EU Toast or in Transition

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to a couple of Europhiles. It's been a while. Hey, my name is Bailey Alexander. I'm an American, and I'm here with Francis, my partner, who happens to be half Italian and half German, even though he doesn't sound like it. Anyway, we'll discuss the political environs and offer perspective from the inside. Having lived here in Europe for almost 25 years now, basically since the rollout of the euro. And Francis has some interesting insights because he's built a few companies here in Europe and he's done a lot of consulting all over the planet. And he also worked at JP Morgan in Frankfurt and New York for about a decade before working at Microsoft, which is where we met long ago. We've lived in a lot of EU countries and worked alongside its residents. But before we go into the latest political intrigue, we want to take you listeners for a ride and go back to when the EU actually worked on behalf of its member states. States way back to 2002, back when Berlusconi, Chirac and Schroeder were the leaders. And that would have been for Italy, France and Germany, respectively. So, hey, Francis, what say you about the eu? What has happened? [00:01:11] Speaker B: The eu, I mean, everybody knows this, but I'll just quickly recap. The EU is a project that started at the Treaty of Rome many years ago. And the idea of the founders was to entwine European economies to prevent them from being able to go to war against each other, given all of the terrible conflicts that have engulfed the European continent for a thousand years. So they basically did that started with the Steel and Coal Organization, which are two of the strategic products that are needed for having your industry gear up for war. And it made it so that it was very, very difficult for countries to go to war. The six founding members eventually expanded to 12 and beyond, and now there's 27. So the idea was that it was an economic partnership governed by the treaties, and the treaties have been refined and updated a number of times. But it's always a big pain and difficult thing to do because treaty amendments need to be approved by all 27 countries without exception. Any one of them disagreeing means that the treaty amendment doesn't go through. So that's great because it means that the EU stays focused on trade, on the things that they agreed to pool their sovereignty to achieve. And it's been very successful. New member states, like especially Romania, basically benefited vastly from it because they improved their standard of living. They got money from the EU and they used it to improve their infrastructure, and eventually they all end up contributing and helping the next applicants from into the EU to improve their infrastructure and get rid of corruption and the various other things that form part of the Copenhagen criteria, which for membership. And that's all great. So, you know, that was what it was supposed to be, and for a long time that's what it was. But then this Green Goblin hex, Ursula von der Leyen, appeared and she's a dyed in the wool globalist. And she's been busy trying to insert the EU Commission into areas that have never been covered by the treaties, like defense, which remains a national prerogative, not an EU prerogative. So, you know, she's busy telling everybody what they should do, what they should think. Green New Deal, you have to not use garbage, you know, you can't throw away garbage the way you used to. And none of that is in the treaties. Okay? So, you know, she's essentially usurping rights that belong to the member states officially, and she uses peer pressure to actually try to force some of these guys into line. You know, she's like, hey, if you don't agree with this, then all the other member states will be pissed off at you and therefore the EU will stop working properly. And you need to basically give in on this because the other states want you to. Right? So she's essentially like a kindergarten school teacher trying to force everybody into areas which they may or may not want to go. And the largest and most vociferous fighter against this and defender of national sovereignty is Viktor Orban in Hungary. Now, prior to Brexit in 2016, the UK was the biggest defender of national sovereignty. Every time the EU wanted to do anything, the UK said no, we want an opt out, we don't want to do that, we have to have a different thing. And they had a really sweetheart deal for being in the eu and then they decided that it still wasn't good enough. So they Brexited in 2016, or at least they started the process in 2016. And since they left, the EU has not had serious opposition, aside from Orban, to this globalization, everybody pulling together exercise. And they're not very intelligent because if they were looking out for the interests of the Europeans, they would not be picking on Russia the way they have been. Russia has no intention of controlling states that definitely don't want them there. What they've done in Ukraine is take over the areas of Ukraine populated by the Russian speaking majority and preventing the Ukrainians from discriminating against them by banning their language. Their culture and everything else. So, you know, Europe