Tag: Europe

Europe’s March Toward Nihilism

George Noga
Europe is like a dissolute doyenne, blithely sipping absinthe at a cafe, who has traded a few more decades of decadence in exchange for her eventual suicide.
Europe’s March Toward Nihilism
By: George Noga – June 9, 2019

            Europe’s passage to nihilism is nearly complete. For more and more phlegmatic Europeans, life has no intrinsic meaning or value; nothing is morally right or wrong; they are like pigs eating whatever life drops into their trough. A meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is (Nietzsche). Europeans refuse to defend themselves, outsourcing that to America. In the ultimate form of nihilism, they refuse to reproduce, outsourcing that task to immigrants who deride and disdain them.

          Rigor mortis is beginning to descend on Europe as it is experiencing entropy politically, demographically, culturally, morally and spiritually; the lassitude of its people – physically and intellectually – precludes any possible antidote. Just as the absinthe-sipping doyenne, Europe has made a Faustian Bargain and is grasping for time until its eventual demise – a fate it has tacitly accepted. We conclude this post with the plaintive story of Mario, who personifies Europe’s steady march to Gomorrah.

Europe no longer produces the values necessary for its survival.

        The EU as a political construct is in terminal dissolution because it places the state above the individual. It has never won an election in any EU member state; remember Brexit. Nor will the Euro last much longer. Italy is near bankrupt as are Spain, Portugal and some others. The ECB is keeping the ship afloat but monetary policy cannot overcome all the deeply embedded government barriers to growth.

          Europe is flailing economically with GDP growth hovering near 1%, persistently high unemployment, continued quantitative easing and negative interest rates despite many years without recession. Creativity and innovation are dead; when was the last time Europe produced a new technology? Of the top 50 global tech companies, only four are in Europe, but they are washed up vestiges of the past. The specter of decline is stalking Europe; it even outsources its popular culture to America.

        If demographics is destiny, Europe is headed for oblivion. Germany faces the worst demographic crisis extant, except for Japan. The ethnic European fertility rate is around 1.25 and its population will nearly halve every generation. A child without parents is an orphan, but a nation without children is an orphan people. The elites of Europe have embraced diversity but they are committing suicide by diversity. It is but a matter of time until Sweden becomes Western Europe’s first muslim nation.

The True Story of Mario Puts a Face on Europe’s Nihilism

         The last time we were in Paris, my wife and I took a hotel shuttle to the airport; we were the only two passengers and struck up a conversation with our driver. Mario was 33, trilingual, educated and personable. He was from Italy but moved to France because there were no jobs in Italy. His job (driving the shuttle) had no chance for advancement and he expected to remain in the same menial job his entire working life. He lived with a girlfriend but had no intention to marry and was adamant about never having children. He already was thinking about his pension 30 years in the future.

        Mario left his native country and family for a low paying, dead-end job in another country where he would never fully belong. He had already driven the van for 14 years and was facing another 29 years, or 60,000 more trips to the airport. He would subsist on the fringes of society, eschewing wife and children. Nevertheless, Mario’s calculus was that this bleak, hardscrabble existence was better than the life he left behind.

        Multiply Mario by tens of millions and you understand the zombie-like demeanor and look of quiet desperation we witnessed on the faces of Europe’s young people. Those countenances of hopelessness personify Europe’s march toward nihilism. Let’s hope we never see such hollow-eyed expressions on the faces of young Americans.

Coming June 16th – Suggestions for how elite youths can spend this summer
More Liberty Less Government  –  mllg@mllg.us  –  www.mllg.us

Why I Write This Blog?

