Of Europe, American Taxpayers and the Bailout of Greece

The ink is barely dry on a Trillion dollar "bailout" that Europe has constructed to contain the uncontainable: the berserk European social spending that even Europeans couldn't help but characterize as "PIIGs". That acronym stands for Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece, the four true basket cases of the EEU, and the ones in immediate need of a bailout.

OffHisMeds gives them credit for a sense of humor, if not a particularly keen sense of irony. It is one thing for a Frenchman to haughtily dismiss his less fortunate brethren; quite another for him not to acknowledge that the only thing that separates the PIIGs from France is a matter of timing.

Europe has been living off America's dime for several decades now. Our direct subsidies include contributions to the World Bank and the IMF, military expenditures, liquidity swaps, tolerance of the Mercantilist policies of Euros, and OHM's current favorite: the manipulation of America's stock markets.

All of these things unambiguously transfer American dollars into the pockets of Europe's senile democracies. As a particular case in point, much of the Trillion dollar bailout is financed by the IMF. The US contributes 18% of IMF funding. So $100 billion was transferred from American taxpayers to Europe without so much as a vote in Congress. All this took was a stroke of Barack Obama's pen.

Ask yourself if any IMF money has ever benefitted America. Ask yourself how pathetic a nation we have become when Europe can write themselves a $100 Billion dollar check drawn on our Treasury any time they want to.

The sadly predictable part is that this will all be for naught. OHM is going to go on record and predict that the so-called "reforms" Greece committed to in reining in social spending will not happen. People will continue to retire at age 53; Greeks will continue to enjoy ten weeks of vacation; workweeks will stay at 30 hours; government employment will continue to be the only game in town.

And America will not have a leg to stand on in criticizing Greece. Take their cushy make-work society and tell me how it is different from government employment anywhere in America?

It's exactly the same.