Yves here. I trust you will enjoy this talk between Michael Hudson and former British diplomat Ian Proud on Europe’s self-destructive economic policies, with its energy policies and subservience to the US as centerpieces.

It is impossible to be comprehensive in a comparatively short talk. However, a big driver of EU dependence on the US, and even desperate clinging, is the US’s slow withdrawal from NATO. If the Europeans were honest with themselves, they would know it would take 20 years for them to build the large, muscular fighting forces they claim they must have to keep the marauding Russian bear at bay.

But a big military push serves many other ends. Further EU economic integration has not gotten much of anywhere after the financial crisis. Unlike the US, where Californians don’t make a fuss about subsidizing Mississippi (which they do), Germany and other Northern Bloc nations like The Netherlands were up in arms about rescuing the so-called PIIGS.…