The Glade 4.0

The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips.

Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, proposed a strategy that could cost European taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros a year, The Times of London reports.

"Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life," Mr. Tajani told a group of ministers at The European Tourism Stakeholders Conference in Madrid on April 15. Mr. Tajani was appointed to his post by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The plan -- just who gets to enjoy the travel package has yet to be determined -- would see taxpayers footing some of the vacation bill for seniors, youths between the ages of 18 and 25, disabled people, and families facing "difficult social, financial or personal" circumstances. The disabled and elderly can also be accompanied by one other person. The EU and its taxpayers are slated to fund 30% of the cost of these tours, which could range from youth exploring abandoned factories and power plants in Manchester to retirees taking discount trips to Madrid, all in the name of cultural appreciation.

"The commission is literally considering paying people to go on holiday," Mats Persson, of pro-reform think-tank Open Europe, told Britain's News of the World. "In this economic climate, it's astonishing that the EU wants to bribe people with cheap holidays."

Mr. Tajani said the program will be piloted until 2013, and then fully launched.

Intended to instill a sense of cultural pride in Europeans, Mr. Tajani's human-rights travel will also help bridge the continent's north-south divide and pad resorts' business in their off-season, the Times reports.

Northern Europeans will be encouraged to visit southern Europe, and vice versa. Mr. Tajani wants to ensure people's "right to be tourists" remains intact.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story. ... z0lYTwA0B5

We will pay for the poor to travel to your country, one way. Do not feel obliged to pay to send them back.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Do ever want to just grab someone and say...WTF is wrong with you?

I need to default on my mortgage and move to Europe so I can vacation and appreciate the culture without having to get a job. This is unbelievable..

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Nah, just wait a few months. You'll see something similar proposed here. As it is, if you default on your mortgage now, the government will keep you in your home and reduce your debt. Shame on all us suckers who bought what we could actually afford, and work to pay the bills.

But don't get upset. It's their right. After all, rights are only whatever can be democratically agreed to by the least bright and laziest among us; as so many here profess to be the epitome of righteous intellectualism.

Do ever want to just grab someone and say...WTF is wrong with you?

yea, too bad my husband left me and I got the house and morgage that was affordable with two salaries, but it takes me 3 jobs to afford by myself.

yea, too bad my husband left me and I got the house and morgage that was affordable with two salaries, but it takes me 3 jobs to afford by myself. Wish I had hindsight on that one. I could easily walk away, but I won't, and I will go to closing having to pay, because everyone wants a deal and won't pay what you need as a bottom line. But I learned from this experience and won't make same mistakes again. My next chapter in life is going to include vacations and fun, that I pay for myself!

Now they wouldn't. She isn't an ethnic minority and, due to being a nurse, automatically makes more working full time than would allow her to receive assistance.

Instead, she should reduce to half time so that she meets the dollar threshold, then default.

It's all about timing.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

the banks need to loan to someone.

Foreclosures are so high because everyone is figuring out that there are very few consequences for strategic default. Not that I can blame them too much, I would do the same if I bought a house for $500k in 2005 and found it was worth $200k today. It's really about strength in numbers, it can't really totally destroy your credit if everyone is doing it, because the banks need to loan to someone.

The real problem is all the people who strategically defaulted really haven't learned anything, are back to spending at early 2000s levels, and so will require the government to spend trillions and vut the interest rate to zero to bail them out again in ten years.

19 Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. 20 There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.

Darkseige, sounds like we know some of the same (type of) people.

I can't bring myself to feel sorry for them. I had friends telling me to sell my house near the top of market and buy something wonderful, I could afford it (no I couldn't, and I knew it.)

My house is still paid for, around a grand a year in property taxes, and they are all fighting foreclosures. Damn grasshoppers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_an ... rasshopper

HE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
_______________________________

OLD VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his
house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays
the summer away..

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
___________________________


MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and
demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed
while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the
shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable
home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast..

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper
is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody
cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green .'

Acorn stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news
stations film the group singing, 'We shall overcome.' Rev. Jeremiah
Wright then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's
sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President
Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.


Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that
the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper , and both
call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.


Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act
retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green
bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is
confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper
.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends
finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house
he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house,
crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house,
now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the
ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010.

You do not have the right to a profit on your investments. You make a strong argument for the reimplication of debtors prison. And no, it isn't about the strength in numbers. It is about a business turning a profit, and banks are businesses. Loans are offered (or had been) based on ones ability to repay. If someone has demonstrated not only an inability to repay, but also an unwillingness, I wouldn't loan them a nickle. Banks won't either, if they are smart, unless legislatively forced, at which point a system has ben erected which enshrines perverse incentive and moral hazzard as a central pillar, and puts the tax payer on the hook in perpetuity. Your system is unworkable.

No, the real problem is vote buying power mongers.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.