Posts Tagged ‘Ireland’

As Greece Votes Itself Into Collapse, It Is Following The Same Wicked Stupidity That American Voters Followed In Electing Obama

July 7, 2015

I’ve pointed this out before: there is NOTHING more dangerous than the right to vote when a people becomes sufficiently depraved.  Democrats tell us that we should round-file the 2nd-Amendment-guaranteed right of the people to keep and bear arms even as they tell us that ANY ATTEMPT WHATSOEVER to prevent criminals and illegal immigrants and dead people from voting is “unconstitutional.”

I pointed out the fact that the NAZI Party was elected by the same big-government worshiping socialist fascists who elected Obama twice.

If you put a gun in the hands of a wicked fool, whatever he does with that gun, he will pay the consequences for his foolishness.  At least, if decent people are allowed to also keep and bear arms so they can put an end to that wicked fool.  But let a wicked fool vote, and he can do so over and over again with impunity and never be held accountable.

In Greece – rather obviously a nation filled with wicked fools – we just saw the results of a vote.  It’s kind of interesting.  In the Lost Angeles Slimes we have the following account.  Allow me to post what I believe is the true gist by selecting a few passages and discussing that.  At the very bottom of the article I will have the entire LA Times article available:

In a surprising 61% to 39% result, Greeks said “no” in a referendum on a rescue package that would have kept their debt-ridden country afloat but subjected it to additional austerity measures.

The landslide delivered a sharp rebuke to European Union leaders who had warned that the plebiscite was, in effect, a vote on whether Greece wanted to remain a member of the Eurozone, the group of 19 nations that share the euro currency.

[…]

Jubilant crowds of “no” voters thronged Athens’ main square into the early hours of Monday to celebrate what they said was a chance for Greece to reassert itself and achieve a better deal from creditors. Motorists honked their horns, and triumphant chants of “Oxi! Oxi! Oxi!” — “No! No! No!” in Greek — rose in the balmy Mediterranean air.

But there were already signs of a backlash from angry European officials that could make any new bailout agreement even more difficult. If a deal is not struck quickly, Athens could find itself broke, forcing it to default on its debts and triggering a slide out of the Eurozone.

The left-wing government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which campaigned for a “no” victory, had “demolished the last bridge on which Europe and Greece could approach a compromise,” Sigmar Gabriel, the German economy minister, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the leader of the Eurozone’s finance ministers, described the poll result as “very regrettable for the future of Greece. For recovery of the Greek economy, difficult measures and reforms are inevitable.”

[…]

Tsipras also said the referendum result had given him a mandate to press international lenders — mostly other Eurozone countries — for a “sustainable” bailout package for the Greek government that would address its staggering debt load and free the country “from the vicious cycle of austerity.”

The Greek economy has contracted by a breathtaking 25% since Athens began accepting emergency loans in exchange for brutal spending cuts in 2010. Tsipras’ radical-left Syriza party swept to power in January on an aggressive anti-austerity platform, setting up the current standoff with Greece’s creditors.

He said Athens was prepared to return to the negotiating table immediately. But with relations at an all-time low, it was unclear whether any of Greece’s European partners would show up and, even if so, whether an agreement could be hashed out before the Greek government runs out of money.

A major debt to the European Central Bank falls due July 20. If Athens fails to pay — as it already did with a loan from the International Monetary Fund last week — and bank coffers are empty, Greece could be forced to introduce a parallel currency and eventually quit the Eurozone.

[…]

Before the ballots were cast, a parade of European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, said they would interpret a win for the “no” side as an expression of Greece’s desire to quit using the euro.

But Tsipras insisted that the vote “did not answer the question ‘in or out of the euro.’ That question must be removed definitively from the discussion.”

Polls consistently show that an overwhelming majority of Greeks want their country to remain in the Eurozone and, by extension, the 28-nation European Union.

