Ramblings

The PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) countries of Europe continue their economic slide, well past the tipping point and closer to the abyss than ever.  In spite of European Union bail-out efforts, combined with attempts to convince the profligate Socialist governments that they must rein in their unaffordable entitlement programs, little or no progress has been made on solving the underlying, core problem.

Recently, a number of the EU member states have managed to get the International Monetary Fund and its chief contributor, the United States, to contribute (“loan”) more money to try to prop up Italy, along with whatever a few of the EU members can scrape up.  As big a deal as it is to U.S. taxpayers, it’s just another drop into the fire bucket to be poured onto the European Socialist conflagration.  That whole effort may really be just to shame Germany, France and the United Kingdom into deeper financial participation in this unprecedented firefighting exercise.

The root of the problem is, of course, half one of human nature and half one of the known vulnerability that all democracies share.  The human frailty, which we all recognize even if we believe it is impolite to mention it, is our desire to get something for nothing.  Of course, all politicians―even the most dense and inarticulate―know that votes are purchased with promise capital.  Moreover, even that stupidest politician knows that the very best lure is something for nothing and that an ongoing vote-buying program is best of all.  Politicians also well understand that feasibility or deliverability of the promise is immaterial; we want to believe that we will get something free, with no strings attached.

That other part of the cause is a characteristic of democratic governments.  Alexis de Toqueville, a French scholar and philosopher, made an extensive visit and study of the United States.  It was de Toqueville who observed, ”A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years”.  No one has yet discovered a procedural method of avoiding this pitfall; but the United States has managed so far to last only a tiny bit longer than 200 years.

Barack Obama began campaigning for the office of President of the United States around 2002, and in 2008 he succeeded in being elected.  In large part, Obama’s appeal was his promise to be “a President of all the people”.  His “hope and change” slogan resonated even with some number of reasonable, educated and knowledgeable voters.  Over the years since he was elected, however, that promise seems increasingly in doubt.

President Obama seems to be stuck in a rut, ever since his 2012 reelection campaign season began in 2010.  His repetitive speeches are more strident and angry; his nice guy attitude is nowhere to be seen.  The only vestige of the old Obama is his prowess in raising campaign contributions.  He has been delivering Marxist class-envy speeches, filled with trite cold-war-era Soviet phrases, at every fund-raising stop on his current campaign trail.  It seems that Obama would feel comfortable only in a European Socialist government setting.

Obama’s legislative accomplishments also appear to be copies of the European Socialist initiatives that have led those progressive governments into imminent financial peril.  The President has refused to consider any but the most trivial reductions in government spending, and he is obsessed with increasing income taxes.  Taken together, the President’s speeches and his legislative agenda indicate that Obama is more of a President of the PIIGS than he is a President of the United States.  Perhaps it would be best if he abandoned the 2012 U.S. election and instead looked into organizing the PIIGS into their own union, with Barack Obama as its head.  PIIGS voters would undoubtedly be receptive to promises of more and more government largesse.