Return to Greece’s past, a radical mistake

The Great Leap Backwards

By Joshua Chaffin

It has become accepted wisdom that Alexis Tsipras, the leftwing Greek politician vying to become the country’s next prime minister, is a radical.

With good reason. Mr Tsipras’ party, Syriza, is formally known as the Coalition of the Radical Left. His campaign appearances feature homages to the revolutionary icon Che Guevara, and fiery speeches that rail against crooked bankers, corrupt politicians, the International Monetary Fund and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

But what if the chief appeal of Syriza is not so much the promise of radical change but rather a return to the status quo – the days before Greece ran aground on the rocks of a debt crisis and became entangled with the EU and the IMF?There are signs that Syriza may be just that. Take the campaign rhetoric. The message feathered beneath the accusations is one of comfort for a citizenry whose feelings of humiliation and embarrassment should not be underestimated: It was not your fault – it was theirs.

Club Med needs to take a long hard look at Buenos Aires.

Argentina Continues The Descent

By Walter Russell

Argentina’s President did something so amazing today that it made the world news: she announced that she’s converting her last dollar bank account into pesos.

But don’t worry; this isn’t a story about the decline of the dollar.

Argentina wasted the 20th century lurching from one ill-considered economic experiment to the next. Many worked temporarily; the country’s vast natural resources are always there to help out. But in the end, one by one they failed, sending the country into alternating bouts of hyperinflation and business depression.

Unfortunately the country is starting the 21st century in the same way; the Kirchner-Fernandez period like the Menem period before it began with high hopes but it is now slowly descending to earth. So far the government has resorted to the traditional techniques: cooking the books, hounding whistle blowers, nationalizing assets and confiscating foreign investment.

The Triumph of Hope

Europe has no good choices, only a choice among very distressing and expensive options

By John Mauldin

When the Eurozone was created it was the triumph of hope over the reality of political and economic discord. Somehow, countries that had different languages, customs and national characteristics; that had fought each other for centuries; and that all had different views of themselves in relation to the rest of their fellow Europeans, were supposed to come together into a fiscal union, because they now shopped with the same money.

Rather than simply creating a free-trade zone and allowing for a common understanding and economic integration to develop over time, the European leaders wanted to jump-start the process. And they had numerous critics. Many of the best and brightest in the economics world pointed out the problems.

How Four Jewish Butchers Brought Down the First New Deal

That’s Not Kosher

By Steven Horwitz

Jewish-Americans have a long history of finding role models who broke barriers, accomplished great things, or engaged in more mundane acts of heroism. Jewish religious schools are full of discussions of athletes like Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, or the legions of Jewish entertainers and scholars, as ways to demonstrate the accomplishments of American Jews.

But in all those stories many of us heard growing up, one set of brave heroes was never mentioned: the Schechter brothers of New York City. The Schechters were kosher butchers operating in the 1930s who stood fast to their commitment to the dietary laws of kashrut in the face of ferocious pressure and prosecution by a powerful government. They eventually took their case to the highest court in the land—and won—defeating one of the most popular and powerful administrations in American history.

One would think this story of Jewish heroism and commitment to Jewish values would be inspirational for generations of young American Jews. But the Schechter brothers were up against Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Berlin is ignoring the lessons of the 1930s

Is it one minute to midnight in Europe?

By Niall Ferguson and Nouriel Roubini

We fear that the German government’s policy of doing “too little too late” risks a repeat of precisely the crisis of the mid-20th century that European integration was designed to avoid.

We find it extraordinary that it should be Germany, of all countries, that is failing to learn from history. Fixated on the non-threat of inflation, today’s Germans appear to attach more importance to 1923 (the year of hyperinflation) than to 1933 (the year democracy died). They would do well to remember how a European banking crisis two years before 1933 contributed directly to the breakdown of democracy not just in their own country but right across the European continent.

Argentina’s Way to Decadence

To the enemy, not even justice

By Ariel Barbero

Argentina’s former president Eduardo Duhalde—elected by Congress in 2002 after a coup toppled the candidate who had defeated him in the regular elections—once said that Argentina was condemned to success. Indeed a country with fertile land, a mild climate, mighty rivers, a small population that used to be well educated, no major conflicts, and no racial rifts would seem difficult to sink. It must inevitably rise. Nevertheless, we Argentines have demonstrated a rare ability to avoid success. Fortunately destiny—good or bad—is never inevitable.

