I am familiar with your arguments. In the short term, you are right. But in the long term, all of those goodies will bankrupt your countries as your population rates continue to decline and the ratio of young to old shifts dangerously to mostly old.

Also, Europeans have benefited immensely from not having to pay for their own defenses since 1945. That is going to end, probably soon.

Don’t get me wrong, I lived in Germany for many years and know that people are quite happy with their “free” benefits. Who wouldn’t be? The problem is that in the end they aren’t free, someone will have to pay for them.

Globalization is a whole different subject. To my mind it is destructive, but inevitable. It only benefits a tiny elite, but we have already gone too far down that path to turn back. Sad.