as they are to not scare us as much, they know that the higher the numbers are, the more votes they stand to lose, I suspect in most western countries at least, the numbers are higher than what the governments are telling us, something that should be easier to find out over the next year or two. In any case, going on history and how viruses work, this viruses is following the same pattern, a few different waves, opening and shutting down of the economy and repeating that cycle until we either find a vaccine or some other alternative to reduce the risk of dying from it but I suspect we could get 2 to 3 waves and it could go on all the way to the end of next year. In any case, too many people thought we was past the worst of it and thought things would go back to normal, I knew that wasn't going to be the case and knew that as soon as we start to opening, it was going to kick off all again, the virus didn't just disappear, we just suppressed it by our actions but that can only work for a short time because of the damage to the economy.
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I think the idea of fighting for one's country, really depends on the reasons, and over the last two decades, a lot more people are starting to realise that it's not worth it because a lot of wars are being fought over political ambitions and not for wanting to defend one's country or do the right thing, you only have to look at the Iraqi war 2 decades ago, that war and the motives for it broke a lot of trust in the US and some European countries. Personally, I don't have a problem being part of the military if it's to defend my own country or to do the right thing around the world, but I've got no interest in joining it to go on forign adventures because a government fancy taking on a country, and as I was younger, me and one of my friends had an interest in joining the military, but we both changed our minds on that because we woke up and realised that many wars are being fought for the wrong reasons, something that I've got zero interest in being dragged into. So if it's to defend one's country or to do the right thing around the world, like say in Ukraine, helping them to defend their homeland, then I'm all for that, but anything else, I've got zero interest, and clearly a lot more people are losing interest over the last few decades in Europe and North America and I think the real blame is the governments for playing games with peoples lives. As for conscription, I don't have a problem with that, in fact, it's probably a good idea to give everyone basic military training, but not if it means being forced into any wars that governments cook up, the reasons have to be right for gong to war, not just having a government wanting to go to war with a country because it needs to bump up the military budget and needs a target to justify that, something the US does a lot. Basically, the stats on who would fight don't mean anything because it really depends on the motives on why the need to fight is needed, that would change those stats a lot for many of us.
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Wind has also been generating a lot of electricity in Europe with the high winds we've been getting the last few weeks and I'm sure I've heard that in some countries, renewable is generating most and sometime all the electric needs at times. The real problem as we know is battery storage, there are times when you're generating more energy than you need, and that's likely going to be more of the case as more solar and wind is installed. Putin's war in Ukraine is really waking us all up and in the major markets like the EU, US and China, renewables are taking off at a rapid rate that others will likely follow, this sudden change could wipe out a decade or two of fossil fuel revenues, and putting us on the path to clean, independent energy, far sooner than it would have happened. Also, studies have been made in the EU, that around 40% of houses could become gridless by 2026, that's crazy and far sooner than I expect, now that doesn't mean that many houses will go gridless, it just means they could, the tech is getting to the point that it's doable, and I suspect as renewables and battery tech gets cheaper and better, more of us will go gridless so we don't have to pay any energy bills. Honestly, I thought we were still decades away to this, but the way things are going, over the next decade, a lot of countries could end up generating most of their energy by renewable means, that's impressive in its self but it's more so because there's a big push on EV cars and heat pumps, especially in Europe, that basically means that everything is going electric, homes, heating, cars and so on, that fits in nicely with renewable energy, battery tech and the ones that want to go gridless.
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If people really want someone to blame, blame the ones that want goods on the cheap because it's the consumers looking for bargains that push companies to cheaper labour countries and if one company doesn't do it but a rival does, who is going to have the edge in that? In other words, people can blame China and other cheap labour countries all they want but the reality is, the real problem is the consumers that want everything cheaper and in the end, you can't have your cake and eat it, workers want higher wages, more benefits whiles having goods made cheaper, in the end, something has to give, but on second thoughts, you can have your cake and eat it, robotics, but then that won't do anything for the job market.
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I don't think outside meddling is the issue in Africa, the problem is that there are too many countries in Africa, pulling in all direction, many of which are dictatorships which don't care about a union or it's own people and only care about their own power. As for western democracy, there is no real clear path of which is best but the general principle of democracy, is to allow the people to decide how the country is run, I'll imagine that rule is universal all over the world as I suspect everyone on the planet wants a stake in how their own country and life is run. Question is, what kind of democracy is best, direct democracy? or representative democracy? That question is still being debated in western democracies.
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the UK have been saying that for years and yet here we have still in the EU, the fact is, we do need a deal, you might not like that but it's reality and that why Brexit hasn't happened yet and likely wont happen at this rate because this is likely going to go back to the public, so good luck with that Brexiteers because you'll need it with all the lies the Brexiteers have spread over the last few years lol.
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@60tbird1 It's not so much that the UK needs a deal but a deal would be better for us and MP's and the government knows that it's them that will get the blame for any economic harm that happens to the public as the public are very fickle about these things. Also, the Brexiteers will likely get a lot of the blame because they said things would get better not worse and the irony is that getting Brexit over the finish line is only the beginning of Brexit, the real hard work begins after it and I suspect with every bit of harm Brexit does to the UK, the sooner we will likely rejoin the EU as public support grows for it. So the Brexiteers best have a solid plan after Brexit because we all know remainers are going to jump on every little bit of harm that Brexit does to the country and with every little bit of harm done, that will likely nudge us back into the EU but this time we'll be signing up to everything like the Euro, so Brexiteers should be careful what they wish for because they are not seeing the big picture on Brexit.
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@Vitorruy1 True lol and that's the problem with parties that are either too far left or right, they promise things that are not realistic and a lot of the times it's basically to win votes at the election, only to not deliver after winning the election, it's a system that works very well because people seem to fall for it over and over again, especially on lower taxes and higher spending lol. Sad reality is, voters are idiots, after all, governments are a reflection of the people that vote or don't vote, the public likes to complain about governments but we put them there lol, if the people got smarter, more critical thinking, better education and actually looked at the policies they are voting based on facts and not on what they want, we might actually get somewhere, until then, the system will continue to divide the people and treat them like idiots. The real sad thing is, in Roman times, I could understand, not many people knew how to read, they didn't have the internet and access to all the information we have, what's our excuses for doing so poor when it comes to voting? we've got no excuses for how things are, people really need to look into the mirror and see where the real problem is, the people have the power to do change in any governmental system but they do a poor job of using it.
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Hey, remember, Russia started all this, they can't complain that the west is getting much tougher on them. The funny thing is, whiles Russia pays a high price, other countries around the world want to fill that void that Russia is leaving behind, after all, that is a lot of money Russia is leaving on the table, something others are desperate to want to fill that void because this is one in a lifetime kind of deal for them, after all, it's not offern that a market as rich as the EU has half it's energy needs put on the global market. The question is, who are going to be the smart ones to fill that void, whoever does it stand to gain hundreds of billions per years. To put it another way, Russia loss is someone elses gain, after all, the EU market is too big and too rich for others to not want to fill that market.
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It's a bit too early to say but as Europe opens up, case numbers were bound to rise, the real question is by how much and is it manageable, we'll find that out over the next month or so. I always suspect that for most countries as they open up, case numbers will rise but if they can manage it and shut down cities and towns as needed and not shut the entire country down to contain it, I think they'll be fine but again, too early to tell for now. By the way, I don't think this is a second wave and think it's part of the first wave with just opening up more, if a second wave does happen, I suspect it would be late this year or early next year. In any case, it was always going to be a tough balancing act in opening up to protect the economy and keeping the case count low, this is something that could go on for the next, 6, 12 months or even longer.
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@venomsnakeYGBSM This is why we are likely going to see a sea saw of spikes in infections and deaths and maybe a second wave, if people don't take it serious enough, we are going to repeat the same mistakes that have been done with past pandemic and that allowed a second wave to happen. This is why in the west at least, it could take the next 2 or more years before this virus is really out, we are actually doing a lot more harm to ourselves and the economy by governments sending out confusing messages, especially the US and UK and by too many of the public not taking it serious enough, in the end, it's just doing far more harm than if we used common sense and did a hard shut down and after that, anyone out and about has to have a mask, but we are too soft in the west and because of that, we are going around in circles and likely will till at least 2022 and with that, the damage to the economy could take decades to repair, that burden will be passed onto the people so we're not doing ourselves any favours with these protest movement. In any case, I think we have to learn this the hard way, too many people are just not using common sense on this and we're paying the price for that.
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@venomsnakeYGBSM The UK.
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@venomsnakeYGBSM It's always lower at the weekends until around Thursday where it picks up again, I think it's best to look at it on a weekly basis than daily basis and see where things are going from that as it's more consistent without people picking and choosing lower or higher days. Anyway, infection rates seem to be rising quite a lot now in a lot of European countries, death rates are about the same but there is usually a few weeks lag on that from infection rates so there is a fair chance death rates will rise in the coming weeks. The US already have high infections and death rates but they didn't do an effective shut down on the country and are paying the price for that, the real question for EU countries now, is not so much that infections are rising, that was bound to happen as we open up, but the real question is, can it be contained so they don't rise too sharply, we'll find that out in the coming weeks. Either way, I have a feeling that we are going to be playing this cat and mouse game with this virus till at least the end of 2021, maybe longer with regions going in and out of lock down as needed but I don't think any national lock downs will happen, none of them can afford to do that now unless things really get bad.
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@venomsnakeYGBSM Yeah we are doing find here, if anything, this pandemic has had little impact on my life and the only real time it did was the first few weeks of it with panic buyers buying everything up but after that, everything is good.
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@simongarthwaite7695 This has nothing to do with guts, this is about self-interest, think about it logically, with no deal, what do you think a lot of moderate Brexiteers are going to see as their living standard takes a hit? They are going to blame the government, throw in the remainders and the Tories could be in survival mode for the next 5 years. After all, does it not occur to you why for all the threats from the UK government, we keep talking? if WTO rules are so good, then why the hold up? they know it's a bad deal and all they've been trying to do is bluff the EU into giving some crumbs in the hope that the EU gives any so they can sell that as a success story to the Brexiteers. Truth is, deal or no deal, it's going to be quite painful for many in the UK, now it's just a matter of degrees and what makes this funny, the Brexiteers will be the ones screaming blue murders when Brexit starts to hit them as they will because they have form in blaming everyone else and not themselves for how their life is. So lets role on the entertainment next year as things are going to get really interesting, especially as Brexiteers will get more defensive as they've backed themselves into a corner on this and won't want to admit that maybe they got it wrong. As for the EU, they are the bigger power, they are going to do what's in their interest and that basically means they don't have to bend to our will no matter how aggressive the UK government gets, the rest is just the UK government and Brexiteers throwing their toys out of the pram because they are not getting their way, we all know how that's going to end.
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@simongarthwaite7695 Boris is finished, the Tories will get rid of him 6-12 months after Brexit because he's a liability for the Tories but the Tories could be in danger if they get Brexit wrong. I'll give you an idea of what I suspect could happen, as prices start to go up next year, more people will start to complain, most of which will likely be Brexiteers because they expect things to get better not worse, the remainders are well aware things are going to get worse after Brexit. And that is when the troubles for the Tories begin because they could have a real fight on their hand with both remainders and Brexiteers going after them, Scotland will use that time to push hard for independence and considering that movement is rising high in the polls, there's a very good chance they'll win it but I suspect they want to wait and build up more support after Brexit once it starts to impact the country in a negative way. Many predicted the fall of the EU with Brexit but they look quite stable and now it's looking like the UK is a much higher risk of falling apart as Scotland and Northern Ireland feel like they are being ignored and talked down too, that is only going to put more fire on that independence movement and if living standards take a hit thanks to Brexit, it's has good as a done deal that Scotland will leave.
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@simongarthwaite7695 Hardly, but then I suspect you thought the UK leaving the EU would brake the EU up, there's is a lot more to the EU than any one single member of it and using logic like that, you have to wonder how the US or UK survives with so many members and disagreements lol. The point I am getting at, there is a massive difference in wanting to reform and change the direction of the EU then wanting to brake it up, something many euroseptics, especially in the UK don't seem to understand. As for Scotland, looking at the polls and the process of devolution, then throw in the impact of Brexit, there's a very high chance that Scotland will leave sometime over the next decade sometime and Northern Ireland could follow because even with Brexit, a lot of their rules are going to be in line with the EU because of the boarder with the Republic of Ireland. The irony is about Brexit, a lot of these problems could have been solved if the UK stayed in the Single Market and Custom Union but usually, things are only seen when it's too late. As for Le Pen, didn't people like you say Italy would leave the Euro? like I said, it's one thing to want to change the direction of the EU, it's another to want to leave it, the UK is the only one crazy enough to do that and they are paying a high price for it already and thats before we are even fully out yet.
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@simongarthwaite7695 That's not true, just look at what's going on now with France blocking the UK access to the EU market, that power was always in the hands of the members, the UK could have used that on immigration in the past but they like to blame the EU for all the problems in the UK because it fits their agenda which is basically a distraction on how badly the UK own policies are doing. Also, lets be honest, the difference from Europeans in the EU are actually quite small and anyone that's travelled around a lot will know that, beside, using your logic could be used for the UK or even the US as there is enough difference from each state or country in the UK union but it works overall, that's the case for the EU. As for the EU being doomed, that's been predicted for 30 years now and yet it only keeps getting stronger, wanting something to happen and it's actually happening are two very different things which is a common mistake euroseptics in the UK tend to make a lot whereas European euroseptcs have disagreements in the direction the EU is taking but few want to actually dismantle, most just want to change the direction of it, that's the massive difference from them to UK euroseptics and this is why the UK on Brexit got little to no help from any EU member because the UK misread them. In any case, Brexit is far more of a threat to the UK union then it is to the EU union and that threat is of their own making, Scotland looks very likely to leave the UK at the rate things are going, Northern Ireland is being more in line with EU laws even thought they are not in the EU, we can see how that's going to go long term, they basically will have more in common with the Republic of Ireland then they will with the UK. Then throw in the mess of this virus and support for them leaving is just growing, that could get much worse next year once the impact of Brexit is felt, for now we've had it easy but next year is the real deal.
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@simongarthwaite7695 They do have an interest but clearly, they are a super national government in a way not that different from how the US government is to US states, most EU countries realize that they are stronger together and can represent and look after their interest with speaking as one voice through the EU. As for the Euro, how is it a disaster? It's clearly working quite well for a lot of countries and as for the countries it's not working so well for, well look at the governments and policies of those countries and you'll get a better idea of where the real problem is and it isn't the Euro. As for Brexit, the irony is about it, remainders seem more happy about the result of it then Brexiteers do and I can understand why, look at the deal closely and it basically has Scotland and Northern Ireland more or less following EU rules, then it gives full access to UK waters for 5.5 years which is likely to get extended at the time and more importantly, the concessions the UK had to make to have easy access to the EU market, more or less means the UK has to follow most of the EU rules without having a say, it's a great deal for the EU but a pretty bad one for the UK compared to what we have. As it is, I'm quite happy with how things have gone because it's going to be quite difficult now for the UK government to water down labour laws, food standards and so on and then throw Northern Ireland and Scotland in the mix, it will be interesting to see where that leads but it wouldn't surprise me if one or both end up leaving the UK over the next few years. If you are good at reading between the lines, you can tell the EU is very happy with this deal but are being diplomatic about it, some of the smarter Brexiteers are not happy about this deal and they are showing it already. Anyway, I do think we should've put Brexit on hold to focus on Covid as we might have got a better deal but it's done now so lets see how things go.
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The best way to weaken a country is to control the flow of information, something the likes of Russia and China want to do. Western countries are so successful because of the free flow of information and ideas from the top to bottom with everyone in society. In other words, if Russia wants to control the flow of information to its people, well more fool them as that will likely weaken them as a country, the same is likely going to happen to China at some point but for now, its massive population size gives the impression of impressive growth but in reality, they are a long way away from western living standards and the control of information is likely going to keep them many steps behind. History has proven that the more open a society is, the more successful it is and more adaptable to change it is, you would think countries like Russia and China would learn that by now.
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It's got nothing to do with catching a brake, the blame goes squarely on the British people, I mean, how many disasters does this government need to do before the people vote them out of power? They've had a few chances already but because of Brexit, they kept voting for the Tories, worse yet, they give them a majority. It's hard to feel sorry for the people when it's the people that keep putting these clowns into power. Also, did the British people honestly think that letting the loons take over the Tory party was only going to impact Brexit? That's not how it works, the ERG got its foot through the door and are taking advantage of that by trying to deregulate the UK and change the entire political and economic landscape of the UK. Brexit opened up a massive can of worms and the British people should take responsibility for that as they allowed it to happen, the rest is just the government lurching from disaster after disaster but that's because the British people allowed the loons to take power, so I don't know why this comes as a surprise when a lot of Brits helped to make this happen.
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What is it with Brexiteers and getting so many predictions wrong? More importantly, why do Brexiteers still care so much about the EU when they are out of the EU? it looks desperate like a relationship break up where you still want to get back with them lol. I'll tell you what I think, Brexiteers are desperate, they know, at least the smarter ones do that as long as the EU is around, it will overshadow the UK and make the UK look weak, in other words, many Brexiteers know Brexit has failed as long as the EU is still around. In any case, does it not get boring getting so many things wrong? just look at Brexit, the EU more or less got what it wanted yet the UK, well what are the actually benefits of Brexit to the UK? because the list is as long as my harm about the negatives for the UK and that list is growing all the time. But hey, just like the Euros, people that want to be deluded, will always be deluded, in other words, who do Brexiteers really think they are kidding, it's not others, it's themselves, so keep it up guys lol. In the meantime, enjoy the UK union falling apart which ironically, Brexiteers thought the EU would fall apart without the UK, irony is that the odds are the UK could fall apart with noise in Scotland and Northern Ireland and my advice to anyone with brains, never listen to deluded people because they will drag you down with them and in the case of Brexiteers, they are just bitter deluded fools that see victories where there is none lol, but hey, keep it going, you're only fooling yourself lol.
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Why would we want to do something so stupid like that? I understand that China kept the virus a secret in China longer than they should have done but in truth, it likely wouldn't have made a difference in the west because we were arrogance in assuming it would never make it over here and we've seen that from almost every country that has been very slow to react to it until it's too late. There is lots of blame to go around and no doubt things need to change after this but if many countries try to become vindictive and pin this all on China, this could make things 100 times worse, could even start a war which would be far more damaging than this virus. I think it makes a lot more sense to hit the reset button, but we as humans are too stupid to do that and likely will make things a lot worse for us all.
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I agree, regional power seems more accurate but they could be a big power or even a superpower if they do catch up and modernize and continue to expand with more members, but that's much longer term and that's assuming the EAF gets off the ground. The EAF reminds me of the EU in the early days, it's not easy to get so many countries together, harmonizing the rules with integration on the political and economic level but with time and a lot of will, it can be done as the EU have proven.
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I don't think higher wages is the key, after all, higher wages across the board will likely bump up the price of pretty much everything to almost cancel it out and usually, goods are sold at different rates in different countries to what they can afford, that's capitalism 101, higher wages will justify companies raising their prices. What's really needed is higher wages that keep pace or are higher than inflation. On the labour force, it also makes us less competitive when it comes to producing goods, but it can also pull in talent from around the world having a higher wage. Some will say, we need lower taxes, but that isn't the solution unless we want to harm public services, which a lot of people are screaming that they need more money not less, but what could work is a reduction in corruption and more efficiency. Either way, higher wages is going to give companies more of an incentive to cut labour and automate much of it, either that or bump up prices for consumers, and considering we are on the verge of a A.I. and robotic revolution, higher wages will make the decision to cut labour very easy, which will probably impact countries that have high labour cost like Europe and North America. So higher wages isn't the solution, the cost of living is what needs being fixed, which I suspect might need government intervention and ultimately, it boils down to having a high quality of life, regardless of the wage, and that's a bit more tricky to solve, but to be fair, Europe is dominating the quality of life indexes, so we must be doing something right.
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Universal basic Income is I think it's only a matter of time before it happens because of A.I. and robotics, as that keeps advancing, it's going to take over more and more jobs, eventually there's not going to be enough jobs to go around, some will say that we'll create new jobs but chances are that A.I. and robotics will do those jobs better than we can and in the business world, anything that is more productive, cheaper and faster, always wins. The problem is, when it comes to Universal Basic Income, how would it be funded? Energy and labour cost are likely going to be dirt cheap in the future with the tech being developed, raw materialise could be recycled a lot more or space mining, all the foundations are being put into place that over the next 50-100 years, the cost factor is a lot lower than it is now, almost nothing. But there's still a problem and it's capitalism which is kinda designed around pushing people into work, that's going to be a problem with A.I. and robotics, and it's probably going to be a bigger problem for countries that have far less social programs like the US, the system, the political will and upbringing of the people makes it very difficult to change any of that, contrast that with Europe, much of the system is already in place to support a Universal Basic Income, it would just need to be expanded on, there's also far less of a public and political stigma on this, so it's probably going to be much easier to implement there. Personally, I think the EU countries and much of the developed world will implement this before things get out of hand whereas I think the US will only implement it when things start going really bad in the country, basically, really high unemployment numbers. On the plus side, if EU countries do implement it on a wide scale and it works, other countries will follow just like they did on universal health care and other social programs, but in the case of the US, the system is likely going to drag the American people through the mud before real change happens, in other words, things will probably get much worse before they get better, probably to the point of a revolution, because the system of governments, the hold corporations have on the country isn't going to allow Universal Basic Income and even if they did, it won't be worth much to help.
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I used to play a lot of snooker and pool when I was younger, I can tell you that snooker is a much harder game to master then pool is. With snooker, the table is much bigger, the pockets are smaller and the balls are also smaller. When I was younger, I could clear up quite regular with pool but on snooker, I've never been able to get a 147, not even close, and I think my best I got was 47. Also, with snooker, it's a lot harder to control the white ball, especially with screw backs and side spin, probably because of the table being so big or the balls being smaller but I could never screw back on a long or medium shot, it would either stop dead or slightly follow through, whereas on pool, I could screw back all over the table and control the white ball far more. On top of that, snooker is far more of a tactical game than pool, if you noticed in the video above, Ronnie didn't open up the pack until he needed to do, it's a simply tactics in case you miss your next shot, you don't want the pack to be opened up to make it easier for the opponent. Another thing I remember, with pool, the pockets are massive, that you don't have to be that accurate and the ball still goes in, with snooker, you have to be far more accurate, which usually means slower pace shots that are more controlled, if you start hitting the balls with power like many of us do on pool, you're going to miss a lot on snooker unless you're really sharp on your aim. As for getting a 147, pros do them quite a lot, but for us regular plebs, we rarely if ever will do them, unless we are really lucky one game but even then it's unlikely.
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That doesn't surprise me with Boris, I mean, when doesn't he stumble? lol. As for Saudi Arabia, they might be seeing a big opening in selling a lot more oil to the EU countries and I suspect they are waiting on them to see what they want, after all, they know they want to shift away from Russia so any country that can fill the void would stand to gain a lot of profit from that. Simply put, the UK isn't as important of a market whereas they are a lot more interested in what the EU have on their minds. In any case, if any of these countries want to profit on this, they best act quickly because I suspect the EU countries will rapidly speed up it's process to alternative energy sources which could make a lot of these fossil fuels worthless, especially now energy has become a security issue.
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@IloveCamels335 They all wanted that but they didn't go cap in hand like Boris did, he thought he was being smart by trying to get his foot in the door first, the truth is that the UK isn't as important of a market like the EU and US and the irony is, if the EU does reduce it's oil and gas from Russia, who ever gets their foot in the door to suppler the Europeans could stand to profit from that a lot, the US is the one being smart on that one for now, getting it's foot in the door first, Saudi Arabia could benefit from that at Russia expense if they get their act together and quickly because Europeans are not going to wait for every, if they can't get from them, they'll look elseware and these tend to be long term contracts. So the point I'm getting at, there is a massive opening for oil and gas countries to profit from this because the EU market is a massive market but they'll have to be quick because the EU is actively looking to sign contracts, the US seems to be the only one on the ball on this one. Russia asked for gas in Roubles, the EU said no, the gas is still running. As for the petrodollar, who cares about that, the real power isn't that but it's in the economy and in winning hearts and minds, basically, the EU and US are doing a much better job in offering a better quality of living for people around the world, what does Russia, China, Saudi Arabia offer. Threats? A restrictive quality of life? if you ask the average person, I bet what they want is security, freedom and a high quality of life, something the EU is doing a good job in winning the hearts and minds of people around the world and that is the biggest weakness of Russia and China which lets be blunt about it, they care more about the inner circles of power than they do about the people, the people are there as pawns for the games of the ones in power, now part of that is true in the west but to a much lower degree compared to those other countries.
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I always find it amusing how these military parades are usually a thing dictators want to show off their powers, it's almost like a sign of insecurity in wanting to convince the west or their own people of their own capabilities, and in the end, it proves nothing, because real power in this world is based on the size of the economy, western countries are far more powerful and don't have anything to prove and only do parades for special occasions, and we should remember, if the economic muscle in western countries is thrown into arms production, military capabilities will go through the roof. Basically, in the west, we are throwing crumbs at the military, because we value quality of life, but if a threat of war were to loom on any western countries, watch how quickly things will change from standard economics to putting the economy on a war footing, and even today, the west sees Russia as weak, you only have to see how they are responding to the war in Ukraine to see that, little urgency.
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@Electronite1978 Not just the EU countries but even the US and UK, we've seen for the last decade or so the games Putin was willing to play and yet the west was too soft on him, there is a lot of blame to go around, from the UK with all that Russian money going into London and very likely with a lot of connections to powerful people in government, to many EU countries that have become too dependent on Russian energy and to the US for not having a tougher line with Russia with all the interference Putin has been doing from Trump, Brexit and likely other populist movements around Europe. The truth is, we've been at war with Putin for well over a decade now but we was all asleep to that reality, basically, none of us in the west wanted to see that until it blasted us in the face with what's going on in Ukraine, so yeah, there is a lot of blame to go around but now isn't the time, we need unity not division. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the west changes now, especially the EU and US with it's dealings with the likes of China because the truth is, we rich countries are the ones that are funding these crack pots, pull the money away from them and look for alternative more reliable sources and these countries will become a lot weaker unless they change.
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I think it's too early to say, but I highly doubt it's the end of Schengen and more like a temporary measure, maybe even temporary enough that it can last many years or a decade until immigration is brought back under control. At the end of the day, the real issue isn't with Schengen, it's with each EU member having its own individual policy on immigration, which is crazy when it clearly makes sense for that to be controlled at an EU level when there are open boarders internally, in other words, the issue isn't Schengen but a few bad eggs, as in EU countries that are ruining it for everyone else.
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I somehow doubt that, high inflation usually means hell for governments. Governments usually want stability and high inflation doesn't create that, it usually creates a lot of problems for governments around the world, more so in a democracy because governments get it in the neck when the people feel any pain in the economy, so the governments more than anyone wants to resolve this issues before it spills over into people voting for fanatical parties and that's the last thing we want if history is any indicator. Either way, these things are usually short-lived, just like other energy crisis in the past and the reason for that is that people are only willing to put up with it for so long before real change kicks in, something the fossil industry can't afford to happen.
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@fixyfoxy2661 That's the case in any country if enough people stand contest a new law. I do prefer the idea of direct democracy but voting should be mandatory and everyone of voting age should take part and have all the facts on what they are voting on, we are not even close to that yet, not even in Switzerland.
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@nietname2468 It depends which kind of democracy we are talking about, they are not all equal and some are quite different in how the system works. Real democracy would be direct to the people but that would mean the people debating and knowing all the facts on everything they vote on, not an easy task to pull out, repensentive democracy is what most use and that would work well if governments actually represent the interest of the people, they rarely do unless pushed. By the way, which do any of you lot think is the overall best system or if there is a new system that could work better?
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@stefanleithner6922 That's not quite true, it could work in any country but changes would need to be made, besides, the only reason countries like Switzerland don't try to dominant is because they are not in a position of power, history has shown us time and time again that any country that is in that position tends to abuse it.
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@midas1929 I think with how important politics is to people live, I think a lot more discussion among the people should be happened, it still surprise me that they don't have these debates at school in the last 2 years to get them ready for real life.
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@stefanleithner6922 There is no such thing as neutral, Switzerland by its nature of being so tied into the European economy isn't neutral because of its dependency of trade and ties it has with the EU in so many areas but the country does want to be seen as neutral but that is very difficult to do in today's world. Also, have you ever wonder why countries without power tend to do better for its people? less power games and money being wasted on world politics games, basically, smaller countries put a lot more focus and resources internally on the people because they have very little power on the world stage which is ironic, because bigger countries should be able to do much better than small countries on a per capita basis thanks to economy of scale but clearly that doesn't happen because of all the games and power play that bigger countries do.
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@stefanleithner6922 That's true but I don't see any country as being truly neutral any more, the global system makes that almost impossible to do, I'll give you an idea, do you think Switzerland is neutral with western countries compared to eastern countries? I think we both know the answer to that one in being western. Also, Switzerland doesn't have to obey EU rules, they do so because it offers them better trade terms than what any standard free trade deal offers, something the UK is finding out the hard way. In any case, I think the more the EU forms, the more democratic the system will get and mostly because the EU members themselves will push that, so the system will have to be very fair for all for it to work or the system would fall apart. It's not a mind-blowing observation but it's remarkable how many countries don't see that lol, especially the bigger countries, as it stands in today's world, the lucky ones are western European countries that are in small countries, they are getting the better deal in this world. Anyway, I would prefer direct democracy and would prefer if elections happen every 2 years to keep them on their toes because what we tend to see now is that they promise the earth when it's election time and after that, they don't listen to the people any more and that is the case in a lot of so called democracies.
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@ireminmon If you say so but reality says otherwise, now if you said the US is a shit show, you might be onto something lol.
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@ireminmon The US is I agree but not the EU, in fact the EU is actually doing pretty well considering everything that is going on and as for Switzerland keeping it's distance, that's impossible considering it's location, out of the 3 big countries not in the EU, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland, I think Switzerland is the one that will find it's the hardest to stay out because of geographic and the other two are likely only out because of oil and fishing, two things that won't benefit them over the long term.
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@henafoo That's true and that happens in almost anything which is probably a good reason why we don't live forever or change would be difficult to make as it's mostly the new gen of people that are more willing to change than the old guard.
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@lorenzogleam8882 It could do but a think a big shift in the political system, the media and interest from the public would be needed for direct democracy to work, as it is, direct democracy would likely be a bad idea in many countries because of how people vote quite recklessly. Also, in most countries, direct democracy doesn't suite the ones in power that try to take powers away not give them to the people, so I don't expect much change on that unless we have some kind of revolution. The truth is, for now the better system seems to be repensentive democracy because most people either don't know what they are voting on or don't care to know and some can't even be bothered to vote, in that kind of system, it's better to elect people to do all the hard work the people don't want to do, the problem is that governments rarely care what the people want unless it's election time.
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@lorenzogleam8882 I agree and that's how most democracies should be done, more power to local regions where it makes sense as they can respensent the peoples interest then a big government can but some powers make sense at a more central government level, it's the balancing act of getting that right which is tricky and that is the process the EU and it's members are going through.
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@Ms-zr1dn It's hard to say which way the EU is going because it's really up to the members that decide which path the EU goes, I would suspect they want more democracy in the system, probably more than any other democratic system there i, getting there is the tricky and slow part, for now, it's a bit of a hybrid system because it needs to be until we have pan-European elections. I do like the idea that the EU and it's member are taking it slow to build this system, it's less likely to repeat many of the mistakes others have done in history by trying to create a system and rushing the system through. We can already see that the system of the US fails so that's not one to copy, a new system is needed and that's up to us Europeans to figure out.
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The problem for Trump is that he's a joke to even a lot of Americans, Europeans and probably many others don't like Trump mainly because he's not competent enough to be president, you usually have to be a moderate and work with world leaders otherwise you will get little to nothing done, this is the problem he's got in the US, he's trying to do things but keeps getting over ruled by judges and the Senate and thats because he comes across as a bit of a fanatic and not a moderate and that doesn't work too well in a democracy, also, we all know he was trying to run the White House like he runs his business, well businesses are run more or less like a dictatorship is run. In the end, Trump will likely be a lame duck that doesn't really achieve anything. I also find it funny how Trump keeps going onto these rallies to whip up Americans into a frenzy but most of the time he's preaching to the converted but if you look closely, it's clear what he was trying to do, he was trying to turn the American people against the system from the mass media to the judges to the Senate and so on, he was systematically trying to turn the American people against all these and what should worry the American people is that if he was a lot more popular and say won with a landslide and had more charisma, he could of been a serious threat to American democracy because we all know the average person isn't that rational when it comes to politics and are easy to manipulate, so Trump tried to turn the American people against the system for his own ends, Hitler did the same thing but he had charisma and lucky for the Americans that don't see it, Trump is a bit of a lame duck and can't do much without the system over ruling him because he doesn't have enough support of the public to put real pressure on the system to break it and gain more power for himself and the party, I always find it amusing how quick we are to forget lesson that history teaches us.
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No, it's highly unlikely Russia would dare attack EU countries or NATO ones, we should remember that Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe, they are not an EU or NATO member, for Russia, they were an easy target and yet Ukraine has been a nightmare for Russia. The simple truth is, a war with any EU or NATO country would be a disaster for Russia, it all boils down to economic power and the simple truth is, western powers have far more economic might that they only put a tiny percentage of that power on the military, if a real threat was to emerge, you can bet the economy would be put to use more on the military and considering how strong western militaries are already, if they had the full backing of the economy, the militaries would be far more powerful. In other words, Russia would have to be insane to contend taking on an EU or NATO country, and let's not kid ourselves, some might think of EU countries militaries as weak, the truth is, they are modern, highly advance militaries, and if a real threat were to emerge, you can bet resources will be thrown at the military to make them far more powerful, and that's the key, the EU, US and China have far more resources to play with thanks to the economy compared to what Russia has. Mind you, if a war were to happen, it would very likely benefit the EU as it would force EU countries far closer together, it could also be a disaster for Russia or could end up escalating into a far bigger global war which would involve a lot more players. The irony is, a major war like that would likely leave Trump in a very vulnerable position, I can't imagine the American people wanting to side with Russia or China and in a major war, it would likely force the EU and US to work together, so much so that it likely would mean the American people deposing of Trump. In any case, none of this is likely, Russia talks a good deal with its threats but it never follows through, Russia comes across as a weak player and for good reason, they don't have the economic might that the EU, US and China have. In any case, let's not kid ourselves, a major war in Europe would likely escalate globally and pull in the US and China, to put it another way, Trump could be the one in danger if he makes the wrong move that drags the US into a global conflict that he helped to create.
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The problem is that a lot of people voted leave with the intention that we could have our cake to eat with cheer on top, it's clear that isn't going to happen so threatning the EU to hold a gun to our head if they don't give us what we want isn't helping the UK but making us look stupid, in the end, who in the right mind in the UK honestly thought the EU would change to accomodate a leaving memeber?, they must be really crazy to think that and the EU would be crazy if they did accomodate the UK, the fact of the matter is, the UK screwed up big time with Brexit and now it's about limiting the damage.
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It's not about being a remainer or leaver, I look at things in a logical sense of what is in the intrest of the UK and the people, so far everything says staying in the EU is better for us and if thats not possible, staying very close to it. At the end of the day, the leave side won the battle with the vote, now it's up to them to deliver on all the promises they said to the British people, cake and eat it, cheer picking, £350 million per week to the NHS and so on, unless they can deliver on what they promised which was we could more or less have all the benefits of EU membership without the cost then the leave side lied. With that, the leave side are making it very easy for the remain side to fight the leave side on, all the remain side are doing is holding the leave side to account on what they promised the British people, so the real mess is because of the leave side and the lies, it's also why the UK is very likely to have a very soft Brexit because it's all about damage limitation now.
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Thats all well and good but remain would've meant nothing changese so you had nothing to really lose on that one but leave opens up a can of worms, more so with how hard the hardliners are pushing for hard Brexit, most of the public didn't vote what hard Brexit would do to the country. In any case, I don't have a problem going with the will of the people if it truly is the will of the people but Brexit from both sides have been distorted to such a degree that many don't know whats going on anymore and in any event, the lies from the leave side are what counts here because they won the vote and really they should deliver on all of thoes lies. In any event, the only way I think Brexit is going to get sorted out is by another vote, if the voters vote to leave again after everything they know now, the remain side wont have a leg to stand on and we are out, I wont say another word on Brexit after that but if they vote to remain after everything we know on Brexit, that changrse everything, either way, a very soft Brexit looks very likely, maybe even single market and custom union if in name only. Brexit is just one big waste of time and money that only serves to weaken the UK in Europe and around the world.
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Well I've heard of many people that voted to leave thinking they had nothing to lose afterall, the leave side made it seem we would have a cake to eat at the end of it and have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, the cheer picking, now they know thats not true, many are getting cold feet and thinking is it worth it. I know of 6 people that voted to leave in the vote who have changed there minds, I have to wonder how many more have throughout the country, it's easier to change your minds once all the facts on Brexit come in and a lot of the lies are exposed. As for saying another vote wont happen, that really depends, it's not really up to May to decide, it's up to the people, in any case, even if we did have another vote and the remain side won, it might not matter as the EU and it's members might not let us stay, truth is, many of them want us out because it opens up a lot of options and benefits to the EU and many of it's members to not have the UK in the EU, now it's just a matter of how soft Brexit really is and the softer Brexit is, the more the EU gets it's cake to eat, thats the reality the UK have got themselfs in. In any case, less of the bull, just have another vote and see what the real will of the people is, the only ones that don't seem to want that are the hardliners that are pushing for hard Brexit, I wonder why :)
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The problem is shortbus is that the vote was very close and it was made all the worse that Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain, this isn't an easy fix and if we are not careful, it could brake up the UK union, I know some of the hardliners don't care about that, in fact they don't seem to care about the well being of the UK or British people since the Brexit vote. It's a shame we didn't have the information we have now on Brexit before the vote because the public likely wouldn've voted to remain, in any case, if Brexit was a count case, it wouldn've been thrown out a long time because the evidence and facts from the leave side don't messure up, that so many still wants to go for it still really says thier is something fundermentally wrong in the UK. In any case, it's clear the leave side are not going to get what they want, Brexit is slowly being waterd down and thats a good thing because if the hardliner got what they want, not only would the EU take full advantage of the UK but the US and rest of the world would as well, we would be in a very bad postion with very few friends.
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The reason why is because the leave side didn't back up a lot of what they promised the UK and thats why the leave side are being held to account by the remain side. In any case, Brexit seems to becoming waterd down, chipped away but by bit as time goes by, in any case, I've seen many polls since Brexit that have shown if another vote was to happen then remain would likely win, also, support seems to be growing for another vote and it's looking more likely that will happen because we are hearing more people say another vote is needed. As for Scotland and Northern Ireland, I can't see how Brexit wont help the inderpendence movment in thoes countries and it might take a decade or two but I suspect unless Brexit is a big success, the odds of them leaving the UK union is likely to go up, it might do even if Brexit was a success because without the UK being part of the EU, they might want to be part of it. In any case, the hardliners make it seem like we can trade with the EU or with the rest of the world, when in reality we can trade with both whiles in the EU, trade isn't just going to magiclly go up because we leave the EU, it might go down in fact because the UK will have less trade deals then the EU have with the rest of the world, if the UK wants more trade with the rest of the world, they will need to produce more goods that the rest of the world wants and that can be done whiles we are in the EU.
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The real laugh is going to begin after winter when Europeans more or less lived as they normally do, power is still on and nothing really changed. It's not just some Russians that are desperate on this, I've seen other people from other countries like India desperate for power cuts to happen and I think these people need to understand, there's a difference in wanting something to happen and reality which are two different things, basically, these people are deluding themselves, still it is entertaining to watch their hate filled rage at the west for being so successful.
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@ukip2001 I think you need facts not faith, that well and truly ran out lol, Brexit is almost as good as dead now, now it's just a matter of how it's finished, Brexiteers played all the desperate cards they had, even trying to undermine democracy it's self but it backed fired big time and now we are likely going to get another public vote and remain in the EU, thanks Brexiteers :P
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Madelene Manley Brexiteers need a lot more then praying as it's not working, they need facts not wishful thinking, beside, saying we'll get there, that was said 2 years ago, we don't really seem any closer on Brexit and in fact, it seems like we might even stay in the EU if this goes back to the public.
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I agree that much of the world have not learned much from it but Europe have learn a lot from it, more so EU members, the US is the one of all countries that have not learned much from the second world war, they didn't like Europe back then for how they was and yet the US is becoming more like old Europe used to be, aggesive, forceful, power hungry and using the millitery in many wars that really it shouldn't. As for letting communist and Islamist in our country, I don't see a problem with that as long as they intergrate and most of them do, problem is that more work needs to be done on that front.
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I think in the long run, A.I. won't consume as much energy as we think it will do. I suspect as A.I. becomes more capable, more of us and more businesses will want to run A.I. at a local level for privacy and security reasons, especially as A.I. becomes more capable and useful, which will likely push more consumers and businesses to not want to use online A.I. services, and that will only get a lot worse as A.I. becomes more useful and even worse once A.I. can have a long term memory so it can change, adapt and learn of our habits. A.I. running at a local level will likely get absorbed into the energy our computers use, and likely just use a little more than what we do now, A.I. isn't what we should be worried about when it comes to power use, it's robotics that could use a heck of a lot more energy than we use today as that won't be absorbed into our current system of computers and will be thrown onto our electrical grid like EV cars are. With that said, there's no real way to know, reason being is that corporations and governments might go crazy with A.I. at such a level that needs an insane amount of power, but I think for personal and corporate use, I think the energy use will be minimum and just a little higher than what we already use, basically, it will be absorbed into what we use as tech gets better and able to do A.I. more effectively, but there is a lot of unknowns in all this as we don't know the limits of how far we'll push A.I. and how far we can push it before there's a drop-off in quality that pushing harder isn't giving us much better results but ends up needing far more energy that it's not worth it. With all that said, we humans will always live within the means of how much energy we produce and will likely use more if we produce more, which renewable energy over the long run could produce far more energy than we use over the coming decades. In any case, we should remember that unlike computers or the internet, which was adding a lot of energy use didn't exist before because we didn't have computers or the internet, A.I. is just another service being thrown onto what is already there, so yes there will be a spike in energy use, especially early on, but I think long term it will be absorbed into our computer use and not make that much of a difference, but robotics on the other hand is another story entirely and is a bit like EV cars, so EV cars and robotics is what's really going to have a massive spike on our energy use.
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The problem is with this thinking is that it's more or less the same thinking many had about the EU on Russian oil and gas before the war, many thought it was impossible for the EU to move away from Russian oil and gas so quickly and yet they are doing. China invading Taiwan would send shockwaves around the world and the situation would be far worse than we are seeing in Ukraine, the EU would likely have no choice but to side against China on that and it's a given many others like the US would as well. Seriously, just look at the situation with the EU countries and Russia, some countries were uneasy about going against Russia or getting much tougher on them, but they did anyway, even thought EU countries were very exposed to Russia on oil and gas, the same would very likely happen on China if they did try to take Taiwan by force and in the case of China, I suspect more countries would come out against China than they did against Russia, especially in the Asian region. Another factor we should remember with the EU and this is also the case for the US is that dependency is both ways, China can't really afford to lose access to these markets and unlike gas and oil where it's mostly revenue lose that Russia is losing, China losing access to the EU or US market would have a massive impact on the job market in China. The truth is, the EU, US and China are very exposed to each other, any tough measures against any of them would be very costly for them all, China is likely very well aware of that and it's that factor that will probably keep that from happening. Russia was a very different story in that Putin felt he held all the cards that controlling the tap on oil and gas, in the case of the EU, US and China, no one controls the tap and any tough measures from any of them would have massive economic impacts on the economy for them all.
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@Arthur_King_of_the_Britons True, politicians are there to screw the people over but that's the fault of the people for only electing the corrupt politicians, if the public opened their eyes and start voting with more common sense, we might actually get somewhere.
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@balthus9105 Well yes Scotland wouldn't have a big say and rightly so, it's a small economy with a small population but at least they would have a say, now they have no say.
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@jamesperrie1393 I truth the EU a lot more than I trust the UK or I should say England., you only have to look at who protects a lot of our rights and if you look at Brexit, we can already see things being stripped away, how long is it going to be before food standards, workers rights and other things become weaker in the UK? Remember that the Tories have been wanting to weaken them for years but the EU always blocked them and worse of all, the UK even whiles in the EU had some of the worse workers rights in the EU, you can only imagine where that's going with Brexit lol.
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@sirdontrump2125 They don't want England but they'll be fine with Scotland and Northern Ireland and me for that matter as I'm half Italian so I could dump the UK if I wanted too.
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@Arthur_King_of_the_Britons No, I just want them to have their freedom from the clowns in Westminster. Beside, have you seen the standard of living in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it's pretty much worse than all the western small EU countries, it begs the question, what on earth is the UK doing to those countries, where are the benefits of them sticking with the UK? they seem to be worse off not better and Brexit is likely going to make it even worse for them.
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@Arthur_King_of_the_Britons Using the economy to make an argument on independence won't work, just like it didn't on Brexit, basically, you can throw whatever numbers around you want, it will have little impact on the ones that want independence, after all, the same argument was used with the Brexiteers but they didn't want to listen and in the case of Scotland, it's not as bad if they rejoin the EU shortly after leaving the UK. At the end of the day, these numbers mean nothing to the person on the street and things are not that great in Northern Ireland, Wales or Scotland compared to other EU countries of around the same size. In any case, it's funny how people are using the economic argument when a lot of the same people didn't want to know when it comes to Brexit, worse yet, Brexit is actually a lot more damaging longer term for the UK than Scotland leaving the UK would be.
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@Arthur_King_of_the_Britons They could be better off than they are now, after all, pretty much every other small western European country is better off then Scotland and many by quite a distance, there's no reason why Scotland can't join them. Now imagine if Scotland was an independence country decades ago with full control of the oil, a small country with that kind of resources, if they were in that position and had a decent government, Scotland could have been like Norway which are one of the richest per capita in the world, what we actually have is the UK that wasted all that natural resource on short-term gains and not the long-term picture.
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@Arthur_King_of_the_Britons Well considering every other comparable size country in Western Europe is better off it stands to reason that Scotland could have the same, something about the UK union is holding them back and it's far worse for Northern Ireland. Also, I never cherry-picked, I said every other comparable western European country, even you should see there is something wrong on why Scotland is getting left behind, maybe just maybe, it's the UK union. As for taxes, it's all subjective depending on the benefits you get, but the irony is, the countries that pay more taxes tend to have a higher quality of living and are happier for it compared to countries that pay lower taxes, it's easy to understand why and it's all about redistribution of wealth, higher taxes means more money goes to who needs it whiles lower taxes means more money in fewer hands, you only have to look at many countries to see how that pattern plays out. The Scottish deficit is a short-term issue that can be sorted out with a matter of years, not enough for it to stop Scotland wanting independence, besides, when has economic ever decided sound judgement when it comes to independence? just look at the Brexiteers, they didn't care or want to know anything about the economy on Brexit so why should the Scots care on that one and worse yet, the damage to the economy would be much smaller for Scotland because they could rejoin the EU, the damage to the UK is because we left the EU. Yes in the short term there would be a lot of adjustment but that will pass, the ones that will really lose out thought is the UK, not only will the UK loss the wealth and population of Scotland as well as 40% of the UK landmass, Scotland will end up trading far more with the EU at the expense of the UK because it's easier to do as we are seeing with Northern Ireland and the only way for the UK to stop that would be to join the EU single market and custom union so all the countries are on the same level playing field, Scotland leaving the UK would be a massive threat to the UK and would be very embarrassing for Brexit as that will be seen as the core reason for it to happen.
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Yep, his argument is flawed and the truth is, Europe have some of the highest quality of living in the world, until that changes, it's kinda laughable to say Europe is falling behind, especially when in a lot of quality of living studies, it's the US that is falling behind other modern countries.
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AMD needs to be careful, Intel are positioning themselves to take over the low and mid-range of PC gpu's, and likely could do that once the drivers are mature, maybe on the next gen gpu. AMD could be squeezed out of the dgpu market by Intel at the bottom end and Nvidia at the top end, and all because AMD doesn't seem to want to gain any market share or mindshare, and if they do, they've got a funny way of showing it with its pricing, which with AMD being the underdog, they need to be far more aggressive on pricing to gain market and mindshare, gain that and that is where the real profit is, and even thought AMD gpu's are cheaper than Nvidia gpu's, they are not much cheaper to make any real dent in the market, and the fact is, Nvidia have the mindshare that AMD needs to make a dent. Now that Intel has entered the dgpu race, AMD could get squeezed out of the market if they are not careful, so much so that it wouldn't surprise me if Intel could be in the running for providing Sony or Microsoft its next gen console SOC chips. Basically, AMD is acting too greedy, when it doesn't have the market share or mind share, they did this mistake years ago and it was costly when Intel almost wiped AMD out with the Core 2 Duo, could Intel do the same thing again but in the dgpu market and wipe AMD out in the low and mid-range gpu market? Unless AMD gets its act together, I suspect the chances are high once Intel matures the drivers and release gen 2 or 3 of it's gpu's. In the end, the Core 2 Duo did a lot of damage to AMD back then and it all was because AMD was getting greedy with the Athlon line-up of cpu's, could history repeat its self? As for Intel, they are given a massive opening by AMD and Nvidia being greedy, they are more or less ignoring the low and mid-end of gpu's, Intel should be more aggressive on pricing in that sector on it's next gen gpu to really win over mind and market share, after all, AMD and Nvidia are making it easy for Intel to do, they just need to do it. Also, the irony is, I've been an AMD fanboy for around a decade, but even I'm looking into my next gpu upgrade being from Intel, if they are winning people like me over, then AMD is really messing up in the gpu market and it's market share is a clear indicator of that, wake up AMD, you clearly can do it as you did against Intel with Ryzen by being a lot more competitive on performance and pricing, do the same in the gpu market and stop being so greedy when you're not in a position to be so greedy unlike companies like Nvidia or Apple that can be greedy because they have mindshare.
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The problem is when it comes to the radical elements in politics, far left or far right, they feed of public anger, but if you ask voters what their policies are, they can probably only name one, maybe two policies, that's where reality kicks in once any of these gets into power and the full range of their policies are laid bare for the voters to see, that's when things can really go south as the honeymoon fades. In other words, voters are voting in anger for the likes of the far right in Europe and the likes of Trump in the US, but are these really the solution to the anger that voters have, if you look close enough, the answer is a clear no, in fact, they are more likely to make things worse like Trump did in the US or Brexit did in the UK, France could be the next to feel the wrath of the far right, but this is needed, voters learn far more from there mistakes then they do from success. As for the far right in Europe, you've got one, maybe two elections to really deliver on the concerns of the voters, if they don't deliver over that time, the voters are very likely to turn on them, especially in France where the voters turn on governments quite quickly. My point is, sometime you have to let the loons into power to expose themselves in what they really want to do, that is a far better wake-up call for voters then the far right blustering all the time on the side lines, in other words, it's easy for them to twist, lies and deceive voters when out of power, they can pretty much say whatever they want with little to no cost to them, it's another thing to do the same in power when voters will expect solid results, in other words, the far right are being given a chance in Europe, mess it up with being too radical with your policies or not willing to compromise much in policies areas, then the voters very likely will turn on them and wipe them off the political map. We know that many of the far right realise this, that's why many are toning down their policies, almost becoming more moderate, the simple truth is, the public don't want the radical elements, but they do want change, something the mainstream parties are doing a poor job on, the public will expect solid results from these far right parties that have promised so much, if they don't deliver, that's when things can really go sour for them, and like I said, they've got one, maybe 2 elections to deliver.
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The enemy is anyone that doesn't agree with what the hardcore Brexiteers say and that is how it's been for the last two and half years and they are not scared of using threats to get what they want. the irony is that some of the hardcore Brexiteers reminds me of the early days of the Nazis which is ironic considering they like to think the EU is like that lol, the UK is looking like a joke and as a Brit, the shame of all this is getting a bit too much now. Truth be told, May backed the wrong horse and give the Brexiteers in her goverment too much power over the last two and half years and that has given them enough rope to hand May out to dry, she really does have her self to blame, she could of been a lot more moderate on Brexit but now shes going to get hung out to dry no matter what happens with Brexit.
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I was thinking that, to maintain the grid, it's quite expensive, if more go gridless, there are fewer consumers for them whiles at the same time, they still have to cover a wide network, so the cost to maintain will still be high but the money coming in from consumers could drop a lot, which they could very well pass those cost onto the existing consumers, which will push more of them to go gridless. To really go gridless, solar alone isn't enough unless you massively oversize it to cover the winter months, but ideally, what's really needed is much cheaper and bigger energy storage that can cover days or even weeks, but even better is if we can have solar and wind at a local level as they would complement each other and would reduce how much energy storage that's needed because a more consistent flow of energy will be generated throughout the year. Unfortunately, wind at small scale don't seem to perform that well in urban areas, if that can change with a lot of experiments that are going on with vertical wind turbines, a mix of solar and wind would allow most of us to go gridless and you wouldn't need much energy storage to do it.
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Just bought some toilet paper the other day in the UK, prices so far are not sky high and are just the normal price they are and with that, I'm still going to wipe my arse with it lol. Mind you in the early days of this, someone was trying to sell toilet paper on Ebay for £150, I wonder if they got any takers lol.
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@JackOLanternBob It's normal just like all the food prices are normal, the only real problem is that most people are online shopping so delivers are slow but supermarkets are quite packed apart from the odd items that sell out quite quickly like eggs, milk, toilet paper and so on but even they are easy enough to get if you look around.
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@charlesludwig9321 Who would have thought that toilet paper would be the new gold standard lol. By the way, I agree with what you said, people can only buy so much food to eat and only need so much of the other basic items that the markets are bound to come crashing down, they should be a lot more than they are doing considering most are not trading but government intervention changes that, at least for now but the market curve will likely be downwards after it's had its moment in the sun.
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I think it was a good idea but I think more political integration is needed for the Euro to work more effectively and the irony is, I suspect that was the intention, political integration isn't easy but bringing the Euro in which puts more pressure on all those governments to integrate more so the currency works more effective for them all, hence why I think it's only a matter of time that more integration will happen for the Euro Zone countries. This pandemic might actually speed up the process of that in ways we can't really see at the moment so the next decade is going to be very interesting. As a Brit living in the UK, it's a shame the UK didn't join the Euro because Brexit might not be happening now but on the plus side, polls are showing that 57% of Brits want to rejoin the EU and that percentage seems to be going up, at this rate and if the UK does rejoin the EU, the Euro will be part of the package.
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nigga 🏳️‍🌈⃠ You do realize that about half the EU gas was coming from outside of Russia and that was before the war even started, now it's likely a higher percentage. I sometimes wonder about people that make it seem that if Russia cuts the pipe, there is no gas coming in from any source lol. Truth is, the EU countries overall will be fine, they'll tighten their belts this winter, continue to get gas from other sources whiles using the gas storage. Also, let's be blunt, Europe has been through far worse than this and it's short term overall, whereas the damage to Russia is long term as they get isolated. There is also a massive silver lining in all this, the longer and higher prices stay on energy, the quicker the transition on the energy industry to clean energy sources will happen, in other words, the fossil industry is thinking short term profits but that will likely kill that industry a lot sooner than it would have been which will wipe out trillions from those economies that sell that stuff. To make it worse, countries that buy a lot of energy from external sources could end up with a massive windfall tax every year if they generate their own energy internally, especially from renewables, we could be talking about many hundreds of billions being saved every year in just the EU and that would be the case for others that import a lot of energy.
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If any actually do join the far right groups, it could end up polarising decision-making in the party even more. For all the success of the far right, there's too much division and many of the core policies are all over the place that would make it difficult for them to work together, in fact, it could do them more harm than good if more of the radical elements were to join them, but it would be fun to watch lol. Personally, I think the success of the far right could have a difficult time trying to work together, and it would only take one or two tough divisions that one element or the other in those parties to not agree on for it to all fall apart, in other words, they might have to moderate there policies so they can get along with each other more, a bit like how the mainstream parties are more to the centre, that offers the advantage that they can and are more willing to work with others and are more willing to compromise, this is where the issues could flair up with these far right parties, so far right in name only but there views are so different from each other that it will be interesting to see how they get along when the tough decisions are being made. I personally think the far right would be best sticking to the success they've got and working on that, if they rock the boat too much with more radical elements in their parties, it could really backfire on them if it becomes more difficult for them to get things done, after all, voters will likely only give them or two terms of power to prove themselves, if they mess that up, they could get wiped out, so I can see it being tempted for those independences far rights joining them, but it would probably complicate things far more for them that it's probably not worth it, especially with how the views in the current winning groups of far right parties are all over the place, throwing more in that probably isn't a good idea, but it would be interesting to see. Either way, voters have given them a chance, they might have one or two terms with this level of power, I don't think they can afford to mess this up with too much division or too many radical policies as voters could quickly turn on them, especially considering that most likely voted them in as a protest vote against the mainstream parties to teach them a lesson and probably on just one main policy, immigration, so if they mess up in other areas, voters could quickly turn against them, so basically, they've had success here, don't rock the boat too much in too many areas.
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It's not that different from the UK, many thought it was a trade only union, even thought it was a political and economic union well before the UK joined lol. The real problem isn't the EU, the real problem is the lack of education in these countries for doing their research, most of them parrot what the right wing press says without even checking if it's true or not which is really dumb of any person to do.
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The real failure is the UK part in the EU, when the UK joined the EU, it was with the intention of being a leading player, what ended up happening is that Germany and France kept hold of most of the control and that is something the UK didn't like, hence the tantrum we're seeing from the UK now. The irony is, the UK could have been a bigger player in the EU if we was more constructive and not obstructive, that and being so close to the US didn't do us any favours. As for the mass exodus, really? support for the EU in almost all EU members has gone up since Brexit started and not a single EU member is backing the UK, you're deluded just like the ones who thought many EU members would side with the UK to give the UK a better Brexit deal, it never happened because British euroseptics are quite different then Europeans ones and that is always the major flaw from the Brexiteers that they don't seem to understand. The reality is what we are seeing among EU members is disagreements on how it's run, not wanting to leave it and that is a fundamental difference from the UK and other EU members, hence why the UK can't seem to get any real support from any EU member and this is why the Brexiteers have been losing on Brexit right from the off and why we keep seeing delays after delays, expect more of the same. We should also remember that the UK was the sick man of Europe before we joined the EEC, we became rich inside the EU, that is the case for a lot of EU members, these are the facts Brexiteers don't want to understand hence why they don't listen to facts because they have very little of them to support their own argument. But if any Brexiteers do have any facts, let see them so I can put them down ;-)
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@keithsymons5708 Come on, you can do better then that, only losers who can't argue back use insult, so thanks for confirming to us all that you are a loser ;-)
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@forza223bowe5 That wont work, we have history to teach us why that doesn't work, for one the EU was always a political and economic union well before the UK joined it, two, the UK did try it's own economic union but it failed because the UK being by far the biggest member in it ended up bulling other members so they left and join the EU. The fact is, an economic union can only be as effective as the political oversight to make sure all the rules are fare and the same for all of it's members, that where the EU gets it right and where the UK messed up in the past.
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@keithsymons5708 If you say so but I know how things really work, I don't go off what I want, I go off what is and Brexit isn't looking promising unless the EU backs down, but in any case, the real entertainment begins once parliament is open, good luck Boris trying to sideline them as that will look bad across the country. In any case, The Brexit vote was so close and so many lies ware told on it as well as most of what the Brexiteers promised isn't being delivered, remember, we was promised a great trade deal not hard Brexit and because of that, there isn't really a mandate for pushing for hard Brexit unless we ask the public on that, so yeah I would love if Boris does try to force this but it's clear he's going to back down and he's already making the excuses by trying to pin the blame on the EU and only losers blame others for what is going on, Brexiteers have that in common, at least the hardcore ones, it's always someone else fault and not their own. Say Brexit does happen, that is when the real hard work for the Brexiteers begins, any harm to the country will likely nudge us back into re-joining the EU whiles having to sign up to everything, so I hope you enjoy seeing Euros under your nose because that might be the case in 10 years and it gets better, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will have more ammo to push for independence after Brexit, more so Scotland and Northern Ireland as they are being pushed out of the EU when they want to stay, they are also being talked down to by London and they wont like that, so all that is going to be fun to watch and in that sense, I can't really lose, if we stay in the EU, it will get up your nose and others like you, if we leave, the real pain begins and it's the Brexiteers that are likely going to feel that the most as they tend to be less educated and more from up north of England, they are prime target to take the blame for Brexit, in other words, less cash for those regions.
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@keithsymons5708 It's not really about need as such, it's about self interest, the EU isn't here because of like or anything like that, it's about self interest to protect EU members political and economic interest around the world in a world that we are getting big powers on the stage. The world is quickly changing, the EU, US, China and other emerging powers like India are the ones running the show and the rest are just along for the ride. What that means is that they make world laws, rules and regulation and the others have to follow a lot of that if they want good trade terms with them. Brexiteers like to go on about taking back control but the reality is that we're likely going to be a vassal of both the EU and the US, most of the laws, rules and regulations in the UK will be done by them but we wont have any say in making them, at least in the EU we did have a say in that. You can see this already, just look at many of the laws of many of the modern countries that do a lot of trade with the EU and US, a lot of the laws, rules and regulations are more or less set by those two powers, the same is going to happen to the UK. In other words, there is no such thing as real independence in this interconnected global world as it's the big powers that write the rules, so much so that the EU and US even impact each others laws, rules and regulations and if they can do that to each other, they can do wonders to the UK being as the UK is a lot smaller. But in any event, I think that needs to happen, the hardest of Brexit just to prove that point in how wrong the UK got it, it will also send a powerful message to others in the EU that it's not a good idea to follow the UK, it will also show how unspecial that so called special relationship is with the US when they take advantage of the UK. The UK had a special relationship and it was right under our nose and most didn't want to see it, it was with the EU and it's members, they had a interest in protecting our interest because being in the EU makes a lot of our interest there interest, more so in economic terms, we also had a special deal in that we had by far the most op-outs out of any EU member. Brexit will be a major wake up call for the UK or more likely England as there might not be much of the UK left once the dust settles. Speaking of dictatorship, have you heard about the PM wanting to sideline parliament? I thought Brexit was about taking back control not side lining it because what being said isn't agreeable to Brexiteers and I don't think Brexiteers realise how damaging this could be for UK democracy going forward as this isn't just about Brexit any more. In any case, I'm really excited for the next month or two because fence sitting wont do any more, we're likely going to see a lot more of the moderates come out on this and guess which way they will likely swing now they are being forced to choose on Brexit, it wouldn't take much to get many of the moderate Brexiteers to swing and Boris is making that much easier to happen, in other words, expect a big fight over the next few months.
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EU countries knew this was going to happen, European politicians have been saying that it's likely Russia will turn off gas for weeks now and have likely planned ahead for that, basically, it didn't come as a surprise to anyone that it would happen after the G7 meeting. The irony is, the EU actually wanted this to happen, the EU have wanted to cut oil and gas off for months but found it difficult to do because of many EU members not wanting that action, this basically forces the issue in what the EU actually want because now those few EU countries that didn't want to change on this, have no choice now. As for Putin, he's doing it because he's got little choice, he's desperate and using every trick in the book to try and get the Europeans to bend, the reality is, Putin is making it much worse and much sooner for Russia.
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For the last decade, it's been difficult for the EU to expand because of absorbing the eastern EU members since 2004, now the EU seems more open to expanding the EU but I don't think the EU will expand until Hungary and Poland are sorted out on their backsliding on democracy. In other words, before there are any new members, the EU needs reforms, especially with vetoes and majority voting, either vetoes need to go away or it needs to be done where you need a percentage of countries onboard and/or a percentage of the EU population onboard to veto something, not like it is now where anyone member can hold the rest to ransom. Until that changes, I suspect no new members will join the EU because one or another EU member will block it and rightly so because it's becoming difficult to manage already, throwing more in the mix will make it even worse, reforms of the EU are needed over the next 3 years, maybe the EU might need to find a way of kicking Hungary and Poland out of the EU if they keep backsliding, which sounds difficult on the surface but let's be honest, the real EU is the Euro Zone, power is likely going to shift more towards that where the outer EU is more of a shell, it's a given that Hungary won't join the Euro and it's unlikely Poland will in the short term, that could be the easier way of kicking them out without actually kicking them out as it sidelines them. The good thing about that, the countries that want to join the Euro are more likely to be progressive countries, so Hungary and Poland are not likely going to join because of that.
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With everything going on with Russia, we could see an explosion of development and deployment of renewable energy, especially in Europe, and not just wind energy, but solar, wave and other forms of energy, and as battery tech gets better, it's looking like a good clean option to move away from fossil fuels, especially with all the security aspects of it. So who would have thought that Putin might have done more for clean energy than Greenpeace could ever have done, and all it took was the threat to energy security and with that, the next 10 years is going to be interesting to see, especially with the energy mix in the EU because I suspect we are going to get a major shift on that and if the EU does it, others around the world will follow.
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I'm a mix of the two in that I like modern high rise buildings but also like a lot of historical buildings and personally, I find less high rise buildings to be more pleasing on the eye then having buildings towering over us. In the case of Asia, many regions need higher rise buildings because of the population growth, in the case of the US, it was seen as a symbol of power and that is likely the case else ware when it comes to high rise buildings. In Europe, we don't seem to have any of those issues as much, at least not yet, world war two changed attitudes in Europe to become less arrogance on the world stage and population growth is stable enough that high rise buildings are not really needed, in the case of the US and countless other developing countries of the past, they wanted to project power to others, Europe didn't really have that problems as they've been the centre of power for a long time and even today are still modern. A lot of that could change over the coming decades for some regions but for now, I think Europeans are quite happy with how things are and I don't blame them, it's more pleasing to the eye. I will say one thing, there is a fine line in what is considers historical and I do feel that too many buildings in Europe are considered that which makes it harder for new development to happen, I suspect that will have to change at some point. Anyway, the funny thing is, as a kid, I used to love high rise buildings and cities like New York until I lived there for awhile and with that, I started to realise that living in cities with a lot of high rise buildings isn't really a nice place to live and I realised that even more when moving back to Europe, I don't know why but I felt more happier for it, in other words, it's nice to visit areas where there is a lot of high rise buildings but I sure don't want to live in those areas.
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So the moral of the story is this, many in the UK want to leave the EU but then want to abide more or less all it's rules and laws, it begs the question, why bother with it at all because we would be rule takers not makers. It's looking very likely that thats whats going to happen as well because no matter what they keep trying to do, they just keep going around in circles, banging there heads on a wall and getting no where fast because the goverment can't seem to come up with a plan that works and protects the UK, I think in the longer run it's just going to mean the UK ends up in the single market and custom union because nothing else seems to work, that would mean the EU having it's cake and eating it as we wont have any say in EU policy but would have to abide most of it's rules which makes you wonder what the point of Brexit is, it's clear the hard Brexit some want wont work without damaging the UK a lot, in any case, time is running out so the goverment best get it's act together.
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This is why capitalism and health care shouldn't mix, when profit is involved, the well being of the people become less important. I've been to hospital a few times over the decades and yet never felt any money pressures from it, we in Europe pay higher taxes but we do get a lot from it and I think it's a fairer system because even the poor and middle classes don't get left behind with health care. Now don't get me wrong, we do have our problems with health care and it can be better, more so in the UK that over the last 10 years, it's been under funded but I would never want to trade this system in for what we see in the US. Also, I remember reading up somewhere an American that was on holiday in Europe and needed medical care and even thought he didn't have insurance and didn't get free health care as he wasn't a European citizen, he checked up how much he paid in Europe and how much he would of had to pay if he got the same treatment and it was about 4 times higher. Remeber that this guy had no insurance so wasn't getting free health care like Europeans got and I find it crazy how Americans could travel to Europe and get cheaper health care even if they have no insurance, the system in the US is clearly broken for that to even be possible.
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This really does depend on how you look at it, I'm all for free speech, but it's clear to see that some high profile figures and media outlets are abusing that free speech with twisting the narrative with disinformation with too many of them twisting, bending, lying and giving out too many half-truths or disinformation, and if they are high profile figures or media outlets, they can manipulate millions of people however they want. Besides, let's be honest, we are dancing around the wrong issue here, free speech isn't the issue, the accountability on it is, for the average Joe, we are not in a position to manipulate millions of people, but for high profile figures like Musk and much of the media outlet like newspapers and tv news, they are in a position to twist things for their own agenda and many of them do, the real issue is there is no accountability to what they say, especially online, and the sad reality is, millions of people believe in their lies that are based on nothing. So free speech is great, but without any accountability to making sure what they say is true based on facts, then we end up in a situation that we are seeing in the west right now with the rise of the far right, which a lot of that rise has been based on lies for decades mostly from the right wing media, and we saw a lot of that in the UK with how the right wing press portrayed the EU, only for the British people to realise that they've been lied too after Brexit with zero accountability for all the lies they said, and we are seeing it across Europe with the far right and in the US with the likes of Trump. Free speech is a great thing, but it's becoming kinda dangerous with how some are abusing and manipulating it for their own ends with little to no accountability on them, now if we had accountability on politicians, newspapers, tv news stations, rich individuals and social media platforms, basically, any of them that have a big following in the millions, then there would be far less issues as they are likely to lie far less if there's accountability to it, but for now, it's the wile west, they can say anything they want without really any risk to themselves and with no care to the damage they do and they are doing a lot of damage because people don't know who to trust and a big part of the problem is the right wing as they are the ones that twist everything up. In any case, if you want to contest the difference to free speech in the EU and US, in the US, you can be as racist as you want, by law you are protected and are not doing anything wrong, in the EU, by law, being racist is against the law as it's create racial hated, that's just one example and there are countless others, and basically, for all intents and purpose, both the EU and US have free speech, but in the EU countries, we don't have the wild west approach that the US does.
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It looks like history is repeating its self, especially in the US where the shut door has hardly even started and people are already protesting. I always suspect that to minimize the risk of the virus, you would need 2 to 3 months of a hard shut down, the US is nowhere near that stage and even the shut down they've done is quite soft where many are not listening and worse yet is there is so much pressure to trying and open up the economy, it's got disaster written all over it and the sad thing is, maybe that needs to happen for people to really learn because clearly many are forgetting history. On that note, many countries will be judged on who opens up too soon to others that keep firm on the lock down, especially if opening up to soon makes things much worse and so far the US doesn't look promising and most of that seems to be because of the rampant paranoia in the system that no one knows who to trust and that is just making things worse for Americans.
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@Luredreier If there is one thing I've learned about anti EU parties is that most talk a good deal but rarely fallow through with it and a big part of that is because it's easy to say a lot of things when not in power, it's another story once in power and they get it in the neck when things go wrong, hence why so many soften their stance once in power. We've got to also remember that the oil won't last forever, once that starts to dry up, the economics of Norway will slowly start to fall in line with other small western countries and in fact the ones in the EU would actually have an advantage in many areas but that's many decades away. I don't think it really matters, it's likely the EU is going to continue to expand and integrate, it's going to be quite difficult for countries on the outside to do really well without having good terms with the EU.
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@Luredreier There's no way any of us could know what's going to happen over the next 10 years never mind 200 lol. A lot is changing, the EU is consolidating, expanding and it's going to become more difficult for smaller countries in the long run because bigger ones are getting bigger and many smaller ones are trying to form some kind of union like the EU so they can compete. Besides, I think you misunderstand how the EU works and how power is done at the EU, how the EU forms is truly up to the people of Europe, most countries won't give up power unless it's done fair and in a right way. Also, lets be honest, Norway and Switzerland are more or less already EU members but with little to no say in it's policies.
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@Luredreier That's what they tell the people, the truth is, Norway and Switzerland are enforcing laws that they had little to no say in making and even thought they could scrap them, there's a big cost in doing so. At least in the EU, they would have a say in making those laws.
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@Luredreier It depends on the law but a lot of them are being made by the EU for those two countries and for good reason, the EU won't allow open boarders of people and goods unless the country in question follows it's rules and because the EU is the bigger player, they are the ones that decide on those rules. The UK tried to think it was smart in thinking they could have equal rules with the EU but the EU dismissed the UK and in the end, the UK got much worse terms. Norway and Switzerland have more common sense than the UK that they know it's in their interest to have easy access to the EU market for goods and people but not smart enough to see that it makes more sense to be a full EU members so at least they have a say in making these rules and not just being a rule taker. In the end, I think it's only a matter of time before Norway and Switzerland will join but it won't be for many years and likely decades, either way, I doubt the EU even cares, it's got more or less what it wants from those 2 countries and it's got enough countries to the east to munch on.
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@iTheGeo No problem.
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Should he? Yes, will he? Probably not, the system as is suites both the Conservative and Labour Party just fine, whiles making it difficult for rivals to enter the political debate. If the Liberal Democrats got into power with enough seats to make a difference, I suspect they very likely would because it would benefit them plus other parties, it would also weaken the two main parties, and what we see in the UK is not that different from what we see in the US where two parties dominant, whiles having the rules in place to make it very difficult for third party to enter the arena and almost impossible in the US. It's also why I dislike the term saying one country is a democracy and another isn't, it's not an on-off switch, it scales from 0-100 and I consider the UK and the US to be a democracy, but a pretty weak one that the system doesn't represent the interest of the public because it ignores a lot of the voices in it and probably a big reason why Brexit in the UK happened and Trump in the US got into power, it's a call for help from many in society that feel they are unheard and being left behind and it stands to reason, trying to group so many varied people into two camps doesn't sound very democratic to me, views on a lot of policies vary a lot from people, but people are boxed into two different ideologies when it comes to who you can realistically vote for, and yes you can vote for others, but because of the way the system is designed, it ends up being a wasted vote that archives little to nothing.
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@jamesoneill2933 The irony is, the ones that pushed Brexit the hardest are going to try and use Covid as a scapegoat for the wrongs of Brexit but most in the UK won't care and will see things getting worse, the blame will firmly go on the government in any case, also, the pandemic is only short term pain, Brexit is longer term so they can't hide the damage being done to the UK for long. In any case, it's clear that the England region is the real problem when it comes to this, if Scotland and Northern Ireland are smart, they'll leave the sinking titanic whiles they can because you can bet that the UK government is going to try and make it harder for them to leave, they are already trying to discredit the SNP in Scotland. Honestly, the way the deal is set up, Northern Ireland is just being pulled more towards the Republic, hence the DUP being very unhappy with the deal, in Scotland, I feel they've had enough of the lies and faults promises from UK government as the independence movement has been growing for decades, Brexit just gives it a new lease of life and a big motive to follow through on it.
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@jamesoneill2933 Honestly, being as I'm English myself and living in England, I would prefer if they stayed but going on what I've see over the last few years, I think they would be better off leaving and re-joining the EU, sadly, the UK is sinking or at least the England part is, most don't or can't see that but in time they will. In any case, Brexit wasn't the issue, it was how forced it was without listening to peoples voices across the country, that's what's really done the damage. Yeah I've noticed about the flags to whip up British nationalism, now they are trying to do it where they are flown on public buildings at all times, it's clear they know they've done a lot of damage to the union and realize the risk of it falling apart but I don't think flag waving is going to help once the economic damage of Brexit starts to get felt around the country, for now, the pandemic is covering it up but the pandemic is short term damage, Brexit is long term. Another factor is when the government tries to push laws that are not in our interest and laws the EU wouldn't allow, that will put more fire on the independence movement, this problem is going to take a long time to solve if we solve it at all.
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It's all about reinforcing it, the more you or the system has to keep saying you're the best is more about fooling the natives then it is others around the world, after all, if you're truly are the best, why the need to let everyone know that? In the end, it's all about keeping the people ignorance of the truth that the system they are living under is screwing them over and to dismiss other systems around the world and the elites in the US have got very good at that. Sad thing is, it's the American people that are paying the price for it, they are the only modern country that missing out on so many public services that other modern countries take for granted and having lived in both the EU and US, you start to see a lot of the flaws in a system which both have but European countries are doing far better when it comes to serving the interest of the people and the irony is, most Europeans don't realize it, maybe if they lived in the US a few years, they'll get a reality check in how good they've got it in Europe.
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The problem with the right and capitalism is that it's leaving too many people behind with inequality and rich and poor but I don't think capitalism is finished, not yet at least but I think thanks to this virus pandemic, it's going to get toned down a lot with a lot more socialism in the system, it will also be very interesting to see the path both the EU and US takes on this because Europe is already better balanced than the US is but I can see it going even more so now. So what seems to work is a mix of capitalism and socialism in the system, just that over the last few decades, capitalism has taken a bigger slice of the pie and the people are suffering for it, with the virus, that is likely going to tilt the other way, especially once the public feel the hardship of what's about to come. We should also remember that in Europe, what we call left as a political party doesn't really exist in the US, the Democrats are seen as the left in the US but in Europe they are more or less right wing, the Republican Party is more to the far right to many and we do tend to see that with a lot of the policies they make.
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Does it really create herd immunity thought? not so long ago, a friend of mine went to watch the Euro final, he had both jabs and yet came back with the virus, question is, can it still mutate and can they still spread it.
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@JimmyM205 I think the main goal was to buy time and not create a panic but as permanent solution's goal, it seems we are a long way from that even with the vaccines. On the plus side, enough people will develop natural immunity to the virus regardless of if they've taken the vaccine or not, so in time, it should become less deadly unless it mutates into something much worse which ironically, the vaccines could force the virus to mutate more by adapting to it.
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I can understand the concerns about small countries losing their veto, but there's no way the existing rules can remain if the EU is to expand, it would be a mess that would be unworkable long term as more members join, but maybe a middle ground can be made between the two where majority voting is the thing but veto could be used as a last option in sensitive areas that impacts one or two countries, or maybe the rules could be done in such a way that it can't have a negative impact on any one or two countries, forcing a compromise when it comes to majority voting, but either way, we can't have a system where one member can block the rest, especially as the union expands, it would be difficult to get anything done and would only get worse with more members, so change is needed regardless of what side of the fence we are on. The second aspect of more powers going to the EU, honestly, I don't see a problem with that, as long as it's done the right way that balances out the powers from the EU and its members and regardless, the members are being pushed aside regardless of if reforms happen or not, the simple truth is, the members are too small to compete with the giants like the US and China, and that is only going to get worse over the passing decades, fortunately for Europeans, they've got an option through the EU, to pool resources in areas that make sense so we can protect our political, economic and social interest and another factor we should consider, speaking with 27 voice is being taken advantage off by the US, China and Russia, to play us off each other to hurt our interest and in the end, I think Europeans will have to wake up to the reality of the changing world that power is consolidated in a few powerful blocks, Europeans in the EU are fortunate that they have the option of doing that through the EU, most countries around the world are likely just going to get pushed around by the big powers. Either way, I figure Europeans will find a way, either from unity or decline, but too much time has been wasted over the last decade that we are falling behind already that unless we start having serious discussion on moving forward on unity, I feel Europeans could go into decline and honestly, reforms should have been done already, delaying it beyond 2030 isn't going to do EU countries any favours.
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Depends how you look at it, the ECJ is a bit like the supreme court in the US, like it or not, the member agreed to sign up to that treaty, if they don't like those rules, they can leave the EU but they'll also lose out on a lot of the benefits of EU membership and considering the EU has a lot of support by the public in Poland, I suspect the government has backed themselves into a corner they can't win. At the end of the day, the single market and custom union only works because of the same set of rules, laws and regulations around the EU, if a member say Poland starts making it's own rules that oversight EU rules, it would be a right mess and other EU members will put up the walls when it comes to trade as it wouldn't be a level playing field any more. That's the price of having such easy open access to trade and I highly doubt Poland will want to lose that. At the end of the day, these are the rules Poland agreed too when they joined the EU, if they don't like it, they know where the door is and can leave but with Russia playing games, they would be easy pickings.
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If you're going to share a common currency, I feel there needs to be enough political and economic integration, like we see in the EU with the Euro for it to work. It's also something that shouldn't be rushed and if it does happen, it will cross over many elections in both countries. I'm not saying it can't happen but I feel the foundations are not in place in Latin America and it reminds me of the African Union which wants their own currency but again, the foundations are not in place to make it happen effectively. We should remember that the idea behind the EU is not new, much of it came about after the ashes of the second world war with the Coal and Steel Community, which led to the EEC and the EU we have today and we should remember that the Euro was in the works, decades before it got to market and to some degree, it's still a work in progress as more integration is needed for it to be more effective. If Latin America and Africa really want to emulate what the Europeans have achieved, it's best to look at where they've got it right, where they've got it wrong and learn from that, also because of how big of a change it is, it's best to take your time and get it right and it probably helps to start with fewer countries so you can get the ball rolling as others will want to follow once they see it works. On that note, I'm not sure Argentina would be a good fit for this union, with how wild it's economy has been over the last few decades, but on the other hand, with enough integration, it could create stability, but personally, I think there are other countries in the region that would be a better choice as economically, Argentina doesn't seem that stable but with enough integration into a central union, that could make a big difference., but personally, I think Brazil would be better off looking at other countries in the region to start this out whiles they could help to stabilize Argentina longer term.
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Seriously guys, has anyone done a positive and negative review on this guy videos to see when he say anything good or bad against the EU countries? He reminds me of Fox News, making stories up that are mostly just BS, but in any case, isn't it funny that we're not hearing any of this being reported around the world in any other media? When someone is so one-sided on a debate, they usually have an agenda and will make things up to back up his agenda, in other words, he's taking you for fools, but then again, I bet many of you lot thought Brexit would be the end of the EU, look how that turned out lol, wake up people and see things for how they are and not how you want because at the end of the day, you're just wasting your own time and fooling yourself, which is a big reason for not being successful in life because you're not looking at things in a balanced way and are looking at things to how you want them to be, a bit like Brexiteers and look at them now lol.
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I find it remarkable from a European from the UK that in the US, the moment you become an adult and want to go to college, you could end up being lumberd with a big debt. It's one heck of a way to introduce a young person to the world with a debt that could take years to pay off. In the UK, I went to college in the mid 90's and studied business studies and thanks to that, started two busisnesses over that time. I didn't have to pay a penny to go to college, in fact I don't recall having to buy anything like books, pens and other things like that, the system paid for it all and say what we want about the European system with higher taxes, it sure comes in handy with a lot of the benefits we get, more so for young people starting out.
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The American dreams sounds more like a nightmare and I know a lot of Europeans like to complain about everything, but they don't realize how good and easy they have it when compared to other places around the world and this isn't just ranting and raving, I've lived in both the EU and US and saw both side on how they live and they are doing far more things right that Americans and many around the world could learn from.
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The election went pretty much how I expected it to go, the French people didn't want Macron but they don't want Le Pen either, Macron is the less of two evils for them, hence why you got that swing in the polls near the election in closing the gap in favour of Le Pen, it's basically the French people saying to Macron, we're not happy and want real change but I suspect they had no intention of voting for Le Pen but are quite happy to use her to scare Macrons government to get real change done. As for what Le Pen said she wanted to do if she won power, that's easy to say and hard to do, hence why did you notice the closer she got to being in power, the more she rolled back on what she would do with France membership of the EU, she was just trying to appeal to the French voters that are not happy with the EU to win them on side, but the closer she got to power, the more she toned things down on the EU, in other words, she's lying to the voters and saying what she thinks the people want to hear and not what can be delivered to try and win power, it's a tactic parties do when not in power because they can say whatever they want without having to take responsibility but once in power, it's a different ball game. Ultimately, the views of the people are what really matters and they want to stay in the EU and Euro, France also knows that the EU is the ideal way for France to project power around the world, basically, Le Pen was never really a threat to the EU like the media likes to make out, after all, France isn't like the UK which never wanted to be in the EU and always kept it at arms length. I also find it ironic that for Le Pen to be seen as credible, she needed to be seen as more moderate in politics, which if her party goes that route, it's far less of a threat.
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To be fair, the closer China closes the economic gap on modern countries, the slower economic growth is going to be, that's normal for any developing country, but China still has a lot of room left for high growth before it catches up with modern countries, based on the size of its population. So in the short term, I think growth will slow down because of actions from the US and to a less degree, from the EU to distance themselves economically from China, before picking up as things normalise and China changes policies to kick-start more economic growth.
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So the real lucky ones are the Europeans because there is no reason to invade them lol, and because of that, they build an economy that doesn't depend so much on oil for revenue like some other countries and for some other countries, oil, gas and all that is a bit of a curse because those countries are slow to do the real reforms needed to kick start their economy with the odd exception being Norway, most tend to waste the gift they have.
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You really do have to wonder how far this can go before the west arms Ukraine to be able to strike Russian cities. The way it is now, Ukraine is at a massive disadvantage in that Russia can attack any target in Ukraine but Ukraine can't attack Russian targets in Russia, plus, Russia can fire rockets from Russia but Ukraine can't attack them until they enter Ukraine's airspace, sweet deal for Russia but not so much for Ukraine. Seriously, how far is the west going to allow Putin to escalate things before putting their foot down with real threats on Russia it'self, it's high time we wake the Russian people up so they overthrow Putin and the best way to do that is for their own lives to be at risk. The alternative is that Russia is going to continue to target civilians, Ukraine needs to have the ability to target Russian sites, to bring the war to them, after all, Ukraine has every right to target Russia directly with Russia invading Ukraine. Some will say it could escalate the war, but that's what Putin is doing anyway and as long as the Russian people feel safe, Putin has little to fear but if the Russia people start to feel they could be a target, that's when Putin needs to worry and we've already got a small hint of that with the mobilization of the population.
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@richiesacolic436 But clearly this wasn't intentional and this is doing as much harm to China for the people and economically as well, if we go down the route that some are advocating, it could lead to war and that would make it far worse for us all, now don't get me wrong, the government of China needs to change but so do many western governments, there is a lot of blame to go around on this one. My point is that if we did as some say, many could use the same argument on many other things like the US for invading Iraq based on lies about WMD when we all know there wasn't any and that truth came out later on, should all American products be boycotted because of the actions the government took, we should remember as well that in this case it would be a lot more justifiable because the American people elected those leaders that took those actions at the time, we should also remember that hundreds of thansands of people died in the Middle East because of US actions if not more and millions of people got displaced, should the US get punished in kind? At the end of the day, it's best to hit the reset button and try and get change for the better and learn from the mistakes done, never fall for the revenge tactic because it never really works and just makes things much worse.
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@avantiiresha6687 You have that choice but I don't see why others should follow that lead and I doubt I will because times are likely going to be hard going forward, last thing I want to do is make life even harder for myself, beside, see the post I did down above on why it's not a good idea to punish the people of China.
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@richiesacolic436 Who doesn't keep changing the stories in these times? it's funny watching many governments with how they are reacting to this pandemic, the US, China and the UK in particular.
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Not sure if this problem can be solved without the UK having freedom of movement with the EU, that would solve some of the problems, but the problems might be deeper than that with the UK and Spain that might need some negotiations on some kind of deal that works for both sides, maybe even independence for Gibraltar or even dual rule with the UK and Spain, and much of the problems we see with Gibraltar, we also see with Northern Ireland, which freedom of movement with the UK and EU would solve a lot of these problems, and I think this Labour government really needs to look into that because the alternative of patch up jobs can work in the short term but it's just creating a mess long term. Either way, Brexit brought to the surface the real problems and I think with the current system, the risk is greater for the UK side as it's creating division in Northern Ireland and Gibraltar that could one day morph into them wanting to either leave the UK union or rejoin Northern Ireland and Spain and I think the UK having freedom of movement with the EU could be the only way to defuse that long term.
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@skyblazeeterno Thats true but this isn't normal times and I suspect the European elections to play a big role in this, think about this, this is the only chance the British people are going to get with having a say on Brexit because our goverment doesn't want us to have a say. I highly doubt the people that want us to remain in the EU will miss this chance and thats why I expect turnout to be much higher then past years, mainly to send a powerful message to the goverment that we don't want to leave the EU or at the very least, to have another public vote on Brexit. If the turnout is high and a lot of Brits vote for pro EU parties, Brexit could be more or less over with because that would likely force parliement to give the British public another public vote on Brexit. It's all up for play here and it's upto the British public to decide what they want and if we miss this chance then we deserve everything we get with Brexit.
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@skyblazeeterno Key word being usually, this isn't normal times and I expect both Remainers and even Brexiteers to vote a lot more this time round then they normally would, I expect turn out to be much higher then it normally is because a lot more is at stake with Brexit looming.
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This is the problem for the US, Trump is backed by a lot of voters so even if he gets the boot later this year, a big part of the problem is in American society because so many Americans think the way Trump thinks and that isn't going to be easy to fix and why the US is getting it's self into such a mess.
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Trying to punish countries for wanting to de-dollarise is kinda an incentive for those countries to want to do that. The US isn't as trusting and as stable as it used to be, especially with how polarised US politics is getting and how we are seeing signs of the US using trade as a weapon, so it's understandable why some countries would want to distance themselves from the US, and there have been a lot more talk about that around the world since Trump got into power, if he were to get into power again, that could start a chain reaction that isn't favourable for the US, especially if Trump follows through with his threats. It's probably advisable that the US starts getting some cool heads before some real damage is done to its reputation around the world.
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@froozigiusz That's the problem, the African Union should have started out with a few countries that were like-minded, it would have been easier for it to work and easier to integrate. More importantly, by starting the foundations by having a few, there would be a carrot and stick approach for other countries that want to join in the future, which is basically what the EU does, basically, the African Union has little to no leverage over its members and no real incentive for countries not in it to want to join, but more importantly, there's no incentive for the wannabe countries to want to reform for the better. The EU did the union the smart way, over a longer time frame, it's had its mistakes over the years, that's to be expected, but its worse mistake is recently with veto rules and not having enough majority votes, something they need to change before 2030 and especially before any new country can join.
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Makes sense with all the threats that Trump was making to Harvard, there's a potential goldmine to be had here by doing a brain drain away from the US.
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I'm British but I do understand the German position, it can't be easy for Germany to turn around and become more or a military power and more proactive in all this considering it's history in both world wars. But I do agree that Germany needs to do more on the security, military and forign policy front but I get the feeling that Germans would feel more comfortable if the EU was doing it for them as a combined effort with other EU members.
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@IloveCamels335 That's what most seem to misunderstand, they seem to think it's a quick tick box to join the EU, they've got no idea how many social, political and economic reforms are needed in a country that wants to join the EU is needed before they are ready to join. Also, letting in a country too early when they are not ready can cause other big problems, just look at Hungary and Poland to see how they are backsliding on democracy. As much as I would like to see the Ukraine join the EU, it's not realistic until the EU gets it's own house in order, basically, Hungary and Poland as well as do a few reforms at an EU level to make it more difficult for countries in the union to backslide on democracy as we are seeing in those two countries. As for NATO, I'm not sure how some are making them seem like the same organization, they are two very different organizations with different goals, the EU being far more useful as it's political, economic integration which also lifts living standards, basically things that actually matter to the people.
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@JohnFenlon The population and economy of Russia is a lot smaller than China, China holds most of the cards, especially as the west continues to isolate Russia from the world. The question is, do the Russian people really want to be a puppet of China? I highly doubt the government or Russian people would want that but as Russia gets more desperate and the economy goes down the toilet, China will be waiting in the wings to take full advantage of that and we know China will because they've shown many signs of that around the world, Russia for China is just a tool to be used, in this case, against the west but China doesn't care about Russia.
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It will be political because people by there very nature are political but thats not the fault of Eurovision but the fault of us as voters, we likely vote for countries we like more and thats the same for any country.
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What I find intresting about Eurovision is the diffrent styles of music we get to hear, some of it is crap and some of it is good but I perfer that then what we get in like the UK and US where we are kind of force feed the kind of music we listen too.
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Anyone remember Lordi? was a great song and I'm supprised that song won back then and it's not really my kind of music but yet it was a really good song, I've heard many diffrent songs from Eurovision that you just wouldn't get to hear othwise and many of them are good, even the ones that are not in English, it's why I watch Eurovision, to get a taste of music from around the world and not be forced feed the music that gets into the local charts in our countries.
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Probably a mix of the two, more integration in some areas and more powers in other areas at a local level, and I mean local level as in regional level, not national level, after all, it's much more likely that a regional government can represent the interest of the locals than national or even supernational government that for the most part is too disconnected with the concerns of the people. With that said, there are areas that we really do need more integration, especially on the capital market, military and foreign policy, certain areas make more sense to integrate further where we can project and protect our interest better around the world, whiles at other times, it makes more sense to do things at a local level to keep us nimble and competitive with each other. It's a fine line, but I do think we need reforms and need further integration, but there's a right way and a wrong way of doing it, and It's up to us to find the right way that works well for the countries and the people, what I do know is that the system can't stay the same the way it is now, there are a lot of problems, many of these problems will become worse with the EU expanding, so major reforms are needed before 2030 and especially before any new countries are allowed in the EU. I know some won't want further integration, and in an ideal world, I'm sure we would all love our own independence, but we have to face reality, the world isn't ideal, in fact, things seem to be getting less stable around the world, then throw in the superpowers like the US and China, as well as Russia causing problems, geopolitically speaking, if we Europeans in the EU want to protect our political, economic and social interest, we are going to have to give the EU the means to protect them by speaking more with one voice in more areas, the simple truth is, the members alone are too small to compete with the likes of the US and China, but together through the EU, we can, the alternative is just a slow decline, which will make it harder to protect our interest and the global, rules, laws and regulations will be done by the big powers, which at the moment is the EU and US, but the EU is limited in what it can project because of the structure of the union, if that doesn't change over the coming decade, then I only see decline for us Europeans, after all, imagine in 3 decades where the economy and power the US and China will have, we Europeans are going to have to change if we want to compete. It also just occurred to me, looking at many of the policies of the Eurosceptic parties in the EU, many of the reforms being talked about with the EU becoming more democratic and connected to the people would actually be a bad thing for Eurosceptic parties, it is after all one of their core arguments they use to rally people against the EU, reforms of the EU would weaken there voice in those areas, so you have to wonder, are they against reforms because they don't want further integration or are they against it because there voice could be weakened with the voting public? To really weaken the core argument of the Eurosceptics, the EU needs to become more democratic and more connected with the voters, even without further integration, that would be seen as a threat to the Eurosceptic parties because it would force them to use more radical arguments against the EU, which will make it much harder to convince people, but at the moment, the way the EU is structured, it makes it easy for the Eurosceptic parties to take advantage off, especially when it comes with disinformation, in other words, reforms of the EU are a bad thing for the Eurosceptic parties, regardless of reforms.
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It's actually becoming a running joke, Putin has been threatening the nuke card a lot over the last two years but it comes across as desperation to get the west to stop supporting Ukraine. In truth, Putin can't afford to use nukes, if there were any real signs of him going that route, many of his top brass in the government and much of the public would likely turn against Putin, probably to the degree of outright executing him. Putin might be mad enough to use nukes but I highly doubt many in the government and most of the Russian people are, in other words, it's an empty threat that he knows he can't use that I'm surprised Putin keeps banging on about it lol. The only way countries would realistically use nukes if the country is being invaded and things were getting desperate, but Russia isn't being invaded, apart from the Kursh region, but that isn't an invasion and more of a tactic from Ukraine and clearly not something that nukes would be used yet. In any case, Putin's main problem is self survival, he cares about his position of power and will do whatever it takes to protect that, even throw the Russian people under a bus, but Putin also realises that he needs to keep a segment of the Russian people onside for his own survival, hence why he's not as strong as he wants us to think he is in Russia and his options are quite limited in what he can do, hence why he's willing to use prisoners, mercenaries and others on the front line but he seems scared of conscripting more Russians in the military, Putin very likely knows that if he pushes his luck too far with the Russian people, the nose will likely tighten around his neck.
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Forget the goverment, they are not the key, the high numbers with that petitions is very likely to make a lot more MP's in parliement to become a lot more bolding in how they vote and it also shows how much support around the country there is to be heard. In other words, this is making it much easier for parliement to take control away from the goverment and they likely will if the goverment isn't careful here. It's easy to say they can ignore thoes numbers but being almost 6 million on the petitions and a million protest, the goverment is either stupid or very brave to ignore all that and we'll soon find out which one it is.
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Yep, he's getting desperate, now he's moving the goal post from cutting off gas today to now in two weeks lol. Basically, he's trying to intimidate to buy gas in Roubles with the aim of propping up the currency, in the end, EU countries are positioning themselves in a better position to handle any cut off as time goes on so Putin's hand is getting weaker all the time.
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True and if it became a traditional war without nukes, the might of the western economies would wipe the floor with what Russia can do, especially if manufacturing turns to arms and high-tech investment. We've got to remember that Russia is a pretty weak economy that's around the size of Spain and depend on European countries buying their oil, gas and other natural resources. A war would basically shut all that down, European countries will get their gas and oil from the world market, Russia would lose billions from that and if push comes to shove and Russia did attack an EU or NATO country, the west would have to respond, otherwise Russia won't stop there which could end up being the start of world war 3 if we are not careful and as Bill Clinton once said, it's the economy stupid, that's where the real power is and it wouldn't take much for western countries to divert that wealth towards manufacturing of arms, that would put Russia at a massive disadvantage on the economic front which spills over on the military front. The irony is that Putin is backing himself into a corner that he can't really win, if he backs down, he will look weak, especially in Russia as he's got an image of being a hard man, if he doesn't, well the EU and NATO would have to respond otherwise the merits of them would be kinda useless if they don't come to the defence of one of their own.
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@zbigniewp1810 If Russia was supported by China and Iran, the EU would likely be supported by the US and countless other countries, they still have a massive advantage over them because these are modern countries whereas Russia, Iran and China are quite poor and if it came to a race in high-tech and manufacturing, good luck with that because the only reason we use China for manufacturing is because they are cheap and not because they are good. As for defence spending, so who is the dictator that decides what's enough to spend?, I understand why the US wants others to spend more to take the burden off them, empire building isn't cheap after all but the reality is, Europeans, especially EU countries don't feel the need to spend like the US does, that can change if Russia pushes it's luck lol. In any case, don't kid yourself in thinking that Russia would attack any modern country, even a small one and especially an EU country, there's a reason why no modern country has attacked another modern country and it's because the damage to both sides would be massive that no one really wins, what we actually get is modern countries taking on countries that can't fight back or poorer countries against another poor country but if any modern country was to get attack, there's a fair chance that it could lead to world war 3 and with the tech we have today, well let's just say, that's one way to solve the population problem lol. As for the US, yes they likely will get involved, mainly for self-interest as they know that if Russia takes on Ukraine and the west doesn't put it's foot down, Russia likely won't stop there and will take on some easy picking countries to the east of Europe that are not in the EU or NATO, but if Russia did do that, EU countries would beef up it's own armies and likely would push to integrate them in the EU, the irony being that Russia is playing right into the hands of the EU by scaring those eastern European countries that are not in the EU half to death whiles at the same time showing the Europeans in the EU why they need to integrate more, that's the last two things Putin once. Anyway, problem is for Putin, it's backed himself into a corner he can't win, if he invades Ukraine, the west will have to come to it's aid and be a lot tougher than it's been with Russia already, if Putin backs down, he could look weak in Russia, especially if the west didn't offer him anything which it looks like they won't, Putin has now put himself in a situation that he can't win, still, if he does attack, it would be the major wake-up call the west needs, especially the EU and US when it comes to Russia and China, that's when those countries need to worry because lets be honest, both the EU and US are asleep and see them as a mild threat, that can quickly change.
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@BOZ_11 I don't think Ukraine plans on holding it, it's mostly about sending a message to Putin whiles at the same time, forcing Putin to divert forces away from the front line. I think Ukraine is banking on that Putin is throwing everything he's got at the front line that there isn't enough manpower to stop Ukraine doing what it wants, there might be some truth to that, we are already 5 or so days in and the Russian response has been quite weak, and more will likely be known over the next week or two, if Putin isn't able to push them back over the next few weeks or if Ukraine is able to push further forward, this could become very problematic for Putin and highly embarrassing.
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Never heard of India being a superpower lol, I mean, they could one day, they have the population to do it but religion is what will hold back India. As for China, it's economy is already massive and you only have to look at US actions on China over the last decade to see that the US really does see them as a threat, after all, if China wasn't a threat to the US, then why all the noise?, why is the US trying to put China down and isolate them? Clearly, the US sees China as a threat to it's power around the world, the irony is, the US tried to put Japan down in the 80's when they saw them as a threat, but clearly, Japan was never going to be a threat because it didn't have the population size to measure up and you need a big population to have a big economy.
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Usually these things tend to happen from someone or a group of people that are on the inner circle of the one they are toppling and when you take out legal means of removing a dictator, it usually means they use more violence means to remove that person. I suspect Putin is likely fearful of everyone in is inner circle now because that's what paranoia does to these kinds of people. The truth is, we don't know if there if a takeover will happen because the ones doing the take-over are not going to broadcast it until it's too late but I suspect pressure is probably building because many high up will want to save their own necks by distancing themselves from Putin. Either way, from the west is point of view, I have to wonder why they would reduce the sanctions on Russia even if Russia pulls out of Ukraine, the truth is, Putin has shown to be a threat and unless that threat is removed, I wonder why the west would even remove the sanctions until he's gone or worse yet, a major reform of the political system to reduce the chance of this happening again. Either way, Russia is screwed here because even if Putin pulls out of Ukraine, EU countries are still going to look for energy sources from other countries, foreign investment in Russia isn't likely to recover for at least a decade, this is long term damage that's being done to Russia that much of it will continue to be done even after the war.
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I've looked at Stadia from different angles and it doesn't really make any sense except for one area that is very casual gamers that rarely play games, every other area, the service is worse than what we already have. Even the price of the games with a did the maths on if you were to buy 6 games per year over 3 years plus the monthly subscription would save you enough to buy 2 consoles or to build a PC gaming rig of around £700 and with that you have a lot more control over the games you buy, where you buy them and what you can do with them, as well as changing settings of the games if you are a PC gamer. A big selling point of Stadia was that you don't need to pay for the hardware but the reality is that gamers end up subsidizing the hardware by paying more for the games as well as monthly fees and all for what is a worse gaming experience. What makes it even worse is that if you really want to stream games to other devices, you can already do that with PC's and I think you can do that with consoles as well, in fact with AMD's drivers, it's got AMD Link which allows you to stream your games to any device you want either locally over Wi-Fi or over the internet and at least with that you have full control over the games you buy whiles having the same benefits that Stadia offers.
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Two main points that ring so true, if you want real innovation, support smaller and medium size companies that are more likely to want to do change and not the big established companies that try to hold things back and the second point, if they are going to make real change, it has to be using materials that are abundance, in other words, as the video point out, making stuff out of dirt or more accurately, out of stuff that we have a lot off and it's cheap. That's why I've lost interest in a lot of the so called brake through we keep hearing about with the promise of revolutionizing the world but they are using such rare materials that its so expensive that a lot of the times it stays in the lab and has little to no impact on the world, real break through are ideas that can be done cheaply enough and can get to market within 5 years of that idea, the rest are like pie in the sky that might happen someday but a lot fail, the ones that are around the corner are a lot more interesting.
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The more I see of Brexit, the more of a shitstorm it's becoming and as a remainer, I wanted Boris in power because I knew it would box him in and now he's got little to nowhere to run. He said just about a week ago that he would rather be dead in a ditch then go to the EU and yet a few days later, he went cap in hand to the EU only for the EU to shut him down. Honestly, I don't see any way he can win this now and I only really see one way to resolve Brexit one way or the other and that is by another public vote, without that and if Brexit if seen to be forced on the country without the public or parliament having a say or if Brexit gets revoked without the public having any say, we could be talking about a revolution that could happen in the UK or at the very least, the brake up of the UK union because support in Scotland and Northern Ireland is going up for them to leave the UK since Boris got into power. In any case, as a Brit, I find Brexit very entertaining to watch even thought it could mess things up for so many.
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Oh don't worry, they'll care once government support dries up and it starts to hit them, that's when the message will likely sink in, so either at the end of this month or more likely just after the election as support is likely going to stay in place till then.
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I doubt Hungary will leave the EU, especially with how Russia is becoming more hostile, but I wouldn't have a problem with Hungary leaving, trade them in for Ukraine. The truth is, there are laws set in place by the EU, every country that joined it knew about these laws, rolling back on them should have a big cost to the country in question but because of the way the EU is designed, the EU has limited powers in sorting this problem out and mostly because of Poland and because of all that, I don't think the EU should let any new countries join the EU until there are reforms done to the EU on vetoes and majority voting, that doesn't mean vetoes have to go but I think it should be done on a percentage of members and population so no one country can hold the rest to ransom. There are signs that Poland is softening up and if they do, it will be much easier for the EU to go after Hungary and even booth them out but as long as Poland backs Hungary on it's back sliding, no new country can really join the EU, which is ironic because Poland and Hungary are the two countries that want the EU to expend and yet both countries are the biggest reason on why the EU shouldn't expand until reforms are done to the EU. Longer term, this is ultimately going to lead to Hungary getting kicked out of the EU one way or the other if Hungary doesn't get its act together and I personally think EU laws need to be stricter on countries that break the rules they signed up too, basically, stop messing about with these countries that are backsliding and playing games, throw them to the wolves for Russia to have fun with, it's the only way these countries will learn by making their own mistakes, after all, if Hungary wants to go back to a Russian style democracy, go for it, but don't complain and blame others when things go sour.
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True, and to me, the rich poor devide really starting to get worse from the early 1980's to now and likely will get worse if we don't get our act together. Blaming the EU is easy to do but that doesn't solve the problem, a lot of the times the members blame the EU on things the EU doesn't have the power to change because it's in national hands, thats whats crazy about it, in any case, with Brexit, the UK wont be able to blame the EU, all the problems in the UK will be done to the UK and then they might wake up and realise that the EU wasn't the problem to begin with. In any case, if we really want change, it really needs to be done at a national level, the EU can help on that but it's got limited powers in a lot of areas that are the domain of members, the US which clearly isn't a EU member have a lot of the same kind of problems we are facing in Europe hence why Trump got elected, so things need to change clearly but leaving the EU would likely make things worse for the UK.
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What we should remember is that sanctions are usually slow burners, it takes years, if not more for it to do real damage, and the truth is, the sanctions have not been in place long enough to see the real impact. But sanctions are working, it's just a slow process, we should also remember that a lot of countries are ramping up renewable energy investments, that's likely going to keep pressure on fossil fuels, by pushing them lower or by pushing those countries to produce less, either way, it's impacting them in a negative way. There is also the cost of the war in Ukraine for Russia, that isn't doing its economy any favours by being bogged down in Ukraine, and the longer it drags on, the more of a drag it will be on Russia. The rest is just a matter of time, of slow decline for Russia, whiles also putting China in a better position to be the puppet master of Russia, a position I doubt the Russian government or people want, but with Russia being more isolated around the world, others like China and India will take advantage of Russia, something they are already doing with cheap oil and gas that are below market rates. Things could get a lot worse for Russia and other controlling countries with the A.I. revolution that's on its way, the countries that are more open and that take advantage of it, are going to have a massive economic advantage over the ones that don't or the ones that want to control the narrative of information the people get, basically, A.I. once it gets good enough could become a massive threat to the leadership of countries like Russia and China by informing the public a lot more about the facts and reality of how things are and not the narrative the governments wants them to think, hence why their own A.I. services are going to be very restrictive in what they can and can't do because they don't want to empower the public as that could be a threat to the state, and by restricting it, it reduces the usefulness of it and the impact on the economy is likely to be less for it. To put it another way, in countries and regions that are more open and democratic, like the EU, US and many others, the gap in economics could get bigger once A.I. really filters through the economy.
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Not quite, it's being derailed because people like you lied to the British people, you promised them cakes and cheers but don't want to deliver any of that, I mean really, the way the leave side said it, we would have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, that would be a win win for the UK if the EU was to allow that to happen which they wont and this is why the remain side are winning now because they are holding the leave side to account on all these lies. The irony is out of all this, all the hardliners have really achived out of Brexit is to put the EU into the spot light in the UK so a lot of Brits now realise it's not as bad as the euroseptics want us to think, it's also pushed us into a very soft Brexit, maybe even single market and custom union, think about that for a second, thats the EU having it's cake and eating it with the UK having to abide most EU laws, rules and regulations without a say in them, thats what the leave side have achived here, they've become a laughing stock :)
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Oh it's not auto correct, that makes it worse for me lol, it's just because I type so fast that sometimes I end up putting in the wrong words in and only realise that when I either re-read it or someone points it out, I've had it once where even I wasn't sure what I said lol, nevermind, in most cases it comes out alright where others can understand it. Anyway, if we do have another vote, it should be a final vote for at least another 10 years and on the exit terms so the British people know what it is we are getting, that way thier is no excuses from either side. We should remember that snap election wasn't exactly a clear cut victory, Labour almost won it where the Tories needed the votes of the DUP, that isn't a clear cut win for the leave side when May was fighting that snap election mostly on Brexit, if anything it backfired on May and the leave side. In any case, I feel the options are becoming very limited in what the UK can do with Brexit, hard Brexit is one of them but thats unlikely, I think when all is said and done, we will go for a very soft Brexit because I'm not convinced the EU and it's members would let us stay even if we had a vote and voted to remain, only way I could see them letting us stay is if the vote was a clear majority of at least 60% which is unlikely. From the EU's point of view, we are too much of a troubled nation and letting us stay doesn't solve much so I suspect many would like to keep us out but in the EU orbit and thats what it looks like will happen.
