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Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

baldurbjarnason.com

361–370 of 526 posts

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#361

A common mistake is to think that the EU is limited to a few large economies (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland), but this is not the case. Ensuring that a Croatian SME can win contracts with the French or Germans is one of the EU's priority objectives. This is how the EU has lifted millions of people out of poverty. This is a very tangible reality. It worked with East Germany, Spain, Poland, the Baltic States a…

The EU made us all poorer, it hasn't lifted many out of poverty

Have you seen pictures in these countries from pre-2000 to today ?

- ireland is probably the only western europe country that was a net beneficiary,

- but also the whole eastern bloc : poland, romania, slovenia, croatia, hungary, czech, estonia, latvia, lithuania

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> See? I see you being deliberately antagonistic and strawmanning an opinion you disagree with.

I will never understand "I said $dumb_thing and the fact everyone downvoted me for saying $dumb_thing proves that $dumb_thing is right!"

Don’t bully them, they’re just a little slow in the head.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#363
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the adverts they show me, Facebook thinks I'm originally from a small city in Florida, that I moved from the US to the UK and want to give up my US citizenship for tax purposes, that now live in specifically both Cambridge and Waterlooville even though those are opposite sides of London, that I own a potentially dangerous breed of dog that the UK just banned, and that I'm a hermaphrodite in need of both a…

So, you are telling me that you live two seperate and secret lives to hide the fact you own illegal dogs? In all seriousness so, for all the effort and data companies like facebook have, the product, targeted ads, is just bad. And sometimes hilariously so.

Even if I owned a dog, which I don't, UK law is irrelevant because I live in Berlin.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that anyone who's opposed to narrow government regulations is somehow brainwashed by the Kochs is just an unsufferably smug attitude towards people you disagree with. It's like the "funded by George Soros therefore bad" you sometimes see on the right. I'm sure they've spent money on promoting this, but there's many reasons you'd come to this conclusion other than having it "manufactured" for you by billionai…

> Even on death’s doorstep, Trevor was not angry. In fact, he staunchly supported the stance promoted by his elected officials. “Ain’t no way I would ever support Obamacare or sign up for it,” he told me. “I would rather die.” When I asked him why he felt this way even as he faced severe illness, he explained: “We don’t need any more government in our lives. And in any case, no way I want my tax dollars paying for Me…

There is nothing more smug than the point-and-laugh hit piece, where a journalist finds some ignorant rube for the college-educated to sneer at.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#365

> But the single market is what it’s for. Without it, the EU would cease to exist. To understand what motivates EU, as an organisation, you need to understand the single market. > Whenever I point out on social media that the single market is the purpose of the EU, I get bombarded by replies saying: “No you’re wrong. The EU was founded to preserve peace in Europe. Gotcha! I think the author is right here, and that th…

The EU was created in 1993, not sure how at that time colonies were anywhere relevant to the creation.

The starting point was the European Coal and Steel Communion in 1951 (conceived 1950, with France, W Germany, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) which had as an objective to create lasting peace between France and Germany by making it practically impossible from resource pooling to go to war.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#366
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

283? You're talking about a personal blog, right? I have seen 500+. Which is like wtf is going on. I can't even name 500+ companies or websites, who the hell are these companies?

I hit back instantly when I see the Admiral logo. That network IIRC claims >1,500 partners. And last time I bothered looking even though there is a few “no to all” checkboxes you still needed to individually object to “legitimate interest”¹ for most of the companies. -- [1] which I read as “we see you and your privacy preferences, but fuck you and your preferences we want to stalk you anyway”

This "legitimate interest" crap should be hit hard, with a few big examples made to warn others. The cases where you can claim legitimate interest are essentially "when the user agrees with you that it's legitimate", not "we have a legitimate interest in profiting off your data".

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#367
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Honestly, if you talk to real people within the EU, you'll find that maybe half of them are mostly against the EU. The polling seems to be proving you wrong. Even in the UK the attitude towards the EU seems to be net positive.

How’d that work out for you with the Brexit vote? Still placing your undivided faith in polls by people that benefit from presenting a particular ideology as being popular?

It's a sort of a myth that Brexit polling got it wrong [1]. There was a visible surge for Leave just before the referendum, and the result did not surprise me.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Unit...

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#368
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you are right, I think the better formulation is that the US is just super to the right of the normal political spectrum. In Europe you have a pretty good spread across the whole spectrum across the many countries, but in the US the left really doesn't exist as a party. Even the Democrats would be a conservative party in most other countries.

> Democrats would be a conservative party in most other countries. Ah, that tried and true indicator of "I get all my takes from Reddit".

If you understand that conservatism is just progressivism driving the speed limit, they're not wrong. The speed limit in the US is just lower than it is in much of Europe.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem they've mistaken the general sentiment towards government regulation in europe, which is typically, "more, better". Since we have so many consumer protections, much of how we end up engaging with the law around business practices is to our benefit . We're always aware we can raise bad business practices with an ombudsman (etc.). So our lived experience of government regulation is, in large part, positive…

Yes each time we see these cookie warnings, we admire a system that does so much to our benefit

This is just a small example between the difference of EU and USA.

Here is another. Work for a company that made a machine used in automation. Designed around US regulations it had a clamping force of 1600 N, same biting force as an adult panda. This thing can take off fingers and arms.

Only know about the 1600 N because it was risk assessed for EU market. After a year of design changes. Moved to fail-safe motors and changed order of operation. The machine no longer leaves someone limbless, it cannot take off a fingernail.

EU requires safety to be engineered into the product while USA allows for deforming machine operators and victim blaming when something goes wrong. Company has discontinued the USA model and only manufacturers the EU model.

EU regulations can help USA citizens when our politicians reject good regulations for personal profit.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#370
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But cookie banner seriously hurt the big tech sector in delivering better persobalized adds! It prevebts innovation! /s

Judging by the adverts they show me, Facebook thinks I'm originally from a small city in Florida, that I moved from the US to the UK and want to give up my US citizenship for tax purposes, that now live in specifically both Cambridge and Waterlooville even though those are opposite sides of London, that I own a potentially dangerous breed of dog that the UK just banned, and that I'm a hermaphrodite in need of both a…

That's the craziest part. All the exabytes of information gathered, and the ads are still entirely irrelevant 95% of the time. Except when you've just purchased a product, then they think it's a great idea to show you ads of the very product you already bought!
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