should have maintained a neutral posture and not destroyed its energy in order in taking a stance on this. And if it had done that, Russia might have accepted Europe as a interlocutor in the peace negotiations. Instead, Van der Leyen and Kayakalas is even worse, basically decided that everything was anti Russian and they've essentially made a fool of themselves. And now the EU is an economic, you know, distress because they don't have decent productivity because their energy costs are so high. You know, that's maybe it started when Britain left, but it wasn't, you know, a consequence of Britain leaving. It was more that these globalists in Brussels and the Berlaymont decided to take advantage of Britain's leaving to try and impose a whole bunch of things that nobody in the European continent ever voted for. [00:07:00] Speaker A: I think people might forget how contrarian the British were. In fact, Farange was key with this. Correct. [00:07:06] Speaker B: Farange wanted to get the Britain out. He did it largely for the wrong motives because they thought that Brexit was going to benefit the British economy significantly and they wouldn't have to pay all this money that they were paying into the Europeans. But the British haven't really taken advantage of leaving at all, really. They've negotiated deals with various countries now, long term, a long time after the exit. You know, it took them a long time, more than they thought it would to actually negotiate deals. And the deals are not as good as they would have had if they would have stayed in the eu because the EU has more economic power than Britain. So when the EU does a deal with, let's say, India, the conditions are better than when the UK does. And that's true, you know, across the board. The one exception to that is the American deal. But the American deal isn't exactly a benefit to the European, to the English. And the English are now in fairly severe economic distress. They're looking like they might need to have an IMF loan to bail them out, like they did in the 70s. And this is really not where they wanted to be. And they're in real trouble because the English have eliminated their manufacturing base pretty much. And the only thing that they have that makes money is London with the financial services, which is, you know, very concentrated. They have the largest inequality between London and the rest of the country of any place. Right. London is massively benefiting from financials and gdp, whereas the rest of England is below most of Europe in GDP and standard of living and all that other stuff. [00:08:51] Speaker A: So there you go. You have the city of London, and then you have family that works there. Anything outside, outside of the city of London, it would appear, according to Duran and other podcasts, that the place is crumbling. [00:09:01] Speaker B: Poland is doing better than the uk. I would suggest that Romania is doing better than the uk. You know, they're really not doing well at all, at least outside of London. If you include London in the averages, then it looks better, perhaps than Poland. But if you exclude London, the rest of the UK has a standard of living that's lower than Poland's. Their social services don't work. Their National Health Service is now a disgrace. They're really in a tough spot, and it's very difficult for them to get out of that tough spot because they don't have any manufacturing capability. They don't make anything. They've lost the productiveness and the ability. They haven't invested in their infrastructure, and they're not an attractive site for foreign investment outside of, you know, financial investment in London. Right. Nobody wants to build factories there. So, you know, they are in serious economic distress. The French are also in economic distress, but they at least have some manufacturing capability still. They, you know, they make aircraft, they make nuclear power plants, they make some things, but. But they're still in disparate straits. And Macron is talking like he's the President of France when he has an approval rating in the low 20s, which is incredibly low, and he. He doesn't have a majority in the Parliament, which means he doesn't have control of the money. So, you know, he tries to make these reforms, he can't get them through Parliament, and he's seeing his prime ministers fall one after another. And, you know, normal people would resign and have a general election to find out exactly who should be running the country, but Macron is just holding on for dear life and trying to distract everyone with bellicose, warmongering noise about what the French troops are going to do to the Russians in Ukraine and other things like that. So, you know, France is in bad shape, but I would venture to say not quite as bad as Britain. Germany is also in bad shape because Merz is arguably the most incompetent leader of the bunch. He's an ex blackrock director, so you can see where his loyalties lie. He's busy saying, we're going to militarize Germany, we're going to spend a bunch of additional money on the military, and we're going to send a bunch of money to Ukraine because Ukraine needs to be set up, and we're going to declare War or virtual war against the Russians as soon as we