Ceding Sovereignty

AKA Joining the EU or the Greek Regret

For some time I’ve been collecting links to articles for a large post on the American economy.  Sadly, there are simply too many pieces of bad news to write a reasonably sized post. Still don’t know what to do with all those links, but in the meantime a financial crisis in Europe may be an indicator of what will happen to the USA.

Greece’s deficit percentage of their GDP has ballooned to unmanageable proportions and it has caused the money markets to be shaky.  For awhile, it looked like Germany would bail them out since that is what people in Europe expect.  That is looking highly unlikely and the economically better off EU nations have little sympathy for the Greeks despite the threat insolvency would have on the Euro.

The Greek government shows no signs of taking any real measures to deal with their debt and the Greek people have threatened strikes and riots over austerity plans.  Total paralysis of the always unstable government is where they are at. With reform opposed by people on the dole, nothing can be done. This is the sad place turning a nation into a welfare state will take you.

Thing is, they joined the European Union. That means they ceded sovereignty under certain economic conditions according to the Lisbon Treaty. So now the Greeks have been informed that they have to take drastic measures or the EU will do it for them. While I have my doubts about the ability to force the Greeks to comply; it has to be noted that there has been talk of throwing them out of the EU.

I’ll be blunt.  I have no sympathy for the Greeks as they are a socialist state that can’t keep a coherent government in place for any extended amount of time. They also foolishly voted away their ability to be an independent nation out of greed, with visions of wealth rolling in from the union.

But this crisis bears watching for it may be a predictor of what will happen in the near future for the United States.  We are currently running an insane deficit in a moronic attempt to spend ourselves out of debt. While we aren’t part of an economic union that can step in to take over our finances, we have a problem in how much of our securities are held by China, our number one creditor.

Oh wait, they sold off a huge amount of our bonds in December and Japan is now #1.   China is showing signs of getting out of our bonds. But hey, we can find plenty of buyers because of how safe our bonds are, right? Ummmmm….

Yeah, we are in trouble.  Just three years out from when the Democrats took over Congress and we are considered riskier than Kazakhstan.  At some point the debts are going to be called due, especially if economic woes get worse in China and Asia. Our creditors will be in a place to dictate to us.

Our founding fathers looked to ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration in setting up our government.  I posted earlier about Victor Davis Hanson’s argument that we have made the same economic mistakes as the Romans.  Now I have to wonder if we are also following the path of the modern Greeks. 

 

 

del.icio.us Tags: Greece,financial crisis,economy,debt,EU,China,US bonds

There Is No “River Serial Killer” in La Crosse

One of the things that puzzles me about humanity is the tendency to believe in ridiculous conspiracies or imaginary things such as bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, Oswald being a patsy, and that Lady Gaga has talent.  When I was a kid, they appealed to me.  But age teaches you many things and one  was that if it was too ridiculous to be true – it probably wasn’t.

So it is with the theories that a serial killer lurks at the riverside in La Crosse, Wisconsin.  For years, drunk kids have been falling in the Mississippi and drowning.  Pretty straight forward stuff, but an urban legend has been created that states somebody must be shoving these young, healthy men into the water. Even the FBI has become involved.

Perish the thought that drunks are stupid and do stupid things in their inebriation.  No, there has to be some malicious person out there murdering the young idiots. I feel sorry for their friends and family, but come on!

Denial is a part of the grieving process, but I suspect it has more to do with justification of the bar culture than grief in La Crosse. The predominant culture of the town is college age binge drinking that economically fuels the downtown area.  Once upon a time, you could find La Crosse in the Guinness Book of Records for having the most bars on one street.  While that dubious honor was lost to Eau Claire awhile back, the culture remains.

Partying college students (and others their age) aren’t going to look at the headline about another drowning  and suddenly become introspective about their own behaviors.  The immature always blame somebody else and so they have created a bogey man out there preying on helpless drunks.  Personal responsibility must be avoided at all costs, after all.

The simple and obvious truth is that when someone gets drunk they lose the ability to think clearly.  One of the hallmarks is an inability to make good judgments. Another is being unable to walk in a straight line.  Combine the two and you have idiots falling into the river. Guess what is also impaired by alcohol?  Reflexes and motor skills.  You need those two to swim. 

