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Comment by regularjack | Hacker News Reader

Reading the comments here, and on previous EU-related threads, I can't understand the anti-EU sentiment on HN.

Despite its flaws, which it surely has, I can't see the EU as anything but a major success of humanity. A force for cooperation between peoples with vastly different cultures, languages and historical backgrounds, working together towards a better future.

For those critical of the EU, please comment here on what you suggest as an alternative. Are the countries supposed to split up and go back to competing with each other in an increasingly harsher global market? How on earth are the small EU countries supposed to compete?

Maybe you'll say that the EU is great for small countries and not so much for larger ones, who are sponsoring the EU's success with their citizens tax money. Maybe that is true so, as a citizen of one of those small countries, I am thankful to my fellow EU-tizens who are better-off, for quite literally bringing my country into the world stage, with the increases in quality of life that that entails.

I welcome my fellow Croatian citizens to Shenghen and the Euro, I hope to get to meet some of you next time I visit your country, or vice-versa. Long live the EU, one of humanity's greatest achievements.

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I think the largest issues with the EU is that it is fundamentally flawed for one main reason: all these countries are tied to the hip to each other due to the currency and singe market, but cannot control the others economies or spending. It's like splitting bills with your unemployed brother in law.

For a common central bank and currency union, each country de facto has to give into a federalism of central debt issuance and budgetary powers. We have this in the United States: the federal government can run a deficit and print money, individual states cannot. We have a republic and California (most populous state) gets more representation than Wyoming (least populous).

For the EU to work long term, every country is going to have to give up more and more power / fiscal autonomy to Brussels each year for the currency to work. What happened when Greece was going to default on its debt? Germany stepped in, bailed them out, and started stealing their assets (airports, ports) because they weren't going to let the currency tank. Granted, Greece has some issues but whether they like it or not Greece defaulting on their debt affects the whole currency block. Greece issued its own debt.

The reality of the eurozone is that it has made rich countries exports cheaper (Germany, France) and made marginal countries poorer (Italy, Spain, Portugal).

If you grew up in Croatia speaking Croat and possibly English, do you really think the Greek labor market is open to you? Could you in all practicality relocate to Belgium and start a business?

Anti globalism sentiments are in every country these days. I personally don't see euro countries giving any more power to the European Commission, and I see the project ultimately failing.

My 2 cents. I don't have a dog in this race, and don't really think the EU is "good" or "bad."

> The reality of the eurozone is that it has made rich countries exports cheaper (Germany, France) and made marginal countries poorer (Italy, Spain, Portugal)

Italy is not a marginal country. It's the world's 8th largest economy, way larger than such EU heavyweights as Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland.

> If you grew up in Croatia speaking Croat and possibly English, do you really think the Greek labor market is open to you? Could you in all practicality relocate to Belgium and start a business?

If you grew up in Croatia, you for sure speak English and possibly German or Italian as well.

It would not be as easy to relocate your business as, perhaps from one US state to another, but that's mostly because of local law differences in how a business must operate.

I know people who basically just got up and moved (to the Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland and Germany) and they had no problem whatsoever.

> Italy is not a marginal country. It's the world's 8th largest, way larger than such EU heavyweights as Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland.

Same applies to Spain

Edited to add as I can't reply: I know of multiple tradespeople that have moved from Zagreb, mostly to Germany and Austria. That's plumbers, house painters, HVAC installers, ..

The difference in wages is large and unemployment in rich EU countries low - that's a potent combination.

I did just that, I have friends trying to do it and it's complete BS.

I was able to do it just because I'm in software and I work with english speaking clients outside the EU and I'm just shopping for the best eu country that gives me the best weather / services / lifestyle with the lower taxes.

People outside of software have a hard time and are stuck in their country, exactly like they were before the EU.

> People outside of software have a hard time and are stuck in their country, exactly like they were before the EU.

Not really. It's very popular for Croats to move to Ireland to drive trucks for instance. There are businesses set up by Croatians in other EU countries that hire Croats who don't speak any other languages. People get the help of friends and family when they immigrate. It's been like that for many immigrants worldwide for a long time.

I hope people realize I'm not just shutting on the EU with my post. It is legitimately hard to emigrate ANYWHERE, let alone another country that doesn't speak your language and has cultural differences.

Hell, I couldn't live, work, state a business in most of the USA and we all speak the same language and share a lot of the same culture, currency, federal government. Etc.

Which country did you move to, and what was the main impediment?

Your combo sounds like Portugal. I agree there are probably differences between countries, but from what I've seen if your trade is in demand in the target country, it's relatively easy.

And it's even easier if there's an expat community you can reach out to for advice.

> It's like splitting bills with your unemployed brother in law.

I don't think that's a great comparison. It's not just a choice for now, but a multi-generation plan. If we don't share now, we're just going to end up with the possibility of poorer countries getting into more extreme governments as requested by suffering population and eventually waves of refugees.

It's more of a choice of supporting a neighbour in development with the prospect of better trade in the future, or saying "not my problem, let my grandchild deal with the fallout".

So it's better to subsidize the union now, instead of deal with other countries refugees in the future?

As one of the examples, yes. Another one is effectively subsidizing the military of others in the union. There's a reason Russian bombs stop just before Polish border, even though that's just a short distance away from where the logistics for arms delivery is happening.

> Anti globalism sentiments are in every country these days. I personally don't see euro countries giving any more power to the European Commission, and I see the project ultimately failing.

My personal experience is that after brexit a lot of people are more pro-eu than before. Of course it is just anecdata.

Lots of eurosceptic parties toned down their euroscepticism after Brexit (predictably) turned out to be a disaster. Front National in France is one of the most notable examples.

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/turnaround-portuguese-economy...

"Business investment is growing again above the EU average. A strong pipeline of EU co-funded investment projects for the next four years is expected to provide an additional boost to investment. "

https://www.rosalux.eu/es/article/1585.the-economic-evolutio...

" Economic policy was also bolstered by a set of favourable circumstances, including the external depreciation of the euro, the relatively low price of oil, economic growth in the country’s main export destinations, Portugal’s ascent as a tourist destination (partly as a result of the political turmoil and instability in the Middle East) and the ECB’s accommodative monetary policy stance (which helped significantly reduce interest rates and minimise public interest outlay"

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/portugals-econom...

"Gomes also pointed out that the biggest boost Portugal received from Europe’s recovery came via exports, with the continent taking up 75% of the country’s exports of goods and services. "

I can link stuff all day here. Increases in quality of education, massive rises in investment, Lisbon has become (again) a world class capital, and if anything, Portugal is overheated from their EU membership.

I can never get over Portugal being included in this list and it immediately disqualifies for me all subsequent criticism of the EU as badly misguided. I don’t know the other countries on the list nearly as well, my experience with Portugal makes me suspect the entire anti EU argument is a argument in search of data instead of being based on data.

It's more like forcing your unemployed brother in law to always go to the fancy, expensive restaurant you go to with your high flying lawyer friends and then splitting the bill 50/50.

America does fiscal transfers. Poorer states get money from richer states. It wouldnt work if they were all routinely forced to borrow money and declare bankruptcy.

The EU does fiscal transfers too. Its 150 billion EUR budget isn’t anywhere near as large as the US federal one, but it’s definitely used as a tool to level up the poorer member states.

100% true. America subsidizes many states and sectors of the nation. But we are able to do this because there is a common representation.

I'm Swedish and Croatian, I split my time between the two countries. So yeah, in the short term this is great.

