More White House contradictions. This time, the EU

[Cybran]

That is regurgitated bullshit that doesn't become truer the more often you say it.

http://www.economist.com/news/europe...urplus-problem

WHAT awkward timing. On February 9th Germany reported the world’s largest current-account surplus, of about €270bn (almost $300bn), beating even China’s. Meanwhile, the country with the world’s biggest deficit remains America, which under its new president, Donald Trump, is browbeating friend and foe alike in the name of putting “America first”. Mr Trump’s economic adviser, Peter Navarro, has even accused Germany of currency manipulation. By his logic, Germany “exploits” America and others because it uses the euro, which is weaker today than the old Deutschmark would be, making German cars, machines and other exports more competitive.

Germany is suffocating the rest of European economies. Even more than CHINA. The rest of Europe needs and economic wall to stop German dumping.

[Deleted]

Has Trump spent $96 million in travel expenses yet? Crystal ball gaze all you like, but until he has your point is moot. For all you we know he may decide to stay home for the next 8 years and go nowhere.

Right, do you even read what you are saying here?? This isn't "crystal ball gazing" in any way shape or form, it is called simple arithmetic. Even if he is staying at home that will cost you taxpayers more then when he stays where he is supposed to stay, the white house.

[Torto]

Right, do you even read what you are saying here?? This isn't "crystal ball gazing" in any way shape or form, it is called simple arithmetic. Even if he is staying at home that will cost you taxpayers more then when he stays where he is supposed to stay, the white house.

I wish to fuck you would at least read what I'm saying. You are calculating what Trump would spend on travel if he continued at his admittedly high current level. You don't know if that level of travel spending will continue. Your calculations are nothing but guesswork.

[Skroe]

I really don't see the US becoming an enemy of the EU in four years. The senate and house will moderate whatever Trump says and the EU politicians are mature enough to just nod their heads at the Cheeto and keep doing business as usual, maybe plan to get some extra concessions from whoever succeeds him to make up for having to listen to his tantrums.

Ultranationalism is a problem. Trump doesn't help and Putin certainly is supporting it but at the end of the day they are both aggravating existing conditions. It is not Trump and Putin that set the North against the South from the start of the crisis, not them that broadcasted a unilateral decision to accept all comers without consulting anyone else.
More importantly Europe does not seem to have a plan for the future. It seems to be playing it by ear; most of the European economies are stuck in damage control from the beginning of the recession. When the future is changing so fast, you need to have plans. But you also cannot afford to break existing paradigms, adding chaos on top of chaos doesn't help anyone.

As Trump illustrated with his big cave in to China two weeks ago, his cost is low. Every man has his price. His is basically nothing.

If Europe want's President Watersports off their case about defense spending, buy some 737-based AWACS from Boeing and give them to NATO, to replace the aging 707 ones in need of replacement in a decade anyway. It'll "create American jobs" (it won't), throw some cash at his favorite aerospace company, and will get NATO something useful it's going to actually need pretty soon anyway.

The first truth of Emperor Donald the Weak is that his core special move is "the brag". Enable him to brag and look like the Greatest President Ever to low information deplorables, and he'll sit, roll over and do any trick you want. Because as China has now figured, President Donald Trump is actually a bitch.

[Wyrt]

Yes and Obama blew $96 million on travel expenses. Apparently moving a president around isn't cheap. Queue outrage....

Except none of that money went to Obama's businesses.

[Deleted]

I wish to fuck you would at least read what I'm saying. You are calculating what Trump would spend on travel if he continued at his admittedly high current level. You don't know if that level of travel spending will continue. Your calculations are nothing but guesswork.

And have you seen any indication at all that he is changing this in any way? He is very quick to sign all kinds of random stuff, but i have not heard him about this spending of his, (allot to his own companies mind you).
Even if he doesn't spend another dime the rest of the year he would still only be on par with Obama apparently, to think it will become less over time is naive at best.

