Posted on 01/24/2013 11:43:20 AM PST by Sir Napsalot
BECOMING EUROPE: ECONOMIC DECLINE, CULTURE, AND HOW AMERICA CAN AVOID A EUROPEAN FUTURE By Samuel Gregg Encounter Books, $25.99, 384 pages
“Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess,” declared Margaret Thatcher in a television interview before she became Britain’s prime minister. “They always run out of others people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.” The Iron Lady’s words rang true back in 1976 as Britain faced bankruptcy under the Labor government of Harold Wilson. They are just as relevant today as economies across Europe are reeling from decades of mismanagement, heavy overspending, excessive government regulation and over-taxation.
The eurozone crisis has shaken the very foundations of the European Union over the past three years, and will continue to do so for years to come. Unfortunately, many of Europe’s leaders remain firmly in denial about the extent of the economic malaise. That includes France’s new president, Francois Hollande, whose anti-free-market policies are nothing less than economic suicide.
....
Worryingly, President Obama is sounding a lot like President Hollande when it comes to raising taxes, and his endless class warfare rhetoric is Hollandesque as well. ..... With the United States sinking in more than $16 trillion of public debt, and 128 million Americans now on government programs, the “land of the free” is looking increasingly like continental Europe. Incredibly, a recent Rasmussen poll revealed that 45 percent of Democrats hold a favorable view of socialism, a remarkably high figure for supporters of the governing party in the United States.
This is why Samuel Gregg’s excellent book, “Becoming Europe,” is so timely. It should be on the desk of every member of the House and Senate who cares about the future of America as a prosperous and free nation. ....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
This video is very enlightening. Niall Ferguson has a CV a mile long, puts everything into perspective, and talks about the causes of economic decline here in the US.
And from this past election, the ‘47%’ is more like “52%” now. So I'd say America has already crossed the Rubicon.
I have always like Niall Ferguson but haven’t seen this one.
Thank you, will save it for later.
Unfortunately, the warning “We don’t want to become Europe, do we????, has never worked and never will work, since most
Obama voters would ask cluelessly “What’s wrong with Europe, anyway? Europe is kinda cool!”.Europe seems to be lurching its way ineluctably toward total collapse, and during the next four years of Obama we will be watching the sorry prospect of the USA chasing the EU’s tail, as if trying to catch up with it.This Administration
is hell-bent on getting us there, on an even keel with them,and no one that I can remember within this Administration has been asked or answered any questions about the course we’re on—the blithely blow them off exactly in the same way they’ve blown off the responsibility of coming up with a budget. I expect to hear the plaintive Europe question a lot in the next few years, as we watch the situation get more hopeless in Europe-—maybe the spectacle of their collapse, which is running a few years at least ahead of ours, will be enough to sober up enough of the electorate to
oppose Obama’s policies which will bring us there. For that I suppose we’ll have to wait for the next mid-term for it to have any practical political effect.
Beyond Europe.
Europe has no food stamps or Obama-phones.
You are right. :-(
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