But in the long term, any centralization of systems such as the EU, or NATO, is dangerous. Because if you consider that everything in the world is a system, and all systems have flaws, then global systems have global flaws and will be exploited on a global level.

We peasants just don't have the resources to monitor how the plutocrats of the world exploit the world's systems to remain in power over us.

On the other hand, it's not like divided Europe has such a glorious and glamorous history filled with freedom and liberty. To what degree the EU improves on that in the long term (i.e. the next 50-100 years, proper long-term) is an open question, but I'm cautiously hopeful. The EU is a fairly "weak" power and individual member states retain a high degree of autonomy; it would be significantly harder to truly "exploit" the EU in the same way a country's parliament can be corrupted: chances are a significant number of member states would put a halt to it, and/or the EU would simply break up or split.

NATO doesn't really centralize power IMO; it's a very short and straight-forward treaty; the entire thing is 2 or 3 pages of text. NATO countries co-operate of course, but so do many non-NATO countries, and it's decided on a case-by-case basis by the countries themselves. There is no "NATO organisation" that can tell anyone to do anything. In practice, the US is the "leader" of NATO, but even their power is very limited in practice. You may recall that little kerfuffle in Iraq where half of NATO basically told the US to go fuck themselves and their stupid war (leading to hilarities such as "French fries" being rebranded as "freedom fries").

Europe has many prosperous countries that are well managed. It looks like small scale countries (let's say Finland, Estonia) can have better governance. With the right design, EU can be a benefit to all of them without centralizing too much. That's what I hope for. Avoid the inefficiency and corruption of bigger empire-like states, while using the size of the EU to be able to survive in the global market.

You say "centralization" but EU and NATO countries gain massive amounts of power and strength from banding together. Tiny Croatia has no hope of protecting itself militarily or economically compared to being in those institutions.

In each case countries are eager to join because they have so many benefits.

Your claims about plutocrats work in the opposite direction: corruption and influence is worse, and the rule of law is less effective when a country is smaller.

> But in the long term, any centralization of systems such as the EU, or NATO, is dangerous. Because if you consider that everything in the world is a system, and all systems have flaws, then global systems have global flaws and will be exploited on a global level.

I mean things weren't exactly great before the EU and NATO tied Europe together - 10s of millions killed in two world wars in just 30 years.

> We peasants just don't have the resources to monitor how the plutocrats of the world exploit the world's systems to remain in power over us.

This is an understandable concern but on their own small countries struggle to effectively regulate large multinational corporations with revenues comparable to a country's GDP. I fear our only real hope of keeping the plutocrats in check is to band together.

NATO is so dangerous. That's why Finland and Sweden so eager to join it.

Also, the United States works the same way. Only a few states produce most of the taxes that pay for the grifters like Mississippi. But it's good to do it because those people in the poor states wouldn't be able to survive by themselves. Everyone deserves a chance. It's sad the whole world doesn't get the same chance as those in rich big countries and unions.

Just like California doesn't have enough water to support its population so it is a massive water grifter from the Colorado River.

Theoretically, Colorado should charge massive amounts of money for that water.

Every state helps each other out because we're united and grateful for each other!

> Only a few states produce most of the taxes that pay for the grifters like Mississippi.

That is a gross oversimplification of the US. To the point of being essentially untrue.

According to Wikipedia[0] these states supplied >1.5% of federal tax revenues in FY2019:

California-13% New York-9% Texas-8% Florida-6% Illinois-5% Ohio-4% Pennsylvania-4% New Jersey-4% Massachusetts-3% Minnesota-3% Washington-3% Georgia-3% North Carolina-2% Virginia-2% Michigan-2% Maryland-2% Tennessee-2% Missouri-2% Indiana-2% Colorado-2% Connecticut-2%

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

Right, but let’s take California: home of tech companies, Hollywood, big ports, etc.

People in Mississippi are purchasing their products. That money then goes to those companies, employees there, and then the government in taxes. The same goes for Florida and Colorado for vacations, for instance.

They wouldn’t have nearly the same amount of tax revenue if it wasn’t for the other states buying their stuff.

This perfectly describes the Eurozone north/south divide.

these numbers make little sense unless you normalize to per-capita. CA and NY are probably still ahead, but less so. Then factor in people living at or below property line and so on, and after a while, it won't seem so unfair to the poor Californians.

Data is a little old, but it does not appear that CA and New York are really ahead- https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2017/04/17/how...

NY and CA are pretty high on that list, but this is more current, and has them even closer to the top. Given that significant tax policy changes have occurred in the interim specifically intended to raise federal taxes on taxpayers from CA, NY, and similar states, that should be unsurprising.

https://www.moneyrates.com/research-center/federal-income-ta...

> Given that significant tax policy changes have occurred in the interim specifically intended to raise federal taxes on taxpayers from CA, NY, and similar states,

Indeed, residents of these states were underpaying federal income taxes, and the law was changed to remove the loophole.

> Indeed, residents of these states were underpaying federal income taxes

More accurately, federal tax policy was previously neutral on state tax policy, and now it has an active thumb on the scale deliberately attempting to push state tax policy toward that favored by less-successful states.

The link I posted used 2016 data, and the link you posted uses 2017 data. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act mostly impacted 2018 taxes... so I would expect 2018 data to be even more different than the two data sets we have here.

Feel free to provide a substantive description of how it really works.

https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal...

I don't know anything about US states, but we have the same arguments here in the UK.

Living outside London, there's nothing I can do in my daily life that doesn't result in a net transfer of wealth from my self, or from the public domain, into the private sector and therefore into London.

Every private or public interaction I have has been financialised. be that being forced to keep a car, having children in school, getting sick, renting or owning a house.

I could go to toilet in the middle of the park and that would result in net movement of wealth to London and offshore (someone would be sub-contracted to clean the park).

You can't eat money. Those states you call "grifters" provide the food you eat, and the resources you need.

The dollar value of those things isn't high - financial and other services are "expensive", but ultimately useless, they just move money in a circle, but don't do anything to keep people alive and well.

The states that have high GDP typically have healthy food production so I don't really understand your argument.

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/05/25/know-where-your-f...

Really? In an argument about money versus food you're giving me a map denominated in dollars?

Mississippi doesn’t produce your food unless you eat a lot of yams and catfish. They might make your car.

The “federal dependency” metric you linked is extremely misleading, so much so that I cannot seriously believe it is a honest mistake rather than a deliberate deception. Quoting my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33796536

> for example, according to their methodology, a state that collects $1k in taxes per capita, and gets $4k from federal government, while spending $5k per capita, is more dependent on federal government than a state that collects $10k in taxes, gets $10k from feds and spends $20k, which is absurd.

For example, it fully ignores the large transfer of money from the federal government to government employees in Blue eastern seaboard states. The fed is a huge employer in many blue states. See also other methodological criticisms in this thread (e.g., its criteria for dependency is just wrong -- should be absolute Fed dollars spend per capita, but is instead percentage of spend). It also ignores the benefits to higher fed tax-paying states of having the lower-paying states in the union, which are not captured solely in tax flows.

What makes the GP statement untrue? I can imagine that cash flows between the US and states are dissimilar from those between nations that originate from trade - is this your qualm?

