Being a european I probably have more insight in Europe than the average US citizen.
Being an American with many European relatives who has spent many years in Europe, I probably have better insights into both cultures than you.
Whining yes and no, we dont have the cowboy mentality of the US, where this mentality of shoot first ask questions later has led to you can see in Irak and Afghanistan.
The decisions to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan were not rushed into; there were the outcome of a long political process. You and I may not like the outcome, but it wasn't a "cowboy mentality".
This is simply due to the fact that people here are fed up with wars and still have their tales of their grandparents in mind who had to suffer through 2 really bad wars on local soil.
And you think Americans like to go to war? Of course not; convincing the American people to go to war takes long political debates and persuasion.
But Americans have seen time and again that wars are necessary and effective in maintaining one's liberty. Europeans rarely have had that experience, but they haven't found any alternative either.
Loss of direction, pretty much the same as the US, the EU was one big idea but it has become way too fast the same as the US a moloch which is ruled by mostly lobbyists.
Another European prejudice with no basis in fact.
Problem of the Euro, absolutely the same problem the USD has sorry to say that but the government problems and the monetary problems of the EU and USD are absolutely the same
No, they are absolutely not the same. The US government is moving vast amounts of money between states with no complaints, yet a $50 billion Greek bailout threatens the entire EU.
funnily the structural binding is more like a pre Civil war USA still and always will be even any country can leave the union here
The pre-civil war structure wasn't workable in the long term: the union had to either fall apart or become closer. And that's what the EU will face when the first real crisis hits it (and I don't mean peanuts like Greece): it will either fall apart or its member states will give up a lot more of their autonomy and individuality. Frankly, I think it's going to fall apart.
As long as US unemployment was low, there was no reason for the US to rock the boat. After all, the current system keeps Europe and China happy and prosperous and that's good for the US too. Furthermore, US debt simply isn't worth its nominal value.
If the USA is keeping the value of the dollar up artificially, I think it's a good idea to let it slowly depreciate.
I think so too. And China seems to be seeing the light; Europe hasn't yet. It probably has something to do with European election cycles and China's more long-term perspective.
I don't think you can strengthen your economy in the long term by undervaluing your currency; it's like pumping government subsidies into all export businesses.
I don't know what "strengthen one's economy" means. For some economies, devaluation would be a disaster. For example, Japan depends on cheap imports of many goods and really has no alternative. The US, on the other hand, doesn't really need imports for anything essential; if imports of some goods become too expensive, it just switches back to domestic production.
It could have something to do with China's attempts to make yuan into the currency of choice for international trade.
I think nobody would trust China with that responsibility, given its government and history. And, frankly, I think nobody would really trust Europe to take on that responsibility either, given the political changes occurring in Europe.
I'm sorry, but what planet are you from? Really, before engaging in discussions about economics, get the facts.
and they can decrease the dollar value at a time of their choosing by selling off their dollar reserves
Yes, they can, they just aren't doing it.
That could be a reason USA is holding back their depreciation
Did you even bother to read the article you point to? The US isn't "holding back" anything; it is printing more money, which is what you need to do to drive down the value of a currency.
and the more it can hurt USA in a time of crisis by flooding the market with dollars
That would instantly wipe out much of the US debt, increase US exports, and decrease US imports, all good things as far as the US is concerned. The only reason that would hurt the US is because it would create global chaos.
Or China can flood the market with dollars at a time of their choosing to trigger a switch to yuan.
I seriously doubt the international community would feel comfortable using the Yuan. More likely, the Euro would replace the dollar. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. Europeans can carry the torch for a while and deal with the consequences.
Come on, the demographics of the different countries are widely available; use Wikipedia as a starting point if you are lost. You'll find millions of French and British from former colonies in each country. Germany has about 2 million Turkish citizens, plus more Germans of Turkish origin.
From Afghanistan, Europe harbours more than eight times as many refugees as USA.
Yes, and refugee status is the last resort if you don't have other options, like immigration. The US has taken in large numbers of Iraqi and Kurdish immigrants.