Let’s understand some basic facts: Greece owes – and promised to repay when it borrowed – $270 BILLION.  To be extravagantly wasted on a tiny nation of 10,775,557 people.  That massive government borrowing allowed Greek government to provide benefits that far and vastly exceeded the country’s ability to pay for its largesse.  And as Margaret Thatcher once famously put it, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”  It’s like that saying, “Your mouth is writing checks that your ass can’t cash.”  Greek socialists, like ALL socialists EVERYWHERE (especially here in the U.S.), want to live high on the hog and force somebody else to keep paying the tab.  And so when the check comes due for that fancy meal in the high price resort, they angrily refuse to pay the tab they racked up.

The European Union is saying, “You’ve got to pay for this.”  And the Greek socialist liberal progressives are like, “oh, hell no.”  And a major problem now is that if Greece can weasel out of its debt with some stupid vote, then why can’t the OTHER P.I.G.S.?  Why can’t Portugal weasel out of its debt that they compiled with the same insanely wicked socialism Obama and the Democrat Party preach here?  Why can’t Ireland weasel out of its debt?  Why can’t Spain say bye-bye to its debt payments?  If the EU allows Greece out of its debt, the entire system will necessarily massively collapse.

These are simply facts.  And facts ought to matter.  The European Union simply cannot possibly allow Greece to do what Greece insists on doing without basically cutting the throats of every single person in every single member-state of the European Union that would go broke paying for Greece’s AND therefore Portugal’s AND therefore Ireland’s AND therefore Spain’s massive self-inflicted debt addiction.  Which again is no different from the debt-addiction of Barack Hussein Obama and every single member of the just-as-socialist Democrat Party machine.

But liberal progressives, and let’s just call them what the hell they are – socialists – are pathologically immune to facts or reality or consequences.

So how did the EU view this referendum (emphasis on “dumb”)?  Another article says it all in two sentences:

Tsipras dismissed harsh criticism from other European countries on his decision.

“The referendum will take place as scheduled, next Sunday, whether our partners want it or not,” he said.

Allowing this to go to the people was an act of insanity and demagoguery, not an act of leadership.  But demagogic delusion with a complete abandonment of true moral leadership is the heart and soul of leftism.

So you have the leftist Greek prime minister just flat-out flagrantly campaigning on a completely altered state of reality.  You have this leftist turd Alexis Tsipras – or as I prefer to call him, the Greek Obama – making the most insane promises in the history of the world.  And like the American Obama, the Greek Obama is leading his nation and his people straight to a very painful hell.

Just like the United States is headed straight to a very painful hell.

When Obama deceitfully campaigned for president, he told a lot of the same kind of sick lies and made the same sort of delusional fool promises.

Obama promised a “reset in relations” with Russia.  He said a weak America that would not pose a threat to Russia would be the foundation for this reset, and that Russia would obviously respond to the fact that America was no longer any kind of a threat to Russia with love and a determination to disarm and become weak in response.  He said the same thing in relationship to Iran and that nation’s steadfast determination to possess nuclear weapons with the ballistic missile capability to deliver those missiles at both the little satan Israel and the great satan America.  He said the same thing in relationship to the “war on terror” which he renamed “the overseas contingency operation” to broadcast how minimal it would be under his regime.  He promised us that the only reason our enemies hated us was because we were too strong and too dominant and pushed our weight around too much.

History has already proven what an abject fool Obama was in every sense of the word in terms of his foreign policy.

In the same way, on the domestic front, Obama made all kinds of fool promises about his giganotosaurus-government stimulus package.  Obama demanded – and got – a $3.27 TRILLION stimulus that he promised would fire up the engine of American growth.  Over and over and over again, Obama promised his stimulus would create “shovel-ready jobs.”  History proves that it in actual fact did the precise opposite.  Ultimately Obama actually admitted that:

Shovel-ready was not as … uh .. shovel-ready as we expected.”

Obama’s promise to pay back the $3.3 trillion he demagogued America into putting on its credit card bill is as good as Greece’s promise to pay that $270 billion they wanted but just didn’t want to actually pay back.

Greece’s $270 billion of other people’s money worked just as well for them as Obama’s $3.3 trillion in other people’s money worked for us.  It didn’t.

We now have a Great Depression level of actual unemployment that isn’t counted as month after month, basically TWICE as many people abandon hope of getting a job and drop out of the rigged-statistical-shenanigan that is our “unemployment rate calculation” for everyone that actually gets a damn job.  Just as Obama has created only one job for every two immigrants he allowed to flood into this country:

  A record 93,626,000 Americans have stopped looking for work in an economy that managed to create only one job for every two immigrants the government let in from 2000 to 2014.