These "donor" state analyses are dishonest because they use % of state budget that's from the federal government as a key metric. This metric unfairly penalizes states that run lean governments. Further, most of this federal money is entitlement spending that's following poor citizens, like the impoverished people of the Mississippi Delta, and would accrue to them no matter what state they lived in.

it's dishonest, because it doesn't take account of the massive amounts of wealth going in the opposite direction. People's daily lives have been financialised to an extent that there is always a transfer of wealth in the opposite direction

In other states, those same people might not be so impoverished that they require the same amount of federal money to subsist. Perhaps running a "lean government" might have something to do with that?

Imagine describing states at the bottom of education and public health standards with horrible racial disparities as running “lean” governments.

Are they still at the bottom of the education and health standards after adjusting for income?

Hint: I wouldn't be asking this question if I didn't know the answer.

It's long since been established that pouring money at heatlhcare and education does not do much for improving outcomes. You need to somehow cultivate a culture of less dysfunction and money can't do that by itself. It take a sociopathical kind of dishonesty to sit there and tell us with a straight face that these states would be better if they just paid more taxes and ran higher touch governments. Even in states that want to run that way the ROI of each subsequent dollar is not great and a lot of these poorer states couldn't afford to run their states that way. It would be great if states like West Virginia could run expansive public healthcare programs like states like Massachusetts do but the money just isn't there and desire to run such a program and run it well isn't there either.

Well, the big difference is that the US have explicit transfer payments between states, but Europe originally did not envisage transfer payments between (sovereign) countries.

Now, of course, OCA (optimal currency area) theory predicts that we need 0. different currencies, or otherwise 1. homogeneity (ie similar response to external shocks) - not the case in Europe, or 2. perfectly free factor movement (where factors are basically capital and labour) - not the case in Europe (mostly due to language), or 3. transfer payments.

Given that 1, 2 are not the case, Europe, by entering the EUR (thus foregoing 0) has basically committed to 3 - transfer payments. So, yeah. The rich EU countries now must pay for the poorer ones - that's the long-term consequence of the currency union.

For the hi-tech and finance to function, where the riches come from, there needs to be a whole bunch basic needs met. Without energy, farming, cattling, fishing, mining, timber, transportation, etc, which are seeming cheap in value, there're no hi-tech industry or finance industry. These industries build on top of the foundations.

Mississippi is home to and end of the most important river in the U.S. if not in the world. The Mississippi River is absolutely vital to U.S. economies in the past hundred years and of now. It provides cheap and energy efficient transportation that ships goods and material around the country and to the world. Shipping is the cheapest form of transportation. The River is one of the biggest competitive advantage the U.S. has.

While agree with your point, the Mississippi river ends in Louisiana, not Mississippi.

Under the highly financialised system we have, then it's not really about what Mississippi contributes to the other states, but more about what the other states extract from Mississippi. From their natural resource and from their residents.

> But it's good to do it because those people in the poor states wouldn't be able to survive by themselves.

Mississippi has a higher GDP per capita than Germany or the UK. If it was in the EU it would be one of the rich countries.

This is one of the silliest HN discussions I have ever read. Ten seconds of Googling can demonstate many of these statements are untrue.

<<Mississippi has a higher GDP per capita than Germany or the UK.>>

    Mississippi 42,411 USD
    Germany     50,802 USD
    UK          47,334 USD

Wikipedia claims about $47k for Mississippi in 2022[1].

Figures for UK and Germany seem to vary quite a bit depending on who you ask. One site gives about $45k for 2021 UK[2] with lower projections for 2022 (maybe more about GBP:USD than anything else). The same site gives German GDP per capita[3] around $43k 2021.

I don't have a good explanation for the methodological differences that are producing such different results for the countries.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

[2]: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-per-capita

[3]: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-per-capita

Mississippi > Germany is an exaggeration, but how many people know that almost all U.S. states are wealthier than almost all European countries? Germany (the richest European country) would rank somewhere around 39th as a U.S. state (just below Tennessee and Missouri). In my experience this kind of banal statement of fact is treated with undue incredulity.

Source: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/us-gdp-per-capita-by-state-vs...

Until those grifter states cough west virginia cough keep voting for bad faith actors who systematically dismantle progressive reform and critical infrastructure spending at every opportunity.

German economic sociologist Wolfgang Streeck has written on the issue numerous times and considers the EU is an untenable house of cards that subsidizes poorly performing states and in doing so strong-arms them into capitulation with neoliberal reforms that erode safety nets and lower the standard of living in these countries in an arguably noble goal of elevating GDP and trade in a trickle-down fantasy. by making these countries tangibly worse, they drive immigration to population centers in the north like Germany and contribute to brain-drain and stagnation in the very countries they ostensibly seek to improve.

the alternative is to impose stricter controls on Germany such that it cannot use EU membership as an altruistic cudgel to march the continent into neufeudalist technocratic hell. its my prediction the children of the shengen generation in Croatia will look back on the moment with indifference or scorn.

So which exactly are the countries that are “tangibly worse” after joining the EU?

Let’s look at the past 40 years. Spain and Portugal have obviously gained immensely from membership. Sweden and Finland are better positioned inside the union than Norway which remained outside and became a rule-taker (implements EU law but gets no say). Former Soviet states like Estonia are very happy to be part of the West European community. Etc.

If you say “Greece,” then you’ll have to point to concrete evidence that the country would have somehow fared better outside the EU because it was such a basket case all along.

What about Bulgaria? Population decline, depressing cities except those by the sea. Mediocre airline carrier, surrendered to RyanAir and WizzAir. Talented youngster are taking off getting job in Germany or France. Only recent COVID-induced lockdowns and rise of WfH made some of them to return.

> lower the standard of living in these countries

Where?

> Germany such that it cannot use EU membership

Germany is in a minority position. Not even 20% of the EU population and small member states have larger voting power.

> Maybe you'll say that the EU is great for small countries and not so much for larger ones, who are sponsoring the EU's success with their citizens tax money.

It's not that easy. Germany sponsors quite a lot of EU, however due to Germany's economic position the EU enables a lot of business across Europe with low friction. If Germany still had its own currency it would be too expensive for other countries, not to mention customs and common regulation.

For the citizen however it is mostly noticable by foreign workers migrating here, while going to Spain (Mallorca) or Italy for vacation is easy.

Also, consider the cost (in just economic terms) vs a major war every 30 to 50 years

I am French and I am against the current EU.

The EU was built with the core aim to get Germany and France closer after WWII. This is a glaring success, it is enough to see how the current generation of ~18 yo see the past history of our countries (they do not care, not have any resentment).

The EU today is extremely unevenly distributed and I would seriously love to read why France should pay xMM€ to the EU (what do we gain, exactly, in terms of money).

And then there are countries such as Poland that gets a great net income of money, but has a government that hates the EU. And buys weapons from the US or South Korea. Sorry, but this is for me a leech.

Some countries such as Portugal also were (and still are) net receivers, but do not shit on the hand that brings the money.

I understand common culture and what not, but ultimately we have problems with paying hospitals and doctors so the high level considerations are for another day.

I think EU is missing a balance. Economic and immigration agreements are great I think but EU leadership should be more democratic and EU itself should not be interfering with sovreignity of members and what laws that don't pertain to commece or immigration exist.

The primary benefit of the union is economic. Either it scales back to that state and expand or move to be more like the US with EU countries resembling a state or province.

EU should really focus on its economic power, other things are weakening it. Already both EU and NAFTA are not competing well outside their regional economy, not just with China but with other developing countries hungry for thr euro and dollar so they can be consumers instead of low wage producers only, yet they are being forced to depend on each other instead because EU like the US is interested in politics more than commerce.

