United States Vs. European Union

[Captain Chaos]

Who will win?

I don't mean in a military contest. The U.S. and E.U. are shaping up to be the two big western economic powers. Over the next 100 years, will one side or the other come to dominate, or will it stay relatively even?



'Course, we might all wind up speaking Chinese in the end.

[US Independent]

The US has a huge headstart. The European Union encompasses a much larger land mass. Over the next 100 years problems will arise with the EU. The biggest one is that the many countries the make up the EU, may not agree with everything the EU does. This leads to rifts and problems. In the next 100 years the EU might dissolve. Of course, whats the problem with the US no longer being the topdog? We were not always so, Britain grealty surpassed us through the 18th and 19th century, and we still managed to win the Revolution. So greatest economic power and military power is not a must.

America needs to maintain the ability to protect the country's interests and people. As long as America can continue to run as an effective nation, America will always be dominate in the globe. The difference between the EU and China is that the EU is a free loving society. They are pretty much a democracy. India is also a growing democracy. So is the US. China is not. As long as these countries are united in a common sense of freedom, China will be subdued.

[Captain Chaos]

China is moving towards a free market economy.

Their government cannot survive in a free market economy - I give it 50 years before it is a representative democracy.


Can the rest of the world compete with a billion chinese, with terrific worth ethics, and lots of cheap labor?




The E.U. has a big advantage. They are not spending much money on military matters. The U.S., on the other hand, is spending a fortune on military concerns.

[Samildanach]

The US also has its deficit concerns, an aging population about to retire and rising medicare and welfare costs. On top of that you have the UAE and other countries slowly exchanging dollars for Euros, you tell me which way it seems to be going.

As for the chinese, they are apprently growing at a horrific rate, although we don't really know what the figures are for sure. They will definitely become a world super power at some point. The question is really how is that going to affect the whole balance of power in the world. Also the chinese currency has recently been depegged from the dollar so the chinese yuan is rising relative to the dollar. Exports are a major part of Chinas economy and at some point there currency is going to become too high relative to other producers in the region such as Japan.....so that should put the effective breaks on Chinas economy to a large extent.

[meerkat]

I think that they will remain relatively even forces throughout the next century.

Both have their positives and negatives, for example:

The EU is growing very quickly; there are more than one and a half as many people in the EU as in America. However, it is nearly impossible to have so many countries agreeing on an issue, making it unstable.

America is experiencing a greater economic growth than the EU. Furthermore people in the EU on average work a lot less. And in years to come this will get worse as the population is getting older (median age over 40). However America has many diplomatic problems which need to be solved.

As for China, well, they might be the dark horse!

[Samildanach]

America has many diplomatic problems which need to be solved.

Usually of its own making.

[GodBlessAmerica]

The European Union will bust apart over national differences and over the various terms of give-aways that had be be given to get some nations on board.

Various news stories over the last year to me would suggest it's a doomed deal.

Then if that isn't bad enough, old Europe isn't breeding, only the new poor Muslim folks are breeding like rabbits, so with no major oil in the ground, I can't see anything that spectacular coming out of a future Muslim dominated Europe.

[Captain Chaos]

Various news stories over the last year to me would suggest it's a doomed deal.

Everything falls apart eventually.

How long do you give them?

[GodBlessAmerica]

Don't know, they had a temporary bump with a Euro being a nice new shiny thing in the world. People are kind of getting over that now as we did Internet stock when it lost it's luster and crashed.

I think it will rip apart and come back together in a much looser form of some kind.
Even European nations and their people have a sense of national ID and they like to be individuals and separate nations as well.
As old Europe dies out though, I suspect lots of desperate measures will be tried to keep it going.

[Autolykos]

I wager that, well within 100 years, both the United States and the European Union will effectively cease to exist. Furthermore, their ends will not be due to any policy mistakes or the like on their parts. Rather, there will be external developments that will render them irrelevant and obsolete, from an institutional standpoint.

- Rob

[Captain Chaos]

For a prediction to be meaningful, a timetable is necessary.

That is one of the great failings of the Bible - most of its prophecies are not linked to a time frame - making them open ended and thus, essentially, unverifiable.


If the EU hold together for 50 years - that'll be a good long while - probably long enough to guess that it is going to be a semi-permanent, nation-like, entity.

So - a guess?

1 year, 5 years - 10 to 20 years?

[Rainbow]

Quote by: Captain Chaos United States Vs. European Union Who will win?

U.S. stands for One United body.
E.U. stands for Many Separate bodies.

The Mitterand's idea was to create a mechanism that is going to become an "opposition" to American business in Europe (mainly), and around the world.
It has resultated in : "EU Parlament" , "EU Constitution" , "Euro" - as currency, ect.

(That very same "Euro" was used by French and Germans to undercut U.S. Dollar's position around the world, while both used "Euro" to pay Saddam for Iraqi oil. The only point French and Germans did not expect U.S. was going to take - as "countermeasure" - that U.S. would enter Iraq ever, in order to cut off that Frence-Germany-Saddam lucrative deal.
That was the reason France and Germany opposed so strong U.S. actions against Saddam - on U.N. and politicial arena, at least, since "Euro" was losing its position vs. U.S. Dollar. Besides, "Euro" is greatly overvalued, but that is yet another aspect.)

