I suggest that this time we stand back and let them win.
49 Replies to “All Things Considered”
Excellent suggestion,Kate. Putin needs the Germans on his doorstep again. But please,let them start with the useless EU HQ in Belgium.
Great article. Over the last three or four decades “Nationalism” has morphed into a self-evident dirty word while internationalism has become a rallying cry for a critical mass of crypto-communists, most of them (i.e. us) unwitting products of subducted, propagandistic sloganeering. But when responsible people (the Germans in this case) are forced to pay for the thoughtless, irresponsible socialist entitlements of other populations (the Greeks) who have kicked the can down the road for other generations to pay for (or to not pay for, one can reasonably assume), nationalism is not just an entirely reasonable response, but the only appropriate one.
As Dalrymple asks rhetorically, “What does solidarity mean in this context? Who is supposed to have solidarity with whom, given that four fifths of the German population…never wanted the common currency that was imposed on them?”
Exactly. Whose “solidarity” is being referred to, exactly? Do the Greeks feel solidarity with the Germans who are forced to pay for the their irresponsibility? No, it’s the responsible party who is being enjoined to express “solidarity” with those who are demanding largesse.
The best outcome in the long run would be for the German people – as opposed to those who Dalrymple aptly describes as the “apparatchik class of Europe,” – to win, and for nationalism – that dreaded word – to reassert itself.
I would seem fair, if it is the Germans and the French, who are footing most of the bailout bill, to start setting some terms.
That might shake things up a bit.
Yo! justthinkin:
Think again.
Ukraine, being the virtual “doorstep” to Russia, still remembers the effects of being over-run by Germany, as the Nazis tried to conquer their Russian “allies.”
Thanks.
But no thanks.
tj
t.e.&o.e.
Some great commentary in the discussion. Worth reading.
Today’s Russia and Germany have greater goals in common, economic supremacy.
Both countries have the willingness to advance leaving the self destructive nations behind.
Sorry but the Ukraine was a Nazi alley,wouldn’t you be if Stalin starved your people.
Logical and rational. After all, when the People have suffered under tyranny, they uprise.
Of course, it also provides a dangerous opportunity for a charismatic figure to enter the public square and promise to “save the country”… But this time might be different. Perhaps the charismatic figure won’t be evil this time. After all, you know, Germany has been devastated by socialism, which is evil, therefore it’s likely that the solution will be anti-evil. Of course, the anti-evil figure will be demonized by the evil socialists.
Besides, I seriously doubt that the German People will as easily be fooled by a silver-tongued orator with a hidden agenda of barbary, as they were last time around. Surely they’ve learned from history and don’t want to repeat that infamous period. Surely they’ll vet whoever steps forward this time, unlike the American failure to vet their most recent false “savior”?
Hopefully the revolution will be a capitalistic, libertarian and non-discriminatory one in which basic individual human rights are respected rather than suppressed and taken away, as always happens under socialistic tyranny.
The revolution will have to be grassroots. As it is in America with the Tea Party, which is uprising against socialistic tyranny as we speak. I’ll expect a Teutonic Tea Party to uprise in the land of the Autobahn, Bimmers, Vee-Dubyas and Benzes.
We could insert Canada and quebec just about anywhere in this story.
Of course, nationalism will be a natural result of international socialism.
The International Socialists think they can get away with taking the money of people within a nation and giving it away to people in other nations forever. But they think wrong. This is why International Socialism is dangerous, for it inspires nationalist revolutions, which otherwise wouldn’t be needed. With ever-worsening economic and social conditions within Free World nations, nationalism will only continue to become a more prevalent sentiment, as long as The People see their tax dollars leaving not only their own pockets but also their own country in ever-increasing amounts even as their personal income declines and their GDP fails to keep pace with population growth.
Today the nations of the Free World are increasingly coming under international interference. We see the Axis telling us what to do and what not to do. We see the UN and the Left within our nations telling us to be “multilateralist” and to submit to the false supremacy of the “United Nations”, which has effectively been hijacked by the Axis and their Useful Idiots in the Free World.
International Socialism is a serious threat to the future of the nations of the Free World, and, increasingly, The People of the Free World are becoming more and more nationalistic as a result.
I’m of the belief that both national socialism and international socialism are things that must be avoided due to their devastating, deadly effects on humanity, and that nationalism, capitalism, constitutionally-guaranteed-and-enforced individual liberty and scrupulously-guarded democracy are what are best for civilization and humanity. History proves this.
Wow. All those ‘enlightened Europeans’ in the comments section. You know, our superiors who sniff at our lack of sophistication and parochialism. Scratch the surface and it’s still 1935.
Patton was right.
Maybe this time (if it comes to war) we’ll have no choice but to consider joining the Germans to defeat the Reds……Russia AND China.
Amazing the knee jerk reaction by some against Germany. The comparison of modern Germany exerting itself to either the Imperial Germany of WW1 and especially Nazi Germany of WWII is laughable.
It is about time Germany awoke and shook off some of the self imposed deference. Merkel got pushed into something she wasnt sure she wanted, likely because of the German Bank exposure. But the Germans arent about to go marching into the Sudentenland.
If one is to pick sterotypes the Germans are more likely to organize Brussels into something vauguely effective, which would have its own concerns, rather than act otherwise. But the Tuetonic sense of economics, savings etc is more likely ot prevail.
However, Greece is unfortuantely more likely willing to burn the house down in spite of its own issues. Its getting ugly out there….I think people have till early august to get their houses in order, becuase the uncertainty that exists after that is enormous.
Human Beings are quite capable of temporary irrationality, and we are in that zone in many areas of the world.
As Rob suggests, there are plenty of parallels with Quebec and the ROC.
Dalrymple: ” … No, it’s the responsible party who is being enjoined to express ‘solidarity’ with those who are demanding largesse.”
This reminds me of the kind of largesse many of us are being asked to mete out to those groups and individuals our “betters,” the left-lib social engineers, have told us to embrace: any configuration of the family (with mom/dad/kid model — the one that most benefits kids — at the bottom of the heap), the LGBT agenda, fatherless families (which we know are a disaster for children): in short, social experiments which we now know, after some 40 years of social tinkering, are of little or no benefit to either our children or society as a whole.
The Left’s strategy has been to divide and conquer, in Europe and here, and they’ve largely been very successful because we in the West have forfeited the unifying principle of “love your neighbour as yourself,” replacing it with “do your own thing” and “who am I to say that this lifestyle or that lifestyle is irresponsible or even damaging?”. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
I’m not sure the lid can be put back on this Pandora’s Box and it chills me to think of another war, but we sure seem to be sliding in this direction.
The 4th incentive towards German nationalism, or French or English, is that powerful currency traders in the US and mid east have conspired to tank the Greek economy (and Spain’s?)to trigger the demise of the Euro and reap the windfall profits betting against Euro liquidity.
The good news id if the Euro falls the bamking cartels which front the EU will fall and ultimately the EU power structure will fail as its states bail out on it to avoid being plundered to shore up its flakey currency (with a failing Euro last one standing pays the tab for inflated valuation). Euro nations will be sovereign again.
The bad news is the IMF is sitting on the side lines salivating like a hungry wolf waiting to buy up the debts of the EU and substitute/force their new global currency on debtors for the failed Euro.
