Comments by "buddermonger2000" (@buddermonger2000) on "The EU Could Die (If It Fails To Reform)" video.

@tedcrilly46 In short: that is silly and stupid. It's an exaggeration with 0 understanding of how things work. Economic chaos for local markets? How? Local industries serve local needs. The bureaucracy of sending goods across 3rd party countries? Usually minimal. Minor customs check and fee, and limited anyway due to majority of countries having a coastline. Why would workers from one country not unload from another without a pay raise? That makes no sense. 26 different trade regulations is the norm. That's how products get across the world. They're bilateral and thus easy to manage. Trade disputes are always bilateral, not continent wide. Your analysis of the eventuality is silly and exaggerated in every formulation.
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 @tedcrilly46 If everyone just focuses on their own internal local markets, like most of history, then there's no need to simplify trade.
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@newtubevector You know trade has always happened right??
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@tedcrilly46 You're right it's globalized to the extent of those. However, none of those are necessities, they're all luxuries, and even more relevant, none of that is affected besides customs. You act like nowhere in the world gets foreign imported food. What about the Mexican bananas or avocados, the Chinese and Indian rice, you still have those. They go to whatever is the cheapest (closest) port already. Even if you put barriers back up, tariffs are rarely present on food stuffs already, and most food shipped via ocean, and thus doesn't go through the EU system since it goes port to port anyway for cost purposes. I can't speak to Lidl, I don't know anything about it, but most supermarket chains I know are generally local already, and plenty of agricultural multinationals outside of Europe don't use that coordinated EU system. "Disputes and chaos" is the way you characterize this hypothetical scenario. Clearly everywhere must be in chaos regarding trade because they're not all subscribed to the same rule system.
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@tedcrilly46 They usually don't defer to outside organizations. They just conduct bilateral relations. My entire point is that you've been exaggerating because you've no idea what you're actually talking about lol. People have disputes, that is just a fact of life, it's a cost of doing business. Just like corrupt government officials or anything else. It's just the cost of doing business.
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@lennart266 Yeah, no, not quite. The reason being that most countries simply couldn't. The state aparatuses were not centralized or strong enough to stop it. Simply wasn't national level trade besides whatever the crown purchased itself. Whatever was specialized was sold to whoever could afford it. Luxuries were the most which crossed large borders due to justifying the cost.
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@aaabbb-zc7sx Well, no, i explained how that was incorrect, but you don't like reading. In short: his entire thought process is based on the idea that foreign trade keeps everything in working order. That's incorrect. Local industries can meet demands, they simply have a higher price tag due to limitations, or are lower in quality. However, production lines adapt as does industry. Without the subsides of foreign trade everything still works. People still live their lives. Even more importantly: trade still occurs. He makes his argument as if all trade stops, which it doesn't. Thus, things adapt and it's far less of an issue than he believes.
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Yeah the US hasn't really had a significantly higher increase to its debt. Realistically as well, the US also actually has more financial firepower than Europe. The US bailed the EU out of 2008 and even then the union stagnated ever since. The US also is the dominant global currency. There's just more room when the currency everyone is using is controlled by the US. Even if the EU did try to use more debt, they'd just kill themselves faster as their fundamentals are simply worse having an older, weaker, and more regulated population. The EU has "better standards of living" as a consequence of making it nice currently and has now sacrificed its future in the name of that with the government driving the largest and wealthiest European economies. They're cashing out and there's no way to undo that because the problem is cultural, not technical. China is rising because there's more space to grow (even though its nominal GDP is a complete fabrication by its own admission) but Europe is already at the top and has no desire to grow. The technocrats in charge of the Union are the problem, and the large elderly population are those who are unaffected by its fall with no more skin in the game.
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