What makes the Germans so successful?

[JamesHunt]

The eurozone is in crisis. Nobody has any money, they're spending more than what they can generate in tax, their growth is negative, unemployment is sky rocketing, yet the Germans have all the money, and their economy is growing. What makes Germany the powerhouse of Europe?

[buttslinger]

Swiss bank accounts from 1945?

[Ben]

How Germany Became Europe's Richest Country - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uad1Ma5DSMA)

[fastingforlife]

How Germany Became Europe's Richest Country - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uad1Ma5DSMA)

Although not mentioned in the segment, social trust is very high in Germany, it is also very high within the scandinavian countries, which are also prospering.

Social trust is extremely low in Greece, but very high in Turkey, whose economy is on fire with growth.

[Prospero]

What d you mean by "social trust' ?

[fastingforlife]

What d you mean by "social trust' ?

The belief that the government, your neighbor and your employer are not out to screw you. In Greece, Greeks do not trust any of the aforementioned.

In the USA, we are witnessing a dramatic breakdown in social trust which is likely to have omnious consequences.

[Prospero]

Thanks - well yes, I agree with that statement regarding social trust. And I agree that the future for the US in the event of a further disintegration of this social trust is indeed ominous.

[trish]

It may be that a community's or a nation's economic success together with a perception of general political and economic equity fosters social trust; i.e. social trust is not the cause of economic success but rather trust and success, under the right circumstances, foster each other.

[fastingforlife]

It may be that a community's or a nation's economic success together with a perception of general political and economic equity fosters social trust; i.e. social trust is not the cause of economic success but rather trust and success, under the right circumstances, foster each other.

Agreed, social trust alone is not enough, but it allows you to get through the really tough times. We never heard the German's whine during unification. Without any help from the rest of the world, they were faced with the prospect of cleaning up the mess that the old Soviet Union had left behind. They use to use East Germany as the dumping ground for toxic waste and raw sewage. I bet the cleanup was very expensive.

On the otherhand, Japan has enormous social trust, but their economy is in the third decade of a stuborn malaise.

[Prospero]

Actually there was considerable social unrest in Germany during unification - with outbreaks of racist violence, especially in the former East Germany. And savage attacks on Turkish immigrant workers in the West also.

[fastingforlife]

Actually there was considerable social unrest in Germany during unification - with outbreaks of racist violence, especially in the former East Germany. And savage attacks on Turkish immigrant workers in the West also.

If there is ever unification of the two Koreas, I wonder how well the Koreans will deal with the social unrest? Although, I don't expect to be alive to see it.

[Stavros]

I am not sure what it meant by 'social trust' it sounds to me like someone is afraid of using words or concepts that come perilously close to socialism. The German economic miracle of the 1950s was based, in part, on capital imported from the USA under the Marshall Plan, so on one level Germany wouldn't have recovered so quickly from devastation without American money. Germany was also smaller than it is now, as we are talking about West Germany. Secondly, the Germans, like other European countries, introduced social welfare, and nationalised industries such as the railways which would be unthinkable in the USA where the idea of state ownership of industry is anathema. The Germans had centuries of education,science and culture on which to base their economic and moral recovery, indeed the need to be different from the strident nationalism of the 19th century and the appalling concept of race that destroyed Germany from within in the 20th century, created in Germany, in spite of re-armament in 1955, and its position as a front-line state in the Cold War a strong pacifist strain in public politics. In addition, Germany was the initial signatory of the Iron and Steel Pact which formed the basis of economic co-operation that evolved into the European Union, an economic venture that was -and remains- a major benefit to the Europan area as a whole.

Other factors include Germany's ability to make things that sell at home and worldwide, that German workers get higher wages than other Europeans, that immigrant or 'guest-workers' from Turkey, Italy and the former Yugolsavia formed an important part of the unskilled labour force at a time when demand was high, and you have a multi-skilled, multi-national workforce funded from international sources receiving generous wages and benefits with the state providing a wide range of services. I am sure others can provde more reasons, I recall some interesting insights from RobertLouis in a thread last year I think.

[nina_lisa]

Here is a big difference between the mentality in Germany and other country.

In USA UK and many countries, a jeans cost $234 i only have $120 in my pocket: this jeans look awesome, i'll take some debt on my credit card.

So when things are good, you see more growth in countries where people spend easier.


Germany, go to a bar of coffee shop: the €2 coffee they pay it with 0.10cents peaces.

In London, go to a coffee shop, the £2 coffee people will often pay it with a £50 bill.

So in case of a crises Germany has still some money left and they feel confident in their economy and don't spend less.

[JamesHunt]

Social Trust!


The belief that the government, your neighbor and your employer are not out to screw you.

Interesting stuff, in the UK, the Government, your neighbor and employer, aswell as every other tom dick and harry are out to screw you, so this is where we are all going wrong?



Actually there was considerable social unrest in Germany during unification - with outbreaks of racist violence, especially in the former East Germany. And savage attacks on Turkish immigrant workers in the West also.

Merkel says German multicultural society has failed
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11559451

[Ben]

It could also be that there's more income equality in Germany. I mean, America has deep income inequality. And hence the social ills that come with it. According to English epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson:

Does Income Inequality Hurt Countries? w/ Richard Wilkinson - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfFNYHf6g74)

Richard Wilkinson: Equality & wellbeing (UCL) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOUJbV66Nm4)

[fastingforlife]

It could also be that there's more income equality in Germany. I mean, America has deep income inequality. And hence the social ills that come with it. According to English epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson:

Does Income Inequality Hurt Countries? w/ Richard Wilkinson - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfFNYHf6g74)

Richard Wilkinson: Equality & wellbeing (UCL) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOUJbV66Nm4)

I believe Wilkinson's points are worth considering. Medical doctors back in the 1950's made a nice income. As soon as insurance companies got into the act, during the mid 1960's, incomes skyrocketed, creating enormous inequality, and runaway inflation which shows no sign of abating.

He may be on to something.

[jimbo1974]

I spend quite a lot of time in Germany, and have my own views :

The Germanic race have always "fallen in line" into a successfull hierarchical society, built from the bottom up, where the manual workers / producers are valued in society - all the way up to the top of the triangle. This probably explains why their manufacturing sector is so strong.

Their Politicians have also been more logical and less short term than the US / Britain, probably because they have had to deal with serious issues (such as unification) which required long term planning, rather than 4 year cycles. No doubt the fact that coalition governments in Germany has also been a benefit, although this maybe argued.

Germany has also always been very good at looking after their own self interests. They pushed hugely for the creation of the EURO, and since its implementation have benefitfed HUGELY. Dont kid yourselves. They have exported, exported, exported more and more of their goods since the euro because of the "one size fits all" exchange rate, that simply wouldnt have been their if the DM had been around. Combine this with their low borrowing rates......

[Stavros]

I agree with most of your post Jimbo except the concept of the 'Germanic race' which does not exist. The Nuremberg laws of the 1930s exposed the difficulty the Nazi's had in defining either a Jew or a German. In addition, where in your contemporary Germany do you place the Turks, the Italians, the Yugoslavs and all the other 'non-Germans' without whom there would have been no economic 'miracle'? But yes, workers are valued more in Germany than in the UK, they even have guaranteed seats on the boards of major companies, which would be considered eccentric here.

