HORRIFYING

(Published in the Independent Coast Observer)


Editor:

For nearly thirty years I've spent a large portion of my professional life working in Europe with European client companies, colleagues and good friends.  For at least the last twenty of those years I've told friends around the world (some of whom, until recently, were really tired of hearing it) that Europe's socialist system was in an accelerating spiral of collapse, with eventual catastrophic results.

When an American – at least one with eyes open – spends this much time abroad it's impossible to avoid being a witness to the specter of incentive dying, as Europeans become increasingly reliant on the state for essentially everything.  One can almost watch citizens on the street grow progressively more accepting as paralyzed governments seem unable to reverse these trends.

Daily media accounts vividly describe what the economic meltdown of European socialism  – using Greece as the example du jour – looks like.

Germany may yet postpone the inevitable for Greece, but that's the pathetic best that can be hoped.  Eurozone national banks are the largest bank holders of Greek sovereign debt.  And as was learned dramatically here in America during the mortgage securities crisis, the Obama government is only too ready to vector billions of US dollars to bail out European banks.  Once German money runs out – as it will long before Spain, Portugal and France face certain Greek-style meltdowns – all of our futures can only be imagined.

A careful read of today’s European economic situation should scare the living bleep out of every thinking American.  What should be most alarming is that under the Obama government literally every root cause of the looming economic and social catastrophe in Europe has a horrifying American parallel.  No Presidential election in our country's history has been more important than 2012.  The survival of our society is literally at stake.

Gary A Curtis

Concerned Coastal Voters

The Sea Ranch