gian

He has a point though, EU (and NATO) need to become less dependant on the US.

It is probably true that this is a process that must take place in its own time and not suddenly, but EU need to do it.

Yep, a sensational savings of 1.29 pounds / year for every people in UK…

I would love to understand what he can do to harm EU companies that also don’t harm US companies…

If what you said was true there wouldn’t be any companies outside of like the caymans islands. Taxation is not the only thing a company look at when choosing where to go. Sure obviously you can’t tax at 100%, but we are currently way lower than we used a few decades ago, so we totally can raise it (actually just go back to what it was even just 10 years ago).

True, there are many other factors. But companies can simply have the legal hq in caymans and everything else in other countries. And a company could always choose to leave a given country if it decide that it is no more convenient for whatever reasons, for example Stellantis as far as I know moved the legal hq in Netherlands and keep paying the taxes - at lease some - in Italy, but nothing force them to never leave Italy.
But I am not really sure that we can raise the taxes to the level they were 10 years ago.

As for the retirement age of 60, you say it is impossible yet it was the retirement age in France until like 15 years ago. Since then we dramatically reduced the taxation on companies and capital gains, and slightly increased the age of retirement. That is to say it is absolutely possible and does not demand big systemic changes, only some adjustments on a few variables.

I say that it is impossible now, not that were always impossible. Also in Italy we had our share of people who retired early (to the absurd limit that for some years people 30 years old were able to retire, back in the 1970’s).

You say that if we raise the taxes to the companies we will be able to retire at 60, but with which life expectancy ? For some times it could work, but then as the life expectancy raise and the birth rate lower, you will have an always increasing number of people with an longer life expectancy (so you need to pay them more money for more time). And we both agree that the tax on a company could increase only to a certain point, so where to get the money in a situation where you have a lowering number of workers and you are walking on a razor blade with the companies ?

Also the retirement age until 6 months ago was 62, and projections for the next decades showed the system would be making benefits for a few years, then deficit, then back to benefits later in the century, while keeping everything (tax level, retirement age) the same.

That was the same error done in Italy in the 1970’s and 1980’s, where they thought that the economy will grow forever, and failed as the conditions changed. I mean, it could have worked if the economy had continued to grow and if the birth rate had been at least stable.
What you think now it not what will happen 20 years from now. You need a system that is more resilient.

The choice was to reduce taxes on companies and capital gains, and raise retirement age, which would end up costing more in like 30 years from now than if we kept the same age (not even talking about not reducing taxation on that point)

Or we can raise the taxes on companies and capital gains and the retirement age however unpopular these actions are.

In the time span in which life expectancy rose from 75 to 85 years, productivity increased significantly. Granted, weekly working hours were reduced a bit, but there should be lots left to even lower the pension age.

I still think that you cannot lower the pension age while the life expectancy rose, there is no way a system like this will be ever balanced.

The risen productivity was not fully given back to the workers.

Not completely, I agree.

Taxing more means more revenue for the system, thus reaching equilibrium. It’s recurring income so it doesn’t move the problem into the futur.

You can tax a company only up until a point before they leave the country, leaving people without a job and thus reducing the taxes received while increasing the welfare, and if you have a population that is increasily older you will run out of money anyway, just sometimes later.

We produce more than enough for everyone to be above poverty, to retire at 60, to have free Healthcare. However choices were made so instead of that we have a few super billionaires, people living in the street, etc etc

I don’t think that having a few super billionaires and everyone above poverty is impossible, the billionaires will just need more time to reach the “goal”

To retire at 60 no, it is already impossible. To pay for everything you say you need more people on the job than retired people and you need a lower, and basically costant (I know, cynical view), life expectancy. A system where you pay retired people for more time than they worked is not sustainable.

The idea would simply be to stop giving so many taxes cuts to companies.

This is obvious, but it only move the problem some years into the future.

The objective should be a system that as a good balance.

The only real solution is to raise the pension age, despite how unpopular it is, and make affordable to have kids.

