'The truth is that the United States is an imperial power. Generally speaking, it does not give foreign nations free rides and it does not hand out unearned favours.'
Hey, I'm an American and I have no doubt this is true. For decades we've known about nefarious behavior by our intelligence services and government.
We've acted like the Sheriff of Nottingham pretending to be Robin Hood.
End of possibly premature comment. I will now continue reading past paragraph number two ;)
Empire is expensive and maintaining it requires a trade-off. Europe does the political bidding of the US, and the US subsidizes Europe economically. As US citizens, we are not involved in the imperial machinations, so we see no benefit for ourselves. On the other hand, we feel the economic costs directly. Empire is great for those running the empire. For the rest of us - not so much.
That’s part of what a trade deficit means – dollars get created, they trickle down from favoured parties in the US (see Cantillon Effect https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/biflation.asp) through much of the US economy and finally we get them and send you stuff in exchange.
Then the dollars we received largely get put back into US investments, creating demand for t-bills giving USG good lending conditions and contributing to the US equities permabubble creating so much boomer consumer confidence.
Other dollars get used to purchase energy, which is another subsidy to the US even if bought elsewhere because that also helps sterilise US inflation by recycling it back into US asset markets through various golf potentates.
Now I agree that this is not necessarily good for most Americans – it helps you get more stuff, of which a lot tends to stick to the top of the hierarchy anyway but in any case creates a Wall-E world of atrophied industry, and tremendous anomie in former working, now welfare classes devoid of the meaning that objectively productive employment delivers.
So tariffs are probably good for the US in that they restore industry both in the economic sense and in the sense of the inner virtue, but it will almost per definition give you somewhat less average wealth in the sense of “access to stuff”, and probably less in the median as well.
You could make the case that Europe subsidizes the US because the US trades IOUs for physical products and services. Those products and services have only a limited lifetime or are disposable. Treasury Bills are not. Right now, our ever-growing debt is our liability and your asset. But when the bill comes due, and it will, and the US either fully or partially defaults, that asset will now become your liability. GAE has bankrupted us as surely as The Empire bankrupted the British, and it happened fast. In 1945 the US was the wealthiest nation in the world, with over 50% of the world's industrial capacity and the world's largest gold reserves. In less than 30 years we ended Bretton Woods and left the gold standard because France wanted to be paid. Our "access to stuff" has been financed on credit, and Europe is just one of many creditors. If we are forced to start making stuff ourselves, we will experience the real cost of this "stuff" without the Imperial subsidy.
The two are not mutually exclusive. The bankers were happy to operate under the fiction of Bretton Woods as long as no one called their bluff. When De Gaul wanted his payment in gold, the jig was up. Nixon declared a "temporary fiscal emergency" which is still ongoing. The government accepted fiat money because they wanted GAE - that was the price. What happened to all of our gold? It's doubtful that there is any left in Fort Knox. It's a simple scam to "borrow" gold from other parties to fill Ft. Knox before audit, then return it once the audit is finished. These changes are initiated gradually so as not to cause panic. Next will be debt monetization. BTW, I've read Rothbard and Griffin.
I never suggested they were not mutually exclusive.
I was politely pointing out that France was not the main reason.
In fact, in the scheme of things..it had very little to do with the main "game" which was economic destruction with fiat via endless was and devaluing the $.The gold games your talking about are also minor..the game is built around fiat...
Read The Fiat Standard Saifedean Ammous...it is light years ahead of Rothbard and Griffith..,.,.peace
That is one justification given for globalisation which has shredded manufacturing in Britain leaving millions with no prospect of a decent, satisfying, adequately paid job.
It has left us unable to provide for ourselves. In its place we have huge deficits and unbearable interest costs, quite apart from the impossibility of repaying the loans.
Globalisation has been used as a vehicle to trade people. Politicians have made all sorts of claims why that was a good idea for us but most people must now realise it was to cement in office the elites.
If Eugyppius wants us to believe that Germany has lost out financially from the arrangements he describes then I disagree. Germany abused markets through monopolising strategies and currency manipulation. If Germans did not understand what their post war elites were doing then shame on them. The Euro was one of the main tools in recent years but the achievement has been undone by green over reach.
> The real problem is; what are we going to do about it?
I believe the current meme is "cope and seethe".
Or pick up our guns, go become "Real Americans (TM)" and start shooting the motherfuckers who are driving this shit. I say this as... someone who wants to advocate this, but also recognizes not having enough balls to go do it.
