For all the noise and attention everyone in this country is showering on the recent elections or problems with the Federal Obamacare rollouts (not states that have embraced it) sometimes potential earth-shattering moments or huge turning points are quietly occurring under the news radar. And it might be happening right now as US and EU trade negotiators and diplomats are hammering out a comprehensive trade deal that would knit the EU and USA together in a sort of Common Market, like that which existed in Western Europe from 1957-1998. A free movement of goods and services without undue barriers and uniform standards. It would pump considerable wealth into the economies of the USA and EU-- to the tune of an additional 700-1000 Euros per person per year if implemented properly. And that might be just the beginning: one can envision a complete economic union, like the present EU, creating the biggest economy in the world, twice the size of the USA by itself and the expected future size of China. There is precedence for this: in 1957, the Benelux countries, France, Italy and West Germany formed, via the Treaty of Rome, the Common Market which helped propel those economies forward from the devastation of World War II. So successful was it in creating wealth that soon Great Britain, Spain and others joined. In 1998 it was replaced by the Masstricht Treaty which formed the present European Union. The negotiations dont get much play here in the states but it is more widely reported in Europe. One major problem all fear: a US Senate that refuses to ratify the treaty due to some rightwing, tea-bagging anti-Europe BS. Time will tell but this opportunity for the West to continue to be the Alpha Dog in an increasingly hostile to Western values world will not be around for long.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 00:27:18 +0000
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