Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports for the Telegraph on the rapid de-industrialization of Europe that is feared to be “permanent” in some areas like shipbuilding, where China is clearly emerging as the dominant world player. The author’s citations identify the recent credit crunch and over-valuation of the euro as the causes.

But is the European credit crunch a natural crisis? Or is it the logical result of politicians running the economy on both sides of the Atlantic? Keen observers have shown that the pseudo-private firms Fanny and Freddy, aided by ACORN, the American equivalent of Mao’s Red Guard, did more than their share to bring down banks here.

As for Europe, the idea of a “single market,” touted as the EU’s greatest “resource,” is in fact the embodiment of the illusory Marxist politics of “social justice,” aimed at equalizing everyone. The main difference between Europe and the Soviet Union is that the former tends to equalize regions while the latter aimed to equalize individuals (with the net result, in both cases, of universal impoverishment). Europe is thus a wholesaler of Leftism, while the Soviet Union was a retailer of that same unsalable product. Working with larger units (nations instead of individuals) probably delayed the ill effects, but they had to be manifested sooner or later, and this latest credit crisis only hastened the inevitable.

Note how French politicians (imitating the far-left Obama) want to solve the problem reflexively with an aid package to the auto industry but with a fatal anti-capitalist proviso: no layoffs allowed to recipients of the aid money. In other words, no free market principles allowed. Although layoffs of less productive overpaid workers are a natural and necessary solution to an economic crunch – a solution with centuries of success to back it up – French politicians, trained in Leftist group think and owned lock stock and barrel by the labor unions, can’t swallow that bitter pill and therefore refuse, as usual, the obvious cure.

And then note the EU’s equally reflexive response: Commissioner President Jose Barroso says the EU will not allow such aid if it has “harmful collateral effects” on other countries. His reasoning stays within the narrow limits of EU group think, not once touching on the more-relevant effects of tampering with the free market in France by forcing auto makers to retain unproductive, overpaid workers, and thereby perpetuating the need for regular doses of such aid from the public sector.

There is no room for common sense or free-market principles in Europe’s rarified political circles, where “single market” trumps free market in every case on the EU level, "economic justice" trumps it on the national level, and capitalism is a bad word everywhere.

Ironically, China, once a slave to lockstep "economic justice" ideology, has shed these some of its shackles for now, having lived through the horrors of the attendant asphyxiating and toxic policies, and so, not surprisingly, it is China who emerges the winner.

The West will either catch up to this “backward” country in terms of economic policy, or become her lackey. Maybe we already are.

Donald Hank is a former language teacher, currently operating a technical translation agency in Wrightsville, PA. A former language teacher, he holds an undergraduate degree in French and German from Millersville State University (PA), a Master’s degree in Russian language and literature from Kutztown State College (also in PA), has studied Chinese for 3 years in Taiwan at the Mandarin Training Center, and is self-taught in other languages, having logged a total of 8 years abroad in total immersion situations. He is also the founder of Lancaster-York Non-Custodial Parents, a volunteer organization that provides Christian counseling for non-custodial parents.
 

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danwhitehead1 said:

	Reaping and sowing The seed(s) of the socialism that has been relentlessly sown is slowly but surely bearing its inevitable bitter fruit. There is a line that comes to mind from the 1976 Masterpiece Theatre presentation, "I, Claudius": "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out".
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February 17, 2009
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DaveB said:

New World Order plan for total control The NWO want China to succeed, as they have no freedoms. They are a communist country that listens to whatever Fascists Corporate/Government wants. They will accept the V-Chip without question. 911 Steel was shipped there for disposal. They stiffle religion. Everything the NWO Fascists love is in China. We need to balance the trade deficit now. China is not our friend.

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February 18, 2009
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Bob42 said:

	... The free market has not been allowed to operate for a long time now. If it was to operate, the engineered crisis would only have lasted a year. But us humans are very susceptible to suggestion and don't like to think for ourselves. 9/11 opened my eyes.
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February 19, 2009
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Alexx said:

Russian crisis Global crisis as Russians see it The corridors in office buildings have either pluses or minuses. Let’s not speak about minuses but about pluses. Everybody knows each other; you can hear helloes, greetings, goodmornings. But the last few months silence dominates here. Crowds of clients just disappeared, nobody enters and asks:”Sorry, where can I find?..” , there are no more strangers smoking in common rest rooms, girls from nearby offices don’t rush in asking to change money for a change. The director of real estate office drooped off, you can’t hear scissors and hairdryers from a hairdressing salon, and women from the office you never could spell its name frequently hang “Closed for today” card. People drink a lot in the offices and it’s impossible to breathe in smoking areas. Visits of Santa and parties had been cancelled this year. http://ua-ru-news.blogspot.com...ee-it.html

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February 24, 2009
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