Ah, Socialism!!

France's Minister of Industry Arnaud Montebourg made the headlines this week by saying the following:

Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, a member of the governing Socialist party, caused controversy last week when he said that the Indian company, which employs close to 20,000 people in France, should leave after it said it would have to close down a factory.

The French government announced on Thursday that it could nationalize the factory in question, with backing from an unnamed businessman.

The news raised the specter of the nationalizations of the early 1980s, which were instigated by Hollande’s predecessor Francois Mitterrand.

Montebourg told CNBC after a meeting with trade unions in Paris: “Barack Obama's nationalized. The Germans are nationalizing. All countries are nationalizing. I've also noticed the British nationalized 6 banks.”

What Monsieur Montebourg is talking about, of course, is Obama's nationalizing the financial services industry via the draconian controls of Dodd-Frank and of course GM, which was delivered to union ownership at a cost of a mere $80 billion that will not be recouped for decades, if at all.

Interesting that Montebourg easily recognizes what most of the American people and certainly the vast majority of the media have yet to admit...that he's a socialist and a redistributionist whose heading us towards European socialism.

And Europe is doing simply splendidly on that path, mais oui?

The unemployment rate continued its steady rise, reaching 11.7% in October, up from 11.6% the month before and 10.4% a year ago.

A further 173,000 were out of work across the single currency area, bringing the total to 18.7 million.

Royal Bank of Scotland's Alberto Gallo: "The real issue is we're in a two-speed Europe"

The respective fortunes of northern and southern Europe diverged further. In Spain, the jobless rate rose to 26.2% from 25.8% the previous month, and in Italy it rose to 11.1% from 10.8%.

In contrast, unemployment in Germany held steady at 5.4% of the labour force, while in Austria it fell from 4.4% to just 4.3%.

Our president, of course, is following the policies of southern Europe..massive spending and borrowing, high taxes to discourage economic activity, zero austerity in the name of 'growth' (which actually means government make-work hiring) crippling energy policies and large roadblocks of governmental bureaucracy to stifle business and job creation.

In addition, of course, we have the U.S. military to pay for and a mush larger problem with illegal immigration and its attendant social welfare costs Europe doesn't have, at least not anything near to America's.

If this headlong plunge to insolvency isn't stopped, there's only one way it can end. And it won't be pretty.