I want to keep reminding folks about what’s happening in Europe these days – mostly because the MSM isn’t (they’d rather endlessly obsess over an isolated incident from Mitt Romney’s teenaged past). The world economy is now so closely knit together that we’d be fools to believe that if things begin to unravel on the other side of the Atlantic it won’t have serious consequences over here. And more importantly, if America doesn’t change direction soon, we’ll be arriving at the same crisis point – headed toward the dustbin of history.
 

 
Mona Charen at Townhall.com has a particularly relevant article this week: Extremism in Defense of the Welfare State. In Europe, the “takers” now outnumber the “makers,” and they’re pushing society and government to extremes ~

European governments are toppling like clock towers in an earthquake. The Dutch government fell on April 23, when it failed to agree with the opposition on an austerity plan. On May 6, Socialist Francois Hollande defeated France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. Greece’s ruling coalition has been shattered — the vote splintered among dozens of small parties…
 
…Greece may be the loose thread that unravels the garment. Economist Desmond Lachman, formerly of the IMF and now at the American Enterprise Institute, is concerned that if Greece does not comply with its obligations, the sovereign debt crisis in Europe will be dramatically deepened, with contagion dragging the continent into another financial crisis from which the U.S. would not be shielded.
 
Unlike floods and earthquakes, this disaster is entirely manmade and utterly avoidable. “Europe is tremendously wealthy and productive, but Europeans sabotaged themselves by embracing the foolish idea that they could have an economic union without a political union. They are also paying the price for failing to come to terms with actuarial realities; their populations are graying. Without reforms of pension and other benefits, they cannot sustain their standard of living. Rather than face their own corruption, the Greeks principally, but also other Europeans, are disintegrating into raging extremists blaming anyone and everyone else. That’s the object lesson for us.
 
Here, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are promising Americans more of this fool’s gold — limitless government benefits with costs imposed on someone else (‘the rich’ or future generations). It’s an engraved invitation to Athens.”

 
America, we better be paying close attention to current events in Europe – if we don’t want to face the same disintegration.