My heart rate rose and my body released a bit of adrenaline just WATCHING this.

Love that little squeezy sensation when my adrenal glands kick in.

Once again you just spew hyperbole trash.

You can apologize after your read facts. You do know hat a fact is. It is truth. AS of 2014 24% of Americans describe themselves as Liberals and 37% conservative.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/180452/liberals-record-trail-conservatives.aspx


As for you call me a Necon. then you add you own definition is just stupid on your part.

From Webster Dictionary.
Definition of NEOCONSERVATIVE
1
: a former liberal espousing political conservatism
2
: a conservative who advocates the assertive promotion of democracy and United States national interest in international affairs including through military means
------------
Clearly I am not nor ever Item 1
Item 2 is promoting National interest abroad. clearly not what you defined. and B) you would probably fit under this definition.

Please if you are going to insult me please me intelligent about it.

Take your time take off you Liberal rose-colored glasses and realize the if it was not for Republicans there would be no civil rights legislation.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/85-1957/s75
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/88-1964/h182

Once again you talk smack.

3 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by SFOGuy.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Man-buys-140-in-Roses-from-subway-vendor-in-touching-video

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by eric3579. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

Your video, Man buys $140 in Roses from subway vendor in touching video, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Ahhhhh YEAH, Amber Rose. That is my girl's girl, right there. Yeah, know what I'm talking about.

I still sing this song, so I don't get what's so funny. I kinda want to listen to some 2 Live Crew now.

The part that they play is basically when the guy was working for a restaurant. The cook needed 20 pans to cook rice in, but they were apparently so filthy the only way to clean them was to lay them in seawater. So he sent this guy down at low tide to put them in, not thinking that when the tide rose the pans would be gone.

Then in the morning he sent the guy back out to get the pans, but the tide had risen so he only found one. The cook got pissed and said that it was coming out of the guys pay, then sent him to another city to get pans from another restaurant. The guy, whom by the way is nicknamed Giggles, hopped on a bus and never came back.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Charlie-Rose-by-Samuel-Beckett

"'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett" has been added as a related post - related requested by Trancecoach.

In the current situation, "structural reforms" is used to subsume two entirely different sets of measures.

The first is meant to remove what you previously mentioned: corruption in all the shapes and forms it takes in Greece, from a (intentionally) broken tax system formed over decades of nepotism to a bankrupt national media in the hands of oligarchs. The institutions of the Greek state are precisely what you expect when a country has been run by four families (Papandreou, Samaras, Mitsotakis, Karamanlis) for basically five decades.

This kind of structural reform is part of Syriza's program. Like you said, it'll be hard work and they might very well fail. They'll have only weeks, maybe a few months to undo significant parts of what has grown over half a century. It's not fair, but that's what it is.

The second kind of "structural reform" is meant to increase competitiveness, generally speaking, and a reduction of the public sector. In case of Greece, this included the slashing of wages, pensions, benefits, public employment. The economic and social results are part of just about every article these days, so I won't mention them again. A Great Depression, as predicted.

That's the sort of "structural reforms" Syriza wants to undo. And it's the sort that is expected of Spain, Italy and France as well, which, if done, would probably throw the entire continent into a Great Depression.

I'd go so far as to call any demand to increase competitiveness to German levels madness. Germany gained its competitiveness by 15 years of beggar-thy-neighbour economics, undercutting the agreed upon target of ~2% inflation (read: 2% growth of unit labour costs) the entire time. France played by the rules, was on target the entire time, and is now expected to suffer for it. Only Greece was significantly above target, and are now slightly below target. That's only halfway, yet already more than any democratic country can take.

They could have spread the adjustment out over 20 years, with Germany running above average ULC growth, but decided to throw Greece (and to a lesser degree Spain) off a cliff instead.


So where are we now? Debt rose, GDP crashed, debt as percentage of GDP skyrocketed. That's a fail. Social situation is miserable, health care system basically collapsed, reducing Greece to North African standards. That's a fail.

