Debt

"In the words of the World Bank, which published it in a report issued this week ("Golden Growth: Restoring the lustre of the European Economic model"...), Europe is the world's “lifestyle superpower”. As opposed to America, which spends almost as much as the rest of the world put together on defence, Europe spends more than the rest of the globe combined on social policies.

In many ways this is an admirable aspect of Europe's economic model, which combines high living standards with high standards of social welfare. The trouble is, such spending is helping to bankrupt governments—not least because those very same caring policies ensure that Europeans live longer, requiring more expenditure on health care and the payment of pensions for more years."

Read : http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2012/01/europes-debt-crisis.

I haven't looked at the report of the World Bank, and  I am not going to. But I think the comments on the Charlemagne blog are quite unilateral and slightly scandalous.  Social spending helps to bankrupt governments ? Maybe so. But the present debt crisis is mainly due to the public  rescue of the almost bankrupted private banks, not to social issues.

I am glad and proud that Europe is the world leader in caring policies ; I am proud of my contribution to lowering social inequality, even if my contribution sometimes is misspent ; but I am utterly disgusted by the fact that I have to  pay for the greed and the  almost criminal mistakes of the banks, who continue to act as if nothing happened !

Maybe we should lower the standards of  social welfare to better subsidise the mistakes of the banks ? Better to kill of a few poor bastards than to lower the fat rations of the bankers ?

Utterly and totally disgusting !!!