Because the EU

[Stuart Galbraith]

I just thought I would start enough thread, partly because there is a lot of things popping up in the EU that dont really directly relate to Brexit, but clearly have some significance.

Funnily enough, the first one does kind of relate to Brexit. Well nobody is perfect. Its from the Daily Express, which probably means its deeply inaccurate, but it hits on a basic truth, that if Britain does well sans Brexit then it threatens the integrity of the Union. They have been writing a lot of stories about that lately, which doesnt mean they are right, but does highight an emerging truth, the EU seems to be in trouble.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/eu-on-brink-sweden-missing-uks-political-clout-as-swexit-row-deepens-brussels-crisis/ar-BB1drFeD

Brussels has been embroiled in days of political infighting as its botched handling of the coronavirus vaccine rollout sparked anger across its member states. The European Commission, headed by President Ursula von der Leyen, put a temporary measure in place to restrict the exports of vaccines produced in the bloc amid an ongoing row with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. It claimed it is concerned about how some manufacturers within the bloc had been handling orders, while AstraZeneca told the bloc it would not be able to supply as many vaccines as expected to the EU, at the present time.

The row deepened after Ms von der Leyen admitted the bloc's approach to the vaccine rollout had been wrong, as she said the EU had been slow in dishing out jabs.

She told German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung "a country can be a speedboat" for vaccines, but "the EU is more like a tanker".

Widespread condemnation has followed throughout Brussels, particularly as the UK has managed to secure a much higher vaccination rate for its citizens.

It has also developed more calls from nations looking to follow the UK out of the EU, with eurosceptism on the rise in nations such as Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Sweden, in particular, has been previously vocal in its warnings to the bloc, and that should the UK prosper as a result of its departure, more and more member states could opt to break away.

This included Cathrine Danin, a senior analyst from Swedbank - a leading financial institution in Stockholm - who explained without the might of the UK backing Sweden, and other Nordic nations such as Denmark, anti-EU sentiment would only continue to grow.

Writing in a 2016 research report for Swedbank - just before the UK's referendum on its EU membership - Ms Danin argued Sweden's influence will drain away, and it could be pressured to move inside the dreaded eurozone.

She said: "If the UK leaves the EU, non-euro members' influence in the decision-making processes will be reduced. Furthermore, the interests of non-euro members will have less weight.

 

There is also a reference in there to Swexit, which sounds remarkably like a central European deoderant.

[Ssnake]

Don't want to start yet another Covid/vaccination thread, but IMO the commission did what the member states asked it to do - negotiate for a lower price (check), higher responsibility of the pharma companies (check), multi-source to hedge risks (check), prevent rich countries from jumping the queue thanks to deeper pockets (check).

Now "we" discover (big surprise) that setting up production facilities takes time and that a small country like Israel that is willing to pay triple the price can actually have its demand satisfied (at the expense of everybody else in the queue, naturally), and that vaccination is easier to organize in a non-federalized small state with a small population.

 

And here they come: All the 20/20 hindsight pundits who kept their useless pie holes shut last summer.

• We should socialize the patents! (Won't help with production capacity, at all ... let alone with qualified production)
• We shouldn't have organized an EU-wide procurement! (If your idea is that the richest EU member states should get the vaccine first? Fine by me, but then we'd have to listen to the wailing of just another Greek Tragedy Chorus right now; there's always one on stand-by)
• We should have invested more in production facilities! (Is that even possible? And if so, where were you last June when it actually might have made a difference? And how much more money would you have been willing to shovel into the hole, at diminishing returns? How many experts are there who could organize the set-up of a whole production chain across multiple companies? e.g. the BioNTech vaccine production apparently is bottlenecked at this point by Merck's ability to produce the special nano lipid particles in which the mRNA is to be embedded, a factor that a "more money for Pfizer" strategy wouldn't have addressed)

The reality is, the situation is being instrumentalized by people who just dig out their standard agenda and now use the current situation for leverage. It doesn't matter what the "current situation" looks like. There's always someone blessed by the wisdom of the ex post, there's always the cynics who criticize (no matter what you actually do), there's always the clueless dolts who pick up even quarter-inch deep arguments because they are incapable of analysing interdependencies, multi-causal effect chains, second-order effects, etc.

