Sensible alternatives to conservative misrule

Brian Topp, Opinion, The Globe and Mail:

People in Greece are acutely aware of the criticism being leveled at them in Europe and around the world. Like citizens in Iceland and Ireland, they are having a hard time understanding why a crisis that has its roots in a different kind of lust -- the lust for limitless wealth and power, which caused those who control the financial system to drive the world economy over a cliff -- means that ordinary people are morally bad; must pay much higher taxes; must take deep pay cuts; must retire into poverty; and must do without education and health care, in order to keep the party going for bankers and speculators.

That isn't all that needs to be done, alas, as we were going to hear the following morning.

The details have been well covered here on globeandmail.com. It is Papandreou's conclusions about the future that merit thinking about next. “Are we too weak to deal with the financial and banking system?” he asked. “Are we too weak to deal the need for transparency in the financial markets? Are we too weak to deal with the ratings agencies? Are we too weak to fight tax havens?” He noted that bond rating agencies could destroy Greece's financial plan with a single additional downgrade. They have more power over the future of Greece than its people or its Parliament, “and that is totally unacceptable.”

Precisely so – which is why responsible social democrats in all jurisdictions are, and should be, allergic to excessive reliance on debt to finance government.

This is in stark contrast to conservatives in their modern form, eager as they are to finance tax cuts for their friends and other reckless spending through public debt. Doing so provides a perfect pool shot from their perspective. The rich get richer, and government is destroyed. Perfect!

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