I believe that E.U. is not going to overcome U.S. Dollar position.
U.S. needs to maintain its top position in science and technology developement. That would be good enough to keep E.U. on a distance.
U.S. would attempt to re-gain some portions of European market, within post-Communist states. That would be sufficient too, especially since Russia is going to become the major oil provider - appx. 70-80% of market share (!), within 10 upcoming years, or so - for the whole Europe.

Politics is all about money, and not much (else) but money.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Autolykos I wager that, well within 100 years, both the United States and the European Union will effectively cease to exist. Furthermore, their ends will not be due to any policy mistakes or the like on their parts. Rather, there will be external developments that will render them irrelevant and obsolete, from an institutional standpoint.- Rob

Only Capitalist societies do real well in the world, so I would say America will be fine.
The more terrorist slap people around the world and America, the greater the chances will be that the liberals will wake up and start to convert to far more conservative thinking. (which would lead to them growing up)

I think there could be a few world wars in a hundred years.
One would be when no one needs oil anymore due to new energy sources being found and the Middle East discovering they had all that time and money, but never learned to make anything but misery for their people. They will have trouble feeding themselves IMO and will of course blame everyone but themselves.

I think we are also moving toward another ice age as we did for 300 years prior to the 1700s. That could change where people reside for a while as well.

Islam IMO will have to be reformed in becoming tolerant of other religions and so-called regular Islam needs to get the marbles to declare a Jihad against radical Islam or all of Islam is in danger of being in a world war against everyone else.

Those are issues I kind of do see.

[GHook93]

Quote by: Captain Chaos Who will win? I don't mean in a military contest. The U.S. and E.U. are shaping up to be the two big western economic powers. Over the next 100 years, will one side or the other come to dominate, or will it stay relatively even? 'Course, we might all wind up speaking Chinese in the end.

America

[Fleamo]

Right now the E.U. has the largest GDP according to everyone but the CIA. The EU, however, is not bound together tightly enough. This is the age-old argument which has been argued since the end of the Articles of Confederation. I'm with Al Hamilton here, it's better to have one strong national government than a confederation of independent states.

Both the EU and the US will survive for quite some time, and China will be around too, but the EU and China have internal politics which will shuffle around for a time, for example China shifting to a democracy sometime soon, which will slow their growth while the US already has its politics generally down pat and thus will continue to prosper at the same pace.

[RVonse]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica I think there could be a few world wars in a hundred years. .

I sure hope you aren't right about that one or the human species will not survive.

Mankind has too many high tech weapons and too many war hawks. :eek:

[Samildanach]

Right now the E.U. has the largest GDP according to everyone but the CIA. The EU, however, is not bound together tightly enough. This is the age-old argument which has been argued since the end of the Articles of Confederation. I'm with Al Hamilton here, it's better to have one strong national government than a confederation of independent states. Both the EU and the US will survive for quite some time, and China will be around too, but the EU and China have internal politics which will shuffle around for a time, for example China shifting to a democracy sometime soon, which will slow their growth while the US already has its politics generally down pat and thus will continue to prosper at the same pace.

I think this is a gross overgeneralisation. If we restrict the argument to the EU and the US disregarding China, then I think over the next five years the US is going to be in for a great deal of trouble...its also pretty even money that a recession may even be on the cards for the US economy.
The EU may be a little fragmented in terms of policy but that is its strength as well as its weakness.
Because member states can have very different opinions you get a democracy within the EU that is unrivalled anywere else in the world including the US.
The EU is also bigger population wise and is still expanding. Typically member states like the baltic states, latvia, estonia, lithuania have economies which are rocketing ahead at blistering speed, as wage rates and prices in those countries catch up to the more developed nations within the EU. At the same time countries like germany and france are not nearly so economically active and probably won't be until the poorer countries catch up a bit making the interEU states trade balances a bit more even. You have to remember the EU is in its infancy and the growing pains will be there for about 50 years or so I would guess but I believe its actually in the long run going to be much more competitive than the states can be especially if the Euro gets adopted as a reserve currency which will be the equivalent to a stab in the heart for the American way of life. It seems obvious to me that the EU will outperform the states IF it manages to take over a significant portion of the oil trade which is in the process of occurring, check the Iranian oil bourse thread in politics.

[Chris the Chees]

The US is smaller economically than a combined Europe and smaller in terms of population.

[Rainbow]

Quote by: Samildanach Typically member states like the baltic states, latvia, estonia, lithuania have economies which are rocketing ahead at blistering speed, as wage rates and prices in those countries catch up to the more developed nations within the EU.

Those are the markets U.S. wants to gain its bigger share within.

Due to lack of unity I take E.U. (in its current shape) as a "hoax". A form of federation, supported and/or enforced by thousands treaties in (almost) every aspect of administrative and economical field. The core and weak side for E.U. is :
- every single state is an independent body
That is the reason (I am afraid) it would not last as One consolidated and integrated origanism, ever.

[Captain Chaos]

It seems pretty strong in its present form.

There is strength in diversity.