FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

Walter, you may recall that we, with great political difficulty placed nuclear armed Pershing cruise missiles in Europe under NATO opoerational command. We also coordinated our Nuclear deterrent posture with that of the UK (but never with France).

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What EU nationalism has done is to create handicaps for the 'minor' countries that are participating in the Euro economic zone. Their governments cannot control inflation/deflation/or national debt. Without each country able to control their deficit, that will impact government services to their citizens that may turn out to be harmful. I would say, they're in a pickle. It's a bigger problem when the two strongest economies in the EU doesn't follow the rules.

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Thomas,
I'm doing a little catching up...You mentioned,

Quote:

And don't get me started on Europe's shameful protectionist policies that impoverish the third world and help drive the Middle East into the hands of Islamic fundamentalism.

Did you address this in an earlier posting?

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The EU is it beginning to fracture?

http://www.iht.com/articles/119097.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/119068.html

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Mapleleaf wrote:

Thomas,
I'm doing a little catching up...You mentioned,
Quote:
And don't get me started on Europe's shameful protectionist policies that impoverish the third world and help drive the Middle East into the hands of Islamic fundamentalism.
Did you address this in an earlier posting?

I don't think I addressed it anywhere on Able2Know. This article by the Economist is a nice introduction into the EU's common agricultural policy. The steel and textile tarrifs are a bit less bad, but not much.

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au1929 wrote:

The EU is it beginning to fracture?

http://www.iht.com/articles/119097.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/119068.html

You got the idea from those articles that the EU is beginning to fracture?

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Walter
Only asking.

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au1929 wrote:

Walter
Only asking.

Okay :wink:

No, I don't think this will take that effect.
But it's certainly a defeat for the commission (although it's completely legal).

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au1929 wrote:

The EU is it beginning to fracture?

I don't think so. I think what's happening is that Europe is in a double bind about this. On the one hand, the "stability and growth" pact never made any economic sense to begin with, and the political players all know it. On the other hand, all Euro participants have committed themselves to following these rules, flawed as they are. Therefore they must be enforced.

By running larger-than-legal deficits, France and Germany have sent two signals: First, that they place economic sense above rigid rules. They get away with this because the other governments know they are making economic sense. Second, they are sending a signal that the EU's rules don't apply unless France and Germany want them to apply -- note the similarity to George Bush's style of treating the United Nations. This is not acceptable for the other European nations, so they are giving France and Germany a few well-deserved slaps in their faces.

I don't think there's anything deeper going on, but I could be wrong of course.

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According to a article I read in this morning's newspaper, Germany's economic indicators are showing that their economy is on the mend. However, their unemployment is still over ten percent, so that's another dilemma for them as it is for the US.

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Wait, c.i., until we changed here our kind of counting unemployment like it is done in the US: you get at least much lower figures than!

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Walter, What is the "real" unemployment rate in Germany?

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Walter, What is the "real" unemployment rate in Germany?

The OECD frequently publishes standardized unemployment rates which account for national differences in the definition of the unemployment rate. You can view them (in PDF -- you'll need Adobe Acrobat) here. As it turns out, unemployment is 6.1% in the US, 9.4% in Germany as of the third quarter of 2003. So the difference is smaller if you use standardized figures, but not much smaller.

Hope that helped

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Well, the 'real' rate the actual published figures plus some hundredthousand more, who are -kind of employed- in training agencies etc.

Until this year, you (can) get state benefits as unployed as long as you don't get a job.

This will change soon - they then get social benefits, which is much less money.

No one really knows now, how much the unemployment rate will go down then - I suspect, a lot.

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Thomas wrote:

By running larger-than-legal deficits, France and Germany have sent two signals: First, that they place economic sense above rigid rules. They get away with this because the other governments know they are making economic sense. Second, they are sending a signal that the EU's rules don't apply unless France and Germany want them to apply -- note the similarity to George Bush's style of treating the United Nations. This is not acceptable for the other European nations, so they are giving France and Germany a few well-deserved slaps in their faces.

I believe what is illustrated here is the normal behavior of states with respect to issues of great importance to them. So far the slaps do not seem to have affected Germany or France any more than the United States.

The remarkable part here is the notion that any serious student of history could have thought otherwise.

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Just to clarify, CI: German Sozialhilfe, which Walter translated as 'social benefits', does approximately what welfare did in America before Clinton abolished much of it at the end of the nineties.

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georgeob1 wrote:

The remarkable part here is the notion that any serious student of history could have thought otherwise.

And any law-student in his/her fourth term should have known that as well. :wink:

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Thanks, Thomas, for the clarification.

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Politics have become very confusing; Clinton demolished so-called democratic programs while GWBush spends like a democrat gone bonkers. Who would have thought only a decade ago such a thing was in our future?

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Politics have become very confusing; Clinton demolished so-called democratic programs while GWBush spends like a democrat gone bonkers. Who would have thought only a decade ago such a thing was in our future?

I agree -- and this is one of the interesting things which political cheerleaders in this newsgroup don't pay attention to -- most of the really, really bad decisions in American politics were bi-partisan decisions. Ending welfare, attacking Iraq, the PATRIOT act, the war on drugs.... I think Vietnam belongs in that line too, but I'm not sure.

Of course, the situation is similar here in Europe.

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FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

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