You have to work with what you got. Greece will never be the economic powerhouse that the Northern European nations are . You talk of climate ;but I think it has more to do with geography . They don't have the river transportation system to become a major industrial nation.
However that is not the issue. The issue is that they pretend to be one that with over flowing coffers can promise the masses everything . That's fine so well as someone else pays for it .(the typical socialist model.. make someone's else pay for the largess... in this case they want the German money but not the conditions that the Germans would put on it. ) .

Hi Tom,

Sorry to keep pushing the de Tocqueville thing, but what do you call it when Congress increases the largeness of the wealthy from the public purse?

Tut

I call it an inside job!

The de Toqueville quote covers that as well. Crony socialism (misnamed crony capitalism) often favors the rich. Your socialist utopias all have their privileged cadres .

Tell me where my position advances that proposition. I have been consistent for a flat tax and elimination of tax breaks for all. Your progressive tax solutions are in fact regressive . Higher tax rates in Greece means capital flight . Gee ;what a surprise!

I can cover than one easily myself.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

I don't recall saying your tax position wasn't consistent.


Tut

Let's see, the president just had a fundraiser at the 7400 square foot home of George Clooney, with a guest list of extremely wealthy celebrities that paid $40,000 a plate to attend... all to advance the causes of the 99 percent I'm sure.

What's he supposed to do when the 1% candidate has unlimited resources and a few very rich super pacs behind him?

For a fact we know that Romney is NOT running for the 99%! But you already knew that!

The President in 2008 rejected public financing because he could easily exceed the public financing limits of McCain Feingold. He's full of shiite when it comes to this issue. His biggest support base in 2008 was Wall Street .

You mean the guy who raised almost a billion dollars the first time around, who was backed by super billionaire George Soros and friends, attacks Wall Street while holding a hand out and attacks Romney for Bain while raising millions at an event held by the COO of a private equity firm?

Cut the nonsense Tal, the left IS the "1 percent."

Sounds good on paper Steve, but most of the big money, is going for Mitt, to increase their already lavish tax cuts, and deductions that YOU will pay for. Me too! So will our kids. And grand kids. You know the ones who won't be able to better themselves through education, and won't be able to feed themselves because those rich job creators are doing there money making through cheap overseas labor.

You know the ones I mean, who got bailed out and have yet to return the favor. If you stop looking over your shoulder at Ex nipping at your heals you wouldn't make statements like "the left is the 1%!

You would instead insist that those ungrateful b@st@rds use their tax cuts, record profits, and deductions right here in the place that has helped them get rich, beyond rational dreams.

Come on country boy, you know better than letting the fox guard the hen house, so why let the wolf shepherd the sheep, or cattle in the case of the Great Republic of Texas. All you get are some FAT wolves and no cattle.

Why do you righties want us to be like Europe, when America is the best looking place in the world?

Brother, got anything besides clichés to argue with?

Sorry partner, you don't get to dismiss me out of hand. That's called denial. I understand, but I ain't going for it. You can't keep claiming federal government is the cause of all your ills, nor claim that corporations are your salvation without putting out facts.

Fact is that we have been letting corporations subvert the cause of the ordinary citizen for far to long without requiring they return the love as has been given them. The common sense business model we all grew under has changed into a vacuum cleaner, and we the people have left OUR government at there mercy.

Now make your credible argument why during the greatest economic downturn your heroes the private sector have made money hand over fist, and not contributed to the growth of a decimated public sector!

Tell me why the banks that deal with you, have floundered, and the banks that deal with the 1% have grown? Tell me if you even know about leveraging, and what an equity firm is, and does.

Tell me how you hate one president and would back a want to be that has promised more of the same extraction that IS going on now. Tell me how that helps YOU!! Go grab your coffee and lets have at it.

Anybody but Obama is no excuse to turn a blind eye to reality, and you will not dismiss those facts because you don't want to see it. So tell me how George Bush on steroids helps YOU!

I say it doesn't, and by being willing to get screwed, the rest of us will get screwed with you.

And my apologizes to Clete, as this is about Europe, not the United States, but the similarities are stark as letting Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy flounder and fail, is like us letting a state fail.

Yes it a very apt comparison indeed. Kalifornia just announced their budget deficit is double what they anticipated . They have been irresponsibly giving goodies to the public sector as long as any state in the Union and that has resulted into an unsustainable budget.
Now they tried to screw the companies that provide meaningful employment to the private sector until the business environment became intollerable and one by one ,private business left the state to business friendly confines of... TEXAS !

