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Augean Socialism
Investors.com ^ | December 18, 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff

Posted on 12/18/2009 5:20:01 PM PST by Kaslin

Socialism: If you don't think heavy regulation, elephantine bureaucracies, union rule and runaway spending amount to poison for an economy, take a gander at what decades of such socialist policies have done to Greece.

Last week, the tiny Balkan state seemed like a blazing house threatening to set the rest of its European Union neighborhood on fire.

It started when Greece earned the first of two sovereign downgrades from ratings agency Fitch over its $436 billion budget deficit. Then Standard & Poor's cut Greece to BBB+ from A- and sternly warned that if the government didn't get serious about controlling its spending, the downgrade wouldn't be its last.

Through the week, investors dumped Greek bonds, and word rose that Greece would need a bailout from the European Union.

European leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel loudly said no to that Wednesday, but it didn't help. By Thursday, Greece's problem became Europe's problem, with the euro tumbling to a three-month low against the dollar while U.S. Treasury prices — a traditional safe haven for sovereign investors — soared.

On Friday, S&P announced "a more pronounced and faster economic deterioration than we previously anticipated" for Greece, with a "protracted hard landing" next.

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: default; economicruin; economy; elections; eu; greece; papandreou; socialism

1 posted on 12/18/2009 5:20:03 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: alrea; bareford101; BerniesFriend; blaveda; Bookwoman; Celeste732; dsc; fanfan; Faux_Pas; ...

2 posted on 12/18/2009 5:20:57 PM PST by Kaslin (Acronym for 0bama: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Kaslin

The master plan to replace the dollar with the Euro isn’t working out too well.


3 posted on 12/18/2009 5:29:03 PM PST by denydenydeny (The Left sees taxpayers the way Dr Frankenstein saw the local cemetery; raw material for experiments)
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To: Kaslin

We will soon find out if there are more Union goons, Taxtakers and Communists to outnumber American Patriots.


4 posted on 12/18/2009 5:30:37 PM PST by screaminsunshine (!!)
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To: Kaslin

It all dates back to the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy in the Hoplites back in the day. Ever since then, it’s been downhill.


5 posted on 12/18/2009 5:53:28 PM PST by saganite (What happens to taglines? Is there a termination date?)
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To: denydenydeny

This is like peering into a crystal ball for the U.S. under the Obama Regime ?


6 posted on 12/18/2009 7:08:46 PM PST by dbrew2u
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