EPTOn October 14 2017 01:52 TheDwf wrote:
I oppose the americanization of this thread
I oppose the americanization of this thread
I oppose whatever the French guy is saying, which must be the most European thing possible!
European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 966
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
I oppose whatever the French guy is saying, which must be the most European thing possible! | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
On October 14 2017 02:05 Dangermousecatdog wrote: How do you feel about "Guerrier de la Justice Sociale"? It sounds kinda cool actually. Not bad, but here right-wingers simply use the immortal "gauchiste" (~ "ultra-leftist") to blame/mock anything left of the social-democracy (or even its left-wing...). Also blends wonderfully with 21th century obsessions: "islamo-gauchiste" has increasing success within the right as of late. On October 14 2017 02:20 Nebuchad wrote: We are mocking something that the Americans do, I feel that's a very european attitude =) Fair enough! | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
Interesting take on political ulture [...] Macron: No, because you can leave this place when you want to. I go out and I say and do what I want - even if people may find that shocking. One could, of course, decide to be suffocated by all the pomp here. But if you decide to resist it, then you won't be suffocated. Macron: What is clear is that being president is the end of innocence for you as an individual. Nothing is innocent anymore when you are president. And that changes your life dramatically. Normally, everyone can afford the luxury of doing things that make no sense. They do things, no matter what it is, and nobody cares. But when you are president, everything is significant, at least for the others. Everything is important and could even have profound consequences. That is sometimes troubling, yes. But it isn't overwhelming. DER SPIEGEL: Do you think that Angela Merkel feels the same way? Macron: Germany is different from France. You are more Protestant, which results in a significant difference. Through the church, through Catholicism, French society was structured vertically, from top to bottom. I am convinced that it has remained so until today. That might sound shocking to some - and don't worry, I don't see myself as a king. But whether you like it or not, France's history is unique in Europe. Not to put too fine a point on it, France is a country of regicidal monarchists. It is a paradox: The French want to elect a king, but they would like to be able to overthrow him whenever they want. The office of president is not a normal office - that is something one should understand when one occupies it. You have to be prepared to be disparaged, insulted and mocked - that is in the French nature. And: As president, you cannot have a desire to be loved. Which is, of course, difficult because everybody wants to be loved. But in the end, that's not important. What is important is serving the country and moving it forward. DER SPIEGEL: Often, things work quite a bit different in practice than in theory, even for those who have thought through every step. Macron: That is true. You can anticipate and plan everything, but when you actually experience it, it's different. For me, my office isn't first and foremost a political or technical one. Rather, it is symbolic. I am a strong believer that modern political life must rediscover a sense for symbolism. We need to develop a kind of political heroism. I don't mean that I want to play the hero. But we need to be amenable once again to creating grand narratives. If you like, post-modernism was the worst thing that could have happened to our democracy. The idea that you have to deconstruct and destroy all grand narratives is not a good one. Since then, trust has evaporated in everything and everyone. I am sometimes surprised that it is the media that are the first ones to exhibit a lack of trust in grand narratives. They believe that destroying something is part of their journalistic purpose because something grand must inevitably contain an element of evil. Critique is necessary, but where does this hate for the so-called grand narrative come from? DER SPIEGEL: Why is this narrative so important? Macron: I think we need it badly! Why is a portion of our youth so fascinated by extremes, jihadism for example? Why do modern democracies refuse to allow their citizens to dream? Why can't there be such a thing as democratic heroism? Perhaps exactly that is our task: rediscovering something like that together for the 21st century.[...] | ||
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sc-darkness
856 Posts
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SK.Testie
Canada11084 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
We, the Leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom take note of President Trump’s decision not to recertify Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to Congress and are concerned by the possible implications. We stand committed to the JCPoA and its full implementation by all sides. Preserving the JCPoA is in our shared national security interest. The nuclear deal was the culmination of 13 years of diplomacy and was a major step towards ensuring that Iran’s nuclear programme is not diverted for military purposes. The JCPoA was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2231. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly confirmed Iran’s compliance with the JCPoA through its long-term verification and monitoring programme. Therefore, we encourage the US Administration and Congress to consider the implications to the security of the US and its allies before taking any steps that might undermine the JCPoA, such as re-imposing sanctions on Iran lifted under the agreement. At the same time as we work to preserve the JCPoA, we share concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile programme and regional activities that also affect our European security interests. We stand ready to take further appropriate measures to address these issues in close cooperation with the US and all relevant partners. We look to Iran to engage in constructive dialogue to stop de-stabilising actions and work towards negotiated solutions. Our governments are committed to ensuring the JCPoA is maintained. Independent of the JCPOA, we need to make sure that our collective wider concerns are being addressed. We have asked our Foreign Ministers to consider with the US how to take these issues forward. Well at least we can still all agree on some things I guess. Also Macron apparently considers to visit Iran. That will go over well in Washington. But if Trump finally kicks off an independent European foreign policy that would be the first good thing coming out of the presidency. | ||
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Dingodile
4139 Posts
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opisska
Poland8852 Posts
On October 15 2017 04:26 Dingodile wrote: Theoretically, what is the point of "2% inflation yearly"? This means that all costs will be the double costs in 37 years. Sounds like a financial nighmare for all people in EU. Just imagine you are pensioner for 30+ years. Why should it matter to you when you are a pensioner? In any reasonable national retirement system, the pensions increase at least as fast as the inflation, so you literally don't care how large the inflation is. The same goes with private savings, in times of large inflation, the gains on savings increase as well. The point of having non-zero inflation is basically for people to be motivated to spend or invest money. Without inflation, there is no pressure on not keeping just large stashes of money lying around. Even worse, in even the slight deflation, keeping cash actually makes you money (because you will be able to buy more later), which very quickly leads to a shutdown of the economy as it turns into a game of chicken. | ||
