31–40 of 95 posts
As a U.S. citizen, I’m beginning to ask myself how to take more meaningful measures to help bring an end to this behavior. I’m not a political activist and generally try to mind my own business, but that mindset only worked when I felt I could trust the system to self-correct. It seems our judicial system can barely keep up, and Congress is doing next to nothing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As in any region's system: pay attention, vote, donate, organize even protest. Not voting votes for the winner, which might not be what you want.
Oh you didn't hear? They're also cancelling the midterms.
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It's not EU's fault US manufacturers can't keep manufacturing costs down.
Neither is it EU's fault Trump believes slapping tariffs hurting US consumers will improve US standing in the world.
Canadian Prime Minister recently said that he stands by Canada’s NATO Article 2 and 5 obligations with our Eureopean allies. A subtle signal that war with United States is a possibility. Trump will use this as a pretext to not only take Greenland but to invade Canada as well. He has gone utterly mad. Congress needs to act. Yesterday.
How would a standard invasion work? The news about DoD preparing invasion plans for Greenland have an invasion done by Special Operations, not the infantry, armor and air. Special operations probably wouldn't work for the population of Canada. After a short time, and some casualties, I think the US military would have real problems internally, not counting that popular support would disappear.
Also if any french military asset is present when the US attack, we will see how determined the french military is following it's own doctrine (which dictates a 'warning shot' 24 hours before sending the tactical nukes).
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I don't particularly care for your explanation, but if you do want to post these kind of comments at least explain yourself a bit so potentially a curious conversation can follow. Not doing so is arguably against this site's guidelines.
Why did you single mine out? Oh yeah, the default instinct to censor different ideas.
I support the US assuming control of Greenland because it would be incredibly economically beneficial to the US, militarily beneficial to the US, we’d be on the hook for defending it in case of a war as the EU hardly has any expeditionary force left, and we’ve propped up Europe for 70 years.
It could greatly delay the collapse of the American empire that I love and enjoy living in.
We haven’t been a humble republic since the close of WW2, maybe even WW1.
As a U.S. citizen, I’m beginning to ask myself how to take more meaningful measures to help bring an end to this behavior. I’m not a political activist and generally try to mind my own business, but that mindset only worked when I felt I could trust the system to self-correct. It seems our judicial system can barely keep up, and Congress is doing next to nothing.
Don't let the people in your life casually get away with promoting fascism. Punish them socially.
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I am .... optimistic that something can be arranged. I believe that Greenland is extremely important to arctic security, and America is the best country to defend that zone. At the same time I do not support the aggressive tactics by this administration. Since this was first proposed I still hold the position that it is up to the people of Greenland - not Denmark - to decide their path. I hope they will hold a refere…
That's pure cope.
Canadian Prime Minister recently said that he stands by Canada’s NATO Article 2 and 5 obligations with our Eureopean allies. A subtle signal that war with United States is a possibility. Trump will use this as a pretext to not only take Greenland but to invade Canada as well. He has gone utterly mad. Congress needs to act. Yesterday.
How would a standard invasion work? The news about DoD preparing invasion plans for Greenland have an invasion done by Special Operations, not the infantry, armor and air. Special operations probably wouldn't work for the population of Canada. After a short time, and some casualties, I think the US military would have real problems internally, not counting that popular support would disappear.
The question is what would happen to the US staff land-locked on NATO bases within the EU. They will automatically become under siege, vastly outnumbered by European counterparts.
Since any attack on Greenland is an attack on the EU country the Kingdom of Denmark, and any attack on any EU countries automatically trigger EU Article 42.7, which mandates the full support from all members, to which all EU countries have committed, it would imply full-scale war.
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Your post is yet another example of how USians don't understand how VAT works.
There is no VAT rebate on exports, there is a 100% reimbursement of VAT on any export. There is also a 100% reimbursement of VAT on any B2B sale. That way VAT is a tax only on goods that are sold to consumers in the EU, no matter where they came from and no matter where they were manufactured/processed/...
How this works as an example: You mine iron ore, sell a ton for 1000€. Buyer pays 20% VAT. But since it's B2B, buyer can get those 20% back immediately in his monthly VAT declaration. Buyer makes 500kg steel from that iron ore, sells it for 2000€. Buyer of the steel can get those 20% back, since it's B2B. Let's say the buyer makes paperclips from that steel and sells those. Now the buyer of those paperclips is the interesting thing here, because the buyer pays 20% VAT on those paperclips. He might be their end-user (either business or customer) in which case he won't get 20% VAT back. He might be a reseller, in which case he will get the VAT back. End-users don't get their 20% VAT, resellers and processing industry do. It's always only the last step in the chain who really pay VAT, everyone else doesn't.
And any border-crossing is treated as a sale, so the you get the VAT rate (different EU contries have different rates) from the country that the goods are leaving paid out, and you have to pay the VAT rate of the country you are entering on those goods. If you are exporting to non-EU, and there is no VAT in the destination country, you don't pay any, you just get the VAT back from the country you are exporting from. So it is totally symmetrical, totally fair, and totally neutral, independent from whether it is US, EU, Chinese or whatever the origin might be.
And if you think it's complicated, you might be right. But then again, look at the complete and utter mess that US sales taxes are. Every other town might have a different tax rate, system, catalogue of goods every other week. USians shouldn't complain about trade barriers as long as that mess is still in place.
> The EU enabled the Dutch Sandwich and Irish offshoring trade scams which has become a tax haven
That's a fault of Ireland and the Netherlands, the EU is just powerless to stop those practices. Same as the US is powerless to get rid of their own tax haven states like Delaware, Nevada or Wyoming. Just to cite Wikipedia, "Andrew Penney from Rothschild & Co described the US as "effectively the biggest tax haven in the world" and Trident Trust Co., one of the world's biggest providers of offshore trusts, moved dozens of accounts out of Switzerland and Grand Cayman, and into Sioux Falls" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven
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