Cyprus-Forum.com

[Robin Hood]

Should Europe drop the US as a reliable ally and look East toward Russia, Iran, China, India and the East Asian countries ?

Should European countries pull out of NATO and stop acting as the US’s enforcers ?

New US Sanctions... Bring It On - By Finian Cunningham

So the American bully wants to slap more sanctions on Russia over alleged misdeeds. This is blatant temper tantrums by a frustrated US trying to get “its way or no way”.

It’s so absurd. The biggest rogue nation on Earth, illegally bombing and killing civilians in several countries simultaneously, covertly arming terrorist proxies in the Middle East, and a rampant subversive interferer in foreign elections around the world, has the audacity to lecture others about probity, resorting to financial arm twisting that makes a mockery of international laws and trade rules.

Well, after all, the Americans do always declare themselves to be “exceptional”. Never a truer word was spoken, albeit inadvertently.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47541.htm

[tsukoui]

If you look at the UK army, it is largely an old boys club, can the same be said of other European defence forces?

If NATO were to go, what would replace it? Would there be joint exercises with the East?

Does the East even need an army, given it's population size, or is a national health service sufficient?

I'm sorry to answer your question with more questions, but I feel the devil is in the detail, and it is not as simple as simply asking whether Europe should switch sides, that is if there is any Europe left

[Robin Hood]

Tsukoui ;

If you look at the UK army, it is largely an old boys club, can the same be said of other European defence forces?

I don’t agree that it is an old boys club but it is rather old fashioned and tends to live on its glorious past. The only reason the UK has many of its people in war zones is at the behest of the Americans. I think the UK are somehow afraid to tell the US to stuff it and fight their own wars ..... after all they start most of them!

If NATO were to go, what would replace it? Would there be joint exercises with the East?

I think Trump was correct when he said something like NATO had ‘....outlived is usefulness’. It was a collective defence force born after WWII to cope with the then Soviet threat. The USSR is no more so do we need NATO? It is now an offensive force and it is easy to see why Russia feels it has to respond to an aggressive US driven attempt to surround it with hostile forces.

Does the East even need an army, given it's population size, or is a national health service sufficient?

Nobody would need a standing army if the politicians didn’t keep telling the masses that we have to defend ourselves against an enemy. Sorry, but I don’t see Russia as an enemy at all. The enemy these day is within! Unlike the US they do not have thousands of troops and hundreds of bases around the world ..... neither does China or Iran. Neither do any of them keep attacking other countries claiming humanitarian warfare is good ..... it is the US and its allies that do that. Most of their ventures conflict with international law anyway and have resulted in millions of deaths and the destruction of so many countries. (as the article points out)

I'm sorry to answer your question with more questions, but I feel the devil is in the detail, and it is not as simple as simply asking whether Europe should switch sides, that is if there is any Europe left.

At least this may stir a discussion, if not then this site is on death row.

I agree, the Devil is in the detail but to keep stirring already muddy waters by imposing sanctions, which in themselves are an act of war, is not the way to go. I feel that the EU should say no to the US demands and then dismantle the existing sanctions, even if it does upset them. If they try to sanction the EU in retaliation then let Junker earn his salary and tell them to leave Europe and take all their toys with them.

[tsukoui]

Robin, I think you are stuck in the past, the East-West conflict reached its conclusion with the destruction of Libya, the last mediator...

The real fabricated threat is climate change, and that means staging the North-South conflict. Both Russia and Europe and even China have a shared interest in stability, though the opportunities for refugees entering their respective regions differ, largely due to history and culture.

The U.S. wants to expand into Africa, but China and Russia pose a threat to their ambitions.

NATO is only relevant in this regard, but by changing the dialectic from East-West to North-South, the U.S. creates internal problems for itself as well.

Again, China and Russia hold the key to neutralizing this in the eyes of the West, through clever slight of hand juggling of the concepts of enemy and partner.

I also think it is fair to say that you underestimate the hand of Africa in defending itself, and the fear amongst rational Europeans of the coming flood.

[supporttheunderdog]

Is climate change a fabricated threat?
Climste change is real, and is a threat.

