California is America’s Greece

February 15, 2010 07:22


To think that Greece’s troubles are an ocean and a sea away from where we stand in North America is to have your head in the Mediterranean sand.  In Greece we have
  • a near bankrupt, over-indebted, overspending nanny state, drowning in future liabilities;
  • where civil servants are pampered and overpaid;
  • in which unions are demanding a continuation of their inflated wages and entitlements; and
  • productive individuals and businesses are leaving for more favorable climes.

Where have we heard all this before? Ah yes: California.

California is our Greece, and New York is our Italy.
The PIIGS, as they are called, being the fiscally fragile EU sub-community of Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain (with Britain not far behind), are all countries facing potential financial collapse. They bought into — or by joining the EU, were brought into — the great 20th-century political model of the social democracy. This is a model that holds that the state, or the government, is the umbrella under which all its people gather and are protected. The proponents of this view include most if not all of the modern Western democracies.
It seems that this form of governance is showing symptoms of a fatal disease. That is not to say that capitalism is ill, but that “social democracy” is finally succumbing to the flesh-eating disease called sustainability. Those with a strong manufacturing base, like Germany, could linger on, although present-day economic pacts (and birthrates) will make that difficult.


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