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

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

#481

Post by Sammi »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #469
Isinlor wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the basic premise EU is working wonderfully. It's the longest period in our thousand years history that we Poles have not had to fight Germans. We have lost maybe even 1/3 of population in wars with Sweden, 1/5 of population in war with Germany. Poland didn't exist or 123 years under Russian, Prussian and Austrian occupation. Given that as a baseline, I'm really grateful for the EU.

Even within the EU it is clear that low income countries have worse life than high income countries, just like everywhere in the world. And Europe's real median income is decreasing in most of the countries. Surely, it will have effect in few decades. [1]: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/08/21/real-wages-are-down...

Yes. But are you implying that the EU is making this worse? After all, the economic slowdown in Europe can almost fully be explained by the terrible demographics in Europe.

It is easy to imagine a war torn Europe without the EU. Then we would definitely be worse off.

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

#482

Post by Sammi »

roenxi wrote: post #455
Isinlor wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the basic premise EU is working wonderfully. It's the longest period in our thousand years history that we Poles have not had to fight Germans. We have lost maybe even 1/3 of population in wars with Sweden, 1/5 of population in war with Germany. Poland didn't exist or 123 years under Russian, Prussian and Austrian occupation. Given that as a baseline, I'm really grateful for the EU.

Maybe I'm about to display my ignorance, but until 1990 wasn't Poland under the USSR's umbrella? And the US was all but occupying Germany until ... it is almost possible to make that claim up to today. There are 50k US troops in Germany and 60k in the German army. That and the Southwestern Europeans being broken like twigs after WWII. I don't think it is the EU that is keeping the peace; I reakoon it is the Haber pro…

The Haber process was the single most important thing that brought us WW1 and WW2. War at an industrial scale was suddenly possible because munitions were possible to produce at and industrial scale.

The EU is what changed in Europe.

US "occupation" in Europe after WW2 was weak compared to the influence of the EU. The EU emanates all regulation in Europe. The US certainly didn't create the single market in the EU.

Also the brutal occupation of Easter Europe by the USSR is exactly an example of what the EU peace project is about solving.

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

#483

Post by Sammi »

noirscape wrote: post #52
zarzavat wrote: post #16

At least in the case of Apple, it’s not at all specific the the EU. That company is run by children. Everybody who works with Apple, be it developers or suppliers complains about how shitty they are to work with. They maintain relationships by the strength of their market power alone. Bridge burning is ingrained into the company culture. Apple is treating the EU like they do everyone else: they are being dicks. Unfor…

I wouldn't say they're children. Rather, Apple is ran by people who are used to the ~20 years of free corporate reign granted to them by the complete defanging of groups like the FTC in the US while Europe was still trying to fruitlessly coax them into being cooperative. It's not just Apple who is struggling to work in an environment where regulators have teeth; Amazon tried to treat the EU the same way and got banne…

The meteoric rise of MS Azure in Europe is best explained by how they have already had their war with the EU and learned how to work with the EU instead of against it.

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

#484

Post by buzzert »

mpol wrote: post #121
Lutger wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some definition of left. The interesting thing about the article is that all this EU regulatory control over corporations is in fact deeply capitalistic and the very reason for its existence, and in the corporations interest. Which is not what most EU citizens would consider being on the left of the political spectrum. The idea is: we need regulation to shape the market where businesses can compete freely to the…

Now you are twisting words :) Capitalism is like a cancer, it will grow endlessly and will become feudalism. Socialism is the government applying rules to capitalism, so it doesn't get out of control. US policy of neo-liberalism is growing in Europe too, which is giving problems.

I'm not sure if you're joking, but feudalism pre-dated capitalism. And socialism is not "applying rules to capitalism", it's the government siezing the means of production from free enterprise.

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

#485

Post by buzzert »

Sammi wrote: post #479
massysett wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“brainwashed” Distrust of government, and the limiting of its powers, is an American founding principle. It has resulted in federalism, separation of powers, a Constitution that protects property rights, and a Bill of Rights. This skepticism of government stemmed from the lived experience of the founders. That this founding principle still permeates American thinking and American life is something I would call cultur…

"federalism, separation of powers, a Constitution that protects property rights, and a Bill of Rights." These things exist in the EU. Are you sure you are not brainwashed?