[Karfal]

The EU dying benefits no one except Russia who could then chip back away at the smaller countries to expand their power. The EU and NATO are serving as the only block against outside aggression.

edit: It dying could also lead to a return of the aggressive nationalistic might makes right policy that was so prominent in Europe for over a thousand years. We don't need aggressive nationalism rising further, which is what Bannon is saying the Trump administration supports.

NATO is there to stop Russian aggression. The EU is equal to the KGB anyways. FUHR Merkel is doing what Hitler couldn't do. Conquer europe, except the German army didn't have to fire a single shot.

[Torto]

As Trump illustrated with his big cave in to China two weeks ago, his cost is low. Every man has his price. His is basically nothing.

If Europe want's President Watersports off their case about defense spending, buy some 737-based AWACS from Boeing and give them to NATO, to replace the aging 707 ones in need of replacement in a decade anyway. It'll "create American jobs" (it won't), throw some cash at his favorite aerospace company, and will get NATO something useful it's going to actually need pretty soon anyway.

The first truth of Emperor Donald the Weak is that his core special move is "the brag". Enable him to brag and look like the Greatest President Ever to low information deplorables, and he'll sit, roll over and do any trick you want. Because as China has now figured, President Donald Trump is actually a bitch.

A little unfair, he didn't hesitate to send a carrier into the south china sea. Obama would still be talking about it, and then talked some more.

[Crispin]

A little unfair, he didn't hesitate to send a carrier into the south china sea. Obama would still be talking about it, and then talked some more.

Yes it's a good thing that he's not like that warmonger Hillary.

[Skroe]

A little unfair, he didn't hesitate to send a carrier into the south china sea. Obama would still be talking about it, and then talked some more.

You're being disingenious. The US has been doing Freedom of navigation Patrols in the South China Sea since late 2015. They were a regular feature last year.

IT IS CERTAINLY TRUE the Obama Administration dragged their feet on it to an absurd degree. The Navy wanted to do them since 2011 and it took the conflict-adverse Obama until late 2015 to give the approval after exhausting literally every other means of making the point.

However sending a carrier there has nothing to do with Trump. That has to do with the fact that our carriers are years behind schedule on maintenance and thanks to carrier-gaps in regions in 2015 and 2016, are just catching up. One was available. Why does this carrier gap exist? The delays to USS Gerald R Ford construction have us executing an 11 carrier rotation plan with 10 carriers that can actually be used.

If you want to fight China, in any event, attack submarines are more important than carriers, which, to their credit, the Trump DoD's plan for their 350 ship Navy, which is basically a copy of the Heritage Foundation's 350 ship plan, calls for a lot more attack subs and only two more carriers for just this reason.

But no, let's be clear... Trump caved hard. He had the chance to stake out a strong position on Taiwan, which is a country in all but name, and he bent a knee for basically nothing. Make no mistake, every foreign leader in the world saw that.

[Aggrophobic]

It would benefit every country's domestic production and job creation. They will be allowed to stop cheap German exports and stimulate growth without the Euro and Austerity.

Till your neighbors see you as weak enough to just trampel over and they invade you.
If history has taught us anything, it's that europeans love killing eachother for the fun of it.

The EU is remarkably effective at keeping the peace and you should be pretty damn happy you're part of it.

[Ravenblade]

I really don't see the US becoming an enemy of the EU in four years. The senate and house will moderate whatever Trump says and the EU politicians are mature enough to just nod their heads at the Cheeto and keep doing business as usual, maybe plan to get some extra concessions from whoever succeeds him to make up for having to listen to his tantrums.

Ultranationalism is a problem. Trump doesn't help and Putin certainly is supporting it but at the end of the day they are both aggravating existing conditions. It is not Trump and Putin that set the North against the South from the start of the crisis, not them that broadcasted a unilateral decision to accept all comers without consulting anyone else.
More importantly Europe does not seem to have a plan for the future. It seems to be playing it by ear; most of the European economies are stuck in damage control from the beginning of the recession. When the future is changing so fast, you need to have plans. But you also cannot afford to break existing paradigms, adding chaos on top of chaos doesn't help anyone.