I think wealth redistribution is just another form of Socialism where the ruling elites have simply assumed ownership of a nation’s wealth rather than owning the means of production. I don’t think it will take a war to solve the problem, it will require individuals to find ways of exerting their inalienable right to property, probably something more along the lines of a revolution. War ultimately hurts the individuals leaving the ruling class unscathed. It’s the ruling class that’s the problem.
VDH also has an article in PJM about Germany. http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-new-old-german-problem/
“For someone who has lived in Greece and occasionally visits Germany, it becomes increasingly clearer each year why the European Union won’t work. Germans work and create wealth. Yet under the present system, they do not receive commensurate psychological rewards — and they increasingly receive insufficient material compensation as well.
And history shows us that an unhappy Germany is a very dangerous thing indeed.”
I doubt there will be a war because, like many of the comments in VDH’s article state, Germans are too old. A war based on technology instead of manpower is possible but, more likely, Germans will just tell the EU to F.O..
There is a higher likelihood of problems within the country, too many angry young men without jobs will increase tension between ethnic Germans and immigrants.
So I guess this means the Germans no longer have to feel guilty over WW2.
Cool. Must really piss off France.
” …is that powerful currency traders in the US and mid east have conspired to tank the Greek economy (and Spain’s?)to trigger the demise of the Euro and reap the windfall profits betting against Euro liquidity.”
If conspiracy = looking around and realizing that massive GOVERNMENTAL idiocy had set up the conditions which with a nice little nudge might happen a little earlier rather than later, then ok, conspiracy it is. I suggest though that that is not the dictionary definition.
Currency traders couldn’t have done bugger all, if Greece and Spain had the responsible fiscal policies they should have had IF followed EU guidelines and economic logic.
Blaming money traders for this, is like blaming vultures for roadkill.
If you don;t want to be roadkill it’s pretty easy.
If you want to be fairly well off and have a nice society, the recipe is well known and pretty obvious – but don’t blame the cleanup crew if you and your societal elite constantly take the OTHER PATH.
Good article, pointing out not only how to do it but also the inevidable. The same situation exists in North America. In the USA the mid-west and south support (against their will) California and the north east. The same conditions brought on a civil war 200 years ago. In Canada the west (Alberta BC and Saskatchewan) support the excesses of Quebec and the Maritimes. They are, after all entitled to their entitlements.
Eventually any people that is exploited by having their life energy stolen to support those who want something for nothing will rise up. Eventually????????????
“Hopefully the revolution will be a capitalistic, libertarian and non-discriminatory one in which basic individual human rights are respected rather than suppressed and taken away, as always happens under socialistic tyranny.”
That’s a mighty big “Hope”,CS,and I hope you’re right,but history has shown that nice people don’t revolt that often,so the Leader we hope for is unlikely.
Politics attracts a lot of egotistical self-serving power hungry activists, and very few Saints.
“Spaniards can be impressed by the courtesy of the conqueror,
French by his riches, Greeks by his respect for the arts, Jews by
his moral integrity, Africans by his calm and authoritative bearing,
but Germans are impressed by none of these things. They must be
struck into the dust, struck down again as they rise. Struck again
while they lie groaning, while their wounds still pain them; they will
respect the hand that dealt them.”
-Germanicus Caesar
Roman general
(15 B.C.- 19 A.D.)
Some points and queries.
“Over the last three or four decades “Nationalism” has morphed into a self-evident dirty word”
I always thought it was over the last six to 9 decades. WWI has its roots in nationalism and the biggest culprits in WWII were out and out nationalists (think fatherland). The bad reputation that nationalism has appears to be well-earned. The two most disastrous wars in human history are directly related to it. Ultimately, nationalism is simply another version of the ‘us versus them’ argument. Our nation is superior. Other nations are inferior. You can see why two nations with that attitude might not get along.
Don’t forget that the idea of European unity first came manifested itself in the form of NATO. The economic version hasn’t quite worked out as planned but the military version of unity certainly worked out well.
“I would seem fair, if it is the Germans and the French, who are footing most of the bailout bill, to start setting some terms.”
What kind of terms? If I’m not mistaken, the bailout is conditional on the Greek government changing its policies.
“After all, you know, Germany has been devastated by socialism, which is evil, therefore it’s likely that the solution will be anti-evil. Of course, the anti-evil figure will be demonized by the evil socialists.”
Problem with this logic is that ‘socialism’ is only a bad word in the North American right. Germany is a fairly socialist country in terms of government and government services. And they quite enjoy it. Their rules and regulations are such that working for a German company is very different to working for a North American company. Workers are very well protected by government regulations in Germany. Then, of course, theres the whole social welfare system that includes a free university education. The system works well enough for most Germans to be happy – and the economy isn’t doing too badly either. Therefore, I doubt Germany is looking for a savior right now. They may be peeved at the EU, but a wholesale shift away from a socialist welfare/government system is very unlikely.
“Hopefully the revolution will be a capitalistic, libertarian and non-discriminatory one in which basic individual human rights are respected rather than suppressed and taken away”
Capitalistic? Unlikely – they like their socialist set up too much. Liberatarian? Maybe. Maybe not. Non-discriminatory? Well, this is a country that is extremely reluctant to give citizenship to non-German residents. A turn towards nationalism is not going to fix that.
“The International Socialists think they can get away with taking the money of people within a nation and giving it away to people in other nations forever.”
Is that international socialism or international economics. We must accept that self-sufficiency is an outdated concept. All countries, minus North Korea, are linked to the global economy and feel its effects. Look at it this way. American firms started a global recession and economic problems around the world simply by handing out questionable mortgages. That is the nature of the global economy.
Germany is a very efficient country but it is also export-oriented. It has benefitted from the EU by having tarriff-free and barrier-free access to most European markets. In other words, the German people have made a lot of money through the EU. The problem is that they rely on the export market a lot. The impact of the economic failure of Greece is not limited to Greece. It has massive ramifications for Spain, Italy and other European countries. Germany cannot afford to lose these markets indefinitely and neither can France.
The obvious solution, then, is to bail them out so as to minimize the long-term impact of the economic collapse. One school of thought says that we should let Greece collapse and rebuild. In theory, that is a great idea. In reality, that will hurt the Germans more than you would think. They would have to reduce capacity to meet the lower demand and then increase it when demand increases. Reducing capacity and increasing it costs jobs and money, and it takes a hell of a lot of time. The alternative is to give them money and artifically keep demand levels up – and keep German jobs. This will continue till the Greek economy recovers.
I am not in any way suggesting that I am right, but if anyone could enlighten me on how I might be wrong in stating the above, it would be much appreciated.
“With ever-worsening economic and social conditions within Free World nations, nationalism will only continue to become a more prevalent sentiment”
That is not a function of bad governance but a function of a new global economic order. The flip side of that argument is that economic and social conditions are improving in non-Free World nations (think China). A change in the economic order in the post-WWII world was always likely. Our decision to buy cheap Chinese products instead of marginally more expensive American ones has ramifications. It means there are people here who are not being utilized to their full ability (because their jobs have been ‘outsourced’ and that has contributed to lower economic output and the corresponding decline in the social and economic environment.
“as long as The People see their tax dollars leaving not only their own pockets but also their own country in ever-increasing amounts even as their personal income declines and their GDP fails to keep pace with population growth.”
Replace ‘tax money’ with ‘money’ and your argument will sound eerily similar to protectionist leftists. Thing is, with a global economy, either you become incredibly efficient, or you lose. The west is winning some battles and losing others. The alternative is protectionism.
