Article

2006-01-28 Home Front Economy

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-01-28 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11130 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 "A large majority of Germans associate the European Union with economic and social problems"

I'm sure it won't take long before their "betters" explain to them that it's really America's fault. More specifically, George Bush's.

After all, everything else is. Unless it's good, of course. Then it "just happened" in spite of America and Bush. :-(

Posted by Barbara Skolaut">Barbara Skolaut 2006-01-28 00:18|| http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html]">[http://ariellestjohndesigns.com/page/15bk1/Home_Page.html] 2006-01-28 00:18|| Front Page Top

#2 as many as 84 percent fear jobs may be lost to EU countries where labour costs are lower

No sh*t sherlok. Tends to happen in free trade zones. But Eastern Europe is not the source of your concerns. Look east. No, not Russia, further east. Past Mongolia. That's it...China. Your problem is, like everyone else's, that you can't compete with China. To do so would mean you'd have to give up that ol' German treasure...quality. There's your dilemma.

Posted by Rafael 2006-01-28 00:44|| 2006-01-28 00:44|| Front Page Top

#3 I'm sure it won't take long before their "betters" explain to them that it's really America's fault. More specifically, George Bush's.

Blaming America for all problems, inciting people to hate America has been at the heart of the Europeist discourse and that since at least the end of the eighties when two crucial events happenned: 1) the collapsus of Soviet Union so Europeans no longer feared an invasion
2) When the EU began to evolve from a mere free market zone into a political entity. Mere geopolitics (ie the population and richness of the EU) and the need to constrain the population into an undemocratic (cf the constitution) entity with people they did not feel affinity (cf the indifference after the Madrid bombings) lead to the elites broadacsting an incresingly anti-american discourse. All while the Clinton administration applauded

Posted by JFM">JFM 2006-01-28 04:01|| 2006-01-28 04:01|| Front Page Top

#4 JFM, interesting analysis. I always read your comments.

Posted by phil_b">phil_b 2006-01-28 05:23|| http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/]">[http://autonomousoperation.blogspot.com/] 2006-01-28 05:23|| Front Page Top

#5 Hmmm....
Choice between a German made Zeiss camera or a Japanese digital likely manufactured in China?
Choice between a Mercedes or a Lexus?
Choice between German whine or Ozzie wine?
Who promotes business development and jobs more? The Commie government of China or the neo-Socialist bureaucratic government of Berlin and Brussels?

Posted by Thising Gluse1190 2006-01-28 09:07|| 2006-01-28 09:07|| Front Page Top

#6 Hmmm....

If it makes you feel any better, this American has a cell phone made by Siemens (in Germany, no less), and owns a BMW motorcycle...

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2006-01-28 09:17|| 2006-01-28 09:17|| Front Page Top

#7 What phil_b said.

Posted by 6 2006-01-28 10:32|| 2006-01-28 10:32|| Front Page Top

#8 One thing to remember is that the Germans, like the French and the Russians, like to be negative about things. By complaining, they show how clever and knowledgeable they are -- the "turn lemons into lemonade" outlook to them only demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the pitfalls of the situation. One reason they respond so negatively to the congenital American cheerfulness when confronted with obstacles.

Not to say they aren't correct that the EU is a major cause of their problems. But they would have the same problems with competition for business and jobs under any other scenario, just under a slightly different timespan.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-01-28 12:23|| 2006-01-28 12:23|| Front Page Top

#9 Average hourly wage in Germany :$30
Average hourly wage in Poland: $5

You do the math. Using government to "harmonize tax rules" will not do anything but incentivize the talented to leave for greener pastures.

Posted by CA Screaming 2006-01-28 12:26|| 2006-01-28 12:26|| Front Page Top

#10 See the post on Chancellor Merkel, above. She has a solution to this, even if her countrymen don't yet realize it.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2006-01-28 13:23|| 2006-01-28 13:23|| Front Page Top

#11 Germans and Europeans love to blame the "others." Not good idea. Seems thay haven't learned that lesson. Instead of fixing their structural problem it's someone elses fault. Like good Europeans the government must fix it and take care of them. Last time that didn't work out very well for the Germans. If the true figures came out for Germany, France the EU would crater.