But what the hell: just keeping making those, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor and if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan” promises, you lying turd.  What we have now is an ObamaCare failed system – characterized by the five billion dollars that couldn’t even build a successful damned website – that is a true socialist-fascist crony capitalist system that enriched the giant insurance companies at the expense of millions of Americans.  Which is why that LA Times article titled “Obamacare cash fuels healthcare merger mania” begins by pointing out:

A gusher of Obamacare money is fueling a merger frenzy in U.S. healthcare.

The latest jolt came Thursday when Woodland Hills insurer Health Net Inc. agreed to be bought by Medicaid insurer Centene Corp. for $6.8 billion.

And more billion-dollar deals are in the works as health insurers, hospitals and drug companies bulk up in size so they can seize on government spending in Obamacare exchanges, state Medicaid programs and Medicare Advantage for the baby boomers.

Riding high on Wall Street and flush with cash, big health insurers in particular have been on the prowl for deals. Atop the shopping list are companies that boost their government business.

“The Affordable Care Act is really driving this merger mania,” said Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. “There are billions of dollars pouring into the system, and it’s money to buy insurance.”

These giant companies, both big pharma and the giant insurers, supported Obama, and paved the way toward his never-seen-in-all-human-history more than two billion-dollar campaign warchest that he used to destroy all political opposition.  And now they’re really going to let us have it, points out CNN.

Everything about Obama and his supporters and his political party -EVERYTHING – is based on and built upon LIES.

The same kind of lies based on the same flagrant disregard for reality and the consequences of reality ignored that we’re seeing unfold in Greece.

Just thought I’d point that out to you as you watch Greece crash and realize it’s a preview for what Obama has done to America.

Here is the entire LA Times article on the Greek ‘no’ vote:

In landslide 61% to 39% vote, Greece says ‘no’ to bailout deal
By Henry Chu  contact the reporter
July 5, 2015, 7:50 PM |reporting from Athens

The resounding rejection of an international bailout deal by voters in Greece raised fears Sunday of the collapse of the country’s banking system, a catastrophic government default, an eventual exit from the euro and potential social unrest.

In a surprising 61% to 39% result, Greeks said “no” in a referendum on a rescue package that would have kept their debt-ridden country afloat but subjected it to additional austerity measures.

The landslide delivered a sharp rebuke to European Union leaders who had warned that the plebiscite was, in effect, a vote on whether Greece wanted to remain a member of the Eurozone, the group of 19 nations that share the euro currency.

The EU is now confronted with one of the gravest challenges to its mission of “ever closer union” between member states.

Jubilant crowds of “no” voters thronged Athens’ main square into the early hours of Monday to celebrate what they said was a chance for Greece to reassert itself and achieve a better deal from creditors. Motorists honked their horns, and triumphant chants of “Oxi! Oxi! Oxi!” — “No! No! No!” in Greek — rose in the balmy Mediterranean air.

But there were already signs of a backlash from angry European officials that could make any new bailout agreement even more difficult. If a deal is not struck quickly, Athens could find itself broke, forcing it to default on its debts and triggering a slide out of the Eurozone.

The left-wing government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, which campaigned for a “no” victory, had “demolished the last bridge on which Europe and Greece could approach a compromise,” Sigmar Gabriel, the German economy minister, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the leader of the Eurozone’s finance ministers, described the poll result as “very regrettable for the future of Greece. For recovery of the Greek economy, difficult measures and reforms are inevitable.”

An emergency summit of Eurozone leaders is to be held Tuesday.

More urgently, officials at the European Central Bank are to meet Monday to review the emergency aid that has propped up Greece’s nearly depleted financial system for the last few months.

If the European Central Bank decides to cut off that lifeline or make it costlier, Greek banks are likely to run out of cash within days. Business would grind to a halt, shops could run short of basic supplies and increasingly agitated residents could find it hard to buy fuel and medicine.