I'm going as far as saying, USA doesn't take responsibility for the refugee problems it's creating.
Saddam Hussein created the refugee problem, and it existed long before the Iraq wars and long before Europe suddenly started caring about this issue.
wow relly your head is that far in the sand. education has been piss poor in the usa
The US as a whole is about the same as Western Europe in terms of educational achievement.
so great you have 100k of debt in your early 20s
You don't have to go to programs where you have to go 100k into debt; there are plenty of cheaper options for getting a college education. It's your choice.
but more of it is not going to fix the issue of we have no jobs to give anyone.
Education indeed does not create jobs. It also doesn't floss for you, it doesn't do the dishes, and it doesn't take out the trash. What's your point?
couse some coirp duchbag sent your job to india.
No, it got sent there because Indians are willing to do the same job for less money. If you try to keep those jobs in the US (as we have tried in some cases), it just means the Indians found their own companies and US companies fail. To compete again, you either need to lower costs in the US or move into other areas. We're doing both. And it's actually working pretty well over the long run.
China is a billion people, 3x the US, I bloody well hope they'll have a bigger economy than the US at some point, because otherwise it means that they remain poor. Same with India.
The sooner they take the "#1 spot" and the responsibility that goes with it, the better as far as I'm concerned. The US is still big enough to make sure its own interests are preserved, and Europe can then kvetch about China for a while, while the US can focus on improving its infrastructure and education.
And they're cheap because China has low wages and is efficient - devaluing their currency under market value wouldn't have helped in the long run.
China's currency is undervalued and the Chinese government has been intervening to keep it that way; both Europe and the US are constantly complaining about that.
I agree, I just don't think the USA keeps from devaluing out of care for international economic stability. It could have devalued slowly over a long period if that was the case.
Not only does the US pursue a strong dollar policy for that very reason, European finance ministers support it as well (this was in 2004, but it's the same every time the dollar falls):
European finance ministers have urged the US to revive the dollar, which stands near record lows against the euro, or wreak further damage on eurozone growth prospects. Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg Prime Minister and Finance Minister, urged the US to implement a strong dollar policy for the sake of global prosperity.
Actually, the US has better outcomes for medical care than other nations; lower life expectancy is due to more obesity and heart disease, plus some other factors. Insufficient preventive medicine isn't due to cost or lack of coverage either for most people, it's a choice for most people (a stupid one but still a choice).
And the rest of the world isn't "doing just fine". Most countries in the world can't even spend close to what either the US or Europe are spending.
And long term, people are deeply concerned about spiraling health care costs and health care insolvency in Europe as well, with nobody having a good solution. The US is just ahead of the curve.
Devaluing your own currency is also a very bad solution. It temporary increases export, but everything you need to buy from abroad also becomes more expensive. It doesn't address the underlying issues - that wages are too high, or the goods not valuable enough for other countries to buy.
And Chinese products are such export successes because... they are so valuable? No, they are export successes because they are cheap. You said it yourself: devaluing the dollar would lower wages, lower imports, and increase exports; i.e., it would exactly fix what's wrong.
If the dollar starts losing its value, there's a high risk people will switch to Euros or Chinese Yuan for international trade. The oil-producing countries in the Middle East want to switch to Euros to become less dependent on the USA, and China just wants to become the next superpower, and one of the strategies is to make it attractive to save and trade in Yuan.
So the US would stop being a superpower, oil would get more expensive in the US (lower imports), and Europe and/or China would have to figure out how to take care of the trouble spots around the world themselves.
Seems to me that would fix all the problems Europeans keep complaining about: American unilateralism, American superpower status, American military expenditures, America's trade imbalance, America's energy consumption, and America's control of international oil and financial markets. America would get lower unemployment, balanced trade, and fiscal responsibility.
Odd, then, that Europe and China are the first to oppose devaluing the dollar.
Look at it from a US perspective: a large number of Americans are descendants of refugees from Europe and Europe has been a constant source of problems. And it didn't end with WWII: there were several military dictatorships in Western Europe, Eastern Europe was communist, and there were religious wars in Ireland and the Balkans. You may think all these things are unlikely now, but from the outside, people have little reason to believe that Europe isn't going to erupt in war and genocide once the economy goes really bad.
