If Germany would just write them a check, that would solve the problem. But the German taxpayer is asking, ‘why are we using our hard-earned tax dollars to prop up these profligate countries?’ Seventy percent of the German electorate is against bailouts. It’s not like the United States where there’s a commonality of purpose and a vision of national unity.
--Desmond Lachman,
in an interview w/Ezra Klein
Oh, that comment made me laugh so hard that I spit out some of my morning tea. A “commonality of purpose and a vision of national unity?” In a country where: (i) a sizeable percentage of the population – including one GOP presidential frontrunner – casually tosses around the notion of states seceding from the union whenever they’re unhappy with the federal government; (ii) the states themselves (in the words of former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm) compete to attract business away from each other in a race to the bottom in terms of workers’ wages, benefits, rights, and working conditions, and, of course, low, low corporate tax rates; and (iii) the only animating force in the Republican party is a visceral hatred for anybody who isn’t them? That’s the country referred to as being bound by a sense of purpose and national unity?
Oy vey.
