Posted on 01/26/2015 7:44:07 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In Greece, the far-left Syriza party has won a stunning victory. Under the leadership of charismatic populist Alexis Tsipras, it has claimed around 150 parliamentary seats and defeated the governing centrist New Democracy party. Across Europe, leftists are elated. They see this as a historic turning point, the moment when they can put a stop to the austerity-through-spending-cuts approach.
And to some degree, they’re right. There’s no question that voters have rewarded a far-left party for its far-left platform. Just consider what Syriza proposes: significant increases in government spending, a rise in the minimum wage and in pensions, and a splurge on entitlements. Most important, Tsipras intends to renegotiate and write off most of Greece’s massive debt obligations.
Unfortunately for Greek voters, the world isn’t that simple. Syriza’s platform is, in fact, delusional. Alice in Wonderland comes to mind. “If I had a world of my own,” Alice says, “everything would be nonsense.” The Greek voters who brought Syriza to victory are asking for nothing less. After all, what are German taxpayers to make of Syriza’s proposals? Having already spent many billions to save Greece from a fiscal meltdown and preserve its euro-zone access, Germans are now being asked to give up on getting their money paid back. Syriza’s debt-forgiveness plan is fundamentally unserious. In fact, it’s an economic variation of the movie Dumb and Dumber — particularly the scene where Lloyd asks Harry to embrace him after trading their modified van for a pathetic scooter. In the same way, Tsipras seems to believe he can fly to Berlin and say to Merkel, “Listen, we’re also going to betray your investment, but we want you to smile about it.” In Dumb and Dumber, Harry accepts Lloyd’s proposal. But Merkel is not Harry. While Germany is likely to negotiate with Tsipras for the sake of EU stability, German voters aren’t going welcome more Greek irresponsibility.
This isn’t just about questions of finance and debt — it’s about the nature of society and the underlying role of personal responsibility. The undeniable, proven-by-history truth — a truth that the far Left in Europe and America ignores — is that socialism is a cause of economic suffering, not its solution. Greece’s economic difficulties (25 percent unemployment) aren’t caused by capitalism; rather, the blame lies squarely on the Greek governing class that for many years constructed an inefficient and ever more bloated state, with no one to pay for it. Instead of admitting this truth, Greek voters have taken two easier options: Blame Germany, and pretend things will get better.
But things will only get worse. As I wrote last year, when discussing France’s economic collapse, socialism’s failure is inherent to its ideology. When President Hollande tried to soak France’s high earners, they simply left the country or stopped investing. Hollande chose to completely ignore the movability of 21st-century capital, and his country is paying the price. Reality is hard, but as the U.K.’s successful “austerity” program attests — the U.K.’s 2014 third-quarter growth was 2.6 percent, compared with France’s 0.4 percent growth — spending cuts are necessary for investor confidence. These investors encourage private-sector growth and productivity.
Of course, politics is about emotion as much as reality. And here, socialism has one advantage in its favor: easy populism. Just watch this gem of a quote from the leader of Britain’s socialist Green Party, this weekend: “Maybe we’ll have to pay sewer cleaners more than bankers and that might be a good thing.” Matched to Syriza’s plans, that quote illuminates the ultimate truth. Looking in the mirror isn’t easy, and sometimes voters prefer to jump through the looking glass.
— Tom Rogan writes for the Daily Telegraph and is a contributor to The McLaughlin Group. He holds the Tony Blankley Chair at the Steamboat Institute, is based in Washington, D.C.
Try that with your mortgage banker.
The real “mass delusion” was on the part of the German bank executives and government officials who believed that Greece would adhere to austerity and pay back its debt. Let them default, devalue, drop out of the Euro and turn on the Welfare spending spigot full blast. Station troops at the border so the internal civil war that decimates the country doesn’t spill over, but otherwise, let the ugly end of Greek Socialism play out. Its the only way Socialism ever ends.
The unanswered question in all that is where are the austerity measures for those in Greece that are making millions of dollars a year while ordinary saps suffer reductions in already meager pensions?
I’m sorry a nation with as illustrious a history as Greece has to be reduced to an object lesson for the failure of socialism but here we go.
Why should the people have to suffer for the loans from the globalist bankers? Let their leaders who force-feed these policies on their populations pay up....they're the ones who profited.
You can't improve the economy if the "little folk" don't have stability and money to spend. I hope Greece breaks free while they still have a nation and culture to save.
It's not a delusion.
What's a delusion is the belief that undergirds the Davos Empire, which is 1) The sovereign debt will be repaid or 2) Those nations who owe sovereign debt will pay interest in increasing amounts unto the fifth generation.
Neither of those things is going to happen. Debt as money is going to collapse. Where, when, and how, and who wins and who loses are still TBD.
But believing that Greece's debt will be paid (or America's debt, for that matter) is the true delusion.
maybe they got some of their ideas from:
Venezuela
Argentina
Cuba
The big elephant in the room:
What OTHER EU countries may default because of this-
Since when does the government pay the salaries of bankers? Sewer cleaners, on the other hand, do work for the government. Overpaid government workers, and their retirement pensions, are what causes problems. Just another example of how clueless the Socialists are.
The left is celebrating prematurely and already overstating their victory but like François Hollande in France they will just feed the rise of the right in Europe when they fail spectacularly.
Defaulting on its debts to foreign governments could be a good thing if it generally serves to discourage loans to foreign governments, particularly socialist ones.
Let the Economic version of playing chicken begin.
That’s a winning formula, welsh on your debts and ask the countries that loaned it for more.
Try that with your mortgage banker.
If Iran is any example, Obama would pay them just to
keep negotiating.
That's a lot easier to do with a country of less than one million people who aren't addicted to other people's money.
Greece needs to kick start its economy.
Maybe start a war with Turkey
“If I owe you a pound, I have a problem; but if I owe you a million, the problem is yours.”
-John Maynard Keynes
I have to say that I agree with you. Capitalism is one of the greatest positive forces in the universe, but it can also be its own worst enemy.
Pretty much all the entrepreneurs have left and the only people left making millions are in league with the government. One of the few results from socialism and communism that you can count on is the pie shrinks while portions get more uneven.
I would not consider the EC to be driven primarily by capitalism. For the most part it is controlled by a coalition of socialist governments and big banks.
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