I doubt the world economy can be destabilised if the USA applies tariffs or import restrictions.
Tariffs and import restrictions don't balance trade, they just cause problems. No, in order to balance its trade, the US would have to devalue the dollar strongly (there is no other way). That would wipe out enormous amounts of European savings and investments and significantly increase unemployment in Europe. Devaluation is way the way global economic crises start because they feed on each other.
Well, for one thing, the agreements between the US and Europe are asymmetrical, so while the US government can get at your data, European governments will likely have a much harder time getting at the data of European citizens stored in the US.
Second, the US does have strong protection against governmental intrusion into private data; there are dozens of laws and even more case law. The first US data protection laws were enacted in the 1970's. There are laws protecting medical records, legal records, educational records, children's records, searches of your computers, etc. Even national security search of US citizen data needs to be court-approved (FISC). Just look them up, many of them are on Wikipedia. And there are hundreds of private foundations with long track records monitoring this and taking sound legal action. (And just as important, at the other end, there are strong and enforceable requirements on the US government to disclose information and operations.)
Where is your evidence that Europe is any better? Let's pick Germany. German data protection laws are full of holes when you read them, clearly allowing government access to private information for police work and national security without court order. Germany's equivalent of the FOIA is toothless, a cheap plastic imitation. And where is the German equivalent of the ACLU and all the other US watchdogs? What cases have they actually won in court?
To sum it up Europe and Canda and Australia being probably the best friends they have. The rest is either we have to live with them or, we do not wanna live with them.
And that is why the US has the pick when it comes to immigration while Europe has the leftovers? I don't think so. Most nations outside Europe may not always agree with US foreign policy, but they want their own countries to work more like the US.
It's the Europeans who keep whining and complaining and criticizing. And it's not hard to see why: Europe lost its empires, it has lost its direction, and it can't even get the EU together or keep the Euro stable. And instead of searching for the fault in their own cultures and political systems, Europeans blame the US for their downfall.
I don't think American politicians would have kept spending on NATO, if they didn't believe they benefitted from it.
Absolutely: the benefit is that Europe remains free, wealthy, and open, as opposed to being taken over by fascists or communists or religious extremists. I mean, the US didn't help Europe after WWII because Europeans had been such nice people, they helped because Europe had been a disaster area for centuries and it was getting worse and worse.
US foreign policy is based on having a strong military presence in the world, which requires a large standing army. It also gives them leverage over Europe.
The US ended up with a large standing army after WWII because Europe and Asia were in shambles. Europeans should have quickly built up their militaries again and started defending themselves. Instead, European nations found it convenient to continue to divert defense funds into social and economic programs.
I absolutely think the USA should withdraw from NATO, if it no longer benefits from it. It would force Europe to build up their own armies and become more independent.
In principle, I agree with you. The reason the US hasn't done that (or balanced its trade or done other obvious things) is because the risk involved: unilateral withdrawal from Europe might destabilize Europe, balancing US trade might destabilize the world economy, etc. But it can't go on like that.
I doubt it. There are good patents, this guy doesn't have one. The guy is a patent troll, and many people hate patent trolls.
Just the time line alone is stupid: "invented" in 1972, patent filed in 1977, shopped around to lots of companies in the years in between? The "invention" is even worse.
Microsoft really contributed nothing to Android or the Galaxy S II. They didn't invent anything novel that's related to Samsung's phones, they didn't write any of the code. Hence, they shouldn't profit from it.
It doesn't have to search long, since European nations are already collecting and exchanging this data both with each other and with the US "for national security". European data protection directives have never protected you against that.
In the US, there are considerably more legal protections, at least for US citizens. But why should the US protect the privacy of European citizens more than the EU is willing to protect that privacy itself?
