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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: elmatador who wrote (110165)	1/26/2015 2:56:59 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 219633

ElM, you lack historical perspective. My second cousin was up to his knees in mud, blood and gore in France during WWI and before that at Gallipoli. He was shocked at the Versailles treaty as being absurdly unreasonable. When WWII got going he was gaoled for speaking in public against the war and refusing to be silent, having become a pacifist and opposing the stupidity of more horrors. My father disagreed and risking my life went off to fight Rommel and co for 4 years across the middle east, Africa and up through Italy. Fortunately, he was successful as was his cousin the previous war. <Germany without debt relief and without Marshall Plan would be: Trabant in the East VW Beetle in the west.> Germany was totally defeated in WWII and wasn't so much earning a good name as complying with occupation orders. Just as Iraq refused to honour Saddam's debts, [which seriously annoyed Russia since they were a major creditor], it was reasonable that Germans in the 1950s reject debts incurred by people as part of an unreasonable Versailles "agreement" at the point of a gun. The occupation forces knew that the debts were unreasonable. Too bad for the creditors. They should not have loaned to militarists back in the day and sometimes debts are simply not collectable. You lack historical perspective because you can't read my father's war diary in which he wrote about the excellent German craftmanship that if they would turn their hands to the arts of peace they'd be impressive. He was admiring a German box for containing shells and the good quality workmanship in its manufacture. You were not even alive and your parents were naked in the jungle in Brazil so it's understandable that you lack historical perspective. If you look back a bit, with some historical perspective, you'll see that the Roman Empire came to a halt up against the ancestors of those WWII Germans. That's because said Germans were not pushovers, and were armed with good quality workmanship to defeat the Roman hordes. The stereotype has some foundation. The Trabant era was a special communist era resulting from people not understanding what wealth is and how it is formed. People who don't understand wealth lack historical perspective too. Mqurice

To: elmatador who wrote (110165)	1/26/2015 4:05:41 PM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Respond to of 219633

Greece is not in the situation of Germany after WWII, most of Greece problems are a result of corruption failure to collect the proper taxes social benefits paid handsomely to people that lied on their written declaration with false medical certificate. Greece should have not entered the EU in the first place but as usual the government cheated with their finances as the Greeks knew that a honey pot is waiting for them if they join the EU. Did you hear of the island of the blind? Where most of the population was "legally blind" and receiving subsidies from the EU and this is only one example --------------------------------------------------- telegraph.co.uk On the Greek island of Zakynthos over 700 of the 35000 population are blind. Those who are blind receive a blind persons pension. This is a very high percentage (2%). In Ireland 0,4% of the population are blind. The Greek Department of Health investigated the cause of the high rate of blindness on the island. Their findings were very interesting. They have discovered that most of the sufferers have been blind since birth. However, nobody seemed to notice these people were blind while they were going to school. Some of the "blind" were found to be working as : Taxi Drivers, Steeplejacks Another thing that came to light was the fact that a high percentage of the "blind" were diagnosed as being blind shortly before elections. The pensions for the "blind" people in Zakynthos costs the Greek government EUR 3 million per year. Furthermore retirement pensions had been paid to 231 people who had been dead for years. The government are now going to investigate if pensioners over the age of 100 are still alive. This seems to be a big problem in Greece that people are milking the system - the number of Greeks getting a disability is twice the EU average.