“The same situation exists in North America. In the USA the mid-west and south support (against their will) California and the north east.”
Really? I always thought it was the other way round. I was always under the impression that if you take California out of the US, the US will be a lot worse off than it would be without Mississippi or Alabama or Montana or South Dakota or all of them combined.
Why do beans make us fart?
Just askin.
Canadian Sentinel,
“In beans, endogenous gases seem to arise from complex oligosaccharide (carbohydrates) that are particularly resistant to digestion by mammals, but which are readily digestible by gut flora – microorganisms (methane-producing archaea; Methanobrevibacter smithii) that inhabit the digestive tract. These oligosaccharides pass through the upper intestine largely unchanged, and when they reach the lower intestine, bacteria feed on them, producing copious amounts of flatus.”
Now feel free to answer my questions. Or maybe you don’t have the answers, which renders most of your assertions dubious/invalid.
What’s your real name, Gayle?
I don’t think that Germany has any real choice other than to bail out Greece. Greece owes a lot of money, and a lot of that is probably to German banks. If Greece defaults, Germany takes the big hit. Also Germany is the biggest exporter around. If a bunch of countries default and a new financial crisis happens, German exports will drop like a stone. That’s why Merkel is putting big restrictions on financial institutions that are still playing fast with murky instruments. The good news is that this refinancing of Greece’s debt comes with unprecedented checks and balances and milestones (proof of progress) on Greece. This carrot and stick approach may work in turning Greece around.
Germany is also partly to blame (along with France, the second biggest economy) because they skirted due diligence and proper vetting in letting countries like Greece into the Eurozone with only a pretend belief that Greece’s economy met the Euro requirements for entry. Again, for Germany, a mega exporter, they obtained 10M new customers with no trade restrictions, no goofy currency costs, etc., which lowers German costs and the ability for Germany to build in Germany which means jobs for Germans.
I’ve been to Germany several times and I’ve had to work a lot with German engineers. Germans are just like all Europeans, intensely proud and nationalistic. They all know their history and culture. If you call Mozart a maroon – then you are in trouble. If you say that Goethe is a stiff compared to Dr. Seuss – then you are really in trouble. If you call a German physicist a climate scientist – you better be heading for France in a hurry. So I don’t think that nationalism is any different than before. I don’t think though that the average German worker yet understands the implications on themselves. Merkel needs to explain this.
“Justaskin”, thanks for your well-elucdidated answer.
But as for answering your “questions”, I know better than to “get into it” with those who only seek to grind us down with diversions masquerading as legitimate questions. 😉
Elucidated. Typo. Geez.
I think the article shows what many feel: that the EU cannot work. When idealism and cold, hard economics collide, the result isn’t pretty.
Watch “Lost”.
The fact is, that we are now a global economy; we operate as a ‘complex adaptive network’ and are networked with each other politically and economically.
But, how does this work? I’m against socialism of any kind because it, structurally, is ‘frozen’; it has no capacity to act, to adapt, it lacks flexibility. Why?
Because socialism is structurally, a two-class system. There’s an elite class that governs; and then there is, the ‘ruled. This sets up a societal structure focused around authority. Authority of the ruler or authority of the Law, which turns into dogma in a two-class structure.
What is required in a massive population base and a planet with different environments and a requirement for rapid reactions to changes, is a decision-making apparatus that is flexible, free of restraints, can come up with rapid innovations etc. This is the role of the middle class.
The democratic political structure is the only one based around a middle class. And capitalism is the only economic mode based around a middle class. Therefore, the global economic system requires, not socialism, which would move the entire world into an entropic morass, but democracy and capitalism.
Since the global economy is a complex network, this also means that it cannot operate as a uniform and universal system. It has to enable local decision-making, for these sites are the locus of rapid reaction and innovation. Therefore, it is interesting but complex systems are never uniform and homogeneous but diverse and regional.
So, the global economy will, in order to work properly, encourage more regionalism and national identities…as these same regions and nations interact and network with each other.
Related, while wandering around the pajamas site… and I hope that Canadian Sentinel @ 7.44 is correct. http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-new-old-german-problem/?singlepage=true
“Very soon German workers are going to grasp that all the financial reserves they piled away the last two decades from not doing what a Spain or Italy did are essentially gone. Someone in Munich worked 40 hours a week until age 67 for someone in Athens not to — and for someone in Athens to demand that someone in Munich do so or else. The idea that nations like Greece, both overtly and implicitly, insult nations like Germany has no basis in historical terms.”
“If it should choose, Germany could go nuclear in six months, its arsenal reflective of a country that makes Mercedes and BMWs.” … “If Iran should go nuclear — and I think it will within a year or two — we should imagine that a Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria would too. As the European Union collapses, as third-rate nations become nuclear, and as the United States abdicates its postwar role in ensuring the safety and security of the West, why would Germany continue to subsidize southern Europe while receiving mostly blame for its efforts, while its airspace would be in theory vulnerable to the likes of a theocratic Iran?”
SO, it seems another War on Something produces the very result sought to be avoided. War on Drugs = a disastrous drug-infested culture with 10s of million of perpetrators of victimless crimes in jail for nothing and ripe for the Islamist recruiters; War on Povery, more poverty, more welfare dependency.
War on Terror?
Goverments need to declare a War on War on Stuff.
This EU was a War on Nationalism … so that Europe would never again — never again! — experience those tragic early and mid century cataclysms. Result: a re-emerging nationalism.
Whoever above hoped that Germany would go capitalistic, thanks for the chuckle. The anger is not about re-distribution; rather re-distribution outside the family. The EU was a War on the Family!
An attempted coinage:
Beware Greeks Getting Gifts!
“But as for answering your “questions”, I know better than to “get into it” with those who only seek to grind us down with diversions masquerading as legitimate questions.”
Ah what a lovely world to live in. Make assertions and then look the other way when questions are asked about those assertions. I must admit that your original post was a masterpiece of rhetoric without substance. Kind of like those hippies with eloquent posters denouncing the ‘system’. Even when I read it again now, it amazes me how little substance there is to what you posted.
Which begs only one more question from me:
Do you, yourself, believe anything that you typed in that post?
Yo, Justaskin’, why don’t you go ask tough, inconvenient questions of Barack Hussein Obama? Like, why ME? I’m nobody. Obama’s an extremely powerful and dangerous man and he needs you to step right up and ask him questions like that. In public. Good luck. He won’t take questions. So neither must I.
Cheers! 🙂
justaskin
“””American firms started a global recession and economic problems around the world simply by handing out questionable mortgages. That is the nature of the global economy.”””
no, they only triggered the end game, it was started long before then
“””” I was always under the impression that if you take California out of the US, the US will be a lot worse off “”””
CA is the lump on the wheel of USA capatalism, they are over burdened with a very generous “welfare” system and top heavey in beaurocracy, their inovation and “efficience” exited long ago
justaskin you make some very valid points.
Germany, Gomer, will rise once again as a power.
The next Marshall Plan will be about when it’s safe to go in there once the radiation levels drop below lethal.