[jimbo1974]

Ok - replace the words germanic race, with Germans, or the majority of Germans.

[Stavros]

Indeed! But if there is something in the argument about northern and southern Europeans, I wonder if it is the way that people have responded to the modern state. The unification of Germany did not take place so long after Italian 'unification' in 1861, yet the experience of the modern state was so different for both, more heavily contested in Italy for example, and some have argued that the defeat of the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily is the foundation of the instability that has undermined economic and political progress in the Mezzogiorno. It can't be about some inability to create, because Italian motor cars have been in the top quartile since the industry began, and Italy is famous for its design culture. So I am thinking there must be issues at the level of tax collection, regional and national identity, and maybe even the lack of immigration that explain why in some respects the Italian state and the performance of its economy has been weaker than Germany.

[LibertyHarkness]

germany dont tolarate immigration shit like the UK does ... Germany actually has a plan and a structure in place to further their country and economic growth unlike the UK which seems to be the blind leading the blind ...

[Stavros]

Immigration policy was different in Germany before or after 1990, and was based on the Gastarbeiter system which meant that agreements with specific countries, Turkey, Greece, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Morocco and Tunisia enabled West Germany to import cheap labour on the premise that they would 'return' at some future point; their children however were allowed to claim German citizenship. In Britain, the Empire/Commonwealth has always complicated the rights of immigrants and anyway, numerically, the UK has the third highest volume of non-EU immigrants after Germany and France. In addition, there was a time when some South Asians realised that if you could get on a plane to West Berlin, an immediate claim for political asylum would normally be met. This lasted until 400,000 claimed political asylum in 1992 and the law was then changed. One faction of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria has been based in Aachen and the Ruhr since the 1960s. East Germany also imported cheap labour, mostly from the Communist bloc such as Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and the so-called Marxist regimes in Africa, Angola and Mozambique. These days it is easier for immigrants to become German citizens, as long as they have lived in the country for8 years, speak German, dont claim welfare (a significant difference from the UK) and also sign a pledge of loyalty.

The UK has been receptive to immigration, with obvious examples of the Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent; the largest foreign nationals living in the UK are French, London is I think the sixth largest French city in the world. But they are EU immigrants. The scale of immigration in the UK is low and relatively unimportant, whereas your comment on economic growth is apt, I don't think anyone in the UK in politics can see a way ahead that leads to the 'sunlit uplands'...

[Prospero]

Liberty - it is sad that the nations from which the bulk of the UK's immigrants come had to tolerate the "shit" of British imperial occupation.

[Stavros]

Liberty - it is sad that the nations from which the bulk of the UK's immigrants come had to tolerate the "shit" of British imperial occupation.

I think that is too broad a brush to use. There has been not so much a fierce debate, but a long-drawn out and currently inconclusive debate amongst imperial histroians about the benefits of Empire, for either the Uk or the colonies. It isn't an easy topic to pursue because not all of the Empire was treated in the same way, and the response to Empire within was also different. The indicators are where the problems lie -do you measure standards of education and literacy before and after Empire, and how on earth does this work in India where there had been a literate civilisation for several thousand years before the British even set foot in it? Missionary education in some parts of the Empire was the only education, it therefore became a priceless benefit of Empire, and as many of the missions also imported allopathic medicine, which included measures to clean water supplies and with it deal with malaria and other diseases, it was medically beneficial. There was a delightful old school communist at SOAS in the 1960s and 1970s, Bill Warren, whose book Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism, though ridiculed by many (because of Warren himself) argues for a more positive view of Empire in terms of structural change. But as I say, the jury is still out and probably will be long after I have gone to that multicultural empire in the sky.

PS, Try talking about Cricket to an Indian -benefit of empire?

[Prospero]

Stavros I was using a broad brush in response to crude generalisation. The effect was intentional.

[LibertyHarkness]

mehh deleted before i go off on one .. i have some harsh views on society and what i feel would benefit us a species . :)

[Femboyurge]

Indeed! But if there is something in the argument about northern and southern Europeans, I wonder if it is the way that people have responded to the modern state. The unification of Germany did not take place so long after Italian 'unification' in 1861, yet the experience of the modern state was so different for both, more heavily contested in Italy for example, and some have argued that the defeat of the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily is the foundation of the instability that has undermined economic and political progress in the Mezzogiorno. It can't be about some inability to create, because Italian motor cars have been in the top quartile since the industry began, and Italy is famous for its design culture. So I am thinking there must be issues at the level of tax collection, regional and national identity, and maybe even the lack of immigration that explain why in some respects the Italian state and the performance of its economy has been weaker than Germany.

Italy has a different mentality than Germany, Austria, Switzerland etc. There is actually a part of northern Italy, South Tyrol, that was an Austrian province until 1919. The northern part of that territory, Trentino-Alto-Adige, is still inhabitated by Germans to 70% or so. That province is the richest in all of Italy. You do the maths. ;)

[Prospero]

The maths maybe - but are suggesting there is an ethnic element to financial achievement femboyurge?

[broncofan]

Italy has a different mentality than Germany, Austria, Switzerland etc. There is actually a part of northern Italy, South Tyrol, that was an Austrian province until 1919. The northern part of that territory, Trentino-Alto-Adige, is still inhabitated by Germans to 70% or so. That province is the richest in all of Italy. You do the maths. ;)
If it's ethnicity then there's nothing to be learned from Germany's success except that it must be nice to come from that stock.

[Stavros]

Italy has a different mentality than Germany, Austria, Switzerland etc. There is actually a part of northern Italy, South Tyrol, that was an Austrian province until 1919. The northern part of that territory, Trentino-Alto-Adige, is still inhabitated by Germans to 70% or so. That province is the richest in all of Italy. You do the maths. ;)


Lombardy is the richst province in Italy; Trentino-Alto Adige-Sud-Tirol has been an autonomous region since 1947-48; the majority are Italian, except in Sud-Tirol where German speakers are dominant, but overall account for about 33% of the population of the region.

I wonder how one decides who is responsible for economic growth in western Europe after 1945 when so much of industry and the service sector was populated by low-paid workers from Turkey, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, Morocco and Tunisia in the case of West Germany; consider the fact that when de Gaulle became President of France in 1958 he was told that if France wanted to industrialise on the scale of Germany, Britain, Italy and the Netherlands, it would need 100,000 immigrants a year (who duly arrived mostly from North Africa). The UK's road and rail networks relied heavily on immigrants from the Caribbean, and so on and so on. Rather like trying to work out how successful the economy of the USA would have been ante-bellum without Slavery....

[onmyknees]

Being mostly of German decent and still having relatives there, the answer to your question is muli layered. I agree with Jimbo's post and would use the word disipline to add to it. A strong economic, growth, and monetary policy is the foundation. Next comes supberb education. A strong work ethic forged by a post war generation who for decades had to go without. And let's face it...the strongest part of the German econmy is exports. Everything from autos, motorcycles, to high tech medical and communications equipment...the Germans engineer and manufacture it better than anyone. They make quality products the world wants and needs. And for those politically correct pinheads, Libby's comments are spot on, and certainly play a part in why the German economy thrives. When you're taking in the worlds poor and uneducated by the millions like the US and UK, it has a profound drag on a nations economy. If you're a denier, then you just don't understand economics. I give you California and Arizona as two examples....both are tettering on bankruptcy from the weight of illegal immigration. There's no mystery why Canada and Germany have probably 2 of the most prosprous economies in the world. Their immigration policies are restrictive. I'm not suggesting that's the only reason, it's certainly more complicated than that alone, but to discount it is folly. Unless you bring an engineering degree to the table....you'll be waiting a very long time for your visa. If you doubt me.....try to cross into Canada at one of the upstate NY crossings. You have anything more a traffic infraction, and you're not getting in....contrast that with the US southern border where thousands flood across the border each and every day.....uneducated, hungry, in need of health care and employment and shelter.

