So it’s not surprising to hear a CEO of a major German company repeat such trash.
What is surprising, though, is the fact that this CEO heads a company deriving most of its sales and profits from catering to the rich in – America. The name of the company is Porsche, and the CEO is Wendelin Wiedeking. He had this to say about America in an interview with the German weekly SPIEGEL (Issue 39-2006):
SPIEGEL: Are you promoting the idea that the old German economic system with its social market economy, which is increasingly giving way to the Anglo-American, should be retained?
Wiedeking: We mustn’t copy one to one everything that works in the Anglo-American realm, particularly since we have proof delivered over the centuries that our idea about economies works too. We have a tradition. Europe’s culture is decidedly older than that of the USA. The Fuggers were doing business, while hunting was still the order of the day in America. Right now 37 million people in the USA live below the poverty line. The gulf between poor and rich has widened brutally. Do we want to have a situation like that in Europe and particularly in Germany? (Translation of quote by Richard Bartholomew) (For original German quote see below)
May I pose a question of my own: why would Americans buy one of the world's most hedonistic and expensive products from a foreign company whose CEO thinks, and frankly states, that America's culture is inferior to Europe’s and who accuses the American economic system of producing millions of poor people at an ever increasing rate? (And I didn't even mention Porsche's Nazi past...)
What’s your opinion American Porsche owners?
I suppose the DUmmies fill up their Porshe's at Citgo.
Jealousy is a dangerous thing.
Sure, it would be an improvement.
This, from a people who marched hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings into ovens and gas chambers.
This, from a people who elected a psychopathic monster like Adolph Hitler...AND IDOLIZED HIM!
Yeah, but when we came, Germany was reduced to ashes...
The European socialist model will of course make *sure* that you cannot acquire a pile of money and hence will not try to compete with the existing feudal order.
As for innovation and new businesses there is, sadly, very little if any -- Europe is *stagnant* except for the social disaster that is metastasizing from the huge Islamic population that is entrenched in *EVERY* European city (except those that were behind the iron curtain - perhaps Communism's only positive legacy after 70 years)
Well that settles it then...
...I'm not buying a Porsche this year either.
<Fawlty voice> Don't mention the war! </Fawlty voice>
Of course Europe is tossing out its Christian heritage and culture faster than anything and embracing appeasement of the Islamists in their midst. In a few years, there won't be any more of this jerk's precious "culture" left when Europe is submerged into the Islamist Caliphate with Shariah law governing.
He also sings backup for the Dixie Chicks....spread the word.
Regards, Ivan
At least most of us can spot an ugly car when we see it. Porsche must be a little miffed after losing the Sebring and Le Mans endurance races to an American car powered by a Ford engine.
He's wrong about that, that Americans are still a self reliant people, but I wish it were still true. Also, on that note, I have heard it posited, correctly IMO, that the American soldier, coming from a free country was more able to think for himself than the German soldier. This was a decided advantage when the command structure fell apart. A contributing factor to the ass kicking we gave them not too long ago.
I note that Wiedeking brings out the old line about a widening gap between the rich and the poor. There is only one way to keep that gap constant and that is to limit wealth creation. Considering that wealth creation is the only thing that makes things better for the "poor," its limitation would not seem advisable, though it explains many of the problems of socialist societies.
We still hunt with rifles.
I got two of them thingys one off the front of my house and an other on da backside.
Pretty damn cocky coming from a guy living of an economy rebuilt by the the Marshall Plan.
Who has a better chance to succeed in life, a poor child in the United States or a poor child in Europe? It is possible for an American child to study, and work their way out of poverty. What makes the United States better is the fact that to a large degree it is the individual themselves if they are poor or not. As someone earlier pointed out, stay in school, don't break the law, don't use drugs, and don't become a parent before you are married and you are well on the way to middle class.
I don't exactly see why defending the German economic model is showing disdain for the USA. He just seems one of the people who doesn't think copying the American economic model 1:1 is the way to go. I also don't understand why you're getting so worked up over the Fugger bit. For one that's just a factand more importantly it says nothing about which economic model suits today's states' needs best. His other points are much more valid, for example the big income gap in the USA. It's a typical warning against getting too euphoric about the good parts of the US system and forgetting about the bad parts.