European Social Democracies Bitten in Arse by "Anglo-Saxon" Economics

I lived in Germany (the Bundsrepublik Deutschland, then West Germany), when I was in the military. They northern European social democracies have social safety net policies well beyond what Tea Partyers denounced as "socialism." Yet Sweden, which more than others qualifies as "socialist," even has billionaires. So much for the right-wing candard that socialism discourages initiative.

In the northern European social democracies, even the conservative parties support the safety net. In Imperial Germany, it was the Iron Chancellor Bismark, no liberal, who inaugurated social security in the interest of promoting social cohesion. Unlike the U.S., the rich get taxed, and there is not the huge spread between the haves and have nots that there is in the U.S.

Of course, the right-wingnuts' first hero Rush Limbaugh claimed in the early '90s that the American poor were better off than the German middle class, an out and out lie. But out and out lies are part of the fun of being a Fox Newsie type, isn't it?

I don't think it's just that these people are in a dissociative fugue, but they know they are lying and revel in it. It's a pathology. How could anyone take that hypocritical drug addict I call "Rash Limboo" seriously otherwise? As we see in the new books churned out by Cheney & Co., our former Vice President and his kind & kin they are just out and out liars (just like they were when they were in office). This isn't Henry Kissinger giving his reasons for a repulsive policy you might disagree with in a reasoned manner. This is out and out lying by pseudo-intellectual thugs.

anada, which has a much better social safety that the U.S. (which economists correctly predicted during the recession of the 1st Bush 43 Administration would better position it for economic recovery), didn't have as severe a recession then or now. And it currently is run by a minority, Conservative government.

(The social safety net Tea Partyers would denounced as socialism was put in by the coalition government headed by Trudeau consisting of the centrist Liberal Party and centre-left New Democrats.)

The Wild Wild West laissez-faire economics of the U.S. that we returned to with the repeal of the Franklin Roosevelt-New Deal laws that had been put into place so what we're going through now we wouldn't go through again is dysfunctional. The Chicago School economics that Reagan & Co. bought into, the "Voodoo Economics denounced by Bush 43's father and propagated by the son, have been a disaster.

One shudders to think of what the Republicans, who gave us the Great Depression of the Thirties and this, the worst economic downturn since World War II, would do to this country if they ever got back in power.

Many of those northern European democracies also are going through hell as during this decade, they adopted looser, laissez-faire "anglo-Saxon" economic policies so their financial industry could compete with America's in the global financial services market. It was a disastrous policy move.