People often point out that the two Koreas provide (as the two Germanys once did) good examples of what the rule of law means for the life of a nation. Argentina provides yet another example of the changes that take place when respect for rights—including property—is no longer considered relevant. Except that in the case of Argentina, the division doesn’t concern space but time.

We Argentines started very well. People tend to forget that by 1928 Argentina had the sixth-highest gross domestic product (GDP) in the world. Income per capita was similar to Germany’s. Literature and music flourished.

Defiance. A Lost Virtue?

The Tambov Rebellion

By Brandon Smith

It was August 19th, 1920. A military detachment of Red Army soldiers led by Bolshevik authorities steamrolled into the Russian town of Khitrovo to implement a policy known as “Prodrazvyorstka”; resource allocation in the name of national security which led to the confiscation of vital grain supplies and the starvation of millions of peasants. To be sure, multiple excuses were used to rationalize the program, all in the name of the “greater good”. But in reality, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks saw the farming culture of Russia not as human beings, but as mechanisms for feeding city residents and the army; the power centers of the newly formed Communist government.

Let’s Be Friends

There's waste of taxpayers' money and then there's waste of taxpayers' money...

By Daniel J. Mitchel

While most of my disdain is focused on the clowns in Washington, I enjoy poking fun at the policies adopted by the various nitwits and thugs that can be found in other governments.

** That’s why I’ve mocked the British government-run healthcare system for letting a woman die when officials failed to notice a six-inch toilet brush handle embedded in her buttocks.

Living Europe’s Nightmare

Just because something is “unthinkable” doesn’t mean that it can’t happen

By Christopher T. Mahoney

Losing a long war is always hard to accept. Hemmed in by the Americans and the Russians in the final days of World War II, Hitler convinced himself that he had two armies in reserve to mount a counter-attack and win the war. Meanwhile, having lost the entire Pacific, Japan’s Imperial Cabinet believed that no enemy could set foot upon the country’s sacred soil. When the truth is unimaginable, human psychology finds an alternative reality in which to dwell.

That describes the global situation today. The entire planet seems to be in denial about what is about to occur in the eurozone. Pundits keep expecting Germany to pull a rabbit out of the hat and flood the continent with Eurobonds, or that Mario Draghi will mount a coup at the European Central Bank and buy up every deadbeat country’s bonds.

The IMF has just been made obsolete

Ireland wants rescue deal negotiated to match Spain's

A shopper looks at t-shirts at Liptons shop were the old Irish currency, the punt, is accepted in Clones, Ireland on May 30. Ireland wants to renegotiate its rescue plan to benefit from the same treatment as Spain, which looks set to win a bailout for its banks without any broader economic reforms in return, European sources said.

By Victor Clay

Ireland wants to renegotiate its rescue plan to benefit from the same treatment as Spain, which looks set to win a bailout for its banks without any broader economic reforms in return, European sources said on Saturday.

"Ireland raised two issues: one is the need to ensure parity of the deal with Spain retroactively on its bailout from EFSF," one European government source told AFP, referring to the temporary rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.

The Phony Science of the Sexual Revolution

Kinsey’s Secret

by Sue Ellin Browder

It’s now more than 50 years since the revolution began. Sexual “liberation” has been endlessly ballyhooed by the national media, promoted in the movies, embraced by Playboy guys and Cosmo girls as a freedom more delicious than Eden’s apple. No American under 40 can honestly remember a time when sex on TV was taboo, when “living together” meant married, when “gay” meant happy, and when almost every child lived with both parents.

If truth be told, the revolution has been a disaster. Before the push to loosen America’s sexual mores really got under way in the 1950s, the only widely reported sexually transmitted diseases in the United States were gonorrhea and syphilis. Today we have more than two dozen varieties, from pelvic inflammatory disease (which renders more than 100,000 American women infertile each year) to AIDS (which presently infects 42 million people worldwide and has already killed another 23 million).

The fallen tiles are heading directly towards Rome

The Cross Of Forbearance

by Mark Grant

"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.

"The ones you can see over there," answered his master, "with the huge arms, some of which are very nearly two leagues long."

"Now look, your grace," said Sancho, "what you see over there aren't giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind and turn the millstone."

"Obviously," replied Don Quixote, "you don't know much about adventures.”

                                                           -Miguel Cervantes

The wind picked up across the plains, the windmill began to turn and “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha” rode out once more to do battle. The ever faithful Sancho Panza, not wishing to be left behind, was in attendance and the windmills were now the banks and the regional debt of the country.

