Portuguese Socialists Threaten Economic Atomic Bomb

There is a liberal in my office...half Portugese. He has stated numerous times that ‘government should take care of its people’.

I laugh.

In his mind, government is like the Scrooge McDuck...a paternal figure doling out support to the masses. He has no concept of where Scrooge McDuck gets his wealth (or that his vault is beyond empty right now).

He is particularly stubborn on healthcare...after all, it ‘works’ in Portugal. What Portugal has is a dual system, where the wealthy can get healthcare on their own, outside of the state run system. So, its better than the Canadian model, but still not sustainable.

I will send him this article. He will not be able to understand that allegedly free healthcare is helping to contract the Portugese economy.....now that I think about it, he has expressed concern that the western model of expanding economies is not ‘sustainable’... so the article will be very trivial to him.

AAahhhh ! Bless you !!!!

I’VE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR 20 YEARS AND PEOPLE THINK I’M NUTS !

The socialism ONLY worked because they bore no risk for their own national security.

America was backstopping them - if anything happened, America was there to jump in and protect them.

That - and this is huge and subtle, such that even the U.S. Presidents like Ike did not understand the long term - is why NATO was a ridiculous mistake from day 1.

Immediately after WWII, the rebuilding is one thing, that was fine because the Europeans ARE the same as Americans, i.e., those that came from Europe and who ran everything in America before wWII. Euros were not going to try to attack us and they ONLY needed some capital, not to be “taught modernity” to keep them from killing us by the thousands in terror plots. In a word, they were “sane”.

But... beyond rebuilding, I would have been absolutely dead serious clear with their leaders, and publicly - YOU FREEKING IDIOTS ARE ON YOUR OWN TO DEFEND YOURELF AGAINST THE RED MENACE.

Of course if the cr@p hits the fan we’re there, but our published policy should have been to let them know that THEY need to build a massive military and their aim should be parity without counting on our forces. The fact that there would have been NO defense treaty, in essence, NO guarantee, would have made them be defense-conscious. This would have informed their government budgets and national mentality for decades.

Instead, with NATO, we were carrying the log in the middle, and they just had one hand under one end. Their military guys have the fighting spirit, but most of their governments and the rest of society are “entitled” to U.S. military security. Now that Russia has rebranded, some mockingly talk about not having a need for superpower assistance. Regardless of what I see on the horizon, standing around with my pants down is not smart.

The critical cause of WWII (the reason it was not averted) was the fact that they did not take war preparation seriously and were not proactive in policy. If you’re truly scared, you prepare and are proactive, and if a nation really gets that it’s ultimately on it’s own, it’s got enough healthy fear to motivate itself.

Default was always the obvious decision.

Default plus staying in the Euro zone.

What, are France and Germany going to expel the PIIGS if they refuse to service their current debts?

Borrowing more is not an issue, either.

The old debt is gone - no interest to pay, no principle to roll over.

The PIIGS can borrow ultra short term - 4 week terms, maybe 14% APR.

They’d have a bad year or two, but then they’d come out squeaky clean on the other side.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.