Socialism Means Never Having To Admit You're Wrong

Longtime reader Allen sent me the following email and since I liked it so much, I asked for and received permission to post it here in its entirety:

Turns out that as part of the IMF bail-out Greece is suppose to "consider" a privatization of its socialized health care system. Investor's Business Daily has an editorial - http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/05/14/guess_what_greece_has_to_jettison__98467.html - and the New York Times mentions in passing the "suggestion" - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/business/global/01euro.html

So the question is, who's the big hypocrite? The IMF isn't particularly independent so is it the EU, France, Germany or Obama that's pushing the IMF to strongly suggest some privatization of the Greek socialized health care system?

Who, indeed?

And then today I read the following about another socialist program going the way of the Great Auk:

As predicted was inevitable, today the Spanish newspaper La Gaceta runs with a full-page article fessing up to the truth about Spain’s “green jobs” boondoggle, which happens to be the one naively cited by President Obama no less than eight times as his model for the United States. It is now out there as a bust, a costly disaster that has come undone in Spain to the point that even the Socialists admit it, with the media now in full pursuit.

When capitalists do something wrong (e.g., Enron), government is available to punish the wrongdoers. When socialist governments throw your money down a rathole, who besides the taxpayer is punished?