Saturday, March 6, 2010
"Germany and Greece Go to the Mattress"
Following up on Jeff's article, the Weekly Standard discusses the situation. They mention that the German people (Das Volk?) are fed up with bailing out Greece, that Germany pays out 10 billion more Euros to the EU than it gets back. People are complaining that Germany may be raising their retirement age from 67 to 69 so that the Greeks can retire at 63. Stuff like that. Things that point out that there will be a breaking point where this statist crap won't be tolerated. But the author then goes on to say that the EU bureaucrats, including Germany's Conservative leader Angela Merkel probably will not allow Greece to collapse, despite the will of her people. This tends to back up Jeff's point that the statists will continue to keep the system going despite the will of each country's own people. I disagree with this. There will come a point where the government will have to answer to the will of the people. It will come quicker in the US than in the EU, but it'll happen anyway.
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Greece was calling Germany Nazis. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7309861/Greek-rescue-in-danger-as-deputy-prime-minister-attacks-Nazi-Germany.html
ReplyDeleteTime will tell how all of this plays out. California's debt situation has not played out yet, not has America's. America is in uncharted terriotory in terms of the economy.
Things will definitely and permanently change; the different view that Bud-D and I have is when this permanent change will occur. (By permanent change I mean a real and meaningful shift away from statism, not just a meretricious/ short term shift; there will never be any permanent shift away from any one system as trends of societies and a people tend to go in cycles, as history shows. Things are in constant motion.) I believe that things in the short term will change: Obama and the democrats will be put out of power and the major sprint towards statism in this country will slow to a walk and maybe even a few steps back. But I believe the real and permanent change will only occur after the statist-like system has come in to being and this system has collapsed and there is no other way to go but back towards free markets or in a general sense back towards freedom.
For one example, after President Carter we had Reagan. But that did not change the long term move towards statism or a command system. A change from a Democrat rule to that of the Republicans does not affect this trend. Start at pg nine and the last part will probably agree with your view, http://mises.org/journals/lar/pdfs/1_1/1_1_2.pdf
Both moves us towards statism.
The will of the people does not matter as this will is being manipulated by our education system, http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/index.html ,and is result of our culture, _The Closing of the American Mind_. Unchangeable human nature also plays a role. The will of the people can be fickle and short sighted responses of unfavorable conditions--no jobs/shitty economy, not one based on principles of freedom, most people don't know the fundamental principles of freedom, and a view not based on the long term consquesences of their choices in terms of freedom. These sources does not provide the complete picture of how these two things are helping to determine the long term direction everything is headed.
The will of the people, as prepared by the education and cultural system, will not really matter anyways as economic events will force people to accept government that will be shoved down their necks. Great depression and recent recession.
George Soros' view on globalization is interesting and is shared by several other people that have been influential to politicans.
ReplyDeleteCarroll Quigley who was the author of this book influenced Bill Clinton. These views are interesting, especially since they appear to have been influential.