The Disintegration of a Broken Continent

[Anna B]

AnnaB

 

Why not just do a bit of research - you appear to have got the same access to the internet as everyone else on SF.

 

Try finding some stats on infant mortality and life expectancy 150 years ago.

 

Try finding out at what age people went to work 150 years ago.

 

Try finding out the living conditions of people 150 years ago.

 

Try finding out who benefitted from the Empire.

 

That might help to answer your question.

 

I was referring to Britain's place in the world, not the living conditions, so in that context the above questions are not appropriate.

 

However I will say that life has improved steadily throughout the 20th century, and I suspect most people expected the gains made to continue, but they now seem to be going into reverse.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Anna B

[buck]

China's prosperity is closely tied to that of Europe and America. A major economic collapse in either or both of the latter and China's economy and prosperity would dissolve like snow in July

 

---------- Post added 12-07-2015 at 22:19 ----------

 

 

Considering hundreds of years of wars and rivalries the situation in Europe has to be much better today

I don't know if the idea of a European Union was supposed to become The United States of Europe as a counter and rival of the USA. If so it faced an uphill battle against a stable , one language, one currency power built up from every race on earth. It still has a long way to go. But it is slowly getting there, and I think it would be foolish to abandon it now.

[Harleyman]

I don't know if the idea of a European Union was supposed to become The United States of Europe as a counter and rival of the USA. If so it faced an uphill battle against a stable , one language, one currency power built up from every race on earth. It still has a long way to go. But it is slowly getting there, and I think it would be foolish to abandon it now.

 

I agree and I think that there's too much expectation that a successful , solid union of so many countries with different languages and cultures can be achieved in a short period. it will take time and patience and there will always be the nationalist element who can only see the negative side of such an idea..

 

Europe isn't a broken continent. It's just going through a cycle of change as it always has. The middle east fits the description far better.

 

I don't know where the OP lives. She claims she's British but she started another thread not long ago about the UK which was negative and now Europe

[RollingJ]

Life's lovely if you have money, but bloody awful if you don't.

Fancy swapping your comfy lives for life on Benefits Street? No I didn't think so.

 

Even the NHS acknowledges 'sh**ty life syndrome' is taking a huge toll on people's health. What is so depressing is that there is less and less you can do about changing it. Once you're at the bottom it's harder to get yourself out of it. Hence the preponderance of anti-depressants everywhere to get you through life.

 

If the best the government can come up with is the 'Northern Power House' (please will someone explain what that actually means in real terms) we are in trouble....

I'm taking the long view, from being the richest, greatest manufacturing nation in the world with a vast empire just 150 years ago, to where we are today....Am I being negative or just being honest?

Anna - I had to take (very) early retirement due to work-induced depression - which still rears its' head from time to time - so I am on a very low pension that has to sustain me for another 6 years. Fortunately, my house is mortgage-free, but because I have over the limit in savings, I can claim NOTHING in state support.

I am still able to have a reasonable lifestyle, although at times I wish I was still earning.

 

Once you're 'at the bottom', there are things you can do to change it, but unfortunately, your attitude, and that of many on here, kind of puts people off from trying - your 'the state should provide everything for free' ,'the state is always to blame' attitude is. IMO, wrong.

[Ela James]

I do not see any logic for incompatible countries to unite. It does not make S E N S E .

[cuttsie]

I agree Anna B,

( incidentally, I am a member of another discussion forum .., minutes ago I posted: Don’t know why but I feel there is going to be something somewhere nasty and BIG, pretty soon! )

 

The way I see it, and I could be wrong, the system the western world is using in our daily life is disintegrating … it is defeating its own purpose. … there lifeline is for us to buy from them, or borrow from them to buy from them. … but even that seems somehow to be broken.

When you have 400,000 brand new empty flats in Spain, and you hear families getting evicted from their apartments for not being able to pay their contractual obligations, I then ask who is actually making a profit from this? No one as far as I can see.

The new flats are still empty and will be for the foreseeable future, and the poor family that was evicted is now homeless. I can not find or imagine any profit to anyone from this … except that they, perhaps, are sending a message to the wider community.

But even that message is pointless when you hear the experts saying we are now going through a phase we have never experienced before, not even the recession of 1929.

 

Another thing, different but … that puzzles me still, though

It had never crossed my mind a civilian airliner, with 200 - 300 passengers, flying over Europe gets shot from the sky, hit deliberately in peace time …..

this stuff is actually more like Africa than the glorious Europe we live in, but …. who cares?

Apparently no one!

What you are describing is the collapse of the capitalist system ,it has happened before and will happen again.

Unfortunately this will involve the War to end all wars ,again.

[LeMaquis]

What you are describing is the collapse of the capitalist system ,it has happened before and will happen again.

 

When did the capitalist system end and when did it start up again?

 

Unfortunately this will involve the War to end all wars ,again.

 

The war to end all wars can only take place once. If there is a subsequent war to it then it can't be the war to end all wars. Bleeding obvious really.

[Ela James]

some comments are just funny!

[mossdog]

Life's lovely if you have money, but bloody awful if you don't.

Fancy swapping your comfy lives for life on Benefits Street? No I didn't think so.

 

Even the NHS acknowledges 'sh**ty life syndrome' is taking a huge toll on people's health. What is so depressing is that there is less and less you can do about changing it. Once you're at the bottom it's harder to get yourself out of it. Hence the preponderance of anti-depressants everywhere to get you through life.

 

If the best the government can come up with is the 'Northern Power House' (please will someone explain what that actually means in real terms) we are in trouble....

I'm taking the long view, from being the richest, greatest manufacturing nation in the world with a vast empire just 150 years ago, to where we are today....Am I being negative or just being honest?

..........you are being negative as usual!.................come to Stannington.......hardly Chelsea!.but there are more people driving new luxury cars than ever in history.The school run is full of Range Rovers Mercs BMWs etc etc. Your attitude is why Labour got deleted at the polls.Yes, always more to be done but millions are doing much better in life these days.Britain largely does not live in austerity,........or at least the true meaning of it!

[tzijlstra]

I do not see any logic for incompatible countries to unite. It does not make S E N S E .

 

What is incompatible? Because it makes a hell of a lot of sense for countries to unite in a federal system, otherwise it wouldn't have already happened.