What is it like to live within the "Commonwealth of Nations"?
For all of my plussers out there who have experience with the inside of the commonwealth: Tell me about the positive and negative aspects of the commonwealth from the 'inside'.
Looking at it from the outside the whole idea seems far more sound than the European Union. I mean... why should we want to be in an alliance with countries that are all alike (more or less)? Should we all trade the same stuff with each other?
Doesn't it make much more sense to have a varied group of countries that actually are interesting as commercial partners?
Also, the EU has a big problem with transparency and with democracy. So many directives that we have little or no influence on. Designed sometimes by closed and hidden working groups without any political supervision at all. It all seems to me a bit like a bureaucrats wet dream come true.
Any input welcome!
um... we have the Commonwealth Games?
SvarSlettDoesn't really make any difference in my life, and I couldn't even name all the Commonwealth countries.
Commonwealth also sounds better than the EU, which sounds like ew as in ew you farted, or ew you did some other negative thing of disgust.
SvarSlettCommonwealth is also less controlling than the EU, also cheaper to run :).
The EU was created to expand the markets to provide growth in (stagnating European) economies, the commonwealth was created to provide trade among more differentiated countries (also known as getting hold of raw material for domestic/export use for the UK).
SvarSlettyes, i just don't see how grouping a bunch of almost equal and stagnating markets makes them better. As I will never understand how any market is supposed to get better with the kind of regulation the germans want to impose on it.
SvarSlettThe commonwealth looks so much better, so i want to hear from people who actually live there. Are there any big downsides that I just don't see?
To apply for a membership in the commonwealth a nation must have tight bonds to a member. Norway is one of 3 nations that are pre-approved (USA and France are the other two)...
Well, the commonwelth, historically, is based ont he fact that you get a lot of cheap labour along with it, therefore it's cheap to add value to materials and create products you get more money for. These days the commonwealth is not nearly as tightknit as the EU.
SvarSlettThe EU expansionin the alte 90ies and 00ies is based on making sure you get more consumers to spend more money, really nice for economy in the short term, untill you discover you had a pile of people spending money you lent them (hello Greece and Spain).
Historically very dissimilar situations, currently as dissimilar as ever.
Likewise why the west is bending over backwards to get China, India and Africa in general into the world eceonomy no matter what, 2-3 billion more pair of eyeballs and people to rent stuff to.