Voting is done in Northeastern primaries and after tallying a number of votes Shillary Hillary has won four out five states with Bernie winning in Rhode Island by two delegates. I know that this might be hard for the Sandroids to believe, but Bernie had little chance of winning to begin with and is most certainly finished by now. But according to the aging socialists he’s going to take it out to the convention. Bernie has also blamed poor people for his failure. I’m not using hyperbole on that as Bernie actually told NBC’s Meet the Press “poor people don’t vote.” and “I mean, that’s just a fact,” Sanders continued. “That’s a sad reality of American society.”
Bernie’s supporters need some serious help:
I’m sure that Bernie will find a path towards victory…
I was hoping for some Ted Cruz victories yet I would still gladly support Trump over the lying old hag and the aging communist. What an awesome election it’s been and I’m sure that it can only get better as it drags on.
Today’s post is dedicated to my complex, intelligent, factually-based, and well-thought out debates with the Sandroid Bernout Army. I’m just kidding folks, there wasn’t a whole lot of critical thinking going on in the mind of the Sandroids. Only one of the people I asked questions of was somewhat reasonable. You’ve heard me talk of the folks over at Economic Illiterates for Bernie Sanders 2016 before and this is where most of the discussions took place at.
To start this off here’s a CNN that some Sandroids decided to spam the aforementioned page with.
In the CNN article a single economist by the name of Gerald Freidman claims that under Bernie’s plan the U.S. economy would:
“Friedman, who believes in democratic socialism like the candidate, found that if Sanders became president — and was able to push his plan through Congress — median household income would be $82,200 by 2026, far higher than the $59,300 projected by the Congressional Budget Office.
In addition, poverty would plummet to a record low 6%, as opposed to the CBO’s forecast of 13.9%. The U.S. economy would grow by 5.3% per year, instead of 2.1%, and the nation’s $1.3 trillion deficit would turn into a large surplus by Sanders’ second term.”
I’m fairly certain that most of the Bernie supporters didn’t get past this part (or the title for that matter) since right after that portion of the article was the following:
“Other economists, however, feel that Friedman’s analysis is overly optimistic, saying it would be difficult to achieve that level of economic prosperity. Last week, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said Sanders’ plan to pay for health care would fall short by at least $3 trillion.”
I wonder where the $14.5 trillion is going to come from?
“Sanders’ plan to pour $14.5 trillion into the economy — including spending on infrastructure and youth employment, increasing Social Security benefits, making college free and expanding health care and family leave — would juice GDP and productivity. (Friedman reduces the cost of Medicare-for-all to $10.7 trillion because he estimates the government would save $3.1 trillion by eliminating tax breaks for health insurance premiums.) ”
“‘Like the New Deal of the 1930s, Senator Sanders’ program is designed to do more than merely increase economic activity,’ Friedman writes. It will ‘promote a more just prosperity, broadly-based with a narrowing of economy inequality.’”
“Many presidential hopefuls say their economic programs would boost growth. Donald Trump and Jeb Bush justify their big tax cuts by saying GDP would grow at a 4% rate. But their plans have been panned by experts as overly optimistic. ”
We won’t get 4% growth per year in the economy, but Bernie and his Bernouts will find a way to make the U.S. economy consistently grow at 5.3% every year.
“Friedman, however, argues that Sanders’ plan would be more stimulative because it is pouring money into the economy, as opposed to cutting taxes. Several of Sanders’ proposals — such as spending $1 trillion on infrastructure — will happen in the first few years of his administration.
The thinking goes: This enhanced government spending would increase demand on businesses, who would then hire more workers to meet their needs. The increase in employment will prompt people to buy more, leading other businesses to hire.
‘If there is more spending, people will have more to do,’ Friedman said, noting that the share of the population with jobs could be restored to its 1999 level of more than 64%, up from its current 59.6% rate.”
So if we take more money from citizens just to give it back to them later the economy will grow? Brilliant…
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At the end of the article we see the following:
“Still, some experts question whether the effects would be that large.
Stimulating demand can boost a weak economy during a recession, but ‘it’s harder to accept as a long-run growth strategy,’ said William Gale, the former director of Brookings’ Economic Studies Program.
