Empty barrels make more noise

A number of socialists, foremost among them ex-president Mr. Mario Soares , ex-minister of finance Mr. Freitas do Amaral and the entire opposition are rambling against the "dictatorship of Merkozy".  Merkozy being Mrs. Merkel of Germany and Mr. Sarkozy of France.  The dictatorship being them negotiating alone and making demands mostly on the PIIGS and other European countries.

The economy of France is in fact not very healthy, but it still has a triple AAA rating and the German economy is so far the healthier.

They are are the only two big sustainable economies left in the European Monetary Union.  I do to a degree understand the preoccupation of many concerning the apparent lack of democracy in the current process.  But:

1. Who is paying for the PIIGS?
2. Who will save Europe?  The PIIGS?
3. Who has blatantly - even criminally mismanaged their economies?
4. In Northern Europe mismanagement and corruption has consequences.  Is it that hard to understand that Northern Europe, calvinistic or not, want to see the responsible punished?  The reason is to make sure it does not happen again. With the persons and causes identified it is less likely.
5. When you have mismanaged economically it is quite normal to loose freedoms and maneuverability.  The creditors will always impose rules to insure their capital.
6. Northern Europe is by definition more proactive than reactive and plan long term in stead of short term.  The PIIGS have done the opposite.

It is of course not pleasant to have been called out in the open and shown that years of work has been wasted. It has been wasted because the quality of work has sub-par and even miserable.  Looking back in time the socialists share the main burden as their governance is more recent.  But the social democrats also have a large share the guilt.

The rot has to come out of the political system and the rot has to come out of the public system. 

Portugal should be happy to have the rich uncles in Europe trying to save it (and themselves and the European Union).   If the socialists here in Portugal had any results they could point at, and say "We know what we did.  See how fine it is."  Then they could join the discussion of the adults.  As it is - they deserve to be left out.

Even though I personally am no great fan of German bureaucracy and German mentality as a whole - I can see some of the qualities.  Portugal needs more discipline, more accountability, more planning, more focus etc.  In fact, Portugal should consider replacing the top 2000 public function managers with Germans.  Give them power to fire and change.  In five years there would be results. We would have less liberty in Portugal, but at least we might not be broke.

And as the socialists now have discovered.  When one is broke, one does not have much liberty anyways.