The Big Picture - Where's the world going?

[Zoupa]

If the EU can get some artillery and mortar ammunition factories going, the russians will never advance again.

Unfortunately, it's too late.  Those things take time to set up, even if you had the money. 

If sanctions are kept on by the US,

And that's the other problem.  They won't. 

I know more about mortar rounds than artillery. UK, France, Spain and Norway all have the facilities set up. France and Norway have set up 24 hour shifts. Not sure about the UK, Spain has done fuck-all. It doesn't take THAT much time to set up.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

And the money exist too, it's a matter of reallocation.
Belgium for example divvies up 66 billion euros in subsidies, flemish regional another 18. Surely something can be done there

[HVC]

And the money exist too, it's a matter of reallocation.
Belgium for example divvies up 66 billion euros in subsidies, flemish regional another 18. Surely something can be done there

If you want your farmers to protest and fill your streets with manure.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

And the money exist too, it's a matter of reallocation.
Belgium for example divvies up 66 billion euros in subsidies, flemish regional another 18. Surely something can be done there

If you want your farmers to protest and fill your streets with manure.

Most subsidies don't go to farmers, we're not france

[HVC]

And the money exist too, it's a matter of reallocation.
Belgium for example divvies up 66 billion euros in subsidies, flemish regional another 18. Surely something can be done there

If you want your farmers to protest and fill your streets with manure.

Most subsidies don't go to farmers, we're not france

Fair enough

That's not to say Europe shouldn't do more. They should. Probably won't, but should.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Not disagreeing with that. Europe has the money, it just needs to allocate it properly.  Don't even need to raise taxes.

[Josquius]

I've been thinking for a while about what's happened and why and this is my stream of consciousness attempt at finding some kind of explanation.

History goes in cycles as we all know, after some time there's often a reaction taking society in a different direction. The strength of the reaction is often based on how far back it needs to react. French absolutism leads to French revolution leads to absolutism leads to constitutional monarchy, extreme example, but can be seen as something a sinus curve mellowing out. Trudeau for a long time in Canada leads to unpopularity leads to not-Trudeau and so on. There are lots of examples and probably lots of counter-examples.

Back in the day Keynes noticed this behaviour in economics and the answer is that we mellow out the tops of the economic sinus wave, we have "filters" making the extremes of economics mellow out and as a thanks for that we haven't had a new depression like 30's one. These sinus waves could probably best be seen as overtones on a general upwards curve.

Society is obviously very complex and cannot be easily described as a sinus curve, but rather as untold amounts of curves acting as overtones on each-other. But one can perhaps se societal development as an aggregate of a lot of curves coalescing into some kind of curve.

The political parties in their views acted as some kind of overtone on the general developmental curve. If you asked a conservative French politician in 1949 whether he wanted women to vote he might say no, but unlike conservative 1820's politician he would not want a return of serfdom. If you asked him in 1989 he would not be against women voting. The general curve had moved, but the different parties still acted as some kind of wave around it.

Look at the 18th and 19th century, middle classes were growing and the populations were more and more demanding political representation. In France it led to the revolution, in the UK progressive reforms mellowed out the excesses in the developmental curve and we all know what happened.

But why was there a revolution in France? It seems that the democratic consensus moved in a different direction from the ruling elite. The consensus wanted political representation and the ruling elite did not want that to happen. In the end the sides were too far apart and a compromise could not be reached and bam, revolution.

But why not in the UK? The consensus moved in the exact same direction as in France, but the ruling elite moved with the curve, compromising just enough to not break the trust too much and fizzle, no revolution.

This development continued into the 21st century. The curve seems to have followed some kind of democratic consensus. Most everyone agreed that, yes, women should vote, we should be democratic, we should have a market economy, we should have state sponsored education and something of a welfare state and so on.

But then something happened. Immigration is a good example. Consensus, as far as I have been able to gather data, seems to always have been that we don't want immigration. Take your poor, tired masses yearning to breathe free and please stay away and so on. For decades the political elite has had a radically different view from the democratic consensus. In itself the issue has not been important enough to warrant the main curve to move very much. Until it became too much.

It really remains to be seen how much the consensus has moved from the political establishment. I don't really think it has moved much enough to warrant fear of violent revolution, the size of the extreme parties on the right seem to flatten out at around 20, perhaps up to 30 per cent. It's really up to the political systems to see if they can adjust to the new reality. In the US the system has obviously failed, but that's the only place where that's happened. Meloni is not making a fool of herself for example.

There's probably lots of other development aside from immigration with the same pattern, woeness, gay rights or whatever, but I don't know the issues enough to say anything about them.