[broncofan]

OMK,
Every German I met in the U.S is superbly educated as you say. But of course there is a sample bias. Every East Indian I've met is also superbly educated for the same reason even if there are plenty of brilliant East Indians. But the Germans are probably pretty well educated as a whole and I don't doubt this contributes to their economic success.

Stavros seemed to have a good answer to your suggestion that it was because they prevented illegal immigration and had restrictive immigration policies on the whole. I understand the potential for immigrants to take money from social services, but don't immigrants often have their labor exploited? This should only help business profits. Perhaps their strict immigration policy is helpful, but it would be interesting to see some empirical evidence of that.

It is also a bit too tempting to assume that a country that is successful is doing everything right. It could be that they are doing all of the things they should be doing a bit better than everybody else. Or there happen to have been a lot of German innovators in this generation. But not every German policy is going to be traceable to their economic success.

[joeninety]

Why not just simplify it German style rather than going into some long winded factualness that ultimately leads to nowhere.

Germans are ruthlessly efficient, they have a very strong work ethos ingrained into their society, they are well educated, take pride in what they do, they do not suffer fools gladly, and when they work their is no I in team, they are a well oiled united machine each member of that society does its role well (on the whole) for the greater good of the society.

Add to the list that they think things through a lot more than your average European (as in they're are not impulsive) and by virtue are quite logical and methodical in their thinking and approach to life, plus their is a decent level of trust in their society and generally the members believe and trust the system, partly due to the system methodology evidently working well, which is probably partly down to lack of corruption against members within the society and as all productive members (not just high society members) are valued and rewarded it is clear why they will outlast us.

Put all of the above together and ingrain it into every member of German society then it becomes obvious why German society is thriving, they have taken the best bits of Capitalism, Communism and Socialism and efficiently & effectively turned it into their very own brand of Germanism.

[Stavros]

OMK,
Stavros seemed to have a good answer to your suggestion that it was because they prevented illegal immigration and had restrictive immigration policies on the whole. I understand the potential for immigrants to take money from social services, but don't immigrants often have their labor exploited? This should only help business profits. Perhaps their strict immigration policy is helpful, but it would be interesting to see some empirical evidence of that.


I am not sure that is what I meant -the 'Guest workers' who became an important part of the 'German economic miracle' it was assumed would return home at the end of their contract, but did not -and their children are Germans citizens -the last German soccer team in the European championship that ended a week ago had players with names like Gomez, Khedira, and Ozil. Illegal immigration was not as big a problem as immigrants arriving at Berlin's airport and asking for political asylum, this did become a problem in the 1990s. But yes, immigrants who do not have immediately usable professional skills are often found picking strawberries for low wages, but these days they are most likely to come from the poorer members of the EU like Romania and Bulgaria.

[Stavros]

Being mostly of German decent and still having relatives there, the answer to your question is muli layered. I agree with Jimbo's post and would use the word disipline to add to it. A strong economic, growth, and monetary policy is the foundation. Next comes supberb education. A strong work ethic forged by a post war generation who for decades had to go without. And let's face it...the strongest part of the German econmy is exports. Everything from autos, motorcycles, to high tech medical and communications equipment...the Germans engineer and manufacture it better than anyone. They make quality products the world wants and needs. And for those politically correct pinheads, Libby's comments are spot on, and certainly play a part in why the German economy thrives. When you're taking in the worlds poor and uneducated by the millions like the US and UK, it has a profound drag on a nations economy. If you're a denier, then you just don't understand economics. I give you California and Arizona as two examples....both are tettering on bankruptcy from the weight of illegal immigration. .

You have not mentioned TAXES, just as one example. If the rot set in in California it was with Proposition 13 in 1978, reducing property tax to 1% of the cash value of property as it was in 1975. The concept of taxation in Calfornia seems alien to people, yet they want 'someone' to fix the road, provide street lighting probably even schools, but they don't want to pay for it out of taxes; so the rich get what they want and the poor get the rest, whatever that is.

You do not encounter such madness in Germany; people are taxed at a level which would be unacceptable to many Americans particularly those who bend towards the Republican Party and its Tea Party tails. If Taxes aren't enough, Germany also provides services for its citizens which would be considered socialism by the same 'many Americans..' ditto above. The problems being experienced in California and Arizona have nothing to do with illegal immigration, but the poor management of those states, inheriting decades of economic and social change that successive state administrations did not know how to manage.

That you should lay all the blame on people who were born speaking Spanish rather than your 'fellow Americans' who have actually been in government all those years, suggests you do not know what you are talking about.

[joeninety]

Here here Stavros couldn't agree more with your assessment of the American situation, too much scapegoating going on with regards to "The Immigrants" but at the end of the day who lets said Immigrants into these countries, that's right the policy makers and why is that because they are a very cheap hard working labour force who are happy and grateful to do low paid, long hours work that the natives simply never would, as they are not desperate enough and have had it good for too long, and have literally become fat and lazy.

So simply put immigrants fill a void and policy makers know this and turn blind eyes.

Most people are media brainwashed into believing its the immigrants fault for a lot of what is going on, when in reality the ones at fault are those that fail to manage the system properly due to their incompetence and a percentage of their native citizens who want an easy ride.

[Stavros]

Here here Stavros couldn't agree more with your assessment of the American situation, too much scapegoating going on with regards to "The Immigrants" but at the end of the day who lets said Immigrants into these countries, that's right the policy makers and why is that because they are a very cheap hard working labour force who are happy and grateful to do low paid, long hours work that the natives simply never would, as they are not desperate enough and have had it good for too long, and have literally become fat and lazy.

So simply put immigrants fill a void and policy makers know this and turn blind eyes.

Most people are media brainwashed into believing its the immigrants fault for a lot of what is going on, when in reality the ones at fault are those that fail to manage the system properly due to their incompetence and a percentage of their native citizens who want an easy ride.

If you want to take this further, this link -albeit from 1998- justifies Proposition 13 as a tax break that encouraged economic growth:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/proposition-13-then-now-forever

This link, on the other hand, argues that illegal immigrants have been part of the economic success of Texas, and claims legalizing their status would benefit the USA:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/have-mexican-dishwashers-brought-california-to-its-knees/

I don't see how problems in a state as complex as California can be reduced to illegal immigration; it is likely that state government and the costs of its polcies in education, and particularly prisons, are part of the problem. This third link on Folsom Prison makes chilling reading when you calculate the cost of the Three Strikes And You're Out policy. You have to task yourself if shoplifting really is worth a life sentence.
http://www.npr.org/2009/08/13/111843426/folsom-embodies-californias-prison-blues

[Prospero]

And has anybody here mentioned US economic aid in the postwar years which poured into germany to help rebuild it's economy? Millions of US dollars between 1948 and the end of 1951.