Good point. Everybody knows this, all of us talk / write about it, but in reality, what can anybody do? The only end is America will self-destruct financially. That will re-set the system, to who knows what new system.
That's s right. And when the reset happens, which countries will come out ahead? Those that have manufacturing infrastructure. Those relying on financial income are toast. That's why I support tariffs and any attempt to move manufacturing back to the US.
As an American, I'd bet it doesn't feel to most of us like the US is an imperial power. Especially since the last couple of decades of our Fearless Leaders being so corrupt and floundering -- from in here, it looks like we must be a joke, falling apart at the seams, having no idea what to do. The Biden years were a particular hellhole. I had some slight hope that Trump might make a difference, but now I'm thinking it's just the same thing in a new guise. Floundering. Corrupt. Same old, same old.
That’s just what being a non-elite in an imperial power is all about. Ask Roman plebeians how much good Rome’s control of the known world did for them, or what British working/middle classes gained from the spoils of empire (and that’s even before the backwash came in after its end).
Rome expanded because they had a Ponzi scheme going on. The new lands and wealth they seized paid for pensions and slaves already accrued. The bigger they grew, the more bureaucrats there were to support.
I don't want to seem overly argumentative, but the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic, & before that the Roman Kingdom expanded because of military successes. The military campaigns and indeed the Roman state per se were supported by plunder and tribute. The plebes in the field armies needed to plunder cities to be paid well and sometimes complained if too many cities were allowed to surrender. Stagnation and decline began when the field armies were staffed with mercenaries, people in subject jurisdictions were made citizens (exempt from taxation), and civil war and palace coups took the place of voting.
None of that has any but the remotest relation to the American "empire".
I couldn’t agree more. Now do Persian, British, Spanish, and USSR Empires. All a thin comparison to USA. I suspect we are simply lacking a more definitive term in English for what the US has been up to.
I try not to listen to Trump or Pelosi or any of them. It’s the actions which count. Domestically I’m happy with closed borders and deportation of gang bangers. I’d like less foreign policy.
I agree! The US has been doing a lot of bullying for a long time, doesn't have the dignity of what I'd consider an imperial power. But maybe I'm misconstruing the word "imperial" here.
Yep, Disney makes dignified imperialism, but IRL -- not so much. I was kind of surprised when I realized that my personal definition of "imperial" includes some sort of dignity, when clearly in the ordinary world it includes no such thing!
Nice take on current events, particularly in contrast to recent history. As far as I’m concerned, I’d much prefer the US quit butting into everyone else’s business (as well as exporting degeneracy and McDonald’s) around the world. We’ve got plenty of our own damned problems to deal with.
I agree with your concise description of how the US treated Germany in the past, clipping her wings so that she couldn’t fly. However, as you also mentioned, many of the thousands of paper cuts were also self-inflicted by Germany and their socialist policies. I’m not sure that Trump actually just wants money from Germany right now (I mean sure he wants money, but lol), I see him being good friends with Abe (before his untimely death) and Farrage from the REform party in the UK.Maybe Trump is inpatient and wants Germany to get a strong leader that unshackles them from the EU bureaucracy so they can embrace innovation and manufacturing again. I think he’s thinking of his youth when Germany had traditional industries and he also wants the same for America. He desperately wants allies, real allies, to help him push back on China. However, there is no clear cut exit ramp for Germany from their present course of punishing self-effacement because the political structure forces parties to make horrible sacrifices in order to get majorities (see effete Merz).
Take up the mantle that belongs to you guys. Trump supporters are largely tired of the U.S. mucking about in the internal affairs of other countries and we have no desire to be an "empire." We are not isolationists. That game is for the globalist and elitist dipsticks who dream of such things and have repeatedly demonstrated to us how bad they are at the job. Typical working stiff Americans who comprise Trump's base? We do not seek to be the world's cop, the benevolent, mettlesome interventionist every time some problem arises in the world. So we have bigger headaches to deal with of our making and an emerging national security threat on the other side of the Pacific. The EU needs to tend to her own backyard and that includes helming NATO.
> The EU needs to tend to her own backyard and that includes helming NATO.
I've been saying this since about 1995, I wanna say.
"Wait a minute... shouldn't we have put up a huge 'MISSION ACCOMPLISHED' banner back in like, '92, and handed the keys to NATO over to Europe?"
