5 ms·
Protecting their citizens
by oulipo 2y ago
Protecting their citizens
- whimsicalism 2y agothey’ll only be truly safe when their gdp per capita is a full half of the US
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pjmlp 2y agoNo worries until then we will have our great wall of Europe, as US grows to distaste any remaining allies.
- whimsicalism 2y agoNo distaste for Europe, I just feel mildly sorry for what you are inflicting on yourself. The US has and will come to your defense, but we can’t defend you all from self-inflicted wealth-destroying policies.
- bbzealot 2y ago> The US has and will come to your defense While threatening tariffs and a hostile takeover of Greenland?
- whimsicalism 2y ago1. Yes, we are quite literally defending you while doing those things right now. 2. Trump has bad policies yes, although I hadn’t heard anything about an actual military takeover of Greenland. 3. It’s not as if EU doesn’t have tariffs on the Us already, for instance you all are very protective of the auto industry as well as your domestic farmers, just to name a few. I think tariffs are bad policy on both sides of the atlantic
- lm28469 2y ago> Yes, we are quite literally defending you while doing those things Don't forget to register for LA's olympic games you might win the mental gymnastic gold
- whimsicalism 2y agohttps://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-aid-to-ukraine/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-... we are literally not even on the same continent. france and many others can’t be bothered to spend hardly anything, yet somehow we are terrible allies
- bbzealot 2y agoThat happened during the Biden administration though, now the situation has changed quite drastically
- lm28469 2y agoTwice the economy, twice the investment. I fail to see your point, that's exactly how alliance are supposed to work > france and many others can’t be bothered to spend hardly anything Hardly anything besides propping up 70% of the EU https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/18794.jpeg https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/18794.jpeg Also even if you sent 100% of the money collected through tariffs back to the EU through Ukraine, what's the point we're back to square one with extra steps in the middle... The US are serving their own interests, it's totally fine, you don't have to pretend they're sacrificing themselves for the greater good of humanity.
- wolvesechoes 2y agoI love (geo)political takes on HN. Always so naive.
- whimsicalism 2y agoyeah so naive to suggest that the US and EU are allies or that tariffs are bad policy, great contribution to the discussion
- Ylpertnodi 2y agoPrivacy is now a self-inflicted wealth-destroying policy. I have no problem with that, except it is pure bollocks. *Fabulously wealthy people do exist here, you know.
- oulipo 2y agoAlso, the literal advertisement tagline for Apple, one of the wealthiest company in the world, is about how their product "preserve privacy"... so I doubt that privacy is wealth-destroying
- lm28469 2y agoGDP hasn't been a good metric for a good 50 years now. It's good when your country burns coals and shits out steel, not much more. High gdp for sure, higher salaries for sure, everything needed to survive is twice as expensive and you have 0 social safety net. Meanwhile in the US - mortgage are above 7%, twice as high as in Europe - min wage is bellow the Polish min wage, half the German min wage - life expectancy is going down, 4 years under the EU 27 average, 6 years less than France - wealth and income inequalities are worse than pretty much any EU country: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/economic-inequality-gini-index https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/economic-inequality-gini-... - parental leaves, paid vacations, unions, &c. are either optional or frowned upon - pensioner poverty is 2x+ more than in the EU: https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/12/02/which-countries-have-the-highest-levels-of-poverty-for-pensioners-infographic/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/12/02/which-...
- whimsicalism 2y ago1. EU barely has 30 year fixed rates - of course rates will be higher for a much riskier loan to counterparty. 2. Yes true, the minimum wage in Poland is 13 cents higher than the US. Fewer than 1% of US income earners are paid the federal minimum wage. In Poland, ~15% of income earners are paid the minimum wage. 3. Yes our life expectancy is bad - although better when you do demographic control, we have a problem with obesity and easy access to guns causing suicide. 4-6. sorry but relative wealth measures are not effective for deciding how affluent a society is. our ‘pensioners’ in poverty are only in poverty relative to the very high median earnings in the US. They could take their money to the EU and spend better than many of those other retirees.
- oulipo 2y agoI prefer to be a citizen in the EU than in the US... better laws, more holidays, better healthcare, better food, etc
- dns_snek 2y agoWho cares? GDP was never designed to be used as a measure of welfare, in fact this use case was explicitly discouraged. We need a better metric that captures welfare and general life satisfaction. That's the only metric that matters in my world view.
- rvnx 2y agoThose people who used to throw away the plastic caps are now in big trouble. Fun fact, before the law, in many places in Europe it was encouraged to separate them before putting them in the trash bin.
- froh 2y agoyah, so the compacting machines wouldn't pop into half-full bottles all the time yuck. and now the caps are connected to the bottle. which is a Good Thing (TM)