{"id":12043,"date":"2010-05-22T07:54:24","date_gmt":"2010-05-22T14:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=12043"},"modified":"2010-06-26T07:47:01","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T14:47:01","slug":"everything-the-ancient-greeks-warned-us-about-democracy-has-come-true-in-modern-greece-and-right-here-in-river-city-as-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12043\/everything-the-ancient-greeks-warned-us-about-democracy-has-come-true-in-modern-greece-and-right-here-in-river-city-as-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything the ancient Greeks warned us about democracy has come true in modern Greece — and right here in River City as well"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Steyn in Macleans:<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Traditionally, a bank is a means by which old people with capital lend to young people with ideas. But the advanced democracies with their mountains of sovereign debt are in effect old people who’ve blown through their capital and are all out of ideas looking for young people flush enough to bail them out. And the idea that it might be time for the spendthrift geezers to change their ways butts up against their indestructible moral vanity. Last year, President Sarkozy said that the G20 summit provided “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give capitalism a conscience.” European capitalism may have a conscience. It’s not clear it has a pulse. And, actually, when you’re burning Greek bank clerks to death in defence of your benefits, your “conscience” isn’t much in evidence, either.<\/p>\n

Let us take it as read that Greece is an outlier. As waggish officials in Brussels and Strasbourg will tell you, it only snuck into the EU due to some sort of clerical error. It’s a cesspit of sloth and corruption even by Mediterranean standards. On my last brief visit, Athens was a visibly decrepit dump: a town with a handful of splendid ancient ruins surrounded by a multitude of hideous graffiti-covered contemporary ruins. If you were going to cut one “advanced” social democracy loose and watch it plunge into the abyss pour encourager les autres<\/em>, it would be hard to devise a better candidate than Greece.<\/p>\n

And yet and yet . . . riot-wracked Athens isn’t that much of an outlier. Greece’s 2010 budget deficit is 12.2 per cent of GDP; Ireland’s is 14.7. Greece’s debt is 125 per cent of GDP; Italy’s is 117 per cent. Greece’s 65-plus population will increase from 18 per cent in 2005 to 25 per cent in 2030; Spain’s will increase from 17 per cent to 25 per cent. As lazy, feckless, squalid, corrupt and violent as Greece undoubtedly is, it’s not that untypical. It’s where the rest of Europe’s headed, and Japan and North America shortly thereafter. About half the global economy is living beyond not only its means but its diminished number of children’s means.<\/p>\n

Instead Read more<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Steyn in Macleans: Traditionally, a bank is a means by which old people with capital lend to young people with ideas. But the advanced democracies with their mountains of sovereign debt are in effect old people who’ve blown through their capital and are all out of ideas looking for young people flush enough to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-group-therapy","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":842,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/842\/glow-baby-glow-the-revolution-will-be-illuminated\/","url_meta":{"origin":12043,"position":0},"title":"Glow, baby, glow: The revolution will be illuminated . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Seth Godin is on a tear about fluorescent light bulbs, and I join him in it not just because he's promising a link for a trackback. No, there is a matter of profoundly-important principle here: The redemptive power of Capitalism. The curly fluorescent bulb shown above is one of many\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17941,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17941\/overnight-news-giving-liability-limitation-its-due-predatory-capitalism-made-a-lot-of-stuff-a-lot-cheaper\/","url_meta":{"origin":12043,"position":1},"title":"Overnight News: Giving liability limitation its due: Predatory \u201ccapitalism\u201d made a lot of stuff a lot\u00a0cheaper.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The best argument in favor of liability limitation is industrialization itself, and all of its further fruits \u2013 including this one. Arms-length investment permits the brightest managers to scale rapidly and hugely, causing prices to plummet. That's a Utilitarian argument \u2013 what's a few deaths compared with all these riches?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17938,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17938\/overnight-news-the-limited-liability-corporation-is-the-rope-by-which-capitalism-hung-itself\/","url_meta":{"origin":12043,"position":2},"title":"Overnight News: \u201cThe limited liability corporation is the rope by which Capitalism hung\u00a0itself.\u201d","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 7, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Predatory traders are not new. Crassus, to pick an ugly example, would bring his fire brigade to your burning Roman insulae \u2013 apartment building \u2013 but he wouldn't have them start to put out the fire until you sold the property to him. The longer it burned, the cheaper it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3005,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3005\/cleaned-by-capitalism-our-professed-love-of-nature-is-an-artifact-of-our-enormous-prosperity\/","url_meta":{"origin":12043,"position":3},"title":"Cleaned by Capitalism: Our professed love of nature is an artifact of our enormous prosperity","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The other week Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek posted a wonderful article discussing the advent of the rule of law as a precursor to poetic rhapsodizing about the love of the natural world. The post featured a quote from Macaulay's History of England:Indeed, law and police, trade and industry, have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1948,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1948\/no-committee-will-ever-make-the-cluetrain-run-on-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":12043,"position":4},"title":"No committee will ever make the Cluetrain run on time","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Proposition 1: Groups, clubs, committees and professional associations would make better decisions if their smarter, more passionate members were to get involved. Proposition 2: Central banking would work if only Alan Greenspan had a smarter brother. Proposition 3: True Communism has never been tried.I don't consider these statements equivalent, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4922,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4922\/obama-ups-the-stakes-in-his-contest-with-mccain-over-who-can-do-more-enduring-damage-to-the-crippled-economy\/","url_meta":{"origin":12043,"position":5},"title":"Obama ups the stakes in his contest with McCain over who can do more enduring damage to the crippled economy","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Witness:Democrat Barack Obama is calling for a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a two-year tax break for businesses that create jobs as part of a plan to heal the nation's ailing economy. The presidential candidate says banks that participate in the federal bailout should temporarily postpone foreclosures for families making\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Investment"","block_context":{"text":"Investment","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/investment\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12407,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12043\/revisions\/12407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}