Those are not reforms to allow Greece to function independently. Those are reforms to throw the Greek population into misery, with ever increasing likeliness of radical solutions (eg Golden Dawn, who are eagerly hoping for a failure of Syriza).

So yes, almost every nation in Europe needs reforms of one sort or another. But using austerity as a rod to beat discipline into supposedly sovereign nations is just about the shortest way imaginable to blow up the Eurozone. Inflicting this amount of pain on people against their will does not work in democratic countries, and the rise of Syriza, Podemos, Sinn Féin, the SNP and the Greens as well as the surge of popularity for Front National and Golden Dawn are clear indicators that the current form of politics cannot be sustained.

Force austerity on France and Le Pen wins the election.

Meaningful reforms that are to increase Europe's "prosperity" would have the support of the people. And reforms are definatly needed, given that the Eurozone is in its fifth year of stagnation, with many countries suffering from both a recession and deflation. A European Union without increasing prosperity for the masses will not last long, I'm sure of it. And a European Union that intentionally causes Great Depressions wouldn't be worth having anyway.

Yet after everything is said and done, I believe you are still absolutely correct in saying that the pro-austerity states won't blink.

Which is what makes it interesting, really. Greece might be able to take a default. They run a primary surplus and most (90%+) of the funds went to foreign banks, the ECB and the IMF anyway, or were used to stabilize the banking system. The people got bugger all. But the Greek banking system would collapse without access to the European system.

Which raises the question: would the pro-austerity states risk a collapse of the Greek banking system and everything it entails? Spanish banks would follow in a heartbeat.

As for the morality of it (they elected those governments, they deserved it): I don't believe in collective punishment, especially not the kind that cripples an entire generation, which is what years of 50+% youth unemployment and a failing educational system does.

My own country, Germany, in particular gets no sympathy from me in this case. Parts of our system were intentionally reformed to channel funds into the market, knowing full well that there was nowhere near enough demand for credit to soak up the surplus savings, nowhere near enough reliable debtors to generate a reasonable return of investment without generating bubbles, be it real estate or financial. They were looking for debtors, and if all it took was turning a blind eye to the painfully obvious longterm problems it would create in Southern Europe, they were more than eager to play along.

Congratulations! Your video, Dust Devil @ Rose Bowl 12.31.14, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 2 Badge!

Your video, Dust Devil @ Rose Bowl 12.31.14, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Who did you see on the list?

Kareem Abdul-Jabar
JJ Abrams
Alan Alda
Christiane Amanpour
Jon Batiste
Big Bird
Cory Booker
Tom Brokaw
Ken Burns
Bill Clinton
Andy Cohen
Francis Collins
Cookie Monster
Bob Costas
Katie Couric
Bryan Cranston
Mark Cuban
Jeff Daniels
Bill DeBlasio
Maureen Dowd
James Franco
Thomas Friedman
Vince Gilligan
Doris Kearns Goodwin
David Gregory
Terry Gross
Mike Huckabee
Arianna Huffington
Dean Kamen
Toby Keith
Henry Kissinger
Nicholas Kristof
Paul Krugman
Alexi Lalas
Cyndi Lauper
David Leonhardt
George Lucas
Yo Yo Ma
Barry Manilow
Senator Claire McCaskill
Tim Meadows
Willie Nelson
Randy Newman
Grover Norquist
Eleanor Holmes Norton
Ric Ocasek
Keith Olbermann
Mandy Patinkin
Stone Phillips
Samantha Power
Pussy Riot
Charlie Rose
Dan Savage
Smaug
Shane Smith
Eliot Spitzer
Gloria Steinem
Jon Stewart
Patrick Stewart
Michael Stipe
Andrew Sullivan
Matt Taibbi
Jeff Tweedy
Neil Degrasse Tyson
Sam Waterston
Elijah Wood

(http://www.vox.com/2014/12/19/7419893/colbert-finale-song)