George Noga
By: George Noga – September 10, 2014
        This posting marks the beginning of the end. Between now and mid-December I will publish the final MLLG posts. I often have been asked why I have taken the trouble. Why have I spent 1,000 hours writing 300 posts filling 900 pages containing 500,000 words since November 2007? Why have I written fact-based and principled tracts about public policy even though I am unenamored with politics and politicians? This post answers the question: why. In the Federalist, Alexander Hamilton questioned and challenged his fellow Americans thusly:
“Whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend on accident and force.”
       If any society of men fails to get its politics right, it affects every aspect of life and life itself. Get politics right and we live our lives in freedom, prosperity and pursuit of our dreams. Get politics wrong and liberty, happiness and property are forfeit and life itself is nasty, brutal and brief. Politics, grubby as it is, is the sine qua non to having a life worth living.
      Examples abound of those who got their politics wrong: Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, Imperial Japan, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia and Stalin’s USSR were all black holes where life and liberty were trampled. Today we have,inter alia, Putin’s Russia, the Jongs’ North Korea, the Castro brothers’ Cuba and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. And don’t forget the entire Arab world, nearly all of Central and South America, Africa and any place ending in “stan”.
       If you believe the western world is exempt, think again. WWI was a senseless slaughter with 40 million casualties; its politically inept conclusion led to WWII with its 150 million casualties. This was due to a failure of politics in Europe and also in the USA. In the past century and continuing to the present, “civilized” Europe has experienced 100 genocides, pogroms and ethnic cleansings. Vietnam was a  colossal failure of American politics to get it right; it cost 58,220 American lives and 303,644 more wounded. Nor have we learned; we continue to get it wrong right up to this day.

       If we don’t get our politics right, our children and our children’s children will live in an Orwellian torpor with their lives, liberty and property constantly at risk because of obeisance to failed ideologies, fantasies, vote buying, political correctness and the never ending and fruitless search for Utopias. Politics is inherently personal. Following are but some of the ways I have been directly harmed throughout my life by our failure to get politics right.

  • I had no father at home for 4 years during WWII which resulted from government ineptitude in fighting and ending WWI. Father was in Korea, also the result of political blunder, for another year during my childhood.
  • I received an execrable, pathetic non education in government schools from age 5 to 18.
  • The Federal Reserve created economic conditions that resulted in severe cycles, bubbles, panics, meltdowns and deep recessions throughout my life continuing to the present.
  • I was subject to income taxes of over 90%, creating perverse, uneconomic incentives.
  • It now requires $15,000 to buy what cost $1,000 when I was born due to government currency debasement.
  • Regulation run amok made owning my business onerous. The regulations, all in the guise of protecting consumers, in actuality, caused them (and me) great harm.
  • The politically micromanaged Vietnam War disrupted my life for the 6 years I served in the military.
  • The Fed has brutally devalued a lifetime of hard work via chronic negative real interest rates intended to protect a feckless government from the consequences of its ongoing debt binge.
  • A torpid, Europesque economy has been imposed, dooming me to economic stagnation instead of robust  growth.
  • The current crisis of spending, debt and deficits ultimately will result in a lost generation.
  • Our government has recklessly created and/or exacerbated dangerous situations throughout the world by weakening our military and appeasing tyrants. An existential crisis likely will result.
  • Obamacare death panels will ration and deny medical care and ultimately could kill me.
       Due entirely to failed politics I was fatherless for five years and lucky I wasn’t orphaned into a life of poverty. I survived utterly wretched government schools, incessant and severe economic cycles, debilitating inflation, astronomical tax rates and hyper regulation. Vietnam discombobulated my life. And all this was because of a government most consider one of the best extant. And all because we failed to get our politics right.
       Now, in my eighth decade of life, our once vibrant economy is riven by government-created anemia. America has transmogrified into sclerotic Europe where men lead lives of quiet desperation. Government has created a crisis of spending, debt and deficits, one consequence being sustained negative real interest rates that savage my decades of prudence. My final indignity is Obamacare; its rationing and death panels may end my life prematurely.
       Unfortunately, it doesn’t end with me. Our children and our children’s children are doomed to a much poorer and more dangerous future; they will be a lost generation. They will pay for our debt binge and generational theft with vastly reduced opportunity. They will inhabit a Clockwork Orange world where nuclear arms proliferate in places committed to our destruction and solely because we weakened our defense and kowtowed to tyrants. Our weakness invites terror and slaughter for which they will pay dearly, perhaps with their lives. And all this from a government most consider one of the best extant. And all because we failed to get our politics right.
“The correct answer to Alexander Hamilton’s question may be in the negative.”
       As you can see, if we don’t get our politics right, our lives are vastly diminished and trivialized in countless ways; we condemn our progeny to economic stagnation and loss of freedom. Their lives and liberty are at grave risk because we failed to get our politics right. It appears the correct answer to Alexander Hamilton’s question may be in the negative.
       I have tried mightily through this blog to show that the answer lies in more liberty and less government. Hopefully, my efforts have given our children’s children that infinitesimally better chance for liberty. And that is my answer to the question: why I write this blog.
        Note to readers:  I am striving to make the final postings between now and mid-December special as I seek to end my MLLG blog on a high note. I hope you enjoy them.

