Paul Johnson says that 14,000 people died in France during the recent heat wave as a result of a socialist bender:

The omens for continental Europe, however, are sinister. The entire plan for perpetual improvement upon which the EU depends is based on continuous economic expansion. There is no provision for stagnation. As we see in Japan, once stagnation sets in, it can last many years. Americans should count their blessings, above all the supreme blessing of having an economy that is run by businessmen not bureaucrats, or that--under wise governance--runs itself.

Yeah, but people in this country and the Democratic party are making it happen. If people don't really start understanding the moral and practical foundations of capitalism, they are going to be suckered by the Ten Dwarves proscriptions to end "tax-cuts-for-the-rich" to "balance-the-budget." And that's not going to happen with the universities and media feeding them utopian fantasies at every turn. We're going to have defeated Communism in the Cold War only to blithely accept Eurosocialism.

I see that we continue to propagate the myth that the US economy is expanding due to its merits rather than a massive infusion of one-time government funds and overvalued capital (eg, bonds, real estate, etc) due to the lowest interest rates in decades. My take is that we aborted the cleanup that happened after the dotcom bubble. A lot of bad companies got to stay alive because of September 11.

As far as fantasy goes, the latest numbers on GDP as released by the US government have little to do with reality. Will we again be "surprised" by a government that effectively reports the recession occured after it's over? That's pretty much what the current administration did in 2000.

Bah! I forgot to add my name to the posting again. Wasn't this automatic at some time? Won't someone think of the stupid people!?