Rand Paul just got on the steamroller

Rand Paul endorsed a man who is deeply hostile to human liberty

by John Aziz

Perhaps that’s Rand’s idea of playing politics? Come to the table, strike a deal, get what you can. Trouble is, it’s tough striking a good deal when the guy on the other side of the table believes that the government should be allowed to claim — without having to produce any evidence whatsoever — that certain people are terrorists, and therefore should be detained indefinitely without any kind of due process.

That’s textbook tyranny.

Time to move on beyond politics.

Lew Rockwell on Rand Paul's Endorsement of Mitt Romney

The Ron Paul campaign is over. Ron Paul has touched the minds of millions. 

The Republic Wears Prada

Obama redefines 'Green Zone'

By Mark Steyn

Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her Diamond Jubilee a few days ago – that's 60 years on the throne. Just to put it in perspective, she's been queen since Harry S. Truman was president. At any rate, her jubilee has been a huge success, save for a few churlish republicans in various corners of Her Majesty's realms from London to Toronto to Sydney pointing out how absurd it is for grown citizens to be fawning over a distant head of state who lives in a fabulous, glittering cocoon entirely disconnected from ordinary life.

Which brings us to President Obama.

Who is ruling and who is ruled

James Mill and Libertarian Class Analysis

by Murray N. Rothbard

The theory of class conflict as a key to political history did not begin with Karl Marx. It began, as we shall see further below, with two leading French libertarians inspired by J.B. Say, Charles Comte (Say's son-in-law), and Charles Dunoyer, in the 1810s after the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. In contrast to the later Marxist degeneration of class theory, the Comte-Dunoyer view held the inherent class struggle to focus on which classes managed to gain control of the state apparatus. 

The ruling class is whichever group has managed to seize state power; the ruled are those groups who are taxed and regulated by those in command. Class interest, then, is defined as a group's relation to the state. State rule, with its taxation and exercise of power, controls, and conferring of subsidies and privileges, is the instrument that creates conflicts between the rulers and the ruled. What we have, then, is a "two-class" theory of class conflict, based on whether a group rules or is ruled by the state. On the free market, on the other hand, there is no class conflict, but a harmony of interest between all individuals in society cooperating in and through production and exchange.

Booming Sweden’s Free-Market Solution

The northern Europeans have little tolerance for the statist conservatism of Southern Europe

By Anders Aslund

Not so long ago, Sweden could claim world leadership in unmitigated Keynesian economics, with a 90 percent marginal tax rate and a welfare state second to none.

Now Swedes look at the conflict between the U.S. and German examples over whether more spending or more austerity is the key to financial salvation, and for them the choice is easy: Germany was right. Northern Europe harbors no sympathy for the spendthrifts of Southern Europe.

Americans still think of Sweden as a tightly regulated social-welfare state, but in the last two decades the country has been reformed. Public spending has fallen by no less than one-fifth of gross domestic product, taxes have dropped and markets have opened up.

Who Lost Greece?

Taking a Spring Break

A relatively insignificant southern European country threatens the very survival of the euro in its present form. How did we get here, and what lessons does Greece hold for the rest of the European periphery?

By Desmond Lachman

With Greece now literally in a state of economic and political collapse, and with the country on the cusp of an official debt default and an exit from the euro, it is not too early to pose some uncomfortable questions. Who lost Greece? How did we get to a situation in which a relatively insignificant southern European country threatens the very survival of the euro in its present form? And what lessons does Greece hold for the rest of the European periphery?

Japan is driving towards a brick wall

Can Japan No Longer Afford Ambitious CO2 Cuts?

By By Mari Iwata

The Japanese government, busy trying to win parliamentary approval for its proposed sales tax hike, has so far been lukewarm on the United Nation’s “Rio Earth Summit” in Brazil on June 20-22, when politicians, businesses and non-governmental organizations from around the world will try to thrash out standards for sustainable development.

“We are not sure who will lead our delegation,” to the meeting, an official at Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told reporters on Wednesday. “It probably depends on how Parliament goes.”

The apparent lack of enthusiasm comes only three years after Japan won worldwide praise for its leadership on global environmental issues following its pledge to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020.