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Independence from the US, I agree on, but keep them as friends. Like you said, the US policies are becoming more erratic with each passing government, they are becoming less reliable as a partner and becoming too self-serving that we in the EU really do need to start looking after our interest more, especially with how unstable the world is getting. So keep the US on friendly terms but let's have more independence from them, whiles also doing what's in our interest, even if it conflicts with US interest, no difference to what the US does to EU intrest.
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Yeah the score isn't really a factor when it comes to having a fun or dull game, you can have a 0-0 game and a lot of exciting things happen in the game, and yes I know many goals can help to make the game more exciting, especially if it's one of those games where one team or the other has to score to stay in the competition, but there's a lot more to the fun factor when it comes to this sport that the only American sport that I think can come close to it is basketball, but none of the other sports appeal that much around the world and basketball has it's own flaws that football doesn't.
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Everything always has a countermeasure to it, if some countries like Russia want to use migration as a weapon, there's bound to be a pushback to that, regardless of the moral status of the pushback. If push comes to shove, EU countries will enact fortress Europe to make it very difficult to get in, likely with the aim of passing on the burden to the countries that are trying to push migration in and then giving them less of an incentive to want to do so as it ends up being costly to them, especially countries like Belarus. Morality in all this can only go so far, it's all well and good trying to do the right thing but EU countries only have so much resources to support immigrants, and when some countries are using it as a political weapon, maybe going after those countries in question in a more forceful way is needed, especially with Belarus and Russia, this is after all war we are talking about and some countries are using migration as a political tool to try and destabilise regions, so either fight fire with fire or go after the countries that are trying to create instability, because clearly the current policies are not working and are making us in the EU look soft, and as much as I don't like the rise of the far right, they might put a lot more pressure on tougher boarder controls and migration rules. But seriously, we can talk about the morality of the situation all we want, but with migration being used as a political weapon, it feels more like a war than an issue of migration, and we can talk all we want, but the only real solution is to go after the source of who are creating the problems, and in the meantime, whiles we waste time trying to figure out what to do, this migration problem is fuelling the far right which could add to the instability, so I think much tougher and stricter policies on migrations and boarder controls are likely needed.
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Italy and France is understandable, they like to protest a lot about many things and are strong for trying to stick up for their rights so it doesn't surprise me that these things would happen in these countries where it's less likely in many other countries where it feels like the people are more subdued by the system they live under. Australia is an unknown for me as I don't know much about the political and media landscape over there and how that impacts public thinking, what I do know about Australia is that Rupert Murdoch has a big media impact and that's never a good sign when it comes to stability as is media crave creating division, infighting and chaos. In the UK for instance where I live, the public have been subdued since the late 80's by the government, much of it thanks to Margaret Thatcher which knocked the stuffing out of union and public voices to be heard in any meaningful way, the same more or less happened in the US but in a different way and even thought protest have happened, the scale is pretty small in comparison to others. In any case, the way I see it, the vaccine should be optionally without pressure of it being forced on citizens, for the ones that don't want to take the vaccine, a test to see if they have or have had the virus should be good enough for them to have the same freedoms that people with vaccines have and any time a system tries to pressure people to do or take something in a forceful way, you have to wonder if there is any ulterior motives involved, in other words, governments should be trying to convince us to take it, not try and force people to take it which is basically what some governments are heading towards and the irony is about that, it's convincing more people to not take the vaccine because of how hard they are pushing people to take it.
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That wont happen, reforming the lords might but not abolition it, beside, that wont achive what you really want, it fact it might make it worse in many ways.
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Who knows but ablition the lords would only mean the UK will have one less check and balance in the system, we are already losing one by leaving the EU because the EU and members act as a check and balance on each other, get rid of both in the UK and we are playing a risky game that can lead to things we don't want and this goverment is always showing signs that they don't really care about doing it through the proper process, it's a slippery slope that can hurt us in ways we can't see at the moment and this isn't just about Brexit, this is about the UK overall.
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I've been advocating reforms of the Lords for the last two decades that it should be a directly elected upper chamber thats a check and balance on the goverment and commons but that doesn't mean because some don't like what they are doing with Brexit that the Lords should be dismissed. Either way, an elected Lords would make things worse for May because if you see the actions of the Tories, they are trying to bypass everything from the courts system to the lords, the commons and even the public, in other words, it would weaken the goverment and clearly they don't want that, they would rather scrap the Lords because they the commons is the only real thing they have to contend with then. In any case, I really get the impression with Brexit going nowhere fast, the only way this problem is going to get solved is for the public to have the final say on the exit terms with Brexit, either they will comfirm they want to leave which then the remain side wont have a leg to stand on or that the public have changed it's mind on leaving the EU because of all the lies that have been said and broken promises of what Brexit was suppose to be.
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In any case, even if we got rid of the lords, do you honestly think that will change anything with Brexit?, it likely wont, in fact it might make it worse because the goverment would likely feel they've won and get tougher on the commons, forcing them to get a lot togher on the goverment. Sooner or later we will learn that Brexit isn't going the way the leavers want because they promised us so much that they can't deliver on it, that is where the real problem is, all the rest is the hardliners just making up exuses and deflecting blame for the mess they've created. Either way, another poll is out and support for the EU is growing as well as support for another vote of if we should stay in the EU or not, it's not looking good for the leavers at the moment and as the clock ticks down, expect the hardliners to get more desprate which in turn will likely gain more support for staying in the EU or a very soft Brexit. As for the lord, I suspect we will see reforms of it so it's directed elected and then we have two directly elected chambers, getting rid of it would weaken UK democrocry at a time that it's being weaken with leaving the EU, yes, being in the EU works as a check and balance on the EU and it's members.
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Reforming it would be better, if anything, what we've seen with Brexit is showing why we need to keep a second chamber as a check and balance on the other one and on goverment, it's also another reason why being in the EU is great, that works out as a check and balanced on it's members whereas the members are a check on the EU, some of us in the EU don't realise how lucky we are because of that, it's gived us some of the best workers right, human rights, eviromental rights in the world among other things, the Tories would love to rip all that apart. As for the UK leaveing the EU, it doesn't change much in laws, one thing I've learned is how global laws, rules and regulations work and it's the big players that make them like the EU and US, the smaller ones have to abide them just to have good trade terms and other stuff with the big players, it's even got a name called the Brussles effect which means even with the UK outside the EU, we are still likely going to have to abide most of it's rules, laws and regulations just to have frew flowing trade with them and that is the case with the US but they will demand we weaken our workers rights and other stuff like that. In any case, a reality check is really going to kick in once we are out and then we will see the EU was never the problem in the first place.
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If you say so but facts are fact, you can look them up for yourself, I'm sure you'll enjoy reading up on that as it's a real eye openner :) What makes me laugh about people like you is how little you really know about the EU, it's so funny if not deluded, for one, each EU member have a veto on a lot of policies, two, pretty much everything the EU Commission perposes needs to get the backing of the European Parliment which is directly elected by the people and three, if enough members block something, it wont happen, you really need to research things up before talking. As for the Lords, the only reason you don't like the Lords and many others like you is because it's saying things that you don't want to hear, if it was saying what you wanted to hear, people like you would be giving it praise and all that and thats what it really boils down too, people like you don't like anything saying negative things about Brexit, we've seen that from the courts, the lords, the commons, even some people in goverment that are fighting Brexit and lets not forget the people, last thing you want is for them to have another vote because of fear they might change there minds, then you'll end up naming them enermy of the country or something like that lol. How low are people like you going to go with Brexit? because it's really sad to see how you talk about taking back control but only if they say what you want to hear, the moment they say what you don't want to hear, you end up throwing a hissy fit and throwing threats around, it's why the leave side are losing this debate because they've ran out of excuses but by all means keep it going :)
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@neodym5809 Maybe but the chances of harm from the virus are pretty small even for people that don't have the vaccine and in the end, if the virus continues to mutate, it could become a threat to both vaccinated and none vaccinated people.
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@Phil_AKA_ThundyUK That doesn't really tell us much because each wave is different.
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@promajo I think you misunderstand what I'm getting at, if vaccinated people continue to get the virus, there's a fair chance that the body learns to live with the existing virus whiles it continues to mutate, that's a problem because we don't know where that could lead in the long run. Basically, unless we cut the virus out where it can't spread or mutate, the risk is always there for people that are vaccinated or not, also, the vaccine in some cases could make it worse by forcing the virus to mutate more.
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@neodym5809 That's fine, in that case, there is little reason for many of the ones that have not taken the vaccine to take it if the ones that's taken it are less likely to spread it.
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This tech could get to the point where it's going to get plastered everywhere because of how cheap it can be done. I'm already hearing about how solar can be used on your drive way, or on the entire house from roof to walls, whiles looking like a normal house and as we know, it could become the same for EV cars where the entire outer surface, including the windows could be solar, that and the advancement of solar and battery tech could make our house a small power station that could provide all our energy needs and for the most part, it could provide a EV car with free energy, as long as you don't use the car a lot, and even then, if the battery capacity is big, it could work well even for long trips. A lot of smaller things like remote controls, keyboards, mouse, gamepads, headphones and countless other small devices could be powered by solar, that you never or rarely have to charge them up as these devices don't use that much power that it could work well indoors where clearly we don't get direct sunlight. Longevity is going to be key for perovskite, until that issue is solved, none of what I said above will be achievable, or at least not cheaply enough.
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You know, I can understand India, they are a developing country and the rules on the road are kinda all over the place, China is a developing country but should be doing much better with the rules on the road, and as for the US, there are no excuses, with such wide roads, emergency services shouldn't be having these issues, when you see the videos, you get the impression that the people don't care, from the ones walking to the ones in the cars, there's no sense of urgency to make road for the emergency services and that's shocking to me, because it could be any one of us that the emergency service is on the way to help and for me, it's clear to see that there isn't any or are weak enforcement on allowing emergency services to past through, do they even fine people for blocking emergency services? I suspect no looking at the lack of urgency, but even without that, you would think common decency would kick in, clearly it's not doing. Contrast that with European countries, where the roads are usually a lot smaller and yet they do a far better job when it comes to letting the emergency services through, whether that is because Europeans are more caring because of the social aspect in European countries or the stricter laws when it comes to giving way to emergency services, probably a mix of the two. Either way, it's quite shocking how so many other countries and more so modern countries like the US doing so poor on this, especially with emergency services where every second can be the difference from life and death. I should also point out that this isn't just for ambulances, it's for all emergency services.
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True, what Orbán is suggesting to Ukraine is appeasement, that rarely works out well when dealing with dictators, and we should know that by now with how Putin has been over the last decade with Crimea and interference in western politics. I'm all for a peaceful solution, but Orbán is a fool to think Putin will give into a peaceful deal that gives all of Ukraine back to Ukraine, in other words, a hardline solution from Ukraine and its friends are likely the only solution that Putin will listen too, basically by making the war so costly for Russia that eventually the Russian people turn on the government and pressure them to pull out of Ukraine because the cost to the economy is too high that it ends up impacting the average Russian. We are not at that stage yet, but the longer the war drags on, the more costly it's going to be for Russia, especially if western countries ramp up arm's shipments to Ukraine, which European countries are likely going to be in a much better position to do so over the next 1 to 3 years.
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That's kinda shocking when you think about it, Harris has been out of the limelight most of the time and the polls already give her better odds of winning then Trump, it really does suggest how badly Trump is doing that even before Harris opens her mouth, she's in the running lol, so who knows, a lot could change over the coming months that Trump should be concerned, because at least with Biden, it looked like it was in the bag for Trump to win, now thought, it's all up in the air.
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You don't keep that 50 billion, over the long run of no deal, it will cost the UK a lot more then that, it's a empty threat from the hardliners in the UK that are getting desprate because the EU wont give us what we want, but then thats what happened when being so deluded just like England was with the world cup.
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Thats something we could do whiles in the EU so no need to leave, in any case like Adrian said, there was never any net gains from Brexit, the UK is about to lose billions per year, far more then we put into the EU every year, after all, think about it for a second, no country would be part of the EU unless it benefitted them, it benefits them all but the UK seems to think it doesn't, in any case, we might find out the hard way if we get hard Brexit, in fact, I'm starting to think the EU would be fine with that because it sends out a powerful message of the benefits of EU membership, it also would be hell for the leave side if it really hurts the UK.
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I've been doing a little digging on gas storage in the EU, it's currently at 90% full, it's dropping by around 1% every 2 or 3 days, we're currently in full winter now and going at that current ration, it looks like there is enough gas for winter and that's probably because consumers and businesses are reducing the amount of gas they use, mainly because of the high price and the high price will likely last until winter eases because I get a feeling that European governments are seeing this as a big opening to make their countries a lot more energy efficient and as the saying goes, never let a crisis go to waste.
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I've lost count at how many times I've heard the EU project is finished, yet decades later, it's still hear and motoring away. Remember guys, always check the background history on the people that say these kinds of things, if they have a history of repeating the same thing with little to back it up, then they likely have an agenda. The EU has its problems, but finished? Not by a long shot, heck, even hardline parties throughout the EU don't want to disband the EU lol. This guy reminds me of those hardline Brexiteers in the UK, that keep dreaming of the EU failing, they were dumb enough to think that the UK leaving the EU would be the end of the EU lol, the reality is, it's not really changed much for the EU but has changed a lot for the UK and for the worse. At the end of the day, some people confuse wanting something to be the case and then confusing that with reality, in a sense, they are self manipulating themselves lol, and it's remarkable why they keep doing it they keep getting it wrong and looking like idiots, and ok, these people don't like the EU, but let's get back to reality and see the world for what it is and not what they want it to be, in other words, the EU isn't finished by a long shot, still, I do enjoy these fools deluding themselves, always puts a smile on my face lol.
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I suspect the EU would be happy to lower tariffs on cars from the US but the EU will demand something in return of equal messure, maybe something like the US lowering tariffs on European pick up trucks or something else, Trump wont get anything for nothing. As for the tech industry, China have already threaten Trump that if he puts more tariffs on Chiness goods, they will target the tech sector, the EU would likely do the same thing and that would go down well for the US because thats big for the US. As for China, there is only one other country that could follow what China is doing and thats India but China are hitting the right notes, they already have an economy around the same size of the EU and US but they also have a lot more room to grow then us, if things continue on as they have over the last few decades, China is going to be far bigger then the US and EU, either way, Trump trying to devide the west is playing into China's hand.
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I'm talking about what the UK wants when out of the EU not what we get when in the EU, in any case, what is it with people like you who seem to think the EU needs to solve the issue for the UK?, it's the UK thats leaving and it's a UK problem to solve, it all reeks of the UK trying to blame the EU if things go wrong, the thing is, the EU are not going to care if the UK blames them once we are out. In any case, so far we've not come up with a Brexit plan that works, even the one that the goverment came up with yesterday have a bit of cake in it and cheer picking because it was a custom plan with goods and not services, when is the penny going to drop in the UK that we have 3 or 4 options that the EU have already layed out, pick one and stop complaining, for a country that wants to leave the EU, they are trying hard to stay in lol.
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True, Putin thought that if Russia attacks from almost all sides, they would be able to take Ukraine in a much shorter space of time by overwhelming Ukraine. Clearly that didn't work out for Putin so now he's changing tactics in focusing on a smaller region and from one side, that could be an advantage to Russia but it could also be a disadvantage as they could get bottled up in a smaller region which could make them an easier target, especially if the west suppliers Ukraine with the right arms. But yeah, there's no doubt about it, Putin expected this war to be over or almost over with by now and yet he's made very little progress, on top of that, all Ukraine needs is time to be better prepared, trained and armed, the longer this drags on, the more costly it will likely be for Russia and as we know, the west can supple Ukraine more or less indefinitely which is the main aim of this, to make Russia bleed on both the economic front and troop front. We should also remember that the more territory Russia tries to take, the harder it's likely to be to hold onto that territory which is usually the case for an invading army, so this is very likely going to be costly for Russia over the longer run and this isn't even including the eventual sanctions on gas and oil from the EU countries and in the end, Putin is going to think, was it all worth it?
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Really, this coming from Brexiteers that are trying to by-pass parliament and don't want to confirm if this kind of Brexit is what the people want, look in the mirror Brexiteers, it's you who are trying to end democracy, I mean really, just look at the actions from Brexiteers over the last 3 years and it's easy to see who the real threat to democracy is in the UK. The reality is with Brexit, we don't know if Brexit is what the British people want now, more so the kind of Brexit the hardcore Brexiteers are trying to force on us and even more so because they are not really delivering on what was promised in the first vote. If Brexiteers really want to abide by democracy, we really need to confirm if hard Brexit is what the British people want, remember, Brexiteers made it seem like the deal we would get was a lot better then we are getting now so the goal post have changed and likely peoples thinking on Brexit have as well, hence why Brexiteers are so opposed to another public vote on Brexit. Ask yourself one simple thing, if you truly believe in democracy, why are so many Brexiteers so opposed to having another vote? could it be that Brexiteers had to lie out of there arse to win the second vote and almost nothing that was promised is going to be delivered so Brexiteers don't want to give the British people a chance to change their minds? Brexiteers like to go on about democracy and bringing power back home but it's funny how they change their tune if what happening doesn't resonate with what Brexiteers want, they've tried to by-pass the courts, parliament and want to by-pass the people, they want to force hard Brexit through without any secondary input from the British people. You Brexiteers are destroying this great country with your rampant racism and anti foreign views that have be pre-programmed into you by the right wing media, now I know some Brexiteers will say they are not racist and don't hate foreigners but a lot of them do, I'm old enough and wise enough to see and read between the lines that there is a lot of hate going around Brexit and the irony is, it isn't even that hard to have a argument with a Brexiteer in real life and push them to show their true colours that they are a racist and hate foreigners, James O'Brien does it a lot and it really exposes Brexiteers. So come on guys, admit you're a racist , I would have more respect for ya if you was more honest but all we see is lies about bringing power back home, democracy and all that when Brexiteers are more then happy to side line those rules when it doesn't fit their agenda. I can also understand why you guys fear another public vote, because if the British people did vote to remain in the EU with Brexiteers trying so hard to force us out, let just say I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the people that have been public in trying to force Brexit on the UK and that might be the biggest reason they fear another public vote.
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Harsh but there is a lot of truth in what's being said, if people and businesses keep getting bailed out, they will not learn and worse yet, they'll create a bigger problem next time round and want another bailout. It's crazy how little savings most of the public have in so many countries that they live more or less pay check to pay check that without work for a few weeks or months, they are in deep trouble, it's the same with businesses, it's like they are living on the edge that the wheels need to keep moving at all times and the moment it stops, things look bad for them, you would think in this day and age that people and companies would put some money aside for a rainy day in case of hard times but no, they expect the tax payers to bail them out only for us all to pay the price. With all that said, I do think some sectors of the economy need saving otherwise it would do us all a lot of harm but the rest should fend for themselves or get flushed down the toilet and make way for some new blood in the system, they'll learn far quicker that way to be more lean and save more and not be so reckless living day to day, thinking things are stable when anything can change at a moments notice.
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I'm sensing that there's far fewer people that want to have kids nowadays, and with that, there's far less pressure on needing to move out, I know a few people in the UK that actually prefer living with the parents and the parents don't seem to mind, in fact, I know of two of them that prefer it in old age because of the company, it's also much cheaper and easier on your life. As for if it's a problem or not, well it depends, in the short term, it's not a problem, but if there is no balance and hardly anyone has kids, it could become a problem, so a bit of a population slow down or even decline isn't a big issue, as long as it settles at some point, the real issue could become with younger generations having to support older generations, but that might not be as much of a problem if A.I. and robotics takes over a lot of that workload. There is also another factor I'm seeing, some that can move out and buy their own home, are choosing not too, maybe that's a culture thing that's changing, because clearly the stigma of living at home is nowhere near as bad as it was decades ago. But in any case, like all things, things will eventually correct themselves one way or the other, so depending on need of change, people and policies will change accordingly, but for now, it's not that big of a deal and probably won't be in the future because people and policies will change to counter issues that come up. I'm also seeing signs that fewer people want to get into a committed relationship and want to be more free to enjoy life, that doesn't mean people don't get into relationships but there seems to be less commitment to them and are more short term than they used too, that probably plays a big part in not wanting to leave home, after all, unless you're married, having your own house can get quite expensive and for many, it's not worth it unless you're in a committed relationship and it's funny, because when I was younger, we all assumed we would get married as we get older, as that was the norm back then, but as time went by, more of us seem to want to be free of that kind of commitment.
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The EU countries are more than capable of producing more arms, if I'm not mistaken, the EU is the second-biggest manufacture in the world behind China, just that we are manufacturing goods and not arms, but things can change if need be as we saw in the second world war with the US as they retooled its car plants to build arms. Now that many countries in the EU are willing to spend more on the military, it's very likely they are going to produce more arms because the EU and many of its countries want to produce a lot of their own goods and not buy from others, all of this takes time, hence why in the short term, they'll buy a lot from the international market to fill the void. What's going on in Ukraine and the energy crisis is a big wake-up call for the world and especially for the EU countries, so expect some big changes over the next decade which are likely not going to be very favourable for Russia or China.
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This is the problem when you have a president that is egging these people on lol, you've got some real problems America that isn't going to go away once this virus goes away and that problem has been brewing for quite some time that if not kept in check, it's going to blow up in your face. I'll give you a hint on where the real problem is, the media and the government, not being able to know what is fact or fake news so rampant paranoia takes off and anything can be considered fake news no matter what evidence is shown and that is a major problem that won't go away unless the system is clean up with a lot more accountability on what's being said, in other words, expect things to get worse, maybe a lot worse before they get better. Also, what happened to freedom of speech and freedom of the press, since Trump got in, he's been trying to suppress that which should be a worry to you all and people should ask question on why he wants to do that.
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Yep, all from a party that likes to say they are competent, what a laugh lol.
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The problem with wind power is that they can't seem to crack the home market, the small turbines are either too noisy, don't produce that much energy and too expensive, whereas Solar is becoming a far better investment when it comes to renewable energy, at least at small scale, wind is fine at much bigger scale. It's a shame really because I would love to have a mix setup of solar and wind power, they would both complement each other, solar would work better in summer, whiles wind would work better in winter and at nighttime when winds tend to be higher, it would also be useful in summer, but until they can crack the small size whiles being able to produce worthwhile energy, reduce the price and all be done whiles being quiet, if they can't crack that, Solar is going to blow away the wind market by a massive margin, especially over the next 2 decades that renewable on the home and business is going to boom, probably to levels that we could produce most if not all our energy needs on-site, especially as battery tech gets better and cheaper. That would be bad news for the wind sector, because if most energy is being done on-site, that's going to push the wind industry out, not to mention that there is a lot of opposition to big wind turbines around the world and personally, I think the wind industry needs to find ways of harvesting more energy at a smaller scale in urban areas, otherwise, I suspect the solar industry is going to kill or really damage to wind industry.
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Terry, you are an idiot lol, so far everything the UK goverment have come up with is cake and eat it this, cheer pick that and you expect the EU to give us that? lol, come up with a decent plan and the EU will likely accept, until then, get a grip you idiot.
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It likely will with big industry if the UK doesn't get a good trade deal with the EU because a lot of trade and parts criss cross across the boader and considering that in a lot of cases, the EU is the main selling market to them, it makes a lot more sense to up sticks and leave the UK and relocate to an EU countries so they can sell internally whiles also being able to sell to the UK from the EU and just passing on the cost to UK consumers. It's all about the numbers and the EU have a lot more of them then the UK does, it also means that other investments that are planning to sell throughout the EU are likely to avoide the UK because it doesn't make much sense to invest in the UK now when setting up a base of operations to sell into the EU, setting up shop in an EU countries makes a lot more sense for them now unless the UK have a really great deal but even then many of them will still likely invest more in an EU country then the UK.
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It's not how the EU works, it's very diplomatic in how it does things in that it will give the UK every chance of coming up with some plan, if this was the US with Trump, he likely would've told the UK where to go by now. In any case, it doesn't matter because the EU knows they are holding all the cards in these talks and knows that time isn't on the UK side, the EU will just wait till the clock ticks down because that seems to be making the UK goverment more desprate. Another thing, this doesn't bold well for the UK and thoes trade deals the UK wants with the rest of the world, the world is looking at the UK and must be thinking, how can they do a deal with them when they keep backtracking on a lot of what they say and keep demanding terms that suite themselfs, the UK is going to realise that trade deals around the world are not as easy as they like to think and that many other nations will play hard ball with the UK as well.
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I think in the end, the EU is going to find a way of kicking them out of the EU, and if there is one thing that the EU is good at is finding loopholes to get around rules and laws that are in place. Personally I think Hungary will be an easier target, kick them out to send a message to the rest, mainly Poland, at the moment, Poland and Hungary think they are untouchable and can break the rules of EU memberships, once they realise that isn't the case, a lot more pressure from the public on the government will likely happen, especially if there is a real threat of being ejected out of the EU. I also think the EU needs to be tougher on countries that are braking the rules, otherwise, other members could follow and break the rules if there is no cost in doing so, but I think major reforms are needed on the EU, treaty change, especially on veto rules, after all, if the EU doesn't get it's act together, other countries will break the rules because there is no cost, also, countries that want to join the EU will look towards others, because they are not going to wait forever.
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But that's the thing, you don't notice it for years, sometimes even decades until it's too late. If people noticed it early on, there would likely be a big backlash. Many governments are smart in knowing how to get people to vote for things that are not in their interest, only to realize what a mistake it was years or even decades later when the damage is done, hence why you're not seeing any real impact on your life in any meaningful way, it's baby steps that most don't notice that amount to a lot of damage over the longer run, outsiders can see it a lot clearer because we don't have left right bias.
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It already did and we're seeing it in the UK ;-)
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@Kalus_Saxon Don't get too excited Russians, once China gets them over a barrel which likely will happen as the economy of China continues to grow, they might realise they have a lot more in common with the EU then they want too which the reality is, Europeans in Russia or the EU are not really that different from us. Beside, I think China have big plans for that plot of land above China in Russia, must be a very tempting target from them with them wanting more breathing room and good. The UK and Russia do share something, they are both clinging onto the past over past glories, they don't realise the world has moved on and the real powers are the EU, US and China, the UK and Russia don't even come close because it's all about the economy now.
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@Frankly Frank There a difference from neo Nazis and ignorance and what we see with Brexit and even Trump supporters is ignorance and all it will take to convince enough of them to see the light ironically is to deliver a hard Brexit and what the fireworks take off as what was promised isn't delivered.
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@Frankly Frank In any case, ignorance is never a good thing as it just means those people are much easier to be exploited by governments,companies and the media and that is more or less what we are seeing and it rarely ends well for the ones that are ignorance, in this case, Brexiteers which are mostly from poorer regions in the UK which are likely going to get poorer for it. I can understand that a lot of people are angry at the established elites but we are targeting the wrong area, the EU isn't really the problem, national governments are, in fact the last few years in the UK and US should be evidence of that alone. So ask yourself, what happens if we leave the EU? we've not really solved the problem that Brexiteers really want, in fact they might of made it worse because the EU acted as a check and balance on national governments, the UK wont have that after Brexit and can water down many things like workers rights, human rights, food standards and so on and we are already seeing signs that the UK government wants to do that after Brexit and the US will put pressure on the UK to do it if we want any trade deal at all with them. I like to deal in what we hear and can see and not in what we want to happen which is what Brexiteers seem to think and at the moment, Brexit doesn't look good for the UK in that I see little to no up sides to it and lots of downsides to it and yet Brexiteers so far have a poor track record in countering these arguments and that could be the very reason why we wont leave the EU, in that the harder Brexiteers push for hard Brexit, the harder the push back against that in that we might end up staying in the EU and it's all thanks to the Brexiteers, I doubt they even realise that yet.
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@Frankly Frank I know they are happy to see that, anything that deflects blame away from the governments is what our government wants, that why they are willing to take credit for good things the EU does but pretend anything the UK does bad as something the EU did even thought it had nothing to do with them. The real question is, who will the UK government use as a scapegoat after Brexit, assuming Brexit ever happens, they wont be able to use the EU, I suspect they will blame the public in the early days because it was them that voted for Brexit so the public become a easy scapegoat, more so the Brexiteer ones. But in the end, most people are going to blame the ones at the top and after Brexit, that will be our own governments, in other words, no more scapegoating and deflecting blame which is what this country has been doing for decades now, we're going to have to look into a mirror and see who is really to blame for all the wrongs in the UK and one thing I do know, most of the problems in the UK are down to our own government then the EU and by that I mean it's us, the voters that are really to blame as we put them in power to screw us over. That one good thing about Brexit, all the excuses from Brexiteers wont work any more, they pinned all the blame on the EU for so long that they honestly think outside the EU will bring us riches, the thing is, reality doesn't work that way. We want to solve the problems in the UK, we need to look more closer at home and fix the real problem and this is why I don't see any benefits to leaving the EU but many downsides to leaving.
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Could Canada join the EU? Maybe, but the EU would have to be more open to the possibility of countries outside of Europe joining the union, but it's possible, being that Canada and EU countries are not that different from each other in a lot of area and share a lot of common values. For it to happen, the EU would have to be more open to the idea, the EU would also have to reform it's self when it comes to veto rules as I doubt the EU will let any new country in until reforms are done, there's also Canada and if there is enough support for them to want to join. With that said, there are a lot of other areas that the EU and Canada could work much closer together that falls short of EU membership but could someday open up the door to EU membership if both sides want that. Either way, I think the EU should open up to like-minded nations around the world that just want to live in peace, trade and be more open with each other, there's no technical reason to limit the EU to just Europe when there are a lot of other countries around the world might be interested if the option was there, but if it did happen, I think the name of the EU would have to change, European Union wouldn't make much sense if countries from around the world are joining and something along the lines of World Union would make more sense or something like that.
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Seeing all this from the other side of the Atlantic in the UK, it's showing a massive contrast in how both systems treat the people and the UK is hardly a glowing beacon of light compared to other European countries but from what I've seen, I'm not hearing of people having any major issues getting the government to pay out which the UK government pays out 70% or 80% of the wage, I forgot which now lol, even unemployment benefits seem far better where from what I can see, there isn't a time frame on it before they kick you off just as long as you are looking for a job, one of my friends was on it for years because of other issues he had without feeling the pressure that he would lose that money. I do think Americans really need to take a deep hard look at the system in that they are living under because it seems to serve the rich elites and big corporations at the expense of everyone else and when help is needed, it seems to be the poor and middle classes that get thrown under a bus like we are seeing now and I have to wonder about the longer term impact because hard times are likely ahead and I suspect in the US at least, the government is going to try and pass the burden on the poor and middle classes when really they should be going after the rich elites and big corporations in getting them to pay their fair share of taxes, something I suspect many European countries will likely do after this.
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With Biden coming into power in the US, this could be the perfect time for both the EU and US to work together on some kind of common ground and rules over these big companies. In any case, the bigger these companies get and the more hands they have in more pies, the more governments are going to go after them to bring them down a few pegs which if these companies don't wisen up, it could end up braking many of them up as well. In any case, this was easy to see coming as these companies kept getting bigger and being in so many pies, governments around the world was bound to go after them and this is likely just the start of it. The EU has been the one pushing hard on this but now it's looking like the US and others are starting to wake up on this, now it's looking like real change could happen to get these big companies to change their ways but really, the US should be sorting out it's own companies and it's sad that other powers around the world have to step in because of inaction or weak action from the US.
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The cost of the war for Russia is so high that they've more or less already lost the war, whichever way it turns out and the last thing Russia can afford is a long-drawn-out war that drains its resources, which I suspect some in the west, especially the US wants as a long-drawn-out war will weaken Russia politically and economically whiles keeping them busy and the problem for Putin, he's not really got any easy way to back down without looking weak to his own people, which could become a major threat to his power, so Putin will do what dictators do best by ruining the country, without any care what it does to the Russian people, it's remarkable how history keeps repeating its self.
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@grimreaper8220 So much so that Farage actually got elected into the parliament, the irony in someone screaming unelected, not democracies only for him to get elected to the European Parliament. At the end of the day, repeat a lie enough time and enough people will buy into it, especially the ignorant ones which there are a lot of them, which is why when someone smart argues a case against an Eurosceptic, the Eurosceptics argument falls flat on the ground that they start to look like a radical loon, we saw a lot of that in the UK on Brexit that reality had no impact on facts lol.
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I wouldn't say none but it's easy to get burnt out with all this news, I mean, we keep hearing about radical new battery tech almost on a weekly basis, but it means very little until some of these ideas start to make it to market and at an affordable price point to make a difference. Personally, I get the impression that most of these projects are either fake or a very slim chance of working, but they hype it up to get investment. Now, the only ones that interest me are the ones that say they are bringing it to market within 3 years and can do so at an affordable price point, the rest of them, might as well not exist because in all reality, the majority will probably not make it to market to make a difference. So basically, ignore the ones that say they have a lot of problems to solve, ignore the ones that say it's still many years away, and ignore the ones that don't give any indication on release date and pricing, because a lot of those will probably not make it to market and they are fishing for investments.
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It wouldn't surprise me if the end of capitalism comes about somewhere this century with how we are advancing. Think about it, over the next 80 years, it's very likely that we're going to have robotics and automation that can do more or less any job better than humans can do and for a lot less money, energy is likely going to be far less of an issue, there is already a lot of it around, we just do a poor job in using it but that can change quickly if there is a need and then we have natural resources, there are two ways to solve that problem, a lot more recycling and space mining. When you put it all together, you've got robotics, automation, A.I. and what not doing most if not all the labour, then it's not hard to imagine over the next 80 years or sooner than we'll have as much energy as we need and very cheap if not free energy, either by renewables or other tech like fusion, raw materials should be far less of an issue because we're likely going to do a lot more recycling, space mining as it gets cheaper and thanks to A.I. it's likely we're going to find it easier to switch products from using one material to another and work more or less as well. Put it all together, we're talking about a society that doesn't need humans for labour, energy is dirt cheap or free and we've got more natural resources than we likely could ever use. I can't see capitalism surviving that as the system is designed around getting people to work but businesses are not going to employ humans with us being so expensive and not as productive and worse yet, consumers will always gravitate towards cheaper goods, pushing humans out of the labour market as we won't be competitive any more. Is this a problem? Well it depends on who you ask and which country, I think it could become a major issue for countries like the US that is driven by capitalism with very little social support network in place, in contrast to the EU where there is a strong safety net with a lot more cooperation among the people, it could just be a matter of expanding on the social support that's already there, maybe with a universal basic allowance, this seems a lot more feasible in EU countries compared to the US. The real question is, what do humans do? Sure we could enjoy life but most humans need structure in their lives so having most not working doesn't sound like a good idea, maybe the solution could be education, or part-time education, so basically, our new job is constantly learning new things and I suspect that could be done as a part-time job. On another note, there is no reason why people couldn't continue to work if they want, on passion projects or hobbies, but in most jobs, I can't see a need for humans in the workforce when there will be better and cheaper alternatives to us. Anyway, what's really going to be interesting and this could happen over the next few decades is how governments around the world try to put people to work in meaningless jobs because robotics, automation and A.I. is taking over the majority of jobs, some will say it can't be done but let's be realistic, we're going to get to a point where robotics can do any job we can, cheaper, faster and better than we can, ask yourself a simple question, what incentive does a business have in employing a human when they can use robotics that are much faster, cheaper, doesn't want a wage, benefits and can work 24/7? The irony is, it's the greed of capitalism that is likely going to kill capitalism off in the long run because of wanting to make more profits, and cutting humans out of the workforce is a great way to do that. Anyway, the early signs of this will be when countries struggle to keep unemployment numbers down or more humans are being put into meaningless jobs or even education course, it's also going to be interesting to see how governments react to this because I suspect many will try to fight it, especially the US which capitalism is in grind into them whereas I think countries that have a strong system of social support will find it easier to make the transition and like anything in life, you can't fight progress, you can only slow it down, in any case, we're not going to change because we want too, we're going to change because our level of advancement will force us to change, question is, will it be a peaceful transition or a peaceful one? I suspect it depends on the country.
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@pebblepod30 True, I also do feel that the view a lot have on capitalism being the only solution is flawed, it might be the best we have now but I get the impression that a lot of people use that argument to not even try to see if there is a better way. The truth is, as good as capitalism is, it's also failing a lot of people, especially on the equality divide and that seems to be getting worse with each passing decade that I wonder when people are going to say enough is enough already, I mean seriously, how big should a corporation be allowed to get or an individual to enrich themselves before people say it's too much. Looking at the rich list today, I really do wonder how much more richer these kinds of people will be in 30, 50 years from now? Same with corporations, if things are not kept in check, some corporations over the next 50 years could get so big to be a threat to governments and we're already seeing early signs of that threat with all the lobbying they do to get their way with governments whiles usually throwing the rest of the people some crumbs to shut them up and I've got to say, in this day and age with the level of information we have access too, it's remarkable how bad of a deal people are willing to accept, especially in modern countries.
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That's the thing, replacing the leader of the party isn't enough, the entire party has got rotten to the core thanks to Brexit and they need to do some real soul-searching. Personally, I think the Tories needs to get rid of the loons they let in thanks to Brexit, basically the ERG group, changing the leadership is just changing a coat of paint on a pig that is rotten to the core and as Brexit has got rid of 3 leaders over the last few years, what makes people think the Tories are going to be any different with another leader without major changes to the party it's self.
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Yeah, I do have a feeling that the American people are not going to stand up enough to impeach Trump, meaning he serves a full term, which won't be favourable to the US, the UK at least had the common sense to get rid of the lunatic in Truss, but I don't think we'll see the same happening in the US, which is bad news for the US, because the longer Trump is in, the more countries are going to shift away from the US, the damage to the US is already likely long term, Trump staying in power for a full term is likely going to extend and make that damage far worse for the US. The irony is, for the EU and China, Trump serving a full term is likely to benefit the two other powers as trade flees the US, it's likely the EU, China and others that will benefit from that.
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Stands to reason, external threats are usually a good way to unite people, the threat of Trump from the west, Putin from the east and a rising China are doing a lot of favours for the EU, the ones against the EU, the Eurosceptics don't actually have a credible alternative for protecting European interest, in fact, half the time, you get a sense that Eurosceptics seem more interest in protecting Trump and Putin's interest rather than European interest. In any case, if the Eurosceptics can come up with a credible alternative to protect European interest, then I'm all ears, because the individual EU members stand no chance against the likes of the US or China, it's only the collective, working together that allows them to stand up to them, yet Eurosceptics want to hurt European interest, in a sense, their own interest in not looking at the bigger picture by being short-sighted and narrow-minded.
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How about creating closer ties with the EU and not trying to pick a fight with them all the time. The help being delivered to Ukraine is the right thing to do but picking a fight with the EU when we can least afford it is just stupid.
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@Sheridan Isashitstain And what's that got to do with the price of eggs? lol.
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@andymcrae4661 It's all about carrying a favour with others, China is doing the same thing with many European countries, it's quite normal and easy to see. Still even with all that, if more countries can work together, I think that can only be a good thing.
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I think EU membership is likely to happen sooner than it would have done before Russia invaded Ukraine and the reason for that, Russia invading the country has turned it upside down, once the dust settles, there are going to be some big changes, politically and economically and it's very likely once Ukraine kick Russia out, it's going to be much easier for them to push the political and economic reforms needed to join the EU a lot sooner than it would have done, after all, Russia has scared them and it would be brave of any politicians in Ukraine to go against any of the reforms needed to join the EU, as long as it's reasonable reforms and because of that, it's very likely that they will be able to get the reforms needed a lot sooner than they would normally be able to do and considering the popular support the EU has among the people of Ukraine, I think reforms will happen a lot quicker than they could before the war, but this can only start once Ukraine kicks Russia out. There is another aspect to all this and that's the EU, at the moment, the EU isn't ready to allow any country in the EU until it sorts out Hungary and Poland as well as do reforms to the union, in other words, treaty change is needed before any new country can join, specifically on vetoes and majority voting rules, I think they need to go to QMV in a lot more areas, otherwise it would be a lot more gridlock as more countries join it. The good news is, there is a lot of time to get all this done, joining the EU is no fast process so the EU has time to reform, but I think they have to do it over the next 5 year, but whiles all this is going on, there is no reason why the EU and Ukraine can't build a closer relationship, which would get them more ready for membership and optimistically, they could join in a decade, but there are too many factors involved on both sides that need to be resolved before they can join. Ultimately, how quickly Ukraine can join the EU is really up to Ukraine themselves, how quickly they do the reforms needed to join in the key areas that are needed for EU membership, we've seen with other countries that joined the EU, countries that drag their feet on reforms take a long time to join whereas other countries that get things moving can join in a much quicker time frame and I think because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, once the dust settles, I suspect it's going to be easier to get the reforms needed to join the EU, support from the public will likely be high, operation to the reforms will likely be low considering the threat of Russia, all of this can speed up the process of reforms a lot quicker than it normally would have happened.
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Yep, he should have said renewable, which I think is around 60%
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So basically, what you are saying is that Australia shouldn't help Ukraine because of actions of the EU from the past? Can't you see the flaw with your argument? Regardless of what actions the EU have done with Australia is irrelevant on a country like Ukraine that is being invaded, and sometimes you just have to do the right thing because if nobody does, well we've seen through history how quickly things that flair up into something major if the foot isn't firmly put down to prevent it. Besides, the EU and its members have put a lot of resources into Ukraine, far more than even the US have done, where the EU could be doing better on is on the military front, where the US is doing better on that when it comes to Ukraine.
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They could but it's highly unlikely, regardless of if it's a country or terrorist organisation that attacks a NATO country, the result would be the same, in that, an attack on one, is an attack on all. It would be highly risky for any country or organisation to do such a thing, and it would more or less force other NATO countries to intervene, if NATO is to stay relevant. This is also the case on EU members, an attack on one would put a lot of pressure on the EU and other members to intervene, probably a lot more than it would on NATO members, because unlike NATO, EU members are far more integrated into each other, so an attack on one would have a ripple effect on the others, whereas NATO, it's a loose alliance, that we only have the word of other members that they would come to the aid of others, they likely would, otherwise the value of NATO would drop fast, but with EU members, self-interest would likely intervene, so it's probably more risky for other countries or organisations to attack an EU member then it is to attack a NATO member, based on the integration of the members in either organisations and each other, which clearly, EU members are far more integrated than NATO members are with each other, that matters a lot when it comes to security guarantees and probably why Ukraine's seems far more interested in joining the EU over NATO, it offers the security guarantees whiles also developing the economy.
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I suspect rose tinted glasses and I suspect a sizeable chunk of the ones buying vinyls now are clinging onto the good old days so are likely of the older generation of people. So even thought Vinyl is rising now, it wont rise by much as things have moved on and I suspect most of the younger generation of people really don't care, I'm sure some do but nowhere near enough to have a real impact. This happens with so many things throughout history, humans like to cling onto things from the past but in the end, those things fade with time as newer generations of people are born and don't have any attachment to the old days. I'm sure the same thing will happen with petrol cars once electric and driverless cars take over, expect to see many people that are attached to the good old days of driving a car whiles polluting everywhere lol, this happened before cars ware invented and horse and cart ruled, it's nothing new, we've seen it happen countless times and it's the same for Vinyl. So yes, even thought Vinyl is rising now, it wont go up too much as most of them are die hard fans clinging onto the past and as time goes buy, the old guard dies and the new gen of people rise that have no attachment to the old, Vinyl will never gain anything like it's glory days and nor should it, it had it's time, time to bury it as part of history and not try to live in the past.
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@jameskoralewski296 So in the case of some of the younger people, they just want to try something different, that fine but it's not fine when they come up with deluded arguments in trying to make it seem like Vinyls are better then digital when it's not the case and so far from what I've seen, at least on youtube anyway, it seems the older gen of people that are more interested in Vinyls then younger one and the sob stories of clinging to the pass always comes out.
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@marcinpietraszko2997 They could try but imagine if they did that, what do you think would happen? Remember that the EU is a rich economy, if they mobilize that economy, it wouldn't be good for either the US or EU and we saw how quickly the US could mobilize on the second world war, it's all about the economy, there is very little to nothing the US can do to the EU without them hitting the US hard in return, in fact we see that with trade wars, the US always seems to lose on that one. In truth, there is no reason for it to come to that because like it or not, the EU and US are going to need each other a lot more in the coming decades as powers shift from west to east and that basically means laws, regulations and rules around the world shift in that direction, for now most of them are made by the EU and US, that can change quickly if the west isn't careful. In any case, as far as China is in concern, Trump played a blinder which helped China's interest which is ironic as he was trying to hurt their interest.
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@MaelPlaguecrow6942 Actually you're right but it exist to counter the balance of power in the world and not because of security reasons, basically, the EU was formed so Europeans could compete better with the US by pooling resources together and it's worked quite effectively.
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@MaelPlaguecrow6942 Yes and no, unlikely the US and India which are a bit too hostile and are only making the situation worse, the EU knows how to play the long game with China which basically means you have to work with them whiles trying to get them to change from the inside out, in other words, keep the people onside, all the US is doing is playing right into the hands of the government of China by rallying the people back home against the US, that's gives the government of China a lot more power. Like I said in another post, Trump played a blinder in giving China far more power over the last 4 years and the sad thing is, he doesn't even realize it lol.
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Here is the real problem, if parliement votes for May's deal now, it will look really bad on parliement from the public as it looks like they ware forced into voting that way which isn't how democracy is suppose to work. Parliement or May needs to make a stand against the ERG and hardcore Brexiteers, otherwise they will try and extend this power on things that have nothing to do with Brexit, they are playing with fire and it's not going to end well for them if they are not careful. In the end, I stand by what I said about a year ago, they are going to just go around in circles, getting nowhere fast and not being able to decide on anything that it's going to lead to another public vote with the likely questions being remain in the EU or accept May's deal and thats hoW I suspect this will go as hard Brexit is very unlikely to happen even with everything thats going on. Heck, if they want too, they can even let the Brexiteers decide on what the question for leaving should be as it's clear that the remain side would choose to remain in the EU, either way, this mess needs to end and it's clear our goverment can't seem to do it's job and it's also clear that there is enough demand from the public for another vote on Brexit. Also, what makes all this so funny is that it didn't need to end this way, May's biggest mistake was getting too close to the ERG and creating too many red lines which in the end backed her into a corner, the remain side didn't do enough to take advantage of that over the last two years but it looks like they might be doing now, the EU for it's part didn't really have to do much apart from not give the Brexiteers what they really wanted which was cake and now that the EU is pushing us to make a decision on this, it's very likely that the moderates will turn on the Brexiteers, more so as it seems like support for remain is growing fast around the country.
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They say there was no problem with the economy before the virus hit but that's fault, there were many indicators that the economy was in trouble before this kicked off and it's estimated that the stock market was already around 30% to 40% overvalued before this virus hit with a bubble ready to pop, this virus is just making it worse so yes we are on the way to a recession and there is a fair chance it could lead to depression, we really can't compare this to anything in history because we've never shut down the economy on such a scale like we have done now and we really don't know how long this will last, in any case, this virus is the trigger to a recession that was likely going to happen even without the virus just a little later on so no, the economy is in bad shape, much worse than some think because interest rates were pretty low to begin with in that we didn't fully recover from the last recession. I do know one thing, it's unlikely things will return to normal once the dust settles as this is a major shock to the system and a big wake up call for the people the world over, so the real question is, how deep is this recession going to hit and how long, that's something that is very difficult to answer and I won't even entertain trying as we have nothing in our history to compare this too. It's also funny watching the stock market go up even thought most businesses are shut down, that's something the tax payers have to look forward too when it comes to footing the bill to keep the corporations and rich elites afloat whiles the public gets a few crumbs from the government and those in government don't see how that could be a major problem going forward lol. I should also point out that this virus is exposing a major flow in a lot of our thinking in that most people live pay check to pay check with little to no savings and a lot of businesses do the same so when things slow down or come to a stop, they are in real trouble, it's crazy that people and businesses don't put some cash away for a rainy day and just assume things will keep ticking along and worse yet is that they expect the tax payers to bail them out.
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The tech shows promise but it's not really practical to use in most applications and mainly because of the life span and efficiency, if they triple the efficiency and bump up the life span to at least 5 years whiles also being quite cheap to buy compared to other solar panel, the tech could work but for now, I think it's best to stick to traditional panels. Still there could be some applications where it could work already, devices that use very little energy, maybe even things like smartphones, smartwatches and the likes to either top it up so the battery last longer or it could be enough to keep it charged in most cases, after all, if it's really cheap to make and can be used in a practical way, then why not. I think the real question is, how much better can the tech improve over the next decade or so because we should remember, other renewable energy are getting better and cheaper all the time.
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Considering Boris and the Tories didn't want to go into lock down in the first place with all the hurd immunity talk and how they've put so much effort on trying to open up the economy, I'll be surprised if he didn't say something like that behind closed doors as the Tories rarely show that they care about the well-being of the British people, it's all about the economy and bribes with them. The irony is, the way Boris is acting, he doesn't care what we think because of the majority the government has, in other words, unless there is real pressure on him on the government, nothing is going to change and he and many in the Tory party are going to keep doing these things and all because they don't have to listen to the public or other parties until the next election. The Brexiteers did a blinder in giving him a clear majority because now he and the Tories don't care what the people think, including the Brexiteers until the next elections which then they'll start kissing our arses like always on election times.
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@johncockcroft5236 But we was always in the EU at the time, that kept the glue together, now with one side being in the EU and the other not in the EU, that's where the major problem is and it's almost impossible to fix because the EU won't have an open border that allows the UK to smuggle goods into the EU by the backdoor of Northern Ireland. There are only two solution that I think will work, either Northern Ireland leaves the UK and become part of the EU or the UK becomes part of the EU single market and custom union. The rest is just trying to square a circle which doesn't look possible and sooner or later after banging their heads against a wall, that realization will dawn on them but in the meantime, Northern Ireland is being pulled away from the UK towards the Republic of Ireland and by extension, the EU, that in time is going to make it easier for Northern Ireland to leave the UK as more trade will be with the EU and if they do it and make a success of it, Scotland will likely follow.
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A lot of these sounds like her views on what she thought America was like and not what Europeans actually believe Americans are like, most of what she said are not my views of Americans as a European and I suspect each person's views are different from one enough. I was hoping we were going to get some kind of stereotype kind of views that many Europeans have of Americans but what we got his her personal views on what she thought America is like, a lot of which is to me not the views most Europeans have of the US.
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Longer terms yes but considering it's going to take a while before Ukraine gets into the EU and even then, boarders don't open for many years after that until the economic situation is better in Ukraine to not have any major negative impacts on the other members. Either way, thats not going to happen for quite some time.
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Coalitions work, but the more that are in them, the more complicated it gets and the less likely it will work. Grand coalitions have too many players involved with different views that can sometimes work, at least for a time, but in most cases, they usually fall apart on tough policy areas, especially if the parties in the coalition swing from the far to centre left to far to centre right of politics and basically is just asking for trouble down the line.
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Would you really want to get close to a country like Russia with the games and aggression Russia is showing other nations? It wouldn't make much sense to get close to a country like that when they could use those countries for their own ends, in other words, the closer you get to a country like Russia in buying it's natural resources, the more they can take advantage of you, it would be crazy now with everything that's going on in Ukraine to want to get too close to Russia unless they want to be a target themselves. I can understand why China and India are doing what they are doing with buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, they are taking advantage of Russia's weakness in the world but even then, I highly doubt China or India will want it's percentage of oil and gas from Russia to be too high or they could become the next target, also there is the risk of tariffs on China and India from the west if they are not careful as I highly doubt the west is doing all this only for China and India to prop up the Russian economy. The moment Putin used natural resources as a political weapon, he did a lot of damage to Russia long term and even thought Russia might be profiting on it for now, good luck with that longer term as it's likely going to do more damage to Russia. The moral of the story, never try to screw over your customers, especially rich ones because they will look elseware and that's what Russia was did and are likely to pay a high price for that longer term. The irony is, for EU countries, this is a blessing, a bit of short term pain but now there is a lot of public pressure to get some real changes done and that is all that is needed to get the political will to do real change that it wouldn't surprise me if we advance in renewable energy over the next decade more than we have over many decades, in that sense, Putin is helping to kill off the fossil industry sooner rather than later, that's worth trillions to fossil producing nations, so Russia benefits short term but they are paying a much higher price long term. Still, keep doing what you are doing Russia, you're quickly losing friends whiles falling into the trap of what the west wants, we are already seeing more countries want to join the EU and NATO with others wanting closer relations to the west, it's becoming a disaster for Russia and it's only just started as sanctions usually take about 2 to 3 years to really bite, which by then, a lot of European countries will have reduced or outright banned Russian oil and gas.
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On the one hand, we are progressing technologically, which should make our lives better and easier, on the other, social policies seem to be going backwards. The quality of life at our level of advancement should be much higher than it is and a big reason why it's not is because too much wealth is concentrated in too few hands, especially in the US where it's made worse with a weak social system compared to other developed countries. But truthfully, if we really want to blame anyone, there are 3 groups that are really to blame for this, governments, the media and most importantly, the people. Governments because they are not doing the will of the people, the media because they manipulate the news when they should be reporting it, mainly to protect the rich and powerful, something much of the media and governments do and then the people, the ones with the real power to do real change but are too divided and weak to take advantage of that, in other words, the real blame is on the people, governments, the media and all that are just a reflection of the people and if we want that to change then we need to change.
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The free market only works to a degree and for it to work well, it needs a mix of government and free market and in the case of the US, it's tilted too far in favour of the free market and Americans are paying the price for that. Then take a look at EU countries and they are a lot more balanced on this but even then I think the free market needs more regulating, after all, all the free market is doing is pushing too much wealth into very few hands, especially in the US and that isn't healthy for an economy or it's people. Basically, there needs to be a big push back on what big corporations can and can't do and sadly, I doubt that is going to happen in the US unless the people rise up and force the issue, now the EU countries look more promising, they were already getting tougher on corporations before this pandemic, now they are very likely to clamp down on many of the big ones that bend the rules to their needs, tax evaders and all that stuff. Also, I don't care what anyone says but no one should be allowed to have the kind of wealth that some of the richest people have, it's crazy that so many people don't see a problem with that when you have to ask yourself where that money came from, it was on the back of others that are being paid peanuts whiles they cream off all the profits, I find it remarkable that people allow this in this day and age with the information we have at hand and that is where the real problem is, the people, unless they change, don't expect any change in the system because it's working as intended for the rich elites.
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According to Mogg, it will be in 50 years time, you know, when we are all too old and will have forgot how bad things have got with Brexit lol. Basically, there is no comeback, he said 50 years because it's impossible to prove or disprove and by the time 50 years have gone, Brexit will be history that no one will care. But let's not forget, those Brexit clowns said leaving the EU would start a comeback right away, the truth is, the UK is in decline and some of the hardcore Brexiteers are making up excuses on why Brexit isn't working, the reality is, we were never going to be better off with Brexit, common sense shows why. Also, on the inflation numbers, the UK is at 4% the EU is at 2.8% and the Euro Zone is at 2.6% both the EU and Euro Zone are doing better overall compared to the UK on inflation.
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@joshb6026 Not yet but it's likely more investments in robotics, A.I. and automation is going to happen after the dust settles and at some point, it's going to be able to do pretty much every job we can do but faster and cheaper and if I was a business, what incentive would I have in giving people a job when I don't have too?
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@nimrodbong8173 The actual dynamics of the economy will have to change, think about it, over the next 50 to 100 years, we are likely going to have more clean energy than we know what to do with, in other words, free energy, throw in robotics that can do almost all the labour, that leaves us to natural resources but two things can solve that one, a lot more recycling and space mining. Throw all that together and for the most part, a big factor of the cost in making stuff has become free that money might matter far less but it's not as clear cut as that because we only have so much land so some kind of system will have to be in place on that. My point is, it's unlikely the capitalist system will survive the onslaught of the robotic, A.I. and automation revolution that is on it's way because business won't employ humans if they don't have too so either we all become jobless and businesses can't survive without consumers buying their goods or the system is going to have to change in to a far more social system than we have now with a lot more benefits, likely a universal basic alliance. The actual focus of the human race could change from money being everything to betterment of the human race, so learning could be our real jobs in that future as there is always stuff to learn, many youngsters are likely to see this future in their lifetime, the alternative future is something like Blade Runner and I doubt any of us wants that.
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It wouldn't surprise if China makes a move to buy land from the east in Russia, after all, Russia could get very desperate for any aid money from any sources if the west continue to isolate Russia. As much as China doesn't like the west, I suspect they are more than happy to take advantage of Russia's weakness and are probably just buying their time.
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That seems to be the case almost everywhere, more wind and solar are being installed but consumers are not really benefitting on lower bills yet, and I feel to benefit on that, you have to do it yourself, put your own solar, wind or whatever up and you stand to save right away.
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I think we need every energy storage solution we can think of, even thought I think many of these will likely be short term niches until more localised better solution come along. Over the short term, a mix of on-site and big off-site renewable energy generating and storage is needed but long term, I'm hoping we'll find solutions to produce and store the energy at a more local level, and if we had an effective way of producing wind with solar in urban areas, that would go a long way in solving some of these problems being that solar and wind would complement each other really well and you usually get more wind when there's less sun, it would also go a long way in reducing how much energy storage you need if you can generate energy more consistently. So for now, I think we need every solution we can think off that works when it comes to energy generating and storage of that energy, but longer term, I think decentralising it and doing it more local will be best once the tech is advanced enough to do it as that would offer us far more control over the energy we produce and use and would reduce the price a lot by not needing a grid network which cost a fortune to maintain and reduces the benefits of lower bills to consumers, so off-grid is how I would prefer to see it as then you could more or less reduce your bills to almost zero, which will likely never happen with a grid style system with renewable energy because of corruption in the system and because of how costly it is to maintain the grid network.
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@Nimai_HiFi It still counts what he said, digital doesn't really degrade and as long as the storage medium is working fine. the audio will sound as good as if it was brand new, Vinyl with time degrades.
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It's funny isn't it, rules are set in place and then when Poland breaks them, some people support that lol. I wonder how many of those same people would support that if say Scotland or a US state was to break the rules of its own union. At the end of the day, Poland knew the rules when joining the EU, if they can't abide them, they should leave and any idiot Brexiteer, think of the message Poland sends out by braking the rules, what is to stop others like Scotland doing the same, after all, if Poland can get away with it, why not Scotland. Rules are there for a reason and it's clear that Poland is in the wrong but some that don't like the EU will defend Poland regardless of if they think they are right or wrong, the only thing that matters to those clowns is that it's against the EU. Personally, I think Hungary and Poland should be kicked out of the EU to make room for more deserving countries in the east that want to join. As for the UK, come on guys, enough with the desperation, Brexit has been a disaster and I know the Brexiteers know the only success to Brexit is if the EU falls apart, after all, after a strong union on your doorstep puts the UK in the shadows and makes them irrelevant, hence why Brexit isn't enough for the Brexiteers, they need the EU to fail so Brexit doesn't look as bad, it's getting really desperate of the Brexiteers now, but hey, just like on Brexit where they were seeing victory in areas that there were not, now they are seeing it with Poland. The truth is, Poland and Hungary have become more isolated in the EU, even among many of the eastern EU members, Poland got some good will back with everything that is going on in Ukraine but that will only go so far, the truth is, the other eastern members are integrating in the EU and wants to make it work, Poland and Hungary doesn't, that is basically isolating those two countries, a bit like how the UK got isolated in the EU and left because the UK couldn't get it's an own way and had a hissy fit and left.
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Not being funny but the British people are not powerless, they repeatedly keep putting the Tories into power, expecting difference results, it's not hard to see where the real blame goes and it's not on the government, after all, the government is a reflection of the people in a democracy, it's that person we see in the mirror where the real blame is and until they wake up, don't expect things to get better. You know what is really sad about all this? Labour are not much better, yeah they might look better on the surface than what the Tories look, but many of us know that if Labour got into power, not much would change for the better, we saw that in the 90's where Labour had to become more like the Tories just to get elected. The system of government we have is broken and needs major reforms, that is unlikely to happen under a Conservative or Labour government because the system is rigged in their favour, in other words, we do have choice on the surface but it's really limited choice and I think if the country really wants change, we're going to have to vote for any party beside the Conservative or Labour Party or a new party needs to rise up, either seems unlikely with how the UK system is designed and because of that, it could end up pushing Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales out of the UK union as they see no hope of real change with the way the system is and at least for them, they actually have that option, England is screwed regardless but honestly, I think it's deserved with how England has behaved over the years on many things.
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I wouldn't say the UK went into decline, but clearly mid-size powers like the UK were never going to compete with bigger powers like the US, China or the EU as population size and the economy usually go hand in hand as long as the country is modern. That gap with the UK and other small to medium size country will widen as the EU, US, China and India pull further ahead, but it's not decline in the sense of well-being of a country, but is of the power and influence of the country. In the case of the UK, they've shot themselves in the foot with Brexit, being in the EU give the UK a powerful voice in the EU and by extension, the world, when the UK was in the EU, it had influence in the EU, that influence give the UK influence around the world as it had a voice in decision-making of the EU, since Brexit, the UK lost that influence in Europe and by extension, became far less relevant around the world simply by not having a seat at the table in the EU and the decline on that has only just started for the UK. But regardless, small to medium size countries are never going to compete with the big players like the EU, US, China and over the long run, India, they have too big of an advantage with its population size which translates into economic and political power, so the gap is likely going to widen over the coming decades, in favour of the big powers and at the expense of the small to medium size countries, and in the case of Europe, countries have the option of being part of the EU and being one kog in the big wheel of decision-making, the alternative is mostly being a following and mirroring the rules the big players set, in the case of the UK, it mirrors EU rules in most areas out of self-interest, but with Brexit, has no say in making those rules. There are other issues, especially structural issues when it comes to the UK on rich and poor, inequality and the north, south divide, and these are issues that are not easy to fix and clearly, the Tories don't want to fix them and in fact, they seem to make it worse, as for Labour, I'm not optimistic in them fixing these issues, even thought they are in a strong position to try and do so thanks to the majority they won at the election, but just like when Tony Blair won a majority, nothing really changed to fix the balance in the country, which many Brits blamed on the EU when in fact, the issue is without own system in the UK needs big reforms, something Labour is in a position of power to do but I highly doubt they will as the system favours the two big parties at the expense of everyone else.
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I think an EU army makes a lot of sense, it would be far more effective compared to what we have today, it would be a lot more capable because there is a lot of waste and duplications by having 27 militaries, and it would be a lot more powerful, even at current spending, but spending is going up, so likely more so. The irony is, Russia and the US are the EU's biggest friend and they probably don't realise it, Putin sabre-rattling in the east, Trump and others in the US doing much of the same is the perfect storm to push European countries in the EU to create an EU military, which I highly doubt the US, Russia or China wants as that would be a major player on the world stage in military and forign policy matters. What Trump and many in the US wants, he wants EU countries to spend more on the military, but they also want them to stay divided as 28 militaries, they are after all, far easier to control and keep weak, it also allows the US to get these countries to do their bidding, an EU military, the US wouldn't be able to get them to do their bidding, it would also give countries around the world more options, especially the ones that don't like US policies, it would also likely harm the US arms industry, because EU arm's will be competing in that areas far more effectively then they are doing now. On the other side, the US would benefit from an EU military because it would lessen the burden on the US, but it will also weaken the US voice around the world. Ultimately, the ones that benefit the most are by far the EU and it's members, they'll have more security, a bigger voice, won't have to listen to the US, in fact the US voice in Europe would likely get smaller, the others to benefit are the countries around the world that pick sides, many back the US, not so much because they like the US, but because there isn't any other credible option, and China doesn't look that appealing to most countries, an EU military would look quite appealing to many countries around the world that want to distance themselves from the US, all of this would boost the power the EU and its members have whiles weakening the US, especially around the world, so I highly doubt the US wants an EU military, Trump in the west and Putin in the east could be the Trojan horse that helps to make it happen, which history in the future would look at that in an amusing way of how to shoot yourself in the foot, it kinda reminds me of Brexit all over again, and heck, I kinda hope Trump does get into power to focus minds in Europe to get things moving. As for the creation of an EU military, that's more complicated, but I think the best way to go about it is how they went about the Euro and Schengen treaties where countries joined overtime, that will make it far easier to get the ball rolling, other countries can join overtime as they see the project works, a bit like we saw with the Euro and Schengen zone, also, spending isn't an issue, just combining those forces together is over the long run going to make them far more effective and capable, even at current spending, after all, the biggest weakness is the duplication and having 27 militaries, not the spending, but regardless, spending is going up anyway, now all we need is the push to make it happen, support in most EU countries is going up for it, Trump could be the icing on the cake if he got elected. Also, let's be blunt about this, there's no reason why we can't have an EU military that isn't in NATO, after all, NATO doesn't need to go away, but at least the EU countries would have a far bigger voice in it compared to now, so this isn't about the EU military replacing NATO, it's about EU countries having a much bigger voice in the world, and besides, it's reckless of European countries to depend on NATO when the US is becoming more unpredictable.
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You're putting the blame in the wrong areas, the EU has limited powers in how it can help, most of it falls on the members themselves. If you want the EU to get more involved, it will need more powers, but for now, most issues are still with the members themselves, that's where the real blame goes. As for Ukraine joining the EU, let's be realistic, that isn't going to happen as long as Hungary and Poland are backsliding, the last thing the EU needs is more members to cause more trouble and what's really needed is reforms, especially on veto and majority voting in the EU, otherwise the EU is going to become more unworkable the more members that join.
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@@phillipbanes5484 He right thought, heat pumps are taking off in a big way in Europe to reduce the need of gas, many of the smaller northern countries are already in a good position when it comes to heat pumps already.
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True, that pulls the overall EU GDP per capita down but it's an accurate way to measure standards of living. In fact, GDP per capita isn't a good way to measure standards of living, according to that, Americans have a higher standard of living but in reality, Europeans in the EU tend to have a higher quality of living than Americans and many studies online rate European countries as having some of the highest standard of living in the world with only Australia and Canada from outside of Europe doing so well. In fact, I'll go a step further and would say the US is slipping behind other modern countries when it comes to quality of living over the last 2 decades.
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You have to wonder how much Nvidia is paying that guy lol, in any case, time to unsubcribe, if I wanted to listen to a mouthpiece of Nvidia, I would go directlly to them.
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The real problem is that the Russian people have the mindset that if it doesn't impact me, then it's not my problem, but the problem is that they end up supporting that problem by not standing up to their own government. In other words, as long as the Russian people were not directly impacted by the war, they were quite happy to stand ideally by and let the war happen. Ukraine directly invading Russian soil is a bit of a wake-up call for some Russians, but this is still small scale and you do wonder if this needs to happen a lot more to wake people up, being that people seem to only care when it directly impacts them.
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Which I think needs to happen as that might be the only way the public will learn with it's voting pattern and think before getting reckless with how they vote and the irony with Brexit is that it's likely going to hurt the ones that voted for it the most which does put a smile on my face ;-)
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Those numbers seem about right for the UK in percentage terms, it's hard work to find anyone without an internet connection or mobile phone then without lol. The US started out fast out of the gate but I am surprised by the percentage at the end, it seems quite low until near the very end. Naturally, China is kicking arse as always by not starting out of the gate and then becoming Mr Bolt near the end lol.
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GDP numbers seem to fluctuate quite a bit because of currency value that changes, at least for none US countries. Honestly, I wouldn't put much stock in GDP numbers, they don't really tell us much when it comes to well-being or wealth of a country.
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@mesolithicman164 Mesolithic Man, translation, you can't argue with what being said so you don't even try and come up with excuses to not try. This is a tried and tested method that Brexiteers do, if they can't argue on something, they either ignore it or start ranting and raving about nothing, they rarely try to set me right with facts on Brexit. We're still to hear of the real benefits of Brexit, most of the lies on Brexit have been exposed since the vote, those lies ware used because they knew it would win a lot of votes but the Brexiteers are not delivering on what they promised the British people, that is why Brexit hasn't happened yet and likely wont happen this year. If Brexiteers actually delivered on what they promised us, heck even I would get behind that but it was all a fantasy of lies that we knew the EU would never give us that. Brexiteers more or less promised to the British people that we would have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the bad stuff, cake and eat it and all, that was never going to happen and that is why Brexit is being held up and might not even happen. Brexiteers see what they want to see, they don't want to see reality and the reality is that the EU have us by the balls and even Boris knows that hence why he's already deflecting blame on the EU, he's exposed his weak hand so early on which re-enforces that the EU wont give the UK what it wants because they don't have too. As for democracy, overriding parliament and the people is hardly democracy, what you are advocating is mob rule, you are quite happy to by-pass democracy because many in that are saying things you don't want to hear and here is the funny thing, say if Brexit does get forced on us without parliament and the public having a say, do you realise how bad that can go for UK democracy after Brexit? people like you are very short sighted, your hate for the EU is blinding you to what is happening right under our nose with UK democracy and that could stay with us well after Brexit but no doubt Brexiteers will blame everyone else but themselves for the mess we get in, never anyone else's fault is it? lol. One last thing, rumours are going around that the EU will keep the door open even after Brexit for us to re-enter the EU as we are now, it also seems like parliament have the power to do that as well and it wouldn't take much for the EU to do that, the idea being, if Boris does force us out before the parliament and people get a say, the EU could leave the door open so when parliament and the people do get a chance, they can decide, not a king as you put it like Boris, very entertaining news isn't it? ;-) in other words, leaving later this year might not mean anything, what will really matter is what the public and parliament says, you know the ones Brexiteers are desperate to avoid lol.
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@lawrencebrown3677 The real eye opener is when you look at the UK system which isn't as democratic as some like to think and if you look at both the EU and UK system, I'll probably say the EU system is more fairer then the UK system which is designed to keep the two main parties in power and isn't even balanced with votes on all regions. As for the EU, the unelected Commission are more like cavil servants in the UK and in the case of the EU, they don't so much make law but prepose them and those laws have to go through the European Parliament to become law and as we know, that is directly elected by the people. As for the Nazi connection, I would imaging that many have connections to them as they ware a big power in the past and even many in the US had connections to them and it doesn't really matter today. The balancing act of power in the EU and it's members is always changing and for the most part, it has to change as the world is changing, in other words, it makes sense to give some powers to the EU in some areas so that we Europeans can compete better on the world stage both politically and economically, otherwise we would get sidelined by the US and China and it would be harder to protect European standards, something the UK could find out very soon as the US wants to weaker UK standards in many areas. As for the EU economy, if you was to listen to the Brexiteers and the Americans, you would think the economy have been tanking for decades and yet us Europeans still have one of the highest standards of living in the world so go figure, the truth is, there is a lot more to the economy then raw gdp figure which tend to be manipulated in many ways, more so from the UK and the US, you only have to look at how they calculated unemployment numbers to see that. At the end of the day, Brexiteers promised us the earth on the vote, the way they made it seem was that the UK could have all the best bits of EU membership without any of the negatives but that was a lie, they even said we would have a Norway like deal, again, another lie and for good reason, if they said before the vote we was going for hard Brexit, the British people likely would have voted to remain in the EU so now Brexiteers keep changing their stories and making it seem that what the British people voted for over 3 years ago. In truth, we don't know what the British people want now and the Brexiteers want to make sure the British people don't get another say on this because they don't beleave in democracy when it counts and god forbid if the British people do get another vote and vote to remain, Brexiteers that have been public and pushing Brexit the hardest will look like traitors to the country. In any case, the EU doesn't seem to be bending and that is a big worry for Boris as he needs something from them, he knows he can't afford to go the hard Brexit route and probably secretly hopes the remain side blocks that as that is the only like chance he will get to keep his job, after all, he only got that job because of the ERG and can be removed just as easy, so he has to be seen to be delivering on what the Brexiteers want, if that gets block, the ERG can't blame him as he tried but he might keep hold of his job, he's playing a balancing act in trying to hold onto his job and trying to get the EU to give better terms, either way, he looks like he can't win as a big wall is building to block hard Brexit and the most Boris tries to force hard Brexit, the bigger that wall will likely get. Also, the remarkable thing about Brexiteers is how they are so careless about UK democracy, they hate the EU so much that they are willing to undermine UK democracy over it and that is dangerous, it's that kind of thinking that led to Hitler getting into power in the first place and a democracy becoming a dictatorship, in other words, the real threat to the UK is the Brexiteers at the moment not the EU and many people are starting to realise that over the last week or so.
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Paul Badger Could you imaging going to the bank and saying I don't give a shift, I'm not paying my loan off? see what happens lol. It isn't up for debate, the UK has to pay off that money to the EU as it's EU and international law, if the UK doesn't pay directly, the EU would have the power to get that money from us by other means like tariffs. The only thing that could change is lowering how much we pay but that is up to the EU but we're paying something which ever Brexit we get but I would love to see the UK try and not pay it at a time when we are going to need a lot of good will internationally, the last thing the UK wants is to not be trusted on the world stage.
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Paul Badger We always traded with others, even before we joined the EEC but the fact is, we trade far more with them and that isn't going to change because it makes a lot more economic sense to trade with nearby countries, hence why most countries that are well off do just that. This is also why even out of the EU, we are very likely going to have to adopts most EU laws, rules and regulations just to have effective trade with them, just we wont have any say over that with Brexit so yes, the UK does become a vassal state in that sense. It gets worse, the EU and US will be playing ping pong with the UK with the UK being the ball, both know that after Brexit we will be very weak, the US have shown lots of signs they want to take advantage of the UK, if the UK isn't careful, we could get skinned alive in economic terms by both the US and EU because the US will always want better trade terms with thE EU then the UK because they think in terms of money and that so called special relationship isn't really seen from the US side, it's mostly a UK thing to try and seem more important on the world stage. This isn't about growing some balls and standing up, this is about looking at common sense, so far Brexiteers can't really come up with a solid plan on how Brexit will be better for the UK which was the promised they said Brexit was all about, Brexit was never about hard Brexit and if it was, the Brexit camp would of said so before the vote but what they did say is that we would get a Norway like deal, that we would have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost, that the EU would bend to our will, none of that happened. What really should worry the Brexiteers, they had to lie so much to win the first vote that a second vote, the people are not likely going to fall for the same lies again, the way Brexit is going, the hard liners are just pushing government and parliament into having another public vote and letting the people decide and trust me, Brexiteers do not want that as that will very likely keep the UK in the EU. The irony being, the Brexiteers would of had a better chance of winning Brexit if they went for a more moderate deal like what May tried, this hard line approach is just forcing a brick wall on the other side to block it and we'll just go around in circles until the government and parliament have enough and say only the public can decide on this, I think it's too late for the Brexiteers, hence they know as they are trying to bring May's deal back on the table but that wont wash now.
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I feel Europe has the right approach on this, they might not look as flashy, but it's a simply, clean layout, big numbers and letters and more or less universally standardised. I suspect for law enforcement, it's easier to catch a number plate in Europe compared to America, being that there's no set designs and it looks like the plats can be as flashy as people once, so it can look more fun but it must be a nightmare for law enforcement. As for digital plates, that sounds like a bad idea for a number of reasons, I mean, imagine you're a criminal, you're in a cop chase, you find a spot where you can hide from the cops for a moment and say you can change the number plate at the switch of a button in the car, you could be in plain sight of the cops and get away with it just based on the number plate being different and there are so many ways it could get abused, especially with professional criminals. Also, in Europe, number plates are on the front and back, whereas I think you only need one on the back in the US, which again would make life a bit harder for law enforcement, being on both sides gives you a better chance of catching the number plate.
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@punished4890 In a time when that was allowed, yes but in today's day and age, we wouldn't want world war 3 as the damage would be immense with the tech we have today, basically, none of us really win.
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@topbanana.2627 In what way? do enlighten us lol.
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@punished4890 Depends but really only time and the people in those countries changing will reduce corruption. In the end, these countries are new to democracy and it will take them time to adapt to that, heck even western countries are still doing a poor job on that lol.
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@danielmakondo4981 I hope he's not, the west could do with a wake-up call but it won't end well for Russia as the economy is what really matters now and the western countries have a far bigger economy then Russia has, if Russia pushes it's luck, it wouldn't take much for western countries to use that economy and shift manufacturing of goods to arms but it's unlikely will get to that stage as Russia will likely back down before it gets out of hand, after all, the west can't afford to let Russia invade Ukraine because if they allow that, Russia will get bold and take on other weaker countries in the region, in other words, the west would be forced to react and act tough with Russia if Russia pushes it's luck.
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The only one is crying is Putin, not seeing any crying from the EU or it's members for that matter.
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The thing is, the UK is winning by big margins and when the US wins, it's a much smaller margin that technically it's a win for the US but only just. There was another video on YouTube showing the difference from Aldi US vs UK and the results were pretty much the same as these, Aldi, being a discount store in both the UK and US and sells a lot of the same items, so it gives a good indicator of the differences. What's weird about all this, in the UK, many seems to think everything is more expensive than other countries and especially compared to the US, but in many cases, that isn't true. We should also remember that companies will charge whatever they feel they can get away with in any given market and this is a big factor because if in the UK for instance, companies feel they can only charge such a price whereas in the US they can add 50% or more on the price, companies will do that, a lot of it is about supple and demand and what the market is willing to bear, clearly Americans are willing to pay more for their grocery than Brits are. I think it probably helps that in the UK and a lot of mainland Europe, there is a lot of competition for our money when it comes to grocery shopping, with a lot of big shops, discount stores and local shops competing for our business, that is probably the big reason why the cost is lower. What is really crazy about all this is that the quality of the goods in most cases is better in the UK compared to the US because of higher food standard laws.
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I'm sure they will at some point, but over the last decade, they've had so much on their plate, and EU powers are limited in some areas, especially on forign policy matters, which is what's needed to resolve the situation with Turkey.
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@anita.b I'm well aware of those treaties, but clearly they don't work, if they did, we wouldn't be getting all this mess of individual countries pulling in all directions, contradicting what you wanted us to think. Beside, you really should read what I said above before posting, because clearly you didn't understand what was being said.
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There's a reason why so many eastern European countries want to join the EU, they know that is a safe haven from the likes of Russia, after all, it would be a bold move for any country to attack an EU country with how integrated they are and honestly, it would be safer to attack a NATO country then a EU one because NATO is an organization that has little in the way of integration among it's members whereas the EU members have a lot, that counts for a lot when it comes to responding to an attack.
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@williamdavis9562 There are many reasons why many want to join the EU, security, stability, wealth and countless other benefits. Just look at Poland and Hungary, imagine if they were not an EU member, how quickly they could slip into being a puppet of Putin and become an authoritarian government just like what Russia have now, them being inside the EU puts a lot more pressure for them to get back on track with democracy, Putin ironically has really helped with his actions in Ukraine. Basically, joining the EU offers a much faster track in becoming a modern country whiles also offering the stability and security to invest in those countries, hence why EU membership is far more important to them than NATO membership is.
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I suspect Russia will be much poorer as it becomes more isolated and the country becomes less trusted on how it uses it's natural resources. I also think as Russia becomes weaker, China might make a play to have more influence over Russia because Russia being more isolated around the world puts Russia in a weak position, something China could take advantage off. As for the rest, I suspect more countries will join the EU and NATO over the long run as Putin did a master-stroke here by scaring a lot of countries closer to the west, the last thing he wanted to do and the biggest winner of that is likely going to be the EU as it absorbs those countries in the union, but overall, it's making the west stronger, starting with the EU, NATO and the west at large, especially in the context of democracies and authoritarian governments.
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Biggie 2pac I suspect a lot of countries are under-reporting and playing on the numbers but some are likely really going to town in reporting far lower numbers than what is happening in the countries and I think some real investigations in all countries are needed to get a clear idea on that.
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@proclash2505 I think the true numbers will come out in time before all countries are likely going to be looked at very close from all over the world to see if the numbers make sense. The question will be is how much higher the numbers will be, is it just a bit or a lot, I suspect it depends on the country but we are going to likely see which countries are more honest with it's own people and the world in the next few years.
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@proclash2505 Maybe but I suspect all are under-reporting the numbers, some because the numbers don't look good and some because the medical test kits are just not there to get an accurate number, especially in the developing countries which the numbers are likely much higher than is being said.
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@BulletproofDawg Even 50k would be hard to hide now because I suspect all countries are going to be looked into on this at a much closer level to see if the numbers make sense, I think we'll get a clearer picture on this about 2 or 3 years from now once the dust settles.
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@YSLRD I don't think it's the right time for the US to open by at least a few weeks if not a month and half and for a few reasons, the curve is still on the up no matter what Trump wants us to think, then different US states are at different stages on this virus, opening things up too soon would likely do a lot more harm than good, also I highly doubt states and the public are going to listen to Trump on when to open up and will open up when they feel it's safe, the problem is, many will open up and that's where the virus will likely spread, extending the economic damage to the country, it's a risky move to open up too soon and could be really costly if done the wrong way. In any case, I highly doubt things are going to return back to normal in a few months like some like to think, for one, the economic damage of this will be felt long and hard and two, even if we open up, people are going to be scared, the virus is likely going to be with us for the next 2, maybe 3 years so there is always a chance of catching it once out and about, I also suspect spending on consumer goods will drop because this has been a shock to the system and people will likely want to save for a rainy day, especially when the jobs market doesn't look too good at the moment, so the economic recovery is likely going to be slow and painful for a lot of us.
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The fall of soft power in the US can make hard power a lot more expensive, especially over the long run. As for why the US is so unpopular, it's not that hard to see, for a country that likes to see its self as a global leader, they should be leading with wisdom and cooperation, but what we are seeing is a hostile US that uses threats to try and get what it wants. The end result of that is that many countries start to turn away from the US on both political and economic matters whiles looking at alternatives, the cost for the US could be very high over the long run and the benefits for others around the world could be equally so, especially for the EU countries and maybe China that stand to benefit from this shift away from the US, but we should remember that this is a slow burn that will take many years, but the ball is already rolling and will likely continue to do so even once Trump is out of power, the main reason being is that the US has lost a lot of trust here under Trump that it could take decades for the US to gain back, and that's assuming the US even try to gain it back. The ones that gain the most out of all this is probably China, they've been wanting to divide the US and EU apart which in term divides the west, Trump fell right into the trap of what China wants and even what Putin wants, the other that stands to gain a lot from this is the EU, countries around the world are seeking alternatives to the US, and the EU is a logical one that could take that leadership, but the EU has its own problems it needs to solve, like further integration in key areas, but the truth is, there isn't any credible big alternatives away from the US apart from the EU, which is probably why the EU countries could stand to benefit the most out of all this, even more so then China, especially if the EU plays its cards right. As for whether it matters to the US it's losing its soft power, well in the short term probably not, but long term the damage both politically and economically can be massive and by hitting its soft power, it will hit hard power as well, it will also hit its economy and corporations and anything connected to the US could stand to get hit, hence why so many countries like Canada are trying to distance themselves from the US and are looking at alternatives, it also leaves an opening for countries around the world to capitalise on that, especially the ones that have a good reputation around the world.
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The price of making things will drop a lot if human labour is taken out of the mix, but I get what you mean, if we are not earning money, how do we consume? The simple answer is, we don't and we die lol. Nah, the real answer is that we are going to get a lot of angry people that can't find work, that's going to put a lot of pressure on governments to radically overall the system, probably with some kind of human basic income, I highly doubt the current system we have will be workable in a system that A.I. and robotics does most of the work for us, so the entire economic system would have to change, otherwise we are going to get a divide from rich to poor that's never been heard off, and governments can't afford to have such a high percentage of people so angry as it would likely lead to a collapse of society, so major change is very likely needed, which I suspect that countries with strong safety nets are in the best position to do those changes compared to the ones that have weak ones.
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This kind of history might have been a possibility if the second world war didn't happen, or countries likely would have been independent. If that was the case, European countries would have been well and truly under the thumb of the US, our high social protections and standards likely would have been weakened by the US, European countries in the EU would have been a lot weaker when dealing with the US, China or Russia. The second world war being a major wake-up call for Europeans at a public and political level allowed for major changes, which ended up with the EU we have today, thanks to that, EU countries are in a much stronger position to face the threats and challenges around the world, but there are certainly a lot more Europeans in the EU could do to be a lot stronger, especially on the capital market, foreign policy and the military, all the foundations are in place to allow it to happen, now it's just a matter of having public and political will to make it happen, which considering with everything that's going on around the world, a US going off the rails, a hostile Russia and a rising China, European countries in the EU need to start working much closer together. There are other factors as well, without the EU, European countries would likely be poorer, the social systems we have in place would likely be weaker in Europe but also in other modern countries around the world, probably thanks to the US putting pressure on countries to weaken them as it's more profitable for US corporations in many sectors, and with the EU being strong and being able to stand up to the US, it's allowed those countries to forge their own path, independent of the US, it's also very likely that having a big power like the EU on the world stage, allowed other countries around the world to have an alternative to the US system. The impact of the EU, not just on European countries but also globally is probably a lot bigger than we realise, especially modern countries which almost all of which follows a very European style social democracy, and I really do wonder how different that would be if the EU didn't exist, I suspect the US would be in a much stronger position then they are today, but without a strong European block, they would be easy pickings for countries around the world, the real winning probably wouldn't be the US, but China over the long run as they will be able to play the same games the US does when it comes to dividing countries.
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To be blunt, the EU countries are not at risk of invasion, regardless of what the US does, we are talking highly advanced economise here with a big economy, highly skilled workforce and more than capable military. The EU countries don't need the US to defend it, all the EU countries need to do is combine their militaries together, but even in its current state, does anyone honestly think the likes of Russia would attack an EU country? lol, Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe, they are an easy target for Russia, and all the EU and US are giving with Ukraine is crumbs when it comes to assistant, which is enough to keep Russia in check in Ukraine. The simple truth is, the US wants Europeans to spend more because they want to use them around the world as a divided military force, I highly doubt the US will want the EU countries to combine their militaries together as that would do a few things, for one, it would more or less kick the US out of the EU countries, it would weaken US voice in Europe, it would also build a much stronger military arms in Europe, which would compete directly with US arms on the world stage, in other words, the EU's arms industry would likely eat into the US arms industry, especially among countries around the world which don't like the US, which there are a lot of them. Personally, I think EU countries should spend around 2% on the military, but not go crazy like the US is doing on military spending, the EU after all doesn't want to dominate the world so doesn't need to spend as much, 2% as a combined EU budget is more than enough to defend EU countries, if they pull their resources together, reduce duplications over the 27 countries and so on, with that, kick US bases outside the EU, keep NATO around as a western pack and move on from there. The simple truth is, the US is becoming more erratic as a country and becoming harder to trust any more, and it's not just European countries that think this, a lot of countries are thinking along those lines around the world, even so-called friendly countries to the US are having second thoughts when Trump was in power, Trump getting into power again would do the US a lot of reputational damage that I don't think they will recover from, the first time it was easy to let it slip, it was a one-off, but a second time will suggest there are some serious problems in the US which makes the US far less reliable. But seriously guys, EU countries are not third world countries, they are highly advanced, well-developed and are more than capable of defending themselves, I find it remarkable how some seem to think we need the US to defend us when Ukraine has been giving Russia hell, which Ukraine is a very poor country by European standards and the help they've been getting by the EU and US is mostly crumb, an attack on an EU country would likely bring much stronger measures, hence why Russia won't attack an EU country, just doing the common sense stats on the economy, skill force, military capabilities and so on is an easy indicator of that, not to mention that the EU has its own defence clause like NATO does, an attack on one is an attack on all, so an attack on an EU country would likely lead to a much bigger war, probably world war 3 which would drag the US in regardless.
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I'm all for peace talks and it should always be an option but it should be under the terms that Ukraine set and at the very least, they shouldn't accept any terms unless it includes taking back all Ukraine, including Crimea, but they might want to go further than that in wanting compensation from Russia in damage done to Ukraine and Ukraine would have every right to play that card. Personally, I think that as long as the west continues to support Ukraine and Russia is on the back foot, they should continue to fight for all of Ukraine to send a powerful message to Russia and even China if they have any ideas on Taiwan, but whatever Ukraine and the west does, don't give Russia an inch here, Russia is the aggressor here and there needs to be a high price for their actions, beside, even if peace talks do happen, it's highly unlikely that Russia would agree to give Crimea back to Ukraine and that would be unacceptable for Ukraine, especially with them winning now.
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To me the music industry have been going down from the early 90's and progressively getting worse, but don't get me wrong, we still get many decent songs today but if we compare back to the 80's, just in one year we got so many good songs that I could make a few albums with them, today we are lucky if you can make one per year.
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The more I see of this, the more it's starting to look like the problem is with English-speaking countries, especially ones with Rupert Murdoch that has a powerful say in the media, hence the mess in the US, UK and Australia. In the US, you have a system that is too capitalist, where the system doesn't care about the people, the government and corporation sees people as a statistic that they can squeeze money out off. Then we have the UK that many of the elites were so desperate to leave the EU at the start of this year and for good reason, a new EU law that taxes the rich comes in at the start of the year and the rich, especially the Conservative ones didn't want that so they bullshitted their way with lies with the help of Murdoch's press. These two countries have a political system that two parties rule and others don't even get a look in, it limits choice whiles also having a system where it's us vs them, something we are seeing a lot of in the US and UK with Trump supporters and Democrat supporters and in the UK with Brexiteers and Remainders, the idea being to screw us over by keeping us fighting among ourselves so the rich elites can keep running to the bank at our expense, it's the division of the people that's really screwing us over and that's isn't likely going to change, in fact I suspect it will get worse, especially in the US and UK.
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It's a bit like in the UK with the fishing industry with Brexit where they voted for Brexit and now are starting to realise that it's going to have a big negative impact on the Industry or now that Airbus is thinking about leaving the UK unless they get a solid trade deal with the EU, Brexit in the UK is hitting the ones that voted for Brexit the most the hardest just like these trade wars look like it's hitting Trump supporters the most, hard to feel sorry for these people when they brought it on them selfs.
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It's easy to say they'll change the laws, it's another thing to actually do it and so far the UK is more or less mirroring EU laws, even new ones. The problem is, the more the UK tries to drift away with law changes from the EU, the harder it will be to trade with them, it will also likely make the UK market less enticing to invest in because most companies want to invest EU wide with the same laws, rules and regulations in place, so the UK is more or less likely going to mirror what the EU does and try and make it seem it's not doing that, basically, the UK is more or less a vassal in everything but name.
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I kinda look at it different from that in that A.I. and robotics will free us to pursue what we want to do with our lives, whereas now, reality, money and time forces most of us to do work in jobs we don't want to do. In other words, I don't think humans will sit ideally by doing nothing, yes I'm sure some will, but most of us want to live and do things, A.I. could open up the world for humans to follow their dreams, whatever that may be.
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I really look forward to the day when cpu, gpu and memory are all integrated into one package, not only would performance be much better, but it should be cheaper overall then buying the 3 components separately, it might even be easier for developers to code for, but it does have its downsides, it wouldn't be as flexible in the case of PC users that upgrade independent hardware, but if I'm honest, I think I prefer a single package as when I do upgrade my PC, I pretty much upgrade almost everything apart from the case and maybe the PSU, I always upgrade the cpu, gpu, motherboard and memory at the same time so having a single package for me wouldn't change anything, just as long as it still allows upgradeable.
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The more I am seeing on Brexit, the more I'm starting to realize that this government is losing control over it, on the one hand, if Boris backs down to the EU, he will look weak but if he goes ahead with his threats, it will likely put him in a big mess going forward, it doesn't look like he can win either way unless the EU backs down to UK demands which is highly unlikely because the EU would see that as embolden the euroseptic movement, something they won't do. It wouldn't surprise me if Boris resigns 6 or so months after Brexit because he must know that with hard Brexit and the impact of the pandemic over the next few years, it's likely going to do a lot of damage to his and the Tories reputation, and he like David Cameron is likely going to want to get out of there before the blame firmly goes on him. If the Tories are not careful over the next few years, this could wipe them out. In any case, it's looking more like the UK government needs the EU to bend because they are trying desperately to get the EU to offer any crumbs, anything that makes it look like a victory to sell to the Brexiteers, it's really something to see for a government who keeps threatening to walk away and now saying no deal would be fine, if that was the case, the UK would have walked away along time ago but we all know it's all bluster, their end game is to try and get the EU to bend and give more, where it's all going south is that the EU isn't really bending and that is starting to get Boris and many Tories to panic because it's them that will get all the blame for the impact on Brexit no matter how much they try to blame others. I'm really happy that the European Parliament put their foot down in how long there is to get a deal as that will start real panic in this government and maybe that is already starting going on the noise we are hearing, expect more panic from the UK government them over the coming weeks as we get close to the end game and especially if the EU doesn't back down.
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Because it was easy to use the EU as a scapegoat for all the mess the UK government kept doing, many governments around the EU do the same, but the UK always did it. Now with Brexit, we are getting a dose of reality, and the government can't blame the EU for the incompetents of UK governments that keep messing the UK up, that blame is firmly on the UK now. Mind you, it's still remarkable how some Brexiteers are still clinging onto blaming the EU for how bad things have got in the UK, Brexiteers thinking that if we implement a hard Brexit, it will somehow make things better, they are clueless, we have what is close to a hard Brexit and we are seeing the results of that action.
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Pretty much like humans, don't give any individual human too much power, the same should be the case for A.I. The biggest mistake is where A.I. is interconnected into everything, especially critical systems, we've seen it in enough movies to see how that can backfire, and I like to think we humans are not that stupid to do that but you never know with humans and our history. Personally, I think if you have multiple different A.I. system that are in independence of each other, just like humans are, the risk drops a lot, especially if they don't have access to critical systems without physical contact, in other words, no remote control over it.
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I still tune in because I don't want to disconnect in that if I don't keep up, I could end up not caring with what is going on and that would be sad, so it's best to keep up with what's going on.
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On their own that would be true in Europe, but in the EU not so much and if it's a problem for the EU then it's a problem for the US as well, but in truth, the EU and US are the biggest economic blocks in the world that are able to protect western values around the world and with how quickly power is shifting towards Asia, the EU and US will need to be strong and need to work together if they want to protect their interest otherwise, laws, regulations could end up being written by China. The UK is going to be a prime example of how weak European countries would be without the EU on the world stage if the UK goes for hard Brexit, the reality is, European countries on there own are too small and have to stick together if they want to protect their interest.
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The Germans get a lot of stick thats not deserved now because of things that happened in the past, we see it from the Brits and the Greeks, part of it is to do with jealousy of how successful Germany became even thought they lost the war and the irony is, Germany is trying to only help those countries to do reforms that are really needed for them. In any case, what happened a year or so ago in Germany with the immigration thing would of wiped out most governments when the next election comes, with Merkel, it looks like she's still going to win quite easily which says a lot about the current German government and the trust the Germans have in them which seems like quite a lot.
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The media is always manipulative, thats nothing new for any country really, anyway, personally when I look at whats going on in the UK and the US and other places, I would pick Germany anytime and thats coming from a Brit, Germany seems stable, they are not as irrational like the UK and US are, the economy is doing fine and it's looking like Merkel will win the next election. As for the media, yeah they are very manipulative, but in Germany it's nowhere near as bad like it is in the US and UK.
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Brainwashing? that cute coming from a Brexiteer when the right wing media have been brainwashing the nation for the last 3 or 4 decades to hate the EU based on lies. Come on guys, give us some solid reasons on why leaving the EU will benefit the UK, no wishy washy pipe dreams, facts that will benefit us, so far Brexiteers have been a joke on that one, they tend to rant and rave about us being British and we are better then everyone else, that doesn't hold much water when it comes to facts. Brexiteers have had 3+ years to make a solid case on how Brexit is better for us and yet they've failed on that, all we've seen is lots of ranting and raving from them and lots of facts and evidence that suggest leaving the EU will make us worse off. Worse yet is all the lies the Brexiteers told the people to get us into this mess only for them to change their tune, no wonder Brexiteers are losing on Brexit and you only have to read between the lines on what Boris is saying and what he is doing to see how much Brexit is dead in the water, it also says a lot that he needs the EU to bend and offer better terms or he's screwed, hence why he's trying to make the EU look like the bad guy if we don't get a better deal, it's really desprate from him but it also shows that the government doesn't have any other plans, either the EU bends or very likely, the government will ask for more time, hard Brexit was never on the table even with the tough talk from May, why would anyone think it is now with Boris?
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Until wind energy is able to find cheap and useful ways of generating reasonable energy at a local level on-site, so basically, on your house, whiles not looking too out of place, then I don't see much of a future in wind energy apart from at massive scale. But it's likely that as renewable energy like solar keeps getting better and cheaper, as well as the same for battery tech, I suspect more homeowners and businesses would prefer to go off-grid and power their own needs, that's bad news for wind power, because as more of us goo off-grid, that makes solar far more useful compared to wind power and as more of us will likely do this as it gets cheaper and batter, it makes wind power unviable for small scale, for the moment, solar just works out cheaper, better and can be used at a small scale, that's the biggest weakness wind power needs to solve, otherwise, I feel they will get pushed out by the solar industry, apart from a few areas that needs big scale wind farms, but eventually if the tech gets good enough, most of us could go off-grid, solar is just so much better in that area over wind power. It's a shame really, because I would love to have a mix of solar and wind, they would complement each other really well, solar being good in summer or other days when there are not many clouds, wind being good during winter, nighttime and even summer if there are winds, winds tend to be higher in winter and at nighttime, so both complement each other really well, but when it comes to small scale wind power, there are too many scams, promising a lot more than what they deliver, the price point compared to solar is more expensive, and the real world energy generated is a fraction of what's promised, that is where solar is winning out, the power generated is more reliable and it can be used almost anywhere. The problem with going solar only, at least off-grid is that you need a lot more solar power that ends up being overkill in summer, you also need more battery capacity as a cushion, if you could have the two, solar and wind, that would reduce the batteries needed and also reduce the amount of solar panels needed as you would get a more consistent energy flow over the year, but for now, with solar getting so cheap, it makes more send to just have more solar panels.
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We should remember that this is Putin's war, but with that said, part of the blame goes on the Russian people, after all, Putin didn't get into power by magic, enough Russians support him to put him there so a big part of the blame is on the Russia people. In any case, regardless of what happens in Ukraine, a lot of trust has been lost in Russia which is likely going to do the economy damage for at least the next decade, EU countries will continually look for alternative energy sources regardless of what Russia does now, investment in Russia is likely going to drop a lot, even after the war and maybe even if Putin gets deposed. When you break trust, that's what really does the damage and it takes a long time to rebuild that trust, that's what's happened to Russia and now they've got a very uncomfortable decade or two to face.
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What cheek. Poland wants EU money and are not willing to follow the rules they signed up to when joining the EU. You really are living on another planet if you don't see anything wrong with that lol.
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It's a gamble from Macron, it could pay off but it could also backfire, depending on voters angry. With that said, I sometimes feel that it doesn't matter what's being said as many times it doesn't sway voters, especially hardline ones, we saw that in the UK with Brexit, where it didn't matter what was being said about all the warnings, people were not listening, when it goes like that as it did with Brexit, I sometimes feel you have to let the hardliners win so they can fall on their own sword. What I mean by that is that most of the policies of the hardliners are not that appealing to most voters, but voters are angry and are in protest mode that they want to teach the mainstream parties a lesson, which honestly, they deserve as they are not listening to people's concerns in their lives, but the far right are not the solution, but that message could fall on deaf ears, in other words, let them win so they can mess it up, just like the Eurosceptics did in the UK with Brexit and because of that, the public are slowly turning into more neutral and even more pro EU then they were when in the EU. Sometimes you have to let the voters do the mistake and see that the grass isn't quite greener on the other side as they thought they were, unless Le Pen really delivers on the goods and listens to the real concerns of the French people, which is unlikely as it seems like they are just telling the people what they think they want to hear to win there votes, not on what they can deliver once political reality bites, so Macron could be playing a gamble on a few fronts here and it will be interesting to see how this turns out.
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If history is any indications, sanctions are usually a slow burner that the real impact kicks in 2 or 3 years into the sanctions, basically, not enough time has passed for the sanctions to really bit and the impact will be greater once European countries move away from buying oil and gas from Russia, in other words, things are likely to get much worse for Russia over the next year or so. On top of that, the EU and US are likely going to target China and India next, with the intention of getting them to not buy or to reduce buying oil and gas from Russia with the aim of isolating Russia, there are many ways the west could do that, maybe tariffs on goods and services coming out of China and India based on a percentage on oil and gas they are buying from Russia, in other words, cancelling out the benefits of that. But there is no way the west is doing all this so that China and India can profit from it, I suspect once European countries lower the percentage of oil and gas they buy from Russia enough, China and India will be the west next target.
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The deal the DUP helped to push and now they are crying the most, oh the irony lol. Funny still, now that Brexit is done, the Brexiteers keep ranting and raving, you would think they would be happy but then, reality is quite different than fantasy and now they are starting to see that but don't like the results. As much as I like to feel sorry for them, they got what they voted for. What's worse, many of the ones that pushed for Brexit the most are the ones that the government is shafting lol.
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@These Colours Don't Run But they are keeping to the deal, because they threaten to not do because of the covid vaccine doesn't change anything as they didn't go through with it. The fact of the matter is, the UK signed a deal with the EU and now the UK doesn't like the deal they signed, that won't be easy to open up that deal now, not without the EU wanting more out of the UK. As for the antics on trade, now come on, we are a third party nation now, the EU isn't going to do us any favours and will do what's in the interest of the EU members, you might not like that but that was bound to happen and a lot more is likely to come because it's an easy way for the EU to steal business away from the UK, Brexiteers were dumb to think otherwise, and it's not just the EU that will do it, the US and others will because the UK is in a weaker position now. As for Northern Ireland, remainders have been saying all along that it was a massive problem but Brexiteers didn't want to listen, there is only two real solutions on that, either all the UK joins the custom union or Northern Ireland leaves the UK and becomes part of the EU, you can't have your cake and eat it which is basically an open boarder between the islands of Ireland, this mess is down to the Brexiteers and the UK government and in the case of Northern Ireland, they've been sold down the river by the Tories. As for acts of aggression, the pure arrogance on that considering the UK have been aggressive on Brexit and the EU for the last 4 years lol, basically, the UK can dish it out but can't take it when the EU gets tough back. In any case, it's clear to see the UK government doesn't care about Scotland, Northern Ireland and likely Wales, it's all about England with them, they've been sold down the river, now it's just a matter of time before the penny drops on that and the independence movement grows in those nations. In any case, say what you want about the EU, but they are far smarter, they got what they wanted on this deal whiles giving very little to the UK, worse yet, they've divided the UK union which is pulling the UK union apart and the Brexiteers didn't even see it coming because they were so fixated on Brexit that they didn't see the plan the EU had in motion.
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There's only really once peaceful solution, that's for Russia to withdraw for all of Ukraine, including Crimea. We all know that Putin isn't going to go for that deal, so more arms for Ukraine, with the intention of dragging the war out for so long that the cost to Russia is so big that many will wonder, was it worth it. It's unfortunate for but I get the impression, that that's the intention of the US, they basically want Russia to bleed so much over a long draw out war that they'll think twice about doing another. We should remember that the west can continue this war more or less indefinitely with minimal impact to their economies, whereas for Russia, it's very costly over the long run, the simple truth is, the west and especially the EU and US, drawls Russia in economic terms, so the impact to the west is minimal, hence why the west doesn't really listen to Putin's threats, in fact, it looks like the west in planning on ramping up shipments of arms later this year. So the question is, how much pain are the Russians going to put up with on the cost of this war? Because the longer it drags on, the more costly it will be and that will have a direct impact on the Russian economy and people.
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Maybe because we will be even more powerless outside the EU, Brexiteers like to talk about the UK being a vassal of the EU but the US are showing signs that we are going to become a vassal of them, at least in the EU, we have a equal say in policies, with the US we have nothing. Also, traitors are people that try to force things without confirming it's what the people want and trying to by-pass them and parliament, them are real traitors and it's something the Nazis would do.
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You know guys, we wouldn't be having these problems if the hardliners that pushed hard for Brexit deliverd on all it's promises they said Brexit would be, that is the real problem with Brexit, the leave side won the vote on so many lies and now they don't want to deliver on any of thoes promises, they've made it easy for the remain side to fight back on Brexit and now they are winning it. At the end of the day, now the penny is dropping, there is enough support to have a very soft Brexit, maybe even enough support to stop Brexit altogether and in any event, I suspect we are going to get another vote on Brexit by the people so smell the fear guys, smell it :)
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I think kicking Hungary out should be as a last resort, but they should be stripped of voting powers and EU money, and if that doesn't bring about real change in the country, then trying to kick them out might be the only option left. Either way, the people in the country really need to rise up against the dictator in the country, it's the people in the country that's being impacted the most by all this over the long run.
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@seraphina985 I have to wonder how things are going to change once the pandemic is over and people and the system have time to reflect on what happened, it's not going to be business as usual like some think, big changes are ahead, especially if the public feel the hardship on the economy which they likely will but I do think Europeans are going to benefit more from that, they already have a much stronger social system, that is likely going to get stronger after this whereas in the US with policies that have already been put into place, it looks like Americans might have to rise up to get the government to change because they seem quite happy to take advantage of what is going on to enrich the elites and big corporations, it's a massive transfer of wealth that is going on in the US from poor, middle classes to the rich elites and corporations and it's likely going to be the average Americans that will pay a high price for that in the years ahead with higher taxes and less public spending.
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@SeedemFeedemRobots I think you missed the point I am getting at, what it shows is the limited views from voters in wanting change, a lot of people like to say they want to see change in the system that benefits them but our voting pattern suggest otherwise because we keep voting the same way and even when we do vote for other parties, it's most;y because they changed to become like the other party. In other words, the people are the real problem when it comes to change and why it's not happening and unless the public are willing to vote for real change, then don't expect any major changes in the system but continue to expect the system to screw over the people, especially the poor and middle classes.
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Cardboard Cape Interesting point and I've not looked into that properly, but I do know one thing, when I see the left in the US, they are more like the right in Europe whereas the Republicans are off the scale to the right, hence the wars and chaos that seem to always happen when they are in power.
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You want to see why the US has so many problems, you only have to look at Fox News to see what it's feeding many Americans to see why there is such a big problem in the country, it reminds me of the Sun and Daily Mail newspaper in the UK on Brexit, they don't report news, they report views of a few key powerful people around the world, Ironically, Murdoch owns two of the 3 media outlets I said above so that should tell you everything you need to know lol. In the US it goes like this, if you are a Republican, you can't do anything wrong but if you're a Democrat, everything you do is wrong, the same in the UK with the Conservative and Labour Party, the right wing media will defend the right wing parties no matter what they do and will keep going after the more left or middle ground parties and for one good reason, right wing parties give the right on the media what they want, more wealth for the rich elites and less for the average with most of the public falling for it. It does beg the question, why don't the Democrats and Labour Party not go after this media? or at the very least enact laws to make them more accountable, the Democrats and Labour Party would likely fare better if they had a more balanced media that reports on facts and not fear and lies.
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I suspect with everything that's going on in Ukraine and energy security, alternative energy sources are going to get a big bump over the next 2 decades that it could shorten the life of fossil fuels by a decade or two. Thanks to Putin, I think it's a given that a lot more energy and money is going to go into alternative energy sources, especially in Europe, so I doubt the fossil industry is happy with Putin right now, I mean yes they benefit in the short term by higher prices but longer term Putin is doing a lot of damage to that industry which is likely going to benefit renewable energy and battery tech the most.
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@duwang8499 Still it's not a relevant term in this day and age and does come across as arrogance too much of the world, it should just be called UK or Britain.
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@trimaxionerror5696 That still doesn't change the fact that it's not a relevant terms today and let's be honest, we don't use the term great for historical reasons, we use it because many in the UK like to think they are better than the rest, I should know, I live and was born in the UK and see it from time to time. As for 5th column, because I am British born and bread, doesn't mean I am going to automatically support the system when we do so much wrong in the world and beside, I am proud of being British but I also see a lot of the failings as a country, we only have to look at the last few years to get a bit of an idea of that.
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@trimaxionerror5696 Well I should because they bored me to death with it at school where at least if they told us global history, I might have been more interested which ironically, as I left school, I got into history a lot more but never was at school and it's easy to see why with the kind of history they tried to teach us, anyway, as you can see, I'm British, born here. As for the parents, nope, they are Italian, hence the name but I'm no different from any Brit
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@SH_Hof Brexit and Trump as well as papagander from Russia and China have really blurred the lines from truth and fiction lol, half the time I get the sense that a lot of people don't care for the truth any more because it doesn't resonant with how they want to see things, we are living in a time where self delusions is taking over for a lot of people and that is quite costly because if you look at the UK, US and Brazil, all 3 are popularise countries and all 3 are doing really bad with this pandemic, they tried blusters and sound bites but it didn't make the virus go away lol, in fact it made things worse. The people of those 3 countries are paying a high price for who they elected and I don't think they realize how bad things are going to get because the real damage kicks in once the support dries up from the government, I'm still surprised why the UK is doing far worse on the economic front compared to European countries when we went into lock down late.
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@adriengeorges4076 If only but I don't have the balls to be that lol, I'm just saying it as I see it and not letting self pride cloud my judgement of where I am from like a lot of people are doing. I suspect there is going to be some serious investigation in why the UK and US handled this pandemic so badly and it's all going to boil down to the government, mixed messages and some aspect of the people not listening to the rules and making things worse. Either way, western countries are paying a much higher price than a lot of Asian countries are doing on this.