I understand why it *didn't* happen, given the MIC, but it really *should* have. But it's easy to buy Congress with lobbyist money that originates as tax dollars in the first place.
'We have had a nearly incalculable gift in the form of 80 years of peace, which may yet be offset by the equally incalculable costs of the lunacies this peace has encouraged.'
This observation gives me the excuse to drag in my pet social theory of human nature: In any population, there is a not-insignificant proportion that falls somewhere on the sociopathic scale, going all the way up to pure psychopaths. These are very skilled at working for their own benefit and have no interest in, or empathy for, others. Thanks largely to these elements, *every* attempt at creating a hierarchical, economic, or governing structure will end up being gamed for their benefit.
I think you mean "bell curve of sympathy". Empathy is a big advantage for those who would take advantage of folks who assume honesty and good intentions. Ref studies of "machiavellian personality".
There’s cognitive empathy (understanding others’ emotions) and emotional empathy (caring about others). Autistics lack the former; psychopaths lack the latter.
“Bell curve of sensitivity” is better, but I wasn’t sure people would catch my drift if I said that.
I don’t know if you peruse Peter Zeihan. His take is we made a (tacit) post-war deal: the U.S. patrols the oceans to guarantee generally free trade to everyone at the cost of helping man the barricades against the Soviets.
That raison d’etre fell down in 1992, and its proponents (military-industrialist, globalists, American Imperialists, Europeanists) have been looking for an alternative justification ever since. The general populist U.S. sentiment is isolationist, and sees continued spending to maintain Cold War level defenses as burdensome to the point of revolution-inducing. Meanwhile, the Europeans currently seem hell-bent on rekindling all-out superpower conflict to maintain their freedom to indulge their welfare-state, migrationist self-flagellation.
And the Chinese have been making out like bandits.
eugy, I just opened this and read the first paragraph. It’s 09:45 in the Mountain Time Zone and I have work to get done today, but I am SO EXCITED to read this piece tonight! I so appreciate your perspective from the other side of the pond. You are such a breath of fresh German air!
You more or less capture the whole thing correctly. The stressor on the system is the american debt spiral, which is accelerating exponentially - particularly under biden. Trumps people can do math and are trying to reset the current system so that it has an additional functionality of serving not just the US economy but also the US debt
It is absolutely a tribute system and the justifications are several such as the trope of the European freeloader. Fair enough. But this is 100% a protection racket now, mafia style. The bitter medicine the US economy needs is digestible, that is not the problem. It is the GAE that is utterly unsustainable but at the same time irresistible.
We are on the way to an epic climax and its going to go very, very badly, no matter how you want to look at it
Today’s post is simply too much fun. I did think at one point (in the Schmidt era) that Germany was going to take a more positive role in European affairs (repressing Communists in Italy and Portugal, intermediate-range missiles) but that sure came off the rails. The USA would be better served by true allies not subject cats to be herded into compliance. Indigenous Europeans should be alarmed that no less a figure than JD Vance is taking it as a given that someday day the continent will be Islamized.
An astute analysis of the situation. Russia must be allowed to win the Ukraine War, stabilize, neutralize, and disarm the place, and demonstrate an intention to restore normal relations with the rest of Europe. And Europe must demonstrate it is capable of not being crazy and stupid.
At the risk of arrogantly telling a European about his own situation:
> The Americans and the British before them expended enormous effort to preempt the emergence of a dominant power on the European Continent that might challenge their successive naval empires. They fought two world wars to stop Germany from becoming just such a power. This great struggle ended in 1945 with Western Europe as a fully subjugated imperial province. Since then, the Americans have coordinated the NATO alliance and guaranteed the security of European countries not out of charity, but because Europe is their provincial possession. As a rule, they have not wanted Europe to assume full responsibility for its own defence, because a world in which America no longer guarantees the security of Europe is a world in which Europe is no longer an American province. It’s that simple.
You are 100% correct, and I also rankle at the quote 'low-resolution' MAGA bitching about it. It is absolutely 100% true that Europe 'enjoys' more generous social welfare services than they otherwise could afford if America wasn't 'defending' them. But, as you say, America chose this, and imposed it. Maybe now, 80 years into this state of affairs, the European establishment likes it this way, but of course they do; if they didn't, they would have already been replaced, by the GAE(*), by ones who did. But either way, it is just fundamentally wrong for Americans to blame Europe for this. For that matter, it's not even clear to me that Europe is getting the better deal out of this; +/- I might be underestimating the risk of an inter-Europe World War 3, it seems like Europeans would be better off if they didn't have to take this deal.