[Stavros]

And the UK, and Italy, and Greece...but in addition to the high volume of US capital that was crucial to economic growth in Europe after 1945, European capital was instrumental in the economic growth of the USA before and after 1945...why the subsequent experience of economic life should be so different must be due to non-economic factors, such as politics. Which is why it was absurd of onmyknees to use one aspect of the economy in California to explain the whole.

[Prospero]

I agree Stavros... but he is dancing to a singular tune as we know.

[joeninety]

If you want to take this further, this link -albeit from 1998- justifies Proposition 13 as a tax break that encouraged economic growth:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/proposition-13-then-now-forever

This link, on the other hand, argues that illegal immigrants have been part of the economic success of Texas, and claims legalizing their status would benefit the USA:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/have-mexican-dishwashers-brought-california-to-its-knees/

I don't see how problems in a state as complex as California can be reduced to illegal immigration; it is likely that state government and the costs of its polcies in education, and particularly prisons, are part of the problem. This third link on Folsom Prison makes chilling reading when you calculate the cost of the Three Strikes And You're Out policy. You have to task yourself if shoplifting really is worth a life sentence.
http://www.npr.org/2009/08/13/111843426/folsom-embodies-californias-prison-blues


Cheers for the articles Stavros they make for some interesting reading, I have seen a lot of similar stuff out their about Immigrants adding value to societies and helping them to grow, I mean you only have to look at colonialism and the slave trade which was basically, the ruthless forced form of immagration and as was the case with the slave trade people being kidnapped and dragged to said foreign country, then made to work massively long hours for pittance or in real terms for enough food and water to keep them working, but at the end of all that misery and suffering hey presto you get all the tough shitty labourious jobs done and a gleaming new country that works to boot.

The only differences between the slaves of yesterday and the slaves sorry I mean Immigrants of today is that one lot were dragged over here kicking and screaming and paid in food and water while the other lot (through lack of options partly due to American geo political interference) come for meagre wages (i.e they are wage slaves) due the hopelessness of their situation and in return are almost as royally exploited as the previous slaves before them, they also have the added burden of the cleverdicks at the top laying media brainwash blame on them, so said cleverdicks in effect create a win win in that they get the labour and the votes when it comes to polling time as they blame their fuck ups (whilst lining theirs and their friends greedy pockets) on the easy targets and promising that they will clean the "Immigrant problem" up and they continue to perpetuate the Bs and the voters continue to be ignorant and never learn.

Education in society and effectual rehabilitation in prisons is key to solving a lot of problems as shown in that "Folsom prison" before and after link but at the end of the day prison and crime is its own industry, solve most of that then what happens to the Police, Judges, Wardens, Prison guards, attorneys, lawyers, solicitors, barrister, clerks, admin teams, human resources people, business and finance peoples and all other people associated within the crime industry. Solve crime and then you put all of these people out of a job where do they go??? Also having crime creates certain fear factors in society and it can then be used to bring in all sorts of draconian measures which are used to enslave us all to varying degrees depending upon whereabouts on the ladder of society we are.

Its all fixed and its all dileberate, it affects the 95% majority in negative ways but for those that run it, it works to their benefit and is perfectly designed for them, the real power and a fair and just society could be in the hands of the majority but divided as we stand we will never come to realise it.

[joeninety]

And has anybody here mentioned US economic aid in the postwar years which poured into germany to help rebuild it's economy? Millions of US dollars between 1948 and the end of 1951.


Not sure about Germany but as was the case with the UK the money that flowed to us from America was not aid it was a begged loan and the debt repayment on that loan was so massive that the Uk only finished paying it off around a few years ago, so I have never understood this love America thing as they shafted the Uk when it was at its weakest.

Don't get me wrong it is not American Joe public I am griping about it is the ruthless greedy establishment at the top that I cannot stand.

I figure any loans America was handing out around that time probably had massive loan repayment profits attached to them, plus trading perks and do us favours perks.

[joeninety]

And the UK, and Italy, and Greece...but in addition to the high volume of US capital that was crucial to economic growth in Europe after 1945, European capital was instrumental in the economic growth of the USA before and after 1945...why the subsequent experience of economic life should be so different must be due to non-economic factors, such as politics. Which is why it was absurd of onmyknees to use one aspect of the economy in California to explain the whole.

Their are lots of factors to explain the differences in economic life one of which is that outstanding loans (incoming collateral) has dried up whilst and with the emergence of China their is less of a reliance on America as the central hub which it once was.

Add to this American expenditure going through the roof on wars although not a problem if you sit at the top as you own most of the oil, gas, and weapons companies and all your friends have shares in said companies so you all stand to make a killing literally whilst your citizens are burdened with debt.

Put into the mix the massive credit debt built up with China and the fact that in reality China now needs to be kept afloat or else this whole bubble will burst then you will see some of the factors influencing todays economic landscape.

Also add the flaw that those at the very top hoard accumalated wealth and do not let it flow back into the economies, plus the fact that world markets are not really tangible and can be manipulated via media brainwash as a lot of it is based around human psychology so when these tools are used in conjunction things can look be made to look better or worse than they really are.

These are some of the reasons why the world looks the way it does but the reality is how bad or good is it really when it can be so easily distorted think smoke and mirrors.

Capitalism is not sustainable in order for something to keep growing, then that must mean in order for that growth somewhere down the chain eventually losses are going to occur and growth is eventually going to stop and will turn into loss, shrinkage and eventual collapse is it actually happening or really as bad as being portrayed who knows.

[Stavros]

Joe you are right about the complexities of the loan that Gordon Brown paid off in 2006, but the UK didn't really have much choice in 1947, and if you were to factor in the investment capital that flowed from the UK to the US you could say that apart from the lawyers both sides got a good deal -a better deal than the debt Haiti had to pay to France for over 100 years for example. I am not sure about your other comments, for example US firms own less than 5% of the world's oil and gas, 90% of which is owned by state owned oil companies in the Middle East and Latin America; the question how long capitalism can last is an intriguing one, I have read that there has been a renewed interest in the works of Karl Marx since 2008, which is odd in a way because so many of the conditions in which capitalism operates have changed beyond anything he could imagine. Capitalism has an ability to innovate its way out of crises, although I think modern technology relies less on manual labour and that is where the real challenges are, globally.

[natina]

ANCHOR BABIES
County’s Monthly Welfare Tab for Illegal Aliens $52 Million

http://www.themoralliberal.com/2010/09/07/countys-monthly-welfare-tab-for-illegal-aliens-52-million/

The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads in part:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside."

Babies born to illegal alien mothers within U.S. borders are called anchor babies because under the 1965 immigration Act, they act as an anchor that pulls the illegal alien mother and eventually a host of other relatives into permanent U.S. residency. (Jackpot babies is another term).

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect the rights of native-born Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently-freed slaves. In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard clearly spelled out the intent of the 14th Amendment by writing:

"Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country."

The original intent of the 14th Amendment was clearly not to facilitate illegal aliens defying U.S. law at taxpayer expense. Current estimates indicate there may be over 300,000 anchor babies born each year in the U.S., thus causing illegal alien mothers to add more to the U.S. population each year than immigration from all sources in an average year before 1965.