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Stephen Jenkins There's a time and place to intervene, look at the Middle East since 9-11, all the US has done is make things worse, now I'm not saying things were great before 9/11 but at least they were more stable in the region, since then we've had the migrant crisis, a lot of this mess was brought on us by the US and UK. There's a right and wrong way of doing it and the US mostly does it for self-interest then really caring about the people, as for the EU, they play the more longer game by getting their own people to turn on the government, that from the people's perspective is a lot more acceptable than another power stepping in.
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Stephen Jenkins Really, so why did most of the mess start with 9/11 and went worse from there on?, the situation wasn't ideal before that in the Middle Easy but at least it was stable, now it's just a mess, the migrant crisis, that is on the back of the US and UK and yet they seem the least willing to help on that.
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@duwang8499 It's not so much that they can't spend more but don't really see the need to do, it seems like it's the US that seems desperate to want others to pay more but that is mostly to lighten the burden on the US in helping to protect US interest around the world.
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@bernardmcavoy1864 The Borg and compassion? lol I think you are getting them back to front lol. As for humour, well the Germans are not known for that but I wouldn't know unless I lived there and see it first hand. As for compassion, Germany are one of the few big countries that I would actually say are more compassionate and civilized but than the impact of the second world war would do that to a people and they are not the only ones, look at Japan, the two countries that lost the war ended up being very successful and very hostile to war, now looks at the US, UK and some others, how many wars have they been in since the second world war?, 20? 30? 40? it's been quite a few which for countries that like to say are peaceful, they have a funny way of showing it lol.
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@bernardmcavoy1864 You wouldn't say that if you knew me in real life as I've got more than enough of a sense of humour but I don't like bullshit and I can usually smell it a long way off with people. But I do have to ask once simply question, why do so many people self manipulate themselves? I don't get it, why do so many see things they want to see and not see things for how they are? we see this with Brexit, Trump supporters and the likes, it's like a mass delusion on themselves and the funny thing is, the only people they are fooling is themselves, I don't get why people would do something so stupid but it does explain the state the world is in and why most are not that successful in life.
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@groooah Views are not that different on Italians from many in the UK but it's the Germans they really have it in for, I suspect success breeds jealousy, out of the big countries, Germany is very successful. What I don't get about the UK is how they see the US, a country that screws the UK over time after time and only seems to see the UK in what they can get out of them in things like wars and honestly, Germany and the Europeans are more of a friend than the US is but not enough Brits see that, maybe that will change once the US gets its claws in the UK after Brexit.
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There is a chance but there's little to no chance of getting a good trade deal from Trump. It wouldn't surprise me if the Tories are dumb enough to sign any deal with the US just to say we did it like they did with that bad deal with Australia which to this day, the EU won't sign because it's not that good of a deal for the EU. Brexiteers needs to understand, signing a trade deal is easy, getting a good one is the hard part, and why on earth would any Brexiteers want to sign a bad deal? To screw themselves over? But then again, they did just that with voting for Brexit. The funny thing is, it's going to be those clowns that scream the most as their quality of life goes down because of Brexit, in the end, sometimes you can't help these people and should let them get on with it and suffer through it, but it's unfortunate for the rest that are also people the price, but they didn't fight hard enough to prevent this and even now, a lot of us in the UK know Brexit is a mess, yet, what are we doing to change things? I'm fine with people that make mistakes but learn from them, but that means nothing unless it's backed by action to correct thoes mistakes.
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I hope this doesn't stay on YouTube Red all the time because a lot more people need to see this series, it's a series done right from continuing the story of a classic movie, so with any luck, this series will go onto other services over time and even tv so more eyes can see it.
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@jsebby2284 That's what patriotism tells you but it doesn't mean it's true, I've lived in both the EU and US and if I had to pick one, I would pick the EU every time and even many Americans that have lived in Europe for a few years will tell the same story. But don't get me wrong, the US isn't a bad place but in many areas, they fall way behind other modern countries and that really does impact living standards for the poor and middle classes, now if you are rich, the US is great, almost by design, but let's be honest, if you are rich, almost anywhere can be great.
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@jsebby2284 Well as I said, I've lived in both the EU and US, Europeans don't realize how good they got it as they love to complain a lot about almost everything lol, but having lived in the US for a few years, you start to see the real flaws in the system in where Europe and I suspect most other modern countries do a much better job and I'm not just talking about wealth, I'm talking about well-being of the citizens and how happy people are. In any case, you want to get a real indicator on whos doing better, living in other countries is the best way to see that but I do notice one thing, a lot of Americans that live in Europe tend to have different views on how they see the US then before they lived in Europe and most of the time it's in a negative range when it comes to basic things like health care, workers rights, social system, even workers wages.
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@jsebby2284 From what I remember, in the US, the system really tries hard to say they are the best in almost every area, I felt it was a bit off-putting considering I knew better, in Europe, you don't see that constant hype about how good they are, the irony is, Europeans don't even see themselves as the best but a lot of European countries are doing a lot better than the US in many areas and having seen both sides myself, Europeans don't realize how lucky they are. Now don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean the US can't be a great place to live, but the problem is, it's for a select few and it seems to leave too many of it's people behind, the system also feels less caring where it feels you really are on your own with very little safety net.
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@jsebby2284 But it's not horrible, but given the choice, I would pick an EU country over the US going on what I've seen but that doesn't mean the US doesn't beat much of the world when it comes to living standards because they do but they are not the best like many want to think. Having pride in ones country is fine, having it blind you is another thing, in the US, there is too much flag waving, too much patriotism which blinds them from how things really are and usually Americans only tend to see the truth when living aboard for a few years. Considering the US is suppose to have one of the largest welfare states in the world, it seems to deliver some of the worse results out of the modern world, something clearly isn't right, besides, why do you think taxes are higher in Europe, it's to balance things out from welfare, the state and the people and Europe does do a better job at that as it's a system that tends to look after, poor, middle class and rich. But like I said above, the US isn't a bad place to live, but having seen both side, Europe, especially EU country are doing it much better for it's citizens.
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@jsebby2284 It's always the peoples fault regardless of country as they are the ones with the real power no matter what system of government they live under, the problem is with the people is that they are too divided and easierlly manipulated by the system. Unless you've lived out of the US, you're none the wiser of how the rest of the world is and can only go on what the system tells you and boy does the American system harp on about being the best at everything, you should ask yourself the simple question, why would a system need to keep telling you that you're the best, like keep re-enforcing it into peoples minds? most other countries don't do that, at least not to the degree the US does it and when I say most countries, I mean modern countries. It's a form of papagander in brainwashing a people into thinking they are the best without basing it on anything and unfortunately, people only realise the truth when they live abroad for a few years and see the other side, I've done that and it's clear as daylight that EU countries are doing a much better join when it comes to the people and even many stats back that up.
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@jsebby2284 It's always the peoples faults, a lot of people like to blame governments for how things are but the reality is that governments are a reflection of the peoples actions, they can change that if they want too but most of the time they make a real mess of it as we saw with the US in voting Trump or the UK in voting for Brexit. Now I'm not saying that individuals shouldn't take responsibility for improving their life but it's nice to know there is a big safety net to fall back on in hard times and that is what EU countries are really good on. As for things like poverty and crime rates in the US, a big part of why they are higher is because of the system that doesn't really look after the people that well, if hard times kick in, there is little to no support network and that can make some people desperate., now some is of their own doing but a big part of it is the system leaving them behind, especially the poor and to a less degree, middle classes. It's easy to say it's the individual peoples fault but it seems to be far less of an issue for European citizens, if it really was the peoples fault then we should be seeing the same kinds of numbers in Europe and around the world, the truth is, the system plays a big part in it and the reality is, the US system is designed around the individual where you're more or less on your own with little support by the system whereas the EU system is designed more like a community effort where there is a lot of support, I know which system I would rather live under.
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@jsebby2284 Nothing but look at the results, both countries have become a laughingstock to the world, even to many of the people inside those countries, both of which promised a lot but under delivered. Now the US might be fine with Biden but I think it's too little too late for the UK as the odds are quite high that Scotland will leave the UK and Northern Ireland to follow after. As for the safety net, yes it might be large in comparison to third world countries but by first world standards, the US does really poor on it. The high crime rate is a few factors, easy access to guns is one of them, but the real problem is inequality in the US, that's driving crime rates high. It simple comes down to one simple thing, more people are likely going to cause more problems and crimes if they feel the system doesn't look after them enough and that is the real indicator when it comes to comparing the EU countries to the US.
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@jsebby2284 The problem is, it was mostly the rich that benefitted from Trump and beside, the debt burden Trump past onto Americans is pretty steep. Also remember that Trump benefitted by a lot of policies that Obama put into place for the first 2 or 3 years, Biden might end up in the other direction in having to clean up all the mess that Trump made but not being thanked for it. But in any case, the burden in the west, especially the US and EU countries is going to be pretty high for the next 5 or 10 years thanks to the cost of the pandemic and I expect the opposition parties to take full advantage of that even thought in many ways, it was them that created part of that mess.
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@jsebby2284 The tax cuts is give with one hand and take with the other, it's politics 101, beside, who do you think is going to pay off the debts? besides, if it really benefitted the average Americans then why are they complaining that they are worse off now than they were 4 years ago? the problem is with GDP per capita is that it doesn't tell you much about the wealth of the average person, many times I hear governments from the UK to the UK boost about how well the GDP is doing and yet people are complaining that things are getting worse. Things have not been on the right track for decades, that's where the real problem is, it's also why Trump got into power and how Brexit happened in the UK, people are angry because too much wealth is in too few hands, basically the system is broken, Trump didn't fix that, in fact he made it worse, just like the Conservative Party in the UK made things worse for the UK. The pandemic is one big part of the mess on Trump, he could have handled that much better as could most of the west, beside, it's not by chance that the two countries with some of the worse records on this pandemic are the US and UK, two countries that were led by governments that don't care much about the people and care more about the economy, basically, those governments don't care how many people die just as long as the economy is moving and the rich are getting richer and if you look closely at a lot of the policies of both governments, you'll see that. In any case, the Republicans will blame the Democrats for the mess the Republicans made, that's what they always do and will do that now, as for the UK, well the Tories are screwed because they had an election just a year ago so it's going to be hard for them to pin the blame on anyone else.
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@jsebby2284 The problem is with lower taxes is that it usually ends up into fewer hands, usually the rich, it's said if you give a rich and poor man a million, the poor man will eventually lose most if not all of it whereas the rich man will have many millions, this works across the system. Whereas higher taxes means there is a much stronger safety net for all, that benefits the poor and middle classes the most. The main point being is that most people are not that good with money and are quick to lose it. With a government like Trump in power, Gallup polls can be twisted to look however they wanted, it doesn't really mean much when so many people think things are getting worse. As for wealth inequality, that's not going to get fixed until we have a new system in place because capitalism is designed about enriching the few at the expense of everyone else, that's been getting a lot worse since the early 80's, sooner or later it's going to hit braking point where people have had enough, Trump being elected was a warning on that but he's an elite so was never going to help the average out, this pandemic might shake things up but we'll have to see, I suspect things will get much worse before they get better. Speaking of welfare systems, it's clear the EU countries have some of the best but that's because the taxes allow, after all, money doesn't grow on trees, also, we see that with the pandemic, EU countries have been far better on supporting the people by paying most of their wages to stay at home which is very costly but it shows how they are willing to put the people first before the economy, the US was only giving scraps to the people in the early days whiles not protecting their jobs, it was only later on where enough pressure forced Trump to act.
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@jsebby2284 Problem is, it doesn't seem to work like that, if we look at a lot of modern countries around the world, the countries with some of the highest taxes seem to be doing much better when it comes to wealth among it's citizens, equality and poverty, the US has some of the worst of which in the modern world but it also has some of the lowest taxes, higher taxes are not a bad thing if you have more competent governments, many other countries do. As for the welfare state, it's true that in areas like health care, the US spends more but because it's for profit, the US ends up with a health care system that doesn't cover many of it's citizens and even many it does, there are lots of loopholes for them to make sure you pay for that coverage, in Europe for instants, that's isn't an issue, pretty much everyone is covered. It's easy to say it's their fault if they are not good with money bit it's quite shocking how little savings most people have, the real problem isn't how bad they are with managing money but the system they live under which pushes them to keep spending to boost the economy, that's capitalism after all, and they don't care where they get that money just as long as they are spending, it's an unbalanced system. No what I said is that polls can be twisted to show whatever they want us to see, it happens all the time. Also, this isn't about who spends the most money, it's how it's being used, other countries around the world are doing a much better job than the US is doing, basically, it's not about the amount of money being spent, it's how that money is being used that counts and this is where the US does quite poor compared to a lot of other rich countries.
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@jsebby2284 Did you know, there's an actually saying that if you was to give everyone a million, eventually, most of that money will end up back into the top 5% The sad reality is that most people are not very good at decision-making and money management, you only have to look at the saving rates to see that. As much as people say they don't like the nanny state, their actions are saying otherwise in that they want the state to look after them to some degree or another. In any case, the system is part of the problem, it doesn't reward people that save whereas it seems to reward recklessness and risk-takers, in the case of the US, the system is built on consumerism at all cost, no matter where the money comes from and that's what we see, people are spending money they can't afford on things they don't even need, it's quite shocking that there are many millions of Americans that have less money saved then they get on a weekly pay check. Now yes I know the people are to blame but just like there is inequality on wealth, there is also inequality on brains, in the case of the US, the system doesn't really care about the people and leaves them to their own devices, whereas the EU, the system does a much better job at looking after a lot more of the people.
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@jsebby2284 In the past, saving was rewarding, for the last two decades, interest rates have been so poor that you get little to nothing for them and that's because the system doesn't want you to save, they want people to spend to boost the economy and in the US that is more the case, it's all about spending and consuming. I agree that we should be responsible for ourselves but unfortunately, it's the rest that drags the system down and with that, drags us down with them, real change comes about when people on mass changes not when the few smarter ones do.
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@jsebby2284 For most that might work but no point for me, I learned at a young age that to make it in life, you shouldn't work for someone else as they'll pay peanuts and you'll never make it by working for others, at least in most cases. I tried all sorts from work, to creating a business and in the end, settled with investing as the best option because it takes the least effort and you can make more or less as much money as you want if you play the game right.
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@jsebby2284 Saving rates are not as good as they used to be, the 90's was the best time for that were getting 10% back was quite easy, today it's more like getting blood out of a stone unless you got with one of those deals that ties your money up for years and most of the time they are still not as good. Working for yourself is something anyone can do but most either don't beleave they can or are not determined enough to try, I sometimes wonder, if most people put the same amount of effort on themselves as they do for someone else at a job, most likely could retire before they hit 30 or 40 at the latest. The problem is, most want to be told what to do in life, want to have job security but the problem with that it rarely pays well and the hours are bad, still it boggles my mind that so many put 40 odd hours per week to make someone else rich, most are bright enough that if they used that 40 hours on themselves, they would make far more money than working for someone else.
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@jsebby2284 Anyone can work for themselves, the problem is, if everyone did, the benefits of doing so much disappear, a bit like the lottery, as long as few wins it, it's great but if everyone wins on it, it's kinda pointless, in other words, the system is designed for very few to make riches, you just like to think outside the box to make it. But I do think that most people are capable of making it if they put the kind of effort in that they do with working for someone else but on themselves, most don't seem willing. Working rarely pays well because it's designed in a way to make others rich at the workers expense, in other words, most of the workers do the hard work whiles a few of the upper management take most of the money. As for the markets, the US has been one of the better performer thanks to Trump but it's way overpriced at the moment and I suspect a big crash could be one it's way, likely a year after the pandemic is over with, the UK market is one of the worse performer since Brexit, the German market has more or less doubled since the Brexit vote, a clear indicator that investors are taking money out of the UK and putting into the EU market with the Germans benefitting a lot from that.
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@jsebby2284 A lot of it does have to do with effort but most don't feel they can make it and in truth, if most could, it wouldn't be worth doing, the system is designed for the very few to break out of that bubble and make it, most of us can do it but most won't because they rather be told what to do and want a stable wage week in week out. It's the same with goods we buy, it's designed in a way that companies will charge whatever they think they can get away with, if everyone had a million, we wouldn't all be rich because everything we buy would skyrocket in price to keep most of the public dependent on the system, that's how it's designed, at least for most. Basically, it's not hard to break out of the cycle of poverty which I consider the middle class living under because they have little savings and are very dependent on work that without a job, they soon find out they have no money left or are dependent on the government to give hands out, thats a heck of a lot of people on the poverty line and the irony is, most don't see it that way because it's become normal for them.
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Brexit was a massive wake-up call, even in the UK where support for the EU is much higher than I've ever seen it. A dose of reality is what was needed in the UK and they are currently going through that reality for at least 2 decades. Maybe Hungary needs that reality check, because they seem to think they will be better off in the pocket of Putin. In any case, this isn't just about Brexit on why the EU is doing well, like the video pointed out, other things like Covid, Ukraine, Putin are playing a big part, but also the US and China are playing a big part as well, many Europeans are starting to wake up to the reality that there are big superpowers out there with the US and China, EU countries on their own stand little to no chance in standing up to them but the EU can, Europeans in the EU needed this wake-up call that if they want to protect their political, economic and social interest, they have to stick together and the irony is, the UK is playing right into the hands of the EU with trying to water down a lot of rules and regulations, something that will hurt the British people in a lot of sectors. With all that said, there are a few areas that the EU needs to do better on, it needs to get a lot tougher on Hungary, it needs to reform the EU, especially on veto rules and even thought I do support resources being shared out around the EU, there needs to be tough strings attached when it comes to reforms so it's not a bottomless put, southern EU members are a prime example of that and why some northern ones are less keen to help, I suspect these countries would be more willing to help if they didn't have to keep helping them every decade or so. Another area I think the EU needs to work on is its commutation with the public, for many, it feels too distant and I'm also starting to wonder if reforms with the EU Commission are needed, to either make it directly elected or appointed by the European Parliament, basically, more works is needed in those areas that septics think the EU is not democratic.
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@johnseabrook1703 Such a weak argument, just accept it lol. Brexit has been a joke to the UK and the UK has been lurching from one mess after another. What's it going to take before clowns like you get it through your thick head that Brexit isn't working? do we really need the UK union being devolved to prove that point how wrong the Brexiteers got it wrong? That's the direction we are going thanks to Brexit, the Tories and DUP and yet idiots like you keep thinking everything is going fine. That's a clear sign that you know someone is an idiot, someone that can't admit they got it wrong as that takes balls to admit you got something wrong you've been backing for so long.
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Before the year 2000, many would have a good view on the US and see it in a good light, but over the last two decades and especially over the last decade, a lot more people see the US in a negative light and don't really find the country appealing. Personally, I think it's the internet, it's highlighting the problems far more which in many cases were there before, but thanks to the net, it's far easier to compare to other countries around the world on the differences, and even thought the US is a modern country, it's got elements of a first, second and third world country all rolled into one, which creates a lot of problems and division among its citizens. Europeans on the other hand, especially in the EU have it really easy, and I get the sense that a lot of them don't realise how good and easy they've got it compared to most of the world and even compared to the US, because Europeans really love to complain about everything, maybe that's why they have it good because it keeps governments in check, but that complaining makes it seem like the grass is greener on the other side, live a few years on the other side and you get to see that it's not what it's all cracked up to be. I even have a friend who lived in Australia for 7 years, he moved back to Europe because he said the quality of life, the pace of life is better, and the irony is, Australia is a modern country with a high quality of living, in fact, Europeans countries dominant the top 10 when it comes to quality of life with I think Australia and Canada being in the top 10, the US and even the UK have been slipping down the table. At the end of the day, I think it all boils down to having balance, work-life balance, strong safety net as well as strong social programs, safe place to live and so on, but I think where Europe has the advantage is geographies, it's very easier to move around, travel and all that, whereas other countries like Australia, they are nice places to live but are geographically isolated whereas Europe allows much easier access to many of the interesting parts of the world, not to mention that just in Europe allow, it could take you a lifetime just to explore the richness it offers. Europeans, especially in the EU don't realise how good they've got it.
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@johnboddie6826 True, I do also think it should help to speed up the reforms needed in Ukraine for them to join the EU sooner rather than later, after all, with everything that's gone on and when the dust settles, it will be bold of any politicians to want to side with Russia in Ukraine and that will make it a lot more difficult for those politicians that are trying to block major reforms because the government and politicians can turn it against them in wanting to side with Russia, also, with the invasion from Russia, Ukraine will feel a lot safer inside the EU, so a lot of the opposition to either the EU or reforms will likely melt away in Ukraine, which should help to being them on track to joining the EU sooner rather than later. With all that said, the EU will need to do reforms of its own before any new member can join, especially on vetoes and majority rules, I also think more integration is needed in military, foreign policy and energy matters. But for now, the west needs to continue to help Ukraine in any ways that they can, they also need to continue to isolate Russia from the world and I also think the EU and US needs to go after countries that are profiting on cheap oil and gas from Russia, after all, the west isn't doing all this only for others like China and India to prop up the Russian economy, there needs to be a high price for those countries, either with sanctions on goods or other measures.
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Nah, they just need the political drive and a capital market at an EU level.
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We should remember that as wages go up, that makes China even more of a power because of the consumer bases and there is little to nothing others can do to try and avoid that because almost every country and corporation will want in on that consumer base, that alone will likely give China a lot of power, not that different then how it give the US power because it's got a bigger consumer base than European countries, China is playing by the same book but it's consumer base is 4 times bigger, that is hard for any country and corporation to not be in and any that are not in are likely at a massive disadvantage compared to others that are in and what makes it all worse is that labour is still cheap enough in the country. We should also remember that China for the last 5 or 10 years have been trying to push from a manufacturing base to a consumer base economy because they can see wages are rising, hence why China is outsourcing to India and African countries for cheap labour. I don't give the west much hope unless the EU and US stops fighting each other because at the moment, the west is being divided at a time when power is shifting from west to east and we are not just talking China here, we are talking all of Asia as well. As for India, they do have the tapping of being a major power but they are a long way from that at the moment and that will likely take decades which I doubt China is worried about because they are already trying to source out for cheaper labour than what is in China already, in the decades to come, I expect more of that. As for the west, companies have very little incentive to bring jobs back home because consumers demand goods on the cheap, cheaper labour countries can deliver that, we in the west can't and it's made all the worse because of the hard times we are going to get the next few years is likely going to push us to buy products from cheaper labour countries and the kicker in all that is this, if one western company does it's labour in the west and it's products cost a lot more, consumers will punish that company whiles rewarding the company that is using cheap labour and that is where the real problem is, westerners are addicted to cheap goods, good luck changing that mind set any time soon, especially with hard times on the horizon. At the end of the day, the only real thing that matters is the consumer base economy with rising wages, put them two together with a massive population and no country or corporation can afford to not be in that market as it would put them at a massive disadvantage compared to rivals that are in that market and you can bet there will be many takers on that one from all over the world.
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The EU wouldn't let us back in so soon, it's crazy to think they would lol. The UK could rejoin but let's be honest with ourselves, it's a long and bumpy road ahead, it will likely take at least two decades before we can join, and even then, the EU will have to see a major shift from the public, the media and political parties across the UK in how they see the EU project. We should also remember that if the UK wants to rejoin the EU, there will be no op-outs, if the UK shows signs of asking for any, then it will clearly show to the EU and its members that we are not ready to join, my point being that the EU will want to see a sizeable change in how the UK views the EU project, and that is going to take time. So let's forget rejoining the EU because that isn't going to happen any time soon, but what we can do in the UK is create closer relations with the EU and its members, maybe join the single market and custom union, that would solve a lot of the economic problems Brexit is doing on the UK, it would also solve the Irish boarder issue and our poor trade deals around the world as the EU ones will replace them. If we in the UK shows real signs that we want to join, then there's a fair chance the EU and its members will soften there tone to us joining, but they are going to want to see real commitment from the UK in wanting to rejoin, that basically rules out the current Conservative lot, it also rules out the current Labour lot that's likely to win the next election, so we could be talking at least a decade before there's any real discussion in the UK of rejoining, and it's after that when the real hard work begins, because there won't be any op-outs on things like the Euro or Schengen zone, and many in the UK need to understand that if we were to rejoin, we would be rejoining a different EU with no op-outs and all treaties, including new ones that happen over the coming decades.
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The real worry for Putin is, if he keeps targeting civilians in Ukraine, Ukraine could take the gloves off and do the same in Russia, that could be problematic in a few ways for Putin, it could turn the people more against him by the people getting directly impacted by the war, it could also turn them more in favour, either way, it could escalate the war. But honestly, with how Russia have behaved, Ukraine has ever right to target Russian sites, especially military sites as that will make it harder for Russia to fight on the front line and who knows, maybe they can target the energy grid, give them a dose of their own medicine but I don't think they should target Russian civilians directly, at least not at yet.
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@fakedoorsfordinner1677 Coal could be used as a stop gap measure, I know it's not a popular option with how dirty it is but when it comes to energy security, you have to do what you have to do, in the end, it would only be for a few short years to keep things running, so yeah, I don't really see any real threat to the EU economy from Russia and it's natural resources but it's best to make it seem like it's a big threat as that will make it easier to go to alternative energy sources a lot sooner than we expected, the irony being, the Europeans in the EU could be the lucky ones here because now they have to make big changes on the energy market, so a bit of short term pain but a lot of big gains ahead of the rest of the world, that's what happens when something becomes a threat.
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@dinamosflams That takes way too long and isn't really the solution, I think a mix of ramping up renewable energy a lot whiles filling the void by buying oil and gas on the world market is the best solution, also more work on the interconnect grid in the EU so it's much easier to shift electricity around the union.
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@fakedoorsfordinner1677 I think a mixture of renewable and battery tech could fill much of the energy gap but that's longer term goal, in the short term buying alternative on the world market or even restarting a lot of the energy sources the EU already has like coal will have to do.
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@dinamosflams That would be the case for gas from other countries, after all, gas from Russia or the US is more or less the same thing in green terms.
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@licheong I suspect China will be re-evaluating it's military after what it's seeing in Ukraine, dictators tend to cloud their vision from reality in how strong they really are, China likely isn't as strong as people think but they are likely stronger than Russia simply because of it's economy, still no match for the west overall thought.
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@xNamikazeMinatox If China gets involved, things could quickly escalate into world war 3 but China has a lot more to lose than Russia does so I don't think they will want to get involved
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The simple answer is no, Japan can be a big power on the world stage but not a superpower, and the reason for that is that there are a few conditions needed to be a superpower, one is having a modern economy, second is having a big population. The powers that have that are the EU, US and China, others like India and Brazil could have it someday but they are a long way from that. Japan has a modern economy but it's population size doesn't measure up with the other big boys and it's population is in decline, whereas the EU, US and China are still growing and in the case of the EU, it's also got the option of expanding with new countries. Japan had it's heyday in the 80's, where it's economy was massive for the size of the population, but a big part of that is because they went all in with high-tech whereas the west were slow on that, the 90's came around and the west went all in with high-tech and ended up pulling away.
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Europeans overall don't really believe in god or lets say god is in decline in Europe, but then god never blessed anyone.
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The problem I find with the UK is when the US says jump, the UK says how high, it gives the impression that the UK is weak that it does what is in the interest of the US and not what is in the interest of the UK. When the UK were in the EU, the UK didn't have to do that, it had a big enough voice in the EU that it could have its own path away from the US, whiles having power over its own destiny in the EU, at least that way it had a say over the rules being created whereas with the US, the UK comes across as a lapdog, this was whiles the UK in the EU, now with Brexit, the UK position is much worse as it had no say in the EU and is in a much weaker position with the US and world, its voice doesn't carry as far now because when the UK was in the EU, many listened to the UK because we had a say in shaping EU policies, now we don't have any of that. Brexit has also created a lot of fragmentation in the UK among its nations and people, and who knows how that could turn out, but I do know one thing, the US will continue to take advantage of the UK, because why not? The UK after all jumps when the US tells them too, but a country with such history and pride, it does make the UK look really weak, and as a Brit, you've got to respect the French for at least standing up and doing what they think is right or what's in there interest, something we just don't see in the UK any more, because the UK's forign policy is more or less an extension of US forign policy, and you really do have to wonder, how could a nation of such history, fall so low? In any case, expect more decline, expect the US to get pushed aside as the world is different now with big power blocks like the EU, US and China that dominant, and as UK power continues to decline, with all that said, I do expect the UK will rejoin the EU at some point in the future, but it won't be any time soon, I think it will happen at some point as reality is starting to kick in, but that's going to take some time to really drum that message home.
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This war is so costly for Russia and for what? They are hardly achieving anything, the cost lives and the economy is going to continue to grow and years from now, many will wonder, was it even worth it when it achieved little to nothing for Russia. This is going to be a painful and costly lesson for Russia and make no mistake about it, the US would love for this war to drag on so it does more damage to Russia longer term whiles being able to profit on it, the EU on the other hand, I'm sure some in some EU countries want the same but I suspect most want to resolve this war sooner rather than later as they don't want a war on it's doorstep, for the US, this war is distant and they see it as a way to weaken and isolate Russia and the longer the war drags on with Russia being bogged down in Ukraine, the worst of the impact on Russia.
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That first one was a perfect photoshoot finish lol.
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I don't see much of a problem, with a union as big as the EU, you're bound to get disagreements in many areas, that's quite healthy for democracy. Germany does have some points thought, debt sharing should only be done with lots of tough strings attached so countries borrowing the money don't get reckless. As for military buy up, they should buy as much as they can from the internal EU market but in areas where they can't, the US is a good option and considering that Germany wants to overall it's entire military, I can understand their thinking in the short term but EU countries should replace most of that with home ground military arms over the long run like France said. France is also right, the EU countries need to speak with one voice, they need to beef up their military and pool their resources and not just on the military but in many areas. But in any case, EU countries will find common ground because of self-interest but in the case of Germany, I think it might be doing its self a lot of harm, not so much by its actions but the way it's going about it, which if they are not careful could shift the balance of power away from Germany a lot quicker than it was going to do, especially if France continues to shift away from the Germans. But in any case, this is a healthy thing for the EU, you've got debate, different points of views and the direction will shift according to what most EU members want.
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I think you've got it all wrong, all religions have been a problem throughout human history and whats really killing religion is advancement in tech thats opening our eyes and this is happening systematiclly to almost every country that becomes rich and modern so expect a lot more of that with developing countries as they catch up.
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Yep, this is quite a poor video on the subject, still it would be entertaining if Russia tried because I think the Russian people need a major wake-up call when it comes to Putin and Russia's power in the world which in today's world boil down to the economy, the bigger that is, the more power you've got in the country in question chooses to divert resources to arms and high-tech weapons, basically, Russia wouldn't stand a chance in that game unless it uses nukes but then both sides lose and Russia likely more so.
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@outerspace7391 I agree, democracy is only as good as the people voting or not voting and in western countries, they do a poor job at that but that's not the system's fault, that's the people's fault, politics is a reflection of the people, unless the people change, why should governments?
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Probably true, but by that token, you can't appease a dictator, the only language dictators understand is force, the west tried the appeasement option over the last 10 years, Putin took advantage of that by taking Crimea and meddling in EU and US politics, and since the war in Ukraine, the west have got tougher on Putin but they need to get a lot tougher. Either way, the west would be stupid to allow Putin to take over Ukraine as that won't be the end of it and the west needs to send a powerful message to dictators like Putin by giving Ukraine the means to take all of Ukraine back, including Crimea, Putin needs to realise that there is a price to pay for your actions and basically, being in a worse position then he was before the war started will look bad for him among the Russian people and internationally.
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The problem is that even if you do have insurance in the US, you're double-dipping, one for the insurance and two for what you have to cover out of pocket. Now I don't know what the cost of insurance is, it likely depends on the quality of that insurance, but it all sounds like a scam to get money out of people twice over, through the insurance, and then out of pocket, regardless of if you have insurance or not. Other modern countries have a simple system that you pay into a universal health care system and then you're covered and for many, even if you're not paying into the system, either being poor or honeless, you're still covered by the system. The real benefit I find about this kind of system, even though we all pay into the system, it doesn't really feel like a burden on us and feels like part of the normal taxes and it's great to have peace of mind when you do need health care.
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I think the real miscalculation from Putin is that he really thought the west would do little because they did little when Russia took over Crimea. The truth is, the west have seen Putin playing games for a decade, Crimea was a warning shot that didn't wake up the west, Ukraine was the shot that woke the west up and it's easy to understand why, history has shown that if the west didn't react a lot stronger here and Putin was able to take over Ukraine, it's unlikely Putin was going to stop with Ukraine and there were rumbles about Albania being next, then there is the political situation and the message it sends to China on Taiwan. The west knew that if they did nothing on Ukraine, it would send a powerful message that the west talks a good show but is actually weak and many authoritarian governments would likely take advantage of that, especially China when it comes to Taiwan. The west had to respond and a lot tougher than they normally would to give pause to other authoritarian governments around the world, basically, the west is doing all this to stabilize the world system with the main aim of weakening Russia and isolating them long term, basically, the price of what Putin tried to do is going to be so costly to Russia over the coming years that it will make others like China think twice about trying to same thing with Taiwan. There is another factor that these authoritarian governments don't seem to understand, they look at western democracies as being chaotic and not organized whiles authoritarian systems being run like a well oiled machine, which couldn't be further from the truth if they tried, the truth is, western open democracies are so successful, because they allow the freedom of expression, speech at more or less all levels without the fear of the government striking them down for saying something the government doesn't like, that freedom is what keeps governments on their toes, keeps them on the edge, especially at election times, governments being accountable to the public and the media makes a massive difference in the effectiveness of a nation and not just the government, it's almost across the entire scale of the economy and that openness is a massive advantage democracies have over other systems, even if it does look chaotic at times. Contrast that with countries like Russia or China that the public are scared of what they say about the government, advisors to the government are scared of what they say to the leader so they tell them what they want to hear and not what is, that is a major disadvantage to these countries because the government deludes its self on its own hype and lies and to make things worse, they don't allow the creative freedoms of the public to get creative with new ideas, hence why the west dominants in almost all areas when it comes to new tech and ideas. The irony is, we are seeing something like that happening in China, it had a good run under the last government which was making progress in opening up and had massive economic growth for decades, now we have the current government that trying it's best to reverse a lot of that, the impact of that isn't sudden but we might be seeing early sign of it strangling the economy, it boggles my mind how these countries don't learn from the west in how to build a successful economy which is to allow the people the creative freedoms to do what they want and to not live in fear of the government, basically, what Russia, China and other governments like that want, power isn't compatible with how those countries are run, too centralized with fear and not taking advantage of the talent that is there with the people like the west does. Anyway, the moral of the story is, never surround yourself with yes men that tell you what you want to hear and not what is, Putin is finding that out the hard way and it's very likely the same is true is China, when people are fearful of telling you the truth, they will lie and systems like Russia and China that are built on that, well you can only imagine how bad it can be where even the government probably doesn't know much about it's own system because of the web of lies lol.
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Captain, that doesn't say much about the sport if you need cheer leaders, it suggest the sports are boring and they need a distraction to keep peoples attention, real football doesn't need any of that. As for American football, I tried watching it once, almost fell asleep, it's too much stop start for my liking, out of all the American sports, basketball is something I can get behind as I like that but even then, compared to real football, it's miles behind it. You have to understand that to many people around the world, real football is like a religion, thats how crazy it gets, go to a place like France when the world cup final and you would think hardly anyone lives there that the steets would be so empty, I've never seen that with any other sports.
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If you say so but the rest of the world disagrees and thats what really matters then some small corner to the west lol, still I do have to wonder, how did football get so big in the US with women?
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Now look who is dreaming lol, lets look at the reality of it, the EU have an economy around the same size of the US, China is catching up pretty quickly and is very likely to overtake both the EU and US and as for the trade wars, did you know that the EU have never lost a trade war with the US, the US always backs down, the last one was with George W Bush which the US backed down after 2 years, if I recall, Bush took it personally lol. The world is changing my friend, you need to get a grip on that or not, just keep your head in the sand and pretend you are the center of the univarsar lol.
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filipe5722 If Ukraine were to lose, then the escalation to a major war could be on the cards. Think about it, do you honestly think that if the west were to allow Putin to take over all Ukraine, that it would end there? We in the west would have to be really stupid to think that, especially considering what happened with Crimea a decade ago. This is a land grab from Putin, he's testing western response, if it's weak enough, he'll continue to pick out other targets to continue the land grab, which could eventually lead to a major war that would likely drag in a lot more countries, the history books will remember how all that started and how it could have been prevented if the west grew a spine and give Ukraine the means to end the war sooner rather than later. Either way, all none EU or NATO countries are potential targets of Russia in Europe as I highly doubt Putin will want to take on an EU or NATO country as that would escalate things quite rapidly.
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One of the first thing I tend to notice on my travels around Europe and America is the quality of the roads in Europe, most are like carpet smooth whereas in the US, it looks like a bomb has hit it.
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@colinbrown7947 That argument has been used many times but it wasn't a problem in the past and it's clear that budget cuts on maintaining roads has been going down the last few years, that's where the real problem is. Also even if the size of the country was the problem, there's no reason for inner city areas to look like a bomb has hit it, thats where most of the people are, you would think they would do better on the road network.
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I wonder if you would say that if China was attacking your fossil industry. The simple truth is, Australia doesn't have much of a car industry to protect. With that said, you have to be careful to not get too dependent on China, there's usually a political price that goes with it, so as much as I don't like what the EU and US are doing, there does need to be some balance when it comes to trade.
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If history is any indicator, sanctions usually take about 2 to 3 years to really bite and we should remember that the sanctions are not in full until the Europeans diversify away from Russian oil and gas. Basically, it's too early for now but it's very likely the sanctions will be really damaging to Russia longer term and for a few reasons, for one, it's going to become harder for Russia to get replacement parts for things that break, 2, Russia won't be profiting on oil and gas revenue from Europe and 3, not many businesses around the world are going to want to do business with Russia because of the sanctions and because of trust. Throw it all in and we are talking about a lot of damage to Russia and it's likely going to get worse because the west isn't doing all this only for the likes of China and India to prop up the Russian economy, basically, as the Europeans diversify away from Russian oil and gas, the EU and US is very likely going to put a lot of pressure on China, India and others that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, probably with tariffs on their goods they sell to the EU and US market to the amount they benefit from that cheap oil and gas from Russia, the idea is, to cancel out those benefits whiles making their products in the west more expensive, the real idea being total isolation of Russia from the world and the EU and US has a very strong hand in that because China and India trade a lot more with the west they do with Russia, they can't afford to lose those markets whereas the west can afford to lose them as the west can find cheap labour in other countries. So yeah, Russia is on borrowed time, it's money reserve it built up for this war is running out, Europeans are moving away from their oil and gas and it's becoming harder for Russia to find replacement parts for things they need, longer term that's very crippling for Russia and we are talking long term, we're not talking about hitting them just for a few years but over countless years or even decades if they keep being a threat like they have been, in other words, Russia could very easierlly become the next Iran or North Korea long term and the only alternative for Russia is this, they have to get rid of Putin and have a leader that wants to repair ties around the world, that isn't going to be easy and won't happen quickly. Also, we know things are bad in Russia already because the government isn't reporting on much economic data and what it is reporting is very cherry-picked, if Russia was doing fine or better than fine, trust me, they would want the world to know about it but as Russia stopped reporting on economic data when the war start, it suggests things are not going well for the economy.
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Who says the US needs to defend the EU?, the only ones that seem to think that is the US and some eastern European countries, the truth is, the US have not been needed for many decades because in the words of Bill Clinton, it's the economy stupid, in other words, the EU and it's members have a modern high tech economy with the right skill sets to beable to defend it's self, people really need a reality check on these things, Germany alone have a bigger economy then Russia does and by quite a margin too, if Russia did become a threat what how quickly the EU members would mobolise. Beside, Russia isn't really a threat to the EU, it's one thing them saber ratterling none EU members, it's another for them to even thing about doing it with EU members.
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Truth is, if the US was to pull out of Europe, it might be the best thing that could happen, NATO likely will be fine, the other members will do the job of it as they already do, the EU would likely have a more intergrated army, more so if Russia was to saberrattle. In any case, the US isn't needed and have not been needed for quite some time, the US and NATO is used as an excuse by the US and many in Europe to not build a EU army, so the US pulling out would just weaken the US around Europe whiles also making the EU stronger. As for them paying for there own defence, they already do, they don't have to spend anymore then they already do, just have to intergrated into a single EU army, it's the main reason NATO is still here after the Soviat are not around and why the US are still in Europe, either way, Trump is helping the EU in ways he doesn't even know :)
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@jamesdefferson Yeah that explains why Germany is still independence and massively boosting it's military spending lol. Trump was a wild card that said stupid things on so many things half the time you didn't know which side he was on, US or Russia lol.
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@ietomos7634 Actually, the UK still pays into the EU pot even after Brexit and that's just going on what we know, it will be interesting to see what other nuggets are in those papers. Beside, that money is tiny to the size of the EU economy and you do realize that quite a chunk of that money went back into the UK? The loss to the EU is small.
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@ietomos7634 You do realize that deal has already been done, beside, considering the access the EU got to our market whiles keeping the UK out of the financial market, that alone will likely pay dividends for the EU. But I have to admit, it is funny watching Brexiteers trying to make a bad deal seem like a good one.
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@ietomos7634 Technically, both are true, depending on where you live, either way, what does it matter? Trade will continue as normal but mostly because we are mostly following EU rules but now just rubber-stamping them, after all, use your nogging, do you really think the EU would give that level of access to trade unless we followed their rules? Remember in the legal documents that there are tough rules in there that the EU could come down like a ton of bricks on the UK if we break them. Also, lets not forget that this deal does little to nothing for services which account for 80% of the British economy, if the UK was a big manufacturing economy, this deal wouldn't be so bad but I'm sure you know how this game is played, if the UK was to become a manufacturing economy, the EU would change the rules to counter that, they've basically done the deal that works for them, keep trade in goods with little restriction because it works for them to sell to us with little getting in the way but when it comes to services, the EU saw a big opening to steal a lot of business away from the UK and they went for it. But I have to admit, I didn't think the EU would get such a good deal, I mean, I always knew they held all the cards and would get a better deal than the UK would but I didn't think it would be this good for them and I think the reason it's so good for the EU is because Boris bluffed to the last moment, the EU called his bluffed and then the UK had to make a lot more concession than we normally would have to do. Or let's put it another way, this deal is worse for the UK than the deal that May got with the EU but it was voted down, basically, by the UK pushing to the clock, it made us a lot more desprate and we ended up giving up more than we had to do and all the EU had to do is hold their ground, call our bluff and sit back and it worked better than expected for the EU.
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@sickpup820 I've not checked the papers on the deal they did but I think Germany is paying a little more but remember that the eastern European countries are modernizing quite quickly, it's only a matter of time before they are paying in the pot and not taking out just like others that joined the EU in the pass did, in any case, it's not as big of a deal like Brexiteers want us to think and in any event, that deal has always been done and dusted a few weeks ago whiles attaching around a trillion Euros for recovery on the pandemic.
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@iedco4 The only deals I've actually seen from the UK side are role overs of the EU deal we already have and many have already said that is short term to buy time to hammer out another deal, basically, many of those countries are seeing the UK being reckless and pushing Brexit at all cost but those other countries don't want to harm their own interest and want things as they are, so far now, same deals but they will have a stronger hand to negotiate better terms for themselves after Brexit, that's what it looks like they are doing. Basically, it's going to get a lot tougher for the UK after Brexit because all of a sudden, the hand of almost every other countries will become stronger once the UK is out, expect them to take advantage of that by making their own demands on the UK.
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@meeau Trump can't afford to try and forcibly stay in office, all hell would brake loose if he tried but he will try to rig the election, he's already planting the seed of doubts in Americans minds that it's rigged already, Trump is trying to undermine US democracy and his supporters are helping him on that.
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@MrJaaaaake If you say so but I know better.
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@meeau I doubt it matters if he fails or not, the damage is done, at least to the US and even a Bidan government on a world tour to repair ties isn't likely going to reserve what the last 4 years was like, Trump has been a massive wake up call and many countries are shifting focus away from the US because they seem too unstable, too aggressive and reckless, it's part of the reason Japan and Canada speeded up their trade deals with the EU, they want to be less exposed to the US and become more friends with the EU as they seem to be the only big power that hasn't lost the plot yet.
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@perry714. The EU is just humering us in the UK, for all the ranting and raving and threats to walk away, the UK keeps talking, the EU isn't stupid, they know the UK can't afford to walk away hence why they keep talking, the threats are in the hope of getting the EU to back down and offer better terms but the EU sees that and are only offering crumbs. At the end of the day, Brexiteers and the UK government honestly thought these talks were on equal ground lol, they were never, the EU is the one dictating the terms because they are the bigger power, the UK doesn't like that hence all the ranting but it doesn't change that fact, this is why the UK keeps backing down whereas the EU isn't, theres no reason for the EU to change on that because they know the UK needs the EU a lot more than the EU needs the UK, especially now a brain drain is happening in the UK.
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@perry714. Actually you can, the UK could have walked at any time but choose not too, the rest from the UK is to see will the EU blink and give the UK what it wants, that's been the main game of the UK since Brexit started, doesn't seem to be working because every time that blink moment happens, the UK is the one that backs down to what the EU wants, expect more of that near the end of the year. Besides, even if no deal happens, that's not the end of Brexit, the UK will still want a good deal with the EU, the only difference is that the EU will have a stronger hand than it already has with the UK fully out of the EU and on top of that, the pandemic economic hardship is likely to kick in from next year. The next 5 years is going to be very interesting to see.
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@perry714. If you understand how the EU operates then you'll know what is going on in the EU is quite normal, especially on tough negotiating deals, this has happened countless times and in many cases even worse in the past and yet the EU is still here. You are counting delusions in wanting the EU to fail and not looking at the realities of how it operates, but then people like you were deluded in thinking Brexit was the end of the EU or that the UK would get many countries on side and not a single one did or that the Euro would be dead and buried a long time ago. So ask yourself, why do euroseptics get it so wrong on the EU and have done for decades? Almost everything they say about the EU doesn't come to pass lol.
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@perry714. The rush is that the UK needs to be seen that it can stand on it's own two feet but signing a trade deal doesn't mean much if it's not a good one or too one sided, the challenge is signing deals that are good deals and that usually takes time and mostly works in favour of the bigger player.
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@thedave7760 The problem is, we really don't know because this pandemic could shift the balance of power in the US depending on what the Democrats do, the Republicans have made such a mess over the last 4 years and especially on this pandemic that if the Democrats play their cards right, they could do massive damage to the Republic Party. Anyway, I suspect the Democrats will want to repair friction in the country and bring people back together, I also suspect they will want to normalize relations around the world and especially with the EU because they are going to need each other with a rising aggressive China.
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@perry714. It doesn't work that way, look at how the UK has done negotiating with the EU over the last few years, they wait till the last possible moment before caving in, they've done it a few times already, they hope the EU will back down at the last moment but the EU never does, at least not in any meaningful way, that puts the UK in a tight bind because like it or not, we need a deal, more so now because of the pandemic. That transition period is just that, just to see if we can get a deal but there is nothing stopping the UK from walking away apart from the damage it would do to the UK, the EU isn't holding the UK to ransom, the UK is choosing to continue to talk and for good reason too. As for the fishing rights, if the EU doesn't have access to British waters than the UK won't have access to EU waters, it goes both ways, more important is that the UK sells most of its fish to the EU market, the EU can get tough on that and make it less appealing to buy from the UK, now I know what you are going to say, you'll sell to others, good luck on that because most established markets like the US won't want the UK muscling in and most other countries are poorer ones so you won't be able to ask for the same price, the EU is the logical market to sell too and that gives the EU clout in that area, in the end, I suspect both the EU and UK will have access to each other's waters on more or less the same term we have now once the bluster ends. You do realize that even without a trade deal, the EU is still going to be by far the UK's biggest trading partner, it just means UK consumers are paying more for those same goods whereas the EU companies will cut the UK out of the supple chain because they can, the EU market is big enough that they can source from other areas internally without having to worry about tariffs and red tape, the UK market isn't big enough so they have to depend on others, that's where the EU knows they have us and are holding all the cards. At the end of the day, the UK had a very good deal in the EU with so many op-outs and still wasn't happy about it and wanted more, it's just pure arrogance from the British side, I'm very happy that the UK lost all of that.
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@perry714. The EU have already said the UK can have a standard trade deal like others have around the world, the problem is that the UK wants a lot more than that because a standard trade deal would be quite damaging to the UK compared to what we have in the EU at the moment, that is where the real hold up is, the UK wanting a special deal, much better than a free trade deal but the EU is saying no unless the UK abides by its rules, there is no force here, it's the UK that's got its self in a bind by promising the British people something they can't deliver.
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Alfa&Omega 00000 I think the UK trade with the EU accounts to about 14% whereas for the EU, the UK trade with the EU is close to 50%, the can afford to take that hit a lot more than the UK can, especially because of economy of scale, EU companies can source things from others in the EU market, the UK isn't big enough to be able to do that effectively, worse yet is that the EU still has all it's trade deal and bilateral deals around the world, the UK doesn't next year, this is why the EU is holding all the cards and why the UK needs to keep blustering it's way through with threats that mean nothing to the EU, the UK has little leverage and they know it, hence the aggressive attitude.
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@SimulationEvolve I can't say what the Japanese think of the EU but that is irrelevant, what matters is that the geo-political situation is changing around the world, the US is becoming more unstable, less reliable and more aggressive, the UK has lost the plot, China is on a power trip, the EU looks to be the only big power that isn't losing it's cool, any wonder why Japan and Canada speeded up it's talks with the EU on those free trade deals? They want to be less exposed to the US and are trying to make friends around the world, the EU is a logical choice considering the size of the economy. That's also bad news for the UK that countries are thinking like that because it also likely means they won't give the UK better terms than they can to the EU because they don't want to get on the wrong side of the EU and don't want the EU to re-open trade talks to get better terms out of them, in the end, they value the EU a lot more than they value the UK.
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@meeau Another 4 years of Trump would do a lot more damage to the US then what some think, think about it, have you ever wondered why China is going easy on the US for now? from there point of view, they don't need to get tough with the US when an election is so close as that can change a lot, if Trump was to win it, China will likely get a lot tougher on the US. Then we have Canada and Japan, since Trump got into power, both countries speeded up their trade deal with the EU, they clearly want to be less exposed to the US and are looking for other friends, the EU being an easy option, if two of the most loyal countries are pulling away from the US then the US is in trouble. Then we have the UK which doesn't seem to know what it wants and even they seem to be distancing themselves from the US which is a surprise considering the UK will need the US more than every after leaving the EU with Brexit next year. Then we have the EU, Trump seems to be going out of his way to push Europeans away from Americans, the sad thing is, Trump is weakening the west and making it easy for China to take more power, the EU and US really need to get closer together with an aggressive China on the rise because honestly, I don't think either are powerful enough to take on China with how quickly they are rising but both together would stand a chance as they would likely get a lot of other countries onboard. If Biden wins and tries to repair ties around the world, especially with the EU and tries to calm things down with China, then the US might be alright but if they are still hostile, a new Cold War could start with the US and China and it's looking more like the Europeans and many others will stay out of it and let the two fight it out, that would be a lot more costly for the US.
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@thedave7760 The irony being is that is what the Republicans have been doing the last few years lol. As for if Trump wins, who really cares, I'm European so it matters little to me but going on what I'm seeing, it looks favourable for Biden to win, besides, think of the message that would send to the rest of the world if Trump wins again, people can be forgiven for doing a mistake once, do it again and a lot of the world will turn away from the US at a time the US can't afford with its new Cold War building with China, we are already seeing signs of that already, especially from the Europeans, Canada and Japan, even the UK seems colder on US relations then they usually are. Basically, the US can't afford another Trump victory as that would likely change a lot of the geo-political alliances around the world, some of which is already happening and not favourable for US interest. Beside, it doesn't look like Trump will win, all the indicators are showing that Biden could win by a landslide, the real question is, if you was a Democrat, would you actually want to win with the mess the Republicans have made, it's going to take years to repair that damage and the Democrats will likely get the blame for the mess the Republicans have made, it might be better for the Democrats to lose so that the Republicans own this mess, that would do a lot more longer term damage to them. Dave, let him beleave in what he wants, many people do like their own delusions in how they want to see things go but truth be told, things look really bad for Trump and a clear indicator of that is him wanting to put the elections on hold, the only reason he would want to do that is because he suspects he's got little chance of winning, in any case, all the indicators from too many different sources are suggesting Biden will win and by quite a margin, hence the panic from Trump.
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@perry714. That's because the UK wants terms with the EU that are close to what the UK has whiles in the EU, the EU is willing to give that with a lot of strings attached. If the UK wants a basic trade deal with fewer strings attached than they can have that as well but clearly the UK doesn't want that as that would be damaging to the UK economy compared to the deal we currently enjoy with the EU, that is where the real hold up is, the UK wanting more than the EU is willing to give unless the UK bends. Also, I think you are forgetting the way this game is played, the EU holds all the cards in these talks, they can dictate whatever terms they want, they don't even have to offer the UK a Canada like deal and probably won't because of the close proximately of the EU and UK so that deal wouldn't work because of the amount of trade between the two. You might not like it but bigger powers always dictate the terms in these talks, now it's just up to the UK to accept those terms or walk away but it's not only going to be the EU that plays hard ball, the US and many others will on the UK too, especially after Brexit as the UK will have a weaker hand against them all. I know it's not fair but hey, what is in life? Bigger economies have the market and the clout, that gives them more of a say in dictating what they want, the UK best get used to that because others are going to do the same to the UK, the US being one of the clear ones that are already starting tough on the UK.
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@EvenWaysMusic No lol, for one talks between the EU and Japan have only been going on for about 6 or 7 years and two, the deal the UK got is basically a role over of the EU deal and it looks like it's temporary because of lack of time, in other words, Japan intends to renegotiate that deal with the UK after Brexit once there is enough time, chances are, Japan knows they can get better terms out of the UK at the UK's expense but for now, time is short so they are using the EU trade deal.
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@EvenWaysMusic Considering the impact free trade deals have on both sides of the economy and rule changes that are needed, those deals should take some time to do so that it doesn't harm any industry or sectors of the economy, it's easy to rush through a deal but that doesn't mean it's a good deal or it likely means it's a very one sided deal. The UK-Japan deal is more or less the EU deal, the moment the UK tried to do it's own thing, Japan put a stop to it and likely did because they don't want to get on the wrong side of the EU, in other words, they don't want to give the UK a better deal than the one the EU has as that might open up the free trade deal they have with the EU in the EU wanting more concessions from Japan, Japan is simple rolling over the existing deal because of lack of time but after Brexit, they intend to renegotiate it in their favour because their hand will be stronger than the UK, that's how economic clout works, the UK after Brexit is a weaker player and many will take advantage of that. At the end of the day, the likes of Japan and Canada value the EU a lot more than they do the UK simple because it's a much bigger market and more importantly, the EU, Canada and Japan are a lot closer in a lot of policy areas than where the UK is heading with Brexit.
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Galactic Minds Really and how is it more comprehensive than the deal the EU got? The moment the UK tried to get more out of the deal, Japan put it's foot down. This deal is basiclly the EU deal rolled over because there isn't enough time to sort things out with the limited time left, Japan has already said they will renegotiate the deal at a later day, likely with the intention of getting better terms out of the UK because they know the moment the UK is out of the EU, the UK will be weaker and Japan will have a stronger hand. But in any case, where is this comprehensive deal that's supposed to be better than the one the EU got? and more importantly, why is none of the media reporting on any of this, you would think they'll be shouting from the rooftops if it was a good deal, the truth is, the deal you think it is is just in your mind. So who's laughing, well first japan is laughing and second the EU is laughing.
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As for what the hell is going on, well it's simply, putting is getting really desperate, he doesn't care about the Russian people, he cares about protecting his position of power, the problem for Putin, trying to mobilize the Russian people could backfire on him as they thought they were going into Ukraine for a picnic, after all, that was all the lies from the state were making it seem to the Russian people and this could really start to open up peoples eyes in Russia to what is really going on. It's sad really because they are being sent in as cannon fodder as most are not going to be nowhere near as well-trained as the troops that already went in. In any case, this reminds me of Hitler late on in the war where he was recruiting anyone he could be, including kids, which is a good sign that it's the beginning of the end of the war with a victory for Ukraine. Now some will say Putin could go the nuke option, that's unlikely because going that option will have a direct impact on the Russian people, the people can tolerate Putin as long as it doesn't directly impact them personally, nukes would escalate things a lot, in other words, if Putin even attempt to go the nuke option, he will probably get killed by his own inner circle or the Russian people, after all, this is Putin's personal war, I highly doubt the people want things to escalate into what could be a major war, but, desperate times, you never know with a nut job like Putin, but in any case, the Russian people need to be careful here because this could blow up in their face. As for those referendums, they mean nothing until it's done in a fair way without pressure or internal vote rigging from Russia, in other words, we know it won't be a fair vote, so however way the vote terms out, Ukraine is still likely going to try and take back that land.
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It's a bit ironic that the US is asking Ukraine to not attack Russian targets in Russia like the oil sites. Ukraine are in survival mode and will use every mean they have to defend their country, and honestly, can you blame them? After all, attacking the oil sites could be a smart move if it helps to reduce Russia's lifeline when it comes to supporting the military. The truth is, Ukraine wouldn't have to attack Russian sites outside of Ukraine if the west got its act together and give Ukraine the means to push Russia out of Ukraine and if things were to escalate into something major, then we in the west only have ourselves to blame, we have been far too slow and indecisive with our support of Ukraine and whiles many in the west might see this as a distance war that doesn't impact them, Ukraine are doing what any country that is invaded would do, they are going to use every means they have to protect there country and attacking Russian sites does have some sense to it, especially tactical ones like the oil sites. So in the words of Brexit, we in the west can't have our cake and eat it, we either give Ukraine the means to push Russia out of Ukraine or Ukraine will use what ever means it has to defend it's self, by attacking Russian sites, and until we in the west stop being indecisive and start supporting Ukraine better, it's hard to blame Ukraine for wanting to attack sites in Russia, even if it does mean it could escalate the war into something much worse, Ukraine is in survival mode here, it's high time the west starts doing the right thing in giving Ukraine real support to push Russia out of Ukraine so Ukraine doesn't need to attack sites outside of Ukraine. The EU is giving far more aid to Ukraine at the moment, but the problem is, the EU countries are not in a war economy yet to produce arms, and that will take some time for them to be, the US is in a better position on that but are starting to fall way behind the EU and it's members in what support is being given to Ukraine, so yes, both the EU and US need to pull there fingers out on this, the EU needs to produce far more arms and the US needs to start giving Ukraine more military support, until then, it's hard to complain about the tactics Ukraine are using.
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If a United States of Europe happens, it's going to happen not because anyone wants it but because of external factors, the EEC and the EU it's self came about because of world war two and the US becoming a super power. In the case of this, the world is changing, power is shifting from west to east, unions are popping up around the world, us Europeans including us Brits might have little choice but to get together just to protect our economic and political interest, the alternative is the likes of the US and China defining many of our laws and regulations. The irony is about Brexit, as much as we like to think we are getting our sovereignty back, are we?, it's looking like the EU and US are going to end up making up the vast bulk of our laws and regulations simply because they can, we will want good trade terms with both of them and there will be a high price the UK will have to pay to get good terms with them. This is also the reason why the UK is finding it so hard to leave, as much as we like to think we can just leave, many of the smarter ones know the damage would be big and they also know it doesn't solve anything, it's also why later this year we wont leave, we'll get lots of pomp from Boris as we did from May but we wont get any real action. We know this already as Boris is already trying to blame the EU for if hard Brexit happens, he's come to the realisation that the EU wont open up talks again and that he's going to look like a idiot, in that sense, all the EU has to do here is sit back and do nothing, Boris needs the EU to give and the EU wont because it will look like a victory for the Brexiteers, so in other words, expect a major climb down later this year from the UK as the EU has shown zero signs of backing down on this and have little reason to do so as it's the UK leaving not them.
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This was an argument of paper vs reality, and overall, Brexit has been bad for the UK and the timing of Brexit couldn't have been worse from having Covid, Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the US going off the rails among other things, especially as the UK was banking on a stable US to gain a free trade deal with, the reality is, the world is less stable, the UK is weaker out of the EU and the US isn't very reliable, which has put the UK in a bit of a bind that's pushing them closer to the EU, probably to the point of rejoining over the coming decades, once the current Conservative and Labour lot are out of power, I say that because the Tories began Brexit, so it's difficult for them to turn it around, and this Labour government is too weak when it comes to Brexit, so once there's fresh blood in the mix over the next decade, we might start seeing real change in the UK when it comes to the EU.
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To be fair, the US is the one that wanted to be the world police, complaining about it is laughable. Besides, it's looking like EU countries are assisting and others are planning to do so.
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So this is Trump's idea of bringing jobs back to the US?, he doesn't seem to understand real economics that his actions with these tariffs are putting many busisnesses at risk and they will always look out for number one even if that means moving jobs out of the US. The truth is, the world is global now and busisnesses that sell a lot around the world are the ones that get hurt by tariffs and Harley Davidson just like many others have an intrest in protecting it's share holders that Trump doesn't seem to care about, in other words, he's forcing there hand because these tariffs are hurting that busisness so they are taking action to protect themself. This is likely not to be the last, more so if Trump does more tariffs and all it's really doing is hurting the US the most by forcing jobs out of the US market.
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It just shows how resilient western countries can be when pushed, most analyse thought it was impossible for the EU countries to do what they've done so far and yet they did it and they underestimated what the high cost of energy actually does with improving the entire energy system, which means becoming a lot more energy efficient and that is likely going to continue this year and these are long term benefits that will benefit the economy once energy prices stabilize and are lower because a lot of those improvements are here to stay. Then we have the gas storage, looking at the numbers, it peaked at 95%, it's currently at 83.5%, throughout winter, it's been dropping around 1% every 2 or 3 days, over the last week or so, it's been going up a few percent, many analyse banked on these reserves being very low at the end of winter, making it more difficult to fill them up for next winter, but we're already halfway through winter and the reserves are holding up better than expected that before the last week when reserves were going up, I would say by the end of winter, there would be around 50% left, now that's it's stable and even creeping up, it might be a lot more, basically, speculators are in a real panic at the moment because they predicted that EU countries would find it hard to fill them back up for next winter but the reality is painting a different picture that they are not going down as much as they thought. It's also likely that energy efficiency is going to improve this year by another 10-15% and it's already 26% lower, so less demand for gas, efficiency improvements and more renewable deployments as well as gas storage holding up much better than expected, it's highly unlikely that next winter is going to be an issue and it wouldn't surprise me if things are more stable next winter than this, a lot of people underestimated the will to change and how fast people can change when there is a need to change, we're basically seeing changes that would normally take years, even decades, happening a lot faster, hence why the threat to energy is being reduced a lot in the EU. Anyway, the side effect of Putin's actions is that it could kill the fossil industry a lot sooner than expected, it's also a boom for renewable energy because now a lot of countries want energy security by generating as much back home, renewables can help on that a lot, there's also going to be a big drive to improve energy efficiency across the entire economy and the irony is, gas could end up being the first to get killed even thought it's one of the cleanest fossil fuels, simply put, economics comes first and gas isn't easy to transport, so unless they find a way to make LNG a lot cheaper, Europeans are likely going to shift away from gas to other energy sources, hence heat pumps are skyrocketing in installation, consumers will always gravitate to the cheaper energy source and that's unlikely to be gas in Europe unless there is a much cheaper way to transport it.
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Don't worry, it will be in late June once panic kicks in lol.
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This is too early to say, as the video points out, Sweden took a different path, it also stands to reason that if cases do rise again in Sweden, it's not going to be at around the same time it's doing in other European countries that went into lock down, basically, we have to wait and see. All I do know is that Sweden is doing a lot worse than other countries like Finland and Norway which went into lock down and when comparing Sweden, I think it's best to compare them to other small countries, that is when things don't look that great for them. But again, it's too early to say who got it right and we'll likely only have a better idea on that somewhere next year. Basically, Sweden is on a different path to most of Europe just like the US is because of its policies so we can't really compare them at this stage whereas we can compare most of Europe because most went into lock down around the same time and did a lot of the same policies, Sweden and the US are the exception to the rule that went their own path and that makes it difficult to compare to any of them two at this stage.
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@Donut-d3t I find any country that gets too close to the US that seems to lower standards in many areas, the UK is a prime example of that which have lower standards in many areas compared to other European countries and as we know, the UK likes to lick the boot of the US. Being too close to the US usually means the US having a lot more influence on the given country, and usually in a negative way, Canada later seem to be waking up to that reality but we'll see how that goes over the coming years, the UK seems to be going downhill, as for Australia, well I'm not sure about them.
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I can contest to that, I live in the UK and I've lost count of the amount of times the government likes to brag about how well the GDP is doing or how low unemployment is, yet when I look at a lot of the core quality of life indexes, the UK is falling behind other EU countries, especially since Brexit, as for the US, there's a similar pattern but it's been going on for around 2 decades and is getting worse since Trump got power, in fact, the US seems to be accelerating when it comes to falling behind other modern countries when it comes to quality of life. GDP and GDP per capital is a poor indicator on the well-being of the citizens in a country and it's actually quite misleading in many ways. At the end of the day, what really matters to the average citizen, GDP numbers or quality of life of the people? which European countries dominant the top 10 in those indexes, whereas the UK and US are slowly slipping further behind. Another factor we should remember, it's easier to have higher economic growth if the standards are lower in a country, that can be from anything like far less paid holidays to working longer hours, to lower food standards and countless more, when a country is willing to cut corners at the expense of its citizens, higher growth is more attainable. I'm grateful that EU countries are not willing to cut corners as drastic as the US is, because that only hurts the citizens of the country in the end, after all, how on earth can you have so many Americans on YouTube that say they've got a better quality of life in Europe if the stats want us to think otherwise? Many even say eastern EU countries is giving them a higher quality of living then the US did, which is crazy when you think about it with the eastern EU countries still developing to catch up with the western EU countries. Something has to be seriously wrong in the US for that to be possible and it probably boils down to more of a focus on quality of life over profits, which I don't know about anyone else, I'll take quality of life anyway over the rest.
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Short term they do but that will ease over the next year or two, the sanctions are long term damage for Russia and the EU and US are thinking big picture here. Also, what many are missing is that there is a lot of benefits to the high energy prices, especially in Europe, it's very likely going to push a lot of Europeans to become a lot more efficient on energy matters and it's also very likely going to push for a lot more renewable energy production over the next decade, all that together and once the dust settles will likely make the EU economy a lot more efficient, this happens any time there is an energy crisis, people, governments, companies get less careful about their energy use and that ends up boosting the economy longer term, hence why we get boom and boost, it's to clean up the waste in the economy so it's a lot more efficient afterwords, this is no different only that it's on energy.
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@Aussiemarco Brexiteers had many reasons to want to leave the EU, if it wasn't an EU army, it would be something else, in the end, follow the money behind Brexit, Putin has shown he is willing to interfere in western democracy from Brexit, Trump, Le Pen and many other cases around the EU, now with everything going on with Russia, maybe it's time some real investigation is done on who Putin has been financing, starting with Brexit, the Tory donations, the press, Trump and many other cases around Europe, it's clear a lot of money was used to push a specific agenda in favour of Putin. In the end, it's really up to the people to hold them to account which so far they've been pretty weak on that and are allowing them to get away with that, lets see if any of that changes now Putin has really been exposed to the world.
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I would love to have a hybrid solar/wind setup on my house but the reality is, solar is winning out, it's a lot cheaper, it's better at producing energy on residential buildings where it's likely to have less winds compared to more open or higher buildings and solar integrates better on the house whereas wind sticks out too much. There's talk about more homeowners could go gridless over the coming decades, and that wouldn't surprise me at all as renewable tech gets better as well as battery tech gets better and cheaper, if that does happen, that's a major problem for the wind energy industry, unless they can come up with much better and cheaper on-site solutions that actually work at producing a decent amount of energy, they could get wiped out by the solar industry, which is already pulling away because it's more flexible, a lot cheaper and can be used pretty much anywhere. Wind is fine when it comes to wind farms and big wind turbines, but unless they crack the residential area at a low cost that can produce a decent amount of energy, then I don't see much of a future for wind energy long term as solar keeps getting better and cheaper, especially as more of us will likely want to produce our own energy on-site as the tech continues to get better and cheaper, which for now, wind does a poor job in that area.
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Which is ironic really, because China is probably a bigger threat to Russia than Russia thinks the west is. But for now, China is happy to take advantage of Russia weakness, on cheap oil, gas and other things. A weak Russia after all, allows China to extend more control over Russia and Russia is putting themselves in a position where they have to bend to the will of China, and that will probably get worse as the cost of the war gets higher for Russia, and considering the natural resources Russia has, there's a lot for China to play for and China likely knows that a weaker Russia is something they can take advantage off, something they've already been doing on cheap oil and gas. So it's not really about whether Russia or China sees each other as a threat, it's more about China taking advantage of a weaken Russia for its own ends, which you do really have to wonder, how much are the Russian people willing to get under the thumb of China, especially considering that Russians overall are westerners, so it's going to be interesting to see over the coming years as Russia becomes weaker. So yes, there is a level of cooperation, but it's becoming very one-sided in favour of China, mostly thanks to the western weakening Russia by isolating them and the sanctions, which is making Russia more desperate to turn to whoever they can, China in this case, but it's not a level playing field by a long shot. Russia also has less at stake, China on the other hand wants to drum up business and trade, that means having good trading relations around the world and ideally with the rich markets like the EU and US and China would be a lot weaker as a country if trade becomes a lot more isolated, which is more or less what the US wants to do whereas the EU are more natural on that, so China needs to be careful with it's options, it doesn't like the west, but it also trades a lot with them, so it's a balancing act.
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Not quite, I would expect if we do get a EU pot as you put it, it will have a lot of strings attached to it so it doesn't become a transfer union, in other words, countries that gets themselfs into trouble will likely have to do major reforms to get help from other EU members so it doesn't become a bottomless pit.
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Thatss likely true or something along thoes lines, at least in the Eurozone but that was never going to be an easy task and they knew right from the start that it wasn't going to be easy hence why they left it to a later stage because as the cracks start to show, it will make it easier for the members to come up with something that works then when things are going alright, the EU always seems to do best when things are going wrong. Also, I should point out that the EU isn't trying to follow the model the US have got, that doesn't really work that well for the US and clearly wont for the EU, what the EU and it's members are trying to do is create a new system that works, that takes time and careful planning, the real advantage the EU and it's members have is that this union is being formed over like 100 years which more likely means they are better likely to get it far more right then wrong where most union are rushed. As for China, they do have a big advantage over the west with central control, it means they have longer term thinking whereas we in the west with goverments coming and going, they think more on the short term, but I suspect in the longer run, China will have to open up if it really wants it's economy to catch up to the west, I also think sooner or later the goverment is going to have to lose it's grip on it's central control power for them to really become modern, afterall, we should remember that it's easy for them to try and catch up to the west when they are more or less copeing all our ideas, it's a diffrent story if they become moden and have to lead.
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It's hard to say how the EU is going to turn out in the longer run because it really does depend on the members and thats always changing. As for China, a one party rule system will continue to work effectively as long as they can copy all the ideas of the west to modernise, in other words, it will likely work for a few more decades, but once they are leading the pack, I suspect a new system will be needed, either way, they easierly win out compared to the US and EU in economic terms, population and power around the globe. As for the USSR, they could never really compete with the west long term because of it's economic model, they had to spend way more on the militery of it's gdp, China doesn't have that problem long term as they are modernising fast. As for the EU, it can't ignore the members, it only takes a few veto's to black things from happening, more so from two or so big members, then they have the EU parliament which needs to pass it. As for democrary, I do agree with you that it's more of an illusion in a sense a bit like how the Roman Empire was made to seem like the public had a say but really they didn't but just like in Rome and today, the people or the mob as they call them always have the power if they rise up in enough numbers. The real problem I find with voting and asking the public to vote on anything is that most of them don't really know what they are voting on, they don't do there research, many of them don't seem to care and many more are misinformed by the right wing media, democracry is only really an effective system if you have a public that turns up to vote and have all the facts on what they are voting for, clearly that isn't the case in the west. In other words, democracry would be one of the best systems we have if the public was better educated and had all the facts on what they are voting on, as it is, too much power is in the media which are able to munipulated the minds of many.
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All the evidence says otherwise, the west is getting into a mess thanks to irantinal voting habits from the public and even before all this, the public keep crying out for change and what do they do, they keep voting for the same paries over and over expecting a diffrent result, if the public really wants change, there are many options out there to get them, either new parties or big protest and so on, goverments always listen when enough of the mob wakes up, a lession even the Romans knew. In any case, it's clear there is problems with how goverments are run, they rarely feel like they respensent the intrest of the public and this is the case with most goverments, as for the EU, they can't really do anything without enough of the members onside as well as the European parliment, so the EU isn't really the problem but some members are with the tug of war that keeps going on that doesn't help to serve the publics intrest. In any case, why do you think the EU is used as a scapegoat by so many? anything that goes wrong in any members country, the EU gets the blame even thought the EU doesn't have the power in many of the areas it gets the blame for, the UK does this a lot because it's easier to deflect blame elseware for ones mess they got themself in, in other words, national goverments are the real problem not the EU, a bit of research on all this and you would know this, if you are open minded that is.
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Yeah I remember once Farage complaining about the system that Ukip would of won more seat if the system was more fair at the time. Anyway, this two party system we see in the UK and US isn't really a good thing for democracy, it really limits the choice. it is one thing I feel they do a better job around Europe in many countries that we see a lot more parties that are able to get into power. I also think that when it's election time, they really should be held to account with what they promise the people to win the vote because too many times they lie and tell us what they think we want to hear, not on what they can deliver and this is why so many people are getting so disilussuioned with politics of late, the public don't know who to trust anymore. So Brexit or no Brexit, unless we change the way the system in the UK works, nothing is really going to change but the truth is, we can do all these changese whiles being a EU member but too many in power don't want the UK system to change. As for the only time goverments get clear message from the people isn't by refernddums but by a big protest, they always listen if the numbers are big enough, beside, the vote isn't a clear sign with how close it was but many of the hardliners want us to think it is. In any case, being that the vote wasn't mandatory and with how close it was, that was always going to leave big problems for us, if they won by 60% plus, this wouldn't of been an issue and we would be out but because of all the lies and how close the vote was, it's become a big issue which isn't going to go away even well after Brexit this is likely going to continue on, more so if Brexit hurts the UK. I'm not oposed to having votes on these kind of things, but the way it was handled was really poor, we can't really have a simply in/out question to something so complex like the EU, it was never going to work, more so when most of the public knows little about the EU to know if it's in there intrest or not, it's also part of the reason why we have elected goverments so they can be the experts on doing whats in the intrest for us, clearly they don't listen half the time but they should and they are likely to know a lot more about the EU then the public does.
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Well we have to do something because clearly the system we have in place is not working for so many people, I think what really needs to happen is that the system needs to be far more open with the public like things like taxes should be accountable for the public to see where the money is going and other things like that, goverments are there to do a public service so it should be a lot more public for us to see, that will likely make them a lot more accountable because it will be hard for them to get away with things, it will also show where our taxes are going as well. Anyway, the problem is with the Brexit vote, because of how dirty the leave side was playing, it forced the remain side to do the same otherwise the leave side likely would of won by a much bigger margin, people seem to like lies, slogans and things like that, me on the other hand I perfer the truth and facts, even if they are cold and not agreeable to what I want to see, it's better to know the truth then delude ones self. In any case, the way the goverment is handerling Brexit is a mess and I don't denie that the British people ware made to seem that when we was joining the EEC, they made it seem like we was joining a economic union only, thats the British goverments fault not the EU because the EU have always been a economic and political union way before the UK even joined. In any case, a lot of the talk we are having on Brexit and the EU over the last two years really should've happened before the vote took place, the results likely would've been diffrent, but in any case, another vote can correct that if the British people wish that.
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That's the case for the entire world being shamefully in reliance on fossil fuels and maybe with everything going on, the world can speed up the transition to cleaner energy sources. I do feel now that energy is a security risk, a lot more countries, especially in the EU are going to push a lot harder on renewable energy sources because I suspect a lot are going to want to generate a lot more of their energy internally, that's great news for the world, bad news for the fossil industry and countries that depend on that resource and the longer and higher energy prices stay, the quicker the transition is going to be as the political and public will is building to move away from fossil. Basically, in the short term, the EU countries will need to find alternative oil and gas from around the world but longer term, they really should go all in reducing how much oil and gas they need and renewable energy is a good place to start even if it's not perfect, it can supple far more energy than we are doing at the moment.
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I'm not sure about humans having more babies if we didn't have to work, it might happen like that but the impression I get is that humans tend to have fewer babies when there are more things they can do in life so no work could end up meaning humans having fewer kids. If we look at the modern world, we still work like donkeys and yet population growth is slowing and much of the population growth that is happening is likely to do with migration as poorer countries tend to have higher birth rates and immigrants likely bring that mentality to modern countries, at least for a time. In other words, the more things humans can do in life, the less we seem to want kids. As for automation, if we look at the technology we are developing over the next 100 years, I think it's safe to say that robotics/A.I. will be able to take care of any job we want whiles also doing a better job then we can do, then throw in more or less unlimited energy and then it's only a matter of time before we really start to recycle a lot more as well as mining resources from space. We could be ending up in a near future where we have as many workers as we want, more or less unlimited energy and as many resources as we could ever need and if that does happen, money for the most part wouldn't really have any value. Now I know it's not as simple as that, say like on earth, we only have so much space for housing but these in historic terms are short term issues as we are likely going to go into space anyway. One thing I do know, I can't see how the capitalist system can survive the robotic/A.I. onslaught that is on its way because if I was a business, why would I employ humans when I can use automation? Humans are smelly, we demand workers rights, higher pay, time off, sick pay and so on. Most bossinesses will get rid of humans in the work force the first chance they can and robotics are in the long run likely going to be able to do any time we can do but a lot better and cheaper. With all that, I suspect society will have to change with some kind of basic allowance with the focus being on education being our life job, in other words, school or some form of education might replace our jobs as we can always learn new things pretty much all the way through our lives and that could also sort out some other issues of equality, housing in who haves and who doesn't.
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@kuyaleinad4195 That's what I thought as it was really the only thing that made sense.
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Putin has been threatening with nukes for almost 3 years now, if anything, the more threats from Putin and co, the more desperate Russia is coming across from the west, especially if you don't follow through on those threats, which Putin knows he can't, because if he even thinks about using nukes, his position of power could crumble very quickly, either by his own inner circle killing him or the Russian people rising up to depose him. This is why all he can do is threaten but never follows through, he's not in a position to do so and the threats are supposed to intimidate the west in not supporting Ukraine, the irony being is that the more Putin threatens, the more the west supports Ukraine, basically showing how little they think of his threats.
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Merkel was only one part of the jigsaw but lets be honest, a lot of the west are to blame for being soft on Putin when there was a lot that could be done years ago to give him pause, overall, the west is really to blame. Beside, GBN of all places, what about all that Russian money that propped up the Brexit lies or all that Russian donations to the Tory party? There is a lot of blame to go around and some investigations should be opened up in a lot of this or is that a little too uncomfortable because of their own agenda? At the end of the day, not enough was done when a lot more could be done in the past, many were willing to accept Putin's money to further his agenda, there is a lot of blame to go around and if that can of worms is opened by trying to pin it on Merkel, lets open up that can of worms on Brexit and the donations to the Tory Party and to Trump himself, not quite so easy now is it? lol.
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Materazi Islam I think you was watching the wrong game, it looked like England was playing for penalties, after all, most of the game they played quite defensively whiles Italy was more attacking. The rest of what you are saying is just delusion, I encourage you to keep doing that as people don't learn from that lol.
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Materazi Islam Yep, Beckham was feeding Tom some bad advice in making it seem England were better than they were, at least Southgate was more realistic after that first goal, hence why he didn't jump around like a loon like he normally does, he knew Italy would likely get back in the game which they did. Anyway, at least Tom now knows Beckham is full of it, after all, I can imagine it now, Beckham told him the cup was won even before kick off lol, the delusion in this tournament were really high in England and it reminds me of Brexit all over again lol.
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Where have I heard that one before?, according to the experts, the EU countries have been in crisis for decades and in decline and yet they still have some of the highest quality of living around the world, if that's what you call going down, give me more of that lol. Seriously, when are people going to wake up and see things for how they are and not how they want to see them? after all, according to these so called expects, the EU and Euro should have been on its knees 2 decades ago and yet here we are, all fine and dandy as they say and yes, I'm not saying there are no problems with the energy crisis but that is a short term issue overall that will pass.
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@buddy1155 It's hard to say but the virus was likely around in late summer last year as it would have taken time before they detected it and even when they did detect it, they wasn't willing to tell the world and maybe that had something to do with Trump as he's just itching for any excuse to start a fight with China, China likely knew if they went public with it, the US would try to punish them, especially Trump, so as much as China is in the wrong and should have told the world about the virus early on, I can understand from a political view why they would want to keep it quiet with how things are heated with the US and China. In any case, we are not going to get much of normal this year, at least not in Europe, maybe next year if a second wave doesn't start but we'll have to wait and see.
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@buddy1155 Maybe but honestly with all the hostilities going on with the US and China, I can't really blame China for wanting to keep quiet on this virus because most of us know that the US with Trump would have taken advantage of it to try and punish China, in any case, mistakes are being made on both side and both countries don't look that good from the outside world. Maybe in the long run what they are doing in Sweden might pay off but I wouldn't want to be in a system that is willing to be so careless with peoples healths, a lot more people have died in Sweden than likely had to do going on what we are seeing in Norway and Finland, Sweden is also likely going to be hit hard on the economy because of the impact this is having on everyone else and we are already seeing early signs that countries don't want to open up it's borders with Sweden and I can understand that, a lot of countries likely see Sweden as a high risk and won't want to open up any time soon, that will do more economic harm to Sweden. In any case, it's going to be interesting to see how things turn out over the coming months and years because a lot of the actions taken could have a positive or negative impact, countries that open up sooner rather than later could be hit with a second wave around the end of the year, some might avoid that, what Sweden has likely done by going for the herd immunity option is allowed the virus to spread and mutate much easier, that will likely allows a second wave to happen and this could be the reason why the boarders with Sweden might not open up any time soon and we are seeing signs of that with the US and UK, a lot of countries don't trust the actions they've taken on the people and could keep the borders closed on them a lot longer than they do with others.
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@buddy1155 Riots in the US could happen and maybe that is needed on a much bigger scale to send a message to the governments to stop screwing the people over, but war with China and India, that is not likely to happen because of nukes and because both can't really afford it with the economic hardship ahead. As you say, the EU countries should stay out of it, if the US, China or even India wants to knock seven bells out of each other, the EU countries should stay out of it, let those others weaken each other if that's what they want. I'm not convinced we'll find a vaccine in time, they can take years at the best of time and by then it will be too late, the virus will have run it's course so the best we can do is more or less what we are doing, buy time and protect as many people as we can as we learn about the virus and other options that can minimize the damage of the virus. Herd immunity seems like the option many are going for but don't want to admit that, I say that because sooner or later we are going to have to go out and about and a vaccine won't be done in time but the key of the lock down was to buy time, not overload the health system and then open up the economy step by step which is more or less what most countries are doing. Where Sweden went wrong is that they didn't do the lock down at all or not much of one and looking at the infection and death rates per million in Sweden compared to Norway and Finland, it doesn't look good and likely part of the reason why the other countries don't want to open it's boarders with Sweden because they see them as a high risk. Basically, Sweden tried to be smart in protecting the economy before the well-being of the people but now they are likely going to get hit harder on the economy because other countries won't open up to them as easy because they are seen as high risk and as we are seeing, many countries are starting to open up with each other in Europe but Sweden is being left out. Mutation and a second wave is the real worry now and because of the size of the population and how interconnected the world is now, I suspect it's very likely to happen where a second or more wave will happen, if history is any indicator, they tend to be a lot worse than the first wave. I think a lot of countries are going to be judged with what actions they did early on with this virus, what they did during the pandemic and what policies they put into place in opening up, if it's too soon or later, with all that, we'll get an idea on which countries got it right but early signs don't look good for the US, UK and Sweden among a few other countries but lets just hope a second wave doesn't kick in near the end of the year or early next year because that's the likely time it could start all over and maybe be a lot worse being as it's winter.
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@buddy1155 I doubt it but you never know, desperate times and all that, but I do know one thing, I wouldn't want to try any of them out early on because I suspect many will be rushed to get to market with less safety concerns, especially as the economy keeps biting. I suspect we won't find a cure as such but many ways to manage the virus so our own bodies deal with it better which might be the better solution. As for war between China and India, it's unlikely, both have too much to lose being they are both nuclear powers, no nuclear is likely to go up against another with the damage they both can do to each other, hence why all the wars after world war two have been with countries without nukes. But if a war did brake out, it would likely drag a lot of the world into it and think of what that could mean, the death toll would make world war two look tame in comparison, so the real question is, are we stupid enough to go down that route considering the damage it can do, I wouldn't rule it out with the shape the world is but I still doubt it because there is no real winners in that kind of war. A Cold War might happen but highly unlikely a hot war will happen, the US alone is trying to start a Cold War with China because the US fear China rising as a power.
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Problem is that if we closed boarders early on, most would have thought they were crazy in doing so, hence the reason why so many countries left it so late to do so, none of which didn't want too but got pushed into doing so by reality of what is going on and most countries in the west at least did the same mistakes in leaving it too late with the only countries that can be excused is China because it started there and Italy because there wasn't really any ways of knowing it would infect at such a fast rate when others in the past were more localized like SARS was, but after seeing what was going on in Italy and seeing a rise in other countries, there were no excuses for all the other countries to not clamp down on this hard and that is where many governments have some tough questions to answer too.
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@Mr Brightside I can say one thing, I suspect a lot of governments will need to answer to some tough questions on this, especially western governments that reacted way too slow when we saw what was going on in China and Italy, that should have been warning enough to act sooner rather than later. To me, the only countries that have any excuse is China because it started there so that likely made it harder to contain and Italy because I suspect most likely thought it was another SARS that wouldn't hit the west, so them two countries can be forgiven for how they acted but the rest in the west at least, we tried to play it smart because we wanted to protect the economy at the expense of the well-being of the people, and we all fell like dominoes when it was too late and the damage was done, it's quite remarkable seeing how many governments are following the same mistakes.
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The problem in the US is a few fold, one is poor safety net which puts a lot more pressure on the people to get back to work, two is the rampant paranoia in the US from government to people with the lack of trust and three, this obsession of freedom and liberty that overrules common sense at all times, throw in all the mix signals being sent out by the government and media and you have a disaster waiting to happen. Contrast that with Europe and things for the most part are quite calm, in fact a poll was just done a day or two ago in the UK that most of the public say it's not the right time to open up the lock down yet, that will likely put a lot of pressure on the government to keep the lock down going, at least for the next few weeks because the UK is behind the curve compared to a lot of other European countries, the US on the other hand is even worse than what we are seeing in the UK and looking at the infection rates and death rates, now isn't the right time to even thinking about opening up but I suspect pressure will build for the US to open up and with that, far more lives could be lost that didn't have to be, at the end of the day, all these protestors are doing is killing more people and making it worse for the economy because it makes it harder to open up if they don't listen. You've got some major problems in the US that could really get out of hand if you're not careful.
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@SpaceCoffee700 It's hard to say but it could happen much sooner then a century, it kind of already is happening now, simply put, I don't see how the EU and US can compete with the numbers they have in Asia and once the economy backs up thoes numbers, power will very likely shift from west to east. As for China's brith rate, it's being held back by that one child policy but even with that, they are growing far faster then the EU and US put together in population numbers. Also, in 90 years time, I suspect it will be quite easy to go into space for most people on this planet, the irony is that China could have a major advantage on that with economic muscle, in 90 years time, China is very likely to have an economy many folds bigger then the EU and US and with that, a much bigger space budget, it's also very likely that China and India will work closely together because of a lot of the economic trade that will happen among them two countries. If that happens, I can't see how the EU and US working together is going to compete with that in the long run. Remember, the only advantage the US had over Europe for so long was population numbers, if you had a modern economy with big population numbers, you have a major advantage, Asia have far bigger population then the west and thier economies are closing the gap on the west quite rapidlly.
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@1dogissky This is about looking at the realities of whats going on, the US isn't being aggresive with China because it wants too but because it sees them as a real threat and I can understand why, if they keep growing like they are doing, it's not going to be long before they have a bigger economy then the US and with that, a bigger say in the world. I'm European and we are in the same boat and the only way I see the west really competing in the long run with whats going on in Asia is if the EU and US work much closer together.
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@SpaceCoffee700 Cultural differences and language barriers doesn't play that big of a part really hence why the likes of France is just as successful as the UK is, what really matters is the economy and that is tied down to population numbers, you have a modern economy with a big population like China, you will dominate and the only way I see others trying to compete is by working together like the EU does now but even that isn't enough, we would need the EU and US working together and that likely isn't enough. It could also be a lot worse because China and India are going to do a lot of trade with each other with how close they are together, that alone is likely going to force closer bonds between the two countries in the long run and we are living a dream if you really think the EU or US or both for that matter can compete with that in the long run and all thoes two countries have to do is what they are already doing, modernise, it takes time but the writing is on the wall. Simply put, the west population numbers are too small to really compete with whats going on in Asia and it's the population numbers that made the US a super power in the first place as there is nothing special about the US over European countries about from population numbers.
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@AlleyCatNinja Thats for now but that can change and likely will over the next few decades just like it changed to the US decades ago. We should remember that the US isn't making many friends with how it's acting and Trump isn't helping either, it worried supprise me if things are already in play behind closed doors to push the US dollar aside as Asia is going to be the real power region in the decades to come. Alley, flying cars are very likely because the economic advantage of that are too big to ignore but I don't expect humans to drive them, they will likely be automated which is a lot easier to do in the sky then driverless cars on the roads, flying cars once they can be done would boost the economy is so many ways that it's going to happen, it's just a matter of when not if. Think about it, if we had flying cars and they could travel much fasters, everything in our system could change, hospitals, shops and countless other things could be more spaced out, it also frees up a lot of land with not needing as many roads, flying cars could be one of the next big economic boost to the economy like the internet is but I suspect even bigger.
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I can't help but think there is going to be a merry-go-round in the US with different states closing and opening at different times and the ones with low infections that feel they can open up, end up opening up, only for the infections to start rising again and because there isn't any real closed boarders per state, it's easy to see how badly that can go wrong, which is why the US could be one of the last countries out of this crisis, the sad truth is, a hard shut down was needed on the country nationwide like many others have done but the US didn't really do that, it's doing it per state and even then, the shut down was much lighter than many other countries. Also, the US is weeks behind the curve compared to Europe, some European countries might be ready to take small steps to re-opening but I don't think the US is ready, so it will be interesting to see the numbers over the next few weeks and months. Also we should look at what is going on in China, they are about 5 months behind the west and now major areas are shutting down again, maybe that might be the second wave which if it is, that is likely to happen in western countries by the end of the year, especially the countries that rush to open up, in other words, far more harm than good could come of opening up too soon or opening up too much. Also, opening up the economy means little without the trust and safety of the people, unless they feel safe, it won't help the economy much because a lot won't venture out and buy things. Also, at this rate, most countries are not going to want to open up it's boarders with the US until the US gets it's act together.
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Yeah I did that in my house and it works really well with controlling the temperature per room, but it does take a little time to set up and each room being different needs being setup individually to get the right temperature you want. Once you have it setup, it works like a dream, each one switches on or off depending on the setting you have and the temperature you want, the advantage is, you end up using less energy whiles feeling more comfortable in a room because the temperature stays at a given level so not to let it get too cold or too hot, and you can do this individually on a per-room basis. For instance, one room in the house, the heating rarely comes on and usually in winter for a short time because the room doesn't get too cold, whereas the bathroom needs more heating so it comes on more aggressively, once it's set for each room, you don't have to do anything and the heating comes on and off automatically per room as needed, which in my case, is not very much because we insulated the house about 3 years ago and it doesn't really get that cold in winter that heating is rarely needed, this is in the UK by the way. With that said, the same system could be much cheaper with a heat pump, but considering how little heating we use, it's not worth getting a heat pump at the current price.
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@ldskjfhslkjdhflkjdhf Thats true but the idea behind it could be used for games and I also have to wonder if this needs to be implemented at an OS level because I suspect there are ways this could be done by other means.
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I have to agree, this is getting worse than we saw in Italy and Spain when the UK had far more advanced warning on this, key people in government should be held to account on this.
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@dragonfly6908 They didn't shut things down in the country at that time and that was key, closing boarders with each other was pointless once the virus was in and it was clear that it was in most countries at that time, just we didn't detect it very well. In any case, the real mistake was not clamping down hard on it early on and that likely will cost a lot of lives whiles prolonging the economic damage. Now that doesn't mean closing boarders after that can't be effective, it likely can because each country has it's own policy in how to lock the country down, like Italy for instance, it won't be wise of them to open up it's borders with some other EU members until they get it under control and that is the case globally, so a quick return to normally is not going to happen for years and even then I suspect things will change after this event.
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@dragonfly6908 I just hope the people of the world hold a lot of these governments to account because their actions have cost lives and it's clear many of them were putting the economy first before the well-being of the people, scary yet is how many governments will want to open up the economy again even when it's too early and more people die because the virus will start to spread again, governments that have shown signs they want to open up early is the UK, US and maybe a few European countries, that could be costly if things flair up again.
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@dragonfly6908 Mistakes were done all over the place but in the west we really messed up on this one and I suspect we are going to get a lot of tough decisions on a lot of these governments once the dust settles. As for the virus, it does seem unpredictable, I even heard it's already mutated twice but with all the fake news going around, I can't really say if there is any truth to that but considering the size of the population today, it wouldn't surprise me if it does mutate. Anyway, I suspect the shut down will last till near the end of summer, some countries will want to try and open up sooner than that but the virus could rebound back again, so lock downs are still likely to be in place on and off likely until the end of the year and even then, the next 2 or 3 years they will have to be careful because there is a fair chance this virus could be lurking in the backgrounds and still spreading in low numbers. The real worry I see is the developing countries, they don't have the hearth care and testing equipment to get to grips with that and things are likely much worse in those countries then we realize, I think they are going to need a lot of help from the rich countries and I hope they give them that help even if it's out of self-interest because at the end of the day, things won't go back to normal until we get rid of this virus worldwide.
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They might be preparing for war with Australia which as a Brit, I say they can have it lol, after all, all that natural resources, what a temping target lol. As for the west, no chance, the west and China can't afford to go to war with each other with how advanced both are. In any case, don't bank on the US backing Australia up, they will only do it out of self-interest and I doubt they will want a hot war with China. The sad reality is, Australia isn't really relevant to the west so you might be on your own and my advice, make as many friends as you can and quickly, the European one are likely your best chance because don't bank on the US to help you as even if they do, there will be a very high price Australia would have to pay and even then it's unlikely the US would help because they don't want a full on confrontation with China. The sad truth is, Australia is geo-politically and economically not that important to the west and the only thing of value is natural resources, that is the only thing that might interest the US, you can bet it will interest China.
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Yeah, A.I. is likely going to use a lot of energy, but not just A.I. but robotics as well, as that is coming along and getting cheaper all the time, A.I. and robotics will work really well together, so we are likely going to see much higher demand on both over the next decade.
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The problem is, China isn't doing this to help Africa, its entrapment with debt traps and control over a lot of Africa resources and in some ways, even a land grab which isn't in the interest of the African people but I think it will be too late before they realize that but I hope I'm wrong on that.
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It's more than capable of doing so, but Eurosceptics use the US and NATO as a shield to block further integration in the EU. Trump winning the US election could destroy that argument and be music to the pro EU's ears. Basically, the EU is more than capable of having a strong military with the economy it's got backing it, it just needs a big enough incentive for it to happen, Trump could be that perfect candidate for real change in the EU, the real winners in all that would be the EU and China, the EU would gain by further integration and independence away from the US, China would also gain because they want the EU and US to be divided away from each other so China can focus more on the US and not the US and EU, the US on the other hand have by far the most to lose, it's reputation, it's position in the world, countries around the world will be much colder on the US if they become more radical with its policies and will be looking for alternatives, it could also end up isolating the US more than it already is.
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I wonder if he would have said that if this was a referendum and not an election considering that 52% of the votes went to remain leading parties lol, it does kind of suggest that we are still divided and the real problem with Brexit is still there even after the election.
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@alexanderlipowsky6055 The EU military should always be for defences purposes unless other countries ask for help, either peacekeeping missions or more direct help, basically, it should be in law where the EU can't invade other countries unless invited by the other country to invade which they are hardly going to do, the US gets it's self into such a mess with getting involved in other countries by creating wars. The truth is, if an EU military does come about, there are going to be a lot of checks and balances put on it by it's members to make sure it's very difficult to abuse it like the US does.
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The irony is about that, there seems to be a big push to marginalise gas and oil in Europe, with EV cars and heat pumps on the rise, we are quickly heading into an electric energy system that could reduce the need or get rid of the need for oil and gas, especially as renewable energy is on the rise. Threats rarely work on the ones that have the money, in this case, the EU has the money with its economy, Putin shot himself in the foot by trying to blackmail them, that backed fired on Putin because the EU shifted to alternatives from around the world whiles speeding up its renewable energy, the end result, all countries that sell fossil fuels could stand to lose a lot over the next decade onwards, because the push on renewables is speeding up across the world, that puts downwards pressure on what those countries can sell their fossil fuels at and in time could reduce it to such a level that we don't need to buy it, and because the EU countries are pushing harder on renewables, it's putting pressure on the rest of the world to follow, which we are seeing in the US, China and many other countries, that is a disaster for the fossil industry across the world, especially in the coming years.
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Tracchofyre Just a few years ago I would say there is no need for NATO, especially as the EU integrates more in security, military and energy matters which are a lot more likely to happen now. But now I think NATO should stick around but also change into a different type of organization that defends all open democratic countries and not just the west, it's clear to see how the world is being divided up, open democratic countries with the EU and US being the real powers in that and then authoritarian governments like Russia, China and many more. As for Poland, Russia wouldn't attack Poland even before they attacked Ukraine and mainly because Poland is an EU member, it's one thing to attack Ukraine which is poor even by Poland's standards, it's another to attack Poland with them being in the EU, the main reason is because of how the EU political and economic organization was structured after the second world war to prevent wars braking out among it's members, well it's the same for wars braking out with any of it's members from the outside, in other words, an attack on an EU member is an attack on them all and unlike NATO where we only have the word that they would come to the aid of the given member, the EU countries would have no choice but to directly get involved simply because all their interest are at stake, hence why for many eastern European countries, EU membership is what they want over NATO membership as it offers the same security but a lot more. You are also right, Russia would have a harder time taking on Poland without help from the EU, US and NATO, Poland has a stronger economy and are better prepared.
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Yeah, it does make you wonder if the US is going in hard on China because they see them as a threat to its own power around the world, a bit like they did with Japan in the past, which is probably why others like Europe and much of the world don't listen as much when it comes to policies on China, in other words, they have concerns on China, but nothing to the degree the US has got, probably because China is by far a bigger threat to the US. You also get a sense that if the EU were to integrate a lot more, the US would see them as a threat in the same way they saw Japan and see China today, it's about power, not the policies or the political system they live under. I suspect because of the way the world is reshaping, China will likely continue to grow, the EU will eventually get its act together, the US will likely become more hostile to many of these powers, the US is a friend to the Europeans to a degree, but only to a certain level, hence why Europeans need to wake up and do what's in there interest, not US interest, because the US rarely cares about the interest of the rest of the world unless they stand to gain from it, Japan found that out in the 80's.
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@hvh377 It likely will be a mix bag for countries that produce a lot of fossil fuels, the countries that will really benefit the most from renewables are countries in Europe, Japan and many others, countries that have to input a lot of it, eventually, once they can produce most if not all there energy needs internally, they stand to save a fortune, but that's bad news for countries that sell a lot of fossil fuels because they have to find ways of boosting the economy to make up for that loss.
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I'm surprised the west hasn't got a lot tougher on Russia yet, for over a decade now, it's clear that Russia is interfering in western democracies from elections around Europe and the US, this already feels like a Cold War and the western countries have been way too soft on Russia. But seriously, how many times are western countries going to allow Russia to keep interfering in western democracies? It's kinda making the west look weak. As for the views of the people in these ex-soviet states, it's clear that Putin is spending a lot of money and influence in the region, probably because of his views on the fall of the Soviet Union and how he would love to rebuild it and those countries are being used in a political game, but I understand why Putin is doing this, I mean seriously, what does Russia offer these countries? Very little apart from threats and intimidation, a client state basically, and say what we want about the other side with the EU, but at least they help to build democracies, raise living standards and give them more freedoms. To put it another way, Putin his getting desperate and pulling out all the stops because he's losing the long term battle in that more countries want to join the EU, which pulls them into the western camp, and for a man like Putin that wants to rebuild the Soviet Union, this is the worst thing that could happen, but in the end, Putin has already lost, Russia doesn't have the resources and since the war in Ukraine, that's putting more drain on resources, now it's just a long slow burn of decline for Russia.
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The problem is with these authoritarians and dictator like countries, even when they gain any kind of success, it's usually very short term, western countries are very successful because of being open democracies that empower the people to innovate and be creative, they are also far more adaptive when it comes to policies being that if some policies are not popular with the people, they can get voted out. We can see a few examples of that, Turkey with its policies on the central bank which is leading to very high inflation which if they are not careful, is going to sink the country, in western countries, that would never be put up with by the people and a new government would form to correct that, then we have Russia where Putin is hell-bent on war in Ukraine, no matter what the cost is to Russia, then there's China, they were well on the right path of becoming a modern country until the current government got into power and changed tact, without the people having the powers to change the government, the government keeps plodding along on the same bad policies until it starts doing real damage to the country. Hungary is a bit different, being that they are in the EU and limited in what Orbán can get away with, but even there, inflation is far higher than the EU norm, if Hungary wasn't in the EU, things would likely be far worse as there would be no checks and balances on the current government. I sometimes wonder, when will the people in these kinds of countries learn, you only have to look at history to see how bad these kinds of governments are for the people. In any case, these countries are not a real threat to western democracies as long as they stick to the current inflexible system of running with an iron fist, they call it being strong, yes for the elites in power, but it's not that great for everyone else in those countries, either way, if they really want to take the west on, being an open democracy and empowering the people is the best way to do it, in the meantime, the world is dominated by powers that are more open with its people, so let those authoritarians countries play there games, they are only hurting their own interest in the long term.
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You can't help but feel that many people are playing dangerous games with voting for these radical elements in politics in Europe and North America, and I understand that many are angry with how things are and how they are going, but the fringe extreme parties on the far left or far right are not the answer, history has shown us time and time again, how badly it can get when radicals gain too much power. With that said, the moderate centre parties need to wake up and improve things from the bottom up for people to reduce the likelihood that people will vote for the radical parties, after all, people are doing so because they are not happy with how things have been going with mainstream parties, and that is allowing the radical elements to gain more power. The only way to reduce the radical elements in society is to reduce the social, economic problems that people are facing, especially from lower to middle classes, when so many feel that life is getting harder or they feel they are being left behind, that feeds into the extreme left and right of politics, they after all feed on anger, division and chaos in society to gain power, and honestly, the mainstream parties in Europe and North America have been doing a poor job over the last 2 decades, and you really have to wonder, how bad are they going to allow this to get before they wake up and do radical changes to fix a lot of the problems that people have. Fortunately, the radical elements are limited in what power they can gain, many because unless the people become radicalised, it limits what the popularise parties can do, hence why when any of them get close to power or in power, they moderate a lot of their policies, so much so that they look like a centrist party and are far less of a threat. The real threat is the media, especially the right wing press, they are pushing aggressively for decades to radicalise the population in many countries, we see it in the US, UK and Australia as well as other countries, they feed on the ignorance of people and pump them up with flag waving, and this is dangerous, because if enough of the people start thinking that way, that's where the likes of radicals like Hitler can get into power, and I sometimes wonder, if we are repeating the mistakes of the past, not learning from history and are doomed to repeat them, the sad thing is, maybe we need another major event to wake people up, because clearly, there are many red flags that we could be sleepwalking in that direction, especially the US and some European countries.
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Considering that A.I. and robotics could have a massive impact on the job market, the old and tax burden might not be as big of an issue as we might think, after all, if A.I. and robotics takes over the majority of the workforce, having fewer people able to work might end up becoming an advantage, or to put it another way, we could end up in a system where it's not just the old we need to support but the young as well, being that most might not be able to find a job as A.I. and robotics ends up doing most of it. As for taxes, well that's based on workload, if A.I. and robotics ends up doing most of our work in society, there's going to be far less taxes needed to maintain the system, robotics only need energy, which could become abundance in the future thanks to alternate energy sources like renewables, the workforce becomes dirt cheap, more or less free and probably in a lot of ways, able to do the work better and faster than we can do it. With the advancement of A.I. and robotics and how it's speeding up, maybe a declining population for a few decades is a good thing, especially with how crazy it's gone over the last 50 years, but I do feel that we need some balance replacement rate when it comes to birth rates, this is also the case for modern economies like the EU and US, that without immigration and the natural births they have, which tend to be higher than the natives, population decline would be happening in these countries as well. It would become ironic that there's worry about the burden on the younger generation and not being enough of them to support the older generation, only to find out that in the decades to come, there's not enough jobs to go around to support the younger generation that having more of them actually becomes a bigger burden. Before all this craze with A.I. I was thinking we were around 50 years off before we get to the point of A.I. and robotics replacing most job, but now that it's becoming more accessible by the masses, which means the pace of the development in that area is likely going to skyrocket, as we are seeing early signs off over the last year, we could be getting to that situation far sooner than expected, which is going to be a massive upheaval of the entire system, for all countries, that I don't think the population, replacement rate, young and old is going to matter that much, but what could matter is how the system changes to the new reality that's on its way, which sad to say, systems change quite slowly to the point of braking, that I think in a lot of countries, things could get worse before they get better, and honestly, I think we are going to need some form of basic human income for all, as I don't think there's going to be enough jobs to go around, even if we try to create new jobs, A.I. and robotics will likely be able to do them cheaper, better and faster than we can do. On the plus side, that frees us up to work on things we really want to do without having to worry about the basic things like bills and food, so the demographics in the future might not be as big as a deal as we think if A.I. and robotics takes over the majority of the workforce, which is looking very likely, the real issue might not be the population or the age of the population, but more about what the population does in life, being that work as been a very central focus points for humans for a long time.
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Farage being prime minister is like lord bucket head being prime minister lol, basically, it's not going to happen lol. Farage, stop trying to take the limelight, you've become irrelevant since Brexit, but by all means, keep picking at the corpse knows as the Conservative Party, if Farage can help divide the voters on the right, then he's weakening all that side. As for the Conservative Party and the Brexiteer lunatics, they've more or less guaranteed a Labour government for the next decade, so 2, maybe even 3 elections, assuming they don't really mess it up.
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It's funny how some people can't seem to just come out and admit that a black migrant did good here, it's racist at it's best and some people are trying to justify that lol, you have to wonder what the views of these people would be if that was a white person or wasn't a mirgrant that did exactly the same thing, we already know the answer to that one so don't bother to answer with more hate.
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If you say so but that doesn't make it true, it what you want to think, anyway, you do realise that you are coming across as a racist?, a lot of us know that if that was a white person or a native of that country, people like you would be saying all good things about him now, but because he's black and a migrant, you don't want to see any good from them, hence why you sound like a racist.
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@Dave05J It's not that simple, the world is interconnected when it comes to trade, it's in the US interest to help stabilise the region for its own interest as well as the global economy. Besides, it's looking like EU countries are planning on sending military ships to patrol the region. In any case, stop being so short-sighted, if shipping lanes in such an important region isn't stabilised, it would help to destabilise the world economy, which doesn't help any of us, including the US. In any case, an international force is needed in the region to stabilise it and protect the trade route.
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Regulating A.I. is going to be difficult, if not impossible when it comes to open source A.I. The impact A.I. is going to have on society, good and bad is going to be massive over the coming decades and I'm not opposed to regulating it, to make it safe for everyone, but not at the cost of restricting it so much that it limits what it can do. Personally, I think with governments usually being slow with regulations, tougher regulations could come about once negative things start to happen with A.I. after all, governments tend to be reactive, not proactive on what can happen and it's a given that A.I. is going to be abused by some, and the moment that starts to have an impact on others in a big way, calls for tougher regulations will likely be demanded from the public, governments scare easy if the public pushes them. Now the question is, how do we regulate A.I. without crippling what it can do? I think safety to one's self and others would be fine, but beyond that, it's quite limited in how they can regulate A.I. without restricting its usefulness. I suspect we're going to get a lot of law changes and regulations that change a lot over the next decade or so, because governments and society at large are not quite sure what the best way forward is when it comes to regulating A.I. I do know one thing, if any big negative event happens in part because of A.I. it could cause a massive uproar from the public against A.I. governments will be more than happy to take advantage of that, hence why I don't think it's a good idea to have this wild west with A.I. as that will very likely backfire against the A.I. movement from the public and governments, so in the end, it's about finding the right balance, from safety, privacy, without restricting its usefulness.
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They can do both by improving efficacy, so basically, to find more resources for the military, they'll improve efficacy in other areas of the economy, so social programs probably won't change much if at all.