But, that's the thing. They aren't choosing the deal. They are being made to take it, by America. For Americans to turn around and get mad at Europe for doing what America made them do at literal gunpoint, is the archetypal example of why everyone outside of America hates America.
----
(*) GAE = Global American Empire. Because it's so gae.
Man is intrinsically sinful, (I.e. selfish, proud, lustful), and as long as that’s the case, no matter how good it gets, he’s gonna find a way to ruin it for himself and eventually pretty much everyone else.
‘Tis the nature of the beast, and the unfortunate state of our human affairs: the eternal battle of good vs. evil.
Great insights. Trump is definitely acting like a powerful ruling king of the past trying to force countries into doing what he wants using tariffs as his bargaining chip. Yup pretty king like, some countries buckled some didn’t, but I agree with him in that I also feel our biggest threat is from China due to their generations long mission to turn the entire western world Communist like they are.
Mass immigration to replace us in all our countries is a reality and boy oh boy is there a war going on against Christianity to be replaced with Islam! No thank you, I’m good.
'The truth is that the United States is an imperial power. Generally speaking, it does not give foreign nations free rides and it does not hand out unearned favours.'
Hey, I'm an American and I have no doubt this is true. For decades we've known about nefarious behavior by our intelligence services and government.
We've acted like the Sheriff of Nottingham pretending to be Robin Hood.
End of possibly premature comment. I will now continue reading past paragraph number two ;)
Empire is expensive and maintaining it requires a trade-off. Europe does the political bidding of the US, and the US subsidizes Europe economically. As US citizens, we are not involved in the imperial machinations, so we see no benefit for ourselves. On the other hand, we feel the economic costs directly. Empire is great for those running the empire. For the rest of us - not so much.
In fact Europe subsidises the US economically.
That’s part of what a trade deficit means – dollars get created, they trickle down from favoured parties in the US (see Cantillon Effect https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/biflation.asp) through much of the US economy and finally we get them and send you stuff in exchange.
Then the dollars we received largely get put back into US investments, creating demand for t-bills giving USG good lending conditions and contributing to the US equities permabubble creating so much boomer consumer confidence.
Other dollars get used to purchase energy, which is another subsidy to the US even if bought elsewhere because that also helps sterilise US inflation by recycling it back into US asset markets through various golf potentates.
Now I agree that this is not necessarily good for most Americans – it helps you get more stuff, of which a lot tends to stick to the top of the hierarchy anyway but in any case creates a Wall-E world of atrophied industry, and tremendous anomie in former working, now welfare classes devoid of the meaning that objectively productive employment delivers.
So tariffs are probably good for the US in that they restore industry both in the economic sense and in the sense of the inner virtue, but it will almost per definition give you somewhat less average wealth in the sense of “access to stuff”, and probably less in the median as well.
You could make the case that Europe subsidizes the US because the US trades IOUs for physical products and services. Those products and services have only a limited lifetime or are disposable. Treasury Bills are not. Right now, our ever-growing debt is our liability and your asset. But when the bill comes due, and it will, and the US either fully or partially defaults, that asset will now become your liability. GAE has bankrupted us as surely as The Empire bankrupted the British, and it happened fast. In 1945 the US was the wealthiest nation in the world, with over 50% of the world's industrial capacity and the world's largest gold reserves. In less than 30 years we ended Bretton Woods and left the gold standard because France wanted to be paid. Our "access to stuff" has been financed on credit, and Europe is just one of many creditors. If we are forced to start making stuff ourselves, we will experience the real cost of this "stuff" without the Imperial subsidy.
"..left the gold standard because France wanted to be paid.."
Lol...
The US left the gold standard so the Govt(like all western govts) could "print" unlimited fiat money to finance war and fiscal madness...forever..
The Fiat Standard Saifedean Ammous
The Mystery of Banking Murray Rothbard
The Creature from Jekyll Island G. Edward Griffin
The two are not mutually exclusive. The bankers were happy to operate under the fiction of Bretton Woods as long as no one called their bluff. When De Gaul wanted his payment in gold, the jig was up. Nixon declared a "temporary fiscal emergency" which is still ongoing. The government accepted fiat money because they wanted GAE - that was the price. What happened to all of our gold? It's doubtful that there is any left in Fort Knox. It's a simple scam to "borrow" gold from other parties to fill Ft. Knox before audit, then return it once the audit is finished. These changes are initiated gradually so as not to cause panic. Next will be debt monetization. BTW, I've read Rothbard and Griffin.
