In Europe, austerity is in the air, and in the headlines: "Italy Fast-Tracks Austerity Vote." "Greek Minister Urges Austerity Consensus." "Portugal To Speed Austerity Measures." "Even Queen Faces Funding Squeeze In Austerity Britain." The word has become so instantly ubiquitous that Leftie deadbeats are already opposed to it: "Austerity Protest Takes Place In Dublin." For the rentamob types, "austerity" is to this decade what "Bush" and "Iraq War" were to the last. It can't be long before grizzled old rockers are organizing some all-star Rock Against Austerity gala.
Is there any nation on the planet more deserving of AUSTERITY! than America? We've for long been bloated and disgusting, fat, spoiled, and take all of it for granted.
The problem is structural: Not enough people do not enough work for not enough of their lives. Developed nations have 30-year-old students and 50-year old retirees, and then wonder why the shrunken rump of a "working" population in between can't make the math add up.
By the way, demographically speaking, these categories – "adolescents" and "retirees" – are an invention of our own time: They didn't exist a century ago. You were a kid till 13 or so. Then you worked. Then you died. As Obama made plain in his threat to Gran'ma last week that the August checks might not go out, funding nonproductivity is now the principal purpose of the modern state. Good luck with that at a time when every appliance in your home is manufactured in Asia.
Mark Steyn gets it. Obama and the Democrats don't (yet) get it.
It'll take a downgrade from S&P's and Moody's to get their attention I'm guessing. By the time they 'get it', spoiled Americans will be in the streets, protesting a return to the reality that is normalcy: humans can't be coddled for votes, because they are inherently lazy.
There's a wake-up call coming to fat, dumb and happy Americans.
Let's call it Austerity.
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