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@bendouglas5607 What's that got to do with anything, it's not about who invented it, it's about the direction the Tories are planning on taking the UK and many signs are indicating that they want to deregulate the UK, that's really bad news for the British people as deregulation is just another word for stripping rights and lowering standards for people and maybe that needs to happen for the real wake-up call to happen because it's likely to impact the Brexiteers the most.
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That for me is what keeps a country weak, and ironically, Japan is in decline because of lack of immigration. Immigration isn't the problem, as long as it's done right and the people integrate, immigration actually adds a lot to a country, as the US found out and many European countries have found out. But the real problem with immigration in the EU is that we've got a union of open internal boarders and yet we have immigration and boarder policies from 27 countries, it's easy to see how that can create a mess of countries pulling in all directions, and it's easy to see where the solution is, either close the internal boarders, which would be an unpopular move, or the EU needs to be given more powers on it's boarders and immigration policy so it can get tougher on it and balance immigration more evenly across the union. Either way, countries that have a balanced immigration policy, tend to be more economically more successful, immigration isn't a bad thing as long as it's done the right way.
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More so if Scotland and Northern Ireland does end up leaving the UK as it would be seen as a disaster for Brexit and the UK.
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@stevesheppardmusic Yeah that's just the petty Brexiteers thinking they are all that, in truth, if Scotland and Northern Ireland leaves, it would weaken the UK and would be very embarrassing, the actually term little Englander would have actually meaning then lol.
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@Stew282 Really, we are doing well, that's why we are bending to the will of weaker players like Australia lol and look at how the UK is kissing up to the US, it's so desperate. The UK looks really weak and it's showing on the world stage, the economy isn't doing that great, just look at whats going on now and the thing is, Brexit is a slow burn, the actually damage of that is long term not short term which by the way is being clouded up by the pandemic but it's shocking how much damage it's done in such a short space of time, only the blind don't want to see it.
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I'm in the north of England and beside about a week or so where it was cold, it got as cold as -9C for 2 days, which is the coldest it's been since I moved into this house about 15 years ago, but anyway, it's been quite modest for the rest of winter where we've not even used any heating in January at all, but when Putin invaded Ukraine, we had a feeling on what was going to happen so throughout the summer, we did a lot of insulating so we don't need as much heating and so far, it seems to be going really well. As for gas reserves in the EU, they've actually been going up about a week ago, which is remarkable being as we are deep into winter and you would expect it to go down and I have a feeling that gas reserves are going to hold up very well that it shouldn't be that hard to refile them up for next winter, they are already around 83% and half of winter has already happened. As for temps where I live, it's more or less cold outside around 0C and 10C, but indoors, it feels comfortably warm, insulation if done right can make a big difference and I suspect the savings will be massive once energy prices are back to normal. There is also the factor of energy efficiency improvement that are being done and I think the EU countries reduced their energy need by 26%, I suspect they will reduce by a further 10-15% this year, this longer term once energy prices start dropping could have a positive impact on the economy as the overall energy running cost are lower, especially as a lot more renewables are being thrown in the mix. Everything Putin has been doing is backfiring, the war in Ukraine isn't going well for him, it's costly for the Russian economy whiles isolating Russia, European countries and much of the world are speeding up the translation to alternative energy sources a lot sooner than they were doing and I think in Europe at least, Russia have become the biggest losers here, I also think gas going to end up losing out as it's not east and cheap to transport LNG, so Europeans will shift away from gas to other sources of energy unless countries that produce gas find a way of making LNG a lot cheaper to ship, also, because of the energy security issue, I suspect a lot more countries are going to want to generate a lot more energy back home, more so as OPEC are playing games with cutting production to push the price up, all they are doing is killing the fossil industry a lot sooner than it would be and this is great news for renewable energy. In any case, did these clowns honestly think Europeans were going to put up with high prices because of no real alternative? The free market doesn't work that way, basically, the high prices are giving Europeans a massive incentive to move to alternatives and that can happen quite rapidly if there is enough incentive, so in that sense, the high prices are doing a world of good for us all.
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It's nothing to do with being lazy, it just that since the end of the Cold War, there's not really been any threat to European countries, especially western ones, the US on the other hand constantly sees threats all over the world, mainly China now, so they have to keep spending to project it's interest around the world. Europeans on the other hand don't, but there is a divide, western European countries don't see Putin as a threat, whereas eastern Europeans do, a lot of the change that's going on in western EU countries is actually more to do with the US then it has with Russia, specifically, Trump, not Putin, so Putin got the ball rolling but most in the western European countries are more concerned with Trump, that's focusing minds, public views are changing as well as political views, Trump is also playing into the hands of what the EU wants, a single EU military, starting with arms production. A single military would be a lot stronger than 27 individual ones, it would also cut out a lot of waste and duplications, there are good and bad points for the US on that, an EU military would be a lot stronger than any of the EU countries ones, it would give them a far bigger say on forign policy matters, the arms industry would very likely compete with the US arms industry on selling arms, so taking a slice away from US arms which could make US military spending even higher or that they might have to reduce spending, but on the plus side, as long as the EU and US are on friendly terms, they would be far more effective in containing China, but ultimately, an EU military would be a big win for Europeans, they wouldn't need to listen to the US, they can do their own thing, even if it's not in the interest of the US, and it would allow countries that want options around the world to choose sides or keep their options open, where now, the US is the only real option, there could in time be 2 credible options, that could reshape the world's geopolitical landscape in ways we can't see for now. With that said, the EU and US are not that different from each other, so it's unlikely they would turn on each other and will likely be allies, but Europeans will likely not listen to the US as much in many areas and very likely not to do US bidding, which could be costly for the US as that would weaken US voice in Europe, whiles the EU offers the world an alternative voice, which I suspect a lot of countries around the world will find attractive. But on the plus side for the US, it does mean they don't have to share the burden as much around the world and could spend less on its military, but it will also weaken US power around the world, there are trade-offs across all this. In any case, another strong democracy can only be a good thing for the world with how unstable parts of the world are getting with the likes of Russia, China and what's going on in the Middle East, Africa.
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Economy doing great whiles driving from my day job to my night job lol which says it all really but that's a good way to start the joke :) but it's true, it's hard to say the economy is doing great if so many need two jobs. Also do you notice how the Trump economy is a Fox News thing? say no more lol. Anyway, the problem is with them saying the economy is doing great, it means little if the poor and middle classes don't feel the benefits of it and the problem is for many, they feel the economy isn't doing great and in fact is slipping. I always love how GDP numbers and unemployment numbers are calculated, they are so messed up and detached from reality that it's not even funny and only serves to look good but it doesn't help the people and that is the real problem with how these numbers are calculated. So any ideas on new measurement systems that could work? I know we have a few like HDI and Gini but I think we can do better, a system that measures the well-being of the country and the people across the board, in other words, a system that puts pressure on governments to improve things a lot from the bottom up, the system we have now doesn't do that, it only cares about the overall wealth in a country which means nothing if most of that wealth is in very few hands, hence why I always laugh when I hear governments talk about how well the economy is doing, the US and UK do it all the time but ask the common person in the street and they are wonder what planet is the government on lol, anyway, to get an idea on how bad the economy is doing, ask yourself why did Trump get elected in the US? why did Brexit happen in the UK? These have something in common, people are angry because they feel they are being left behind and don't feel any of this so called wealth governments keep talking about and watch the fun kick off once the economic fallout from this virus really hits the people hard, the likes of Trump will say the economy is booming whiles half the population is unemployed, it's sad but some governments are detached from reality now.
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Personally, I don't think it was wise of the UK to sign a deal with a country that a lot of countries around the world are fighting the US on its aggressive tariff policies, also, does it not strike people as strange that this is the first trade deal that Trump has managed to sign? Depending on how other countries see it, it might not put the UK in good standing with the rest of the world, heck it might not put the UK in good standing with the Democrats in the US, who have not been as friendly with the UK since Brexit and any signs of helping the Trump regime could backfire on the UK. Then we have the EU, it's early days but they could have a tougher line on the UK as a direct result of this UK-US trade deal. I think from a tactical point of view, the smart thing for the UK to have done was to put the deal on hold until Trump is out of power and I do wonder if some countries could look at this as the UK helping Trump out, which if so, there could be some economic consequences for the UK on that as many countries could bypass the UK for the EU market. It's early days but I feel the UK might have made a major blunder with this deal, after all, Trump only cared about signing the deal just to say he signed a deal, whereas the UK comes across as desperate to sign any deal, regardless of quality and with everything going on with the US, I think it was a tactical error. In any case, as a Brit, I really wish the UK would grow a backbone, just look at Canada, they are more exposed to the US market and yet they've got the balls to stand up to the US, seriously, when is the UK going to wake up and stop being America poodle? Because let's be honest, the US rarely cared about UK interest and certainly doesn't care under Trump and the list of evidence on that goes back decades if you look close enough.
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True, how quickly a country can join the EU is really up to the country in question in how quickly they are willing to make the changes and reforms needed to join, some countries can do it quite quickly and have little issue in joining, others drag their feet like Turkey and decades later are still not in. It's easy for people to blame the EU but the truth is, there are set rules in place that countries that want to join have to abide by, if they do the changeset needed, they can join but that usually takes years and much longer for countries that drag their feet.
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Considering Europe went through the second world war, what's going on now is quite small in comparison. In the end, this is something that will only take a few short years to adapt to and things are back to normal. Let's also be crystal clear about this, what's happening in Europe is having a big impact around the world, hence the high energy prices and inflation numbers, in other words, it's in all our interest that Europe sorts out its energy issue as that is bumping up the price around the world for a lot of countries. On the plus side, the higher and longer energy prices goes, the quicker the fossil industry could kill it's self off as it's playing into the hands of alternative energy sources, something history has proven when we see energy crisis, they don't last that long because if they did, it would kill off those industries as people will get fed up with the high prices and put a lot of political pressure on governments to do real change and not foot dragging and that is all that's needed, the political will to do real change and we've seen in history how a lot of big changes can happen in a short space of time if needed to do those changes. So a bit of short term pain which to me is well worth it for the bigger long term gains which ironically, the regions that are more exposed could benefit from that the most, in other words, Europe, history has shown that when change needs to happen, the pace of that change can happen much more rapid than it normally would and in the case of Europe, it's a rich continent that has the resources to make the change needed. With all that, it's going to be interesting to see the energy mix in Europe over the next decade because I feel we're going to get more changes in that than we have in over the last few decades. There is a downside to all that, fossil producing nations could lose out by far the most because I think with everything that's going on, a lot of countries are going to want to produce a lot more of its energy needs internally for security reasons, that's bad news for countries that produce a lot of oil, gas and other resources and these kinds of events that do in a decade that would normally take many decade and the EU is perfect for this because it was already moving to cleaner energy sources, now they've got no excuses on that and can't drag their feet, they have to go all in and that is great news for the world at large. I've got to hand it to Putin, he's probably done more for the world to clean up it's act on energy than the Greens could possibly hope to achieve and all that was needed was the threat to energy security to shake the market up, so yes, a bit of short term pain, but this is great news for the future of the energy industry, which is kinda funny, because on the one hand, I want energy prices to stay high so this change happens sooner, but on the other I want prices to come down, heck of a dilemma to have lol.
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I don't think I've ever seen the US with such smooth roads, what on earth have they been doing in the years to follow? lol.
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The problem is for Belarus and Russia is time isn't on their side, western countries are arming Ukraine but we should remember that they are doing it quite lightly for now to not put their own countries out, there are signs that western countries are ramping up military production for themselves and to arm Ukraine better and there have been reports that the west could arm Ukraine a lot more aggressively over the next 6 months, basically, the west is buying time and wants Ukraine to hang in their and hold as much as they can until the west is ready to go all in with arming Ukraine, if true, Russia is in a lot of trouble over the next 6 months If this turns out to be true, all the land grab that Russia is doing could be for nothing, as it will be much easier to push them back once Ukraine is better armed. I also think the west will go after China and India with the aim of pushing them to not buy oil and gas from Russia, the idea being is to isolate Russia from the world and I think the west is waiting for European countries to diversify enough away from Russian oil and gas before pulling that trigger. Sanctions usually take 2 or 3 years to really kick in, so it looks like things are going to get a lot worse for Russia. As for Belarus, I don't think they will enter the war, the leader might want that but with a population that is so hostile to the war, it would be reckless of the government to push that agenda as it could overthrow him, friendship with Russia only goes so far and if what I said above turns out to be true, Belarus could be in the firing line next from the west and with that, I suspect Belarus will do what China is doing, they both don't like the west but don't want to upset the apple-cart with the west.
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That more or less happened the moment the British people elected this government with a big majority, meaning they can get away with almost anything now and this is for the next 5 years, I suspect many Brexiteers are going to regret voting in the Tories with the pain they are going to bring on the country over the coming years and things have not even started, next year is when things could really get bad in many areas.
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@nealbeard1 The thing is, we've seen little to no evidnce that Brexit is going to be a success, the Brexiteers have had more then enough time to show us the benefits of Brexit and they've done a poor job, now they are trying to make it seem that we voted for hard Brexit when in reality, a lot of Brexiteers never voted for that kind of Brexit. All in all, another vote is the only real solution to this mess and thats what I suspect will happen because at the moment, they are just running around in circles getting nowhere fast and now it's got to the point that they need to know what the British people think on Brexit as it's been around 3 year now, a lot can change over that time.
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@hasinabegum1038 That's because the US in bat crazy on military spending because it fears China, US military spending throughout history always moves when it sees a threat to its own power base in the world, in this case, China. Europe and EU countries don't have the same concerns and don't feel as threaten by China or Russia. If the US wants to spend a lot on its military, fine, do that, but don't expect others to do it when they don't need too. Simply put, Russia isn't a threat to EU countries, just looking at the stats and it's easy to see why.
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This is just Putin being paranoid in thinking the west is encroaching on Russia, if Putin is stupid enough to take Finland on, which is an EU, NATO member, then good luck Putin, you're already having a hard time of it in Ukraine, where the west is only throwing crumbs in that direction, so taking on an EU, NATO member would compel both organisations to get involved more direction, in other words, Putin would be finished, which I don't think he's that far gone to take that decision and in the end, it's just saber ratterling, let him do that, it doesn't really achieve much and is just wasting resources on their part that they can't afford to waste. So let's be realistic here, Putin isn't going to invade Finland, not unless he's really lost the plot, which if that is the case, then we could be talking about full scale war, not seen since the second world war, which Putin would probably get killed by his top generals if he took that route or the Russian people would rise up against him. All I'm seeing is Putin being paranoid and defensive because Finland recently became a NATO member, so he's beefing up its military in that area, basically, there's nothing to see here.
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I had a funny conversation with a friend of mine a just after the Brexit vote and he thought we had left the EU right after the vote, I started learning from that moment the lack of intellegenes of Brexiteers, but to be fair to him, he's not a Brexiteer, he's indifference to it all. As for the fooling of remainers, Brexiteers keep clutching at straws at anything that resonates with what they want, you would think by now with how they keep getting it wrong over the last few years they would learn but no, there blind rage and hate on the EU seems to remove common sense lol. Anyway, a bit of funny news happened today, the Lib Dems won another seat at the expense of the Conservative party, now they only have a majority of 1 seat and with how the next few months are going to go, I don't expect that to last and with that, another election. As much as the likes of the Brexiteers and Boris wants us to think the British people want to leave the EU, we keep seeing signs in the other direction, it must be infuriating for the Brexiteers because the longer this takes, the more it will likely favour remainers. What happened today will likely tighten the nose around Boris's head that bit more and will likely make parliament even more bolder, it also suggest that Brexit isn't as clear cut as the Brexiteers want us to think, the facr remains that we really don't know if the British people want to stay or leave the EU and one thing I do know, Brexiteers will fight tooth and nail to try and proven the public from having another vote, at least the smarter ones as they fear what that could mean. But as we've learned over the last few years, Brexiteers don't believe in democracy unless it fits thier own agenda, Farage once said he would have another vote and another if the leave side lost the vote, it's funny how the Brexiteers want to shut up shop now and want to denie the British people a voice on Brexit and it all becomes more clear on who the real problem in the UK really is and Brexiteers only have to look into a mirror to see that. The best part is, none of the Brexiteers can counter what I said, all we'll see if rage and maybe a few insults, it's what the Brexiteers do best, rarely anything constructive, also, you want to know something funny, I would be willing to listen to Brexiteers if they come up with a argument on how Brexit would be better for the UK, they've got a piss poor record showing us the benefits of Brexit, most of it is all wishy washy and not fact based which isn't good enough, hence why they have such a weak argument and end up ranting and raving on racist ground which is what Brexit really boils down too. P.S. it must really piss the Brexiteers off that with all the ranting and raving, nothing is really changing, we're still in the EU, we're likely going to be in the EU next year, more so with how well the Lib Dems did today and the reason why we'll likely still be in is because the Brexiteers can't seem to come up with a argument on why Brexit is good for us that makes sense and that why we'll likely wont leave as much as the Brexiteers want us to leave.
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I have to agree, with dictators, you have to use a firm hand, any weaknesses shown, they'll take advantage of that, in the case of the EU and US, they both need to speed up and do more to support Ukraine, less talk and more action, because it's in all our interest to end the war sooner rather than later, Ukraine will be in a position to rebuild and get it's self back on its feet with EU help, it would over the long run be less costly for the allies supporting Ukraine to end the war sooner than to drag it out over countless years. It would also be reckless of both the EU and US to reduce support for Ukraine that could allow Putin to win, because if there's one thing I've learned about dictators, they won't stop at just Ukraine, they'll keep going until there's enough force to push them back, we saw that with the second world war, allies kept talking but doing little until things escalated into something much worse, it's best the powers that can, put there foot down and resolve the situation before it escalate.
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Trump is a dictator that wished he had dictator like powers and you Americans should consider yourselves lucky that Trump isn't very smart with charisma because if he was, he would be really dangerous to the US system and even without brains, he's giving it a good go at causing a mess in the US. The US system of government is broken among the US system that supports the public because the likes of Trump should never get even close to power with his frame of thinking, that he's got a lot of supporters in the US should be a real worry for the more senseable Americans out there because even once Trump is gone, there will be many other nutters just waiting in line to take that position because enough Americans will support that, you've got some real problems in the country which isn't going to be easy to fix and most of it is divided on two lines, Red vs Blue, Democrats vs Republicans, it might sound crazy to think but if you're not careful, these nutters could brake up the union if things really get out of hand.
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He's right, the west has been too complacent with Putin and other countries like that and that emboldens them into thinking the west is weak and won't do anything or do much, which allows the likes of Putin to invade Ukraine and they won't stop until you stand up to them. The west does need to get its act together, because the west comes across as weak which it's anything but that, they need to get tougher with countries like Russia because in Putin, there are many more like that around the world looking for weaknesses to take advantage off and in the case of Putin, he invaded Ukraine because he saw the west as being weak to Russia over the last 2 decades. The war in Ukraine didn't have to happen if the west was more bold against Russia years ago, still, it looks like they've woken up, it's unlikely that Russia is going to get on the good side of the west any time soon, the EU countries are moving away from Russian oil and gas and even if a new leader was to replace Putin, I think Russia has lost the EU countries as a customer for the near term future, Putin actions is also bringing the west together whiles at the same time, making the EU and NATO stronger as more countries want to join them.
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@zwcdamien Actually they do, we've seen many trade wars over the decades, the US also doesn't like the idea of EU integration at a political level and it's easy to understand why because that would give the EU a lot more clout around the world and in NATO. Truth is, the EU and US shouldn't be rivals but egos get the better of them, especially in the US, we saw that with Trump, we see that in France as well. The EU and US shares a lot of the same values, a lot of those values are coming under threat from dictators and authoritarian governments around the world which are more than happy to meddle in western democracies, those are the real threats that the EU and US should be standing together against. As for Le Pen, if there's one thing I've notice about these are that they say a lot of bold things to try and win elections but once in power, they tonne it down a lot, it's easy to say we're going to do this, that and so on, on the sidelines, it's another thing to go ahead and do it when your neck is on the line, so Le Pen isn't really a threat like the media likes to make it out to be. In any case, with everything going on with Putin in Ukraine, it's high time EU members get their act together and start pooling resources together at an EU level on military, security and energy policies, a lot more cooperation and integration is needed for them to become a lot more effective and to reduce duplication. What's going on in Ukraine is a wake-up call, let's see if they answer that.
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@jeep1987 That's mostly because the EU isn't crazy enough to spend such a percentage on the military like the US does, 2% should be enough but then the US has it's own reasons for spending so much, but that isn't the issue, the issue in the EU is too many divided militaries and too much duplications, if the EU countries spend 2%, combine and reduce a lot of the duplication, it would be a much more effective military and by far the second most powerful, that would be more than enough that it would be crazy for anyone to mess with them.
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@hassu2149 Nothing is impossible but it will take time, especially on merging the different standards across each of the EU militaries together as each have their own way of doing things. But hey, think back just shortly after the second world war, I suspect most people would think what we have with the EU now, a political and economic union with free movement would be impossible and yet here we are. All that's needed is the right political will and time to make things happen, Putin might have helped to speed that up now because fear as bad as it is, does wonderful things for change. Personally, what I think we will see is like we saw with the Euro, some EU members go ahead with it whiles the others can do what they want, Germany, France, Italy and Spain I suspect seem like good choices with a few others, chances are, if you get a few onboard and they make it work, others will follow in time, especially because there's a fair chance that those countries that are in it could benefit a lot by military contracts compared to the ones that are not in it. Either way, you just need to get the ball rolling and I think France and Germany are the logical choice for that, France really wants to project power through the EU and now with Germany wanting to spend more on the military, they might feel more comfortable having it under a command structure of the EU then it's own going on it's history, Italy and Spain I think would likely be onboard or follow shortly after, then we'll likely see what we see with the Euro where one country after another joins, after all, if it works and works well, what's the point in having a much weaker smaller military of the individual country that is far less effective when an EU one can do a much better job for them?
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@xythiera7255 A big part of why Brexit happen is the constant EU bashing in the UK from much of the media and governments, we always hear about the negatives of EU membership but rarely about the positives, it surprised me that the EU got so much support at all considering what the people are fed on the EU. Truth is, you ask most Brexiteers anything about the benefits of the EU, most can't answer it. Anyway, there are other factors involved xenophobia is clearly one of them, especially in England and that risks braking up the UK union.
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@asdf3568 The EU always has problems and yet it's still around, besides, wasn't Brexit suppose to desolve the EU? it seems to have made it stronger, if anything, if you look at it, the UK union is far more at risk than the EU union is with everything that's going on in Scotland and Northern Ireland and looking at all those trade deals which most are not that good as they are just making the numbers up not the quality of the deal, that could help to push Scotland to leave, not so much Northern Ireland as they are already in the Custom union being dragged away from the UK.
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@asdf3568 Italy always seems to be in crisis, it's remarkable they get anything done with all the corruption and inefficacy they have in that country but maybe thanks to the pandemic, they might turn a new leaf. As for the EU, I always seem to find they work best when in crisis, but overall, the EU are doing fine, better than I expected considering the pressures from the pandemic and Brexit. I do have to wonder about the financial crisis and not just for the EU but for all the west as we've all done a really poor job in handling this pandemic and are riddled with debts which is probably why the EU and US are seeing sense in working together, well that and China.
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@asdf3568 It's not perfect, but then again, what is? the idea was with the Euro was to get it on the market and overtime, integrate the economies into it, it takes time but that's pretty much what's happening and the reason they had to do that is because they were doing things back to front, bringing a currency out over many countries which is no easy task, still they made it happen and it's working. Now basically, it's in the interest of the Euro Zone countries to integrate more thanks to the Euro and that will in the long run make the EU and Euro much stronger.
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@asdf3568 Greece is an exception to the rule that lied to join the Euro and in a sense, Greece should have been kicked out of the Euro, the reality is, for most Euro Zone members, especially the northern countries, it's working quite well and the simple reason it's working is because they made the changes in the economy for it to work whereas some countries, two you mentioned above keep complaining and wanting bail-outs, that's not the faults of the Euro, that's those countries faults. After all, lets be blunt about this, those countries were slipping behind even before the Euro but the Euro became the easy scapegoat for some governments to blame because they don't want to take the blame themselves by doing the reforms needed. It's a bit like in the UK where they always blamed the EU for all the wrongs in the UK even thought most of what's wrong in the UK is because of the UK government, it's deflecting blame away, a lot of governments do it.
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@bonumdalek7107 The thing is with Italy, it's a country of two halves, you've got the northern part of Italy that functions quite well and competes will, then you've got the southern part which feels less developed, a lot more corrupt and a mess all around. As for the third wave, we've not really started it yet, but as we're seeing, infection rates are shooting up and death rates are starting to follow and as I'm sure you are aware, death rates lag a few weeks behind infection rates, in other words, we could be at the early stages of the third wave already and we'll know over the next month or so. Personally I hope it doesn't happen as it feels like we're going around in circles but it does look like it is happening even with so many people having the vaccine.
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@bonumdalek7107 Very true, I remember reading up about that with Italy where so many projects that get government cash ends up with much of that cash not going to the project at hand and in many cases, the money disappears. Corruption is the biggest problems in these countries down south but just like the UK government that likes to blame all the wrongs in the country on others, those countries do the same. What's really needed is some major reforms and a clean up of a lot of that corruption, until then, they are just going to keep blaming others for their own mess just like the UK did.
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@asdf3568 One thing I've learned over the years is that countries in the south of the EU find it harder to adapt, northern European countries are adapting to it much better and making the Euro work for them, the excuses are starting to run out with the southern countries, especially as the eastern countries join the Euro and make a success of it. We should also remember that these countries had major structural problems in the economy before the Euro, many I suspect thought that by joining the Euro, the other countries would keep bailing them out, that's true to a degree but as we saw recently, a lot of that bail-out money will get tied down to major reforms, in other words, the other EU countries are willing to help just as long as those countries that need help are willing to help themselves, in other words, their time is running out. In other words, the Euro isn't the problem, some members in it are and that's why Mark Rutter was playing hard ball recently in not wanting to bail them out unless it's tied to major reform, they are seeing what I've been seeing for years.
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@bonumdalek7107 I agree with you but clearly it's not a easy problem to solve and they've been trying in Italy for decades, many Italians have got to the point where they want to split Italy in two, north and south because the south is a drain on the north. I think Italy needs a strong government that pushes really hard over a term or two to clean up corruption and the south but that would have to be one brave leader. I think the UK is going to continue to go downwards until we get rid of this Tory government, too much bad blood from them and the EU to normalize relations now and this government is too fanatical in blaming the EU for everything wrong in the UK, the irony is, the UK keeps signing one bad trade deal after another that it wouldn't surprise me if a future government re-joins the single market and/or custom union, that would be one easy way for a future government that has nothing to do with Brexit to wipe out all these bad deals and get the same deals the EU has. As for the northern EU state, all they have to do with the EU is have much tougher rules on cash for reforms, that's probably the best way to get the countries down south to do real reforms, otherwise, if they keep getting free hand outs with no cost, they'll never change and end up being a burden on the north.
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@asdf3568 They were never forced into it, they choose it, some even broke their own rules to join the Euro like Greece, the rest is just excuses for them not doing the major reforms needed for the Euro to work effectively for them, the northern countries did it, so can the countries down south. The real proof is in the pudding as we are seeing with eastern European countries that are slowly joining the Euro, they are not having the same problem the south is having and for good reason, the way of thinking in those countries is different then the south and more in line with the northern European countries.
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@asdf3568 Partly, that does help but I think a big part of it is the mentality of the people which for the most part think like northern western Europeans do which makes it easier for them to develop and it won't surprise me if they suppose the countries down south of Europe. It's a tricky one with Greece, they shouldn't have been allowed in but it was too late when it was all found out and I doubt the EU wanted to kick them out so they muddle through, as for the Euro, it's not the problem for them but it's an easy scapegoat to blame for all the wrongs in the country, in truth, these countries would get left behind even if they were not in the Euro or EU, the problem is more deep-rooted in those countries and that's whats needed to change, in other words, some major reforms are needed in those countries, something Italy and Spain are trying to do but it's not always easy. As for the Euro overall, it's a lot more stable than it was a decade ago and clearly isn't going anywhere as some predicted but there is still some work to do in integrating the economies more in line with it, that basically means Euro Zone countries will have to integrate more to get the real benefits of the Euro, that's happening but it's happening slower than it should and again, a big part of that problem is the countries down south not pulling their weight.
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@bonumdalek7107 I think in time, The Tories, the media and people in the UK will stop blaming others and the EU for all the wrongs in the UK but I suspect that's only going to happen once this Tory government is out of power, they've set themselves up to blame the EU for everything wrong in the UK, hence why even thought the UK is out of the EU, they can't help but to blame the EU for all the wrongs in the UK, it's sad if not laughable. The problems in the UK are deep-rooted and most are caused by UK governments, something the British people are going to see over the next decade which by then they might start to warm to the EU again. Problem is for the UK, there is little to no chance of the EU letting the UK back in for decades, especially the England part which is where the problem is, Scotland and Northern Ireland have a much better chance of rejoining the EU as they didn't want to leave in the first place. The only other alternative for the UK is to re-join the single market and/or custom union, the irony being is that will solve many problems, the Northern Ireland boarder for one, but it will also solve the trade problem, the UK government is signing one bad deal after another around the world to make up the numbers, how easy would it be for a future government to come in that's got nothing to do with Brexit and say, right that's it, we're trading in all these bad deals for good ones with the EU, in a sense, wiping out all those bad deals and replacing them with the deals the EU has around the world, I suspect that could be quite tempting for a future UK government, especially if things keep getting worse in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
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@bonumdalek7107 I think the odds of England getting back in the EU is more or less zero, at least for the next decade or two as I can think of 2 or 3 EU members that would block that whereas Scotland and Northern Ireland if they left the UK, they likely could join pretty quickly because they voted to remain in the EU and was pulled out against their will. Realistically, if the UK wanted to get back in, the single market and custom union is the best option they've got but first, the UK needs to learn by getting screwed over around the world and especially from the US, you don't want a UK back in unless they've really changed. In any case, the UK is already seeing early signs of what many countries around the world think of them, they are being taken advantage off by even weaker countries than the UK and are pretty much being put under the thumb of the US, so much for independence.
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I wish him or Farage could be the leader of the UK, mainly so the penny will drop a lot sooner for the Brexiteers, in other words, things would likely be a lot worse.
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For me, the veto rules need major reforms, that needs to happen sooner rather than later as it's holding back the EU in countless ways. The second is the European Parliament, as the video points out, it needs the ability to purpose laws, and more transparency is needed to bring the EU closer to the people in the union and for me, the Commission and Council of Europe are too distant from the public, which doesn't help the image of the EU. I also feel that reforms are needed more urgently because the union has more or less been at a standstill for the last decade with little to no treaty change and as we know, treaty change is going to be needed before any new country can join the union, a message the EU needs to make clear to countries that want to join that the door is open sooner rather than later, otherwise, they might give up and look elseware. Anyway, I think major reforms are needed over the next 5 years, starting with the veto rules as that is holding progress back in a lot of areas.
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@Yupperino123 If you don't know by now then you must have been living under a rock, either way I'm not going to entertain that one.
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What you have to remember that it's much easier to blame others for your own problems, the UK and especially UK governments were deflecting blame on the EU, basically using them as a scapegoat for the failings that the UK government was doing, it was a way to take heat away from UK governments and the mess they keep creating and clearly that has been exposed after Brexit because now they can't blame the EU for the mess the UK is in, that's the only silver lining with Brexit, is that it's going to bring a lot more heat on UK governments and is opening peoples eyes that the real problem was never the EU, but was much closer to home. Like you said, in many of the areas that Brits and the UK government were complaining about and wanted independence so they could change things, the reality is, they could already change things in those areas whiles we were in the EU, but personally, I think the real agenda of Brexit was that the Tories wanted to lower standards across the board in the UK, a bit like how the US has done it, which has many will know, that would have been a lot harder to do when the UK was in the EU because the EU sets high standards in a lot of areas, members can have higher than those standards but can't have lower standards, that's what I think Brexit was all about and if true, the British best keep a close eye on UK governments watering down rights that you take for granted as many of them could be watered down or scrapped entirely over the coming decades.
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I think it's highly likely for a civilization to survive, they should have to be very civilized as they become more advanced as the tech they invent would overtime become more of a threat to themselves if they don't change. We see signs of that here on Earth with humans, as we keep advancing, it's forcing us to become more civilised and we are still a young race, in other words, it's highly unlikely an alien race would see humans as a threat or be hostile towards us unless we was towards them, they would likely just be interested in how we are and how we develop. Personally, I don't think an alien can only advanced to a degree depending on how much they are willing to change and that is likely the case for the human race as well, as in, it's likely us humans will have to become more civilized over the next 100, 200 years if we are to survive, it's possible that most alien races can't make that change and don't survive and that could also be the case for humans as well.
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@madmanwithmasck Hardly, there are many backup plans to keep things ticking over and you'll be surprised how much change can happen in a short space of time when push comes to shove, thanks to Putin, we could be on the verge of an energy revolution, and all it took was Putin to use energy as a political weapon. Basically, the longer energy prices stay high, the more damaging it will be for the fossil industry and I suspect the renewable industry are licking their lips in knowing what this means, big changes can happen in a short space of time as the second world war showed us, now unlike the past, there is likely a lot more political will to make it happen and mainly to keep the voting public off governments backs.
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Problem is that there is no such thing as staying neutral, the truth is, India is seeing Russia is weak, they know they are finding it much harder to sell oil and gas to Europe and India as well as China are taking full advantage of that by pressuring Russia to sell oil and gas dirt cheap. The more isolated Russia becomes, the more under the thumb Russia is likely to be of China, which is pretty dumb of Putin really. Also, Russia cash reserve are running out, once that happens, the real damage will kick in for Russia and on top of that, the EU countries will continue to reduce buying Russian oil and gas over time, this is putting Russia in a tight bind, they are finding it difficult to sell to the rich markets whiles the so called friendly countries of Russia are taking advantage of Russia whiles Russia is weak, expect things to get a lot worse next year.
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I've never seen such a depressed crowd of people on what should be seen as a victory, or more like a scared crowd, which should be alarming to Putin because these are just going along with Putin's actions because they are scared of being thrown out of a window, but that fear can only go so far, the worse the war gets or the more Putin tries to escalate the war that could personally impact a lot of the people in that room as well as Russian people, Putin will end up finding out that these sacred cats have claws and once pushed into a corner, they'll lash out. Basically, if Putin keeps pushing, these people could turn on him and it will be Putin's life at risk, especially if there is a real threat of nukes being used, it's easy to use the threat of nuke, but good luck to Putin if he used them, as he might as well dig his own grave. In any case, those regions are already slowly being taken back by Ukraine and for all the excuses from Putin in claiming they are Russian, he's not done anything to escalate the war, I doubt Putin is stupid enough to escalate to that point as he likely knows what it means for his own life, so he'll continue with his bluff game which he's been doing for years now.
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@AnastasiyaBunda To be fair, the Netherlands and Belgium gets a lot more tourist and in the case of Belgium, they have the EU based in Brussels as well as NATO so a lot of international travel happens there, most of the countries that are the hardest hit by this virus are the ones that are the most popular tourist destination and that likely makes it much easier to spread the virus. In any case, there is more to it then just that but it would take too long to look close at each country but you can bet once the dust is settled, almost every country is going to be looked at very closely to see what they did right or wrong and why some got impacted more than others. Also, I feel this virus has exposed a massive hole in the argument of euroseptics around Europe, all this petty nationalism has led to the EU not being able to help enough because much of its hands are tied behind their back because countries want control to stay at a national level, it begs the question that if the EU had more authority to help, how many more lives could have been saved because they likely would have been able to get resources to the hot spot areas that were needed sooner without the bickering the members showed, some real tough questions need to be asked on that one because this virus has shown why more integration might be a good idea or at the very least, much better cooperation.
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@AnastasiyaBunda Not saying anyone is an euroseptic here but the EU has taken quite a bit of stick on this virus but for the most part, it's a national issue where the EU has little to no power in how it can help without the EU members go ahead which can be slow as we've seen, euroseptics have been complaining that the EU hasn't done enough but it would be those same euroseptics that would complain if the EU was to get more involved in national matters, they can't have it both ways, either they want things at a national level or they want an EU that can help more effectively. Mistakes are done on many sides with how many countries tried to handle this virus, China should have been more up front about it, western countries should have taken it more seriously and so on, with any luck, once the dust settles, things can get resetted for us all and we can learn from the mistake that have been done. As for tourist, I was just stating it as it is, countries that get more are more likely to have a harder time dealing with it, in fact we are seeing that with regions in countries like London in the UK, Milan in Italy, New York in the US, all of which are hot spots that get a lot of people coming and going, so even so some policy change from governments would have helped, these areas were always likely to have a harder time dealing with it. In truth, we are not the only one making mistakes like we've seen in Europe, look at the US from the government to the governors and all the infighting that is going on to the spread of misinformation, we all have a lot to learn from the mess of this virus.
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@marekj1100 But again, that is up to the national governments to do not the EU, all the EU could do is advise. In any case, the lock down was designed with the intention of buying time and not overloading the health care system so they can get better prepared but because of that, opening up is likely going to be slow and in stages over the entire year, maybe longer depending on how things go and if a second wave hits. The mess that was created was each member going it alone where if they channelled their resources through the EU, we likely would have saved many lives by getting the resources to the hot spots that were needed the most and quickly, it also does suggest that once the dust settles, we need a better plan for the future because this pandemic has exposed a lot of flaws in the system, especially at a national level. Still the US isn't much better, they've got Trump that is saying all sorts of crazy stuff and sending mixed messaged to people, even encouraging some to rise up, then you got the states that are divided and not helping each other enough, some even trying to punish others like the red states vs the blue states, where is the unity in all that? So yeah, reforms are needed at EU, members level as well as US and state levels because we in the west have made a right mess of this compared to Asia.
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@Kalimdor199Menegroth The problem isn't the EU as such, it's that the EU doesn't have the powers in these areas, it has to work with EU members to come up with a deal, the problem is that members are pulling in all direction. You've got an open door policy in a union where boarders are controlled at national level, it's easy to see where the blame is, it's also easy to see where the solution is, if you're going to have open boarders in a union, the EU is going to need the powers to enforce its boarders whiles also having more powers on immigration policies. So Schengen isn't the problem, the members are, after all, we've got 27 voices pulling in all directions, what did you honestly expect to happen? The solution is simply, it's weather they can hammer out a deal to make it happen, but big reforms on the EU are needed, this is one area where it's really needed, as well as on veto rules. If we don't get our act together, it's going to make us poorer and less economically competitive on the world stage.
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@leesunited3327 That's true and any kind of deal is better than none at all but looking at the deal on what we know, it looks quite poor for the UK and quite decent for the EU and this is before we see all the small print. I know some would like to think Brexit will blow over now but there's a fair chance that this could rage on for many years to come unless Brexit is a massive success which is unlikely. If we look at it realistically, Scotland is very likely going to have an independence vote at sometime, maybe late next year or early the year after, they've already passed into law to keep as many of thier laws and regulations in line with the EU, Northern Ireland are more or less at that point already and then once the reality of Brexit kicks in, I feel this is going to open up a can of worms for the country going forward because too much was promised that can't be delivered which Brexiteers will likely turn on the government if they get hit by it and remainders are likely to jump on that. Winning the Brexit battle was always the easy part, winning the war which is making a success of it is the hard part and that only begins next year where things become much more tricky for the government.
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@caperider1160 No, I'm just one that likes to have critical thinking and doesn't automatically follow the government line like a sheep because they want me too, I look at how things are and what we can do to deal with it. Even with a cover up, why did a lot of other countries respond to this so slow? We've known about this virus since January and yet look how slow the likes of the US and US are reacting to this, at first they made it seem like a joke in that it would blow over and then they started to put the economy first at the expense of the people. Some tough questions are going to get asked on a lot of governments once the dust settings and it doesn't look good for many of them. So what I'm saying is that China should have been more open on this but Trump would go out of his way to try and punish them if China was more open so I can understand why they wanted to keep it a secret, but even then, if China was open, would a lot of governments listen? look how slow they are to react to it, it suggests China being open on it wouldn't change anything, hence the tough questions on our own governments once the dust settles, beside, all Trumps is doing is deflecting blame away from him self because he knows he's in deep with this and the buck stands with him in the US, he's trying to deflect blame on China because this looks bad on him.
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@caperider1160 Some are desperate to blame China because they want an easy scapegoat, Trump is doing just that but that's not going to end well. Beside, I'm not saying the Chinese government doesn't need to change, after the dust settles on this virus, China will have to change in many areas like on food standards and how they treat animals, the pressure on them from the rest of the world will be immense on those things. Also, when you say China is a big threat to the world order, what you likely mean is America world order and you are right, China is a big threat to the US, if you look at what China is doing, they are making many friends at the moment in Europe and around the world with helping on the coronavirus at a time when the US is pulling back, the longer this virus goes on, the bigger the geographical and political shift that can happen in the world and so far China is playing the smart game on that whereas the US is coming across as a selfish nation thanks to Trump. One thing I do know, if this virus last till the end of the summer or year, it's not going to be business as usual after that, a lot of changes are coming, maybe in the same kind of way we saw after the second world war, people don't seem to understand how massive of a change this is going to be for the human race once the dust settles.
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Eventually, I think all EU countries will join the Euro, most of them have too at some point and the odd ones that have negotiated terms to not adopt the Euro, it's not hard to see how EU policymaking and changes to benefit the EU members will be in favour of Euro Zone countries at the expense of the ones that are not in the Euro, this is especially the case as Euro zone countries become more aligned with each other which is a long process that takes decades. But in any event, the Euro zone makes up the vast bulk of the EU economy, it's a given that power and policymaking will in time shift towards Euro zone countries, that isn't a problem for none Euro zone countries that plan to join someday, but it could become a problem for countries not planning to join as it could isolate them and weaken there position in the EU, which in time will likely mean all EU members being in the Euro. In any case, it looks like Bulgaria are the most likely, followed by Sweden, at least on conditions, but then there is the political aspect on country joining as well as public support, Bulgaria seems like they could be the next to join, whiles Hungary seems the least likely to join even thought there's a lot of public support to do so but the political system and government they've got makes it unlikely they will join, as for the rest, well it's up in the air depending on many factors from who is in power at a given time to public views always changing, I think all will join eventually, but some sooner than others, others it might take them decades to join if the conditions from the public and political support isn't there or they don't qualify to join. As for Hungary, considering their inflation rate, interest rates and debt levels, I highly doubt the Euro would make it worse when their own policies are making a mess of the thing with Orbán in power and Hungary is one of the worst performers in those areas which if that continues, will really bite the people on the arse when it comes to living standards in the country, but I doubt Orbán cares about that, he's all about consolidating powers and gaining new powers then caring about the common people in the country.
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@NPC There is and that's mostly because of the pandemic but it's worse for the UK because they also have to deal with Brexit, we could be seeing the perfect storm building in the UK for the end of the year if they are not careful.
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@fitz.g3240 And yet EU countries have some of the strongest workers rights in the world, beating out the US and UK.
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@gordonlawrence1448 Thats just not how businesses work, they take every opening to bump up prices and in this case, they actually have a reason to do so. Beside, Brexit likely makes us a easier target to be taken advantage off, you only have to look at that deal with Aus to see that, a country much smaller then the UK getting a better deal out of the UK, does that every happen normally?
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@michaelscarlino4670 Less regulations usually also means less rights and lower standard. It's a balancing act on getting the two right, the US clearly cares less about it's people then the EU does about it's people.
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It is an opinion, but the problem is, these people in positions of power, whether that be X or newspapers or news station, they are having a massive impact on shaping people's minds in a lot of areas with little to no accountability. As an individual, what I say has little to no impact, but these people in positions of a lot of this media can shape public views in the millions with zero accountability on what they say, regardless of truth or not, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for free speech, but these people are having a big impact on lots of people with so much disinformation going around. This isn't just about Elon Musk and what he says, it's about the entire media that can say whatever it wants, regardless of truth or lie or the damage it does, yet there is little to no accountability with it.
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How many times have I heard this one before? lol. It's hard to take these people serious when they get it so wrong so many times when it comes to the EU. I mean, shouldn't the EU be dead and buried like 3 decades ago? lol.
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@j.b.2263 You can make masks out of almost anything, it's still callous of the government to not advise the public on that.
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Old Windsor What, it's fake news that you can make a mask at home? lol.
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The irony is that Trump was the main reason why Greenland turned to the EU, if Trump wasn't so hostile with his threats, the US likely would have had a fair chance of getting a deal from Greenland, but as it is, Trump more or less give that deal to the EU and for someone that likes to think he's good at making deals, he doesn't have a clue lol. We see it with a lot of the other deals and threats he keeps making, when you look closely, there are so many ways that it backfires on Trump and the US and all this is doing is humiliating Trump and the US time after time.
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@Paerigos Depends which country you are lol, but either way, GDP per capita is not a good indicator of wealth, I've seen enough of that on my travels.
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@felicepompa1702 Pretty much that, the cost of living is usually much cheaper in poorer countries and GDP per capita goes on the basis that money is shared out evenly, most of us knows that isn't the case at all, the irony being, the more billionaires and millionaires in a country, the less the money is shared out among it's population, probably explains why the US and the UK to a less degree have so much poverty and inequality even thought according to GDP per capita numbers, they are doing fine.
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@darrenbellenger1 Not 100% guaranteed they will agree to an extension with how crazy this UK government is but it seems very likely going on past records of this government but like the past, they will bluster to the very end in the hope the EU gives any crumbs before the UK folds. The UK government is also worried with what is going on in the US, a lot of Brexit was a bluff on the idea that the US will replace what we lose with the EU but Trump seems more interested in screwing the UK over and thanks to this pandemic, he's likely going to double down on that to create jobs in the US, throw in that the Democrats are likely going to want closer relations with the EU, the UK could be in massive trouble here and sidelined on both sides of the atlantic. It's also very likely thanks to this pandemic that the UK can kiss good bye to any of those so called free trade deals around the world, a lot of countries are going to look for number one now and that means creating jobs back home, last thing they want is to open up trade links with others and in that sense, this pandemic came about at the worse time for Brexit UK.
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Putin is a dictator, Trump wanted to be a dictator, Trump even used a lot of the same play book on the media, court system to create fear and turn the public against these institutions and if Trump had enough supporters, he could have been a real threat to US democracy, lucky for the US, Trump is seen as a joke lol.
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It's highly unlikely that western governments are going to trust Russia after this, especially European countries on energy matters, Russia has played too many games that now European countries in the EU are likely going to go full steam ahead with the intention of killing the fossil industry by generating its own energy internally and all because of energy security. Russia might have shortened the life span of the fossil industry by a decade or more, which is worth trillions to the countries that produce that and the more unstable the market stays and the higher energy prices are, the quicker and bigger that change will be against the fossil industry, especially in the west, so the clock is ticking against the fossil industry and the only thing they can do is create stability in the market and lower prices and fast but even then, I think that might be too late for the European markets, they've lost a lot of trust in that I think they will ramp up energy production at home a lot more over the next decade. As for Russia, there isn't really any way for them to win here, the west will continue to supple Ukraine with arms and intelligence that will bleed Russian economy, whiles the EU countries will continue to reduce buying gas and oil from Russia, once they're done that, they will likely go after China and India with the aim of pressuring them to stop buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, after all, the west isn't doing all this only for others to prop up the Russian economy and as China and India depends a lot more on western markets, they can't afford to get on the wrong side of that, truth is, Russia isn't that important to the west, China or India and the problem for Russia is that it can't really find any other rich markets to sell that stuff too as it's alienated them all, meaning it becomes worthless or it has to sell it a lot cheaper. Russia's economy is already hurting quite bad and this is before the European countries have moved away from buying oil and gas from them, it's only going to get a lot worse with Russia with the real aim is to isolate Russia from the world, the end result, even if they won in Ukraine which looks unlikely, they've actually lost overall, Putin likes to think of himself as a smart leader but he's messed up big time here and because of his arrogance, he's digging his own grave, the question is, how much are the Russian people willing to be dragged down with him. As for the sanctions, I think many misunderstand how sanctions usually work, they tend to take 2 to 3 years to really bite, it's too early on that but even now, the Russian economy is hurting bad, the countries in the EU will quickly adapt away from Russia which will hurt Russia even more, it's a bit of short term pain but it's just that, short term, for Russia, it's long term and the irony is, Putin is speeding up that process by cutting gas and oil sooner rather than later, forcing EU countries to adapt sooner and quicker, this hurts the European countries in the short term but it will hurt Russia a lot more and be longer term, truth is, it's desperation from Putin as he knows the European countries are moving away so he wants to be seen as the one forcing that issue, in the end, the end result is a much weaken Russian economy and power whiles the Europeans will adapt over the next 2 years and good luck to Russia selling too much of that oil and gas to others around the world, once you break trust, no country, even friendly country will want to be too dependent on Russia in case the likes of Putin will use energy as a political weapon to get what he wants, Putin has shot himself in the foot and is dragging the Russian people down with him, the question is, when will the penny drop that they see that, I suspect it will be when it's too late and the major damage is done for them.
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@himanshugurjar9002 There's nothing wrong with giving up some control if done right and if it's balanced, but doing that takes a lot of time and there needs to be a lot of common ground among the countries to do that, the EU countries show it can work. As for the BRICS countries, there are too many differences among the countries, there's also too big of a size difference among many of the countries that makes it very difficult to give over some power to a central body, because in the case of the BRICS countries, both China and India would be dominant over all the others because of the economy and population difference, it doesn't really make it practical that it can work, but a lot of the other smaller Asian countries are in a better position to pull it off and probally will want to do so, so they can compete with India and China long term, this is also the case for a lot of countries around the world that I think many of the smaller ones are going to have to group together to compete with the bigger players.
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@sobhansarthak6000 That's true, but if they really want to counter the other big powers, the current setup isn't going to do it, and as I said above, the countries in BRICS, are not really that compatible with each other to make it work, too many differences and interest among them. In the end, the reason the western countries are so successful, is because what they offer is more appealing compared to what others offer, they are not perfect, but in comparison to many others like China, you won't get many countries around the world that will follow that leadership, and that's the real problem for China, western countries are able to make friends around the world much easier than China can because the system they have is a lot more appealing than what China offers, so offering a better system then the west offers would go a long way in changing the world order. The irony being is that the EU countries are kinda doing that, if you look at the political, economic and social fabric of modern countries, the US is the odd one out, all the other modern countries have a more balanced system with a lot of social programs and protection for its citizens, the US on the other hand feels like the wild west where the citizens are on their own to fend for themselves, there are a lot more countries, developed and developing countries that are adopting the European ideals over the Americans, in a sense, it's winning the hearts and minds of countries around the world and probably because the system on offer is better than what the US offers and probably why European countries dominant the top 10 quality of life index. China wants to be a leader in the world, but what they offer is far worse than what the west offers, if they offer something better, more appealing, a lot more countries would listen, and it's also why China reach around the world will be limited compared to the west, because to be a leader, you need friends.
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You know, I've been watching this guy doing his news briefing on this virus each day from the UK and if there's any time you need a leader like him over Trump, it's now. He might drag out some of the things he says in a very morphological way but that's sometimes needed to get the point across and he does get the point across by keeping to a lot of the facts on how things are, even to the point of repeating it over and over to get the point across. I do have to wonder what is going on over there with Trump and some of the crazy stuff he is saying and the disunity that is being shown by US states and the federal governments, we in Europe, the EU might get some stick but at least that has the excuse that it's got limited powers in how that can help it's members in many of these areas, the US federal government doesn't have that excuse, it's also crazy seeing some of the things Republicans are saying like funding should be held back from blue states, where is the unity in all of that and what is the point of the union if the government and other states don't help each other out in crisis? After seeing a lot of what we are seeing the last few months, a lot of reforms are needed in the US but also in the EU with how that and it's members can cooperate together because massive mistakes are being made on both sides of the atlantic that are costing lives.
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If anything, it would be worse for Russia, a more powerful united EU army is I suspect the last thing Russia wants because at least with NATO, Russia can play dividing games. Remember that Russia doesn't care about NATO or the EU, what they care about is playing games with eastern European countries by keeping them weak, an EU united army isn't something that would help Russia.
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@justanotherviewer4821 China doesn't care about Russia and are likely using them for it's own political ends and who knows, probably have plans for that land above them as that must be very tempting for them as not many Russians live there. As for the EU, Russia cares a lot about them and it's mainly because the EU is giving eastern European countries something Russia can't, a higher quality of living and stability, all that Russia is offering them is threats, something thats much harder for Russia to do with a EU member, hence why so many Eastern European countries want to join the EU, the irony being, Russia is helping the EU with it's aggressiveness lol, after all, you have to win the hearts and minds of the people, not threaten them lol.
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@GoDLiKeKakashi Oh there's always things to whing about and if there isn't, they'll invent something lol. Russia is just getting desperate because the EU is expanding eastwards and improving the living standards of those countries which has a knock on effect on the other countries to want to join, Russia knows that as more countries join the EU, they lose political power over them and that scares the hell out of Putin and the irony is, the EU isn't an enemy of Russia, in fact they could become good friends if we take all the political bs out of it.
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@GoDLiKeKakashi Fair enough, but we should remember that Putin being an authoritarian government has a longer term agenda with it's policies and can shape the narrative much better than a democracy can where governments are changing all the time, in a sense, that is an advantage but it can also lead to disaster if the government goes down the right path as there is nothing that can be done to stop it whereas in a democracy, there usually is, hence why it's the most successful system we have for now but it's clearly not perfect and has a lot of flaws. I do agree with you that the US isn't much better but considering where China is heading which are far worse than both Russia and the US, choice for many countries is becoming a lot more limited where it seems like the Europeans in the EU seem to be the ones that are level-headed in all this, probably why some countries like Japan, Canada and Australia wanted to speed up it's talks with the EU on free trade deals to distant themselves a bit from the US and China as the EU is the only other major power left.
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Russia has been in decline around the fall of the Soviet Union, but in truth, the decline was happening much sooner than that as the US and allies, have more or less forced Russia to spend a lot to compete with the west, which in part probably played a big part in the fall of the Soviet Union, with the fall, things have slowly got worse, now Russia have an economy in between the size of Spain and Italy, whiles having to account for a much bigger population. What makes it worse for Russia, if it wasn't for its natural resources, Russia would be a lot poorer and the truth is, Russia just isn't competitive with the west and the west view on Russia was from the Soviet era, the war in Ukraine really exposed how weak Russia as a power is, and the writing was on the wall with the size of its economy, which that is the main base that determines real power in this world. Now with everything that's going on with Russia and Ukraine, it's likely to speed up the process of decline for Russia and as the video points out, a lot of 18-35 years olds being killed in the war and many that are leaving the country are likely younger generations with higher skill sets, the kind of people Russia can't afford to lose, the implications of that longer term on the Russian economy isn't looking good, especially as countries move towards cleaner energy sources and alternatives to raw materials of Russia, basically, the moment Russia played politics with its raw materials, not many countries are going to want to do business with them and even if they do, they won't put themselves into a dependent state, which is forcing Russia to sell at a below market price. To make things worse for Russia, the longer the war in Ukraine drags on, the more costly in lives and on the economy it will be for Russia and I suspect some in the west, especially the US wants the war to drag on to drain the resources of Russia, to weaken them as a power and to isolate them. On the plus side, Putin has done what Greenpeace couldn't do, now a lot of countries are speeding up the adoption of renewable and other clean energy sources and all it took was energy security to be the cause of that, basically, a lot more countries are going to want to generate more energy internally, and we are seeing a big uplift on that from the major powers of the EU, US and China, that's terrible news for Russia. Another plus point, the EU and NATO could be back on track for expansion, the last thing Russia wanted and the irony being, it was Putin that created that situation by scaring countries into wanting to join the EU and NATO, this war couldn't have gone any worse for Putin if he tried, and I bet if he could go back, he wouldn't have started this war if he knew the west would react like this, but now Putin has put himself into a situation where he can't go back without looking weak to the Russia people, that basically means either Putin will either get deposed or killed at some point or Russia continues its current course of decline, if the Russian people are smart, they'll find a way to depose of Putin and his government, because the second option is going to hit every Russian in the country negatively and personally, I think that needs to happen to wake the Russian people up.
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Say what we want about the Germans but the government is more pragmatic, and they go by the science and not sound bites, they took this serious whereas a lot in the west didn't and because of that, they are fairing far better than all the other big western countries.
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@hgu123454321 True and that creates a much bigger problem long term as we've seen with Japan, Italy and Greece. Nobody likes austerity measures, but what is the alternative if some governments get so reckless with spending that debts become sky-high? You end up in a situation where the debts end up being a major drag on the economy that can last for decades. Constant reforms of the economy are the only solution as that will boost economic growth, help to reduce debt levels, allow to keep taxes at a decent level and allow for more public spending, whereas debts can be fine as a short term fix, but too many are using it to paper over the cracks in the economy by not wanting to do the reforms needed, that just makes it a lot worse longer term which likely means tough austerity measures are needed to fix the problem. So as much as some don't like the EU's strict rules on debts, they do make a lot of sense, but I do agree some flexibility is needed on them, but I also think they need to be stricter in pulling down debt levels as that ends up becoming a major drag on the countries that have high debts, and if too many go that route, it ends up having a major drag on the EU economy, so basically decline.
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It's ironic because in Europe, we tend to find US food to be quite disgusting but from An Aussie perspective which over there they've got lower food standards, hence why the UK after Brexit and that UK-Australia trade deal, many in the UK fear it could lower food standards in the UK because now the UK isn't protected by the EU's high standards. I'll give him that, the potions are bigger in the US but I don't think that is a good thing and you only have to look at the obesity rate in the US, which is far higher than in Europe, also suger, way too much lol.
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I think there needs to be some clear sign that they can join, and not just NATO, but also the EU, a clear sign that they can join once the war is over and they do the steps needed to join, will go along way in giving them hope and motivate them to push Russia out. Keeping them in limbo, not knowing where they stand can do harm, but in truth, it's too early to say, but western countries will need to give Ukraine clear signs at some point that it can join, otherwise, they will eventually look elseware, something that also the EU needs to do with countries that want to join the union, clear signs and road maps needs to be in place that countries that want to join, can once they do the steps needed to join, otherwise, some could look at alternative options like China if the west keeps them waiting. But in any event, the war needs to end in Ukraine before they can join the EU and NATO, but both organisations really do need a clear path that shows they can join before they get fed up and look at alternative options, a bit like how Turkey did on the EU, in other words, don't push them too far out where it feels almost impossible to join, give them a clear road map that they need to abide by before they can join, basically, give them hope that if they do the reforms and changes needed, they can join. Unfortunately, the way it is now, they don't know whether they can join or not, regardless of what changes they do after the war and it's easy to understand why some countries are getting fed up with waiting.
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I would love it if the Tories are dumb enough to bring back Boris as the PM, seriously, when are these clowns going to learn? or are they going to stay so detached from public thinking? The Truth is, nothing has changed on the public views on Boris, bringing him back would do the Tory party longer term harm. The reality is, what the Tories need is a moderate, something that is unlikely to happen as long as the ERG are pulling a lot of the strings in the party, the alternative is to call for an election, hope the Tories get wiped out so it wipes the ERG movement out of the party, because they are the main reason the Tories are lurching from disaster after disaster and if they are not careful, they could make themselves unelectable, Boris would be the icing on the cake for Labour. It's remarkable, because people thought their voting pattens on Brexit would only reflect on Brexit, the reality is, the public have allowed the nut cases to take over the Tory party and they won't leave without being pushed by the people, in other words, the public letting them get so much power over the Tories is having a big impact on all political and economic life in the UK and not just related to Brexit, something the people should have known better but they let their emotions do the voting and this is the result.
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We are one of the worse hit countries in the world and he calls it a success? lol, what a clown, I mean, what planet is he living on from him to Trump and the one in Brazil, they don't have a clue and it's ironic that they are all popularize governments, they are really showing how bad they really are under pressure. If Broris thinks that is a success, wait till Brexit and the pandemic economic impact kicks in on the people, I'm sure he'll call that a massive success lol.
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Yeah, I always laughed when they said they wanted to pause development on A.I. for 6 months, the cat is out of the bag, now there's a big race around the world when it comes to A.I. advancement, so there were no chance of pausing the development of it. What we can do is make sure it's accessible and safe for all to use, open source could end up the clear winner in this A.I. race simply because no one controls it, so accessibility won't be much of an issue, safety could be, having unrestricted A.I. could cause all sorts of problems going forward and I do feel some safety measures are needed in that area, but given the choice of A.I. being controlled by a few governments, corporations or rich individuals, I'll take open sources anyway over that alternative and it's probably why open source A.I. is developing so rapidly, many are seeing the risk of A.I. being controlled by so few, especially rivals to those companies and governments, hence a big push on open source A.I.
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@chuckinchina6926 That's not world police, that's self-interest, the US gains a lot by having bases around the world, besides, if it was that simply, why does the US want EU countries to spend more but don't want them to integrate more on the military? They say it would undermine NATO but how would it? the EU would just be a member in NATO, if anything, it would actually make NATO stronger but clearly, if the EU acts as one, it would have a much bigger voice in NATO and the world stage which isn't really what the US wants which considering where China is heading, you would think they would want all the help they can get but not at the expense of losing influence.
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@robertjarman3703 True but there wasn't very much unity on that when it comes to Iraqi, in fact most of the members in NATO were hostile to the US on that on, especially in Europe.
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@peterfireflylund With everything going on in Ukraine and this being a big wake-up call, it's looking like military spending will go up for a lot of EU members but I also think we're going to see a lot more cooperation and integration on the military, security and energy policies in the EU. Some people will think that's a threat to NATO, it's not, the EU could become a member of NATO in the same way the US is now, if anything, it could make NATO a lot stronger than it is now, the EU working as one military, reducing duplications would be a far more effective military than we have now, it would reduce the US role in NATO why the Europeans would have a bigger role but it's high time the EU and US start to realize who the real threats are and it's not each other, it might be a rising China of the future, something I don't think the US or EU on it's own can contain that in the long run.
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This deal plays nicely into the hands of the Europeans that want a single European army and more political integration because it's a wake-up call to get your act together or get pushed aside and I think the best way to do it is for some members to go ahead on their own like Germany, France, Italy and Spain because at the moment, it's not possible to get all EU members onboard but if a few go ahead with it, more will likely join up at a later date, in the end, do like they did with the Euro so you don't need all members to agree on to sign up. The irony is, it's probably what the US wants, a more useful EU that can help to contain China and not so many individual EU members doing their own thing which keeps them weak in a lot of political matters. In fact, we only have to look at the EU on economic matters, because we speak more as one, we can actually stand up for ourselves on economics, it's high time we Europeans do the same on political matters, especially with a rising China and a US that isn't going anywhere and is only going to be bigger going forward, so the choice is clear for us Europeans, do we want to stand up for ourselves or do we want to be pushed aside? if we get pushed aside, that could be costly politically, economically and socially. As for the deal with the US, UK, Aus, it was bad form from them and especially from the US, after all, why wasn't Canada and Japan not included? Especially Japan considering the region and really, the EU, Japan and Canada should have been consulted on this, by them not being, it could divide the west which is exactly what China wants. Also, forget countries like Denmark, if we keep listening to them, Europe is going to get weaker and pushed aside, if we really want to protect our interest, we're going to have to work much closer together on both political and economic matters, otherwise, China and the US will play games with us. Basically, stop letting some members stop progress in areas where some members want to move forward, do like we did with the Euro and other things and lets those members that want to integrate to do so.
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It's hard to say, but I don't think Trump is doing the US any favours, and I don't think it's just the EU that will want to distant it's self from the US but many US allies will likely want to do the same thing. Trump 2.0 is a clear indication that Trump isn't just a one-off, so in other words, even once Trump is out of power in 4 years, there's clearly something wrong with US politics and allies need to take that into account by distancing themselves from the US and looking at alternatives. In the case of China, they are not really trusted, but there's no reason why the EU and other countries can't play China and the US off each other, after all, it's clear that China wants to pull the EU away from the US as that would weaken the US, Trump is perfect for that, but it also weakens all the west. The simple truth is, we need an alternative to the US as US capitalism is going to the extream and US politics is becoming dangerous that it wouldn't surprise me if the US becomes a dictatorship over the next 30 years or sooner, after all, the warning signs are all around. The only credible alternative is the EU, they are big enough as a power to contend with both the US and China, but the EU countries need to get their act together and fast when it comes to speaking with one voice in many policy areas, if they don't get there act together, they will get marginalised and squeezed by the US and China and I don't think most of the world will want to live under a system that the US and China offers and we already know that because all modern countries beside the US have adopted a European social model, that could be under threat in Europe and by all other countries that have that kind of model as the US and China push their own model onto others. To put it bluntly, the EU is the only power left that other countries around the world that wants some kind of normal democracy that they can turn too, and it's probably why so many countries over the last few years are trying to increase trade with the EU, probably because they are the only other big alternative and many want to distance themselves from the US when trade is being used as a political weapon, after all, not many countries will want to do too much trade with a country that uses trade as a political weapon like the US is starting to do, and in any case, the US is playing a dangerous game that could really hurt the US if they are not careful and I think the ones that could benefit the most thanks to Trump is the EU and China if they play there cards right.
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Nah shes got no chance now, 3 votes of it and rejected 3 times, I doubt it will get another chance, now the only real options is another public vote or hard Brexit and considering hard Brexit has less support then May's deal, another public vote is very likely now.
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I think the real problem for Rome is that the empire was so big and successful that with the tech at the time, it made it difficult to deal with far off land powers and Persia was on the frontier as being a bit too far to really be worth taking over even thought many did try, if Persia was closer to the heartland of Rome, I think the Romans would have taken them over and I do have to wonder if Rome and China had more direct contact if both would have put the squeeze of Persia because Rome and China did a lot of trade with each other that went through Persia and that was very lucrative for Persia, Rome and China likely would have wanted to cut out the middle men and trade more directly with each other. How history would have turned out, good or bad is hard to say, much of the Middle East might have been Westernized but it's hard to say with how much history has gone by if that would have stuck. Another factor for Rome, you always got the impression that something came up just at the time Rome was going to take Persia on and you have to wonder if Persia had anything to do with that because it happened a lot and I could imagine that Persia didn't want war with Rome so creating problems back in Rome was in Persia interest, it also wouldn't surprise me if Caesar got killed just before leaving Rome because they knew if Caesar was successful in taking out Persia, he would look like a god to Romans and the idea of changing the system back would have been difficult, so it was now or never for the assassins.
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@NJ-eo2oc I don't know about that, it looked like Rome was able to give them a beating at any time and did many times but had little incentive in fully taking over them because of the size and distance from Rome, remember that Rome mostly cared about making sure there were no enemies connected directly to Rome, hence when they tool over all the surrounding areas. So yeah, I think if they wanted, they could take them over but there was little point in doing so, Rome was getting difficult to manage at the size it was, it would have almost been impossible if they took them over going off the tech they had, so Rome settled for giving them a bloody nose now and then.
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Sky News seems more interesting in trying to dig any dirt it can on Biden and simply because he's a Democrat lol, if he was a Republican, doing the same policies and blunders, it would be lip service from Sky News lol. Seriously guys, wake up lol, they are not reporting the news but trying to make it by shaping your views, after all, just look at their point of views over decades, it's got a very specific agenda to it. Now if only we could get back to the news just being reported and not fabricated with petty arguments like we keep seeing and people wonder why the world is the way it is, right wing policies, right wing media and you wonder lol.
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All options should be on the table and I agree with France on this, and on the point where some other countries stepped in and said no to the idea, that shows weakness on the limits the countries supporting Ukraine will do to stop Russia, which for me was a mistake because Russia is testing the west to see what they can and can't get away with, hence why all options should be on the table, so I'm 100% behind France on that idea. Seriously, western countries like to be seen as the good guys on the world stage, it's time they step things up, especially the EU and it's countries as well as the US in there support of Ukraine, if they all step things up, we could end the war sooner rather than later and it's probably important to resolve this situation sooner because of Trump in the US, which if he wins, that would play into the hands of what Putin wants, so the US really does need to step up it's game and fast, whereas the EU needs to speed up the pace of building arms so they can be more effective in helping Ukraine.
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Short term, this is bad news for the world as it will likely push up gas prices for most of the world, but this is actually good news because the quicker European countries stop buying from Russia, the more damage the west can do to Russia, also it will in time stabilize prices with them in time coming back down. The good news is, it's unlikely that European countries will buy from Russia again, Putin has crossed the line that it's highly unlikely that many in Europe and around the world will want to buy from Russia, at least not too much to be dependence on them, that longer term will do a lot of damage to Russia but it's even worse than that because European countries, especially in the EU are very likely going to go full steam ahead with renewable and alternative energy sources to become energy independence, that will have longer term damage for any country that produces a lot of fossil fuels because if the EU does this, others are likely going to follow and that's going to make fossil fuels not being needed or being dirt cheap. Fossil fuel countries are probably happy with the boost in profits for now but they must know longer term that what's going on is really damaging to their own industry, I suspect many are not happy with Russia because they are killing the fossil industry sooner than it would be and probably by a decade or more, the irony being, Putin has probably done more for clean energy here then Greenpeace could have dreamed off and all it took was the threat of energy security, especially with EU countries which were already pushing on the green clean agenda, now they've got no excuse to go full steam ahead. Then we have China and India, I suspect once European countries have diversified enough away from Russia, the west, basically the EU and US is very likely going to go after China and India, basically, there's no way the west is going through all this only for China and India to prop up the Russian economy by buying their oil and gas, both countries depend on the west a lot more than the other way around and I suspect the west could put tariffs on goods from China and India to a percentage of how much China and India are gaining by buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, basically, the idea being is to wipe out the benefit of buying from Russia whiles at the same time, making goods and services more expensive from China and India, the west have options that there are more than enough countries around the world that would love to steal that business away from both countries, China and India on the other hand don't really have any other rich customers to sell their goods too and we all know that if the EU and US gets on board with this, a lot of other countries will. At the end of the day, this is all about isolating Russia from the world whiles making the price so high for Russians that they will think twice next time and if not, well the west weakens Russia as a power a lot. So a bit of short term pain for a lot of gains longer term and what we should remember, this isn't just impacting Europe, it's impacting the world, hence the high energy prices and if Russia cuts off more gas, it's likely going to bump up gas prices around the world as European countries buy from other sources, basically, don't expect prices to come down and stabilize around the world until the European countries become more stable on it's energy supple which could take another year or 2.
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What did the government honestly expect? the EU have made it perfectly clear for quite some time that they wont re-negotiate, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone and that Boris and co is trying to blame the EU for that was so predictable as they are trying to deflect blame away from them but it wont work, any damage Brexit does to the UK will firmly go on our current government and I suspect Corbyn will get a lot of the blame for this as if the UK does leave the EU, all the excuses of blaming the EU for all the wrongs in the UK wont work, that blame will firmly go on the ones that pushed Brexit the hardest. It really shows the government doesn't have any option and was banking on the EU backing down and giving the UK better terms which I always thought was unlikely, that leaves the UK with two options, hard Brexit which is unlikely because that was always considered a bluff, after all, May did a lot in the early days what Boris is doing now and it didn't work then so why should it now? The other option is a major climb down by our government, either willingly or by force by the parliament, either way, Boris has backed him self into a corner so early on with this that he might not last very long. At the end of the day, for a country that seems to want to leave the EU, we seem determined to get permission from the EU before we leave, Brexiteers talk about taking back control but it's clear we have none, the EU is the one with the control and it's been the case since Brexit started and all we're seeing from our government is idle threats that have no legs, the EU knows that and also knows our government is getting desperate with these tantrums. With all that, I don't expect the UK to leave the EU later this year, we're not even close to ready and more time is likely needed which the EU will likely give.. One last thing, the harder Brexiteers push for hard Brexit, it might force the rebels to push parliament into revoking Article 50, in other words, no Brexit at all, Brexiteers need to be careful, them pushing for the hardest of Brexit is likely going to keep us in the EU which I would be over the moon if that was to happen.
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cyborg1320 I suppose I could if you like lol.
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True and it could take decades for the US to recover that level of trust, assuming they even try, and this is regardless of what Trump does now, the damage is already done to the US. Still, for the loss to the US, it's an opening for other to capitalise on, which I suspect both the EU and China are in the best position to take advantage off that if they play there cards right, it's kinda ironic when you think about it, Trump is going out of his way to hurt both the EU and China, yet his policies could end up helping them the most whiles hurting US interest over the long run and I'll say it again, Trump, Putin and China are probably the best friends the EU could have when it comes to creating solidarity and unity, there actions push them together and not just with the EU but many other like-minded countries around the world that are seeking alternatives to the US.
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@ArsxnIV He'll fight them on the beaches lol. But honestly, as a Brit, if I was the EU, I wouldn't let the UK in so soon after leaving. Two reasons, the fundamental issues in the UK have not changed when it comes to Eurosceptics, and unless there are a big shift from the public, media and political parties in how they see the EU project, then bringing the UK back in will end up inviting all the issues the UK brought to the EU before Brexit. Another factor is that if the UK were to rejoin the EU, they would be joining as a new member with no op-outs on the Euro, Schengen zone, Rebate and many other things the UK had an op-out on, that's the tough pill Brits would have to swallow to rejoin the EU, and from the EU side, if the UK wants to join the EU but plays hard ball in wanting op-outs, think of the message that says to the EU and it's members, it would basically suggest that the UK hasn't changed and would be a troublesome member like they were before Brexit, the EU and many of it's members would reject the UK right away on that, and realistically, if the UK ever wants to rejoin, they are going to have to show massive change in how they see the EU project to encourage the EU and many of it's members to see that we have changed, basically, we are talking many decades off for that kind of change, and that's assuming there's an effort to change. Closer relations with the EU is more realistic, maybe even single market and custom union access over the next decade is doable, but EU membership, no chance for at least 2 decades.
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It's like anything, get the homeless people in a safe, security environment of a home, where they don't have to worry about the basics like food and other things needed to live and once you get the basics out of the way, these people can start getting their lives on track, which in time, will mean them becoming a more productive member of society. Longer term, housing people so they can get their lives back on track will likely contribute more to the economy and I feel it's the humane thing to do and it still shocks me that many countries like to call themselves advanced, modern countries and yet the basics like homelessness and poverty is still an issue, which with the wealth in modern countries, these shouldn't be an issue with a more balanced economy and society and I feel we've got a long way to go before the human race can call themselves enlighten, but at least the European countries are on track in that direction, but clearly, a lot more needs to be done.
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So overall, not much changes but the far right gains more seats, it sounds like stalemate will be the thing for France over the next few years as it's likely going to be difficult to get things done, or at the very least, a lot of watering down of policies. Sometimes, I just wonder if it's best to let the radical elements win, so that they expose themselves with their radical policies, voters patterns will change once they start to feel the impact of their decisions in a negative way, but as long as the far right is out of power but gaining seats, they can pretty much say whatever they want, twist the truth and lie with little to no cost to them, but if they were in power, it's a different ball game, there policies have a direct impact on the people, and if they mess things up, voters are not likely going to be too forgiving to them. So basically, let them into power, allow them to fall on their own sword so on the next election, voters can wipe them out, worse thing that can happen is a dictatorship, because history has shown that far left and far right parties usually try to clamp down on the political system to make it more difficult for other parties to win, but if that were to happen, then the voters only have themselves to blame for being so reckless, either way, what the mainstream parties are doing isn't working as the far right are gaining more seats election after election. If they really want to reduce the risk of the far right, then listening to voters concerns on cost of living, inequality, quality of life and lifting standards for the lower and middle classes, this is the case throughout Europe and in the US and a big part on why the radicals are gaining so much power, because the mainstreams are not listening and are underdelivering and voters are getting desperate enough to vote reckless, now with any luck, we won't have a repeat of the 1030's, there was a lot of anger going around then and that didn't go well for the people, but then, we do seem doomed to repeat history and you have to wonder with what's going on in Europe and North America could lead to disaster, and maybe that needs to happen, because clearly the people are not learning from past mistakes.
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All this in the long run is just going to push more consumers to go off grid, especially as tech gets better with renewable and battery tech. But it's understandable why the existing industry wants to keep things as they are, as long as we are connected to the grid, they can always find a way to charge us. Good thing is, tech progress is going to make it harder and harder for them and governments to makes these excuses.
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No offence to the US, but seriously, the moment Russia invaded Ukraine, then Ukraine has every right to defend it's self and to attack targets in Russia. The west and especially the US have been restricting what Ukraine can and can't do, whiles Russia has no restrictions on what it can do in Ukraine. Also at a time when the US is polarised in politics and resources are being held back, can you really blame Ukraine for wanting to take more drastic measures? The truth is, we in the west, especially the EU and US have been talking a good deal but not delivering on it, we started out well but support is much weaker now when Ukraine needs more support, and to be fair to the EU and it's members, they are helping a lot more compared to the US, but until the EU countries start to rearm, which will take some time, most of the resources going into Ukraine is aid money not arms, the US is in a better position to deliver on the arms until the EU countries rearm over the next 2 or so years. At the end of the day, Ukraine is in survival mode now, they are going to do whatever it takes to push Russia out of Ukraine, and attacking sites outside of Ukraine like the oil refineries in Russia makes a lot of logical sense if Ukraine can reduce the funding for the Russian war machine. In the end, we in the west, and especially the EU and US needs to wake up, start giving Ukraine the means to push Russia out of Ukraine, then there would be little reason for them to attack sites in Russia, but at the moment, we are lacking, so Ukraine has to use other tactics, and honestly, I think they are right in doing so.
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The UN doesn't really have any power to do much but talk and a big part of the blame on that is because of the west. The US and the EU could do a lot more here thought but so far they both look quite weak with their response.
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Not always, it depends on what they are typing on, I've seen people that type so fast on here and do so many spelling mistakes without realising that unless they re-read the post they posted, I've done that a few times, so much so that I've done a post on here once or twice where I'm not even that sure what I said myself, it was that bad lol, in most cases it's not that big of a deal with the odd spelling mistakes as long as others can understand whats being said.
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Thats just stupid and short sighted, think about it if the US didn't get involed, it likely was only a matter of time before the Nazis took over the UK and would put there full attention on Russia after that, the odds of them taking over Russia would of gone up a lot because the Nazis had 40% of it's army on the western front, if the Nazis took over Russia, who do you think they would go after next, I suspect the US would've been a prime target back home, in some ways, you should thank the Japanese for waking the US goverment up before it was too late because things could've been a lot worse.
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The sanest deal would be to stay in the EU but that might not be an option now because I suspect the price the EU and it's members will ask for letting us stay might be too high, so a lost of many op-outs, the second best deal might be single market and custom union access, that limits the damage being done but it more or less makes the UK a vassal of the EU, all the other deals will do quite a lot of damage to the UK one way or the other. It's clear the goverment didn't think this one through before signing Article 50 and because of that, we are likely going to pay the price whatever happens.
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Nauxsi, the thing is, they never had any plan, to me Brexit was a big bluff where they ware betting on the EU backing down on giving the UK more op-outs on freedom of movment but the EU was never going to bend on it's four freedoms and this is why the UK have some big problems now because they never really planed to leave the EU, they intended to stay or at least stay very close so had no reason to plan for anything, now that the EU isn't giving us any cake, real panic is setting in. I think when all is said and done, the UK is going to stay in the single market and custom union as that limits the damage to the UK, we might have another vote and the British people might vote to stay in, but the EU will likely ask a high price for letting us to stay and that could be us losing some or all our op-outs, I highly doubt the EU will let the UK stay in the EU as if nothing happened, thier will be a price to pay for the mess we created otherwise others could do the same thing with no risk.
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@kylosun I'm not saying China doesn't need to be contained, but the problem is the way the US is going about it could start an armed conflict, basically, we should try and work with China, try and help the people to change the system from the inside, if we keep going down the route we are doing, I think it could lead to conflict, maybe even ww3, the more their backs are pushed into a corner, the more likely they will lash out and none of us want that. Personally, I think the EU should stay out of this, this is mostly a US-China thing, basically, China is a threat to US power, if the EU plays it's cards right, there could be a lot of economic advantages here, especially as the US, UK and Aus gets pushed out of China, that's leaves the door open to others like the EU to take advantage of it, the US won't like that but then the EU can dismiss the US in the same way the US dismisses others, self-interest. The irony is, I think the US will need the EU onboard to contain China, hence why China has tried so hard to divide the EU and US, they know if they are divided, it will be difficult to contain China as the US and EU are not likely going to be powerful enough to keep China in check with how quickly they are growing and if worse comes to the worse and the EU starts opening trading a lot more with China, well the US has a major problem, they can't punish the EU on trade without it hurting themselves which would play favourable to China, they won't like that the EU is taking advantage and getting a lot of economic benefits on trade with China, basically, if the US plays it's cards wrong and the EU stays neutral, it's going to be it a lot more expensive for the US and friends to take on China whiles at the same time having massive economic benefits for the EU. We should remember that the EU and many of it's countries are far less hawkish on China then the US, UK and Aus are.
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Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe, they are not an EU or NATO member, Ukraine were an easy target for Russia, and even then, Russia is having a nightmare in Ukraine whiles the EU, US and its allies are helping Ukraine, let's be honest with ourselves, the help being given are crumbs, especially from the EU and US, yet even with those crumbs, Russia is having a nightmare in Ukraine, so an attack on an EU or NATO country would bring far more of the economic power on offer to the front in a direct way. To put it another way, Putin would have to be insane to take that risk, and his top brass or the Russian people probably wouldn't allow him to take that risk, even going as far as killing him if there were a chance of that happening because things would escalate fast which would have a direct impact on the Russian people, which Putin is desperate to try and shield the people from the war, so politically and economically, Putin isn't in a position to do that, and even with the public, he doesn't have the support for that, so the odds of it happening are remote.
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That movement that's growing in the US isn't that different from the movement that grew in Germany which let to Hitlers rise to power and we all know how that turned out. If these movements are not kept in check, they will blow up in the people's faces and a big part of it is because a lot of people feel like they are being left behind where governments like to brag about how well the economy is doing and how unemployment numbers are low but to the person in the street, it feels like things are progressively getting worse with each passing year. Same thing happened in the UK with Brexit, people are angry with how things are, in the case of the UK, the right wing media and the government turned the public's attention towards the EU being the real problem when it's clearly not true as most of the issues are from UK governments and more so the current government that's in power. These people think it's all a game but they are playing with fire and it doesn't take much to overthrow any system with enough of a push and it all starts with getting people to buy into lies and ignore the truth and facts, something that's been happening a lot in the UK and US the last 5 years. I know some will say what happen in Germany in the 30's could never happen in the US but then that's what the Germans thought until it was too late. Anything with Biden in power, it might have put a bit of a dent in that movement but it does look like that movement is growing and will likely make a return with another government, the UK on the other hand are going through some kind of rollercoaster where they are all over the place but the problem is still there and not going away, especially once the damage of the pandemic and Brexit starts to really hit the people, I think that's what both countries need to worry about, the pandemic impact on the people is likely going to help this movement along to gather support because these movement take advantage of people suffering and being left behind. Basically, to kill or reduce these movements, governments have to deliver on what the people want and life the standards of living for all people and especially the poor and middle classes, otherwise these movements are likely going to continue to grow until they become a real threat and in the case of the US, the warning sign was there with Trump and in the UK with Brexit, if we don't listen to these warnings then quite frankly, we deserve what we get. It's scary how quickly history could repeat it's self if we are not careful.
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@ArrKayLondon The problem is, people voted for these loons because they were angry for how things are but it never seemed to cross their minds on if these loons could actually run a government effectively, these are the last kind of people you want in a crisis and the UK, US and Brazil are paying a high price because of reckless voting, maybe the people might learn to not be so reckless after this but I doubt it. The facts speak for themselves, the US is the worse hit in the world, the UK is the worse hit in Europe and is one of the highest hit in the world, Brazil is climbing that ladder fast, this is massive incompetent however we look at it and just today it was reported that the UK had more deaths than all EU countries combined, think about that for a moment in how bad the UK is dealing with this virus when the UK and US had a few weeks advance notice on this virus compared to other European countries, they should have done a lot better with those few weeks and this is why these countries look like a joke to the world now.
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Highly unlikely as the EU isn't really the problem here, a lot of the protest is against their own government in the country. Besides, what country would be crazy enough to follow the UK? the UK has been a running joke since Brexit, lurching from one mess after another.
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@senadsehic6565 Hardly, in fact, it's more the other way if Turkey joins the EU, just like we see with religion of less developed countries that joined the EU where religion became less relevant, the Republic of Ireland is a prime example of that.
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The advantage with solar over other renewables is that it can be plastered almost everywhere and it's becoming cheap to make, it's likely going to get a lot cheaper overtime, also, with how solar is developing in that it can be integrated into many things without ruining the look of it, I suspect it's going to get so cheap that it ends up going into almost everything that needs power. There's already talks about solar being used so it covers the entire house surface, from roof, walls, even the driveway, which clearly, if you have a lot more and it's cheap enough, without ruining the look, so it blends in with your house, more or us will likely do it because you're likely going to generate a lot more energy. I also think it's the major advantage solar has over wind, with wind power, it works well at scale and size, but it's not that good in urban areas and on our houses, there's almost moving parts so it's not as reliable and it's easy to see why solar is getting far more investment than wind, it can be used it a lot more ways, and it's more consumer friendly. As for the big change towards renewable energy, a big part of that is the war in Ukraine and Putin, it's really started to focus minds to do real change, not just in Europe but across the world, and Putin might have speeded up our transition by a decade or two, we were always going to move away from fossil fuels, but there was a lot of foot dragging, and even thought there's still a bit of that now, it's clear the pace is picking up, and it's likely going to continue as renewables get cheaper, better, battery tech becomes better and energy prices become cheaper for it, which could keep pushing us more in that direction until we don't use fossil fuels at all. It's also a given that as the tech becomes cheaper and better, more of us are going to adopt it, and I actually feel that the biggest cost is installation, if they reduce the complexity of that so it's easier to install, it would do wonders for the adoption rate of solar power, especially for homeowners. Critical mass is also important, once you get to that, it snowballs, and the impact of that is far more investment in the tech which massively reduces the price whiles at the same time, develops the tech a lot faster, the computing revolution went through the same process in the 90's, where it went from niche to mass market in just over a decade, I do feel solar is heading to that path, but when the trigger point is, it's hard to say, but it could happen over the next decade, if it does, the fossil industry is in big trouble because the amount they can sell will drop and continue to drop a lot, worse yet, they will have to sell at a lower price point to compete with renewables and before you know it, it kills off that industry.
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@stonehengeminstrel I'm talking about facts, look at pretty much any country and look where most of the trade goes, the vast bulk is with nearby countries, they only go further up field when they have to do and in the case of the UK, they don't really have to do because the EU and US is much closer to them than Australia is. Most companies will always trade where it makes economic sense to do so, it doesn't make much sense to trade with Australia that much for the UK for a company when it would make much more sense to built manufacturing plants around that region to sell more directly, hence why a lot of companies build in big markets like the EU and US to sell more directly because it's cheaper to do. Basically, the only things the UK really buys from Australia or other long distance trading partners are things we can't get more locally, the UK regardless of trade deal we have with Australia won't be shifting much trade because of distant when it makes a lot more economic sense for most businesses to source more locally from the EU. Lets be honest with ourselves, ask most Brits to name any goods we buy from Australia and most will be hard-pressed to name any apart from tv soaps and pop stars, we hardly buy anything from Australia, most goods we buy are from the EU first with the US and China filling the void in areas that the EU doesn't fill and in the case of China, that's mostly cheap labour. So ask yourself, do you think Canada is going to shift much of it's trade away from the US or the UK is going to shift much of it's trade towards Australia because the government might want that? Businesses will do what's in their interest and that trading more locally if they can, basically, the CANZUK is a pipe dream idea from people that don't understand how the real world works.
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@hiddenknowledge2012 Most food we buy is either made in the UK or from mainland Europe, we only buy from around the world on foods that we can't make ourselves or we can source cheaper else ware, that basically rules out Australia on a lot of goods from distance to price and so on.
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@stonehengeminstrel Lidi and Aldi source most of their food more locally, they have very few brands that are from other companies, most are either from Germany or Europe, it's actually a big part of the reason why they are able to sell higher quality goods at a lower price by cutting out a lot of the middle men.
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True, Trump does a lot of his policies without a care in the world of what damage it does to US states and corporations, which they are in the firing line here because of the tariffs and because of the boycotts going on, and I really do wonder how far the American people are willing to let this drag on before they realise the damage being done to the US, and maybe it's once the tariffs from countless countries around the world are enacted on the US is what's needed as a wake-up call, after all, with tariffs of anywhere from 10% to 50% on so many US goods from so many countries would be like bumping up taxes by 10% to 50% for consumers and corporations in the US. Whiles that's going on, the rest of the world will shift trade away from the US to more reliable partners to reduce the impact of US tariffs, the long term impact is far more damage to the US then it is to other countries, and all that's needed here is for the US to keep escalating things and to keep this dragging on, and this moment in history could be marked as the moment the tide turned against the US, but the US likely won't realise it until it's too little too late, which it might already be. Either way, the EU and China are likely going to benefit the most from this as trade shift away from the US and investment look for better alternatives to the US, which the EU could be in the best position to capitalise on.
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From what I understand of it with inflation, with inflation coming down, it doesn't mean prices come down, it just slows how much they go up, for prices to really come down, you would probably need deflation, or the good will of corporations to lower prices or government intervention. Usually, the price point of goods is always going up on average, in the EU and the US, they usually target a 2% rise, which normally wage rise keeps up with inflation, but over the last 2 or 3 years, inflation has been much higher and made us poorer in the EU and US by around 10-15% and eventually things will settle down as people can't afford as much, which will put pressure on companies to reduce prices, even if it means cutting into their own profits. The good news is, inflation in the EU and US is close to 2% again, which is remarkable how quickly both regions and especially the EU adapted to the energy crisis to get inflation down so quickly, but we are still not out of the words, the war is still raging in Ukraine, relations with China are not so good, and it's probably going to take another 2 to 3 years before things return to some sense of normal.
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Yes and no, they have a conflict of interest in that they sell batteries, this kind of tech would reduce the need for as many batteries in a lot of areas, which would also reduce the price they can sell batteries at. So a new company or one that doesn't have a conflict of interest needs to do that. Still, Tesla will get onboard once rivals have forced their hand but for now, I count they want to harm the high price they sell their batteries for which this kind of tech would have a negative impact on how many batteries to need for a car or a house and so on.
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I always knew Trump wanted to screw Boris over, this just proves it lol.
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I do think an elected EU Commission would go along way with the people when it comes to the image of the EU, after all, the best way to close down Eurosceptic debates, is to look into the areas that they complain about. The advantage of that is that it will make it much harder for Eurosceptics to win over the public, because by shutting down the most common complaints we get from them, it will push them to argue on more radical areas, which will make it easier for the public to see them for what they are. For now, the EU makes it quite easy for the Eurosceptic parties around the EU and I do think there needs to be a big push to change that.
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@scottmcshannon6821 In the short term, they need to fill that void from not buying from Russia, longer term, they should be moving to alternatives like renewable, but for now, they need a lot of energy and quickly, renewables can't replace that quickly enough, coal, the old nuclear plants and other sources can. But in any case, there should be a clear path away from these to other clean energy sources over the long run and I get the impression that Germany is falling behind many other European countries on that.
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My rule when it comes to gaming is that if it's a triple a game from a big publisher, I only really buy it on sale and around a year or two after release for next to nothing with all the best dlc contents part of it. Indie games on the other hand I am willing to spend more on them and but them on release because for the most part, thier is more passion on indie games to do a good game whereas big publishers don't really care about the game apart from how much money it makes. EA is a prime example of that, how many game franchise have they scraped because they messed it up with trying to do something that none of us wanted? it begs the question why any developer would go anywhere near a company like that. In any case, I get the best of both worlds, I don't miss out on triple a gaming, I just have to wait a bit longer to get it on the cheap with all the dlc and I get to reward indie developers that care about what they are doing and want to make a good game with the money they make on it being a added bonus. Also, buying into triple a gaming on release and the same for it's dlc contents which in many cases is held back from release to make more money out of people ends up making these games cost around $100, it's a rip off, in fact EA have been caught with the dlc contents on the disk but it not being activated until a later date, contents that should have been part of the game at no extra cost.
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I see no reason why we can't have more EU and have the EU in NATO. In fact, with how the US is becoming less reliable and more erratic, it's probably a good idea that Europeans in the EU start thinking about their own self-interest and not reliable on the US for defence and the best way Europeans can do that is pooling resources together through the EU, that takes nothing away from NATO, in fact, it should make it stronger, and it will also give Europeans a much bigger voice. As for the US, on the one hand, they stand to lose by having a much stronger EU on military and forign policy matters as the US won't matter as much, it's also likely that the EU would have a much stronger arms industry, which would likely cut into US arms deals around the world, but on the other side of the coin, the US is likely going to need a strong EU because of the rise of China and because of how much of the world is becoming less stable, the EU and US are two of the strongest democracies, the US might think it can go it alone but with a rising China, I doubt the EU or US will be able to contend with China over the long run as they have too big of an advantage in population size which will in time give them a big advantage on the economic front over the EU and US. In any case, the EU's biggest weakness is its division, we've got 27 separate militaries with 27 forign policies, that creates a lot of waste and duplications and Europeans in the EU could do with spending more on the military front but that isn't the issues, what they need to do is pool resources together, even at current spending, it would be a potent military and unlike the US that are obsessed and paranoid, EU countries don't need to go bat crazy like the US on military spending, you just need a strong enough military that no one will mess with you, and the simple truth is, that's far more achievable through the EU then it is through its members, and in any case, it takes nothing away from NATO, but it could take away from the US, depending on who you ask. However we look at it, Europeans in the EU needs to start looking at the geopolitical situation around the world, we've got a US that keeps going off the rails, is less reliable and trustworthy, we've got a Russia that's becoming more hostile and we have a rising China, as much as we Europeans want to think we can manage all this at a members level, we are deluding ourselves, if we really want to compete and protect our interest, we are going to have to work much closer a lot more with pooling resources together, otherwise we will get pushed aside by the US and China, which will likely have a negative impact on our political, economic and social interest as the US and China ends up making the global laws, rules and regulations, now considering both the US and China have low standards, that wouldn't be good for the EU or it's members, as it will in time drag our standards down because of outside pressure. Also, I think realistically, tier 4 is out of the question for now but working on tier 2 and then moving up to tier 3 and then 4 over time is possible and taking baby steps is probably the right approach, but so much time has been wasted over the last decade that we really do need to get a move on before we get left behind, but longer term, I think the US and China leaving us behind is going to force us Europeans to get our act together on working much closer together and even thought many Europeans might not want that, the alternative is much worse, and we should consider ourselves fortunate that we have the EU that we can actually work through, most other small to medium size countries around the world are at the mercy of the EU, US and China, and that's only going to get worse as the EU, US and China economic gap widens over the rest, but the EU would be the weaker of the 3 by far unless we work much closer together. One last thing, forget trying to remove the veto for all EU members, that will be difficult to achieve, what they should do is like they did with the Euro and Schengen zone, get as many countries as you can onboard, then move ahead regardless of the rest, that would be far easier to get further integration in those key areas without the rest holding everyone back, it would also have the impact that as they show it working, other members will likely want to join in future, this is far more attainable then trying to get everyone on the same page.
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@emperorjonz9590 That's true to a degree, but the more games these countries play, the more likely countries are going to turn away from oil and gas, sooner rather than later.
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I agree, smaller population countries don't need as much energy and it would be more useful to see the energy mix based on a percentage, smaller countries tend to be doing far better then bigger countries overall with maybe the exception being Germany and Japan.
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The idea of Russia invading a NATO members is amusing and laughable with how badly Russia is performing in Ukraine. We should remember that Putin choose Ukraine because they are an easy target, they are one of the poorest countries in Europe, they are not an EU or NATO member and they have a lot of natural resources, and yet even with that, Russia have been bogged down in Ukraine for like 3 years, making very little progress at a very high cost to Russia. My point is, Russia would be a fool to take on an EU or NATO member which are far more powerful than what Ukraine is, but more importantly, both organisations have treaties in place that an attack on one is an attack on all, in other words, a lot more countries would likely get directly involved if either an EU or NATO member were invaded, considering how poor Russia is performing in Ukraine, they wouldn't stand a chance against the EU or NATO, and it all boils down to the economy, in other words, the economy would go on a war footing that would push much of the manufacturing capacity towards arms, there's no way Russia could win that, in fact, it would be a disaster for Russia and potentially the world if things escalate so much that nukes get thrown around. The simple truth is, the economy is the real power today, if you have a big economy with a big population to go with it, then you've got power, Russia have a weak economy and a declining population, whereas the EU, the US and China have the economy and the population to go with it and in the case of the EU, there's a lot of fragmentation and they are not on a war footing, but if a war were to happen, things can change rapidly, whereas the US is already in a position that they see Russia as a joke, and China is still a rising power that is trying to play all sides, in that they don't like the west, especially the US, but they don't even like Russia, but are more than happy to take advantage of Russia, especially at a time that the west is weakening Russia's position in the world which China is more than happy to take advantage of a weak and isolated Russia for its own ends.
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I suspect this coronavirus is going to get a lot of the world to re-evaluate many things once the dust settles because this has been a major wake up call that's effecting at a public level and that usually means big changes. I suspect in Europe, a lot more cooperation is likely to happen after this because this virus is showing that we're all on the same planet and need to find ways to work together, in the US, I suspect the health care system is going to get a lot more attention and not the attention the Republicans will want to hear, we might also see a lot more cooperation around the world with global organizations after this and maybe hitting the reset button with some countries like Iran, we'll have to wait and see but it's not going to be business as usually once the dust settles, that's for sure.
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Jesus, when I did collage in the UK with business studies, I didn't pay a penny. Must be quite hard for young people in the US that are just starting out to be lumbered with a massive debt.
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I've been thinking about this for quite some time, we hear so much about getting the grid in shape to handle the power loads that we expect of it, but as renewable tech keeps improving, there's a fair chance that more of us could go gridless as the tech allows, from the average home to businesses and so on. The grid system could actually become redundant over the long run as renewable tech as well as energy storage tech keeps getting better and cheaper, having to support a grid network is mighty expensive and not as secure, and I'm sure most of us would rather generate our own energy at a local level as we have far more control over what we use and what we pay, which would eventually mean energy being almost free, which on the grid, it never will be because of the cost to maintain the network are massive. This doesn't mean large scale solar and wind farms don't have their use, but I think longer term, the tech is likely going to advance enough that we can generate most if not all our energy at a local level. There are a few things needed for this to happen, which solar and wind together could offer a more consistent flow of energy generating, solar already works well at a local level and it keeps getting better and cheaper, wind on the other hand has proven to not be so good in urban areas, but with a lot of experiments going on with vertical wind turbines and other ideas, that might change, and the last thing is battery tech, that will need to be a lot cheaper than it is, if going gridless, you're going to want a big buffer of energy storage in case not enough is being generated, so at least a few days worth of stored energy. There are other options like with solar being moulded into our buildings without looking out of place, we eventually could have our entire house from the roof to the walls to the concert floor around our house, which all these ideas are being worked on and would allow us to generate far more energy than we do today whiles not looking out of place. But for me, the real game changer could be solar and wind working together at a small scale, with that, you would have far more consistent energy generating from winter to summer and it could also mean you don't need as much energy storage, being that you are generating more energy on a consistent basis, once we start getting to that point, grid use could become redundant for most of us, apart from certain specialised use cases that need an excessive amount of energy, but a lot of those kinds of projects could be located in areas where there's still use for a grid network, it would work out a lot cheaper than having to maintain an entire grid network all over the world, which is really costly. Still, for now, it's mostly pie in the sky, but if the tech keeps advancing and getting cheaper, it's likely going to be more viable over the coming years and decades for a lot more of us, but in any case, don't think of solar as just rooftop solar, it's likely going to be used everywhere around our house from garden fences to the walls on our house, to our driveway and so on, the tech is already being built to allow this and not be out of place, in other words, your driveway will still look like a driveway but can also generate energy, this opens up a lot more energy generating potential for most of us, so on my house alone, I think I could generate around 5 to 6 times more energy than I could just using the roof and when you throw in that renewable tech is getting better and cheaper, it should be more than possible to generate all our energy needs, especially if we manage to figure out using wind turbines in urban areas that actually work. In the end, the main thing is the price point, the cheaper it becomes, the more you can plaster it pretty much everywhere.
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History has a way of repeating it's self so it's no surprise really.
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@diazinth That's a western problem where we tend to fear change and in many cases, end up fighting it, it's always a losing battle because change happens no matter what, I do feel some Asian countries like Japan does better on that one but we in the west are slowly changing and catching up on that with our adoption of tech and for me, that really started in the 90's where tech was becoming more mainstream for most, there is still that fear of change from many but it's progress nonetheless.
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@blahblahblahblah2837 They had the capabilities of doing it but for some reason held themselves back, I even remember where it was said that if it wasn't for slavery in Rome, they had a lot of the core ingredients to start the industrial revolution and it makes me wonder how different the world could be if they did that as I suspect we might be a lot more advanced now, but to be fair to the Romans, this was a world where in the world, change was very slow and almost statics, so they likely feared change even more than we do today or might not have seen a need for change if things worked. Today we for the most part know better, change happens, it's hard to stop and if done right, change can be better for us all. I always wonder because at the time and many see Rome as a big source of their wealth and to a degree that is right but I also feel if they didn't have that, they likely would have created a lot more wealth by the need to change, it's like today, if we had mostly free labour, would a lot of the things we invent have happened that makes things more efficient? Probably not.
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@grabithard2534 That's true but that works both ways, anyone with an agenda can make things up to scare the masses, in fact the right wing of the media and politics do this all the time if you look at the last few decades of events. Beside, who am I likely to listen too? The science that is all about getting to the truth or someone who has an agenda like the rich elites that want to open up the economy because they don't care about human lives but they do care about losing their shirt and pants lol, they know the government can only bail them out so far, they also know the longer this goes on for, the bigger the revolution against them from the public if hard time hits us. At the end of the day, I'm going on common sense and things are not looking good for us, now you can lie to yourself all you want, reality always catches up and that will likely hit late this year or somewhere next year and boy is it going to hit hard lol, I suggest you wake up and see things for how they are and not how you want them to be, bullshitting yourselves is not the smart thing to do because the only person you are fooling is yourself.
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This was always going to happen and many on the remain side said as such before the vote but they didn't want to listen thinking it was project fear, well now it's showing to be project fact and all the UK is really achiveing in these Brexit talks is to give the UK a weaker position in the EU and around the world, what a waste of time and money that these hardliner leavers should be held accountable for all the lies told. Also, the good thing about Brexit is that it's put the EU into the spot light in the UK and now we are seeing that the EU isn't as bad as the euroseptics wanted us to think it was, it's also exposing how fanatical the euroseptics really are, not once have I seen that they care about the well being of the UK and British people with these talks and that should be quite alerming for everyone in the UK, we are dealing with fanatics with these hardliners.
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I always suspected that was going to be the case, in a sense, all the people really voted for was to have little to no say in EU policy making but have to abide most of it's laws, rules and regulations, thats all that seems to be happening because it's clear that hard Brexit wont happen and it's clear all the other plans the goverment cooks up seem to have too much cake in them. The truth is, all the rich countries in Europe are in the orbit of the EU, why did the UK think it would be any diffrent when geographically we are not really in the best postion to not be in the EU orbit.
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I'm sure you would but then you are a fanatic and people like you would vote leave no matter how much harm it does, lucky for us, most of the public from leave and remain are more moderates that can swing either way with a good debate and facts and they are the ones that really count not a fanatic like you that is quite happy to go down no matter how bad things get.
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Swing as in most of the public are more moderates and can change path depending on what evidence is seen, in the case of Brexit, we are seeing a lot that is showing that it's not going to be good for us no matter what deal the UK gets, swing happens because the leavers can't deliver on the promises they made which was more or less to say we would have all the benefits of EU membership but without any of the cost. Also we should remember, how many leavers voted leave whiles thinking we would be in the single market and/or custom union?, before the vote, many on the leave side made it seem we would not leave them but now they make it seem that hard Brexit it was all along. You have to wonder how many of the public have changed thier minds on Brexit because of all these lies and how much of an impact that would have if we got another vote, hence why I can understand the fear from hardliners on why they fear the public having another say on Brexit because they fear the lies they said first time wont work a second time round.
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We've been saying we're leaving for like 3 years now and yet we're still in, Boris is doing all the same tricks as May did, lots of pomp but nothing to really back it up, he's putting everything on the EU backing down and if they don't which I doubt they will, Boris will have some major issues as he knows that hard Brexit is a bluff and the EU knows that, so Brexit is still dead in the water and with that, expect our stay to be longer then you think.
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@britishpatriot7386 That doesn't mean much, if you are a Brexiteers, you likely surround yourself with like minded friends, beside, Brexiteers always like to make it seem like their is more support for their cause, too bad reality doesn't work that way lol.
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@britishpatriot7386 Facts, that funny coming from a Brexiteers lol, look in the mirror you idiot, Brexiteers half the time don't even know what facts are and when they are shown any, they ignore them because it's not what they want to hear. But anyway, I'll give you an hint, it doesn't look like Brexit is happening this year and there are a few signs that tell us that, but I wont spoil the fun just yet but I'll give you a little hint, read the body language of Boris and read between the lines, he's saying a lot on Brexit without even saying anything lol.
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@HondoTrailside Yep I noticed that, but then he can't be right all the time, but anyway, I'll stick to what I thought about a year ago on Brexit that another public vote will happen because no one wants to take the blame for if Brexit goes badly wrong, it's easier for them to pass the buck onto the public, more so as there is a lot of demand now for another vote and it's clear that the goverment and parliement can't decide what to do with Brexit which makes another public vote more likely because hard Brexit was never on the table as much as some would like it to be.
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The thing is from what I've seen, fanatical parties tend to do well when turnout is low and thats been the case for awhile now, I suspect the European elections will have higher turnout then normal, maybe much higher turnout and that could drown out a lot of the euroseptic parties in the UK with these European elections. I also think this is a great chance for remainers to send a powerful message to our goverment that Brexit isn't the will of the people.
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The sad thing is, there are too many Americans that think otherwise to what he's saying, after all, Trump didn't get elected by accident, a lot of Americans voted him in and have his way of thinking on a lot of issues and that is the real problem the US faces and that isn't going to be easy to fix because the problem isn't the government but the American society at large. Do I honestly think anything is going to change after this pandemic in the US, no, not with the government you have and especially not if he gets close to being re-elected later this year but I do have hope for other parts of the world, especially Europe because it looks like many want to do real change now and best of all, the people don't seem to have to fight the governments for that change, especially in EU countries, I think for the US, if you Americans want real change, you're going to have to stand up and fight for it because this US government has more or less abandoned the American people while enriching the rich elites and corporations.
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@betaich Someone did a video of Aldi prices in the US and Germany on youtube a few months back and the price point on most goods were cheaper in Germany, more or less to the degree we saw on this video where some items are much cheaper, others a little cheaper and others about the same, it was rare for items to be more expensive in Germany.
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Same and I live in the UK where Brits are known as poodles when it comes to the US lol, I've had a negative view on the US since 9/11 and not so much because of the actions of 9/11 but the policies that came after 9/11 from the US, it's been downhill ever since with the US in my view, with a brief moment of pause under Obama and under Trump, it's really nosed dived that even many of America's stronger supporters are either turning away from the US or having doubts on the US, basically, they are waking up to what I've known for decades and that's where the real damage is likely to kick in against the US over the coming decades and the longer Trump stays in power, the more damage he can do to the US.
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The referendum in those regions in a few days means nothing because we all know how the results are going to turn out and it's likely going to be around 85% in favour of joining Russia, not that the people in those regions actually had a say in the vote lol. Unless those votes are independently verified by outside sources, it means nothing when Russia has an interest in taking over those regions. In any case, it's all a bluff, he's shown it countless times throughout this war that he's getting desperate and now that the people in Russia might be waking up because they could be sent to Ukraine as cannon fodder, things could get a lot worse for Putin over the coming months, so keep digging your own grave Putin, the more stubborn Putin goes on this, the more the Russian people could turn against him and they are not likely going to be friendly to him, especially if a lot of love ones die for his war in Ukraine. I only see two options for Putin, either he steps down peacefully or he could get forced out which could end up being the end of his life if it goes that route, either way, the clock is ticking on him and his erratic and desperate actions are showing he knows things are going bad for him. The Russian people need to wake up, Putin doesn't care about them, he only cares about his position of power and if that means sending in a lot more Russian troops as cannon fodder to die in Ukraine, Putin will do that, now the question the Russian people have to ask themselves, how many people have to die for Putin's personal war? Because the death toll on the Russian troops could skyrocket with the new troops being less trained and equipped and I think the west should offer a way out for those troops that don't want to fight, for every solder took out of the war will save lives and drain Putin of resources.
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Imagine that, Putin threatens both countries which pushes them both to want to get closer to NATO, I mean really Putin, what did you expect? It's like if I was a business and my suppliers threaten me, what do you think is going to happen? You're going to look for other suppliers, but when you think about it, EU countries as well as many others are already doing that with coal, oil and gas. You would think Putin would learn to stop shooting himself in the foot because all he's doing is making it worse for Russia over the long run, in other words, don't bring politics into business or consumers will look elseware which is exactly what we are seeing with coal, oil and gas, braking trust isn't the smartest thing anyone can do and so far, Putin has been a master at that lol. Also, like the video points out, both Sweden and Finland had no interest in joining NATO until they felt threaten by Russia, which contradicts what Russia has been saying about NATO for decades, basically, if Russia stops playing games, there would be less need for NATO and what we are seeing with Finland and Sweden wouldn't be happening now, this is a direct result of Russia being aggressive and they only have themselves to blame for this outcome.