“CA is the lump on the wheel of USA capatalism, they are over burdened with a very generous “welfare” system and top heavey in beaurocracy, their inovation and “efficience” exited long ago”
I am not convinced that innovation has left California. It still attracts the creme de la creme of the information technology sector and this particular sector is still in the ascendancy. I know there is a compelling case to be made about how overburdened California is, but that has to be balanced out by the reality that the companies in California are still in the driver’s seat. The hardware may now be produced in other states and countries, but California-based talent plays an important role in ensuring that these other states/nations have something/hardware to produce. As concentration of talent goes, there are very few parts of the world that rival California.
After all, we haven’t seen a very significant brain drain from California to other states, nor have we seen any America-based alternative to the Silicon valley.
Exactly my point here 3 or 4 days ago, next time let them win, the Germans or whoever. Maybe then all those useless Euro weenies will forced to become useful.
I wonder from time to time what the response from North America will be to the next European War. My feeling is the Euros are so lazy, arrogant and self righteous that next time we should leave them to their fate.
It’s about time Obama bowed to Merkel
Eric Larsen, from the Wiki on Angela Merkel, her being a right of centre politician would preclude her from B. Hussien’s traditional bow, and then there’s this, which I think would just about seal her fate again, regarding any bow, from the Wiki… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel
“According to the news agency Mehr (as reported in the Mail & Guardian Online and Deutsche Welle, quoting AFP), in August 2006, Merkel received a letter from the Iranian president Ahmadinejad.[23][24] According to the reports, Merkel said that the letter contained “unacceptable” criticism of Israel and “put in question” the Jewish state’s right to exist, and that therefore she would not formally respond to the letter.”
Nationalism is just as much a dead end as socialism. Collectivism is not an answer to any human problem.
The violence of war stems from the same source as the violence of the Big Government state that infests the western world. The fundamental moral principle of a civilized society is that no person has the right to initiate the use of force on any other. That principle must be universally accepted if prosperity is to ensue and war be permanently abolished.
Re: “Someone in Munich worked 40 hours a week until age 67 for someone in Athens not to — and for someone in Athens to demand that someone in Munich do so or else.”
Bingo. Of course, this state of affairs is what the parasites rioting in the streets of Athens want to maintain.
Good point Simeon at 0643 – You obviously didn’t get your history from Hollywood High or the telly!
“Collectivism is not an answer to any human problem.”
The concept of many hands making light work precedes Marx by at least a million years and no serious human being believes that organized group effort is not an answer to any human problem. Seriously, learn the human race.
Show me a free man and I will show you a dead man, at best. At worst, a slave. Self defense alone necessitates group action.
Humans are highly social creatures, and that alone should put an end to the libertarian narrative that we are merely random life forms randomly scattered across the globe. How does a newborn baby eat by himself nv? And what about division of labour, ie men go hunting and women gather berries? Beats the hell out of each man for himself.
The libertarian prohibition on violence is arbitrary: two guys have a beef and settle it on private property, that’s not the business of the state. One guy insults another guy’s girlfriend, the other guy smacks him one – again, not the state’s business. Prohibiting violence as a response to a hostile entity which represents a material threat is actually a restriction on freedom and an unjustifiable one at that.
From conflict comes growth. Sometimes people need their asses kicked as a matter of justice. For example, the Greeks: these people know what they are doing is wrong. They’re doing it anyway because absent the use of force they’ll do what they can get away with.
One looks at the state of political “debate” in Canada and wonders whether anything will change absent a violent uprising. When people call the maternal health obsessed PM of a minority government a “dictator”, words and dialogue have lost any utility.
marc in Calgary – point taken! 🙂
justaskin, are you the same troll who was busy defending electric cars here a while ago?
California’s government owes a major buttload more money than they take in right now. The reason for that is mostly public sector union benefits and welfare/healthcare/social security payouts.
Adding to the fun is the complex web of regulatory insanity. My favorite example lately is gravel. Did you know, my good Liberal friend, that it is cheaper to ship gravel in a boat from gravel pits on Vancouver Island to the port of Los Angeles, than it is to make gravel in California? Its true. The City of Los Angeles (and everybody else there too) buys gravel from an outfit in BC because its -cheaper-.
Recall that California is A) a desert and B) made of mountains which are C) made of rock. You send empty trucks up the mountain, and let the full ones pretty much roll back down making your fuel costs extremely low for shipping.
So why is BC stone cheaper than local, justaskin? Because California green regulations, health and safety regulations, trucking regulations and TAXES make it that way, is why.
They are going broke because they are trying to, as hard as they possibly can. If the rest of the USA had any brains they’d cut the bastards off without a dime. Same for Illinois, Michigan, New York and a couple more who can’t make their payrolls because they over spent.
Obama wants a system like ours. Where States will have the same extortion racket imposed on them that Alberta has on it. Equalization payments. From fly over Country that produces, to the Eastern bastions of the American welfare State . The North east.
That would take the power from State governors to obama, thus allowing the Democratic governors an out for the nightmare policies that have destroyed their economies federally.
The same scenario is going on in Europe. To hide the failure of Socialist policy they have to keep the Dane-geld flowing to hide their ineptitude.
Soon they will be calling for Spreading the wealth threw Equalization payments. .To those Poor ,poor, Counties who figured they had signed onto the gravy train for life.
The backlash coming to Europe will be as staggering as the 20s Germany.
Eat your golden gooses, than give the feeble flesh for a last meal to the mob you created by stealing from workers to feed the lazy.
For in the end there is only so much loot to take.
JMO
The Phantom,
No I do not, nor have I ever, supported electric cars. Frankly, I haven’t given them any thought.
Which begs the question- how did you decide that I am:
a) a Liberal
b) a friend of yours
I am all for bashing a state on the basis of logic, but ideological buffoonery, such as this rather absurd statement below, falls well short of intelligent debate:
“If the rest of the USA had any brains they’d cut the bastards off without a dime. Same for Illinois, Michigan, New York and a couple more who can’t make their payrolls because they over spent.”
Have you even bothered looking at the numbers?
Texas (USD 3.3 bn) and New York (USD 2.9-3.5 bn) have very similar budget deficits; North Carolina has a smaller economy than both, and a larger deficit at USD 4.6 bn. Perhaps we should ship them out too? Kansas clocks in at USD 1.1 bn, almost double Massachussetts deficit. I guess we should kick them out too. By the way, tiny Alaska has a deficit of USD 1.5 billion. I shudder to think of what that means on a per capita basis.
What will the US look like if we get rid of all the governments that overspend?
For starters, it will be rather tiny, and will comprise only of the great states of Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Washington and Wyoming. Yeah, thats a real world-beating combination right there.
And how much money is the US state pumping into California/New York/Illinois/Michigan? The American REcovery and Reinvestment act is giving:
California – USD 31 per capita
New York – USD 39 per capita
Illinois – USD 37 per capita
Michigan – USD 12 per capita (Yes, 12)
Compare that to the following:
Alaska – USD 379 per capita
Idaho- USD 314 per capita
Missouri – USD 103 per capita
Montana – USD 103 pr capita
New Mexico – USD 259 per capita
North Dakota – USD 149 per capita
South Carolina – USD 57 per capita
Tenessee – USD 179 per capita
Utah – USD 71 per capita
If you really want to get rid of states, you should probably start with these, then move on to California and other ‘drains’ on the US system.
You would be well-advised to do some research before shooting your mouth off. Very poor.
Excellent suggestion,Kate. Putin needs the Germans on his doorstep again. But please,let them start with the useless EU HQ in Belgium.
