[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Trouble is, the media will not let socialism be blamed.

"Bad fiscal policy" happened.

[Crazieman]

No its not.

One can point to over a dozen nations mired in socialism and get the same response in each instance. “It wasn’t tried with the right people.”

[An.American.Expatriate]

"...Put Greece under receivership ..."

How exactly do you put a sovereign nation "under recievership"? Do you intend to invade and appoint new rulers?

[Libloather]

Only $350 billion? Heck, Chicago isn’t far behind.

[Gen.Blather]

This is a crazy idea. A sovereign nation is not a corporation that is under the umbrella of a court system and supporting legal structures. There is no magic higher level of oversight for a national government. Who would appoint the oversight? Who makes the hard calls as to who gets what?

I watched a socialist propaganda on how the EU should become essentially one nation with one fiscal policy that protects every socialist ideal and “investment” while somehow solving the problems. Austerity is not possible for an elected socialist government. An unelected one would simply redistribute the misery to people who couldn’t protest.

[fatnotlazy]

And yet there is this corps of mostly young people who want to make Bernie Sanders president because he has promised them all the usual enticements of socialism and communism. Try to explain to them that if old Bernie became president and he delivered on even half of his promises, this country's economy would end up like Greece's, and these supporters either give you a blank stare or they are under the illusion that Greece won't happen here because the US has this unlimited supply of money.

And these young people are far more educated than I. Obviously, they didn't learn anything about economics in school.

[Pollster1]

I wish I could believe this, but socialists are remarkably resilient. Even if they change the name, they continue with the same theme and variations. Obviously socialism is "not to blame" in their tiny little minds, even though it fails universally. They will just try a different flavor. Perhaps they will mix more nationalism into their socialism, or a more overt soviet version.

The one thing I am sure of is that the next step for Greece will not include more individual responsibility or more individual freedom. Whether they try to mirror Obama's particular brand of evil, follow Britain's Labour party and their left wing, or go back to an old failed pattern, they will never increase freedom or shrink government.

[arthurus]

A socialist country may lose a war and may bankrupt and bring famine to a people but socialism never loses.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

If only this were true. The global media is invested in the Socialist / Welfare State and will find a way to blame “austerity.”

[Sherman Logan]

Greece was never a rich nation. They just lived a rich life for awhile on borrowed money.

[bert]

Greece is a sovereign nation. There is no way it can be forced into receivership administered by an outside authority.

The Greek riff raff voted 60% for ending the bondage of Europe. Being Greek trumps being European

If Greece finds a vendor for gasoline there is no real problem

[DungeonMaster]

Wow Greece actually made Detroit look good in that article.

[SampleMan]

Actually, the big losers are the Greeks who voted socialist.

Socialism, as usual, will just put on a different dinner jacket and reappear somewhere else to be tried the “right way”.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

I’m guessing here, but the idea that Moore is trying to put forward is that Greece would agree to some type of receivership as part of a plan to get any more loans. I don’t think he is saying it’s going to happen, I think what he’s saying is that is what he thinks should happen.

Incidentally, I love this term they have now when depositors in banks get their life savings stolen from them by the government such as what happened in Crete. They call it getting a haircut. That is the worst haircut I have ever heard of!!

[Oldeconomybuyer]

... and decide who will take a hair cut – pensioners, bond holders, welfare recipients, government workers, the IMF ...

The riots begin promptly at noon-ish.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I would not conclude that yet, as I am not sure that Greece is not going to get away with this.

Some damage to world stock markets, a threat of Russian naval bases in the Mediterranean, an emerging global debt cartel,l the death of the elitist EU dream....I think there’s at least a 50-50 chance that Germany and the West eventually cry “uncle”.

[Skepolitic]

Sadly, most in the media and the general public will blame the banks, and since banking is an essential function of capitalism, the blame will be placed squarely on capitalism, which puts profits before people.

It’s a facile argument and nothing but sophistry. However, it has proven effective time after time.

The reason this argument is so effective is that the proximate cause of the crisis is that the banks have this pesky insistence upon timely payment of interest and principle. Nobody really enjoys payment of such, so banks are not particularly well-liked institutions. Compounding the problem is the fact that the banks knew these were bad loans when they made them and that they could only be serviced by government coercion of taxes from the productive sectors of the economy. The banks are, in fact, bad guys in such crises. However, from beginning to end, the banks are acting as agents for government rather than entrepreneurs in a free market.