Watching Greece it occurs to me that the EU has a fatal flaw. A single flaw that the United States does not have, a flaw that would have caused the American experiment to have gone down in flames. It is a flaw of bureaucracy, not ideology.
The EU countries have to, for the most part, field their own armies, provide their own social services, take care of their own infrastructure, etc. The only system which has benefited from "economy of scale" in the EU is the financial system. It's as if Alabama had to build its own highways, field its own army, and provide social services. Of course Alabama would be in debt up to its eyeballs. And this is, in part, why Greece is in such dire straits. In this scenario, if it happened in the USA, Alabama would have rich states like New York and California on their back the way Greece has Germany on their back.
The EU is a group of nations with a common currency and that's about it. That means no nation within the EU can use temporary currency manipulation in tough times. The USA does that any time the economy isn't so hot, as does just about any other nation with a sovereign currency. Greece cannot do that, can they? Whether or not you agree with this method ideologically, if one nation can do it but another cannot, the nation that can has a huge advantage when things get weird economically. "Printing money", as it is often called, can inject cash into the economy and, assuming it causes inflation, it can lower the real value of a nation's debt. Again, Greece cannot do this. Alabama doesn't have to do this kind of thing because they receive a greater amount of funds from the federal government than they pay in. No such luck for Greece.
I don't know if this was an unintended consequence or if there were factions which knew this was going to happen as the EU was created. I am not really old enough to know off the top of my head what was going on in Greece, or in other nations, as the EU formed. I imagine there was push back, but I can't find anything about the main point I have here. Nobody mentioned that only the monetary system was going to be unified, nobody talked about what happens to the less prosperous nations as the economy goes south, which it inevitably will do under any system. It's Greece today, but any other country that goes through extreme economic hardship is bound to suffer the same fate under the current EU regime which centralizes economic power but keeps the political power of the individual disparate by pitting nation against nation in the new economic order.
eBay Admits To Being Complicit In Mail Fraud
This was the official eBay response to questions I have about their users buying items and returning a bag of sand. They basically said "we do not try to stop buyers from stealing".
This means that eBay Inc is complicit in mail fraud. When you receive the bag of sand back instead of your item, eBay steals money from your PayPal account to refund the person who committed the fraudulent act, thus becoming an accomplice.
And the conversation continues. The official ebay customer support team clarifies that they are not willing or able to do anything about people using eBay to steal from sellers.
This is pretty terrible when you think about it. The sellers are paying fees to use eBay's service, and then eBay just allows people to steal from those sellers. What's more is if the seller gets a bag of sand and refuses to issue the refund, eBay will steal money from the PayPal account of the eBay seller to issue the refund. And if that's not interesting enough for you, if a seller pushes back against theft a few times in a month, eBay will limit their account and put a hold on the funds in their PayPal account.
It's not ethical, but eBay just told the entire world that eBay Inc doesn't do shit if you use their service for mail fraud.
But don't worry, this lady is "working behind the scenes to make eBay a great place to sell"
This Is A Lot More Work Than I Thought
So I thought I was going to have several shows up and running for the podcast network in addition to Soapbox Radio by this time. Boy oh boy was I wrong. This is a lot more work than I anticipated but I believe it to be worth it.
How To Win A Debate Without Even Trying
Last year I debated a libertarian about the EPA. I didn't even have to make my case! As you can see in the somewhat long discussion thread over at Busta's site, there just wasn't much I needed to do. My opponent made all kinds of verifiably false claims. The thing with the light bulbs. I knew the light bulbs were going to come up and I was prepared for it!
http://bustatroll.com/debates/121-the-epa-debate