SENATE TESTIMONY - From left to right, Sens. Joseph Lieberman, Carl Levin and John McCain listen to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testify about operations in Libya during a Senate Armed Services Committee, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 31, 2011. DOD photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeleyWe Can No Longer Rely On Debt-Laden US -- The Australian
THE European welfare state is in extremis. Its death throes are playing out before our eyes in an economic danse macabre of fiscal crises, banking bailouts and savage budget cuts.
From Lisbon to Latvia, governments are slashing public spending and going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund. And from Athens to Aberdeen, students and trade unionists take to the streets in a sometimes-violent, last-ditch defence of their accustomed privileges.
But the end result of this economic Greek tragedy is pre-ordained by the cold hard calculus of budgetary maths. The European welfare state model that evolved after World War II has proved economically unsustainable: the account is coming due.
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My Comment: It was Cicero who said money forms the sinews of war .... and for the U.S. the cupboard is dry .... filled only with IOU notes for future debt repayments. Will this impact future U.S. military procurement, budgets, war strategy and actions .... hell ... it is having an impact right now.