This really says it all...
The "Euro" story, incidentally, is all about transfer payments. It even puts forward the position that all of Europe must "accept" liability for each member state's government debts!
The rest? The same basic deal. Budget, budget, budget. And yet there's a cudgel in there for Ryan's backing by the banks.
Nowhere in those six stories is the fact laid bare that (1) the banks are creating credit unbacked that does not exist, thereby exerting their own taxes on the economy and (2) that government, ultimately, is no different than people -- that is, it may not spend more than it takes in via taxes on a long-term, sustainable basis.
That's all there is to the fiscal problems both Europe and the United States face. It's not difficult at all. It's made difficult because the media refuses to discuss the truth and people are continually sold magical unicorns that crap out pretty colored candies -- and when the candy turns out to be something dark and sticky they get upset.
This can easily be summarized as "Welcome to reality."
Ryan will of course be pilloried for trying to throw granny down the stairs. The truth is that Ryan deserves this treatment both by the campaigns and media. He deserves it because his so-called plan with regard to Medicare is an open fraud on all levels as it refuses to deal with the source of the problem with medical cost escalation.
Government created the problem. It did so by creating specific mandates for health providers forcing them to provide care to people who either could not or would not pay, whether that failure was due to misfortune or choosing to buy iPhones, fancy cars, booze, cruise vacations and big houses instead of saving for medical expenses.
Government then provided a legal shield so that activities such as collusive pricing, blatant restraint of trade and other monopolistic practices that can only be enforced with government backing were available to the medical industry.
If all five makers of carpet get together in a room and agree to all raise their prices 20%, that's a felony. The reason it rarely happens and "works" in a competitive market is that there is a tremendous incentive for one of the carpet manufacturers to break ranks and undercut his competition, destroying their market share and becoming wealthy while the other guys starve for business.
But in the health market this is not true. Try to open up an MRI in your town and you will find that in order to do you need permission -- and it will be withheld if there is no "need" in your area. What is the definition of "need"? That prices will not be depressed by your entry into the market.
The entire purpose of a free, open and competitive market is to depress prices to the level where the most-competitive participants are still able to make what they, and only they, judge to be a satisfactory profit.
If prices fall below that level some people will exit the market and supply will ease, raising prices. If prices are above that level some people will be attracted to the opportunity and will enter the market, increasing supply and lowering prices. This is what a free market does.
But in the medical system the market is not allowed to work. By mandating that Juanita the illegal Mexican immigrant, 7-1/2 months pregnant, drug-addicted and drunk, must have her premature baby delivered when she goes into labor and the child and her are both entitled to the best medical care we can provide irrespective of the fact that she has no money and is pregnant, drug-addicted and an alcoholic of her own free will not to mention that she is here illegally, the hospital is put in an untenable position -- it is forced to absorb the $2 million NICU bill with no ability to recover it from the person(s) who demanded the service.
Unfortunately this does not just extend to Juanita. It also extends to the rest of the United States population. If you choose to eat yourself to death, stuffing your pie hole with sugars and fast-acting carbohydrates dramatically beyond your metabolic needs, you will become fat. This occurs due to your own free will and no amount of arguing otherwise changes that fact. As a consequence of this, along with other deliberate choices you make, such as the decision to drink to excess, to smoke cigarettes, to use recreational drugs of various sorts (legal and illegal), to engage in risky sexual activities and more you may dramatically raise the expected amount of medical care you will require.
By passing laws mandating that should you do these things and, instead of socking back 5, 10 or 20% of your income for reasonably-expected medical expenses later on in your life you instead decide to spend the money on cars, booze, a fancy house, cruises and gambling, or are simply less-fortunate and don't have the mental or physical prowess to earn a material surplus in your life, the medical establishment is obligated to provide you with the best treatment possible irrespective of cost we are right back in the same place.
Politicians do not wish to speak of this on either end. Oh sure, they will put forward platitudes about "personal responsibility" but they never actually come out and delineate it in plain English, directing that language at the legions known in popular culture as People of WalMart. (Caution: That web site, should you choose to visit it, may infest your computer -- it throws a trojan horse warning from my anti-virus software when I look there and as such I will not link it!)
Nor will they direct it at our Senior Citizens, as they know damn well that seniors are overrepresented in the polls and*****ing off voters is a good way to lose your job as a politician. The unfortunate reality is that the point of impact for our economy and fiscal house has been beyond the typical senior's remaining lifetime for the last 20 years, which creates a horrifying problem -- fixing the Medical System, particularly things like EMTALA, is politically impossible when the beneficiaries will all die before the detonation occurs.
The fact is that the majority of our Senior Citizens are pigs. They don't give a damn about their children who will still be here or worse, their grandchildren who are still kids and yet will absolutely get screwed when, not if, the government collapses as a consequence of what they demand.
Many of these people could be excused for being ignorant of the fundamental mathematical construct that bears on this issue, illustrated here (once again):
However, not all of them are that foolish, as most went to school back when mathematics was actually taught in class and you had to actually learn it to pass from middle school, say much less high school.
They simply don't give a damn and prattle on about how they're "owed" as "they paid in" -- never mind that the politicians at their direction as they voted for them spent the money already on other things and thus what they paid in is already gone as they demanded it be spent!
This is much like taking your $10,000 in savings and going to Vegas, gambling it away on Roulette, then complaining that the 10 large is gone. Of course it's gone -- you blew it on something other than its intended original purpose!
Until we the people demand that politicians tell the truth, and we further sit our dear old parents (and grandparents) down and explain to them that we will not pay twice to cover the fact that they intentionally goaded government into dissipating the funds they put in for other purposes there will be no progress.
There are only two options before us as a nation -- we either force that conversation to take place or our economy, and government, detonate as those two exponential curves run away from each other.