The more state-like evolution is also causing economies like Germany and France to dominate and be burdened with many things. A commerce first union would dynamically adjust incentives to allow all members to improve and bear economic burdens more fairly.

Lastly, commercr can't be maintained without military+intel. This means seriously considering booting members friendly to hostiles like Hungary with russia and have a mutual aid agreements like with NATO where members can fight of agressord like russia or china as a united force.

My biggest concern about the EU is that it is too early to judge. The US is a similar experiment but over time we've seen great political and regional divides.

The moment that countries begin to feel EU rules are stepping too far is the moment that things will start to break down. If you avoid the issues of federal overreach that exist in the US and ensure each country fully maintains its own sovereignty then IMO everything will be fine.

When the freedom to disagree goes away, tensions will rise though.

There are mixed views. I think that is healthy and normal. And as ever, hearing dissenting views helps one strengthen their own position.

I'm not sure what the key is here, but maybe it is this.

> Are the countries supposed to split up and go back to competing with each other in an increasingly harsher global market?

countries are still competing with each other inside the trading block, only they have had many of the advantages they used to have available to them - e.g. their currency and central bank, their deficit spending, the ability to control inputs to their economy - taken away.

It's a trade off. It may be right, it may be wrong, but there's a lot of looking at the EU from one perspective only, it's nice to hear other perspectives.

For me, I don't see how a EU that doesn't federalise, i.e. doesn't have a single economic policy, doesn't have a single demos, can survive.

But even then, most of us live in countries that do have a single fiscal policy, a single demos, a freedom of movement of labour, goods, capital etc within our own country; and still it doesn't work without massive compensation to correct the inequalities that it brings. We have domestic governments trying (or most often not trying) and failing to deal with this imbalance even within a country.

I don't see how this will ever be possible at a supernational scale.

The single reason the United States works is a unified monetary policy. With a common currency but no single monetary control, we will see endless replays of Greece 2015. It is fundamentally unfair for countries like Germany to enforce austerity on sovreign nations for their own fiscal issues, without a reciprocal ability to declare bankruptcy or expect financial assitance from a central bank.

but the US doesn't work. It has massive regional inequality, in addition to racial and generational. There is massive household debt. It can't function without massive amounts of undocumented labour. Nearly all economic activity is done in a few cities. Many places are over populated compared to the infrastructure (unaffordable housing prices) and many places have lost all their youth. Most companies are registered in a tax haven state. etc.

It does have a single demos, which is something the EU doesn't currently have. People will accept in some way to see federal money directed (or debt guaranteed) at communities they are geographically distant to, yet feel solidarity with in some way.

I personally feel the demos issue is the key rather than the monetary policy.

“The US doesn’t work” can only be taken as rhetorical. Perhaps you feel it doesn’t “work” well, and certainly you’ve identified serious flaws. But it’s still there ticking along… if it doesn’t work then “work” is just shorthand for “work the way I want” which isn’t particularly interesting or useful.

Separately, I’m not sure that US folks are actually any better at accepting the distribution of their taxes far afield than anyone else but I suppose that could make sense.

it wasn't necessarily meant as criticism of US, but more trying to point to issues that are relevant in the EU as it is now, or as it will be.

it is true that 'does / doesn't work' is subjective.

The great success of the EU is that it has stopped the member countries from going to war with each other. Apart from that it is an expensive, overreaching institute of busybodies with very little democratic control.

Some of the policies the EU pushes are good, some are bad. But the people have no say either way.

> The great success of the EU is that it has stopped the member countries from going to war with each other.

You’re confusing the EU with NATO. The EU has no role whatsoever in defence policy, and can claim absolutely no credit for peace in Europe. Neither during the Cold War (how would that even work? Occupied Germany somehow invading France? Most of Europe weren’t even members then), nor now. Zelensky isn’t travelling to Brussels to give a speech to the European Parliament, he’s flying to Washington instead. NATO.

It’s not about defense, how are you going to go to war against a country that shares your currency, your market and your rules and that has basically no border control with you?

> It’s not about defense, how are you going to go to war against a country that shares your currency, your market and your rules and that has basically no border control with you?

Since civil wars have happened quite a bit, this seems…less difficult than you assume.

That's utter nonsense. The people who elect EU leaders, shape EU law make and decisions on it are the members of the governments of the EU states, who are duly elected by their constituents. The less powerful EU parliament is also democratically elected by EU citizens.

So, as you describe, the people who make these very important decisions are two steps away from democracy, the public has no way to hold them responsible for their actions and they are elected in politicized back room deals.

In turn, the people that the public gets to vote for are the ‘less powerful’, they are never on the news and it is totally unclear what they are even doing. All that is on the news are the undemocratically chosen people. It’s really not surprising that most people don’t bother voting for the EU and that a lot of them would vote to leave immediately given the chance.

> the people who make these very important decisions are two steps away from democracy

What are you talking about? Members of EU member governments are directly elected by citizens, they're the ones making the decisions at the EU.

The administrators of the EU elected by governments, but they do no vote on, and have no power over legislation. All voting power comes from members governments, just like they vote for their own national legislation.

Give it up, you just have no idea how the EU works.

Most people have no idea and give it up, that’s for sure.

The people directly elected, the European Parliament, can’t introduce new rules and only get to rubber stamp rules made by others.

Meanwhile the rules are introduced by the European Commission which is not directly elected and thus not democratically accountable.

Consider the very existence of this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_legitimacy_of_the_E...

And a choice quote

> The German Constitutional Court referred to a "structural democratic deficit" inherent in the construction of the European Union.

But the reality is that the undemocracy of the EU shows in the rules it produces. For example a functioning democracy doesn’t get away with wasting hundreds of millions on moving its seat between cities, for no practical reasons. A functioning democracy doesn’t get to push for an end to cash money and a start for monitoring every significant bank transaction, with no pushback from the electorate. And there’s plenty of other rules to choose from.

I think it might have to do with EU's "anti-business" tilt, as many might see it, but we can observe the effects of runaway wild-west Capitalism as well.

There is something to be said for trying to keep basic civilizational order amidst uncontrollable greed and an ocean of dark money, with just a few men getting obnoxiously rich and then using the resources to "burn it all down" because they feel victimized. Or something.

Being an Anglophone who spent most of 2022 criss-crossing Europe, please direct me to where this European Wild West capitalism is.

European elites enrich themselves by legislative capture. In any true Wild West capitalism, European elites would fail immediately, because they’re so utterly uncompetitive. That’s why no such “Wild West” capitalism exists anywhere near Europe.

But there’s no shortage of invented horrors about “Wild West” capitalism in Europe - this, in the same countries you need a government license to be self employed, where starting a business is next to impossible, and God forbid you use this word for your wine unless it was produced in these precise ten square metres of France - the same ten square metres conveniently owned by the same families who send their sons and daughters to write this legislation.

Europe is a corporatist, aristocratic economy that keeps its people in check by keeping the prosperity and freedom of actual capitalist societies from them, and by inventing capitalistic boogeymen to maintain the legislative moat built around its elites.

The EU countries could have simply cooperated and agreed not to charge extra fees on trading among them or having each other citizens visiting (or why not extend that to the entire world) without giving away their monetary freedom and allow bureaucrats in other countries to dictate their laws

Bureaucrats in other countries don't dictate our law. That's a gross misrepresentation of how the EU works.

