European Empire: France & German Presidents as European Emperors?

[GENIERE]

The “Polder Model” in the simplest terms is a means to eliminate some of the ravages of socialism. One touted “improvement” was to lower the wages of all workers. That’s impressive. The model in effect has the government and business acting in collusion to improve the total economy of the nation by making them competitive, rather than to ease the slow erosion of an individual’s economic status. The model fails to address the fatal flaw of socialism, that being to pass off debt to future generations. Some economists predict that social programs in Europe will be un-sustainable after 2025. The US will follow about 25 years later. Socialist economies cannot compete with free market economies, not in the past, not now and not in the future and succeed only in lowering the quality of life for all.

 

[pelastration]

European Empire?

I received today a post of the Jack SarfattiScienceSemina yahoogroups.com. In that post was referred to these links.


US political games: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html

US-think tank: http://www.newamericancentury.org/

You need more links?

 

[kerimek]

Originally posted by pelastration
European Empire?

I received today a post of the Jack SarfattiScienceSemina yahoogroups.com. In that post was referred to these links.


US political games: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html

US-think tank: http://www.newamericancentury.org/

You need more links?

Interesting ideas. However, US have lost their strategic initiative in last months and they can only respond to steps of their enemies. I´m more curious for similar plans of France, Russia, China or Iran which are playing with white figures (in chess terminology )

 

[pelastration]

Originally posted by kerimek
Interesting ideas. However, US have lost their strategic initiative in last months and they can only respond to steps of their enemies. I´m more curious for similar plans of France, Russia, China or Iran which are playing with white figures (in chess terminology )

Lost strategic initiative? ;-).
The map is there ...the short goals are reached.
Geo-politics. Where is US now located in Middle-East? Next to Syria and Iran. Syria is now between a US-state (N°53?) and Israel. Syria: the next move?
Where is located that giant military base from the Afghanistan war? Between China and Russian Federation.

Geo-politics is also business. Wasn't the Iraq war business?
1. First 'exports' weapons,
2. then make the first bills payed by US-tax payers + possible Allies + but finally pay the total bill by Iraq Oil.
3. then 'export rebuilding expertise'. Check: http://www.new-fields.com/Iraq/

I fear that the body-bag syndrome seen in the Vietnam war will be repeating.
That was (one of the reasons) why France opposed against the I-war. You know where it starts but not where it ends.
One other reason was that their intelligence knew the "proves and motives" put on the table by US and UK where not really 'hard', even faked. Today we know that point of view was for 90% correct. Why is Koffi Aman so critical? He has more overview than we have.

France and Russia are only small players although they speak and shout load. Both try to find a new position in the changing world. France inside Europe, Russia in relation to the other states of the federation.
China has long terms goals (look to Tibet .. next goal Nepal?).

 

[kerimek]

Originally posted by pelastration
Lost strategic initiative? ;-).
The map is there ...the short goals are reached.
Geo-politics. Where is US now located in Middle-East? Next to Syria and Iran. Syria is now between a US-state (N°53?) and Israel. Syria: the next move?
Where is located that giant military base from the Afghanistan war? Between China and Russian Federation.

Geo-politics is also business. Wasn't the Iraq war business?
1. First 'exports' weapons,
2. then make the first bills payed by US-tax payers + possible Allies + but finally pay the total bill by Iraq Oil.
3. then 'export rebuilding expertise'. Check: http://www.new-fields.com/Iraq/

I fear that the body-bag syndrome seen in the Vietnam war will be repeating.

You are thinking only in military terms, but primary is economy. And US economy is exhausted by war, home economical problems, high oil price and protectionizm of main trade partners (EU, East Asia). You see that unholy coalition of "old Europe"+Russia+China+Arab world survived US "victory" in Iraq. Maybe the coalition exists only thanks fear from US revenge to its members, but exists. They are together enough powerful to attack US economy and they do it, despite of proclaimed friendship with US. You are right in "the body-bag syndrome", the loses are strategicaly unimportant, but dumped tens or hundreds billions dollars take US any chance to compete with global rivals. And after US economy will be ruined, US military will be ruined also, this is evident...

