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Can Europe do this? Trump could then respond by blocking Google,Microsoft and other software services to serve Europe. A trade war will have many consequences,

Can Europe do this? Trump could then respond by blocking Google,Microsoft and other software services to serve Europe. A trade war will have many consequences, hopefully more smarter politician or diplomats could solve this disagreements and also Europe should consider reducing dependencies on US for critical stuff.

luckylion 7y ago
> Can Europe do this? No. But it should recognize that it is currently a province in the US empire. If it wants to be sovereign, it should change that, if it doesn't, it should cut out their administrative overhead.
adventured 7y ago
Europe outside of Germany has no advanced industrial capabilities at all. They can choose to do anything they want to, however they have three major industrial options to choose from: Germany, the US, China. Germany can't make enough of anything to satisfy all of Europe's demand. That leaves having to deal with the US and China. The first thing Germany did was shift to self-preservation mode, abandon their EU and Eurozone partners, and lock down their exports. Germany has been able to hyper test their own population, while the rest of Europe was left running at low rates of testing, including Britain, France, Spain and Italy, along with all of Eastern Europe. This is partially why Italy's case mortality rate is now a shocking 12%, the Netherlands is 10%, the UK is 10%, Spain is near 10%, France is 8%, Belgium is 7%, Sweden is 6%. And these numbers keep getting worse. Mortality rates like this should never happen in developed nations (Canada's case mortality rate by contrast is a mere 1.5%, Germany is 1.4%). None of them are testing anywhere close to enough. People expect incompetence out of the US healthcare system, however Britain and France are supposed to be among the best in the world and they have completely failed (England's Deputy Chief Medical Officer just said yesterday that there's no need for the healthy general public to wear masks). The reason why even France and Britain can't test their own populations properly, despite months of lead time, is they have no industrial capabilities to match what Germany can do. Europe is largely left helpless and with the EU collapsing - there is no scenario where Italy and Spain will ever trust the EU again - the infighting and bickering is likely to continue indefinitely.
- codeisawesome 7y ago
  > with the EU collapsing Are there real signs of the EU collapsing?
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
    Well, there is an argument to be made that the unity of the nation states was weakened somewhat with Brexit and rumblings of Polexit. So it is not really collapsing, but there is a nonzero chance of dissolving. Personal opinion, not unlike with the internet, we seem to be intent on fracturing previously somewhat open fora, the global order from previous iteration to 'everyone for themselves' model, which served so well in the past. edit: made last sentence clearer
- mnl 7y ago
  >Europe outside of Germany has no advanced industrial capabilities at all Could you at least google about this topic before going on building a whole theory on top of an absurd statement? So France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden etc in the EU have no "advanced industrial capabilities at all", nor have the UK or Switzerland outside the EU, really?
  - funcDropShadow 7y ago
    As a German, I have to add there is not a single country in the EU without significant industrial capabilities.
- Pedrit0 7y ago
  I think the vision is a bit caricatural : France and Italy still have an important industry. Car, planes, drugs, luxury goods, trains, space launches, fin-mechanics and I miss a lot... Fr and IT are 6th and 7th economies in the world : you cannot achieve that without an important industrial layer. But of course Germany is the biggest industrial actor in Europe and among the biggests in the world.
- simion314 7y ago
  > there is no scenario where Italy and Spain will ever trust the EU again - the infighting and bickering is likely to continue indefinitely. I can see politicians would try to blame China or Germany for the fact their country was not prepared but I hope the majority is not that stupid. I can see and believe my country was not prepared and is in bad shape but there is no reason to blame others when the fault is internal.

luckylion 7y ago

> Can Europe do this? No. But it should recognize that it is currently a province in the US empire. If it wants to be sovereign, it should change that, if it doesn't, it should cut out their administrative overhead.

adventured 7y ago

Europe outside of Germany has no advanced industrial capabilities at all. They can choose to do anything they want to, however they have three major industrial options to choose from: Germany, the US, China. Germany can't make enough of anything to satisfy all of Europe's demand. That leaves having to deal with the US and China. The first thing Germany did was shift to self-preservation mode, abandon their EU and Eurozone partners, and lock down their exports. Germany has been able to hyper test their own population, while the rest of Europe was left running at low rates of testing, including Britain, France, Spain and Italy, along with all of Eastern Europe. This is partially why Italy's case mortality rate is now a shocking 12%, the Netherlands is 10%, the UK is 10%, Spain is near 10%, France is 8%, Belgium is 7%, Sweden is 6%. And these numbers keep getting worse. Mortality rates like this should never happen in developed nations (Canada's case mortality rate by contrast is a mere 1.5%, Germany is 1.4%). None of them are testing anywhere close to enough. People expect incompetence out of the US healthcare system, however Britain and France are supposed to be among the best in the world and they have completely failed (England's Deputy Chief Medical Officer just said yesterday that there's no need for the healthy general public to wear masks). The reason why even France and Britain can't test their own populations properly, despite months of lead time, is they have no industrial capabilities to match what Germany can do. Europe is largely left helpless and with the EU collapsing - there is no scenario where Italy and Spain will ever trust the EU again - the infighting and bickering is likely to continue indefinitely.

codeisawesome 7y ago
> with the EU collapsing Are there real signs of the EU collapsing?
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  Well, there is an argument to be made that the unity of the nation states was weakened somewhat with Brexit and rumblings of Polexit. So it is not really collapsing, but there is a nonzero chance of dissolving. Personal opinion, not unlike with the internet, we seem to be intent on fracturing previously somewhat open fora, the global order from previous iteration to 'everyone for themselves' model, which served so well in the past. edit: made last sentence clearer
mnl 7y ago
>Europe outside of Germany has no advanced industrial capabilities at all Could you at least google about this topic before going on building a whole theory on top of an absurd statement? So France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden etc in the EU have no "advanced industrial capabilities at all", nor have the UK or Switzerland outside the EU, really?
- funcDropShadow 7y ago
  As a German, I have to add there is not a single country in the EU without significant industrial capabilities.
Pedrit0 7y ago
I think the vision is a bit caricatural : France and Italy still have an important industry. Car, planes, drugs, luxury goods, trains, space launches, fin-mechanics and I miss a lot... Fr and IT are 6th and 7th economies in the world : you cannot achieve that without an important industrial layer. But of course Germany is the biggest industrial actor in Europe and among the biggests in the world.
simion314 7y ago
> there is no scenario where Italy and Spain will ever trust the EU again - the infighting and bickering is likely to continue indefinitely. I can see politicians would try to blame China or Germany for the fact their country was not prepared but I hope the majority is not that stupid. I can see and believe my country was not prepared and is in bad shape but there is no reason to blame others when the fault is internal.