Saturday, November 19, 2011
Who owes what to whom?
The BBC has a very interesting clickable graph that shows which countries owe what to which other countries, plus their debt burden compared to GDP and per capita. More reasons, in effect, why the great democracies of the world are going to have to solve their long-term fiscal problems or cease being great democracies.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Nov 19, 03:11:00 PM:
"great democracies"?
I don't think that the EU or any member of it can be described as a great democracy these days. The EU has shown itself to be anything but democratic.
By E Hines, at
Sat Nov 19, 11:47:00 PM:
Hmm, the peoples of France and The Netherlands, in separate national referenda, reject the Constitution that would have formed the EU, so the EU leadership rams through the Treaties of Rome, Maastricht, and Lisbon via governmental legislation in order to get the strictures of the rejected Constitution enacted. The Greek government decides to let the Greek people decide whether a "bailout" is worth the price, so the EU leadership brings down the government, preventing the plebiscite. The Italian government isn't acting with the humility the same EU leadership demands, so they engineer that government's replacement, also.
Yeah. The EU is a democratic institution.
The debt question remains a valid one, though.
Eric Hines
By 
TOF, at
Sun Nov 20, 09:02:00 AM:
What that graph fails to take into account is the HUGE tab the European countries ran up during/after the Cold War in letting the USA foot the bill for defense. Doing that allowed the Euros to build the welfare state they have today -- along with its attendant problems.
And we were fools for trying to emulate their socialist model.
