The Collapse of Europe? The European Union May Be on the Verge of Regime Collapse

Not long after the Berlin Wall fell a quarter of a century ago, the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States squandered its peace dividend in an attempt to maintain global dominance, and Europe quietly became more prosperous, more integrated, and more of a player in international affairs. Between 1989 and 2014, the European Union (EU) practically doubled its membership and catapulted into third place in population behind China and India. It currently boasts the world’s largest economy and also heads the list of global trading powers. In 2012, the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize for transforming Europe “from a continent of war to a continent of peace.”

In the competition for “world’s true superpower,” China loses points for still having so many impoverished peasants in its rural hinterlands and a corrupt, illiberal bureaucracy in its cities; the United States, for its crumbling infrastructure and a hypertrophied military-industrial complex that threatens to bankrupt the economy. As the only equitably prosperous, politically sound, and rule-of-law-respecting superpower, Europe comes out on top, even if -- or perhaps because -- it doesn’t have the military muscle to play global policeman.

And yet, for all this success, the European project is currently teetering on the edge of failure. Growth is anemic at best and socio-economic inequality is on the rise. The countries of Eastern and Central Europe, even relatively successful Poland, have failed to bridge the income gap with the richer half of the continent. And the highly indebted periphery is in revolt.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28772-the-collapse-of-europe-the-european-union-may-be-on-the-verge-of-regime-collapse

Here’s a condensed version of what happened in Germany in 1989-90. The Germans in the East rose up against their authoritarian regime because they wanted freedom. Eventually they also got the German deutschmark and reunification. The cost of that economic and political reunification was shouldered almost entirely by West Germans while the benefits flowed mostly to the East Germans.

Economist Rudiger Frank has a different view of what happened in those years. He grew up in East Germany, and today lives in Austria where he focuses much of his scholarly attention on North Korea. Because he experienced reunification first-hand and because the Korean peninsula is divided much as the two Germanys once were, he has given considerable thought to what happened between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and German reunification one year later. He points out, first of all, that most people in East Germany had quite materialistic desires in 1989, even before the Wall fell.

“If I had to come up with a symbol of German unification, or of our East German revolution, it would be a yellow banana on a white flag,” he told me in an interview in April 2013 in Washington, DC. “The banana symbolically stands for tropical fruits, traveling around the world, and basically, consumerism. And that’s what, I’d say, 80% of the people in East Germany wanted. The other 20%, or maybe even less, primarily wanted freedom. Of course, those 80% also wouldn’t have minded having political freedom. Who wouldn’t? But it’s nothing that they would really have risked too much for — away from their TVs and cozy lives, which most of them had.”

This Sunday, a quarter of a century will have passed since the Berlin Wall came down. On that momentous night, when Communist domination of Eastern Europe crumbled, there were plenty of predictions made about the future. A new world order would enforce peace across the world. Cutting military spending as the Cold War faded would boost growth. Or, more pessimistically, chaotic, catastrophically poor countries would quickly find themselves ruled by dictatorships once again.

But here’s one prediction that wasn’t made. Much of what was then Communist-dominated Eastern Europe would overtake the West which until then, of course, had easily beaten it on every measure of material prosperity.

But that is precisely what is happening now. Twenty-five years on, many of the capitals of Eastern Europe are now richer than their counterparts in the West. With freer markets, lower levels of state spending and debt, and mostly outside a dysfunctional eurozone, they look set to easily outstrip them. Since the Wall came down, most of the East has been moving in the right direction, and the West in the wrong one, with a dramatic impact on prosperity.

After nearly three years trailing Greece in the European Union's youth unemployment rankings, Spain is once again the country with the highest rate of under 25s without a job, accounting for a worrying quarter of all jobless youths in the Eurozone.

Half of Spaniards aged 25–29 live with parents (01 Jul 14) Half of young Spaniards have no money coming in (05 May 14) 36.3%: Andalusia has EU's highest jobless rate (15 Apr 14) Email reveals how Spain exploits young workers (10 Apr 14) July’s Eurostat figures showed 53.8 percent of young people in Spain didn’t have a job compared to 53.1 percent for Greece in May, the latest figures released for the Hellenic nation.

Despite the fact that a considerable number of young Spaniards manage to find temporary work in the service industries during the summer months, there were still 842,000 of them without a job in July.

Whereas the youth unemployment rate in Greece and the rest of the Eurozone has gradually dropped in recent months, Spain saw a 0.4 percent increase from June to July.

