Re: Europe, the poor are not getting poorer.
Really?
Yes, really.
Here's a tale of two countries:
In the US, a machinist gets laid off......he's been replaced by a hi tech machine. He can't find new work as a machinist. His unemployment runs out in six months. His savings three months later. The unemployment barely fed him......his car is falling apart, his kids are poorly dressed, his wife is working. He has to get a job. Three months later, you see him running pizzas for Dominoes.
In Germany, a machinist gets laid off. Machinists have become superfluous. The laid off machinist gets unemployment for one year that is nearly equal to his machinist. It can be extended if he will agree to be retrained or to go for higher education. Two years later, the ex machinist has a job in data processing that pays nearly as much as his machinist job did.
How can Germany afford to do that and we can't......there are several reasons but an important one is that less of their resources are concentrated with the rich than in this country. In fact, in the US, more and more of our resources have become concentrated with fewer and fewer people over the past 50 years. In Germany, there is less stress, lower disease rates and the people live longer.
Yeah, sounds like a utopia:
Nope, not utopia but its better than the US in many ways.
Germany's mess
Angela Merkel, received a clear majority — will not help to close that gap or to address the chronic problems of stagnation and mass unemployment in what is still Europe's largest economy.
Her party[the CDU] did not receive a clear majority. The CDU got 35% and Schröder's party, the SPD, got 34%. Its very likely the Left party which took votes from Schröder will end up voting for him in the Bundestag and he will remain chancellor.
BTW Germany does not suffer from "high unemployment". Ten percent is not high.....its not good but its not extraordinary. And many of those people are partially employed. In fact, we used to get 10% unemployment sometimes when the country was in recession. It was only under Clinton that that changed. As for stagnation.....all I can say is we should 'stagnate' as well as Germany does. They have less crime, less homeless people and less poverty overall. |
