action and reaction

- Americans are spoiled?

Yes certainly, Spoiled in my point of view, materialistically spoiled. How much do you care about the well being of the world? Kyoto? Never heard of? There is a huge gap between Europe and the USA. You can call it an ocean. But that's to easy. It's the attitude to life. In Europe we're living more on a basis of personal growth. Not material growth. We aren't lived bij economic figures.

- Who is it that gets 4-6 weeks of state-mandated paid vacation per year, not to mention, in some European countries, a 35 hour work week? Wouldn't they actually be more accurately referred to as "spoiled?"

4-6 weeks vacation, oh yes I know what you mean. I get 24 days. But my salary is much lower than in a compared profession in the USA. We pay an enormous part of our wages to social benefits.Something that differs from the USA.

- Europeans have hated us for many decades and its not hard to find lots of examples.

You have to learn the difference between hate and dislike. Why do you name none of those examples?

- Their only hope is to follow the lead of the "new" european countries like Poland (who, by the way, likes us because they know we saved them from the Soviets) and embrace capitalism enthusiastically.

I beg you pardon, East Germany had elections some weeks ago, do you know the results? Who is it you think who tries to get the people of former Eastern Europe involved in the EU. Don't you think capitalism has also bad results? Here capitalism isn't holy.

- The Euros and their economy are, to put it bluntly, screwed.They have cheerfully handed out more and more generous social program benefits over the past 50 years, largely due to the fact that American taxpayers were providing their military defense needs free of charge, permitting their governments to afford those handouts,

I know that you wanted to keep the Russians out. But you should better fight in the pacific if there should be any war. Okay the Marshall help after the 2nd World War was needed very much. The economy was down and needed an impuls. My grandparants were thankfull but the next generations don't owe you thank you's. No way! In staed of that you should come to Europe and experience the European and/or Dutch way of living. So completely different.

- and the citizenry is now going collectively nuts over the prospect that these benefits (that's "entitlements" for you folks reading this stateside) MUST be cut back in order to confront undeniable economic realities such as those discussed in this article.

To keep our economy sound we surely have to cut our public spending, that's true, but you are not aware of the Dutch situation. That has nothing to do with the fact America paid for defense. Did you ever hear of the Dutch Disease.It seems that the social epenses explode when one nation hits a natural gas reserve. That expansion has to be cut.Also the debt of the whole EU is nothing compared with US debt. Mainly you live on deficits, for a conservative that should be a crime because even your great grand-children will feel the pain of paying back that deficit. How do you deal with that problem?

- Schroder is about to pay the political price for facing this very reality. A lot of European politicians are about the pay a similar price in the next few years.

You know what happenend in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell? The East German people were enthusiastic about the Wiedervereinigung. They had certain expectations.After 15 years Kohl and Gerhard Schröder can't make that expectations come true. Instead there are a deficits on certain areas. Unemployment makes it worse for people in east Germany. that is the political price G.S. pays.

# posted by Jan : 3:16 PM