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Recycling of solar panels will get much better and cheaper as it becomes more of an issue, in other words, as panels last 25-40 plus years and with a lot more of us using solar panels, it's going to become a lot more of an issue once the end of life of panels we use today because there are so many more of them and with that, there will be more pressure on finding solutions to the problem. So I'm not really worried about this as it's not a major issue for now but longer term if we don't change, it will become a big issue, but by then, solutions are likely already in place, basically, for now it's just cheaper to dig more resources out of the ground, longer term that's not likely to be the case unless we are mining resources from space but even then, it makes a lot more sense to get better at recycling as much as we can and I suspect that's what we will do in the future, especially as it becomes a pressing matter, for now, it isn't one, but longer term with population growth and developing countries becoming modern, it could become a major issue.
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Some will say it can never happen again but then history has a way of repeating its self, the only real advantage we have today is that the world is very fragmented, and we are more advanced that makes it much easier to recover from disaster but I wouldn't rule anything out at the moment because we've never had to shut most of the world down, so we have no idea what impact this can have. Also, we can't really compare Rome to the US, Rome was far more powerful if we looked at the other powers around at the time and compare that to the powers today, the US doesn't commend the same respect Rome did and nor can the US attack rich powers in the world like Rome could and for me, Rome as a power would be something like a modern day China which would make Rome about 4 times bigger than the US in how they can project power.
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I'm all for a multi-speed EU, but there might be a few problems with this. On the political integration side of things, if there were an inner core of countries that can integrated further, the balance of power in the EU countries will shift dramatically in favour of those countries that choose to integrate, whiles the remaining countries are more or less pushed to the sideline as most of the big decision are done by the inner core, would the outer core countries feel comfortable about that? I highly doubt it. Then on the economic front, you can have a multi-speed EU, we more or less already have that with EU countries and countries like Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, but the problem with this is that you can't have an economic union without a political union that enforces the rules for all, otherwise you would have true free trade with each member making up their own rules to favour themselves, hence why those 3 countries I said above have to follow a lot of EU rules and regulations whiles having little to no say in making those rules, and if you want true open economic trade, you have to have a lot of political rules in place so it's a level playing field for all the members, otherwise it would be a mess. With all that said, I'm all for a multi-speed EU, just for the factor so some holdout countries stop holding back the EU and pro EU countries, but realistically, it will overtime likely focus far more powers and decision-making on those inner core countries that choose to integrate, especially as they are more likely to be by far the bigger player and likely to speak more with one voice compared to the rest, because of that, it would likely push the outer core countries to the fringes, whiles also putting pressure on those countries to want to join the inner core countries, basically, it would be far worse for the outer core countries then what it's like for countries like Norway and Switzerland now, whiles being a lot better for the countries that choose to integrate. With all that said, I think this needs to happen to get things moving, or to put it in more simple terms, to hell with the countries that keep dragging their feet at a time when we can't afford to do so with the rise of China and a hostile US, we need a strong EU, whichever form it takes and the Eurosceptics are hurting all our interest in EU countries by holding us back, hence why the likes of Trump and Putin loves the Eurosceptic movement, they are easy to take advantage off with the aim of dividing us Europeans into becoming weaker, something Trump and Putin plays on, so does China to a less degree.
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@jeremymerrifield7244 Given the choice from the centre and the extreme left or right, I'll take centre everytime as they are more likely to listen to more of the population then the extreme left and right are and beside, history shows us that going to the extreme left or right doesn't end well. In any case, if this can brake the back of UK politics and really shake things up which is surely needed because politics in the UK is broken, anyway, the quicker change happens, the better.
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So the irony is, robotics and A.I. could end slavery once and for all.
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@Max-md6jv As long as that issue isn't resolved among others, talks of EU membership for Turkey are likely going to be on hold and I suspect that will be the case until the current leader is in power.
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I think the rich countries should take more on because they can afford to do so, so the EU, US, Japan and so on, if they push hard on new clean tech, lower the price, it will make it much easier for developing countries to adopt this tech, modernize whiles not doing any damage. So the rich countries should lead by putting it's resources into clean tech and with that, help developing countries to clean up their act, but in the case of China, even thought they are a developing country, they are also an advanced one so they could help in leading the way with the other rich countries and I think thanks to this pandemic, a much bigger push is going to happen on this, especially from the Europeans which were already pushing in that direction but it's likely going to get turbo charged now.
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For me, the 80's was the golden era of music, there was so much good music in just one year then we get in 5 years now. Also for me, Queen, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and the Beatles are some of the best artest and bands we've ever had and for me what makes them stand out over the rest is that they tried new things out whiles the critics and the press was always trying to bring them down for being so successful but they ware and still are loved by the fans. Nowadays, we just don't get that anymore, too many of them play it safe and offer nothing new and that for me is why music is crap today, anyway, speaking of the brainwashing, I found it kind of ironic that over the last 10, 15 years that I hardly listen to modern music anymore and anytime I do hear any of it, it really sounds bad compared to what we got in the 60's, 70's and 80's, a lot of the creativeness is gone and it's the same old rubbish song after song today.
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@metalmyths3869 I think the real problem is the charts, today we do have good music but most of us don't get to hear it because it's not in the charts, problem is that it's hard to find much of it because there is so much of it around, chart music for me is where it's really bad today. I don't really have a style of music that I like and very open minded on that front, Queen is a prime example of that, when I was a kid, I didn't think much of the music from them but now I love thier music, I used to listen mostly to pop music and ignored other sytles of music when I was a kid but now I listen to any kind of music thats good. To be fair, I don't listen to much of todays music anymore and not done for about 10 years now so could be a bit out of the loop but the bits I do hear don't really impress me, for me, it's the music studios thats the problem, much of inderpemdent music is still pretty good but it's much harder to find them. The playing it safe is something we see from music studios, games publishers and movie studios, most of the creative work now is being done by the ones with far less fans and less money.
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Scotland can't join the EU without joining Schengen, unless Scotland gets an op-out which is highly unlikely. Scotland if they do join, will be joining as a new member with no op-outs. It can happen if the Scots want it, after all, Northern Ireland has shown how much trade can shift like it did from the UK towards the EU, Scotland could do the same.
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@raraavis7782 Yep same where I live in the UK, temps are averaging around 5c and 11c over the next week that it's looking like this winter could be warmer than the last and this year, European countries are in a better position for this then they were last year.
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Actually Farage, you and the likes of Trump are a big part of the problem, they've created so much mistrust and fear in the system that no one knows who to beleave any more so less people listen which creates more damage when a pandemic happens, after all, it's not by chance that it's the popularise countries that are being hit the hardest, the UK, the US, Brazil and so on, now that is coming to bite us on the arse and the worse is yet to come thanks to these loons lol.
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Nspnspker True and I think in the long run, the EU will open up to other countries from around the world on membership, just for the time being, there is a lot of countries from eastern Europe that want to join so there is no need for the EU to open up just yet, personally, I think the EU should open up now, with the US becoming unstable and less reliable and China becoming more powerful, many might be tempted by EU membership with how the world is going. As for Canada, they've been reducing their trade dependence on the US the last few decades and have just signed a free trade deal with the EU, throw in the bad terms Canada got on NAFTA, Canada has every reason to diversify trade away from the US and the EU is likely thier best option on that. Yeah I saw that video about CANZUK, I was putting out many blames and dreams on the message board there lol, it had all the hallmarks of a racist union to me and would never work because all the countries are spread too thin around the world, not to mention that the only real thing they have in common is language and with the UK trying to go it's own way away from the EU and they would be the biggest of the members in that union, I don't see what incentive those other countries would have when the UK would likely try to bully the others. You know it's bad for Brexit UK when they are already looking for a alternative like the CANZUK and the Commonwealth, it suggests the UK can't go it alone like some think and looking at how things are with the UK and the US, Japan, India, China and the EU, it doesn't look good for the UK. Canada, Australia and Japan are too dependent on the US and the US takes full advantage of that, if these countries were smart, they would get closer to the EU as the only other big western power that can stand up to the US, that way those countries would have more options and would be much harder for the US to bully them and as it is, the UK is next on the bully list with the US, it's that so called special relationship doing it's thing lol.
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@rcn9910 Really, I'm sure you said the EU would fall or that the Euro would fall, wanting something to happen and it happening are two very different things, why do you think the UK could never get any help from any EU country on Brexit? because there is UK euroseptics and European euroseptics, both are very different from each other, the UK ones want the EU project to die, the European ones want to reform it, that's why the UK deludes it's self. In any case, polls are showing 57% of Brits want to rejoin the EU, this is before we have even fully left the EU to feel the real impact of it and this is before the pandemic hardship kicks in, that number is very likely going to go up over the coming year, 57% and creeping up, Brexiteers should be very worried about that because the number has never been that high and even with margins of errors on polls, they don't get it wrong by that kind of margin, in other words, it looks very likely that if another vote to join the EU was to happen, we would very likely join it. If that number keeps rising to the next election, expect Labour to fight that election on rejoining the EU, knowing the Tories can't do that, there is a big reason why fanatics like you don't want another vote on that because you know how it would go.
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@bumblebee5818 What's that got to do with the price of eggs? lol, that isn't stopping many countries from wanting to join and as for Norway, they will likely want in once oil dries up, that keeps them safe for now but living standards there will drop once that dries up, as for Iceland, they are too small to really matter but there is a fair chance they will join at some point, as for Switzerland, they have been lucky for now because of their location so they've managed to get good terms out of the EU because of trade that goes through them to countries like Italy, the EU is getting tougher on Switzerland because they can work around much of that now, in other words, Switzerland have had an easy rise from the EU and now that is coming to an end, hence the anger from Swizerland but they must have known that was never going to last. Beside, those countries above are already more or less EU members in a lot of way, probably more so then what the UK was when they were in the EU because of all the op-outs the UK had, for those countries above, they are getting a raw deal, having to abide a lot of EU laws, rules and regulations without having any real say in them, the UK could be next on that, being a member for them would give them some say but I suspect for the EU, they like the way things are.
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Alfa&Omega 00000 Not so much the EU has no intention because I think they would if Turkey did the reforms needed but as we've seen for decades now, Turkey is finding it hard to do the changes needed, if Turkey did all the changes needed, they would actually become a more moderate European country where religion slowly dies and that's why Turkey finds it so hard to join.
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Tony IN SOUTHWARK The EU doesn't want an empire as such, the EU wants to protect European standards from workers rights, food standards, social system and all that, without the EU, that would be much harder to do because the US and others will pick them off one by one as it looks like the US is trying with Brexit UK lol, lets see what the UK has to give to get any kind of deal with the US lol and they are only part of it, Japan, China, India are also gunning for the UK now lol, don't expect any help from the EU, they'll be quite happy to let the UK be taken advantage off by the others so the message sink in, basically, those countries are going to wipe out the Brexit movement and push the UK back into the EU, signs are already showing that with polls showing 57% of the British public wants to rejoin the EU, we've not even fully left yet lol.
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Tony IN SOUTHWARK They survive because they don't make any waves around the world, they are too small to matter and are told what they can and can't do by others, besides, you do realize that Iceland abides by a lot of EU laws, rules and regulations? they are more or less an EU member without any real say, probably more so than the UK was when they were in lol. Now if the UK is quite happy to be a nobody on the outside then fine but that will be a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of Brits considering the history, basically, the signs are already showing the UK is becoming weaker and you only have to see how Japan, India, the US, China are treating the UK.
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Tony IN SOUTHWARK I think you misunderstand what he said, those countries are more or less in the EU without having any real say, great for the EU but not so great for those countries because they have to abide a lot of EU laws, rules and regulations without having any say and still pay into the EU pot, considering the deal they've got, they would actually be better off in the EU so at least they have a say, the EU is quite happy with the deal it's got with them about from with Switzerland that got too good of a deal and the EU is rolling back on that now.
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Tony IN SOUTHWARK Really, so that explains why support in every member has grown for the EU and for the Euro in many members, what's funny is that support in the UK is growing to rejoin the EU lol, seriously, do some research lol.
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@bumblebee5818 Actually, it's not Switzerland that wants to reduce its involvement in the EU, it's the EU changing the terms because the terms Switzerland have are too good and too messy of a deal, they want to simplify it to a single deal, that's why Switzerland is worried because those terms are likely going to be worse. Basically, Switzerland got really good terms out of the EU because of its location when it comes to trade with other EU members, now the EU are finding ways to bypass that and that's got Switzerland worried because that generates a lot of wealth for Switzerland, still, they can always join the EU and have all those benefits plus more but in the meantime, let them have their tantrums, they've had it easy for too long now.
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Tony IN SOUTHWARK Really, go on then, spill the beans on these ambitions, as for those other countries you mentioned, you do realize that they all want to join the EU, that gives the EU a lot of clout over them if they really want in the EU, that's quite normal but those countries are free to walk away into Russia's hands, see how well that goes for them. As for rights, then why does the EU countries have some of the highest standards in countless things? Also, have you wondered the reason the UK wanted to leave, they come up with the excuse that they want higher standards but the EU never stopped any member having higher standards, they set a standard and all members have to match that or be higher than that but can't be lower than that, it's very likely the UK government wants to lower standards and it will be the British people that will pay the price if that happens. Also, have you ever wondered why the US keeps trying to get the EU to lower rights, food standards and all that? They are doing exactly that to the UK and in the case of the UK, the US will likely win because the UK is desperate to sign a deal with them, basically, the US demands the UK lower food standards in such a way that the British people won't know which food is worse standards, then there is the NHS which they want access too, clearly not for the benefits of the UK, how about workers rights? The list goes on and on, this is what lobby groups in the US are demanding of the UK and what Trump wants, a trade deal would be so one sided in favour of the US that you have to wonder why the UK would sign it but the UK is desperate and needs to show it can sign any deals even bad ones.
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Tony IN SOUTHWARK I think you are clutching at straws, there are many signs already that the UK is already being ignored on the world stage thanks to Brexit, that is likely going to get worse, besides, none of the other Europeans want what the UK is trying to sell, after all, the UK tried hard to get EU members onside with Brexit, they didn't get a single member onside, the fact is, the EU is by far the bigger market, that is what they all want and they are not going to get on the wrong side of the EU just to suck up to a declining UK, they are not that stupid. As for Financial Services, it's a house of cards that's built on nothing and beside, more of that is shifting out of the UK now, the question is where will it go too, many countries are fighting for some of that pie.
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Nspnspker That won't do the west any favours, say the government gets toppled and they become a democracy, that is far bigger of a threat to the US and EU then the government they have bow because if they are a democracy, they will have a lot more trust, a lot more investment in the country and the economy would boom even more than they do now, the US doesn't fear the government of China, they fear the economy of China regardless of what type of government they have and we know this because of actions the US tried to do to Japan in the 80's and to the EU in the 90's to now. I think for Canada, single market and custom union access would be more attainable for now, full membership is always a possible but unless the EU opens up on that, it won't happen. The thing is, there are many countries around the world that would be a good fit for EU membership but the EU isn't ready for that just yet, there is still a lot from Eastern Europe that want to join the EU but after they swallow up a lot of that, it wouldn't surprise me if the EU opens up to countries around the world, it would have an impressive record on the results it's done with the existing countries that many would likely be interested, especially with how things are going with the US and China. Russia is a good match for the EU once they get over their power games, Russians are not really that different from Europeans overall, I think what will do it for Russia is the pressure from China on Russia, that will likely push Russian into the EU, especially once oil, gas and other natural resources have less value. What a lot of countries should be scared about the most is China, if they become a modern country and all the signs are pointing in that direction, it would be an economy 4 times bigger than the US or two EU's and 2 US's all put together, no chance could the west compete with that without a lot of changes, the EU has the best option in expending the EU, the US seems to be in decline, in the longer run, the EU could actually be the real threat to China, not the US, depending on how much they expand and integrate. In any case, it looks like other unions are forming around the world but a lot of them are quite weak and most are just economic in nature, they will need political oversight if they are to become anything.
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Think of the internet a bit like real life, the only difference is that we have far more laws and regulations on real life on what we can and can't do, whereas on the internet, it's far too much like the wild west that anything can be said without any accountability. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free speech, but there are limits, and it's clear that powerful figures are manipulating people's minds in the million with half-truths, disinformation and lies. At the end of the day, if the internet does get far more regulated, don't blame the EU, blame the people that are pushing an agenda with being radicalised on it, especially on the far right which have been manipulating people for years, first with the right wing media and now on social media, and we are seeing across Europe and North America how dangerous that can be, and it's only getting worse as we see with the far right rise in Europe and North America. So the real question is, how much worse will this get before governments start to clamp down on it?
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Yes and we also voted for cake and eat it with cheer on top and unless they can deliver on that then they are not delivering on the will of the people and that is the real problem, all the lies on Brexit are being exposed and we are not getting what the hardliners told us we would get, after all, they made it seem like we would have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost by cheer picking the deal, how deluded can they really get to think that would work?, now the remainers are holding the leavers to account on that and thats what the leavers don't like.
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A common language in the EU is evolving naturally by it's self and I feel the Schengen zone is having a big impact in making English the language of choice and as the video said, 370 million people in the EU countries speak English well enough to get by. I don't see this being a threat to the native languages but a common language in the EU was bound to happen regardless of what governments do or don't do and the main reason it's happening is because of open borders, easy access to other countries in the union, pushes people to learn a common language so they can communicate more effectively over the boarder and English seems to be the choice people are picking and likely because it's a popular language around the world so it makes sense that it's winning out. But honestly, I don't think this is that big of a deal and I think the video is over blowing the issue, now I'm not saying things couldn't be better but looking at the unemployment numbers, I don't get a sense that language is the issue and lack of reforms in the countries down south is more of an issue, if language really was the issue, the picture would be a lot more mixed across the union but it's clear to see that it's the countries down south that have issues with high unemployment, so even if Spain, Italy, Greece all spoke English, I doubt it would change much of anything on the unemployment numbers and the simple truth is, northern states do a better job at reforming their economy when needed compared to the south and it looks like eastern EU members are learning from the northern EU states, basically, language doesn't seem to be the issue at all and if it is, it's a small issue. Personally, I think EU countries that push English more as a second language, will have a bigger economic advantage over the ones that don't because companies are more likely to want to invest in EU countries where English is well knowe, as it will give them a bigger pool of talent to choose from across the EU, another advantage is that the citizens that know English, will have a lot more options around the EU and around the world.
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@lorenzodepaoli The truth is, you can't really have a well functioning union if every member has a veto, it creates gridlock and that becomes worse as more members join, worse yet is that some countries use those vetoes to carry favours on other policies. Sooner or later, the EU countries will have to find a solution to this and I don't think it's wise for the EU to expend until they do find a solution and the truth is, the EU countries should've solved this before expanding into the eastern countries. I personally think that if some countries continue to block progress on that, it could get to the point where the countries that want to reform could split away from the ones that don't, that would be bad news for the eastern EU countries as it could leave them out in the cold, it would also be very good news for Euro Zone countries as they are more likely to want to reform these rules, it would basically consolidate more power in Euro Zone countries at the expense of none Euro countries, the fact being is that Euro countries are more likely to want to make the EU project to work whereas none Euro countries are likely in it for the economic benefits, apart from the none Euro countries that don't qualify to join yet. In any case, the more stubborn countries are to these reforms, especially on the east, the more likely radical moves are likely to happen to get reforms done. The irony is in all this, the eastern EU countries are the ones more in favour of the EU expanding with new members but they are also a big part of the main reason why the EU wont expand. But seriously, could you imagine if each US state had a veto or if each city in a country had a veto, it would be very difficult to get anything done and it's remarkable that the EU works as well as it does under the current rules, but clearly, more countries joining would make it worse until reforms are done.
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Boris can't comment on Biden because now that Biden has won, he knows his grip on getting a good deal with the US are slim to none, Biden has already made it clear that he sees Brexit in the same light as Trump in the popularise movement, he's also Irish so Boris trying to screw things up with Ireland likely won't go down too well. Another factor is that Biden likely wants to repair ties with the EU because of China, basically, the US needs strong friends to keep China in check and the UK isn't that but the EU can be. For Boris, things are just getting worse and worse and what will be interesting to see if his tone changes over the coming weeks because it's clear the EU are not going to back down and give him what he wants and he can forget a good deal with the US now because even before Biden getting into power, the Democrats made it clear that there is zero chance of a deal with the UK if the good Friday agreement is broken. Brexiteers pinned so much hope on Trump and now all that is in tatters, now if we are not careful in the UK, we could get on the wrong side of both the EU and US.
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@CB-fz3li He seems to have deep Irish roots and has already talked strongly on his roots with Ireland and how he disagrees with Brexit and what the UK is trying to do with the Irish boarder. But more importantly, he sees Brexit in the same light as he sees Trump, a popularise movement that gained ground to create instability, I doubt he will want to get close to any of that when he looks likely that he'll want to repair ties with the EU because of China rising as a power.
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@cathrynharrison4734 If he continues to escalate things, Putin might only have a matter of weeks or months to live, the threat of nukes is meaningless unless the war is justified, in other words, self-defence, it's highly unlikely the Russian people are going to see it like that and that could become a massive problem for Putin if he continues to escalate things, especially with mobilizing the Russian people because they will feel the war personally, that's when Putin's life could really be in danger. Also, this isn't about NATO or the west and if they see Ukraine as being worth it, this is all about sending out a message, if the west backs down on Ukraine and let Russia take over, what message is that saying to the world? China and others are looking for weaknesses, they want to see how far the west is willing to go, if the west backs down, China might be tempted to invade Taiwan because they've seen the west as being weak, in other words, backing down could escalate things more around the world. Truth is, the west has been way too soft with these dictators and they see the west as weak for being soft, they constantly take advantage of that weakness and division, so backing down would be really bad for the west.
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No country is going to have any real advantage when it comes to A.I., the importance that A.I. will have on society, is already showing signs of decentralising A.I. so everyone can benefit from it, you only have to look at how rapid the open source A.I. is developing, simply to make sure no one person, corporation or country controls too much of it. As for jobs, well we have to be realistic, we've never had a situation, ever in human history of something that can take over so many jobs like A.I. can, we've had things like automation that takes over a lot of jobs, frees us to work on other jobs, but A.I. is very different, eventually, it will more or less be able to do any job we can do, cheaper, faster and better than we can do them, and the assumption that we'll create new jobs, that's true, but what makes us think that A.I. won't be able to do those new jobs better than we can do? The very nature of building A.I. is to have a broad intelligence, in other words, it will in time be able to do anything we can do, cheaper, better and faster than we can do. On the one hand, that's a major problem for the job market and society as we know it, but A.I. will be able to lift living standards in a massive way, personally, I don't think the capitalist system we have now will cope that well with what's on its way, it's design to get us all working, that's going to be difficult when A.I. can do all our jobs, and if there is one thing you can guarantee on, businesses will always try to reduce cost, human labour is a big cost for them, so they have a massive incentive to cut us out of the workforce with being cheaper, faster and not having to worry about all the workers benefits. Then we have consumers, well imagine this, one business uses A.I. and robotics, another uses human labour, who do you think is going to have the advantage in what they create and how cheap they could sell products for? Consumers will always shift towards products that are cheaper or better, A.I. and robotics can deliver on both, basically, the pressure on the human labour market is going to be immense over the coming decades, and it's going to be interesting to see how governments react and what unemployment numbers will be, once the avalanche start, it likely could end up being rapid, something we are likely going to see in our lives with how A.I. is developing.
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I sometimes wonder like over the last 20 or so years if the US is trying to test the EU resolve because they've been testing the EU to see how they will react with many things, so far the EU have done well and stuck together, even threaten the US back with other messures and I think thats what the US doesn't like, other powers dictating things to the US, well with a rising China on it's way, I expect a lot more of that, so it's advisable that the US get all the friends it can get and the EU is the biggest of thoes friends it needs on side, Trump is an idiot that he doesn't see that.
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Because you want it to happen doesn't make it so, people like you wanted a cake to eat and to cheer pick any deal we want with the EU, the EU said no, as for me not seeing it, thats because I look at the facts, the EU as been around for quite some time and people like you keep saying it's going to fall and yet here it is, people like you said Brexit would be the end of it and yet it seems to be stronger for it, look in Northern Ireland just now, 56% of the public wanted to stay in the EU at the time of the vote and now it's upto 69%, support for the EU as gone up in many EU members since Brexit happened. These are simply facts, Brexit, Trump and Putin have been a gift to the EU by showing how much it's needed, so by all means deluded yourself all you want about the EU falling apart because it doesn't change anything that it's still here, in fact I say the risk is much higher of the UK falling apart if Brexit goes wrong and Scotland and Northern Ireland leaves the UK union.
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We could but the cost to the world economy would be massive, it's easy for people to say, just ban oil and gas, it's not that simply as if they did that early on, oil and gas prices would have shot up a lot more than they already are now around the world, it also very likely could have destabilized the world economy and political system and if worse came to worse, could have even escalated the war. The truth is, Europeans need time to adapt, the west can help to try and speed that process up but it was never realistic to just cut the gas and oil off, especially for those countries that depend on it a lot and don't have alternatives ready yet, basically, what's going on is buying time so they can adapt and find other alternative energy sources and I think once this winter is over with, things will start to ease from then on. I agree on the renewables, it's high time we go all in on that, secure energy internally as the fossil industry is always playing games with high energy prices every decade or so.
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@BlackEpyon That true, Americans did that to themselves, and they've been paying a high price for it ever since being the only modern country without a lot of the social benefits most of the other modern ones take for granted and that is hitting the poor and middle classes of Americans hard, we are even seeing that with how they are dealing with this virus pandemic compared to Europe, it's quite shocking to see really. But maybe this virus might be a wake up call for change, it sure will be in Europe and it could be for the US but so far things don't look very good in the US, the support network is very weak for the average Americans and even when they do social policies, it's mostly protecting the rich elites and big corporations and not the average Americans that need it and with that, it will be interesting to see how EU countries and the US turn out after the next 6 months to the next few years because they've taken quite difference paths.
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Problem is for Russia, it's a lot of the younger and brightest people that are more likely to leave Russia, these are the last people Russia can afford to lose and the damage to the economy will be long-lasting of decades. Still, Russia lose is another ones gain. To make things worse for Russia, the longer the war goes on, the less likely these people will return to Russia.
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@web.anonymous Not sure in my country, not really checked but I did hear they are ramping up production on many of the basic items, I don't know if any have lowered the price at all but I doubt it unless stocks are really bad but even then I doubt it because they'll get a lot of bad PR.
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@web.anonymous The UK, so I'm deep in it lol, Brexit, 10 years of austerity measures and now this virus, this is going to take some doing for the UK to get out of this, a lot more than other countries are facing because we are facing more than one threat.
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Wind turbines actually generate a lot of energy in winter, especially in Europe, and with a mix of wind and solar and if there are enough of them, I don't think we need anywhere near 6 months battery storage as that is very likely overkill, but we probably do need around 2 months worth,
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@mark63424able The UK could already trade with those countries even inside the EU but it didn't make much economic sense to do so because of the distance, especially when most of the things they needed, they could get from the EU market, the US is an exception to the rule because of it's size but even there, the EU and US have many bilateral agreements on trade. But the truth is why it seems like a pipe dream that CANZUK is because of the distance from each other and even some of the difference, I highly doubt Canada would want to get too close to a Brexit UK with the path the UK is taking, Australia might but Canada and New Zealand, I doubt they will. Basically, the real problem is this, the US and UK are going off the rails, the likes of Canada want new friends, hence why they speeded up the free trade deal with the EU, even Japan are thinking along the same lines because they see the EU as stable whereas they see the US and UK going off the rails because of popularize governments and policies they are doing, it all seems like many of those countries are favouring the EU over the others and honestly, can you blame them? they are one of the only big powers that isn't losing the plot like the US, UK and China is.
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@didierlemoine6771 They won't, there is a reason why Japan and Canada speeded up the free trade deals with the EU and it's because they want to make new friends in a world where the US, UK and China look unstable and unreliable, basically, of all the big powers, the EU is the only one that looks like it's not gone off the rails so I can't blame those other countries for wanting to get closer to the EU, that's bad news for the US and even the UK because a lot of those countries won't want to get on the wrong side of the EU and that will limit what those countries can give the UK on trade terms. Politics is a dirty game and with the way the world is going, many countries are edging their bets and it looks like the EU is winning on that one because trade deals seems to be speeding up with the EU and other countries, especially since Trump got into power.
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True, what usually happens, a party promises a lot before the election, they get into power, the honeymoon phase goes on for about two years, voters start to expect results on the promises made, in most cases they don't deliver or it's watered down and then their popularity starts to go downhill, repeat the cycle and it's more or less what we see in almost every western country. It's easy to understand why, to get into power, you have to lie to the voters, if they don't, the other parties that do will likely get into power because what they are promising sounds a lot more appealing than what the ones that are saying the truth, it's a sad state of affair that they can't get into power unless they BS their way in, and that's the problem with the voters, they don't want the cold hard reality of changes that are needed, they want fairy tales and lies that sounds more appealing, which is basically what governments tell people, even thought they know they can't deliver on it. Basically, it's all about getting into power and worrying about the lies afterwords, from what I can tell, that happens in almost every western country, and the real blame isn't the politicians or governments, it's the people, the public really need to hold governments and parties to account for the lies and promises they made, maybe then they'll get real change that's more favourable to the people, until then, they'll continue to tell the people what they want to hear, not what they can deliver.
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So the moral of the story is that the Republicans in the US are making the UN irrelevant and as the US sees fit to ignore it, a lot more other countries are willing to do the same, making the organisation less relevant. The truth is, the UN for a long time has been just a talking shop with limited to no powers and that's likely how it will stay unless countries are willing to give it more powers, which seems unlikely with how things are in the world. This is also why the EU, US and China are the real powers, they can talk but they also have the power to act, the UN doesn't. It's a shame the UN is becoming less relevant, because it feels like the world is taking steps backwards and it's also ironic how it's the US that did most of the damage to it considering they pushed the organisation in the first place, but I suspect after the second world war, the UN suited the US fine because they didn't really have any rivals with Europe recovering from the second world war, apart from the Soviets that is, but as other powers grew, mainly the EU and China, all of a sudden, the usefulness of the UN went into decline, it was clear to see with the Iraqi war 2 decades ago and the reasons for it happening are very clear, the US went from a compromising nation to a first nation, which means the US ended up ignoring a lot of the rulings in the UN so a lot of other countries around the world did the same. I feel the real problem with the UN is that it's a club that anyone can enter, regardless of policies of the country, it kinda reminds me of the African Union where they let all the African countries in whereas if you compare that to the EU, there are a lot of incentives and changes countries need to do before they can join, there's none of that with the UN. I feel the UN needs major changes, maybe become a democracy only club with incentives for countries wanting to join, the EU does it well with a lot of political and economic benefits, NATO does it with security guarantees, what does the UN offer its members? What does it offer countries wanting to join in incentives to change? That for me is where the problem is with the UN and why it's mostly a talking shop, it's got no real powers to do anything, there's little to nothing holding its members together, and there's no incentive for them to work together.
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You have to wonder if Brexit has anything to do with it and if this is the first of many considering the weak position the UK is putting it's self in around the world.
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@sueevans4596 Sour grapes because Brexit isn't going well, loser usually want to bring others down to make themselves feel better lol. So enjoy Brexit because it's only going to get worse.
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@apt62 You don't want to go to war with any country and more so powerful ones like China because in the end, there is no real winners, everyone loses. I also don't think we can clear our debts unless we come to some kind of international agreement where everyone clears them and that won't be easy to do, any country that does try to clear their debts would likely pay a high price for it.
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richard mccann I didn't fail to factor in anything as I wasn't talking about the radiation, now debts is another matter and I don't see how we can clear them unless a lot of the world come onboard with it because too many are in debt now.
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@parkman29 I suspect a lot of that code has already been used and changed for other projects as it wouldn't be that difficult to take the source code, change it a lot for some other project.
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It's hard to say but it didn't do any harm and for me, the EU, NATO and nukes are what brought peace to Europeans.
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@Venus03 If we remember, shortly after the second world war, the European Steel and Coal Community was set up with the main intention of making it much harder for European countries to go to war with each other as resources are more tied together so going to war would have impacted both sides just as bad, it seems to have worked as well because now Europeans are not as aggressive on that front now and ironically, the Americans are picking up from where Europe left.
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It's way too early to say, but I suspect it could be bad news for the UK Brexiteers, the entire idea around this is to bring countries closer to the EU in one form or another with the aim of being a bridge to EU membership for many of the countries. Think of it a bit like giving hope for countries wanting to join the EU but are not ready to join or are some time off from joining, giving them that step in-between can improve relations and help those countries that want to join to do the reforms needed sooner rather than later, Turkey is a prime example, because they were doing the reforms so slowly and had to wait so long, they more or less give up on the idea of joining the EU, if there were a few more steps in-between joining the EU, Turkey might have been on a different path now as giving the people hope can go a long way. But say this does take off, a lot of the countries outside the EU will likely want to join it at some point, creating closer relations is a sure way of helping that, that could become a major problem for the Brexiteers in the UK that are trying to distant themselves from anything EU related, because the more countries that have closer relations to the EU or join it, the more isolated the UK's position in Europe will be. To be honest, the EU should be a tier or multispeed EU, it's not easy to get all countries to move along at the same pace as others that want to move faster and because of that, you have countries that are trying to hold back the others and personally, I think the Euro Zone is the real core EU, the countries in that are more likely to want to make the EU work and to integrate in many areas, it's just a question of what form it takes. The ones that are not in the Euro tend to be countries that are dragging their feet, don't want to integrate or are in the EU for their own ends, Poland and Hungary are prime examples of that and I think the EU countries that want to move ahead, should be able, so Euro Zone countries, now I know none Euro Zone countries like Hungary and Poland will complain about that because it would shift the balance of power away from them and more towards the Euro Zone countries, it would also isolate the countries that are not in the Euro Zone, they very likely know that if the Euro Zone countries do integrate more, it will make them more powerful and they become the more focal point of the EU, so even countries that are not part of it won't like it out of fear of being left behind.
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@damienpeladan481 As much as I would like to see the UK leave the EU with the hardest of Brexit as I'm quite sure that would do a lot of damage to the euroseptic movment in the UK and likely in other EU countries as well. It's not the right thing to do, a lot of Brits that are innocent in all this will feel the pain of it and there is every chance that most Brits want to stay in the EU if given the chance by another vote. So even thought leaving the EU would resolve the euroseptic problem in the UK pretty fast, I think the same result can happen whiles staying in the EU but it will take longer. Personally as a Brit what I would like to see is for the UK to stay in the single market and custon union, that protect most of the economic benefits for the UK and will do very little damage compard to the other options whiles keeping the UK out of EU decision making and in a decade or so when we have learned our lession, I'm sure the EU and it's members will let us rejoin the EU whiles having to signing up to everything like the Euro, in other words, no op-outs. In any case, if the UK does stay in the EU, I don't expect it to be easy and there is going to be a real fight from pro EU and anti EU camps for awhiles but I suspect that the ones that hate on the EU are on the losing side now because they've already shown there fanatical side in how little they care about the well being of the UK and British people and with that, they've likely mobolised the moderates in the country to really take them on. The funny thing is, the euroseptics don't realise whats about to come, in or out of the EU, they've already lost and I think a few of them already know that, Farage seems to know that but then he is one of the smarter Brexiteers of the lot.
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To be fair, things change a lot over the last 80 years, but clearly, something is holding back the Germans, maybe the guilt from the past wars, who knows, but Germany really should be pulling it's weigh, it's the biggest economy in Europe, it should have a well run military, it's got the money to do it but it's not got the political will to make it happen, and it does make me wonder if going through the EU and building an EU military would solve this problem, maybe the Germans don't want to be a big military power any more, so maybe offloading it to the EU with other EU countries doing the same could be the solution. Either way, they can't stay as they are, they need to get their act together and so do other European countries and with a lot of resources being wasted on duplications, an EU military would solve many of these issues, if there is the political will from EU governments to make it happen and personally, I think it needs to happen if the EU countries want to compete with the US and China going forward, because it's going to be harder for the individual countries to do it.
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We'll have to see, but it's easy for them to say they are going to do it, it's another thing to implement those policies once political reality kicks in. The far right can't afford to get on the wrong side of the people and the markets so soon in power if they get elected, it would do a lot of damage to the country and likely turn the French people on them, in other words, if they push ahead and it makes a mess of the economy, the far right in France could find themselves becoming unelectable over the next election or so. In other words, they'll likely tone down those policies to appeal to more voters and to calm markets, but sometimes you have to let these things to happen for a mess to follow, a bit like the UK with Brexit, no amount of talk was going to convince some people that it was a bad idea, but economic misery is far more convincing in shifting voters patterns, in fact, the far right have been capitalising on that, but it could also hit them just as hard.
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@paulcarroll6995 They might not have a say in it if it's done like the Euro were members that want to be part of it can join it voluntarily which is very likely how they'll do it because it's unlikely they'll get all 27 members onboard but they'll likely get the big players like Germany, France, Italy and Spain onboard. More importantly is that it will need to happen at some point, Europeans are going to have to stand on their own feet, the US is going off the rails whiles the US and China are becoming more aggressive, these political realities will likely push for an EU army with support from the European people which ironically is doing quite well in a lot of EU members already. If Europeans really want to protect their political, economic and social interest than more integration is likely needed or we are just going to get push aside just like the UK is becoming now thanks to Brexit. But don't worry, it would likely be a defensive force or peace keeping force, after all, the kind of rules that will be placed on it by the members that form it will make it very difficult to use it in a hostile way like the US currently does with it.
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@paulcarroll6995 That's unlikely considering not much can get done at an EU level without a lot of EU members being onboard so that makes it almost impossible for it to become France's African corp, I also suspect that it will be designed with peacekeeping in mind and defence, not to be used in any aggressive way or it would be very difficult to use in an aggressive way. Basically, designed to protect EU countries and peacekeeping missions around the world but not to project power around the world like the US likes to do, the first two would likely get a lot of support from Europeans, the last one won't.
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@Matthew Challacombe Well yes I do but I also see that same problem for elected governments doing the same thing, besides, do you realize that the EU formation is in flux and changing all the time? Basically, the EU would have to become more directly elected before members hand over those kinds of keys but before that can happen, we need more pan-European politics.
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More accurately, it's the corporations eating everyone, including the American people lol. Hence, why the quality of life on average is dominated by European countries, because it all boils down to where the wealth is going, in the US, it's going to the super rich, not the average citizens, and even thought much of that is going on in Europe as well, the system is far more balanced that wealth is more even. In other words, on average, Europeans from lower to middle classes are doing better than Americans from lower and middle classes, the ones that are doing super well in both regions is the upper class, but for the vast majority of people, things are not that great, especially in the US but also not in Europe, it's just not as bad in Europe, but in any case, there's a reason why Brexit in the UK happened, the far right in Europe is on the right and Trump and the far right in the US, it's because things are not that great, all these are signs that a lot of people are angry across the western world.
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@digiryde True and that's the age old problem with humans, we tend to change when we have too and not before, hence why there is no energy, water crisis or anything because the more urgent it becomes, the quicker a solution arrives. In that sense, it reminds me of the second world war and the atomic bomb, a lot of people thought that would be the end of us and the reason for that is because humans are a war like people, at least that's how it was seen going on the past records, but what ended up happening is the atomic bomb forced us to change, now we don't have major wars because the risk is too high, wars now are done either from poor country vs poor country or rich country against poor country that can't fight back.
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@awokenv7302 True but the problem is getting that tech cheap enough and being able to produce it on mass for it to really have an impact.
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@roymakescomics That's highly unlikely, we can already convert seawater into drinking water today and that should become easier in the decades to come and considering we can already catch humidity droplets in the air into water, I highly doubt water is going to be an issue in the near future.
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They are being sent in as cannon fodder, poorly trained, poorly equipped, the casualty list could skyrocket if Putin goes ahead with this and considering it's getting much closer and personally to the Russian people, Putin's support could crumble pretty fast after that.
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The impression I get with the Polish government is that they want immigration but of the white christian type, at least that's the impression they give me and probably why they jumped at the chance of letting many in from Ukraine as they are not that different from Poles. Either way, it needs immigration because of it's declining population, and unless anything changes on birthrates, it's going to continue to need them, otherwise, it's entire economy will slowly go into decline, whiles adding a massive tax burden on the young which could very well push more of them out of the country. Truth is, it needs to encourage more births, which isn't an easy thing to do as we see in almost every modern country, where if it wasn't for immigration, population growth would likely be going in reverse, even in countries like the US and France that by western standards, are doing ok on birthrates. Either way, if you look at places like the EU and the US, they likely can sustain around 1 to 2 million immigration per year, as long as they are spread out throughout the union so it's more likely they'll integrate, whereas many seem to have problems with the ones that don't and end up creating their own small community in the country, which many could see as a threat if they continue to grow, but in truth, most that immigrate, integrate really well that they become one of the natives over a matter of 30 to 50 years, and more so for the kids they have that are more native than the country their parents came from.
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I never take much stock into predictions because they usually are predicting something under the assumption that nothing changes to change the direction of that prediction, hence why most tend to get it wrong. Now it's a given that the EU and US share of the world economy is going to shrink, but that isn't because they are doing anything wrong and more to do with the rest of the world is developing and considering the population size, it's easy to see how the EU and US would shrink in all that. Another unknown factor about the EU is that we don't know how much more they'll integrate and how many more countries will join it, which can change those predictions. What I do know is that there have been predictions about the decline of the EU for decades and yet they've all got it wrong, living standards in the EU are some of the highest in the world and clearly the economy is modern. Another factor that people forget, after the second world war, European power should have more or less have finished and yet that didn't happen, they adapted, they created the Coal and Steel Community which led to the EU, that came about in part to prevent another war among its members and to compete better on the world stage with the US and considering there is a lot of room for growth with the EU with many countries wanting to join it and dare I say it, maybe even Russia could join it someday and there is no technical reason why the EU couldn't expand outside of Europe, a lot of the framework is in place to allow it, especially for countries of like-minded interest and share a lot of the same values. Also, GDP per capita is a poor indicator of wealth of people, that's been proven countless times and doesn't really mean much. There are also too many other holes in his argument on why things will turn out like that by 2050, the truth is, nobody knows for sure but what I do know is countries will adapt and change as needed and the EU is in a very good position to change and expand if the people in the EU gets their act together, after all, imagine what the Americans thought Europe would be like now after the second world war, they never for a second would have thought it would be as powerful as it is and never would have thought the EU countries would integrate and cooperate so much and in the end, things change depending on need and the good thing about the EU is that they have a lot of room to change and grow if they really push on expanding.
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@feister2869 Thing is, I doubt the EU and US are doing all this only for China and India to prop up the Russian economy, I suspect once the European countries diversify away enough from Russia, the EU and US are going to go after China and India with the aim of isolating Russia and as we know, China and India can't afford to lose that trade with the EU and US whereas the EU and US can afford to find cheap labour in other countries as I'm sure many will be more than happy to steal that business away from China and India. Either way, there's no way the EU, US and the west are doing this only for China and India to prop up the Russian economy, so let Russia spend a lot of money on it's pipelines to China and India, only for them to be useless afterwords, that's might be what the EU and US are waiting for, they want Russia to spend the money only for it to be a useless project.
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@maskilse True and unless the Russian people rise up against Putin, the Russian people are being sent to Ukraine as cannon fodder as these are nowhere near going to be as skilled as the troops that are in Ukraine and it's likely they won't be as well-equipped, they are basically being sent in for the slaughter, to protect Putin's position of power. The Russian people are paying a high price for having a system of government that doesn't value their lives, they are a tool to be used by the system and Putin is more than willing to use the Russian people to protect his position of power, the Russian people need to wake up and see that Putin doesn't care about them and I wonder how many lives from loved ones have to be lost before that message sinks in, especially now that it could be anyone from Russia being thrown into the war, it all has a very different meaning when war hits much closer to home.
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The EU is being pragmatic when it comes to China, keeping talks going and open dialogue is in the interest of both side, whereas the US sees China as a threat to its power base around the world, so it's understandable why the US is more aggressive on China, whereas the EU doesn't need to be. That doesn't mean the EU doesn't have issues with China, in fact, the EU has more issues with China government policy than the US does, but it looks like the EU is keeping cool heads when it comes to China whereas the US is getting emotional about it. Truth be told, China is a massive market, it's not really in the interest of the EU or US to distant themselves too much from China as that would be an advantage to countries that don't do that, but there is a major red line that if China crosses, it will be hard for the EU and it's citizens to ignore, and that's if China gets too close to Russia, especially on the military and economic front, if that was to happen, relations between the EU and China would likely break down, but another factor to consider, if the EU had a more aggressive tone on China like the US does, it would likely back China into a corner to assist Russia more. Personally, I think the EU is being smart here, playing both sides, the US and China, no different from how China is trying to divide the EU and US and how the US is all about self-interest, the EU is going to look after its own interest, and in many areas, that isn't US interest. As for the US, the Inflation Reduction Act, didn't do the US any favours in bringing the EU and it's members onside, in fact, it might have pushed Europeans further away from US policy, then there is also the Republicans, Europeans have seen what US policy is like under them when Trump was in power, if the Republicans get in power with another loon, then the EU is probably wise to diversify away from US policy in many areas, but ultimately, the EU should look after number one, even if it's not in the interest of the US, because the US only cares about it's self.
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Wasn't the same said about Brexit? Not being funny but who ever wins in the French elections doesn't change that much really, after all, one thing about political parties that are not in power is that it allows them to lies and say anything they want to win an election, once in power, it's a very different story because all of a sudden, it's their neck on the line. Basically, when it comes to elections, a lot of things are said on what they will do if they win power but in a lot of cases, they rarely keep them, especially if what they are saying isn't realistic. So even thought Macron would be better for the EU, Le Pen wouldn't change much overall, after all, in EU countries, moderates tend to be the ones that last and if the Le Pen party wants to be a creditable party, they can't afford to mess it up by going extreme, otherwise, they'll be booted out of power the next election and likely never get back in. Basically what I'm saying is that if Le Pen wins, she'll tone it down on what she can do, especially when it comes to the EU.
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@bhaveshkukreja162 Yeah what happened with the numbers in France? lol, the numbers in the UK as I live here seem about right because it's rare to find anyone without an internet connection or mobile phone for that matter they've become so common place.
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@An untrue definition The problem is that system would mean many of the public would get left behind, especially the poor and much of the middle class. A system where you have to pay to see a doctor or get a check up is more likely going to mean you don't bother to see a doctor or get a check up which in the longer run could make things much worse and more expensive for that person. Universal health care works because it takes that massive load of our minds, we don't have to worry about the cost factor, we just go in if we have a problem and that is a far better system because it treats humans more humain and it covers everyone. Also in a lot of ways, it makes it a lot cheaper doing it at a government level, we see that with pills where Europeans are able to get the same ones for far less than Americans can, that's profit for you and profit and health care should never mix.
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@robertwhite952 Brits are not very good at rebelling, they've been subdued by many Tory governments over the decades to not do that but there is always a tipping point that any people can rise up and the economic hardship of this virus could be one of them but it depends on government policies and what they do over the next few years, if they try to pass too much of the burden onto the people and not enough on the rich elites and corporations, expect people to get really angry and maybe rebel and not just in the UK but countless other countries.
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I get the impression that Ukraine did the damage as a warning to the Russian troops in the region, so not to destroy the bridge but send a warning that they can, with the idea of scaring many of the troops to want to pull back into Russia, because if they feel the bridge could be destroyed at any times whiles Ukraine is pushing from the north, that's not a good position for those Russian troops to be in. So this could be about creating panic with the Russian troops in the region with the intention of them revolting and pulling back and it could make sense if Ukraine keeps pushing inwards from the north, the less Russian troops they have to fight to take that land back, the more lives that can be saved on both sides. Also, like the video points out, Ukraine will have to keep the moderates onside, otherwise, it's one thing taking back Crimea, it's another to hold it if a lot of the people in that regions keep revolting against them, also, the panic could push many of the Russian people in those regions out, that will make the task easier for Ukraine as the percentage of people in that region will be more pro Ukraine.
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Thats how real decline happens, by pretending these things are not happening and putting your head in the sand, in any case, lets see how well things go when tariffs start to bite the voting people, it's easy to talk but it's another thing to take action when it bites on the arse and it's clear the EU and US wont back down on this and are likely to get tougher on the US if they keep pushing, in the end it's the US thats going to lose out the most.
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There is a reason why the system in the US keeps telling the public they are the best, it's a form of subduing the public into not making real change that would make things better for the average Americans, by assuming you're the best, change is less likely to happen and that isn't going to change until Americans realize they are not the best. It's also why the system hits Americans over the head constantly with patriotism all the time, the system is designed to manipulate the people into not questioning the system to change. Being as I'm a European that's lived in both the EU and US over the years, you really start to see where the real flaws are on both systems as well as the good parts of them and overall, Europeans don't realize how lucky they have it, I know they love to complain about everything but after seeing both side, Europeans have it much better and maybe it's that complaining on why they have it better as it pushes change for the better. Also, remember, if a system has to keep re-enforcing how great you are, you know deep down something is wrong in the system, after all, if you are truly good, you don't need constant reassurance on it all the time, in a sense, it kind of reminds me of those macho guys that think they are gods gift and once under pressure, they brake lol, in any case, Europeans know they are great, at least Europeans in the EU, but they don't feel the need to broadcast it to others in a form of self insecurity which is more or less what we see in the US, maybe that is because of the impact of the second world war changed Europeans for the better. My advice to Americans, live in some rich European countries for a few years and it will open your eyes to how the world really is and you might understand why so many around the world are perplexed about the US and it's sad that many others laugh at the US grand delusions of themselves.
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I think these new cpu's from AMD are a good line-up but I think the pricing is all wrong, especially for the 6 and 8 core. 6 core today is becoming more like the 4 cores and should really be cheaper, $300 for what is supposed to be the budget offering is too expensive, especially once you throw the new motherboard platform and DDR5 cost into the mix, so I think AMD really needs to work on it's price with the 6 and 8 core as these are more mainstream chips which consumers in those segments are much more price sensitive and if the noise going around about the Intel new chips is true, on a price point, they look more appealing. On the other hand, AMD does have the advantage of longer term support with its motherboards and that for many means they can get two big cpu upgrades over 3 or 4 years without replacing their motherboard, that just isn't possible with Intel unless you upgrade every year and if you look at it like that, AMD cpu's could work out much cheaper longer term, but at the moment, it's too expensive. I do have to agree with him on the Ryzen 5800X3D, in gaming terms, it looks like it's competing really well with Intel's next gen cpu's going on Intel's own cheery picked charts and you really do have to wonder how the performance of the Ryzen 7000 series is going to be with 3D cache memory on it. It's also ironic because the 5800X3D looks really good even to AMD's own 7000 series and probably looks the better bet if gaming is your main things and you already have an AMD motherboard.
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Actually that was always the plan from the EU and US, basically, wait till the EU countries diversify away from Russian oil and gas and once that happens, target other countries that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia because the EU and US are not doing all this only for others to prop up the Russian economy. To put it another way, there's very likely going to be a lot of pressure from the EU, US and west on China, India and others that buy from Russia, probably even tariffs of the amount those countries are benefitting from cheap oil and gas from Russia, the idea is to wipe out that benefit, whiles at the same time, making goods from those countries more expensive so businesses will want to leave those regions to find other cheaper alternatives which there are a lot of countries that would love to take that business away from them. The truth is, those countries can't afford to get on the wrong side of the west because they trade a lot with them, losing access or having restricted trade won't do China or India any favours whereas a lot of the companies that used China and India for cheap labour will just look elseware and at the end of the day, the western market is far more important to them than Russia is
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The people took it away from themselves, the Tories just latched onto it with all the lies. I'm British and I thought Brexit was crazy and I voted to remain in the EU, but at the end of the day, governments in democracy are a reflection of the people, so the people are to blame, and in the case of the UK, Brexiteers were fed a lot of lies, but remainders didn't do enough over the decades to counter those lies, the Eurosceptics in the UK have had almost a free hand to say anything negative on the EU for decades and they ran with it, knowing there wasn't much of a movement to counter those arguments, the end result is that Brits kept hearing constant bashing on the EU with little in the way of a counterargument, so my point is, even thought the Eurosceptics got it wrong, the pro EU lots didn't do enough to fight for the EU cause and let the Eurosceptics own the stage, that eventually led to Brexit, so there's a lot of blame to go around, but we are all to blame to some degree or another. On the plus side, public views on the EU are starting to change in favour of the EU in the UK, so much so that I've not seen such pro EU sentiment in the UK for decades like we are seeing now, but the UK still has a long way to go before it can even think about rejoining, assuming that's a goal at all.
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So let me get this right, Brexiteers love people that delude them? Why would any smart person look into a mirror and want to self manipulate themselves? It isn't changing the facts no matter how much they want to think it is. Like it or not, the EU have every hand, hence why they are getting tougher on talks now, what card does the UK even have now? What they'll threaten to walk away? lol, they've been saying that for 3 years and yet still can't seem to find the exit door lol, we all know it's a bluff with the intention of trying to get the EU to bend and give the UK more, the EU isn't buying it and that is a major problem for the UK government and more so if the UK government doesn't get anything solid from the EU near the end of the year because panic will set in. As for the EU, they are sitting pretty, they still have all their trade deals and terms with the rest of the world, they still have all the bilateral agreements and still have open access trade within the EU union, the UK on the other hand has nothing, in other words, the EU can drag this out as long as they want, the UK can't but the UK can't really afford a no deal otherwise it would have been done by now, which leaves the UK in a very difficult position later this year and that is when the entertainment really begins, that and when Trump goes after the UK, it will be like ping pong, the UK the ball and the EU and US pinging the ball to each other. How the UK got Brexit so wrong will be studied in the future for great reading lol.
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We could say the same thing is so many western governments closed down things sooner rather than later, there is a lot of blame to go around and much of that is on western governments for being way too slow on this or more accurately, putting the economy first at the expense of public well-being, either way, I suspect there are going to be a lot of tough questions a lot of governments are going to have to answer too because the performance of most is very poor.
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I think a lot of people are misunderstanding something, for one, many are comparing a PC of today to a console of the future, never a good idea to do because the market changes as needed. Basically, there hasn't been much reason for prices on the PC to drop because they are way ahead of what consoles can do, with the next gen consoles, that changes things but that is why prices are very likely to come down because the market demands it, so as the new consoles are released, that sets a new benchmark for mid range PC gamers, that will put a lot of pressure on many companies to reduce prices in key areas and especially on the gpu front or they could lose out if gamers shift towards console gaming and none of those companies want that, not even AMD because the margins are much bigger on the PC and gamers tend to upgrade more. Considering the kind of hardware that is rumoured for later this year, if those new gpu's are anything like 18 to 23tflops, that is more or less twice the performance of the next gen consoles, that would basically mean that the mid tier version of RDNA 2 will be a lot cheaper than the high end whiles having performance like the new consoles or even a little better and it stands to reason, AMD are likely reserving it's best for the PC whiles putting the mid tier cut down RDNA 2 in the next gen consoles to reduce cost. Also, Nvidia seems to want to get rid of all it's 20 series stock and I can't blame them because who is going to want them once the next gen are out and the mid tier 30 series card is better than the 20 series top end card but for a lot less money, they are trying to flog them because they don't want to slash the price on them so much which they might have too once the new cards are out. We should also remember that consoles are mostly built on PC hardware now so there is no magic going on, just hype and anyone that's been in this game long enough knows how this game is played, in other words, there is a big price crash either late this year or early next year so I wouldn't upgrade a PC now, will till AMD and Nvidia release their new cards and both consoles are out, that will likely change the dynamics of the market, especially if AMD competes at the top end but even if they don't, Nvidia has to compete with the next gen consoles and has to offer something at a mid tier price to not leak gamers to consoles. In other words, there is no threat from consoles, just hype but the good news is, it will put a lot of pressure on some companies to reduce prices, mainly Nvidia or they could lose out a lot here.
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With every crisis comes a massive opportunity, this is more so with the EU that seems to do well with crisis. Also, usually the bigger the crisis, the bigger the change can be, to get a bit of a hint of that, look at the impact after the second world war in all the changes that happened in Europe and around the world, this is another one of those moments in Europe but on a smaller scale and to do with energy security and because of that, over the next decade, it wouldn't surprise me if clean renewable energy makes up a far bigger percentage than what the experts predict, there's also a fair chance that reforms to the EU institution will happen and more pooling of resources like in the military, probably some integration as well. As the saying goes, never let a crisis go to waste and this is a big opening for the EU and it's members to do some real change that can benefit them all if they take it.
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@SF-eo6xf The mistake he did was to not follow through with his threat, the moment he threatens Putin, he had two choices, either follow through with what he intended to do or defect to the west, no guarantee it would keep him alive but he was doomed taking the other course he took, it was just a matter of time and it wasn't hard to see with how Putin has no issues taking people out he sees as a threat, and honestly, I'm surprised it took Putin this long, but at least it's opening up peoples eyes to what kind of man Putin is, with any luck it might do in Russia too, because they need a series wake-up call on what Putin is really like.
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At the end of the day, life is too short, we spend so much of it sleeping on average 8 hours per day and then spending around 8 hours for 5 days a week at work, when you put it all together, a big chunk of your life is being used up by being asleep and at work lol. When it comes to money, I'm sure we would like more but once you get to a certain level that's comfortable, quality of life starts to matter far more than working longer hours to earn more money. In the end, you only live once, best make the most of it and money can only bring you so much happiness, overall, experiences is what brings you far more happiness than money does, as long as you've got a reasonable amount of money to live comfortable, and I think Europeans, especially in the EU have a far better balance when it comes to quality of life and work balance then Americans have, which almost looks like a slave system the way the system is set up with dependency on work for basic things like health care and you only have to look at the quality of life indexes, Europe dominants it, there's far more to life then money, at least if you've got a good balance from the two.
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The problem is that the system in the US is too much about the money and economy, you can't really complain with the results of that when it's Americans that pushed for that kind of system when there are alternatives to that as we see in Europe. I do agree with what that lady is saying, they are risking their lives and for what? For the governor to make their jobs a lot harder in the coming weeks? This virus is really starting to expose the good and bad in some people around the world. I have to wonder if Class Action Law Suit will start rising across the US because I suspect a lot of that could happen with some people that want to protect their self but are being put in an impossible position because of the way the system works, for every life lost, you are going to get many angry people from their families, friends and relatives of those people.
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That's very short-sighted and in an ideal world, that would be great, but then it's that short-sightedness that led to Putin invading Ukraine and he wouldn't stop at just Ukraine if the west didn't interfere. The truth is, China needs to be more open and tone down it's aggression on many nations around the world.
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Probably likely to become centre right to appeal to more people. I'm noticing a trend when it comes to these far left and right parties that come close or get into power, they tone things down a lot and become a lot more centre of politics. Makes sense really, because unless the majority of the public becomes more radical, these governments won't last that long and they likely know that some they become more centre to have more lasting power in politics, otherwise, if they stuck to the radical views, they'll probably get wiped out on the next elections. This is also why they are not really a threat to the people of the country or to the EU like some want them to be, after all, how many times has this happened? A few times already with Italy being one of the last, and yet it changed very little for the simple reason that reality kicks in on what they can do over the bluster of what they wanted to do, remember guys, on the sideline, they can say pretty much anything they want with little to no risk, once in power, their necks are on the line, hence why they keep toning things down to a central point of view in politics, because for the most part, that's what the people want.
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Will be interesting to see how long this coalition last and how much watering down on policies are needed to keep it together, any more radical policies going forward by the government could tear the government apart. This is the main issue I see with the more radical parties in that they don't really get along with each other, on the surface they can try but when push comes to shove on real policies, that's when things get heated. It's also a reason why moderate parties are far more successful overall, moderate parties are more likely to appeal to other parties and to appeal to a wider voting audience, in other words, for this government to really function well and get things done, they will likely have to water down some of their policies to a more moderate line, after all, it's not by chance that so many of the so called right wing extream parties around Europe have become more moderated when close to or in power, probably because the majority of the people don't want a lot of these radical swings or policies but are angry at the mainstream parties. Basically, Wilders has once chance here, if he messes it up by trying to go too extream on the policies or messing up the economy, the people will probably never vote that party in, hence why so many that do get into power, tone down a lot of their policies so they've got a chance of appealing to more voters, basically, the people have given them a chance, they best make the most of it by not messing up or they might not get another chance, and I suspect most voters don't want the country to be turned upside down which some of the more radical policies could do. Anyway, I suspect because of the way the coalition is set up, they probably won't be as much of a problem as some want to think, because if too many waves are started, the coalition could very well fall apart, and there's that constant threat of that happening if some of the more radical policies come in, so it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the policies get watered down that they seem more moderate, a bit like many other parties that were seen as extream right wing did around Europe, so it's going to be interesting to watch this.
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You have to wonder how long it will take for the African people to realize that China and Russia are not their friends even if on the surface they might come across as being, truth is, they support these kinds of actions because they want a government in power in those countries that does the bidding of China or Russia which rarely ends well for the people of those countries. It basically keeps those countries poor whiles lining the pockets of key people in China and Russia, the irony being is that in time will likely backfire on them once the people in Africa realize what's going on and that will likely weaken China and Russia position in Africa, basically like how Russia position in Eastern Europe is being weakened because the EU is offering them something much better, higher quality of living, stability without the threats that Russia offers. In the end, the thing that really matters is the economy, improve that and that will create stability and less problems from the people, the EU figured that out a long time ago, hence why so many eastern European countries want to join the EU and I think western countries need to offer much better to African countries to help create stability and growth without the threats that Russia and China offer which is only likely going to leave those countries worse off than they were before. This is in part a big reason why Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine, it's started to realize it's losing against the EU and can't offer what they offer, stability, growth and high standard of living, Russia fears that as the eastern EU countries keep developing, it's going to have a knock on effect with other eastern European countries that will want the same, that's something Russia can't offer because it basically wants to screw those countries over by having them under the thumb and basically, western countries need to start offering something good for African countries as it's not going to end well for those African countries with what Russia and China really wants out of them but then, maybe that needs to happen to see who the real friends are in the world.
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@DOCTORKHANblog There's offering better and there's offering strings attached, the condition for many Africans are starting to get worse, especially thanks to China but in the end, it will be interesting to see what happens to those countries once it's time to pay up to the terms Russia and China are asking, most are suspecting it could ruin many African countries and industries because the terms can never realistically be paid back, also in the case of China, it's also selling out a lot of those countries because China gets to own a lot of the assets, so on the surface it looks like China is helping them but the terms are so bad that it's likely going to make them poorer and maybe that needs to happen for them to wake up. Either way, the EU will be ready to pick up the pieces
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Not sure how the EU is even related to the energy crisis, in fact, you have to wonder how it would be without the EU as I suspect being more divided would make us weaker. As for the end of the EU, well we've heard that story countless times from people that hope it will be but it never seems to happen, in fact I find the EU seems to do best when in a crisis. But I do think the EU and it's members need to get tougher on energy, especially with Russia and also need to speed up it's renewable plans, the good news is, these kinds of things usually speed up that process, nuclear could also be another short-term solution. I also think the EU should have counter measures for when the likes of Russia plays games, basically, make it crystal clear to them that there are consequences for their actions. Countries like Russia only respond to tough action and I think it's high time the EU and it's members start to hit them where it hurts. Also, why is it that when there is any crisis, it's an end of the EU scenario? The UK should be more concern with the UK union because there is a real risk of that falling apart thanks to Brexit and the Tories.
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This is why more Americans need a passport lol, I mean we are talking basic global things here which should be common knowledge to know and it's remarkable how so many people don't know these things, more so in the US which they seem to know very little of what is going on around the world. Now I'm not saying that Americans are stupid because that isn't really the case but the knowledge they have of the outside world is piss poor and as a European, I probably know more about the US then what many Americans know and this is just common knowledge .
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Won what? so far I've not seen any success on Brexit, I think you are counting your chickens before they've been hatched, wait till after Brexit and that you've made a success of Brexit before you can say you've won because so far we're losing and that is before the real damage kicks in with Brexit, the economy is already down by £40 billion thanks to Brexit, the currency is down a lot which doesn't bold well for a trade deal with the US with how Trump is. The reason the UK is finding it so hard to leave the EU is because many of the smarter people know the damage it will do to the UK but they are also dealing with a lot of deluded people that don't know reality and facts if it was to hit them on the head lol, it's getting even funnier, we're already seeing signs from Boris that he's looking for a scapegoat on Brexit, he knows he can't afford to take us out of the EU with hard Brexit so either needs the EU to back down, unlikely, or for the rebels to get much tougher on the ERG, in other words, to force Boris hand, the idea being is that he keeps the PM job but doesn't get the blame from the Brexiteers as he can say, well I tried but the rebels forced my hand, smart from him but he's fooling the Brexiteers, he's a opportunist after all and knew he would only get the PM job with the backing of the ERG, now he's trying to find a way of keeping hold of that job whiles keeping the Brexiteers on side. So guys, did any one read between the lines with what Boris is trying to pull or are we still dealing with fantasy and reality?, in any case, we'll find out soon enough as the first step with be a delay on Brexit later this year ;-)
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Japan was never really a threat to the US because it doesn't have the population numbers which matter a lot when projecting power, The EU does if they work better with one voice, China has a much bigger population then both the EU and US combined and if China keeps closing the gap economically, it would be hard put for them to not only overtake the US but be a major power in it's own right. Another thing, at least in the west, they've been predicting for decades that the economic growth in China won't last and yet decade in decade out, they keep motoring along. The only thing I see holding back China is the one party system that China has. We also have to remember that the US will try and put any power regardless of system of government down to try and stay on top, they did that with Japan in the 80's, they also tried with the EU in the 90's onwards but failed on that one because the EU is big enough to fight back and the US will turn on India if there are signs of them becoming a major power. The irony is that the US needs the EU onside to keep China in check and China knows that hence why China made a play to sway the Europeans over when Trump was in power and with how the world is going with China, Russia and other powers, I think the EU and US are going to need to work much closer together because as much difference as they've but got, they share a lot of the same values as each other.
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@bosoerjadi2838 True and so far the polls are showing a lead for the Brexit Party but that doesn't mean much at this early stage because we're not sure who the right party is to vote for thats pro EU and we do need a clear message on that so not to devide vote, if the remainers get thier act together, I suspect Brexiteers could be in real trouble on Brexit.
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That energy rating thing could be very interesting, it's shown to work when they do it on other market that it puts pressure on businesses to make their products a lot more energy efficient, also, by having a clear to understand label, more consumers are more likely to buy phones that are more efficient which puts more pressure on businesses to improve efficiency.
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Clearly the UK does, you only have to look at the coverage on Brexit in the UK and then look at it in European media, it gets far more coverage in the UK then it does in Europe but that's understandable, the damage to the UK is far higher than it is to EU countries.
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@RonniePeterson The only MSM or was it MSN? lol that I remember was from Microsoft in the old days. As for saying no one cares about the EU, clearly you are wrong on that because if what you said is true then why is it taking us so long to leave the EU, why is support in the UK for rejoining the EU currently at 57% why is support surging in Scotland for the independence movement? Clearly people do care and that is going to get worse for people like you next year because that is when the real reality kicks in on Brexit, with that, moderate Brexiteers are likely to turn on the government, especially as the economy starts to bite and the funny thing is about that, we've got Brexit and the pandemic to deal with so it's going to bite pretty hard. I love to see the excuses hardcore Brexiteers come up with next year onwards as support keeps rising to rejoin because we both know that if Brexit and the pandemic hits the economy hard, it's going to have a negative impact on the Brexit movement that many will want another say on rejoining, it's also going to help the SNP in Scotland for independence. The truth is, the real hard work begins next year for the government and people like you, you'll have no more excuses left and will have to start delivering on what Brexit promised us or the moderates can quickly turn on Brexit. Now the real question is, do we rejoin the EU as the UK or does the likes of Scotland and Northern Ireland leave before we get a chance, I suspect they'll leave the UK union because of the damage this government has done. So get your pop corn ready, the real entertainment begins next year ;-)
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@RonniePeterson Oh I don't know, it can be sometimes enlightening to talk to a pigeon, you can usually get more sense out of them then a Brexiteer, at least going on the last few years. Anyway, lets see what will be over the next few years before things are going to heat up next year onwards in ways most don't realize.
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I've always felt that Japan has been a bit nieve when it comes to the US, the US have shown in the 80's when they saw Japan as a threat on the economic front, the US didn't wish Japan well, they actually tried to drag them down because the US felt threaten as Japan was growing as an economic power house. The US have shown much of the same from the 90's onwards towards the EU, but in the case of the EU, they are big enough to stand up to the US, so the US has had little impact on them. If Japan were smart, they really need to diversify their political and economic relations around the world, but clearly Japan is limited in how friendly they can get with China, which leaves the only other major power, the EU, and Japan can diversify in many other ways, but Japan really needs to stop being up America's arse, because the US only cares about them if it's in their own interest to do so and only if Japan is not seen as a threat to the US like they were in the 80's, but the same message could be said for many other countries that are very short-sighted when it comes to the US. In other words, keep the US on friendly terms, but don't for a second think they have your interest at heart because the US is based on money, that's what they really care about, and they are quite happy to use others to gain more profit, even willing to throw others under a bus, in other words, the UK, which has been short-sighted on the US for some time now. The irony is in all this, as China continues to rise as a power, US policies are likely going to become more aggressive on China and on friends to make sure they do as they are told, but seriously, some countries need to wake up because they come across as weak with all the bending over lol, this is even more the case for EU countries that have no excuses, they've got the EU and can be a major power if they pool resources together, but there are some wimpy countries there that like bending over lol.
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To think many of us puny humans like to think alien life doesn't exist, odds are it does and even intellegent life does but they are so far away that we can't see them or both sides can't see each other, space is just to big for us at our level of development to know whats really out there.
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More likely because god didn't do anything as he doesn't exist, but more likely because the univarse is so big that life is very likely so spread out that we likely would have to advanced a lot more then we are just to be able to see them, for all we know, alian life could be one per galaxy and if thats thats the case, chances of us finding them anytime soon are very small but it would also means there is a lot of alian life out there. In truth, space is big and we are just too small and not advanced enough yet to know whats out there, but I'll be supprised if Earth is the only living planet around, it's highly unlikely. Beside, by the time we can even reach another life form, we are very likely going to be far more civilised and advanced because tech advancement will force us to be or it will wipe us out, we've seen that over the last 100 years and thats going to be more the case over the next 200.
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Well to be honest, we have no evidence either way but going off how the univarse is, it's unlikely and even if god does exist, why would anyone want that if the mess he leaves us in, most of the people that beleave in god and religion are from poor countries and are not well off, most that don't are rich and well off, it's a powerful message when you think about it. In any case, I do have a god I believe in, it's called science and tech, something that we know exist and can improve the quality of life for us all if used right.
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It's not about looking into the right place but looking at how things are, some people want to beleve in a god and thats fine but others don't because they see no evidence of there being one, I rather have more faith in things that have a impact on our lifes then something that does nothing for us.
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@martijn8554 That's something they don't seem to understand, they agree to the terms of being an EU member and now some are complaining about those terms lol. Those countries are always free to leave at any time they want but they would lose access to a lot of the benefits the EU offers, they would also have Russia playing more games with them as they would become an easier target. At the end of the day, the EU is about collective democracy, some things will go one countries way, others won't, that's how it works in a big union and in fact how it works in countries themselves and if you listen to these clowns, many regions within countries would want to split because of being overruled by other regions in the country on many laws.
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@mlynto Maybe but clearly the people in those countries are not doing enough to change that past as in some countries, it looks like it could return and if these countries were not in the EU, it likely would have taken hold by now because the EU is keeping the pressure on the governments of those countries whiles highlighting to the people where the government is going wrong but it's up to the people to listen for any real change to happen, otherwise eventually, the EU will be forced to kick them out if they continue on that same path.
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I think in the short term, EU countries will try to fill the void of oil and gas with other countries around the world but longer term, I think EU countries are going to push hard on generating most of its energy means internally with it becoming a security risk. What that basically means is that we could get a revolution in clean energy sources over the next decade, something EU countries have been pushing on before the war but now they can't afford to foot drag on that and will likely go all in and if history is any indicator, when there is the political will and need to push something, change that would normally take decades could happen in a few short years or less than a decade. Ironically, Putin might have done more for us all to clean up our act on clean energy sources then the Greens could possibly do and all it took was the threat to energy supplies and the best thing about all this, the higher and longer energy prices stay high around the world, the quicker this change will happen as pressure from the public will build onto governments to give them the political will to do much bigger changes than would normally happen. Putin's actions in Ukraine might have shortened the fossil industries by about 10-15 years which to fossil producing countries, that's trillions being wiped out in revenue, so they might be laughing now but longer term, this could be a disaster for them, especially countries that are very dependent on oil and gas. In any case, it's never smart to threaten your customers, more so rich ones like in Europe because they will look elseware. Also, I do know one thing, when there is a massive void in a big market, others will come in to fill it and with Russia being pushed out of Europe, there is a massive opening for other players to profit on that at the expense of Russia but there is a short window for them because Europe isn't going to wait too long before it ramps up production of alternative energy, in other words, the ones that are smart here to fill that void in Europe as quickly as they can, could stand to profit by the hundreds of billions per year, heck, those countries could even send Putin a thank-you card for sending their business to them lol, in any case, when there is money involved, solutions happen fast and the EU countries being such a massive market, other countries around the world are licking their lips at filling that void that Russia is leaving behind, after all, it's not offern that a big rich market becomes open to such a degree for others to profit on. So it will be interesting to see who wins this race.
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This is why the EU countries need to work as one with more integration and one voice, I bet if the EU had a single army and Ukraine asked them to help, the EU could have put 20,000 or 30,000 troops in Ukraine as peacekeepers before the war started, that would very likely have been enough to prevent war because it's one thing to attack Ukraine, it's another to attack when you have an EU or even US troops in Ukraine. As for the US, well lets be blunt about this, they don't really care what happens in Europe, I know some like to think they will come to the rescue but they seem to only care about self-interest and only seem to care when it starts to impact them, now I'm not saying the EU countries are angels but with them being much closer to Ukraine, they likely would have to intervene, problem is with the EU, it's powerful on the economic front but weak on the political front because each member is doing it's own thing, if the EU speaks with one voice, had a single army, I suspect this invasion of Ukraine wouldn't at happen and a big part of why it happened is the division in the EU countries, we're pretty much fighting among ourselves in what action to take and Russia is taking advantage of that, it's high time the EU countries start to work much closer together and see where the real threats are because if the western response is weak on Putin, he won't stop with just Ukraine.
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The biggest mistake for Trump is that sleepy Joe is retiring, when Biden was in the running, that was Trumps best chance of winning the election, but now that he's out and someone much younger and more on the ball is in the running, Trumps odds of winning are slipping away. If Trump was smart, he needed Biden in the race, he pushed Biden out and ironically, might have pushed himself out as well lol, it's things like that what always puts a smile on my face with how Trump put his foot in his mouth lol.
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@robharris8844U We should remember that it was some EU members that pushed for closer ties on energy, the EU is limited in what it can do and has to listen to what it's members want, so yeah some blame goes on the EU but most of it goes on key members countries in the EU. Truth is, the biggest weakness I'm seeing isn't the EU itself and its actually many of the EU members arguing with each other and not coming up with a common voice, that plays into the hands of what Putin wants in dividing us. It's really showing why we need changes to the EU and why EU members need to work much closer together on energy, military and forign policy matters because our division is our weakness.
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@Bjonnet55 Is it thought? European countries dominant the top 10 quality of living indexes, heck, there are countless videos online of Americans moving to Europe because the quality of life is better. The rule of thumb is to ignore GDP per capita numbers because they are quite a poor indicator of quality of life.
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@Niclaas1999 That's not true, in pretty much any western country, the public can and do criticize governments, they can protest and have freedom of expression, good luck doing some of that in Russia or China when people are fearful of what they say because of what the government might do to them. Besides, the reason the west is so successful is because the people in those countries are more free to do as they want, that creates a lot of ideas and economic growth compared to countries that are less free. Now don't get me wrong, western countries are no saints, they do a lot of bad things as well but compared to many other countries like Russia and China, western countries are far better and it's easy to see because a lot of people from around the world want to live in those countries.
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Wouldn't wages be a factor of the quality of social programs a country offers? A lot of European countries have so many social benefits that they don't need as high of a wage, especially compared to countries like the US which offers little social support. Also, when you think about it, when it comes to quality of life indexes, European countries, especially in the EU dominant the top 10, whereas countries like the US and the UK are slipping behind. Wages are not as important of a factor as some like to think, there are countless factors that come into play like social benefits, cost of living and so on, there's also the factor that usually, goods are charged at a rate that consumers can afford, hence why you see a wide range of prices for the same products from different countries. Personally, I can't say I care that much about what wage I earn, it's a means to an end at the end of the day, quality of life matters far more and European countries, especially western ones are doing much better on that than most of the world.
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For me, it's not really about banning cars as such, but giving the cities and towns back to the people that don't have to worry about all the car traffic. Where I live in the UK, over the last 4 decades, I've seen a transition when it comes to cars back to more walk paths in the city and it is nicer for it. Cars got to such a point, especially in the western world and more so in the US where it feels like they own the streets, making anyone that's not in a car feel like a second class citizen. Thankfully, that is changing, especially in Europe where it's being made more expensive to own and run a car, whiles freeing up much of the space used by cars for walk paths, bike lanes and so on, and it ends up becoming a nicer place to visit, but for this to happen, you really do need good public transport and other easy access when it comes to travelling, which for the most part, Europe is doing well on. As for the US, removing cars wouldn't be easy without some major infrastructure changes and big investments in public transport, they've gone too far in when it comes to cars, where you need a car just to get around most of the time, changing that isn't going to be easy.
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@prakyathkumar8618 That's true for now, but it's high risk if things change and it's reckless of them, because when change is needed, those changes are going to be very difficult to do politically because it would mean hard times for the population. Basically, what seems like a blessing for the US, could end up being a curse in the future, whereas other countries to try to keep their debts under control will likely have fewer problems for it. It also stands to reason that has more of the world develops, it's going to be increasingly difficult for the US to hold onto its reserve currency status, pressure from all sides will likely build into creating a different system.
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You know Brexit is a massive failure when the hardcore Brexiteers keep ranting and raving about the EU when they are not even in the EU any more lol. I mean seriously, move on and get on with life, or could it be that deep down, the intelligent Brexiteers like Farage that has an agenda, knows that Brexit has failed and the only way to make it seem like it's not a failure is if the EU fails, in other words, then they can use the excuse and say, it was the right decision to pull out of the EU, and basically, the Brexiteers in the know, they know that as long as the EU is around, Brexit is a failure, they also know that the EU is going to continue to expand in the future and it puts the UK in the shadow of the EU, basically, Brexit is creating our decline in the UK, so much so that now we are getting the UK government desperately going out of it's way to try and create closer ties with the EU to repair the damage and boost the economy, but naturally, they don't want the Brexiteers to know that because it looks bad on Brexit, it also looks bad on them for creating this mess, but it even looks worse on them once voters start banging on their door because the economic situation becomes worse. On the plus side, Labour is killing it on the votes for the next election, I'm sure many of the smarter Brexiteers realise that Labour are playing both sides, remain and Brexiteers to get our votes to win the election, hence why he's not rocking the boat on getting closer to the EU, he's reserving that for when he's in power, knowing that public views are turning more in favour of closer relations with the EU, being in power will allow many policies to be done to get much closer to the EU, and it doesn't look like there's much the Brexiteers can do about it looking at the polls, in fact, if the economic situation doesn't get better in the UK, the polls could wider in favour of Labour, I sure Farage knows this, hence why he's getting desperate, and if you think I'm BS, watch how GB news and Farage gets even more desperate near the election if it looks like Labour is going to win lol.
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It's all well and good saying we voted to leave the EU, that doesn't mean burning the house down on regulations and laws as he seems to want, that's something that should be done slowly over a long time, so parliament can have a proper look at the rules, Mogg seems to want to burn the house down whiles not giving us enough time to see what's being burnt lol. Besides, it's all well and good him saying we voted to leave seven years ago, they promised a lot on Brexit that they've not delivered on and going on his logic and how bad Brexit is going, shouldn't the British public be holding these Brexiteers to account for all the lies told on Brexit that are not being delivered?
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@arx3516 I think that's a bit too long, especially as people are living longer over time, I think a fixed term should happen.
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Well Nigal Farage did say if he lost the vote that he would fight for another one, only makes sense to follow his advice and fight for another one even thought they won, let the publc be the real judge on Brexit once we know what the exit terms are but also make sure it's a final vote so no others after it, at least for decades anyway.
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The problem is with the leave side here is that they said many things before the Brexit vote and now are saying many diffrent things because they won the vote, many people voted to leave the EU because they thought we could have our cake to eat and cheer pick any deal we want, they also thought we would have single market and custom union access without any open boarders, but now the hardliners are making it seems that all thoes people voted for the hardest of Brexit. Lets find out if thats true by another final vote on Brexit once the exit terms are known, I bet the results are likely diffrent then what they think.
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Exactly that Richard, they only want to reform the Lords or scrap it now because it's saying something they don't like, they would be well behind it if they push hard for the hardest of Brexit. In any case, I do think reforms is needed in the Lords but for diffrent reasons then Brexit, it needs to be more electable to help keep the commons in check as well as goverment, it would be another check and balance on the UK govermental system which is alway a good thing to have, the irony is that being in the EU is another check and balanced on us.
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I've been advovating reforms of the Lords way before Brexit even happened but in this case, the Lords are right on Brexit, the euroseptics only want to scrap the Lords simply because it's saying something they don't like, they would want to scrap anything that gets in the way of Brexit, thats been clear now for the last two years. As for the Lords, it shouldn't be scraped but should be more democraticlly electable as a second chamber to the commons, it would be another check and balance on demorarcy in the UK just like the EU is on it's members now.
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I suspect a lot of health care systems in the world will get a lot more attention now thanks to this, heck it wouldn't surprise me if a real push for universal health care in the US gets pushed up the agenda with everything that is going on.
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@jamesjennison881 I wouln't knock it just yet, public views on many things can swing a lot because of this virus and lock down and considering how important the health care system is, it wouldn't surprise me if universal health care gets a lot more support among Americans now, this could be our aftermath of the second world war moment where a lot of good change came out of something bad and not just for the US but for the EU and the world as well. I do know one thing, it's highly unlikely to be business as usually once the dust settles like some people like to think.
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@olivierpuyou3621 True, it's nice what Poland is doing, but because of it's economy, it's still very limited, whereas an EU military at 2% would be far more effective, it's all about economy of scale and the EU economy is far bigger.
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True, in fact, GDP per capita is a poor indicator of living standards, that it doesn't really tell us much about the quality of life. You do need a reasonable high GDP per capita number but it's not as important as many like to think because many other factors are involved when it comes to quality of life. You see this on YouTube all the time when people move and live in other countries that have a lower GDP per capita and yet their quality of life is higher, it's especially the case on Americans that have lived in other modern countries for over a year that have a lower GDP per capita but they feel they've got a better quality of living. I've even heard many Americans say that living in eastern EU countries offers a better quality of living then the US, which is a surprise to me because eastern EU countries are still developing and are some way to catch up to western EU countries, but it goes to show that GDP per capita numbers don't tell us much.
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Too much focus went onto the economy and not the well-being of the people, throw in all the mixed signals from Trump and governors and it's easy to see why things are such a mess. It's hard to blame some states for wanting to block others going into those states when they are seeing the same patterns in those others states that they went thought, the next few weeks for those states that didn't listen and didn't want to learn could be rough but maybe that is the only way to learn from it because clearly not enough people are getting the message on this and why Europe is starting to come out of the worse on this and starting to open up, it seems like things are still getting worse in the US.
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I don't think he's killed it yet, but I think the process is on its way to reducing the US Dollar reserve currency, the longer Trump is in power and the US is seen as a hostile nation, the quicker the US could get pushed aside as soft power, trust and respect is a major impact on why the US is the reserve currency, Trump and the Republican right are killing all that. With that said, it won't happen overnight, but the ones that are very likely to benefit on it if they capitalise on it is the EU and China, considering the US is at odds with both of them, the EU and China would be crazy to not take advantage of the situation. In any case, the damage is mounting on the US in such a short space of time, I can only imagine how much damage to the US will happen if Trump serves a full term or extends it somehow to a third term if Trump keeps going with his aggressive tone. I also think that I don't think it will matter now if the US kicks Trump out of power, I think the US has crossed the line of no return that a lot of countries are losing respect and trust in the US, regardless of what happens with Trump, and because of that, I expect a lot of countries to rebalance there alliance on political and economic matters away from the US to be less espoused to the US, the cost to the US both politically and economically could be massive if things don't change quickly in the US.
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To hold your baby after she or he is born and you have to pay for that? wtf lol, that reminds me of the Ferengi in Star Trek, it's crazy that Americans don't see anything wrong with that system. If this virus doesn't change anything on the health care system then there is little hope for Americans because clearly the system is broken and you would think this virus would be a massive wake up call exposing how broken the system is. Say what we want about Europeans, especially in the EU, but we don't realize how easy and good we have it in so many areas and I know a lot of us like to complain for how things are but maybe that is because we always want things to be better and as we know, things can always be better. The first lesson to change is admitting something is broken, so if Americans keep assuming they are the best in everything like they do with health care, how can you expect any real change? in that sense, patriotism and nationalism is actually backfiring because it blinds you from the truth in how you are being screwed over by the system and we see a lot of that in the US. As for me living in the UK, I've never directly paid to go to collage, dentist, hospitals, doctors or any of that stuff, if I want to go, I just go and really, that is how it should be, same with countless other things like school meals and countless other things, I know we like to complain a lot but we have it pretty good over all when you compare to other countries like the US and that's with the UK that has been lagging behind other European countries of late. As for Americans, this virus is a golden opening to fight for universal health care in the US, a lot of holes are being exposed in the current system and this virus is a major wake up call that could allow big change to happen.
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The way I look at it with taxes, the lower the taxes are, the more the lower and middle classes suffer from it, the higher the taxes are within reason and assuming that tax goes back to the people, the better off the people are looked after as it's like a redistribution of wealth to the lower and middle classes. The rich can afford it because paying higher taxes for them is hardly going to change the quality of life for them but it can help a lot of the rest of the public, more so the lower class of people.
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@coopsnz1 Depends on the system but if you look at ever modern country, the ones with lower taxes, the poor and middle classes suffer the most whiles the rich benefits the most. European countries tend to have some of the highest taxes and yet they also have some of the highest standards of living and quality of life. Basically, taxes is a distribution of wealth, the higher the taxes, the more there is to distribute, the lower it is, the less to go around whiles more money ends up in fewer hands, we see that from the US to EU countries.
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This reminds me of Brexit all over again in the UK, so many lies were told, so many promises made, very few kept and many of the ones that voted for the mess, ended up paying the price lol. Trump is basically like America's Brexit, but in this case, I think it's much worse and longer lasting then what the UK did to its self, and the UK does have the option to turn things around with the EU whereas I think that ship has sailed for the US, as in, it's likely too little too late for the US, being that a lot of the world has lost a lot of trust and respect for the US, which is likely going to have major political and economic cost for the US over the long run, and just like Brexit, it was run by a bunch of idiots that had egos bigger then there arse, we are seeing the same play out with the US under the Trump administration.
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@jebbo-c1l On the surface the WTO works but in reality, big players like the EU, US and China make their own rules up and they can because they have the economic clout to do so, so the rules end up being worse for countries like the UK then WTO rules suggest.
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@lonelyretard4203 True and Japan did try to enter the market but again, they don't have the resources to compete with the EU and US, China on the other hand is a different story, they have the incentive and resources to make it work in time and because of this economic divide that's going on from the west and China, that gives them a much bigger incentive to create home-grown tech.
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@gerhardaryawardana72 It does seem like that, we see it a lot from the US where they seem to have to create an enemy out of nothing to justify it's military spending, probably why EU countries are not crazy on following the US on military spending because honestly, there's little point. The EU and US does have a common purpose thanks to China and to a less degree Russia, but I think as we keep advancing, it's going to be harder for us to keep bickering as the cost is becoming bigger, tech progress is more or less forcing the world's people together.
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Russia keeps mentioning the threat of nukes is a clear sign they are getting desperate and things are not going their way. The irony is that every time Russia talks about nukes, the west suppler Ukraine with more arms, almost like they are mocking Putin. The truth is, no country in their right mind would mention the use of nukes unless they are really desperate or are trying to use it to intimidate others. At the end of the day, what Russia is doing in Ukraine are war crimes, you can't back down on that and if the west did, that will embolden Russia to get more aggressive with more countries, in other words, you've got to put your foot down hard on Russia by hitting the economy and isolating them until Putin is gone, either way, as long as Putin is in power, I don't think sanctions will ease much because he's shown over the last decade that he's a game player.
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This is the wake-up call that was needed to get real change, governments are foot dragging on renewable energy when it's clear we could do so much more if there is the political will to do it, now with the anger building from the population because of the high cost of energy, it's very likely going to push for some radical changes to the energy sector over the next decade, especially in the EU. So yeah, Russia and other fossil producing nations are profiting from this now and Europe is paying a high price now but longer term, this is very likely a good thing for Europe and the world as it's very likely going to speed up our change from fossils to other clean energy sources a lot faster than it would have done, now the pressure is on governments to make real change and not foot drag and that could revolutionize the energy sector over the next decade and the best thing of all, the higher and longer the energy prices stay high, the bigger and quicker the change is going to happen. I don't think those countries that produce oil, gas and coal realize how damaging to them these high prices are, they are looking at the short term profits and not the big picture and that's great news for people that want real change in a shorter space of time.
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I don't think the EU will ban X but with Musk becoming more radicalised, he's becoming more dangerous to peoples minds, being that he's a popular figure in control of one of the biggest social media sites, but if X was to be banned, I don't think most Europeans would miss it, they will adapt and move on very quickly, but X on the other hand can't afford for the EU to ban it because of the ripple effect that would have on X, for one, it would leave a void in the EU market for rivals to X to capitalise on, two, if the EU bans X, others around the world likely will, and three, X being banned in the EU, a lot of people around the world will start to question Musk and the X service, it could do serious damage to X and Elon Musk. He basically can say things on X without a care in the world and millions of people will listen, regardless of if it's truth or not, and this is a problem because there is no accountability on what these people say that have a bigger influence on peoples minds, Elon Musk isn't the only person doing this kind of thing, and I'm all for free speech but that does have its limits, especially on people that can manipulate millions of followers based on lies and half-truths, and this is the internet all over, zero accountability on anything that's being said, which is fine for the average Joe as we don't have any real influence, but for this rich powerful people, they are playing with peoples minds and it's becoming dangerous, this isn't just Musk, there are others like Farage, Trump and the likes that are twisting things up, knowing many followers will believe them. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free speech, but I do think we need some accountability online, especially on people that have a lot of followers on what they say, because for now, they seem to be able to say anything they want, regardless if it's a lie or not and they can get away with it because there's no accountability for them and this is something that's going on with the far right from the media to politicians for the last 2 or so decades, and it really is twisting up the mindset of people that they don't know what to believe, so either we keep letting the far right continues to twist things up or we need to clamp down with more accountability. In any case, because of this confrontation, Musk is likely to become more radicalised and more dangerous, it might force the EU to ban X if Musk continues to meddle, and personally, I would love it if the EU were to ban X, but the EU is a very rules based system and very diplomatic on these things, so they don't get emotional and do things likely, but it's clear to me that things need to change, whether it's the free press on the right that twist peoples minds or some online social media sites that do the same, free speech is all well and good but when we have powerful individuals twisting peoples minds in the millions, it becomes dangerous, and we saw signs of that in the UK with the recent riots where Musk and even Farage were more or less twisting the narrative to more or less support and push the far rights agenda.
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This was to be expected, Putin was ready for the sanctions but Putin went on the assumption that the sanctions wouldn't be this big and the war wouldn't drag on so long. Putin can only eat into Russia's reserves short term which doesn't bold well for the Russian economy longer term, so on the surface, Russia looks ok but in reality, it's bleeding and that's very likely going to get much worse for them as the EU sanctions oil and eventually gas, so all Putin is doing is putting a plaster on the economy but it's not enough to keep things ticking longer term. Sanctions always take time before they bite, months and even years to do the real damage and basically, we are still too early into the sanctions whiles not having oil and gas sanctioned by the EU yet, both of which will do a lot of damage to the Russian economy.
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Honestly, after being into PC gaming since the mid 90's, I'm close to giving up on it because of high prices for gpu's and memory and lack of competion in the gpu and cpu market and to me, Ryzen from AMD seems to be the only bright spot in PC gaming at the moment, Nvidia and Intel have done more or less everything they can over the last decade to slow down progress, push up prices and lock the market down and it's really doing a lot of harm to the overall PC market and at this rate, consoles are looking very enticing. I find it remarkable how anyone can think that spending £500+ for a gpu or cpu is good value for money, just 20 years ago I could get a top of the range gpu and it would only cost £200 lol, Nvidia and Intel are really taking the piss out of consumers now so it's no supprise the PC markets been in decline for so many years, they are killing it with there greed and lack of progress.
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Thats what makes it worse because they have no reason to change which ends up doing more harm to the PC overall. Anyway, the only bright spark could be is Intel getting into the gpu busisness or AMD and Intel working on IGPU's together whiles really ramping up performance, that could shake things up and it's an area that Nvidia can't compete in because they don't have a x86 licence and I doubt Intel will give them one. If they get the performance up enough and keep the price low enough, IGPU's could take a major slice out of the dedecated gpu market, Nvidia wont like that.
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Did he solve it or could it be that public views on Brexit and the EU are changing against Brexit that Starmer is going with the wind of where the people are going, after all, he wants to win the next election, if he doesn't pipe up about Brexit in some way or another whiles public views are changing, it could go against Starmers election chances, even thought the Tories are a disaster zone. If true, this just suggest that Starmer is no different than the rest and is just saying to the public what he thinks they want to hear which makes him a lot less trustworthy, after all, at least with the hardcore Brexiteers in the Tory party, you knew what they stood for, with Starmer, I feel he's playing games in the middle and trying to figure out what to say, what policies to do to win the next election.
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I'm sure the Brits and Americans thought the same about Trump and Brexit, didn't really turn out how you wanted it to turn out and simply because it's easy to say they are going to do this and that, it's another thing to follow through with it. Just look at the other countries that have elected so called far right parties, has it actually changed anything? Look at Italy? A lot of them look like centre parties now, even this Dutch guy is toning things down. It's easy to say anything on the sidelines, but once in power and their necks are on the line, it's another thing to follow through with it, hence why most of them tone things down.
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True, but that usually ends up with a worse outcome, but either way, a lot of people are not happy in a lot of countries around the west, we've seen that in the US with Trump, in the UK with Brexit, in Italy which led to the current government getting into power and across many other EU countries. It's all about sending warning messages to the centre parties to wake up and do major changes that actually lives living standards from the bottom up. Too many times we keep hearing governments brag about how well the economy is doing or how low unemployment numbers are, but for the last 10-15 years, things feel worse for a lot of people, that's fuelling this popularise movement in a lot of countries, and the only way to solve this is for any political party that gains power, to do major reforms that lift the quality of living from the low and middle classes, that reduces the voice of the radical elements in society, the alternative is that things get worse until someday we get some real nutters in power that cause chaos, we know how bad that can go throughout history. What's shocking to me about all this, it doesn't seem like most parties in a lot of western countries have got the message that real change is needed, for them, it seems like it's business as usually and then they wonder why voters are voting the way they are doing.
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I don't think it's a matter of that we are alone, I think it's a factor of that we are not advanced enough to see them or they are far more advanced over us that they don't want us to see them, probably because we are not ready. It could also be that the universe is so big that life only develops in rare instances, for all we know, it could be one set of life per galaxy, which if so, there is little to no chance that we could detect them at our current level of tech. What we do know is that life has developed on Earth, and a lot of complex life forms, it's not hard to imagine the same thing could happen in other parts of the universe, and I'll be surprised if it doesn't. In any case, this question is going to keep arising until we do meet an alien race, but if I was an advanced alien race, I would only make contact with the human race once I feel they are ready and have developed enough, so maybe in an 100 or 150 years from now, clearly, we are not ready at the moment because we are too divided and we still think in a very triable way with countries, from an alien perspective, there is no way they would want to make contact with us when we are so divided with around 200 countries, they will likely want to see where we develop before making contact and assuming we survive as a people, which isn't a given yet, in fact, with 200 countries, many of them poking at each other, there are so many things that can go wrong for us as we advanced with technology that it could end up being a rarity that special survive to make contact with another race, in other words, we are a long way from being out of the woods, that an alien race will likely wait and see how things go. But in any event, the more advanced we become, the more likely we are to make contact with alien races
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If history is any indicator, any new tech can be used for good and bad, the problem with A.I. is that the broad term of use is basically in any area. I don't think A.I. its self will be the problem, but the people that want to abuse that tech, and there will be a lot of them. Personally, I think regulations will get a lot tougher on A.I. once negative things start happening around the world, especially if it's to the public.
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@SwissSareth 1 seat? Even the smallest EU member Malta has 6 seats and they are a lot smaller than Switzerland, the country would have around 19 seats and in fact per population numbers, you would actually be getting more than the population warrants because smaller members tend to get more seats per capita than bigger members, if everything was equal, the bigger members would have more seats than they do. Also, Switzerland would have a veto like every other EU member, a powerful tool in bargaining if not abused as that will get other EU members to turn on the country in question. The truth is, you would have more of a say in then you do out because Switzerland is more or less abiding by the vast bulk of EU laws and regulations with little to no say in them, that's a nice deal for the EU but not a great one for Switzerland.
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@davidpaterson2309 True, I also think the EU wants the UK out of the EU for a decent amount of time so the message sinks in on what we've lost and that is going to take decades on some Brexiteers, in the meantime, the UK is going to continue to sink and the hardcore Brexiteers will continue to put their heads in the clouds, thinking everything is doing great. The good news is, public opinions on Brexit are starting to really change against Brexit and support is growing for rejoining the EU but the is little to no chance the EU would let the UK back in with how the UK has behaved the last few years until there is a massive shift in the UK from the public, the media and government in how they see the EU project. The fact remains, since the UK left the EU, the UK is all over the place, isn't stable and showing crazy economic policies, that is doing a lot of harm to the Eurosceptic movements and doing wonders for countries that want to stay in the EU or want to join it, the UK had a chance at showing the EU it can make a success of Brexit, the UK failed on that in a big way and the main reason the UK failed on that is because of the hardliners in the Tory party, the ERG group. Brexit opened up the door for the radicals to take over the Tory party, did anyone honesty think it was going to just stop with Brexit? Remember that Nigel Farage supported a lot of the policies that Liz Truss came up with, it's what happens when you give the radicals an inch, which the Brexiteers did and with that, the UK has been lurching from one disaster after another, so come on Brexiteers, take resposeablity for the mess you've created.
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@francescoceresani3343 Like fine wine lol.
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It doesn't surprise me at all, the UK is just being pragmatic, it doesn't have the resources to go it alone so it makes sense to work with others just like other EU countries are working together. I think longer term, many of these projects will merge so they can share the cost and not do duplications and do it at an EU level with countries willing but having multiple projects going isn't such a bad thing overall.
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When it comes to politics, I keep seeing a pattern emerging across countries, the left get into power, they stay in for 1, 2 or 3 terms, they don't deliver or mess things up, voters get angry and switch to the right, rinse and repeat that process on the right and we have this merry-go-round that keeps repeating its self every decade or so, the end result is that it doesn't really change much overall and these swings from left to right of politics is normal as voters get fed up with either side under delivering or lying. The far right are gaining power across Europe, they've got a short window to deliver before voters turn against them, especially considering that the main reason people are voting for them is because they are fed up with mainstream parties, but these voters will expect solid results and if they don't deliver, that honeymoon could be short-lived for the far right, basically, they are in a better position to be heard, they better deliver on what the people want or the people will turn on them, which if history is any indicator, governments are not very good at listening to the concerns of the people unless the issue is so big that they can't ignore it. To give you a few examples, the US every 4 to 8 years swings from Democratic to Republic Party and that cycle always happens, in the UK, they are swinging towards the left because the right have been in power for so long and have made a mess over so many things like cost of living, Covid, Brexit and so on that people are fed up with them and are swinging towards the left of politics, across Europe, things seem to be swinging across the right, people expect real change, I say, good luck with that because if history is any indicator, real change is something people have to fight for or have a revolution on, what we will get with the far right is more of the same BS that we get from other parties, and eventually people will get fed up with them for not listening to voters concerns and improving things, rinse and repeat and the cycle continues.
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I have to agree, blaming isn't solving anything, and we all need to work together to limit the damage the coronavirus is doing and a more coordinated response world governments as well as more help globally in hot spot areas as it looks like this is going to get a lot worse around the world and it's doing harm to us all because it's bringing the world economy to a stand still.
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There isn't really a thing as left or right, the concept behind it is designed to try and label people with different views so someone on the left or right can ignore the views of someone on the opposite side, after all, how many times have you seen arguments and debates from both sides where both sides more or less ignore any of the facts being said, that the entire concept behind the left-right thing, to harden the line of people on both fences against the other side that it's got to the point now where facts don't mean much now. It's ridicules when you think about it but that's the world we live in and you want to see that, just look at Brexit supporters in the UK or Trump supporters in the US, no matter how much evidence you give these people, many will still support that side, it almost reminds me of a religion or a cult with certain segments of the media and governments around the world pushing this narrative on people and all it's doing is fragmenting people, creating more disunity, getting us all to fight among ourselves whiles at the same time, the rich elites run to the bank at our expense. You know what is really sad about all this, most people have views that are on the left and right of the political spectrum, most are unaware of that, but they can be tested with many debates that will show they support things on both the left and right.
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If you say so but in my book, he's been a disaster for the Brexit movement as he's exposing the fanatical nature of the ones that support Brexit the most and that is turning many against Brexit all together, many of which that ware indifference or even supported Brexit. The funny thing is, he backed himself into a corner very early on and I thought YES, the remainers have him now lol, the only realistic way the Brexiteers could have won on Brexit was by becoming more moderate and reasonable with a deal, Boris took the hardline approach and I knew that very well could kill Brexit in it's tracks, the irony is that Boris and the hardline Brexiteers could be the reason we do stay in the EU, wouldn't that be funny? lol. The reason I say that is because when you try to use force and a hardline approach to things, the other side gets a lot tougher back, hence why some Brexiteers are scrambling to brings May's kind of deal back, a soft Brexit because they would rather have a soft Brexit then no Brexit at all. It's too late for that, we've got the Brexiteers on the ropes now and this is very likely going to lead to another public vote, then lets see if the the public truly want Brexit, I suspect they don't and I suspect many of you guys know that hence why you lot are so hostile the the idea of the public having any say on Brexit as that could kill all the arguments the Brexiteers have and make many of them look like traitors to the country. The next few months are going to be very fun to watch and I find it remarkable that a lot of Brexiteers don't see how this is really panning out or likely don't want to see how it's going ;-)
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Poland's military is in much better shape than Ukraine's but it's not really about whether they can win or not but it's more about them being an EU and NATO member, basically, the response from the west would be far tougher on Russia than we are seeing already in Ukraine and if it wasn't, it would do a lot of damage to the credibility of both the EU and NATO which both have articles about protecting the members of each organization. In other words, it would be a lot riskier for Russia to take on an EU or NATO country, especially considering that Poland is a lot richer than Ukraine. Putin is already getting his arse handed to him in Ukraine and Ukraine is a much weaker country whiles also not being an EU and NATO member, in other words, Putin only wanted to take on an easy target which he thought Ukraine was but he didn't expect the western response to be so tough. On another note, if Putin did invade another country, the west might have to get involved more directly because where does it end?, sometimes you have to put your foot down and put these loons back in their place where they belong.
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I don't think IQs are falling as such but I do get a sense that most people are not getting a good education which is kinda lowering intelligence levels, which is crazy in this day and age with the information we have access too and the internet, intelligence should be going up across the board for almost everyone. Personally, I put it down to the education system and some governments that don't want people to be too smart because a smarter population makes life harder for governments, rich elites and big corporations, basically, they want people smart enough to do the paperwork and donkey work but not smart enough to realize how exploited people really are. On the plus side, there is nothing stopping people being self-educated after school and outside of school and I think that is what really defines the average to someone that is really smart. The irony is, if governments were smart and really pushed to educate the population, it would do wonders for the economy and innovation but then governments think short term in what's in their own interest and not the big picture. As for IQ test, I don't think those are a good indicator in how smart someone is, I think there is a lot more to it than a simply test like that. As for human intelligence overall, I don't think it's getting worse as such, we might be going through a blip at the moment but I think over the long run as we advance more, learn how things work and able to tech more effectively in a shorter space of time, intelligence for the average person is likely going to continue to rise, regardless of if governments, the rich elites or big corporations want it or not. Still I will say one thing, real education begins once you leave school but that really depends on the frame of thinking of the individual, I've seen evidence that people that want to learn and be better, tend to learn a lot more after school and probably because they can pick and choose what to learn and not feel it's forced on them, most tend to just muddle through life, not learning that much.
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Not really, because union or no union, robotics is very likely going to replace us in the workforce anywhere, it's just the pace of how quickly it happens and the incentive of businesses to do so which higher wages will give them more of an incentive to push us out, that's not really the union fault, that's our fault for wanting better wages all the time.
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The simple truth is, we just don't know what the impact of A.I. is going to bring, but I do know one thing, it would be very dangerous to have A.I. controlled by a few governments, corporations or rich individuals, that would give them way too much power in almost every area over the rest, especially as A.I. continues to advance. Because of that, open source is the only solution, it levels the playing field, we all have the same advantages, but more importantly, being that it's open, it might help the human race to make the right choices going forward and not make mistakes that could lead to disaster, but with that said, having A.I. open also has its own risk, but given the alternative, I think it's the better option. In any case, pandoras box is open, there's no going back, so we have to find a way to move forward and hopefully, make the right choice, because A.I. is going to have a massive impact on society over the coming decades and could be one of our most important inventions we've ever created, the scary or exciting things about this is the pace this could happen at, something I doubt most of us are ready for. Also, I think what many are predicting with the risk with A.I. isn't where A.I. is now, but how quickly it's developing and where it could end up being, is there a risk of losing control? Yes, if we are stupid enough to allow that to happen by giving advanced A.I. too much control over critical systems, but hopefully, we'll put a lot of safeguards in place to make that harder to do. For now, we don't have anything to worry about, but just look at the pace of A.I. in just one year, especially open source A.I. so imagine the next 5, 10, 20 years, I can't even make an accurate prediction on where A.I. would be by then, with the exception that it will be very different then now and a lot more advanced, and that for many is exciting and scary at the same time, but one thing I do know, the more mainstream A.I. becomes, the more rapid it's pace of development will happen, we saw that with computers and the internet in the 90's where it went from a niche to mainstream quickly, with that, the development and resources thrown at it went through the roof, it looks like we are seeing the early days of that with A.I. I think when it comes to A.I. and safety, it's probably wise to not make it too powerful in a physical form, and it's probably wise to not give it too much access to critical areas that it can more or less control everything, we don't do that with humans, we shouldn't do that with A.I. having advanced A.I. even more advanced than humans, might not be a problem if most of the A.I. are independence of each other, I think that will be the make or break of the human race on the choices we make in that area. Also, let's be blunt on this, A.I. isn't going to be built on American valves, there's a reason why there's a massive push on open source A.I. and part of that is so it's not based on any valves from one country or another, in other words, it's neutral, the guy from Google should have been smart enough to not have said that for two reasons, American values are not that great in a lot of countries around the world, and it's also arrogance to think that A.I. should be based on the values of one country, that was never going to sell across the world, and probably what helps to contribute to open source A.I. so it becomes more neutral from that kind of BS.
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I think Macron does have a point, it's high time the EU has its own agenda away from the US, that doesn't mean the EU and US should part ways, they should remain close friends in areas that count, but it's clear that the US has its own agenda around the world, that the EU doesn't need to be dragged into. We should also remember that the US rarely cares about things that are going on outside it's border and usually looks after its own interest above all else, you only have to look at that Inflation Reduction Act to see that, the EU needs to really start looking after its own interest and not US interest, whiles also remaining close friends. Part of the problem in the EU are the ones that are holding back the EU, especially the eastern EU countries, the EU needs a stronger voice, and the only way to get that is to speak with one voice, as it is, the likes of the US, China and Russia are taking advantage of the EU and it's members by trying to play us off each other. So the real question is, when does the penny really drop that Europeans wake up? I suspect it will happen as the EU countries become more marginalised around the world, which will means being ignored a lot more. As for Macron, I don't always agree with him, but he makes a great point that the EU countries need to get their act together, which also means not doing the bidding of the US, because in many cases, it's not in the EU and it's member's interest to follow the lead of the US, and you can bet the US doesn't care about its actions and what impact it has on EU countries, this is why the Europeans really need to wake up, something that is likely going to happen as they get squeezed by the US and China around the world. Basically, if the EU and its countries want to be a power on the world stage, act like it and stop being a puppet of the US.