The correct interpretation of the 14th Amendment is that an illegal alien mother is subject to the jurisdiction of her native country, as is her baby.



If you want to take this further, this link -albeit from 1998- justifies Proposition 13 as a tax break that encouraged economic growth:
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/proposition-13-then-now-forever

This link, on the other hand, argues that illegal immigrants have been part of the economic success of Texas, and claims legalizing their status would benefit the USA:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/have-mexican-dishwashers-brought-california-to-its-knees/

I don't see how problems in a state as complex as California can be reduced to illegal immigration; it is likely that state government and the costs of its polcies in education, and particularly prisons, are part of the problem. This third link on Folsom Prison makes chilling reading when you calculate the cost of the Three Strikes And You're Out policy. You have to task yourself if shoplifting really is worth a life sentence.
http://www.npr.org/2009/08/13/111843426/folsom-embodies-californias-prison-blues

[natina]

$22 billion annually to provide illegal immigrants with welfare perks that include food assistance programs such as free school lunches in public schools, food stamps and a nutritional program (known as WIC) for low-income women and their children


County’s Monthly Welfare Tab for Illegal Aliens $52 Million/month

As the mainstream media focuses on a study that reveals a sharp decline in the nation’s illegal immigrant population, monthly welfare payments to children of undocumented aliens increased to $52 million in one U.S. county alone.

The hoopla surrounding last week’s news that the annual flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. dropped by two-thirds in the past decade overlooked an important matter; the cost of educating, incarcerating and medically treating illegal aliens hasn’t decreased along with it, but rather skyrocketed to the tune of tens of billions of dollars annually.

Those figures don’t even include the extra millions that local municipalities dish out on welfare payments to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, commonly known as anchor babies. In Los Angeles County alone that figure increased by nearly $4 million in the last year, sticking taxpayers with a whopping $52 million tab to provide illegal immigrants’ offspring with food stamps and other welfare benefits for just one month.


About a quarter of the county’s welfare and food stamp issuances go to parents who reside in the United States illegally and collect benefits for their anchor babies, according to the figures from L.A. County’s Department of Social Services. Nationwide, Americans pay around $22 billion annually to provide illegal immigrants with welfare perks that include food assistance programs such as free school lunches in public schools, food stamps and a nutritional program (known as WIC) for low-income women and their children
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/should-anchor-babies-be-allowed-citizenship/question-1062069/
http://www.theamericanresistance.com/issues/anchor_babies.html

[natina]

8 out of the 12 baby's born in the USA or born to illegal

laws now or focusing on having no automatic citizen ship for kids born to parents of illegals

http://www.theamericanresistance.com/issues/anchor_babies.html



http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/should-anchor-babies-be-allowed-citizenship/question-1062069/


Children born to non-US citizens could be barred from American birth certificates

One of the politicians behind Arizona's controversial immigration law has called for children born to non-US citizens to be barred from getting American birth certificates.

Arizona has been praised and criticized for cracking down on illegal immigration, prompting other states to consider similar bills and energizing immigration groups.

The state passed a bill that allows law enforcement to ask for proof of citizenship from a person they believe could be illegally in the country.

So it seems the state will continue in the forefront of the debate as the same man who sponsored the first legislation is now pushing to expand it. Republican state Senator Russell Pearce will introduce a bill later this year to target so-called "anchor babies," which he says are used by illegal immigrants to stay in the country.

Under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, any child born in the country has an automatic right to citizenship regardless of their parents' legal status.

"I want to bring a little common sense and integrity back," he told the Daily Telegraph. "It's illegal to enter the United States and yet we are going to create the greatest inducement to breaking our law, and entering illegally, and that's making your baby a citizen."
+24 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7827706/Children-born-to-non-US-citizens-could-be-barred-from-American-birth-certificates.html

[natina]

ANCHOR BABIES

http://www.americanpatrol.com/09-FEATURES/090930-FEATURE/LA-POPULATION4.jpg

http://www.americanpatrol.com/09-FEATURES/090930-FEATURE/LA-POPULATION4.jpg

Hispanics "accounted for more than one-half of all US population growth."

America's going non-white! It's been long reported that the U.S. is projected to be minority-majority by 2042. Now researchers from Cornell and the University of New Hampshire say, "for America's children and youth, that future is here already": In the Census year that ended in July of 2008, 48 percent of the children born in the U.S.A. were from minority-group parents.
The growth is mainly among Hispanic parents. Between 2000 and 2008, says the report by Professors Kenneth Johnson and Daniel Lichter, Hispanics "accounted for more than one-half of all US population growth."

Also, while the nation's African-American population is still "concentrated disproportionately in the largest and oldest US central cities," Hispanics are spreading to the hinterlands; the report says the Hispanic population "is dispersing rapidly -- though selectively -- from traditional gateway cities in the Southwest," not only to surrounding suburbs, but also "rapidly in many rural parts of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, North Carolina, and Georgia."

Professors Johnson and Lichter suggest the growth is due to an influx of fertile Hispanic women. They're having an average of 2.99 babies apiece, while white women are having 1.87.

Please show this report to an old bigot near you. Then play 'em some Black Flag!




http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/03/hispanic_kids_4.php




http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archi

[joeninety]

Joe you are right about the complexities of the loan that Gordon Brown paid off in 2006, but the UK didn't really have much choice in 1947, and if you were to factor in the investment capital that flowed from the UK to the US you could say that apart from the lawyers both sides got a good deal -a better deal than the debt Haiti had to pay to France for over 100 years for example. I am not sure about your other comments, for example US firms own less than 5% of the world's oil and gas, 90% of which is owned by state owned oil companies in the Middle East and Latin America; the question how long capitalism can last is an intriguing one, I have read that there has been a renewed interest in the works of Karl Marx since 2008, which is odd in a way because so many of the conditions in which capitalism operates have changed beyond anything he could imagine. Capitalism has an ability to innovate its way out of crises, although I think modern technology relies less on manual labour and that is where the real challenges are, globally.

Yes very true the Uk had no choice in asking for the loan but it was the way the yanks went about things that gets me, initially they refused to help saying it was in effect beyond their means to do so, then Britain had to go back for a second time with begging bowl in hand pleading then I think it was Henry kissinger saw an opportunity to exploit Britain and convinced Yanks to do the deal in return that Britain agreed to some very unfavourable terms one of which was the convertibility of Sterling which ended up being considerable devalued,

America loves to enslave countries through debt so yes on paper US firms may own low percentage stakes in a lot of the Middle Eastern countries but they are very clever about who really owns that oil, take Iraq for instance as soon as that war ensued what was the first thing they did, that's right they secured the oil refineries and pipelines, next when Saddam was ousted they said they had to take control of the production and sale of the oil but that all the proceeds would go back to Iraq, ok you may think fair enough until you realise that America was solely in charge of who that oil was sold to and how much it sold the oil for, meaning America sold oil to America at a knock down price and elitists profited massively.

Another example of who really owns anything is look at the current situation with Iran now I think they are the 9th largest supplier of oil yet America has managed to put sanctions on that country and stop a lot of its supplies being sold. Luckily for Iran China and India are happy to be their new big customers so how much of an effect that tactic will have is negligible but if Iran hadn't been in the shadow of the ascending dragon then things would have been very different and they would of ended up being another Iraq.

