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> Compared to what large bureaucracy? ... Large bureaucracies tend to be a little crazy. So there's a good reason not to subject yourself to large bureaucracie

> Compared to what large bureaucracy? ... Large bureaucracies tend to be a little crazy. So there's a good reason not to subject yourself to large bureaucracies any more than you have to. > NATO is fraying at the edges, and EU is the only credible alternative Not really, Norway is already part of NORDEFCO and the Nordic Council, they're not 'alone'.

rich_sasha 2y ago
> So there's a good reason not to subject yourself to large bureaucracies any more than you have to. Some things require scale. As I say elsewhere in the thread, UK left for this very reason and is worse off in every single metric they were hoping to improve - GDP growth, immigration control, quality of governance, environmental concerns, amount of red tape... The workings of a bureaucracy are not the same as the final outputs. IMO and IME the quality of EU outputs is generally high.
- gghhzzgghhzz 2y ago
  as a standards body, yes some of the output is high. I think it serves a useful function. on the macro level though I can't see it myself. EU area had everything going for it in terms of being able to make drastic progressive shifts forward in multiple areas. but instead since 2008 its been doing little but dealing with the contradictions of its own self-imposed constraints. be that debt crisis, energy policy, fortress border policy, emigration issues, Brexit and endless political dramas over reactionary political movements. It's now fixated with re-armament, something that threatens to produce yet another lost decade. Meanwhile, China and other parts of Asia have taken these same 20 years to create entire new sectors and lead the world in them.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    Yeah, Europe needs to find its mojo again, that's for sure. But I wouldn't blame the EU for that. There was a general preference for consumption vs investment, if anything the EU was driving investment more than member states. The rearmament might actually inject a good chunk of investment - let's see.
    - gghhzzgghhzz 2y ago
      The EU itself imposed a limit of deficit spending to 3% GDP The Eurozone included economies as diverse as Greece, Spain, Lithuania and Germany These are some of the self-contradictions I'm referring to. And the basic issue is that you cannot have a single monetary policy and impose half a fiscal policy, without political unification. And IMO that will never be squared. I suppose the new glaring contradiction is that environmental policy and net zero policy has primacy (rightly in my view), but now so does making bombs.
mrweasel 2y ago
Norway is also a member of JEF (Joint Expeditionary Force), but I'm not sure how JEF would act if a one member is attacked.

rich_sasha 2y ago

> So there's a good reason not to subject yourself to large bureaucracies any more than you have to. Some things require scale. As I say elsewhere in the thread, UK left for this very reason and is worse off in every single metric they were hoping to improve - GDP growth, immigration control, quality of governance, environmental concerns, amount of red tape... The workings of a bureaucracy are not the same as the final outputs. IMO and IME the quality of EU outputs is generally high.

gghhzzgghhzz 2y ago
as a standards body, yes some of the output is high. I think it serves a useful function. on the macro level though I can't see it myself. EU area had everything going for it in terms of being able to make drastic progressive shifts forward in multiple areas. but instead since 2008 its been doing little but dealing with the contradictions of its own self-imposed constraints. be that debt crisis, energy policy, fortress border policy, emigration issues, Brexit and endless political dramas over reactionary political movements. It's now fixated with re-armament, something that threatens to produce yet another lost decade. Meanwhile, China and other parts of Asia have taken these same 20 years to create entire new sectors and lead the world in them.
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  Yeah, Europe needs to find its mojo again, that's for sure. But I wouldn't blame the EU for that. There was a general preference for consumption vs investment, if anything the EU was driving investment more than member states. The rearmament might actually inject a good chunk of investment - let's see.
  - gghhzzgghhzz 2y ago
    The EU itself imposed a limit of deficit spending to 3% GDP The Eurozone included economies as diverse as Greece, Spain, Lithuania and Germany These are some of the self-contradictions I'm referring to. And the basic issue is that you cannot have a single monetary policy and impose half a fiscal policy, without political unification. And IMO that will never be squared. I suppose the new glaring contradiction is that environmental policy and net zero policy has primacy (rightly in my view), but now so does making bombs.

mrweasel 2y ago

Norway is also a member of JEF (Joint Expeditionary Force), but I'm not sure how JEF would act if a one member is attacked.