European Socialism

France's new socialist president, Hollande, has promised a government-sponsored stimulus program to revive growth, a 75% tax bracket, lowering the retirement age from 62 to 60 and the hiring of 60,000 new teachers.

Or, to put it another way, rather than applying the breaks - they've decided to rev the engine and 'gun it' to the brick wall of doom.

It's the part in the movie where they say, "I think we can make that cliff...."

Only it isn't a movie, and they're not in the General Lee - they're in a Renault Vel Satis.


The Greece election results, besides throwing the financial bailout of the country into doubt, included an alarmingly strong performance by a party that goes by the name Golden Dawn. This anti-immigration and anti-austerity political movement was projected to have taken 7% of the vote. This compares to .29% of the vote this radical party won in 2009. 


So it's a RACE to the bottom, is it?

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin was re-Inaugurated As Russian President, for another 6 years. 


Mr Putin is returning to the presidency after an absence of four years in which he served as prime minister. In the hat changing ceremony he took the hat off President, Dmitry Medvedev, and put it back on to his own head. More »

The third story doesn't seem to fit, does it? Well, that's called foreshadowing, my dear readers.