Euro or Dollar: which will collapse first?

[Merlin]

@Kakugo

Merlin, Switzerland is indeed very interesting and it’s definitely #1 option on the table. They managed to weather the darkest years of the EU expansion without too much damage and now they feel vindicated. Of course, it’s not paradise on earth: for example the agricultural sector is extremely subsidized, taking up a whooping 9% of the GDP. Only Japan comes close. But, again, taxation is lighter than in most of the EU, there are good breaks for R&D and retooling and the Central Bank is run by normal lunatics as opposed to the escaped mental patients running the Fed and the ECB.

As far as politics go the battle between cantonal governments and the Confederate government in Bern is still ongoing. In general you can say there’s a balance of power between the great city-cantons (Geneva, Zurich, Bern, Basel-Stadt etc) and the “forest” cantons (Uri, Schwyz, Graubunden, Vallais etc) with the cities being more “centralized” and “progressive” and the forests being more “decentralized” and “conservative”. As long as this balance is maintained the situation will remain stable. The forests were responsible for defeating most of the progressive-oriented referendums in the past two decades.

Hm, this made me think. If your analysis is correct, and the power of non-urban cantons is what keeps Switzerland form sliding into a European mold, than perhaps massive agricultural subsidies are a price to pay to allow such a resistance to continue. , which you mention for likewise large agricultural subsidies, does not strike one as an especially socialistic nation. could be an other example. Full fledged socialisms (and here I speak form my country’s experience) is made by farmers. Aren’t agricultural subsidies a way to buy them off, and let them subside as a (needed?) conservative counterbalance?

[andrewp111]

@andrewp111

And why do you think that China is investing so much in its military? Hmmm…

@John James

Why are they investing so much in empty cities?

Maybe they are building homes in Outer Mongolia for displaced Australians when they conquer that country and replace them all with Chinese.

[andrewp111]

@bbnet

You’re wrong on the energy, peak oil is a myth and even if it was true there are plenty of other sources of energy available.

As Michio Kaku has expressed, the only hope for humanity is to evolve to a point where we can fully utilize our planet’s energy. I believe the only way this can happen is through Global Anarcho-Capitalism.

There is plenty of energy. The issues are the time it will take to access it in sufficient quantity to replace conventional oil, the rate of decline of the latter, and the energy return on investment for the new sources.