You never hear much about protests in Europe on our good ‘ol MSM. That’s because they’re unpleasant, and show the end results of socialism. It can’t happen here right? Spain had, for example, the same overpaid, early-retirement, huge-pension public employee gravy train we have here. They’ve had a welfare state and socialism for decades, and went into massive debt to fund it all. Now, the money is gone, and only a cataclysmic pile of debt remains. With no money, they are forced to begin “austerity”, their economy is collapsing, there are no jobs, and people are very upset.
They say we’re about 2 years behind Spain and Greece. Pretty soon, the debt is going to become an all consuming juggernaut (like in Europe now). Can you imagine what will happen here when “austerity” is finally started, not because anyone wants it, but because there is simply no money left to fund the welfare state and government employees? Everyone already knows about the unfunded pensions and obligations, some $70 trillion or more, which are simply austerity measures not yet enforced.
It will be very interesting, when the FSA and government parasites (the 53%) come up against financial reality. What do you think will happen when unemployment reaches 25%? Businesses are being squeezed now, and 55,000 manufacturing facilities have closed in the last decade. We just set a new record for food stamp usage and a new record for the number of people in poverty. Obamacare will result in millions of people losing their jobs or having their hours cut back. A massive increase in taxes will drive away whatever businesses are left in the U.S.
So, how do you think austerity will play out here? It is coming. Socialism has never worked anywhere in the past. Criminal politicians have learned nothing. Socialism is great until you run out of other people’s money. I’m interested to hear what you have to say.
Demonstrators and police battling in Madrid.
Europe In the Grip of Anti-Austerity Protests
Via Pater Tenebrarum of Acting Man blog
Strikes and Demonstrations Across the Periphery
As if we needed more proof that the course implemented by the eurocracy becomes increasingly untenable politically, millions decided to strike in several European countries this week. The demonstrations have, as they are wont to do these days, turned violent in a number places. The protests were most intense in Spain, where unemployment is at over 25% and desperation over the collapse of the bubble economy is growing by the day.
The ‘Big Picture’ has brought a number of photographs of the worst clashes between protesters and police.
Der Spiegel writes:
“Millions of Europeans joined together in general strikes and demonstrations on Wednesday to protest the strict austerity measures undertaken by their countries. In Portugal and Spain, hard hit by the debt crisis, locals conducted a 24-hour general strike that largely paralyzed public infrastructure, suspending train service and grounding hundreds of flights, in addition to shutting down factories.
Most of the protests remained peaceful, but in Madrid there were some violent clashes between demonstrators and police. Officers at Cibeles Square in the city center fired rubber bullets and used batons against protesters, reporting 34 injuries and the arrest of more than 70 protesters.
Officials warned the situation could escalate further on Wednesday night, with major protests planned for Madrid and Barcelona. A similar demonstration had also been planned for Portugal’s capital city, Lisbon.
The day of strikes had been called by organized labor across Europe as part of a “European Day of Action and Solidarity,” and similar events were staged in Italy, Greece, Belgium, Austria and France. The protesters believe that the austerity measures being taken in those countries to combat the debt crisis are worsening the recession. “We’re on strike to stop these suicidal policies,” said Candido Mendez, the head of Spain’s UGT union, the country’s second-biggest labor federation.”
(emphasis added)
This is what happens when after decades of socialism, the money to pay for the freebies finally runs out. To be sure, this is a bit too simplistic. We are inclined to sympathize with the demonstrators for the following reason: instead of liquidating unsound credit and letting a few over-extended banks and their bondholders bite the dust, the eurocrats have decided to spread the joys of bankruptcy around and let their populations pay the bill. In most cases the poorest members of society have been hit the hardest.
Most of the people thronging the streets don’t fully understand what has happened. They don’t realize that the deadly combination of a cradle-to-grave welfare state with a centrally planned fractionally reserved banking system has produced a terminal boom and that there is simply no painless way out of the situation anymore. There never was. An enormous amount of wealth has been squandered and consumed during the boom.
There is no salvation in abandoning the euro and trying to inflate and spend oneself out of the hole that has been dug either: that would only invite an even greater economic catastrophe. However, Europe’s political and monetary elites continue to misdiagnose the problem, in many cases refuse to level with their populations and are too halfhearted in implementing reform.
