It seems that the only European countries that are struggling are those who did what our own country foolishly did: deregulated their banks and corporations, and gave big tax breaks to the wealthy and big business. How long will it take governments to learn that deregulation does not work? How many people will have to be reduced to poverty - including in this country - before the government morons realize that something else has to be done, and that something is to improve the living standard of working people, instead of worrying so much about the rich? You can't have a strong nation if most of the nation is unemployed, undermployed, or poor and homeless. I'm frightened about the future of our own country, and it seems that the world economy hangs on what happens with the U.S. If the Republicans take control again of the U.S., we and the entire world will go under very soon.

I wonder if the policemen in Greece have groping hands like our policemen do. Here is a photo of a policeman with his right hand under the girls blouse and directly groping her breast. This is a photo on Chris Hedges' article on Truthdig called "Occupy Will Be Back".
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/occupy_will_be_back_20120618/

The French Socialists have the solution and the rest need to follow their lead. My only question is sort of a semantical one but points out an important perspective one needs to have. Are the French actually raising taxes on the rich or are they simply eliminating tax breaks which should never have been implemented in the first place. I know in this country we can't even end tax breaks that were deemed temporary by Bush himself....such is the power of the trickle down lie. It's been a revenue collection problem all along, created by the fairy tale that if we give just a few, all of our wealth, somehow we all benefit. So again it's not that we are raising taxes on the rich, we are ending the Reagan/Thatcher madness and RETURNING to economic sanity!

Well said Until that happens WE are screwed IF Citizens United money man Mitt wins whats left of the middle class will soon die off I am very worried

One of Thom's last caller's today, was suggesting that if the current Baby Boomers or Seniors would just die off "Things." would get better. It's true the senior generation is the most certain to vote. Mainly in fear of loosing their Social Security, Medicare and way of life that they had created in the 50's, 60's and 70's. "The greatest Middle Class in the in World." It's true the younger contingent helped sweep Obama to victory. But face it JR, the country is the way it is today because most of the country is uniformed, (some polls say 30 - 40 percent), and /or indifferent, and especially because most of the Dems, The Uniformed, the Indifferent sat on their Butts during the 2010 election and gave the Tea Party Terrorists our Congress. Now the Republican Plutocrats are Gerrymandering our votes off the ballot boxes, privatizing our public services, destroying our rights to bargain and dumbing down the electorate. To paraphrase Caesar's diviner, "Beware the 6th of November."

Hopefully The Newly-Formed Coalition, Will Ultimatly Realise That Austerity Without A Genuine, Sophisticated Plan For Growth Leads To Economic Stagnation. With The Conservative, 'New Deomcracy' Controlling The Overall Majority In Greece's Coalitin Though, I Very Much Doubt It.

I think the Greeks are going to end up having to face the reality of a lower standard of living under any possible option. They may be able to negotiate better austerity terms and avoid the estimated 40% drop in value of savings upon conversion back to the Drachma, but they will still be working for less money than they were before. They are simply not competitive any longer and have not been able to convince people that they can grow their way out of their debt. If they all take a significant pay cut at the same time, domestic products and services based on domestic resources would still be affordable in roughly the same proportions, but imports would be much more expensive. On the plus side, they will be able to export much more than they can today, which will increase employment. Eventually, they should be able to return to the same levels of productivity as their counterparts, assuming they have the same educational attainment and the same cultural work ethic and work conditions.

The Institute for Economics and Peace may say the world is getting more peaceful, but I'm sensing more of a "calm before the storm" kind of scenario. Something has to give...the world is sick and tired of being held down. The working poor and the unfortunate ones among us will no longer tolerate being told that we are doing fine when we know that the only ones doing fine are the rich.

Greece must have used the same voting machines that they used in the Wisconsin Recall. Democracy is corrupt around the world which feeds people false hopes for change and the ruling elite continues to keep their wealth, power, and their heads.

Yes, that term "Ponzi Capitalism" should be used more often. I guess it is probably not new to most who follow Thom Hartman, or 60 minutes, but 60 minutes had a piece on tonight that highlighted the "Crony Capitalist politicians" who had gotten rich using insider trading and voting on issues that would make their bets on Wall Street pay off. Many of the politicians were doing this and avoided voting for, or even mentioning, the bill that had been introduced to stop them from this corruption.

Nancy Palosi was one that was pinned to the wall by a 60 minutes anchor at a news conference...and she, visibly shaken, stammered some stupid defensive remark that made her sound as ridiculous as GWBush always did.

Republicans...and Democrats...they are all Seedy Cockroach Crapitalists that should all be removed from office and jailed. It really ticked me off that many of these scum-bucket, cockroach, politicians that decided the fate of a public option in the healthScare bill were actually all in it with the insurance companies to keep it from happening...and they all invested in insurance companies knowing that they were going to get rich by selling out the people who likely voted for them. So, who are you going to vote for, again, this time around? The same criminals that we voted for last time?

I believe that despite the Old World effort to devise historical and financial complexities we have no time to understand, oppressed people everywhere sense that the deck is stacked, the table has magnets underneath, and that voting machines and slot machines come from the same place. Such a collective consciousness is enough to flip the corrupt reigning regime. It is the sands of their Time which are running out because we don't believe them any longer. The hand that turns the Hour Glass over will soon appear.

We tore out those very things that previous enabled the US to become the wealthiest nation with the least economic disparities -- a land where nearly everyone actually did have a chance - a very good chance - of building a middle class life. As we threw the poor overboard, and then began pushing the middle class into poverty, the US has rapidly, frighteningly, fallen far behind the modern nations in virtually every respect. America is no longer sustainable. As much as we ignore it, we have remained engaged in social/economic war against each other, and I really do think we've reached the point beyond repair. I think most of us know that. Unfortunately, we've surrendered all power to a political class that is frantically working to drain our money out of the nation, into the bank accounts of the few. We COULD stop it, but I don't think we will. This would require a nation-wide, united effort as powerful as the labor marches of the 1930s and the civil rights marches of the 1960s. But golly gee, how can we get the required protest permits? And could we fit everyone into the designated protest zones?