The raise in the age is obvious: as long as the life expectancy increase you have an increasing part of the population to pay. It is cynical but there is no way that a system designed to handle a 75 years life expectancy could handle a situation where a 85 years life expectancy is the norm and not the exception. Moreover, probably a 60 years old today is more able to work than a 60 years old in the 1980’s. (the ages are just an example, but you get the point).

And the only obvious way to compensate for more old people is to have more kids (the other is to increase immigration, but you should only allow people who do not burden welfare).

If anything people had bigger families in the past

Last time I was in France (4 years ago, before Covid) it was not uncommon to see families with 3 children, so I don’t know… maybe there are not that many in Paris…

Wait, if we talk about taking up huge amount of space, using the weight does not make any sense: a Renault Espace or an Audi A6 are bigger than a my Scenic but they weight the same (some models anyway).

As long as you are alone, I agree. But if you have a family a somewhat bigger car is not that wasted and the 1.6 tons limit cover a lot of cars that can be used by a family.
If they really wanted to do something for the environment, like they justified the misure, they should have not put a limit on the EV (at least for now) and they should have used the engine capacity or power.

I suppose that, following this logic, half of the European countries need to leave then…

In fact, why boycott anything at all?

Exactly. In this specific case boycotting is useless.

Nope, the problem is how the supermarket and all the middle mans store them in the meantime.
For example I still have onions and potatoes from my vegetable garden, which were grown up from commonly available potatoes and onions from the supermarkets, without basically any problems. Same for some other vegetable (jerusalem artichoke, pumpkins and the like)

Since they say that the SUVs are “bad for the environment” I would have used the engine displacement or power.

Right, just until you realize that 1.6 tons for a ICE car is basically a medium size car (my Scenic score 1.4 tons for example) and 2 tons exclude a lot of electric cars (for example 3 out of 4 Tesla)

There’s no new jobs for horses after the combustion engine was invented to do physical labor - why would there be more “intelligence jobs” for humans when intelligence is automated?

Because humans are “general purpose” and horses are “specialized” for example. What other job can a horse do ?

Unfortunately sometimes you have to interoperate with them, at this point it is better to do it on “our” terms than their.

There’s weird stuff I can’t find anywhere else or they’re on sites that I don’t trust my payment info with.

This have a simple solution: generate a virtual credit card with just the amount you need for the transaction.

Russia wanted to place nukes on Cuba, the US said ‘if you do this there will be war’ so Russia backed down. This did not lead to an all out invasion of Russia, this lead to a de escalation and Billions of people not dying.

It is a little more complex than this.
US deployed Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey and URSS, to retaliate, deployed R-12 and R-14 ballistic missiles to Cuba. And before taking any action, US denied the deployment of URSS missiles.
When US aknowledged it, the first option suggested to Kennedy was a air strike on Cuba and an invasion.
What happened is that US put in place what was basically a naval blockade of Cuba (even if they call quarantine to avoid war related terms) and then started to talk.
The end result was that officially URSS retired the missiles and bombers from Cuba, and US agree to non invade Cuba and secretly retired the missiles deployed in Turkey (not sure about Italy).

But I am sure that you understand that this worked exactly because the “if you do this there will be war” was a credible threat ans was sustained by actions (the blockade)

Now, in Ukraine if you propose a cease fire what actually can put on the table to make Russia back down from the invasion ? A deal which will be ignored in [choose your number] years ? Let Russia keep what they gained and go without repercussions so they can pull the trick again in [choose your number] years ? Do you really think that Ukraine would accept to lose part of their terrirories (which btw are the ones witn more resources like gas and oil) ?

I agree with you, we should find a way to stop the war. I simply don’t see how being accommodating with Russia will make it when the root cause of this war is that we let Russia think that they can do whatever they want without any consequences.

I gave you my honest answer, let me ask you a question in return. Why are you not volunteering? Ukraine has a man power problem because even the Ukrainians don’t want to die for this cause. So if it’s so important, why don’t you go there and stand on a Russian landmine so a Ukrainian conscript doesn’t have to.

I am too old and no more phisically fit.