Pax Americana Geriatrica

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Are you sure? The middle aged guys tell the young guys when to go attack stuff I thought.

Yeah, but don't you think that if the Western world is peopled by a whole lot more old, geriatric, geezer-types, they need the young ones around more to change their bedpans and stuff, rather than playing soldier in some Third World country that looks like a moonscape? Perhaps the future imbalance of youngs to olds will make the West realize that its culture of narcissism has been a waste of time and that instead of worrying about such things as global warming, saving the rain forest or gay "marriage," we should have attended to the important things like having and raising our replacements?

Originally posted by Palynka
Who cares? Obama will begin the trend of the US trying to emulate Europeans and their views of a future based on cooperation and market regulation, triumphing over militarism and very little market regulation (well, in their rhetoric, at least).

Much like the Romans tried to emulated Greek culture when they recognized its superiority.

😏

Here's your wake-up call:

Over the last decade, much of Europe has very quietly embraced market-based reforms that draw inspiration from American successes. For example:

* In recent years, many European countries, including Germany, Spain and Britain, have reduced their countries' top corporate tax rates.
* Center-right governments in Greece, Denmark, Ireland and Eastern Europe have also dramatically reduced corporate tax rates.
* In the 1990s, Sweden passed wide ranging pension reforms that include a private account option, which enables workers to put aside up to 2.5 percent of their salary into one or more of nearly 800 competing private-sector accounts.
* In Holland, political parties came together to reform the disability insurance system by cutting benefits and tightening eligibility criteria; today, disability rolls have dropped by almost 20 percent since 2002.

European politicians now recognize that the energy and innovation of market actors can better produce wealth than traditional social democratic economic theory, says Henry Olson, vice president of the American Enterprise Institute and director of its National Research Initiative.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Over the last decade, much of Europe has very quietly embraced market-based reforms that draw inspiration from American successes.
European politicians now recognize that the energy and innovation of market actors can better produce wealth than traditional social democratic economic theory

Like most things the truth of it will be somewhere in the middle with the US and the EU both converging to the same point at some not too far distant future. The thing about hegemony is that the nations who are in comppetition with the market leader tend to impliment adaptive and emulative strategies and becuase they are hungrier eventually topple the hegemon from its perch. This has happenned to every other hegemon that ever existed so there is no earthly reason why this should not also happen.

Originally posted by shavixmir
Adjiedj Bakas, a right-wing Dutch bastard (as if there weren't enough over here as it is), wrote a book called Mega-trends.

Basing his information on umpteen sources (too many to be bothered mentioning), he came to various conclusions:

1. Western Europe will in the next 30 years become Islamo-Europe
2. Eastern Europe will become the centre of "mode ...[text shortened]... ve started drinking as much beer as possible just in case we do stumble into sharia law...

I do think this Islamic fundamentalism problem in Europe is a serious one. Much of the problem comes from the fact that some Westerners want to promote "multiculturalism" in a way that opens the door to conservative Muslim immigrants bringing in their own intolerant values unchecked. Apparently there's a book on this called "While Europe Slept", by an author who'd previously written a book on fundamentalist Christianity in the US, and then moved to Europe and found that Europe is in danger from the even worse threat of Islamic fundamentalism.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Is arrogance worse than actual abuse? I'm not sure what you mean by "manipulations of the military-industrial complex." Do you mean, as in creating a climate of hysteria to sell weapons to client states?

That can happen, sure, but it's not the most central thing I was talking about. The military-industrial complex brought Reagan to power, and have tried to stack the deck in favor of the Republicans ever since then. The bizarre way that national security issues get processed to favor the Republicans is at least partially a result of military-industrial complex manipulation. One example of this was when a number of swing voters bought the lies that the Swift Boat Veterans told about Kerry's military service.

I think the military-industrial complex (by which I mean, some kind of clandestine network operating within the corporations concerned) are responsible for a number of things, including probably the assassination of MLK, JFK and his brother, and trying to frame scandals on the Clintons, such as the murder of Vince Foster. They really wanted the Republicans to have a monopoly on the presidency, and the Clinton presidency was a rude interruption to their agenda.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
Here's your wake-up call:

Over the last decade, much of Europe has very quietly embraced market-based reforms that draw inspiration from American successes. For example:

* In recent years, many European countries, including Germany, Spain and Britain, have reduced their countries' top corporate tax rates.
* Center-right governmen ...[text shortened]... esident of the American Enterprise Institute and director of its National Research Initiative.

The EU has indeed woken up and moved to the middle for some time now. We have learned to recognize that the market is a powerful tool, but we have never stopped believing that it needs to be handled with care. Hence the importance of regulation (not full control) that I've mentioned.

And what are you waiting for to wake up?

Edit - Of course, 'we' is just a figure of speech. We didn't yet evolve to a hive-mind type of species. Really.