BTW, good posts, Ssnake and Jayhawk.

There is always going to be problems when a large geographic area
which incorporates many different population pockets in regions with
different resources, industries, and development tries to operate
with a single currency and a single interest rate. This happens in the
US and Canada as well as in the EU. To some degree the North American
countries are able to ameliorate the discrepancies via shuffling money
from region to region (called equalization payments in Canada), but if
the EU can work out a way of maintaining state sovereignty without the
equalization payments yet retain a single currency, via some deviously
clever arrangement with banking rules such that less attractive regions
don't get crippled by the flight of capital, this could prove to be of
benefit not only in NA but around the world.

The reason larger gov'ts always have trouble is humanity's tribal nature. No one is willing to give up something for themselves for others who live far away. Merkel canned the EADS/BAE merger not because it was a bad idea, not because it would make the combined company too strong, not because it was going to make the company less efficient, but just because Germany wouldn't have benefited. So she said no, and the European aerospace sector is less able to compete on a global stage because of it.

Likewise Texans don't care what is best for industries in New York, and Californians don't care about what is needed for people in Iowa. And if you live in Southern California you don't really give a damn about the people in Sacramento, and those in NYC don't want to sacrifice a thing for people in Buffalo. Yet without a central gov't to force changes that are good for the country as a whole, you get a weak ineffective nation that can't do a thing outside its borders.

Humans are selfish, tribal, and live in the present while allowing themselves to be influenced by the past. They don't look to the future, they don't actually learn from the past (they draw all the wrong conclusions about events), they are generous only when it doesn't affect them, and if it does they're only generous to local neighbors or immediate family/friends/colleagues.

The world has changed rapidly in the last century or so. Technology has changed rapidly. Humanity hasn't changed at all. It takes more than a century, it takes many, many generations. As long as people are alive now to remember something, or their parents were, or even their grandparents were and they remember the stories they were told as children, that won't change.

Your tribe, or city, or county, or state, or whatever unit you want to call it, is NOT more important than any other. It only is to YOU.




The Jedi Master

Where the EU has competency in an area then any regulations and directives that comes out of the bureaucracy will take precedence over national legislation and must be incorporated. This is why the UK passed over 4000 new laws last year. As an indication of this burden have a look at this:

Pythagorean theorem: ...........................................24 words.

Lord's prayer:................................................. 66 words.

Archimedes' Principle: ........................................ 67 words.

10 Commandments: .............................................. 179 words.

Gettysburg address: ........................................... 286 words.

US Declaration of Independence : .............................. 1,300 words.

US Constitution with all 27 Amendments: ....................... 7,818 words.

EU regulations on the sale of cabbage:......................... 26,911 words.

On top of that the EU accounts have not been passed by the auditors for over 15 years.

That's (one of) the downside(s) with the EU being stuck in a perpetual limbo, constitution wise: a bloated bureaucracy, and a most anti-democratic institution - the European Commission - at its center.

Two solutions come to mind: either revert the whole thing back towards the less political, more economy-oriented European Community, or take the next step and agree on a European Constitution, which should strengthen the role of the European Parliament and demote the Commission. Better yet, dissolve the whole Commission (a bunch of commissars appointed by the member states) altogether and instead install either an elected executive branch (like in the US), or let the EU parliament elect representatives from their own ranks as the executive (like for example in Germany).

US federal tax code: ............................ 73,608 pages (as of 2012)

When lawyers and economists work together....

If only the votes would all count the same, but they don't. Pretty much everybody is overrepresented over Germany; in fact, it was specifically designed to maintain control over Germany (under the disguise of giving the small countries a meaningful vote). Guess why we're being shafted all the time.

I have no problem giving countries like Luxemburg and Lettland a bit more power, but "one man, one vote" it is not.

Just make 'em all subjects of the Queen ....problem solved

I watched the movie and now understand the meaning of "shiitstorm" (with one i)