In fact, Spain’s jobless youngsters now make up 25 percent of the total 3.3 million for all 18 European countries that use the euro.

Knowing the real situation of youth unemployment in Spain and the EU is hampered by the fact that Eurostat has two ways of calculating the figures.

http://www.thelocal.es/20140829/spain-back-on-top-of-eu-youth-unemployment-tables

Far from being over Europe's economic crisis is getting worse with disturbing levels of poverty and deprivation being noted among children and youth, says a report compiled by the Catholic charity Caritas.

The survey, conducted over the course of the past year, not only challenges the official discourse – that Europe is on the mend – but documents a dramatic rise of a class of new poor in the seven EU countries worst hit by the policies of austerity.

"We in Brussels keep hearing that the economic crisis is over," Thorfinnur Omarsson, a spokesman for Caritas Europa said in Athens where the network of Catholic relief organisations released the report. "These findings not only doubt that the crisis is over but show it is the poor who are paying for a crisis they did not cause."

The 114-page inquiry into the human cost of the crisis focuses on Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain. In all of these countries, it claims, there is deepening inequality with growing numbers suffering from poverty and social exclusion. In Ireland – depicted as the poster child for austerity – income inequality soared between 2009 and 2010 with the top 20% earning five times more than the bottom 20%

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/27/europe-economic-crisis-worse-caritas-report

For the first time in more than 140 years, the US has lost the title of the world's largest economy - it has been stolen by China, according to the IMF. But how reliable are the statistics underpinning this claim? The BBC's economics editor, Robert Peston, explains lower down why China matters to all of us.

The Chinese economy is now worth $17.6tn, slightly higher than the $17.4tn the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates for the US.

So for the first time since 1872, when it overtook the UK, the US has been knocked off the top spot.

The IMF calculated these figures by using purchasing power parity (PPP) which enables you to compare how much you can buy for your money in different countries. As money goes further in China than in the US, the figure for China is adjusted upwards.

Without the PPP adjustment, the IMF estimates that China's economy is worth far less - $10.3tn.

But how much faith can be placed in the accuracy of GDP figures supplied by China when even the current premier, Li Keqiang has doubted their validity in the past?

A declassified US diplomatic cable revealed that in 2007, Li, who was then secretary general of Liaoning Province, had told the US ambassador that Chinese GDP statistics were "man-made" and "for reference only".

Ok EU is collapsing, not surprising. Now I’m praying for the other regime to collapse, and that is the Obola Regime.

3 posted on 01/27/2015 3:03:46 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults)

the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize for transforming Europe “from a continent of war to a continent of peace.”

The Nobel Peace Prize has become a meaningless, politically-motivated joke.

The begining of this story is very Eurocentric in its bias and it blames all the deficit spending in the U.S. on military spending. That makes me want to ignore the rest of the story.

Nah, some crap hole will find trillions and save the day. Look how beautiful QE works for us!

Interesting that you only post from a single source:

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:alexmark1917/index?tab=articles

Why is that?

American “peace related wealth” and most of its other wealth was squandered by welfare and ‘entitlement’ programs, by subsidizing industrial scale production of Urban Ferals by sluts who never married the fathers of their lil’ bastards, ad nauseam.

The makers are getting ready to shut off the cash flow to the takers.

10 posted on 01/27/2015 4:20:17 PM PST by GladesGuru (Islam Delenda Est. Because of what Islam is - and because of what Muslims do.)

But that is precisely what is happening now. Twenty-five years on, many of the capitals of Eastern Europe are now richer than their counterparts in the West. With freer markets, lower levels of state spending and debt, and mostly outside a dysfunctional eurozone, they look set to easily outstrip them. Since the Wall came down, most of the East has been moving in the right direction, and the West in the wrong one, with a dramatic impact on prosperity.

We've got some walls to tear down right here in the U.S. so that we can start moving in the right direction.

“Interesting that you only post from a single source:

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:alexmark1917/index?tab=articles

Why is that?”

Perhaps he happened onto the ‘Source Of All Wisdom’?

12 posted on 01/27/2015 4:22:04 PM PST by GladesGuru (Islam Delenda Est. Because of what Islam is - and because of what Muslims do.)

Yes, eurocentrism is rife in the starting paragraphs and I stopped reading there. Garbage in, garbage out.

"hypertrophied military-industrial complex"

Why do you post such tripe?

Why do you not respond when folks question you?

Why are you here?

EU isn’t falling apart...nor is it without resources....dead ended story.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.