Great article. Over the last three or four decades “Nationalism” has morphed into a self-evident dirty word while internationalism has become a rallying cry for a critical mass of crypto-communists, most of them (i.e. us) unwitting products of subducted, propagandistic sloganeering. But when responsible people (the Germans in this case) are forced to pay for the thoughtless, irresponsible socialist entitlements of other populations (the Greeks) who have kicked the can down the road for other generations to pay for (or to not pay for, one can reasonably assume), nationalism is not just an entirely reasonable response, but the only appropriate one.
As Dalrymple asks rhetorically, “What does solidarity mean in this context? Who is supposed to have solidarity with whom, given that four fifths of the German population…never wanted the common currency that was imposed on them?”
Exactly. Whose “solidarity” is being referred to, exactly? Do the Greeks feel solidarity with the Germans who are forced to pay for the their irresponsibility? No, it’s the responsible party who is being enjoined to express “solidarity” with those who are demanding largesse.
The best outcome in the long run would be for the German people – as opposed to those who Dalrymple aptly describes as the “apparatchik class of Europe,” – to win, and for nationalism – that dreaded word – to reassert itself.
I would seem fair, if it is the Germans and the French, who are footing most of the bailout bill, to start setting some terms.
That might shake things up a bit.
Yo! justthinkin:
Think again.
Ukraine, being the virtual “doorstep” to Russia, still remembers the effects of being over-run by Germany, as the Nazis tried to conquer their Russian “allies.”
Thanks.
But no thanks.
tj
t.e.&o.e.
Some great commentary in the discussion. Worth reading.
Today’s Russia and Germany have greater goals in common, economic supremacy.
Both countries have the willingness to advance leaving the self destructive nations behind.
Sorry but the Ukraine was a Nazi alley,wouldn’t you be if Stalin starved your people.
Logical and rational. After all, when the People have suffered under tyranny, they uprise.
Of course, it also provides a dangerous opportunity for a charismatic figure to enter the public square and promise to “save the country”…
But this time might be different. Perhaps the charismatic figure won’t be evil this time. After all, you know, Germany has been devastated by socialism, which is evil, therefore it’s likely that the solution will be anti-evil. Of course, the anti-evil figure will be demonized by the evil socialists.
Besides, I seriously doubt that the German People will as easily be fooled by a silver-tongued orator with a hidden agenda of barbary, as they were last time around. Surely they’ve learned from history and don’t want to repeat that infamous period. Surely they’ll vet whoever steps forward this time, unlike the American failure to vet their most recent false “savior”?
Hopefully the revolution will be a capitalistic, libertarian and non-discriminatory one in which basic individual human rights are respected rather than suppressed and taken away, as always happens under socialistic tyranny.
The revolution will have to be grassroots. As it is in America with the Tea Party, which is uprising against socialistic tyranny as we speak. I’ll expect a Teutonic Tea Party to uprise in the land of the Autobahn, Bimmers, Vee-Dubyas and Benzes.
We could insert Canada and quebec just about anywhere in this story.
Of course, nationalism will be a natural result of international socialism.
The International Socialists think they can get away with taking the money of people within a nation and giving it away to people in other nations forever. But they think wrong. This is why International Socialism is dangerous, for it inspires nationalist revolutions, which otherwise wouldn’t be needed. With ever-worsening economic and social conditions within Free World nations, nationalism will only continue to become a more prevalent sentiment, as long as The People see their tax dollars leaving not only their own pockets but also their own country in ever-increasing amounts even as their personal income declines and their GDP fails to keep pace with population growth.
Today the nations of the Free World are increasingly coming under international interference. We see the Axis telling us what to do and what not to do. We see the UN and the Left within our nations telling us to be “multilateralist” and to submit to the false supremacy of the “United Nations”, which has effectively been hijacked by the Axis and their Useful Idiots in the Free World.
International Socialism is a serious threat to the future of the nations of the Free World, and, increasingly, The People of the Free World are becoming more and more nationalistic as a result.
I’m of the belief that both national socialism and international socialism are things that must be avoided due to their devastating, deadly effects on humanity, and that nationalism, capitalism, constitutionally-guaranteed-and-enforced individual liberty and scrupulously-guarded democracy are what are best for civilization and humanity. History proves this.
Wow. All those ‘enlightened Europeans’ in the comments section. You know, our superiors who sniff at our lack of sophistication and parochialism. Scratch the surface and it’s still 1935.
Patton was right.
Maybe this time (if it comes to war) we’ll have no choice but to consider joining the Germans to defeat the Reds……Russia AND China.
Amazing the knee jerk reaction by some against Germany. The comparison of modern Germany exerting itself to either the Imperial Germany of WW1 and especially Nazi Germany of WWII is laughable.
It is about time Germany awoke and shook off some of the self imposed deference. Merkel got pushed into something she wasnt sure she wanted, likely because of the German Bank exposure. But the Germans arent about to go marching into the Sudentenland.
If one is to pick sterotypes the Germans are more likely to organize Brussels into something vauguely effective, which would have its own concerns, rather than act otherwise. But the Tuetonic sense of economics, savings etc is more likely ot prevail.
However, Greece is unfortuantely more likely willing to burn the house down in spite of its own issues. Its getting ugly out there….I think people have till early august to get their houses in order, becuase the uncertainty that exists after that is enormous.
Human Beings are quite capable of temporary irrationality, and we are in that zone in many areas of the world.
As Rob suggests, there are plenty of parallels with Quebec and the ROC.
Dalrymple: ” … No, it’s the responsible party who is being enjoined to express ‘solidarity’ with those who are demanding largesse.”
This reminds me of the kind of largesse many of us are being asked to mete out to those groups and individuals our “betters,” the left-lib social engineers, have told us to embrace: any configuration of the family (with mom/dad/kid model — the one that most benefits kids — at the bottom of the heap), the LGBT agenda, fatherless families (which we know are a disaster for children): in short, social experiments which we now know, after some 40 years of social tinkering, are of little or no benefit to either our children or society as a whole.
The Left’s strategy has been to divide and conquer, in Europe and here, and they’ve largely been very successful because we in the West have forfeited the unifying principle of “love your neighbour as yourself,” replacing it with “do your own thing” and “who am I to say that this lifestyle or that lifestyle is irresponsible or even damaging?”. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
I’m not sure the lid can be put back on this Pandora’s Box and it chills me to think of another war, but we sure seem to be sliding in this direction.
The 4th incentive towards German nationalism, or French or English, is that powerful currency traders in the US and mid east have conspired to tank the Greek economy (and Spain’s?)to trigger the demise of the Euro and reap the windfall profits betting against Euro liquidity.
The good news id if the Euro falls the bamking cartels which front the EU will fall and ultimately the EU power structure will fail as its states bail out on it to avoid being plundered to shore up its flakey currency (with a failing Euro last one standing pays the tab for inflated valuation). Euro nations will be sovereign again.
The bad news is the IMF is sitting on the side lines salivating like a hungry wolf waiting to buy up the debts of the EU and substitute/force their new global currency on debtors for the failed Euro.
I think wealth redistribution is just another form of Socialism where the ruling elites have simply assumed ownership of a nation’s wealth rather than owning the means of production. I don’t think it will take a war to solve the problem, it will require individuals to find ways of exerting their inalienable right to property, probably something more along the lines of a revolution. War ultimately hurts the individuals leaving the ruling class unscathed. It’s the ruling class that’s the problem.