Competition and choice are good, and I'm all for it. In fact, I would love to see some European competition for Google, Microsoft, and Apple. I would love to see some European competition for the US military. I would love to see Europe unite and provide a counterbalance to the US. Unilateralism isn't good for either Europe or the US. But as long as Europe doesn't even try to compete, the US wins by default.
In the US if a corporation has your data it's now their data and they can do whatever the hell they like with it.
If a US corporation has my data, it is quite limited in what it can do with it; and I can sue them for a lot of money if they misuse it.
I don't know what a US corporation can do with your data; that depends on what deal your government made with the US (probably a bad one).
In Europe they have to have permission (possibly implied but explicit if it's 'sensitive' like medical records) to hold and process your data.
Funny, in the US I have to sign a permission sheet for my doctor and my insurance company to process my data electronically every time I go to a new doctor; in Europe I have never had to do that.
And in Europe, the biggest telecommunications company can use its facilities to systematically spy on its employees, their families, and journalists and rid itself of the problem by... firing one of its employees. Whopee, that's going to dissuade them from doing that again! European data protection is a lot of feel-good verbiage with no teeth and enormous gaps.
Superficially your final point is valid- but only if you ignore your poor internal human rights- you still had legally sanctioned racial segregation in the 60s!
Well, and until the 1960's, Europeans were still brutally oppressing European colonies, protestants and Catholics were bashing in their heads in Northern Ireland, not to mention the military dictatorships that existed even in Western Europe.
I'd go as far as saying that the 'bad habits' European democracies have picked up recently have been caught from the US.
Yeah, bad habits like civil rights, non-discrimination laws, women's liberation, and data protection. If Europeans don't watch out, they might eventually even overcome their innate tendency towards authoritarianism and actualy become liberal democracies, and then European culture is finally done for!
- firstly do you think morality and ethics have any value or does might make right and it's the duty of every government to force it's will upon others if it's capable of doing so?
Morality and ethics have enormous value, which is why they play a large role in US political decisions, both domestic and foreign, and have done so for two centuries, going back to the Constitution.
It is good to see that Europe has come around to that view late in the 20th century, because until the mid-20th century, European foreign policy was based on "might makes right".
- second do you think the US Government is doing this for the good of it's citizens or the good of a bunch of corporations who make large donations?
The US government is democratically elected, and has been for more than two centuries; is there anything specific you see wrong with that?
As for "corporations", they aren't these alien entities hovering over US cities, they are places where people work and where they invest their retirement funds. Companies like GM, Citibank, Exxon, etc. are supported by the US government because lots of people want that. If anything, the connection between European corporations and European governments is far stronger than the connection between US corporations and the US government.
Really? So the US wasn't busy wiping out the indigenous populations by both direct military means but also using biological weapons (blankets infected with small pox)?
No, the US wasn't busy doing that because the US didn't even exist. Smallpox-laced blankets were distributed to natives--during the Siege of Fort Pitt, by British troops.
The US fought a civil war because so many of you thought it was the moral and ethical thing to do to keep millions of other human beings enslaved in order to maintain their life-style.
The US fought a civil war precisely in order to enforce to abolish slavery, a system created under British colonial rule and contrary to the Constitution.
I think you're looking at your country's history through rose tinted glasses. The US has, through out it's history, been an opportunistic bully.
Until WWII, the US wasn't in a position to bully anybody: it had a small and weak military, and the world was run by Britain, France, and Spain.
The US has done plenty of bad things throughout its history, but nothing even in the same league as the evil perpetrated by European nations on the world and each other. And unlike Europe, the US has been facing and addressing its problems by itself.
You're forgetting one vital weakness of the EU: it's divided.
I'm not forgetting that at all. I'm saying that Europe should get its act together and unite, or it should stop complaining.
and the eastern European ones, relatively new members of the EU, who were much easier to bribe
Or maybe the Eastern European nations actually understood the value of US-style liberalism and US military action, while the Western Europeans were just upset because their formerly great nations had been reduced to a squabbling bunch that nobody really takes seriously anymore.
The US also has plenty of laws that Americans don't agree with.