If we're going to be objective, technically the Chinese Communists are the greatest success for humanity; I think they've overseen the biggest upwards change in living standards from when they came to power to today (even after the regressions of the Cultural Revolution). They have done a better job of preserving peace than almost any alternative superpower except maybe India.

The CCP is still a disaster. The EU has the same nature - just because great things were achieved and the EU was the political organisation present doesn't mean the EU was good. It might be, I don't have any particular view. But it is interesting that the EU has serious energy problems, brewing war on the border implying diplomatic failures and is largely reliant on American military assistance. These are points against it. HN has celebrated their redesigning the iPhone to use a more standard connector though so there are pro- and con-.

> HN has celebrated their redesigning the iPhone to use a more standard connector though so there are pro- and con-.

Can't tell if you're being flip, so I'll add this one: the ease of producing products in country A and shipping them to country B without having to go through customs.

Given that Brexit happened and companies which predate Brexit still exist in the U.K., the reader has plenty of data to decide whether this constitutes a significant digit in the "pro" column.

It is extremely arguable whether the EU is necessary for that though. There is no magic barrier preventing goods moving across the border except that the customs department decides to interfere.

> Can't tell if you're being flip

I can't tell if HN is being flippant. I've never seen such unanimous approval for a powerful entity engaged in triviality. The world has not confronted the level of threat we currently have of international industrial war for 70 years, and one of things that most bought people together celebrating the EU's contribution to the world seemed to be ... phone charger cables. It seemed to be the stand-out example of the EU doing something simultaneously newsworthy, well liked and good, which is concerning.

People in the halls of power in the EU don't seem to have been focusing on the important issues if issues like that are what generate praise. Doubly so because the EU has failed to produce anyone who knows how to design a good phone. All the industrial muscle for that is in Asia and America along with the track records of success.

> It is extremely arguable whether the EU is necessary for that though.

We were talking about the very real pros and cons of the EU.

You provided a single "pro" EU datum about chargers that is a) real and b) IMO trivializing at best wrt the benefits of EU-membership as the EU currently exists.

I gave you what I considered to be a more representative example: the convenience of shipping times/costs intra-EU. Brexit gives us plenty of data to compare pre vs. post on this issue.

Now you're waxing philosophical about whether the EU is necessary to achieve the "pro" that I gave you.

It's as if I just slid down the flagpole in Super Mario Bros., but now the game wants me to go backwards and consider how to build other routes for this same level.

> There is no magic barrier preventing goods moving across the border except that the customs department decides to interfere.

Customs policies are based on international trade agreements and local policies. The 'custom department' is just executing.

> one of things that most bought people together celebrating the EU's contribution to the world seemed to be ... phone charger cables

You made that up.

That suggests there is a problem with the local policies. I recall when the US had that baby formula crisis and people couldn't import the stuff because of local policies. Which is obviously stupid. There were starving babies. US babies aren't that different from EU, APAC, or South American babies.

The crisis was a self inflicted wound. And by far most of the time, the idea that a good is OK in one country but unacceptable in another is silly. It is quite rare that a good that can be sold somewhere needs to be restricted somewhere else. It happens in rare cases, but far less than most policies would have us believe.

> the idea that a good is OK in one country but unacceptable in another is silly.

Goods are produced under very different standards, different subvention systems, different economic systems, different economic policies, ...

For example in the EU the Chinese Covid vaccine(s) have no permissions. Likewise China does not allow European vaccines to be imported. Each country has their own reasons for that. It's not because the regulators are silly. It's because they have different standards and different interests.

In large free trade zones and joint markets like the EU, there are common standards and a common court for disputes. The EU as a union, just like any country in the world, negotiates the trade agreements with other countries, ...

That example does sound a bit silly. I took an American one. I'm not American. I'm fine. They're safe enough. The vaccine doesn't know it moved countries. Why shouldn't people in China be able to use European vaccines? Are their policies not evidence based? Are we going to call Chinese people unvaccinated en mass until they take European vaccines? If not, why can't Europeans use Chinese vaccines?

> Goods are produced under very different standards, different subvention systems, different economic systems, different economic policies, ...

That isn't an explanation or an argument, that is just a list of things which are true. I'm happy to read that list and then buy things that are different from what I'm used to. I'll buy stuff made by Communists, Capitalists, Muslims, fools, industrialists; all good enough for me. Halal kebab makers are the only true kebab makers! If a billion Chinese can use something without it being a problem, it seems quite likely that I can too. We're all the same species and have mostly the same problems.

It doesn't actually make sense that I need a foreign union to negotiate to let me use foreign goods. My own government could, I kid you not, just let me buy what I want and get it shipped over. It'd be easier. The local standards aren't perfect.

> I took an American one.

Me, too.

> They're safe enough.

How did I know that? Because, the EU and the US work closely together and the regulations make sure that they work with common standard levels.

Each country has a system which regulates which vaccines it considers safe. In EU this is expanded such that the permissions are valid for the common market. The EU has EXPANDED the region where vaccines are permitted under a common regulation, it has not reduced it. Just the opposite.

> Why shouldn't people in China be able to use European vaccines?

For example because China wants to reduce the influence of other countries? Because it wants to promote their own companies? Because foreign vaccines are too expensive?

> If a billion Chinese can use something without it being a problem

How do you know that it does not cause problems for you? Currently it looks like China has a problem with Vaccines.

> We're all the same species and have mostly the same problems.

That sounds silly. Governments, regulators, companies, ... all have different policies, interests, etc. That creates a lot of DIFFERENT problems.

> need a foreign union to negotiate to let me use foreign goods. My own government could

The EU is not a foreign union. It the Union I'm living in. Just like my city, my state, my country, the EU all have different responsibilities. Why should my country dictate laws to my city? It does. Because we are all the same species and have mostly the same problems. In my state, my country, the EU. Those all have negotiated the levels of power they are responsible for.

I mean, you're in a position where you live in the EU and took an American vaccine that was approved for use in the US.

All your customs office has contributed here is a rubber stamp saying "the work the Americans have already done is good enough" in case you are a jingoist who doesn't trust the US standard. The potential downside is if they vacillate then they'll delay the vaccine availability despite the fact that the option was available.

I put it to you that this is why the EU gets a lot of hate. People struggle to come up with examples of where it helped things along. There are decent odds here that Trump's policies did more for you on this topic than your own regulators, which I think it not be what you want in an example that you bought up.

> For example because China wants to reduce the influence of other countries? Because it wants to promote their own companies? Because foreign vaccines are too expensive?

You argue a few lines down that the Chinese have a problem with vaccines, so I put it to you that you actually believe the Chinese policy is worse than nothing. These reasons are terrible excuses for not letting a product over a border. Literally sacrificing lives for business interests in defiance of what a free market would do.

>> We're all the same species and have mostly the same problems.

> That sounds silly.

I'm not sure I can argue against this, but I urge you to reconsider what species you are a part of, and what the implications are if the problems are being created by the regulators rather than the underlying reality.

> All your customs office has contributed here is a rubber stamp saying "the work the Americans have already done is good enough"

The customs office does not test nor does it approve vaccines. That's done by the European Medicines Agency ( https://www.ema.europa.eu/en ). This Agency is under EU control. The respective US authorities are not under EU control, they are under the control of the US government.

I would also not expect that the US companies give me the same vaccines from the same production sites.

> who doesn't trust the US standard

I trust EU standards. Which my government can influence.

