Tag: Greece

Categories
national politics & policies

Yes, It Can Happen Here

Take a moment from your regularly scheduled dose of daily optimism, and look on the dark side.

The recent political events in Greece, in which a stable government was not formed, requiring whole new rounds of voting, have received some attention on the nightly news. But there’s still a feeling of “it can’t happen here.”

That’s a great disservice. Because it can happen here.Greece on Fire

And this is not just “political instability.” We’re not talking about a political hot potato going nuclear. We’re talking about complete financial implosion. That’s what happens when government is involved in everything.

“Conservatives” and “progressives” have set up for us a house of cards. So what is now happening in one of the great cradles of Western civilization is likely to happen to the whole of today’s big-​government-​based civilization.

How bad can things get? Well, for chilling reminders of what a true collapse is like, consult the Economic Collapse Blog. A recent article gave us a top ten list of “things that we can learn about shortages and preparation from the collapse in Greece.” The top five are frightening enough:

  1. Food shortages can actually happen (indeed, have already begun in Greece, starting with the prisons — and remember, America has more prisons than anybody)
  2. Medicine is one of the first things to become scarce (which is bad, if you require meds to live)
  3. The power grid goes down (which means almost everything goes down)
  4. You can’t even take water for granted (and you can’t live without water)
  5. Your credit and debit cards will probably stop working

So, congrats to Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, et al. — they won’t have to preside over the next great crisis. Nor we endure them.

Hey, look on the bright side.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies political challengers too much government

So Goes the Ancient Chinese Curse

Election news from the weekend tells us that Ron Paul won the majority of delegates at Maine’s GOP state convention, with a sizable hunk of Republicans saying, yet again, “no” to Mitt Romney.

In France, Nicolas Sarkozy got ousted, as French voters put in a self-​declared socialist for the second time since World War II.

Meanwhile, in beleaguered Greece, elections gave no clear majority to any party.

Since the new French president, François Hollande, has pledged to fight back against German “austerity” measures, and since Greece, too, resists those “bailout” procedures, it looks like the collapse of the European Union may be at hand.Stop Overspending

On one level, Greek and French voters seem to prefer to live in that special fantasy land where you can grow government and debt indefinitely and expect good times to roll on forever. On another, they are reacting, at least in part, to the idea that austerity is being pushed by foreigners, that they have been forced not by reality to reform, but by … Germans!

Americans wouldn’t be happy about having a policy shoved down their throat by France. Or Germany. Or (more likely) Beijing.

It’s not easy accepting less than one is used to.

Which is why, here in America, neither Obama nor Romney talk seriously about measures to balance the budget. Obama lives in la-​la land, and Romney thinks that Rep. Ryan’s plan — which allegedly would balance the budget scores of years from now — is a responsible fix for the irresponsible reality of the day.

Only Ron Paul and Gary Johnson are really taking reality seriously. Perhaps that’s why they are still in the race.

Thus it is, in interesting times.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies too much government

Fearing Free Fall

The European Union is bailing out Greece. Fearing financial contagion, EU’s policy wizards decided to throw 100 billion euros at Greece, in tandem with demands for austerity.

New spending restrictions are tough enough to elicit the verdict of “savage” from Greece’s public employee unions. But are they “savage” enough?

The euros-​to-​the-​rescue scheme occurred only after collapses of Portuguese and Spanish bonds. As mentioned last Friday, things aren’t good on Europe’s other southern peninsulas, either.

The “Domino Theory” remains a dominant metaphor. Once, we feared countries would fall like dominos to communism. Now, it’s like dominos into insolvency.

But propping up a tipped domino isn’t easy.

Drastic solutions, like expelling the duplicitous Greek nation-​state from the EU? Not on the table. The apparent aim of the bailouts? Keep as many of the major players responsible for the fiasco in as good a shape as possible.

If, on the other hand, every politician were fired and every contract with unsustainable giveaways to public employee unions were dissolved as part of bankruptcy, might future policy makers be a little more cautious?

Meanwhile, the dominos keep falling. The day after announcing the bailout, the euro plummeted.

My question: What happens when “too big to fail” is applied not to a tiny country like Greece, but to the good ol’ US of A?

What if we’re too big to bail out?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

The Inglorious Mess That Is Greece

Ah, the glory that was Greece! Too bad the modern country is anything but. The nation-​state of Greece is going broke, and going broke spectacularly.

And, dare I say it, instructively?

Everybody’s blaming everybody else, there. But the simple truth of the matter is that the politicians of Greece — both socialist and “conservative” — enticed citizens to go along with a sustained binge of spending, spending far beyond revenues.

And then the government lied to European Union HQ in Brussels about how much it was spending over revenues.

And, you guessed it, Greece continued to borrow even more.

Yes, public spending in Greece was more out-​of-​control than government spending here in America. And that’s why it’s instructive. What is happening right now to Greece is happening elsewhere in Europe — Italy, Spain, Portugal — and is on pace to happen to us, too. 

Greece does have one option the good ol’ US of A doesn’t have: It can go begging to the European Union. So far, saner heads in the EU are saying “no,” but that may not last. 

While we don’t have that option, Greece lacks ours: With the Euro as its standard, it’s constrained from the monetary fiddling that American leaders are tempted with. Inflation. Hyperinflation.

When things get worse here, we’ll hear talk of huge tax hikes, confiscations, and sovereign default. 

But also expect a lot of what Greek politicians did: Lying.

Inglorious, eh?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency

The Transparent Parthenon

Historians know how much it cost to build the Parthenon, but we still don’t know what’s been spent on this past year’s economic recovery packages and bailouts.

Yes, we still have the clay tablets upon which the accounts for building the Parthenon were tallied. What we call “transparency” today was simple common sense in ancient Athens. 

Athens was a democracy, and as every small‑d democrat knows, it is absolutely essential to make government records public if the people are to make important decisions.

Same goes for a democratic republic, like ours.

Now, I’m not saying that building the Parthenon made sense for Athens. I’m glad we have it now, but it was part of Periclean grandiosity, and the great statesman’s next step was to invade Sparta — and that was one war without a good ending for Athens.

By the way, there is a theory of business cycles based on how tall corporate buildings become. You know the boom is ending just when all the businesses are building huge skyscrapers. 

Something similar happened in Athens. The Parthenon was finished; next, it was sacked by the Spartans.

As fascinating as it is, we can’t live in the past. But we can learn from it. If transparency was required for Pericles, it should be required for Barack Obama.

Oh, and maybe we should be extra cautious about going to war.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.