Yes, but Americans blame their own politicians for it. Europeans instead blame EU bureaucrats and the US, and European politicians just love that because they can shift blame for their own bad decisions and say "the EU made us do it" or "the US made us do it".
Well, I'd like to call it "bullying" if one party is much bigger and more powerful than the others, and uses that power to force their will onto others.
But the US is actually smaller than Europe.
You can't make everyone happy, but you'd draw a lot less criticism from Europeans if you stopped pursuing your interests so aggressively.
But, realistically, do you really think most Americans or American politicians care what Europeans think of them? Europeans have looked down its noses at the US since the US was founded.
It's also possible the balance of power in the world will shift - for example, the USA has a huge national deficit, and sooner or later, I think you'll be forced to either cut down on your military, or be unable to pay the interest on your debts.
The USA has been almost constantly involved in one war or the other since the 1800's. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Haiti, Kosovo, Sudan, Somalia, Korea, Vietnam, and so on, and so on - check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States. In many of them, the USA was the aggressor.
You mean "the aggressor" as in stopping the slave trade, kicking out communist regimes, and stopping genocides? Guilty as charged. And during most of that time, European nations were busy raping and pillaging their colonies across the globe.
Have a look at the French, British, and German pages:
I mean, you need small print and sections to fit it all. And the many wars related to colonialism were both unjust and brutal, and they didn't end with WWII either. So much for Europe's pacifism. It only ended because Germany wasn't allowed to wage more wars and France and Britain couldn't afford it anymore.
1) Importing slaves for labour from Africa.
Yes, imports by European slave traders, abolished as soon as Constitutionally allowed by the 1808 slave trade ban and enforced by the US military (one of your "wars of aggression" on that list).
2) Genocide of Native Americans. I don't think American colonists can be blamed for the plagues they brought to the New World, but they did do a good job on killing the remaining Native Americans and taking their land.
The vast majority of Native Americans were killed under European rule, just like in other European colonies. Europe continued is murderous and oppressive campaigns in other colonies until the mid-20th century. The US, on the other hand, tried to integrate Native Americans into the nation, give them both citizenship and autonomy, and to compensate them.
3) Supporting oppressive regimes in the Americas and the Middle East.
And how is this different from Europe? Europe also gives large amounts of money to oppressive regimes around the world, and Europe also sells arms all over the world. And both the US and Europe do it for the same reasons.
Western European nations tend to believe you need to use as peaceful and non-intrusive methods as possible to create lasting peace. For example, foreign aid, sending UN troops, aiding in negotiations, receiving political refugees and war refugees, and so on.
Funny, when Europe does it, it's "foreign aid and aiding in negotiations" but when the US does it, it is "supporting oppressive regimes". In fact, both the US and Europe pretty much do the
Slashdot Mirror
Being an American with many European relatives who has spent many years in Europe, I probably have better insights into both cultures than you.
The decisions to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan were not rushed into; there were the outcome of a long political process. You and I may not like the outcome, but it wasn't a "cowboy mentality".
And you think Americans like to go to war? Of course not; convincing the American people to go to war takes long political debates and persuasion.
But Americans have seen time and again that wars are necessary and effective in maintaining one's liberty. Europeans rarely have had that experience, but they haven't found any alternative either.
Another European prejudice with no basis in fact.
No, they are absolutely not the same. The US government is moving vast amounts of money between states with no complaints, yet a $50 billion Greek bailout threatens the entire EU.
The pre-civil war structure wasn't workable in the long term: the union had to either fall apart or become closer. And that's what the EU will face when the first real crisis hits it (and I don't mean peanuts like Greece): it will either fall apart or its member states will give up a lot more of their autonomy and individuality. Frankly, I think it's going to fall apart.
As long as US unemployment was low, there was no reason for the US to rock the boat. After all, the current system keeps Europe and China happy and prosperous and that's good for the US too. Furthermore, US debt simply isn't worth its nominal value.
I think so too. And China seems to be seeing the light; Europe hasn't yet. It probably has something to do with European election cycles and China's more long-term perspective.
