Posted on 03/29/2005 11:19:50 AM PST by lizol
When the wall came down, it allowed Communism, and those bred by Communism, to flood into the West. Imagine the synnergy which resulted when people such as J. Fischer, that old bomb throwing "former" radical, got to commiserate with bona fide, card carrying Communists, who, only weeks before, were in the East German Politburo. Every silver lining has its clouds.
They don't. It's still popular on reruns.
That feeling is still there. Everybody recognizes the Solidaritätszuschlag (reunification tax) on their pay stubs.
I don't know what the big deal is. Only 24%? That means 76% don't want it back. Besides, I firmly believe 25-30% of any population are completely insane. We could probably find at least 25% of blue-staters who want to build a wall between red and blue states.
Understood. thanks.
Understood. thanks.
PS I hope my message did not read as being offensive to you. i just failed to read the article closely enough. :)
No, not you! :)
Well how are countries like Poland and the Czech Republic that were completely behind the Iron Curtain improve their economy? I think the problem is that the Germans followed a statist program, plus they imposed all the counter productive regulations from West Germany onto the former East Germany. East Germany didn't need handouts; it needed a green light for entepeneurs to create jobs there.
I have read books from conventional "conservatives" by British and European standards like David Marsh of Britain's Financial Times, or a member of the notoriously pro-EU British Liberal Democrat politician whose name and title I have since forgotten. The concensus by even this not-that-economically-free-market group is that the West German social market economy is untenable even if reunification did not occur. One way or the other, West Germany in an alternative history would have experienced a crisis in about the same magnitude as Britain before Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives wion the 1979 general election in Britain.
But reunification paradoxically provided excuses for delaying and even not adopting fundamental structural reforms while generous welfare transfer policies have killed the medium to long term development prospects of eastern Germany. Perhaps it would be better off if West German people and politicians had clearer head and adopted more spartan economic and welfare policies. They would be worse off at the start, yes, but they wouldn't be stuck in the limbo they are in now. This is already accepted wisdom even by everyone in the Left in Germany save Greens and half of the Communist-successor Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
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