Re: OT Reply, how to be a good Republican was Re: 25 Ways to Become a Good Democrat
G.E.R.R.Y. wrote:
In article <fv6k93-qc3.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Tim Daneliuk
<tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Stay tuned as France, Germany, and a good part of Western Europe
spiral into bankruptcy.
How much is the US deficit? Just how much is the national debt? How
It is quite large, thanks primarily to US socialists of all flavors
(Democrats and Republicans in large numbers). Now look at the asset
base. What is the the national "debt to equity" ratio for the US?
France? Germany? Spain? Italy? If you own a paid-off house worth
$100,000 but owe $75,000 in credit card debt, you are in deep kimchee.
But if you own a $12 million mansion, you can have debts of $3 million
and be nowhere near as bad off. It's not about the dollars (a very
trendy socialist approach to financial analyis - "But the rich got
waaaaay more back in the tax cuts than the poor") it's about the
*ratios* (a very grown up way to do the math).
soon before a meltdown at the US's current rate of spending? Don't look
at Europe, look at yourself first. They're spiralling, you're sliding
STRAIGHT down.
Gerry
I have both lived and, much later, worked in Europe a considerable bit.
By direct observation I've seen how the Europe I love has gone down
rathole after rathole in its policies and the results they bring.
The rate at which the European economies are getting into trouble dwarfs
the US. The US, for all its many socialists sins, is nowhere *near* as
bad by any number of important measures. It's like the difference
between your really, really rich uncle who had a bad year in the stock
market and can't buy a new yacht this year, and your middle-class cousin
who lost his job and can't make the mortgage. There is *no* comparison.
I stipulate that if the US sheeple do not curb their mooching habits,
the same *can* happen here, but we're not even close to having the kind
of problems the dominant European economies already exhibit. Moreover,
the US has a stable replacement birthrate. Europe has a such a low
birthrate that some nations are losing their indigenous population base
at a staggering pace. This means far fewer workers in the next few
decades to pick up the tab for the much larger retirement population. It
also means massive emmigration, most of which is *unskilled* labor. This
emmigration also brings with it all manner of social problems like
crime. As just one example, ask the Italians how they feel about their
Albanian immigrants and what that's done to their nation.
This is all a game of time. Eventually, the baby boomers (who are the
biggest social welfare queens) will die off. But in the mean time, the
much smaller population base of their children has to support them. Now,
who do you think survives that 30 year or so time span: The US with
probably the highest per-capita productivity in the West, comfortable
non-inflationary growth, and declining unemployment (for all his other
sins, Bush was absolutely right about tax cuts stimulating growth)....
OR The many European nations that promised their citizens
cradle-to-grave social welfare and are now faced with bad to horrible
unemployment, low overall productivity (one recent article I read cited
that the average German worker spends 22% less time on the job than
their US counterpart), lousy economic growth, and stubbornly high
unemployment. You do the math.
Why do you think the Europeans drug each other kicking and screaming
into the European Union. They *know* this to be true. They are
desparately trying to figure out a way to band together to create an
overall economy that is more efficient and can actually grow. And it was
a really *good* idea, except it has one flaw: It is the flaw of a good
many European cultures to appeal to bureaucracy and socialism to provide
some sense of stability and safety. The last time I looked, there were
more voting members of the EU in Brussels than there were member
nations. (!) And just what do they vote on? Opening markets? Reducing
taxes? Enhancing the entreupeneurial environment? No. They vote to fine
street merchants using English weights instead of metric weights. In the
US (and Canada) you can start your own business in about two hours (the
time it takes to get some stationary ordered and open a business
checking account). In the EU it takes *months* to get "approval" from the
new socialist ruling classes in Brussels for anything other than maybe
a mom and pop eBay business. The EU has ended up centralizing and
arguably increasing the socialist bureaucracy that was one loosely
distributed across its member nations, and that bureaucracy is
choking the economic life out of a good part of Western Europe.
Like I said, most of the European leaders know it, but they're in an
impossible situtation. They have stagnating economies (not much coming
in), growing bureauracies (a high cost of overhead), more retirees (an
increasing demand for services), and a declining birth rate (a smaller
and smaller skilled labor pool). Unless the people of these nations wake
up and start practicing unfettered Capitalism pretty soon, they are
surely going to go bankrupt as national entities. (Interestingly, the
Hayek book I menton below more-or-less predicited these exact
circumstances almost *60 years ago*.)
Here are two books that you (and most everyone) should take the time
to read. You will learn more about economics in the few hours reading
this than you will in four years of studying post-Marxist financial
theory at UC Berkeley:
"Economics In One Lesson", Hazlitt
"The Road To Serfdom", Hayek
N.B. Canada has many of the same problems Europe does, especially
the high costs of socialism and a declining birth rate.
But if Europe is the unemployed cousin, and the US is the
rich uncle who had a bad year in the market, then Canada
is the solid, consistent shopkeeper around the corner. It too has
significant economic assets and there is still time to avert
disaster. I'd suggest dumping the inept Liberal party that's
run the nation to ruin as a starting point. Perhaps then
Canada can put it government on the diet it so desparately
needs.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/
.
Relevant Pages
- Re: Time for Old People to Pay for their mistake
... Personally, I never did think much of socialism, then or now. ... If it did work, Europe would be flourishing. ... The reason you're not a liberal is because you measure everything in economic ... on the extent to which they're willing to tax their own economies to generate ...
(soc.retirement) - Re: Time for Old People to Pay for their mistake
... Personally, I never did think much of socialism, then or now. ... If it did work, Europe would be flourishing. ... France may well have a welfare state in terms of the social programs that its government provides to its citizens using the tax revenues they derive from their privately owned and operated economic engines. ... To address your comment on what Europe can or can't do, the limitation is only on the extent to which they're willing to tax their own economies to generate the revenues needed to pay for those programs. ...
(soc.retirement) - Re: Sweden and Cuba in diplomatic crisis
... of it in a majority status or majority coalition status, ... No state in Europe is a "socialist" state, ... greater degree of socialism the more problems the economy has. ... Mixed economies that are a good compromise DO work. ...
(soc.culture.cuba) - Re: Why are anglo-saxons so fond of jail ?
... Is the world's greatest nation ignored in Bible prophecy? ... Many small, insignificant nations are ... what of the nations in Europe? ... Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, comprise the ...
(uk.legal) - Re: Reaping The Genetic Whirlwinds
... more than 500 Nations of Free and Independent Peoples of North America, ... To our good African American members of this Human Family, ... or authority in Britain, Europe, the Vatican and elsewhere, globally, all ...
(soc.rights.human) |
|