Greek banks have been closed since June 29 on order of the government, and customers limited to about $67 a day in ATM withdrawals. Officials insist that the banks will reopen Tuesday, but analysts doubt this can happen unless the European Central Bank maintains or increases its assistance.

“Our immediate priority is the rapid restoration of the functioning of our banking system and the restoration of our economic stability,” Tsipras said in a nationally televised address Sunday night. “I am certain that the ECB fully understands not only the general economic situation but also the humanitarian dimension which the crisis has taken in the country.”

Tsipras also said the referendum result had given him a mandate to press international lenders — mostly other Eurozone countries — for a “sustainable” bailout package for the Greek government that would address its staggering debt load and free the country “from the vicious cycle of austerity.”

The Greek economy has contracted by a breathtaking 25% since Athens began accepting emergency loans in exchange for brutal spending cuts in 2010. Tsipras’ radical-left Syriza party swept to power in January on an aggressive anti-austerity platform, setting up the current standoff with Greece’s creditors.

He said Athens was prepared to return to the negotiating table immediately. But with relations at an all-time low, it was unclear whether any of Greece’s European partners would show up and, even if so, whether an agreement could be hashed out before the Greek government runs out of money.

A major debt to the European Central Bank falls due July 20. If Athens fails to pay — as it already did with a loan from the International Monetary Fund last week — and bank coffers are empty, Greece could be forced to introduce a parallel currency and eventually quit the Eurozone.

Financial analysts say that this is not a threat in the next few days, but warn that the probability of a “Grexit” down the line has increased considerably because of Sunday’s vote.

Before the ballots were cast, a parade of European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, said they would interpret a win for the “no” side as an expression of Greece’s desire to quit using the euro.

But Tsipras insisted that the vote “did not answer the question ‘in or out of the euro.’ That question must be removed definitively from the discussion.”

Polls consistently show that an overwhelming majority of Greeks want their country to remain in the Eurozone and, by extension, the 28-nation European Union.

Merkel and other European leaders must now ponder whether to let Greece go bust and drop out of the Eurozone or whether such a course would inflict irreparable damage to the credibility of the euro and to the project of greater European unity. The Greek debt crisis is the severest test the euro has faced since it was introduced more than a decade ago.

To try to entice his Eurozone partners back to the bargaining table, Tsipras is apparently considering shuffling his negotiating team to include a broader spectrum of members. Several European officials have said openly that they no longer trust Tsipras or his Syriza party; a Greek delegation with some members drawn from other parties could be more palatable.

“That will show that Greece does not want a conflict,” said political commentator George Papageorgiou. “If there is a consensual approach from the Greek part, that could facilitate a consensual approach from the other part.”

Dijsselbloem, the Eurozone finance ministers’ chief, said the first move was Athens’. “We will now wait for the initiatives of the Greek authorities,” he said.

The size of the victory for the “no” campaign came as a surprise both inside and outside Greece after a flurry of opinion polls showed voters to be split down the middle. Bitter disagreement over the significance and possible effect of the plebiscite cleaved living rooms and workplaces across the country.

Just over 62% of the country’s 9.9 million voters cast a ballot, easily surpassing the mandatory threshold of 40% for a referendum to be considered valid.

Surveys suggested that young people voted “no” in droves. Many agreed with Tsipras’ contention that the bailout proposals on offer from Greece’s lenders demanded too much austerity on top of years of brutal spending cuts and would hit the poor and elderly disproportionately hard.

“These measures would worsen the situation,” said teacher Paula Andriotaki, 33, after casting her vote in a local school on a bright and warm afternoon. “We try to see light, but we get worse and worse.”

“Yes” supporters had urged Greeks to join them in order to guarantee Athens’ continued place in the Eurozone. They said that membership in the wider European Union could also be at risk and that Greece could not afford to be isolated.

A 40-year-old man named Giorgos, who declined to give his surname, blamed Tsipras for passing the buck.

“I would have preferred the referendum not to have happened,” he said. “I believe it is a political alibi. We are being asked to take a decision that should have been taken by someone else.”

The ballot paper was the subject of some criticism, because the question it asked was wordy and couched in jargon and the check box for “no” was above that for “yes.”