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I think what the EU and other members are doing is squeezing Hungary out, from EU money and other benefits, and eventually making them less appealing for foreign investment and trade, with the aim of isolating Hungary in the EU and making their economy weaker, which is always the language that most of the public listens too. The leadership in Hungary doesn't care about the people of Hungary, it's all about consolidating power, enhancing it and holding onto it, a bit like how Putin is doing in Russia, and they will use the people in the country to achieve that, usually by trying to turn them against others like the EU, in the end, it doesn't really work, it ends up isolating the country and making them poorer. The real question is, how hard does the country need to be hit before the penny drops on the people of Hungary to really do something about this, because at the end of the day, it's the people in the country that are going to pay the highest price, not the government. Personally, I think the EU and its members should get creative and find a way to kick Hungary out, whiles in the meantime, isolate them, I think it needs to happen to other wannabe dictators that think the rules don't matter, and if the EU doesn't get tough on that, others could start braking the rules, after all, if there is little to no risk, why not, in fact, Hungary and Poland are likely behaving like they are because the EU has been a soft touch on them, they need to get a lot tougher on the countries that are braking the rules. It's also high time the EU countries push for a two speed Europe, especially among Euro Zone countries which are more likely to want the project to work over none Euro Zone countries, and the truth is, the bulk of the economy and population is in the Euro Zone, maybe shifting power away towards the Euro Zone is the best way to kick Hungary out, whiles also doing reforms on the treaty, especially the veto rules. In any case, I do know one thing, no new country is joining the EU until there is a treaty change that weakens the veto rule, and I also know that countries that want to join the EU are not going to wait forever, unless there are clear signs that they can join the EU after doing the reforms needed, they will look else ware, so the clock is ticking on the EU that it needs to get its act together on EU reforms, treaty change and needs to get a lot tougher on Hungary and to a less degree Poland, what is going on in Ukraine and Poland help on Ukraine, doesn't give Poland a green light to brake EU rules, that's not how democracy works.
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I think we should remember that what the EU, US and the west are doing is operation squeeze, it takes time but bit by bit, you chip away at Russia that they become so weak that they are no real threat any more. Also, there are many ways the west can target countries that buy from Russia, either with tariffs on goods, sanctions or even target the specific companies that do business with Russia and it's something the west is likely to do once European countries diversify their energy needs enough. After all, there's no way the western countries are going through all this only for the likes of China and India to prop up the Russia economy, there is likely going to be a cost to those countries, maybe a high cost longer term. As for Russia, they can be as angry as they want, there's not much they can do about this, western countries know that a cap limits the profits Russia can get, one by limiting the price point but more importantly, giving other countries like China and India more clout to demand lower prices from Russia, that is where the real anger is coming from in Russia, because it's not as simply of Russia saying we'll sell to other countries, they know these other countries have a better bargaining chip against Russia to lower it's oil price and the same could well happen on gas longer term and as I said above, this is about squeezing Russia longer term until they either become too weak or learn their lessons on this war with Ukraine. As for OPEC, what can they really do? yes they can threaten to cut production to bump up oil prices, but they know that isn't a good long term thing to do, high energy prices will kill the fossil industry sooner rather than later and really, it's in the interest of OPEC countries to stabilize the energy market and bring oil prices back to some normal price point, energy crisis don't usually last long for a reason, because when oil and gas prices skyrocket, so does investment and use of alternative energy, to put it another way, the higher energy prices are and the energy market stays unstable, the better it is for renewable and alternative energy sources and the longer this drags on, it can do real damage to the OPEC countries if they become too greedy.
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I know lol, the moment Russia attacked Ukraine, Ukraine has every right to attack targets in Russia. Seriously thought, how does Putin see war fair? That they can attack another country but the country being attacked can't retaliate, surely Putin isn't that delusional? lol. The irony is, to get a quicker resolve on the war, having the Russia people feel the war might be enough to get the people to turn on Putin, but then again, it could also escalate things. Either way, Ukraine has every right to attack Russia targets in Russia the moment Russia attacked Ukraine.
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Even if this works, I think the real problem is that with EV cars and renewable energy, it works well together and eventually will mean free energy for our homes and cars. That's going to be difficult for any alternative to compete with that, after all, given the choice, we would all rather produce our own energy for our homes and cars as we have more direct control over the price point, which over the long run would more or less be free energy, any alternative needs to match or better that, which this combustion engine, assuming it works at all, sounds like you have to source the energy externally, basically you have to buy it, and I'm sure we know how that will go. To make it worse, with the advancement of solar tech, it's only a matter of time before it's cheap enough, light enough and can mould into the shape of the entire car, which could produce a lot of the energy if not all of it in summer that the car needs, because of this, I think it's going to be difficult for any of these rivals to compete because renewables and EV's work well together in that it allows us far more control over the production of energy and the price of it.
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@patricebertrand1146 True, and Putin is probably waiting to see what happens in the next US elections, hoping Trump wins before escalating things. If history is any indicator, most wars start out small before escalating into something far bigger. We in the west are far too complacent on this and we need to get our act together before things do start spiralling out of control, which then the cost for us all could be much higher. As for Ukraine, they are going to do what ever is in their means to defend themselves, and honestly, can we blame them for that? Any country that's invaded would do the same, so from Ukraine's point of view, attacking the life support in Russia like the oil sites that fuel the war machine makes perfect sense, and Ukraine probably wouldn't be doing this if the west were more decisive in giving Ukraine the means to push Russia out of Ukraine, basically, we in the west have been far too slow, so we can't blame Ukraine for developing it's own tech and tactics, and honestly, they have every right to attack targets in Russia the moment Russia invaded Ukraine. I mean seriously, imagine being in a war where a forign power in the west tells a country like Ukraine to limit the tactics in what they can use, so in this case, attack Russian sites in Ukraine but not in Russia, whiles Russia doesn't have any of these restrictions, it's easy to see how Ukraine must feel like the west is putting restrictions on what Ukraine can and can't do whiles Russia doesn't have these limits.
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We always see this is almost every country, older people clinging onto the past, thinking it was better, the reality is very different, something that younger generation of people have the advantage, as they don't have the memories of the past, so they don't go through the illusion of thinking the past is better. The UK is going through the process right now, they cling to the past, which in part led to Brexit, now they are getting a reality check on that. A lot of people seem to see the past with rose-tinted glasses on, now I'm not saying the past was bad, but to think it was much better than what they have now is short-sighted, but sometimes with these people, you have to allow that thing to happen, just like it did with the British in the UK with Brexit, sometimes reality has to bite them on the arse for them to wake up. As for Russia, at least before the war, there were a lot of resources that should have lifted living standards far more than it did, the problem is the government and corruption, too much wealth is in too few hands, the wealth that is there isn't being used well, the simple truth is, Russia does a poor job at using the resources it's got, which a big part of the blame goes on the government, which wont change going back to the Soviet Union, in fact, it would likely get worse.
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Migration isn't a bad thing, if done properly, but the problem in the EU is that we've got open boarders among EU countries whiles having each individual country doing their own migration policy. It's easy to see how that can be a problem with immigration that ends up creating hot spots in some EU countries and regions, especially in southern EU countries, and the only real solution I see around that is either we have boarders among EU countries, which likely wouldn't be popular among Europeans, or we need to have stronger powers at an EU level when it comes to immigration and boarder controls, whiles also having stronger policies in areas of integration and distribution of migrants around EU regions, so it's more manageable on the economy. With that said, helping the developing countries to develop would be a better solution, but realistically, that's a long term goal, and in the short term, there are many people in developing countries that need our help and to a less degree, modern countries need imagination if we want to support the overall population size and especially when it comes to the burden on the young supporting the older generation in the coming decades, in other words, if we don't fill that void, taxes will likely go up to support the ageing population or public service could take some major cuts. There are a few unknowns on the last part, A.I. and robotics, over the coming decades, the two are likely going to have a massive impact on productivity and could push a lot of us out of work, it could also solve the problem of an ageing population that actually having too much of a young population that the system needs to put to work could end up being a burden in its self if the system can't put them to work, and there's a fair chance that as A.I. and robotics gets better, it could put most of us out of work, whiles making it difficult to create new jobs because any new jobs created, chances are, A.I. and robotics will be able to do them a lot cheaper, faster and better than we can do them, the capitalist nature of the system will always push out the more expensive option, basically, us humans, and that is likely only going to get worse as we keep demanding higher wages and better conditions whiles A.I. and robotics keeps getting better and cheaper. Regardless of what happens in the future, for the here and now, almost all modern countries need immigration to balance the books, but we do need a much better way of distributing the immigrants across the regions and integrating them far more.
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That probably explains why in Europe they are ramping up the production of renewable energy in the market a lot. Also, the reason energy prices go up even with renewables is because they are all linked together, gas, oil and renewable, hence why renewable price hasn't actually changed and electric energy is only slightly higher than it was before the war in Ukraine whereas gas has gone up a lot and supprise supprise, the other two and linked to gas, that basically means the other two go up in price by about the same amount regardless of what's going on. Hence why now we are seeing talks about separating gas, oil and renewable energy from each other, something that should have been done a long time ago and that would be bad news for the fossil industry because consumers will be able to see the price point of them all and consumers will move to what offers a lower price point. Still, I've got to give it to the energy industry, it was smart of them to tie all 3 together to basically hold back the renewable industry by making it seem expensive but seriously, what were governments thinking in allowing that as that is just keeping us dependent on fossils and keeps prices high but then again, governments subsidize the fossil industry to the tune of 5 trillion per year, you're all being conned by the fossil industry that doesn't want change. At the end of the day, the best solution for Europe is to ignore the doubters, ramp up renewable production and kill the fossil industry by making that industry less competitive in the market, after all, if the EU makes this work, the rest of the world will have to follow to stay competitive.
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I hardly say this is Trump winning, in fact, nothing really changed yet apart from talks on trade will continue but it's too early to tell who's won, in any case, the US wont find the talks with the EU to be easy and the US would have to give up quite a bit to get a deal, in any case, a deal won't be easy for both sides but the benefits to both could be great if done right.
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I have to say, the US is showing poor leadership in all this lately, and it could hurt its reputation. As for the EU countries, they could do more and should be more proactive in getting arms to Ukraine sooner rather than later. This war has been going on for over two years, there really should be a steady supple of arms going into Ukraine from both the EU and US on a regular basis, and honestly, if both got there act together sooner rather than later, Ukraine would likely be in a much better position to end this war sooner rather than later. But honestly, I really have to put the blame on the US, with dragging their feet on what kind of arms and equipment to send to Ukraine, only to send them eventually, and with how things are getting polarised with the Republicans and Democrats in the US, it's not helping the situation and is showing weakness to Russia and China, which are very likely watching for any weakness from western countries on Ukraine. As for the EU, I do feel they could do more and do so sooner, but it does look like they are ramping things up, they've successfully pushed again Orbán of Hungary that was more or less trying to block everything, many countries are bumping up military spending, which should help to supple arms to Ukraine, but unfortunately, that will take time to get the piece in place to allow that, the US is already in a position where it can deliver but clearly politics is getting in the way. I do know one thing, it would look like a massive failure on both the US and EU if Russia were to take over Ukraine, and it likely won't be the end of it as Russia will see weakness from the west, especially on it's resolve and that make other countries a tempted target, likely a none EU, NATO country as they are much easier targets, and with that, China will be watching, and if they see we have a weak resolve over a period of time, Taiwan might be a very tempting target for China, so it's high time we in the west live up to our word and do the right thing.
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Qwfwq66 Many through that with the hard talk from May about a year ago but I can read enough between the lines to see what really going on, Boris needs the EU to believe that he will go for hard Brexit because Boris needs the EU to back down and offer better terms, something the EU is unlikely to do. Because of all that, Boris has backed himself into a corner that he loses no matter what he does, hence why he's trying to blame the EU for not giving the UK a good deal, the reality is, he's stuck and this happened very early on, he knows he can't go for hard Brexit but he needs to show the EU that he's willing to do just that, so a bluff, May tried the same thing, the EU didn't buy it then and it doesn't look like the EU is buying it now. Boris doesn't want to be the trigger for hard Brexit because it could ruin him, we've seen how everyone seems scared to pull the trigger on that from the government and parliament and so on and because of that, I think it will go back to the people, much easier to blame them for if it goes wrong or maybe the public will cancel Brexit altogether, either way, that looking like a safer option for Boris without him getting it in the neck. As for Tony, the EU is no friend of him after the Iraqi war, Tony's gravy train started once he got into power and took some bribes to deliver political favours to his chums, hence why leaders tend to make far more money after they've left office then in office.
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@forza223bowe5 Nigal is a bit like Boris, he doesn't want the top job but he wants to pull the strings from the side, David Cameron got out the day after the Brexit result because he's smart enough to know that Brexit can't be won, May and Boris got in because Brexit was the only way they could get in. Farage is just using all this to make a name for himself and make some money as we know he's got some big backers pulling the strings and throwing a lot of money at this and most of that is from international sources, likely the US and Russia as they stand to gain from Brexit.
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@andylaauk Forza, it's not really about backing Blair, for me I think he's a war criminal but in the case of Brexit, he talks a lot of sense and it's stupid to dismiss someone because of past actions. Beside, Brexiteers are well know for listening to only what they want to hear and ignoring anyone else views, in fact they tend to be a lot worse for that. In any case, this isn't about rights or wrongs, it's about facts and Blair is saying far more that makes a lot more sense then Farage is saying but in any case, like Enoch said, both Blair and Farage are scum. Farage is telling people what he thinks they want to hear as that is a easy way for him to gain power in the country, most of what he says can't really be delivered, as for Blair, as much as I don't like him for all the stuff of the Iraqi war, he makes a lot more sense on Brexit then any of the Brexiteers are doing which always keep deflecting blame and coming up with wishy washy ideas of how Brexit is going to be better for us with zero evidence of them showing us why that is the case. In other words, Brexiteers talk a good deal on paper but good luck getting a solid debate out of them that they can back up with solid facts on how Brexit is better for us then staying in the EU.
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Doing something doesn't mean doing the right thing,, you give the impression that doing anything is better then nothing in the sense that things can't get any worse, the fact is, things can always get worse and Trump is perfect for doing that.
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Lucky for us Trump isn't god, I mean could you imaging if Trump had the power like Hitler had with no checks on him holding him back?, you only have to read his body language to know that that would be really bad for the US, but lucky for us, god doesn'r exist so it doesn't matter :)
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Translation, you can't argue what I said so you didn't bother :)
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That's the thing, the real problem in the US isn't Trump, he's just a sigma of the system that allowed him to get into power, the real problem is the US political system, a radical right wing press, a Republican Party that looks like lunatics then a mainstream party and a public that's very ignorant and uninformed about a lot of the decisions they make when it comes to politics. So getting rid of Trump would be better than having him in the White House, but it doesn't really solve the problem that the US is a broken system, and the irony is, Trump is opening up the door to allow more fanatics to rise in the future of US politics, I hope the American people realise the cost of that, because it's not pretty. In any case, the rest of the world should continue to shift trade away from the US and boycott their goods, we might not be able to country what goes on in the US, but we can sure weaken them as a country on the world stage, then they can live in a lump of poo for all I can.
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Actually, the EU was ready for it, politicians for months have been saying Putin is likely going to switch off the gas pipeline, it came as no surprise that it happened after the G7 meeting because the west saw it coming. Putin did it because he's getting desperate, but the problem is that EU countries have been preparing for this for some time, gas storage are almost full in a lot of countries, EU countries are also getting about half it's gas from other countries around the world and that's likely going to keep going up. Basically, there isn't much of an issue, apart from tightening their belts and high prices, but that will pass. Still I do find it amusing how some of the media around the world thinks there's going to be black-outs and power cut all over the place where in reality, it's likely not going to be that different then last winter apart from the high fuel cost and tightening their belts, basically, it's not that big of a deal and they've been through far worse. Still, people will see what they want to see and not what is lol.
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I doubt that they forgot, I think they thought that other countries had no choice but to trade with the US, the reality is, there are alternatives to all US goods and services, and even if there wasn't, a big market like the EU, if there was a void left by the US, you can bet that a rival would jump in and fill that void. The truth is, the world is a big place, the EU market is massive, any weakness the US shows, others around the world will lick their lips in taking advantage of that, so basically, Trump didn't understand economics and is paying the price for it now that a lot of countries are shifting trade away from the US to more reliable partners, the end result of this is that the EU stands to benefit a lot but so does a lot of the world that take advantage of that opening of trade with those markets that the US is slowly being pushed out off, the US on the other hand stands to lose a lot here and it's likely going to be a slow bleed for them, basically, Trump has opened up pandoras box against the US, now I don't think it will matter even if the US kicks out Trump, it's too little too late and as I said, the rest of the world stands to benefit, but it's likely the EU and China that will benefit the most from this at the expense of the US.
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The problem is with a lot of right wing politics, especially far right politics, is that they talk a lot of BS, they promise a lot but they are not very good on delivering going on history, but they are very effective on lying and disinformation, but that can only go so far, voters expect results, hence why we always keep getting this swing from left to right of politics, the right is winning for now but I've seen this all before, promise a lot, under deliver, voters turn on them and the left gain, it's a pattern that happens almost every 10 years. As for disintegration of the EU, well good luck to them on that as that is highly unlikely to happen because of the political realities of the world, basically the US and China is why that won't happen, also, you can't have an economic only union without a political union to make sure the rules, laws and regulations are fair for all members, otherwise it would be a mess and would be something like free trade deals which are anything but free trade and are more in line with trade deals with terms and conditions. In other words, it will be almost impossible for the right and far right to undo that without causing massive economic damage to the countries in question, which the threat of that would turn voters away from them. Either way, it's easy for them to promise what they want to do, it's another thing to go ahead with it once the political realities kick in, basically, on the sideline, the right and far right can say anything they want when there neck isn't on the line, but if close to power or in power, it's a different ball game, hence why so many of the far right parties tone down there policies the closer they get to power or in power to appeal to more voters., meaning, there isn't really a threat to disintegration as that isn't really an option in the way the world is shaping up unless Europeans want to become irrelevant around the world, which would be a threat to all EU countries at a political, economic and social model level, basically, the likes of the US would have far more leverage in getting Europeans to weaken workers rights, food standards, health care and countless other things, which Trump has shown he wants to do but can't at the moment because the EU is powerful enough to stand up to the US. To put it another way, if the right and far right ever got there way, it would be a disaster for Europe, lucky for us, it's not likely to happen, even with the strong right wing media they have on there side spitting out so many lies and disinformation.
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That's what I'm thinking, if the US and EU doesn't act soon and with much tougher measures, Russia isn't going to stop with Ukraine and weak action from the west will send a message to China that they can do the same that Russia is doing. Inaction or weak action rarely works with leaders like Putin, you need a firm tough line with people like that and so far, the west is looking really weak with it's response which doesn't bold well for the future unless something changes and quickly. Also, how quickly what's going on in Ukraine could escalate into a major world war, it's more or less how the second world war started and before we knew it, it got out of hand.
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Trump isn't the problem in the US, but he is a symbol of that problem in the US, he got into power because the nation is divided and there are a lot of social, political and economic issues going on that are creating disunity, inequality and so on. It's not really that different from what is going on in the UK with Brexit, people are lashing out and blaming others for how things are, Trump was blaming pretty much everyone for taking advantage of the US, the UK was blaming the EU for all the wrongs in the UK, the truth is, the truth is, a lot of the problems in both countries are because of the political system that's creating division and by extension, the people are the real problem. It's very easy to blame others, use them as scapegoats but it doesn't achieve any real change, if you want real change, you have to look into a mirror and see where the real problem is because it's a lot closer to home than most think, until that happens, don't expect any favourable changes because it's not going to happen until the people change to force real change in the system, after all, the system in a country is just a reflection of the people in it no different from a democracy is only as good as the people that are willing to vote and actually get informed on facts and not the BS that goes around. It's funny because the people have the real power in any system of government but they do a poor job at using that power to get the changes they want and in the case of democracies, the people have no excuses to blame others when it's clear the people are the problem in those systems, so come on guys, wake up and start fighting for real change.
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@roseforeuropa They can join a lot quicker than they can the EU where with the EU you more or less have to turn your economy and political system upside down to do structural reforms, NATO on the other hand I think the main thing needed is a percentage of spending on the military. As for Turkey, they've not joined because a lot of the reforms needed are not easy for the people of Turkey to do. As for Ukraine, I didn't say the EU should just let them in, but they should show them more promise that they can join if Ukraine puts in the work to join, that's the case for any country that wants to join. So my advice is, read up on what I said before making stuff up.
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baileyboy73 baileyboy73 Joining NATO or not joining it, Putin was going to do what he did anyway, he's talked enough time how he sees the fall of the Soviet Union as a disaster for the country and wants to rebuild it, don't kid yourself in thinking Putin would stop regardless of if a country joined NATO or not. As for WW3, what's the alternative, we just let Putin take over country after country, get more powerful why we sit by and do nothing? If WW3 does happen, it's on Putin's back and in any case, Russia is being aggressive because of weak inaction from the west, if the west didn't do a tough response here, China would be very tempted to take Taiwan on, after all, the west will have shown that it will sit back and just watch. In truth, these tough sanctions on Russia will likely give China a moment of pause on Taiwan, in other words, tough action might have prevented a war with China from starting in the future but for now, it's too early to say.
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Putin's logic is this, look, we might as well do it before they do it, European countries are reducing what they buy from Russia so Russia is just getting in there beforehand, the end result is meaningless because it's going to happen regardless, the only thing that changes is that it happens sooner rather than later whiles making Russia less trustworthy and credible. So yes, a bit of short term pain around the world with high energy prices but this is really going to focus minds to really push for alternative energies a lot sooner than it would be, in a sense, Putin could be killing the fossil industry sooner than it would be, maybe by a decade sooner. The rule of thumb in business is to never threaten your customers, otherwise they will look for alternatives and in this case, the alternatives can kill many industries, so Russia is speeding up its own demise with how dependent it is on natural resources. As for the EU countries and the world overall, they'll be fine, the fossil industry knows they can't afford high prices for longer than 2 years, otherwise real action kicks in that could threaten their businesses, after all, people and governments will only accept high prices for a short time before real change happens, in other words, the longer the prices stay high, the quicker they will kill the fossil industry and the good thing is about this, it's a global issue, meaning there is a lot of money to throw at the problem. In an ironic way, Putin might have done more for the world going green then the greens themselves could have every done lol, so it's going to be interesting to see the next 10 years in how the world shapes up in our energy mix. Anyway, looks like Putin is getting sour over the EU opening the door for Ukraine and Moldova to join the EU so Putin did what Putin does best, shoots himself in the foot, it might not seem it in the short term but longer term, what Putin is doing is a lot of damage to the Russian economy and trust that even the likes of China won't want to buy too much natural resources from them because they don't Russia to play games with them, so even thought they might buy more, they will limit what they buy, that's what happens when you play games with trust and that is really damaging long term for Russia.
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Labours policy when it comes to the EU is more or less unknown because they didn't want to divide the votes by bringing up anything to do with the EU or Brexit so soon after Brexit, so in truth, we really don't know what they want with the EU, especially when it comes to closer relations, single market access and custom union, and we probably won't know for at least another year, but now the elections are done and they've won by a landslide, they can open up far more than they could before the election. With that said, there is zero chance of the UK rejoining the EU as that is a long process and the EU and many of its members likely wouldn't want the UK back so soon after them leaving, but other options are very open, it really depends on Labour and the EU where that goes, but if there is any possibility of the UK eventually joining the EU, it won't be for at least 2 decades and the government and media will have to make sure that the British people understand what that entails, in other words, no op-outs, the UK if they join the EU again, they will have to sign up to everything, so that isn't realistic for at least 2 decades, but single market and custom union access is achievable in under a decade and that would solve a lot of the political and economic issues that Brexit brought on the UK, but again, this really does depend on the motives of the Labour Party and if the EU is willing to open up talks so soon, but in any case, Labour is in a strong position to push that agenda and for now, being that Labour have held there cards close to their chest, we'll get a clearer picture over the coming months and years on what they really think on that, now that the elections are out of the way, they can afford to open up. In any case, the UK needs major political and institutional reforms, I mean seriously, looking at the percentage that each party got and then the number of seats each one got, it makes a mockery of democracy and for me isn't really that democratic, and if Labour really wants to be the party of change, that's a good place to start, but honestly, I don't think they will, the system works well for the two main parties, a bit like how the system is in the US that makes it very difficult for a third party to win. As for Reform UK party, it's difficult to say how well they really did, on paper they did well, but is that because of their policies? Or is it because the Tories did really bad? The Tories and Reform were after all fighting for right wing voters, so the Tories more or less gifted an easy win to Reform UK, but did Reform actually do well or was it just good timing? After all, with the Tories being wiped out, they will likely go back to the drawing board over the next election or two and become a more sensible moderate party, which if they do, that could wipe out all the gains the Reform Party gained. The real surprise is the Lib Dems, they did well out of this election and are on the left of politics, the surprise is that I didn't think they would do well as Labour would take most of the votes on the left and voters wouldn't want to risk splitting the vote, but both did well out of it, anyway, on the other side of the coin, if Reform UK does grow as a party, they could very well end up making right wing politics in the UK much weaker by splitting the votes, the irony that what's been happening to the left of politics in the UK for decades, could very well happen to the right of politics thanks to Farage, which if it does, Reform and the Conservative Party should be really worried.
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@emm_arr True, but out of BRIC countries, India has the best chance of doing what Russia wants, but it's a long way off from that and India has enough problems in its own country before it can lead that kind of role. In truth, I think the EU is the only realistic option that could displace the Dollar, but I think a basket of currencies is more likely.
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What kind of logic is that, oh you're a leaver, enough said :)
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It's even more ironic because this could put the DUP in Northern Ireland in a awkward position with the Tories, it's also telling that the US ignored what the UK and Canada said about all these tariffs, that would be a different story with the EU, honestly, Airbus and Bombardier might of played a blinder here with this move and what Boeing tried to do to Bombardier might of backfired on them and the US government.
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Actually, it would be a lot worse without the tariffs, if history is any indicator, tariffs are a stop-gap measure to give EU car manufactures time to adapt, it's worked many times in the past to allow the companies to come out stronger on the world stage in time, but it takes time, especially when companies have been found to be sleeping lol. What China is really angry at isn't so much the tariffs, but the pressure that the tariffs will do on EU manufactures to force them to change and adapt, which makes them more of a threat to EV companies from China on the global scale, but again, that takes time, this has happened many times with the EU for industries that have been asleep, and the EU is likely warning EU car companies, these tariffs are only short term to allow them to adapt, the tariffs might even be on a percentage basis where they lower the tariffs per year to keep the pressure on the EU car companies. Sometimes this is needed to light the fire under their arse, others like the US have done the same and usually the end result is that your companies come out a lot stronger on the world stage, but that usually takes some time, probably around a decade, that's probably what China is really angry about, not the tariffs, but the impact that it could have in forcing the EU car companies to be more globally competitive on the world stage, which is a threat longer term to China's EV industry. But seriously guys, check history and you will see this has happened many times before and it's been quite successful in getting industries that are lagging behind to adapt and change over a short amount of time, sometimes a fire under there arse is all that's needed, and it looks like that is what the EU is doing, and probably the US as well.
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True but it doesn't really change much, because the closer they get to any power, the more they tone things down. The reality being is that most of the public wants stability, growth and a high quality of living, they don't want something that's going to rock the boat and send everything upside down like some of the far left or right or politics would do if they could, but if they tried, they would be out of power so fast and likely won't get back in for a long time, hence the reason we keep seeing it around Europe where the closer they get to power or in power, they quickly tone things down and roll back on many of the things they said they want to do, we are seeing that in Italy right now, because in the end, it's easy to promise the earth when not in power, it's another thing to do that when in power and the public knives are facing them. Ultimately, to get power in a democracy or any system, you have to win over the majority of the people, the far left and far right of politics usually cater to a minority of the population, usually the angry ones that are not happy with how things are, basically, the likes of Trump in the US, Brexit in the UK and so on, but if these actually got any real power to push their agenda, the public would be in for a rude awakening. The funny thing is, many of the far left and far right of politics are becoming more moderate with their policies to appeal to a wider public, that isn't a risk to the country or public, it's only a risk to the mainstream parties because they are getting more rivals, and the only time it is a risk is if the public end up going far left or right of politics in great numbers, if that happens, then you've got a major problem as that opens up the door for the loons to take power, and we've seen how bad that can go for the public throughout history. Personally, I think the only reason these far left and far right elements are gaining any tractions at all is because the public wants to send a message to the mainstream parties that they are not happy, Trump, Brexit was a symptom of that and we are seeing that in Europe but to a less degree, and basically, if the mainstream parties are smart, they best start delivering on the economy from the bottom up that lifts living standards from the poor to the middle classes, because when all is said and done, it's the economy and stability that most care about, which is something the mainstream parties have been messing up over the last 2 decades and hence the results we are seeing in many western countries.
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I think the real problem is that the UK is being pushed and pulled from bigger powers around the world which is ironic because Brexit was all about getting our independence back. In the case of the UK with China, it likely is in our interest to stay out of it and lets the US and China fight it out. It's going to be interesting to see how this pans out because China is a massive market and they can put pressure on others to get tough on the UK if we get on the wrong side of them, not that different from how the US is trying to do it already with other countries around the world. Independence indeed lol, so the real question is, is the UK being pushed or pulled ;-)
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Economic war is the best solution for now unless Putin invades another country after Ukraine, that could force western countries in a more direct response otherwise where does it end? The idea being is one of two things, to make Putin's policies so painful on the Russian people that they turn on him or to weaken Russia so much in the world that they become far less of a threat, it's the safer option to do without escalating things but as I said, if Putin invades another country, the west would very likely have no choice but to respond in a more forceful way or he will keep going and more importantly, it would give China ideas on doing the same thing if the west allows it. In any case, what Putin has done here has backfired massively, now only is the west more united than I've seen in years, but we are seeing more countries wanting to join the EU and NATO and if that isn't scary enough for Putin, there's a real chance that more integration on security and military matters will happen in the EU now and to top it off, now EU countries will be actively go out of their way to kill the fossil fuel industry, of all the countries you didn't want to mess with was the EU countries that were already more gun-ho about pushing for alternative energy sources, now they will push really hard on that because of energy security reasons and the ones that get hit the hardest for that are the big energy producing nations with oil, gas and coal. I don't think Putin realizes what he's done, in a sense, he's the best friend that the greens could have hoped for because now what would take decades to do could happen in a much shorter space of time.
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@trekkienzl2862 The US was a very different country back then, also they knew it was in the US interest to have a stable Europe, after all, two world wars happened in a short space of time, you could only imagine what a third world war would be like when we had the atomic bomb. The US did help a lot in keeping Europe stable at the time and help Germany and Japan to rebuild but we should remember that most of the work was done by it's own people, they were highly educated, hence why the rebuilding process happened so fast, the know how was already there, the US just helped on that. But in truth, what's really been keeping the peace in Europe isn't the US or NATO, it's the EU, that makes it almost impossible for EU countries to go to war with each other without it harming themselves and that all started out with the Coal and Steal Community to share resources and went on from there to the EEC and then EU of today. But I do find it ironic that the countries that lost the war are some of the most peaceful in the world whiles the US and UK tend to be some of the most hostile. As for the US, the EU and US was close as long as they saw Russia as a threat with the Soviet Union, but since the downfall of that, both the EU and US have been drifting apart and even more so the last 2 decades, that is playing right into the hands of what China wants, a divided west and if the west really wants to stand up to China, the EU and US are going to have to stand together but unfortunately, Trump and now Biden seems to be dividing the west, this could very likely push the Europeans to go it alone and do things that are not in America's interest which is exactly what China wants but it's what the US is pushing with short-sightedness.
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Let's be blunt about this, Windows is successful because it's preinstalled, most will use what is given by default, to get a clear indicator of that, just look at the Steam Deck, a portable gaming device, designed to play PC gaming whiles using Linux and for the most part, most consumers don't care that it's using Linux just as long as the games work, which a lot already do and it's getting better with time. The Steam Deck is showing that if Linux is preinstalled with hardware, more consumers use it and what Valve is doing with Proton to get a lot of games to work on Linux as easy as they do on Windows, the same can be done for any other Windows apps. Most consumers don't care what they are using, Windows or Linux, just as long as it works, most will use what is sold by default and that is where Windows wins out, but Valve could open up the door for Linux being used a lot more if the Steam Deck continues to be successful, because other vendors will be looking at this and could start to use Linux as a default option, especially as more games and apps work on it without any real issue. Also, it will be interesting when Valve release SteamOS, there does seem to be interest from many PC gamers that they want to give SteamOS a try on their gaming rig, I fancy giving it a try with the aim of migrating from Windows to Linux full time over time.
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As long as western countries keep supplying arms, training the Ukrainian people, they can make this a really costly war for Russia and as we know, Russia can't afford for this to drag on, they expected to have taken all of Ukraine in a matter of weaks but they are nowhere near that and I suspect it will be a lot tougher for Russia in the western part of Ukraine than the east.
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The irony is about Russia is how much more powerful of a country if they became a democratic country and actually try to integrate into the world economy by building trust, which would bring in a lot more foreign investment. A country with the kind of natural resources Russia has could do a lot better if they tried to integrate into the world economy and not try to dictate it and dare I say it, a democratic Russia could open up the door for Russia becoming an EU member. All Putin is doing here is weakening Russia, isolating them that's going to take at least a decade to recover from if not longer, Putin clearly miscalculated with the west, especially with the EU and US and now Russia is paying a high price that's only going to get worse in time, especially as EU countries shift to more reliable sources of energy. This is also a massive warning message to China when it comes to it's hostile actions on Taiwan which might make China rethink things on China and this could be a big opening for the west and China to reset relations and put them on a more normal footing before things get out of hand, either way, thanks to Putin, the EU members are very likely going to integrate more, especially on security, military and energy matters, basically, Putin has achieved his nightmare outcomes by making the EU, NATO and the west stronger and now we are seeing more countries wanting to join the EU and NATO, as well as relations with the EU-US get stronger, this couldn't have gone any worse for Putin if he tried lol. Anyway, I do have a feeling that in time as things get worse and the sanctions really start to bite, many on the inner circle in the Russian government and military could turn on Putin and with that, it should help the Russian people to rise up and depose him but we are not at that stage yet but if the west keeps arming Ukraine, training them, it's going to be really costly for Russia in economic and personal terms that it probably will brake the camels back, especially with all the lies Putin is feeding to the Russian people, lies can only work to a degree before it looks ridicules, that's when Putin needs to watch his back.
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What, by being a puppet of Putin? I hardly call that putting the interest of is countries first lol.
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To be fair to France, they might be right about the US, especially if Trump wins power. Honestly, Macron is right, who best to look after European interest then ourselves? After all, some countries are blinded in thinking the US cares about our interest, but when you look closely, many of those countries come across as weak that do as they are told by the US, regardless of if it's in there interest or not. So basically, Europeans in the US should be allies of the US but not dependent on them, especially as the US is becoming more erratic, polarised and less caring about the world. The irony is, how Germany and France got it wrong on Russia, many in other European countries could get it wrong on the US if Trump wins power, the end result is, we in the EU need to pool our resources together so we can look after our own interest, regardless of what the US or others say.
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So basically, far less oil and gas revenue and much bigger military spending, this is bound to have a negative impact on the quality of life for the Russian people. Putin's incompetents on this war is quite shocking and he might not realize this but many in the west, especially the US want a long-drawn-out war to drain the Russian economy, weaken them whiles also isolating Russia in the world. Longer term, can Russia really afford to continue this war? Looking at its current progress, it's achieved little or nothing so far and it's very costly for Russia and I think historians are going to look at this as one of the biggest blunders this century for Russia, a costly war, bogged down in Ukraine, costing Russia a fortune, whiles losing a lot of revenue from European countries and war is only good if there is a net gain and the longer the war drags on, the more likely it's going to be a net lose for Russia, especially if western countries continue to support Ukraine, which seems very likely. It's also becoming clear to me that western governments are just giving Ukraine enough arms to cause the Russians trouble but not enough to win the war, seriously, if the west really wanted to end this war, they could offer Ukraine the kind of arms to do a lot of damage to Russian supple lines before they can even be used in the war and the sad thing is, I suspect the US wants the war to drag on to do real damage to Russia long term whereas it's unclear where the EU position stands but I doubt they want a long term war on its doorstep and in any case, it's clear that Russia is no match to the west and if the west really put it's foot down, this war could have been over already and it's unfortunate that the people in Ukraine are in the middle of this game.
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@kdkdndjfjdnn9168 We don't have to be one country, there are many ways of doing further integration, it's a question of finding the right way that works for the members and the people. But realistically, if we Europeans want to protect our interest and want our voice heard, we need to work closer together through the EU, otherwise, over the coming decades, we will become marginalised, our voice won't matter, that will hurt the economy and living standards. I think the reality of a changing world will force us to work closer together, so the question is finding the right solution that works well for us all.
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Very true, the US playing hardball with China with tariffs and other underhanded tactics is forcing China to develop it's own high-end tech sector and they've got the economy to back that up with time, and with Trump making waves and being on unfriendly terms even with friendly countries, we could end up seeing a major shift in the global political landscape over the next few decades. Basically, the US needs to be careful about losing it's allies, especially the EU, otherwise, China will take advantage of that and China is looking for any opening in pulling the EU away from the US, Trump could be a disaster for the US if he plays hardball with too many important allies.
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Never understood the prudishness of some people and countries when it comes to the human body, I mean we are talking about something that is perfectly naturally. Personally, I blame religion, it's taken something that is perfectly natural, and made it seem like something rude and should not be seen, it's ridicules. Could you imagine if animals thought like some humans do? lol. As for people that feel uncomfortable about it, me included, because I'm from a prudish nation, the UK lol, the reason we think that way is because we've been conditioned by society to think it's not normal when it clearly is in natural, basically, some groups of humans have made the condition uncomfortable for many, mainly religion.
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@everready2903 Boris wants it before Brexit happens because he knows that the Tories and him will get the blame for how Brexit goes, he knows that his chances of winning after Brexit will go down, Corbyn knows this hence why he wants an election but after Brexit when he can put all the blame on the Tories. Both are playing a game but Corbyn seems to be winning this one as he's got Boris trapped and the problem for Boris is that if he goes for hard Brexit, he'll likely lose his job, if he doesn't, he'll likely lose his job, he's boxed in that I doubt he can get out of this and Brexit is a opportunist, I doubt he cares about Brexit one way or the other but knew that if he said what the Brexiteers wanted, the ERG would give him their support. The next few weeks or mouths are going to be very interesting to see.
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@melvinbeck5047 Probably a lot, he's already done quite a lot in his short time in power, Brexit is looking like a disaster under this government, the UK is one of the worse hit countries in the world on this pandemic which is ironic because the US, UK, Brazil which are all popularize governments are being the hardest hit by this, that's a powerful message being sent out there against popularize leaders. In any case, next year and onwards is when things will really take a turn for the worse because for now, we are still an EU member with it's benefits, that ends at the end of the year, throw in the economic damage of this pandemic which will either kick in once government support dries up or somewhere next year and god forbid if a second wave hits the UK, that will likely be the end of this government, especially if many of the European countries avoid that.
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@discipleofhermes563 True but this is Bo Jo we are talking about, he's quite forgetful when it comes to facts and that rarely matters to him, he's a wing it man with slogans and sound bites.
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@discipleofhermes563 So one politician says that, that isn't the EU position, beside the UK has said far worse over the last few years about the EU, honestly, I'm surprised how well the EU has held back on the UK because if the EU was the US and with the abuse the UK has been sending, the US would make mince meat of the UK, the US doesn't have the same sensualities the EU does, which the UK should be careful about when doing dealings with them.
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@discipleofhermes563 If you think about it, look at all the UK members, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, none of them are doing that well with GDP per capita, Northern Ireland is doing really bad in fact, now compare that to England, why is England doing so much better than all of them? if you look at comparable European countries to those 3 small countries, they are doing much better and that begs the question, what on earth is the UK union doing to them? many like to suggest that they need the UK union but lets be honest, they seem to be doing poor inside the UK then many other comparable countries of their size, even many in northern England realize they are being screwed over by the south, hence the north-south divide in the UK. Basically, until the UK stops putting too much resources and money down south, I think it's only a matter of time before the UK falls apart and hey, why not, if it's good enough for the UK to leave the EU, it's good enough for Scotland to do the same, after all, Brexiteers keep saying that we'll be better off outside the EU and yet they seem to think that isn't the case for Scotland lol. The reason the EU will be interested and why Scotland would be interested is because they know they can develop them, they've been really successful on that for the last 50 plus years now, the UK union is falling it's members with far too many resources held in the south of England, that is where the real problem is, also, the EU would be interested because it would stick it to the UK government, they might even call it operation carve up lol. Anyway, I suspect Scotland will be the first to leave, after that, Northern Ireland, as for Wales, they are bit of an unknown but it wouldn't surprise me if they followed but it will be harder for them, Scotland and Northern Ireland have a clear path if they wanted to leave, do you realize how humiliating that would be for the UK governments if they all left and rejoined the EU? the term little Englander would actually have some meaning lol but in the end, the UK is bringing all this onto it's self.
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@vitas75 That's the thing the UK doesn't quite understand, the EU have been quite nice to the UK on these trade terms but all we see from the UK is insult, if they do that with others like the US, the US will rip the UK apart because they are not as diplomatic as the EU. In fact, if you look at some of the ongoing deals, India demands the UK gives visa free access for its people to the UK, the US demands greater access to the NHS and to import a lot of it's lower standard foods in the UK among other things, Japan put pressure on the UK to sign a deal in 6 weeks, the idea of that was to put pressure on the UK government to give Japan better terms. All the evidence I am seeing is that many of the other countries are making demands on the UK and not the other way round and with relations with the UK and Russia, China getting worse and the US with Trump wanting to screw the UK over or the Democrats that want to normalize relations with the EU and don't want to be connected to anything related to popularize movements with everything that's gone on with Trump, they see the UK with Brexit as part of that popularize movement. The irony is that the EU could be the UK's best hope of getting a decent deal but the government are so hell-bent on messing that up that the UK is likely going to get it from all sides and well deserved I might add, arrogance deserve no mercy.
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@madara5930 Honestly, I get the impression that many EU countries see the UK as more trouble than they are worth with little benefits.
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@madara5930 I'm sure there are, but I like to stick to what is and not what I want which unfortunately, most people go on what they want and not what is, case in point, Brexiteers lol.
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@feister2869 Actually, it's more likely to happen now thanks to Putin, he's scared a lot of countries to wanting to get closer to the EU and NATO, the EU seems a lot more open in bringing in new countries, that longer term is only going to make the EU more powerful, the last thing Putin wanted and really, what did Putin expect, you threaten countries, they are going to move away from them. Russia is isolating its self and let's be blunt about this, Russia is a pretty weak power compared to China, the west see China as a potential threat in the future whereas Russia are seen as a bit like the UK, lashing its tail around, dreaming of the glory days of empire, truth is, both are dying empires, both are just too stubborn to realize it and the real powers today are the EU, US and China with maybe India joining that race in the future and Putin knows this, hence his desperation in Ukraine to try and extend Russian power.
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Yep, it reminds me of the Conservative Party in the UK that overpromised on Brexit and now are very unpopular because they can't deliver on what they promised. I know why parties do this to win elections, but the more they overpromise, the more likely it's going to come back and bite them on the arse when reality kicks in on what they can really do.
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So the moral of the story is that the Soviet Union did a real number on the political and social mindset of the American people and Americans have been paying the price for it ever since with being the odd modern country with very different standards compared to almost every other modern country. I have to wonder how that test would go with Europeans on their views in many areas, I wouldn't mind taking that test myself as I suspect it will be all over the place lol. Anyway, the idea of labaling someone on the left or the right is designed in a way to dismiss all arguments of a given person and it works quite effective as well, many people don't understand there is a grey area when it comes to a lot of things and that most of us are not left or right but a mix of the two. We see the same thing in the UK but in this case, it's remainers or Brexiteers and the same excuses play out to dismiss the argument of the other simply because of their view point, Brexiteers do this a lot in the UK and the problem is, facts, evidence and common sense has little meaning when people think like that and that is why the US and UK are in such a mess right now. Another major flaw I see in the US and UK system is that it's mostly a two party system, Democrats and Republicans in the US, Conservative and Labour in the UK, it leaves little options on what the public can vote on, contrast that with many European countries that have many options on who they can vote on that have a reasonable chance of getting into power, in fact, Germany are well known for having grand coalitions lol, I two party system is a pretty weak democratic system because it limits choice, worse yet is that it forces them both to have policies that are not that different from each other in many cases, a case in point is in the UK, Labour only got into power in 1997 with Tony Blair by becoming New Labour, in other words, Labour had to become more like the Conservative before the people would even consider electing them and that is where the real problem is, after all, if we want real change, we have change our voting pattern, or we are just going to keep getting the same results.
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Russia problem is that it still thinks it's a major power, truth is, they are no match for the likes of the EU, US and China and Russia are being squeezed out of game, now it's just a matter of when the penny drops for Russians on that reality, the irony being, that reality could allow the EU and Russia to have much closer relations and dare I say it, even EU membership long term, which would be strange as the EU would have a boarder with China then.
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@idleishde6124 Maybe so but they kept buying oil and gas from Russia, it's all well and good ringing the bell and blaming others for mistakes that were done, there are a lot of mistakes that were done on Russia and the clear warning signs were after Russia taking over Crimea and Russia meddling in other countries politics, yet the west did little to nothing, even the eastern European countries that are trying to blame Germany and France, kept buying from Russia, in other words, their part of the blame because their actions didn't follow through with what they kept saying but they want to shift blame onto others.
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To me Trump isn't the issue, if you side step him and hurt the Republican party, there base and the country, that could be enough to force Trump out, in any case, it's going to hurt the longer it drags on. Either way, I don't see how Trump can win this, he underesteamated the other countries and now Trump have boxed himselfs in to either backing down which would be quite humiliating for Trump or he can push ahead with more tariffs which could be even more humiliating longer term, either way he's screwed up here.
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True, but unless they act, they will take the blame with Trump, in any case, if more tariffs go on goods, it's going to start to really bite and Trump and the Republican party will be right in the firing line with that once it starts hitting people in the pocket so maybe next yeah could be Trump's hanging moment.
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I think it's highly likely the UK will rejoin, there's already people starting to realize that Brexit was a mistake but that can of worms isn't going to be opened for at least another decade when the dust settles and we have a new government in power. I think the really interesting factor is not so much if the UK will rejoin but when and how, I say that because it's highly unlikely the EU and many of it's members will let the UK back in any time soon, the UK will have to wait at least a decade but I suspect a few decades with single market and custom union being our best hope. As for the how, that's tricky because if the UK isn't careful, Scotland and Northern Ireland could leave the UK and basically, they could join much sooner as many in the EU and it's members will likely go easier on them as they were more or less pulled out of the EU against their will, as for England, we've got zero chance of joining any time soon until the EU see major changes from the public, media and government in how they see the EU project and even then, there will be no op-outs, the UK will be joining everything like the Euro and whatever other integrations that happen in the EU over the coming decades. The UK had a really sweet deal inside the EU with all the op-outs it had and they didn't even realize it, now they've thrown all that away for a really bad deal. So yes, the EU will welcome the UK back at some point but it's going to be on EU terms, it's not going to be when the UK chooses.
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I think from the EU's point of view, they probably don't care that much, being as these are small countries that offer very little, and after seeing how things can go with Hungary and until recently, Poland, the last thing the EU will want is for more countries to join that are backsliding on democracy like Hungary have been doing. The end result is that the wait for these countries to join the EU is likely getting longer unless the people in those countries rise up and clean up corruption. Basically, from the EU's point of view, there are more than enough other countries for them to chew on that want EU membership for them to care about some small countries that are backsliding on democracy and corruption, so it's really up to the people in these countries to rise up before the corruption gets so bad that it starts doing real harm to the people, not to mention that these countries could become a puppet of Russia, you only have to look at the undertone lines of where the money is flowing and Putin has an interest in pulling them away from the west, which is probably for the best, people learn a lot sooner from mistakes after all, but it is unfortunate for the innocent people that get dragged into all this, but at the end of the day, the EU can only do so much for these countries, they have to help themselves if they really want things to get better, either that or just be a puppet of Russia. Also, I highly doubt the EU will want any of these countries in the EU until there is long term regional stability among the countries, or at the very least, the countries that push hard to join the EU, try to mend things with the others, whether it's successful or not, if they try, that might be enough for the EU to open the door wider to the country that's trying.
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Nothing stopping the EU and it's members working on both issues, as for the voting process, I think it time, the veto will have to go with some other kind of system.
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Nspnspker From what I know, they still use the veto on important issues, I'll have to have a closer look into where it can be used.
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@PatrickButterly Problem is and this is more the case for smaller countries, big corporations that buy, bribe and bully governments to rewrites laws to work for them and not the people, that is a lot harder for them to do with the EU being as it's a lot bigger. I suspect without the EU, many European laws would get watered down, in fact we are already seeing pressure on the UK from the US to water many things down, the US would do the same to every other EU country if they could but thanks to the EU, they can't do anything.
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@danielvonliechtenstein8742 That's why the EU is focusing on smaller countries to the east, much easy to manage them then bigger ones, also, in time, Poland and the others that joined the EU will develop, and then they will be putting money into the pot so I don't think resources will be a problem in the long run.
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@ratatatuff I don't think they should be thrown out, not yet anyway but I do think stronger measures should go on those countries governments if they keep slipping on their commitment, we'll get a clearer picture on that over the next two governments in those countries, if they don't get back on track then either tough measures will be needed or they should be thrown out so Russia can play with them. As for Turkey, they've been wanting to join the EU for like 40 years now but are not doing enough reforms to enable that, if they did, they likely would already be in the EU but with the current government in power, they are slipping further away but that's fine as I doubt the EU wanted to bring in big countries any time soon.
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@PatrickButterly That's true and I would love more pan-European politics that the people take part in with the EU commission being merged into the EU President and being directly elected someday, I also think a lot more majority rules will have to come in with veto going away, especially as more members join. As for reducing rights, that for me is the very reason why I suspect the Conservative Party in the UK want to leave the EU, they like to say they want to improve rights and standards, but they can do that already in the EU, the EU sets a baseline standard and members can go higher than that if they want, what they can't do is go lower than that and the Conservative Party in the UK have shown countless times they want to water down many things which isn't good news for the British people because after this year, they can do just that. I think the truth is, as time goes on, it's going to become harder to leave the EU because it's going to integrate more and because of the changing world with the US and China, it's easy to say we want to leave like the UK keeps telling us but they don't answer how they will compete with these big players whiles holding high standards.
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@PatrickButterly Not really, in fact very unlikely considering the different views over all the EU countries, it would more likely be how Germany is now with a lot of parties and grand coalitions because of all the different views from different countries, in the longer run that might change but we are talking longer term future then. In any case, even with an elected president, I think election should happen more offern like every 2 years to keep them on their toes because a lot of times, governments only listen to the people when it's election time but once in power, they rarely listen so keeping elections around the corners should help to keep them on their toes, heck, why not go the full hog and elections every year, really keep them on their toes lol, the truth is, the EU is a new system of government, it makes sense to look at the mistakes of current governments and improve on that to not make the same mistakes. I agree about major blocks forming, in some ways we are already seeing that happen but most are a mess and nowhere near along the line of what the EU is doing and too many are just economic zone, the truth is, economic zones only really work with a political union to hold it together and to make sure it's fair for the small members in it or you end up with something like NAFTA where the US bullies the smaller players. In Africa, they have the African Union which is based on the EU but the problem is that they let any country in which doesn't give them enough incentive to change and reform, the EU is very careful on that and makes sure there is a lot of reforms countries have to do. So even thought some others are trying to form some kind of union, they are mostly doing it the wrong way and I don't see them as a threat to the EU, US or China, I also think the EU is in the best position of the 3 because the EU has been designed where it could keep expending with new members as much as it wants, there is nothing really stopping them expending outside of Europe and many countries would be interested in that, especially with how the US and China are going, but for now, the EU doesn't want to open up to others around the world but that can change, especially if they bring in a lot more of Eastern Europe.
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Taiwanlight Hungary are too small to actually matter, then staying in the EU or leaving wouldn't really change anything unlike the UK leaving which is far bigger. But I suspect the EU won't get tough on Hungary just yet because they are new to this democracy thing and are still finding their feet, the EU is likely wanting to see what happens over the next 2 or so elections before putting it's foot door, if this gets worse in Hungary, the EU and it's members will likely get a lot tougher on Hungary and maybe even kick them out. It's the numbers game anyway, if it's just one or two that goes like that out of like 13 that joined over the last 2 decades, the EU has nothing to worry about.
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@ratatatuff I agree but the EU is very diplomatic in these things, it has to be to hold such a union together of so many different countries, this isn't the US where they play hard ball before diplomacy but the EU and it's members will play hard ball with Hungary if they push their luck too far and truth be told, do they really want to risk being outside of the EU with all the games Russia keeps playing?
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@PatrickButterly That's true but we also have to look at where the US and China are going, they are going to be a lot bigger over the next 30 years, the EU can't afford to wait around, if we want to stay competitive, we'll have to grow a lot bigger, especially because of China, a lot of the integration in the EU isn't happening because we want it but because we need it to stay competitive, that is likely going to be more the case over the coming decades so yeah, I think the EU will need more integration and I also think we need to keep expending but it needs to be done the right way. As for campaigning, how long should that actually be? A month? Clearly it doesn't have to be as long as it is in the US and it's not like governments don't do their jobs even when campaigning, the problem with the system now is that each election is too long and in most cases, governments only listen when it's election time and rarely do at other times unless pushed by the people with a big protest movement, it's a pretty weak system of democracy when they only listen when they want something from us like our votes. I also think the two party system is a major flaw, especially in the US and UK, you end up with two parties that oppose each other on any policy regardless of if the policy makes sense or not, they'll still oppose it because of who is doing it, we see it all the time in the UK and US, it's not very good for democracy and seems very tribal. Another thing they could do is have it where everything with politics is open, no secrets, all tax revenue that comes in and goes out is out there for the public to see and so on, governments are supposed to be doing a public service but they are way too secretive which doesn't seem that very democratic when they are supposed to be doing the public bidding. We do live in a democracy but it's a pretty weak form of it and I've yet to see any country actually do it really well.
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@PatrickButterly That's true but sometimes we have to look at the bigger picture on what right for the long term even if it causes a bit of short term pain. As for taxes, I think if it was up to the people, they would always vote for lower taxes but that is a problem because if people keep voting for lower taxes, those same people will start to complain about public services being less effective, I don't think high taxes is a problem just as long as all tax money is made public so the public knows where it's all going, that would help to clean up the system and reduce a lot of waste and really, it should be public because it's out money. But anyway, you are hitting on the major flaw in western democracy in that most governments think on short term gains because they are only in power for a short while, there is also the competent of the voting public not really being educated enough when it comes to politics and making the right decisions. The other real problem is this, look at the US, Trump tries to claim credit for a lot of policies that Obama did when he was president and if the Democrats win the next election, the Republics will blame the Democrats for the mess the Republicans have made over the last 2 years and unfortunately, the public only remembers the current damage and puts the blame on the current government at the time even thought the mess was made by the past government which begs the question, does the Democrats really want to win the next election with all the hard times ahead? I know people always like to say the system of democracy that we have in the west is the best we've got but that's a cop out, the system can be a lot better to represent the interest of the people whiles engaging the people more in politics, a lot of people don't buy into voting and politics any more because they feel their voice is never heard and that is a problem which is likely part of the reason we keep getting into such a mess.
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Stephen Jenkins I kinda prefer that system compared to more direct democracy looking at the mess people in the UK and US are picking as leaders, the problem is with democracy is that it's only as good as the voting public and lets be honest, we do a poor job on that one.
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Stephen Jenkins Depends how you look at it, in the UK and US, you mostly only have two choice, in most European countries, you have many. As for lack of care for the system, you are talking about the public that votes or can't be bothered to vote that show a lack of care for things, democracy is only as good as the voting public having accurate information on what they are voting on and lets be honest, we both know most without even knowing what they are voting on and fall for sound bites from the governments and media, that's a big part of why the UK and US is such a mess at the moment, then you have the people that can't be bothered to vote, it's a weak democracy when the people don't make much of an effort, in fact it's actually worse than that, it can be dangerous when people fall for a lot of the lies from governments and the media. In any case, I don't really like any of the system we use.
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@PatrickButterly That's true but it should be our governments and the media to explain all these things in a clear easy to understand terms but all they do is mislead the people depending on what they want. As for things being more public, you don't have to have everyone to read it, you only need a few to expose it to create a storm.
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Stephen Jenkins We could use the same argument about civil servants, in the UK they have the power to purpose laws but they are not elected by the people, it isn't that different than the EU commission in that sense. At the end of the day, the EU commission can only purpose laws, it still needs to be passed by the European Parliament which is directly elected by the people.
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Stephen Jenkins I think you misunderstand how civil servants work and I'm not going to waste my time explaining it to you but I suggest you research it up. As for multiple elections, why not, we do live in a democracy, if the people want that then I don't see a problem with it, the results would likely be the same as the last unless something has changed. Beside, if we listen to Brexiteers, they intended to have more referendums until they got the result they wanted, even Nigel Farage said that, funny how he changes his tune once he got the result he wants lol.
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@henafoo For me, the EU is a new form of democracy that doesn't have to be the same as any others that we know off, it's a new system because it has to be because existing systems likely wouldn't work well over so many different countries but in truth, the power is still with the members in the EU, the EU is mostly just there to service the interest of all the EU members internally and externally where it can but ultimately, power is with the members of the EU. I think before the European Parliament can make it's own laws, I think we will need pan-European politics to happen so we are not voting nationally and voting more European, anyway, I think it's only a matter of time before that happens and with that, the EU commission could get merged into the EU president with it becoming directly elected by the people, all of this is some time off but pressure from the US and China could speed that up out of self-interest to protect European political, economic and social interest.
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The real question is, who would really want to be in government for the next few years with the cost of the pandemic over them? There's a fair chance that any government in power over the next 5 years is going to get a lot of stick from the people once the reality of the cost of the pandemic kicks in and it starts to hit the people and voters tend to have short memories and tend to blame the government at the time regardless of policies they enact. For the moment, the people are protected on the pandemic by the government but that's not going to last forever, those debts and cost will have to be paid back by the people and it's a lot of money, any government in power at the time that pushes on that will get a lot of abuse from the people even thought it has to be done, the irony being, it might be best to lose the next election so that the rival party gets a lot of the abuse.
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@darrenbellenger1 We'll see, it's only a few weeks out and we can already see some panic setting in with Boris and some of the Tories as the EU isn't really moving much, bluster from Boris can only go so far on Brexit just as it's only gone so far on this pandemic, Boris is in for the fight of his life here and so are the Tories, they can't afford any more economic damage because both remainers and Brexiteers will want their blood. In any case, I really hope they do go for the hardest of Brexit, the reason for that is because companies have little wiggle room to survive even before this virus, with it and hard Brexit, likely a lot more will go out of business that didn't need to do and that is when the entertainment begins because that when the government really gets it's in the neck, so far it's easy to throw money around like the government is doing, but wait till we have to pay it back when the economy really starts to hit. As for the EU, they can weather the storm far better than us by pooling resources together, they also don't have to worry about trade links with each other or it's trade deals around the world, the UK does and what makes it worse because of this virus pandemic, many countries are likely going to become more isolated, especially the US, that will make it much harder for the UK to get a good trade deal from the US because they will want to protect jobs back home and open up markets for them in other countries, in other words, a trade deal with the US and UK will likely be very one sided in favour of the US now.
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@darrenbellenger1 Automation will have a massive impact on the economy for the entire world, it will likely put most of us out of work but it will boost economic growth to levels we've never seen, it will be interesting to see how governments deal with that because our current system will fall in a heep and we will likely need a very new system as automation and robotics takes over more jobs, after all, they can't tell us to get a job if there isn't any to get because automation does it better then us. What I'll find interesting about all that is which governments move on that early and what changes they do, we might end up with something like Universal basic allowance over the long run.
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@darrenbellenger1 That doesn't make much sense, it won't matter where we are when it comes to automation, the impact on jobs is going to be massive, in fact it's actually back to front, island nations are likely to fare worse because of the trade links, the EU, US and China have a massive advantage because of their market size and being land locked, the UK for instance would be more expensive to get goods from than say France is if everything was equal, but we know things are not going to be equal, the EU will have a bigger advantage because it's the bigger player making the rules which the UK either has to abide by or spit their dummy out. Any walls to trade is never a good thing so WTO trade isn't good for the UK or any country and given the choice, most countries would prefer less walls to trade but as we know, it's the bigger players making those rules as the UK is finding out with trade terms with the EU and US, the UK isn't dictating terms, the EU and US is.
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Simply answer, no, programmers are not obsolete, at least not yet. But personally, I think A.I. will assist us with programming and everything else, that will allow a lot more people to program even without the skills needed and eventually, A.I. is likely going to get so good that programming as well as many other things won't be needed as a skill, just a creative mind will do, which ironically, A.I. will help there as well. Longer term, I suspect A.I. with robotics is going to be able to do any job we can do, cheaper, better and faster than we can do, any new job we create, A.I. will likely be able to do that as well, because of the adaptive nature of A.I. it should be able to adapt to any new jobs we create. The scary thing about that is that we've created a system that depends on putting us to work, the current system wouldn't be effective as A.I. takes over a lot of jobs, and governments usually lets things get worse before radical changes are demanded from the public, which I suspect could lead to some kind of basic human income, as there might not be enough jobs to go around that radical changes to society will be needed. On the plus side, this will allow us all to work on projects that we enjoy working on, passion projects, without having to worry about bills, but honestly, before we get to that state, I expect things to get worse before they get better because governments are slow to make radical changes, this will vary from country to country, where I suspect European countries will fare better than the US, being that European countries already have an extensive social program in place, it would just be a matter of extending that, the mindset from Europeans is already in place to allow that, but the US on the other hand could find it much harder to do this because of the individual mindset of Americans and the poor social programs in place, which will make it much harder to do these changes in the US compared to many other countries.
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That doesn't make much sense when the EU have been pushing for cutting Russian oil and gas for quite some time, it's some of the members in the EU that have been holding that back, if anything, this is playing into the EU's hands because Russia is forcing some members to get on the same page the EU had for some time, I'm surprised Putin fell for it.
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That isn't by chance, when they realise there's a chance of winning any real power, they have to be more down to earth and realistic in what they can achieve when in power. On the sidelines, out of power, they can pretty much say anything they want without any real consequences, but once in power, their neck is on the line, they likely know that if they mess up, they'll pay a very high price from the people, basically, they know they've been given a once in a lifetime choice here, so they tone things down and try to act more like a moderate party to appeal to more people, we saw the same thing happen in Italy as well as other countries. Because of that, they become far less of a threat unless a majority of the people become radicalised, which if that were to happen, the country in question has far more problems than just the government. Who these are a real threat to is the mainstream parties that have dominated for decades, if these fringe parties tone things down and become more centralised parties, voters will have a lot more choice when it comes to elections, if any of these parties stay radical whiles in power, it would likely cause a lot of chaos for the country and impact a lot of people in a negative way, that it probably wouldn't take longer then a decade before voters kick them out and they'll probably never get in power again, basically, they've been given a chance of power, they have to tone things down to make the most of it, if they mess up this chance, they know they might not get another, hence why I keep seeing the pattern with these so called radical parties that tone things down a lot when close to power or in power that they actually look more like centrist parties, it's easy to understand why, most voters are centrist, centrist parties try to appeal to voters across the political spectrum, fringe parties tend to target a segment of voters that are not happy but clearly centrist parties are a lot more successful long term because they appeal to a wider voter base.
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We should remember that the vote was very close, it's kind of hard to say it's the will of the people when many of the public didn't even get a chance to vote and because of all the lies that ware told from both side, it's also hard to say what the real will of the people is now with all the new information we've got over the last two years. Anyway, say what you want about the Lords but they are right about this and what they are really trying to do is force us to rethink things through and not go down the hard Brexit which is really damaging, in the end, they are trying to push us to have another final vote on this by the people, to me that is a good idea considering everything thats happened over the last two years, it's also likely the only option that will sort out this mess one way or another.
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Bernie Sanders would feel right at home in the European political system, a lot of his views are more in line with European norms and it's too bad that not enough Americans see that he wants to make the US a better place but unfortunately, corruption and disinformation pays better, hence why the poor and middle classes get screwed over time and time again. Maybe this virus out brake might get some real changes in the US, the health care system might be one area that might climb up the political ladder once the dust settles. The sad thing is about politics, honesty rarely pays and to gain power in the system, lying to the voters pays far more, hence why the system is broken but really, you have to put the blame firmly on the people, they are the ones that have a choice, they decide who to elect, they can research what is true and what's fake, most choose to live in their own little bubble on how things are and hence why little really changes.
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Oh you'll be surprised, I live in the UK, not exactly known for sunny weather lol, but even here, if battery tech was better and we could store a lot more, I can produce enough electricity on my house that's around two and a half times more than I need, the problem is, a big chunk of that energy is in summer, but even in winter, if we could store a month or two worth of energy, it would be enough because we still produce about 3 quarters of the home electricity. Because of how much energy is being generated on a 9kilowatt solar setup, I think it's enough to power all the electrics, a EV car and maybe a bit of heating, depending on how much you use the car. Anyway, what we need is a revolution in battery tech, that would be the game changer because solar is already good enough now if we can store a lot more of that energy, especially for home use, the good news is, solar tech is only going to get better and cheaper, it looks like we could be on the verge of big changes with battery tech over the next decade or so thanks to electric cars taking off, even in colder countries, there is more than enough solar energy and even if that wasn't enough, there's wind energy. I think people are starting to see the light now, especially since the war in Ukraine that's having on high energy prices, solar adoption is rapidly being adopted around the world, especially from consumers, but it's still clear many governments are playing games, very likely because of lobby groups, after all, there's a lot of money in the fossil industry and they will throw a lot of money to delay this transition, the good news is that high energy prices and energy security is killing the fossil industry sooner rather than later, so regardless of what governments do, I think we are going to get massive changes from consumers as solar is already cheaper than fossil fuels, it's only going to get cheaper and better overtime, so the irony is, it's in the interest of the fossil industry to reduce energy prices and stabilize the market, because the longer this drags on, the sooner governments and consumers will look for alternatives.
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What about the House of Commons? should we get rid of that if they vote the same way as the Lords?, I love to see the excuses flow out from the hardliners if that happens because it will be clear that thus has nothing to do with the Lords and everything to do with forcing Brexit through no matter what.
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Really, easy way to find out if thats the case, ask the public, you know how bad it will look for the hardliners that kept saying will of the people if we had another vote and they vote to stay in the EU?, we should remember that the vote was very close and can swing either way with a good debate and the remain side have been showing the leave side up since the Brexit vote. Stop being so fearful of the British public, if they truly want to leave as you like to think, the vote will go the same way so why fear them, well it's simply really, the leave side had to tell a lot of lies to get the results they wanted, they also know that the British public are less likely to fall for thoes lies a second time round, more so with everything we've learned about Brexit over the last two years. So are we a democracy?, you seem to think a small margin based on lies is the will of the people, lets fine out and see if thats true with another vote.
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I never said remain was a beacon of honesty, lies ware told on both side but the fact is that the leave side said a lot of lies that now they have to back up with results because a lot of people wouldn't of voted to leave the EU otherwise and lets be honest, if it wasn't for all the lies, it's highly unlikely the leave side would of won, afterall, they more or less promised all the best bits of the EU without any of the negatives of it, cake and eat it and cherry picking and all that, clearly that was a lie the leave side can't deliver. My real point is simply this, the debate on Brexit over the last 2 years should of been done before the Brexit vote, now the public have a far better understanding of what Brexit is and when we know what the exit terms are, I think it's only fair that the public have a say on that, thats democracy and I suspect thats the only way we will sort out this mess one way or the other. As for the UK leaving the EU, you bet your arse we are leaving the EU because the EU will make sure of that now that Article 50 is signed, that isn't up for debate, what is is how we leave and it's very likely the UK will end up staying in the single market and/or custom union mainly because thats the best way to limit the damage from Brexit but thats also the EU having it's cake and eating it, in any case, we are screwed because no matter which option we pick, it's worse then what we already had before. As for the Lords, it does need reforms, it needed them well before the Brexit vote, it should be an elected chamber thats a check and balance on the commons and goverment. Like Ian Said, Brexit more or less wiped out the Ukip party, the Tory party are in a big mess with internal fighting among themselfs, if they get Brexit wrong, it could do some real damage to the Tory party, even Labour are not much better under Corbyn by trying to play it safe all the time, they will get the blame just as bad as the Tories will if Brexit goes wrong because Labour could've stud up and be counted in all this. Ian, I agree with you with leavers and Brexit, it's funny that they go on about take back control and will of the people and yet over the last two years they've tried to undermine the court system, the commons, the lords and now even the public simply because they fear what any of them might say on Brexit. I look at it like this, lets have another final vote once we know what the exit terms are, the public will not have any more excuses in saying they didn't know what we voted for, we will of had over 3 years by then of debateing it, if the will of the people truly is to leave the EU like some want us to think, the reasults of another vote will say that and then the remain side wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but if they change there minds on all this because of all the new information we now know on Brexit, that changese everything. I sense many hardliners fear democracy because they had to lie so much to get the vote they wanted and now fear that the public wont fall for the lies a second time round, thats what I think they will fight tooth and nail to not allow the public to have another say on this and that will expose them for what they really are.
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Problem is, for all the bluster, our government knows they can't do that, it's easy to say we'll walk away and the UK has threatened to do so many times already, it's another thing to do it when the Tories know they'll get it in the neck for any damage done and with a pandemic on, the last thing they can afford is more harm to the economy, so the truth is, the government will keep talking and might even do an u-turn near the end, after all, the Tories are well known for u-turns.
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Darth Brino Honestly, I think this is needed, Brexiteers are not going to learn till it hits them hard and with a pandemic on, it's going to hit pretty hard from next year onwards, with that, moderate Brexiteers will turn on the government and that's when the government and hardcore Brexiteers really have to worry because too much was promised that they know they can't deliver and from next year onwards, they'll have no more excuses left, either they deliver the goods or much of the public will likely turn on them once things start to bite on the economy. Basically, get the pop corn ready for next year because it's going to be very entertaining watching them dance.
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Darth Brino They can try but they won't have a leg to stand on as they are the ones that will keep harping on about how we've got our freedom back from the EU, it kinda makes it hard to pin any blame on them if the UK has control over it's own destiny, basically, the blame will firmly go where it belongs, on UK government and by extension, on the voting public for putting these governments in power, in other words, the real blame for the mess is a lot closer to home than some would care to admit. As for immigration, if you look at the number, they are not coming down, they are from the EU but from the rest of the world, it's going up and the numbers are about the same overall, the question people should ask themselves is why doesn't the government do anything about it? it's got full power over immigration from outside the EU even whiles in the EU. The simply answer is business, the UK government is already pissing businesses off with Brexit, they can't afford to get on the wrong side of them by reducing cheap labour or many businesses will leave. Also, keep a close eye on how the UK mirrors EU laws, rules and regulations, it's easy to say we want to diverge but putting that into practice isn't as easy as they think as it would bring in a lot more red tape, if the UK really wants frictionless trade, it's in our interest that our rules are close to what the EU does and business will likely put a lot of pressure on governments to make sure that happens. So as much as some want to diverge away from the EU, the economy likely won't allow that to happen and as long as the EU is our main trading partner, it's in our interest for our rules to be very close to theirs, so the UK has independence of sorts but really, we are more closely to a vassal then independence, hence why you should keep a close eye on new rules in the EU and how the UK mirrors a lot of them.
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Got to admiral the Chinese's, the aggressive push on new tech and especially on price cutting is having a big impact around the world, they did it with renewables, especially solar power and prices have been crashing, now it looks like they are doing it with EV cars and maybe China have figured out the right tactic, with the hostile attack from the west and especially from the US on anything from China, it looks like China's tactic is to do what many in the west don't want to do, far more aggressive pricing, and normally I'm not a fan of price dumping, but in the case of renewable energy and EV cars, the sooner these become more affordable, the sooner we can clean up our act. Western companies have been wasting too much time, making too many excuses which is allowing China to potentially dominant many of these sectors by being far more aggressive on pricing which western countries seem slow to match. We in the west needs to wake up, especially on pricing, otherwise more and more of us will buy from China, regardless of what the political BS tells us, cheaper will always win out, especially if it's good quality and China is winning on that front, especially now because they are not only aggressive on pricing, but the quality is starting to match western standards, we've already seen what happened in the solar and wind industry where China dominates now, we in the west allowed that to happen by being greedy, if we are not careful, the same thing could happen in the car industry. Also, whiles you're at it, let's hope China enters the cpu and gpu industry, if there's any sector that needs some aggressive price cuts, it's that, and to say there's a lot of greed in the tech sector is getting to the point where it's becoming too greedy, if there's any sector China could really target, it's that, probably why the US government is so hostile on China in the tech sector, they probably see the threat that it could do to the US tech industry if China follows the same formula as they are doing in other sectors and I say, bring it on, it's high time some new competition enters the market to burn those greedy bastard lol.
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GDP numbers don't mean much unless there is an even distribution of wealth, even GDP per capita numbers are quite misleading when it comes to wealth of citizens of any country. At the end of the day, there needs to be a will from the people and the political class to want to solve these problems, in the US, there is talk of trying to solve these problems but little in the way of action to solve them, contrast that to EU countries, there's a much stronger will from the public and political class to solve many of these problems, it's not perfect and more work needs to be done, but in contrast to the US, EU countries are way ahead in so many metrics, when it comes to quality of life, especially for the lower and middle classes, I suspect a big part of that is the safety net that helps to drag up the lower class and also helps to protect them from falling too far behind. The US is pretty much a system that you're on your own with very little help from the system and when you throw in inequality, it's easy to understand why the US has such a high homeless rate, poverty, crime, people in prison and so on, the system is the real flaw and that isn't going to change unless there's a massive push from the people to make change happen.
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I think any area that pushes themselves in being great is always going to have a lot of people which want to move there and it's not just California, many places around the world are the same as London, Paris and so on. When an area push themselves to be so successful and pulls people in like a magnet, it's going to push up the cost of living in that area, Texas could become the same and decades down the line, people will complain about many of the same things they do about California with high cost of living. As for the homeless situation, it's actually crazy that the government pays them money, more so because it encourages homeless people from other states to move to California because of the free handouts, now I'm not saying the money isn't a good idea but it should be limited to people that have lived in California for decade or more, but really, what's really needed is housing for these people, projects put into place to get them back on their feet and productive members of society and paying these people helps in the short term but it's doing nothing long term apart from being a drain on taxpayer's money. Anyway, I remember a friend that moved to London for a few years where the cost of living is crazy high, anyway, for him, it was better to live in a poorer region and get paid a lot less than it was to live in London, a lot of these rich regions around the world are pricing the average person out and unless something is done about it to rebalance things, it's likely going to get worse over the coming decades.
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That would give the EU a bigger hand in the talks, the UK can't really afford the EU doing that so it's not likely to happen because the UK would likely bend.
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Unionist, thats true, the north of England is not as productive and is falling behind, hence why most of them voted to leave the EU, but to me the real problem is under investment and austerity have not really helped, the Tories took it too far really. In any case, it's clear that this problem isn't really to do with the EU and is a much bigger wider problem because it's affecting more or less all the west including the US. Martin, you want to know something funny, the EU is more democratic then the UK is, that might come as a supprise to do but check up online and see how democratic is the EU and UK and you might be in for a shock, think about it, the UK have the house of lords, unelected, we have the queen, again unelected, that we have a vote system that isn't balanced at all to the voting population so it doesn't repensent the size of the population. The EU on the other have is quite diffrent, smaller members have more voting powers then it's population warrents, the bigger members are the ones that are getting a rar deal.
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David, they are not in the EU and it's that whats stopping wars from happening among it's members, in fact with what you said kind of proved the point with Bosnian having a war, so it can still happen in Europe but not with EU members, glad we cleard that one up :) In any case, wars are rarely a good thing, apart from world war two which many can say was a major wake up call in Europe which bought about a lot of changese that we benefit from today, but given the choice, I rather see thoes changese without a war.
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It's easy to say accept the Brexit vote and I would if the Brexiteers deliver on what they promised us before the vote and as we can see, the Brexit they promised us and what they are trying to deliver are nothing alike and that is why Brexit is going to go back to the people as now we have a lot more information on what Brexit really is and not what the Brexiteers said it would be. If the Brexiteers truly feel the British people want to leave the EU, lets prove that with another public vote, it's the easy way to shut us remainers down but I find it funny how Brexiteers are very hostile with the idea of the public having another say on Brexit, maybe because deep down they know they had to lie to win the vote in the first place and that the public wont fall for that a second time so they don't want to give them another chance and the irony is, it's the Brexiteers that are undermining democracy in the UK.
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@karenmanford2479 I agree there are some exaggerations of things from the remain side but thanks to the Brexiteers, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire because the Brexit camp are willing to tell any lie to get what they want, in their mind it's all about getting past the finish line not about what happens after that. The real problem why Brexit is being held up is mostly because the remain camp in holding the leave camp to account, the Brexit side had to lie a lot to win that vote, a vote they only won by a small margin, now if the Brexit camp could actually deliver on what was promised before the vote, we wouldn't be having this issue and remember, the Brexit camp promised us that we would have a Norway like deal, that we would have all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost and that the EU would bend to our will, deliver on that and then the leave side have a mandate for the Brexit they want. Until then with how close the Brexit vote was, it's very likely that if another public vote was to happen, the people would vote to remain in the EU after seeing everything over the last few years, hence why the Brexit side are so hostile to the idea of another public vote, they know the same lies wont work a second time and know it will very likely keep us in the EU. So like I said, you want to win this, you need to deliver on what was promised to the people, until them, the remain camp is going to keep holding this up.
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@karenmanford2479 That true and we're not in normal times where it's easy to predict these things but a lot of people have had a belly full of Brexit over the last few years and many that was on the fence are more likely thinking, it's better to have what we already had as it wasn't that bad then to have a hard Brexit as it would be the safer option. It's all well and good saying we wanted Brexit but almost everything is saying it's going to be bad from us from countless sources all over the word, it would be crazy to ignore thoes warnings. Also, the British people likely know a lot more about the EU and what it offers us then before the vote and I suspect many will be impressed with how the EU side have handled this compared to the British side, the EU have been very smart in that they've kept the public on side whiles not giving our government what it wants and that kept a lot of us Brits onside and in fact seeing the EU in a better light then before as they've handled this far better then the UK have done. I don't see any real signs of the overall public turning against politicians because Brexit is being held up apart from some hardline Brexiteers, what many in the public really want is for this mess to be over with one way or the other and I suspect many that did vote to leave regret that now and would vote to remain. The real damage being done here is the hardline views from some Brexiteers that lied so much to get us into this mess, that don't want to deliver on what they promised and are willing to undermine the entire UK system, the hardline views from some Brexiteers and how willing they are to try and undermine UK democracy is likely turning many Brits that ware on the fence against Brexiteers. As for the racist numpties argument, I'm not saying all Brexiteers are racist as that would be stupid but there is a sizeable number of them that are and it's not hard to bring that out of them if you have a argument and shove facts in their faces as they start to rant and rave and then start to see the racist side of them, so not all of them are but I suspect a lot are with what I've seen so far. In any case, Brexit needs another public vote, the UK can't afford to stay in the EU or leave it without the public having another say with everything that gone on as a revolution could begin if Brexit is seen to be forced on the UK without parliament and the public having any say and the Brexiteers wont be happy that Brexit was stopped, another public vote is the only real way forward.
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It doesn't make sense for the US to do this, after all, European countries were going to buy their LNG anyway, it would also go against the US a lot if it was them and they were found out as the damage to trust and the US reputation would be massive if it was them, so it's unlikely to be them. Chances are, it's Putin, the more desperate he gets, the more reckless he gets with his actions, regardless of benefit to Russia or not and if truth, with how quickly Europe is moving away from Russian gas, the US doesn't really stand to benefit from damaging it, nor does Russia for that matter but desperate time delivers reckless actions that don't make much sense. In the end, it likely doesn't really change anything, Putin has fired almost everything he has to try and get the Europeans to back down on this war and it's having no real impact, so Putin probably thought, I'm going to lose their custom soon so I might as well blow it up lol, it's petty but this is how dictators react in desperate times. On the plus side, this speeds up the process away from Russian oil and gas to alternatives.
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They should have been honest with the world early on but to be fair to them, I can understand why they didn't with Trump itching for a fight with them. Either way, lessons need to be learned from this and we need to stop with this blame game, it is what it is and we really all need to work together to solve this problem as soon as we can because it's impacting us all in a big way and it's looking like things are only going to get worse.
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@justchill7995 Yep, we saw the same pattern in the UK, the warning signs was all around but governments didn't listen to they responded to it too slow and that to me tells me that even if China was more open, would other governments have reacted quicker? I doubt it somehow and that is the real problem here, a lack of trust on both sides so the share of blame is on both sides for different reasons. Personally, I put the blame mostly on the US and China, by creating a hostile environment, China felt it had to protect itself in being more secret on this because they likely knew that Trump would jump on this with the aim of harming China, after all Trump has a lot of form on that, so yes, it's easy to blame China but there is lots of blame to go around on this one, Trump being one of them and the slow reaction to this virus from many governments being another.
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I think this is the real problem with pro-Russian political figures in those countries, as well as Russia its self, these countries want to join the EU because it offers them political stability, economic growth and protection. Russia is having to bribe, intimidate and use threats to keep countries onside, and that's rarely in the interest of the people in those countries. The EU is winning them over because these countries are seeing what the EU is doing with the eastern EU countries that joined and want some of that, Russia doesn't want any of that, what Russia wants is satellite states that do as they are told, Russia is destined to lose on that because ultimately, what most people want is security, safety and prosperity, the EU is proving its self that it can offer that, not only with all the EU members but also the eastern ones that joined over the last 2 decades, that brings a lot of capital when it comes to people power. So Putin and his clowns can have some victories here and there, but are destined to lose unless they can deliver on what the people want, which Russia can't because it doesn't have the resources to do it and the ideology of Putin's government goes against the idea of democracy. This isn't just a thing in Europe, this is a global thing, people are more or less universal all over the world in wanting the basics when it comes to having a say, security and prosperity, and because of how interconnected the world is becoming, we are likely going to get more rises and revolutions popping up all over the world wanting much of the same that western countries have. Not to say that western countries are perfect, they are far from it, but looking at the alternatives, western countries are far better.
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I wouldn't really call this special treatment, after all, it's still a long way to go before Ukraine can join the EU, so there's a lot of work ahead of them. But closing up shop, won't do the moral and war effect in Ukraine any favours, which is probably what Orban wants, has he seems to be a puppet of Putin.
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@karaaslan7402 I think you're speaking of the UK and US there which have supported many dictators over the decades when it's in their interest to do so, you only have to look at Latin America to see that.
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@RiccardoRessi I agree but that takes bold moves from both sides and that isn't as easy to do and in this case, Russia seems to see the west as a threat to them which they are not whiles the west can't stand by and let Russia invade another country, regardless of what Russia thinks of Ukraine, the people in that country have the right to choose their own path and not have it forced on them like Russia is trying to do.
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Thats quitter talk, beside, I'm sure the UK will win it again but it's not likely to be any time soon until the UK builds better relations, we've not really been doing that great since the Iraqi war and Brexit is just adding onto of it but overtime I'm sure the UK can build relations again.
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What, did the UK suddernly drift off into the alantic or something, like it or not, the UK is a European country and have been for along time, as for Europeans not likeing us, we can't really blame them can we, we get into bed with the US on the Iraqi war that made a mess of the middle east and created a lot of the problems with immagrations wanting to come into Europe, then we have the UK media and political class constantly bashing the Europeans and now we've got Brexit. If we want to get back into the good books with Europeans then we are going to have to do a lot of work to get there, crazy as well because we had such a good deal in the EU with all the opt-outs, far more then any EU member and was a big player in the EU, all gone now and I have to wonder where Brexit is when it comes to blunders the UK have done over the last 100 years, I suspect it's pretty high up on the list.
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I doubt the other countries would lose any sleep if the UK was to pull out, beside leaving just makes the UK look weaker and we could even say the same thing for England in the world cup, why not pull out of that because it's looking like they will never win that again as well. Anyway, in the case of Eurovision, to have any chance of winning that, the UK will have to build bidges with the rest of Europe, voteing by it's very nature is political and the UK is in a very weak postion on that ever since the Iraq war hence why we're not getting even close to winning it anymore, throw Brexit on top of that and all the EU and European bashing we see in the UK and thats why we are bottom of the heap. In the end, we have our selfs to blame on why we are doing so badly with it but that can change with time but likely wont for at least another 2 decades I suspect.
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Thats true Sheppard, just taking part is the main aim of it, if you win, good, if you don't, it doesn't really matter and as you said, Eurovision as well as other things came about to bring Europeans together after world war 2 ScrappyDoo, yeah thats what the Tories are drooling over, the EU have some of the highest human right, animal rights, workers rights laws among many others around the world, the Tories don't like that, they want to weaken them and the only way to do that is out of the EU and god forbid when the UK needs a good trade deal with the US, will they demand weaker workers rights, does the UK really want the kind of workers rights we see in the US? The Brexit vote was about many things but I doubt you will get many Brits wanted to weaken a lot of what I said above and once out of the EU, slowly but surely, the Tories might get away with doing it without us even notices.
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If that was the case, at least the British public wouldn't have any excuses if the shit it's the fan, as it is now, many of them feel they are being forced out of the EU when so much has changed and the will of the people now might want to remain in the EU, all the signs from the public seem to indicate that.
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The American health care system reminds me of vultures, they get you when you are most vulnerable and know that you'll likely pay whatever is needed to fix what's needed to be fixed. Business should never be mixed with health care because they only care about profit, health care should be under the control of governments like it is in pretty much every other developed country around the world. I find it remarkable that Americans still put up with a system that treats Americans as a cash cow. It also makes me wonder as well that in the US because health care is run as a business, if there might be some under hand tactics in other areas going on like food standards and other safty areas and health issues, because the system seems designed around wanting to bring most custom in so they can make more of a profit whereas if you look at European countries, the incentive is the other way round where they want to reduce the burden on the health care system so less people go in which gives them a bigger incentive to look after the people much better, it makes me wonder if this plays out with other areas like food and so on.
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Technically, they can be kicked out if 26 EU members vote to kick them out, but I think it makes more sense to strip Hungary of it's voting rights in the EU, that would make it far harder for Orbán to obstruct the EU, which in turn would isolate Hungary far more in the EU, and it would also make Hungary far less useful for the likes of Trump and Putin, as well as China, which they only care about Orbán because he has powers to obstruct decision-making in the EU, so strip Orbán of that power and he will likely lose friends from all sides without having to kick him out of the EU, that might be enough for the people of Hungary to wake up and give him the boot, either way, Hungary wouldn't be a problem after that. If the EU were smart, they would do this before the elections because even thought there's a rise of right wings that are unlikely to support Orbán, that doesn't mean all of them would support stripping Hungary of it's voting rights., so if the EU doesn't get a move on, it might miss its chance after the election.
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That's Italians for ya, hot-tempered lol. I do feel that if protest movements are going to be effective, targeting the overall population isn't the right way to do it, targeting the rich and powerful, from governments, companies and elites. Make their lives miserable and you might actually get some real change, targeting the overall population is an easy way to get the public to turn against that movement, regardless of if what they are advocating is a good idea or not.
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Productivity in the EU is fine, can it be better? Yes, it can always be better but overall we are doing good on that one, especially if put on a per-hour basis to what Americans produce, we in Europe work fewer hours than Americans do so that can skew the numbers up. On the high-tech sector, the real issue isn't that we don't create enough high-tech, we do, but we don't fund them and they end up being snapped up by American corporations, a solution to solve that could be a capital market in the EU which would allow the EU to throw far more money at these start-ups, that would likely have the impact of creating a lot more jobs in the EU market, as well as keeping a lot of high-tech in-house, it would also make it much harder for the US to snatch up a lot of this talent and tech, either because a lot of it would stay in the EU or if they US corporations want to buy it, they likely would have to pay far higher for it. In any case, the resources are there to make it happen, it's just up to the EU members to come together and do the reforms at an EU level to make it happen. As for getting poorer, it depends on how you measure if, if we are talking about quality of life, Europe is actually doing really well, whereas the US and UK are actually getting poorer on average, quality of life and GDP numbers are very diffrent from each other.
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@joansparky4439 The problem is that after the second world war, many European countries had a clean slate to start anew, the UK didn't and now the UK is paying the price for that with a system that rarely repensents the intrest of the British public and I suspect that as long as the Conservatives and Labour are in power, the system wont change, we need new blood in the system and that really comes down to the people voting that in. What makes it worse is that the system is designed around a two party system that makes it very hard for new parties to take on the old guard, I suspect, the only way real change is going to happen in the UK is by revolution and ironiclly, Brexit could be the trigger for that but for the time being, it's early days and we're seeing no real signs of that yet. You're right about the UK, US and Australia and I suspect the reason the EU is doing better on this is because no EU member would share power with others unless the system is fair and democratic, the irony is that for the EU and it's members to integrate more, it has to become more democratic, established systems like the UK and US don't and in fact seem to be going in the wrong direction.
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I don't know about winning, but Ukraine over the last few years is exposing a lot of weaknesses in the Russian political system and well as the military, after all, there's no way I can imagine Putin would allow Ukraine to invade Russian soil if he could stop them, and the longer Ukraine is in Russia, the bigger the humiliation it is for Putin. We are two weeks into Ukraine invading Russian soil and yet it still seems like Russia has no answer to that, no great power would ever allow such a thing unless you're not in a position to stop it, in other words, Russia have dedicated so much resources to the front line that they seem almost powerless to stop Ukraine doing what it wants in Russia, this exposes that Russia are running short on troops, otherwise Ukraine would have been kicked out by now, it also exposes there resources are being pushed hard and that Ukraine will now feel more confidant in opening other fronts whenever it feels like, knowing Russia is in a poor position to stop it and also knowing that it will force Russia to divert troops off the front line. Also, if I'm honest, I'm surprised at how slow Russia is to respond to this, whatever the motives are of Ukraine, each passing day with Ukraine in Russia is an insult to Putin, but clearly, Ukraine is using this either as a distraction, or a negotiation position or maybe a bargaining chip. As for Putin saying it's not a bluff, if he has to even say that, then it's likely a desperate bluff with little merit, and besides, he's done this countless times now and not followed through, because he can't afford to escalate the war that could bring in other powers directly with how weak Russia is being seen by western powers, it's all desperation now, trying to use intimidation to scare off the western powers to not support Ukraine, but Putin's hand is really weak and the west isn't listening to Putin any more.
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The EU isn't a declining power but the world is changing where other powers are rising and the EU just like the US will have to make room for them, especially with China and India, but the EU is still a major power and likely will remain so with it continuing to expand and integrate. The EU is clearly a major power around the world when it comes to regulations and in many ways laws, a big factor in that is because a lot of what the EU creates are better standards than what's available around the world, that makes it much more likely for companies around the world to adopt the EU standards as a global one in a lot of cases to cut cost, the US could do the same but the US tends to have lower standards than the EU in a lot of areas, most countries and companies are much more willing to adopt better rules and laws than worse ones and that is a big part of why the EU is so successful in that, by creating better standards most of the time.
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Welcome to democracy UK style lol, but if it makes you feel any better, it's even worse in the US. Maybe the Brexiteers should have been focusing on electoral reforms and not the EU, because the UK electoral system is where the big problem is with under-representing the people of the UK, now it's just dawning on people what a mess the UK system is, but so many were so focused on ranting and raving about the EU that they didn't see the real problem with the UK was right under there nose lol. Which by the way, Reform UK are not the solution, but nor are the Conservative Party or Labour Party, the solution is right under your nose, which I'll let people ponder on what that is.
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Good point, so when are we having another public vote on Brexit to confirm this Brexit is what the British people want?, after all, we can't honestly say they voted over 3 years ago and that that, so much has changed since then, most of what was promise in the first vote isn't being delivered, so the real question is to Brexiteers, do they believe in democracy or do they believe in hate?
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Yes but the NATO countries don't have a spine, and without that, these numbers mean very little. If NATO countries were more involved, that would be really bad news for Russia as I can't see any way Russia could win that.
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Probably pressure from Putin, but I can only imagine how bad the performance of the troops from Belarus would be with how Russia is performing so badly. Lukashenko likely knows that he needs the troops in Belarus for his own protection from the population, if they enter the war and have a lot of casualties, it doesn't bold well for Lukashenko future. Personally, I doubt Belarus will enter the war and Putin might have told him to put a lot of his troops on the northern part of Ukraine with the intention of scaring Ukraine, in other words, Putin needs to make Ukraine think that there could be an attack from the north to ease the pressure on the attack that Ukraine is doing in the south, if it works, Ukraine will have to divert resources away from the front in the south which is likely what Putin wants, but on the other side of the coin, it's probably best to beef things up at the north just in case.
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The Germans are not sweating, in fact there are other EU countries they could pick and others are joining the EU so it's not really an issue for Germany but it could become a big issue for Poland and Hungary if a lot of investments get pulled out by being kicked out of the EU. So lets be blunt about this, the reason to investing in those two countries is because of cheap labour and because of easy access to the rest of the EU market, the cheap labour can be had from other eastern EU members but the easy access can't, in other words, it would be a bit of a disaster for those two countries if they get the boot and maybe that needs to happen for the reality check to kick in.
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@kynchan3332 They are and Germany is investing a lot in automation and robotics.
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Actually, the real flaw is that the EU doesn't have the power in many key areas where it's really needed here, this doesn't look good for euroseptics because they've tied the EU's hands behind it's back and it's not very effective in this situation, lives could have been saved here if the EU could work better with the members on getting the help where it was needed in the hot spot but euroseptics are very selfish and that is where the real problem is now, this virus is exposing the massive flaw in the argument euroseptics have and why we need more Europe then less, it's just a shame that many people had to die for us to see that or likely a lot more before the euroseptics realize that.
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@arfajob3312 All countries are a protection racket lol, if that wasn't the case, we would have open access trade with the likes of China which I'm sure you can see how that would have a massive impact on jobs in the UK lol. Countries or powers need protective measures when wages are higher and when standards are higher, without them, we wouldn't be able to compete with countries that have weaker standards and lower wages, it's just common sense hence why all the rich countries do the same thing. Lets look at the UK for instance, the Brexiteers and UK government wants to deregulate but do you know what that actually means? It means less rights for workers, worse food standards and countless other things, regulations are there for a reason and it's to protect the people, do you really want to live in a country where a company can just fire you for no reason? Because regulations protect us on that, what about food standards, do you really want a lot of that food from the US in our market that is of lower standards? Worse yet, where we don't know which is which because that's how the US wants it. The term red tape should be changed to protection of rights for people because for the most part, that is what they are.
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@arfajob3312 Which is funny really because according to Brexiteers, we left the EU because we wanted higher standards and now you are saying we already have higher standards lol, you are tripping over your own lies lol. The truth is, the EU sets a high standard but members can choose to have higher standards if they want too but they can't have lower standards, it's part of the reason how they can have freer trade with each other because of those standards, hence the reason why the EU says we can have a good trade deal as long as we abide it's standards by law and not just the UK government saying we will because the UK isn't trusted any more. As for protecting our interest, how are we going to do that when the UK will likely lick Trump's arse? if the UK is really great as a country, we wouldn't be a poodle to the US, look at France, they stand up to the US and they don't lose anything by that, in fact they get a lot more respect around the world for it where the UK looks weak for kissing up to the US. As for our own industry, we did that all by ourselves, it had nothing to do with the EU, in fact it was the Tories in the 80's that did massive damage to that whiles moving us to services., had nothing to do with the EU and everything to do with our own governments, which at the time was the Tories so that is who you can blame on that one. In any case, we can argue this all we want, I will always beat you on facts and that is all that matters.
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@arfajob3312 One problem with that, the UK doesn't control it's own laws even after Brexit, we have a thing that is international rules, laws and regulations, the 3 big powers, the EU, US and China make up the bulk of those rules that more or less everyone else has to follow to some degree or another if they want good terms with any of those powers, it's the reason why so many laws in many areas and more so on trade are not radically different from each other among modern nations and that will be the case for the UK, the UK wants good trade terms with the EU and US, the UK is going to have to bend to their will, that's how the game is with the bigger players always having the clout. Did you also know that trade deals is a compromise in them wanting something from us as well? India for instance said the UK can have a good trade deal just as long as they get a lot more Visa for its people to enter the UK, the US has lots of demands on the UK with getting a good deal, the point I'm getting at, the UK isn't going to get good trade deals without bending to their will and considering we have a lot less clout now, you can bet a lot of them will take advantage of that. Heck even the EU and US impact each others laws, rules and regulations of each other, if they can do that to each other, what hope does tiny Britain have? I'll tell you how I think Brexit will go, we'll make a song and dance about it, thinking we have our Independence, but in the end, the vast bulk of our laws, rules and regulations will come from the EU, they will likely be named something different to fool people like you but it amounts to the same thing, in other words, the UK rubber stamps what the EU says without the UK having any say in making those rules and what makes it worse for the UK is the amount of trade we do with the EU meaning it would be very difficult to diverge our rules from theirs and more importantly, we don't really want too as much as some in the UK say they do, we like a lot of the high standards from foods, workers right, human rights, consumers rights the EU has, most in the UK, even Brexiteers sure don't want to follow in America's foot step so we are likely to follow in the EU's. At the end of the day, you can't have your cake and eat it, the UK wanted the same trade terms with the EU that single market and custom union offers, that is never going to happen unless the UK follows EU rules, no other country around the world has that good of a trade deal, even Canada once said, they would love to have the same kind of trade deal the UK currently enjoys. Beside, free trade deals are anything but free, the only other areas that offers trade terms like the EU does is actually internally inside countries but in the EU case, it's done over many countries, no other free trade or trade deal or even bilateral agreement comes close to that and that is the reason the UK refuses to walk away from talks, we simply can't afford to do that and the government knows that. So enough with comparing Japan, Canada and South Korea, those trade deals don't even compare to the single market and custom union access which is really what the UK is after, but we are never going to get that unless we abide EU rules and the EU have been very clear on that for years now.
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@arfajob3312 These are facts and you can look them up yourself, I know you won't because people like you don't want to hear fact, hence why people like you listen to right wing media because they tell you what you want to hear and not what is reality. 30th of June is judgement day for you and I wonder if you even understand why lol.
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@arfajob3312 You say the UK can walk away and to a degree that is true but in reality, we know the UK will be desperate to sign any deal because it needs to make up for the loss of leaving the EU, hence the reason Trump gets really excited about a trade deal with the UK, he's seeing a big opening in putting American first at the expense of the UK, better access to the health care system, better access with food and countless other areas and I'll put money on it that the US deal will be much better for them then the UK. If that isn't bad enough, this virus is likely going to make things 10 times worse, the EU and US can pool their resources together to get out of this mess much better than the UK can because of their size and that is where I suspect the UK is going to get a lot closer to the EU then some Brexiteers want, everything has changed thanks to this virus that Brexit all in all doesn't even mean that much any more. We in the UK should consider ourselves grateful that the EU isn't as vindictive as the UK or US because the EU is willing to help us out here even with everything that has gone on and that tells me a lot about the EU. As for the UK, we are in deep deep trouble now, not only have we had 10 years of cuts but now we've got Brexit to contend with and now this virus, we could have another 10 years of cuts after this because think about it logically, governments are bringing in little taxes, they are paying for the NHS, they are paying around 80% of the wages for workers, and we both know that companies are going to want a lot of bail outs, you have no idea of the damage this is doing to the UK, it's far worse than Brexit and it wouldn't surprise me if it ends up meaning the UK ends up being close to the EU or even rejoins it a lot sooner than some think because we're going to need all the help we can get, the EU is already offering help, the US likely won't and then there will be a choice for the UK to make, now hardship will likely push our hand. The next 5 years are going to be very interesting, more so for the euroseptics which could be on the ropes after this because many are blaming them for not being able to get better help on combating this virus, closed narrow minds does that, and we are paying the price for it now, this virus is the Brexiteers worse nightmare in so many ways that it's not even funny any more.
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Both would be very useful for Ukraine, but what they need in the short term is weapons, longer term is EU membership and it is a long term thing that doesn't happen overnight but there is no reason why the EU and Ukraine can't start the talks and build closer relations now.
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We've been hearing about the death of the EU for decades from euro-septics and yet it never seems to happen, Brexiteers really thought that Brexit would do it and yet all it's done is turn more Europeans into supporting the EU. Worse yet is that Brexiteers really thought they could divide the EU to get a better deal on Brexit, what ended up happening is the UK became divided whereas the EU became more united. Euro-septics need to learn, wishing for something to happen and it actually happening are two very different things, wishful thinking and reality and that is the real problem with Brexiteers in the UK and why you always keep getting it so wrong, you deal in rage and angry and not facts. It's even worse then that because there are two kinds of euro-septics, British ones and European ones, British ones want a slow and painful death to the EU, European ones want change in the EU, this is something British euro-septics never seem to understand and it's why they are wrong so many times on their predictions of the EU. So ask yourself, why does anything think they are right now when they have a poor record at being wrong for so many years? P.S. the irony is in all this, Brexiteers would be a lot more of a threat if they deal in facts and not wishful thinking, it's the reason why euro-septics don't get anywhere fast because they are deluded, but anyway guys, I hope you can read between the lines in what Boris is saying and what he is doing, he's setting up Brexiteers with the intention of delaying Brexit later this year, at first he wanted to see if the EU would back down but that not likely and that has backed Boris into a corner where there is only two option, it's easy to guess which way that will go ;-), remember, Boris had to tell the Brexiteers what they wanted to hear to get the PM job, now he's got it, he has to try and find a way of keeping hold of it whiles getting out of this Brexit mess, we all know he would never of got the job if he didn't win the ERG over and Boris is a proven opportunist if you check out his history, he's playing you for fools and you don't even realise it.
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@EaglePicking I think with China, both the west and China should try to hit the reset button and see if they can put relations on a normal footing but if China helps Russia out on this war and keep showing hostile plans like they are with Taiwan, then yeah I think the west should make plans to divert away from China, it's high time the rich countries stop funding these crack pots.
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@charliecan9603 Not quite, it will hit the economy in the short term but the west is far more adaptable to these things, modern countries can change quite quickly when the need arises, to give you an idea, what how quickly the Europeans will use alternative energy sources in the next few years, in other words, now the European countries have a massive incentive to kill the fossil fuel industry off, that would hurt Russia and many other countries a lot, guess who gains from that the most? countries that don't produce much oil, gas and coil, in other words, the EU, Japan and others like them, now they have a massive incentive to make that happen as energy is now a security risk. Putin ironically is the best friend of Green Peace here and he doesn't even know it lol. Also, you have to understand, there are many other countries that would love to fill that void that Russia leaves behind and it's a lot of money to make but they best be quick about it because it's clear that European countries will push hard on cleaner energy sources.
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@bryanbelshaw7725 They prepared for a short war in Ukraine with much weaker sanctions being put on them, clearly the sanctions are much tougher than Putin expected and the war in Ukraine is going at a snail pace for Russia, that's hitting the Russian economy hard, on top of that, about half of the $600 billion Putin saved up for this moment is frozen and if that's not bad enough, he never thought for a second that the EU countries would actively look elseware for oil, gas and coal and yet that is what they are doing, that will really hurt the Russian economy hard with how much Russia depends on the EU for that revenue. What we should remember going off history is that sanctions take many months to really bite, we are still too early in them and we are already seeing early signs of them biting, expect that to get a lot worse for Russia as time goes on. As for China, let's be blunt about this, China is no friend of Russia, they see this as a big opening to take advantage of Russia whiles they are weak, in other words, China could play games with Russia to sell it's oil and gas at a much lower price point, China also likely see this as an opening to make Russia a vassal of China, something I highly doubt the Russian government or people want but I doubt Russia will want to be too dependent on China as that would be a one way relationship, either way, Russia is screwed here. As for the rocketing in prices for modern countries, that's a short term thing that will settle in time, a bit of short term pain for longer term gains.
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@seanbirss1816 I don't think anyone said we shouldn't leave, what a lot of people wanted was another vote on Brexit to either confirm the will of the people or to see if they've changed their minds after Brexit wasn't what was promised, that would have been democracy, what we actually got was a scam and that scam is really dividing the country up with a real risk to the UK union and what a legacy that would be to have lol.
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@lindaloe1974 Another referendum should have happened because so much changed on Brexit, if what the Brexiteers told before the referendum came true then fair enough but it was all based on lies and when so much changed on the out come on Brexit, it should have been put to the people again to confirm if they want to go through with it or to stop it, but clearly, the UK isn't much of a democracy any more, hence why it's looking like it's in the interest of Scotland and Northern Ireland to get out of this sinking ship called England before they drag them down with them.
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I suspect with how bad the war is going in Ukraine for Russia and the tough measures the west have put on Russia, it's putting Putin into survival mode as he didn't expect the west to get this tough, he didn't expect the war to drag on this long and didn't expect such tough resistance from Ukraine. This is costly for Russia and especially Putin because this war was sold to the Russian people as being a quick victory with a noble goal and clearly that's not the case, the finance and lives cost to Russia are mounting every day, the money reserves are running out, EU countries are gradually moving away from Russian oil and gas and Russia is increasingly being isolated around the world. All this is an indicator that Putin is getting desperate, he knows his political grip on power could be at risk, probably his life as well, lies to the Russian people can only go so far and if this was a quick victory, Putin might have got away with it but because it's dragging on, it's very likely going to turn Russians against the government, especially as hard times really start to bite, hence why Putin is making all kinds of excuses to try and keep the people onside. Basically, if things keep going the way they are doing, Putin's time may be numbered and the problem for Putin, the more he resists that, the worse it could get for Putin, in other words, Putin is stuck here, if he backs down, he will look weak to the Russian people, if he continues, he's just going to weaken Russia both politically and economically which will have massive cost to the Russian people, the clock is ticking Putin.
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I keep hearing about this decline for decades now and yet Europe have some of the highest quality of living in the world, go figure lol. But I mean seriously, we've been hearing crisis after crisis in the EU for the last 2 or so decades and yet here it still is and has one of the highest quality of living in the world. I suppose, if you keep saying it enough times, it might happen, you know like how Rome fell? lol. The key thing to always watch out for and that's reports of what some people want to happen and what actually is happening, after all, the EU shouldn't even be around by now according to these so called expects lol, and even thought there are issues with high energy prices, it's short term overall and will pass.
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It really all depends on the threat, for most Europeans in the west, there ism't really much of a threat, even today there isn't much of a threat from Russia, hence defence spending, but the further east you go, the higher the spending goes with it, and it's understandable why considering there history with Russia, but honestly, I don't think there's a threat to EU or NATO countries, being that both have a defence clause that an attack on one is an attack on all, and in the case of EU members, they are far more integrated into each other than NATO members, so they would be far more compelled to come to the aid of the other in a direct way if war were to break out. With that said, I do think EU countries should spend around 2% but I don't think they should follow the US in spending so much, there isn't really much need, 2% would be fine, but I do think EU countries would be far better off if they integrate there militaries into one EU one, that would reduce a lot of waste and duplications, it would also be a far more powerful and effective military and forign policy then having 27 separate ones pulling in all directions, 2% of a single military would be more than strong enough, whereas 2% or more on the smaller countries is better than nothing but the effectiveness is still going to be limited, and in a changing world with the US, China and Russia, Europeans need to think big, and they've got the institution to make it happen with the EU if there is enough political will, and the irony is, momentum does seem to be building on this with the public and in political circles of an EU military, mostly thanks to Trump and Putin, and it looks like an arms industry could be the first step.
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Two party system isn't really a good thing, people have views that are all over the political spectrum and yet they are being locked into two ideologies with the Democrats and Republican parties and that isn't healthy for democracy as it polarizes people into two camps and as we are seeing, it's dividing the US. The US isn't alone in this, just look at the UK which is more or less a two party system, yes there are options for other parties but they have little hope of gaining power and worse yet, because the way the system is created, it actually splits the votes which favours one or the other two major parties and as we are seeing in the US, the UK is very polarized into two camps that both sides feel their voice isn't being heard on many subjects. Contrast that with many European countries, Germany for example that has many parties and all can gain a stake of the pie when it comes to power, either by winning the election or by coalition, now the system might look messy on the surface but it forces governments to listen to the views from many different groups of people, which usually means compromises and that is how it should be when people are so diverse across the political spectrum, basically, people feel they have a choice and that their voice is being heard more, whereas in the US or UK, you've got two choice and in a lot of cases, they don't represent your interest and to make things worse, voting for alternatives, becomes a wasted voted that your voice won't get heard unless enough people vote that way. The truth is, the political system needs major reforms in both the US and UK and none of the two major parties are going to do those reforms as the system as it now favours those two major parties at the expense of other parties. Personally, I actually consider a two party system to be a weak democracy that limits choice, doesn't listen to a massive number of the population and puts people into two camps which creates a lot of division, all of which we are basically seeing in both the US and UK over the last decade or so and it seems to be getting worse over time as people are getting left behind.
