I'm an American. Y'all Europeans don't believe the horse shit they got most of my countrymen to accept.

Also, that Janan Ganesh guy looks like a putz.

Defend the continent from who? The teetering regime that has spent the past 5 years drawing the poorest country on the continent to a stalemate?

What about taxing wealth, while reducing mass taxes like the VAT to finally get people to spend again? Increasing peoples salaries would also help, and capping rent to what it costs to ensure upkeep and needed new construction - i think that would easly do the trick to fill the states coffers and get the economy out of this slump instead of filling the bank accounts of shameless, greedy people. Those will find other ways to enrich themselves, maybe through the defense industry.

So let’s kill what makes our countries worth to live in.

Fuck you, bootlicker!

Because austerity measures worked so well after the housing bubble burst. 🙄

I am worried about Russia and it's behaviour, but I totally disagree with this narrative across Europe about spending more on defence.

We spend plenty as it is, we just need to reorganise things and integrate our armies and navies. So many resources can be freed up by removing pointless duplication and redundancy, without spending more money at the expense of other parts of our economies.

It won't happen because nationalism is a disease that infects almost all European countries.

I remember years ago reading an article complaining that Germans are too frugal and their frugality will negatively impact the economy because of lack of consumption. And I thought to myself: "Hang on. I thought they tell us to spend only on what we need?" And if we do spend as they have wanted, the elites will say this is why we can't afford a house because we spent it all on avocado toasts.

This is the hypocrisy, gas lighting and double standards of capitalism. They tell us such and such is good, and when we do exactly what they tell us, and it has had negative consequences, they say it's our fault. It reminds me of one of the episodes in the first season of Squid Game, in which the players were winning but the games master broke the rules to handicap the players.

The people are what makes the continent.

If you stop defending the people, what are you defending?

Wealth. The wealth of companies and individuals that have no loyalty except to themselves.

Only desperate people, right-wing gun nuts and neo-nazis join the army voluntarily, so that sounds about right.

Europe could get more for less if they bought less low quality, super expensive, american made, defensive shit.

I hear Ukraine have some interesting and well proven kits for cheap.

«Opinion» pieces are a way for news media to cover their asses.

No way to make more rich people richer than to sacrifice the underclasses benefits.

Janan Ganesh wants to suck billionaire dick and lick their boots

Just stop subsidizing the rich, problem solved.

No, that's like dad straight up saying "I know you need new clothes for winter, but I don't like you and I do like drinking, so I'm going to spend our money at the bar instead."

Saying we don't have the money to feed the poor is at least having some shame about it.

In the US we don't really have money for either.

It's mostly deficit / debt spend. But don't worry, we'll always be able to service debt easily because the USD is standard and in large amounts of demand. Nobody would ever be stupid enough to screw that up and get people to look for alternatives.....oh wait, here's that Trump guy again.

Europe drops the welfare state for fucking what? To spend money in weapons from usa? The same weapons that usa can disable remotely while they treat to invade iceland?

Nice...

Financial Times has been maskless for a long time.

I normally don't wish death on people, but the author of this hate-piece....

Where is a good guillotine when you need one.

Or better, send the asshole and perhaps his family to a war somewhere, so he knows first hand what he is asking about.

The class war doesn't stop happening if you dont fight back.

Given what Russia is doing, and how the US is bailing on its European allies, it does make sense for Europe to focus a bit more on defense, sad to say.

The US otoh has no excuse.

I agree that Europe need to spend more on defense and be less dependant on the US, but tax the rich for crying out loud! Welfare does not need to be cut for this.

In Holland the new center-left government proposed a “freedom tax” to fund the army, which was widely supported. They implemented it half heartedly though, so there’s no line of “freedom tax” on your tax report. But the model might definitely work elsewhere