get our shit together, which is going to happen by 2030 or something, which is ridiculous, Right, because he's telegraphing all these moves and the Russians will be more than ready for him if they're not. I mean, they could get rid of him now if they wanted to. But the Emirates is basically not paying attention to what the German people need, which is to solve the energy crisis. We should remember that Germany, three or four years ago, before this war started, was the export king of the world. Right. They were exporting more than China at a certain point. Right. So, you know, they have the manufacturing capability, they have the modern infrastructure, they had everything. And it was fun. It was powered by energy that largely came from Russia through the Nord Stream pipelines and the other pipelines that go to Germany. Right. You know, their Greens decided to destroy their nuclear program, then they got into this fight with the Russians and cut off their own source of energy. And now they have to pay five times more for energy than they did before. And that makes all of their production non competitive. However, they still have the trained resources, they still have the schools, they still have the engineers, they still have the factories. They won't keep them forever. But at the moment, if they reverse policy and fix the energy crisis, they can get back and repair their economy and get it back to where it used to be or close to where it used to be. They won't get their markets back completely, but they will basically recover, not in as bad shape, but their leader is so terrible that he's not going there so well. [00:13:21] Speaker A: I think it's interesting because we live here on Lake Garda, which is two hours from Venice and one hour from Europe's most romantic balcony in Verona. And during the summer, thousands of Germans come here to take their holiday. And so I chat with them sometimes. And I know Macgregor and Mearsheimer are perplexed, as are many people, as to why they aren't doing something, but it does have something to do with their character and their cultural reality. They are cautious, they are rigid, and they simply don't react quickly, say, unlike the Italians, who thrive in chaos and are responding better than most countries because they improvise. In fact, I wrote a book about it called the Personal Legends of Piemonte, and it's written in both English and Italian. And I interviewed 12 northern Italians from the Piemonte region where we lived for seven years. And the book is, it's like having dinner with 12 Italians. And you can understand how they respond politically and with their businesses because they dealt with COVID relatively well, because they have a vast repertoire of characteristics that lend well to chaos. But when I speak to Germans, as I have this past summer, it would appear they're. They're almost in shock. I mean, they just can't turn that ship around quickly as if it's not in their nature. [00:14:34] Speaker B: Well, perhaps my view is that the Germans generally are competent. So at the moment they have an aberration because they have a chancellor that looks like a Blethering idiot. He's an ex blackrock director. He's got things in his head that are contrary to the best interest of the Germans. But essentially, like Italy, Germany is driven by coalitions. So he has to keep a certain number of people in his camp, and that includes members of his own party that are quite upset with the fact that he's broken every election promise that he made to get elected and are looking to jump ship. So if he loses 8 of his party, which isn't very many in a Bundestag of 630, he will not have a majority to govern, and at which point he won't be the Bundeskancellor anymore. So he is kind of on pretty thin ice. He wouldn't be. I mean, Germans are disciplined, so they will stick with their leaders as long as the leaders have the program. They are a little rigid that way. Right. But he lied to everyone to get elected. And that is sitting in the craw of a lot of people who basically say, you know, we got elected on the basis promising to be more fiscally responsible. And then he turns around and he basically decides to spend 800 billion on weapons, which we never agreed to do during the election, and the Germans would never have voted for. So, you know, he's pushing things for which he has no mandate. And that is a situation that is not normal in German political sphere. Right. The other Chancellors who trundled along, they didn't do that. Right. So they were stable. And Angela Merkel was there for a long time. They. Because she basically agreed with her team and with everybody else, and everybody knew what she was going to do. And it was all clear. Right. And this guy is just terrible. And let's see, he could well be gone before the end of the year. