Another Socialist country on the brink of collapse.

All well in good, but how much does Germany give for Europe's defense or to further the Western world-aegis?

Who will carry that torch if the United States puts it's already poor "bang for the buck" military further into decline?

No one? The populous answer is SURE, however, the united elite answer is a resounding "No." In the short term the USA was not designed to have a social welfare system that has distinct pros and cons.

Pros:

Provides something closer to an equal economic environment.

Provides a stable health, economic, and other system for most classes.

A clear expectation of what will happen in life

Cons:

Costly. Cutting down on the whole empire business.

The stability reduces the competitiveness in most environments leading to malaise that one's life will not change.

A bureaucratic system that will dictate more of life. Stability again, but at the loss of autonomy and freedom of choice.

As well, you need to mix the system to meet the cultural environment.

For industrious and serious minded Germans who consider rules and time keeping to be a form of religious piety, the system tends to work in a more fulfilling matter.

Converting hyper competitive (And now privileged expecting and privileged obsessed Americans mixed with many cultural and ethnically divided underclasses with mixed educations, motivation, and other factors...) American system to fit would be very difficult.

We would probably just propagate the bastardized system that further divides the classes among the Whole Foods/Walmart divide.
 
THe military spending argument intrigues me. Sure Germany should up its military spending to the NATO requirements but doesn't this also raise the question about lowering our military spending to favor domestic initiatives?
 
FIMN said:
Strong economy, high quality of life, well educated population I bet.
Click to expand...

I get the feeling importing a giant poorly educated, very conservative, highly religious, and honor-shame based group of migrants will transform a lot of areas and drag down the statistics to some extent or another.

What of German will you sell them ideologically? The work ethic ingrained over generations? The stern religious values in their twilight? The delightful sausage?

I would imagine a lot of immigrants would rather live in their own neighborhoods, with their "own people," in their own families which they tend to control in a collective sense and through the whole honor/shame business.

They feel they have the will, the numbers, and the youthful energy to slowly transform Germany. Take the benefits of the ex-imperialists, while enforcing culture through old world institutions.

Quite the experiment we have on our hands.
 
InternetHero said:
I think you may have misread my pros/cons.

I was talking about Germany's pros/cons as I see them, not America's.
Click to expand...

No worries, your final sentence prior to your list discussed the US so it seemed that you were talking about it
 
panamaican said:
THe military spending argument intrigues me. Sure Germany should up its military spending to the NATO requirements but doesn't this also raise the question about lowering our military spending to favor domestic initiatives?
Click to expand...

Easy there Mother Theresa.
 
Lastofthemohican said:
No worries, your final sentence prior to your list discussed the US so it seemed that you were talking about it
Click to expand...

He word salads stuff and it gets conflated. Aside from that he is an honest poster, although very misguided.
 
Madmick said:
How much of that surplus is left if they meet their NATO spending obligations?
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<{you!}>
computer fogie said:
I don't know, but I don't think SA's oil money is in a national fund with the same function as Norway's is, so it wouldn't be comparable in that sense.
Click to expand...
It is a national fund in SA and IIRC its even bigger than Norway's. The difference is in their system of government. A "national fund" in SA is managed at the discretion of the royal family, not a democratically elected government like in Norway.
 
panamaican said:
THe military spending argument intrigues me. Sure Germany should up its military spending to the NATO requirements but doesn't this also raise the question about lowering our military spending to favor domestic initiatives?
Click to expand...
particularly b/c i don't think MOST people care if their taxes aren't raised, what the tax money goes to as long as it's not egregious.
i.e. if they simply switched Defense spending (i work for DoD, you could fire 1/4 of the civilian workforce and it'd run just fine, trust haha. plus contracts, etc....) to 1/3 lower, it wouldn't even likely mean troop reduction and would give money for infrastructure/education grants/training teachers w/ guns (joke)/whatever....

and taxes would remain stagnant, so people's daily lives would likely increase in quality (even if it just means roads are better) w/ no difference in discretionary income
 
InternetHero said:
For anyone who is interested in American military spending vs. GDP over time this is really interesting:

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/defense_spending
Click to expand...

We've never been less than 3.6%. Over time it makes you wonder what that extra 1.6% could have been used for here.

It's just interesting because while other countries are underspending to their populace's benefit, we're overspending (and I don't mean we're spending too much, I just mean relative to the 2% of GDP). With a GDP in the trillions that 1% per year is billions of dollars every year that isn't going into SS or infrastructure or education or whatever.
 
even though we'd likely have a big military regardless (for fear of competition), one COULD argue that we subsidize much of the EU and other area's military by our comparatively higher GDP military spending

Notice we only have a few bases in the UK, which has a pretty beast standalone military, same w/ Australia. How many do we have in Germany though, which yes is remnants of the cold war but if the Bundeswehr was more legit we wouldn't have as many bases there I promise (it would be somewhere else, but still). And it's a circular thing, they don't need honestly to build up the Bundeswehr b/c in doubt if shit really hits the fan, the UK/Canada/US will back them ultimately....It's one of the main underlying issues w/ NATO and the EU, the assumption that others will pick up the slack, luckily Turkey or Russia hasn't ultimately tested that theory

so who knows
 
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