741–750 of 878 posts
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No. He is separately the monarch of the UK and Canada. You could just as well argue that the UK is dependent on Canada for that reason.
You could, but it might be difficult to hear yourself over the explosive laughter of everybody around you. Which country would you say has a closer relationship with the King of England?
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Carney was asking for freedom of movement of goods, people and services, but without full monetary and legislative integration. So, easier to sell stuff, easier to buy stuff, free to just travel to/from Canada/EU and work there with no extra paperwork, free to buy and sell service from Canada to EU and vice versa. No Euro, no vote in EU, no ECJ, no payments into each others budget. Tighter integration than UK, not as…
When several EU countries are already struggling with large Indian Subcontinent communities that don't integrate (and dodge taxes and food-processing regs--Indians where I am have their own large underground cash-only food economy among themselves), opening up flow of people from Canada's mobile classes which has seen vast demographic change seems like it would only exacerbate the problem.
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There is a strong case that much of the eastern bloc were tricked into joining, by the UK, in order to weaken the Franco-German efforts for ever closer union. This was even a joke in the UK at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYqB0uTKlE
Could you elaborate regarding how exactly were eastern bloc countries "tricked" into joining by the UK? And what prevents them from leaving now that the tricksters from UK have long since left themselves?
The Brits have a habit of only telling you the precise truth when they think you think they're joking.
No idea what this actually means, if it means easier trade, I'm all for anything that reduces our dependency on the yanks, as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes. The Americans are no longer our friends, Salut, mes amis Européens. :)
I'm afraid you're mistaking our lunatic leader with "us". Understandable, but this step will be wholly unnecessary as soon as December when his power will be checked (largely). I lean right, more libertarian small government type, so you're not hearing this from a blowhard on the American left. His foreign policy, the way he's treated friends has been wanton and immensely damaging, and a whole lot of us want this cor…
> "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
Like, if the US had just elected ol' minihands once, that would be one thing. But it did it _twice_. Ultimately, even if he's comprehensively put back in his box, there is an issue of long-term trust.
At this point, Pandora's Box has been opened; it has been established that the US president can just act like a crazy dictator and... none of the mechanisms which are supposed to prevent that actually really function. Even if the US elects the most normal, sensible, rule-of-law-focused president imaginable in 2028, Canada will still have to look to 2032. I'm not sure that anything short of constitutional change would really restore trust, and the US is set up such that changing the constitution is virtually impossible.
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The point was non alignment with the two superpowers.
Both Russia and China are observer states within the non-aligned movement.
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Go do some research on China - it's economy is in the toilet and its leadership has destroyed much of it's success, foreign capital and companies have fled to India, Vietnam, Mexico, Indonesia. Your lament of "Oh no China is the best in the world and only getting better!!!" is long long out of date.
With 2 billion people you’re absolute power. Internal market with middle class size of whole United States. No need for wallstreet and American style financial engineering. Producer of 80% goods for Europe. I mean buying something mainstream not made in China is barely possible. Technically there are some challenges like plane engines or lithography. But they’ll nail it. Trust me.
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Trump is a symptom not the disease, when he's gone the people who supported him and voted for him still exist and another Trump-like figure is almost inevitable given they've basically ploughed and planted that field to grow the next one and who's to say NeoTrump isn't going to be smarter . The other democracies can no longer count on the US as a stable ally the way we have in the past (whether that trust was misplac…
When Hitler was removed did another Hitler variant take control of Germany? No, Germany recovered from that dark period. The same will happen in the US. We will recover from this dark period. The comparison to Hitler is not baseless, btw. His own vice president once called Trump America's Hitler.
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It's interesting to me that people generally see Europe's regulations as interfering with entrepreneurship, while they see American decisions that give more power to multinational corporations at the expense of smaller companies as a normal part of a free market.
Don't you see that the same bureaucracy that adds friction to entrepreneurship also serves the purpose of protecting the incumbents? It is odious to start a company in the EU. There are many accounts of this on HN itself.
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How much oil is Europe still importing from Russia? I'd rather have Canadian.
You know how despite climate change being very real, in day to day discussions with other level headed people, they still very regularly say stuff like "We ran the numbers for an EV, and right now gas is still cheaper, so we are holding off on the switch until it makes financial sense" Canadian oil would need to be shipped halfway around the world. It would be more expensive. Price is always the top factor for everyo…