I don't know what "strengthen one's economy" means. For some economies, devaluation would be a disaster. For example, Japan depends on cheap imports of many goods and really has no alternative. The US, on the other hand, doesn't really need imports for anything essential; if imports of some goods become too expensive, it just switches back to domestic production.
I think nobody would trust China with that responsibility, given its government and history. And, frankly, I think nobody would really trust Europe to take on that responsibility either, given the political changes occurring in Europe.
I'm sorry, but what planet are you from? Really, before engaging in discussions about economics, get the facts.
Yes, they can, they just aren't doing it.
Did you even bother to read the article you point to? The US isn't "holding back" anything; it is printing more money, which is what you need to do to drive down the value of a currency.
That would instantly wipe out much of the US debt, increase US exports, and decrease US imports, all good things as far as the US is concerned. The only reason that would hurt the US is because it would create global chaos.
I seriously doubt the international community would feel comfortable using the Yuan. More likely, the Euro would replace the dollar. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. Europeans can carry the torch for a while and deal with the consequences.
Come on, the demographics of the different countries are widely available; use Wikipedia as a starting point if you are lost. You'll find millions of French and British from former colonies in each country. Germany has about 2 million Turkish citizens, plus more Germans of Turkish origin.
Yes, and refugee status is the last resort if you don't have other options, like immigration. The US has taken in large numbers of Iraqi and Kurdish immigrants.
Saddam Hussein created the refugee problem, and it existed long before the Iraq wars and long before Europe suddenly started caring about this issue.
The US as a whole is about the same as Western Europe in terms of educational achievement.
You don't have to go to programs where you have to go 100k into debt; there are plenty of cheaper options for getting a college education. It's your choice.
Get a grip on reality! India has a 61% literacy rate and enormous problems with education.
Did I say anywhere the amount of money was the problem?
China is a billion people, 3x the US, I bloody well hope they'll have a bigger economy than the US at some point, because otherwise it means that they remain poor. Same with India.
The sooner they take the "#1 spot" and the responsibility that goes with it, the better as far as I'm concerned. The US is still big enough to make sure its own interests are preserved, and Europe can then kvetch about China for a while, while the US can focus on improving its infrastructure and education.
China's currency is undervalued and the Chinese government has been intervening to keep it that way; both Europe and the US are constantly complaining about that.
Not only does the US pursue a strong dollar policy for that very reason, European finance ministers support it as well (this was in 2004, but it's the same every time the dollar falls):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article391816.ece
Verbatim, from the horse's mouth.
Actually, the US has better outcomes for medical care than other nations; lower life expectancy is due to more obesity and heart disease, plus some other factors. Insufficient preventive medicine isn't due to cost or lack of coverage either for most people, it's a choice for most people (a stupid one but still a choice).
And the rest of the world isn't "doing just fine". Most countries in the world can't even spend close to what either the US or Europe are spending.
And long term, people are deeply concerned about spiraling health care costs and health care insolvency in Europe as well, with nobody having a good solution. The US is just ahead of the curve.
"Look at" is probably too strong, I'm just reminding you that that's a lot of the news and history that people outside Europe actually see.
And Chinese products are such export successes because... they are so valuable? No, they are export successes because they are cheap. You said it yourself: devaluing the dollar would lower wages, lower imports, and increase exports; i.e., it would exactly fix what's wrong.
So the US would stop being a superpower, oil would get more expensive in the US (lower imports), and Europe and/or China would have to figure out how to take care of the trouble spots around the world themselves.
Seems to me that would fix all the problems Europeans keep complaining about: American unilateralism, American superpower status, American military expenditures, America's trade imbalance, America's energy consumption, and America's control of international oil and financial markets. America would get lower unemployment, balanced trade, and fiscal responsibility.
Odd, then, that Europe and China are the first to oppose devaluing the dollar.
Look at it from a US perspective: a large number of Americans are descendants of refugees from Europe and Europe has been a constant source of problems. And it didn't end with WWII: there were several military dictatorships in Western Europe, Eastern Europe was communist, and there were religious wars in Ireland and the Balkans. You may think all these things are unlikely now, but from the outside, people have little reason to believe that Europe isn't going to erupt in war and genocide once the economy goes really bad.