Lives of Quiet Desperation

George Noga

By: George Noga – February 15, 2013

      You could see it in their faces; the look was unmistakable. I noticed it throughout our trip but it was confirmed by Mario on our final day in Europe. My wife and I were staying in Paris and took a hotel shuttle to the airport. We were the only 2 passengers on the shuttle van for the 30 minute ride and immediately struck up a conversation with Mario, our driver.

     Mario, age 33, was trilingual and personable. We soon learned he was from Italy where he  had completed his schooling but moved to France because there were no jobs in Italy. His job driving the shuttle van had zero possibility for upward mobility and he expected to remain in the same menial, monotonous position his entire working life. He was living with his girlfriend but stated he had no intention ever to marry; he was adamant about never having children. He had already begun to think about his pension which was at least a quarter century in the future.

     Contemplate Mario’s situation. He left his native country and family for a low paying, dead end job in another country where he never would totally belong. He already had driven the van for 14 years and was facing another 29 years – a total of 60,000 hotel/airport round trips. He would subsist perpetually on the economic fringe of society, eschewing wife and children. Yet, according to his calculus, this hardscrabble existence was better than the life he left behind in Italy. Multiply Mario by tens of millions of others in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece and elsewhere and you will begin to understand the magnitude of the quiet desperation I witnessed.

“We are a lost generation for sure.”

    Take Carlos from Madrid, who was quoted in a recent Bloomberg report. He graduated from university but faced Spain’s 52% unemployment rate for those under age 25. He now washes and chops vegetables for a salad bar in London. Of the 17 employees, 13 are from Spain, including 3 from Carlos’s university. “We are a lost generation for sure“, Carlos stated.

     As bad as the situation is currently, it is certain to get far worse as governments and central banks impose anti-growth policies including massive tax hikes and pile on ever more onerous regulations. Even the courts add to the perdition. The European Court of Justice just ruled workers who don’t feel well during vacations are entitled to a paid makeup vacation day for every day they were ill. Meanwhile, thanks to many millions like Mario and Carlos, Europe’s demographics are imploding. Unfortunately, Europe’s problems have reached the USA.

America is Becoming More Like Europe

    More and more Americans are working part time and in low wage jobs. Our unemployment rate is 15% when including involuntary part-time workers. Unemployment for those under age 25 is higher at 16% and that number is set to soar as ObamaCare kicks in and the cost of insuring full time workers skyrockets. America gradually is descending into a low wage, part-time economy with stagnant growth accompanied by decreasing social mobility.

     Obama’s policies fix these trends in place for at least the next 5 years – 4 more years of Obama and at least one year to change course. The high rate of government spending, massive debt, huge deficits and higher taxes are certain to result in tepid economic growth. We will be  lucky to average 2% growth per year and to avoid recession and/or an  existential debt crisis.

     In short, the youth (and increasingly the middle class) of America are becoming more like Mario and Carlos. They will be part of a lost generation and it is just a matter of time until we will begin to see the unmistakable looks of quiet desperation in our children’s faces.