Your welcome :) Yes it seems to be difficult sometimes though I have to admit I also jump the gun from time to time when certain topics or phrases trigger me.

Your welcome :) Yes it seems to be difficult sometimes though I have to admit I also jump the gun from time to time when certain topics or phrases trigger me. Out of curiosity: was it a conscious decision for France and against Germany or did you get there by chance? Yes, I've heard about "Alternativlos" and I think it's dangerous when people argue like this because there is always an alternative. Very interesting that you say it was the social democrats because in the US they are seen as very leftist (some even use the K-word) and in my opinion what they did is not very leftist. To put markets on the same level as the weather is a pretty old idea which was spread by Adam Smith a lot but in the end it is made by men and therefor can't be a natural phenomenon and obviously it doesn't control itself in a way that the people profit from it (if we ignore the upper 1% of course). To reduce public spendings seems to be a trend in Germany as well and I've heard about the goal to keep the "schwarze null" in this context a lot. I wonder how they (Germany, France etc.) will deal with 10x the number of refugees because that is one of the minimum estimates for the next few decades. The book you talk about seems to be very interesting and I will definitely try to read it some time. The EU is a really nice construct when looking at the originally postulated ideas behind it but I think it lacks a clear vision (instead of e.g. China) and I feel the same as you about them only opening up markets while forgetting the people. When the EU shattered Greece I couldn't believe my eyes because until then I thought that was exactly one of the situations they would tackle easily with all their resources etc. While the economy could shake off some chains in the last decades in Europe the freedom of the individuals is more and more being restricted (many use terrorism and the fear of foreigners stealing jobs, money and their identity to achieve this). Infrastructure like the railroad suffered as well and the Germans denationalized their "Deutsche Bahn" in the 90ies only to loose a huge amount of tracks and work even less efficiently. There is a thought that really makes me sad about that besides the fact that they corrupted their own basically beautiful idea (achieve something together) and that is a whole generation of young people who really believed in this disney-like promise of the EU. They grew up with it and now have to witness how they've been lied to by their own governments starting at the very beginning. At least there is still people like you who stay in the EU and maybe will have an impact on how things will develop in the near future. This gives me back some hope :)