Monday, January 2, 2012

DELPHIC COMMENTS: Europe's Leaders May Need History Lesson - WSJ.com

Europe's Leaders May Need History Lesson - WSJ.com

It would seem like the Delphic oracle that this article is so open to interpretation that it really says nothing?

A discussion of issues such as supporting 'growth' in an economy through growth-engendering support for investment and entrepreneurship (both sorely lacking in Europe) are amiss.

Any questioning of union-centric labor policies that inhibit hiring and economic vitality are amiss.

There's also nothing about the fact that taxes, which raise prices for goods and services, concomitantly decrease the demand for those goods and services (and the jobs required to produce them).

There is also no criticism of policies such as those reported in Bloomberg today about the closure of French petroleum refineries due to falling demand and lack of profit. Do the French unions call for cuts in fuel taxes to spur demand or in labor costs to return the refinery to profitability? No, the unions want nationalization to transfer money from the still-solvent part of the economy to their own no-longer-solvent part.

If Europe has a problem, as in America, its the ostrich approach to a non-socialist political and economic construct and way of doing things. As with the classical definition of imbecility, which deals with continuing to do the same things in the same ways but expecting a different outcome, the policymakers and public of much of Europe and the US are deluding themselves.

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