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Pittsburg, Kansas | The low oil prices is a new twist to the formula I completely did not see coming. It is going to or is already putting the hurt on economies where oil was a major source of the countries income.
Where I am staying for most of the winter, there are a number of Europeans. Probably about half and half with Americans. We have become good friends with some of them over the last several years as they often come back at the same time of year every year. It is interesting to get their take on a number of things, although we try to keep the politics talks civil and superficial so we remain friends. :-)
But one very interesting thing, is that European countries that tend to be a rich country of natural resources with modest populations in relation to the country income, seem to be just peechy keen with Socialism. If you have a wealthy country with a modest population (lots of money with few people) Socialism seems to work well. At least I think it will work well until they run out of money. Or like the famous saying accredited to a famous European "Socialism works till you run out of other peoples money". Some of those countries (such ad Denmark and Sweden) have run surpluses for years and now are looking at large deficits since the price of oil has dropped as well as the huge influx of refugees taxing their social programs to the breaking point. The people that come here are mostly reasonably well to do and are in favor of helping the refugees (a liberal outlook). It will be interesting to observe as the years go by how their outlook is after their government is broke and their cities overrun with people of different values and laws than they are familiar with. I'm wondering if the shine of Socialism may not wear off to them as their resource source diminishes while their bills pile up. I really feel badly for what some European countries are going through and I think their outlook looks even worse than ours in the US.
Edited by John Burns 1/24/2016 11:10
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For those interested in hyperinflation
