Strasbourg's Babel house has no unifying language or political culture
Posted on 09/14/2009 9:52:15 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
"The economic crisis has transformed the global economic landscape. The dreams of a decade ago now seem grandiose."
Broadly speaking, the world is run at the outset of the 21st Century by the United States and China together in uneasy condominium. This is the surprising reality of our era. The pattern is unlikely to change much until India takes its full place, perhaps in 40 years.
Strasbourg's Babel house has no unifying language or political culture
The baton passed from Europe’s tired hands at London’s G20 summit in April, where the only meeting that mattered was the tete-a-tete between Barack Obama and Hu Jintao. The two Pacific superpowers are meshed together by their “dollar-yuan” currency and de facto debt union, and by their Strategic Economic Dialogue. Let’s just call it G2 for short. China’s return to great power status is well known, but some may be surprised to learn that America’s share of global GDP has scarcely changed in 30 years, falling slightly to 20 per cent depending how you measure it.
Greater Europe has slipped relentlessly. The Western part is still rich, but counts ever less in world affairs as ageing takes it toll. The United Nations expects America to add 100 million people by 2050: Germany will contract from 82 million to 70 million. Italy will shrink. Eastern Europe faces implosion. This is not fertile demography for hi-tech invention.
“What is at risk in the medium to long run is nothing less than the sustainability of the society Europe has built and the viability of its civilisation,” admitted an internal EU report by former Dutch premier Wim Kok in 2004. Nothing has changed since.
The Great Recession of 2008-2009 may have humiliated Anglo-Saxon capitalism but the German and Italian economies have shrunk
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Give Obama another 6 months. Our GDP could end up like Zimbabwe or Haiti.
Rock on, Ambrose.
Didn't you know that Ted Kennedy changed the favored immigration ratio's in either 1964 or 65 to favor mostly dark skinned third world immigrants...and, it's still that way.
Those Islamic Somali immigrants make us diverse and strong...remember. (Just because they hate everything about us and want to kill us is no reason for them not to come here, flop, go on welfare and start poping out kids...geez, stop being so 'mean-spirited.')
Bur there is still time to beef-up an alliance of U.S.-Asian and “new” Europe - former Soviet bloc states; leapfrogging old Europe and helping the old eastern bloc continue to escape economic reliance on Russia. This is where U.S.-European interests have some productive room to grow.
Unfortunately Klintoon forced them into the EUSSR.
GW tried. East Europe is a big part of "The Coalition of the Willing".
Hussein bin Obama al-Kenyata is only interested in tyrant states.
We may only have two more chances, 2010 and 2012.
yitbos
“Unfortunately Klintoon forced them into the EUSSR.”
Their EU relationship does not (yet, or maybe ever) prevent them from national security and economic/trade deals and relationships with the U.S. on their own individual, national interests and terms. We should not let the current benefits, to them, of that fact lie dormant. The more we use those state-to-state abilities with them, the more they will keep those abilities in place for themselves.
Hussein Obama is not interested in democratic nations. He is interested in dictatorships.
yitbos
I am not obsessed with Obama. Like most bad colds, “this too shall pass”. My observations have to do with our national interests, not Obama’s.
yitbos
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