This column is so right that it’s very difficult to pull just one piece out of it for a quote of the day, but Janet Daley’s UK Telegraph op-ed If we are to survive the looming catastrophe, we need to face the truth is today’s must-read:
We have arrived at the endgame of what was an untenable doctrine: to pay for the kind of entitlements that populations have been led to expect by their politicians, the wealth-creating sector has to be taxed to a degree that makes it almost impossible for it to create the wealth that is needed to pay for the entitlements that populations have been led to expect, etc, etc.
The only way that state benefit programmes could be extended in the ways that are forecast for Europe’s ageing population would be by government seizing all the levers of the economy and producing as much (externally) worthless currency as was needed – in the manner of the old Soviet Union.
That is the problem. So profound is its challenge to the received wisdom of postwar Western democratic life that it is unutterable in the EU circles in which the crucial decisions are being made – or rather, not being made.
The solution that is being offered to the political side of the dilemma is benign oligarchy.
Yes, that’s what’s being offered, but it’s not what will be delivered.
Read the whole piece. Twice. At the time of this writing there are nearly 800 comments. One of them was this:
…this article is the most important one I have ever read in the mainstream media.
I concur.