I never suggested they were not mutually exclusive.
I was politely pointing out that France was not the main reason.
In fact, in the scheme of things..it had very little to do with the main "game" which was economic destruction with fiat via endless was and devaluing the $.The gold games your talking about are also minor..the game is built around fiat...
Read The Fiat Standard Saifedean Ammous...it is light years ahead of Rothbard and Griffith..,.,.peace
That is one justification given for globalisation which has shredded manufacturing in Britain leaving millions with no prospect of a decent, satisfying, adequately paid job.
It has left us unable to provide for ourselves. In its place we have huge deficits and unbearable interest costs, quite apart from the impossibility of repaying the loans.
Globalisation has been used as a vehicle to trade people. Politicians have made all sorts of claims why that was a good idea for us but most people must now realise it was to cement in office the elites.
If Eugyppius wants us to believe that Germany has lost out financially from the arrangements he describes then I disagree. Germany abused markets through monopolising strategies and currency manipulation. If Germans did not understand what their post war elites were doing then shame on them. The Euro was one of the main tools in recent years but the achievement has been undone by green over reach.
Agreed and I just said more or less the same.,
Yes, I think most intelligent peo0le know this. The real problem is; what are we going to do about it?
> The real problem is; what are we going to do about it?
I believe the current meme is "cope and seethe".
Or pick up our guns, go become "Real Americans (TM)" and start shooting the motherfuckers who are driving this shit. I say this as... someone who wants to advocate this, but also recognizes not having enough balls to go do it.
So I guess I'm back to "cope and seethe".
Good point. Everybody knows this, all of us talk / write about it, but in reality, what can anybody do? The only end is America will self-destruct financially. That will re-set the system, to who knows what new system.
That's s right. And when the reset happens, which countries will come out ahead? Those that have manufacturing infrastructure. Those relying on financial income are toast. That's why I support tariffs and any attempt to move manufacturing back to the US.
As an American, I'd bet it doesn't feel to most of us like the US is an imperial power. Especially since the last couple of decades of our Fearless Leaders being so corrupt and floundering -- from in here, it looks like we must be a joke, falling apart at the seams, having no idea what to do. The Biden years were a particular hellhole. I had some slight hope that Trump might make a difference, but now I'm thinking it's just the same thing in a new guise. Floundering. Corrupt. Same old, same old.
That’s just what being a non-elite in an imperial power is all about. Ask Roman plebeians how much good Rome’s control of the known world did for them, or what British working/middle classes gained from the spoils of empire (and that’s even before the backwash came in after its end).
Rome expanded because they had a Ponzi scheme going on. The new lands and wealth they seized paid for pensions and slaves already accrued. The bigger they grew, the more bureaucrats there were to support.
Ponzi scheme pensions, dependency on cheap foreign labour, hypertrophied bureaucracy. Crazy how things worked back then.
Yeah... "back then"... *cough*
I don't want to seem overly argumentative, but the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic, & before that the Roman Kingdom expanded because of military successes. The military campaigns and indeed the Roman state per se were supported by plunder and tribute. The plebes in the field armies needed to plunder cities to be paid well and sometimes complained if too many cities were allowed to surrender. Stagnation and decline began when the field armies were staffed with mercenaries, people in subject jurisdictions were made citizens (exempt from taxation), and civil war and palace coups took the place of voting.
None of that has any but the remotest relation to the American "empire".
I couldn’t agree more. Now do Persian, British, Spanish, and USSR Empires. All a thin comparison to USA. I suspect we are simply lacking a more definitive term in English for what the US has been up to.
Good point!
I try not to listen to Trump or Pelosi or any of them. It’s the actions which count. Domestically I’m happy with closed borders and deportation of gang bangers. I’d like less foreign policy.
It takes more than one man and some groupies to change fundamentals, especially when you have many active combatants opposed.
I can't speak for "most of us" but I've long felt we acted like a global bully.
I agree! The US has been doing a lot of bullying for a long time, doesn't have the dignity of what I'd consider an imperial power. But maybe I'm misconstruing the word "imperial" here.
“Imperial” and “dignity” only go together in Disney Films.