There you have the perfect cocktail to accidently end one’s life. All of it is avoidable and makes these deaths senseless tragedies.  I would love to say that we’ll never see another one of these drownings, but I don’t think the bar culture in La Crosse is going to change any time soon. Young people aren’t encouraged to grow up in our society, so increased responsibility is unlikely as well.

Instead we’ll be hearing about a serial killer stalking the riverside for years to come.  The only killer out there is stupidity.

 

 

del.icio.us Tags: La Crosse,serial killer,river,Mississippi,drownings,drunk

The Fall of Roman America

Is America repeating Western history? Victor Davis Hanson has an interesting piece up comparing the Roman Empire to the United States.

It isn’t uncommon to hear people talk about how America is going the same way Rome did.  I’ve muttered about ‘bread and circuses” and have heard others make similar statements. Obviously, it is easy to make comparisons based on military, economic, and political parallels with the phrase “pax Americana” having been bandied about in the past. Rome was a republic, had the best military of its time, and were an economic powerhouse; all things that the United States was in the 20th Century.

It is the latter comparison that is the crux of Hanson’s article.  After giving an overview of how Rome succeeded economically and then was emulated by conquered provinces and neighbors who eventually outstripped them, he points out how rising countries such as China and India are doing the same to us.  Romans became rich and sedate by farming out the work to the outer provinces; losing their innovation and fire in the process.

Quote of the piece:

But as in the case of Rome, there is a price for all these sudden riches. Just as the Iberians, and Libyans, and Thracians were hungrier and more enterprising than Italians back in the bay of Naples, so too we, the beneficiaries of this wealth, lost the values that were at its heart, in a way that the Indians, Chinese, and others have not — yet.

Of late, I’ve had that horrible feeling of living history from within a failing culture.  Always wondered what it would be like to witness such a thing firsthand and I’m not too pleased at realizing I’m living it now. Like VDH, I think it is caused by psychological decisions and was preventable – maybe even reversible if we just had the will to take action.  But he puts it better than I can:

We could do this all right — but too many feel such medicine is worse than the malady, and so we probably won’t and can’t. An enjoyable slow decline is apparently  preferable to a short, but painful rethinking and rebirth.

That stubborn refusal to bite the bullet and do what is uncomfortable is normal for humans.  In our spoiled and entitled culture there is no desire to make personal sacrifices. Oh, we are good at making other people make sacrifices; usually through expanding government. Alas, being unselfish is a lost virtue.

Read the whole thing.

 

 

del.icio.us Tags: Rome,fall,America,Victor Davis Hanson,history repeats

Manmade Global Warming Scandal Fallout

Over at Honolulu Magazine, A. Kim Napier faces the growing evidence of corruption and fraud involving AGW scientists and writes:

I feel I’ve been had.

Right now, I think a lot of supporters of Green policies are in denial or afraid to admit they were wrong.  It is nice to see somebody come forward who had been pushing AGW and admit there is a scandal. 

Sadly, science has lost its ethics in the pursuit of grant money, with the IPCC scandal being the most obvious example.  That will be damaging for those who have invested great faith in scientists and research.  Like Napier, I feel that disappointment – though I realized the problem a long time ago.  Too often studies get big attention then within a decade are completely rebutted well after most people have accepted theory as fact.

Just another sign of the times, I suppose.

Science needs to purify itself, go back to observation leading to theory, not theory leading to falsified observation.

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Is Iowa Trying to Take Over the World?

del.icio.us Tags: Iowahawk,Iowa,conspiracy,Korea

 

Iowa long has had a disproportionate influence on American politics from having early primaries to hosting a giant straw poll at Ames.  Being a Minnesotan, I’ve long held suspicions about the sinister nature of our neighbors to the south, compounded by my 1st and 2nd grade experiences when we briefly lived there.  It

simply isn’t right for school buses to move with synchronized precision right down to the second at the school I attended.  It was all vaguely Stepford Wives’ish.

So when Iowahawk started wondering what was going on with Korea and the University of Iowa football team it became pretty clear what is happening.  He’s possibly stumbled on to a vast conspiracy that has global ramifications.  There is too much going on to be just a coincidence and Iowa’s political ambitions of political dominance are on record.

