Posted on 06/04/2005 4:16:58 PM PDT by Pikamax
"distinct stench of mortality in the air"
He's being kind. I'd imagine that to their enemies it smells like something else.
The labor system in Old Europe will change. It is only a matter of when. It just doesn't pencil.
We'll soon get to see if the following holds true.
"Planning on an international scale, even more than is true on a national scale, cannot be anything but a naked rule of force, an imposition by a small group on all the rest of that sort of standard and employment which the planners think suitable for the rest."
Frederic Hayek, "The Road to Serfdom", 1944
Is a Fr*nchman ever in anything except decline?
Kerry made these leaders the be all end all to cure all our problems.
Kerry said he was going to get these leaders to put troops into Iraq.
I would like to thank the people of Germany for giving us the word "schadenfreude." And then for giving us so much of it.
bump
Thank God (literally) that he did not win. Can you imagine where we'd be today? A pell-mell withdrawal from Iraq, China even more aggressive than today, Iran and N Korea already testing nukes, and France still sniping from the sidelines. The guy would have been a disaster. If there was ever any doubt that the Almighty is looking out for us, the results last Novermber should cure the doubters.
"Chirac's opinion poll numbers fell to their lowest point since his election in 1995, with 74 per cent of voters saying they did not trust him."Do you mean to tell me that 26% of the voters do???
"The two men could compare unemployment rates: 10 per cent in France, and almost 12 per cent in Germany, as opposed to roughly 5 per cent in Britain."Say, what happened to the Post-War Economic Miracle that was West Germany???
Oh yeah! That was capitalism. But when West Germany united with the economic catastrophe that was East Germany, the West Germans decided (for some unfathomable reason) to adopt the Marxist policies that had made East Germany an utter catastrophe and abandon the capitalist policies that had made West Germany an Economic Miracle--and presto! All of Germany is a Marxist catastrophe!
(Of course, this was predictable.)
The Europeans are learning this easy lesson the hard way. Let's just hope they learn it in time to save themselves.
Actually I think that they just may have avoided a decline, and pulling down all of Europe. The EU (Ewww?) Constitution stunk. 500 pages of micromanagement (while the US Constition I can carry in my pocket, now if we can stick to it!), much that content not belonging in the constitution but in a separate document similar in scope to our Code of Federal Regulations. Otherwise the constitution itself grows in scope (and what is the change procedure? Ratification by member states? Wow, this is messy. Then again our CFR's get to be a bit much as well).
The right opposed it due to excessive regulation, tax burden, etc., and the left opposed it because of the perception that the "freebies" would be endangered. They both were right - this EU mess would eliminate local control, everything micro-managed from Brussels. Now if the lefties want their massive welfare state, and choke their economy, let them. Just don't drag down their neighbors.
"West Germany united with the economic catastrophe that was East Germany"
Reminds me of an Economist cover from that period. An East German is telling a West German "We're one people". The West German responds "So are we."
"Schröder and Chirac ponder years of decline..."
Sweet! Maybe, like other declining Lefty heroes, they'll get gigs as PBS pitchmen during pledge drives.
That's a great quote. The Economist is worth every penny.
Except the Economist is also anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War, pro-terrorist (Arabs of any stripe) and patently liberal. I used to like the mag, but no more.
It was Rumsfeld who popularized the terms "Old Europe" and "New Europe", but has since dropped these from his speeches because of the criticism he received. But they are very useful terms and I am glad to see that so many people in the press continue to use them.
Screw the Krauts!!
Even so, there is no reason to try his patience.
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