What the protesters don’t seem to get: the status quo ante cannot be recreated by decree. There is no magic wand for anyone to wave. The protesters have every right to be enraged, but they are raging against something that cannot be changed at the flick of a switch – the wealth is gone. If governments were to start on a renewed deficit spending spree, they would merely invite a greater crisis, very likely without delay. Even more government cannot be the solution for a problem that too much government has created.
Radical pro free market economic reform is called for, but this is apparently neither recognized, nor does anyone have the guts to implement it. And so the European Chinese water torture version of ‘austerity’, which includes only a shrinking private sector, but not a shrinking government, continues without offering any light at the end of the tunnel to the people living in the periphery.
Maybe it is time to rename the Molotov cocktail. Throwing petrol bombs at the police has become a specialty of protesters in Greece.
Hope@ZeroKelvin says:
Gosh, wait till they find out that Twinkies and Ding Dongs are no more!!
Hot debate. What do you think?
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16th November 2012 at 9:26 pm
sensetti says:
Bring it on, the large metropolitan areas will burn to the ground and that’s the heart of the Democratic Party. I for one look forward to the day the FSA hits the streets, it can’t happen soon enough.
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16th November 2012 at 9:37 pm
reverse engineee says:
The finance problem in Europe comes from dimwitted Kapitalist Banksters speculating with hot money and gambling away the savings of typical J6Ps, not from Socialism. Followed of course by Welfare for the Kapitalist Pigmen bailing out the Banksters with still more of the taxes of the hard working Eurotrash.
RE
http://doomsteaddiner.org
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16th November 2012 at 9:50 pm
sensetti says:
The people that vote for free shit are marked in blue, that’s where the majority of the problems will emanate from when the free shit faucet gets turned off.
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16th November 2012 at 9:53 pm
sensetti says:
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16th November 2012 at 10:09 pm
sangell says:
Election night I got into an old album by the Mother’s of Invention. A classic counter culture piece at another turning point in US history. While I thought it was funny at the time it did set it motion the long march through the institutions by the ‘new left’. Any way here is Frank Zappa’s “It Can’t Happen Here”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svdrAHn_LGo
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16th November 2012 at 10:15 pm
efarmer says:
It is so embarrassing that my county is not red. WTF?
EF
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16th November 2012 at 10:28 pm
KaD says:
How will the US ever run out of money unless someone takes Helicopter Ben’s printing press away???
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16th November 2012 at 10:34 pm
Thunderbird says:
There are two sides of the equation. While the public holds the debt the bankers and old families hold the bonds. Hasn’t that been the goal of this fiat money system?
People are rioting for what? Do they really think their masters are listening to them?
People have become slaves to the system their masters have prepared for them. They have been put in a psychological prison of thinking the system owes them everything from cradle to grave. What they don’t understand is the system takes more than it gives until it takes everything… which it is finishing doing.
People have to lift themselves out of this psychological prison by starting to think for themselves. Think, what skills can I learn to make a living outside the system. Walk the road less traveled. Do something different.
We are coming to the end of the world; not the earth. The world is where we live in our minds. It is a fictional world of created money from nothing and man made laws with a higher & lower standard so the few can govern the many that have been converted to drones.
Collective mentalities are the mentality of slaves. Man is more than that. Man is a self developing being crated by something higher than him. Man was made to develop into an individual thinker and doer. Collective systems like socialism, communism, fascism, religion and such only exist in a collective mentality. These systems were designed to corral and control the herd for a purpose…to eat them and use them for whatever purpose… like harvesting resources and fighting wars.
It seems that America has become a divided people. Collective minds and individual minds. Where this is going to lead us is anyone’s guess.
Happy Holidays thinking about it because I think that is all the time we have left.
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16th November 2012 at 10:38 pm
Ron says:
I remember reading how Spain went all crazy for the Green economy thing.And it was typical in its money losing.That failing to learn from history thang is happening here in the usa.
I think twenty trillion well take what? three years? And is that enough to wipe out the country?
Mabe the inflation and desperation of people well make it happen before that.
Rye bread is 4.78 a loaf at my local grocery store.Even the cheap bread is 2.49 a loaf.Bacon is around eight bucks a package.
Gas is 3.88 a gallon.
A good article.I wonder what people expect broke governments to do?
