[pokot0]

I think a more interesting question is: who is “self”? US is historically more prone to favor business, while EU seems more concerned in protecting consumers. And of course there is the noise generated by incompetence/corruption/lobbying that makes the question of “in the interest of whom are laws made?” very nuanced.

[deeThrow94]

Very good points. I've been trying to figure out whose interest is in our "national interests" my entire life. It sure ain't protecting my interests or those of anyone I love that justifies a trillion dollar a year military.

[Workaccount2]

The trillion dollar military is Americas welfare system. You may be chronically confused why no politician dem/republican/liberal/conservative ever wants to cut funding for it, and toss it up as obvious collusion between mega-contractors and politicians.

Well it is. And it's willful. That trillion dollars is spent almost entirely on US made things by US workers. Only a small slice (still large in absolute terms) goes to those mega-contractors. The rest is the only thing that has kept any semblance of American manufacturing alive. The military buys everything (this isn't an exaggeration, you would be hard pressed to find something in your life that they don't buy in quantity) , and there are countless businesses that pay decent wages with benefits for low skilled workers in every state that are only still in existence because of military spending.

It also functions as an incubator, having special provisions for small businesses, especially those owned by marginalized people or located in especially impoverished areas. Basically "We need need coffee filters, so if you buy the equipment and higher the workers, we'll sign a contract to buy 2,000,000 packages a year from you. (And it's a kick-your-door-down felony if you try to backdoor foreign made filters)."

That's why it is never cut. It's a welfare plan that republicans agree too because it requires holding down a job to access. It comes with the side effects of keeping factories running and getting an overpowered military.

[quesera]

The US military is also an enormous and very successful jobs program.

Also there may be some foreign policy applications.

[dboreham]

And it was an explicit pact between US and European countries: you can have socialism and not much military (because who wants a huge German army??), while we will do our socialism via our military, which in turn will protect you.

But now our politicians are so dumb they don't realize that's what was agreed long ago, and think they can have one part of that deal and not the other.

[deeThrow94]

This is true, and it is disgusting.

[alt227]

I am pretty sure if the US decided to get rid of its military entirely, then it wouldnt be long before it was invaded by Russia or China and then the interests of the people you love would be severly impacted.

The world stage is no more a safe place than it has been for any other part of history.

[dboreham]

Or invaded by liberating Canadians. We can dream...

[ojbyrne]

Straw man. Nobody said anything about “getting rid of its military entirely.”

[deeThrow94]

> then it wouldnt be long before it was invaded by Russia or China

I would be lying if I claimed I hadn't dreamed of being liberated by a foreign power with more cultural competence at governance (which excludes Russia, obviously, but they probably at least aren't worse), but realistically anything but a slow scale-down in military power would probably entail the bloodiest world (and civil) war in history. Maybe nukes, too.

But, there's a fork in the road. We can choose to scale down our military presence (and control of trade) today, and figure out how we actually want to exist in a global community outside of letting our corporations swing their dicks freely... Or we can blow trillions of dollars continuing to make fools of ourselves rampaging through other countries rather than building high speed rail before we lose our grip on hegemony anyway as a matter of pure economics.

Or, I suppose, we can just murder anyone who disagrees with us until we're just miserably exploiting each other inside of high walls armed with automated guns. Something tells me that's the option we're going to pick.

[pqtyw]

> US is historically more prone to favor business, while EU seems more concerned in protecting consumers.

Well that's not that obvious... Sure EU is more than willing to protect consumers from foreign(American) megacorporation because the cost of doing that is very low.

Entrenched major local companies? Well stifling competition through excessive regulation and propping up to bit too fall semi-zombie corporations is not necessarily that great for consumers long-term.

[pokot0]

Do you have examples of targeted protections against foreign companies? Everything that comes to mind to me applies to all companies local or foreign.

[pqtyw]

Hypothetical local companies? The type of major tech corporations that are effected by DMA and similar regulations simply do not exist in Europe.

Regulating and fining them is very cheap politically when there are no jobs that can be lost or lobbyists to disappoint.