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Ya know, under the Hoover adminstration, this wouldn't have been an issue. This clown would have............taken a vacation somewhere.




Like Gitmo.

Mark wrote:Ya know, under the Hoover adminstration, this wouldn't have been an issue. This clown would have............taken a vacation somewhere.




Like Gitmo.

Or, he would have just assumed room temperature.

That and our elected officials would have had the balls to just send out a team and pick the guy up.

Deepcrush wrote:That and our elected officials would have had the balls to just send out a team and pick the guy up.

You don't need balls to do that these days - it's what the current extradition treaty amounts to.

Piles of paperwork and followed by a bunch of Europeans crying about the days when they used to matter. Way more effort then needed.

Deepcrush wrote:a bunch of Europeans crying about the days when they used to matter.

You mean the days when you needed the French to fight your wars for you?

Captain Seafort wrote:

Deepcrush wrote:a bunch of Europeans crying about the days when they used to matter.

You mean the days when you needed the French to fight your wars for you?

You mean the days when you lost a war to the French and a bunch of hillbillies?

You mean the days when you lost a war to the French and a bunch of hillbillies?

Here a few fun facts:

• EU27
  Population 2010 estimate: 501.064.211
  GDP (PPP)* 2009 (IMF) estimate: $14.793 trillion
  GDP (nominal) 2009 (IMF estimate): $16.447 trillion

• USA
  Population 2010 estimate: 310.912.000
  GDP (PPP)* 2009 (IMF) estimate: $14.256 trillion
  GDP (nominal) 2009 (IMF estimate): $14.256 trillion

(PPP=Purchasing Power Parity)

Draw you own conclusions...mine is that the US are strong because they are undivided (compared to 27 bickering and independent minded nations) and that they are loud...so very very loud. Maybe...just maybe...a bit too loud .

So in other words the US with half the population of the EU still out plays Europe... Thanks for agreeing with me.

By what definition do you define out plays? All financial figures are higher than the US, not by much admittedly but thats probably due to the abundance of natural materials you have knocking on your doorstep. Your politcal power is present purely because you are not divided.

Reliant121 wrote:probably due to the abundance of natural materials you have knocking on your doorstep. Your politcal power is present purely because you are not divided.

How, exactly, do the reasons for an effect invalidate that effect?

I suppose that's true.

Mikey wrote:

Reliant121 wrote:probably due to the abundance of natural materials you have knocking on your doorstep. Your politcal power is present purely because you are not divided.

How, exactly, do the reasons for an effect invalidate that effect?

The US also happen to have no long-term history of being divided, and also made a lot of effort to make sure there would be no ennemy right on their doorstep, so the military spendings spent on defending their border, historically, have been ridiculously low.

They also happen to have one of the most developped river system on the planet which allows its internal territory to trade with the rest of the world, which actually skyrocketed farmland production and made the whole country insanely rich even when it was still mostly agrarian economy (not because of primitiveness, but simply because much more ressources were developped toward expanding and controlling the territory).

They also happen to have a historically open market internally, which makes them more attractive to potential investors/patents commercialiser, as you can reach more easily without too much paperwork (and without fearing any trade barrier) to a much, much larger market. Attracting this kind of economical elite created a culture which encourage enterpreneurial development, which was quite a boon to your long-term economical development.

In short, the US had a healthy mix of natural, sociological, geographical and geopolitical advantage that allows it to be the powerhouse it is today. Some are perfectly deserved, as it is the product of their citizen's mentality, others are simply God's gift. They had the luck of having a rich exploitable land AND the cultural capacity to leverage said luck.

Again, I'm forced to ask: how do any of these reasons invalidate the effect? Of course we have more internal freedom amongst the states than the member nations of the EU - the states aren't separate nations. Of course our borders are more defensible than most - we're bordered on east and west by a pair of pretty sizeable lakes.

Nothing invalidates the effect, since.. well, the effect are there anyway. No arguments are going to remove them from existence.

Edit: but making a jugement call on EU's smaller freedom of movement, and comparing the superiority of your american system is callous and arrogant, at the very best. Europe has about 2 millenia of internal conflicts and their respective government structure and culture to forget while trying to allow the current union. I'd think the whole endeavour is quite more ambitious than uniting a group of states that were coming out of their teenage rebellious stride.