Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
I guess it's equally superfluous to remind you that the U.S. ran into disasters during the past decade only when it ignored advice and objections from continental Europe and emphasized that it is used to follow its own way.
memory. I've been here all that time and was not aware we had any disasters -- other than the random hurricane or tornado.
Ignorance about details is once thing, and easily cured; the repeated inability to grasp the value of foreign warnings is far worse.
I think you're confusing deliberately ignoring -- which we did and do with great regularity; something about considering the validity of the source -- with "inability to grasp."
You got into the financial world economic crisis like that and you got into the Iraq war mess like that.
Actually, as you say the financial crisis is a world (actually just a European hearth. Greedy bankers will be greedy bankers where ever located *) phenomenon; Iraq was a mess mostly because the US Army erred, not due to US policy error. You may think the end result is not worth it. I disagree. Too early to tell in totality but indications thus far are that it accomplished what it was supposed to and did the world more good than harm.

Though it admittedly did mess up the EU Constitution and a few cozy commercial arrangements some in Europe had in the area. Both probably good things for many. Sorry about that..

* Except in Canada -- with more lax regulation than in Germany or the US, the Canadian Banks did not let their greed get ahead of their common sense.