The economic comparison between the EU and the USA

Originally posted by Amuk

Originally posted by edsinger
And the EU is a powerhouse? Have you ever been to Arkansas? Personally I like it but that is a telling statistic......

I got another shock for you......me and my wife arent related either

[edit on 13-11-2004 by Amuk]

LOL... Amuk, you make me laugh
- I have some relatives in the Maumelle area of Arkansas and no, they dont do trailers or hub caps either....

IMO this thread illustrates the difference between US citizens and europeans. US is all about $, europeans prefer to have a decent quality of life before money.

Originally posted by Chris McGee
IMO this thread illustrates the difference between US citizens and europeans. US is all about $, europeans prefer to have a decent quality of life before money.

Well as an example, if the US was not funding around $100 Billion in NATO budgets, and by that I mean the US portions which far and above exceed the European contributions to their own defense, we could maybe increase our quality of life some.

It is high time you pay for your won defense and it is obvious that the US taxpayer's sacrifice over the last 50 years was rather under appreciated.

Originally posted by Amuk

Originally posted by edsinger
And the EU is a powerhouse? Have you ever been to Arkansas? Personally I like it but that is a telling statistic......

I got another shock for you......me and my wife arent related either

Thats funny as hell m8!

[edit on 26-11-2004 by edsinger]

isn't china's economy forecast to approach 7 Trillion by the end of this year?

I know at the end of 2003 is was 6.5 trillion

Originally posted by Lucretius
isn't china's economy forecast to approach 7 Trillion by the end of this year?

I know at the end of 2003 is was 6.5 trillion

Yes but the growth rate is leading to a crash unless they stop it, then they would be in a Japan like situation for a few years. I would say 7 trillion is a reasonable expectation.

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Thanks all. One of the most informative and intelligent discussions I've found yet on ats. Great links and reports too - especially the Cultural Liberties (?) UN report.

No doubt - GDP does NOT reflect quality of life for the majority - and 'means' and 'averages' don't tell the tale.

BTW - eds. US hospitals are NOT forced to treat people in emergency rooms. They do triage, cover their butts for liability and send most people home without care.

Re: living space in the US. True, constructed homes often are larger. But again, the 'average' fallacy intervenes. Ie., wealthy homes average 5000 odd sq feet, yet many poor American families live in tiny apartments, 3 or 5 to a bedroom. ...Also, many poor Americans live in their cars or on the streets - I doubt these figures are calculated at all, and certainly not as negatives.



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Originally posted by edsinger

Originally posted by Lucretius
isn't china's economy forecast to approach 7 Trillion by the end of this year?

I know at the end of 2003 is was 6.5 trillion

Yes but the growth rate is leading to a crash unless they stop it, then they would be in a Japan like situation for a few years. I would say 7 trillion is a reasonable expectation.

I heard that the Government there was having reasonable success in cooling down the economy for a soft landing.

Macro-economic policy adjustments and raised intrests rates have seeming cooled things. Growth at the first half of the year was over 10%, but has dropped to 9.1% for the final quarter of the year and forecasts for next year show a further drop to around 8.5%.

The economy is expected to pick up again in 2006 with higher consumer spending riding on the backlash.

Originally posted by edsinger
It is high time you pay for your won defense and it is obvious that the US taxpayer's sacrifice over the last 50 years was rather under appreciated.

I couldn't agree more ed but unfortunately I can't see any of the major european nations putting the necessary investment in anytime soon.

Originally posted by soficrow

BTW - eds. US hospitals are NOT forced to treat people in emergency rooms. They do triage, cover their butts for liability and send most people home without care.

Also, many poor Americans live in their cars or on the streets - I doubt these figures are calculated at all, and certainly not as negatives.

It is against the law to turn one away from and emergency room. Lawsuits would abound if they did. Now true they will not get MRI's and the like but Emergency care is the law and that is part of the problem, people use emergency rooms as their doctor. Doesn't make it right, but it is fact.

As for poor and cars.......wait a sec....poor with a car? hmmm

Originally posted by Chris McGee

Originally posted by edsinger
It is high time you pay for your won defense and it is obvious that the US taxpayer's sacrifice over the last 50 years was rather under appreciated.

I couldn't agree more ed but unfortunately I can't see any of the major european nations putting the necessary investment in anytime soon.

And that is the problem, if the US refuses to pay it any longer then the EU would be forced to do so. What incentive do they have now?

Originally posted by edsinger

It is against the law to turn one away from and emergency room. Lawsuits would abound if they did.

I belong to several online support groups for a disease called fibromuscular dysplasia - common symtoms are stroke, heart attack, dissected arteries, ruptured aneurysms, kidney failure and the like. I correspond with numerous people who were sent home only to have a debilitating stroke within days, or some other life threatening "event."

...Hospitals cover their butts for liability. That does not mean that patients receive adequate care through emergency rooms.



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Originally posted by edsinger

And that is the problem, if the US refuses to pay it any longer then the EU would be forced to do so. What incentive do they have now?

- When are you Americans going to understand?

You guys are the only ones playing the 'let's outspend the rest of the world combined(!) on 'defence' ' game?

Here in Europe we are never going to get into that kind of crass stupidity.

We spend quite sufficient on our defence, given the actual level of 'threat', thank you very much.

So, close the bases, take your troops and your equipment home......

...... and please stop whinning and pretending you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.