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Imagine if Berlusconi were still in power. What a difference that would make. [00:16:50] Speaker B: Berlusconi was a genius in some ways. Berlusconi is the single person who can essentially forge and maintain coalitions, which is the heart of governing Italy. Basically, Berlusconi could get a neo Nazi and a dyed in the wool communist in a room and have them walk out of the room agreeing on something. You know, he was, you know, you remember Jerry Springer, where he would get these crazy people that would basically have nothing in common and then would argue on the show if Berlusconi was hosting that they would all agree and they would all say, oh, let's all have, let's all have a party. You know, Berlusconi could get anyone to agree with anybody else. And that was his gift. And, you know, he had a lot of flaws. You know, he, gosh, he liked to have relations with a lot of beautiful women, God forbid. [00:17:44] Speaker A: And Meloni was his protege, was Berlusconi's protege. And I agree, most of our current leadership, they're just, they're uniquely awful. But say what you will about her, she is by and large talking on behalf of most Italians. And for 25 years I've been asking Italians about their leaders, and they are deeply cynical. But with Meloni, they. They think she's a fighter, and they like that. And unlike the English and Americans, the Italians do have savings. They don't spend their money on items most others do. [00:18:13] Speaker B: Government is broke, let's be honest. But they're being relatively cautious about how they manage their funds. They're not sending a lot of money to Ukraine. They're potentially sending some dual use equipment, helicopters and such, but they're not going to send troops. They're not going to send large amounts of money because they don't have large amounts of money. And Giorgia Meloni is very conscious of the fact that the Italians are watching her like hawks. They do not want to see their tax dollars being sent to somebody else for no good reason. The Italian economy was badly hurt in 2014 when the sanctions were imposed against Russia because of the Crimea crisis. And the Italian farmers lost a large market of fruit and vegetables which used to be imported into Russia. And the Russians found alternative sources. They get them from North Africa, they get them from Turkey, and they're never coming back to the Italian farmers. So they've lost that market forever. And they don't forget things like that. You know, they're like, hey, wasn't our business. And we basically got involved because Van der Leyen is like, oh, we all have to get involved. And then what happened was we suffered. And the Russians didn't suffer. They found other sources for the stuff we used to sell them. So you're sitting here going like it's incompetent to impose sanctions that don't work and that hurt us more than it hurts the people we're trying to target. Fundamentally, of all leaders on this planet, van der Leyen has to win the Queen crown of being the most incompetent person that ever lived. [00:19:56] Speaker A: So I think there is something to your thesis about the British altering the shape of the EU and von der Leyen's role in it. I know Alex Craner will appreciate that because he thinks the British are responsible for everything. But Gore Vidal, arguably America's biographer and prescient for six decades, wrote a book called Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. And he documented over 200 hot, cold and warm wars started by the US launched by the US government in between the years of 49, after the Berlin airlift up to the year 2002, right before the Iraq War. So now one could argue the British MI6 like to maintain their quasi role of playing empire through the back door. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Basically, it's muscle memory. Right. They're so used to meddling. Back in the day when they had an empire, there was a purpose to it. Right. They would do things that would benefit their control over India and whatever they had to do. Right. But today they lost all of that and they're still meddling the same way. They're just trying to get involved. They get plugging themselves into things that are none of their business and they don't have the clout to actually follow through and enforce some of the things they're doing. So they're just annoying. They have become the world's mosquitoes. [00:21:14] Speaker A: So, hey, what do you think is behind Mert's decision to propose that Wander Leyen become the President of Germany? Is it because she can't survive her term because of this hatred and disdain or what are your thoughts on that? [00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's very interesting that it reminds me of what happened to Annalena Baerbock, who was the Foreign Minister of Germany, who did an exceptionally awful job, found something for her to do to basically be a chairperson of the General assembly, which sounds, you know, impressive, but really doesn't have any power at all. Like, for God's sake, ship her off to New York where she can't do any more damage. And in the same way Merz is proposing Van der Leyen to be the first female president of Germany. What you need to know is that Germany is run primarily by the Chancellor, which in this case is Merz. So the President is like a more ceremonial figure who defends the constitution, opens hospitals, Wanders around and cuts ribbons and is a little bit like King Charles, right? And he doesn't have any real power. He does have some power because he can enforce the constitution, but he doesn't have any real power. So putting van der Leyen in that