There are countless other examples of American indirectly owning oil but it is a long winded story, so guess what I am saying is America may not own the majority shares on paper in these oil companies, but in reality they do own a lot of this oil as they control the sales or not of it.

Finally you raise an interesting point about Capitalism being able to innovate its way out of a crises and technology taking over but as you say what about the manual labour force as they get displaced where do they go, as populations get bigger but less of a workforce is needed this gulf is only going to get bigger add to that, that through modern medicine mortality rates are being lowered, plus their are only finite resources on this planet but Capitalism insists on year on year growth which is illogical then you can see how this will have dire consequences for us as a species unless radical changes start to happen and these may not be so good for the exisiting populas.

[broncofan]

Not sure about Germany but as was the case with the UK the money that flowed to us from America was not aid it was a begged loan and the debt repayment on that loan was so massive that the Uk only finished paying it off around a few years ago, so I have never understood this love America thing as they shafted the Uk when it was at its weakest.

Don't get me wrong it is not American Joe public I am griping about it is the ruthless greedy establishment at the top that I cannot stand.

I figure any loans America was handing out around that time probably had massive loan repayment profits attached to them, plus trading perks and do us favours perks.
That tends to be how lending takes place. The lender makes money and the person accepting the loans borrows because they need the money and are willing to repay the interest. While someone on a revolving short-term loan may claim usury and have a legitimate case, sovereign debt tends to be very different as you have sophisticated borrowers. If Britain borrowed and the terms weren't very attractive it must have been because they could not get better terms elsewhere???

[broncofan]

Why not just simplify it German style rather than going into some long winded factualness that ultimately leads to nowhere.

Germans are ruthlessly efficient, they have a very strong work ethos ingrained into their society, they are well educated, take pride in what they do, they do not suffer fools gladly, and when they work their is no I in team, they are a well oiled united machine each member of that society does its role well (on the whole) for the greater good of the society.

Add to the list that they think things through a lot more than your average European (as in they're are not impulsive) and by virtue are quite logical and methodical in their thinking and approach to life, plus their is a decent level of trust in their society and generally the members believe and trust the system, partly due to the system methodology evidently working well, which is probably partly down to lack of corruption against members within the society and as all productive members (not just high society members) are valued and rewarded it is clear why they will outlast us.

Put all of the above together and ingrain it into every member of German society then it becomes obvious why German society is thriving, they have taken the best bits of Capitalism, Communism and Socialism and efficiently & effectively turned it into their very own brand of Germanism.
This sounds almost like an ethnic analysis of the German character. Don't get me wrong. I think it's nothing but a compliment to say that a nation of people is "logical...methodical....ruthlessly efficient.....has a strong work ethic....lacks corruption...". It also seems like a compliment, though a bizarre one, to call their economic success "Germanism".

I just think that economic miracles do not have as much to do with the national or ethnic character of a people as with sound policies, good decision-making, and good circumstances. When other nations of people are successful I frequently see them demonized for their success. For instance, China is portrayed in the United States as intellectual property thieves and Japan for a while was portrayed in the 1980's as voyeuristic and using all sorts of subversive tactics to strengthen their economy at the expense of America. Yet both the Chinese and the Japanese are superbly well-educated.

I think a lot of the focus on Germany's success and the relative poverty of other parts of Europe is often misplaced. I am sure that something can be learned from Germany's economic success and it may relate to education or certain national policies, but I doubt it is that the Teutons have the capacity to think things through more than others.

Where was Germanism in the 1920's when Germans were going to the supermarket with wheelbarrels full of money?

[joeninety]

That tends to be how lending takes place. The lender makes money and the person accepting the loans borrows because they need the money and are willing to repay the interest. While someone on a revolving short-term loan may claim usury and have a legitimate case, sovereign debt tends to be very different as you have sophisticated borrowers. If Britain borrowed and the terms weren't very attractive it must have been because they could not get better terms elsewhere???

Totally agree but at the time British politicians expected that in view of the United Kingdom's contribution to the war, especially in light of the lives lost before the United States entered the fight, they wrongly assumed America would offer favorable terms.

Its one thing to loan Joe blogs in the street at whatever rate, but to a country that is meant to be your ally and has made a major sacrafice of sorts and is now desperately in need, it is unethical and morally incorrect to then try and exploit that need in such a ruthless manner the way America did, that is why America is wrong on so many levels as it lacks the qualities of upstanding morals, sound ethical practices, and compassion

I mean if your friend asked you for a loan and you knew he was desperate would you exploit that fact in such a vicious manner???


I will reply to your other post later on

[Stavros]

America loves to enslave countries through debt so yes on paper US firms may own low percentage stakes in a lot of the Middle Eastern countries but they are very clever about who really owns that oil, take Iraq for instance as soon as that war ensued what was the first thing they did, that's right they secured the oil refineries and pipelines, next when Saddam was ousted they said they had to take control of the production and sale of the oil but that all the proceeds would go back to Iraq, ok you may think fair enough until you realise that America was solely in charge of who that oil was sold to and how much it sold the oil for, meaning America sold oil to America at a knock down price and elitists profited massively.

Another example of who really owns anything is look at the current situation with Iran now I think they are the 9th largest supplier of oil yet America has managed to put sanctions on that country and stop a lot of its supplies being sold. Luckily for Iran China and India are happy to be their new big customers so how much of an effect that tactic will have is negligible but if Iran hadn't been in the shadow of the ascending dragon then things would have been very different and they would of ended up being another Iraq.

There are countless other examples of American indirectly owning oil but it is a long winded story, so guess what I am saying is America may not own the majority shares on paper in these oil companies, but in reality they do own a lot of this oil as they control the sales or not of it.



On the oil, I don't see the point you are making. There are no state-owned oil companies in the US, the largest companies, Exxon, Chevron and Conoco-Phillips are privately owned; BP is now basically an Anglo-American company, just as Royal Dutch Shell is Anglo-Dutch but all these companies have assets across the world in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, the North Sea, and so on. The US led the coalition that overthrew the regime in Iraq, it made sense at the time to take control of the refining and producing outlets, if only to stop theft and sabotage, but the US now has no control over the industry. Exxon has been awarded contracts in the north of Iraq by the Kurds but the government in Baghdad is opposed to it -autonomy for the Kurds may not go as far as oil contracts but it remains to be seen how this plays out. Iran has the third largest gas resources in the world and has been a key supplier to Japan since the days of the Shah who negotiated a deal whereby Iranians had preferential treatment as immigrants in Japan; the sanctions being imposed are a re-run of the sanction imposed on Iran in 1951 when the oil industry was nationalised. At that time oil was their only major earner and the country was brought to its knees by the time of the coup in 1953, but I doubt that the sanctions will be as effective as they were in the 1950s. Finally, the US has been reducing its dependence on Middle Eastern oil which is somewhere around 25-30% of its imports, if that, as I haven't checked the latest figures. It may even be less than 20%.

