A note about the Greeks. They actually work the longest hours in Europe and if they were to leave the European Union, assuming they came in kicked butt on the corruption and regulatory state they could easily build a thriving prosperous economy as they actually have very good work ethics and are not low time preference.

You are correct that the Greeks are hard workers. My statements about time preferences were intended to be general, as a way of explaining why some countries have high interest rates and others have low rates. Several statements apply well to Greece; others do not.

The problem comes in that that the Greeks have a lot of socialists in office who like all their ilk want far more government than they can pay for.

Indeed. This is partly why, pre-Euro, their interest rates were so high.

I know this sticks in peoples craw but the world needs much less trade and less interconnection. I know everyone wants to quote Bastiat about now and its a wonderful quote but its just wrong. Less trade, more domestic production benefits everyone well accept globalists I suppose.

I do not go quite so far as to argue that we should work to actively restrict trade, but there is plenty of evidence both theoretical and empirical to show that the doctrine of free trade makes no sense whatsoever. At the very least, regional free-trade agreements should be scrapped and replaced with either bilateral agreements with select nations, or with a single universal tariff that applies to every exporter's goods.

An American nation with a flat 10-15% tariff for goods and services and workers for ALL countries, for instance, would likely be economically far more stable, less corrupt, and better off than it currently is under NAFTA and the WTO. At minimum, the Mexican problem would be rapidly resolved; suddenly, hiring illegal aliens to do the dirty work that ordinary Americans won't do doesn't make nearly as much sense when they're 15% more expensive than ordinary teenagers, blacks, or low-income whites.

A note about the Greeks. They actually work the longest hours in Europe and if they were to leave the European Union, assuming they came in kicked butt on the corruption and regulatory state they could easily build a thriving prosperous economy as they actually have very good work ethics and are not low time preference. Greek Americans in my neck end up running restaurants but in general seem to do pretty well in that niche and thats no job for lazy or shiftless people.

The problem comes in that that the Greeks have a lot of socialists in office who like all their ilk want far more government than they can pay for . Greeks won't pay taxes to fund all that and do to legislative capture can't get an actual small state party in office, Thus they end up with all this debt and trouble.

As for Germany, well they too have an expensive welfare state and on top of that pay for it by taxing surplus production they foist off on everyone else, They could cut expense by sending non Germans home for starters but even that is going to be trouble for them as demography is killing them . No one will go do the obvious solution which is getting rid of feminism and encouraging women to the old Wilhelmenan slogan "kinder küche kirche." subbing Asatru for the later if that works better, I know why they won't but it would solve many many problems in Europe and heck here too. It won't help Japan though

Economically exporting surplus is broadly speaking zero sum since the number of buyers willing and able to purchased the surplus is declining. Yes China still has a thriving middle but like any sensible country is merchantile and looks out for itself. And yes narrowly some surplus is exportable but we can't all be net exporters and that is what so many countries are trying to do. It won't work for quite obvious reasons.

I know this sticks in peoples craw but the world needs much less trade and less interconnection. I know everyone wants to quote Bastiat about now and its a wonderful quote but its just wrong. Less trade, more domestic production benefits everyone well accept globalists I suppose