The "Solution" Is Collapse

Only collapse will force everyone to go do something more sustainable to get by

So the root problem is the system, human nature, blah blah blah. There are no "solutions" that can fix those defaults. Thus the "solution" is collapse.

by Charles Hugh Smith

Policies create incentives and disincentives. Some are intended, some fall into the category of unintended consequences. Regardless of their intention, policies that create windfalls ("easy money") or open spigots of "free money" (or what is perceived as free money by the recipient) quickly gather the allegiance of everyone reaping the windfall or collecting the free money.

The World Before Central Banking

The Zombification of the Free Market

by John Aziz

In today’s world, there are many who want government to regulate and control everything. The most bizarre instance, though — more bizarre even than banning the sale of large-sized sugary drinks — is surely central banking.

Why? Well, central banking was created to replace something that was already working well. Banking panics and bank runs happen, and they have always happened as long as there has been banking.

The House of Cards is collapsing

Living within your means is now considered ‘austerity’. And unfair.

By Simon Black

One of the great absurdities of our modern financial system is that a nation living within its means, i.e. spending less than what it confiscates in tax revenue, is no longer the norm.

Whether in the UK, Europe, or North America, many voters have become so accustomed to the government’s massive role in the economy, they can’t begin to imagine how it could be scaled back.

You usually hear heavy objections from people like– “What about roads? If we start cutting budgets, there would be no more roads!”

The ‘road argument’ is one of the most widely misused defenses of government… as if there are no private roads in the world.

Scrap the Euro Now

The common currency was doomed from the start

By Robert J. Barro

Until recently, the euro seemed destined to encompass all of Europe. No longer. None of the remaining outsider European countries seems likely to embrace the common currency. Seven Eastern European countries that recently joined the European Union (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania) have announced their intention to revisit their obligations to adopt the euro.

Two non-euro members of the European Union, the United Kingdom and Denmark, have explicit opt-out provisions from the common currency, and popular opinion has recently turned strongly against euro membership. In Sweden, which lacks a formal opt-out provision (but has cleverly refused to fulfill one of the requirements for membership), a November poll on whether to join the euro was overwhelmingly negative: 80 percent no, 11 percent yes.

The “cold turkey” approach

Paul Krugman and the European Austerity Myth

by Daniel J. Mitchell

With both France and Greece deciding to jump out of the left-wing frying pan into the even-more-left-wing fire, European fiscal policy has become quite a controversial topic.

But I find this debate and discussion rather tedious and unrewarding, largely because it pits advocates of Keynesian spending (the so-called “growth” camp) against supporters of higher taxes (the “austerity” camp).

Since I’m a big fan of nations lowering taxes and reducing the burden of government spending, I would like to see the pro-tax hike and the pro-spending sides both lose (wasn’t that Kissinger’s attitude about the Iran-Iraq war?). Indeed, this is why I put together this matrix, to show that there is an alternative approach.

An Open Letter to Southern Europeans

I’ll Gladly Pay You Tuesday

by Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia

Slowly, ever so slowly, we are realizing, or at least should be, that the fundamental reordering of Europe that began with the crumbling collapse of an overextended and unsustainable communist glacis in the late 1980s has had far greater and far-reaching reverberations than we then would or could have predicted.

Soviet-style communism, even in the short run an unworkable form of despotism since its imposition in 1917, remained so through its iteration by military force and occupation in Eastern Europe in the 1940s. We know that crony capitalism leads to economic busts but crony communism never really even gets off the ground, just seedy privilege — bigger bad cars, better bad health care, better bad education for the children of the well-connected — justified not by achievement but by self-appointment to bring about a more radiant future, because only the self-appointed party is capable of giving hope of a better future. We will shortly meet this phrase again.

Deng Xiaoping realized already in the late 1970s, a decade before the collapse of what by then was simply a Soviet khrushchyovka of worn-out cards that a society or a country cannot borrow on the future, that productive creative labor is what must needs be allowed, and that privilege without merit leads to Soviet-style stagnation. Deng realized social stratification based on party membership, not on accomplishment, was unsustainable and proclaimed: “It is glorious to get rich.” He didn’t say, nota bene, that it is glorious to have free speech and free and fair elections. China realized it needed to change and embraced capitalism without democracy. Moscow was more obtuse, at least until the second half of the 1980s.

How to built an economy from scratch

Estonia Uses the Euro, and the Economy is Booming

It’s the euro zone, but not as we know it.

Sixteen months after it joined the struggling currency bloc, Estonia is booming. The economy grew 7.6 percent last year, five times the euro-zone average.