position is essentially, you know, much less powerful than what she's doing now. And the presidency of Germany is coming up into in like next year. So what Merz is essentially highlighting or telegraphing is he doesn't think that van der Leyen is going to complete her term as the Commission president because she's going to get booted sooner or later by the Parliament because of her breathtaking incompetence. So he's like, you know, we're going to try and find her a soft landing and something where she can't hurt somebody. But Merz is saying that she's the presidential candidate means that he's basically proposing that she gets a full time job two full years before she's supposed to finish her existing term, which means he doesn't think she's going to finish her term. So. And if Mertz doesn't think that, then she's really on thin ice because everybody else hates her. [00:23:22] Speaker A: So, hey, that brings us back to the title. Is EU Toast or In Transition? And that's why I wanted to begin the podcast with reviewing the past 25 years and how the EU used to apply benefits to their member states. And for what it's worth, I recall living in Prague. We lived there in 2013 for a year or so. And I remember talking to our banker back in the days when you had to have a bank in order to domicile in another country properly. And I was talking to Jarka, our banker, and she was terrifically pleased with their membership status and how it elevated their gdp. Now, the cost of living was higher, sure, but they were making more money and that was thanks to the eu. [00:24:05] Speaker B: Right? [00:24:05] Speaker A: Unlike when we lived in Bucharest and you were building a company there and working with Romanians and the roads had improved markedly because they could drive their trucks across borders and trade with everyone and they had so many engineers and that was a huge benefit. But the bottom line was new member states had more money so they could buy those German cars and the German car industry could thrive, which is critical. Right? [00:24:30] Speaker B: German car makers could have factories with cheap workers that would build cars that they could export to China and the US So it's beneficial for everybody. It's supposed to be win, win, okay, economics. I mean, Trump keeps talking like, economics is win, lose, I win you lose, right? And the truth is that real economics is win, win, right? I do something that helps me and you do something that helps you. And we find a way to work together, together. So we both elevate, right? And that's, that's more or less how everybody else does. [00:25:02] Speaker A: Like the bricks, right? That's what they're doing and that's what. [00:25:04] Speaker B: The bricks is doing. That is what the bricks is doing. What I see from all these other commentators, they keep talking about Europe, right? And Europe is a continent and Europe was there thousands and thousands of years ago and it's going to be there for thousands and thousands of years and it's not going anywhere. The beaches are in the same position they were last week and they're going to be there the same way when I die. So Europe is Europe. The EU is a construct of nation states that basically got together and decided to do some things together and preserve some things as national sovereign things. And right now they seem to have lost their way. Okay? They're in trouble because they totally screwed up the relationship with Russia. They totally screwed up their energy policy. The Green New Deal is killing them. There's various things that the EU has done that are not beneficial to the citizens of the eu. However, that is temporary, right? The leaders that brought the EU to this place, Macron, Merz and others, they're all basically on the verge of getting kicked out because people are pissed off with them. And if Alice Weidel, for example, takes over in Germany, she's going to focus like a laser on fixing the German economy. She doesn't care about what's happening in Ukraine. She doesn't care about the United States and making sure we're nice to them. She doesn't care what's going on in Israel. She cares about fixing the German economy so the German workers are back to work. And she can do that by doing better deals for energy, reversing the trend on the nuclear, and getting back the gas contracts with the Russians and various other things that she can do. And she will do those things. Everyone's oh no. Germany's basically made their bed. They're going to never going to do this. And it's like you don't know what you're talking about. They're going to do what the German people need them to do eventually. It takes time. People are still shell shocked from the fall from grace over the last three years, but people don't basically drive themselves into graves, okay? They eventually they say enough is enough. This is, let's do something different. [00:27:29] Speaker A: So, hey, let's. Let's shift gears, because we're. We're literally watching the multipolar world walk down the red carpet at the Shanghai Cooperation Summit. So what are your thoughts on Modi and whether or not the path to. To peace will happen through New Delhi? [00:27:45] Speaker B: So Trump has really put some feet wrong, and one of the things that