On stage in Washington D.C., starring Barack Obama, the Democratic Party, and the supporting cast -- the mainstream media, is the 21st sequel, since 1995, of imminent Armageddon if government spending is reduced. This award-winning production currently retitled: "Sequestration, or The End of Compassion", has been enormously successful as its plot of good (the American left) versus evil (conservatives and Republicans) has captured the imagination of a majority of the audience.

This theatrical offering is but one element of the overall strategy to attain the primary stated goal of the American left, which is to transform the United States into a Euro-Socialist democracy. The need to reprise this production is really unnecessary as, under the direction of Barack Obama, the so-called Progressives are well on the road to achieving this long sought-after objective, and in fact they have achieved this end.

The nations of Europe and the United States have two factors in common: 1) they are all either confirmed to be or determined (as in the case of the United States) to become socialist democracies and 2) they have evolved into overwhelmingly consumption-based societies, greatly diminishing their goods-producing, manufacturing service, and energy sector (which generates the real wealth of a nation), thus, eroding their job-creation ability as well as the nation's wealth and tax base. Yet the governments of all these countries continue to deficit spend, over-tax and regulate (chasing wealth and job-creation offshore) and borrow in an effort to meet the expectations of the people.

The unspoken and well-hidden reality is that the "West" has finally reached the point of saturation wherein its economies and societies can no longer afford to guarantee a certain standard of living for the citizens of these countries in exchange for their votes. But that has not stopped the governing class in these nations from continuing on this disastrous path.

Unbeknown to the vast majority of Americans nearly all the nations of Europe are presently mired in a second recession in a matter of just three years accompanied by unemployment well into the double digits throughout the continent. Public unrest, while contained for the moment, is beginning to bubble just under the surface. The United States has thus far avoided an official plunge back into a recession, but that is due primarily to the Federal Reserve essentially creating money out of whole cloth as they have increased their balance sheet by nearly $3 Trillion since the beginning of 2008 through buying U.S. government and mortgage debt.

It is the exception that any country in the West is not facing long or short-term insolvency. A cursory review of the National Insolvency Index (10 being the benchmark with the index above 10 for three or more years indicating a severe potential for insolvency and near intractable societal problems) appears as follows for a variety of countries in the West, including the United States, which is now in this exclusive club. (The index is a combination of the unemployment rate and the annual budget deficit as a percent of Gross Domestic Product.)

(http://americanthinker.com/2011/06/new_key_number_the_solvency_index.html)

(Note: the U.S. unemployment rate is the U-5 (total unemployed plus discouraged workers and others marginally attached to the labor force) in order to be compatible with European unemployment rate calculations

The higher the Index above 10 and the longer the Index remains above 10, the greater the problems that country is experiencing and viable solutions to solve these dilemmas will be increasingly difficult to enact. This has been proven out in the budget fights in Washington D.C. and the failed attempts to pass austerity packages in the various capitals of Europe.

By comparison: The index for the Bush two terms:     7.8

The Obama Years (2009-2012)                          19.0

Projected Obama Years (2013-2016)                 15.0 to 17.5

From 1947 through 2008 (62 years) the U.S. experienced only three years with an index above 12.2, the average index during this period was 6.9. It was during these six decades that America experienced the greatest era of wealth creation in the history of mankind. Now America is another insolvent Euro-Socialist state.

It is no coincidence that that so much of the global financial chaos is occurring in the Western world. This region  has been dominated by the failed philosophies of socialism/Marxism and an assumption that prosperity would never end as the engine of that prosperity -- capitalism -- would never cease to produce wealth and revenue to the government regardless of whatever was done to abuse it through excessive regulations, taxes, or mandates.
However, capitalism now has begun to wither on the vine in the West as the reality of a global economy has come to pass and many other nations are in the equation, having taken over the goods-production, manufacturing services, and innovation activity once dominated by Europe and the United States. Unless and until the West again becomes more of a goods-producing and exporting region, which would require a dramatic change in their politics and economic philosophy, it will continue to descend into further chaos as these economies are cannibalizing themselves in order to maintain their flawed societal commitments.

The Left in the United States will point to the ever-growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots in society as the justification for their overweening redistributionist program and its continued demonization of the wealthy and capitalism in general. However, the reason for this growing disparity is not the so-called greed of the "rich" but is the result of the socialist policies of the Left and the denigration of the economy which now creates only low-paying service jobs, if any. There is little opportunity for upward mobility as the high paying value-added jobs in goods-manufacturing, production services and the energy arena, as well as an environment to promote entrepreneurial creativity no longer exists.

So, congratulations, Progressives. You have managed to turn America into Europe, so you can stop with your absurd sky-is-falling tactics, you won. The people you profess to be so concerned about will pay the ultimate price and as Peter Ferrara of Forbes asks: "Will America wake up before Obama transforms this formally freest and most prosperous nation in the history of the world into just another banana republic?"