VDH also has an article in PJM about Germany.
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-new-old-german-problem/
“For someone who has lived in Greece and occasionally visits Germany, it becomes increasingly clearer each year why the European Union won’t work. Germans work and create wealth. Yet under the present system, they do not receive commensurate psychological rewards — and they increasingly receive insufficient material compensation as well.
And history shows us that an unhappy Germany is a very dangerous thing indeed.”
I doubt there will be a war because, like many of the comments in VDH’s article state, Germans are too old. A war based on technology instead of manpower is possible but, more likely, Germans will just tell the EU to F.O..
There is a higher likelihood of problems within the country, too many angry young men without jobs will increase tension between ethnic Germans and immigrants.
So I guess this means the Germans no longer have to feel guilty over WW2.
Cool. Must really piss off France.
” …is that powerful currency traders in the US and mid east have conspired to tank the Greek economy (and Spain’s?)to trigger the demise of the Euro and reap the windfall profits betting against Euro liquidity.”
If conspiracy = looking around and realizing that massive GOVERNMENTAL idiocy had set up the conditions which with a nice little nudge might happen a little earlier rather than later, then ok, conspiracy it is. I suggest though that that is not the dictionary definition.
Currency traders couldn’t have done bugger all, if Greece and Spain had the responsible fiscal policies they should have had IF followed EU guidelines and economic logic.
Blaming money traders for this, is like blaming vultures for roadkill.
If you don;t want to be roadkill it’s pretty easy.
If you want to be fairly well off and have a nice society, the recipe is well known and pretty obvious – but don’t blame the cleanup crew if you and your societal elite constantly take the OTHER PATH.
Good article, pointing out not only how to do it but also the inevidable. The same situation exists in North America. In the USA the mid-west and south support (against their will) California and the north east. The same conditions brought on a civil war 200 years ago. In Canada the west (Alberta BC and Saskatchewan) support the excesses of Quebec and the Maritimes. They are, after all entitled to their entitlements.
Eventually any people that is exploited by having their life energy stolen to support those who want something for nothing will rise up. Eventually????????????
“Hopefully the revolution will be a capitalistic, libertarian and non-discriminatory one in which basic individual human rights are respected rather than suppressed and taken away, as always happens under socialistic tyranny.”
That’s a mighty big “Hope”,CS,and I hope you’re right,but history has shown that nice people don’t revolt that often,so the Leader we hope for is unlikely.
Politics attracts a lot of egotistical self-serving power hungry activists, and very few Saints.
“Spaniards can be impressed by the courtesy of the conqueror,
French by his riches, Greeks by his respect for the arts, Jews by
his moral integrity, Africans by his calm and authoritative bearing,
but Germans are impressed by none of these things. They must be
struck into the dust, struck down again as they rise. Struck again
while they lie groaning, while their wounds still pain them; they will
respect the hand that dealt them.”
-Germanicus Caesar
Roman general
(15 B.C.- 19 A.D.)
Some points and queries.
“Over the last three or four decades “Nationalism” has morphed into a self-evident dirty word”
I always thought it was over the last six to 9 decades. WWI has its roots in nationalism and the biggest culprits in WWII were out and out nationalists (think fatherland). The bad reputation that nationalism has appears to be well-earned. The two most disastrous wars in human history are directly related to it. Ultimately, nationalism is simply another version of the ‘us versus them’ argument. Our nation is superior. Other nations are inferior. You can see why two nations with that attitude might not get along.
Don’t forget that the idea of European unity first came manifested itself in the form of NATO. The economic version hasn’t quite worked out as planned but the military version of unity certainly worked out well.
“I would seem fair, if it is the Germans and the French, who are footing most of the bailout bill, to start setting some terms.”
What kind of terms? If I’m not mistaken, the bailout is conditional on the Greek government changing its policies.
“After all, you know, Germany has been devastated by socialism, which is evil, therefore it’s likely that the solution will be anti-evil. Of course, the anti-evil figure will be demonized by the evil socialists.”
Problem with this logic is that ‘socialism’ is only a bad word in the North American right. Germany is a fairly socialist country in terms of government and government services. And they quite enjoy it. Their rules and regulations are such that working for a German company is very different to working for a North American company. Workers are very well protected by government regulations in Germany. Then, of course, theres the whole social welfare system that includes a free university education. The system works well enough for most Germans to be happy – and the economy isn’t doing too badly either. Therefore, I doubt Germany is looking for a savior right now. They may be peeved at the EU, but a wholesale shift away from a socialist welfare/government system is very unlikely.
“Hopefully the revolution will be a capitalistic, libertarian and non-discriminatory one in which basic individual human rights are respected rather than suppressed and taken away”
Capitalistic? Unlikely – they like their socialist set up too much. Liberatarian? Maybe. Maybe not. Non-discriminatory? Well, this is a country that is extremely reluctant to give citizenship to non-German residents. A turn towards nationalism is not going to fix that.
“The International Socialists think they can get away with taking the money of people within a nation and giving it away to people in other nations forever.”
Is that international socialism or international economics. We must accept that self-sufficiency is an outdated concept. All countries, minus North Korea, are linked to the global economy and feel its effects. Look at it this way. American firms started a global recession and economic problems around the world simply by handing out questionable mortgages. That is the nature of the global economy.
Germany is a very efficient country but it is also export-oriented. It has benefitted from the EU by having tarriff-free and barrier-free access to most European markets. In other words, the German people have made a lot of money through the EU. The problem is that they rely on the export market a lot. The impact of the economic failure of Greece is not limited to Greece. It has massive ramifications for Spain, Italy and other European countries. Germany cannot afford to lose these markets indefinitely and neither can France.
The obvious solution, then, is to bail them out so as to minimize the long-term impact of the economic collapse. One school of thought says that we should let Greece collapse and rebuild. In theory, that is a great idea. In reality, that will hurt the Germans more than you would think. They would have to reduce capacity to meet the lower demand and then increase it when demand increases. Reducing capacity and increasing it costs jobs and money, and it takes a hell of a lot of time. The alternative is to give them money and artifically keep demand levels up – and keep German jobs. This will continue till the Greek economy recovers.
I am not in any way suggesting that I am right, but if anyone could enlighten me on how I might be wrong in stating the above, it would be much appreciated.
“With ever-worsening economic and social conditions within Free World nations, nationalism will only continue to become a more prevalent sentiment”
That is not a function of bad governance but a function of a new global economic order. The flip side of that argument is that economic and social conditions are improving in non-Free World nations (think China). A change in the economic order in the post-WWII world was always likely. Our decision to buy cheap Chinese products instead of marginally more expensive American ones has ramifications. It means there are people here who are not being utilized to their full ability (because their jobs have been ‘outsourced’ and that has contributed to lower economic output and the corresponding decline in the social and economic environment.
“as long as The People see their tax dollars leaving not only their own pockets but also their own country in ever-increasing amounts even as their personal income declines and their GDP fails to keep pace with population growth.”
Replace ‘tax money’ with ‘money’ and your argument will sound eerily similar to protectionist leftists. Thing is, with a global economy, either you become incredibly efficient, or you lose. The west is winning some battles and losing others. The alternative is protectionism.
“The same situation exists in North America. In the USA the mid-west and south support (against their will) California and the north east.”
Really? I always thought it was the other way round. I was always under the impression that if you take California out of the US, the US will be a lot worse off than it would be without Mississippi or Alabama or Montana or South Dakota or all of them combined.