Tariffs and import restrictions don't balance trade, they just cause problems. No, in order to balance its trade, the US would have to devalue the dollar strongly (there is no other way). That would wipe out enormous amounts of European savings and investments and significantly increase unemployment in Europe. Devaluation is way the way global economic crises start because they feed on each other.
Well, for one thing, the agreements between the US and Europe are asymmetrical, so while the US government can get at your data, European governments will likely have a much harder time getting at the data of European citizens stored in the US.
Second, the US does have strong protection against governmental intrusion into private data; there are dozens of laws and even more case law. The first US data protection laws were enacted in the 1970's. There are laws protecting medical records, legal records, educational records, children's records, searches of your computers, etc. Even national security search of US citizen data needs to be court-approved (FISC). Just look them up, many of them are on Wikipedia. And there are hundreds of private foundations with long track records monitoring this and taking sound legal action. (And just as important, at the other end, there are strong and enforceable requirements on the US government to disclose information and operations.)
Where is your evidence that Europe is any better? Let's pick Germany. German data protection laws are full of holes when you read them, clearly allowing government access to private information for police work and national security without court order. Germany's equivalent of the FOIA is toothless, a cheap plastic imitation. And where is the German equivalent of the ACLU and all the other US watchdogs? What cases have they actually won in court?
And that is why the US has the pick when it comes to immigration while Europe has the leftovers? I don't think so. Most nations outside Europe may not always agree with US foreign policy, but they want their own countries to work more like the US.
It's the Europeans who keep whining and complaining and criticizing. And it's not hard to see why: Europe lost its empires, it has lost its direction, and it can't even get the EU together or keep the Euro stable. And instead of searching for the fault in their own cultures and political systems, Europeans blame the US for their downfall.
Absolutely: the benefit is that Europe remains free, wealthy, and open, as opposed to being taken over by fascists or communists or religious extremists. I mean, the US didn't help Europe after WWII because Europeans had been such nice people, they helped because Europe had been a disaster area for centuries and it was getting worse and worse.
The US ended up with a large standing army after WWII because Europe and Asia were in shambles. Europeans should have quickly built up their militaries again and started defending themselves. Instead, European nations found it convenient to continue to divert defense funds into social and economic programs.
In principle, I agree with you. The reason the US hasn't done that (or balanced its trade or done other obvious things) is because the risk involved: unilateral withdrawal from Europe might destabilize Europe, balancing US trade might destabilize the world economy, etc. But it can't go on like that.
If it was filed in 2007, it wasn't a "submarine patent", it was fraud.
I doubt it. There are good patents, this guy doesn't have one. The guy is a patent troll, and many people hate patent trolls.
Just the time line alone is stupid: "invented" in 1972, patent filed in 1977, shopped around to lots of companies in the years in between? The "invention" is even worse.
What does that have to do with Android?
Microsoft really contributed nothing to Android or the Galaxy S II. They didn't invent anything novel that's related to Samsung's phones, they didn't write any of the code. Hence, they shouldn't profit from it.
It doesn't have to search long, since European nations are already collecting and exchanging this data both with each other and with the US "for national security". European data protection directives have never protected you against that.
In the US, there are considerably more legal protections, at least for US citizens. But why should the US protect the privacy of European citizens more than the EU is willing to protect that privacy itself?
Competition and choice are good, and I'm all for it. In fact, I would love to see some European competition for Google, Microsoft, and Apple. I would love to see some European competition for the US military. I would love to see Europe unite and provide a counterbalance to the US. Unilateralism isn't good for either Europe or the US. But as long as Europe doesn't even try to compete, the US wins by default.
If a US corporation has my data, it is quite limited in what it can do with it; and I can sue them for a lot of money if they misuse it.
I don't know what a US corporation can do with your data; that depends on what deal your government made with the US (probably a bad one).
