The whole crisis has felt like a predictable horror movie where, as characters die off one at a time, the audience knows that they shouldn't open that door, they shouldn't go scouting, they shouldn't eat that, they shouldn't push that button...

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS

LEP:

Just what could a new war possibly accomplish?
Isn't it more reasonable to junk the whole European concept and restart from scratch as painful as that may be?

the very idea of modern french and germans becoming nationalistic enough to go to war... it's too surreal and improbable to even seriously consider.

as for canning the project and starting again, it would be a good idea, though the breakup would be messy, it's by no means certain it would be worse than what's happening now, and no policy turnarounds in sight.

creating a new european union that would please everyone is obviously utopian, but at least one thing is clear... creating a common currency without an euro-equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve and a union-wide fiscal policy.

the probability of a second attempt being a quantum leap forward is high- the mistakes are so fresh in our minds, and the results of doing it wrong so flamingly evident.

besides, there already is a war, between the 1% and their henchmen and the rest of us.

maybe they will have to win that one to realise how stupidly suicidal a victory it was first. some juggernauts are unstoppable- seems like that's what we have to endure seeing how successfully the propaganda  of neolib brain rot has taken root.

it will crash and burn, the present setup, but without european countries taking up arms against each other, that seems utterly insane, hopefully europeans have created enough cross-border cultural awareness and appreciation for each other that we will be immune to the kind of parochial patriotism that was relatively easily whipped up in WWs 1 and 2.

wars these days are exercises in democracy building in geographical backwaters where resources are plentiful, with few divisions to protect them.

/snark

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

Just what could a new war possibly accomplish?

It would create quite a bit of radioactive glass where a couple of German cities used to be. Nothing much else.

Which is why it isn't in my prediction range.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.