Yes. I reckon you be right.

Got any tequila?

–

On a more serious note, why oh why is race such a big deal in the USA? I’d have thought it’d been done to death and that people were over it by now.

Sione

The swedish-speaking minority is not just a minority. The True Finns would like to get rid of compulsory teaching of swedish in schools, this was one of their political aims and aided to win the election. The swedes have it good here. Swedish is not only a language taught in schools, it’s all about culture and civilizational values, too, I would like to point out.

Notice how he claims that Portugal were doing a lot better than many of its neighbours. Like that’s saying anything, considering most of them are on the brink of bankruptcy. He doesn’t mention any figures either.

What he does call for is, surprise surprise, more regulation, more central planning and more money printing. Why can’t these guys just shut the hell up and go back drinking coffee wearing Che t-shirts?

Sione

Ergo, once Finland thought it was a good idea, fine. Now they don’t so they should vote about it in true democratic fashion.

Sadly the “true democratic fashion” concept, is one that is wearing pretty thin in the EU. Very few people were allowed to vote for or against the constitution because politicians were afraid of a no. This shows the Eu is for politicians only (who btw get set for life with millions of euros) instead of for the citizens.

In 1994, when Finland decided to join the EU, it was impossible to anticipate the current problems since the Euro would not become currency in Finland for another eight years. But even if they had known, it still doesn’t change the following fundamental facts of life:

1. There is nothing the EU can do to prevent the market correction from taking place. They’ve kicked the can down the road as far as it goes. When Spain and Italy falls all the bailouts and stabilizaion packages afforded to Greece and Ireland will be naught, and EU as a whole will have to deal with a much larger problem.

2. Even if Finland wanted to help Portugal, it doesn’t have the money to do so.

3. Helping Portugal the way the EU wants to do is not helping them at all. Its enabling them and other irresponsible countries to keep acting irresponsably.

Do you get that?

What all proponents of “helping” Portugal and others seem to miss is that there is nothing the EU can do to actually help anyone. All they can do is to kick the can down the road, and in doing so they compound the problem even further. Just like in the US.

I don’t think Soini and the True Finns understand the economics of it all, but they do understand it is lunacy for an already debt ridden country like Finland with record high deficits of its own to guarantee the loans of a country that clearly is not able to repay its existing loans, much less the added 100 something billion in new loans.

The market has declared Portugal to be unable to pay its debt. It is sheer madness for a struggling country to assume the liability of another country that has already fallen. Soini understands this, which really shouldn’t be too difficult to grasp for anyone with half a brain. The fact that our finance minister and soon to be PM doesn’t is tragic, pathetic and wholly embarrassing.