I'll leave it to the pseudo-historians to find out in 2050 if the EU could actually have accelerated vaccine production by a meaningful amount. The UK's model with relative success in vaccination isn't scalable to EU dimensions, so anyone using it as "proof" that the EU's strategy was misguided either belongs to the camp of the opportunistic cynics who spin doctor any current situation into an argument for their entirely unrelated agenda, or to the Dunning-Kruger mob who latches on any argument, as long as it helps them to feel smarter than the decision makers.

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Don't want to start yet another Covid/vaccination thread, but IMO the commission did what the member states asked it to do - negotiate for a lower price (check), higher responsibility of the pharma companies (check), multi-source to hedge risks (check), prevent rich countries from jumping the queue thanks to deeper pockets (check).

Now "we" discover (big surprise) that setting up production facilities takes time and that a small country like Israel that is willing to pay triple the price can actually have its demand satisfied (at the expense of everybody else in the queue, naturally), and that vaccination is easier to organize in a non-federalized small state with a small population.

 

And here they come: All the 20/20 hindsight pundits who kept their useless pie holes shut last summer.

• We should socialize the patents! (Won't help with production capacity, at all ... let alone with qualified production)
• We shouldn't have organized an EU-wide procurement! (If your idea is that the richest EU member states should get the vaccine first? Fine by me, but then we'd have to listen to the wailing of just another Greek Tragedy Chorus right now; there's always one on stand-by)
• We should have invested more in production facilities! (Is that even possible? And if so, where were you last June when it actually might have made a difference? And how much more money would you have been willing to shovel into the hole, at diminishing returns? How many experts are there who could organize the set-up of a whole production chain across multiple companies? e.g. the BioNTech vaccine production apparently is bottlenecked at this point by Merck's ability to produce the special nano lipid particles in which the mRNA is to be embedded, a factor that a "more money for Pfizer" strategy wouldn't have addressed)

The reality is, the situation is being instrumentalized by people who just dig out their standard agenda and now use the current situation for leverage. It doesn't matter what the "current situation" looks like. There's always someone blessed by the wisdom of the ex post, there's always the cynics who criticize (no matter what you actually do), there's always the clueless dolts who pick up even quarter-inch deep arguments because they are incapable of analysing interdependencies, multi-causal effect chains, second-order effects, etc.

I'll leave it to the pseudo-historians to find out in 2050 if the EU could actually have accelerated vaccine production by a meaningful amount. The UK's model with relative success in vaccination isn't scalable to EU dimensions, so anyone using it as "proof" that the EU's strategy was misguided either belongs to the camp of the opportunistic cynics who spin doctor any current situation into an argument for their entirely unrelated agenda, or to the Dunning-Kruger mob who latches on any argument, as long as it helps them to feel smarter than the decision makers.

Oh I think you are quite right. The question remains whether that suggests the small nation state model actually might be more aplicable to the challenges of the 21st Century than a giant superstate. Particularly when its remembered quite how difficult the US has found grappling with the same problems, for very similar bureaucratic reasons. I dont know, I just throw that out there as a wholly idle thought.

Not that the British Governments handling of it has been great either. It seems to me where its worked best is where the state got out the way and let the scientists deal with it without trying to meddle.

[Yama]

In other news, after successfully getting through the lead shot ban, EU is now going for lead bullet ban, which will completely kill all the shooting sports in the Union.

Since it was the sports shooters who shot down (pun intended) EU semi auto ban few years ago,completely humiliating the Commission in the process, this is probably a deliberate payback.

[bojan]

And reloaders can kiss their tools goodbuy.