Funny, in the US I have to sign a permission sheet for my doctor and my insurance company to process my data electronically every time I go to a new doctor; in Europe I have never had to do that.
And in Europe, the biggest telecommunications company can use its facilities to systematically spy on its employees, their families, and journalists and rid itself of the problem by... firing one of its employees. Whopee, that's going to dissuade them from doing that again! European data protection is a lot of feel-good verbiage with no teeth and enormous gaps.
Well, and until the 1960's, Europeans were still brutally oppressing European colonies, protestants and Catholics were bashing in their heads in Northern Ireland, not to mention the military dictatorships that existed even in Western Europe.
Yeah, bad habits like civil rights, non-discrimination laws, women's liberation, and data protection. If Europeans don't watch out, they might eventually even overcome their innate tendency towards authoritarianism and actualy become liberal democracies, and then European culture is finally done for!
Morality and ethics have enormous value, which is why they play a large role in US political decisions, both domestic and foreign, and have done so for two centuries, going back to the Constitution.
It is good to see that Europe has come around to that view late in the 20th century, because until the mid-20th century, European foreign policy was based on "might makes right".
The US government is democratically elected, and has been for more than two centuries; is there anything specific you see wrong with that?
As for "corporations", they aren't these alien entities hovering over US cities, they are places where people work and where they invest their retirement funds. Companies like GM, Citibank, Exxon, etc. are supported by the US government because lots of people want that. If anything, the connection between European corporations and European governments is far stronger than the connection between US corporations and the US government.
No, the US wasn't busy doing that because the US didn't even exist. Smallpox-laced blankets were distributed to natives--during the Siege of Fort Pitt, by British troops.
The US fought a civil war precisely in order to enforce to abolish slavery, a system created under British colonial rule and contrary to the Constitution.
Until WWII, the US wasn't in a position to bully anybody: it had a small and weak military, and the world was run by Britain, France, and Spain.
The US has done plenty of bad things throughout its history, but nothing even in the same league as the evil perpetrated by European nations on the world and each other. And unlike Europe, the US has been facing and addressing its problems by itself.
I'm not forgetting that at all. I'm saying that Europe should get its act together and unite, or it should stop complaining.
Or maybe the Eastern European nations actually understood the value of US-style liberalism and US military action, while the Western Europeans were just upset because their formerly great nations had been reduced to a squabbling bunch that nobody really takes seriously anymore.
Yes, but Americans blame their own politicians for it. Europeans instead blame EU bureaucrats and the US, and European politicians just love that because they can shift blame for their own bad decisions and say "the EU made us do it" or "the US made us do it".
But the US is actually smaller than Europe.
But, realistically, do you really think most Americans or American politicians care what Europeans think of them? Europeans have looked down its noses at the US since the US was founded.
American politicians fully agree with you: http://goo.gl/SRDOX
You mean "the aggressor" as in stopping the slave trade, kicking out communist regimes, and stopping genocides? Guilty as charged. And during most of that time, European nations were busy raping and pillaging their colonies across the globe.
Have a look at the French, British, and German pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_France
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Britain
I mean, you need small print and sections to fit it all. And the many wars related to colonialism were both unjust and brutal, and they didn't end with WWII either. So much for Europe's pacifism. It only ended because Germany wasn't allowed to wage more wars and France and Britain couldn't afford it anymore.
Yes, imports by European slave traders, abolished as soon as Constitutionally allowed by the 1808 slave trade ban and enforced by the US military (one of your "wars of aggression" on that list).
The vast majority of Native Americans were killed under European rule, just like in other European colonies. Europe continued is murderous and oppressive campaigns in other colonies until the mid-20th century. The US, on the other hand, tried to integrate Native Americans into the nation, give them both citizenship and autonomy, and to compensate them.
And how is this different from Europe? Europe also gives large amounts of money to oppressive regimes around the world, and Europe also sells arms all over the world. And both the US and Europe do it for the same reasons.
Funny, when Europe does it, it's "foreign aid and aiding in negotiations" but when the US does it, it is "supporting oppressive regimes". In fact, both the US and Europe pretty much do the