Unless you feel that monarchical, “Off with their heads!” is dignified. Perhaps when stated with a cuppa and raised pinky finger. 😂😂😂
Yep, Disney makes dignified imperialism, but IRL -- not so much. I was kind of surprised when I realized that my personal definition of "imperial" includes some sort of dignity, when clearly in the ordinary world it includes no such thing!
I subscribe to the Malo as well.
I like Matt Taibi (and James Lindsay too.) We’re sistas I think.
My chickens like clowns they said.
❤️❤️❤️
Nice take on current events, particularly in contrast to recent history. As far as I’m concerned, I’d much prefer the US quit butting into everyone else’s business (as well as exporting degeneracy and McDonald’s) around the world. We’ve got plenty of our own damned problems to deal with.
I agree with your concise description of how the US treated Germany in the past, clipping her wings so that she couldn’t fly. However, as you also mentioned, many of the thousands of paper cuts were also self-inflicted by Germany and their socialist policies. I’m not sure that Trump actually just wants money from Germany right now (I mean sure he wants money, but lol), I see him being good friends with Abe (before his untimely death) and Farrage from the REform party in the UK.Maybe Trump is inpatient and wants Germany to get a strong leader that unshackles them from the EU bureaucracy so they can embrace innovation and manufacturing again. I think he’s thinking of his youth when Germany had traditional industries and he also wants the same for America. He desperately wants allies, real allies, to help him push back on China. However, there is no clear cut exit ramp for Germany from their present course of punishing self-effacement because the political structure forces parties to make horrible sacrifices in order to get majorities (see effete Merz).
Take up the mantle that belongs to you guys. Trump supporters are largely tired of the U.S. mucking about in the internal affairs of other countries and we have no desire to be an "empire." We are not isolationists. That game is for the globalist and elitist dipsticks who dream of such things and have repeatedly demonstrated to us how bad they are at the job. Typical working stiff Americans who comprise Trump's base? We do not seek to be the world's cop, the benevolent, mettlesome interventionist every time some problem arises in the world. So we have bigger headaches to deal with of our making and an emerging national security threat on the other side of the Pacific. The EU needs to tend to her own backyard and that includes helming NATO.
> The EU needs to tend to her own backyard and that includes helming NATO.
I've been saying this since about 1995, I wanna say.
"Wait a minute... shouldn't we have put up a huge 'MISSION ACCOMPLISHED' banner back in like, '92, and handed the keys to NATO over to Europe?"
I understand why it *didn't* happen, given the MIC, but it really *should* have. But it's easy to buy Congress with lobbyist money that originates as tax dollars in the first place.
Yes, the day after the USSR collapsed, all of the US-led institutions set up to counteract the USSR also should have closed up shop.
'We have had a nearly incalculable gift in the form of 80 years of peace, which may yet be offset by the equally incalculable costs of the lunacies this peace has encouraged.'
This observation gives me the excuse to drag in my pet social theory of human nature: In any population, there is a not-insignificant proportion that falls somewhere on the sociopathic scale, going all the way up to pure psychopaths. These are very skilled at working for their own benefit and have no interest in, or empathy for, others. Thanks largely to these elements, *every* attempt at creating a hierarchical, economic, or governing structure will end up being gamed for their benefit.
This is why we can't have nice things.
They're just the bottom of the bell curve of empathy; the moral equivalent of mentally retarded people. They are morally retarded.
The bottom 1% are the worst, but the bottom 5% are not much better. That's one person in twenty out to screw everyone else for their own gain.
morally retarded...I like that.
I think you mean "bell curve of sympathy". Empathy is a big advantage for those who would take advantage of folks who assume honesty and good intentions. Ref studies of "machiavellian personality".
There’s cognitive empathy (understanding others’ emotions) and emotional empathy (caring about others). Autistics lack the former; psychopaths lack the latter.
“Bell curve of sensitivity” is better, but I wasn’t sure people would catch my drift if I said that.
Isn't it strange how enforced peace always results in mass cultural outbreaks of self-flagellation?
I don’t know if you peruse Peter Zeihan. His take is we made a (tacit) post-war deal: the U.S. patrols the oceans to guarantee generally free trade to everyone at the cost of helping man the barricades against the Soviets.
That raison d’etre fell down in 1992, and its proponents (military-industrialist, globalists, American Imperialists, Europeanists) have been looking for an alternative justification ever since. The general populist U.S. sentiment is isolationist, and sees continued spending to maintain Cold War level defenses as burdensome to the point of revolution-inducing. Meanwhile, the Europeans currently seem hell-bent on rekindling all-out superpower conflict to maintain their freedom to indulge their welfare-state, migrationist self-flagellation.
