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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (96612)	2/26/2005 3:03:07 PM
From: average joe	Respond to of 108807

Oh my God they're cutting the phone lines!!! iisg.nl

To: cosmicforce who wrote (96612)	3/1/2005 3:43:04 PM
From: MulhollandDrive	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

do you doubt that the 'wage earners' understand which side their bread is buttered on...hence their overwhelming vote? even the new 'sick man' of europe will have to adapt or die...(economically speaking)...a good start would be to follow the airline union concessions that are being hammered out in record time.. news.ft.com <snip>Northwest and United Airlines remain in talks with their unions about further labour cuts, and analysts have warned that American may need a further round of cuts, to catch up with the labour cost advantages that have been achieved by United and US Airways through the bankruptcy court. Phil Baggaley, analyst at Standard & Poor's, the credit ratings agency, said: "This sets a record for speed in labour concessions at a legacy airline. They usually take forever the sad thing is once the situation has gotten so dire that hard cuts are made, the competitive advantage is already lost, as consumers find more effecient and economical alternatives.. and what is even more sad to see is to see...how far down the economic ladder the once great german economic engine is sliding... telegraph.co.uk Ailing Germany slides down economic league By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 01/03/2005) Germany risks becoming the new sick man of Europe as the Continent's one-time economic giant sinks deeper into malaise and falls further behind the rest of the EU, experts warned yesterday. The country whose post-war recovery was hailed as an economic miracle is no longer basking in prosperity but increasingly languishing in poverty, especially when compared with rival nations. The turnaround is likely to prove a huge blow to a nation which prided itself on its high standards of living and looked down on the rest of Europe as workshy, inefficient and technologically backward. The era when its car industry symbolised the country's formidable mix of innovation and engineering skill is now over and the future seems to consist of a long period of managed decline. By 2011, per capita income in Germany will have been overtaken by Spain, until recently one of the poorest in the European Union. Most startling is the finding that Germany has fallen way behind Britain in economic performance and individual purchasing power. While Germany was eight percentage points ahead of Britain just a decade ago, now Britain is nine points ahead. If that trend continues, Germany, which has had the lowest growth rate in Europe for almost 10 years, will eventually be close to the bottom of the EU's established 15 members (excluding the 10 new members who joined last May), just above Greece and Portugal. Even Italy, which is considered one of the weaker links in the euro currency zone, is likely to reach parity with Germany by 2007, new figures show. The study, commissioned by the newspaper Die Welt and backed by economists from the Cologne-based Institute of the German Economy and the New Social Market Economy Initiative, will be released today as new unemployment figures are expected to show the jobless total to have risen yet again to around 5.2 million. Germany could soon be receiving more money from the EU funds which support economically-disadvantaged regions, than it pays in, Stefan Bergheim, from Deutsche Bank Research, told Die Welt which published the findings under the headline "From Master to Mediocre". Experts from the New Social Market Economy Initiative recommend that the German government follow Britain's example and concentrate on tackling problems in the highly-regulated labour market in order to pull Germany out of its malaise. They argue that the reforms Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has so far put in place, which have led to a slump in his popularity and prompted street demonstrations throughout the country, are inadequate for the task of turning Germany round. "The recipes are out there," said Tasso Enzweiler, of the New Social Market Initiative. "To follow them we just need the British will, which is sadly lacking in Germany." The symptoms of decline are everwhere to seen and the impact on the country's morale has been dire. Its once generous welfare state now looks completely unaffordable and Germany is now suffering a brain drain of scientists. A people with a reputation as the hardest-working in Europe have come to hate work and unemployment has reached a higher level than at any other time since the Second World War.