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Directly or indirectly, Brexit is to blame for the mess the UK got it's self into, because Brexit allowed the loons to take over the Tory party and that is where the real problem is, they can keep changing leaders all they want, it's not going to fix the problem because the ERG in the party is pulling the strings. I mean seriously, we've had like 3 or 4 leaders during Brexit and yet they keep lurching from one mess after another. There is only one solution, kick the Tories out of power and create closer relations with the EU to limit and repair the damage done, the alternative is that we continue to sink, lurching from one mess after another, chasing a fantasy that's long gone. Why this is directly to blame on Brexit is because it destabilized the political and economic environment of the UK and all this is happening over the last 5 years where the world is turning upside down, the UK can't afford for this to continue, otherwise it's going to do real damage to living standards.
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Well as a Brit myself, the last thing the Europeans want to do is follow us, as for Norway and Switzerland, Norway is a small country with oil reserve being used wisely, so that wont work for most European countries, Switzerland are one of the most currupt modern countries out there so not really something to follow. Norway does have a lot going for it but once that oil runs out, the gdp per capita is likely going to fall back in line with Sweden and Finland. In any case, there is much for the rest of Europe and world could learn from Norway, Sweden and Finland and as for reforms of the EU and Eurozone, it's clear a lot of changese are going to happen over the next 10 years, more so now that the UK can't block any of it.
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Problem is that sarcasiam doesn't always translate well online hence why I don't use it as much online as I do in person because it goes over too many peoples heads online I find. As for Spain and Italy, they are not bankrupted but they do need to do some major reforms, more so for Italy, As for Spain, they are richer then they've ever been, remember they started out as a poor country before joining the EU and look at them now, far better off, as for the Euro, it seems to work for all the countries that does reforms, Italy and Greece have been lagging in doing the reforms hence why they've fell behind, Germany about 20 years ago was in the same boat as Italy as the sick man of Europe but they didn't complain, they did the reforms needed to get back on it's feet and now look at them, Italy and Greece wasted all thoes years whiles blaming everyone else and not themselfs for it's own problems. The EU is working really well, every country that joined is much better then it was, even the UK which before it joined was the sick man of Europe at the time and being in the EU became one of the richest countries in the world, then look at the eastern members, they are catching up fast with the western members, to give you an idea of what EU membership does, look at Poland and Ukraine, both had around the same level of gdp per capita in the early 90's, now Poland is about 8 times richer then the Ukraine in gdp per capita, pretty much every EU member is better off thanks to the EU. As for Switzerland, it's true, you can go and check it out yourself as it's been voted that way and I suspect it's because of the currupted banking sector that seems to protect the rich elites intrest as well as corparations. You say Germany wants to rule Europe, the irony is that half the time they just want to be left alone but other members keep pulling them back in, also, it only takes two big EU members to vote the other way and Germany can't get what it wants, so Germany doesn't rule the EU, they have one of the bigger says in it and rightly so as they have the biggest economy and population but they are just one member among others, in fact, if we look at the EU, the smaller members get more voting rights per population then the bigger members, if the system was done really fair, the bigger members would have more voting rights then they do now, now compare that to the UK system in how voting is done there. As for the US, they've not really achived much that Europeans wasn't doing, the only real thing that makes the US diffrent is the size of the population to EU countries and that gives power, it's also the real benefit China have got with it's big population and quickly moderniseing, the point I'm getting at, if Germany or any other modern EU member had the same population size of the US, they would end up being about the same size in economic terms, more so when scale kicks in. As for the UK leaving the EU, thats the best thing that could happen to the EU, the UK have always held it back, now the EU and it's members can real push forward in areas the UK and for that matter, the US didn't want, in other words, expect it to get a lot more effective from now on.
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What, so being British means I should bend over and do as the goverment tells us to do? they tried that in the US after 9/11 banding people as trators for not agreeing with goverments even thought it was clear what the goverment was doing was wrong. I'm fully British but that doesn't mean I'm not going to keep an open mind on how things are really going and I look at things for how they are, reforms are clearly needed with the EU and Eurozone for it to work more effectively for it's members, it's clear we need a new migrant policy but the problem is here is with some EU members, it would work far more effective if the EU had the power over that so then Italy wouldn't have the problem they have now. As for the UK and Brexit, where do I start lol, we've got Brexit so wrong in the UK with our pie in the sky way of thinking, thinking we would get a cake to eat and cheer pick any deal we want which was never going to happen, reality is slowly kicking in as all the lies are being exposed with Brexit and the real impact of Brexit becomes real. Because I'm British, that doesn't mean I agree with everything the UK does, we do many things wrong just like others do and Brexit is one of our biggest mistakes we've done for quite some time.
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The UK helped but we have to be real, the UK was on it's knees begging the US to enter the war, so the UK helped but it was the US and Russia that really changed the war and what really indicates that is that the Nazia had 60% of it's best troops and equapment on the eastern front, they saw the western allies as lest of a threat and as we know, Russia is what really did the damage. We should also remember, that if it wasn't for that 20 miles of water devided us from mainland Europe, the Nazis likely would of steamed rolled into the UK just as easierly as they did with France, the truth is, they had a very advanced millitery and we couldn't keep up, we needed time to catch up before we could beat them, thats was why they fell in the longer run. Anyway, being that I've traveled around a lot, mostly around Europe and America and that I live in the UK, you'll be supprised how many in the UK are disgruntled that Germany lost the war and yet they are more successful now, bigger enonomy, population, have a bigger and more central roll in the EU, thats really the sense many in the UK don't like. As for the EU falling, euroseptics have been dreaming of that for along time and it never happens, the reason is doesn't is because most don't want it to fall, even now with all the problems going on, not many want to see the end of the EU, they want to see it change not the end of it, this is something I find people in the UK don't seem to understand about euroseptics in the EU.
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The second world war isn't as clear cut as it sound, remember that after the first world war, many other countries wanted to punish the Germans for what happened in the first world war, that helped create the depression and led to Hitler getting into power which restored pride in the Germans, in other words, the western countries actions had a play in all that. Also we did learn our lessions after the second world war in that we didn't try to punish them but helped to rebuild them and that worked. We should also remember that the US played a big part in all this because around 1930, they started a trade war by putting tariffs on France and Italy I think, maybe some others as well, anyway, they put tariffs back on the US and then the US put more tariffs on the others, it helped to create the depression and the irony is that Trump wants to do the same thing today. History is a great teacher if we listen to it, sadly, most of us don't research it and it quickly gets forgotten only for us to keep repeating the same mistakes. In any case, I really put the blame on our education system, we all should be doing better then this but too mamy people are too easierly fooled which is sad to see because it hurts them the most, also goverments and the mass media don't help with them helping the public to not know who to trust any more so they get disilussuion with everything in life. As for the euroseptic movment, if you notice, hardly any of them want to pull out of the EU outright, what the real complaining is mostly about is that they want the EU to change, more so over things like migrants, the irony is that the EU have limited power on that area because it's really a national issue and that is where the real problem is, some are being more selfish then others and putting the burdern on 2 or 3 EU members, this is one of thoes cases where the EU doesn't have the power to do much about it but it would be better if they did, the irony in all that.
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No problems and you too.
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I have to wonder what is going on with the UK government and this EU procurement program, something doesn't seem right and I hope I am wrong in that it has nothing to do with Brexit and being petty about things. Either way, I think a full investigation should happen on this because the EU was willing to help but for some reason, we kept hearing excuses and the story being changed from the UK government and if it's found out the UK government didn't want help from them because it's the EU and lives that have died could have been saved, there will be hell to pay for this government, especially considering that this virus is impacting much of it's base supporters as in the older generation of people and if I was one of them, I would feel really let down by this government.
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This is the case for pretty much all modern countries, most of us don't seem to want to have kids any more because of modern living, it's too expensive and time-consuming. If we were to take out immigration from all modern countries, then you would have something to worry about because a lot of the natural births in modern countries are from immigrants, so reducing immigrants has a double impact in reducing the population whiles also reducing birth levels in the country. The real question people should be asking isn't why the population is shrinking, but why do the natives in modern countries not want to have kids any more, because clearly this is an issue that spans pretty much every modern countries, with some doing better than others but all are doing quite bad and being kept alive by immigration. In fact, is there any modern country that has a population growth rate above the replacement rate of 2.1% from natural births? From what I know, even countries that are doing well are only around 1.6% so clearly there are big issues and immigration is helping to fix that problem in the short term, but unless there's a long term solution on why people don't want to have kids any more, then we have a much bigger problem going forward, especially with an ageing population in most modern countries. Personally, I think in pretty much every modern country, the conditions to have kids are not very good, the cost of living, the lack of free time and how people perceive the world as being less safe are probably playing a big part in why so many are put off the idea of having kids, but housing and cost of living are probably having a big impact.
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I wish we had a leader like that in the UK right now, this was a good speech and to me this wasn't aimed at Trump but was aimed at American politicians and people, he's right that the west is weaker with all the devisions we have created and much stronger if we find ways to work together even if we have disagreements on many things. A lot of walls are being put up over the last few years which isn't doing us any favors, I have to wonder if what Macron said here could be a wake up call to many, he sure got many standing ovation so it seem to go down well, now if it translates into anything, only time will tell.
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Very true, we've seen first hand in the US and UK how democracy is backsliding and it's not the only countries, it's happening to many others, it was just easier to spot in the US and UK because of Trump and Brexit, either way, unless the people start to wake up, there could be a real risk to democracy and in the end, I blame the people in the given countries because they are the ones that really have the power but are too divided with too much infighting among themselves that governments carve them up for their own ends.
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Almost all countries or unions do some kind of protectionist measures, especially the bigger powers, that's just the nature of the beast in these games, after all, look at the talks with the US and UK and the demands the US is putting on the UK.
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It's hard to say whether Scotland or even Northern Ireland for that matter will break away, but one thing I do know, this Tory government is helping to break this union up by creating division and not listening to the people in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Brexit has opened up a big can of worms for the UK that I think the union only has another decade left before either Scotland and/or Northern Ireland leaves the UK union and I feel like the Tories and British people are sleepwalking into that. There is very little in the way of unity in the UK at the moment and that is likely going to get much worse as the cost of Covid, Brexit, high inflation and the war in Ukraine starts to bite and looking at who is going to take over the leadership of the Tory party doesn't bold well for the UK. What the UK needs right now is a new government with more radical new thinking and it's clear we're not going to get it from this Tory lot and honestly, Labour doesn't look much better, it feels like both parties are blind to what's going on in the country and if the union does break up, the blame is firmly on the two major parties in the UK, the Tories for basically pushing all this and Labour for not having a backbone to give the British people an alternative option.
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It's not that, it's simple that there isn't really any alternative and that's quite sad really because he's been a disaster on so many policies in the UK, even Covid which is supposed to be his good point, the UK still has one of the worse records in the world on Covid so for him to be bragging how good he thinks he's doing on that shows how bad things are getting in the UK. It begs the question, how did things get so bad in this country that this is the best we can come up with?
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@LD-rs1oj It's not so much that democracy doesn't work, it can if we had real democracy as in one vote per person without all the regional voting, the real problem isn't so much democracy but the people because democracy is only as good as the people living in it and it's clear to see in many countries that we're poor at making decisions, you only have to see the mess the US and UK got in over the last few years to see that.
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@Kevin Grant I suspect it's a bit like Brexit where some people just look at the money we give to the EU whiles ignoring all the benefits we get which ends up being worth a lot more money than we put in, it's the same for Scotland, if they left the UK, the rest of the UK would lose wealth.
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@LD-rs1oj It's not so much that decent politicians have been pushed out, it's more to do with the public preferring lies over the truth and it's easy to understand why, the truth is cold and harsh and there's only one of them, lies are many and can be twisted to sound as good as they want, hence why the public falls for them all the time. The real state of why things are like they are is because of the people and not the governments and unless the people wake up on that, don't expect any real change.
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@Carewolf Farage being one of them, he's even making a song and dance because he wants to jump onto the gravy trains, it's kind of insulting to the Brexiteers when you think about it that he's been saying the EU isn't democratic and yet he's taking part in European elections lol, he's taking Brexiteers for fools.
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@MrCTruck That's true and it's clear to see that they've been trying to paper over the cracks to keep the economy going but now with this coronavirus going on, they've gone into overdrive but it's clearly not effective because they are using the same tools they would use under normals times, these are not normals times, a lot of people are not working or buying goods so it's kinda freezing economic activity, all they can really do is limit the damage because it's very likely a recession is on it's way, maybe even a depression. Either way, I don't see that we have much options as we have to contain this virus before it gets really bad, also, some people saying it's just a few thousand people, that's being very reckless, look how quick the virus has spread, look at the numbers of deaths in Italy just a week or two ago, those numbers are rising at an alarming rate and if we see the same thing in other countries and the numbers don't calm down, the death toll from this could end up in the millions if not more if we don't contain it quickly.
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It's not pressuring, it's keeping there options open with trade with Iran, the US on the other hand wants to threaten anyone that does trade with Iran, the problem with that is that the likes of the EU and China can threaten the US just as much, no one wins in the end.
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That's true but I don't think countries like Ukraine and others that want to join should be punished because of one or two countries in the EU backsliding, namely, Hungary and Poland. With that said, the EU will need reforms before it lets any new country in, the veto and majority voting rules need reform, maybe having a lot more areas moving to QMV rules, if they get those reforms done, that should help to bring Hungary and Poland back on track, the alternative is that the EU will have to find a way to kick Hungary and Poland out of the EU, but in any case, no country should join the EU until these reforms are done otherwise it would create more gridlock.
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@schwarzflammenkaiser2347 Yeah we've got to remember that it's desperate times for Putin, he'll likely speed up the process, even thought it's less likely to be done properly, Putin is also probably worried about these new troops rebelling so he'll probably want them on the front line as soon as possible. We should never underestimate a desperate man in doing what doesn't seem possible, but in any case, it's likely going to be winter and I doubt anyone really wants to fight in those conditions, especially on the Russian side that many of them don't want this war in the first place. So like the video said, the next few months are critical and in favour of Ukraine.
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So China helping countries out is now considered a bad thing now? You have to wonder about some people and their way of thinking, more so when they have an agenda. Now don't get me wrong, China should take some of the blame on this virus but the way some countries and people are acting, it wouldn't matter how much good or what China does, they will always get the blame in their eyes, just like Trump, he uses China to deflect how bad as a leader he is in the US so to take heat off him, he needs a boggy man, it's known to work with stupid people lol. But this is Sky News Aus, they are as fanatical as Fox News in the US or the Sun paper in the UK which doesn't report news but fanatical views and do you know how you can tell? Look at who owns all 3 of them, what's the odds that the views of all 3 would be more or less the same with a specific agenda?, in other words, they don't report the news, they report personal views of Rupert Murdoch, now if people are stupid enough to fall for that then good for them, they can stay poor, be taken advantage off and all that good stuff but forget trying to convince the smarter people that see through all that bullshit lol. Beside, this coronavirus is their worse nightmare in so many ways that I doubt they even see why being as they are not the brightest out there lol.
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For the moment, not much, as it really depends on who wins, but I suspect the odds are more favourable for the Democrats now that Biden is out, for Trump, Biden was an asset that was helping his odds, if Harris is the leader of the Democrats, then it might bring more youth to the debate which Trump and Biden couldn't do as they are too old and disconnected from the realities of the average Americans and their concerns. As for the EU, if Trump wins, on the surface, that sounds like bad news for the EU, in reality, it's great news and for a number of reasons, too many people on the euro septic side use the US and NATO as a shield to not allow the EU to further integrate in key areas like the military, foreign policy and maybe even having a capital market so the EU market can compete better, if Trump were to win and makes it clear he's not going to defend Europe and better yet, if the US were to leave NATO, that would be music to the ears of the pro EU lot that want further integration, it would be a massive incentive for big change and the ones trying to block it will have far less ammo to do so. Trump is the ideal candidate that the EU needs for real change, Harris will be more of the same as we have now, in other words, the EU will change more or less depending on threat from the outside, Russia is already getting the EU to change, but Russia was never really that big of a threat to the EU, no matter how much Putin wants to think he is, the US on the other hand is, especially to the Eurosceptics and if he makes it clear he won't defend Europe or plans to leave NATO, that would be a massive incentive for the EU countries to get together and build an EU military, it will also very likely boost the arms industry in the EU a lot and likely mean further integration in foreign policy matters. On the international stage, it will likely weaken EU-US relations whiles it could boost relations from the EU and China, after all, the EU isn't going to listen to the US on US interest when it comes to China if the US is acting like a dick, another factor is that I suspect a lot of countries around the world want a strong EU so they've got an option in who to side with, the EU or the US, a lot of countries don't like US policy but side with them because there are no credible alternatives, the EU could be an alternative if they got there act together, and Trump could be the perfect person to help make it happen by waking up those people in Europe that seem to think the US is dependable, basically, it exposes a massive weakness in there argument and will show why we need a much stronger EU if we want to protect our interest. At the end of the day, if Trump were to win, that would be a victory for the EU as it will give a lot more momentum for further integration in key areas, it will also be a victory for China that wants to create a divide from the EU and US, both the EU and US would be weakened if divided and China would be stronger for it, but the US is becoming more radical in its policies and politics, so Europeans and the rest of the world seriously needs to start looking at it's options as the US becomes less reliable, at least Europeans in the EU have options, others around the world are at the mercy of the big powers. Also, let's get this off the record, Russia isn't a threat to the EU or it's members on the military front, Russia simply doesn't have the economic muscle to take on the EU, they are having a hard enough time in Ukraine whiles the EU and US are only throwing crumbs at Ukraine in support, if Russia were to be a real threat to the EU countries, you can bet that much of the economy and manufacturing capacity would be put towards military arms if needed, real power in this world is based on the economy, EU countries are not flexing on the military but that doesn't mean they can't if needed, just that Europeans have been more passive on the military front since the second world war, but that can change quickly if Russia were a threat or if the US goes off the rails and an alternative is needed, and in the end, if the US isn't careful, Trump could do some serious damage to the US and it's reputation around the world, and China will take full advantage of that, the EU will likely be forced to further integrate and many countries around the world will want to edge there bets away from the US as the US becomes less reliable, in other words, looking for a credible alternative away from the US, the EU could be that if they get there act together, and the US needs to be careful on that because the geopolitical situation could change quite quickly if the US isn't seen as the good guys any more, and we should remember, Trump winning a second term will tell the world that it's not a one-off and that the US is going off the rails, meaning, a lot of countries will probably want to distance themselves from the US over time.
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So basically, vertical farming works but we need A.I. robotics and renewable energy to reduce the cost a lot, which has we know, all 3 are coming very quickly. So it looks like it does work, but it's not ready for prime time just yet, but I suspect we all know this isn't the end of that idea, considering how much land farming takes up, there's a big incentive for better farming ideas in a more controlled environment that could deliver more crops and better quality crops, not to mention that many countries would rather grow their own crops then import them from other countries. Maybe in this case, they jumped the gun just a little too soon before the key technologies are in place to make it happen. Basically, the labour cost, the skills needed and the energy cost could be reduced massively thanks to A.I. robotics and renewable energy, considering how all 3 techs are being developed, getting better and becoming cheaper, this likely means we've only delayed vertical farming, that eventually vertical farming is likely going to be cheaper than all other farming because of advancement in tech.
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This is not strange, the moment countries start to open up again, things will start to kick off, that is to be expected and will likely continue for a while, as for the death count, well two things could explain that, one is that there is a lag effect from infection to death of around 3 weeks so deaths are likely going to go up but another factor is that we are likely better prepared for this pandemic then the first time so might be able to contain it better, but for now, it's too early to say. The US is a bit of a different story in that the numbers are not really going down that much and infections and deaths are still quite high over there and have been since all this started but then they are finding it much harder to lock things down. I think the real problem and this is mostly with western countries, we are finding it difficult to do hard lock downs and even when we do open up, we are finding it hard to deal with it, compare western countries to Asian countries and in Asian countries, you won't find many people without a mask in public, in the west it's the other way around, this and better discipline is why I suspect Asian countries are doing much better than western countries in dealing with this pandemic. Also, Sweden isn't a good example, if you look at the overall population and their policies and then compare them to other countries near them like Finland and Norway, Sweden is actually doing really bad and we should remember that Sweden did do a lock down but it was up to the people to choose that, most played it safe but the death rates are far higher on a per capita basis in Sweden compared to Norway and Finland that did do a lock down, if bigger countries followed that example, the death toll could be crazy high. Another factor on Hurd immunity is that Sweden have already said that only a small percentage of the population have that so that isn't likely the case in explaining what is going on, I suspect cases and death counts will rise in Sweden but they are out of sync with the rest of Europe just like America is because of different polices they choose so it will likely happen at a different time frame. But honestly. I don't see what the solution is, on the one hand, if we do lock downs, it's going to be quite damaging but if we don't, a lot more people are likely going to die, I think it's a balancing act between the two with the intention of buying time so we can find a vaccine or other alternatives to reduce the death count of this virus but clearly this viruses isn't going to go away and we can't fully open up yet, we are also very likely going to get a second and maybe third wave before we are done with this if history is anything to go by so as much as we don't like it, I think we have to grin and bear it for the time being. Another factor we should remember, a lot of the older generation of people are still staying at home whereas a lot more of the younger generation of people are going out, it's well known that you have a better chance of surviving this virus at a younger age and that likely explained why infections are rising a lot but deaths are not, at least not yet, death rates likely will rise in time.
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Oh he'll back down, self-interest will make sure of that, after all, Boris can deal with the Brexiteers but he can't deal with the Brexiteers and Remainders after Brexit is done because you can bet the Brexiteers will turn on Boris and the Tories once they start to feel the pain of Brexit and it's a given that remainders will join in on that as they never wanted Brexit to begin with. Basically, self-interest will force a deal but it will be on EU terms and that is where the real panic is setting in with Boris because he's bluffed his way in thinking that if he goes to the wire, the EU will bend, truth is, the EU might give a few crumbs but the cake is well and truly going to be left of the table, that's a massive problem for Boris and the Tories as they promised a lot they know they can't deliver. The real entertainment begins next year once the pain of Brexit is felt from both remainders and Brexiteers alike. Truth is, we know WTO deal isn't that good, if it was as good as Boris and co like us to think, why not go on those terms years ago? Most of us know it would be a really bad deal, hence for all the threats and bluster from the Tories, they keep talking and the EU knows they'll keep talking, hence all the EU has to do, is give little to nothing which forces Boris to concede and give the EU what they want or go for no deal which will be costly for him going forward and very likely for the Tory party and this mess is firmly on them.
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For the same reasons why Brexiteers voted against their own interest in the UK, basically, a lot of pie in the sky promises were made that most of which were based on lies, many dummies fell for it and yet it's a lot of these dummies that complain about the outcome of their own actions lol. At the end of the day, it's difficult to reason with stupid, a lot of people warned Trump supporters, just as they did with Brexiteers, but these people didn't want to listen, and the irony is, it's these people that cry about the results they ended up creating lol. The funny thing is, Brexiteers and Trump supporters voted that way because they are fed up with how things have been going, especially among the poor and middle classes which are getting left behind, these people figure that if they vote for anything different that things will get better, without any research on what they are voting on, the reality is, things actually get worse because these people get taken advantage off because these people listen to the ones that want things to be a certain way but don't actually listen to the realities of how things are. If people truly want things to be better, there are ways to achieve that, cutting through the lies and fake news is a good start and listening to the facts is another, whiles holding to account the ones that are creating the problems, which is mostly the right wing of politics and media, not to mention rich elites and corporations, if people truly want real change, those are the 4 groups that need targeting, as they are more or less the ones that are stripping wealth from everyone and putting it into fewer hands. At the end of the day, the real blame for the problems are Trump and Brexit supporters, they create a lot of the problems and cry about the outcome and a big part of those problems is pushed hard by the right wing that likes to divide us as that fits the agenda of the upper class, it's easy to control and manipulate when people are divided, Trump and Brexiteers are perfect for that because they are very ignorant and will almost beleave anything that's said to them if it makes their own country sound great, most of which is based on BS that actually hurt those voters as we keep seeing and that is why these people are dummies lol.
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Whether it's a federal system or something else, EU countries need to start working a lot closer together in the face of the threats from the US, China and to a less degree, Russia. Eurosceptics have been doing a lot of damage to European interest and it's interesting to see who backs the Eurosceptic movements, both Trump and Putin are big backers of the Eurosceptic movement in Europe, many of the smaller elements like Farage pretty much lick the boots of Trump and Putin, it's not hard to see what there agenda is, they want a divided Europe because a divided Europe is a weaker Europe that they can control, Eurosceptics are pretty much a puppet that are being taken advantage off and they don't even realise it. Seriously, we in the EU countries need to get our act together and fast as time is running out, threats are all around us that will harm our quality of living and could potentially dismantle our social safety net, I mean, does it not seem strange to people that the people that are over the moon about Brexit are people like Trump and Putin?, they know full well that without the EU, EU countries are easy pickings and that's a threat to all EU countries and many around the world that don't want a system that the US or China are offering. As for the US, people need to wake up and see the US for what they are, they've been changing as a nation since 9/11 and not in a good way and it wouldn't surprise me if the US could potentially become a dictatorship over the next few decades with the path they are heading on, if that happens without a strong united EU then that's going to be a major problem for the world because the EU is the only power that's big enough and enlighten enough to want to do the right thing for the world, the US is quickly turning to the dark side, China and Russia are an alternative that most people don't want, that leaves the EU as the only major power, but under the current system, it's not strong enough, the EU countries need to get closer together and fast if we want to protect our interest as too much time has been wasted already. On the plus side, Trump might actually wake up a lot of countries and people around the world to see the US isn't as friendly as they thought, a wake-up call that's long overdue, and I'm not saying we shouldn't try to be friendly with the US, but with the likes of Trump and how aggressive the population is getting, it's wise for countries around the world to look for alternatives, the EU is a very good candidate for that if we in the EU got our act together.
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I don't think it really matters that much, nukes are not really that big of a deal in today's world, but over the long run, I think it will make more sense to have them at an EU level then a member's level, it is after all a defensive purpose weapon that hopefully is never used, and having them at an EU level makes a lot of sense for France because a lot of there interest is tied in with EU and other EU members interest, so a defensive weapon that defends all EU members, also defends French interest.
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Jim English Not all Russians are to blame, many see him for what he is but it's clear that enough Russia are to blame for Putin being in power, after all, there has to be enough support in Russia for Putin to hold power, those are the ones to blame here.
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@harrietharlow9929 I've never understood why anyone in power would want advisor that don't advise but tell him what he wants to here like we saw in the video. It's pointless and just self deluding, it's clear to see what's happened to Putin and this happens to a lot of dictators, the longer they are in power, they get closed off from reality, they surround themselves with yes mean and start feeding into their own delusions and paranoia of how things are and then they act on that, hence why he's miscalculated the response from the west and even the response from the people of Ukraine. If I was someone in power, I would want people advising me how things are and not how I want them to be and this is a major flaw dictators have, they surround themselves with yes mean that are scared of telling them anything they don't want to know.
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I'm more interested in any battery tech that can be charged up at home and ideally by renewable sources as I think that in the longer run is going to be the cheaper option and longer term, we should be able to become independence from the energy grid which would likely make it cheaper. So even thought I do like these other tech and they do have their uses that could work for planes and other stuff, I would prefer to be independence of the grid, generating my own energy on-site as I think that will work out cheaper longer term whiles cutting out all the middle men.
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These things are interesting, but it would be a lot more interesting to see how they do in different weather patterns around the world to get a more real world test of the tech. It's all well and good doing the test in sunny California but a lot of the world doesn't have that kind of weather pattern. So the question is, how would in perform in the UK or in Canada? and more so, how well does it perform in winter. Without these kinds of test, the market for these Solar EV cars is kinda limited and I feel these test should be done with a kind of range of what you could get on average under different weather patterns around the world, in other words, these test need to stop testing under ideal conditions as that isn't how the real world works.
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Sometimes it's fine but in most cases, we just want a direct response to whatever we want to know, this is where ChatGPT could be a game changer and it goes far beyond that in being able to assist you in any given work you are working on. It's easy to understand why Google would fear this, because why would we use Google if an alternative service gives us the information we want and a lot quicker and can even assist on any given project to speed up the process. Traditional search engines are good for what they are but we still have to do all the donkey work to get things done or to get the information we want, A.I. can turn that on it's head and make us all a lot more productive in life.
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I don't wish the worse for anyone but he was careless with this, joking about the virus, shaking hands thinking it wasn't a threat consider he was likely a high risk considering the people he deals with, so even thought I don't wish this on anyone, he does kind of have himself to blame for being reckless.
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It won't be decided by the Supreme Court lol, it would be a brave person to overrule this vote when the numbers are clear that Biden won, if it was just by a few hundred or even thansand votes, Trump might have had a chance but the way it's gone, he's got no chance of a ruling in his favour and it will likely get laughed out of court, still I do enjoy watching the desperation of all this lol. Even if they did overthrow the vote, that would open up a can of worms that could do a lot of damage to US democracy, it ain't going to happen so accept it, Trump the loser is out of power and good ridden lol.
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It's possible but it seems unlikely, mainly because of the EU and it's policy on only European countries being able to join the union, but if it wasn't for that and the EU was more open to countries outside of Europe joining, then that would open up the door to many countries want to join and I think the EU should be more open to that idea and base it on countries of like-minded thinking, democracy and values, which Canada would likely qualify on. There is also Greenland, if they were to join the EU or become part of Denmark, the EU would more or less have a boarder with Canada and let's be blunt, democracies around the world are under siege, the US is slipping on that one, going as far as supporting dictatorships around the world, but let's be honest, the US has been slipping on democracy for some time now. The EU and its members are among the few, at least powerful ones pushing still for democracy, I know there are others like Canada, Australia, Japan and so on, but let's be honest, these are too small in a world that we have China, Russia as a dictatorship and the US quickly slipping into one, the EU is the only other player left that's powerful enough and has a lot of democratic values. I don't want to be an alarmist, but if the EU countries don't get their act together and the US continues to slip into a dictatorship, it could end up leading to world war 3, and even thought that might seem laughable right now, things can change very quickly, just look at the US and how it's become far more hostile as a country since 9/11 and it's just getting worse in the US.
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Maybe but I doubt it, I think it's just to send Putin a message that Ukraine can do this, and the longer it drags on, the more embarrassing it is for Putin, because it suggests that Russia is having major manpower shortage, that too many are on the front line that it's taking so long to retake territory that for Russia, should be very easy for them to retake, but clearly, time is passing by and Russia doesn't seem to be able to respond, that's sending a powerful message to the world that Russia is a lot weaker than what Putin wants us to think, and that's more or less the theme of this war, Putin showing that Russia is far weaker than what the west and the world thought it was, and the longer this war drags on, the more embarrassing it gets for Putin.
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Far right and caring about the people, history says otherwise. The reality is, the far right are using the situation as a power grab by telling the people what they think they want to hear, regardless of reality. Boris Johnson is a prime example of this, he wasn't for or against Brexit before the vote happened, he picked the side where he felt the wind of the people were moving, the ultimate aim was for him to gain power by gaining favour with the people, in this case on Brexit and it worked like a charm on him? Not enough for you? How about Rupert Murdoch, he tends to be right wing, but watch closely on many elections around the world and he swings from left to right wing depending on where he thinks the people are going, an example of that was Labour in the late 90's, Murdoch knew the Conservative Party were going to lose at the next election so he switched sides, he's not loyal to left or right, he's loyal to where he can gain power and favours with governments, that's how his media operates. They are basically making fun of the voting people, by playing on their emotions with the aim of grabbing more power for themselves. Now let's get onto the meat of the topic, shall we? Italy, have you not noticed the closer that party got into power, it toned down the noise on the EU a lot? That wasn't by accident, that was by design, they told the Italian people what they thought they wanted to hear and not what they deliver, now that party is in power, reality kicks in as they start to realize that any mess in Italy, they will get a lot of the blame for, in other words, they had to ease the tonne the closer they got to power and realize they have to work with the EU to get things done that will benefit Italy, otherwise, it would be like shooting one's self in the foot. Truth is, if the people want real change, start voting with your brains and not your emotions or things will get as bad as what we are seeing in the UK which is sinking fast.
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My impression is that Putin wasn't going to invade but wanted concessions from the west, the west are giving Putin nothing which has pushed Putin into a corner, either pull back and maybe look weak in Russia or invade in a messy war that he likely can't win as the west will likely arm the rebels in Ukraine to bog Russia down that will likely cost a lot of Russian lives and cost the moment. I get the impression that some countries in the west want Putin to invade because they see this as an opening to turn the Russian people against him, especially if Russia gets bogged down in a bloody war in Ukraine, this unfortunately isn't favourable for the Ukrainian people as they are likely being used from both sides as a pawn but in the end, Russia is the one that's starting all this. So basically, some western countries are seeing this as way to sell arms to the rebels, put Russia and Putin in a bloody war that could cost a lot of lives and money and hurt his reputation with the Russian people, so basically, bog him down in a longer term war over years, hence why it kinda looks like some western countries are egging Putin on to invade but I don't think he wanted to do it, he expected the west to give him some concession, not see it as an opening to hurt him and with that, Putin has more or less backed himself into a corner he can't win and likely has to invade. Also, I think the west will have to get a lot tougher on Russia if they do invade Ukraine, let's not kid ourselves, if Russia successfully invades Ukraine without being opposed in a meaningful way from the west, Ukraine won't be the last target and Putin will target other eastern European countries that are vulnerable, we've seen how this plays out in history, so yeah, I think the west will have to intervene even if they don't want to do so, otherwise this could get much worse in the years to come.
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@ll-ui6tc Most would love to be like the Roman Empire, in fact many countries are modelled on them including the US but most have not been around long enough to know how successful they are.
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@tony tony The problem is, you don't really have to be smart to win in the US, look at the kind of leaders the US have had from actors to others that have not even had much of a political career, that rarely happens in Europe where they have to build their way up to power, in the US, it seems like anyone can jump in and become president even without much of a political career, what makes it even worse is that it's becoming an exclusive club for the rich where it's becoming harder for the average American to run for that position. Also, I don't want to say this but I will, Trump getting into power isn't anything to do with him being smart but a reflection on many Americans not being that smart, at least from the red states where facts and evidence on anything seem to mean nothing any more.
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@FactsFirst Imaging if Trump tried lol, he might have the power to do that but he can't afford to use them even if he wants too, not without starting a revolution which he would very likely lose.
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@TinfoilHatWearer Correction, he wants to be a dictator and tries to run things like one but the system is keeping him in check and because he's not that bright in knowing how to manipulate the system which is fortunately for you Americans because things could have been far worse if he knew what he was doing. In any case, it boggles my mind how people would elect someone like him thinking it was a good idea, no offence but you're getting what you deserve with him and that price is likely going to be very high once the dust settles on this virus.
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@tony tony So where is the arrogance in pointing out that the American system is failing a lot of Americans and it seems like it's becoming an exclusive club for the rich, so much so that to have any kind of real power, you need to have money, that isn't democracy, it's more like an oligarch, besides, you can't honestly expect the super rich to relate to the problems of the poor and middle classes, it's a different world for them and that is part of the real problem the US faces, you're electing leaders that don't have a clue of the real problems Americans face and that is going to get a lot worse once the hardship of this economic fall out on this virus starts to bite. Think about it, that printing press that is going on is at the expense of the average American person, you're bailing out the super rich on the stock market by propping it up even thought not much business activity is going on, the rich big corporations and the 1% whiles the average American gets crumbs and worse of all, the government needs to pay all that back, take a guess where they'll get that money from, the poor and middle class Americans by either higher taxes or less public spending, some real hard times are ahead and that burden is going to be pushed onto the average American not the rich.
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I think the real problem is that all of this might not matter in the long run, pretty much any region around the world could be a power house when generating energy if balanced right, what's really needed is energy storage and a lot of it so we can balance the system better. Also, we are quickly getting to the point that I suspect more of us will want to generate energy at a local level on our house or business, with renewable getting better and cheaper, as well as the same for battery tech, most of us would rather generate our energy needs locally, either gridless or grid connected, battery tech is going to be the key for that. There is also a major advantage to decentralising energy, maintaining and upgrading the grid network cost a fortune, that cost is still there with renewables on a grid system, whereas gridless, you cut out a lot of the middle cost. Reports are going around online that going gridless for many will be more achievable for many from 2026 onwards, as the tech for renewable and battery gets better and cheaper, it's going to be more attainable for more of us to go that route, but most importantly on why a lot will want to go that route, for all the promises of renewable energy, consumers are not seeing the benefits of it with lower energy bills, you do your own system at a local level, you control what you generate and what you use, you also stand to benefit from lower cost right away, considering renewable energy and battery tech is getting better and cheaper all the time, it's a given that more of us will want to go that route, because it puts the power into your hand to lower your bills which the system will drag out as long as it can to not lower them, even if they can.
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@Toreadorification True, and that movement is slowly growing, but it's growing too slowly that it should really be in a better place by now whereas Eurosceptics feed on disinformation and lies, the pro movement doesn't do enough to discredit those lies. This happened a lot in the UK for decades, the Eurosceptics ran rampant and yet very little of the pro EU movement in the UK did anything to discredit the lies the Eurosceptics were saying, that lead to a very hostile British public and Brexit and now the British people are waking up and realised they were lied too, which ironically, is turning more of the British public into favouring the EU, after all, support for the EU in the UK is higher now then it's been for decades, which is quite remarkable.
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@roxane5339 I do agree with you that it will impact different groups of people in different ways, but if France is to remain competitive, it's going to have to change, especially as the demographics change with more people drawing their pension, which is looking likely for many western countries over the coming decades.
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@chunkersnut To be fair, the Commission for the most part can only prepose laws but they still have to be approve by the European Parliament.
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So the moral of the story is that the Soviet Union did a number on the US and they didn't even realize it that made them oppose any form of social policies that now the US is the lease developed out of all the modern countries when it comes to social policies that benefits the people. It also suggests that Americans actually don't really have a choice, yes on the surface you've got two parties that like to make it seem like they stand for different things but in reality, it pretty much amounts to the same thing regardless of who you vote for and not much really gets changed. I've never been in favour of two party systems because it creates a us vs them mentality and creates a lot of division within a country, you see that a lot in the US and UK which are more or less two party systems whereas other countries like Germany have a lot of options that voters can pick and when I say pick, I mean pick where it actually counts and not becomes a wasted vote like it does in the UK. Basically, Americans are crying out for change but unless there's some major shift in public views, I doubt any major change will happen with the Democrat and Republican Party, it's probably also why governments in the UK and US only seem to listen to voters on election time whereas after that, they can get stuffed until the next election. For me, it's a pretty weak democracy with very limited choice that amounts to more or less the same thing whoever you vote for and that's the case for the US and UK which by the way I'm from the UK.
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Sanctions are always a long term thing, history has shown that the damage really kicks in over years, also we should remember that Putin was ready for the sanctions by having reserve to prop up the economy, the problem for Russia, those reserves banked on the war in Ukraine lasting just a few weeks to a few months, not years, the longer the war goes on, the more costly it's going to be for Russia as those reserve run dry, Europeans buy less gas and oil from them and the price of oil and gas on the world market starts coming down and becomes more stable. That is when Putin will have real issues because he's protecting his position of power by trying to shield the Russian people from the cost of the war, that's going to be much harder to do from summer to late next year as oil and gas prices continue to drop, Europeans continue to buy less oil and gas from Russia, its reserves run dry and if Putin is forced to call a general mobilization in Russia, basically, the Russian people will start getting hit from all sides and that's when Russia Putin needs to worry. If that isn't bad enough, there's a fair chance that once EU countries have diversified away from Russia enough, both the EU and US could go after those countries that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, maybe with sanctions on many of their goods to the equal amount of benefits they get from that cheap oil and gas, the idea being is total isolation of Russia until the Russian people wake up and depose of that clown Putin or if they don't, well at least the west weaken Russia so much that they are less of a threat on the world stage, either way, it's a win win for the west, but it does take time. So the Russian people need to ask themselves, how bad do things in Russia need to get before the penny drops and they do something about Putin, the longer it takes, the more painful it's going to be for the average Russian because the reserves are running out and Putin will find it hard to shield them.
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Also, would they be able to live in todays world, more so the big dinos because the oxigen or whatever allowed creatures to become much bigger back then, now a lot of creatures are much smaller and some of the big ones we do have don't much that easierly apart from in the sea so I doubt even if we could create big dinos today, they likely wouldn't be able to survive because a lot have changed over the millions of years. But hey, it's just a movie for entertainment so don't worry about it.
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I wasn't 100% sure if it was oxygen or something else but in any case, it would make it difficult for them to survive in todays world unless they strink them.
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Could the deal have been better? Yes, but you Brexiteers were hell-bent on getting the worst deal you could get in the name of being a hard Brexit, and honestly, the deal could have been worse if the Brexiteers really got their way.
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@jamesirvine2191 I agree we should have taken it more serious at that point but I can understand western governments at that point thinking it wouldn't spread to the west and stay more localized like SARS was, but the moment Italy was showing real signs of a problem and we saw a few cases in other countries including the UK, there was no excuse from that, we should have locked down then even if it might have looked alarmist at the time, that likely would have saved lives and the lock down likely would be shorter, all we have done is made things worse.
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@importantjohn That's not the point I'm getting at, in the case of Italy, it hit hard pretty quickly and it was easy to understand why they didn't take it too serious because like many other viruses of the past, they thought it wouldn't land here, many western governments thought that, but as things took off in Italy, the UK and others around the world should have acted much sooner as they had hindsight on their side, China and Italy didn't really have that where everyone else did.
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@angelaortenzi-maccoll2917 Thing is, almost all western countries were too slow and we all repeated the same mistakes but some countries had no excuses like the UK and US because they could see what was going on in China and Italy so we should have been ready for it whereas it seemed our governments were dismissive of it until it was too late, that for me is gross incompetents on both the UK and US and both governments and key people should be held to account because I suspect a lot more people will die that didn't need too because of their actions.
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@importantjohn Well actually, a very strong lock down would likely mean we can open up sooner rather than later, the problem is our government in the UK has been too soft and people are still going out a lot, that is likely going to keep us under house arrest for longer and do far more economic damage to the country, either way, some Asian countries seems to be doing a much better job of it.
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@jamesirvine2191 I'm from the UK as well, I just hope the human race learns from a lot of these mistakes we are doing and real change that benefits us all will happen after the dust settles, the jury is still out on that one.
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@angelaortenzi-maccoll2917 It's hard to say, this isn't normal times and once governments try to pass on the burden of this damage to the tax payers and not the super rich and corporations, people will get angry and considering the numbers on how many this is going to impact, governments are going have to be extra careful in what they do with the public because they were not happy even before this virus, hence Trump, Brexit, the popularise movement and so on, this virus and the economic fall out leaves the government very little room in how they can pass the burden onto the public and that must be a real worry for the upper 1% because they could be the prime target to take this out on. The irony is that I was supposed to be going on holiday to Milan in Italy in July and clearly that isn't going ahead now
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@jamesirvine2191 Maybe but I love to see them try and put this burden on the public when the last 10 years have not been that great and people have been angry over that time, I highly doubt governments can afford to take this out on the public and the rich elites and corporation are an easy target, many like the EU and it's members were going after them before this virus, now it will be a lot easier for them to do with a lot of backing of the public and not just in EU countries but I can see a lot of governments doing the same thing around the world. So not only have they lost their shirt because of this virus but after the virus passes, they are going to lose their pants as well lol and I really hope they fight it as well so they lose more than just their pants lol.
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@margelatu79 All countries are beatable, what western countries are doing to Russia is making sure the cost is high for Putin and the Russian economy by dragging the war out, Russia being bogged down in Ukraine, spending billions to support the war effort is likely going to have a high cost for the Russian economy, and regardless, that's lost revenue that could have gone into the Russian economy that's going into the war effort. I don't think it's right what the west is doing, they are more than capable of giving Ukraine the arms it needs to quickly win this war but clearly, it looks like they want to make Russia bleed, probably because the longer it drags on, the more potent the message will be on the Russian people, as for Putin, he can't afford the war to drag on, it's costing a fortune for the Russian economy, whereas the west can afford it, for one, they are a lot richer and the load is being shared out, and this is at a moment when the western economy isn't in the best of shape, which is likely to pick up from next year onwards, in other words, the west can afford to support Ukraine for years or decades if need be and the cost to them is minimal, whereas the cost to Russia is high.
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I don't know why people complain about political voting in Eurovision, truth is, people are political and likely will vote for countries they get along with better, the problem in that sense isn't Eurovision but the voting public. With that said, I think they need to get rid of the judges and just have a public vote, if you look at the way this vote went, it's very easy to see how the judges can manipulate the direction of who wins, if Italy didn't get so many points from the public, France likely would have won but it's clear by the public that Italy was the favourite and the votes show that if you take the judges votes out, Italy would by quite a margin. As for the UK getting nil point, that doesn't surprise me with how the UK has been acting the last few years, what does surprise me is how so many none EU countries are giving the UK zero points and that should be quite alarming for the UK because they can't say it's the EU or EU members being petty, 12 of those countries are not EU countries and still give the UK no points including Australia and Norway, this might speak volume of how the UK is getting on the wrong side of so many countries. On another note, I'm starting to think that Scotland should find a way to have their own entry in Eurovision, a bit like how they do it with the national football team because as long as they are tied to England in the UK, they are not likely going to stand any chances of winning Eurovision because as long as this government is in power, I don't see relations getting better and even then, it will take years after that of a government trying to repair ties before we stand a chance. There is also the factor of the UK sending mediocre singers, if the UK made more of an effort, they won't win it any time soon but at least they'll get some points. Also, I also suspect that second and third points given are likely more neutral which is those points that likely determine the real winner at the end, not the ones that get 12 points as that is usually very politicalized.
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Even thought I am a atheist, even I can see the value in these buildings and not just for the French but for the world, it's part of world history and to lose that might not mean much to some people, I suspect it does to a lot of people.
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If only Cuomo was the leader of the US, at least with him he's showing competence unlike Trump that doesn't have a clue what he's doing and seems more interested in his re-election bid and deflecting blame away from himself.
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I suspect the energy being generated by renewables is going to keep rising in a lot of countries that over the next decade or two, most if not all the electrical needs are being meet. Many countries are already having days and weeks of generating all the electrical needs, and that's likely going to go higher into the months as the years go by until we get to a point where most or all the electrical energy is renewable. On top of that, a lot of countries are doing a big push on EV cars and heat pumps, which over the long run will reduce the need for oil and gas and it seems like everything is going electrical because it's a lot more flexible in how we can get that energy., we can, if we are bold enough, generate all our energy locally. Now if we can just master some kind of wind turbine that can generate meaningful energy on our homes, that would solve many problem, solar and wind would complement each other to have a more consistent energy generating, it would also reduce how much of a buffer you need with battery if we have a more constant flow of energy being generated and I suspect over the long run, more of us are going to want to generate the energy we use on-site, mainly because it will lower bills, whereas solar and wind farms, they are basically generating a lot more energy, but it's not lowering our bills, if they did, I'm sure there would be far less resistance on planning permission, so when doing it locally, you cut out the middle men and get the savings right away, depending on what you need.
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Who needs the police to stop that when the virus is likely munching on these idiots lol. My advice to the common sense Americans is to stay well away from any of these clowns and ware face mask and other protective gear in public because it's going to be hard to know who is spreading it with clowns like we saw above not listening to what is going on and they are putting peoples lives at risk and maybe once the dust settles, some criminal charges should be put on many of these, especially the ones that are found out to have the virus because they might of unknowingly killed other people by being so reckless. The law could have a field day with this people if case and death numbers start to shoot up because of this stupidity.
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Say what you want about China, but at least they are aggressively pushing the tech forward whiles aggressively pushing the price down for the tech to be useful. I feel in the west, especially Europe and North America, they've been dragging their feet for way too long, we've seen that on EV cars, we're seeing signs of that with battery tech and with renewable tech like solar, which many are complaining about the flood of cheaper Chinese imports making native brands less competitive. It's hard to feel sorry for the native brands when clean energy and battery solutions are needed sooner rather than later and need to be cheap, western companies and governments kept dragging their feet, that left the door open for new players to swoop in and take advantage of that by flooding the market and now they complain about price dumping. Normally I would feel sorry for them but considering how many have tried to hold back progress in many of these areas, it's hard to feel sorry for them, and as a consumer, I don't care where I buy my tech from, just as long as the tech is good and the cost is low, it's high time that western companies and governments start becoming more aggressive on pushing tech forward whiles lowering the price point so it's more impactful for the mainstream markets. But seriously, as the years go by, I'm buying more goods from Chinese brands without losing out on quality, the price point is just better and they seem more aggressive in wanting our custom. As a European, I'm fed up with all the excuses we keep hearing for decades from car companies that went out of their way to slow the push to EV cars, now that it's starting to bite them on the arse in Europe and North America, well honestly, they are getting what they deserved and if they want to stay in the market, they better adapt and adapt fast, because they've already wasted too many years with excuses, and to put it another way, as a European, I'm not going to buy European just for the sake of it being European, I'm going to buy from who can deliver the best at the lowest price point, regardless of where it comes from around the world, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting jobs and industry, but I'm not interested in excuses.
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Regional power is more accurate for them. As for superpowers, I would say the EU, US and China, and India could become one someday, being that superpower status is usually dependent on a big economy, population size and to a less degree, military, the first 3 have all those, even the EU, but the EU military is fragmented over many countries, but it's still modern and high-tech, it wouldn't take much for them to combine those militaries. Apart from that, there are others that could form, especially as we are seeing other groups of nations banding together to emulate something like what the Europeans did with the EU.
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I suspect this is what Macron might be thinking, western troops don't need to be in Ukraine to fight Russia, just being there would likely be enough to free up a lot of troops from Ukraine to take the fight more directly with Russia, whiles Ukraine won't have to worry about the northern flank and probably other flanks as well. That would allow Ukraine to put far more pressure on Russia in other areas, and it's highly unlikely that Russia would want to attack any of the western troops in case it triggers a more direct response from them, whereas, the main aim of Ukraine is to kick Russia out of Ukraine, because Russia is an invading army and not defending it's homeland, it's very likely that Russia won't want to escalate things further and could give up on Ukraine. Either way, I do know one thing, either we send more resources to Ukraine to allow them to push Russia back or eventually Russia will end up grinding down Ukraine until they win, we would have to be fools to think that Putin will just stop with Ukraine and will likely pick another easy target in the east, likely a none EU or NATO country, Putin will also see that western resolve isn't as strong as we like to think it is, meaning all Russia has to do is grind through it and they end up winning because we in the west are not willing to do what's needed to push Russia back, that could lead to a major escalation over the long run.
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@tantecosenelmondo2350 I think there is a misunderstanding about euroseptics, there are euroseptics like the ones in the UK that want nothing to do with the EU and wished it would die but then there is euroseptics which are most across Europe that don't want the EU to disband but want it to change, hence the reason why the UK could never get any support from a single EU member and why none wants to leave the EU or Euro, a lot of people confuse their disagreements with policies and how the EU runs to actually wanting to leave the union, especially British and American euroseptics but then they seem rather desperate on that. I agree about what you said about the EU doesn't get any credit for all the good it does but it does get all the blame for unpopular policies, I've seen that play out in the UK for decades now and it's no wonder the public have such a view on the EU when much of the media and governments don't highlight the good things the EU does but are quick to show the negatives. As for Poland and Hungary, they can leave at any time but the problem for them is that they don't want to leave, for one they benefit a lot from EU membership, two, they would become a plaything for Putin if out of the EU and three, support isn't there among the public for them to leave regardless of what the governments of the two countries think but I do think the EU will play a hard line with them if they push their luck too far. It's interesting you should talk about propaganda because that is something the EU doesn't really use and many could see that as a weakness because a lot of others that don't like the EU does use propaganda, maybe some laws on the media and accountability should change to make them more honest because that is where the real propaganda is.
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Is the EU a country, on the surface, no it's not, it's got a lot of the building blocks that make a country and I can well imaging in the long run it going that way but for now it's not, it's a union of cooperative members for the benefit of all of them. In the longer run, will the EU become a country? that hard to say but what we do know is there is external pressures from powers like the US, China, Russia that likely will push Europeans to work more closely together so they can protect their economic and political interest, it's actually one of the main reasons the EU exist, not out of want but out of need in protecting our interesting in a rapidly changing world.
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The problem is for countries trying to have close ties with China, is that the closer they get, the more the country in question better behave themselves, China doesn't have any conditions on those countries, just as long as the government toes the line with China, in other words, to hell with the people in those countries, and it isn't by chance that China is making friends with countries that want to run like a dictatorship, the warning signs are there for the people living in those countries, and I feel sorry for what could happen if they get too close to China and try to show any independent thought. At the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is quality of life and living standards, you have to ask yourself, who is more likely going to deliver that, the EU or China? The EU have a proven track record on delivering that, whereas China, I sense want those countries to toe the line with China's interest, its geopolitics, which rarely is in the interest of the people, but honestly, maybe the EU and west at large, should throw these countries to the wolves, they'll learn far quicker this way, but it would be unfortunate for the people living in those countries as those are the ones that will likely get screwed over, but sometimes that needs to happen, because sometimes people don't want to learn, Hungary is a prime example of that, which should be thrown out of the EU, throw them towards Russia and China and see how well that goes for the people in the country, because honestly, the EU can keep banging its head against the wall trying to help these countries, but unless the people wake up and help themselves, then what's the point? but seriously, the EU has been way too soft on Hungary and Orbán takes advantage of that, it's time to throw Hungary out and let the wolves feast on them lol.
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The west new about this before the war, hence why the main aim of the sanctions is to do two things, try to turn Russians against its government or to bankrupt the country so it's less of a threat around the world, basically, the west knew there was going to be this ding-dong game with the government and it's people and the west wasn't playing to that tune by waiting in the hope that the Russian people might do some change on the government. In other words, the west doesn't care what games the Russian government and people play, it's going out of it's way to neutralize that threat so Russia is weaker on the world stage and it seems to be working with it likely to get much worse for Russia longer term, especially as the Europeans reduce the oil and gas they buy from them. So basically, the west doesn't care about the games being played in Russia, they are not waiting around for the possibility of a resolution to change thing, they are going in harsh to neutralize the threat of Russia, regardless of the damage it does to the Russian government or people as they know that leads to one of two outcomes, one is that Russia is a lot weaker as a country and less of a threat or two, the people get so fed up with being in poverty that they rise up in deposing the government, either way, the west doesn't care and are not waiting around for that conclusion. This was also done as a massive warning message to China which is likely giving them pause when it comes to Taiwan, the west and China are a lot more exposed to each other than Russia is so the damage to both sides would be much greater, hence why China as much as they want to help Russia, are edging their bets because most of their interest are with the west, the rich countries of the world. Speaking of cults, it's not just a Russian thing, these things happen all over the world and are usually designed to push a specific agenda or to control people, you only have to see that with Brexiteers in the UK or Trump supporters in the US which more or less acted like a cult, these things are a real threat to democracy that undermine it and usually to serve the interest of the few at the expense of everyone else.
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Where Samsung got it wrong is that they got greedy with the pricing of it's phones whiles not having a cult following like Apple has. For me, there are a lot of good quality phones that cost a lot less than what Samsung and Apple are charging that it's crazy to pay those kinds of prices.
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The way I see it, universal health care is better because it looks after everyone no matter what your wealth status is or what your situation is in life which takes a big worry off your mind if you do have problems in life and need help whereas the American system is more or less look after yourself which might sound like a good idea but in reality, not everyone is in a position to do that and health care can get mighty expensive in the US, so much so that it's been known that it works out cheaper for an American with no insurance to fly over to Europe, get treatment and it ends up working out cheaper than if he got that treatment in the US, you know there is something wrong with the American system for that to be the case.
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The EU seems to do well when crisis happen and I suspect it's because change is really needed at those times, now is likely no exception with what's going on in Ukraine, I suspect we are going to get much stronger cooperation and integrating with the EU and it's members on security, military and energy matters. Scares like Putin is doing usually pushes people together and that's likely going to be the case with the EU members over the next 5 or 10 years. On that note, the UK might actually get closer to the EU thanks to Putin, the dynamics will very likely change because of everything that is going on in Ukraine but that won't mean the UK can rejoin the EU any time soon, it just likely means the door might open up sooner than it would otherwise, either way, that option won't open up till we have a government in power that has little to nothing to do with Brexit so it's at least a decade off. The timing of the UK leaving with the pandemic and now everything in Ukraine has really put the UK in a bad position, EU-US relations are likely going to get much stronger here because now the realization is kicking in that they need to work together, what we are seeing with Putin could be China next, so the threat is still out there is China gets hostile and that's likely going to band the EU and US closer together, that is unfortunate for the UK because they will be on the outside looking in, not really having much of a say at the table and mostly just agreeing to what the EU and US decides to do, more or less what we are already seeing.
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@merkvandermeulen3978 These things tend to do that, people, countries huddle together when they feel threaten which is what we are seeing now but we'll have to wait and see what this means over the longer run because there's an opening to create some good out of something bad.
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That's the irony of this, I've been hearing these stories from the US and UK the most about how bad the EU economy is doing over the last 2 decades, yet, when you look at the quality of life index and many other things like that, European countries seem to be pulling ahead, whereas the US has been slipping in many areas when Trump got into power, life expectancy is just one example of that. Overall, I think Europeans on average have a better quality of living over Americans, especially northern western Europeans, and it's likely down to the social programs Europeans take for granted, that and all the protection they have in a lot of areas that Americans don't or have much weaker rules in place. What surprised me about the US is that, the income level doesn't paint an accurate picture of the country, I remember when I was there, it felt like people were poorer, it also felt like many systems were being run down and at first I ignored that thinking, thinking it was in my mind, but when I got back to Europe, it really hit me on the nose how lucky Europeans are, it's a shame that most Europeans don't realise that.
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md ziden What's remarkable that your government support much of their movement as he's desperate to get re-elected and get people back into work, he doesn't show that he cares about American lives, it's all about the image with him and many Republican governors are just as bad. The ones that should consider themselves lucky is the ones in blue states, at least most of them are trying to put the people first but the problem in the US is that there are no borders among states so the recklessness of the others impacts all the country.
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Actually, not just Germany, many countries want to do it, after all, the more members in a union, the more unworkable it would be if everyone had a veto. I mean, look at the UK, imagine if every city had a veto, nothing would get done.
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That's a bold statement, 40 years is a long time in politics and there are so many ways the Conservative party can mess up here, remember that Boris has made a lot of bold promises on Brexit and as we know, people have short memories on these thing, if Brexit goes south and the so called promise land of Brexit doesn't deliver or worse, it makes living standards worse for Brits or Scotland and Northern Ireland leaves the UK, it would look like a disaster for the Tory party and once the dust settles after 10 years or so, it could very well be the Conservative party that could become unelectable. The good thing is about this win is that now the Conservative party have no excuses, they've got a majority, they've pushed Brexit the hardest and now they don't have to worry about Labour or any other party blocking anything in the House of Commons, there will be no excuses or ant blame game as once out of the EU there won't be, the EU can't get the blame, nor can Labour, everything that happens on Brexit now is firmly on the Tories so either they deliver a Brexit that delivers on the goods which is unlikely or people will quickly forget why they voted for them and pin the blame on the Tories for why things are. At the end of the day, people are very fickle and have short memories, so now the Conservative Party have to deliver on this so called promised land they've been talking about and that is when the real entertainment begins.
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It looks like in the US at least that they are trying to repeat the mistakes of the past and the problem is that some states are being more reckless than others, it's a shame that boarders can't go up between states unless they can but I've not checked, that way the states that want to be reckless, go for it but don't complain when things get worse, I know that might sound harsh but the level of stupidity we are seeing at the moment is shocking from some.
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Yeah it's not really a spilt, it's just a few disagreements in how to progress, a split would be if some countries start siding with Russia or start saying we shouldn't send any weapons which I've not seen any of that. With that being said, I think talks with Russia should always be open, any chance even if slim of reducing the bloodshed should always be taken and I kinda have to agree with Macron when he says we shouldn't humiliate Russia as that plays into Putin's hand, after all, a lot of Russians are getting a lot of disinformation on this war, if the west goes with the intention of humiliating Russia without giving them any way out, it will only back Russia more deeply into this war with likely a lot more support from the Russian people which is likely what Putin wants, but with all that said, what Putin is doing in Ukraine has to have a major cost to Russia.
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I was interested in wind energy for the home but after doing a lot of research, it looked like a minefield with way too many scams that promises this but hardly deliver anything close to what they say they do and in the end, I felt solar was the far safer option to go. That doesn't mean wind isn't useful, it's a great option when doing the massive ones but I tend to find that the ones for your home are kinda useless and don't really produce much energy compared to solar. All this was a few years ago and maybe things have changed or I missed something but until I see a credible small wind turbine that actually works quite well for the home, solar seems to be the way to go.
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It stands to reason that as renewable tech advances more, it's going to allow a lot more of us to go gridless, and I suspect a lot of us will want to do that because it would be a simpler setup, and the savings will be direct to you, after all, for all the renewable energy going onto the grid, we as consumers don't seem to be seeing the savings in lower energy bills, so generating your own energy is a sure fire way for you to save over the long run. To go gridless, renewable tech is already good enough, what is really needed is a buffer when it comes to storing that energy for when it's needed, and for now, it's too expensive and not enough energy storage, but thanks to EV car boom, that's very likely going to change. Also, as the video points out, Europe isn't really a sunny region, well Northern Europe isn't, if they can do it, then the majority of the world can. With that said, I do think a mix of solar and wind at a local level is a better option as they both complement each other by having more consistent energy generating throughout the year, which would actually reduce how much energy storage you need. If it's solar alone, you're going to need a lot of energy storage to cover good and bad days when it comes to the weather, but if we can have a mix of solar and wind, that would be more constant and would reduce the amount of energy storage needed. Problem is, there are too many scams when it comes to wind turbines for your home and they don't seem to produce that much energy, whiles also being expensive, but with that said, a lot of experiments are being made on vertical wind turbines for urban areas, if they can crack that and produce meaningful energy in urban areas, that's going to allow a lot of us to be able to go gridless, but even without that, solar is getting so cheap that it's making a lot of sense to oversize your setup, that yes in summer, you'll produce way more energy than you need, but who cares, just as long as you can produce enough for your needs in winter.
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This is a tricky one, on the one hand, NATO countries want to avoid getting directly involved in the war, Russia likely knows this and knows they can push many buttons knowing the west will do little to nothing but complain, Putin could see the opening here to target towns close to the borders, knowing that many will go astray and knowing the west will do nothing, Putin has shown that he's all about pushing buttons with the west. Now it probably is a stray missile from Ukraine but I wouldn't put it past the west to make it seem like it wasn't because they don't want to get directly involved and if so, there is nothing stopping Putin from attacking cities and towns, near the boarders, knowing the west will do little to nothing anyway. Personally, I think it was a stray missile from Ukraine and that the west really needs to up it's game with arming Ukraine to end this war sooner rather than later, but in any case, I don't think this will escalate things but it could be an opening for Putin to take advantage off as he keeps looking for weakness and inaction from the west, regardless of the reasons are.
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It really depends, if the EU countries were to do this and I do think it's a good idea in the long run, it would mean sharing debts and for that, much tougher rules on those countries that are reckless on the economy, otherwise it would be a bottomless pit of the rich northern countries helping the poorer southern countries without them doing the needed reforms to keep up. So yeah, I'm in favour of sharing debts but only with shared responsibility and that means those countries that are more reckless with their finances, need to get their act together if they want this help. Anyway, if they do debt sharing, it should be done on a case by case basis, what I mean by that is money that goes out to countries that need it, are supervised on a project per-project basis so as to not waste that money on project that don't solve the problem, it looks like the EU is doing this with Italy, the idea being is so the country in question doesn't get reckless with that money as the money could stop at any time and I think that is a better way of doing it, supervised by the EU and country in question, to make so the money is spent in areas that are needed whiles doing reforms, it also reduces the risk of that bottomless pit and would likely make those countries that need help, a lot more competitive on the market which will benefit all EU countries, so just makes sure there are strict rules in place to make that money accountable.
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I think the term that a country is a democracy isn't very accurate because some are more so than others, to me, the US and UK are quite weak as democracies go if you look at the systems closely and in the case of the US, it's becoming more of an oligarchy than a democracy where the only way to power is wealth, frame and connections. The only time the government listen is when it's election time, they'll promise the earth like lower taxes, higher spending and all that bull, once the election is over, the lies cone in, the only other time the government listens is with a big enough protest movement that pushes them to listen, apart from that, they don't seem to care what the average American thinks until the next election where they'll feed them a lot of promises and hope only to break them after the election and the cycle continues lol. What we want is a scale from all democracies from 1 to 100 on how democratic they really are. Anyway, the real problem in the US is patriotism, flag waving and automatically assuming they are the best without question and not researching to see if that is true or not, it's designed in a way to blind Americans from the truth back home on how things are not as good as the system wants them to think but unfortunately for most Americans, they only know what the system tells them and that's how they want it, things will only get better when people start opening their eyes, until then, the system will continue to screw them over.
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The question is, not if we stop working but how far can we reduce hours whiles not really harming productivity. It's not hard to understand why productivity can stay the same even with shorter hours, I suspect a lot of workers that work longer hours just laze around and are just clocking up the hours before they can go home whereas working shorter hours, more workers are more likely to get stuck into their work and probably have more respect for the job they are in. Thing is, how far can you push that without harming productivity? well I do remember when my brother worked at Safeway, he could work about 50-60% more than he had to do in a 40-hour week and that was night shift, makes you wonder if 20 hours away is possible whiles doing as much work. I do know one thing, I feel the fewer hours I work, the harder I would work in the fewer hours, with no fluff, time-wasting and all that, same pay, less stress and you would likely feel better about the job you are in and in life that whiles it's fewer hours, you would focus a lot more on doing the job at hand whereas now, a lot of us waste time because most companies don't care about our well-being. Beside, let's be honest, working hard is never the smartest thing to do, working smart is a lot more productive and I think that's what the real focus in today's world should be, not throwing more hours at a problem but being smarting in doing a given workload. Anyway, I think in the EU, there are signs of improving work hours, many countries are testing the waters on that and we'll have to see how that goes, as for the US, there is little chance of lower hours there with how things are, also, the US feels it can't afford to lower hours at work because of China rising as a power, the EU countries I think are being a bit smarter on this, keeping the competitive advantage whiles improving the quality of life for people, but how far they can go on work hours without losing competitiveness is anyone's guess. I also think that if there was an incentive from a lot of jobs, either more pay for more productivity or same pay for the same productivity but we do the same workload in shorter hours, a lot of us would pick shorter hours and I feel I could reduce my workload by about half, basically, doing the same job in 20 hours and not 40, as the video points out, most of us feel we are in jobs that are meaningless and because of that, our productivity goes down a lot, now imagine this, you work for yourself in any field of work, I bet your productivity would go through the roof because there is a big incentive, likely more money for yourself and because it's your passion project and that's the problem with business today, they seem to think throwing more hours at it is the solution but it doesn't seem to be. I also have to wonder, how society would cope with the revolution we are heading into over the next 50-100 years with robotics, automation and A.I., some will say that it can't take over all our jobs but I don't buy that for a second, I suspect it's going to take over pretty much any job we can do, do it a lot cheaper and a lot faster that we humans won't be able to compeat in the work market, that's a massive problem for the way the market works with capitalism, especially in the US that has pretty weak social safety net, the notion of putting everyone to work when for businesses, it's cheaper and more productive to use robotics doesn't go well with the Conservative mindset of getting everyone into work, the system would fall apart and I think we would need a new system which would likely have some kind of universal basic income and a lot more social benefits, something the US would find difficult to pull off compared to other modern countries, and especially EU countries which are already half way there with it's social policies. Anyway, the way I see the job market, it's one step away from slave labour, for the main part, you need a job for the basics in life like food, a house and other utilities and a big chunk of your wage goes on those basic needs, for me, there is a massive flaw in the system for basic needs to be so expensive, especially with the level of advancement we have today and it really boils down to the big flaw in capitalism, basically, it doesn't matter how much wealth you have, the cost of buying something will go up to wipe out a big chunk of your wage, so if everyone was a millionaire today, the cost of buying everything would shoot up a lot to wipe out the benefits of that wealth and you would be back to how you are now, the sad reality in capitalism, the only way to get ahead seems to be stomping down on others to get there, basically self-employed, you get most of the wealth whiles others do the donkey work, pretty much how it is with most businesses today, most do the donkey work, get paid peanuts for it whiles the ones that own the company are laughing all the way to the bank and the irony is, if you was to do the exact same job for yourself, you would probably ear, 5, 10 or 20 times more money depending on scale.
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I have to say that this could be quite tempting for the price, being able to run PC games on the desktop and on the go seems quite appealing to me over the Nintendo Switch. Throw in the emulation aspect of this and that makes it even more appealing and I have to wonder, would this be powerful enough to emulate the Nintendo Switch, if it does that quite well, that would make this a killer device over the Nintendo Switch considering the price point. Anyway, the key here on why this could work is the price point, every time others have tried to compete with consoles or handheld devices, the price is crazy high and that kills it right there, here, Valve have done it at a reasonable price point and that gives it a much greater chance of success.
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I always like these kind of stories that show we still have some good in this world with a media that mostly reports too much of the negative aspect of things, it also does say a lot that a migrant did this, something the likes of the right wing press and the likes of Trump have been demonising for so long likely can't stand these stories because it makes migrants look human and not sub human like some of the right wing media wants us to think.
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That's kinda the case in every country, including Poland, things get twisted up to sound how they want it to sound, in fact, that's been happening a lot more in Poland with how much control the PIS have over the media. Best advice, get news from multiple sources around the world and put it all together on what seems logical, after all, I'm British, if I were to listen to the local news, they give the impression that the UK held all the cards on Brexit against the EU, it was all BS and now the Brits are seeing that after Brexit, local news is actually worse because it's got a slant on how people want to see things and not how things are, after all, imagine what the local news in Russia are telling the Russian people.
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I really do wonder if history could mark this time as the decline of US power around the world, after all, powers rarely see decline coming until it's too late, and the US is putting a lot of the pieces in place to hit the US hard, both politically and economically, the longer this goes on, the more it's likely going to damage the US on many fronts, and this could also be the moment that the US Dollar reserve currency could be under threat as a lot of it is based on trust in the US, which is evaporating real fast. For Americans, consumers and businesses, the real shit show will start as a lot of countries around the world start rolling out tariffs on the US over the coming weeks and months, countries like the UK that's trying to weasel there way out of this by trying to be Trump's lapdog could end up being seen as traitors to a lot of the world and even to a lot of Americans that are fighting Trump. With people like Trump and Putin, there's only one way to fight them, and that's to fight fire with fire, it's the only language they understand, any signs of weakness like the UK is showing will likely be taken advantage off, either now or later. In any case, the longer this drags on, the worse it's likely going to get for the US, it will likely isolate the US, harm US corporations as many around the world boycott US goods and services and countries around the world will likely shift trade away from the US to more reliable partners, the consequences for the US could be dire the longer this drags on and I think it might already be too late for the US, even if Trump were to get kicked out of office today, a lot of countries are likely going to shift away from the US as the US has crossed the line.
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Not sure what Aus is thinking, they are a tiny country with little to no power, trying to make an enemy of China is one of the stupidest things they could do, after all, don't expect the US to defend you because they only do so if it's in their intrest, and they can profit from it, Aus is in a very weak position when it comes to China so my advice is to hit the reset button and try and get along with them in some way or form before the US drags you down because like it or not, China is a massive power and are only going to get bigger, the US on the other hand seem to be all over the place at the moment, so don't count on them to have your back, not with how quickly the world is changing. By the way, why does Sky News Aus sound as fanatical as Fox News? oh right, Murdoch and they say they are reporting the news lol, just look at Sky News in the UK, it seems to be on a different planet compared to Sky New Aus, oh right, it's not own by Murdoch, say no more lol, news reporting indeed lol, more like views reporting of just one man lol.
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Putin underestimated western resilience when it comes to adapting and changing to whatever is thrown at them, it's why the west are so successful, they change and also change the pace of change depending on need. In the case of the Ukraine war, Putin forced the Europeans to change on energy a lot sooner than they normally would, which is likely going to kill the fossil industry much sooner than it would and is likely going to put constant downwards pressure on the price point. The real mistake Putin made, the ones buying are the ones with the power, basically, the EU countries were buying the fossil fuels from Russia, Putin thought the EU countries had no choice but to continue to buy from them, that's where the major underestimating comes from, and the end result is that the EU and much of the world are now actively going out of their way to secure energy from other sources and to generate a lot more internally, the real losers here are fossil producing nations whereas the real winners are the ones that produce very little of it. Putin has done more for clean energy over the last 15 or so months than Greenpeace could ever have done, and all it took was a threat to energy security to do it. Another thing some should remember, especially on western countries, their pace of change or adapting might seem slow at times to things, but it really does depend on urgency, the more urgent something is, the quicker the pace they'll act on it, basically as we saw with Covid and the war in Ukraine. Another factor in all this, the tough response from the west has likely given China pause on what it wants with Taiwan, because make no mistake, the west would likely have a much tougher response on Taiwan then it's doing on Ukraine, simply because of the tech sector. So this was partly a message to China to tell them, we're not as soft as you like to think we are, Putin clearly fell for that trap and is paying the price for it now, with basically being squeezed from the west and being taken advantage off by the east, which is the last thing Putin wanted. As for LNG, that's only a short term thing to fill the void, unless the produces of that find ways to lower the price a lot, it's very likely that European countries will look for cheaper alternatives, whether that be from other markets or renewable energy, LNG was always competing on price and it's at a major disadvantage on that, which is why if the likes of the US wants to continue to benefit from that, they are going to need to find ways to lower the cost a lot as consumers are very sensitive to these things and will shift towards cheaper options on the world market, so that was always only a short term benefit for the likes of the US, to fill the void, probably for less than 5 years as a lot of the other things come online. Also, was LNG being used that much? From what some of the media were saying, ships were floating around the sea of Europe, not docking because the energy wasn't needed because of the mild winter and because of the cuts EU countries made, that and the gas tanks were filled up higher than expected that they ended up buying more energy than needed, good in a way as it put less pressure on the economy and also makes sure that by next winter, the gas tanks are filled to the brim, but it could also be an early indicator that LNG is less important than realised and likely to get less so as the years go by, unless the price of it becomes a lot cheaper.
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I think the message from the west needs to be a lot tougher on Putin, it's all well and good Putin sabre-rattling but the west should make it crystal clear to Putin that if a nuke is used in Ukraine or any NATO member, there will be a return ticket to Moscow or other major Russian cities. Make it crystal clear that this kind of behaver is unacceptable and that there could be a major cost if he goes ahead with it. Putin needs to accept it, the west isn't going to back down on this one and for a number of reasons, if the west backed down, that could escalate wars in the future by showing weakness, China will see it and see the west does have limits and could get ideas on Taiwan, basically, the west can't afford to back down on this, otherwise Putin won't stop with just Ukraine and others around the world will get ideas of land grabs themselves. The biggest mistake Putin did with this war is to threaten the European energy market, which destabilized energy prices and pushed inflation high around the world, that moment made sure there was no turning back for the Europeans and the world at large, if it wasn't for that, there might have been a chance of the west backing down, but that bridge is well and truly crossed. The only way out for Putin I see is either he steps down, yes it will be humiliating for him but at least he will still have his life, the alternative is that he's going to dig his own grave because what usually happens with dictators that go crazy, their own people or inner circle kills them, that's how I think it will go if Putin keeps trying to escalate the war, after all, he might be bat crazy but I suspect a lot of Russians are not and we've already seen with Putin trying to mobilize the Russian population how that can backfire, in other words, the closer and more personal it gets to the people, the more of a threat it becomes to Putin and a nuclear war would be very personal, being as major Russian cites would be a primary target. So do yourself a favour Putin, dig your own grave, put yourself in there and do the world a massive favour before you drag your country to the brink of destruction because it must be clear to Putin by now, the west isn't going to back down on this until Ukraine regains all its land back.
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True, it's a bit like the UK but the more south you go, the more expensive it is. There's a big difference in living cost from region to region even in a country, but Americans do seem to be getting screwed over in a lot of areas that are far more expensive than they should be and probably why they need higher wages to compensate for it.
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The simple reason is because Europe or in this case, EU countries have a high standard of living and open democracy, that is seen as a threat to any country that is authoritarian or dictator, basically the inner circle of government not the people of the given country. In this case, because the EU expands whiles lifting living standards of members that join, that makes them a massive threat to the likes of Belarus and Russia because as living standards rise in those countries that join, it has a knock on effect on near by countries that they want the same, that's a scary thing for any dictator as it could see the people rise up to overthrow the government. I know there is more to it than that but that's the basics of it.
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@Mute040404 I wish that was the case, but I've been seeing these issues in the UK way before social media and even the internet was a thing, it's just far more noticeable now than it was in the past. We Brits or at least many of them are pulling in multiple directions, especially on the European and American question, in truth, we're European, most of our ideals are European, heck even our social system, workers right, foods we eat, cars we drive, sports we play are more in line with Europeans, we share far more in common with Europeans then Americans and for the most part, the only thing we share with the US is English, but most other things are more in line with Europe, even our interest are more in line with Europe, mainly out of geographic. With all that, we share in some of the benefits that mainland Europeans have, but we also share a lot of the bad elements from the US, hence why Americans should never judge European quality of life based on the UK, because sadly, we don't do a good job of it in the UK.
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Being passive is usually seen as being weak, especially to dictators or wannabe dictators in the case of Trump, we saw that over the last decade with Putin how Europe and North America were, for the most part, passive with Putin, so he kept meddling in western politics in Europe and the US. France is right, you have to fight fire with fire, if you don't, Trump will see it as weakness and will come back for more, regardless of which country, so fight fire with fire and make it just as costly for the US, that will likely put a lot of pressure on Trump to back down as we've seen him do a lot already, whiles all that is going on, countries around the world should continue to actively shift trade away from the US to more reliable partners, over the long run, this is hitting the US far harder than it hits the rest of the world. The US is basically being seen as a less reliable trading partner now, so even if Trump does get kicked out at the end of his term, having this seesaw where another Republican lunatic enters the White House is really bad for business, no country or corporations want to invest in a country when the political landscape is that unstable, that is where the major damage is being done to the US, trust is being eroded. On the silver lining, whiles the US becomes more isolated and trade shift away from them, others stand to benefit from that, the EU, China and Canada stand to gain the most, the EU because countries are looking for a credible big enough power to the US, the EU is the only credible one around, then we have China, they've been wanting to pull the EU further away from the US for quite some time because that weakens and isolates the US, which is what China wants, then we have Canada, they benefit because they are seen as a reliable hub into North America, basically corporation from the US and around the world are choosing Canada over the US. The crazy thing is about this, a lot of the world has a lot to benefit the longer Trump stays in power and keeps playing these antics that it wouldn't surprise me if secretly, they want this to continue so that a major political and economic balance of power shifts away from the US, and the irony is, it's probably already too late for the US now, but it's going to be even worse the longer Trump is in power, so it's going to be interesting to see that moment when the penny drops and the American people realise how much they've messed up here.
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Yep, it would be a declaration of war on the EU and NATO, which could force them into direct action and that's the last thing Russia wants with how badly it's doing already, because if you take nukes out of the picture, Russia wouldn't stand a chance against NATO and even with nukes, what would that actually achieve for Russia? A wasteland? As tempting as that might be for Putin to go that route, it could very well directly bring a lot more of the Russian people much closer to the war, considering the way things are going, if Putin pushes his luck, it wouldn't surprise me if he gets killed by his own inner circle or the Russian people, after all, they can tolerate many of Putin's actions, but the moment it starts getting much closer to home with the Russian people, that's where things could go south really quickly for Putin and not in a good way for him. In the end, Putin has pretty much done everything he can to try and divide Europe, to try and get them to back down and yet he's failed, there isn't really much else he can do apart from escalate the war that could involve the EU, NATO and the west at large getting more directly involved. In fact, Putin should consider himself lucky that there are cool heads in the EU, because Putin declaring war on their energy could have been seen as a declaration of war against the EU countries, less cool heads could have escalated this far more on the EU side of things.
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Oh I don't know, the EU countries seem to be doing fine, yes times are harder than usual but that's the case for many outside of Europe also. But collapse? don't make me laugh lol, it would take a lot more to destabilize a modern rich economy, it's not even close to collapse. In fact, things seem more stable now, gas storage are around 95% full, gas tankers are hanging around Europe and they are getting around 60% gas from other countries beside Russia and even before the war in Ukraine, the EU countries were getting around half it's gas from other sources around the world. The truth is, there's actually too much gas in the EU at the moment because consumers have been using less gas, the EU countries have bought more just in case they need it and now there's more supple than demand, hence why gas prices have been dropping. So come on guys, let's put things into perspective lol.
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It's self-interest, if the likes of Turkey, China, India and others support Russia on them taking over those 4 regions in Ukraine on a fake referendum, they know Russia could do the same to them or other countries could do the same. The west likely knows that they can't allow Russia to keep those lands because if they do, the message that says around the world is that any country could invade another, hold a shame referendum and claim it as their part of their own country, it's not hard to see how this could be a bad thing for the world if the world lets it happen. So Ukraine with the west help have to take those 4 regions back, regardless of what threats Putin likes to ramble on about and whiles taking those back, they should take Crimea back as well. Russia needs to be sent a powerful message that this kind of behaver isn't acceptable and countries like Turkey, China and India should be ashamed of themselves for only realizing the risk now, I mean, how many people have to die? How bad do things have to go before they wake up? I'm critical of the west on many things but at least they are all in on this whereas those other 3 countries keep flip-flopping, depending on what's more of an advantage to them.
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I suspect Russia had intentions of invading Moldova but Putin also expected a lightning strike in Ukraine, because Russia is bottled up there, it wouldn't be very smart for him to open up a new front any time soon and if Ukraine does push Russia back, he might never get the chance. For now, Russia is bottled up in Ukraine that it's taking up a lot of their resources and that is likely going to get worse as Ukraine gets better armed by the west and because of that, I think it's unlikely that Russia will want to open up a new front, something they tried at first with Ukraine but were taking heavy losses and now Putin is trying to attack from a tighter corridor. In every sense of the word, this war is going quite badly for Russia and it could get worse for them as Ukraine gets better supplied and trained, hence why Putin keeps threatening with nukes, Putin is getting desperate and really wants the west to stop supplying Ukraine.
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@samuelgordino In any case, the west has to call his bluff, if the west backs down, Russia will take over Ukraine, it will also show the lack of resolve from the west, what that means is that Putin has found weakness and it won't just stop with Ukraine, China will also be watching this carefully, they want to see how far the west is going to go to protect Ukraine, if they see the west back-down once the threat becomes high enough, China will be more embolden to invade Taiwan. The last thing the west can afford to do here is show weakness and back down, the west has already shown a lot of weakness to these countries over the last decade or so and they take advantage of it by meddling in western countries, from the economy to politics, dictator only understand strength, so the west can't afford to back down regardless of what threats Putin tries to use.
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@andylaauk To try and balance the budget, the Tories made a lot of cuts in a lot of areas over the last 10 years, hence the austerity measures, the NHS took quite a hit over the last decade but it wasn't the only one to feel the pain from those cut, I don't want to get into details because the cuts are quite long but it should be easy enough to google search it up, Brits have been complaining about it for 10 years and it's been in the media long enough so it should be easy to find.
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It's always worth keeping talks open but it should be taken with a pinch of salt what Russia says, but it does seem like they are on the back foot and are either regrouping or are trying to find a way out of this mess whiles maintaining its credibility. Maybe this is the moment Putin is realizing the war is lost, maybe it's just more games from him, either way, this war has been a disaster for Russia, no amount of digging in like the hardliners want is going to change that reality and it would likely make things worse for Russia going forward. We should also remember that Putin planed on this war being quick, the longer it drags on, the more draining it's going to be on the country, with the European countries moving away from Russian oil and gas and Russia's reserves running out, maybe reality is starting to bite with Putin as I think it was said that Russia had reserve till October next year, I suspect it's less than that because that was all planned on energy prices staying high and Europe continuing to buy from Russia, so Russia is likely running out of reserves a lot quicker than they want us to think, that's when things really get bad for Russia if they don't find a way out. From Ukraine's and the west point of view, it changes nothing, keep doing what they are doing with pushing the Russians back, the west should continue with arming Ukraine with everything they need, especially with going into winter, which can get really cold in Ukraine. Anyway, I have a feeling that as the EU countries move further away from Russian oil and gas, both the EU and US are going to put a lot more pressure on countries that are buying cheap oil and gas from Russia, maybe even the threat of trade sanctions, after all, the west isn't going through all this only for other countries to try and prop up the Russian economy, there is very likely a high price to pay for those countries involved, especially when it comes to access to the EU and US markets.
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True, and I find that over promising during the election and not delivering on those promises, only come back to bite them on the arse, we see this in a lot of countries around the world, where a lot is promised to win an election, but once in power, they have to come back down to earth and be more realistic in what's achievable, hence the honeymoon phase that last a year or so until reality kicks in for voters. The UK is getting the same kind of treatment with Brexit, reality of Brexit is really kicking in now. Basically, parties should stop overpromising to win elections, whiles at the same time being better at explaining to voters on what needs to be done to get the economy back on track, for good or bad and sometimes hard choices need to be made, especially in hard times, explaining that to voters better, might take some of the sting out of the pain, but the way things are, most voters don't trust what governments say. Italy are having more trouble than most modern countries because of its high level of corruption, north-south divide and high debt levels, basically, they need major economic reforms in the country to get back on track, something that's probably not easy to do with all the corruption around, but I feel if Italy doesn't do it, they are going to fall further behind other European countries, then many will end up using the EU has the scapegoat just like British voters did, even thought the real problem is more internal than it is to do with the EU, but people will want someone to blame and usually national governments blame the EU even thought most of the problems were created by the national government, Italy and the UK are a prime example of that over the last 15 years.
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Honestly as a remainer, I kind of hope we get the hardest of Brexit, it will hit the euroseptics really hard in the UK unless they can deliver on what they promised which we already know they can't and in the case of me, I've already just got dual citizenship and shifted a lot of my savings into Euros in case the shit hits the fan, in the end, the best way to hurt and finish the euroseptics off in the UK is hard Brexit because then they will be on the fireing line whereas they've always been saying crap about the EU without it doing any harm to themselves, that all changese if hard Brexit happens and it does some real damage to the UK. With all that, I don't see why I should pay the price for some hardcore Brexiteers loons so if Brexit gets real bad, I'm out and they can deal with it and the good news is, remainers overall seem to be smarter then Brexiteers so they will likely cope with Brexit better then Brexiteers will. Now don't get me wrong, I would love for the UK to remain in the EU but the euroseptics are not going to let go of this unless another vote happens and it's at least 60% plus in favor of remain, so really hard Brexit or remain but with a high percentage of voters wanting to remain is the only real option now and honestlly, the odds don't look good either way, so yeah, it's high time some remainers make up back up plans just to keep your options open, after all, why should they suffer for what hardcore Brexiteers want.
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The government is in a bit of a pickle, on the one hand, if they do extra restrictions, it's almost like admitting that the vaccines are not working as effectively as they keep telling us but on the other hand, if they keep things open, things could quickly get much worse. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are already putting extra restrictions up, much of Europe are doing the same, now I'm not saying I want restrictions again but it feels like the same old thing with the UK government, especially when it comes to England, they keep waiting it out till things get worse and worse before they are more or less forced to act and people wonder why we have one of the worse death rates around the world when it comes to Covid. It's really starting to feel that they don't have a answer to Covid and are just winging it, the vaccines were supposed to solved this problem but we don't seem any closer to the exit than we did 2 years ago with people starting to ask questions about the vaccines, but naturally, they'll never tell us they don't work so not to cause a panic but unless big improvements start to show for the people that have taken the vaccines, many are just going to come to the conclusion that they either don't work or it's a scam for profit for a few key companies which are making a killing out of all this. Sad thing is, we're screwed either way, if we just go on with our lives and the death rate shoots up, people will complain and blame the government but if we do take measures, people will complain about their freedoms, governments are getting their backs pushed into a corner and a big part of this is because of the promise of these vaccines were supposed to get us out of this mess and you have to wonder how long this can go on before things really start to crack.
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@bernhardjs5078 Thats the real problem about UK democracy, the system is so rigged that it kind of forces people to vote for the two major parties, otherwise your vote becomes wasted, the US is more or less the same, say what we want about the Germans but thier democracy looks way better with much more choice.
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@chilldudie242 32GB is more than enough, after all, with 64GB, what are we doing, storing half the game in memory? Unless games become a lot bigger which I doubt any time soon. Also, we should remember that on consoles, they've got 16GB memory but some of that, 2 or 3GB is reserved for OS tasks, then we should remember that it's divided up from system and gpu memory, it's not as much memory as it sounds as I already have 40GB of memory in my PC if I combine the lot and it didn't really cost that much for it. Personally, I think for slower speed drives, developers can read data ahead and dump more of it in memory, after all, the Xbox Series X can do around 72GB, My M2 drive can do 105GB and the PS5 around 150GB every 30 seconds, it begs the question, how big does games have to be to really take advantage of these speeds because the storage just isn't there to really push them with reading through the entire drive in just a few mins. Also, we know the Xbox Series X SSD can read at 2.4GB per second and sustain those speeds, can the PS5 do the same because I've not heard anything on that and it seems like Sony is going more for burst speeds with the cpu, gpu and likely the SSD as well, if that is the case, the speeds of the PS5 SSD could be a lot slower than what they are saying overall whiles being able to burst to 5GB for a few seconds. Anyway, all that is without compression but that doesn't really impact any of the free as the data is compressed on the hard drive and then it's either the cpu or gpu that decompresses it. Anyway, don't get me wrong, these SSDs's are a lot better than what this gen of consoles have but I don't buy into the hype, especially from Sony because they seem to be pinning all their hopes on the SSD because they likely know the rest of the hardware is weaker than the Xbox Series X.
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@chilldudie242 32GB likely would even for the future, after all, it would almost be 3 times the memory of the next gen consoles if you put it in the context that the 16GB of memory the next gen consoles use is shared between system and gpu memory and 1 to 3GB could be reserved for OS tasks, then on the PC, there is also gpu memory, anyone with 32GB of system memory is likely going to have at least 8GB of gpu memory so 40 in total, that should be more than enough to shift data around and counter the PS5 SSD even with a PCI Express 3.0 M2 drive which can do around 3.5GB and to put that into context, that's around 105GB every 30 seconds. How much data is a game going to need in a given area so quickly? More importantly, the storage size of the next gen consoles will be a massive limiting factor because they are way too small to really be pushed flat out that much or games would have to be a lot bigger than they are today, if games are like 100GB, 200GB in size, I don't see it being an issue at all. In any event, 64GB isn't too crazy on the price front and if I was building an ultra PC, 64GB would be fine even thought I would never use it lol but the price of memory keeps droppong so why not.
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@loostreaks3581 Printing money is a short term fix but it creates a big burden on the people for years, it can help sometimes if done right but the burden this time is likely going to be massive and that could be made all the worse in the case of the US if the reserve status of the Dollar goes during that time.
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@tas4u93 I wish I was but no, the pain of this is going to be felt quite hard for the poor and middle classes, especially in the US because it's clear they are passing the burden onto them, Europeans will have much of the same burden, but they might fare better in who is paying for it.
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@lynf5562 There are two factors in that, corruption and capitalism with very weak checks to keep it fair and balanced, hence why the big corporations are becoming more powerful and pretty much rewriting laws that work for them and not the people, basically, the US is becoming one big corporation where the people are just slaves to the corporations, a system that governments in the US seem to support.
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@lynf5562 I don't know, if you look at the markets, the US market is the one that's gone to crazy highs, many of the others have not so the impact could be more subdued, either way, the way the world economy is, it will impact us all in one way or another but it looks like the US is going to get the worst of it and that's mostly thanks to Trump and his policies. Anyway, I think things could go south pretty quickly early next year, a lot of the support network that's keeping things ticking away will dry up by then and Trump is mostly propping up the stock market because he's reputation is on the line on that one, after the election, if he wins, he's have 4 years to try and fix the mess, that's where they will be willing to let the markets crash, if the Democrats wins, he won't care either way but basically, bubbles are being created in the US because of the election, that isn't the case around the world and why it's likely to be much worse for the US than the world, but don't get me wrong, we are all in the toilet here, just some deeper than others, most don't realize the hard times that are ahead.
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@lynf5562 I suspect the reason it's not crashed yet is because of Trump and the Republican Party, he's put his reputation on the line based on how well the stock market is doing the last few years, he can't afford that to crash in an election year whereas I suspect he figures that if he wins the election, he will have 4 years to fix that mess so will let it crash as it's costing a lot of money to support it. I agree that both the Republicans and Democrats are not that great but the Democrats are the lesser of two evils, in truth, Americans need more options when it comes to voting because the two party system isn't working, it's a bit like what we see in the UK with the Conservative and Labour Party, there are other options beside them, but they don't even get a look in, a lot of European countries have many options they can pick and I think they are the lucky ones. Speaking of which, Trump and the Republics always like to say the Democrats are to the left of politics, the irony is, to us Europeans, the Democrats are seen as left wing whereas the Republicans are seen as hard right, I do think Europeans have a better balance in choice from left and right of politics for people to choose then the US does.
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@anhurtjv I wouldn't say the US is falling but they are losing thier grip on the world, Trump did a lot of damage to the US around the world and even thought Biden is in power now, it's too little too late, other countries have changed tactics on the US and are looking for alternatives, that doesn't mean the US wont be a power, it's just going to get weaker because of the actions of Trump. But I wouldn't worry, the US is still going to be a rich nation, it's just going to slowly lose control around the world.
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@NoobFLProducer I think the problem is that the UK is sinking fast, a lot that was promised on Brexit isn't happening and a lot that was said would happen with Brexit is happening, the Tories are not helping the UK at all, they are dividing the country, they don't seem to care about Scotland or Northern Ireland, they don't even seem to care about the Brexiteers in the north of England, they see them as a tool just to be used and because the Tories are in power for a few years, you can only imagine how much damage they will do to the UK. If Scotland and Northern Ireland are smart, they'll time a referendum close to the next elections, the idea being, strike whiles it becomes more visible the damage the Tories have done to the UK, that will likely help their independence movements, for now, a lot of the damage is being clouded up by the pandemic but in a few years, it's likely going to hit the public hard.
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@NoobFLProducer Unfortunately, I'm English, living in the north-west and surrounded by Brexit loons so I'm screwed either way because I doubt these people are going to wake up any time soon until Brexit hits them hard. Still it is fun to watch.
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I suspect if Hungary or Poland were to use the veto to block anything from happening, I can well see more EU countries getting onboard with Macrons idea of multispeed EU and the Euro Zone is probably a good starting point to do it. The other EU countries that want to move forward with reforms can't afford to be blocked by countries like Hungary and Poland as it's just creating gridlock, so I suspect one of 3 things will happen, either the EU and it's members will get Hungary and Poland to change, 2, they find a way to kick them out of the EU or 3, they isolate the countries in the EU and that can be done in many ways from holding back money from them, pushing companies to not invest in those countries and so on, basically, isolate the countries in the EU so they become weaker in time. Honestly thought, the EU should have got a lot tougher on these 2 countries a long time ago, nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand because by delaying it like the EU has, it's made those two countries get bolder with its stance, there's a fair chance they would have backed down if the EU clamped down on them much earlier on, so credit to the European Parliament for actually pushing hard on that whereas the Commission have been dragging this out too much. In any case, I think the EU should put a time limit on the money they are holding on Covid and development funds to Hungary and if they don't do the reforms needed in time, that money goes to the other EU members that need it, ramp up the pressure a lot more on Hungary so they stop stalling and wasting time.
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Hence, the reason why the quicker we can disconnect from the grid, the better, that way you have full control over the energy you generate without greedy companies trying to take their cut.
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@jopharhautman9716 Either way, it's looking like are going to have many options to pick from which is more or less going to make energy go more or less free and more importantly, you have control over it and all that is needed is for the price to keep coming down which it is doing at a rapid rate and once we can have enough battery storage at home, why would we want to be connected to the grid so energy companies or the government find ways to tax and charge us on something that doesn't really need to cost anything.
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@jopharhautman9716 There is no way the government can stop you, in fact if you are creative and willing to put the work in, you can go off the grid now for a lot less money if you do it yourself. I don't think you understand the way taxes work, governments don't care where they get the tax from just as long as they get them to meet the needs of the country or lets put it another way, if energy is free, the taxes needed will be far less and lets not forget the money people are saving, that doesn't just go down a black hole, most will likely spend that on other things that get taxes, the point being, the quality of living has improved, you have more money to spend and governments need less taxes even thought they'll likely still want around the same but that will mean better public services. Beside, I would love to see governments try to stop free energy with how many ways there are to generate it and how cheap it is becoming, it will be fun to watch, basically, they won't tax it just like they can't tax air but I do expect a few to try but that will push more to go off grid, so they have full control over it without companies and governments being able to play games, either way, there are just too many clean energies we can use that are more or less free once the tech is in place.
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@jopharhautman9716 Not saying that we won't be paying the same amount of taxes because we likely will but those taxes won't come from energy, the savings we get from not paying energy bills, we are likely going spend on other stuff, that's where they will get the taxes, also what works for us consumers in lowering bills also works for governments and the system, so they really don't need as many taxes but the government being the government will likely want the same in any case which I don't mind if public services get better for it. When it comes to the tax system, I do think it needs to be more open and transparent, the public should get to see where every bit of our tax money goes, after all it's a public service, if the people could monitor it, it would be a lot harder for them to get wasteful and corrupt with it, I'm surprised the public have not demanding tax revenue to be fully open yet considering it's our money they are playing with. It depends on how we talk about it as clean energy, if we can buy say the batteries and say solar and wind turbines and generate enough energy to power the house and car for free for say 25 years with it and it doesn't cost much to buy that system, I see that as being a lot cleaner of a system then what we are using now. As for solar, wind and batteries, yes it's a joke if you go directly to the companies to have it installed, they charge an arm and a leg, but if you buy it all yourself and do it yourself, it works out a lot cheaper that you can generate a lot of energy without braking the bank, also, the tech is getting better all the time so it's only a matter of time before it gets cheaper and better. As for electric cars and self-driving cards, they are the future as much as some might not like, but they are not ready just yet and the main issue is price that needs to be slashed in half but that will likely happen pretty quickly over the next decade.
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@bumblebee5818 If that was the case then all members benefit in some way or another but even if that was the case, the contributions would be much lower if every EU member was contributing, but in any case, that isn't going to happen for awhile because the EU is still expending with many new countries ready to join before 2025.
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@PabloTBrave They are also too small and are not that rich really if you compare to other western countries.
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@s13hgp They are almost an EU member already, lets put it this way, Iceland is more in the EU now then what the UK every was with all it's op-outs, just have a look at what the relationship is with the EU and Iceland.
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@wabalaladabdab I think that might be the only way they can join, I highly doubt the EU will let all the UK back in any time soon, 1 or 2 EU members would likely block it, but Scotland and the rest will be able to join a lot easier.
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@s13hgp Because two of them were pulled out of the EU against their will and the EU seems to do better in protecting the interest of its members then the UK is doing with it's own members, you only have to look at the economies of each of the UK members to see that, most are performing quite poor by western European standards and Northern Ireland are really doing poor. The truth is, the UK union isn't very united, resources are always kept down south, the rest gets the scraps, that a big part of the reason why so many want to leave the UK union, they don't feel the UK governments serve their interest any more.
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@mikenijboer1292 Norway already pays in the EU pot lol.
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J Mansfield You do realize that Iceland is part of the Schengen Area? Basically, there is already freedom of movement among people in the EU and Iceland, so ask yourself, why are we not seeing what you suggest already? Maybe because you are talking out of your arse lol.
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@s13hgp Oh let me guess, you think the EU will miss that money the UK sends? you do realize that it only accounts for 0.3% of the EU gpd you imbecile, yes they would rather have that money but overall it changes nothing and we don't even know yet if the UK will still pay into the EU pot, many none EU members already do so the UK could be next.
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@s13hgp It's a special case for Scotland and Northern Ireland, they voted to stay in the EU and are being pulled out against their will, that gives them a lot more clout in pushing for independence from the UK, even more so with how bad the UK government is dealing with this pandemic, it's another sign of why independence for them could be a good thing. As for Catalan and all that, it's a different case and that is a weak argument to try and keep Scotland in, either way, that doesn't work and even if the like of Catalan and others do want independence, sooner or later they will likely get it regardless of what those countries say about it. Your argument is weak, you are suggesting that Scotland can't leave because others small regions might do the same, what a weak argument and I suggest you go back to school because your IQ seems to be really low. Basically, if Scotland leaves, it's going to happen regardless of what Spain says or what the Catalan region does, so go back to school you thicko.
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@s13hgp OK calm down lol, as you well know, there wasn't a vote from the public, at least not in the UK on the common market and European Union formation as it was left to the government to decide, you know, the ones that are supposed to represent our interest, at least that's how the system is supposed to work, basically, the UK doesn't live under a direct democracy and is a repensentive democracy. As for Norway and Iceland, no they are not EU members but they might as well be because they are more integrated in the EU than the UK every was which is ironic considering the UK was an EU member but then with all the op-outs the UK had, we might as well not be. Scotland could use whatever currency they want, chances are they'll use the pound in the short term whiles they decide what to do on either having their own currency or joining the Euro which if they want to join the EU, the Euro would be part of that as there won't be any op-outs, in any case, countries can use currencies they are not supposed to do, some countries that are not in the Euro Zone use the Euros for instance so Scotland would very likely use the pound as they do now, there isn't much the UK government could do about it and there's no real reason for them to do anything about it with all the trade flowing both ways. As for why the UK should rejoin the EU, maybe because that's what the British people want, polls have consistently shown support for staying in the EU and the latest polls show support of around 57% wanting to rejoin the EU, that isn't a small margin and it's unlikely to be wrong with that kind of margin. As for Scotland and Northern Ireland, if both countries did leave, that would reduce the land mass of the UK by about 45%, it would reduce the population by 7 million and would reduce the economy by 250 billion, I highly doubt most in the UK or the government would want to lose that, especially because it would be quite humiliating for the UK, the term little Englander would actually have real meaning then and Brexit would look like a disaster is that was to happen. The truth is, which way Scotland and Northern Ireland goes really depends on how well Brexit goes and how much money and resources the UK government spends in those regions but the odds are looking that Scotland could leave over the next 5 to 10 years or sooner with Northern Ireland following afterwords, the mess on Brexit and the pandemic is throwing more fuel on the fire, also throw in that Scotland and Northern Ireland do quite poor in the UK union compared to other western EU members of around the same size and you have to wonder why they would want to stay when others are showing more success, especially with Northern Ireland that has a GDP per capita 3 times lower than the Republic of Ireland, it begs the question, what on earth is the UK union doing to them lol.
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@s13hgp What the name got to do with the price of eggs when that name is used all over Europe and America. As for you saying I said nothing, that's most likely because you can't counter what is said so you don't even try, basically, you do the dismissive manoeuvre because you don't like what's being said, I've seen it all before.
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@mikenijboer1292 Why would the EU have taken all the oil profits? That doesn't make any sense as they've not done that on any other EU member, they never did that to the UK with its oil reserves in the north. Besides, that kind of power resides with national governments not the EU so I don't know where you got the impression the EU would take it all. As for Norway, I forgot what they pay into the EU, it was a few years back when I looked but it was quite sizeable and in line with many EU members on a per capita basis. As for your retirement fund, if we are talking about the bailout for the countries in the south, that is another matter entirely, think of it as solidarity but I am happy many countries played hard ball on that because it's less likely that those countries down south will waste that money, they must know the northern countries won't likely bail them out again if they don't get their act together.
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@s13hgp Don't worry about it, just seemed like I was being accused of not being a Brit because of my second name even thought I was born in the UK and am fully British, anyway, lets forget about it.
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@maxmolberg6290 Probably much sooner than our life times, likely over the next decade or two if they are not careful. As for the EU, I think more pan-European politics is needed to create more interest from the people, the EU is democratic but it always feels too distance from the people and part of that is governments in EU members and some of the media not giving it enough coverage, that isn't really the EU's fault and more the fault of the members, after all, how undemocratic would national systems look if the people showed little interest in them? As for Euro Bonds, you are mistaken, a lot of Europeans do support helping others out in times of need, the biggest problem is the ones getting the help learning from the mistakes so they don't ask for more help in a decade or so which is where the problem is on unity on that one. European countries are very social, that means they like having a lot of government planning and strong social system on things like health care among other things, also, an economic union only works effectively with a political union oversighting it, otherwise the system wouldn't be fair and big players will always take advantage of smaller players. Now the EU does need some changes, no doubt about it but not in the way you think it needs them, the good news is, this pandemic is opening up the doors for real change in Europe.
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@maxmolberg6290 Actually we can, that's been happening for thousands of years already, it just takes time and is happening regardless of the EU thanks to globalization and integration of the world economy, basically, in the EU countries, the real problem is that they've not created a kind of unity among the people over the members, pan-European politics, media and countless others things, things can change if they want it to do so but that takes time, for now, we're still living in a national bubble but that isn't going to serve our interest in the long run because we're too small compared to the big powers around the world. That argument about not being a European people could easierlly be used on the US as they are mostly European, things can change quite quickly if needed, in many cases, we already have a lot of the same building blocks among Europeans in our social standards, rights, sports we like, cars we drive, health care, politics, tax system and so on, if we look closely, we're not as different from each other as some would like to think. As for Euro Bonds, the main hurdle wasn't giving a helping hand to countries in need, the real problem was there not being any strings attached to it with fear that those countries that need the money will become wasteful with it and end up wanting more in the future, that was what the northern Europeans didn't want and I do agree with them, strings and reforms should be attached to that money. That's pretty much how it works already through the EU with national governments working in co-operation with the EU to get things done that the members are less effective at doing, as for the UN and WTO, they are too much of a talking shop that get ignored on many of it's own rules, these organizations are great for what they are but they lack teeth to get things done, big players can ignore them at will without many issues and they do just that many times, if they want any real relevance in the world, they need some bigger teeth to get things done, the EU has that which makes it more effective than just a talking shop. You could use the same argument about the US with red and blue states with blue states putting a lot more money into red states or you could use the same argument about the UK union, especially with Scotland and England, should these fall apart because there is some massive disagreements on both sides? What we are seeing in the EU is just politics, you're was never going to get everyone to get along with each other but if they can get most then it's worth doing. If anything, a lot of the flaws in the EU and EU countries are because the EU lacks the power in many areas, a prime example of that is immigration, the EU zone could handle a lot of them if the people were spaced out among EU members but because each EU member is acting in it's own interest, too many end up in a few EU members, the real flaw is that more co-operation or more EU integration on those policies are needed, this is the case in many other areas as well where many of the problems are being done by national politics in areas where the EU has limited or no powers in.
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SUTHRINGA I don't know, I suspect Iceland will join the EU someday, after all, the importance of fish isn't going to be there indifferently. As for the UK, I suspect a deal will be made but clearly it's going to be worse than the deal they have now just like the deal the UK signed with Japan is worse than the deal the EU got with them which is ironic because in the UK they make it seem like they've got the same deal but if you look closely at it, the UK had to make a few concessions on it that the EU didn't.
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SUTHRINGA Well I've read up the deal with the UK and Japan and it looks worse but it also looks like there wasn't much time to work on it because of Brexit so it looks as if they will renegotiate it at a future date, anyway, there are many articles online pointing in the areas where this deal is worse than the one the EU signed with Japan and it stands to reason, why would Japan make the same concessions to the UK that they did with the EU when the UK is a lot smaller, just common sense really. As for Iceland, if you look at the way the world is developing, countries are grouping up together as that is the only way to compete with the big fish, smaller countries are not going to stand much of a change against the bigger fish in the long run so I suspect it's only a matter of time before the likes of Iceland, Norway and Switzerland joins the EU, the UK is also very likely rejoin but it will likely be as separate countries with Scotland and Northern Ireland braking away from the UK, in big part because I doubt the EU would let the UK in any time soon so the only way for Scotland and Northern Ireland to rejoin is by leaving the UK union and support seems to be growing on that one. Anyway, I suggest you do more research.
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@smokiloki5930 Everyone brings some good to the table but the UK has been a royal pain in the arse for too long that only really joined the EEC because it was the sick man of Europe and was getting left behind, not because they wanted to make the project work, in other words, the UK joined for selfish reasons and are leaving for the same reason. The problem is that the UK could be repeating the same mistakes it did in the past and get left behind, I can't see how the UK can compete in a world with the EU, US and China as well as other big blocks forming, the UK is very likely to get ignored in a lot of international deal making and that will just harm UK interest but maybe that needs to happen for the UK to get the message.
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@tomzamp8547 No way to be 100% sure but I've read a lot of history on the EU and the UK parts in it going back to the 1950, the UK never wanted to be part of it, only joined because we were getting left behind and have been ungrateful every since lol, the UK have always been at arms length when it comes to the EU project, rarely being constructive in wanting to make the project better and mostly being obstructive. For many in the EU, they see the UK leaving as a god send, especially in political matters as now it makes it much easier for them to do further integration, especially with the Euro Zone. The entire sage of Brexit from the EU's point of view was to protect the single market and keep trade in areas that matter to them open with the UK, keeping the UK in the EU orbit is seen as a bonus to them and now that the UK has zero political influence with the EU, that's when the UK should really be worried.