Also, it would be very difficult to achieve and maintain an economic growth rate of 5.3% per year after inflation. That target hasn’t been hit consistently since the 1960s, when technology was providing big advancements, the workforce was younger and there was increased demand for American products worldwide as other countries fully recovered from World War II.
‘The 5.3% number is a fantasy,’ said Jim Kessler, senior vice president at Third Way, a centrist think tank.”
Now that I’ve established what the Bernie trolls are citing as evidence of their ideas being correct, let’s look at how they respond to my arguments.
Here was the standard response I gave (i.e. copied and pasted) since the Sandroids kept citing the same article without reading it.
Some people never really responded…
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Like I said at the beginning, there was one individual who was reasonable and not full of hate.
Then there were the people who would disagree with what I had to say but offered no evidence of their own whilst calling me a liar. The logic that the Sandroids are using is simply amazing…
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Concerning a discussion not related to the CNN article Mr. Joe Giansante provided some good entertainment. This postal worker appears to be going postal on me.
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Mr. Tanous had some interesting logic as well; the “1%” are keeping Africa to perform sweatshop labor yet also stopping all economic development. I’m not certain how that works, especially when countries like South Africa are ruled by the socialists in the African National Congress and communist dictators rule Zimbabwe. What’s up with progressives and thinking that their opponents base everything off of Fox News?
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Then there was a woman by the name of Sally Sallernio who makes some wondrous claims yet is also unable to back them up.
She actually argued that facts don’t matter…
I know what Comrade Sally needs in her life, a lifetime subscription to Poor Me! magazine.
That’s all for now about my conversations with the Sandroid Bernout Army. As always, don’t be scared to share this information with your fiends, I mean friends.
A constant refrain that I hear from progressives is that the United States had 90% taxes during the 1950s and the country was still prosperous. Progressives seem to believe that it is a golden era that we need to emulate in all economic facets…
I wonder how many of these proud Party members have actually taken the time to think about what caused the United States to be the world’s pre-eminent economic power during the 1950s. Is it possible that 90% income tax rates on the wretched and vile “1%” led to economic prosperity (or at least didn’t hinder it) or is there something more to the story? Let’s start by taking a look at what taxes were paid to the Federal Government in the post WWII years (I bet WWII took a while to pay off also). A publication produced by UC Berkeley in 2007 entitled “How Progressive is the U.S. Federal Tax System? A Historical and International Perspective”provides much insight into what the “1%” actually paid in taxes in the 1950s. Let’s take a look:
“The 1960 federal tax system was very progressive even within the top percentile, with an average tax rate of around 35 percent in the bottom half of the top percentile to over 70 percent in the top 0.01 percent. This finding illustrates the theme that it is important to decompose the top of the income distribution into very small groups to capture the progressivity of a tax system. Although very top groups contain few taxpayers, they account for a substantial share of income earned, and an even larger share of taxes paid.
Interestingly, the larger progressivity in 1960 is not mainly due to the individual income tax. The average individual income tax rate in 1960 reached an average rate of 31 percent at the very top, only slightly above the 25 percent average rate at the very top in 2004. Within the 1960 version of the individual income tax, lower rates on realized capital gains, as well as deductions for interest payments and charitable contributions, reduced dramatically what otherwise looked like an extremely progressive tax schedule, with a top marginal tax rate on individual income of 91 percent.”
So the actualized income tax rate for the rich was 31%, not really much different from where it stands today. That is a most interesting point to come to terms with. Such results also show that Sandroids don’t actually know what they’re talking about when they claim that the United States had a 91% income tax rate.
“The greater progressivity of federal taxes in 1960, in contrast to 2004, stems from the corporate income tax and the estate tax. The corporate tax collected about 6.5 percent of total personal income in 1960 and only around 2.5 percent of total income today. Because capital income is very concentrated, it generated a substantial burden on top income groups. The estate tax has also decreased from 0.8 percent of total personal income in 1960 to about 0.35 percent of total income today. As a result, the burden of the estate tax relative to income has declined very sharply since 1960 in the top income groups.”
The true source of where the “1%” paid out comes to light. If you look at the current U.S. corporate tax rate, you will see that it is extremely high at 39.1%. Many progressives will also claim that many major corporations don’t pay any taxes. I really would like someone to tell me which of those evil corporations pays zero taxes. As for estate taxes, is there really a need to tax a citizen after he is dead?
“Second, the composition of top incomes has changed substantially. Figure 2 shows the breakdown into wage income, business income, capital income (including imputed corporate taxes), and realized capital gains. In the 1960s, top incomes were primarily composed of capital income: mostly dividends and capital gains. The surge in top incomes since the 1970s has been driven in large part by a steep increase in the labor income component, due in large part to the explosion of executive compensation. As a result, labor income now represents a substantial fraction of income at the top. This change in composition is important to keep in mind, because the corporate and estate taxes that had such a strong effect on creating progressivity in the 1960s would have relatively little effect on labor income.”
One of the other things that Progressives seem to forget about when discussing post WWII economic conditions is WWII. The United Kingdom had here cities heavily bombed and ended the war nearly bankrupt, France was occupied for four years and also suffered heavily; Germany lost millions, lost Prussia, and was rent in two; the Soviet Union lost 27 million people and had many of its cities decimated, the Chinese lost over 20 million fighting the Japanese and shortly thereafter underwent a Communist revolution; Japan lost millions, had its cities destroyed, and two nukes dropped on it. The only major power left without any massive loss of live or widespread destruction wrought in its homeland was the United States. The destruction of industrialized countries allowed the United States to produce the majority of the world’s economic output for a time without contest. When progressives say that the 1950s were a good time for the U.S. economy they have no understanding as to why.
Borrowed from Wikipedia
Keynesians think that war stimulates the economy right? Nothing said economic growth like the Nanking massacre!
Posted above is what a Facebook page called Americans against the Republican Party posted up about Socialist Insecurity. Based upon this meme you would almost think that progressives and fellow socialists actually believe in free choice instead of forcing fellow citizens to give up the majority of their income. Based upon how often the Democratic Party Presidential candidates talk about the 1%, taxing the rich, demanding that the Federal Government provide more, and their desire to turn the United States into a copy of Denmark I’m not certain I wouldn’t believe that though. Let’s take a look at some of the comments from the aforementioned Facebook page:
The comments are very revealing into what many progressives believe. The socialists are admitting that: they’re socialists, discuss why socialism is a good thing, think that the government will fix their problems, Rethuglicans are opposing the glorious coming of Next Tuesdayâ„¢, and that progressives care about proles citizens. Don’t forget to talk about fighting for change some more either. Progressives care about you so much that they’ll take your income, give it to someone else, and then promise to pay you back with interest decades later. Obviously citizens can’t be trusted to save up their own money.
Are you ready for more Hope and Change comrade?
Plenty of people think that the Federal Government needs to provide even more for citizens and make things “free.” Going back to the Bernie Sanders’ article I linked to earlier:
“Health care in Denmark is universal, free of charge and high in quality. Everybody is covered as a right of citizenship. The Danish health care system is popular, with patient satisfaction much higher than in the United States. In Denmark, every citizen can choose a doctor in their area. Prescription drugs are inexpensive. ”
It’s interesting that socialists will claim that anything a government provides is free. Danish taxes include: income taxes (not including municipal, and others) starting off at about 38% for anyone making over 40,000 DKK (∼$7000 US), a national Value Added Tax of 25%,a 180% sales taxes on automobiles (some boast about it since citizens’ are forced into obedience concerning climate change), $2,000 fees just to get a Driver License, gas taxes over $4/G, and numerous other fees. Such taxes hardly qualify anything provided in Denmark as being “free” and of no expense to taxpayers. But hey, taking 2/3 or more of a citizens income and and controlling them is a socialist’s wet dream right? Even when the extreme taxes are pointed out to progressives, they’ll still call government programs free. No matter what you use to prove that extensive social programs require extensive taxes, they’ll simply reply back that the rich aren’t paying their fair share…
Back to the initial thrust of this post though; no matter what progressives say about Social Security, not everyone pays into it. For quite a large number of people, including Ida May Fuller (more on her later), almost nothing was contributed to the “Trust Fund.” Let’s look at what Michael Lind had to write in the New York Times article “Social Security as a Ponzi? It’s a Bad Metaphor“:
“Some critics of Social Security seem to equate it with a Ponzi scheme because the growth of payouts depends on growth of the number of future taxpayers, in the case of Social Security, or future investors, in the case of classic Ponzi schemes. By this definition, Social Security is a Ponzi scheme — and so are the private investment accounts that many conservatives propose as an alternative to Social Security. Whether the intermediary is the government or private money managers, in both cases the income of retirees will depend on money generated by the economic activity of succeeding generations in the work force. The main difference is that private investments are riskier than promises by the federal government of the United States to pay benefits to seniors who have paid payroll taxes all their lives.“
The author just admitted that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. I do not advocate for forcing people to put money in private investment accounts either. I simply believe that citizens shouldn’t forcefully have 6.2% (up to $118,500) of their paycheck deducted, nor should employers have to give up their 6.2% either. I feel as if I can manage money better than central government managers, but progressives can’t let people have freedom. They have to take your money for your own good.
“Social Security was partly pre-funded in 1983. This raised payroll taxes above immediate program costs in order to create a trust fund that lent money to the U.S. government, which must repay the trust fund as any other creditor would. Social Security will not become a pure pay-as-you-go system until 2036, according to the latest government estimates. Even then, there will be only a modest shortfall in benefits, which can be eliminated in advance by higher payroll taxes, permanent infusions of general revenue or other non-payroll taxes, or benefit reductions — or a combination of these reforms. A Social Security system funded purely by current taxes would no more be a Ponzi scheme than the U.S. military or the public school system.“
So the Federal Government can take money out of it and promise to pay it back? Sounds promising. The estimates he posted up are also not correct. I can’t verify what he actually linked to, it is now dead. Taking a look at a report by the Office of the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration’s 2014Â Disability Insurance Trust Fund Informational Report reveals the following:
“The 2014 Trustees’ Annual Report has projected that the DI Trust Fund reserves will be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2016, and the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds would be depleted in 2033. Although the DI Trust Fund is estimated to be depleted in the fourth quarter of 2016, the Trustees have recommended that lawmakers address the projected Trust Fund shortfalls for the combined OASI and DI Trust Funds in a timely way to phase in necessary changes and give workers and beneficiaries time to adjust to them. Implementing changes soon would allow more generations to share in the needed revenue increases or reductions in scheduled benefits.“
For anyone who’s curious, DI refers to the Disability Insurance Trust Fund and OASI is Old-Age and Survivors Insurance program. The DI “Trust Fund” runs out of money in a year and once the program payments are combined money will run low in 2033. Isn’t interesting how these estimates keep growing shorter? Moving down to page 3, the document illustrates perfectly how Social Security is a pyramid scheme:
“Overall, OASDI costs will rise over the next 20 years as baby boomers retire and lower-birth-rate generations born after 1965 replace the population at working ages. The lower birth rates after 1965 caused a permanent shift in the population’s age distribution, with fewer workers supporting more retirees. Additionally, the baby boomer generation has moved from less disability-prone ages (25 to 44) to more disability prone ages (45 to 64). See Figure C–1 in Appendix C. This, along with other issues, has resulted in the flat projected number of workers per DI beneficiary for the future.“
The last paragraph in Mr. Lind’s piece must have been a joke, right?
“To paraphrase the late David Crockett — as a U.S. congressman from Tennessee, before he died in 1836 at the Alamo during the fight for the independence of Texas — Governor Perry’s claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme don’t make good sense. It don’t even make good nonsense.“
Something doesn’t make sense anyway. The fine fact-checkers over at PolitiFact Florida have declared any claims that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme to be false. Let’s take a look at why:
“The term originates with Charles Ponzi, a Boston swindler who conned investors out of millions in 1920 by promising returns of up to 100 percent in 90 days on investments in foreign postal coupons. After first-round investors harvested those profits, others flocked to Ponzi, unaware his ‘profits’ consisted of money paid in by other investors.
That strategy is unsustainable.
In contrast, Social Security is more like a ‘pay-as-you-go’ system transferring payroll tax payments by workers to retirees. A 2009 Social Security Administration online post stated: ‘The American Social Security system has been in continuous successful operation since 1935. Charles Ponzi’s scheme lasted barely 200 days.’”
It’s different from a Ponzi scheme because it’s lasted thus far. It’s different because rather than my own money coming back to me it’s going to someone else. What sound logic. Continuing on:
“Mitchell Zuckoff, a Boston University journalism professor who has written a book on Ponzi, noted three critical dissimilarities between Social Security and a Ponzi scheme. We will summarize Zuckoff’s comments from an earlier fact-check:
• ‘First, in the case of Social Security, no one is being misled,’ Zuckoff wrote in a January 2009 article in Fortune. ‘Social Security is exactly what it claims to be: A mandatory transfer payment system under which current workers are taxed on their incomes to pay benefits, with no promises of huge returns.’
• Second, he wrote, ‘A Ponzi scheme is unsustainable because the number of potential investors is eventually exhausted.’ While Social Security faces a huge burden due to retiring Baby Boomers, it can be and has been tweaked, and ‘the government could change benefit formulas or take other steps, like increasing taxes, to keep the system from failing.’
• Third, Zuckoff wrote, ‘Social Security is morally the polar opposite of a Ponzi scheme. … At the height of the Great Depression, our society (see ‘Social’) resolved to create a safety net (see ‘Security’) in the form of a social insurance policy that would pay modest benefits to retirees, the disabled and the survivors of deceased workers. By design, that means a certain amount of wealth transfer, with richer workers subsidizing poorer ones. That might rankle, but it’s not fraud.’”
I see why Social Security has lasted for decades now. You pay into the system or you get to go to prison for tax evasion. The journalism professor wrote that there’s no huge returns, even though the Democratic Presidential candidates keep claiming that they’re going to have the Federal Government give out more “free” stuff. It’s not fraud because you don’t have a choice. Yet more sound logic.
In PolitiFact’s own article they essentially admit that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that forces you to pay rather than going out of business.
“Michael Tanner, an expert on Social Security at the libertarian Cato Institute says that Social Security and Ponzi schemes share some characteristics — for example, in the early stages there is a huge windfall while those later on get smaller returns.
However, Ponzi didn’t have the power of the federal government.
‘In the end the Ponzi scheme collapses and can’t make people continue to give him money, but Social Security can always force people to pay,’ Tanner said. ‘In theory Social Security can always go out and raise taxes to keep benefits flowing.’”
PolitiFact still rates the claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme as being false though:
“Curbelo said that Social Security and Medicare are ‘a Ponzi scheme.’
A Ponzi scheme is by definition an illegal crime and an unsustainable set-up that crashes very quickly. Social Security and Medicare, which have been around for decades, are not criminal schemes.
Both programs face the massive challenge of fewer workers paying for the benefits of current retirees, and budget experts say Congress could make changes to make them more sustainable in the future — though many politicians are reluctant to gamble with the support of current senior voters.
Curbelo raises a legitimate point about the need for reform, but that’s entirely different than calling these programs ‘Ponzi schemes.’
We rate this claim False.”
Social Security is legal because FDR did everything possible to circumvent the Constitution and pack the Supreme Court. Social Security is legal because you don’t have a choice. Progressives have some interesting ideas on freedom and what is illegal.
Good evening comrades, today’s post will go over all the wonderful deeds and accomplishments that President Obama has achieved for the United Socialist States of America. Our current piece of pictorial propaganda comes from the fine folks at Occupy Communists Democrats:
“In 2013, there were 26.5 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 273,105 babies born to females in this age group.[1] Nearly eighty-nine percent of these births occurred outside of marriage.[1] The 2013 teen birth rate indicates a  decline of ten percent from 2012 when the birth rate was 29.4 per 1,000.[1]The teen birth rate has declined almost continuously over the past 20 years. In 1991, the U.S. teen birth rate was 61.8 births for every 1,000 adolescent females, compared with 26.5 births for every 1,000 adolescent females in 2013. Still, the U.S. teen birth rate is higher than that of many other developed countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom.[2]” (emphasis added)
I guess that President Obama is responsible for a twenty year trend?!
If you look down the article a little further you see that it’s Southern states that have the highest teen pregnancy rates. But before comrades use this as evidence that the dumb, gun and religion clinging, xenophobic, KKKonservatives and Rethuglicans are hypocrites let’s take a look at some state data. In this case, I’ll use Texas.
Let’s accuse the racist white folks of hypocrisy without looking at the data more closely…
Though when Keynesians do spend your money, kiss it all goodbye. Today’s post is dedicated to the glory of John Manyard Keynes’ economic beliefs. Once this capitalism thing is destroyed we will all be able to live in Utopia.
I know that I’ve already covered how People’s Economist Paul Krugman things that massive debt spending and war are good for the economy, but let’s cover that point from something other than his space alien invasion idea, shall we?
Nothing says economic prosperity like war, right? It’s as good as massive debt spending!
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Then there’s this interesting tidbit from John Manyard Keynes himself as written in The Economic Consequences of Peace. This quote starts on page 235:
“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become “profiteers,” who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds [236] and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.
Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”
Progressives just love to talk about how socialism in the Nordic countries is successful and seem to like the policies enforced in Continental Europe. But when the government gives out something for free, is it really free? Did countries like Norway, Sweden, and Denmark create a classless utopia and Worker’s Paradise? Let’s look at some data compiled by an individual who came from Denmark and has firsthand experience from Democratic-Socialism which is supposedly different than Socialism. It’s amazing that progressives will claim that Socialism is different from Democratic-Socialism.
Remember when progressives worldwide were hailing the election of communists in Greece? I’ll write more soon on the continuing Greek tragedy in coming posts.
And to close out this post, some fine automotive advice from a budding young technician.
Once Bernie Sanders is elected as Chairman in 2016 the Revolution will really get going and the United States will get an even better taste of what a Worker’s Paradise is like. Some glorious examples of revolutionary work would be: Greece, Venezuela (quite a fine example), Cuba (but look at those literacy rates), Rhode Island, and Detroit to name but a few socialist success stories. Proles, you must be willing to surrender your money, property, and liberty for the betterment of society. The Party demands your total loyalty in the upcoming Neo-Kulak purge and revolution. Once the government has even more centralized control over the economy and your wallet the U.S.S.A will surely turn into a true paradise.
The Greek government recently announced that banks would be shutdown for six business days, ATM withdrawals would be limited to €60 per day, and that the Athens Stock Exchange would remain closed on Monday. Time is almost up for Greece and the actions taken by the Greek government won’t solve any financial problems. PM Tsipras and the Greek government are still blaming everybody but themselves for this mess. Tsipras wants the deadline for the bailout program to be extended past June 30th to allow time for a referendum. The following are some statements made my Tsipras:
“It is now more than clear that this decision has no other aim than to blackmail the will of the Greek people and prevent the smooth democratic process of the referendum,” and “They will not succeed. These moves will have the exact opposite effect. They will make the Greek people more determined in their choice to reject the unacceptable … proposals and ultimatums of the creditors,“
They’re right you know, there’s no future for Greece in the E.U. Time to start printing million drachma bills out…I bet Greece’s Finance Minister is real happy right now. I wonder how he’ll blame this on the Germans?Members of left wing parties burn a European Union flag during a protest in the northern Greek port city of Thessaloniki, Sunday, June 28, 2015. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says the Bank of Greece has recommended that banks remain closed and restrictions be imposed on transactions, after the European Central Bank didn’t increase the amount of emergency liquidity the lenders can access from the central bank. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos)
Couldn’t Tsipras just be honest and say give my country more free money while forgiving our debt? If the Greek people are interested in regaining sovereignty they should vote to leave the E.U. and dump the Euro. The Greeks also need to reduce government spending and dump socialism. I suppose that there’s simply no way that anything will work out well for Greece. Even if Greece receives any help from the Russians or Chinese, the coming years will be even more painful than the last five have been. The Greek healthcare system has been going downhill for years now while Greeks pensions continue to stay fat. Obviously what Greece needs is more socialism and not less. I wonder how much higher the Greek unemployment rate can go, which is currently over 25%?
Here are some of the more interesting comments from the articles I linked to:
Count Ciano’s arrival in Albania, 1939The Julia Alpini Division on the march into battle
If we’re being honest, how many countries in existence don’t have land taken from someone else? What land isn’t occupied land? Should reparations go all the way back to Cain and Abel? Who would get money for the Punic wars? I could bring up numerous wars and list the losers, but plenty of people have done that in the comments section of the Yahoo! News articles. Let’s take a look at some of them:
I mean really, why work to get money? Why spend less? Just make random demands for cash. Here are the specific stories for anyone who’s interested in getting some laughs out of the reparation demands:
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