We want to make our own weapons because depending on someone else can be more costly.
But some parties in UK do have worrying ties to Russia (reform uk and conservatives). I mean who would have thought that Republicans in US would be 3rd best allies of Putin, right after China and North Korea
1.those are not the only options, far from it. If EU buys from 3rd party, that party gets to dictate what we can do with those weapons. How long have EU countries been asking US to allow them to transfer F-16, longer ranged artillery, missiles, MBT,... to Ukraine?
Also, lets remember that UK has prevented shipping vaccine manufactured there to 3rd countries, even when some other country paid for it already. EU did not do that.
2. Thank you for confirming our fears. We decide not to buy something for you and now you go full crybaby and deny Ukrain help. Yes, you guys sound like totally dependable.
3. It's not isolationist and we do want (or should want to) cooperate with you, but Eu has just learnt what happens if you outsource your own defense and US elects idiot for the 2nd time.
And lets not forget that you have political party on the rise, (Reform UK), that seems to be a bit too friendly with Trump, Farage supposedly received money from RT (russ sponsored Tv) in 2022.
One of your previous PMs (Boris Johnson) had appointed Russian oligarch as Lord and is said to have ditched his own security to party with Russian intelligence officers while he was in office.
So, if eu and russia come to blows, whos side will UK be on? Depends on what party is in government.
>At the moment we're trying to give security backing for Ukraine and you're asking us to give up our fishing rights for the honour of helping secure Europe.
You are not trying to secure Europe, you are trying to sell something to Europe. We would rather build capacity to make whatever you want to sell us ourselfs.
I agree we should work closely together, more so after US started dancing naked around burning brides. But everyone is looking into how to secure themselfs, without depending on 3rd party, and from EU's perspective UK is on the outside (even if not as crazy as US has become).
I did not understand his post as 'all profit is waste', this is what he said:
>>The amount of resources used to feed profit alone are a huge waste.
I believe that this can sometimes be true. For example, lets say that CEO want to raise profits by 20% by end of fiscal year and uses 50% more resources for that compared to current resource/profit use.
This might be good idea for CEO, if his bonus is tied to profit, but for company it might be better to develop business that is going to bring more profit / resource spent a few years down the line.
I think both government and private sector have waste. It's just that reason for waste is different, and it doesn't make sense to compere them directly. Also, combating waste should be done differently in private vs public sector.
>>The private sector is indeed filled with lots of inefficiencies, but due to the profit motive and presence of competition, there’s massive incentives to correct those inefficiencies slowly over time. You'll make more profit doing so!
Instead of correcting inefficiencies it's more profitable for private sector to:
1. merge/acquire competition, create monopoly,
2. lobby government for monopoly status (ISPs)/protection from competition with tarrifs (automakers)/...
3. sue competition out of business
4. aggressively use patents,...
Also found it funny that someone starts post with 'red herring' and ends with 'educating' parent post about communism :D
Hmmm, A few corporations come to mind that are considered too big to fail (banks a decade and half ago, intel atm,...). Seems like they have aquired government-like powers :D
Second point. Nuclear safety inspectors don't produce anything, they just cost us. Lets call them red tape. Simply fire all of them, energy costs will go down and nothing will happen in short term. But somewhere down the line a president will be asked how the hell they thought that running nuclear reactors without safety inspectors was a good idea.
Now, I honestly don't know if DEI is useful in the long run or not, but because you see it as ideological add-on makes me think that you know even less.
People can make anything seem like its ideological (vaccines, wearing masks, climate change,...), but usually that just mean they don't know what they are talking about.