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16th November 2012 at 12:32 am
ImNotARobot says:
I think it’s ironic how there’s a McDonald’s and KFC in the background.
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16th November 2012 at 8:37 am
Welshman says:
As our great comedian stated George C., It is a big fucking club and your not in it.
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16th November 2012 at 9:19 am
AWD says:
Public/government employees (overpaid, massive pensions), unions, and the welfare states. The government goes into debt, and eventually they have no more money, can’t borrow any more money, and have massive interest payments on the debt.
Bottom line: they run out of money, thus austerity.
It’s so simple even a Harvard economist can understand it. Say whatever the fuck you want, the same thing is going to happen here, so sorry, tough shit. The money will run out, the debts keep piling up, and we will have austerity. The Fed won’t save the U.S. (only create hyperinflation). Austerity in the U.S. is coming. 2-3 years tops.
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16th November 2012 at 11:17 am
Alex says:
Ron – Al Gore would disagree with you, the Green Economy thing is great, it’s made him about $98 million! In all seriousness, how can there not be revolution fermenting with these kinds of blatant thefts from the public? How could this carnival barker charlatan be so enriched and revered by his very victims? I think “when it does happen here” he and his ilk better hope people don’t put two and two together.
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16th November 2012 at 7:32 pm
monk says:
Socialism? Not even close.
What you have are the results of good ole free market capitalism.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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16th November 2012 at 7:36 pm
taxSlave says:
Monk – I am presuming you are being sarcastic, right?
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16th November 2012 at 9:38 pm
KaD says:
Here’s an interesting read about how easy it will be to shut down the EBT cards and what could ensue:
Yesterday, the EBT card system, which is managed by JP Morgan Chase, suffered a six-hour outage across ten states.
Wal-Mart, one of the favorite destinations of EBT card users, proceeded to run transactions manually and then batched them into the JP Morgan Chase processing system once the system came back online. But elsewhere, stores were met with growing frustration from EBT card holders who were angry that their government money cards suddenly stopped working.
shutting off the EBT cards is actually one way to initiate a false flag event in America. It works like this:
1) Purposely shut off all EBT cards. (Takes just two seconds at JP Morgan.)
2) Blame it on a cyber terrorist attack and use the crisis to institute harsh new police state controls over the internet. (“Never let a good crisis go to waste…”)
3) Allow the “EBT riots” to unfold. Keep the National Guard away for long enough to let things get out of control and have scary footage broadcast on the evening news.
4) Once things are bad enough, announce Martial Law and bring in the troops to turn America’s streets into a Nazi-style police state surveillance and enforcement system, complete with TSA-run checkpoints on all major roads.
What’s required to make this happen? Nothing more than turning off the EBT cards for 72 hours. That’s it! It’s just a single change to a single line of code at JP Morgan Chase, and it’s mission accomplished
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/038007_EBT_cards_entitlements_riots.html#ixzz2CXpUtLm2
It even quotes Ron Paul!
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16th November 2012 at 11:19 pm
sangell says:
@KaD
Interesting plan and I’m sure the Chinese, Iranians and North Koreans have people working on it.
However, I’ve been surprised that our underclass has remained more or less calm during recent events such as Sandy and last summers derecho in Washington that left power off for days and prevented normal access to stores, gas stations and TV. Cogitating on this it occured to me that it maybe more difficult for the underclass to achieve critical mass ( despite social media) for a few ironic reasons.
#1 might be gang activity. It is my understanding that it is dangerous for a underclass hoodlum to wander freely not because of police activity ( yes I know about stop and frisk) but because being caught just a few blocks from home puts the hoodlum in the ‘territory’ of a rival gang.
#2 Is the related issue of ethnicity and the dispersion of ghetto hoodlums through section 8 housing vouchers. In the 1960′s there were no latino barrios to speak of and blacks were concentrated in densely populated ghettos. Today blacks are more dispersed and where they are concentrated there are few commercial establishment located near by save convenience stores and low value retail establishments. They may also be in mixed ethnic communities with various other Latino or recent asian immigrants nearby who own what stores as do exist in those areas.
Perhaps for these reasons it is now more difficult for the underclass to achieve the critical mass necessary to cause a total breakdown in law and order.
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16th November 2012 at 11:50 pm