By the way anti-US propaganda is endemic in the German and European press. It's been that way since we became a country. They don't just hate George Bush, they hate us. The sooner people in the US understand that the more sane our EU relationship will become. We have no obligation to defend or support those who hate us. We need to let the European Union and it's citizens understand that. They need to tone their BS down and focus on their real problems. Get that plank out of your eye you are ignoring before you try to pull the sliver I can see in mine out.

We have our faults and problems. You can read about them in our MSM. We are not ignoring them and hoping the government makes them go away. Only the lefist morons and Europeans expect perfection from us.

Posted by Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2006-01-28 15:59|| 2006-01-28 15:59|| Front Page Top

#12 SPOD

Anti-american propaganda has been endemic (in France it began with Napoleon III who wished to help the Confedearacy but faced a pro-Union public opinion) but it has really acquired a peculiar virulence in the 90s. For intance the history books in use when I graduated (written during the watch of Gaullist ministers, those supposedly anti-american gaullists) were generally positive about American involvement in WWII. Today's books teach the new generations of French that the guys who fell at Omaha did it to bring new markets to American companies. Oh, and Arte TV (a joint French-German public-funded cultural TV) lately broadcasted a documentary stating that Germans were just poor victims of Nazism and that the Holocaust was... America's fault, because Americans didn't bomb the railways leading to Auschwitz(1). Such things would have been unthinkable twenty years ago.

(1) The fact is that until the very end of 1943 daytime raids over by the VIIIth Air Force over Germany, and railways cannot be attacked at night, ended with from 20% to 25% of the bombers being downed. In other words four raids and no more bombers. But Auschwitz is in Poland and bombing Poland would have been far worse due to the longer time outside fighter escort. It was only by the end of 1943 that an improved Mustang was released who was able to escort the bombers as far as Berlin. And by begining 1944 that new tactics were designed (don't fly along the bombers thuis conceeding speed and altitude to the Germans) but go in front of the bombers and attack the German planes just after take off when they were still low and slow (ie vulnerable). So by the end of march 1944 the Mustangs had wiped off the Luftwaffe from German airspace but by then there were only two months remaining for softening the German positins before D-Day. What would have happenned if D-Day had failed due to using resources on Auschwitz (who was out of range even of the new Mustang) instead of on the Atalntic wall? While we are at it, why is that our leftist and pan-europeist historians never blame Soviet Union for not bombing the railways to Auschwitz? It was far closer to Soviet airfields than to British ones. Why no blame on the Soviets?

Posted by JFM"> JFM 2006-01-28 17:08|| 2006-01-28 17:08|| Front Page Top

#13 JFM, the antipathy goes back forever. The French helped us in the Revolution on a my enemy's enemy is my friend basis. As soon as the war was over, the ways to subvert the new nation and regain a position in North America. M. Genet toured the U. S. in 1793 to subvert American neutrality in Franc's war with Britain and to stir revolutionary fervor in the U. S. This evolved to an undeclared naval war in 1797. So the antipathy goes way back because the bottom up anglospheric politics has always represented a threat to the top dsown power structures that run Europe.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-01-28 17:43|| 2006-01-28 17:43|| Front Page Top

13:29 Redneck Jim
13:27 Fred
13:03 Fred
20:35 Master of Obvious
20:31 Sock Puppet O´ Doom
20:27 Phil
18:32 Captain America
18:15 DMFD
18:13 RD
18:13 DMFD
18:10 Halliburton: Earthquake/Tsunami Division
18:10 Captain America
18:05 HV
18:02 mom
17:58 Grunter
17:51 Frank G
17:46 Nimble Spemble
17:45 Alaska Paul
17:45 Nimble Spemble
17:43 Nimble Spemble
17:38 JFM
17:14 Frank G
17:12 Frank G
17:11 RD