[Simon Tan]

They should ban it for military usage.

[Harold Jones]

That's next.

[bojan]

Pssst, I have 150kg of lead, anyone want to organize a distribution network

[Yama]

Long-term goal is to get rid of all lead everywhere in consumer products - including car batteries. I wonder what they will do about things like sailboat ballast keels and stuff...

[Stuart Galbraith]

16 minutes ago, Yama said:

Long-term goal is to get rid of all lead everywhere in consumer products - including car batteries. I wonder what they will do about things like sailboat ballast keels and stuff...

Use ex politicians?

[bojan]

25 minutes ago, Yama said:

...I wonder what they will do about things like sailboat ballast keels and stuff...

DU

[sunday]

2 minutes ago, bojan said:

DU

Well, if they are exchanging lead-acid batteries for nickel-cadmium or lithium batteries, that makes sense in a horrible, twisted, inefficient way.

[bojan]

Hence my chemist level joke of "bad for worse".

[Yama]

Editorial in yesterday's 'Helsingin Sanomat', largest newspaper of the country, defended the EU lead bullet ban project by stating that "hunters whine for nothing and this is not a problem at all, as they can always use tungsten bullets". Yes he said exactly that.

 

[sunday]

22 minutes ago, bojan said:

Hence my chemist level joke of "bad for worse".

DU was used in some racing yachts, until it was banned.

Edited February 7, 2021 by sunday

[Ssnake]

You want ductile, malleable, and dense?

Use gold! Chemically largely inert - unlike most other heavy metals, what's not to love?

Okay, it's relatively rare in the Earth's crust. But there's about a quintillion tons of it just one AU away.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Why not use wooden bullets? It's sustainable!

[Ssnake]

Good against vampires, too!

[R011]

2 hours ago, Yama said:

Editorial in yesterday's 'Helsingin Sanomat', largest newspaper of the country, defended the EU lead bullet ban project by stating that "hunters whine for nothing and this is not a problem at all, as they can always use tungsten bullets". Yes he said exactly that.

 

I assume tungsten is a lot more expensive than lead?  Are there other issues?

[bojan]

2 hours ago, sunday said:

DU was used in some racing yachts, until it was banned.

I am well aware. Which gave me idea for using it again. Why settle for lesser evil?  

[bojan]

1 minute ago, R011 said:

I assume tungsten is a lot more expensive than lead?  Are there other issues?

Can not be cast, can not be swaged, expensive and most importantly.... it is evil armor piercing thing.

[R011]

8 minutes ago, bojan said:

Can not be cast, can not be swaged, expensive and most importantly.... it is evil armor piercing thing.

Thanks.

[sunday]

22 minutes ago, bojan said:

I am well aware. Which gave me idea for using it again. Why settle for lesser evil?  

I think it is still used in aircraft when there is need of a concentrated mass somewhere, to adjust vibration frequencies in wings and the like.

[Yama]

1 hour ago, R011 said:

I assume tungsten is a lot more expensive than lead?  Are there other issues?

In addition to what bojan said, it would quickly destroy the rifle barrels. Oh and it is also toxic, though not as bad as lead or uranium, but toxic nevertheless.

[Ssnake]

Molybdenum and Silver have very similar densities as lead. Also Actinium, Technetium, Protactinium, Thallium. Of course, they bring their own ... challenges. Maybe Mercury alloys are the answer - uh, no.

Seriously, though. Tantalum might be an option, though not as an alloy; downside it its high melting point. Steel projectiles are the more likely answer, possibly with a copper driving band. At the end of the day Lead is preferred because of it's relatively high density (by no means exceptional, though), ductility (like Tantalum, Gold, Silver), low melting point, and the unbeatable price (few things are cheaper than lead). Eliminating lead as a permissible material eliminates DIY ammo production/reloading. Which might be a desirable secondary goal for those opposed to the teachings of Zardoz.