Why do beans make us fart?
Just askin.
Canadian Sentinel,
“In beans, endogenous gases seem to arise from complex oligosaccharide (carbohydrates) that are particularly resistant to digestion by mammals, but which are readily digestible by gut flora – microorganisms (methane-producing archaea; Methanobrevibacter smithii) that inhabit the digestive tract. These oligosaccharides pass through the upper intestine largely unchanged, and when they reach the lower intestine, bacteria feed on them, producing copious amounts of flatus.”
Now feel free to answer my questions. Or maybe you don’t have the answers, which renders most of your assertions dubious/invalid.
What’s your real name, Gayle?
I don’t think that Germany has any real choice other than to bail out Greece. Greece owes a lot of money, and a lot of that is probably to German banks. If Greece defaults, Germany takes the big hit. Also Germany is the biggest exporter around. If a bunch of countries default and a new financial crisis happens, German exports will drop like a stone. That’s why Merkel is putting big restrictions on financial institutions that are still playing fast with murky instruments. The good news is that this refinancing of Greece’s debt comes with unprecedented checks and balances and milestones (proof of progress) on Greece. This carrot and stick approach may work in turning Greece around.
Germany is also partly to blame (along with France, the second biggest economy) because they skirted due diligence and proper vetting in letting countries like Greece into the Eurozone with only a pretend belief that Greece’s economy met the Euro requirements for entry. Again, for Germany, a mega exporter, they obtained 10M new customers with no trade restrictions, no goofy currency costs, etc., which lowers German costs and the ability for Germany to build in Germany which means jobs for Germans.
I’ve been to Germany several times and I’ve had to work a lot with German engineers. Germans are just like all Europeans, intensely proud and nationalistic. They all know their history and culture. If you call Mozart a maroon – then you are in trouble. If you say that Goethe is a stiff compared to Dr. Seuss – then you are really in trouble. If you call a German physicist a climate scientist – you better be heading for France in a hurry. So I don’t think that nationalism is any different than before. I don’t think though that the average German worker yet understands the implications on themselves. Merkel needs to explain this.
“Justaskin”, thanks for your well-elucdidated answer.
But as for answering your “questions”, I know better than to “get into it” with those who only seek to grind us down with diversions masquerading as legitimate questions. 😉
Elucidated. Typo. Geez.
I think the article shows what many feel: that the EU cannot work. When idealism and cold, hard economics collide, the result isn’t pretty.
Watch “Lost”.
The fact is, that we are now a global economy; we operate as a ‘complex adaptive network’ and are networked with each other politically and economically.
But, how does this work? I’m against socialism of any kind because it, structurally, is ‘frozen’; it has no capacity to act, to adapt, it lacks flexibility. Why?
Because socialism is structurally, a two-class system. There’s an elite class that governs; and then there is, the ‘ruled. This sets up a societal structure focused around authority. Authority of the ruler or authority of the Law, which turns into dogma in a two-class structure.
What is required in a massive population base and a planet with different environments and a requirement for rapid reactions to changes, is a decision-making apparatus that is flexible, free of restraints, can come up with rapid innovations etc. This is the role of the middle class.
The democratic political structure is the only one based around a middle class. And capitalism is the only economic mode based around a middle class. Therefore, the global economic system requires, not socialism, which would move the entire world into an entropic morass, but democracy and capitalism.
Since the global economy is a complex network, this also means that it cannot operate as a uniform and universal system. It has to enable local decision-making, for these sites are the locus of rapid reaction and innovation. Therefore, it is interesting but complex systems are never uniform and homogeneous but diverse and regional.
So, the global economy will, in order to work properly, encourage more regionalism and national identities…as these same regions and nations interact and network with each other.
Related, while wandering around the pajamas site… and I hope that Canadian Sentinel @ 7.44 is correct.
http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-new-old-german-problem/?singlepage=true
“Very soon German workers are going to grasp that all the financial reserves they piled away the last two decades from not doing what a Spain or Italy did are essentially gone. Someone in Munich worked 40 hours a week until age 67 for someone in Athens not to — and for someone in Athens to demand that someone in Munich do so or else. The idea that nations like Greece, both overtly and implicitly, insult nations like Germany has no basis in historical terms.”
“If it should choose, Germany could go nuclear in six months, its arsenal reflective of a country that makes Mercedes and BMWs.” … “If Iran should go nuclear — and I think it will within a year or two — we should imagine that a Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria would too. As the European Union collapses, as third-rate nations become nuclear, and as the United States abdicates its postwar role in ensuring the safety and security of the West, why would Germany continue to subsidize southern Europe while receiving mostly blame for its efforts, while its airspace would be in theory vulnerable to the likes of a theocratic Iran?”
SO, it seems another War on Something produces the very result sought to be avoided. War on Drugs = a disastrous drug-infested culture with 10s of million of perpetrators of victimless crimes in jail for nothing and ripe for the Islamist recruiters; War on Povery, more poverty, more welfare dependency.
War on Terror?
Goverments need to declare a War on War on Stuff.
This EU was a War on Nationalism … so that Europe would never again — never again! — experience those tragic early and mid century cataclysms. Result: a re-emerging nationalism.
Whoever above hoped that Germany would go capitalistic, thanks for the chuckle. The anger is not about re-distribution; rather re-distribution outside the family. The EU was a War on the Family!
An attempted coinage:
Beware Greeks Getting Gifts!
GERMANY’S PARLIAMENT VOTES TO GIVE 66% OF COUNTRY’S ANNUAL INCOME TAX REVENUE TO BANKS ** 123 billion “eurozone” package passed
http://www.theflucase.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3543%3Agermanys-parliament-votes-to-give-66-of-countrys-annual-income-tax-revenue-to-banks–123-billion-qeurozoneq-package-passed&catid=41%3Ahighlighted-news&Itemid=105&lang=en
“But as for answering your “questions”, I know better than to “get into it” with those who only seek to grind us down with diversions masquerading as legitimate questions.”
Ah what a lovely world to live in. Make assertions and then look the other way when questions are asked about those assertions. I must admit that your original post was a masterpiece of rhetoric without substance. Kind of like those hippies with eloquent posters denouncing the ‘system’. Even when I read it again now, it amazes me how little substance there is to what you posted.
Which begs only one more question from me:
Do you, yourself, believe anything that you typed in that post?
Yo, Justaskin’, why don’t you go ask tough, inconvenient questions of Barack Hussein Obama? Like, why ME? I’m nobody. Obama’s an extremely powerful and dangerous man and he needs you to step right up and ask him questions like that. In public. Good luck. He won’t take questions. So neither must I.
Cheers! 🙂
justaskin
“””American firms started a global recession and economic problems around the world simply by handing out questionable mortgages. That is the nature of the global economy.”””
no, they only triggered the end game, it was started long before then
“””” I was always under the impression that if you take California out of the US, the US will be a lot worse off “”””
CA is the lump on the wheel of USA capatalism, they are over burdened with a very generous “welfare” system and top heavey in beaurocracy, their inovation and “efficience” exited long ago
justaskin you make some very valid points.
Germany, Gomer, will rise once again as a power.
The next Marshall Plan will be about when it’s safe to go in there once the radiation levels drop below lethal.
