A Secession inevitable? New poll shows disturbing data

I didn't. I said (albeit I could word it better I guess) that the fee for all those years they were a member of EU, is less than the cost of Brexit.

Edit: And I doubt I would call EU a failure. They have made traveling in Europe far easier. Cooperations between countries easier. It is also large enough that companies take notice when make changes regarding privacy laws.

@horgen: My only issue with the EU is that it doesnt go far enough.

United States of Europe. Hahahaha

Better take that slowly. Norway can't join without amending the constitution. We (as in Europeans, not Norwegians) are pretty good at finding reasons to hate one another.

How so?

There's no viable, practical way to split up the United States. The "red" and "blue" states we constantly refer to don't actually exist. As one pundit put it:

There are more Republicans in California than in Texas, more Democrats in Texas than in New York, more Republicans in New York than in Ohio, and on down the line.

The point being, unlike during the Civil War, there is no physical separation of the two sides to match the ideological separation.

Whatever the future holds, it's not likely to include any (successful) secessions.

One big issue as of now, is that the way our economies work, can vary vastly from country to country

Case in point: Greece's mismanagement was not stopped before it got way too late.

This has been my pet peeve with the EU since the recession occurred. A unified currency shared between disparate regions with separate fiscal policies can work just fine, but you have to be willing to accommodate the different regions when a recession strikes. In regions with different currencies, the relative value of the local currency falls until demand for exports from that region increase due to the now lower relative prices which spurs internal production. In a shared currency model (such as the EU and the US) that can't occur, so stimulus must occur from within. In the US, this predominantly occurs due to automatic stabilizers resulting in the famous "Red states are takers and blue states are makers" situation.

But Merkel and the rest of EU governance did some token outreach and then largely left Greece out to dry. They made Greece's pain deeper and longer than it needed to be, and they need to take some lessons from that for the future.

Pretty much. My friend live in the Central Valley of California (Fresno, Modesto, Bakersfield, etc) and that is red territory. Plus we got Orange County which is like the bastion of Reagan-worshiping retired conservatives mixed with this new-wave neoconservative youth lol.

You'd have to divide after the secession and then secede again, and it wouldn't be fair because "blue" parts of the state would be a lot nicer than the "red" parts of the state, for the most part.

It really is a terrible idea. There's a reason the South lost the war (well, multiple reasons...)

@horgen: There is no fee for leaving. Were Britain payed a fee from America after inventing them? No. Because it’s National Independence. We divorced them. Not the other way around.

The EU failed Greece, failed Spain, failed Ukraine and failed Turkey, just to name a few from the past decade. The East are open to attack and the West relies on tourism for their economy.

You have no idea what Britain paid out each month for staying with the EU who destroyed all farming and resource management throughout the continent.

@mattbbpl: It’s cool. He’s a competitive troll mod with no knowledge on the matter. Upset that his isolated country can’t push it’s social distortion onto other countries.

The EU has been estimated to raise the GDP for countries involved by around 10%. It has allowed the countries involved to coordinate scientific research much better, Allowing the EU to grow to become a powerhouse in scientific research. Not to mention the obvious intent, which was maintaining peace.

https://ftp.iza.org/dp8162.pdf

https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/uk-research-and-european-union/role-of-EU-in-funding-UK-research/how-does-eu-fund-research-facilities-major-equipment/

Look at the UK, they lost a lot of trading power, investment, fishing grounds, and their GDP per capita, barring 2018, has been on a consistant decline, the UK itself is in political turmoil with several portions of it wanting to break out of the UK, and rejoin the EU.

International cooperation is key here. Nationalism doesnt work anymore. And hasn't really worked since the dawn of the modern era.

The EU remains flawed, but overall it is the lesser evil. We need to do a better job with collective defense, and making sure we don't spiral into poverty.

@mattbbpl Yeah, Germany made some token gestures, but didnt go much further than that. I was disappointed for sure.