Estonia is the only euro-zone country with a budget surplus. National debt is just 6 percent of GDP, compared to 81 percent in virtuous Germany, or 165 percent in Greece.

Shoppers throng Nordic design shops and cool new restaurants in Tallinn, the medieval capital, and cutting-edge tech firms complain they can’t find people to fill their job vacancies.

It all seems a long way from the gloom elsewhere in Europe.

Estonia’s achievement is all the more remarkable when you consider that it was one of the countries hardest hit by the global financial crisis. In 2008-2009, its economy shrank by 18 percent. That’s a bigger contraction than Greece has suffered over the past five years.

Is Greater Productivity a Danger?

There are always new uses for human labor

by David Gordon

It is bad enough that opponents of the free market wrongly blame capitalism for environmental pollution, depressions, and wars. Whatever the failings of their causal theories, at least they are focused on undoubtedly bad things. We have really gone beyond the pale, though, when the market is blamed for something good.

Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey, does just that in his article. "Let's Be Less Productive," which appeared in the New York Times, May 26, 2012.

Jackson suggests that greater productivity may have reached its "natural limits." By productivity, he means "the amount of output delivered per hour of work in the economy." He acknowledges that as work has become more efficient, substantial benefits have resulted: "our ability to generate more output with fewer people has lifted our lives out of drudgery and delivered us a cornucopia of material wealth."

Despite these benefits, danger lies ahead:

Freedom To Leave May Stop Oppressive Government

"When they persecute you in this city, flee into another"

By Lawrence Hunter

The United States of America is in the early stages of a government-induced crack up.  Stress has begun to create structural failures in the interstices but, as yet, has produced only surface cracks on the social facade.

As the stress of oppressive and tyrannical government increases, however, and as its destructive by-products corrode the social edifice—abusive government actions mount, profligate and destructive policies bring economic ruin on the country, corruption becomes endemic, imperial war abroad, class warfare and civil upheaval at home plague the nation, cities decay—structural cracks will appear and become visible even to the most stupefied American.  More and more people will become aware of the extensive damage that oppressive, albeit democratically elected government has inflicted on American society.  At that point, people will be roused from their stupor to ask, “What happened” but by then, it will be too late.

The Danger of External Debts

Large trade and government deficits often go hand in hand

by Philipp Bagus

Economists and journalists often point to the danger of external public debts — in contrast to internal debts, which are regarded as less troublesome. Japan is a case in point. Japan has an enormous public-debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 200 percent. It is argued that the high ratio is not a problem, because the Japanese save a lot and government bonds are held mostly by Japanese citizens; it is internal debt.

In contrast, Spain with a much lower public-debt-to-GDP ratio (expected to be at 80 percent at the end of this year) is regarded as more unstable by many investors. One reason given for the Spanish fragility is that about half of Spanish government bonds are held by foreigners.[1]

At first sight, one may doubt this line of reasoning. In fact, as an individual living in Spain, I do not care if I get a loan from a Spanish or a German friend. Why would the Spanish government be different? Why care if loans come from Spaniards or from Germans?

We All Prefer Growth to Austerity

Making Growth or Letting It Grow?

By Anthony de Jasay

Galactic Happiness Consultants L.P. have just released the results of a survey of ten thousand adults in 27 European countries who were asked to rank chocolate cake and thin gruel in order of preference. 72.6 per cent chose chocolate cake, 4.3 thin gruel, 23.1 thought the question was daft. The Scientific Advisory Board recommended that the latter be considered as preferring chocolate cake.

EU: neither the destroyer nor saviour of Europe

The cause of and the solution to all of life’s problems 

As the Euro crisis intensifies, it’s becoming clear that both Europhiles and Eurosceptics are driven by the same responsibility-shirking instinct.

by Brendan O’Neill 

Over the past year, as the Euro crisis has intensified, there has been a really interesting revelation – which is that Europhiles and Eurosceptics are not that different from each other. In fact, Europhiles and Eurosceptics are driven by very similar impulses, by similar anti-democratic instincts.

Both of these groups seem keen to absolve national governments of responsibility, to absolve nation states of responsibility for political and economic chaos.

The Europhile does it by kowtowing to Brussels, calling upon EU institutions to do more to save Europe. And the Eurosceptic does it by blaming the EU for almost everything that goes wrong, treating Brussels as a kind of Death Star that has sucked decency from every inch of Europe.