The two major problems of the EU right now are the on-going Brexit and looming elections in key members. A lot politicians are a bit reluctant now and rather waiting for the results. In addition the old EU parliament president is now a chancellor candidate and the new president is a Berlusconist whose involvement in the VW diesel scandal is a bit dubious. Greece' economy is still languishing which is exacerbated by the ongoing refugee crisis and aftermath of the last two financial crisis which has left high youth unemployment especially in Southern European countries. Then, to make companies and people invest money they flooded the market with abundant amounts of Euro so there's low interests for savers across the Eurozone which seriously hampers retirement planning whilst its fiscal policy is aimed at radical form of austerity or as one of his critics formulated in his column: Schaeublonomics. This is why it looks a bit bleak now and why it seems that no future plans are made. I suppose for now they will have to wait for the UK to quit so the EU can consolidate their future options. In fact the only course after this should be clear: A bit more courage for a closer Europe and not one where everyone is hiding behind walls. Most of the EU has to cope with the Brexit still, the problem with right-wing populists seeing their chance is: their solutions consists of quitting and walling up like it's the sort of panaceia for their problems.

[ati87]

It would benefit every country's domestic production and job creation. They will be allowed to stop cheap German exports and stimulate growth without the Euro and Austerity.

Oh come on what domestic production?

All of those jobs moved from western Europe to eastern in the 90s after the fall of the Sovjet Union true enough but now production has shifted from eastern Europe to Asia. We aren't going to compete with China or India when it comes to producing goods unless you're willing to have a paycut of 90% and you like to breath toxic gasses.

Europe does control some of the productions of each country so we don't try to over compete with each other. We don't want crap like what the US has where Texas lowered his tax rate to such a low amount because they have oil revenue, if we did that on a European nationale scale we would be screwed because in the US the state level.

Also the countries that needed austerity (greece for example) needed that because of their overspending, if spending was the answer then they would never gotten into financial troubles in the first place. If they weren't part of the EU they would have suffered massive inflation because they would have played with their currencies to fix things, which is worse in allot of ways.

[Slant]

And that would be disastrous. If nuclear Russia fractures into petty states NATO (and not just US, this would be a project requiring all of us) would have to occupy Russia and disarm it or we would risk every fanatic in the globe getting his hands on nuclear weapons and even then every remaining military scientist or engineer in Russia would get snatched by the Chinese. It is a worst case scenario of catastrophic proportions. We should want Russia stable; a minor regional power that exports those resources to the rest of us is the best case scenario. Imo the only good option for the rest of us would be to find a new Yeltsin and do whatever we can to get him in power.

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Anyway the EU is not going to collapse. If all else fails, Merkel or whoever succeeds her will keep the North in check, side with the concerns of France and the South and open the spigot. Change the inflation commitment of the ECB, slowly reverse austerity in France, Spain and Italy and people would go back to voting for the status quo and deny they ever voted for Le Pen. Finland or Denmark might go berserk but a couple of trade concessions and the clear fact that they still need the one market for their economies to function will shush them.

Nobody would occupy Russia. Russia is a sovereign nation. That you so off-handedly talk about Western nations waltzing into Moscow and dividing the country up in the name of "nuclear disarmament" really shows that some of the paranoia in Russia seems to be legit. You cannot, ever, just walk into Russia and tell them you're going to run things now. Just like you couldn't do it with the Soviet Union. And yes, that idea has been thrown around back then, too. But rightly put to rest as sheer lunacy. Russia will continue to exist with a somewhat stable Government even after Putin. Our hope is that the next dude will be a moderate able to communicate with the outside world properly and without resorting to propagandistic sabre rattling.