Nixer
2774 Posts
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On October 15 2017 04:26 Dingodile wrote: Theoretically, what is the point of "2% inflation yearly"? This means that all costs will be the double costs in 37 years. Sounds like a financial nighmare for all people in EU. Just imagine you are pensioner for 30+ years. Roughly put, in the neoliberal+monetaristic theory you believe that in essence all you have to do to get a perfect market is keep the amount of money in the system stable. Since many people believe deflation must not happen, a reasonable goal is to have an inflation rate a little bit more than zero, since a measured zero might be actually less, hence deflation. 1.9% was the inflation target of the German Bundesbank for Deutsche Mark before the Euro. It's not that important how high it actually is acording to the theory, as long as it remains the same (i.e. people can plan with it). | ||
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RvB
Netherlands6272 Posts
Inflation has some benefits like reducing the real value of debt, decreasibg the value of money (and stimulating expenditure like that) etc. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
Make privileges for the rich great again! | ||
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RvB
Netherlands6272 Posts
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warding
Portugal2395 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23893 Posts
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On October 15 2017 17:51 warding wrote: All of those sound like good policies to boost competitiveness and job creation, unless you look at them solely with the class struggle glasses. Sounds like socialism to me. Why should I care for job creation if it is being fought on the back of my wage, rights and state services (which I still pay pretty much the same for, just others pay less)? Cutting my pension so that someone else gets a job sounds like a very antiliberal concept. | ||
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Kickboxer
Slovenia1308 Posts
It's very difficult to breach this debate because the worldview of different classes of people is so fundamentally different (arising from their particular psychometric traits to a large degree, as well as family and education) that it's often like a parallel conversation where no side understands the true sentiment of the other, like a reverse strawman of sorts. In short, what a right-leaning person is ridiculing when using SJW derisively can briefly be outlined as: - seeing the SJW's ulterior motivations as the "power grab" of a banded collective of weak or frustraded individuals - and seeeing that as a seriously dangerous thing. This is based on practices like deplatforming through mass disruption (which is actually fascist and fucking scary, sorry) and inciting violence, and specifically on often refusing dialogue, even with extremely level-headed and well educated persons making strong cases; as well as being loud, "ugly" and aggressive in general, which does little to hide something I personally perceive as a profound "elemental spite" within these kinds of persons who always claim to be trying to make the world a better place - seeing the SJW as someone who almost exclusively "deconstructs", meaning criticizes, shouts down, attacks and distorts contemporary reality with zero gratitude towards what a fucking miracle our WESTERN civilization actually is and how good we're all having it (living better than 19th century kings even when poor). The inherent danger of relatively unwise, young, hot-headed confused people who aren't even over their puberty yet being motivated to "smash" things, especially since you almost never see a SJW actually out there in the field, like, I mean, actually helping someone, directly. Like spending time with a disabled person, or doing brain research on gender dysphoria, or donating to charity. It's all just immense posturing akin to ideological puritanism - affiliation with radical (cultural) Marxism as a practical political doctrine which, honestly, is the fucking worst. We saw it executed in practice several times, it's unequivocally murderous, does not work on either a personal responsibility level or a personal happiness level (to the contrary) and is a fucking shitfest that simply needs to go away. I love me some Marx don't get me wrong and the sensible portions of his critique of capitalism are a wonderful tool in improving it, but as a social system "answer", communism is pure cancer as clearly evidenced by history - failure to understand the very real and actual threats of Islam, even inviting Islam to be friends with your sister, making you thus a "cuck" with a "warrior" in their name. Also, very frequently, a complete failure to grasp the realities of economics, which don't care about your little utopia - a general misunderstanding that the world is not a sandbox of entitlement in general, but that mother Nature herself is a scary fuck out to get us, and that people have in them incredibly dark and violent impulses (EVERYONE, so we consider the "angry deplatforming" the dark expression of a SJW's will to violence over others) and that's why people struggle, not just because of the "system" that could somehow be miraculous fairy dust where everyone is happy and merry. Utopian thinking is a critically dangerous thing, especially since human beings are in no way equal to one another in their abilities, most notable that some are smart and some are dumb, and that some are lazy and some industrious, and so there will always be massive disparity of outcomes in a society of at least modest freedom. Yes, they are still good influences on understanding and alleviating specific real problems (institutional racism for example, if such a thing exist) but when weaponized, an equity-based ideology inevitably devolves into communitarian fascism - in general being enrolled in the SJW army while sitting in mostly elite, burgeois, student, gentrified and similar environments and speaking very loudly about the interests of other people, whole classes of them that did not issue some kind of democratic request to do so. The result is calling young black women a "coon" when they disagree with the ideology and trying to shut down their youtube or something - trying to "change the world" by pointing out other people's mistakes rather than acting as a force of good in the world and yes, since it's an internet phenomenon, SJW is very much alive all over the world, as a movement as well as an insult :p | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28786 Posts
On October 15 2017 18:00 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm curious what, if anything, was the reaction in Germany to this? https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/919229924858310656 I dunno about germany, but I'm not surprised they are the team to go through with this. Their captain, Per Ciljan Skjelbred, has a long history of being really politically conscious and using his celebrity status as a platform.  He's pretty much my favorite player tbh. | ||
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