The end?

Decent_Left said:
Fair enough, he's probably having a moment to reflect on Momsie not quite being the all powerful individual he thought she may be. That US trade agreement is terrible.
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So, I susggested that the deal was not being well received by some Eurotypes. Here's the response.

"Nope, I notice that many are not good at math or understanding tariffs. Basically Trump is taxing the **** out of americans, but at a rate where we still produce goods cheaper than US companies do. And, we got an exclusivity deal spanning 3 years for natural gas. And even though I do not like the US, I prefer buying from them over Midle East and Russia. And most importantly, we got the rate of investment down to a third. Ie., bond purchases, arms purchases, the works... Note that there's no cap on US investments in EU...
And here's the thing, it was not the time and place to **** off Humpo. We still buy a lot of weapons, and we got him to threaten Russia considerably now. He is one step away from hitting them hard.
Everyone is contantly forgetting that EU is playing the very long game."
 
borolad259 said:
So, I susggested that the deal was not being well received by some Eurotypes. Here's the response.

"Nope, I notice that many are not good at math or understanding tariffs. Basically Trump is taxing the **** out of americans, but at a rate where we still produce goods cheaper than US companies do. And, we got an exclusivity deal spanning 3 years for natural gas. And even though I do not like the US, I prefer buying from them over Midle East and Russia. And most importantly, we got the rate of investment down to a third. Ie., bond purchases, arms purchases, the works... Note that there's no cap on US investments in EU...
And here's the thing, it was not the time and place to **** off Humpo. We still buy a lot of weapons, and we got him to threaten Russia considerably now. He is one step away from hitting them hard.
Everyone is contantly forgetting that EU is playing the very long game."
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So the EU can be playing the long game but he slags off Starmer all the time for cosying up to the US. He couldn't possibly be doing what's right in the long run to get the US to do what he wants.

This is exactly why I find anything he says about the EU pretty pointless to read. He's too busy drinking the kool aid to say anything objective. It's just too much toeing the party line and sounding like he's spreading their propaganda rather than giving an honest take on the situation without an bias.

It's always how it's somebody like Starmer or Orban stopping the EU from doing what they wanted and if it wasn't for them the EU would have solved world peace and cured hunger. Because momsie is the best. She and the EU never make bad decisions.
 
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Jan_Aage_Fjortoft said:
So the EU can be playing the long game but he slags off Starmer all the time for cosying up to the US. He couldn't possibly be doing what's right in the long run to get the US to do what he wants.

This is exactly why I find anything he says about the EU pretty pointless to read. He's too busy drinking the kool aid to say anything objective. It's just too much toeing the party line and sounding like he's spreading their propaganda rather than giving an honest take on the situation without an bias.

It's always how it's somebody like Starmer or Orban stopping the EU from doing what they wanted and if it wasn't for them the EU would have solved world peace and cured hunger. Because momsie is the best. She and the EU never make bad decisions.
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Given that he is employed by the EU, this is hardly a surprise. As it happens we disagree on a lot of things. Starmer isn't one of them though.
I think Starmer is problematic in a good number of ways, both for the UK and the Labour Party/broad left. I think we'd be better off with a closer relationship with the EU in terms of trade (ease of), our economy and in terms of getting a more sensible freedom of movement arrangement in place. I'd also prefer to be aligned with a bloc that isn't run by neo-fascists who are dismantling the democratic structures of their nation. As for where he is with Israel's genocide ... pretty dispicable.

And though he is aligned with UVDL's broader aims, he is politically at the other end of the spectrum from her. Hence his glee when she was forced to adopt a more libera/left leading agenda following the vote of no confidence.

And as for your last paragraph, it reads as somewhat childish/petulant on your part rather than his.
 
Jan_Aage_Fjortoft said:
So the EU can be playing the long game but he slags off Starmer all the time for cosying up to the US. He couldn't possibly be doing what's right in the long run to get the US to do what he wants.

This is exactly why I find anything he says about the EU pretty pointless to read. He's too busy drinking the kool aid to say anything objective. It's just too much toeing the party line and sounding like he's spreading their propaganda rather than giving an honest take on the situation without an bias.

