Obama attends 3rd G20 meeting of 2011

The meeting is in Southern France this time, where thousands of French police are on hand to stop protesters. Greece looms large on the agenda, which is almost comical because Greece agreed to an EU debt plan but then angered EU leaders by announcing a public referendum.

From AP:

The United States has an important role to play in helping guide Europe through its financial crisis, but it is ultimately Europe's problem to solve, the White House said Wednesday as President Barack Obama headed for an economic summit in France.

We do not have "an important role to play in helping guide Europe through its financial crisis." Obama is trying to do in the U.S. exactly what Greece has done -- fully 2/3 of Greeks work for the government, with fantastic benefits (handouts from taxpayers). Here, jobs have been shed for four years straight with one glaring exception, the federal government.

Another reason we don't have "an important role to play" is because of what happened at the other two G20 meetings this year. Obama tried to lecture the other 19 leaders that they should be spending more. Austerity is the wrong policy, he was saying. They all but laughed at an Obama who is isolated in the world for his policy of overspending. Even European socialists have come to understand that massive deficit spending at a time when revenues are low is a terrible position.

(Obama press secretary Carney) said that the U.S. has unique insight on the European financial crisis because of its experience dealing with its own financial crisis, as well as its position as the world's largest economy. But Carney made clear that the U.S. has no plans to offer financial support to Europe as cash-rich China may do.

We would be more "cash-rich" than China if we had been operating at a 10% budget surplus, as we should have been all along.

It's amazing to me that our country even has a seat at the G20 table. A country that is bankrupt in all but formal filing -- with nearly $15 trillion in debt and overspending by $1.3 trillion per year -- is in no position to counsel others on controlling debt.

Our "leaders" have failed us miserably over the last 40 years, Republican and Democrat, and I think the G20 are just humoring us to keep up appearances.

I think it's time to stop patting ourselves on the back and referring to our country as "the richest country in the world." With our debt and spending policies, and reduced credit rating, we are bankrupt. This is why I won't vote for any of the Republican candidates parading around the country. I've said before (here) that I can only support a candidate who wants a balanced budget amendment to the federal constitution, and makes it his/her central theme, and convinces me he's not lying. Instead, I'm hearing about tax plans that don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing the legislature, even if Republicans control all of it.

I just wish more people felt as I do, because I don't see any other way out of the path we're on.