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It does? O'reilly? Because you've been arguing for weeks that Obama's plan actually cuts more than Ryan's plan

Yes, it cuts Medicare.

Which isn't Medicaid.

Which isn't a state run insurance exchange.

Post 52#: more like emporer palpatine and darth vader.  now choose.

Actually, Obama would clearly be Lando, and Ryan would play the Vader-girl to Romney's Palpatine.

Biden would be Chewbacca, of course...

@post:#54

European policy is nothing short of an utter failure and a mechanism of misery. The monetary union transformed what should have been a containable predicament into a global calamity. Had Greece maintained the drachma, it could not have aggrandized its financial obligations to the levels that it accrued in 2010. The markets would have intervened and forced an obligatory corrective action years in advance. The Greek slide developed in the 8 years that preceded the investiture of the single currency, when the markets were eager partakers in being persuaded that Athens and Berlin debt were reciprocal. Athens benefited from an artificial credit boom, with successive governments acquiring spendthrift habits while using clever book-keeping techniques to conceal the deficits. Simultaneously, Greek productivity was listless trailing the mainstay E.U. economies, until the disparity became unsustainable. Inevitable retributive justice arrived when it finally became apparent for the people and institutions to whom were owed money that Athens arrears were growing faster than the speed of its economy, and there was no expectation of that debt being settled. Athens was not permitted to default on its liabilities, exit the Euro and commence exporting its way back to sustained growth. In preference, strategic policymakers in the ECB and Athens asserted there was purely a short-term liquidity impediment, you remember that, and that the debt crisis could be resolved by getting serious on tax forbearance and slashing public expenditure.

Meanwhile, additional loans were pushed on Athens – immersing the state in further debt. No judicious individual sincerely believed Athens would be able to meet its financial responsibilities, but the European technocrats were adamant on prolonging Athens inescapable fate - using the juncture to deviate liabilities from the private to the public sector. And, of course, E.U. membership is not ephemeral; all parties were prepared to experience discomfort for the cause of European integration. If the Euro had been an economic enterprise, Greece would never have been permitted to partake in the union. Germany was well-aware of this over a decade ago; Berlin was given an admonition indicating the level of Athens debt needed to be confronted before it could be legitimately admitted to partake in a single currency, but that was ignored. Ireland is another example of the utter failure of policy. Ireland operated its economy with skill, but it was forced into ruinously low interest rates, spawning an unsustainable credit boom. As the Irish economy reached overdrive, any dilettante economist could see interest rates needed to be raised, except there were no Irish rates any longer. There were purely pan-europa rates. When the bubble burst, the penury was more severe as a consequence. After the financial arson of the Irish economy, the technocrats then constrained Dublin to a disastrous bailout, pushing the Irish into an era of deflation debt and emigration. Further servitude came when Dublin was forced under treaty agreements to partake in the Greek rescue package.

The solitary institute that controls the Euro, and the European Financial system, is the Deutsche Bundesbank. Such weight of authority allowed Berlin to enact financial structures which gave priority to the export sector as the main drivers of the German economic recovery. As a result of this priority, large commercial German banks accrued an immense amount of Euros, which were exported, and invested inside the Eurozone. That investment was the source of the Spanish property bubble. Without the German bankroll, the Spanish banks could not have financed that bubble. The booming Polish economy is Bundesbank architecture. Berlin curtly disintegrated the German-Polish borders soon before the GFC and engineered an attractive place for investors – a market symbolized by its low labor costs. There is a reason Poland was the only post-soviet satellite nation to avoid a recession after the GFC. The Prussian belt was always going to be revised at the cost of the impoverished Polish worker and Poland’s dilapidated infrastructure.

As for the Balkans, Washington and Berlin, deliberately contrived to destabilize and then carve up Yugoslavia. Remember, Nazi Germany dominated the two Yugoslav regions during WWII, absorbing Slovenia into the Third Reich and creating a puppet regime in Croatia. The Balkans war reunited Berlin with access to the Adriatic Sea. It has strategic ports in Albania and in annexing the Balkans, controls the Southern Gas Corridor - intended to expand the routes and sources of supply and in doing so boost the energy security of Europe. Roman Prodi (former E.U. president) in March 2000 said: “...in the long run, Balkans belongs strictly to the E.U."

Furthermore, Roman Prodi went on record: “Malta is the southern pillar of Europe. If Malta joined the E.U. it would become a gateway for Europe. Malta has been described as a springboard to the whole Mediterranean region, and especially to the African and Middle Eastern shores".

Once the E.U. expanded to Malta, the Bundesbank export structures could penetrate into Africa and the Mid East. Note, German exports to Libya fell almost 70% after the NATO humanitarian intervention. Germany have some serious financial investment in Damascus too.

I comprehend what you are trying to articulate in your three-prong Europe, however my point is that Obama is cut from the same ideology of the unelected Eurocrats. The primary function of the “Europeanization” model these days is to act as a massive devise to take money away from tax payers and give it to the people lucky enough to be inside the system.

You would of thought Switzerland, a country particularly exposed to the financial sector would have suffered during the banking crisis. However the Helvetic banking Confederation in 09 had a GDP per head of 214% of that of the E.U. Its people are twice as rich as the citizens of the member states. In part, that reflects the deal the Swiss have struck with Brussels, they’re in the free market, their covered by the free movement of goods and services - but they are outside the common agriculture policy, control their own borders, they settle their own human rights issues, they pay only a token contribution to the budget and they are free to sign with third party countries in commercial areas. What I’m trying to express is the importance of pushing powers down to the lowest practicable level.

Good luck in college football today, mate.