Socialists Losing Their Free-Market Sugar Daddy

Precious little humor can be found in Greece's economic death spiral, but Rachel Marsden's "Who'll Volunteer to Save the Socialists?" will provoke a bittersweet smile from conservatives even as it reminds us how dangerously high the stakes are in our own nation's budget debates.

The socialists broke the bank and there's nothing left to spend... The world is witnessing, in real time, the total collapse of a socialist system to the point that the conservatives are now ahead in the country's polls. But it's now a case of too little, far too late.

A little background that may sound uncomfortably familiar to Americans:

Greece was spending beyond its means by injecting cash into a public-sector system that wasn't producing anything of real value on which it could turn a substantial profit. When this system slid into the negative, Greece borrowed on credit until its credit rating tanked and it couldn't get loans like a regular country. So Greece tried a Hail Mary pass to Europe and the IMF, which are made up of countries borrowing money themselves on credit to manage their own debts.

Greeks rioted in the streets when, in exchange for financial aid, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Euro-nations demanded a number of public-sector changes: an end to Christmas, Easter and summer bonuses; a three-year moratorium in pension and publicly-funded wage increases; higher tobacco and alcohol taxes; push back from age 61 to 63 in full-retirement pensions; and now, higher sales taxes and the sale of government assets.

So where are the Euro-nations now turning?

To the free market and the private sector they've been up until now taxing into oblivion in the interest of spreading the wealth. You can't make this stuff up.

On Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced at a Berlin press conference that they'd like to offer the opportunity for the private sector -- via banks, insurers and investment funds -- to dole out some cash on a "voluntary basis" to bail out Greece ... Sarkozy adds that this all needs to happen before September, so the private sector had better hurry up and jump on this most excellent opportunity to never see their money again.

Oh boy, let's all hold our breath for the "Peugeot Parthenon," the "Citroen Coliseum" and the "Airbus Acropolis"...

Marsden's point is that, "as Sarkozy and Merkel have now effectively acknowledged, the free market is the best solution to economic difficulty," but never as the indulgent, bottomless-pocketed Sugar Daddy the socialists want it to be. 

Dark humor aside, the Greek case should serve as a reminder to Obama, America and every other country led by someone trying to spend their way out of economic trouble that it will always lead to things getting much worse.