> People struggle to come up with examples of where it helped things along.

Maybe you, I can come up with lots of examples. EU standards are one. Your view on standards and regulations differs from most people.

> Literally sacrificing lives for business interests in defiance of what a free market would do

The Chinese market is not free. That should be known.

> but I urge you to reconsider what species you are a part of, and what the implications are if the problems are being created by the regulators rather than the underlying reality.

Nations, organisations, science, companies, money, laws, politics, ideology, are all reality. You seem to live in a fantasy world of 'species'.

> I think they've overseen the biggest upwards change in living standards

For a few, while the poor countryside has no money and toxic boosters raining down on them.

Empirically, it's mostly been rural communities that have had their living standards raised (by moving into cities). It's not very pretty, but on a purely numerical level the benefactors far outnumber the hurt (using a very specific framing of increased lived experience).

I am not a fan of the CCP to put it mildly. China is the only country with poor Chinese people for a reason and the reason is the CCP. But in the 11 years I’ve lived in Shanghai things have quite visibly improved, in terms of infrastructure, quality of basically every consumer good, wages. Things have improved less here, relatively, than elsewhere.

The countryside is emptying of people in China as in every other country, just starting later and moving faster. Being a peasant is no fun. That’s why people leave as soon as they can.

How much countryside is there anyway? On the map, China looks like a tightly-knit mesh of huge multi-million cities, all with high speed rail and subway systems, and huge malls. I doubt they're as poor as miserable as they should be according to the picture painted.

> the EU has serious energy problems, brewing war on the border implying diplomatic failures and is largely reliant on American military assistance.

The first two are essentially just a matter of geography; pretty sure it would have played out the same in broad lines if there had been no EU. If anything, I expect it would be worse: a more divided Europe would have been easier to defy by Putin. To call this a "diplomatic failure" is a huge simplification; you can only do so much diplomacy with someone who is not willing to engage in diplomacy with you. Ask Neville Chamberlain how his diplomacy worked out.

The US is convinced it needs an humongous army to do all sorts of useful things, like dropping napalm on children in Vietnam, drone strikes on journalists, invasion of countries for no clear reason in particular with intentionally falsified data. You know, essential stuff like that.

I'm putting it rather sharply here and I do think the US military does good things too and I "half believe" in Pax Americana, sort of, but let's not kid ourselves and claim that the US military is needed for the defence of Europe. Defend from whom, exactly? Russia? The Soviet military was already collapsing in the 80s together with the rest of the Soviet union, and we've all seen how well they're doing in Ukraine. That view is about 50 years out of date. We even have our own nukes, should it really come down to it. And who else is there to seriously threaten Europe/EU militarily? No one, basically. Even during the second world war things are not as simple as "the United States single-handedly comes to save the day in Europe" as some Americans seem to believe.

> If we're going to be objective, technically the Chinese Communists are the greatest success for humanity; I think they've overseen the biggest upwards change in living standards from when they came to power to today (even after the regressions of the Cultural Revolution). They have done a better job of preserving peace than almost any alternative superpower except maybe India.

Huh!?

No way. The CCP is a massive failure economically.

Taiwan was part of China. Taiwan had massive growth while China was stagnant. Taiwan is one of the richest countries in the world, China is still one of the poorer countries in the world today. China ranks 66 below Costa Rica and Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

The true successes are places like South Korea and Taiwan that started exactly in the same place as China and delivered massive economic growth in an incredibly short time.

The Chinese Communists used capitalism to get their country filthy rich while the supposedly "capitalist" west turned into a bunch of socialist dictatorships with high taxes and regulations.

Nothing surprising, if not the fact the western citizens allowed it to happen without revolting. Most likely they were glued to their phones while it happened.

> If we're going to be objective, technically the Chinese Communists are the greatest success for humanity

That ‘success’ came largely from western investment and western consumption, and at the cost of ~100,000,000 lives under Mao.

Look at the U.S. Do we have Iowa holding hands with California in a mutually respectful relationship of cooperation? No, it's just a fight to control the highest level of government that has all the power so that one group can impose its will on everyone else.

As an American, I can tell you that most states generally consider each other rivals, and oftentimes bitter. Texas would like nothing to do with California other than to help knock them down some pegs, for example.

But you know what? If some outsider were to pose a serious threat to any of the states, we're all going to band together and tell said outsider to get wrecked and go pound sand. That same Texas would be among the first to come to California's aid and defence. The only one who gets to dunk on Americans are fellow Americans, nobody else.

>But you know what? If some outsider were to pose a serious threat to any of the states, we're all going to band together and tell said outsider to get wrecked and go pound sand. That same Texas would be among the first to come to California's aid and defence. The only one who gets to dunk on Americans are fellow Americans, nobody else.

It would have to be a very, very, unifying outside threat.

Division runs deep these days and it seems highly likely that any such external threat would be leveraged by the two teams to try to gain the upper hand resulting in further division.

fellow American here, re: "most states consider each other rivals," as a person who's lived all over the US, I strongly believe that feeling is in one direction.

There is all this rhetoric in red-state politics, governors shipping immigrants to NYC, Texans obsessing over Nancy Pelosi, babble about "east coast values." That shit simply doesn't exist in the other direction. It's true that coastal elites harbor a lot of resentment toward "rednecks" for things like the recent abortion ruling, but… they just don't obsess the same way. Mostly they just don't think about them at all.

> It’s true that coastal elites harbor a lot of resentment toward “rednecks” for things like the recent abortion ruling

Nah, the abortion ruling is a product of coastal elites; there aren’t any rednecks on the Supreme Court.

That’s true. GOP Supreme Court picks have skewed far more towards elite libertarians than the actual GOP base. But Justice Barrett is a Midwestern church mom, which is a core GOP constituency.

And Clarence Thomas didn't move to DC until age 31, saying of his stint at Yale "I peeled a fifteen-cent sticker off a package of cigars and stuck it on the frame of my law degree to remind myself of the mistake I'd made by going to Yale. I never did change my mind about its value."

> That shit simply doesn't exist in the other direction. It's true that coastal elites harbor a lot of resentment toward "rednecks" for things like the recent abortion ruling

It certainly does exist when they think folks in red states are in a position to exert control over the national culture. Do you remember the Bush administration? Or the beginning of Trump’s presidency? People were pretty obsessive about him here in DC before he even did anything.

I'm not talking about individuals, I'm talking about masses of people. Of course blue state people hated Bush, and Trump, and Reagan… I'm talking about this weird notion that I hear from southerners that people in the city "look down on them." They don't. They don't think about them at all. I'm not sure which is worse.

You had a political zealot attack the home of a senior lawmaker and send her husband to hospital, and large swaths of the population cheered. I doubt the attacker was applauded only because he has an American passport.

yes. it’s literally called the united states of america. at the very least, iowa is much better off as part of the union than it would be on its own

California could do on its own, but any inner region if the USA (Brazil, Russia, China) would be super miserable as a sovereign state.

California would immediately become a failed state on its own, unable to meet even the most basic needs of its residents. California MASSIVELY relies on other states for two of the most essential needs for modern civilization: water and electricity.

California, ecologically, is not capable of supporting its own population independently, and short of geo-engineering at continent scale nothing will ever change that. It has absolutely nothing to do with politics, economics, or any sort of issues like that, it's simply the geographic and ecological nature of the state.

Los Angeles, for example, would be impossible for it to exist without modern technology and mass importation of water, most of which comes from outside of California (although some comes from Northern California where it actually rains).

