The need for world government

The rise (those damn Christians!) and fall (those damn Goths and Huns!) of Rome, the fall of Napoleon’s rule (those damn Russians!), the rise of Hitler (those damn Jews!), USA after Pearl Harbor (those damn Japanese!), downfall of Germany in 1945 (this damn war!), end of the Japanese imperial era (those damn bombs!) and the subsequent Americanization of Japan, fall of Great Britain’s monarchy after the war (those damn royalty!), the late 60’s major loss of civil liberties in the US (those damn blacks!), the entire Gaddafi affair (those damn clan monarchs / those damn Yankees!), USA becoming a surveillance state after 9/11 (those damn terrorists!), rise of the Taliban (those damn Yankees again!) …

But I'm going to out on a limb and agree with the author. Not only that, we will most probably have a world government for many of the reasons mentioned, but mainly because after the next big war, it will become evident for everyone still alive that we can't have individual nations going on a rampage with nuclear weapons (biological weapons, etc take your pick) any more.

It will probably not look like a national government, it simply will enable the rule of law, globally. Which is what we need. Preferably before the next big war.

And in the inverse, a few months ago I saw a lot users here arguing in favor of forcing Covid vaccinations against the person’s will to protect immunocompromised. Where do you stand on that?

The Germans and the French were more than happy betting on Italian and Greek bonds which were junk-level and provided great yields. But, when in Greece's case the chickens came home to roost and their risk was about to materialize they forced a bailout program on the Greek people instead of allowing them to default. Having a country in the Eurozone defaulting their debt would have devastating impact on the Euro too, so there was double-whammy of incentives for the EU technocrats to bailout Greece.

After the Greek economy got devastated, mainly German companies entered the Greek market and obliterated the local competition, especially in the retailer industry with brands like Lidl coming in and undercutting the Greek businesses which had been around for decades. Moreover, they bought out a lot of those Greek businesses for a piece of bread and merged them with their own. So Greek people were essentially spending their bailout money buying products from the Germans. At the end of the day, Germany was moving money from one pocket to the other and also making interest on top of it. No EU technocrat bailed out Greece out of kindness.

Now of course, the propaganda machine will lament every day to the average Joe about how the lazy Italians and Greeks are stealing their money. So the 'annoyance' is understandable.

"AFAICT the Greeks trust the EU government a heck of a lot more than they trust their own."

False. They distrust them equally and for different reasons.

"Ask the Poles and Ukrainians about what they think about EU membership. By some metrics Poland is the fastest growing economy in the world."

I don't know Polish people and I don't know what their sentiment towards the EU is. The Ukranians have no idea what it is to be a member of the EU, they can't know from the outside. If just the fact that a country wants to join the EU is an indicator of how great the EU is, then the other way round is also true (UK, Switzerland and Norway not wanting to join, or several countries having a 'leaving' sentiment brewing within).