[joeninety]

On the oil, I don't see the point you are making. There are no state-owned oil companies in the US, the largest companies, Exxon, Chevron and Conoco-Phillips are privately owned; BP is now basically an Anglo-American company, just as Royal Dutch Shell is Anglo-Dutch but all these companies have assets across the world in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, the North Sea, and so on. The US led the coalition that overthrew the regime in Iraq, it made sense at the time to take control of the refining and producing outlets, if only to stop theft and sabotage, but the US now has no control over the industry. Exxon has been awarded contracts in the north of Iraq by the Kurds but the government in Baghdad is opposed to it -autonomy for the Kurds may not go as far as oil contracts but it remains to be seen how this plays out. Iran has the third largest gas resources in the world and has been a key supplier to Japan since the days of the Shah who negotiated a deal whereby Iranians had preferential treatment as immigrants in Japan; the sanctions being imposed are a re-run of the sanction imposed on Iran in 1951 when the oil industry was nationalised. At that time oil was their only major earner and the country was brought to its knees by the time of the coup in 1953, but I doubt that the sanctions will be as effective as they were in the 1950s. Finally, the US has been reducing its dependence on Middle Eastern oil which is somewhere around 25-30% of its imports, if that, as I haven't checked the latest figures. It may even be less than 20%.

My point about who owns the oil is that you said American-American companies own around 5%, my point is America is always invading other countries of interest for its own gains and usually ends up installing or backing corrupt puppets that will do its bidding and by proxy they then get indirect split ownership of the oil.

Can you not see the dots, preceding the Shah was Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq then come the sanctions, then guess what he is overthrown in an American coup, then is the extensive backing of the pro American Shah, note where America goes to liberate those from supposed tyranny and note where the other tyrants are and where it does not bother to go and spread its supposed democracy, what are the common factors???

If you do the maths and look at the history you get the real picture of what goes on.

I wouldn't rely heavily these import statistics as who really compiles them??? But what I will say is that America has been busy fracking the fuck out of its country, their is the Bush Saudi connect (very in depth but where did senior get the money to start his oil aspirations?) which is kind of funny considering the massive conflict of interest that produced during gulf war1 when Saddam wanted his kuwait Oil fields.

If you are still not getting the picture of who owns most of the oil in reality then I will find you links instead as it is a very long winded story.

[joeninety]

This sounds almost like an ethnic analysis of the German character. Don't get me wrong. I think it's nothing but a compliment to say that a nation of people is "logical...methodical....ruthlessly efficient.....has a strong work ethic....lacks corruption...". It also seems like a compliment, though a bizarre one, to call their economic success "Germanism".

I just think that economic miracles do not have as much to do with the national or ethnic character of a people as with sound policies, good decision-making, and good circumstances. When other nations of people are successful I frequently see them demonized for their success. For instance, China is portrayed in the United States as intellectual property thieves and Japan for a while was portrayed in the 1980's as voyeuristic and using all sorts of subversive tactics to strengthen their economy at the expense of America. Yet both the Chinese and the Japanese are superbly well-educated.

I think a lot of the focus on Germany's success and the relative poverty of other parts of Europe is often misplaced. I am sure that something can be learned from Germany's economic success and it may relate to education or certain national policies, but I doubt it is that the Teutons have the capacity to think things through more than others.

Where was Germanism in the 1920's when Germans were going to the supermarket with wheelbarrels full of money?

Sometimes somethings are in a nations blood literally the Germans were seen as Barbarians by the once almighty Romans yet the might of Rome fell partly by its own hand but partly by the Barbarians hand when the last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus, was deposed by Odoacer, a Germanic (barbarian) chieftain.

These weren't really the unthinking savages that the Romans presumed then to be, they were smart and tactical and able to beat the larger better equipped army and guess what one day it took two wars and the might of the rest of the world to beat the Barbarian descendants, then America was straight in their pocketing all of their scientists and thinkers, then through all that adversity and the splitting up of its country its managed to put itself back together and become a powerhouse once again now is that all coincidence or are their certain traits in that societies gene pool that allow its Alphas and compliant Betas to think and follow their way out of adversity????

I do not think that surmising certain advantageous character traits can be bred into societies is far fetched when you consider that is exactly what goes on in selective animal breeding programmes be it dogs or sheep.

Education plays a big part in things but so can an innate ability.

And yes on all counts I was complimenting the modern day German.

[joeninety]

My point about who owns the oil is that you said American-American companies own around 5%, my point is America is always invading other countries of interest for its own gains and usually ends up installing or backing corrupt puppets that will do its bidding and by proxy they then get indirect split ownership of the oil yes it might not be "state" owned but you can bet your bottom dollar that American fingers are in those pies.

Can you not see the dots, preceding the Shah was Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq then come the sanctions, then guess what he is overthrown in an American coup, then is the extensive backing of the pro American Shah, note where America goes to liberate those from supposed tyranny and note where the other tyrants are and where it does not bother to go and spread its supposed democracy, what are the common factors???

If you do the maths and look at the history you get the real picture of what goes on.

I wouldn't rely heavily these import statistics as who really compiles them??? But what I will say is that America has been busy fracking the fuck out of its country, their is the Bush Saudi connect (very in depth but where did senior get the money to start his oil aspirations?) which is kind of funny considering the massive conflict of interest that produced during gulf war1 when Saddam wanted his kuwait Oil fields.

If you are still not getting the picture of who owns most of the oil in reality then I will find you links instead as it is a very long winded story.

[fred41]

On the oil, I don't see the point you are making. There are no state-owned oil companies in the US, the largest companies, Exxon, Chevron and Conoco-Phillips are privately owned; BP is now basically an Anglo-American company, just as Royal Dutch Shell is Anglo-Dutch but all these companies have assets across the world in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, the North Sea, and so on. The US led the coalition that overthrew the regime in Iraq, it made sense at the time to take control of the refining and producing outlets, if only to stop theft and sabotage, but the US now has no control over the industry. Exxon has been awarded contracts in the north of Iraq by the Kurds but the government in Baghdad is opposed to it -autonomy for the Kurds may not go as far as oil contracts but it remains to be seen how this plays out. Iran has the third largest gas resources in the world and has been a key supplier to Japan since the days of the Shah who negotiated a deal whereby Iranians had preferential treatment as immigrants in Japan; the sanctions being imposed are a re-run of the sanction imposed on Iran in 1951 when the oil industry was nationalised. At that time oil was their only major earner and the country was brought to its knees by the time of the coup in 1953, but I doubt that the sanctions will be as effective as they were in the 1950s. Finally, the US has been reducing its dependence on Middle Eastern oil which is somewhere around 25-30% of its imports, if that, as I haven't checked the latest figures. It may even be less than 20%.


Yes, but why let facts get in the way of ideology?!

[Prospero]

Something in the blood - now that is a bizarre notion - unless its a metaphor?

[joeninety]

Something in the blood - now that is a bizarre notion - unless its a metaphor?

In the blood statement was being metaphoric for in the genetics, as a nation they seem to have some great thinkers and leaders, also generally the majority of the population seem to have no problem in following the hierarchical command structure the two work in unison, all of these would be deemed necessary survival factors in what makes a successful pack of say wolfs or lions, behaviour in animals can be influenced by genetic predisposition, docile behaviour for instance in our domesticated animals has been bred into them.

So what I am saying is generally hierarchical structures stay in tact and form the foundations of a lot of societies E.g rich tend men (generally a class of good thinkers) marry/partner in general either pretty women, equally smart women or women from established stock, whereas at the bottom end of society working class people generally tend to marry/partner other working class people.

