Okay, so I made up the dino-killing-comet, but the quickest way to lose credibility is to predict the end of the world then stand around with your thumb up your ass when it doesn't happen. The good part about longterm predictions is that the dumb ones will be forgotten over time, so sky-is-falling types can flail away at common sense until the cows come home, knowing full well that their sad sack glimpse into the future won't be remembered. Ralph is better than that, but at times even he forgets how maleable human beings can be.
"Western Europe's generous social-benefits programs were running into economic walls by the 1980s. Then came the IT revolution, globalization and the international triumph of entrepreneurship. Now, under irresistible competitive pressures, socialist systems that long flirted with bankruptcy face a long-term marriage with insolvency.
Who are the winners in a globalizing world? Those willing to adapt, innovate and work hard. Which means, above all, North Americans and East Asians, the English-speaking world and talented individuals who welcome risk. Who loses? Those who cling to the past, who demand privileges without paying for them, who cherish stultifying security above opportunity.
In recent weeks, our own immigrants, legal and illegal, demonstrated for the right to work. Simultaneously, French students marched to prevent the creation of jobs for the less-privileged. Which culture is going to excel?
Now Italians, faced with the worst economic growth rates among Western Europe's major states and a benefits-funding crisis, have voted - narrowly - for a return to a dysfunctional past: leftist economics, the nanny state and the postponement of essential reforms. Outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi didn't change enough. Romano Prodi, his successor and a ghost from the past, promises not to change anything. The election was a vote for cancerous illusions.
Even in Germany, where the population has begun to grasp that reforms are unavoidable, the changes to date have been minimal. A weak coalition government's approach is to delay further trips to the political dentist as long as possible.
Today's Western Europeans, with their impossible expectations, fear of change and allergy to hard work, illustrate the insidious effects of socialism even more sharply than do the populations of failed third-world states. The Europeans, after all, once worked proudly. They had functioning economies that achieved impressive growth rates. They were competitive.
Today, Old Europe's growth is so anemic it's virtually stagnant. Unemployment averages around 10 percent (the rate is under 5 percent in the U.S.). Yet, even that figure's deceptive, since youth unemployment is far higher - 23 percent in France, for example. This means that older workers, protected by law, puff out the employment rolls, but the rising generation isn't being integrated into the workforce. This is Europe's true "lost generation."
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There is NOTHING wrong with generous social benefits. Civilization takes care of it's own, and generous by today's standards would seem outrageous by yesterdays. It's the nanny-state mentality that stifles the spirit, and Europe IS chockerblock with that.
5 comments:
Where are the nations that have generous social benefits (on the European scale) and avoid socialism and all of its growth killing pathologies?
Also, where is the historical evidence of civilizations that took “care of their own” in this context and prospered because of it? Rome’s bread and circuses created the climate that allowed wave after wave of barbarian invaders to bring on that period of history we lovingly recall as the Dark Ages.
Well, it's like this; first there were caves. Large men with good hand-eye coordination beat back other omnivores that would share the planet with them, and for a time all men who weren't large enough or good enough with a spear didn't get dibs on passing along their genes. Then came civilization, and less impressive males were not only tolerated, but cared for and given other jobs, like say, running on a Democratic ticket for election to village idiot. Some of the folks thought that, gee, isn't this a little too much? They can't do shit but we feed them and care for them, and for what? To pass long runty babies?
Civilization. Other, even smaller men, were watching all this and THEY had the idea that wow, maybe if I tell them that the clouds and the lighting speak to me, they'll treat ME pretty good as well.
This banding together to protect the weaker from the stronger seemed to work fairly well because there were lots more people around, and that was a good thing, right, but there were those who believed that if you couldn't measure up, it was off to the human sacrifice pit and don't let the door hit you in the ass.
And then really really smart guys came along and invented eyeglasses and medicines, and all sorts of crutches for the really really weak, and just about anyone could face the day with some hope of shagging one of the less attractive women and passing along those squinty, sickly genes.
Civilization. And then came the French. They figured that, what the hell, EVERYONE should be clothed and fed and guaranteed an occupation regardless of their capacity to occupate. This began to piss off most of the rest of the Western World, but eons had passed since only large men with really good hand-eye coordination were allowed to do as they pleased and most everyone had forgotten how it used to be, so they couldn't really put their finger on it, but some of this stuff just didn't sound right.
Besides; all of the really really capable men were playing sports...not soccer, of course... or joining the Marines, and that left the really really lucky to be civilized men thanking their stars for civilization or it'd be off to the human sacrifice pit, or even worse, looking for Democrats to vote for them.
Relativity. Society's that claim to be civilized take care of their weaker, less capable members. Giving someone life when death would have been the only alternative, is a really really good social benefit when seen from the perspective of the soccer players and Democrats.
It is true that there are many benefits to living in the state of civilization as opposed to the state of nature. However the massive redistribution of income from the productive to the nonproductive is a good way to bring back the state of nature.
At least until some strong man rises up and promises to get everything back to normal if only you invest him with all power.
This is what is likely to happen in France sometime in the next decade.
Next time you're in Israel do like I did, and listen. Theres a little land that strives so very hard to balance socialism with free enterprise, and if I was asked once I was asked dozens of times how people who are not required to fight can have any say in certain matters. Being protected is the single biggest social umbrella there is, so how can they who afford themselves of a freedom paid for by the lives of others even begin to interject opinions about "give-aways".
I'd tell them that they hadda be here to really understand that we just want folks to earn their way along if they can, and it kept coming back full circle to the bottom line. But the vast majority of your people don't contribute to the protection of the country, in any way, so how can any of them complain about entitlements when they are all entitled to an unbelievable degree.
It does change a man to hear what the rest of the world has to say, sometimes it does. France SHOULD be doomed but it'll probably be as history suggests; things will get SO much worse that the real citizens will take matters into their own hands and right the ship.
I hope so. A strong France means a stronger Europe and we'll need all the help we can in this latest Crusade.
If you’re trying to equate veterans benefits with welfare you cannot. It is like comparing fresh oranges picked by legal labor being paid fair wages with rotten maggot infested apples.
Veteran’s benefits are not hand-outs. They are a form of delayed compensation paid to men and women who make the sacrifices and face the risks of wearing the uniform. They do not represent charity from the government any more than an actor or writer’s residuals represent charity from a TV or movie studio.
As for Israel, while I love them and admire them and acknowledge that they are filled up to the nose holes with courage the fact is that their socialist economy is not self sufficient. If it weren’t for the foreign aid that they receive from the USA and the private contributions from Jews in the US and Europe their economy would collapse.
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