Tag Archive: Centralization


The Death Rattle Of Europe’s Statist Dream

 

 

 

 

 

 

” Europe’s all-too-predictable relapse into recession is gathering force, threatening not only the pipe dream of economic and political unity, but eroding grandiose illusions that have helped prop up the world’s financial house of cards. The unwillingness of France in particular to play by the EU’s — i.e.,  Germany’s — rules appears to have doomed the EU dream. The idea of a borderless Europe bound by a common currency and a shared desire to forever banish war from the Continent was a lofty one, but it was mired from the start in deeply rooted political animosities, grass-roots skepticism and bureaucratic overreach. Now these problems, along with a great many others, have turned the EU project into a Tower of Babel. A million pages of meticulously codified EU rules might as well have been written in cuneiform, so inscrutable and arcane have they become.

  And useless as well. France’s prolonged economic death rattle has been made possible by running annual deficits larger by half than the 3% “allowed” by Brussels. And now, channeling  de Gaulle for what could turn out to be France’s last hurrah, the French have flouted Merckel’s authority, and common sense itself, by proposing to remedy the problem by hiring more government workers and expanding tax breaks.  Portugal, Greece, Spain and the other deadbeat rabble have been cheering them on, and why not? They think they have nothing to lose — that Germany is the only country with any skin in the game. Their folly is about to be laid bare, however, unless Germany gives in and allows Europe’s Central Bank to monetize the collective debts of Europe Fed-style. “

 

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The Transformation Of The USA — Here Comes America 3.0

 

 

” America is going through a transformation, on a scale that few people now realize. The last such fundamental change was from the rural and agrarian society of the Founding era (America 1.0) to the urban and industrial society which is now coming to an end (America 2.0).

We are now making a similar transition to a post-industrial, networked, decentralized, immensely productive America, with a more individualistic, voluntarist, anti-bureaucratic culture (America 3.0).

The time-worn liberal-progressive wisdom is simple: See a problem, create a government program to fix it.

Medicare experienced cost overruns from the beginning, but was initially self-sustaining. Yet it now faces $22 trillion in future unfunded liabilities.

Unlike Social Security and Medicare, which were viable when they began, ObamaCare failed before it even got started

ObamaCare had 82 legally specified start dates, but missed half of them. Waivers have been granted to four million Americans, according to an arbitrary, opaque and politicized process.

ObamaCare is simply beyond the scope of anything the Federal government can accomplish. Health care takes up over 17% of US GDP, about $2.8 trillion annually. Attempting to centrally govern a complex economy of this size and complexity was always hopeless. 

Unfortunately, while liberal-progressive thought is trapped in the 20th Century, there has been an egregious dearth of creative alternatives from the other side of the political divide.”