America has gotten herself into this economic mess of debt with her military spending because of furthering what the politicians (which you guys elected) thought were America's 'global' interests.
End of.

How misguided you are. Throughout the last 50 years Europe did not spend on the level to protect from the threat. the United States did. And as for now that the USSR is gone, the Fulda Gap is safe but the Europeans are not even able to run an operation like Bosnia by themselves. No matter how you stretch the truth, the defense of your homeland has been paid for by the US taxpayer for the last 50 years.

I've got to agree with ed here, sminkey, the european nations do not spend enough on defence. I'm not just talking about troop numbers, we are sadly lacking in R&D funding aswell. It seems like every budget Brown comes out with includes some cut in defence. In the next round of cuts we will have a smaller navy than france for the first time in 200 years (5000 personnel and six ships gone), the Black Watch will be disbanded along with 3 other regiments and the RAF will lose around 10,000 personnel and five bases. Regiments are going to be forced to share tanks and other equipment.

This has to be some kind of joke, we are sending our troops on more missions than ever (5 wars in Blair's first 6 years) and then cutting them back. Black Watch, serving in Iraq RIGHT NOW will be disbanded. The Navy and Air Force are being emasculated (the same RAF that fought the battle of britain and the same navy that fought off the nazi U-Boat fleet).

ENOUGH, soon our army will be 2 men and a dog, our navy will be 3 row boats and our air force will be a couple of paper planes that blair knocked up while he was ignoring the country (oh, and 250,000 american troops, thousands of US aircraft and hundreds of US warships, I presume that's what we're banking on anyway).

Don't even get me started on the other EU countries.

www.telegraph.co.uk.../news/2004/07/19/ndart119.xml

edited to include link


[edit on 27-11-2004 by Chris McGee]

I agree on the defence cuts... they smack of bigotry just when our armed forces are showing such professionalism and courage despite the underfunding and equipment shortages.

Gordon needs to get a reality check and start looking at some of the failed civil services that he mindlessly pumps moeny into year after year...

railways anyone?

Sod the railways, Gordon needs to stop pumping money into ridiculous new civil service jobs (which btw make his unemployment figures so much better) like 'counsellor for lesbian martians who have 3 toes'.

www.cipd.co.uk...

Top prize went to "five-a-day co-ordinators", who encourage people to eat enough portions of fruit and vegetables.

What folks fail to realize is that the EU nations by having such low defense budgets can subsidize more voters. Thats the catch 22. And why do they not need a defense? Well look who is doing the fighting and has been for the most part for the last 50 years.

Well I hear you but I think you are wrong.

The 'Soviet threat' was, IMO, mostly, an invention.
The 'Bomber gap' and the 'Missile gap' were a western (mostly American) lie (with the usual �migr�s telling people only what they wanted to hear etc etc.....some things never change, right? ) and the clamour for ever more 'defence' spending finally gaving us the seriously dangerous 1980's - where on 3 separate occassions (that we know of, there may be more) we came very close to a global nuclear holocaust.

But for all that, whether one agrees with that point of view or not there is no cold war now.

There was no 'hot war' then either so our spending and level of 'deterrence' must have been sufficient, mustn't it? (otherwise - according to those who believe in an aggressively imperialist Soviet threat - we would have had an actual war, right?)

There is no 'threat' even remotely anything like what was imagined in those 'cold war' days so why should we fund a military as if there was?

I am not in the slightest bit interested in the 'wang - waving' nonsense of whether 'the UK's navy is smaller than France's for the 1st time in a thousand years' or whatever.

So what?

Defence specialists, analysts and experts have examined the UK's defence needs only very recently and have concluded that taking account of any and all realistic plausible 'threats' the UK can manage perfectly well and safely with a slightly lower level of manpower

(taking account of the new tech coming along and the very strong likelhood that Northern Ireland isn't going to be the permanent massive drain on BA resources.....reducing the NI committment from the current level of approx 12 000 troops to a much more normal 4500 more than makes up for the few thousand overall reduction planned, does it not?).

That's what we have specialists, analysts and experts for.....I prefer to read and take their informed advice rather than someone like Ed and his pitch or those ideas which seem more rooted in putting on a show and a military with excessive numbers for the sake of it cos that's what (for some unexplainable reason) 'proper' countries should do and have.

But whatever, the USA can go and bankrupt itself wasting fortunes outspending every other military budget on the planet combined......and still not feel safe or secure!

We in Europe, thankfully, will not.

As for whether Europe's defence was paid for by the USA I think you should consider why that arrangement was entered into Ed.....it certainly wasn't for charity.
Maybe you might like to consider a little of what the USA got out of the deal, hmmmm?

Well from your post I take it you do not know what the Fulda Gap was and how 40,000 tanks faced both British and American troops.

Tell your no threat exercises to the Eastern Europeans and to the Hungarians and Czechoslovakian peoples.

I know you think the 80's were dangerous but what were the 60's and 70's cakewalks?

I tried to figure out the debt the EU countries are already in to see how it compared to the US. This was not easy to do as getting current debt numbers was hard I had to settle for numbers in 2002 for alot of the EU countries. I couldnt even find debt numbers for Germany but have found out they are quite high compared to the other EU nations.

I came up with about a 3 Trillion dollar debt without germany. Not bad compared to the US. But much higher then 197 billion dollar debt of China Spain alone had a 718 billion dollar debt much higher then Chinas.

www.odci.gov...