Only publik skool edumacated Leftists in America are screeching that it is “austerity” in Europe that is causing the economic meltdown. Their calls for higher taxes and more government control of the American economy wouldn’t be self-serving now, would they?
Boris Johnson, new mayor of London
I see the G8 has a brilliant solution to the problems of the eurozone. President Obama says it’s time for “growth and jobs”. Jolly good. That’s the stuff. Let me show you how to create employment – the Brussels way.
Come with me through the streets of Athens, not far from Syntagma Square, and your mind will reel with the horrified realisation that history is not a one-way ratchet, that human progress is not guaranteed, and that a proud country can be reduced – by years of torture and bullying – to a state verging on total political, economic and moral collapse. […]
Unemployment is rising by the day, and among young people it now stands at a shameful 54 per cent. Yup, folks – those are the results of an EU plan to produce “growth and jobs”. It was called the euro, and it has been a catastrophe for Greece and pretty bad (with one notable exception) for the rest of the continent. […]
The euro has turned out to be a doomsday machine, a destroyer of jobs, a killer of growth, because it entrenches and exacerbates the fundamental and historic inability of some countries to compete with Germany in making high-quality goods with low-unit labour costs. Unable to devalue their way back into the game, these countries are forced to watch industry wilt under German imports, as the euro serves as a giant trebuchet to fire swish German saloon cars and machine tools across the rest of Europe.
Germany is almost alone in recording economic growth in the first part of 2012; Germany is doing well from the euro; and so the theory is that Germany should pay to keep the whole racket going by bailing out the improvident and the uncompetitive, just as London and the South East subsidise the rest of the UK.
Alas, it is not a strategy that is likely to work. As Angela Merkel has made clear, there is little political support – let alone popular support – in Germany. EU leaders may want a fiscal union, but it is deeply anti-democratic. We accept large fiscal transfers in this country because Britain has a single language and a single political consciousness in a way that Europe never will. Rather than creating an “economic government of Europe”, the project will lead to endless bitterness between the resentful donors and the humiliated recipients, as these diminished satrapies will be instructed to accept cuts and “reforms” – designed in Berlin and announced in Brussels – as the price of their dosh. […]
Europe now has the lowest growth of any region in the world. We have already wasted years in trying to control this sickness in the euro, and we are saving the cancer and killing the patient. We have blighted countless lives and lost countless jobs by kidding ourselves that the answer to the crisis might be “more Europe”. And all for what? To salvage the prestige of the European Project, and to spare the egos of those who were wrong and muddle-headed enough to campaign for the euro.
To be sure, as France has shown, the Left will emotionally manipulate it all to Eat the Rich.
The seed corn will be gone and who will they blame then? Just bring on the roasted babies.
WSJ has a great (horrific/hilarious) article about this. Europe is RIGHT ON TRACK now. I’ve got a link on my blog.
Rove accepted that framing yesterday on FNS, austerity vs. growth
An examination of the question Why? might be a place to start from if growth and jobs are what is wanted.
progressivism [pruh-gres-uh-viz-uhm]
1. The blind religious zeal of a small minority of a politically-active dependent class determined to institute unnatural man-over-nature policy by the most politically powerful class no matter the peril or cost.
2. The state of affairs bought about by these classes via endless loops of legislative, rhetorical, and social positive feedback that eventually brings ruin to a nation – see: Narrative, Manufactured and Press, The ever-lying.
austerity vs. growth
Where in Sam Hill are people getting this false dichotomy? Since when was growth an option?
They have two choices: austerity + disaster in a bit or disaster now.
Socialism will protect itself by sending out the cloud of ink known as the’ no true scotsman defense’. Every time it fails it will announce that it was never really tried. Why if it had REALLY been tried it would have worked. QED. The suckers will believe it, and the cycle will start anew as long as there are producers and a market to pay for it starting anew. Socialism is a diminishing sinusoidal, a pendulum slowing down as momentum is lost to friction, or a spiral course as a plane loses power and glides towards the ground.
Channel surfing yesterday, I happened into a passage of this interview by Brian Lamb of Douglas Brinkley on Brinkley’s book about T.R., “The Wilderness Warrior”.
Rack up the “Q&A: Douglas Brinkley (Part 1)” link over on the right-hand margin under “Video Playlist”, pull the slider and listen in at about the 41:00 min mark through about the 42:00 min mark, when Lamb asks Brinkley “Do you like that?”. Listen as Brinkley then mistakes the import of the question, proceeding to wax romantic on the beauty of T.R.’s imperiousness until Lamb interrupts to re-ask the question.
Then, so long as you wish to hear the epitome of progressivism distilled and delivered with delight, listen to Brinkley’s answer.
And remember, you can’t spell tyranny without “T.R.”
Madness
Brinkley seemed to be saying, once he realized what Lamb was asking, “Well, I wouldn’t have liked it if it was my land, but it wasn’t, so…”
yanny!
oh crap he’s right
Going just by memory on my part McG, that sounds about right, though I think I came away with the sense that Brinkley believes his impoverished imagination of the world (from my point of view, that is) is quite sufficient to justify (!) the tyranny which would nevertheless descend on him were he in the position of the usurped landowner (or the gold owner under FDR, or the Schlecter Bros., or Roscoe Filburn . . . etc.) . The Greater Good! as seen by T.R., Brinkely et al.
In other news, Cory Booker spoke the truth and got sent to a reeducation camp where he made a hostage video.
Ergo, #IStandWithCory
A podcast at Library of Law and Liberty with David Bernstein, on his book Rehabilitating Lochner: Defending Individual Rights Against Progressive Reform.
The economy is really soarin!
Glacially still, but properly in their view:
I was just going to post this sdferrr. Thanks!
Rove accepted that framing yesterday on FNS, austerity vs. growth
Which means a) Rove thinks Romney has it locked up and b) they intend business as usual in DC.
The question is: What happens when Romney starts mouthing the need to avoid ‘austerity?’ Will the newest rubes (heh, and double heh) self identify or descend into their own version of denial?
Of course they’ll keep pissing away money. That’s all they know.
I was watching The Five this afternoon and Bob Beckel was popping off with his usual warmed over hippy bullshit about how we need more stimulus money, for the fairness. Greg Gutfeld leaned across the table (sort of, since he’s a dwarf) and said, “So why don’t we just print more money? Why do we need to collect taxes, Bob? If all it takes is more money, then let’s just print away!” He was being facetious, of course, but it was hilarious to watch Bob try to explain how not collecting taxes wouldn’t work all while Greg kept saying “That’s stupid. Why not just print more money?”
Beckel is the consummate tool. I don’t think he believes half of what he says. He fills the gap that Colmes left when Hannity dumped him.
Isn’t he, though? I don’t think he believes half the crap he says, either. The only one who is worse is Juan Williams. What the hell is it with libs and the yelling? I guess if you YELL your opinion it is more important. Sort of like the people who post in ALL-CAPS and use a lot of these !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!