Simon Nixon of the wall street journal:

“The euro zone’s real problem is a crisis of competitiveness, a legacy of decades of entitlements, privileges, overgenerous welfare systems, inefficient bureaucracies, unnecessary and burdensome regulations and high taxes.” 

Also, for decades, the euroweenies were propped by being under the US defense umbrella, pocketing the savings while US taxpayers paid for their defense.

With european countries collapsing financially like dominoes,  does anyone need any MORE proof of the failure of statism?

If Obamao gets re-elected you better put on a sponge divers hat and learn to drink Ouzo.

Billy

forgotten centrist wrote on Jun 14^th, 2012 at 12:42am:


They spent 45 years under the protection of the US from the huge soviet war machine right on their border, and spent the money not going into their military on their bloated welfare state.  But their population is declining due to low birthrate, and their welfare state will soon be in trouble.  Much of the current progress comes from free market reforms instituted by Angela Merkel, eg, making it easier for companies to lay off employees and removing restrictions on how many hours an employee can work.

Quote:


  You have it ass-backwards - THEY are dragging down the euro.  Their problems come from backward statist taxation, huge overpaid government bureacracies, and absurd retirement and pension rules.

patrick2 wrote on Jun 14^th, 2012 at 12:47am:


Actually they did maintain a large military during the cold war.  What they wisely avoided was foreign entanglements, proxy wars, and all the other raging skirmishes that the US has had to engage in as self-declared globocop.  And while dodging our mistakes did save them money, they spent all of that and more on war reparations -- and still do.

Quote:


You are correct in pointing out absurd retirement and pension rules in Greece, but they absolutely do NOT have a statist tax policy.  Tax evasion is widespread and expected at all levels of society.  They haven't had an effective way of capturing taxes in many decades, so they (and others) regularly devalued their currency to inflate that debt and make Greek goods and services artificially cheap.

The euro prevents them from doing this.  It actually hurts Greece because stronger economies are holding the euro higher than it would be, making Greek goods and services artificially more expensive, while at the same time those stronger economies in northern europe are enjoying a euro that is artificially LOWER than their own currencies normally would be.  Their goods and services are artificially cheap as a result.

Greece clearly needs reform.  No arguing that.  But is austerity the only answer?  Not sure about that...

forgotten centrist wrote on Jun 14^th, 2012 at 1:15am:


Actually, their post-WWII military has been NOTHING compared to the US - no nuclear capability, no military satellite system, no long-range missiles, no huge navy - the comparison isn't even close.  As to what you ignorantly denigrate as proxy wars etc, that was the US almost alone taking on the huge and aggressive soviet union in its many efforts around the globe.  If the US hadn't, or to make it clear even to YOU, if the US hadn't even existed, what would have been the fate of western europe?  It's OBVIOUS.  No ifs, buts, maybes or perhapses, a lot of the euro welfare state was built on the backs of US taxpayers.



Quote:


But what is the euro and the EU ultimately - another layer of government on top of national governments, a remote eurobureaucracy and non-directly elected parliament.  Sounds like statism to me.