Gimme more

Give-and-Take

By Mark Steyn

Some years ago in this space, I cited a famous Gerald Ford line he liked to use when trying to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." And I posited an alternative thesis: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn't big enough to get you to give any of it back.

That's what the political class of Europe's cradle-to-grave welfare states have spent the last three years doing: trying to persuade their electorates to give some of it back. Not a lot, just a bit. In France, President Sarkozy raised the retirement age from 60 to 62. French life expectancy is 80.7, so you still get to enjoy a quarter of your entire human existence as one long holiday weekend. In Greece, where those in officially designated "hazardous" professions such as hairdressing and TV-announcing get to retire at 50, the government raised the possibility of ending the agreeable arrangement by which public-sector employees receive 14 monthly paychecks per annum. They didn't actually do it but the mere suggestion that Greeks should, like lesser mortals, be bound by temporal reality was enough for the voters to rebel.

The Truth About Europe

There Is No Solution

By Raul Ilargi

Whatever data we can look at, past, present and future, none of it will make an essential difference. The title stands: There Is No Solution For Europe. Period. All I can do is keep pointing to news and stats and data that confirm that. All of them do, so that should make it a lot easier, even if most voices out there never tire from pointing out the opposite.

Nor is it limited to Europe; it's not as if the US, or Australia, or any other industrialized country, has any other fate to look forward to. This global debt deflation is truly global, the only thing that differs is the exact time the hammer comes down. Maybe those people are best off who never had much, though they will be sure to be squeezed ever harder by us, the declining rich.

The Restaurant At The End Of The Eurozone

It’s Just Lunch

                           “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”

                                                    -Douglas Adams

By Mark Grant

Imagine if you will a very large and diverse restaurant. It is not the Restaurant at the End of the Universe of Douglas Adam’s fame but the biggest one on this world and it is known as  "Investeros." Here there is a group of people that have been dining together for the past thirteen years. 

For most of the time the food was good, the service polite and paying the bill was never an issue. Then Don Grekko got into trouble and then Don Paddy and also Don Portugesse. They still went to lunch, of course, everyone being good friends but the other diners had to pick up their bill and this was getting tiresome. There was huffing and puffing and each of them said, in turn, that it was not their fault. There was the usual polite finger pointing and these three gentleman ate, but what they could order was severely curtailed because of the prices. This caused some issues but everyone still dined and the world went on albeit not quite as pleasantly as before.

We

Brainwashing Starts With This Two-Letter Word

by Simon Black

The big news out of New York City these days is Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s proposed ban on the sale of soda drinks over 16-ounces (about 1/2 liter) at restaurants, movie theaters, sports stadia, street carts, fast food chains, etc.

Bloomberg stressed that we have a responsibility to combat obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and that the government must consequently regulate what people can/cannot put in their bodies. Michelle Obama even came down to applaud the idea.

Last night I was out with a group of friends at a chic Soho restaurant called the Dutch, and we started talking about the soda ban.

The magical money-growing trees

As France Lowers Retirement Age, Germany Better Be Ready To Pay For Austerity's Unwind

By Tyler Durden

As noted earlier, Europe has been so obviously crippled by years of brutal austerity (which, as we pointed out before never actually happened), that it has had to experience the supreme indignity - a miserable two years of plunging flat GDP growth. Because under the old normal, it appears that unless one is issuing massive debt, pardon "growing", society grinds to a halt. 

Well, it appears that France has finally had enough, and as of today, "the French government approved a measure Wednesday that will lower the retirement age to 60 from 62 for a narrow group of workers, partly reversing unpopular pension reforms made by former President Nicolas Sarkozy as he sought to improve France's public finances." Obviously, this means that more welfare funding will have to be sourced as all else equal, this means less money will be produced by the country's workforce, and more money will be consumed by its retirees.

Immoral Beyond Redemption

When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good

by Walter E. Williams

Benjamin Franklin, statesman and signer of our Declaration of Independence, said: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." John Adams, another signer, echoed a similar statement: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Are today's Americans virtuous and moral, or have we become corrupt and vicious? Let's think it through with a few questions.

Suppose I saw an elderly woman painfully huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. She's hungry and in need of shelter and medical attention. To help the woman, I walk up to you using intimidation and threats and demand that you give me $200. Having taken your money, I then purchase food, shelter and medical assistance for the woman. Would I be guilty of a crime? A moral person would answer in the affirmative. I've committed theft by taking the property of one person to give to another.