Anyone, like yourself, who seriously contends that California could survive on its own independent of the United States simply does not understand how anything works, water systems, electric systems, import/export economies, globalism, money movements between coasts, investment funding and how it is structured to take investments from the US heartland and VC companies in Californian tech. Your statement is not just a gross oversimplification of a LOT of complex topics, it's blatantly untrue in /every single/ one of those topics.

SoCal will just use NorCal water along with access to ocean desalination. For residential use, there is plenty, without needing to ship out water in the form of half of the US's fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables. Solar ramp-up is progressing well, already at 17% vs. 50% natural gas, with battery storage to eventually buffer the rest of the 15% nuclear + hydro.

> SoCal will just use NorCal water along with access to ocean desalination.

There’s not enough NorCal water for that, which is why SoCal already relies on Colorado River water as well as NorCal water.

> For residential use, there is plenty, without needing to ship out water in the form of half of the US’s fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables.

Sacrificing the state’s agriculture would…rather deeply harm the economy.

> Solar ramp-up is progressing well, already at 17% vs. 50% natural gas, with battery storage to eventually buffer the rest of the 15% nuclear + hydro.

Nearly a third of California’s energy is imported. displacing fossil fuels with clean renewables for in-state generation is good, but it isn’t self-sufficiency.

Do you know how much energy it would take to desalinate water for 30 million people plus all the farms?

We're talking numerous large nuclear power plant levels of energy.

Have you reaf how long it takes to build a nuclear power plant??

Around a decade.

So it's not as simple as just "desalinate"

Right now, 80% of California water is used for agriculture. If you reduce the ag water usage that is shipping most of that produce to the rest of the country, CA has water for residential and ag. for its 39 million.

> If you reduce the ag water usage that is shipping most of that produce to the rest of the country,

Those aren’t gifts to the rest of the country (and, actually, much of it is exported directly internationally), they are cash crops, and the lifeblood of rural California.

This whole thread I responded to was about CA self-sufficiency and I was specifically arguing that CA can be quite self-sufficient.

> California would immediately become a failed state on its own, unable to meet even the most basic needs of its residents

Of course CA independence would be economically harmful and disruptive. Doesn't mean CA won't be able to provide its own water by taking an ag trade economic hit.

From where?

I don't understand how that's possible. I don't know of any lakes or rivers or aquifers larger enough to provide water to almost 40 million people in California.

The Sierra Nevada watershed

https://www.nature.org/media/california/california_drinking-...

The large greenery to the right is the Colorado River which provides 15% of CA water at the bottom.

Sierra Nevada watershed is already being used by Northern California.

It provides 60% of California water.

Even removing the farms, I couldn't find any data supporting that it was enough water for the rest of California.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it can't either.

The data I found says the Sierra Nevada watershed supports 750,000 farms.

Is that equivalent to 15 million people or so?

Californian agriculture is 80% of water usage. That agriculture is largely shipped out of state, internationally, and supplying the rest of the US half of its produce outside staple grains: fruits, nuts, vegetables, berries, etc.

Desalination will likely be required long term for SoCal no matter what, but currently California is not capable of supporting the energy requirements of desalination to replace the water it gets from out of state. The vast majority of California water comes from out of state, less than 30% comes from sources in-state.

> The vast majority of California water comes from out of state, less than 30% comes from sources in-state.

That's quite a preposterous assertion. Source? CA has ~85% coming from the Sierra Nevada watershed, only 15% is the Colorado River at the bottom. "California receives 75 percent of its rain and snow in the watersheds north of Sacramento."[0] CA is more than water self-sufficient if it loses the 15% Colorado River, but reduces the ag. water usage (80%) that ships out most of it to the rest of the states.

https://water.ca.gov/water-basics/the-california-water-syste...

I'd note that one of the problems Russia has run into with Crimea is that Crimea used to get water from Kakhovka Reservoir but now it doesn't.

It's only a problem if you massively piss off the neighbor who supplies water, to the point that they wouldn't even sell it to you.

An independent California would just buy the things that it needs from its neighbors, like most other countries do.

Secession itself tends to massively piss of the country from which one has seceded, which points to why this would be a problem for an independent California (unless it was a “Greater California” including the headwaters and course of the Colorado River, etc.)

In many cases, you see the opposite - a strong public sentiment to allow or even force secession of some territory that is perceived as a "burden". This is usually represented in economic terms - "why do we have to feed X?" - but it can also be motivated by culture, religion, ideology etc (but, quite often, still coached in economic terms).

You can buy electricity, and water in riverways doesn't even belong completely to upstream countries according to water laws.

> but any inner region if the USA would be super miserable as a sovereign state.

Would they? Would they really?

Sure they'd be poorer but they'd probably just consider that a really, really cheap price to pay for not having to share a country with California (or wherever the line is drawn).

Would you take a 10%-20% pay cut to get your way on almost all political issues? That's basically the bargain you're striking when you get out the map and draw a poorer but much more politically homogeneous state. I think most people would take the deal they'd do it with a smile on their face.

Independence doesn't really mean getting your way on almost all political issues, though. If you're independent but economically weak, you're susceptible from all kinds of pressure from your neighbors, and quite often that pressure is explicitly political (sanctions etc).

Yes, let's look at the US.

Despite all the bickering and backbiting and dysfunction in it, the overwhelming majority of its residents and polities do not want to see the union broken apart.

The strongest argument against growth of the EU is, quite literally, inertia. It's not a perfect union, but it's much better for its participants than being marginalized outside it.

Haha. This is the dynamic of many a happy marriage :).

> Are the countries supposed to split up and go back to competing with each other in an increasingly harsher global market? How on earth are the small EU countries supposed to compete?

By devaluing their currency to make their exports competitive and improve their unemployment. The European Union's currency umbrella is precisely why the PIGS countries have been suffering ever since the 2011 Euro debt crisis with general economic stagnation, and why the UK could escape it.

Nothing stops countries from making trade agreements with one another and still maintaining their economic sovereignty.

This is complete propaganda BS. The EU has broke smaller countries. Greece for example, might never recover. Worse, because of the freedom of movement, most of the youth are moving to the west (Germany, Netherlands, etc…) and this had made greece actually lose workers and population. Greece unemployment went down not because there are more jobs, but because there are less job’s seekers.

Your representative problem strikes me as very weird. Greeces own citizens are benefiting immensely as you say because now they can follow their preferred careers within the EU and enrich themselves and their family. Surely it's the failure of their own government to provide a high value internal export and not the EU?

Blaming the EU for Greece’s issue is a real stretch…

Whether how the EU responded to the Greek crisis was all good or not is open for debate, I think we can nevertheless safely say that Greece was mostly responsible for its own debt and fiscal management problems.

Greece has 10 million people. It seems ridiculous to expect every profession could be maximally employed there, especially given the geography.

It's like an American expecting no one to ever leave the US state of Georgia to look for a job.

Not saying that there was no mistake done when Greece joined the EU (actually I don't think Greece should have been allowed to join) but claiming that none of this would have happened if it were not for the EU is just bullshit. Greece was already corrupted, with really unhealthy economics.

They could have very well printed their way out of the problem and let everyone in the country pay for the mistake of the usual class of corrupted politicians.

Oh but they're in the EU now, they can't do that, so let's just let the peasants starve while the wealthy invest in german stocks.

I'm not saying Greece is a perfect system, but the EU way has been just way worse for Greek citizens.

