Time to Buy That Monopoly Set

From UPI via the Washington Times

When the Euro was first created I told my friends that I was going to buy a copy of Monopoly and replace the money with Euros. I didn't expect to be able to do it right away, and I must say, I am impressed at how long the Euro-elites have managed to keep up the charade. However, I could never make myself believe that a currency founded on the concept of "European Unity" had a future as anything but a joke. Historically, unity in Europe has always been short lived and come at a heavy cost.

A dozen years ago "European Unity" became a catch phrase for every American anxiety about our nation's future in the post-Soviet era. Even then I would chuckle every time someone around me would use it. It seemed to me as if grown people were discussing the virtues of the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. The EU never seemed like a threat to me, precisely because when used to modify "Unity" or "Union" the word "European" is clearly synonymous with the word "not". The EU was and is only a symbol of the unwillingness of the Euro-elite political class to acknowledge that the Soviet Empire fell because the very concept of the socialist model was fatally and utterly corrupt.

"Mais no!" they exclaimed, there is a "third way"! We can have our Utopian fantasy if instead of tanks and torture we enforce it with the most rediculous, unresponsive, bloated bureaucracy since the Byzantine Empire. It seemed for a time that they could accomplish this by subverting the soverignty of several states in the name of the common good and thus the EU founded. It has never worked as advertised preciesly because Europeans are about a prone to unite as rams in the spring.

The bigger problem is that socialism is plainly unworkable. Even if (especially if?) staffed entirely by over-educated Gaullists the internal contradictions of socialism guarantee the system's corruption and ultimate dissolution. What troubles me most about this exercise is, what will happen to whom before "ultimately" arrives?

Anyhow, I'm looking for a Monopoly set with an appropriately-sized bank tray.

UPDATE (13-Apr-05 3:22 PM): When the New York Times is less than optimistic about a people's commitment to the socialist nostrum du jour, something is afoot.