Daniel Hannan: Spain teeters on the brink

Telegraph - UK ^ | September 27, 2012 | Daniel Hannan

[Cincinatus' Wife]

All of a sudden, the talk is of the breakdown, not just of the single currency, but of the parliamentary system on which it rests. Commentators across Europe fret that Spain, which emerged from dictatorship less than 40 years ago, might give up on multi-party politics.

Every round of economic figures is worse than the last. The deficit is massively larger than forecast. A bailout of unprecedented size is becoming inevitable, even as the prime minister gives his countrymen a ‘one hundred per cent assurance’ that he won’t apply for one. (He said much the same thing a few days before applying for the last one.)

Hundreds of thousands of people are protesting, some violently. The secretary-general of the governing party was so shaken by the disturbances in Madrid this week that he described them as ‘an attempted coup’.

Unsurprisingly, some want to opt out altogether of what they see as a failing state. Catalonia has declared its intention to hold a referendum on secession, untroubled by the fact that, in per capita terms, its debt is higher than Spain’s as a whole. The Madrid government has declared the independence referendum to be unconstitutional, and a senior army officer has warned Catalans against ‘disturbing the lion’.

Are the alarmists right? Could parliamentary government fail altogether? .......

[Hawk1976]

....and Barry still thinks that Spain is a model for the US to follow.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Of course he does. All the quicker to de-develop the United States.

[BobL]

The thing that people (understandably) have trouble connecting is the following:

For Spain - it is Airports to Nowhere (they have a beauty in the middle of the country) and Windmills that produce next to nothing. They had ‘free money’ and they put it to work without any thought as to whether it was wise.

For the US - it is the huge housing tracts that no one ever wanted. Again, this money could have been used to upgrade highways, modernize factories (to the extent that the unions would have permitted...which was next to nothing), maybe even dump into Social Security.

None of that was done in either case and both countries (and many others) sit on the brink of insolvency.

This is NOTHING MORE than the result of the Baby Boomer mentality from the day they entered college to now, when they hold the levers of power and can FINALLY tear down Capitalism, rather than having to having to live through ‘hell’ (in their eyes) with Reagan as president.

NOTE: Not all Baby Boomers (especially not the ones here), but probably half of them, a huge number of TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE people that should have never been born, much less trusted with political power.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Sixties Liberals (nurtured by communists and communist ideology) in academia, journalism and union leadership have filled government with their own.

[ClearCase_guy]

There are at least half a dozen countries that have been "on the brink" on a weekly or monthly basis for 2 or 3 years now. I understand that Greece actually had some riots, but I cannot think of any western nation that has fallen off the edge of the cliff (yet).

I don't get it, but if I had to guess, I would say that everything is lining up to all go at once. Maybe in some span of 48 hours the entire world will fall apart.

As it is, I now yawn when I hear that "Spain teeters on the brink" -- So? What else is new?

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Witness how the Welfare State ends. The people are addicted to government spending but there are no more taxpayers to pay for it. When the government tries to control spending, the people riot. The regional governments try to break away and leave the mess on someone else’s doorstep. Ultimately, this is an issue of the character of the voters of Spain (or any other nation). They cannot bring themselves to live within their means. They have spent decades living the good life on someone else’s dime and don’t want to stop.

[Obadiah]

Agreed. These Baby Boomers are the counter-culture types who came of age in the late sixties. They are the hippies who protested and hated everything the US stood for. They lived “the summer of love” and sought to tear down all the social guardrails.

It is these same counter-culture type hippies who control the Democrat Party and the corrupt MSM. They are the ones who embrace the Islamist while contemptuously scorning anything related to Christianity. It is a corrupt and evil generation.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

.....When the government tries to control spending, the people riot. .....

Notice the "wacked out" polling numbers? They're setting up distrust in the election results - potentially unleashing the liberal superstructure and expect the marching morons to join it.

Democrats Unveil the Weapon of the Future "..............So what is a political movement to do, particularly one as fanatic and apocalyptic as this one? Well, if you have an alternate system made up of outside organizations not subject to governmental oversight, a system populated with self-selected fanatics and true believers, a system poised and ready to march, you can do what was done in Wisconsin. You can turn the superstructure loose to threaten the public peace, smash things up, abuse the electoral process, create a media spectacle, and pressure the state to do things your way. You can use nonpolitical organizations (in the electoral sense) to get a political result. ............"

[PowderMonkey]

"I don't get it, but if I had to guess, I would say that everything is lining up to all go at once. Maybe in some span of 48 hours the entire world will fall apart."

I don't get it either, but that's generally how it happens. You wake up one morning, and your world falls apart within 48 hours. That's what happened to my family in Spain, 1936. A supreme court justice and his family awoke one morning to find themselves penniless refugees fleeing for their lives by nightfall, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. It happens just that way.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I used to look forward to my golden years because I presumed the huge bubble of hippies that immediately preceded me would have gone on to that great Woodstock in the Sky.

But now, looking at how utterly ambivalent the under-30 crowd is about any issue of consequence, I am more concerned than ever.

[ex-Texan]

Spain is engulfed with riots as clueless leaders ask for more free money -- probably just to line their own pockets with counterfeit fiat cash to run away and hide in "safety." The whole world is addicted to phony fiat currency. . . .

Massive Riots in Spain!

We will be next -- right after this phoney election featuring phoney candidates and fake political parties who follow orders from the UN and elites that will soon hide in bunkers while the rest of us battle mobs for food.