The US Constitution maintains that rights defined in the Bill of Rights pre-exist government ("inalienable"). The EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights defines rights granted to the people by the government.

This is a subtle, but important difference.

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

#486

Post by buzzert »

olabyne wrote: post #361
ttoinou wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Was there any other big event that happened in the eastern bloc in, say, the early 1990's?

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

#487

Post by buzzert »

ryandrake wrote: post #408
rkangel wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's working for the people that live in the EU. This is another point that I think Americans miss sometimes - "good for the businesses" is seen as the end goal, and it is assumed that people will benefit in some trickle-down way from that. The goal for all of this is for people to have good lives. Supporting businesses may or may not be the right way of doing that, but we shouldn't lose sight of the end goal.

Simping for big business is a favorite American pastime. Somehow, so many Americans have been convinced that they're actually business owners, just having a set-back and temporarily working for $20/hr stocking shelves or selling cars. But in their hearts they are actually tycoons, and anything that hurts business surely hurts themselves!

> so many Americans have been convinced that they're actually business owners

In many cases, this is true. Tesla, for example, paid their early factory workers with stock in the company. As a result, many of the factory workers who worked on the Model 3 assembly line are now millionaires.

The US's relatively lax taxation/regulation on equity compensation is one of the reasons why tech workers in the US get paid so much more. Since they're actually literally part owners of the company, this might explain why they're usually more productive as well.

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

#488

Post by schoen »

buzzert wrote: post #485
Sammi wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"federalism, separation of powers, a Constitution that protects property rights, and a Bill of Rights." These things exist in the EU. Are you sure you are not brainwashed?

The US Constitution maintains that rights defined in the Bill of Rights pre-exist government ("inalienable"). The EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights defines rights granted to the people by the government. This is a subtle, but important difference.

I agree that the U.S. political tradition often regards our rights as recognized or discovered rather than granted, but the "inalienable" language is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Bill of Rights (and in the original it was "unalienable", which is now archaic).

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

#489

Post by fragmede »

cactusplant7374 wrote: post #382
polski-g wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the Cloudflare vs Archive.is shitfest. I do not care why CF DNS doesn't work with Archive, all I know is that it doesn't work, and others do. I do not care why cookie banners are there. All I know is that they weren't there N years ago and now they are, and they are annoying.

> This reminds me of the Cloudflare vs Archive.is shitfest. Is there some background reading on this? I would like to use Cloudflare as one of my DNS providers but this issue has always bothered me.

Archive.is wants to know where your request is coming from, so they can serve content to you from a server that's in a legally offshore place to you, so they can continue operating. Cloudflare doesn't want to give them this information, so Archive.is blocked them.

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

#490

Post by roenxi »

Sammi wrote: post #482
roenxi wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm about to display my ignorance, but until 1990 wasn't Poland under the USSR's umbrella? And the US was all but occupying Germany until ... it is almost possible to make that claim up to today. There are 50k US troops in Germany and 60k in the German army. That and the Southwestern Europeans being broken like twigs after WWII. I don't think it is the EU that is keeping the peace; I reakoon it is the Haber pro…

The Haber process was the single most important thing that brought us WW1 and WW2. War at an industrial scale was suddenly possible because munitions were possible to produce at and industrial scale. The EU is what changed in Europe. US "occupation" in Europe after WW2 was weak compared to the influence of the EU. The EU emanates all regulation in Europe. The US certainly didn't create the single market in the EU. Al…

If someone was going to start a fight in Europe after WWII, they had a choice of either attacking in the East and going toe-to-toe with the USSR, or the West and going toe-to-toe with the US. That calculation held for the Germans, British and French too if they wanted to start something.

The common market has probably been a net force for peace, but superpowers staking out areas where they were involved can hardly be brushed aside. After the fall of the USSR it hasn't been 30 years and we see land wars in their former sphere of influence.

Economics doesn't stop armies. We saw in WWII that insane politicians are perfectly capable of destroying everything in sight, economic consequences for their own citizens be damned.

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