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@xiyition This is the Tories we are talking about, when in history have they ever cared about the north-west? More importantly, the economy is doing really bad thanks to Brexit and the pandemic, so money is going to be tight for at least 5 or 10 years and if you throw in all the noise from Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Tories are going to do what they do best which is to look after the south of England, they might help Scotland and Northern Ireland out more because of the threat of them leaving the UK union but as far as the northern part of England goes, they've already got their vote for the next 5 years and now they don't care, just look at that train service that was supposed to be going through the north, funny how they did cut backs on that, basically, they'll do it down south but not up north, that's the Tory MO.
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@xiyition It doesn't really work out like that over the long run, for one, the overall EU economy becomes bigger and existing members in the EU that take money out of the pot will in time end up taking less money out and in the longer run, put money into the pot as they modernize. Another factor is that the Balkan countries are tiny and because of that, much easier to manage.
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@linusstrand2468 Best solution in the case of Poland and Hungary is to buy their time, for the time being they are using each others vetoes to stop any real action being done but sooner or later, one of those countries won't support the other, once that happens, the one thats misbehaving is in deep trouble, another option is to kick them both out but that should only be used as a last option if things get worse in thoes countries. For now, things are relevetivelly stable in them both and the people seem to disagree with the governments actions so the EU should just wait an election or two and see how things are before taking drastic measures on them. But if they keep slipping, they will get the boot at some point and Russia will be more than happy to take advantage of them.
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@albanianorthodox8659 Funny, there are about 10 countries that are lining up to join the EU and likely more if they had the chance but at the moment, it looks like the EU is holding back on bringing in new countries until they can reform the EU to work better, in other words, majority voting.
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@M.Đ-z4u Norway and Switzerland actually do and as for them being rich, Norway is a small population with a lot of natural resources, hence why they are rich, they also have easy access to the EU market and as for Switzerland, well we all know about it's banking secrecy, something that if other bigger countries wanted could clamp down hard on them, they also have easy access to the EU market, hence why both countries contribute to the EU budget, with Norway it's a simple deal whereas with Switzerland, it's many messy deals that the EU wants to reform into one deal a bit like what Norway has got. Either way, I suspect it's only a matter of time when Norway and Switzerland joins the EU with Norway likely as oil starts to dry up and Switzerland as countries around the world put the squeeze on the banking sector but I wouldn't worry, it's not going to be any time soon.
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@tedybear9186 We'll have to see but the EU seems to do it's best when in crisis and you can't get much bigger than what is going on, it will likely in the longer run once the bickering calms down, Europeans are likely going to integrate more after this because flaws in the system have been shown thanks to this virus and the biggest of those flaws is the national response to this crisis where the EU had limited powers in how it could help which doesn't bold well for the euroseptics in Europe.
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@tedybear9186 We very likely will, a lot of the issue with the EU and it's members isn't so much about doing that but how to do it the best way that works for the countries and it's people, this virus is very likely going to speed that process up. Change will be needed at the EU and members levels, I suspect richer countries are willing to help poorer ones out but there are limits to that because it feels like it's a bottomless pit where the likes of Italy and Greece wants money with no strings attached and then 10 or so years later, they want more because they didn't do the reforms needed to get back on their feet, that's not going to work if they keep demanding bail-outs because sooner or later, the richer members will give them the boot if they don't get their act together, solidarity only goes so far, the ones getting the help need to want to help themselves otherwise it would just be a transfer union. As for the problems in the union, there will always be problems but what solves them is political and economic realities of the world, in other words, we need the EU to protect our interest both politically and economically as well as social standards, without it, the likes of the US will water down our social system as they are trying to do to a Brexit Britain and that is what is keeping the EU and it's members together, the US and other powers rising because the alternative doesn't look good for European countries.
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Nobody is laughing, after all, the war in Ukraine is impacting a lot of countries around the world, including Australia and until the energy market stabilises, it's going to keep hurting.
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Well I love football just like billions of others around the world do and the world cup but someone needs to nuke Fifa for how corrupt they are lol, I also suspect with how big football really is around the world, that reserve fund of a billion is just a drop in the ocena to what it really is. As for the religion aspect of football, I can agree with that, in many countries like Italy and Brazil, when the world cup is one and the teams are playing in a big game, the country comes to a stand still, it's quite shocking how many people take time off work when a big game is on lol, the passion in football is very high and I've never seen that in any other sport.
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I'm going to assume it was that secret meeting the AfD had that was uncovered and it made them look a bit too extream even to some of the other far right parties, which many are not as extream as they like us to think and are just pampering to voters angry. Basically, just say what you think the people want to hear, not what you can deliver, anything that wins votes, hence why so many that actually get close to power or in power, tone things down a lot, because they know they got voted in on an angry protest vote, but a lot of their policies are not popular with the wider public, and if they pushed that agenda, they'll quickly become unpopular with the public, and this is probably why so many of the more radical parties become more moderated in their policies, they likely know that once you've got a chance of power, they can't afford to mess up with extream policies, otherwise they'll probably never get back in power again. In the case of the AfD, they are being seen as extream even by far right standards, and ultimately, far left, far right, these are only really a threat if the public becomes radicalised, which if that were to happen, we've got far bigger problems to worry about, thankfully, in Europe and North America, a lot of it is a protest vote against the established parties because people are angry, but most don't want the radical policies that some of the extream parties want, they just want things to change for the better. Either way, moderate parties are successful because they moderate there policies and compromise on policies, radical parties can have extream views in so many areas that make it difficult for them and other parties to work together, it's probably partly why so many are moderating there policies to appeal to more voters and other parties.
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The EU and UN have limited power in what they can do in those regions compared to the national governments or the US. If you want these organizations to be more effective, they will need more power to do so. In the case of Ukraine, the EU is in a very strong position to act because of a lot of the trade links with Russia and how exposed both are, but on the military front, both the EU and UN don't really have much power there, but that could start to change now with the EU thanks to Putin.
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EU have never been a slave of the US lol, beside the EU and US have had many trade wars before and the EU hits the US back just as hard with the US always backing down over time. As for the EU and China, if China play this right, they could open up it's market a lot more to the rest of the world excluding the US, what could the US do but complain about it, also, there is a big opening here for the EU and China if they play this right and with the size of both the EU and China, this could really do some damage to the US. The US really needs to becareful what it does here because there is a point of no return and that point could be the extra tariffs later this year.
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The last one was with George W Bush, the US backed down after two years and felt insulted because the EU was targeting Bush himself. Also, it's not about exports or imports, it's about size and the fact is, the EU and China are more then big enough to be fine without the US, more so as they will continue to trade with the rest of the world whereas the US wants to shut up shop. In the end, the more tariffs the US does, the more jobs that will flood out of the US like Harley Davidsons said they would do, because at the end of the day, corps will do whats in there intrest and the fact is, most of them make there money around the world, so if push comes to shove, Trump could end up pushing a lot of jobs out of the US which would be funny to see with his American first policy. That guy really doesn't have a clue about economics, he honesty thought that the others around the worldn't wouldn't dare put tariffs on US goods lol, what an idiot to think that when history shows us time after time that they do, in fact with Trump, they have no choice but to put tariff on US goods because Trump would think he's won and do even more if others bend over. In the end, if more tariffs on each others goods keep happening, all it will end up doing is hanging Trump up by a lamp post by his own people once the damage starts to kick in, Trump boxed himself in now and he doesn't know how to get out of it without his ego taking a hit, the EU and China are laighing all the way because this is weakening the US around the world whiles changing the political landscape away from the US.
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That doesn't mean it wasn't a trade war, just that the US didn't go all out because the EU forced them to back down. As said, the EU and China are big enough to stand on it's own feet, the others not so but because the EU is open, they can trade a lot more with them if the US closes down. Also, there is a lot more to trade wars then just surplus with them, China can use all sorts of other tricks to hurt the US if it comes to that, in any case, it's the US who is really kidding it's self thinking they could win this, I don't think the US have ever won a trade war over the EU because the EU fights back hard, it looks like China will as well and in the end, the EU and China will keep trading around the world so the damage done is less to them then it is to the US, all this is doing is isolating the US from the rest of the world. As for the US job figures and yet the debt levels didn't come down over that time, in fact they've gone up. Trump became president because people are fed up with how things are, just like how Brexit happened, but these actions wont solve what the people want, it's likely to make things worse, the reality is, the voting public are not a very good judge at voting whats good for them, hence the major flaw in democracy. China will slow as they close the gap with the EU and US per capita, thats to be expected, still they are growing much faster then us and likely will for a few decades more, as for the world economy, yes it will take an hit but the hit will be far worse for the US and the longer it drags on for, the more trade that will be re-routed to other countries, it's the US that loses out here the most. In any case, who cares, this is how power is lost, if you check history out you'll see that the ones that make the most noise are the ones that are on decline, the US knows that power is shifting towards Asia and are getting desprate, it all started around 9/11 with the Euro making traction around the world, the US didn't like that, the irony is, US action didn't stop it and Trump's actions are likely to speed things up.
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Tariffs was put on each others goods, that is a trade war, in fact because the EU is smart and was tactical in how they put tariffs on goods by targeting red states, Bush took it personally, in the end after 2 years, the US backed down because you can't win a trade war if the other players fight back just as much, it ends up hurting all saids and in the case of this one with the US having trade wars with many, it ends up hurting the US the most. As for the US, it's not so much about dominating the world but dictating world order but the US knows it's losing it's grip on that, you don't seem to understand that after world war two, the US rigged a lot of the system in it's favor, how do you think the US Dollar became the reserve currency? it wasn't by chance, the idea was that the US could print off a lot of paper money, the irony is is that is under threat now and that could be a big problem for the US as China holds a lot of the US debts. As for the rest, trade with the EU and US is quite balanced, Trump likes to go on about Europeans not buying Americans cars, well it's a diffrent market, American made cars don't sell that well outside the US unless they've been redesigned for the local market, why do you think American cars that are sold in Europe don't look like the American version?, this is the real problem here, European cars sell well in the US without any change but Americans cars don't without a redesign and in most cases they end up making thoes American cars in the EU, Trump can't win on that one because he doesn't understand economics of the global economy. Beside, most American corparations make most of thier money from around the world, you might not like that fact but these companies would leave the US if the US becomes too tough or unstable to do busisness in because companies only care about money and thats in the world economy.
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We should remember, that even with the tariffs from the US, trade is still going to flow from both the EU and US, it will just be reduced and more expensive, but also, it's unlikely Trump will bring back those tariffs in 3 months, after all, the reason Trump backtracked on it so quick after putting them on was because of the damage it was doing to the US, so it's unlikely that will happen again and more likely that Trump will try and negotiate a deal with the EU or if there are any tariffs, they won't be as high. Regardless of what the US does, the EU and much of the world should continue to shift trade away from the US, but the worse case outcome as the video showed is unlikely to come true as the US stands to lose far more than the rest of the world does and we likely know this with how quickly Trump backed fired on the tariffs, now he could put them back up in 90 days, but he'll be doing it from a weaker position then he did it the first time, and the US markets reacted really badly to it the first time, so even if Trump wanted to put them back on, he probably won't be allowed to do so, but in any case, the rest of the world should continue to shift trade away from the US as the US have become unrealisable and unpredictable. As for the EU it's self, the video is right about the EU needing some major reforms to harmonise the EU market, a lot of money is being left on the table for EU countries, and it makes it more difficult for EU corporations to scale as easy as the US does, most of this can be corrected with major reforms of the EU, but we need bold politicians in the EU and at the members level to get that, with the way the US is acting, then we have Russian aggression, plus China that are not exactly to be trusted, you would think EU countries work wake up and get working towards making the EU stronger, because a stronger EU will benefit it's members a lot, it would actually also benefit a lot of the world, especially when it comes to trade plus looking for alternatives to the US, it's just up to the EU countries to get there act together.
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As long as they don't fiddle the numbers, it's all good lol.
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@rudysmith1552 You don't really need it when the world is so interconnected with trade, especially if you are a big enough player that can bend corporations around the world to your will, which the EU can. To give you an idea of this, an American pharmaceutical company sells their drugs around 10-15 times higher to Americans than they do to Europeans, the reason they do is because the US system allows it whereas the EU countries have universal health care so have far more bargaining power when setting the price, the end result is, you've got an American corporation that's screwing over the American people whiles giving Europeans a far better deal. Corporations are not our friends, regardless of where they come from, they are there to screw over as much money as we'll let them, so where companies are from isn't that important as most will want to sell their goods in all markets and will sell at a rate the market allows. To put it another way, the US hands-off approach with corporations is allowing the wild west approach to capitalism, the EU is capitalist, but they also have more of a hands-off approach when it comes to keeping corporations in line. Basically, what's really screwing the market up and consumers is by not getting tougher on big corporations, and maybe by not braking them up into smaller companies to allow more competition in the market, basically, too many sectors are being consolidated and that is giving consumers less choice and higher prices, the US government has more or less allowed that to happen in the US, whereas the EU is fighting back to make many of these companies play ball.
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This could be a big deal if they push through with it, think about it, car parks take up a lot of land, they are perfect for putting solar panels on them, for one, the shade helps to protect you and the car, car parks tend to be in city centres where more energy is needed, with electric cars taking off, these could be used to charge many of those cars or feed energy into the grid. Studies have been done years ago, forgot the figures but car parks around the world take up a lot of land, this idea solves many issues when it comes to solar and as EV cars and battery tech is getting better, I suspect renewable energy is going to generate more energy than we need, especially once we can store a lot of it. I do wonder thought, why hasn't this been done already, we always hear the complaints about where to put solar panels and yet we have a lot of useable land that can be dual purpose. I agree with the video, if France pushes ahead with this, it's very likely a lot of other countries will follow. Also, I agree with him that renewables are already a lot cheaper than fossil fuels, even under normal times when fossils are more reasonable, people get confused about the price of renewables because of the way the system is created, basically, renewable energy from the grid is charged at the same rate as gas, gas being one of the more expensive ones, so even thought renewables are a lot cheaper, consumers are not seeing the benefits of that because of it being priced in with gas, unless you have your own renewable setup on your house, then you'll see the benefits. It's clear why the system was created like that, to protect the fossil industry by making renewables seem expensive to consumers and that's been quite effective for some time now but with everything going on with sky-high energy prices and energy security in Europe, it's likely there's going to be a massive push away from fossil fuels to renewables over the next decade, especially in Europe because now they need to change and by them making it work, the rest of the world will follow, the irony being, Putin invading Ukraine might have done more than the Greens could have dreamed of doing to get us to clean up are act and even more ironic, the longer and higher energy prices stay, as well as fossils being less reliable, the quicker renewables are going to kill that industry.
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Stability creeping back in with Trump? That's a laugh, that's only going to happen once Trump is out of power because with Trump, it's more a matter of what side of the bed he wakes up on which policies he does and without a care in the world in what damage is does to the American people and industry, which I am amazed that he's not been deposed off yet with how he's playing with so many lives in the US as well as businesses. As for Trump saying the EU was designed to screw over the US, which isn't true at all and there is enough evidence to prove that, what he actually means is that the EU is big enough to stand up to the US and doesn't bend the knee to Trump's demands, hence why the US doesn't like China, because China is a rising power, which makes them a threat to the US, the rest is just BS from Trump lol. In any case, if Trump thinks this is a way to get EU countries to buy more from the US, it actually does the opposite of that, it gives EU countries a big incentive to shift trade away from the US in all areas from high-tech goods, military arms, energy and countless others, also Trump, we know this is because you're angry that Greenland signed a 30 year deal with the EU and not with the US, but let's remember, it was Trump that created that situation with his threats and hostile actions with Greenland and we've seen enough with Canada of the same, so what makes Trump think these threats will work with the EU, all it will do is get the EU to retaliate and for the EU members to shift trade away from the US, it's painful in the short term for the two but the US stands to lose far more in the long run, so go ahead Trump, pull the trigger and see what happens lol. Also, Trump complaining about EU high standards in many areas, what an idiot lol, it's not up for the EU to lower standards to suite American corporations, it's up for the US to raise standards so it's not an issue for the EU, the US have been lowering standards in so many areas, what did it expect other powers around the world to do? lol, in any case, lowering standards would be very difficult to do in EU countries because the population will be very hostile towards that, especially on food standards or workers rights. If the EU wants Trump to back down on this, the third option is the one to likely do that, it''s harsh and will do a lot of damage on both side, but that's the main reason why Trump will be forced to back down, we should remember that it won't be Trump backing down but Trump being forced to back down because of the damage it does to the US with the amount of trade going both ways, it would be another humiliation for Trump but he'll be powerless to do anything about it as pressure from all side will be hitting him in the US, that's the bolder and smarter thing to do, even thought it's the most damaging to both sides, but that's the only language Trump understand, any signs of weakness and Trump will take advantage of it, whereas the third option will likely get the system to turn on Trump, forcing him to back down with another humiliating defeat, as for the first two options, they don't work, the first option would be a clear win for Trump, the second option would be seen as weakness from the EU, the third option is the only option. We should also remember as well that the EU has more leverage compared to China when it comes to fighting back, one because the trade balance both ways is quite balance and two is because of services, unlike China which exported far more than it imported from the US, and China got the US to back down quickly, the EU could do far more damage to the US and force him to back down with another humiliating defeat even quicker, hence why the third option is the only option of fighting fire with fire.
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@TheBladereddragon Why would I cry for giving you a reality check? Anyway, let me know when the benefits of Brexit start rolling in because we are still waiting.
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@davidbennett60 Anyway is possible but that is unlikely considering the mood of the population, either way, goverments best start listening to the people or things are going to get really ugly, the momentum has been building for the last 10 years, after all, the likes of Trump and Brexit didn't happen by accident, they are signs the public are getting desperate and want results that the mainstream isn't delivering on so these get in, the problem is, the public is misfiring at the moment, especially in the US and UK because what they've voted for is making things worse, but that will create even more anger and the odds of a revolution goes up because of it.
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@tubester4567 On the surface that is true but still a lot of people are getting left behind.
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@tubester4567 I highly doubt that, it's more likely they want to see reforms of the police service and some real changes and not the faults promises of the past where nothing really changes. Even if the Democrats did nothing, the hardship the Republics are putting on the American people with this pandemic is likely going to kill a lot of it's support base, the BLM is just the icing on the cake to do more damage to them. But I find it remarkable how easy you are to dismiss the BLM movement over a political decision considering the history the US has with racism, that is really screwed up that people would even think that and not look at the matter at hand which is blacks are getting discriminated against.
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Ynwa6 Yes and the EU has full access to that market as well, probably better access than what the UK has once Brexit is done with, at the end of the day, EU companies now have the advantage of easy access to the EU market and a lot of free trade deals and bilateral deals around the world, that's likely just going to push up cost for UK businesses and consumers and is also likely going to get a few of the big ones to relocate to the EU market, especially if they do a lot of business there as it wouldn't make much sense to set up shop in the UK market if a lot of their trade is with EU countries.
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@englishcple Considering they are buying them already, I would say yes, besides, it's not like they won't sell their cars to the UK, it's just that they will be more expensive for them to buy unless they build their cars in the UK with the supple chain being in the UK but the problem is that the UK market is too small, most companies will focus on the bigger markets like the EU, US and China, that's where the real money is and it's easier for them to sell to a lot more people under the same rule set. The UK would have to have a lot of the same rule sets as the EU to benefit from that, something which is becoming a big sticking point for the Tories.
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@Joker-yw9hl Not saying the UK market isn't important but the rest of the EU market is a lot more important to them than the UK is, also now with Biden in power in the US, there is a fair chance that TTIP could start up again wholes removing some of the controversial things in it, after all, it was shelved not scrapped and I suspect both the EU and US will want to get closer together now with everything thats going on around the world and with China. As for the UK, I have a feeling that Scotland could push hard for it's own deal with the EU as a threat to the UK government on the independence movement, basically, they could push for something like what Northern Ireland might get. In any event, I think a deal will be made, 98% is already there and it would br crazy to let it fail on the last 2% but the EU isn't going to bow to UK demands, in other words, it's up to the UK to bend a lot now, either that or no Brexit it is which as much as it hurts both, it hurts the UK a lot more and actually could open up many benefits for EU countries as companies flee the UK market.
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There won't be any op-outs, if the UK were to do that, other existing members will want some of the same and countries that want to join will want the same as well, there's no way the EU would open up that can of worms to let the UK back in. Besides, think of the message it would send if the UK starts demanding op-outs, it sounds like a lot of the same troubles they've had with the UK for decades, so why would the EU and its members want that? If the UK is really serious about rejoining, it has to show commitment to the project, signing up to everything would be a good start in building trust, in other words, if the UK were to demand op-outs, it would be a major mistake on the UK part and likely would delay the UK rejoining for decades.
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@potatoesandducks958 More or less all modern countries are and some that are not as developed like Russia are having these issues. The only thing keeping things ticking over is immigration, something the US brings in a lot, immigrants are far more likely to have more kids than the natives of a country, if immigration was to dry up, almost all modern countries would have major issues. The US probably more than most because it's got quite a weak support network when it comes to child support and other benefits that other modern countries have, it also has a work culture that makes having kids expensive whiles not giving people much time to think about having kids. So let's not kid ourselves, things would be much worse without immigration and hence why it's needed. After all, just look at the UK, immigration was one of the central points of them leaving the EU, yet years later and more people are immigrating to the UK then before Brexit, it's not because they want them, but because they need them to keep things ticking over, that's more or less the case for every modern country if you take out natural birthrates and birthrates from immigrants when they've moved to another country. Longer term, something will have to change to stabilise the situation, modern countries can only depend on immigrants to a degree, eventually those countries are going to modernise where far less of them need to move, but for now, it's not really an issue for the EU or US, but longer term it could become a major issue if governments don't find ways to encourage more births.
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@tanishqsinghbajwa4542 How do you figure that one? back it up with evidence because what you say and what reality says are quite different.
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Is that really true about kids under 14-15 feel unsafe in the US going outside on their own? That would feel so strange whereas when I was a kid in the UK, I used to go out and about on my own when I was around 10 and never really felt unsafe, parents never worried about me unless I got home really late lol, but anyway, the culture is so different that we don't really feel like any danger is going to come to our kids by going out on their own. It also feels like that would be quite a restrictive lifestyle for a kid which are some of the best years of their lives in exploring the world or more accurately, the area they live. To give you an idea, I used to go to school on my own which was about a mile away and that was when I was about 10, when I was a little older, around 12-13, I used to catch the bus to secondary school which was around 3 miles away, it wasn't considered strange or anything and I felt perfectly safe, most other kids at the school did the same thing and all I can put that down to is that the US must feel far less safe compared to Europe for parents to feel like that.
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@honkhonk8009 Yeah I suspect it does depend in what part of the US you live in, still, it does seem like it plays on a lot of parents minds and the media can only show the people so much fear unless the parents start to see incidents happening around where they live.
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I doubt it was the US or Russia that did it, but even if it was the US, what would they stand to gain from it? Europeans were only going to buy LNG from them over a short time to fill the void and that would only change if LNG becomes a lot cheaper, if it doesn't, Europeans will gravitate towards other energy sources and reduce how much gas they use by becoming more efficient, something they've been doing. It's the nature of the free market economy, so I don't think it was the US or Russia that did it but in all honesty, it doesn't matter much now because of how quickly Europeans have adapted to this and in the end, consumers will always goes to who can deliver at a lower price, so the US would only stand to benefit from blowing it up short term and the risk would be pretty high for them if found out.
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Exactly, if the west were to back down because of the threats of nukes, it could actually escalate the war even more because Putin is looking for any weakness in the west, if the west backs down, he will try and take over all of Ukraine and if the west backs down, he likely won't stop with just Ukraine. So regardless of the threats from Putin, the west needs to keep its foot firmly down on Putin, after all, he's on the ropes, keep the pressure up and if he does try to mobilize the Russia population, Putin is going to have a massive headache explaining that to the Russian people, after all, according to Putin, they were going into Ukraine for a picnic to liberate the region, it's going to be very difficult for the state to keep telling those lies and as eyes open, that could become a real threat to Putin and anyone close to Putin from the inside. Personally, I think the message that Putin was framing this war in the first place is really starting to backfire because now he's having to backtrack on that, Russians will be wondering, if Putin told a big lie there, where else has he been lying. Also, how many Russians are going to want to be sent in as a reserve for cannon fodder? Because that is what they are being used for.
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@salahuddina3344 Problem is with Israel is that they are too small on their own and even if they took over the US, it wouldn't matter because the shift is away from the US. The only other two alternatives is the EU and China, now China isn't likely to win over the world because of trust issue, the are much more trusting than the US but the EU doesn't seem interested in all these power games, maybe because we've been through all that throughout history and it's not what it's cracked up to be. I suspect considering how polarized the world is, a new international order will come about with an international reserve currency that is backed by many governments. It makes a lot more sense than having it in one country so I don't see any powers going forward controlling that like we've seen in the past as the world is very different now. One thing is a sure bet is that political and economic power is shifting from the west to the east, Asia have a population of 4.5 billion people with growth that is higher in population and economic terms than the west, I can't see how the EU or US can compete with that in the long run when most trade tends to be with countries in the region and that creates more of a bond in other areas. It really is in the interest that the EU and US gets together and fast because them working together with other allies might stand a chance, otherwise world laws, rules and regulations are going to shift towards Asia with them making them where at the moment the EU and US makes most of the global rules.
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@KingOfMadCows Which is impressive when you think that Rome was 10 years earlier and it was the first 2 series that got that kind of budget whereas GOT got a higher budget only once it showed it was a success. It makes me wonder if Rome was done today, how it would have been because cgi has come along way since then so it would be cheaper to do, I suspect the battles would be more fleshed out and it likely would have more than two series as they originally planned. In any case, only watched GOT once and have no intention of watching it again whereas I've watched Rome a few times and could keep watching it, I prefer Rome over GOT overall.
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@Zamolxes77 I fail to see how that is a bad idea, after all, it's not many episode they would have to do and it would fill in the blanks for people that have not seen the original before continuing the story. Also, the second series was all rushed, it was supposed to be spread out over more series but because of the budget being expensive, they changed things up in series 2. I've giving you two good reason that if they were to do a remake on why they should start again, also like EdNorty said, I would love to have seen the battles and not them skip over them as if they didn't happen.
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Walmart doesn't own Asda any more in the US, they sold up a few years ago. Not sure why they left, maybe business wasn't doing great for them in the UK or there was too much competition. In any case, any business doing business in other countries really have to adapt to the local norms if they really want to be successful there, Walmart clearly was trying to push American norms in Germany and other countries and that usually doesn't go down too well for many. As for that small clip about the unions taking a cut from their pay lol, the entire idea of unions is to get better pay and conditions for the workers, in other words, less unions usually means less pay and worse conditions, mind you, that clip probably came directly from Walmart themselves lol. Another factor, especially in EU countries, working conditions are a lot better than in the US, Walmart didn't quite seem to understand that.
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The moral of the story and just like with the EU, get rid of vetoes lol. Seriously, both the EU and NATO, as they both expand, it's not hard to see how veto rules are going to become more of a problem. To make it worse, some countries will use that veto for political ends to carry favours in other areas, unrelated to the subject at hand, something we are seeing Turkey do here with NATO and what Hungary does in the EU and it's clear in both organizations that there is far more support to move forward but it only takes one to block it and this is why veto rules need to go, otherwise it's going to create a lot more gridlock as more countries join either organizations.
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I have to wonder from a European perspective now that Canada have a free trade deal with the EU if Canada should try and do at lot more trade with the EU at the expense of the US because Canada is too close to the US which puts them at risk of having to do what the US wants, balancing trade around the world is always a good thing and limits the damage the likes of the US can do when they become unpridictable and unrealibe like they are not. In any case, I think Canada and many other countries around Europe and the world really need to rethink things with how it goes about handerling the US because they are not as friendly as some want them to be and should be treated as such, in any case, Trump is a wake up call for the rest of the world to change things and sadly, thoes changese are likely going to weaken the US but in the end, they brought it all on themselfs.
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Will Turkey join the EU? Maybe someday but it looks a long way off and with its current leader, it's been backsliding on that and even before that, Turkey was making very slow progress in joining. Also, I think until some reforms are done in the EU, I can't see many other countries if any at all joining the EU because reforms are needed on veto and majority voting, the more members in the union, the more unworkable it will become under the current rules, Poland and Hungary are proving that. So yeah, I think the EU shouldn't let any new members into the union until there is treaty change so it can work better, which is basically aimed at Poland and Hungary which have been backsliding.the last few years and why Macron is right to want to pause things until major reforms are done.
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Without the EU, Hungary would have little to no relevance, his biggest power is that he's a pain in the arse in the EU and can obstruct things on the EU level, take that away from him and the likes of Trump, China and Putin wouldn't care about Hungary. But the irony is that even with Hungary being in the EU, the EU and its members are finding creative solutions to work around Hungary, which is making Orbán usefulness to the likes of Trump, Putin and China far less useful, the end result is that Hungary is quickly getting isolated in the EU and the west, whiles having so-called friends among dictators that don't care about Hungary and only see them as a useful idiot if they can get things done at an EU level.
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@TeiRen2012 You would think it would be common sense, the natural care we show friends and family and doing that for the overall good of the community as everyone stands to benefit. It will be interesting to see how things change once the dust settles on this virus because I expect a lot more social changes to come about in Europe, I'm not sure about the US yet because too many in the US seem to think there is a conspiracy or something going on with this virus and don't want to accept it for what it is, that likely could make real change harder to happen there because rampant paranoia is taking over in many areas.
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Even if aliens have visited earth, would we even know? If I was an alien and wanted to observe the human race up close, there are many ways I could see an advanced alien race could do that, they could have the tech to be invisible so we can't see them or detect them with our current tech, they could create like human clones and transplant their own minds in one of them and walk around in our society without us even knowing or then there's robotics they could use. Chances are, an alien race that can reach earth is more advanced than we are, probably by a long way more advanced, it's likely not that difficult for them to visit earth without us knowing about it. The question is, would they really want to visit earth, what purpose would it serve them apart from maybe just wanting to see how we develop or if we could become a threat someday in the future, who knows.
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Any territory loss will be seen by Russia as the west being weak, they already see the west as weak for letting Russia take Crimea for so many years and the west did little to take it back. From Putin's point of view, he doesn't care so much about the economic or lives cost, if he can gain some territory. Seriously, the west needs to wake up, especially the EU and US when it comes to giving Ukraine the means to push Russia out of Ukraine, the west setting rules on how the weapons can be used is an advantage in favour of Russia, they can strike any target but Ukraine is restricted on what targets they can attack with western weapons, that's quite the advantage in favour of Russia and seems crazy to have such rules in place.
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@grugnotice7746 Probably lol, but in any case, because experts get it wrong sometimes, they do get it right a lot of the time, it's just easy to focus on when they get it wrong, especially in a big way lol.
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It's pretty much already happening, Russia is being cut out when it comes to oil, gas and likely coal as well but we have to be realistic, at least in case of the EU countries, they can't cut that out overnight because of how exposed they are but they could do it in a matter of a few short years, the only way I can see it being done quicker is if there was a coordinated response from the west to fill that void with energy the EU countries will need replacing from Russia, that could speed up the process a lot. The EU is the key to sending a powerful message to Russia, if they cut out all the energy they buy from Russia, that would hit Russia pretty hard, on top of that, with Putin playing games with this kind of resources, it's unlikely going to find many takers to want to buy that resource, at least not the ones as rich as EU countries are so even if Russia does sell to others, they'll likely have to sell at a much lower price, because energy is now a security issue, EU countries are likely going to reduce the amount of oil, gas, coal and other natural resources it buys from Russia so as time goes on, it's going to hit Russia pretty hard but as I said, that will take time but when there is a will, a lot can happen in a short space of time but unfortunately, with EU countries actively looking on the world market for this resources, it's likely going to push up the cost for everyone else around the world, so it's going to hurt a lot of people around the world, especially from poorer countries unless other countries ramp up the production of oil and gas they produce, something it would be wise to do because now the EU is on the war path, they are likely going to go out of their way to kill fossil fuels on security reasons, in other words, the renewable industry as well as other alternative energy sources have got a massive shot in the arm thanks to Putin that might speed up the process to clean energy a lot sooner than expected. Either way, Russia is screwed here thanks to Putin, whatever happens in Ukraine now, the trust has been broken and EU countries as well as lot of the world will be actively looking to find alternatives to Russia's natural resources, that's very likely going to push renewable energy through the roof in EU countries over the next decade. As for Russia, I'm not sure what they can do, if they back down, they lose, if they continue fighting, they lose, if they try to get too close to China, they lose by being a vassal of them, Putin has put Russia in a very uncomfortable position that likely going to be painful for them for at least a decade and maybe even much longer than that, also by braking trust, Russia is going to find it hard to get foreign investment in the country, I don't think the Russian people realize how bad the situation is likely to come.
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I don't think they are going to solve the Northern Ireland issue until we get rid of the Conservative Party, as I get the impression that they don't want to solve this problem as they need a scapegoat in the EU to keep blaming the mess the UK government keeps making. As for Truss, it's a different coat of paint but the same party that created most of this mess in the first place, Labour are loving everything the Tories are doing to themselves because they are more or less wiping themselves out, what the Tories needed was a radical new direction and Truss is more of the same, something the British people will find out after about 6-12 months with her running the show. Honestly, I get the impression that the Conservative Party doesn't realize how much damage they are doing to their image in the UK, it's like they are lurching from one mess after another and Truss shows no signs of changing any of that and until the Tories get rid of the loons that they've let into power, the ERG movement, it's likely going to keep damaging the party because they are becoming less of a moderate party and more radical. In any case, for survival reasons, Truss will try and give what the people want short term but it will likely come at a high cost for the British people, after that, she'll do what the Conservative do best and that's to protect the interest of the rich elites, so guys, if any of us are expecting any major difference with this new government, good luck on that because it's going to be more of the same as what we've already seen over the last few years and the sad thing is, even Labour are not that much better but you need another party in power that isn't connected to Brexit so they can try to repair ties with the EU whiles trying to heal the UK union because the Tories are creating division that could break the UK apart if we're not careful and if Truss is more of the same, that's playing right into that.
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Isn't this the problem, rampant paranoia is so in the system now that facts seem to mean very little any more and that is where the real problem is at the moment, there is a lack of trust from the people to the government that most don't know what to trust and you know it's bad when people don't trust facts and evidence on these things. We are already seeing signs in some other countries if you open up too soon, infection rates start to spike, in the case of the US, they are nowhere near ready to open up just yet and if they do, the damage could be far worse but I don't want to be cruel, but maybe that is needed if that is the only message those idiots will listen too.
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@rodjones117 Actually, it's more complicated than that, the EU going back all the way to the Coal and Steel Community was design with the intention of preventing EU countries from going to war with each other by sharing Coal and steel, in a sense, it would be like going to war with yourself, the same apples for any country that attacks a EU member, there is far more reason for the others to get involved because of how integrated they are, the same can't be said for NATO which not much holds the countries together beside a contract. So even thought NATO is useful, especially with the US involved, I think the EU is far more important for European security. Also, what does Ukraine have to do with it, both the EU and NATO are helping out on that, the question you should ask yourself, how much more would they help out if Ukraine was an EU or NATO member.
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@TheGabriel1351 Not quite, what this actually shows is why veto rules are a bad idea, if we reformed those rules, Bulgaria and Romania would have joined by majority voting, so let's remember that on those countries that don't want to reform those veto rules. In any case, let's also remember that the EU commission and parliament supports both countries joining, as well as 25 EU members, so let's not make this an east vs west thing, because the real problem is the veto rules.
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@casperwallace9685 James, the UK could refuse to pay but considering it's international law, it wont bold well for the UK on the international stage when the UK is going to need all the help it can get around the world, in other words, we have little to no choice but to pay whatever happens with Brexit. Tony, true, it feels like many in the UK seem to think we are entitled to a good deal from the EU when the fact is, we had one of the best deals in the EU already with the op-out, now Brexiteers are complaining because the EU wont bend, what did they honestly expect? the EU was never going to give the UK a better deal then we already had in the EU and we should count ourselves lucky that the ECJ is allowing us to stay in the UK wanted too because personally, I think if the UK did stay, we should be striped off all our op-outs as a price for being an arse and not just a arse over the last few years but over the last few decades. Casper Wallace, I'm not assuming anything with the ERG, it's clear that some have an agenda but it's also clear that some are fanatics and when it's like that, it's hard to assume anything with these kind of people, but in any case, it will be the British people that suffer because of it, remainers and leavers alike.
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Honestly, I've never really bought into this buying British or any other native country that people live in, just buy the best product at the best price without caring where that product comes from, a lot of goods now are made on a mass scale and because of that, it makes a lot of sense for them to pruduce them on mass in big regions like the EU, US, China and so on and sold to all the regions and nearby countries in that region. It's also why leaving the EU is a bad idea because a lot of companies picked the UK for our easy access to the EU market, after Brexit, it makes more economic sense for them to leave and set up shop in another EU country simply because they have more people to sell too with less barriers when it comes to trade. The problem is for the UK is that we don't have much of an industry anymore, a lot of which was ripped apart during the 1980's which made the UK more of a service base economy so even if we want to buy British, that isn't easy to do as we don't make much anymore and clearly the EU isn't the problem in that because many other EU members don't have the same problems the UK does and produces a lot of homegrown goods.
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@resistancefighter9009 It's probably true because the moral of the Russian troops are so low that they don't really want to fight, after all, they were lied too by Putin on what this war is all about, it's very likely that a lot of them will refuse orders and run away, which is more or less what we've been seeing with the lightning advanced from Ukraine over the last few days, basically, they didn't have to fight much because the Russians were not putting up much resistance, which is bad news for Putin because it could be early signs of losing control of the military, but then, Putin shouldn't have made it seem like the Russian troops were going into Ukraine for a picnic and with that, the Russian troops are starting to see through a lot of the lies the Russian government is saying, Putin needs to be worried if this gets a lot worse going into winter.
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This is all like radiation noise in the background, that it doesn't really matter what parties form or who they group with, hardly anything changes, voters get angry with them and slap them down by voters for the other side every 2 or 3 elections and keep repeating the process. The only real constant in all this is that people today are far more sensitive on things like the economy than what we were a 100 years ago, in other words, regardless of party or left or right, if they don't deliver on the economy and cost of living, they will pay a high price over the coming elections. This is a major problem for the far right around Europe, they've promised a lot, blustered their way in, but once in power, there are no excuses, voters will expect results and will probably give them one or two terms before turning on them, basically, it's easy to talk, lie and twist the narrative on the sideline, but as the far right gets into power, that's when all the bluster goes out of the windows and voters will expect solid results in a short space of time, basically, the hard part is ahead of the far right now, because voters are not so forgiven and are fed up with mainstream parties not delivering, they are giving the far right a chance but the window is very small that if they don't deliver on the voters concerns, voters will very likely turn on the far right, probably more so then they have on moderate parties, because let's be blunt about this, the far right are not doing well because of their policies, they are doing well because the mainstream is doing so badly, but that wont mean much if the far right makes a mess of the economy or create gridlock in the political process. To put it another way, if the far right really want to do well, they have to deliver on the economy, they also have to play nice with other political parties and have to be willing to compromise, if they are not willing to compromise or have too much of a hardline view in too many political areas, voters will very likely turn on them quickly, probably why the more successful far right groups are moderating there policies to appeal to a wider voters group.
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I do keep seeing renewable energy records being broken a lot in European countries lately, and many are at times producing over 100% of their electric means for a short time. Considering that more is being pushed onto the electric system with EV cars and heat pumps and the renewable energy generating percentage keeps rising, it's a given that as the years go by, more of the total energy being generated is likely going to be from clean sources and it seems to be happening fairly fast. The real game changer is going to be once we have an effective buffer, as in battery or other energy storage to act as a buffer to store energy when more than is being used can be stored for times when not enough is being generated, and this is likely going to be needed more in the coming years because with more renewables being installed, we are likely going to see a lot more times when we are generating more energy than we need, cheap solutions to store much of this energy would be a big game changer in pushing fossil fuels out, but personally, it looks like fossil fuel days are numbered, especially since Putin invaded Ukraine, because the pace of change is happening sooner rather than later, especially in the EU countries and in much of the world. The real important thing is that as more is thrown on the electrical system, so EV cars, heat pumps and other things that use fossil fuels, as long as the percentage of renewables of the electric being generating keeps rising, then it's likely going to account for a higher percentage of total energy in a country, and as renewables keep getting better and cheaper and the same for battery tech, and as more of us shift towards EV cars and other heating solutions like heat pumps, it's likely going to reduce the need for oil and gas a lot whiles putting far more demand on electricity, hence why, as long as the renewable energy generating percentage is rising, we're laughing all the way to the grave of the fossil industry.
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@yc2673 It's possible but I highly doubt it, the world has changed a lot since the past, it's a lot more global and interconnected, any country that goes the isolation route would likely be at a massive disadvantage compared to others that are more outwards looking. The irony is, the US is being more coy on trade deals and wants to reshape them, the EU on the other hand is speeding up signing trade deals around the world, that doesn't bold well for the US. All the EU really needs to do is combine the militaries of its members or the ones willing and reduce duplications, that would be more than enough of a powerful military even at current spending and at some point I think it will happen as the US is becoming more aggressive and less reliable and than there is China. The US always want the Europeans to spend more on the military but the US only wants that to take some of the burden off the US for their interest, the Europeans will likely, if the Europeans do combine and spend more, that won't be in the interest of the US and that's why they try to keep EU countries from not combining, hence NATO, which is a relic from the Cold War days and serves little purpose but to protect US interest. Now I'm not saying NATO should be scrapped, but I do think the EU countries should pool their resources together and combine what they have, that would give them a far bigger say in NATO which is the last thing the US or Russia wants.
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A costly venture but when you think about how much the world is spending on fossil fuels, which I think I heard is 11 trillion per year, the idea sounds less crazy in an ideal world where the world is united and that for me is where the real problem is, the world is too divided with political and economic games being played out across the world that would make it highly risky to have the world's energy source from three locations and a lot of countries wouldn't trust their energy needs coming from those three locations, especially with everything that's going on with energy security right now. Personally, I think it makes a lot more sense to work on the battery capacity, we can already produce a lot of energy by renewables if we could store weeks or even months worth of energy and for example, I checked on my home, a 9 kilowatt solar setup, I can generate around 2 and a half times more energy than my house uses in the UK, the problem is, a lot of that energy is in the summer months, if we could store that energy, I could power all my electric needs, plus a EV car and a bit of heating, but it won't be enough energy for all the heating and cooling but with solar getting cheaper and better all the time, that can change or if they find ways to produce more energy on cloudy winter days, that would be ideal. Battery tech is the real issue that needs to be resolved, once we find a cheap solution where we can store weeks or months of energy, that's when the game changer begins, even with the current renewable tech we have but by the time that problem is solved, renewable will be better and cheaper by then. Personally, I think the future is going to go with more localized energy where households, businesses and so on produce their own energy, something that should be doable once battery tech is a lot better, doing it this way is also a lot more secure and likely cheaper as it's more localized which would lead to free energy for us all. But in any case, say we do go with the idea in the video, why limit to three locations, why not 20 or 30 locations around the world or even more? It would be a lot more secure and likely work out cheaper on the cost of power deliver, the amount of solar or wind needed won't change but it would be a lot more secure to have energy being generated in a lot more countries than just three locations, with that, have a interconnected grid, something the Europeans are already doing around Europe and it sounds a lot more feasible.
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I think the only way the EU is going to continue to expend is if there is more majority voting in the EU and they've got the power to take countries to task that backslide on democracy like Poland and Hungary are doing. Until then, I don't see them expending in any meaningful way which is ironic because it's the likes of Poland and Hungary that want the EU to expend but it's also them which are giving the EU pause to not expend until the EU gets it's own house in order. Basically, Poland and Hungary are the main obstacles to the EU not wanting to expend, after all, the last thing the EU wants is another trouble making nation in the EU until things are more streamlined in the EU, in that sense, France has the right idea that reforms are needed at the EU level before more expansion can happen. With all that said, I think Georgia and others that want to join should be welcomed into the EU, especially with how hostile Russia is becoming, but I think the EU needs to get it's house in order before doing so otherwise the more members there's in with vetoes, the less effective the EU union becomes but with all that said, there are many areas that the EU and other countries can create closer ties with each other which should prepare them better for eventual EU membership.
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True, Trump is an here and now leader so doesn't matter much but even Trump America I think have pushed too far this time that his actions could have long lasting damage on the US going forward, as for the EU, if the UK really leaves the EU which we will because the EU will make sure of it, they wont let us back in for at least another 2 or 3 decades, in other words, we will either be out in the cold or in the EU orbit being in the single market and custom union. The EU and it's members are unlikely to let the UK back into the decision making anytime soon with how much of a pain in the arse we've been over the last few decades and the moral of this story is, signing Article 50 was a big mistake from the UK because that handed all the power to the EU and thats all we've seen since in the talks.
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I never said that and it would be crazy to think that would happen, the economy is like an oil tanker, it moves slowly, most of Trump's policies have not really taken effect on the economy yet because it takes around 18 to 24 months for them to really kick in, in other words, the economy is still going off Obama's policies for now, next year we'll get a clearer idea on what Trump's policies are doing to the economy. In any case, I suspect if Trump really pushes hard with these trade wars and others push back only for Trump to get more aggesive, this will have a real negative impact on the US economy because the only other time that countries didn't back down when starting a trade war was in 1930 and that led to the great depression which also led to Hitler getting into power. In other words, because all the other trading partners are putting tariffs on US goods, this isn't good news for Trump because he's only got two choice left, put more tariffs on other goods and we know how bad that will end or he do what always happens since after the 1930, he'll back down with time, in any case, no one is winning and the US is coming off worse for it. Icynok, I find it crazy why anyone in this day and age would need 2 or 3 jobs, thats a clear indication that something is really wrong in the country for many to feel they need to do that.
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Well for one, I've never said the markets would crash right after Trump got into power, the markets don't work that way, yes they might have a little panic but that blows over. What we do know is that a lot of policies put into action take a long time to filter down into the economy, around 18 to 24 months, so we've not really seen what Trump's policies are really doing the the economy yet, also, Trump is taking credit for policies that Obama did but then thats what Trump does, lets see how things are late next year as thats when we'll get a clearer idea on what his policies are doing. As for jobs, nobody should ever need more then one job unless they want a lot more money but we do see in the US where many are having more then one job just to earn ends meat, you know something is wrong in the system when it's like that. I kind of hope that is the case Icynok, another 4 years of Trump would be the iceing on the cake for the rest of the world, but it doesn't look likely, we've seen it time after time that the policies a current leaders puts in really kick in before the next election and depending on if they are good or not can play a big factor on if he gets elected again or not. Also, if Trump keeps pushing on these tariffs, it's going to hurt his base and the US a lot so it's unlikely he would get elected because he will be the one to get the blame.
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Cost of living on the basics in life and lack of time probably are a big factor in wanting less kids or no kids at all. Fix those two problems by having people where they've got more time to have kids and look after kids, and find solutions in lowering the burden of cost of living, and maybe that would be more of an incentive for people to have more kid. Unfortunately, at least in the west, the work-life balance discourages people wanting kids because of lack of time, money needed and so on, European countries do much better than the US when it comes to work-life balance, but again, this is all painting around the cracks, more radical measures are going to be needed if they want westerners to have more babies, which might actually come about with A.I. and robotics if it ends up taking over most of the work force and frees us to work on things we actually want to work for without worrying about bills, that would also allow a lot more people to want to have more kids. Either way, this is becoming a problem not just for western countries but many countries around the world, and part of that problem is that we've had a massive population boom over the last 50 years and now things are not balanced with a big decline in birth rates, which by the way, population decline isn't really a bad thing, but at the rate it's happening, it is, because of the burden it could put on the young, which ironically, A.I. and robotics could solve that problem in the coming decades, but either way, it's probably better to have a balanced system of replacement rate for the population so you don't get these wild swings from young and old. I should also point out that immigration is only papering over the cracks, more radical change in society is needed from the bottom up if we want things to really change, hence why many of the policies many governments have tried are not working or are having minimum impact.
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This is why staying in the EU by a public vote is not the best option, the damage to the UK is already done and it's also done to the euroseptics in the UK. Do I expect them to shut up about it? no, but I suspect they will have a much tougher time blaming the EU and telling the Britsh public bullshit about the EU like they have in the past. In other words, it wont be busisness as useual for the euroseptics if we do stay in the EU, they've crossed the line and done a lot of damage to the UK that likely will take over a decade to fix and because of that, I expect the more moderates to fight the euroseptics tooth and nail over the coming years whereas before, they more or less had a free ride to say whatever lie that wanted about the EU with the backing of the right wing press. Out of everything thats happened with Brexit, at least it's waking up mamy Brits to the real threat of the euroseptics and right wing press, so overall, Brexit wasn't a bad thing overall, it was just needed to show how fanatical the euroseptics can be and thats been shown over the last few years and with that, time for another peoples vote to put this mess behind us one way or another.
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@mididoctors Thats pretty much it, it's the EU or nothing for European countries because with how the world is shaping up, European countries are going to get sidelined if we don't get closer together. As you say, the EU isn't perfect by a long shot but it can be a lot better if EU members work together to make it work better, beside, whats the alternative, no EU? then what, all that will happen is that the US and China will be running global things and that will mean global laws, rules and regulations, at least with the EU, we have a big say on all that, without it, we have little to none. Brexiteers are pretty short sighted on these kind of things and maybe the UK needs the hardest of Brexit to wake up to that reality.
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Which is ironic, because if a message needs to be repeated so many times, it's usually based on a lie, and the US pushes this message far more aggressively on their own people then most countries around the world do and it's called peddling a lie enough time that people see it as truth, based on ignorance, and the truth is, the US is probably among the least developed modern country when it comes to how it treats its people from everything to health care, workers right, food standards, paid holidays and countless other social benefits, in many ways, the US feels like a first, second and third world country all rolled into one, which isn't the norm in other modern countries which are social democracies.
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I find it funny how the likes of Orbán praise the likes of Trump, Putin and XI, all dictators or wannabe dictators and yet always lashes out against democracies, how anyone can take the guy serious is beyond me. As for making Europe great again, really? By weakening the EU so that his friends, Trump, Putin and Xi can play European countries off each other with divide and rule. Orbán likes to talk a good deal but his voice is quite weak and Hungary under his leadership is becoming more isolated in the EU, the true power in the EU is being a team player, working well with others and willing to compromise on policy areas, basically, everything Orbán is not, and the countries will real power and influence in the EU are the ones that are willing to work with others, big or small countries can have quite a lot of influence if they are willing to work with others on policy areas, willing to be a team player but most important, willing to compromise on policy areas to get things done, hence why the likes of Germany, France and even many smaller EU countries carry more influence than Hungary does, after all, the hard line approach might make headlines but it doesn't make friends. Or to put it another way, Germany and France have been so successful in the EU of big countries whiles the UK used to get sidelined a lot on many policy areas, all 3 are big powers, but Germany and France had something the UK didn't, they are constructive and not obstructive like the UK used to be, they are willing to work with other EU members and parties and are willing to compromise, that's real power and influence in the EU and this is the case for big or small EU members, Hungary under Orbán is a very self-centred country that's all about self-interest and not working with others, and that weakens Hungary position in the EU and around the world whiles also isolating the country, and let's be honest with ourselves, for all the threats and veto use from Orbán, has he really achieved anything? The EU and it's members always seem to find away around him whiles continuing to isolating Hungary and longer term, this will have negative impact on Hungary influence and it's economy, which in turn could hurt living standards in the country. The irony is, the EU have been really soft, they could come down much tougher on Hungary and I think they need to do so, after all, I can't imagine the US taking this crap from one of its members if they were in this position, the US would likely come down on the member like a ton on bricks.
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I think the real problem with the news is that there is no real accountability to it, so they can pretty much say whatever they want, within reason. That's a problem, because a lot of the time, you're not really getting the news, you're getting a distorted version of the news that usually fits a specific agenda, whiles throwing in a lot of opinion peaces, which lets be honest, that isn't news, that's a personal view and even on those, news stations are picky on what they allow to be broadcasted, basically, it's all manipulated to fit a specific agenda and world view point, mostly based on how they want to see things going and not on how things are going. What's really messed up is how so many people get fooled in watching news for entertainment value, basically the news station with higher ratings, if these people really want entertainment, then what the hell are they watching a news station? It's kinda self manipulative, and me personally, I rather get the dry boring news that's based on facts and reality, as boring as that is, it's better to be informed on how things are and not on how you want things to be. As for me, what is neutral? Well any news that's based on the facts as we know them, without opinion peaces on them to distort those facts, and I know that would do as well in the ratings, but at least it's based on the facts as we know them at the time and at the end of the day, what's the point in getting the news unless it's based on the facts of what's really going on? Anything else is kinda like wasting your own time whiles also twisting your mind on BS.
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The main reason the west has to be tough of Russia here is because of China, China is watching here and seeing how the west responds, if the west goes easy on Russia, China could become more aggressive around the world and especially on Taiwan, this is all about nipping it in the bud before it gets out of hand by sending China a message. This doesn't mean the west are angels in all this, far from it, especially the US but if Russia gets away with this unchecked, it would embolden China to do a lot of the same around the world, the west had to put it's foot down here and might have to go much tougher if the message doesn't sink in with Russia and China, but make no mistake, this is about sending a powerful message to China as Russia isn't really a threat as much as they like to think they are, China on the other hand could be if left unchecked. In any case, this invasion of Ukraine by Putin is having a dramatic shift in geopolitical movements, especially in Europe and more so in the EU where security and military matters could get a big boost in spending and integration at an EU level, it's also very likely going to push the EU and US closer together, mainly because of China which seems to be mirroring what Putin wants, basically, to divide, weaken and destabilize the world and reshape it in their favour which I can't imagine many people around the world wanting that imposed on them with how Russia and China treats it's own people with contempt. As for other invasions in a country, I think it boils down to what the people in those countries actually want that matters, I doubt many people in Iraq wanted to be ruled by Saddam Hussain 2 decades ago, the people felt powerless to change things and he ruled with an iron fist, I think under those circumstances, outside help is warranted and again, it really depends on the views of the people inside the country. Ukraine is very different in that most of the people of Ukraine don't want to be ruled by Russia and that Putin is trying to force them to become part of Russia, which is what makes this very different than other wars in recent memory. If Putin truly thinks the people of Ukraine wants to be part of Russia, let the people decide that on thier own, the moment you try to force the issue is where outside help is warranted. So don't get me wrong, I didn't like the invasion of Iraq, most of the public in Europe didn't want it but this is a very different situation in Ukraine then Iraq and there is also the factor of China, a powerful message needs to be sent here in case China gets it's own ideas around the world.
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So does anyone feel sorry for any of these idiots? I can't say I do, their arrogance is putting peoples lives at risk and all they are doing is extending the lock down and economic damage because they are not willing to subdue this virus which means more people are likely to get infected and die because of these idiots. But the real crime is the government, some media and key people that are spreading misinformation to people, in that sense, they've got blood on their hands and could be seen as mass murderers, but I'm sure they will wash their hands of it and get away with it squeaky clean. I do also have to wonder the iq levels of these people, I mean really, there is no way that this is a conspiracy like they like to think it is, not on this scale around the world with so many people being involved, I mean just think how difficult that would be to cover up lol, these people are just idiots, pure and simple.
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@TheRanguna I think what he means is that it doesn't matter what reforms these countries do, the EU will keep the door firmly shut, the EU Commission likes to talk about merit, but a lot of these countries are thinking that it doesn't matter how much they change, the EU still won't let them in, with that kind of thinking, many of these countries will in time give up on the idea of EU membership and if that happen, China, Russia will take advantage of that at the expense of the EU, there's also the possibility that those countries that are stuck in the waiting room might form their own mini EU. Don't get me wrong, these countries have to do the reforms needed to join, it's based on merit, but let's be honest with ourselves, merit isn't what's blocking these countries from joining, the EU is, mainly because the EU have been painfully slow in reforming the EU to allow it to expand, these countries are not blind, they know it's not based on merit and that the EU Commission is gaslighting them and I do wonder with Turkey, would they be in the position they are in now if the EU was more open to membership, based on merit and reforms off course, Turkey give up on the idea of EU membership, many others will follow if the EU doesn't get it's act together.
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International gas prices are likely going to go up regardless of if the Europeans reduce their consumption, that isn't really the solution to that problem, securing alternative sources of energy is. As for the Europeans, I'm not worried about them not being able to afford it, they are a rich economy, the problem is that it's going to push up the price across the world for almost everyone else and it's the poor countries that are paying the price. The international price of oil and gas isn't likely going to cone down a lot until the Europeans secure its energy needs away from Russia which really, western countries should speed up the process in helping to do that because we're all paying the price until things settle down.
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I don't think there is any risk to the Schengen area but reforms are needed with more common rules over the external boarders with more beefy rules which is more or less the impression I get that Macron wants. Basically, the problem seems to be each country doing it's own thing where really we could do with an EU external boarder control for this. This video does come across as a bit misleading as what they want to do is change the rules and beef them up, not scrap free movement among its members but the video makes it seems like it's at risk of being scraped which I see little to no real evidence of that.
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I don't get the logic behind NATO, why would having an EU military be an issue for NATO, the EU could become a member of NATO in a way like the US is, so why is it an issue?, well it's not really, the ones that make it an issue are the ones that don't want it, so Eurosceptics and even the US to a less degree because it's a lot easier to control much smaller countries than it is to control one big one. With that said, I think the US is warming up to the idea that the EU needs to speak with one voice and have it's own military, mainly because the US is going to need all the help it can get in containing the rise of China, the EU is the perfect player that has the muscle to make a difference in the world compared to smaller players like the UK which come across as like a puppet to the US. What Putin is doing in Ukraine is very likely going to boost integration on security, military and energy matters with the EU members, these events like what are going on in Ukraine are a wake-up call for change and it looks like the EU is going to get a big jolt in that over the coming years. Personally, I don't have a problem with the EU having a single voice and military, it's easier to protect our political, economic and social interest if we work together and I don't see a problem with the EU military being part of the NATO organization, it wouldn't weaken it, in fact it would become a lot stronger for it. I think on the EU military front, they should do a collation of the willing, a bit like the Euro where members can join when they feel comfortable in joining, I suspect Germany, France, Italy and Spain would find a way to make it happen, a few other smaller members would likely jump on board but unlikely that all would, the advantage for these members would be military contracts on big projects as they would very likely go to members that are part of the EU military and not the others. Either way, as much as a friend the US is, we've got to realize that the US doesn't have our interest at heart, the US mostly only cares about what goes on in it's own boarders so Europeans are going to have to wake up to that and protect their own interest, NATO is for the most part to project US interest in Europe, an EU military could be a counterweight in NATO to project both EU and US interest around the world. If the EU does go this route, it should be mandatory 2% spending, I don't think they need to do anything like the US is doing as that's just crazy, an EU military at 2% spending would be massive and much bigger than China and Russia combined, I also think the EU countries would need to get rid of a lot of duplications, there is a lot of waste going on with each member having it's own military organization, that could save a lot of money that could be used in building a more advanced, more effective military.
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Yep, if anything, the EU has been too soft on Hungary and even thought they can't kick them out, there are things they can do, they can isolate Hungary from the EU and other members by taking away their voting rights and closing the boarder on them from all other EU countries, which might be a wise thing to do with how close Orbán is with Putin and how he could let Russian spies in the EU which would be a threat to the EU and to all EU members, including Hungary. In any case, appeasement rarely works with dictators, we are seeing that with Hungary, we are seeing that with Putin, the sooner western countries realise that and start getting tougher on these dictators or wannabe dictators, the better.
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@smellslikethinice1107 Yep lol, the Royals do care but there is nothing they can do about it. I have to wonder if this has anything to do with Brexit and if other will follow because there are a few countries that have mixed feelings on the Royals around the world.
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@smellslikethinice1107 Don't have to name any because I know they do little to nothing but waste resources of the British taxpayers, personally in this day and age, the monarch should be scrapped because of what it symbolizes with inequality in the system and the only reason it's still around is likely because of its legacy but in this day and age, it's just a waste of time and money and shouldn't be part of any democratic system.
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@smellslikethinice1107 True but the good news is, less and less of the younger generation of people don't seem to care any more, hence why the Royals keep going on a charm offensive over the last few years in the media to create more of a buzz and interest from younger people, I mean honestly, they are in the media the last few years a lot more than they were in the past and that is likely because of the age of the Queen and the popularity of the monarch has taken a hit over the years. To make it even worse for them, Spitting Image is coming back to haunt them lol, mind you, that might actually help them lol.
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I can understand what Airbus was thinking at the time, with the population size around the world increasing by around a billion every 14 or so years, bigger planes were going to be needed to accommodate the population growth. Unfortunately, with the drive to reduce energy use, bigger in this case wasn't better, with airlines wanting more nimble fleets. With that said, there are use cases for these big planes at major airports that take a lot of passengers and maybe even for fast deliver of cargo. I also felt that Concord didn't survive because of cost and how much energy it used, there were other problems like noise level, but economics always plays a part with this, still I would love for a new supersonic plane to hit the market, after all, tech has moved on a lot since the original Concord plans.
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This isn't looking good for the US, I have to wonder, did Trump honestly expect the EU and China to just take it and not put tariffs on US goods?, is he really that clueless about how the world really works, the EU have an economy of around the same size as the US and so does China, both of them can do a lot of damage to the US if the US pushes this and it's made all the worse because all these other countries can trade with each other whiles the US is getting tariffs on them from many countries. In the end, it's the US thats likely to come out worse off with this because others like the EU and China will just look elseware and invest in other countries at the expense of the US, this could get a lot worse for the US if Trump pushes for more tariffs which will force the EU and China to do the same back but I suspect it wont come to that because, one set of tariffs is one thing, another set is an all diffrent ball game that I don't think any country have done since the 1930's and look how well that went, the irony being is that it was the US that started that one as well with Italy and France if I recall. In any case, there is no winners in trade wars and always losers from all sides, the problem for the US is that they are trying to take on too many powers around the world that can and will fight back which means the US becomes the biggest loser out of all this, anyway, it's clear that Trump doesn't have a clue about economics.
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Let me guess, this is another one of those Eurosceptic rants about the EU is going to fall apart lol. Seriously guys, how many times have we heard this story over many decades, only for you guys to keep getting it wrong and I suspect many thought Brexit would be the end of the EU lol, You really need to understand the difference in wanting something to happen and reality, Brexiteers are getting a harsh lesson of that in the UK. In any case, this is just a disagreement from many EU members with the EU, that's democracy for you, and if that changes the direction of the EU on that policy, so be it, but that's about it, things move on, the EU is still around. But seriously, if countries had the same logic that Eurosceptics have, all countries would be falling apart the moment regional governments disagree with the federal government lol.
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This is a double edge sword, the EU countries could spend in a subsidy war but it's becoming clear the reason they don't want to take that route is because some countries, mainly southern countries could get more careless with it if money becomes easy access, you only have to look at the countries that oppose the subsidies and the ones that support it to see that. On the one hand, I support what the US is doing with the IRA, mainly because it will push renewable energy and battery tech further, but on the other, it goes against free market economics that the US likes to beat the drum about and that could be bad if the EU, China and others starts getting a lot more protectionist, it would hurt everyone's interest, especially smaller countries which don't have the money to compete with this like the EU, US and China can. I think the real problem is with this act is that it's clearly a protectionist move and could be solved if it was open-ended where subsidies are available for all, but unless anything changes, the EU, China and other countries are likely going to enact their own walls to protect their own industries, longer term that will make it worse for everyone and probably more the US than anyone else as it could restrict what they can and can't do in other regions. Either way, this is a can of worms we don't want to open, especially with how the world economy is like and more so for the west that needs to create a united front on Russia and China, this could fragment things.
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I'm surprised as a European that I knew all of those apart from the first and second amendment, I have an idea on them but wasn't sure which is which, the second amendment is the right to bear arms, heard that enough times on the news over the years, even in Europe lol, the first I'm not 100% sure but is it free speech? Either way, this video was comedy but sad in a way, a lot of those question are quite basic that even many outside the US understand many of the things that are related to the US like the amendments and which countries are boarded with them. You've got to put the blame on the education system and it's probably designed to be that bad because in politics, a less educated public is easier to manipulate and boy do Americans can screwed over in many social benefit areas from health care, workers rights, job support, food standards and countless other things, in a sense, the political system is doing a fine job on the American people, it's too bad the American people don't wake up and see that. But seriously, I don't expect all Americans to know all the answers he threw at them but the first and second amendment with how the US system bangs the drum on them all the time, they really should know that, they also really should know Canada and Mexico are neighbouring countries, it's quite embarrassing really.
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10 months later and the internet is still going strong, so much for the fear of this law bringing the internet down or was it fear from some people that it might or more like hate on the EU.
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@edd9581 That changes nothing, tech regardless of where it's from, has to abide by the regulations set in a given market if they want to do business there, besides, this isn't to do with the EU, it was Italy that banned them, not the EU. In any case, privacy issues are going to be a far bigger problem for these online A.I. models as A.I. becomes more useful and integrated into our lives, so expect a lot more regulations on these things and from countless governments around the world, which could push more of us to use locally run A.I. models that won't have the issue of privacy and security, it could also be more useful without being as restricted.
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I think part of that is because of how polarized the US is becoming, it's always things like left vs right, Democrats vs Republics, haves vs have not and so on, it's basically creating a lot of division. Then throw in a lot of the propaganda from flag waving and patriotism and the level of ignorance from Americans about the rest of the world and you get to see where the real problem is. After living in both the EU and US, currently in the UK at the moment, I think the real problem in the US is the system of individuality where it's everyone out for themselves which in turn weakens the social safety net, I think that's the root of the problem, it feels like a society that cares a lot more about what you can get out of it and not about what's better overall for society and everyone in it. EU countries are very different in that, that a lot of policies are put into place that drag everyone up, whether it's individuals or regions within a country and even thought it's far from perfect, I feel it does a much better job at looking after the people then what I saw in the US, especially when it comes to the poor and middle classes or run down areas where it feels like in the US, they have to fend for themselves whereas in the EU, there's a lot of regional development funds to pull them up. For me, the US is a bit of a weird country, it's like a first, second and third world country all in one depending what part you live in and your social standing, now granted, I wasn't in the US long, just 2 years and that was spread over California and New York but I saw enough that shattered that vision I had of the US that movies portray of it and it made me realize how lucky and easy Europeans have it.
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Jesus Farage, you wanted out of the EU and you're still complaining about them, lol. Now that you're out of the EU Farage, you have no voice there, so shut up you clown, you wanted out of the EU, now you've got no voice over there, so live with that. Now don't get me wrong, I don't agree with what the mayor did, but Farage has no power over there now.
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Yep, we all have nukes, I mean, what does Putin honestly think the west is going to do with that threat? Is he really stupid enough to think the west will back down over that threat, when we all know that backing down would likely escalate things more in Putin's favour. Putin knows he's done for and he's desperate to get the west to back down, history has shown that if you show weakness to dictators, they always take advantage of it, so regardless of what threats Putin does, the west can't afford to back down and need to send a powerful message back that there is a high cost to his actions, now its up to the Russian people to wake up and depose that clown, otherwise, it's going to be the Russian people being used as cannon fodder on the front line for Putin's personal war.
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As a European, there isn't many Europeans that have looked at the US with envy even going back decades, now respect, Europeans did have that for the US but that's been dropping a lot since 9/11 and as for this pandemic, it's shocking to us with how bad the US is letting things get and the real problem is that as a country, the US is very divided in many areas, especially on politics and that isn't going to be easy to fix, Trump is a symptom of the problem but the problem is much deeper than that in the US, after all, that's why so many Americans voted Trump into power and fixing those problems is going to take a lot of soul-searching and looking in on yourself on why things are going like they are. Also, the US isn't at rock bottom yet, far from it, the pandemic seems to be getting worse, the real economic impact of this pandemic hasn't even started to be felt, that will kick in once government support dries up and then after that you've got the pain of high debt levels which will slow down growth for years to come, the worse is still yet to come. But on a positive note, out of this, a lot of good could come out of it just like a lot of good came out of the aftermath of the second world war for Europeans, I'm already seeing signs of big changes happening in the EU countries and the US could see big changes for the better if the public wants that but in the case of the US, I sense that Americans are going to have to fight for those changes whereas Europeans don't seem to have too and the main problem is big corporations and interest groups have got too powerful in the US that isn't going to want to change without a lot of pressure from the public, Europe doesn't have that issue as much.
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Putin is playing right into the hands of the EU, remember that they have been pushing to cut Russian oil and gas for a while now but have been finding it hard to do because of a few EU members, Russia by cutting the gas forces the issue. The great thing about that is that it forces real change and yes there is a bit of short term pain but the long term benefits are massive, especially for countries that have little natural resources. Basically, what Putin has done is speed up the change to alternative energy sources a lot faster than it would have been, EU countries were already pushing on that but now there won't be any foot dragging and there will be a lot more investments in those areas. This is unfortunate for fossil producing countries because Putin might have shortened the life span of that resource by a decade or more which could wipe out trillions from those fossil producing nations, to make things worse, countries that produce little fossil fuels like the EU, Japan and so on could end up with a massive windfall of savings when they produce energy internally. What makes this even better, the longer and higher the price of oil and gas goes, the bigger the revolution and quicker the change will be away from fossil fuels, the irony is in all this, it's in the interest of the fossil producing nations to bring prices down and stabilize the market and they've got a short window to do that in before it's too late for them and personally, I love what I'm seeing because this is how real change happens in a much shorter space of time and the beauty is of all this, EU countries are likely to be the front-runners in all this because they've got no choice now because of energy security reasons and with that, it's going to be very interesting to see the energy mix around the world and especially the EU over the next decade because we are very likely going to get changes that would normally take decades being done in less than a decade. Who would have thought that Putin's war and threat would be the thing that gets us humans to really clean up our act on energy.
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I don't see any reason why Scotland can't join the Euro, it seems to work well enough for the Republic of Ireland and if Scotland got it's economy ready for the Euro, there is no reason why it can't work out well for them and beside, if Scotland does leave the UK and wants to rejoin the EU, they will have to join the Euro at some point, as for the Euro, I think it will be in every EU members interest to join at some point because Euro members are likely going to get closer together economically and that going to give them a economic advantage being as they share the same currency. In any case, for the Euro to work well for any EU countries, they have to do a lot of preparation to be ready for it otherwise you could end up with the mess we saw in some countries that fiddled the books or didn't perper enough for the Euro.
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Being a dictator is usually all the encouragement needed for people to want to flee a country, Hungary more or less going that way is unlikely going to encourage people to want to have kids to raise in that kind of environment, regardless of what pro-baby policies the government cooks up, and this is in a country that is being shielded by the EU and it's internal market, if Hungary didn't have easy access to that, investment in the country would likely dry up and hurt the economy. Nowadays almost all modern countries are having issues with births, people for whatever reason don't seem to want to have kids any more, and if it wasn't for immigration, things would get dire quite quickly with a hit to the economy, lower tax revenue and immigrants seem more likely to have kids then natives seem to have in modern countries, so the issue is much worse than people realise and it's probably why immigration in almost all modern countries is quite high and not going down, I'm not sure if they can realistically bring it down a lot when we are entering an ageing population where there might not be enough of the young generation to support the older generation, which might force more immigration just to keep the system stable unless the natives start having more kids, but clearly, ever policy being tried doesn't seem to work and are expensive. In any case, for countries like Hungary, the situation is worse because they are still a developing country and because of the current leadership and the way the system is changing, it's probably turning off many people from wanting to live there. As for why couples don't seem to want to have as many kids now, who knows, but this is an issue that is effecting a lot of countries, especially modern ones, and it's likely going to get worse before it gets better because all the policies that are being tried to encourage more births, don't really seem that effective, and I think the real problem is for a lot of people is that kids are expensive, cost of living is high, housing is expensive, the world isn't as stable and optimistic as it used to be, then throw in the lack of time because of work demands and it's easy to see why birth rates are low and dropping, I get the impression that people don't want the burden of wanting to bring kids up in this world, and no amount of bribes from governments is likely going to change that until the fundamentals in society have changed to allow people to want to have more kids. Still, it will be interesting to see how much money governments try to throw at the problem with limited to no success, until they realise that they can't throw money at this problem to fix it and they need to fix the deep issues in society to change that, whiles immigration is only a temporary solution and clearly that is causing a lot of political issues in the west, so lets see how long it takes before governments start to wake up and fix the real issues on why this is happening and not paper over the cracks around the edges, because things are going to continue to get worse which is feeding the far right moment in Europe and North America. The funny irony is for Hungary and Orbán, the open boarder in the EU isn't helping Orbán case, he seems to hate the EU but hates the idea of leaving the EU because the country would likely go in the gutter much quicker without easy access to the EU market and forign investment drying up by not having easy access to the market, Orbán is the ultimate hypocrite that wants to play all sides, including his own people, but in the end, he's hurting his own country over the long run because of his policies, it's just a question of when and how long it takes for the people to realise that, I suspect when it's too late and the damage is done.
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Coal is the first to go, the next likely one could be gas, especially in Europe, and even thought gas is one of the cleaner sources of fossil fuels, the cost of delivery is too high, either by geographic through pipelines or LNG which is expensive, we are seeing a trend in the EU where coal and gas is on the decline in favour of renewable energy sources and mostly because it's a clean source of energy and is a lot more secure as an energy source. The funny thing is, the percentage of renewables keeps going up, even thought more things are being pushed on it, EV cars and heat pumps, that in time will end up killing off gas and oil in the long run, but it could happen sooner than expected, because with how cheap solar is getting and the march of battery tech, once the momentum gets going, it's going to be an avalanche against the fossil industry, and what's really great about all this, the fossil industry is finding it much harder to control prices and to bump them up, if they try to reduce supple, they lose out to more demand for renewables, if they try to bump up the price, again, they lose out to renewables which keeps getting cheaper and is already one of the cheapest forms of energy we have. Putin with his fanatical views and actions have really done us a favour, especially in the west because it's speeding up the process towards a cleaner future while doing harm to fossil fuel producing countries, which considering many of those countries are not exactly reliable, they stand to lose a lot of revenue, whiles on the other side of the scale, countries that import a lot of fossil fuels like the EU countries and Japan, stand to gain from this in the tune of hundreds of billions per year over the long run, especially as more of us go gridless. The biggest threat to the fossil industry is how cheap renewable is getting, I was checking in Europe and you can get a 400w panel for £65, it's crazy how cheap they are getting over the last few years, but as tech keeps getting better and cheaper, battery tech gets better and cheaper and with more of us moving to EV cars and heat pumps, it could get to the point that we end up plastering solar panels everywhere because of how cheap it is. With all this said, coal isn't going anywhere for a while, mainly because of developing countries, especially China, but regardless, if renewables keep advancing and getting cheaper, it's going to put downwards pressure on all fossil fuels, the ones that will likely benefit the most are likely to be the modern countries, especially the ones that are fast tracking towards a greener future.
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Of course Germany can rebuild it's military, they've got more than a big enough economy to do so and a highly educated workforce, it's just a matter if there is enough political and public will to make it happen, especially considering that Germany has been quite passive since the second world war and that's quite understandable, but the world is different now, Germany is different, the country needs to step up and play a bigger role, after all, Germany has the core ingredients to become a bigger military power then France or the UK, it's if they've got the will to make it happen. Personally, I do feel that EU countries would be better off building a military power through the EU, it would be far more powerful than what the individual countries can do, it would also reduce a lot of waste and duplications that 27 different militaries have, and ultimately, the end goal is the same, defence and protecting our interest, who is more likely to be able to do a better job at that, 27 individual much smaller militaries that the likes of the US laugh at? Or a super military by pooling resources together through the EU?
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I'm waiting to see what parties are in before I vote but I doubt I will vote for the Tories or Labour and if that new inderpendence group are in, I might vote for them.
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@anlumo1 Self intrest, that what Farage is all about, he doesn't want to lose the money he gets by being elected in the European parliement, the rest of it is just him taking Brexiteers for fools by lying to them in saying the EU isn't a democracy and yet Farage wants to take part in European elections, so either Brexiteers are being lied to by him or they really are that dumb.
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The thing is, employees being paid more could have happened whiles in the EU, the only reason it's happening now is because the UK is finding it harder to find alternative workers to fill those jobs. The problem is with all this is that they'll pass on the cost to UK consumers whiles at the same time, it's making the UK market less appealing to invest in. The real problem with the UK with poverty, inequality and wages should have been solved by the UK government but in fact, they've been the ones that have made things much worse in the UK for the last 10 or 15 years now whiles blaming the EU for all the wrongs in the UK. The end result is that things are slowly declining in the UK, it might not seem it on the surface because it's slow but it's clear the UK is less of an enticing market from outside the country and worse off internally that it's creating real friction with Northern Ireland and Scotland. We should also remember that Brexit was always a net loss for the UK, hence why the UK government can't replace the money the EU put into the UK and have replaced the regional development fund with less money because there is less money to go around thanks to Brexit, in other words, that £350 million per week to the NHS was a lie.
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I don't think Poland will get kicked out of the EU but the Polish government might have backed themselves into a corner because EU support is quite strong in Poland among the public and now the EU doesn't need 2 EU countries to kick Poland out, they could take this to the ECJ and get the same result as kicking them out, hence the alarm bells going off with the public in Poland, they are starting to realize that they could get kicked out of the EU if they are not careful. The irony is, this could bring down the current government in Poland if they are not careful because if the government pushes too hard on this whiles support among the people for the EU is strong, it's not going to end well for the government. Also, I do find it strange how the Polish government thinks it shouldn't abide by EU laws and in this case, the ECJ because it doesn't want too, these are the rules the country signed up to when joining the EU, it would be like a US state or UK country not abiding by the supreme court, clearly that's not going to go down well for the member in question. So yes, ultimately, if Poland doesn't get it's act together, the EU will likely have to kick them out as you can't have an EU member in the EU that doesn't abide by the rules it's members have set but I suspect that either the government will back down or it will fall and mainly because of public support for the EU in Poland, either way, I don't see the government recovering from this even if it does back down as it's gone too far this time.
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@bobbailey7024 Go on then, show us how the EU is a dictatorship? Hardly anyone on the international stage thinks it is, even the US knows it's not a dictatorship, the only ones that don't are clowns like you that don't do your research on what an actual dictatorship actually is, beside, if the EU was a dictatorship, do you honestly think the UK could actually leave? lol. Seriously, stop reading the right wing press and develop your brain, because it's embarrassing now. Speaking of dictatorship, isn't it funny how the UK government doesn't want to give the Scottish people a voice on independence, even thought a lot has changed in the UK since Brexit and it's not unreasonable for them to be given a voice on if they want to stay or leave, or is that too inconvenient for the Brexiteers?
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@Harlock2day Maybe but Brexit is opening up a can of worms where Scotland and Northern Ireland could leave the UK union, Northern Ireland are already much closer tied to the EU after Brexit and Scotland passed a law in wanting to stay as close to EU rules wherever possible. This makes it very tricky for the UK government to try and diverge away from the EU without those other two pulling away from the rest of the UK and it could pressure the rest of the UK to stay closely aligned to EU rules without having any say in them which isn't what the Brexiteers want as that is much worse than what we already have but for me, I'm fine with that as I have much more faith in EU rules protecting workers rights, food standards then I do with our own government, at least with everything I've seen over the last few years, it's kinda sad that I even think that way but that's how bad things have got with Brexit.
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Dimpy Rambo How is that being a traitor? am I suppose to bow and take it up the arse from our own goverments because they tell us it's the thing to do because we're British? thats just stupid, I like to think with a inderpendence mind that doesn't get brainwashed by the system I live in. Beside, isn't it stupid to just follow the line of the country we are born in? it's just as stupid as when people say you should buy British because I'm British lol, I mean really, I buy who delivers the best product at the best price and that product could come from the moon for all I care, if they want me to buy British, I'm quite happy to do so if they deliver a good product at a good price and it's the same for politics with how people get so trible about it, it really shows the human races has a long way to go lol.
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The idea that the UK keeps talking about trying to do a deal even though the UK movement has threatened many times to walk away is a clear indicator that the UK can't afford to walk away on WTO terms, if we could, we would have done that a long time ago, the rest is just bluster from the government in trying to get the EU to give some kind of crumbs to sell to the Brexiteers as a success story, but the truth is, even if we do get a deal, it's going to be painful for the UK compared to the deal we had with the EU, no deal is just more painful. This is something many don't understand, deal or no deal, the damage to the country is going to be big over the years, it's just a matter of degrees on how much damage is done now.
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I think this is about over promising on the vaccine effectiveness that the government are starting to get nervous in the sense that they could have a real problem if another lock down is needed after all the hype that's been pinned on the vaccines. In other words, they are preparing the public that another lock down might be needed and maybe mid to late summer and if you read between the lines closely enough, the government have been drip feeding that message for a few weeks now. Personally I hope the vaccine does work but so far we really don't know because the low numbers are mostly down to the lock-down then the vaccine, we'll get a better idea on the vaccine over the next 2 months, if it works, the numbers should rise but stay very low, if the numbers start to shut up like they did the last time we came out of lock down, the government have some real problems on its hands.
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@TheRezro We'll have to wait and see but isn't Poland even more dependent on Russia than Germany is? I'm not saying change can't be done quickly, it's just a matter of how much of an hit you are willing to take and even if it's needed. Truth is, almost every EU country is going to reduce the buying of oil, gas and coal from Russia, in just 3 years, it should become very little to not actually matter any more, maybe even sooner than that if they really want to send a powerful message to Putin, either way, EU countries are moving. The good news is in all this, renewable and clean energy sources are going to get a massive shot in the arm thanks to Putin, we are probably going to progress more in that area over the next decade that would normally take decades, especially in Europe because now energy has become a security matter. Basically, now the EU countries are going to actively go out of their way to kill the fossil industry and they have the wealth and tech to do it, so yes, a bit of short term pain for a lot of long term gains that if the fossil industry is smart, they would try to sell as much to the EU market at a reasonable price point before it's too late and they won't want any of that.
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@justaawake6273 It's not about it being never ended, pandemics usually always happen in many waves, we are now in the second wave and we might see another after this even with the vaccine. But what's really making it much worse than it should be, at least in the west is that too many of us are not taking it serious enough and that is just making it worse for us all, if we clamped down hard on the virus early on and put the right policies in place, we would be in a much better place now but the sad reality is, governments are scared of doing that in western countries because of all the rampant paranoia going around on this virus and because of that, this virus is hurting the west really hard compared to Asia which are dealing with the virus far better than we are.
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@jamesashurst I have to agree, we need solutions now or just around the corner and not promises of what might work in a decade or two. Many companies talk a good deal but it takes forever for them to deliver and in a lot of cases, they don't deliver. It's why the tech that interest me the most is near future tech over the next 5 years and not the promise of tech over decades.
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That's true, but it's even more laughable that some think the likes of Reform UK are interested in the public interest, the truth is, they all tell the public what they think they want to hear, the ones that are good at twisting the truth and lying are the ones that people fall for, hence why we have this merry-go-round that no matter who gets elected, not much changes. People are deluding themselves if they think Reform UK cares about what the British people want, they are saying what they think we want to hear, and remember, since Brexit, Farage has no platform, he used the EU to get what he wanted, but now the UK is out of the EU, Farage became irrelevant, hence why Reform party came about, he needed a new platform to become relevant about, and just like on Brexit where he lied and twisted the truth, only to see that Brexit didn't deliver on pretty much anything they promised, now he's doing the same with Reform UK. Seriously guys, wake up, I understand you're angry at the mainstream parties, but if you think these loons like Farage are the solution, well good luck to ya, you deserve what you get. If you really want real change, the mainstream parties are unlikely to deliver it, but the fringe parties like Reform UK won't as well, if you really want change, you've got to vote differently and to hold them to account on their policy actions, the reason they take voters for fools is because we let them, I mean, just look at Brexit and all the lies that were told, and yet, there was no accountability and the British people let them get away with the lies, it's no wonder they keep taking voters for fools on so many policy areas, the people keep allowing it. In any case, Labour are in power and likely to stay in power for some time with the landslide they've got, but more importantly, Reform UK could end up helping Labour a lot by divided up the votes on the right of politics, basically, the Tories and Reform party could end up dividing each other's votes and making each other weaker, almost like how Labour and Lib Dems have done for decades on the left of politics, now we are seeing that on the right which could keep them out of power for a long time, and it's all thanks to Farage lol.
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It's more like 450 million but yeah, good luck to them if they do that lol, other companies will be more than happy to fill that void Facebook leaves behind, I mean really, a market that size would be a big opening for other companies to capitalize on and use that against Facebook around the world.
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@aryanbhuta3382 It's not the genetic makeup of the food that's the problem, it's the stuff they do with it in the US that is the problem, especially for Europeans.
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@viperking6573 Pretty much every country is like that, just that the EU is more bold in making it known. Besides, one man's regulation is another standard, in other words, regulations are needed for higher standards and safety measures from food, workers rights and countless other things, the less regulations, the more control companies have to get away with whatever they want, a bit like we see in the US, that's a place I wouldn't want to live.
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@ewoudalliet1734 The EU has limited powers in that as most is still with its members, as for high tech, I do think EU countries need to invest a lot more in that, at least on the surface because Europe is already in high tech in many areas but they are not in many areas of well known brands, especially on the internet, that really does need to change because they've got more than enough resources to make it happen.
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@viperking6573 Overall no, at least not with northern European countries and as I said, I lived in both the EU and US and purchasing power was about the same overall, it's just done differently where the US has less taxes but gets much worse public service whereas EU countries have more taxes but gets a much better public service. For me, the real key difference I saw from EU countries and the US is wealth gap, in the US, there is a much bigger wealth gap from rich to poor compared to EU countries, in the EU, I have never seen a homeless person on the street, in the US, I saw a few. But in any case, the overall standard of living is high in both but I do feel the EU system looks after the lower and middle classes better, in the US, I sense that if you are down on your luck, you could be in real trouble unless you have friends to help you out, the support network from the government is quite weak in the US compared to EU countries. So both regions are great but having lived in them both, Europeans don't realize how lucky they have it which is off because boy do Europeans like to complain about everything lol but maybe that is the reason why things are better, the people are more willing to stand up to their governments and in time, that delivers better quality for the average citizen whereas in the US, I got a sense that the people seemed to be subdued by the system and not willing to fight it any more.
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I think what some might not understand is that these sanctions are a long term thing, on the surface they might look like they've failed short term but the west is thinking big picture with the long term goal, we should also remember that sanctions are not usually that effective early on and can take 2 to 3 years to really hit hard. I have a feeling that the west is waiting for European countries to diversify away from Russia oil and gas enough before doing the real damage to Russia, once European countries are not buying or have reduced buying oil and gas from Russia, that will have a big impact on them, but it goes further than that because the west isn't doing this only for the likes of China, India and others to prop up the Russian economy, in other words, the west is likely going to go after China and India, maybe with tariffs on their goods as a percentage of how much they are profiting on cheap oil and gas from Russia, basically to wipe out that advantage, both countries trade far more with the west than with Russia, the west can afford to find alternative cheap labour whereas they can't afford to find other rich markets. The end result is simply, to isolate Russia from the rest of the world and I've been hearing that the west is going to be arming Ukraine a lot better from November onwards, that's just going to add another cost to Russia and let's not forget, Russia is hurting quite bad even now, that's only going to get worse going forward. Also, let's not forget the long term implications of Putin's actions here, he's made energy a political weapon, that in term has made energy a security issue, that's really bad news for the fossil industry long term, yes they might profit more in the short term but longer term they could lose trillions as this is likely going to push western countries to find alternative energy sources but more importantly, generate a lot more in-house, basically, Putin's actions might have shortened the fossil industry by a decade or more which is worth trillions and the longer the oil and gas prices stay high, the better as that means the change away will happen sooner rather than later, the public won't put up with high prices long term before real political pressure builds on governments to change, the change to alternative energy sources has always been foot dragging, the political pressure will change all that and that's really bad news for the fossil industry, basically, it's in the fossil industry to stabilize things sooner rather than later before real change picks off but it might be too late for them already.
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That's just short term, but I suspect we're going to see some big investments and deployments of renewable energy over the years but realistically, we can't just switch to that on mass yet, you have any ideas how much that would bump up the price of renewable energy because of the shortage? Basically, buying oil and gas from other sources is a temporary move to buy some time with the real aim of being energy independence, renewable energy is likely going to play a big part in that. The good news is, the longer the oil and gas prices stay high, the quicker they are killing their own industry as they will force countries into alternative energy sources. Ironically, Putin is probably doing more to clean up the world here then he realizes and mainly because a lot of countries now have the political will to do big changes in the energy sector and all because of energy security. It's going to be very interesting to see the energy mix over the next decade, especially in EU countries because I suspect we are going to get some massive changes that in normal times would take decades.
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I imagine that programming is going to get to the point with A.I. that it will be a bit like the Holo Deck in Star Trek where you give the computer as much or as little detail in every area for it to work with to get the task you want done. Now clearly, the more detail you give it, the more accurately it's going to output what you want, but yeah, I can see A.I. being very useful for programmers, game developers and a lot of other things in the decades to come and what I would love to see from A.I. is where it goes through the code, fixes bugs and optimizes the code to run better. Some will say it will never happen or A.I. wont get good enough to do these tasks, but if you look at how quickly A.I. is developing just over the last 5 years, you really have to wonder where it's going to be over the next few decades, especially as a lot more money and talent is being thrown at it and with that, I suspect it's going to be able to solve almost any task we give it long term. Personally, when it comes to programming or development of software and games, A.I. should not be used to replace our creativity but to help us get the job done that we head to the project we want to create, a lot of people have good ideas but don't have the skills to make it happen, A.I. could go a long way in helping on that.
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I always love watching the bluster on the sidelines and then the political realities once close to or in power with political parties, happens almost every time lol. Basically, a lot of the so-called promises from the Le Pen party are likely going to be broken if they get into power because reality bites on what they can do and not what they want to do, especially for a hard line party, if they rock the boat too much and it starts hurting the country and the French people, well let's just say, they won't be electable for long and there popularity will quickly nose dive. If Le Pen really wants to do well, they will likely have to moderate many of their policies, listen to the concerns of the French and if they can, reduce the debt burden, if they deliver on those 3 things, they could become a credible party long term, especially that these hard right parties only get into power because of angry at the mainstream parties, being as it's a protest vote, this is why when the real policies kick in, that's when things get really interesting, especially if Le Pen wins and rocks the boat too much, which I suspect they won't out of political survival and will do what many other far right parties across Europe have done, moderate there policies to calm markets and to appeal to more voters.
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Honestly, I'm not really sure the Europeans should interfere, Israel has not exactly conducted its self in a good light over the last few months and the less said about Iran, the better. As for the US, they've always sided with Israel regardless of what Israel does, so I think the Europeans should stay out of it and let them solve it themselves unless things escalate in a big way that ends up dragging others in.
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@Snipsnop260 Russia is a lot weaker than China but in the case of China, both sides have a lot to lose if anything kicks off so even China would think twice about doing what Russia is doing. China does need to worry here because if they do end up supporting Russia too much, they could end up getting isolated from much of the world, they depend on the world economy a lot more than Russia does so China might have no choice but to distant themselves away from Russia even if they don't want to do so, the fact is, they trade a lot with the west and can't afford to mess that up. The truth is, Russia isn't that important to China long term interest, Russia is just there to be used by China in it's games against the west, also the ideology or culture of Russia and China are very different from each other, most Russians would feel more at home with EU ideology or culture.
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This is all noise in the background now, far right this, coalition falls apart, but the end result is, not much really changes for the average person, which is what we will see with the far right, lots of promises, some small changes but nothing major, and eventually, people will get fed up with them and vote a different way. If you really want real change, you either need a revolution or enough people to stand up to force governments to change, apart from that, they'll continue to mess up, promise us stuff they know they can't keep and not much changers, which is what we will see with the far right across Europe until people get fed up with them an election or two later.
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The problem for Canada and for some others is that they've become too dependent on the US, that's never a wise move as it means you can be taken advantage off, which is basically what the US is trying to do to Canada now. Regardless of what Trump does, the US is becoming a less reliable and stable market to do business with, the EU on the other hand is a stable, rich, developed economy, and I'm not saying it will be easy because of the distance, but if both the EU and Canada work at it, they both can improve both political and economic ties a lot, but it's not something that will happen overnight and will take some time, but it's probably a smart thing for Canada to do as the US has become less reliable and predictable over the last 2 decades. Also, there are others that Canada can trade with, China being one of them, but China has its own political agenda, so it's probably not wise to be too dependent on them, the EU and many of the other smaller countries around the world are probably the only logical choice for countries fleeing the US. In any case, if this momentum keeps building with countries around the world, the political and economic disaster for the US would be immense over the long run, we could be potentially talking about a major political and economic shift away from US power over the coming decades thanks to Trump, and I think the real problem for the US is that, even if Trump were to get kicked out of power today, many countries are going to want to distance themselves from the US, Trump after all isn't just a one-off, the US have become more radicalised for some time now, in other words, it might be too little too late for the US, at least for the near term future because trust and respect has been broken and that would be easy to repair even if Trump gets the boot. In any event, what Trump is doing is a major opening for both the EU and China, if they play their cards right, especially the EU as they are more open, democratic and trusted, Trump is basically falling into the hands of what the EU and China wants, now it's just up to them to take advantage of that by stealing a lot of trade away from the US and political good will, there's also the factor that China have been wanting to pull the EU further away from the US to weaken US power, Trump is falling into that trap that China wants, basically a weakened west by splitting the two major powers apart, and the more this goes on, countries around the world will be looking at other powers to take that roll, clearly that rules China out, the EU is a good candidate but the EU needs to get its act together in a few areas before it can take that roll, the foundations in EU countries is there to allow it to happen, we just need the political will to make it happen, that and reforms to the EU insistuttions.
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I think in the longer run, it will make more sense to have on site with your house then to have massive wind farms, for one the cost is reduced a lot, you need far fewer cables, it's also a lot more security for your energy needs and likely to work out cheaper in the long run. Mix that up with solar and as battery tech gets better, I have to wonder what the actually point will be of big wind farms the tech gets good enough that most of us could do it on site, especially as cost goes down and efficiency goes up, the other real advantage is that you won't have to be connected to the grid once battery tech is good enough, that will reduce cost as you have a lot more control over it, another advantage is that it's a lot quieter and would likely do far less harm to wild life. So yes I can understand the merits of big wind farms for now in producing a lot of energy in the right locations but I think in the long run as the tech gets better, scales down and produces more energy, a lot more people would prefer to generate the energy on site and this will likely be the case for solar as well, so combine wind and solar together with the right battery tech and I suspect you could generate all your energy needs almost anywhere.
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It's actually more likely they'll flee or surrender, going on what we've been seeing. It's all well and good him saying they'll fight harder but the reality, a lot of those Russian troops don't want to be there, they actually thought it wasn't a war and was going to be a picnic, Putin actually set the Russian troops up to fail by giving the wrong impression of what is going on in Ukraine. If Putin tries to mobilize the Russian population, that is where it could implode on him because the lies being told to the Russian people on what's going on in Ukraine will be a lot harder to lie, hence why he doesn't want to bring the people into it, especially from the rich areas like Moscow and St Petersburg and he'll continue to scrap the barrel, using criminals, prisoners and any mugs he can find to send them into the slaughterhouse. Basically, Putin is getting desperate as he knows is position of power in the country is weakening and the more the war goes wrong for him, the worse things can get for him, with that, his options are running out, his reserves are running out, he's scared of mobilizing the Russian population as the people could rise up against him for all the lies being told to them, after all, they are being told the war is going well for them, mobilizing the population shatters that illusion and that could be a massive threat to Putin's power in Russia, hence why he'll throw anyone he can find from criminals, mercenary, anyone that will fight but not his support base in Russia.
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In the UK, we get a lot of wind in winter, so a mix of solar and wind would probably do quite well. Wind power seems to be stronger in winter and at nighttime when solar isn't that great, so both could complement each other throughout the year for more consistent energy. Still, I think the issue isn't renewable energy but having an energy buffer, which means having more energy storage.
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So Theresa May steps down, then what? if Corbyn gets into power, does anything really change? going off his past record, no, we're still back at square one, now if the Conservative party puts a Brexiteer in charge which is unlikely, that doesn't really make things any better and we've already have a pro EU leader in May. This is overall why a genaral election doesn't change much because the fundermentals are not changing and that can only change if parliement grows a spin and make a stand or if the public gets another public vote on Brexit and decide the outcome one way or the other.
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It depends on how you want to look at in catching up, if we are talking on pure economic terms, then probably not because Europeans are not willing to lower our standards as much as Americans are willing, lowering standards does have economic benefits, but it also lowers the standard of living for the people overall. Basically, over the last two decades, I've heard the US and UK brag about how well it's economy is doing or how low unemployment numbers are, but if you look closely at the numbers that really count, both the US and UK have been slipping behind European countries in areas that really matter to the people like quality of life. Personally, I think the US is trying to compete with China by lowering its standards, it can't compete directly on the population number and the population is a big factor when it comes to power of a country, but lowering standards isn't the way to compete and Europeans shouldn't follow the US on that one, because at the end of the day, Europeans still have a strong economy, but also have a higher quality of living, which is what really counts to most people. To put it another way, let the US fall for the trap in lowering standards to try and compete with China over the long run, but I don't think it's a good idea for others to follow, because at the end of the day, what good is having a strong economy when the standards are dropping in the country that wealth is in so few hands that the country ends up becoming a first, second and third world country rolled into one. As for the big company thing, they are not really the innovators, the smaller to mid-size companies are the ones that really shake things up, but they also need protection from the big corporations that more or less try to bully them out of business, basically, governments should be doing more to balance things out that help small to medium size businesses, being that there are more of them which means more competition, more innovation and lower prices for all, whereas big corporations are almost the opposite of that, especially if they have too much market share that they are more or less a monopoly, that isn't good for anyone, but I understand why the US favours big corporations, China is a big part of that reason and big corporations are easier to control by governments, but they are not very good for consumers or competition. The EU doesn't have to follow the US or China on that, but it clearly needs to change laws that are more favourable to smaller companies, whiles also protecting them and maybe even having rules in place that gives them a leg up over big corporations to balance the playing field more. Either way, the last thing the EU should do is follow the US lead, and anyone that's lived in both the EU or US over the last decade or so will understand what I mean, which to put it bluntly, the quality of life is better in the EU over the US, and that is what matters to the average person, you only have to look at many indexes like quality of life to see that.
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Problem is that would just make us poorer and the last thing we can afford is that with the economic fallout of this virus.
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Trevor Kenwrick, I'm not saying it's fair what the big powers like the EU, US, China and others that have big economic clout can do, it's just the reality of how this world works, the EU and US for the most part make up most of the global rules, laws and regulations for the world and if you want any real trade with thoes market, you will have to abide thoes rules, laws and regulations. In the case of the UK, it means us becoming a rule taker and not maker as the EU is our major market and if we was to turn to the US, they will have thier own demands which will be pretty high for the UK public to swollow as it likely will mean watering down on workers rights, opening up the NHS and lowering food standards among other things. Trade deals are not as easy as some Brexiteers want us to thing, bigger players will always have more say as the economic clout allows and this could be the real reality check the UK gets when dealling with big players like the EU, US and China, for the time being the EU is going easy on us but that can change after Brexit, for the US, China and other countries, they want to give the UK hope so once Brexit happens, they will have a better hand in trade deals then they could get with the EU, the UK being a much smaller market plays right into the hand of a lot of other countries around the world. Suzy, I agree, some politIcian are good but they get overshadowed by the bad ones and as we know, we have too many of them that take up the lime light.
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@lawrencestone8488 Very insightful, contributed so much to the debate lol, in other words, you couldn't argue back so you didn't try lol
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@lawrencestone8488 That's fair enough, we've both said our bit, so let's leave it at that and agree to disagree :)
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@Solznmid That's fair enough and I respect that, I always say gamers should play on whatever is right for them. In my case, I converted my friends and family members over to the PC by showing them how PC gaming can be cheaper than console gaming but it is easy for them because of a big network of people that know how to use PC's and get the right hardware on the cheap and at the right time.
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@ireneuszpyc6684 Petitions never work that way, it would be mighty impressive if they did get 17.4 million to sign up to it but thats not how it works, that they got 6.1 is very impressive in it's self, normally, there is little to no chance that would be ignore but this isn't normal times. In any case, I suspect we'll find out soon enough because the goverment keeps kicking the can down the road because they can't make thier mind up on Brexit, Parliement are not much better, all this is leading to them passing on the book to the people and letting them decide, that way the goverment and parliement can wash there hands of it and blame the public if they vote to leave and if they vote to remain, then we stay in the EU. It's becoming the safe option for the goverment and Parliement and the ironyly is that the ERG and DUP are helping that along lol.
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Pandora's box is open when it comes to A.I. and there's no way to go back. Sensible regulation in making A.I. safety should be welcomed but it's going to be difficult to almost impossible to regulate A.I. with the advantages it can offer over the long run, and because of the politics of the world, it's highly unlikely the US could get everyone on the same rulebook on this. Then there is open source, which you already sense that there's a massive push on open source A.I. to make sure governments and big corporations don't control too much of the A.I. which would give them a massive advantage over everyone else. Basically, because of the structure of the world, this law is kinda pointless and could actually harm US interest over the long run, as it's likely not going to stop the growth of open source A.I. and in fact, it might speed it up. But I do understand the concerns with the free for all when it comes to open source A.I. but I rather that than any central body like a government or big corporation having control over something as important as A.I. as that would be far more dangerous for everyone else and it's better for A.I. to be as open and as accessible to us all to level the playing field and with any luck, we come up with Sensible solutions in regulating it for safety reasons, but any regulations that's seen as too controlling or a power grab will likely fail as it will push more development of A.I. into the open source field and in other countries around the world that are more lax on the rules, so I'm all for regulations, but they have to be the right ones which this isn't, and I think we need to work together around the world to come up with sensible solutions.
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Christopher Moore Actually, you was force-fed a lot of rubbish by the right wing press and you ate it all up without thinking if it was good for you or not, there's a reason why a lot of Brexiteers have a low education level and can't really argue the points on Brexit.
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Christopher Moore That doesn't mean anything when it comes to intelligence or seeing lies, it just means you've put in the work to earn those degrees which I say good on you but it has no impact on the lies of Brexit and what damage Brexit is doing to the country. As for Germany, they are a big cog in Europe and rightly so because of it's population, but they clearly don't rule it, it only takes 2 big or moderately sized countries to outvote Germany, so clearly Germany needs many others onside to get what it wants, democracy at work. The irony is, the UK could have had a much bigger part in the EU project if it was more constructive and not obstructive.
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Christopher Moore That's rarely been the case throughout EU history but they clearly both need to be on the same page to get things really done in the EU. As for being up the backside, I think you're talking about the UK being up the backside of the US and they were whiles the UK was in the EU so likely more so now with Brexit, that's something the US will take full advantage off. Those countries you mentioned are not talking about leaving, that's wishful thinking, still I'm sure the government in Poland and Hungary would like to do that but considering how popular the EU is among the people in those countries, it would likely backfire on the government if they tried. Also, why is it with people like you that you think that any slight disagreement is cause for the EU to fall apart?, if it was that simple, the UK and US would have fell apart a long time ago with all the disagreements they have lol, in the end, there's a lot more to it than that, Eurosceptics in the UK and the EU are very different, the UK ones want to dismantle the EU whereas the European ones want to reform it, hence why the UK didn't get any help from a single EU country on Brexit because clearly the Brexiteers don't understand the difference from the two. I describe the EU as a work in process program, far from perfect and needs a lot of work but is needed for our security, economic, political and social well-being, like it or not, we can get much better terms for ourselves by working together, the UK is proving that with that horrible deal it signed with Australia, what was the UK thinking in signing such a poor trade deal? the UK likes to think we hold all the cards, well it sure didn't show them to Australia because the media and government over there are laughing that they manage to get such a good deal for themselves, especially as the UK economy is 3 times bigger than Australia, it's embarrassing, the EU would never have signed such a bad deal and that shows the UK is getting desperate, something other countries will take advantage off.
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Christopher Moore Let me translate that, you hope the people of France wants to leave, the reality is, the people of France wants reforms of the EU, there's a difference, not that different than how people like you thought the EU would fall apart without the UK or that you thought other countries in the EU would side with he UK on Brexit and yet not a single one did, not even Poland and Hungary. That's the problem with people like you, you see European Eurosceptics in the same way that the British are which are both very different, British ones wanted to roll back the EU or even dismantle it, European ones want to reform it, hence why you people keep getting your predictions on the EU so wrong, because you're seeing what you want to see and not what is. You really do have a lot to learn and I suggest taking those blinkers off and seeing what people actually think around Europe and world for that matter, that's how you really learn.
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@c.augustedupin8860 For not with a single voice, the EU could take China on but in the longer run, that's unlikely even if the EU was a single country, I suspect the EU and US will have to work much closer together, that would likely bring a lot of other countries onboard as well, that should be enough to contain China if they get too hostile. The problem isn't democracy or China being a rival to the EU or US, the real problem is that China is hostile to other countries and are quite happy to use threats to get it's way, that could end badly for us all if China got too powerful. In any case, the best way to contain China is for the EU and US to get closer together, create a democracy club that others can join which helps to protect them from China aggressive and so on. A bit like how Russia is trying to do to Eastern Europe, they don't dare take on an EU or NATO country but any of the others are easy pickings for them if the west sits idly by. Russia has a massive problem with the EU because it's helping to develop the countries that join, that sends a message to other eastern European countries that want the same thing, it also creates security and stability which creates economic growth and at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters to the common people is the economy, the rest is all noise in the background, deliver on the economy and the people overall will be happy with a higher standard of living, that's where Russia and China don't seem to understand or they are taking a long time to get there.
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@m3c4nyku43 Which it technically is, Eurosceptics can't complain about the EU doing nothing in those areas when they keep blocking the EU from having powers in those areas, in other words, it's a national matter just like the Eurosceptics wanted. You want to solve that problem? More political integration so the EU can speak with one voice, until then, the EU is limited in what it can do there thanks to the Eurosceptics, so now you know who to blame and it's not the EU lol.
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@m3c4nyku43 Good point, it was 13 days ago when I commented here so forgot what was being said lol In any case, lets leave it at that and agree to disagree lol.
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@c.augustedupin8860 China might have the advantage in some areas of Asia but they'll never have the advantage in what the people actually want, the government doesn't allow that as it's too controlling, same for Russia. Western countries are winning in the world because what they offer is much better than what the likes of Russia and China offers because at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters to common people is stability, wealth and quality of life, the west does a much better job on all 3 and others around the world want the same thing. So unless those other countries change and stop being so controlling over it's own people and others, I can't see how they can win in the long run. In any case, it's not as simply as that, even the US is losing out, if you look at every other modern country and even many developing countries, they seem to be following the EU countries model and it's easy to understand why, it's got an high quality of living, it's stable, it's got strong workers rights, high food standard, great health care and countless other benefits, a lot of countries around the world want to emulate that. So this isn't a west thing as you like to think, this is all about who is offering a better system and so far the European countries in the EU are winning out on that by winning the hearts and minds around the world, after all, how many countries do you honestly think wants to emulate China or Russia? the only ones I can think off are dictators and other crack pot countries that don't care about the well-being of it's own people. In the end, the only thing that really matters is the economy and quality of life of the people, thats why western countries keep winning because they deliver on that whiles the others don't.
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It wouldn't surprise me, if you back them into a corner, it could end up aligning a lot of the policies of those nations, when it makes more sense to treat them as individual countries on a case by case basis. Clearly China isn't in the same group as Russia, North Korea and Iran, but I suspect the US wants them to be because they see China as a real threat to the US, something that a lot of the world doesn't care about.
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The problem I see is if the ERG wins, that wont be the end of it, it's highly unlikely that they would want to give up that power when they know they can use it in other areas in the country, in other words, they've got a taste of power and they wont want to give that up easierly and will want to extend that on things that have nothing to do with Brexit, that is the problem this country and the Tory party will face. But personally, as much as I keep seeing with Brexit from all the delays and buying time, it makes me think that this is intended to humiliate the hardcore Brexiteers and they are doing quite a good job of that and polls seem to be showing that support for remaining in the EU is growing with the British public. With all that, I suspect the goverments real aim is to buy time to gather support from the public and do as much damage to the hardcore Brexiteers movment before striking with another vote and the first call of action will be to call for a delay of Brexit of at least 3 to 6 months if not longer and then I suspect they will find a way to put a vote to the people without the hardcore Brexiteers going ape or at least to keep the numbers down of the Brexiteers that will lose the plot. As for hard Brexit, to me it's never really been on the table and was always used as a threat to try and get the EU to bend, as we can see, it's not working on the EU and with that, I suspect the UK to fold, yes it will be humiliating for the goverment but hard Brexit could be a lot more humiliating if it harms the country so it's hard choice time and the good news is, the EU is going to force the issue here because they've had enough of us wasting time. In any event, unless the moderate Tories and Labour support face down these hardcore radicals on Brexit, they will have a lot more to worry about after Brexit then just Brexit alone as it could do a lot of damage to both main parties and end up creating a new political party, but then, you never know, it seems both Labour and the Tories are looking at short term goals and not at the long term picture of how this is going to impact them.
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