They had no horses, oxen, nor donkeys, and if you have ever been around llamas and alpacas (unprovoked vicious nasty look followed by a high velocity loogie straight at your eye) you would understand the madness of trying to put them into harness without a loooong purposeful breeding program first.
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The North American Indians did use a travois before they were “discovered” permanently in 1492. However, the online info mentions they were pulled by horses and dogs, so we all know the info is not very accurate.
Yes, but that doesn’t rule out the usefulness of, say, a wheelbarrow or pushcart.
DB2
Back on topic…
Arguably, the rationale is as much about economics as it is about military force. The arms industry is to be Europe’s new growth sector…
Even Germany, which is usually fanatical about restraining public expenditure, has signed up to this brand of military Keynesianism. Indeed, it is driving the campaign to restructure Europe’s economy around the imperative of defence. It sees this as a way to stave off the seemingly never-ending economic recession and to save its ailing automobile sector. As Holger Schmieding, the chief economist at Berenberg Bank, put it: ‘It is becoming obvious to everybody that defence spending is the way to offset job losses in the car industry.’
A leaked plan for German rearmament goes as far as to propose spending €400 billion on national defence and committing another €500 billion euros to rebuild Germany’s dilapidated infrastructure (Germany’s railway infrastructure is currently in too poor a state to transfer tanks and other military hardware across the country).
DB2
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In order to circumvent the debt limitation, Merz needs the approval of two-thirds of of the Bundestag. To get there he needs the votes of the Greens.
Merz and his likely coalition ally, the Social Democrats (SPD), need support for the Greens to pass measures in the outgoing parliament.
In the new parliament that begins on March 25, the measures could get even harder to pass, with an enlarged contingent of far-right and radical left lawmakers threatening to block them.
The Greens want more measures for climate protection included in Merz’s plans…
DB2
These are huge numbers for Germany. US GDP is 6x that of Germany, so this the equivalent of a $6 trillion dollar injection into the economy. More than enough to climb out of their recession, and probably induce inflation.
DB2
If they can get it approved. I read that the Greens are likely to oppose it as they are more worried about Gaia overheating than about Germany or Europe. Mutter Gaia Über Alles
The Captain
They explicitly back more spending on the military.
They have (not unjustified) reservations about the to-be coalition politicians leveraging the opportunity to make completely unrelated post-election gifts (tax cuts for gastronomy, more retirement payouts for people who haven’t contributed, farmers) to their voters, instead of much-needed reforms.
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Good to hear!
The Captain
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Small parties always oppose things at first … that’s how they “extort” concessions, and power, for their own party leaders. That’s in essence how parliamentary systems work.
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The Dutch have decided to say no.
Dutch MPs have voted against the new European Union defence plan, ReArm Europe, because it was based on shared debt among EU countries, raising Dutch concerns about sovereignty and fiscal responsibility…
Centrist NSC party President Pieter Omtzigt explained his vote by saying he “fundamentally opposed the idea of Eurobonds”.
“A new debt crisis would be a disaster,” he told parliament. Omtzigt stressed that he and his party supported Ukraine in its war efforts and a stronger European defence but that this needed to be done on solid fiscal footing, not on new debts, an approach shared by most other parties.
DB2
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