Filed Under: Looking into the Future…

“Merkel brought together her Cabinet for a two-day meeting at the chancellery that started Sunday to discuss the package. She said as she went into the meeting that Germany can no longer live beyond its means, insisting “we can only spend what we take in.”

“Our citizens’ greatest concern is that public deficits could grow to become immense,” Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

Measures reportedly under consideration include cuts to public-service jobs, a reduction of handouts to new parents and new taxes on power providers.

Germany had a budget deficit of 3.1 percent of gross domestic product last year. It is expected to exceed 5 percent this year, still well above the European Union’s 3 percent threshold.

Opposition politicians and union officials criticized the prospect of cutbacks on social spending.

The head of Germany’s labor union federation, Michael Sommer, argued that Germany should increase taxes for the rich and introduce a financial market transaction tax to help narrow its budget gap..”

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100607/D9G6B83O0.html

Comment: Germany will soon feel the pinch of bailing out the most lazy Euro workers in Greece, with Italy and Spain soon to come-a-begging.

Maggie Thatcher was right when she opined that socialism only works until you run out of other people’s money, and the Germans are the most stable of the euro nations, with the best economy.

The hard-working and thrifty Germans have already spanked Merkel at the polls for daring to bail out Greece, and they are not going to look kindly at both a further Euro bailout of other failing nations, and a reduction of their benefits.

I suppose the Euro, which is now below $1.19 MAY survive, but I am betting against it, and Germany is the lynchpin. When they decide to go back to their own currency, the Euro – and the European Union – is lost.

There is no rational reason that the Euro is higher than the dollar today, except for philosophy.

Now, here is the question: Can our federal government, like Germany, bail out profligate California, without doing what the EU does and limit the amount of debt that its member states run up and threaten the common currency?

I see a future US federal government actually requiring all states to ACTUALLY balance their budgets without the current state “creative financing” options being used.

California balances it budget yearly the old fashion way: They lie.

Just More of the Same

The series I have been running on Communist infiltration – and it will soon continue after I reload – is simply in the “Lest We Forget” mode.

The arrest of the two New Jersey youth is indicative that the fight against home-grown infiltration is never ending. There will always be a certain – and different – segment of our 300 million population who hate what this nation stands for.

The Nazis recruited among the German immigrant population in America for their recruits, the Russians recruited among the Eastern European immigrant Americans (and the universities) for their recruits, and the radical Islamists will recruit among the Middle Eastern Immigrant population as well. In each case, however, there will be a segment of American citizens of long standing that will sympathize with their cause, because they are simply self-loathing individuals who hate America for whatever reason.

They will find a home wherever they can to damage this country.

Al Shabad in Somalia is simply the Spain for the new recruits of those who hate America. Just as the Spanish Revolution was a training ground that tested the youthful Communists in the 30s, and gave them the requisite combat and discipline skills before they returned to attack America, so too are the Al Queda, Al Shabad forces in Somalia, Yemen and even Afghanistan being used.

There will always be a home, somewhere, for those who hate their own country.

I Don’t Scare Easy Easily, BUT….

I realize that not everyone shares my love for automobile racing, but every now and then I’ll comment.

This past weekend, someone unknown to almost everyone, named Scott Pruitt, won his fourth six-hour race at Watkins Glen. When I was racing sports cars a thousand years ago, I saw some great drivers – but there is no one I wanted to see less in my rear-view mirror that Pruitt.

Now I like sport car racing because it has 6, 12 and 24 hours racing – a true test of man and machine. (O,K., usually three men and a machine – but driving 240 MPH at 4 a.m., in the rain just scares me to death.) This past weekend, Pruitt, as a result of a bad pit stop, was chasing a car every bit as fast as his, when the other driver was telling his pit over the radio that “I am keeping Pruitt behind me.” His pit wisely told the driver, “He is just toying with you.” He was.

But I appreciate NASCAR as well – it is a much different type of racing. It takes some cajones to wield a 3,000 pound car at near 200 MPH with another car six inches away, front and back.

But the ultimate in racing is Formula One, and in the next few years we will have both an American team and an American Formula One course, in Texas. Unfortunately, the American team will have American drivers, but with foreign engines.

But the skill necessary to drive those F1 machines is absolutely unnerving. Those machines make as much horsepower as NASCAR engines, with only 1/3 the engine size, and when placed in machines lighter than a NASCAR by more than half – that takes unimaginable skill both in design and driving.

All of the drivers at all of the types have more skill than did I, but I can sit in front of a TV and admire their skill with sheer awe.

Read It, and Weep

George Will’s Sunday column in the North County Times is a description of the graphs available at:

http://biggovernment.com/acoulson/2010/06/05/the-u-s-economy-needs-fewer-public-school-jobs-not-more/

The short story is that while student populations have risen by less than 10% in public schools in the past 40 years, public school employees have risen almost 10 times that amount!

To look at the graph is a shock to the mind – words, even the fluid words of George Will.

You should read the Will column at http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jun/06/george-will-a-familiar-government-dance-for/

The argument is a stunning view of the public school problem, both in employment and in results