And the Chinese have been making out like bandits.
eugy, I just opened this and read the first paragraph. It’s 09:45 in the Mountain Time Zone and I have work to get done today, but I am SO EXCITED to read this piece tonight! I so appreciate your perspective from the other side of the pond. You are such a breath of fresh German air!
Your admirable self-discipline far exceeds mine.
You more or less capture the whole thing correctly. The stressor on the system is the american debt spiral, which is accelerating exponentially - particularly under biden. Trumps people can do math and are trying to reset the current system so that it has an additional functionality of serving not just the US economy but also the US debt
It is absolutely a tribute system and the justifications are several such as the trope of the European freeloader. Fair enough. But this is 100% a protection racket now, mafia style. The bitter medicine the US economy needs is digestible, that is not the problem. It is the GAE that is utterly unsustainable but at the same time irresistible.
We are on the way to an epic climax and its going to go very, very badly, no matter how you want to look at it
A *noble* sheep, unperturbed by solitude. The faces of all creatures reveal their characters.
I will correct the caption.
You've no idea the degree to which I feel honored by any instance of your regard.
Today’s post is simply too much fun. I did think at one point (in the Schmidt era) that Germany was going to take a more positive role in European affairs (repressing Communists in Italy and Portugal, intermediate-range missiles) but that sure came off the rails. The USA would be better served by true allies not subject cats to be herded into compliance. Indigenous Europeans should be alarmed that no less a figure than JD Vance is taking it as a given that someday day the continent will be Islamized.
An astute analysis of the situation. Russia must be allowed to win the Ukraine War, stabilize, neutralize, and disarm the place, and demonstrate an intention to restore normal relations with the rest of Europe. And Europe must demonstrate it is capable of not being crazy and stupid.
At the risk of arrogantly telling a European about his own situation:
> The Americans and the British before them expended enormous effort to preempt the emergence of a dominant power on the European Continent that might challenge their successive naval empires. They fought two world wars to stop Germany from becoming just such a power. This great struggle ended in 1945 with Western Europe as a fully subjugated imperial province. Since then, the Americans have coordinated the NATO alliance and guaranteed the security of European countries not out of charity, but because Europe is their provincial possession. As a rule, they have not wanted Europe to assume full responsibility for its own defence, because a world in which America no longer guarantees the security of Europe is a world in which Europe is no longer an American province. It’s that simple.
You are 100% correct, and I also rankle at the quote 'low-resolution' MAGA bitching about it. It is absolutely 100% true that Europe 'enjoys' more generous social welfare services than they otherwise could afford if America wasn't 'defending' them. But, as you say, America chose this, and imposed it. Maybe now, 80 years into this state of affairs, the European establishment likes it this way, but of course they do; if they didn't, they would have already been replaced, by the GAE(*), by ones who did. But either way, it is just fundamentally wrong for Americans to blame Europe for this. For that matter, it's not even clear to me that Europe is getting the better deal out of this; +/- I might be underestimating the risk of an inter-Europe World War 3, it seems like Europeans would be better off if they didn't have to take this deal.
But, that's the thing. They aren't choosing the deal. They are being made to take it, by America. For Americans to turn around and get mad at Europe for doing what America made them do at literal gunpoint, is the archetypal example of why everyone outside of America hates America.
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(*) GAE = Global American Empire. Because it's so gae.
Man is intrinsically sinful, (I.e. selfish, proud, lustful), and as long as that’s the case, no matter how good it gets, he’s gonna find a way to ruin it for himself and eventually pretty much everyone else.
‘Tis the nature of the beast, and the unfortunate state of our human affairs: the eternal battle of good vs. evil.
Great insights. Trump is definitely acting like a powerful ruling king of the past trying to force countries into doing what he wants using tariffs as his bargaining chip. Yup pretty king like, some countries buckled some didn’t, but I agree with him in that I also feel our biggest threat is from China due to their generations long mission to turn the entire western world Communist like they are.
Mass immigration to replace us in all our countries is a reality and boy oh boy is there a war going on against Christianity to be replaced with Islam! No thank you, I’m good.
King? I don’t think so. A good negotiator has and knows his leverage and uses it strongly. The other party is free to walk, agree, or haggle.
Power corrupts
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
Not just a bird's-eye view, but a view from orbit. Fascinating and appreciated.