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1 posted on 01/23/2012 6:25:24 AM PST by EnjoyingLife
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To: EnjoyingLife

Well, sure. They’re very frugal and disciplined, but they also give up a lot of freedom. No one mentions that not everyone can get into the “free” university system. Germans will decide that FOR each other at the age of 12. Either you’re college material or your’e not — and once you miss that boat, you can’t get back on. By age 12, you’d better have it all together or your’e doomed to working as a machinist at the BMW factory.

They can also thank Americans for providing their defense for the past 50 years. That saves a LOT of dough for them!

We lived in Germany for six years. Yes, they are very disciplined, and we can learn a lot from them. But a lot of their lifestyle really sort of depressed me. They sit around in the dark a lot, and the reason the wife can only work part time is that there are not a lot of conveniences. She’s got to get up at 8 a.m. and fight her battles at the stores because they’ll be closed by noon. There’s not a lot of fun in that lifestyle. I don’t know. It has its charms, but after three years, I was always SCREAMING ready to get back to the good old USA.


2 posted on 01/23/2012 6:34:21 AM PST by LibsRJerks
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To: EnjoyingLife

Germany was smart enough not to nurture, not outsource or drive away, its manufacturing base. In the US, the focus is on short term profit. The fact that the US has to borrow to maintain its lifestyle does not bother our companies one whit. When the time comes, they figure they can always sell to whoever has the $$.


3 posted on 01/23/2012 6:34:31 AM PST by rbg81
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To: EnjoyingLife
If Americans got rid of all credit cards except one that was paid off each month they would have a high standard of living too.
4 posted on 01/23/2012 6:35:54 AM PST by mosaicwolf (Strength and Honor)
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To: EnjoyingLife
They live in a small Tudor-style house in this middle-class town about 30 miles northwest of Frankfurt.

That's not a "Tudor-style" house, but a traditional German Fachwerkhaus. Fachwerk, or post-and-beam architecture, closely resembles what in the US is called the "Tudor style," but it dates from around the early fourteenth century, long before anyone had heard of the Tudors, and it continued in use long after the Tudors had disappeared from history.

6 posted on 01/23/2012 6:52:12 AM PST by Fiji Hill
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To: EnjoyingLife

Wow, I thought the “best by” date had passed for all the European socialist paradise stories. The couple has an ancient camper van and can vacation in France, my driving equivalent to going to Idaho. Their lot in life is static, and so decreed by the state, as are the lives of their children. What happens to the slackers that have potential to be software geniuses, but are boxed in at an early age?

Let’s see how that German work ethic swims when yoked to the PIGS millstone.


7 posted on 01/23/2012 7:13:11 AM PST by Rinnwald
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