Moreover, the bailout deal referred to was technically moot. The offer from Greece’s creditors expired Tuesday night, after talks with Athens collapsed over Tsipras’ surprise decision to call a referendum. Creditors say that negotiations on a new agreement must start from scratch.

Because of the convoluted ballot question, and the conflicting claims of whether the real issue at stake was the future of Greece as a member of the Eurozone, many Greeks complained of confusion over just what was being asked of them.

“I don’t know what result I would like to see,” said a 19-year-old voter named Dimitris, who was still undecided as he prepared to enter a voting booth. “It would be a disaster to leave the euro, but it would also be disastrous to accept more austerity measures. ‘Yes’ is a bad choice, but ‘no’ is also suicidal.”

Sunday’s referendum was Greece’s first in 41 years. In 1974, Greeks were asked to decide whether their country should retain its monarchy.

The answer then: also a resounding “no.”

Special correspondent Pavlos Zafiropoulos contributed to this report.

One of the things that the left loves to do is hang all the consequences of “austerity” on the heads of conservatives.  On their view, the crisis has NOTHING to do with the $270 billion they borrowed in Greece and now refuse to repay; it’s because of “austerity” that the economy has collapsed.

Every leftist is a morally sick individual who essentially whines, “I want a mansion and a yacht, and if you don’t give them to me, it’s your fault I’m poor.”

And then there are the lies from the liars: at the heart of the “austerity” that the European Union is imposing on Greece is the demand for Greece to raise taxes.  HOW MANY CONSERVATIVES DO YOU HEAR CALLING FOR TAX HIKES????  This has NOTHING to do with conservatives, either the sick and diseased and insane borrowing or the attempts of the lenders to get their fool money back.  Rather, this is socialists European Union liberals trying to get their money back from socialist Greek liberals who are crazier than they are.

Conservatives call for LOW TAXES because LOWERING TAX RATES PRODUCES MORE REVENUES.

It’s like I have always said:

Tax Cuts INCREASE Revenues; They Have ALWAYS Increased Revenues

Please keep in mind that true conservatives like myself write articles such as this one that is particularly relevant given what is happening right now in Europe:

If Raising Taxes Would Get America Out Of Trouble, WHY IS THE EURO ZONE IN SUCH DEEP SH!T???

So from now on, any fool who blames Republicans or conservatives for failed “austerity” seriously needs to get a punch in the mouth.

What we are seeing in Greece is nothing more than the abject failure of socialism to deal with the crisis created by socialism.  Which is of course hardly surprising to anyone who is capable of thinking.

Obama Plays And Parties As America Is Literally Blown Away By Tornados

May 25, 2011

This headline grabbed me: “WWII Devastation” in Joplin, Missouri.  And here’s what that devastation looked like:

Not that Obama gives much of a damn.

There’s a famous picture that killed the Bush presidency.  It shows him flying over the Katrina devastation in a jet:

That one picture was all the mainstream media needed to frame their narrative that Bush was either uninvolved, uncaring, incompetent – or all three.  They showed it over and over.

Here are some pictures of Obama as tornadoes ripped across America and killed hundreds.  He didn’t HAVE to go on this trip; it wasn’t a major summit of any kind.  He visited distant relatives in Ireland, for Pete’s sake!

On his trip – while Americans were dying in droves and losing their homes by the tens of thousands – Obama enjoyed a nice game of ping pong:

Obama enjoyed a beer:

Why aren’t those photos about a gazillion times worse?  Other than the fact that the mainstream media would never do unto Obama what they repeatedly did unto Bush?

And, of course, there’s the story of Obama totally screwing up during the playing of the British national anthem and talking over it.

There’s the footage of Obama – who mocked the Republicans over the metaphor of their “driving the car of state into a ditch” – having this LITERALLY happen to his motorcade:

There’s the incredible picture of Obama not knowing what YEAR it was as he signed the guest book at Westminster Abbey:

Remember how many times the mainstream media replayed the footage of Bush going to the wrong door in China?  They mocked that Bush had “no exit strategy.”  How is this not about a million times more stupid???

All this happened while Americans losing their lives and having their homes’ destroyed by tornado after tornado.