It's always how it's somebody like Starmer or Orban stopping the EU from doing what they wanted and if it wasn't for them the EU would have solved world peace and cured hunger. Because momsie is the best. She and the EU never make bad decisions.
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Starmer and Rutte have done what needed to be done managing Trump. Macron is on his way out and will criticise Trump if it helps him domestically .We're decades off disengaging from the USA on defence but now the EU is at least making the first steps.
My macro concern for Europe (incl UK) is how far off the pace we are versus US & China.
The biggest companies in Europe aren't very big and are in legacy industries. AI is driven by Americans with China not far behind and all manufacturing is lead by China.
EU has failed at capitalism in a capitalist world. US unbridled capitalism and China's state capitalism are far more effective.
 
Decent_Left said:
Fair enough, he's probably having a moment to reflect on Momsie not quite being the all powerful individual he thought she may be. That US trade agreement is terrible.
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The Jormans and French have gone public on their disappointment. She has not delivered a deal that the rest of the EU are very impressed with.
She also let the fat tw.at get away with answering a question about starvation in Gaza by saying he was disappointed that HE did not get a personal thank you from the Palestinians and that, actually, the EU gave nowt. She should have put the orange pig straight on that but she just sat there.
 
MoggasDog said:
The Jormans and French have gone public on their disappointment. She has not delivered a deal that the rest of the EU are very impressed with.
She also let the fat tw.at get away with answering a question about starvation in Gaza by saying he was disappointed that HE did not get a personal thank you from the Palestinians and that, actually, the EU gave nowt. She should have put the orange pig straight on that but she just sat there.
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The German and French initial disappointment is true. There has also been a tacit acceptance of realpolitik... and the goal of getting Trump to feck Russia up next week, as well as delivering AD to Kyiv.
The Trump fecking Russia bit? My personal jury is out until I see it.

The energy purchase (ie natural gas) is probably a good thing, given the alternatives.

I personally would have liked to have seen the orange shitgibbon arrested and thrown in jail. But I'm not 18 any more, and I understand that this is not how the world works...sadly.
 
Muttley said:
By what measure has the EU failed?
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The complacency and navel gazing that lead to reliance on the US for defence and inability to deter Russia have also produced failing economies.
We have no players in the US dominated AI sector and a legacy manufacturing sector about to be eaten by China.
Europe has become a heritage theme park while living standards decline to the extent that every country in Europe now has a significant nationalist party looking to blame "others".
 
The EU access to gas is worth the tariff alone to their economy.
We have 3 years of gas left after that everything is imported.
Getting guaranteed access to is a must for the EU.

We're blindly stumbling into power poverty.
We're not investing in renewables with the pace that needs to keep up with resources and demand.
Fkd.
 
zzzzz said:
The EU access to gas is worth the tariff alone to their economy.
We have 3 years of gas left after that everything is imported.
Getting guaranteed access to is a must for the EU.

We're blindly stumbling into power poverty.
We're not investing in renewables with the pace that needs to keep up with resources and demand.
Fkd.
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Does this take into account what will be the world's biggest windfarm, currently under construction over the Dogger Bank?
 
HarryVegas said:
Does this take into account what will be the world's biggest windfarm, currently under construction over the Dogger Bank?
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Every little helps but it's nowhere near enough.
We don't have the storage capacity either for when the wind doesn't blow and the sun don't shine.
 
Spartan said:
The complacency and navel gazing that lead to reliance on the US for defence and inability to deter Russia have also produced failing economies.
We have no players in the US dominated AI sector and a legacy manufacturing sector about to be eaten by China.
Europe has become a heritage theme park while living standards decline to the extent that every country in Europe now has a significant nationalist party looking to blame "others".
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That's revisionist. At the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the immediate "threat" to Europe was much diminished and we experienced a "peace dividend". We reduced our armed forces because the threat of massed soviet tank divisions driving through the Fulda Gap was gone. The EU was not a defensive organisation - that was/is NATO. There was no desire or need for "Europe" to be capable of force projection through things like a "blue water" navy. So in that case any spending on defence would likely have been inappropriate to the threat that we now face of a hot but non-nuclear war in Eastern Europe. The failure was in not recognising the ambitions and scheming of Putin.

AI and the manufacturing sector are intertwined. We are likely to see a decline in manufacturing in cheap labour areas when AI and automation removes their advantage in low wages. If you have a factory churning out widgets with hardly a human in the building then that building/company is advantaged by being located where its products are bought.

Silly point about "heritage theme park Europe". And as others have pointed out every country in the world has a "Nationalist" party.
 
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