he's done that's egregious is his attack on the Indians. India was neutral, okay? They were part of the Quad, and they're also part of brics, and they have relations, or they had relations that were pretty good between the US and also with Russia. So, you know, India is about India, and they're focused on their own business and trying to do things that are good for the Indian people. I wish Europe would do the same, but they don't. Anyway, so what then happens is that Trump now pretends to blame India for the war in Ukraine, and he's like, if you buy Russian oil, we're going to tariff you massively. Right? And also he then does deals with Pakistan. Now, I was in India last year, and. And I had to get a visa, and you have to fill out a form, and the first question on the form is, have you ever been or do you have any intention ever to go to Pakistan or have any relations with anyone in Pakistan? The Indians do not like Pakistan, okay? Period. Okay? They think that they're a bunch of terrorists, okay? So when Trump goes, oh, I'm going to pressure India by doing a deal with Pakistan and saying stupid shit on truth social, like, we're going to develop Pakistan's enormous oil resources, which it doesn't have, and then eventually they'll be selling oil to India, right? And you're sitting there, you obviously have no clue what India is about, right? There's absolutely not a chance. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Don't swear in French, Italian, or German. [00:29:28] Speaker B: Yeah, like, they really have no clue. So India basically found this enormously offensive, and they immediately doubled their purchases of Russian oil. And now Modi is basically burying the hatchet that he had with China, and he is now moving India and his 1.4 billion people firmly into the multipolar camp and no longer caring too much about what the United States thinks about all this. The United States turned India into a hostile nation, and it has only itself to blame. And then it did the same with Brazil, which is ridiculous, because Brazil is one of the very few countries that had a trade surplus with a trade deficit with America. So, you know, they were buying more American stuff than the Americans were buying Brazilian stuff and then Trump decides to tariff them. So they stopped buying American stuff and, and they're selling their products to what used to be American customers. China has moved all of its soybean purchases to Brazil. And now the American farmers are hurting badly. And right now he is, I saw this headlines that he's basically lining up 29 nations, big ones in Tianjin, basically discuss how they can get out from under the threats and under the, basically the blackmail that the United States is trying to impose to preserve their eminent position at the head of the world economy. And now, you know, they're really taking some serious steps. If I read the tea leaves correctly, what they're saying is that China is no longer dependent on the American financial system. The BRICS financial system has now gotten so developed that it is a genuine alternative to swift. So if they were cut off tomorrow from Swift, they wouldn't really notice. And there's no way that America or London or anybody else can impose trade sanctions on China, which is the manufacturing giant of the world, coupled with India, which is the second largest manufacturing giant of the world, and Russia, which is a serious military power. So you put the three of them together, they are spanking the west economically. They could spank them militarily because China's productive capacity, I mean, Russia is producing five times more war materiel than all of NATO put together by itself. Right. If you add China to the mix, China has the manufacturing capability of just scares everyone. Right? They can build hundreds of aircraft carriers in months. You know, it's, you know, if you really make them go for it, they can bury everybody. So it's a really stupid move to essentially have this adversarial I win, you lose thing. You need to sit down, calm down and come up with ways of working together so both sides win in a multipolar world because that multipolar world is already here. And if you keep fighting it, you're just going to lose more. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Oh my goodness, life is happening fast. I mean, remember in the 90s when even the proud Russians had given up on Mother Russia, but Putin got the oligarchs out of the government? Putin did that. I mean, can you imagine if the US government got the oligarchs and the lobbyists out of our government? But it's a profit driven state of mind. But I am tired of demonizing all these countries. I mean, maybe I've just had too many Russians over for dinner over the years. And like a million other people, I follow some interesting guys on Twitter like Lord Bebo and these types that provide the daily lives of Iranians. And I've had a lot of friends and contacts go to Iran and come back and report on its civilization, its laid back lifestyle, similar to the Italians, another ancient civilization. But man, the world is happening fast. And the EU was doing fantastically well only a few years ago. And Italy is still a country full of entrepreneurial types who just