[tsukoui]

Is climate change a fabricated threat?
Climste change is real, and is a threat.

I use the word loosely... climate change is indeed fabricated in that it is man-made... though I'm sure women also play a part... actually, it is not a joke... looking at how Trump is dealing with Russia, I am not convinced that he is such the wild-card that he is made out to be... the reality is very scary in the next fifty years and I believe no-one really has a good idea about how to deal with it within the frame-work of liberal/neo-liberal democracy...

[tsukoui]

Robin, I hate to burst your bubble, but the simple fact is that only the Fed has the ability to print money that is worth anything, investing it in the stock market whilst giving the odd lottery win in a distributed fashion as an experiment. The question is, do the masses have the nouse to invest in a sustainable way? Tits and fast food consumption do nothing to control the weather. Isn't it better to leave investment to the government? Is investing in toys to murder, like drugs and surgery, pet scans and needles, videos and manifestos, etc. etc. criminal? What is the difference between money laundering and quantitative easing? Am I safe to make money out of the U.S. in Britain, or am I just another tax haven? Thank you.

[supporttheunderdog]

Is climate change a fabricated threat?
Climste change is real, and is a threat.

I use the word loosely... climate change is indeed fabricated in that it is man-made... though I'm sure women also play a part... actually, it is not a joke... looking at how Trump is dealing with Russia, I am not convinced that he is such the wild-card that he is made out to be... the reality is very scary in the next fifty years and I believe no-one really has a good idea about how to deal with it within the frame-work of liberal/neo-liberal democracy...

Oh we all know some climate change is natural - the climate has made a number of changes for a number of reasons ever since the earth was formed, and we know eg this can be attributed to changes in the output of the sun, wobbles in the tilt of the earth, changes in land forms due to plate tectonics, emissions of CO2 and SOx, CH4, etc. from Volcanoes, but tyhe evidence increasingly points to increasingly rapid average warming driving other climate effects, and that the start of this is generally consistent with the point in the 18th century when the output from burning wood and fossil fuels began to rise with the industrial revolution and the world population increase.
According to some studies the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while human activities prtoduce 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide.

The effects of that have been under discussion since the 1896 with calculations which were not far out of the ball park for the temperature rises we have seen.

[Robin Hood]

Tsukoui:
Please don’t apologise for ‘...bursting my bubble’ because you haven’t as you don’t seem to have even a basic knowledge of economics ..... especially in regard to the creation of money.

Your concept of money creation is completely wrong. The Central Bank has very little to do with creating money ..... it creates just 2% of all the money in circulation, as note and coin and ONLY the CB/FED has that authority. The notes are sold to banks at face value. The other 98% is created by accounting entries in the banks ledgers as debt or to them an asset. The larger the banks assets the more money they are owed.

Money .... or fiat currency .... is created by private commercial banks every time they make a loan .... to anybody, including Governments. It is created directly as debt in a credit account, it becomes money when the credit is drawn and paid into another account. The banks do not lend money, they create debt! When the debt is repaid the money is withdrawn from circulation by the borrower, paid to and destroyed by the bank, to balance the banks books. Loans create deposits .... not the other way round. (Bank of England Bulletin, 1st Qtr, 2014 .... titled ‘Monet creation in the modern economy’.) You should read it.

There is no link at all between QE and money laundering! Banking is no more than an accounting system and, I agree with you, is nothing more than a vast criminal enterprise and has been for over 200 years, although the criminality accelerated from the late 60's.

The concept of Quantitative easing was created by Dr Richard Werner and originally applied in Japan. It was hijacked by the banking system so that instead of QE going into the real economy it has been going directly to the commercial banks and from there mainly into the asset economy. Very, very little of it found its way to help out industry and wealth creation.

BTW: Governments do not invest in the stock market. They may be a share holder in some large infrastructure organisations but they do not buy shares.

I think you should read up on the subject: This is definitive proof of how money is created and backs exactly what the BoE says but in detail as an empirical experiment, which PROVED absolutely that there is only one way money is created and I am afraid it will burst your bubble. But then 99.9%+ of the population are not ware of the facts either .... so you are not alone:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521914001434

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521914001070

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1057521915001477