Mature Subject Matter - Reader Discretion Advised

Go play, grown ups are talking.

If you are in France, you can't read this. You just voted in a socialist government because you couldn't handle the necessary austerity measures, in a country so socialist already, it shouldn't make much of a difference that the socialist won - there isn't much room to move left anyway:

France currently has a government that absorbs more than 50 percent of its economy. They have a cradle-to-grave employment system, where once you have a job it is virtually impossible to lose it no matter your level of performance.

The retirement system for many union and government employees allows a person to retire at age 55 at close to full pay. For a while they had in place a 35-hour work-week law, which is still followed by many businesses and government entities. 

With these types of policies, it would seem difficult to imagine what a socialist government would change. But there is still room for movement to the left, according to the folks who are running. 

One candidate, who was eliminated from Sunday’s runoff but whose ideas linger on, proposed that all income above $350,000 should go to the government. A cause célèbre of the campaign has been a $22 million euro bonus which reflected in large part accrued, deferred compensation paid to the head of one of France’s fastest growing and most profitable companies that has added hundreds of new jobs.

Clearly the French aren't prepared to face reality and would rather continue to live in a fantasy land of denial and everything-is-free-for-everyone bliss.  That's not mature.  Argue about the priorities and don't avoid the reality, and you can stay in the conversation.  Denying the fiscal reality and leaning on "tax the rich" ad nauseum, means you don't have the maturity to face up to the facts. Greece - ditto, but at least you aren't going socialist in your elections.  So, French or Greek, don't listen or read.

Speaking of which, if you are an Obama supporter, stuck in that same delusional state, you can't read this.  You should instead go outside and play Occupy Something, or read a bedtime story that exalts your hero. For that matter if you believe that Keynesian solutions solved the problem of the Great Recession or that unemployment is in great shape or even decent shape,  it's nap time - go dream about unicorns.

If you are still a global warming alarmist, go hug a tree - adults are talking here.  We haven't got time right now to entertain your notions.

Free health care believer? Go to McDonald's and get yourself a Happy Meal, because there really is such a thing as a free lunch.

Anyone else under the delusion that government is the solution to everything, please walk away.  We are trying to have serious discussions about solutions to problems that liberalism, progressivism and socialism have caused - government debt the world over with no clear way out save government austerity and private sector growth. 

Growth of GDP combined with government austerity is the only way to solve the economic crisis that hasn't really been addressed.  Government spending is like taking sand from the bottom of a pile in order to put it on top of the pile to make it higher.  The reality is far worse than simply just some spending cuts or the ridiculous notion of ever more government spending.  It's not going to be pretty, it's not going to be any sort of soft landing on Medicare or Social Security but it is going to be necessary.  People have stuck their heads in the sand for far too long and it's time to be adult and start talking about some very uncomfortable choices that are going to have to be made.

I'm not sure how many of us are left in the room, but it's time to talk.