want to trade their high quality products. But Ukraine, war has changed all of this, and fast. And although we helped some Ukrainians escape by finding the family a place to stay, I personally haven't been too happy about some of the Ukrainians here. I mean, I found a couple of drunk guys under my Vespa. I chased him away, but my bike was stolen. And crime has gone up here in Riva, here in the Taranto region of Italy, an extraordinarily prosperous place, safe until, well, three years ago. And we're seeing a lot of countries starting to take away the benefits away from the Ukrainians. And unfortunately, Ukraine has been historically a uniquely corrupt country. So war, war, war. [00:34:31] Speaker B: I feel, I feel bad for the Ukrainians, right? They didn't ask for this, okay? They got politicized. They got driven into this by people like Victoria Nuland and they had a coup that got rid of a decent president that was making sensible decisions. You know, is that my opinion? Yes, it is. But, you know, essentially what happened was Yanukovych, they agreed that they wanted candidate status to join the eu, and everybody was excited about that because they saw all these countries like Romania get so much better off and they wanted to be one of those. So he did the math and he basically decided that given the state of the Ukrainian economy, it was more advantageous to stay tied to Russia and the eau, the Kazakhstan, all the other former Soviet states, because their economies were enmeshed than to be a candidate status for the eu. So he reversed the decision and that pissed a lot of people off, which led to Maidan. But Maidan was a coup, right? They didn't, you know, vote him out, they basically kicked him out. And, you know, at the end of the day, the eastern side of the Ukraine didn't like that because. [00:35:52] Speaker A: Sure, but the past doesn't change the present. I mean, the, the Ukrainians in Poland are threatening to burn down Polish homes if they take their benefits away because they don't want to work. So who knows, perhaps there's hope for the eu. I still have faith. And who knows, maybe Orban and FISO and even Meloni may see the populace get together and form a group. [00:36:12] Speaker B: Italy Will not. Orban and Fico are basically saying, you know, we may join the brakes and leave the EU because the EU is just so terrible and forcing us to do things we don't want to do and not in the best interest of our citizens. Italy will never do that, okay? Italy founded the eu. What Italy will do is Italy will try to work from within to reform the eu, right? Get it back to what it should have been. It will evolve, okay? It's not going to destroy itself. The EU will evolve. Italy is more than ready to fight its corner of evolution. It's got to convince some more nations to join in. Right now, the Balts have a major case of Russophobia, and the Danes and the Nordics are a little bit, you know, shaky, as well as that German MEP said, you know, his hamster is more intelligent than Kaia Khalid. But that was viral. That was a classic, you know, couldn't believe it. But the. The thing is that Italy will try to reform it. It's waiting for somebody like Marine Le Pen or somebody from that wing to be in there and somebody in Germany like Alice Vital to be in. Alice Vital said she's going to go with Dexit and exit the eu, but that's a threat. She's not going to do that if she has a fighting chance to reform it. And I think they will get together, they'll have a conference. They'll say, okay, now we're going to go to Brussels and we will tell them what's going to happen, and they're going to stop telling us about the migration and about the things that we want to do and the Green New Deal and all this other crap. We're going to tell them how Europe is going to get organized. And she needs Germany and France for that to happen. Right. She can swing the others. You know, she may never swing Estonia because they're just nuts, but nobody cares about Estonia because they're also 3 million people. So 450 million. 3 million. Go figure. You know, it just takes time. And Italy, remember Berlusconi, genius at organizing coalitions. Italy is very good at talking to everybody and coming up with consensus. That's the only way we've been able to govern forever. So I think Giorgia Meloni is biding her time, and as soon as there's a chance that there's a crack in the Germans or in the French, which looks apparent to me, I mean, it still has to happen, but it's pretty obvious they're going to go through some radical change, then she'll probably join in and we'll figure out how we basically reform European Union to get it back to where it was when it was helping all these nations improve their economies and improve ours. Right. It was never a detriment to the other countries in the eu. Right. The fact that we helped the Czech Republic, that we helped Romania, that we helped Poland, that never hurt us. Okay. It's great that we have new partners that have modern infrastructure and that are working with us to achieve things. So, you know, we need to get back to that. [00:39:25] Speaker A: Do you remember? Well, at least the English are still funny. Do you remember that expat versus the. The immigrants back in the. Back in Spain? [00:39:32] Speaker B: Oh, no. It's hilarious. Like, Terry and June, they were interviewing all those Spanish Brits that are on the Costa Brava, and they're like, you know, what do you guys think about it? They said, well, you know, we don't like immigrants. And they go, well, what are you guys? And they go, we're not immigrants. We're expats. [00:39:57] Speaker A: They are so delusional. They are. [00:39:59] Speaker B: So they had the Spanish guy taking the piss where he said, so Terry and June didn't have the right to stay here. They have to go back in the rain and drink warm beer. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Well, at least the English are still funny. And Italy is still, still Italy. It's still a cultural powerhouse. And I was just back in Rome, where we lived for many years, and many of the Romans have moved out to make money on their Airbnbs, but it's still Rome, and the food is still fantastic. And just the other day, I met an American family, and I loved hearing the accent because I don't hear it very often up here. But they told me, they said, you know, is it really like this everywhere? No homeless, clean, no drugs or drunks on the streets? Well, I mean, in the cities, I wouldn't want to live in a city again. I've lived in too many. But Italy is still Italy, and the people still read the labels of what they buy in the markets every day. And the kids know the ingredients of what they eat each day by the time they are 10. And life is happening fast, man. But the culture and quality of life is still absolutely fantastic in so many places throughout Europe. But change is imminent, I suppose. But Italy is stubborn. They still won't speak English, but if they have any to speak, I tend to bring it out in them. So, anyway, I do get so tired of people like Scott Ritter and all of these commentators bashing Europe. You know, it's if there's this one state of mind, it just kind of stuns me. But, you know, whatever. [00:41:29] Speaker B: My message for Ritter is simple. You know, America is the biggest deadbeat nation in the world, okay? You've been overspending beyond your means for decades and decades. And for you guys to come and lecture us on how we should run our economy or how we should run our health care or any of that stuff is a little rich. If you mind your own business and focus on fixing America, we'll sit here, we'll try to focus on fixing Europe. And already the Chinese and the Africans and everybody else are focused on fixing their own country. And the world will become a better place. Instant telling other people what to do that is killing us. He's got some very good points, very good points. But he's misguided when it comes to his attack. Like Europe, America isn't going to go away. It's going to have to adjust and focus on its issues and basically start working on it. And as you say, they're hard working, they're innovative, they've got a will to succeed. [00:42:35] Speaker A: But no other country is propagandized like the States. [00:42:38] Speaker B: Yeah, but they need to, they need to address that, right? They should stop spending money on bombs for other people and start spending that money on repairing their bridges, building their ports, helping their industries get do better. I mean, they really have a lot of things they should be spending, spending their money on. And the things that they are spending their money on don't help anybody. So they need to change. We need to change. And I think China and Russia are doing the right thing and so is India and Brazil. So, you know, maybe we should all join brics and we replace the United nations with brics, which is like everybody joins brics and we all work together. With trade going nuts across the place, it doesn't have to be win, lose, yeah, needs to go away and it's got to be replaced by something better and something fairer, something where everybody can work hard and get ahead and no one country is the top dog. [00:43:41] Speaker A: Well, let's have hope and let's keep those alternative voices loud and clear and confident. And like I said at the beginning, please like or subscribe as you wish. And if you have any comments, please do provide. I'm happy to engage. And I have. And as you know, if you really like reading short stories, I have a couple of books. One is called A European How a Boxer's Daughter Found Grace. Lots of short stories, little slices of life and vignettes about life in Europe, in Rome and Paris and Prague and Malta and Geneva. It's about sailing across the Atlantic. And there's a wonderful story about Seattle, intimate stories, full of details. And like I said earlier, if you're interested in Italy's most productive region as far as food products, I wrote a book called Personal Legends of Piemonte. And it really is like having dinner with 12 Italians as I interview them about their life and how they keep up this kind of like rear guard action against modernity, sort of as they apply the past to present. And they are colorful characters like Luigi the mechanic, whom I refer to as the wizard. So hey, in this wicked, wicked world, it just might restore the faith. You can find out all about it on my website at baileyalexander. Com. Again, thank you so much for listening and.