And Austerity is not the evil boogeyman. People need to stop whinging about it. Most of them don't even know what's going on, they just hear "austerity" and remember some news anchorman making a really serious face when talking about it. It's not like Governments suddenly stop investing altogether. Austerity doesn't mean you don't throw money into the economy. It means you stop acting like you have unlimited supplies of money. Which countries don't have, even if they acted like they did in the past.

Also... and this is something people should consider: If you loosen Austerity for the EU, you'll losen it for Germany as well. And we've been making surplusses the past 4 years to our national budget. What do you think would happen if we unleashed the dogs and started really investing like we had unlimited money? Germany would literally explode into a cloud of economic superpower, far surpassing what the southern countries could ever achieve, drowning out their efforts completely.

Why? Because... and this is still the same problem, people love to buy German shit. So before Spain has a plan how they want to be super awesome in something and sell a shitton of that something to everyone else, investing more money won't help them!

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It would benefit every country's domestic production and job creation. They will be allowed to stop cheap German exports and stimulate growth without the Euro and Austerity.

Yeah, no... it'll do nothing of the sort. People will buy German exports, whether they're cheap or expensive. Why? Because countries like Bulgaria produce jack shit. NOthing would change, except Germany would get so goddamn filthy rich, we'd actually have to be ashamed to take your money.

[Crispin]

Nobody would occupy Russia. Russia is a sovereign nation. That you so off-handedly talk about Western nations waltzing into Moscow and dividing the country up in the name of "nuclear disarmament" really shows that some of the paranoia in Russia seems to be legit. You cannot, ever, just walk into Russia and tell them you're going to run things now. Just like you couldn't do it with the Soviet Union. And yes, that idea has been thrown around back then, too. But rightly put to rest as sheer lunacy. Russia will continue to exist with a somewhat stable Government even after Putin. Our hope is that the next dude will be a moderate able to communicate with the outside world properly and without resorting to propagandistic sabre rattling.

And Austerity is not the evil boogeyman. People need to stop whinging about it. Most of them don't even know what's going on, they just hear "austerity" and remember some news anchorman making a really serious face when talking about it. It's not like Governments suddenly stop investing altogether. Austerity doesn't mean you don't throw money into the economy. It means you stop acting like you have unlimited supplies of money. Which countries don't have, even if they acted like they did in the past.

Also... and this is something people should consider: If you loosen Austerity for the EU, you'll losen it for Germany as well. And we've been making surplusses the past 4 years to our national budget. What do you think would happen if we unleashed the dogs and started really investing like we had unlimited money? Germany would literally explode into a cloud of economic superpower, far surpassing what the southern countries could ever achieve, drowning out their efforts completely.

Why? Because... and this is still the same problem, people love to buy German shit. So before Spain has a plan how they want to be super awesome in something and sell a shitton of that something to everyone else, investing more money won't help them!

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Yeah, no... it'll do nothing of the sort. People will buy German exports, whether they're cheap or expensive. Why? Because countries like Bulgaria produce jack shit. NOthing would change, except Germany would get so goddamn filthy rich, we'd actually have to be ashamed to take your money.

Stop making great products, so other nations that make nothing or crap can keep up!

[Mormolyce]

I don't think anyone believed Pence for a second. Including the EU, they pressed him on exactly these points.

The only contradictions are the "three sources".

Sounds familiar...

I don't know why he felt the need to make that video, like everyone hasn't seen Game of Thrones.

Quests to find the leakers will be futile, there are warring factions within the White House and Republican party - there will always be leaks. Shit some of them might be Conway and Bannon themselves.

It's hard to know whether you are believing what you want to believe, or what the liberal media wants you to believe. Either way, gullible comes to mind.

Sure does whenever you post.

[Ravenblade]

Also... and this is something people should consider: If you loosen Austerity for the EU, you'll losen it for Germany as well. And we've been making surplusses the past 4 years to our national budget. What do you think would happen if we unleashed the dogs and started really investing like we had unlimited money? Germany would literally explode into a cloud of economic superpower, far surpassing what the southern countries could ever achieve, drowning out their efforts completely.