Now is it your argument that you ;a resident of Texas that you should pay for the disastrous policies of Jerry Brown and his ship of fools ?
Germany willingly is bailing out the greeks ;and they are being made to look like villians because they want preconditions to the bailout .

From clichés to insulting my intelligence. Nice.

Fact is, no one can sustain the type of cradle to grave entitlements the Greek people have come to expect. No national temper tantrum is going to change that, and you want us to go down the same road. Sorry, I haven't worked most of my life to coddle the "99 percent" that think they're entitled to everything free of charge. They can get off their a$$es and take care of themselves.

I mean Geez, the fact that Wal-Mart makes a gazillion dollars didn't prevent me from taking care of me and my family. In fact, them making money is the kind of thing that keeps people in jobs, unlike Obama picking winners and losers that just turn out to be losers. How many jobs is Solyndra creating?

Speech, Tal, you can't just let them sink otherwise what is the reason they should be part of your United States. Ok bad decision making has existed there because they haven't been fiscally responsible but they are not like Greece, they have had a vivrant economy, its just not working as well as it once did. Social programs take a long while to unwind, structural adjustment takes time, you can't just flick a switch because there are two sides to the equation, and revenue is as important as spending

Forget that . Obama touts his takeover of the auto industry as a success. How many lost their jobs there ? The US lost $14 billion and the auto industry lost 400, 000 jobs .That is Obama's definition of successs !

You guys are persistent, if not factual or accurate, and you fail to even acknowledge the great almost depression of our time. You fail to recognize that its your side pulling against the recovery that slows the progress, nor ignore the end game of extracting even more money through republican policies. Mainly, increasing the Bush tax cuts that fueled this robbery in the first place.

And maybe its your intention Tom, to point out the job losses by the auto industry, without acknowledging what would have been no auto industry and millions of job losses, and again you totally miss the Solyndra debate and ignore the lawsuit by other green energy companies against Chinese business practices.

Come on guys, surely you can see the underlying cause and effects of the global transitional economy, that has us all in flux, and fearful. Instead of fear, there must be a pragmatic nuanced very careful approach to restoring and reforming a system that benefits us all, and that REQUIRES a fully informed and knowledgeable electorate to achieve that goal.

I mean what good does it do any country to have most of the population poor, dumb, and consigned to a sweat shop that serves only the elites, or rich? Why do we have to lose a generation or so of our children because of our own fears of a rapidly changing world?

Sorry if you think I insulted you intelligence, not my intentions. But please look a bit deeper than Fox News for all the facts. In today's age, there is no excuse not to know what they don't tell you. So don't insult mine with a lack of facts.

Did you know that stopping the filibuster in the Senate would result in 1.5 million new jobs? Bet you don't, nor do you care.

Tal you may as well preach to the wind as try to change Tom's ideas. He is stuck in a rut, he thinks he is still in the twentieth century when america ruled the world. Capitalism is ending and change will be painfull, there is no panocea, no great recovery. So twenty years ago we learned the hard way that what was needed was consensus and the recession of the nineties was hard on us as hard as this recession is on you. Our industries disappeared overnight. But today we have an economy that is the envy of the developed world and whether we like it or not it was consensus politics that enabled it to happen. Doing what must be done whether it is ideologically correct or not. We just had something done that would be unthinkable to your politicians we increased taxes on the rich, not directly but by hitting their perks. Politically we couldn't get rid of negative gearing in the property market so the government changed the tax rates so the advantage was largely lost, but not a bleat out of the community who didn't realise what was happening, they were too busy counting their extra money to realise that tomorrow there would be a bigger bill.

You guys are going to learn the hard way too, yesterday is gone, it won't be back. So start building those wind generators you will need them, not out in the desert but next door and they make really useful cell towers too

They are desperate to turn America into an oligarchy, and that has global implications. The 1% know full well that they don't care about the deficit, and have no problem running it even higher and shrink the revenues and social contracts, so it can be privatized by them.

They actually believe that Americans have short memories, and are dumb enough to cut their own throats, and hand them the keys to the kingdom. Maybe some of us are, but not enough, I think, and that's what makes this election so important. Not just nationally, but on a state and local level.

We all know what happened last time they had the keys. It wasn't that long ago and the mess is still being cleaned up, even after they tried to hide the mop, and bucket.

Tom, you can call it crony socialism, crony capitalism; call it what you like. In the end there is no distinction. It is what it is. That being politicians on both sides being forced to pay the pipers who put them in power.

There is no crony capitalism or crony socialism, just cronyism.


Tut