It is obvious the shadowy powers running the state have taken the next step toward realizing a dream of global empire not seen since the British colonial era.  The use of a Korean all girl pop group is the most insidious of weapons that can be deployed and should be stopped by international treaties.  Korea is only the start and I wouldn’t be surprised it Iowa tries to undermine New Zealand next.

But I must issue a word of caution:  Iowahawk himself might be in on Iowa’s nefarious plans.  Look at his online alias containing the words ‘Iowa’ and ‘hawk’ together, implying that he is a fanatical patriot of the state.  This could be a disinformation ploy to hid Iowa’s true agenda…

Caucus Time in Minnesota

Next Tuesday night we have the political caucuses for the Republican and Democrat-Farmer Labor parties.  Not many states have this system, so it is something different than most voters expect.  Instead of going someplace to vote in a primary for predetermined candidates, the local voter goes to a caucus where they can choose to run for a delegate seat in the county convention.  Resolutions are also submitted and voted upon to be considered at the previously mentioned convention.

In other words, it is an opportunity for the little guy to be heard and have some effect on local politics beyond just voting. Locally, the county chairs for both parties sat down with reporter Ryan Henry at The Houston County News for an informative article.

Government is best run if the people are fully involved and I recommend that every Minnesotan with a political opinion put their time and energy where their mouths are by attending their local caucus.

I’ll be doing my part as a convener for the Republican Party caucus location in Houston.  Should be interesting if the Tea Parties are any indication!

State of Disunion Speech

Well, that was a dismal performance last night.  Watching the talking heads on PBS try to spin the State of the Union speech being a great performance was to view an exercise in futility, as even Mark Shields admitted the speech wasn’t one that would be remembered in history.  I didn’t catch the entire thing but what I saw was a vintage Obama campaign speech.  That means it was devoid of substance, filled with lies, and highly partisan.

The AP put out a fact check that took the President to task on multiple statements and promises he made during the speech last night.  All are valid points and I’d like to add the one that managed to really anger me:  the claim to have supported the protesters in Iran.  Those of us who have followed the protests there have been frustrated with Obama’s refusal to support them and weak criticisms of the ruling dictatorship he wants to negotiate with so badly.

Despite the voters in Massachusetts rejecting Obamacare in shocking fashion earlier this month, the President showed himself to be no Bill Clinton.  There was no attempt to triangulate, or at least no intelligent one, by moving away from health care “reform.” Instead, Obama showed himself to be utterly committed to passing that corrupt bill no matter the cost.  Nobody is buying that it will lower costs, Champ.

Of course, he whined constantly about inheriting all the problems and this shows the Democrats inability to do anything other than “blame Bush.” That isn’t going to work anymore and will be completely without effect by the elections in November.

Another thing jumped out at me was when he announced the spending freeze and that it wouldn’t hurt people today because it would be implemented next year when the economy was better.  No applause when he made his typical “stop for the adulation pause” and scattered laughter followed.  Mr. Cool lost his cool and glared at Congress and ended up evoking more laughter.

Empty promises are the medium politician work with, but this one was such a whopper that even a chamber full of pols couldn’t believe it.  Obama believes everyone is so stupid that they’ll buy into the ridiculous concept of making an emergency cut in funding after it is no longer needed!  That way it won’t hurt!

Oh, please.

More people are waking up to the fact that President Obama is a con man who doesn’t really care about the people of this country.  If he keeps throwing out farcical pronouncements like the spending freeze, his only supporters will be the diehards in the Democratic Party.  It is already getting dangerously close to that as recent special elections have shown. By the time November rolls around, the Democrats in Congress will be in dire shape.

But we are stuck with this fraud in the White House for another three years and he will do a great deal of damage through the bureaucracy.  Barack Obama is simply the wrong man at the worst possible time to helm America.

 

ADDENDUM

I forgot to mention the direct attack on the Supreme Court that was made to their faces.  That was not a Presidential action and showed just what a demagogue Obama really is. Trying to cajole Congress into writing what would be another unconstitutional law to override the SCOTUS decision freedom of speech shows what disdain the so-called Constitutional scholar has for the Bill of Rights.  It also made clear how little value he has for the separation of powers across the three branches of government.

Barack is not a class act.