Rebuilding East Germany "has failed"

Reuters | 4/05/04

[samtheman]

You mean massive investment in socialism has failed?

Aw, that's a shame.

And a really big surprise!

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[blanknoone]

After East Germany (along with the rest of the soviet bloc) economically collapsed, you wouldn't think they needed another lesson on socialism not working. Then again...it seems we need another lesson too.

[traumer]

What is the chance with Iraq... ?

[sphinx]

How much have we poured into the inner cities to like effect?

[r9etb]

Interesting -- always assuming, of course, that the article, and the assessment, are accurate. Something about this gives me the sense of there being an agenda at work here -- in the analysis, and in its convenient leak.

One could speculate about any number of agendas, including a variety of nationalistic ones. ("Nationalism" is always a troublesome word when it's used in the context of Germany....)

[thedugal]

The saddest part is that the east votes almost uniformly socialist. In the last election, it was very close and the conservatives almost won. If it weren't for East Germany, the Germans would have elected a conservative government in 2002 and would have supported us in Iraq.

[goldstategop]

A bottomless pit remains a bottomless pit. Eastern Germany is the sound of prosperous West Germany being bled dry with precious little to show for it.

[LurkedLongEnough]

Never mind Iraq - let's watch Spain spin down the flush bowl.

[TomGuy]

1.25 trillion euros (830 billion pounds) of transfers since 1990 has failed

But per the UN and EU, the Coalition in Iraq is supposed to have the nation up and running and prosperous and peaceful, yada yada yada, within the next 3 months (just over a year after their liberation).

[bogdanPolska12]

Kattracks thank you for this article. I knew it from beginning it would not work.

[AngryJawa]

Yet Poland, the Czech Republic, and East Germany's other neighbors transitioned nicely without trillions in handouts. Hmmmmmm.

[xJones]

It is pretty accurate, according to Germans, some of whom have posted the same sort of stories on FR.

For a personal note, my neighbor is a former West German who immigrated to the U.S. and takes regular vacations back home to Bavaria. She says they hate the East Germans, that they are lazy slugs and nothing but a drag on the rest of Germany.

[r9etb]

It is pretty accurate, according to Germans, some of whom have posted the same sort of stories on FR.

I'm sure there's some accuracy to the report. But I still have a suspicion that there's an agenda at work in this convenient leak.

[Buck72]

Couldn't happen to a nicer country. Well, except maybe France.

[nkycincinnatikid]

I remember well a conversation with a naturalize german co-worker at the time of reunification. He shuddered to think of the awesome task of reintegrating the east, thought it unrealistic. But when I high mindedly pressed him on the debt owed to the countrymen who spent generations enslaved to the Soviets he reluctantly agreed that it was the only moral thing to do. The right thing is being done and it is painful and unbelieveably expensive.

[rrrod]

"You mean massive investment in socialism has failed?"
I am shocked!

[rrrod]

Excellant point!

[Zack Nguyen]

Imagine what the bill will be when North Korea falls. From what I have read, they have been reduced and starved to the point of having almost no economy at all.