Rebuilding East Germany "has failed"

Reuters | 4/05/04

[nkycincinnatikid]

Maybe not so hard ,but eireily reminiscent of a Germany at another time which drew the approbation of the world for all time.

[oyez]

I did get drunk and take a leak on Carl Marx Ave.

A dream of a life time. The other of mine is to take a dump on Lennin's tomb.

...one young man was digging and he was being advised by 3 other co-workers.

I see that all the time with out local utility company.

[FreedomSurge]

Did you just call me a Nazi?????

[samtheman]

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

So what are you saying? That handouts don't work?

You know, we're joking about this but it's really pathetic when you think about it. Communism and socialism have a 100% failure rate since they started trying to organize societies back in the 1800s. 100% failure. 0% success.

And yet, like little leftist energizer bunnies with lots of battery and no brain, they just keep trying and trying and trying and trying...

It would be funny to watch the silly leftists spin their wheels... if they weren't harming real people at the same time.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

I stared in amazement while one young man was digging and he was being advised by 3 other co-workers.

Gee.......... sounds like the People's Republic of Chicago!!!

[dfwgator]

Sadly, post-Castro Cuba is going face the same fate. The Cuban exiles in Miami are going to return to run the economy, but the Cubans who lived under Castro are going to have an entirely different set of values.

[meenie]

The lesson here is that once the hogs feed from the government trough it is almost impossible to wean them. As time passes you will realize the same. The view that a little socialism is alright is false. Freebies are just as addictive in destroying character as opium.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

A large strech of Germany will not be economically productive?

Damn. What a shame.

[Piranha]

What's the agenda?

[RightWhale]

The major high tech industries that were in the region before WW II have relocated to other countries. The region can recover when high tech industry returns.

[r9etb]

What's the agenda?

My guess is that it's nationalistic and free market. Just an uninformed guess, mind you.

[winner3000]

"One of the main criticisms has been that wages rose much too quickly after reunification," boosting unemployment, he told Reuters.

Sounds like the argument against raising the minimum wage. Funny how there is no way to cheat economic laws of supply and demand. You raise the price of a good (in this instance, one hour of labor), and there's less demand for it! Imagine that!

[r9etb]

Did you just call me a Nazi?????

No, he didn't call you a Nazi. Rather, I think he was suggesting to you that it might be a good idea to think through the implications of your approach.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The right thing is being done and it is painful and unbelievably expensive.

Be a lot cheaper and more effective, of course, if they weren't trying to win the War on Poverty with Great Society programs . . . just think how expensive it would have been for the US to have tried to develop West Germany from the ruins of WWII to 2000 standards the Lyndon Johnson way!

[xJones]

And don't get her started on the Turks.

Well, if your mother is as vehement as my neighbor, Gerlinde, formerly from near Nuremburg, I suggest we parachute drop the the two of them into eastern Germany and there won't be any Turks left after a week.:)

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

they hate the East Germans, that they are lazy slugs and nothing but a drag on the rest of Germany.

Well, Germany is famous for racists like good old Adolph - but West Germans are racists against East Germans?

</sarcasm>

It's the culture, stupid!

[nkycincinnatikid]

Freedom, I would only use that word if you actually showed me a party card, but substitute tha J word for Turk and the displaced citizens from the territories taken by Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy ,and France for the East Germans. Add in the bonuses and honors Hitler gave to particularly fertile couples. and well, I just think the Germans should try something different this time.

[xJones]

...and well, I just think the Germans should try something different this time.

After WWI and WW2, I really hope they try something different, although I'm not sure what that would be....

[Billthedrill]

Yeh - I didn't realize the vehemence until I inadvertently used the term Osti in front of a German friend a couple of months ago. It was sort of like using the word "Yankee" in Georgia...