But the political elite needs to get back on the consensus wave, the problems of immigration need to be handled of we don't want the adjustment to be too hard, because where the will of the people want to go it will go.

I don't know if this incoherent babbler makes any sense what so ever, just an attempt to crystallise my thoughts.

I recall once talking with an self-admitted far right supporter who used this excuse that "Its not actually that far right" and "Its just the world is really far left so it looks it".
To which...wut? We live in a super right wing world. We've had 50 years of a basic continuous lurch to the right.
Improvements in rights for minorities sure. But in the actual stuff that impacts your average straight cis white guy's every day life its just been rightwards ho.

Now looked on the grand scope of human history, then sure. We are considerably more left wing today than 200 years ago. Maybe there's some psychohistory deep genetic memory stuff going on there. But I don't think its how people look at things.

On immigration too.... Again I have to say this is a strange idea that gets repeated a lot. That the establishment doesn't want us to talk about immigration. They're really for it whilst the silent majority of normal people naturally hate it, obviously....
But in the UK at least we've had 30 years of non-stop talk about immigration with certain parts of the establishment really keen to make it an issue when most people...just don't care.
I googled it and even today only 51% of people think its an issue- not a top issue, an issue at all. Go back some years and you get even lower numbers. Look for yougov polling on important issues and its generally a small minority worried about that.

With immigration the key problem for most I believe is not the immigrants themselves. Its that they're being blamed for all our other problems. Why build more housing or invest in the health service when you can just say the reason they suck is immigrants.

I've said before but I do think much of this comes down to system 1 and system 2 thinking.
The issues we have in developed western countries are wicked problems. There's no simple answer for what needs to be done and the obvious stuff that would make up any solution- its hard to actually do.
Enter immigration. A simple answer to a complex problem that puts a scary face on the issue.
The right's would-be good faith answers to our problems clearly don't work... so they're embracing the simple non-answers.

[Admiral Yi]

The issues we have in developed western countries are wicked problems. There's no simple answer for what needs to be done and the obvious stuff that would make up any solution- its hard to actually do.
Enter immigration. A simple answer to a complex problem that puts a scary face on the issue.
The right's would-be good faith answers to our problems clearly don't work... so they're embracing the simple non-answers.

What is the obvious but hard to do solution for indigenous blue collar workers feeling their livelihoods are threatened by immigration?

[Grey Fox]

The issues we have in developed western countries are wicked problems. There's no simple answer for what needs to be done and the obvious stuff that would make up any solution- its hard to actually do.
Enter immigration. A simple answer to a complex problem that puts a scary face on the issue.
The right's would-be good faith answers to our problems clearly don't work... so they're embracing the simple non-answers.

What is the obvious but hard to do solution for indigenous blue collar workers feeling their livelihoods are threatened by immigration?

Basic Universal Income.

[Admiral Yi]

Basic Universal Income.

Presumably set high enough to compensate for any perceived reduction in wages caused by immigrant competition?

[garbon]

Basic Universal Income.

Presumably set high enough to compensate for any perceived reduction in wages caused by immigrant competition?

If one's needs and creature comforts are adequately satisfied, then would their be any perceptions of reduced wages? I thought the latter was more of a rationalization/bugbear of noting feeling satiated.

[Grey Fox]

Basic Universal Income.

Presumably set high enough to compensate for any perceived reduction in wages caused by immigrant competition?

The details are what makes it hard.

[crazy canuck]

Basic Universal Income.

Presumably set high enough to compensate for any perceived reduction in wages caused by immigrant competition?

The details are what makes it hard.

I think Yi's point is more about how Yi thinks about the world than how a poor person thinks about the world. If a poor person receives a basic income to cover their living expenses, that person is not going to care that someone else who is working, and paying taxes to support their basic income, makes more money than them.

[PJL]

Raising the minimum wage in that respect would be better. It's not like unemployment is that high anywhere in much of the West to be of a concern that doing so would cause layoffs because of it. Would also increase tax receipts as well.

[crazy canuck]

Raising the minimum wage in that respect would be better. It's not like unemployment is that high anywhere in much of the West to be of a concern that doing so would cause layoffs because of it. Would also increase tax receipts as well.

It is important to remember that the unemployment rate is based on people looking for work, meaning it does not include those who have given up looking.   I would argue that poverty rates are the more important thing to look at, and especially when we are talking about segments of the population becoming radicalized.

And there is an added benefit that the Universal basic income also acts as a unofficial minimum wage requirement, because it is going to be hard to get someone to work for equal to or less than that number. Which, as an aside, another reason why Yi's proposition is wrong.