Mark Rutte may be the right one to head NATO bc of his Trump whisperer skills (bsky.app/profile/mcop...). But he's a predictably awful center-right politician on fiscal policy. This guns vs butter tradeoff is entirely a political preference. Neither 🇺🇸 ,🇨🇦, 🇬🇧, nor the 🇪🇺 as as whole faces this problem. - ThreadSky

mcopelov.bsky.social • 78 days ago

Mark Rutte may be the right one to head NATO bc of his Trump whisperer skills (https://bsky.app/profile/mcopelov.bsky.social/post/3lacq35yxiw2d). But he's a predictably awful center-right politician on fiscal policy. This guns vs butter tradeoff is entirely a political preference. Neither 🇺🇸 ,🇨🇦, 🇬🇧, nor the 🇪🇺 as as whole faces this problem.

Reposted from Ulrike Franke

“Citizens of NATO member states should "accept to make sacrifices" such as cuts to their pensions, health and security systems in order to boost defence spending and ensure long-term security in Europe, the head of the military alliance said on Thursday.”

www.euronews.com/my-europe/20...

Comments

rogieres.bsky.social•78 days ago

A military mindset is at odds with the tut-tutting of the frugal faction of the EU. Best case scenario is that he's testing the water to stir up discussions in this, as there will certainly will be.

mcopelov.bsky.social•78 days ago

Countries (or the 🇪🇺 as a group) with flexible exchange rates that issue global reserve currencies do not face inevitable "guns vs butter" tradeoffs b/w domestic & military spending. They face constraints bc people have strong preferences over taxes, inflation rates, debt levels, etc.

mcopelov.bsky.social•78 days ago

If Rutte is really serious about this conversation about tough choices for NATO members, then it needs to involve the options, including higher taxes or more debt (& in the case of the 🇪🇺 NATO members, joint 🇪🇺 debt). If it's just "we need to cut pensions & spending," he's not really serious.

mcopelov.bsky.social•78 days ago

Tl;dr: The correct 🇪🇺/NATO member response now, just like it was for the pandemic & GFC, was "use your financial power as countries issuing global reserve currencies to borrow at negative real interest rates & invest in the things." That we keep not doing this at the right scale is all politics

mcopelov.bsky.social•78 days ago

Pretending these are "hard choices" & asking folks like Fiall Nerguson to pontificate about them illustrates how unserious the European discussion is right now. Rutte amplifying this false dichotomy doesn't help but is of a piece with every European policy response to every crisis for 15 years now.

capemaydave.bsky.social•78 days ago

That the elite can engage in Sadopopulism to the clamor of crowds is one of the more interesting features of current politics.

ericarthur2.bsky.social•77 days ago

Reading E H Carr, The Twenty Year Crisis, on guns and butter this morning.

ehunterchristie.bsky.social•78 days ago

No no, Rutte did not suggest that non-defence spending had to be cut. I suggest you read the speech he actually gave, not second-hand media reports. He said defence spending must rise. He talked about sacrifice. Wisely, he didn't advocate specific changes to other spending nor to taxation.

mcopelov.bsky.social•78 days ago

He talked about tradeoffs between guns & butter when none actually exist, unless you self-impose them because of purely political beliefs about their existence. And he has a long track record of making clear what he means by this.

ehunterchristie.bsky.social•78 days ago

The written speech is not so clear. No mention of guns vs butter. Even the word "tradeoff" doesn't appear.
He implied spending tradeoffs, true, but it's not his business how national govts find the resources for higher defence spending - whether it's taxes, borrowing, or cuts to other budgets.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply