Spain is collapsing. Europe is vexed at stupidity. It is all going DOWN!

[Neubarth]

Spain is collapsing. Europe is vexed at stupidity. It is all going DOWN!

The Unions do not understand that the money simply is not there.

Spanish workers disrupted transport and broadcasts in the first general strike in eight years as demonstrators also marched through Brussels for a day of protest against spending cuts by European governments.

Labor unions are fighting austerity measures aimed at taming budget deficits across Europe and protests are planned in 12 countries including Ireland, Italy and Portugal, the European Trade Union Confederation said. Protesters marched in Brussels ahead of a meeting between union members and European Commission President Jose Barroso. In Athens, rail, telecommunication and port workers staged strikes.
Spain Has First General Strike in Decade as Europe Marches - Bloomberg

 

[Baruch Menachem]

As long as the guys running the printing press get their time and a half, they will be happy.

Nice shirt

 

[Neubarth]

Nice shirt

Oh, thanks. I was at the Nudist Section of the San Diego Padres game. They always ask us to stand up and cheer.

At any rate, a young lady wanted my photograph taken with her, and she gave me a gift of that Padres Shirt for the photo. I could not put her in my Avatar, so just cut her out of the photo and posted it. I had just put the new shirt on, so had not stretched it out over my massive chest, so it looks a little wrinkled. The girls just love powerful men.

 

[loosecannon]

this day will live in infamy!

 

[william the wie]

This should be an interesting story to follow.

 

[loosecannon]

This should be an interesting story to follow.

I imagine you heard about the automatic semi sanctions the EU imposed on member states who don't sufficiently reduce deficits. France is right on cue cutting federal spending.

Germany is pissed and rightly so. They do NOT like the remaining options, debasement and tariffs. And they are fucked if their fellow europeons don't get in line.

When riots erupt in Germany this will come to a head.

It strikes me as odd tho how quickly the EU is addressing their deficits while that is still unthinkable in the US.

 

[xotoxi]

Thank for the update.

 

[william the wie]

I may have been overoptimistic about the EU

 

[Neubarth]

this day will live in infamy!

Well, actually the German Television crew always films us when the stands are doing the wave. They are the ones encouraging us to all stand up in the wave. I swear that sometimes they spend more time filming the cheering nudist section than they do the ball players. San Diego is such a fun city. Don't you agree.

 

[Charles_Main]

All those willfully ignorant assholes marching in the streets Demanding they keep their Nanny state as it crumbles.

Thousands of Nero's

 

[loosecannon]

All those willfully ignorant assholes marching in the streets Demanding they keep their Nanny state as it crumbles.

Thousands of Nero's

It is amusing, but I know we will be in their position soon enough rioting over SS and medicare. Not to mention the inner city riots in store when services really start getting cut at the local levels.

Don't be too hard on em cuz we might turn out to be the biggest entitlement crazed pussies on the planet.

 

[william the wie]

All those willfully ignorant assholes marching in the streets Demanding they keep their Nanny state as it crumbles.

Thousands of Nero's

It is amusing, but I know we will be in their position soon enough rioting over SS and medicare. Not to mention the inner city riots in store when services really start getting cut at the local levels.

Don't be too hard on em cuz we might turn out to be the biggest entitlement crazed pussies on the planet.

Actually not so, the Japanese hold that honor. The US has fewer entitlements per capita when adjusted for income than just about anybody. On that basis even Mexico and Brazil has us beat all hollow.

 

[loosecannon]

All those willfully ignorant assholes marching in the streets Demanding they keep their Nanny state as it crumbles.

Thousands of Nero's

It is amusing, but I know we will be in their position soon enough rioting over SS and medicare. Not to mention the inner city riots in store when services really start getting cut at the local levels.

Don't be too hard on em cuz we might turn out to be the biggest entitlement crazed pussies on the planet.

Actually not so, the Japanese hold that honor. The US has fewer entitlements per capita when adjusted for income than just about anybody. On that basis even Mexico and Brazil has us beat all hollow.

But Americans might break the "whine" gauge when ours are defunded, making the Greeks look stoic.

 

[loosecannon]

The US has fewer entitlements per capita when adjusted for income than just about anybody.

amazing stat if true. Not that I doubt it but I never believe anything I read online...

We spend a lot on defense and have a low tax rate compared to most developed nations. So you must be right, but I gotta think about your "per capita when adjusted for income" qualifier a bit. Does that qualifier matter? Or is it the skew?

 

[Charles_Main]

All those willfully ignorant assholes marching in the streets Demanding they keep their Nanny state as it crumbles.

Thousands of Nero's

It is amusing, but I know we will be in their position soon enough rioting over SS and medicare. Not to mention the inner city riots in store when services really start getting cut at the local levels.

Don't be too hard on em cuz we might turn out to be the biggest entitlement crazed pussies on the planet.

If it happens it will be mostly the Unions in this country out in the streets.

Public sector ones for sure.

 

[Charles_Main]

The US has fewer entitlements per capita when adjusted for income than just about anybody.

amazing stat if true. Not that I doubt it but I never believe anything I read online...

We spend a lot on defense and have a low tax rate compared to most developed nations. So you must be right, but I gotta think about your "per capita when adjusted for income" qualifier a bit. Does that qualifier matter? Or is it the skew?

Medicare and SS is a bigger chunk than defense.

 

[Tom Clancy]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/econo...ing-the-eu-is-in-great-shape-step-inside.html

 

[loosecannon]

Medicare and SS is a bigger chunk than defense.

absolutely. But most nations spend very little on defense and can spread that across social services. You can buy more votes with carrots (entitlements) than sticks (defense and law enforcement).

The challenge for politicians within modern "democracies" is to steal as much money from the public coffers as possible, while still robbing the public coffers to generate electoral monopoly. Maintaining order naturally figures in as well.

 

[Charles_Main]

Medicare and SS is a bigger chunk than defense.

absolutely. But most nations spend very little on defense and can spread that across social services. You can buy more votes with carrots (entitlements) than sticks (defense and law enforcement).

The challenge for politicians within modern "democracies" is to steal as much money from the public coffers as possible, while still robbing the public coffers to generate electoral monopoly. Maintaining order naturally figures in as well.

Sounds about right.

But then in a way our Defense spending is a sort of Global Socialism in many cases, as we act as its police, and use our military all the time for massive aid operations around the world.

 

[william the wie]

The US has fewer entitlements per capita when adjusted for income than just about anybody.

amazing stat if true. Not that I doubt it but I never believe anything I read online...

We spend a lot on defense and have a low tax rate compared to most developed nations. So you must be right, but I gotta think about your "per capita when adjusted for income" qualifier a bit. Does that qualifier matter? Or is it the skew?

It's a fudge against the black market and strange tax laws. Brazil is an out and out welfare state where a guesstimated 50% of the economy is off the books but the range of guesses is 1/3 to three times the size of the legitimate economy. When the published data is anywhere near that bad there are serious problems in calculating actual real per capita income. In Japan somebody somewhere at sometime pocketed the money for part of Tokyo's sewer system and it is taken away by truck to make compost for rice. The information on how extensive this problem is is not collected by any government agency because Japan has had modern sewer systems in all of its major cities since shortly after the Korean war started and that is the word. Similar problems abound in Brazil. In most of the world government statistics are so bad that sites like SGS have effectively nothing to work with when it comes to error correction. What can be said with fair certainty is that based on life style the amount of time and resources spent gaming the system makes most of the world much poorer than advertised.

Strange tax laws are best seen in the credits for movies and TV shows. If I read the credits properly last night tax schemes for three or more countries are involved in every episode of "Stargate Universe" produced. Germany, Canada and the US for sure with perhaps others that I did not spot. Germany has a tax law that gives a tax credit for film and TV so each episode or season is a separate corporation that is bought by German investors and then sold or leased back to the production company. The show is shot in Vancouver to get Canadian production tax credits for major distribution in the US. I think there is a Japanese scene production company in there too and perhaps others as well. So there is a great deal of uncertainty as to how much GDP anywhere is real and how much is tax gimmicks.

Sorry I couldn't give a more exact answer.