 

[Monique]

Yes, a REALLY bad time to have to exchange dollars for euros, as I had to do It still hearts.. I've got a check lying here on my desk which is about to expire, if I cash it now, I will loose $100. Not to talk about all the money I earned in the past three years, which had to be converted :S

http://www.x-rates.com/d/EUR/USD/hist2003.html

 

[GENIERE]

You are thinking only in military terms, but primary is economy. And US economy is exhausted by war, home economical problems, high oil price and protectionizm of main trade partners (EU, East Asia). You see that unholy coalition of "old Europe"+Russia+China+Arab world survived US "victory" in Iraq. Maybe the coalition exists only thanks fear from US revenge to its members, but exists. They are together enough powerful to attack US economy and they do it, despite of proclaimed friendship with US. You are right in "the body-bag syndrome", the loses are strategicaly unimportant, but dumped tens or hundreds billions dollars take US any chance to compete with global rivals. And after US economy will be ruined, US military will be ruined also, this is evident...

Kerimek

The cost of the war is a very, very little problem for the US economy. Before I go on, I know some countries differ in the number of zero’s for 1 million. In the US, 1 million has 6 zeroes, I billion has 9 and I trillion has 12. The cost of the gulf war is about 60-100 billion depending on how it is calculated. This amount of money is less than US citizens make in 2 hours of work in one day. The US army, navy and air force has a budget of over 400 billion. The cost of health care in the US is 1.5 trillion dollars, which is 40% of the cost of health care for the whole world. Illegal immigrant children get free lower education in the US, they are not supposed to but they do. 7.5 billion is spent just to educate illegal aliens. Each of the 50 states has their own education budget plus a small percent from the federal government, so I can’t easily give the cost of education but its about $5000 to $10,000 per child depending on what city your in. I don’t know what it is for a college student but would guess about $5000 to $80,000. The US economy is expected to grow about 5% next year. Just the expansion will pay for many Iraq wars.

The US military is definitely not being ruined. To the contrary it will have a larger budget in 2004. It is being changed also to rely much more on high technology systems to reduce the number of US casualties. Did you know that the US military is comprised of all volunteer personal?

The US economy is doing much better than any of the EU economies now and is expected to out perform the EU economy in coming years.
The US national debt is smaller proportionally to our economy now than in 1992.
The policy of the US government is to allow the dollar to have a lower value at this time as it makes our exports cost less money. This is a short-term strategy. At this time China is buying a lot of dollars, trying to keep the dollars value up so their exports are cheaper.

The cost of gasoline in the US is very low compared to the EU. Prices are higher than usual, but are going down. I gallon of gasoline costs, in my area, about $1.55.

In my opinion China and Asia in general will be the US’s primary trading partners so if the EU wants to play hardball, as we call it, it will be harmed to a greater extent than the US. Not even France would choose to play that game.

 

[Mercator]

To start with the last remark of the previous writer; the foreign trade between Europe and China is bigger than between the US and China. Growth of this trade between Europe and China is about double that between the US and China. Any foreigner living in China can tell you the recent efforts, after the Iraq invasion and the lukewarm reaction on SARS by the US, of the Chinese government to highlight their good relationship with China. So I would not worry about that.

Cost of gasoline is actually higher in the US than in Europe because US refineries are less efficient. Taxes on gasoline are higher in Europe. This policy reflects in a much greater dependency on imported oil (togheter with the much lower fuel efficiency of American cars). Proportionaly to the populationcountries like Germany only consume about 50 % of the amount the US consumes. This amounts to about 250 Billion morecost of energy each year in the US at actual prices. Every extra USD/barrel will cost 7 billion USD. This might give some underlying explanations for the recent US foreign policy.

 

[GENIERE]

The entire membership of the EU lags behind Japan as a trading partner with China. Japan lags the US. How Mercator determined the EU to be a larger trading partner with China than the US is bewildering.

High gas taxes in Europe are due to one thing and one thing only; to support social programs. Yeah those big BMW’s get really good gas mileage, or do you say kilometerage.

 

[Mercator]

Sure that high taxes are supporting social programs. I prefer that than if it would be used to support invasions. But the net effect is that fuel consumption is lower. Despite the growing environmental awareness if taxes would be lowered, fuel consumption would surely go up like in the US. (Brings me to the interesting logic that because Bush does not want to support social programs he has to invade oil rich countries... Just kidding... sort of)

The figures about trade are from MOFTEC. Export TO the Us is generally higher than to Europe but Import in China from Europe is much higher than from the US. And as said growing in a faster pace for Europe.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Monique
Btw, I am proud that the Minister of foreign-affairs in the Netherlands, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, will be Secretary-General of NATO.. but it means my country is again losing one of the top leaders..

Hadn't heard that. I'm glad, Kofi Anan isn't a bad guy, but the political center of gravity of the world is in Europe.