Meanwhile, there are Americans who are suffering – and continue to suffer – the aftermath of that “World War II devastation,” who would LOVE their president flying over the ruins of their homes:

And:

And:

And:

You can bet that the same mainstream media that destroyed Bush one story and one picture at a time will never attack their messiah the same way – even though they have TWENTY TIMES the ammunition they had on Bush.

The most ideological and biased media since Adolf Hitler’s propaganda machine will keep on protecting their beloved Führer.

Obama WILL Raise Your Taxes And Your Living Costs

September 27, 2008

There was an interesting exchange during the debate last night:

“He has voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes on people who make as low as $42,000 a year,” McCain said.

“That’s not true, John. That’s not true,” Obama said, interrupting him.

But it IS true.

“Barack Obama has voted in support of higher taxes 94 times in just 3 years, including higher taxes for Americans making just $42,000 a year. If voters consider Barack Obama’s record of opposing tax cuts and his outspoken proposals to raise taxes on family savings, Social Security and small businesses — this latest campaign promise lacks a single shred of credibility.”

Despite Claiming He’d Lower Taxes For Middle Income Americans, Obama Voted In Favor Of The Democrats’ Budget – Which Would Raise Tax Rates For Americans Earning $42,000 Or More:

Obama Voted Twice In Favor Of The Democrats’ FY 2009 Budget Resolution. (S. Con. Res. 70, CQ Vote #85: Adopted 51-44: R 2-43; D 47-1; I 2-0, 3/14/08, Obama Voted Yea; S. Con. Res. 70, CQ Vote #142: Adopted 48-45: R 2-44; D 44-1; I 2-0, 6/4/08, Obama Voted Yea)

In Obama’s new version of an economic plan (he’s had so many my eyeballs start rolling), Obama claims to reduce taxes for 95% of Americans (the actual figure is only 81% by Obama’s own figures).  And over 40% of Obama’s “95%” figure actually already don’t pay federal income taxes – which means that it is merely a welfare-like transfer payment.

The result of reducing the rax rate paid by the rich has both increased federal revenues and even raised the ratio of taxes paid compared with income earned.  Lowering taxes has provided an incentive to invest and build wealth, which has in turn raised revenues and increased the percentage of taxes paid by the rich relative to other income classes.

Barack Obama – who IS last years’ winner of “Most liberal US Senator” award – is a tax and spend liberal.  He has $800 billion in new spending projects.  When the wealthy react to his tax increases by sheltering their money, who is he going to come after next?  He’s going to come after you.  He’s already come after you before -94 times in just 3 years, in fact.

When you tax the rich, they find it profitable to shelter their assets.  Not only will the rich pursue tax sheltering activity, but their very focus will shift from making money to avoiding taxes.  That means less investment; which means less investment capital; which means less jobs.  When the housing finance crisis is already freezing investment capital, do you really want Obama in charge of the economy?

Furthermore, Obama will raise your costs.  He has repeatedly attacked John McCain for wanting to lower taxes on corporations.  Obama has promised to raise taxes on corporations – which already pay the 2nd highest tax rate in the world.  He will raise taxes on small businesses, as well.

The fact that he has forced to acknowledge that raising taxes might be a bad idea in a recession means nothing.  He won’t be able to help himself once he’s in office, with a Democratic Congress pushing him.  He won’t stand up against them for the simple reason that he’s never stood up against Democrats.  Obama makes a big deal about the fact that McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time.  But Obama votes with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi 97% of the time.  A Barack Obama presidency would look little different from a Nancy Pelosi presidency.

What will happen when businesses find themselves paying taxes?  Does anyone seriously think that prices won’t increase to keep up with their increased operating costs?  Does anyone seriously think that jobs won’t be cut in order to reduce costs?

John McCain mentioned Ireland, whose economy has boomed since they reduced their corporate tax rate to 11%.  The U.S. rate is 35%.  Which would you rather pay?  Can you seriously blame businesses for relocating or “outsourcing” given such disparities?

If Barack Obama is elected President, he will try to tax the rich.  But as the rich shelter their money, and as corporations cut back their operations, relocate, or outsource to recover their desired profit margins, the American people will see their Faustian bargain go south on them very quickly.