I would say our debt is rather manageable. Only nations in trouble are the podunk nations in the EU who are basically corrupt bank hand systems like greece, who are now dealing with the mess they created when they let state workers retire on full pensions at 50.
LOL…mythology.
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Yes but the question is does America need to be contributing that much and is it doing it out of some eep love for Europe or for its own interests?
Who do the rest of Europe have to fear? Russia and China. China will trade with us and Russia are going to fuck with the rest of their backyard.
Trying to imply the only reason Europe can afford universal healthcare does not hold up to the facts. The NHS started in 1948. It managed to run when it was economically devastated, it can certainly run now as one of the top several economies in the world.
The claim also has rather obvious insulting intent often times, it would be like a European saying, the only reason America is a superpower is it sat out rather than helping defeat the Nazi’s, loaning the allies materials at insane interest rates, then joining the war late, winning and then building back up the other nations with US labour and industry again charging massive ammounts and giving the American economy defacto monopoly on everything from auto-manufacturing to engineering.
This graph literally means nothing. Italy’s debt to GDP, for example, is like 138%. Overall Europe’s debt to GDP is better than the United States, though.
This argument assumes the less indebted countries are in good shape. They are ALL ticking time bombs
If America does not then European Union nations would have to dedicate more to defense, which was the point.
I’m fine with saving money on some defense outside the U.S.
You might want to start fearing your growing terrorism problems.
I never implied this.
Do you know how much money in aide the U.S. gave to European countries to help rebuild after WWII?
This is just non-sense. First off, we could have just let you be destroyed… Second of all, we didn’t have to help you re-build. Third, and the only relevant point to this thread, is that it is objective fact that America’s military spending allows other NATO forces the freedom to spend their revenue in other areas.
Yes we would have to spend more on military spending, to match China and Russia (whose military budgets are a fraction of the US), the EU would simply have to have small raises in military spending in each EU nation to match them in a combined EU fighting force.
And yes the U.S gave aid … In the form of a loan, it was able to give us that because it made a fortune loaning to the countries fighting the Nazi’s while it stayed out of the war. Again, the US had an interest in doing so, it wasn’t simply giving us free shit for no return. How do you think America had an economic boom during wartime while everyone else was losing everything?
And no, Europe was not doomed without the U.S. The U.S helped greatly, however lets be real, it was Russia who won the second world war along with the smaller nations of Europe. America ended the war much quicker and saved many lives, we are grateful, but you didn’t “save us”.
As evil as Marxism Leninism is, you do realise they didn’t want to make everyone speak Russian right 
The east Germans didn’t all start speaking it ya know.
Money EU nations do not have.
Only some of those dollars were in the form of loans. It was your war… We gave a substantial number of lives and treasure to save Europe from itself, again.
Yes, we ramped up military production in part to sell to Europe, would you have preferred we didn’t?
That’s certainly and interesting perspective…
Landowners were the only ones allowed to vote on representatives because, well they were going to be the ones taxed.
As you can see now, people who don’t pay taxes vote for representatives who will support taxing others and giving the proceeds to them.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2008/10/22/quinn-originally-if-you-didnt-have-land-you-did/145797
The matter was left to individual states to resolve.
Women could vote if they were “femes soles” - unmarried and owned property. In northern states, which banned slavery some 70 years before England, black women had the same rights as white women.
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Germany didn’t have any real means to compel Britain to surrender either with or without the U.S or the USSR’s support for Britain and it’s allies and colonies, except the battle of the Atlantic. In the long run, it’s hard to see how they could have won that without actually making the US actively hostile to Britain.
I think the very best that Germany could realistically have hoped for was a very temporary dominance on the continent.
Please…
Do you realize how MUCH materials, trucks, tanks, trains, airplanes, and food the US provided to Russia?
Keep believing the myth that Russia alone would have won WW2.
As for “making money off of loans”, please check your math.
Under the terms of lend-lease, Britain did not actually buy the equipment but borrowed it for the duration of the war, or until it was destroyed. However, when the war was over Britain needed to keep some of the equipment for post-war use. The US allowed Britain to buy the equipment at the bargain basement price of 1.075 billion pounds ($4.34 billion at the 1945 exchange rate). So there is your exact figure. This would be worth around $50 billion in today’s money.
However, as the US extended Britain a loan to make this payment the debt was not actually settled until many years later. America extended a 50-year-loan worth $4.34 billion at 2% interest. Britain didn’t stop repaying until 2006 (it was six years late). Together with interest, the total amount that Britain paid was $7.5 billion.
This is absolute peanuts compared with the actual value of the military material that was provided. American military assistance to Britain in World War II was worth $31.4 billion in 1940s prices. In today’s money, that is equivalent to around $380 billion.
Even the $4.34 billion loan only covered around 14% of the cost of wartime assistance, and this loan was extended on extremely generous terms over fifty years. So Britain would have ended up paying less then 10% of the cost of all the equipment it received during the war.
As far as the Soviet Union is concerned, it never paid a cent for US wartime assistance.
The total value of US military assistance was $11.3 billion (in 1940s prices, equivalent to $140 billion today). In 1972, President Nixon agreed to settle this debt for $722 million, payable over 20 years at 3% interest. However, even this piffling amount was never received. It was conditional on Russia being granted Most Favoured Nation trading status by the US government, which didn’t happen until 1992. By that time the US had given up on trying to collect the debt.
So, if you ignore inflation but include interest on the US loan to Britain, the total amount the US received was $7.5 billion. The US therefore made a net loss of 31.4 + 11.3 - 7.5 = $35.2 billion.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Ameri…
http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/news/fin…
BBC NEWS | UK | UK settles WWII debts to allies
War Debts: 28 Feb 2002: Hansard Written Answers - TheyWorkForYou
Yes some Northern states abolishing slavery is the same as the entire British empire abolishing slavery and buying the freedom of the former slaves using 40% of it’s national budget, (Under the terms of the Act, the British government raised £20 million.
(£69.93 billion in 2013 pounds) to pay out in compensation for the loss of the slaves as business assets to the registered owners of the freed slaves).
Lets compare the date each nation completely abolished slavery for all of its territories, for historical rigour shall we?
Yes lets do that. Wasn’t Australia considered a part of the British Empire?
“From the late 1800s until the 1970s Aboriginal workers were for all intents and purposes enslaved.”
You can make the same case for blacks and others in America after abolition, “treated like slaves” isn’t “were actual slaves”.
Chinese workers in America were worked to death like slaves. They however, were not slaves. Children in england were worked like slaves, they were not slaves.You are coming across as intellectually dishonest as Noam Chomsky right now.
Intellectually dishonest? Who was claiming the US got rich off of war loans?
You’re amusing.