[Jumper]

Count back 40-years.... In 1947 the Marshall Plan began 20+ years of transfers of money to war torn European countries; once the monies run out, they instituted VATs as a temporary measure beginning in 68-71 in every country. As the Marshall payments drew down, the VATs went up and became permanent.

Conclusion: Without the Marshall Plan, the European countries could have never implement their Social Welfare State. The USA paid the bills in grants/loans that allowed the instutitionalization of socialized Europe.

Today, Europe is pulling back from the 100% funded social welfare state - another conclusion is that they will never be able to sustain it without Crony Deals with Dictators who seize the wealth from poorer countries leaving them poorer and enriching the Eurolites.

[broken_arrow1]

Without the Marshall Plan, the European countries could have never implement their Social Welfare State.

The USA also provided the bulk of nuclear defense umbrella during the Cold War, allowing European nations to devote little resources to their own defense and continue to build their socialist welfare states. Globalists are preparing the end of American dominance by bringing the US economy to it's knees (which is succeeding). We continue to fund military campaigns in the Middle East and start new ones with money we don't have. Get ready - the UN and international forces will become the guardians of all. Stick a fork in us, we are almost done.

[workerbee]

The way I see it is, our military and our money kept all the boogeymen (read: Soviets) away from them all these years, so they could play at social engineering. They can sniff at us all they want and pretend they’re so above “war” but the fact is, WE are what allowed them to create their crappy socialist “utopias”.