Posted on 06/29/2015 4:11:46 PM PDT by Textide
It is always those in the middle -- and especially what Marxist intellectuals call the petit bourgeois, the aspiring, hard-working workers and savers -- who are hurt the hardest
It was Adam Smith who put it best. “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation”, he wrote in reply to an over-excited young man who thought that Great Britain was facing devastation after a setback during the US war of independence.
Smith was right about the specifics as well as the general point, of course: America was thankfully soon to win its independence, and both Britain and the US went on to prosper and thrive.
More generally, Smith was spot on about something even more important: it is very hard for politicians and officials, however incompetent, to truly destroy a prosperous nation.
They can impoverish it, and slow its growth, and damage it in all sorts of ways, but inflicting genuine collapse is tough. Core market institutions - the rule of law, private property and widespread, specialised human capital - are remarkably resilient when they are established properly; our free market economies are self-organising, decentralised networks that can take multiple hits and bounce back.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
We'll see. It doesn't look too good for the rule of law right about now.
I think someone else here on a related thread said it best that the Western welfare state is a big Ponzi scheme that will be collapsing all over the place over the next five to ten years. Greece is only the beginning. This will be a lot like how the Soviet Union and East Bloc fell.
Read the stages the writer describes. The US has already started going through them. He does not mention the last stage — riots, civil war and mayhem. The true result of the national Ponzi scheme that is known as the Welfare State.
This has been coming for a long time.
Fools and their money...
Riots, civil war and mayhem might be the least of our worries. A world war is entirely possible.
Can’t Gree fee just raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires for middle class investments? It solves everything according to Obama.
The real problem is Fools and Everyone else’s Money
Greeks historically want government benefits on a socialist scale, but don’t want to pay for them.
Early retirement, free living, excessive time off, union job protection, low productivity, they are the original something for nothing crowd.
Fortunately their economy is so small it won’t impact us, except for the moron stock traders looking for any excuse at selling off and buying low.
Until Greeks decide to pay their taxes, they are doomed to bankruptcy and civil unrest, bank failures.
The EU has been carrying them long enough.
Harry Dent--love him or not!--has said publicly that the years 2016 to 2018 are HIGH risk years for a general world war. Given the historical precedent of the 1930's, the sad part is he may be more right than many people think.
Dent has said the next period of high economic growth will be start around 2020, but then, is that due to the fact the growth is the result of recovery from a devastating world war?
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