“CA is the lump on the wheel of USA capatalism, they are over burdened with a very generous “welfare” system and top heavey in beaurocracy, their inovation and “efficience” exited long ago”
I am not convinced that innovation has left California. It still attracts the creme de la creme of the information technology sector and this particular sector is still in the ascendancy. I know there is a compelling case to be made about how overburdened California is, but that has to be balanced out by the reality that the companies in California are still in the driver’s seat. The hardware may now be produced in other states and countries, but California-based talent plays an important role in ensuring that these other states/nations have something/hardware to produce. As concentration of talent goes, there are very few parts of the world that rival California.
After all, we haven’t seen a very significant brain drain from California to other states, nor have we seen any America-based alternative to the Silicon valley.
Exactly my point here 3 or 4 days ago, next time let them win, the Germans or whoever. Maybe then all those useless Euro weenies will forced to become useful.
I wonder from time to time what the response from North America will be to the next European War. My feeling is the Euros are so lazy, arrogant and self righteous that next time we should leave them to their fate.
It’s about time Obama bowed to Merkel
Eric Larsen, from the Wiki on Angela Merkel, her being a right of centre politician would preclude her from B. Hussien’s traditional bow, and then there’s this, which I think would just about seal her fate again, regarding any bow, from the Wiki…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel
“According to the news agency Mehr (as reported in the Mail & Guardian Online and Deutsche Welle, quoting AFP), in August 2006, Merkel received a letter from the Iranian president Ahmadinejad.[23][24] According to the reports, Merkel said that the letter contained “unacceptable” criticism of Israel and “put in question” the Jewish state’s right to exist, and that therefore she would not formally respond to the letter.”
Nationalism is just as much a dead end as socialism. Collectivism is not an answer to any human problem.
The violence of war stems from the same source as the violence of the Big Government state that infests the western world. The fundamental moral principle of a civilized society is that no person has the right to initiate the use of force on any other. That principle must be universally accepted if prosperity is to ensue and war be permanently abolished.
Re: “Someone in Munich worked 40 hours a week until age 67 for someone in Athens not to — and for someone in Athens to demand that someone in Munich do so or else.”
Bingo. Of course, this state of affairs is what the parasites rioting in the streets of Athens want to maintain.
Good point Simeon at 0643 – You obviously didn’t get your history from Hollywood High or the telly!
“Collectivism is not an answer to any human problem.”
The concept of many hands making light work precedes Marx by at least a million years and no serious human being believes that organized group effort is not an answer to any human problem. Seriously, learn the human race.
Show me a free man and I will show you a dead man, at best. At worst, a slave. Self defense alone necessitates group action.
Humans are highly social creatures, and that alone should put an end to the libertarian narrative that we are merely random life forms randomly scattered across the globe. How does a newborn baby eat by himself nv? And what about division of labour, ie men go hunting and women gather berries? Beats the hell out of each man for himself.
The libertarian prohibition on violence is arbitrary: two guys have a beef and settle it on private property, that’s not the business of the state. One guy insults another guy’s girlfriend, the other guy smacks him one – again, not the state’s business. Prohibiting violence as a response to a hostile entity which represents a material threat is actually a restriction on freedom and an unjustifiable one at that.
From conflict comes growth. Sometimes people need their asses kicked as a matter of justice. For example, the Greeks: these people know what they are doing is wrong. They’re doing it anyway because absent the use of force they’ll do what they can get away with.
One looks at the state of political “debate” in Canada and wonders whether anything will change absent a violent uprising. When people call the maternal health obsessed PM of a minority government a “dictator”, words and dialogue have lost any utility.
marc in Calgary – point taken! 🙂
justaskin, are you the same troll who was busy defending electric cars here a while ago?
California’s government owes a major buttload more money than they take in right now. The reason for that is mostly public sector union benefits and welfare/healthcare/social security payouts.
Adding to the fun is the complex web of regulatory insanity. My favorite example lately is gravel. Did you know, my good Liberal friend, that it is cheaper to ship gravel in a boat from gravel pits on Vancouver Island to the port of Los Angeles, than it is to make gravel in California? Its true. The City of Los Angeles (and everybody else there too) buys gravel from an outfit in BC because its -cheaper-.
Recall that California is A) a desert and B) made of mountains which are C) made of rock. You send empty trucks up the mountain, and let the full ones pretty much roll back down making your fuel costs extremely low for shipping.
So why is BC stone cheaper than local, justaskin? Because California green regulations, health and safety regulations, trucking regulations and TAXES make it that way, is why.
They are going broke because they are trying to, as hard as they possibly can. If the rest of the USA had any brains they’d cut the bastards off without a dime. Same for Illinois, Michigan, New York and a couple more who can’t make their payrolls because they over spent.
Obama wants a system like ours. Where States will have the same extortion racket imposed on them that Alberta has on it. Equalization payments. From fly over Country that produces, to the Eastern bastions of the American welfare State . The North east.
That would take the power from State governors to obama, thus allowing the Democratic governors an out for the nightmare policies that have destroyed their economies federally.
The same scenario is going on in Europe. To hide the failure of Socialist policy they have to keep the Dane-geld flowing to hide their ineptitude.
Soon they will be calling for Spreading the wealth threw Equalization payments. .To those Poor ,poor, Counties who figured they had signed onto the gravy train for life.
The backlash coming to Europe will be as staggering as the 20s Germany.
Eat your golden gooses, than give the feeble flesh for a last meal to the mob you created by stealing from workers to feed the lazy.
For in the end there is only so much loot to take.
JMO
The Phantom,
No I do not, nor have I ever, supported electric cars. Frankly, I haven’t given them any thought.
Which begs the question- how did you decide that I am:
a) a Liberal
b) a friend of yours
I am all for bashing a state on the basis of logic, but ideological buffoonery, such as this rather absurd statement below, falls well short of intelligent debate:
“If the rest of the USA had any brains they’d cut the bastards off without a dime. Same for Illinois, Michigan, New York and a couple more who can’t make their payrolls because they over spent.”
Have you even bothered looking at the numbers?
Texas (USD 3.3 bn) and New York (USD 2.9-3.5 bn) have very similar budget deficits; North Carolina has a smaller economy than both, and a larger deficit at USD 4.6 bn. Perhaps we should ship them out too? Kansas clocks in at USD 1.1 bn, almost double Massachussetts deficit. I guess we should kick them out too. By the way, tiny Alaska has a deficit of USD 1.5 billion. I shudder to think of what that means on a per capita basis.
What will the US look like if we get rid of all the governments that overspend?
For starters, it will be rather tiny, and will comprise only of the great states of Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Washington and Wyoming. Yeah, thats a real world-beating combination right there.
And how much money is the US state pumping into California/New York/Illinois/Michigan? The American REcovery and Reinvestment act is giving:
California – USD 31 per capita
New York – USD 39 per capita
Illinois – USD 37 per capita
Michigan – USD 12 per capita (Yes, 12)
Compare that to the following:
Alaska – USD 379 per capita
Idaho- USD 314 per capita
Missouri – USD 103 per capita
Montana – USD 103 pr capita
New Mexico – USD 259 per capita
North Dakota – USD 149 per capita
South Carolina – USD 57 per capita
Tenessee – USD 179 per capita
Utah – USD 71 per capita
If you really want to get rid of states, you should probably start with these, then move on to California and other ‘drains’ on the US system.
You would be well-advised to do some research before shooting your mouth off. Very poor.