I’m not saying it was bad for the greek (the people) but for the Greece (the country). Also, if you think long-term, it might not be that beneficial for the greek. Moving to another country incur extra costs, which could be avoided on your own country. Greeks might have been more well-off if their own country developed instead.

> Worse, because of the freedom of movement, most of the youth are moving to the west (Germany, Netherlands, etc…) and this had made greece actually lose workers and population.

Yes people should not be able to escape their governments' corruption and mismanagement, and suffer along with the rest of them.

> most of the youth are moving to the west

That's a win, not a loss. Holding people hostage is not a good thing...

Speaking as an American, my chief problem with the EU is that it's too big with wanton disregard for the histories of its constituent member nations.

EU member nations are countries with literally hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history, all with varied cultures and traditions. It is impossible to unify such peoples in as heavy-handed a manner as the EU without harming and even destroying the identities of those member nations.

Cultural and national pride are things that are very real and not something to be tossed aside, they are the identities of those peoples and deserve to be respected.

The EU damages such things by way of instituting a single currency, removing the concept of borders, removing a nation's sovereign right to fiscal and economical policies, and more. I feel part of the reason Brexit ultimately came to be is because British pride could not allow EU encroachment to continue any further, and the EU will see more Brexits again sooner or later unless those fundamental issues are properly addressed.

A federation of states works for the United States of America because our states are, at the oldest, merely 200~300 years old, with most holding common or at least very similar heritages. There are less obstacles for such a union to overcome to be successful. The EU's member nations are wildly different by comparison and it is foolhardy to think an even more tightly-federated EU would be successful just like that.

> hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history

lots of wars incl. the 1st, second and the cold war.

The EU has helped to create a larger Europe with much less conflicts. Having a single currency is a great advantage, borders are no longer necessary and, yes, nations are still responsible for their fiscal and economic policies.

> even destroying the identities of those member nations

the EU doesn't do that.

> EU will see more Brexits again sooner or later unless those fundamental issues are properly addressed

Actually it's the opposite. The UK was dumb enough to give up the single market, freedom of movement, common standards, common politics, solidarity, etc. The negative effects and the lack of positive effects of the Brexit are plain to see and the younger generation in the UK will demand the benefits back. Those lost the most because of Brexit.

The disintegration of the EU after the Brexit was always propaganda. If one read the British press, the EU was always collapsing the next day and the Eurozone would disappear. Nothing like that has happened, not even remotely.

> foolhardy to think an even more tightly-federated EU would be successful just like that

The EU is already a huge success.

> Actually it's the opposite. The UK was dumb enough to give up the single market, freedom of movement, common standards, common politics, solidarity. The negative effects of the Brexit are plain to see and the younger generation in the UK will demand the benefits back. Those lost the most because of Brexit.

> The EU is already a huge success.

I'd love to hear some proof of this

That's debatable and you'd want to bring some data if you're debating this.

I live in EU but I'd live in the UK if it weren't for the horrible weather. At least they don't have the immigration and poverty of the local population problem (which turns into thefts) that southern europe has.

Not to mention the covid bill which we'll have to pay within 10 years which the UK skipped.

The UK paid in form of excess mortality. Nothing to be proud of.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores...

> At least they don't have the immigration and poverty of the local population problem

UK? The UK had some of the regions with high poverty in the EU. Outside of London there are regions of high poverty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_Kingdom

Just three years ago: https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/12/11/the-uks-poore...

Brexit makes it all only worse. Now you need to compare the UK with the poorer regions of the EU to look better. The UK itself has one extremely rich region (inner London) and a lot of medium to poor regions.

UK regions compared to the EU average in 2014:

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/02/article-2617938-1...

Where do people struggle to not hunger?

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/map-reveals-uk-re...

Immigration? That's on an all-time high in the UK:

https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/news/2022/08/25/immigration...

Migrants are now coming from outside of the EU:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/D09F/production/...

> Speaking as an American, my chief problem with the EU is that it's too big with wanton disregard for the histories of its constituent member nations. > > Cultural and national pride are things that are very real and not something to be tossed aside, they are the identities of those peoples and deserve to be respected. > > The EU damages such things by way of instituting a single currency, removing the concept of borders, removing a nation's sovereign right to fiscal and economical policies, and more

You're missing the point of the EU. The EU was literally created to do this and to tone down national pride.

The purpose of the EU was to prevent wars in Europe. Europe was a hotbed for wars for hundreds of years. WW1 was not that special! We had countless wars in Europe, even wars that would be considered world wars in retrospect like Napoleon's romp across the continent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe

The founding idea of the EU is to intertwine countries, remove barriers between them, so that Europeans stop trying to kill one another because of cultural and national pride. That's why there are no borders, why there's a single market (the very origins of the single market are in tying together steel production between EU members so that they couldn't easily detach from one another and create their own war machines again), why there are common rules, etc.

> EU member nations are countries with literally hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history, all with varied cultures and traditions. It is impossible to unify such peoples in as heavy-handed a manner as the EU without harming and even destroying the identities of those member nations.

The EU doesn't really "unify" all the countries in to one. The US federal government has significantly more power than EU parliament has in many areas.

I also can't think of a single area where I feel my national identity is being destroyed or taken away from by the EU. In what ways does it do that?

Speaking as an American too, this guy is completely wrong, and I disagree with every single point he made.

> A federation of states works for the United States of America because our states are, at the oldest, merely 200~300 years old, with most holding common or at least very similar heritages

There's a reason for that, which is that the US conquered or subjugated its neighbors rather than peacefully federating with them, and US states accepted a substantially lower level of sovereignty than any EU member. Texas tried to "Texit" only 16 years after it joined the US, and it received far less accommodation than the UK did in leaving the EU.

This is utter nonsense, so completely removed from reality. Countries in the EU are not losing their national identity or culture, not even remotely. I'm guessing you have never been anywhere near an eu country. My country has been in the EU for 50 years this year. Our identity has not changed in that time, we haven't lost our culture and we are definitely still as proud as ever. You have been reading or watching something crazy, it's making a fool of you.

> EU member nations are countries with literally hundreds if not thousands of years of storied history, all with varied cultures and traditions.

What a load of tripe. European nations are a relatively modern invention. Historically Europe has been ruled by various empires. Europe has historically looked more like the EU than a collection of countries. And though it all the local (mostly regional) culture has survived and thrived.

You should check out Indian history.

The problem with EU is (in my opinion) that a rich minority in Brussles dictates everything that has to be applied also for poor countries, such as romania, bolgaria and also now croatia. Eg sanctions regarding gas/oil imports from russia affect the heating (and electricity and transport) costs for all eu citizens, but while house and apartment sizes may be the same (and amount of heat needed too) paying 200eur, 300eur more per month is relatively easier for an average belgian citizen than for someone living in a smaller, poorer country.

EU has changed from an open market with very little reglation (relative to now), to an organization which dictates many more things than people would take for granted.

On the other hand, this is offset by smaller and poorer countries getting more of the EU money, but if you're not the direct recipient, you just get the regulation and higher prices with zero benefits... well, until the germans get fed up with working and paying high taxes for poor countries to get the money.

As someone from a country which has been in EU for almost 20 years, it's hard to predict anything, but we're probably better off being a part of eu (compared to if we stayed out), but there is a large anti EU sentiment growing, especially in the last few years, and even more hate concentrated against individuals, such as Ursula von der Leyen etc.

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