Updated: Land of Moussaka, Moochers and Looters

Debt, Democracy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Welfare

COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU. The excerpt is from “Land of Moussaka, Moochers and Looters,” which you can read on WND.COM:

“The public sector and its syndicates will collapse a country before they accept “austerity measures” – the focus of disaffection among Greece’s gritty street fighters is the requirement that they begin to exercise frugality.

Against the better judgment of the people in member EU states, the Eurocrats have committed to rescuing the profligate Greeks. The International Monetary Fund (for which Americans are liable, too) will assist. In exchange, the slackers striking out on city streets and against their compatriots will have to watch their public-sector wages slashed, pensions cut, pay frozen. And, horrors, Greeks will have to live with ‘liberalized labor laws,’ in other words, allow some economic freedoms to the few workers who carry the welfariat. …

The defaulting Dionysians, on the other hand, are fueled with the righteousness of the wronged. From the janitor to the journalist, they blame their politicians who, in exchange for power, only gave the demos what they demanded at the time. …

The Grecian wilding is a minor event compared to the events that’ll unfold should China quit funding our federal behemoth’s bacchanalia, and the Moody’s credit-rating agency downgrades U.S. Treasuries to junk bond status, befitting a banana republic.” …

The complete column is “Land of Moussaka, Moochers and Looters,” now on WND.COM.

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

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Update (May Eighth): Pat Buchanan on the Greek welfariat:

“… consider what brought Greece to where she is – running a deficit of 14 percent of gross domestic product with a debt approaching 100 percent, with Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Great Britain not that far behind.
All of Europe adopted universal health care. All voted in a shorter workweek, a higher minimum wage, greater job security, earlier retirements and munificent pensions.
As the cradle-to-grave welfare states rose, an ever-increasing share of the labor force left the private sector for the security of the public sector.
Tax-consumers, the beneficiaries of the welfare states and the bureaucrats that ran them, grew in number, as taxpayers declined as a share of the labor force. Though Greece was far from the most productive nation in Europe, Athens led the parade. …
And America is not all that far behind.
While the federal deficit is not 14 percent of GDP, it was 10 percent in 2009 and may reach 11 percent in 2010. Trillion-dollar deficits are projected through the decade, bringing the public debt – held by citizens, companies, foreign governments and sovereign wealth funds – close to 100 percent of GD
And the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and federal pensions rival those of Western Europe.
States like California and New York, larger than Greece, look a lot like Greece. Were it not for the scores of billions dished out to them by Obama’s stimulus, some of these states would have come close to the brink New York City went over in 1975.
Many of these states are today laying off teachers, letting felons out of prison and looking hard at the salaries and pensions of civil servants. While the temptation is great for Washington to bail them out again, the United States government itself has now begun to attract the concerned notice of holders of U.S.debt.” …

[SNIP]

Keynesians still manage to surprise me. Fox News’ Neil Cavuto helped disseminate ignorance and immorality when he entertained an “economist,” or just a shyster, who advanced anti-gravity claims: austerity measures were the wrong thing for Greece. National bankruptcy could never happen in the US, because we have a printing press with which to create prosperity. Just like that.

By that logic, why work? Why produce? Why not just print magic money at that paper Pantheon, and hand it out to Americans who can then sit idle on the beaches?

Hasselbeck’s Hassles

Celebrity, Conservatism, Feminism, Gender, Media, Republicans

To Socratic debate, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, I wrote, “has contributed the sob, the wide-eyed stare, and extravagant gesticulation. When words and wild gestures fail, she weeps.”

And weep she did once again, after being forced to apologize for one of the few witty observations she’s ever made concerning a female sports announcer (also known as a woman who spoils the sporting experience for men).

Watch Hasselbeck’s mea culpa. Watch George Stephanopoulos, now anchor of ABC’s “Good Morning America.” He takes the Fifth. (Stephanopoulos is one of the better lefties in the media.)

The rest of my description of this member of the Republican blond brigade:

Hasselbeck is the Republican’s brain trust on a show called ‘The View.’ Her conservative credentials include support for breast cancer prevention and research, the Amber Alert Initiative, the war, Our Leader, and, more generally, being blond and bubbly.

And don’t go accusing me of neglecting her contribution to liberty:

“Hasselbeck was a prime mover behind the persecution of Imus, for politically unpalatable speech, alongside race hustlers Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, neocon sister Amy Holmes, and other sundry sorts of the left (Whoopi Goldberg, Maya Angelou, Naomi Wolf).”

Onward Imperialism In Okinawa

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Foreign Policy, Military

America has been waiting for this for months, says the Economist:

“Japan’s leader, does not exude political gravitas. So it was dispiritingly in-character that when he made an announcement on May 4th that could make or break his premiership, he did so on a national holiday, speaking unpersuasively to the very people most likely to disapprove of what he said.

The bombshell he dropped on his first visit as prime minister to the island of Okinawa was that he was backtracking on what has become the most sensitive promise of last year’s election campaign—to move an American marine base off the island and possibly out of Japan altogether.

His explanation, as far as it went, made sense, though it took a painfully long time to reach. After long deliberation, the prime minister said, he had concluded that the security of a region with a nuclear-armed, reckless North Korea depends, in part, on having some American marines in Okinawa. But instead of seizing the opportunity to explain to Okinawans how American troops help keep the peace, he referred to the soldiers dismissively as a “burden” that had to be shared by Okinawans.”

[SNIP]

American occupation has been quite the burden to bear, especially for one 12-year-old 6th-grade Japanese girl, beaten and raped in 1995 by American GIs. Thirteen years hence two more women that we know of paid a similar price.

Steyn On Arizona

IMMIGRATION, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Multiculturalism, Nationhood

Mark Steyn shines on the topic of Arizona, and ventures comments on mass immigration. Perhaps we can expect a more courageous stand on the matter in the future?

“….Almost every claim made for the benefits of mass immigration is false. Europeans were told that they needed immigrants to help prop up their otherwise unaffordable social entitlements: In reality, Turks in Germany have three times the rate of welfare dependency as ethnic Germans, and their average retirement age is 50. Two-thirds of French imams are on the dole.”

Here’s more from STEYN’s “Bigotry label for thee, not me: Liberals bash Arizonans from the back seat of their limos”:

But wait: What about the broader economic benefits? The World Bank calculated that if rich countries increased their work forces by a mere 3 percent by admitting an extra 14 million people from developing countries, it would benefit the populations of those rich countries by $139 billion. Wow.

In his book ‘Reflections on the Revolution In Europe,’ Christopher Caldwell points out, ‘The aggregate gross domestic product of the advanced economies for the year 2008 is estimated by the International Monetary Fund at close to $40 trillion.’ So an extra $139 billion works out to a spectacular 0.0035 percent. Mr. Caldwell compares the World Bank argument to Austin Powers’ nemesis, Dr. Evil, holding the world hostage for 1 million dollars. ‘Sacrificing 0.0035 of your economy would be a pittance to pay for starting to get your country back.’ A dependence on mass immigration is not a gold mine nor an opportunity to flaunt your multicultural bona fides, but a structural weakness, and it should be addressed as such.”

[SNIP]

In case you haven’t, read my “Tell Establishment Media A Dog Died On The Border.”