It would make things a lot easier if we didn't just pass up on opportunities to use some of that surplus.

[Deianeira]

See, you keep lambasting Trump over things you think he might do or things the media says he might do. Has anyone taken away your voting rights yet? If they do I'll be right there marching with you. Trump is not a politician, we are breaking new ground here. Things may get a little unconventional, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.



How about we give him the 4 years he's entitled to as someone who one an election.



I'm going to say something that may shock you, so I hope you are sitting down:

Not everyone cares about progressive left wing issues. I care about my bank balance so I can pay my mortgage and send my special needs daughter to school. I don't believe or care about AGW, your gay neighbour or an alt right chief of staff. Obviously there are a lot of people currently in the US just like me because Trump won.

Progressives have just had 8 Obama years of socialist feel good uselessness. Give Trump a chance.

lmao that must be the most asinine comment ever said on the internet. If as you say the "other side" would have given Obama "a chance" i probably would have agreed with you. But they didnt do that, they fought him every step of the way and attacked every thing he wanted to do so why should the libs do it for Trump?

[Slant]

Stop making great products, so other nations that make nothing or crap can keep up!

Our plan is to produce our stuff in their countries. That's why we bought Seat and Skoda. :P Italy builds fine cars on their own, and their leatherware and clothing has world wide renown. Spanish wine is almost as famous as French wine these days, and they are building the Airbus A400M in Spain. Let's ignore the faults for now, it's still a good thing for their aircraft industry. We still need to figure out what to do about Greece, but the main thing is... they need a thing. Something they're good at.

Another solution would be to have something akin to our national (loosely translated) state-equalisation-compensation... basically, the richer states in Germany pay off the poorer states to help with their budget. Reason being, an area like NRW (the industrial area in the West around Dortmund) is producing a shitton of high tech and naturally have way more money than, for example, Brandenburg, which is essentially an agricultural state with little production and little means of making money. The flip side is, to do this fairly and equally, you'd need to put fiscal power into the hands of the EU. Yep, that's what I mean. Have EU wide tax legislation and most importantly, have tax collected on an EU level, with EU tax collectors going through the countries and making sure everyone pays up.

Once you do that, you can redistribute and have Germany pay off Greece just because Germany happens to be geographically advantaged over Greece. I'm fairly certain we would agree to something like this under reasonable circumstances. But, everyone has to agree to give up national power for this. And that's why it's not on the table, yet. It should be, however. It's the only long term solution for the north/south divide that doesn't involve a magic trick of making the southern states sell something they don't have, superior products (except Italy and luxury products with low economic impact like super cars).

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It would make things a lot easier if we didn't just pass up on opportunities to use some of that surplus.

Can't read the article. But spending that money wouldn't help Greece. It would only make us stronger, leading to more surplusses.

[Ravenblade]

[...]
Can't read the article. But spending that money wouldn't help Greece. It would only make us stronger, leading to more surplusses.

Just click pay later (trust me it's free to read until you hit 5 €) Anyways, the goal isn't to make us weaker but to increase investment incentives.

This graphics speaks volumes:



I might also add that in a low-birth country like Germany it is a bit difficult to raise purchasing power and have it being reflected by increased adequate private spending. Usually the older people get the less likely they are going to spend rather save some more. Hence why every cent in domestic investment programmes count. That money unspent on broadband infrastructure? That's money spent on incentives to grow domestic economy in regions which are a bit weaker than the rest of the Republic. Information technology is growth.

In a way it does help Greece but not in a real direct way. Let me put it this way: everything is in a way connected. Germans not going to Turkey this year caused a massive boom to Spain's tourism industry. What I am trying to say is that Germany is in a position to help Greece and it wouldn't even hurt them, the problem in Greece was mainly caused by how Eurozone banks made use of the fact how Greece cooked the books. They are in this as well - a practice they even themselves admitted. However instead of just diverting annual tranches of money to pay banks we could kind of naturally contribute a little. Buying their products, going there to vacations etc.