So by doing this and being given certain education opportunities in accordance to your class then certain types of people are going to come about, but there are always exceptions to the rules.

[Stavros]

My point about who owns the oil is that you said American-American companies own around 5%, my point is America is always invading other countries of interest for its own gains and usually ends up installing or backing corrupt puppets that will do its bidding and by proxy they then get indirect split ownership of the oil yes it might not be "state" owned but you can bet your bottom dollar that American fingers are in those pies.

Can you not see the dots, preceding the Shah was Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq then come the sanctions, then guess what he is overthrown in an American coup, then is the extensive backing of the pro American Shah, note where America goes to liberate those from supposed tyranny and note where the other tyrants are and where it does not bother to go and spread its supposed democracy, what are the common factors???

If you do the maths and look at the history you get the real picture of what goes on.

I wouldn't rely heavily these import statistics as who really compiles them??? But what I will say is that America has been busy fracking the fuck out of its country, their is the Bush Saudi connect (very in depth but where did senior get the money to start his oil aspirations?) which is kind of funny considering the massive conflict of interest that produced during gulf war1 when Saddam wanted his kuwait Oil fields.

If you are still not getting the picture of who owns most of the oil in reality then I will find you links instead as it is a very long winded story.

I think you are so concerned to see the pale hand of the US intervening at will to get a slice of the action that you have missed some more important facts.

1) The first is that it was the British who lost the most in 1951, Anglo-Iranian as it was then (subsequently BP) relied on Iran for 75% of its product (crude oil, natural gas, refined products), and also lost control of the world's largest refinery at Abadan (which was kept in perfect working order throughout its three years of idleness). The firm was also a key supplier to the British armed forces on land, sea and in the air.

2) The British government lost the key source of its foreign exchange and it was they (Attlee was Prime Minister at the time) and the company who organised the global boycott that meant the new National Iranian Oil Company had no customers (these days sanctions are a gift for busters who make millions, inside and outside the sanctioned country). The British view was that the nationalisation was a threat to the integrity of the British Empire.

3) the Americans were obsessed with Communism and believed the Iranian political party the Tudeh [communist-equivalent] was behind the anti-British unrest, only partly true. They feared a revival of Soviet/Russian interference in Iran which stretched back through the Soviet occupation of the provinces of Azerbaijan in the Second World War, the short-lived Soviet Republic of Gilan (a small province on the Caspian Sea in northern Iran) in 1920-21 to Russian Imperial game-playing with the British in the 19th century.

4) the decision to fund an overthrow of the Musadeq government was taken by Churchill and Eisenhower (Operation Ajax), selecting General Zahedi as the man around whom the operations would take place. Kermit Roosevelt was the CIA's organiser in Iran (helped by Norman Schwarzkopf, father of Stormin' Norman). They passed millions of $$ to agents provocateurs -many of them ex-cons, fascists, or wrestlers- to break up Nationalist demonstrators, sabotage shops and businesses friendly to Musadeq and his supporters, and contrived to create the sense of chaos against which Zahedi moved -failing on the first attempt (prompting the Shah to rush off in a plane to Switzerland fearing the worst)- before succeeding at a second attempt (prompting the Shah -who had to be pressured by Zahedi to become figurehead of the new government to fly back).

5) Yes it is true that the new agreement in 1954 allowed Anglo-Iranian back in, but with a smaller percentage of the oil with American firms part of the new Iranian Oil Participants consortium -but there had already been criticism of Anglo-Iranian's handling of the Iranians given that Standard and the Saudis had negotiated a 50-50 split on the oil revenues which Anglo-Iranian had refused to contemplate.

So you could say that the consequence of the coup for the industry was greater competition, and for Iran an increasingly modernising but autocratic Shah. The deeper question is why Musadeq lost so much support, why there was no fight back against the Shah -a key reason is that even by 1953 economic development in Iran had been slow, and the non-petroleum sector, located in the south-south west of the country had not developed beyond agriculture and textiles. Musadeq failed to reach an agreement with Anglo-Iranian, but was so obsessed with politics that he neglected the economy and undermined his own base of support.

The coup was carried out by Iranians, with American and British help. Would it have happened without that help? At some point probably yes, primarily because Musadeq was not well and the government was weak. The Shah's father had seized power in a military coup in 1921, and was forced out of office in 1941 when he refused to expel Germans from the country (he was viewed as being pro-German in spite of Iran declaring neutrality in the War) -the British and the USSR in effect reached an agreement that Britain would control most the country (and the petroleum fields and Abadan) with the USSR in the northern provinces of Azerbaijan while using the railway to send supplies to the USSR (which were used to repel the Germans at Stalingrad). Reza Pahlavi was sent into exile to Johannesburg where there is a small Museum in the house where he once lived. So you could argue that the Iranians had been living under one Shah or another for centuries other than the period from 1941 to the coup of 1953. Autocratic government in Iran has been the norm, democracy the exception.

[fred41]

I love this site...I've learned more about the Middle East from guys like Stavros than anywhere else...now if only Trish would come back from the 4th. dimension and fulfill my science needs...:)

[broncofan]

Sometimes somethings are in a nations blood literally the Germans were seen as Barbarians by the once almighty Romans yet the might of Rome fell partly by its own hand but partly by the Barbarians hand when the last Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus, was deposed by Odoacer, a Germanic (barbarian) chieftain.

These weren't really the unthinking savages that the Romans presumed then to be, they were smart and tactical and able to beat the larger better equipped army and guess what one day it took two wars and the might of the rest of the world to beat the Barbarian descendants, then America was straight in their pocketing all of their scientists and thinkers, then through all that adversity and the splitting up of its country its managed to put itself back together and become a powerhouse once again now is that all coincidence or are their certain traits in that societies gene pool that allow its Alphas and compliant Betas to think and follow their way out of adversity????

I do not think that surmising certain advantageous character traits can be bred into societies is far fetched when you consider that is exactly what goes on in selective animal breeding programmes be it dogs or sheep.

Education plays a big part in things but so can an innate ability.

And yes on all counts I was complimenting the modern day German.
This is what I was concerned about. I think that a discussion about the economic situation of a country becomes less cerebral when it turns into a recitation of that country's stereotypes. Besides being somewhat offensive, it is methodologically unsound. Even if you could demonstrate that Germans possessed these characteristics, it would be difficult to show that these traits are responsible for their economic success and not some tangible decision, or fiscal policy.

Germans certainly are not barbarians, and I have nothing but respect for the accomplishments of modern day Germany. However I am a bit turned off by the suggestion they are a superior breed. If they deserve credit for what they've done then perhaps it's because they've made choices to do it and not because it's imbued in their genes or blood.

[broncofan]

Joeninety,
I see that in my previous post I sort of take a two pronged approach. On the one hand, I say that I think it's slightly offensive to imply some groups are more gifted than others and on the other I say it's unprovable. Let me settle and say, if it were provable or potentially insightful, it would not bother me what implications the ideas had.

I read an interesting book about the various tribes that make up the German people quite a while back. It analyzed the ethnic and tribal extraction of the Germans and though I remember few details, the takeaway is that you don't have anything like ethnic or racial purity.

I also read a work by an American scientist named Samuel George Morton a while back. He was famous for measuring the skulls of different ethnic groups and trying to deduce from these calculations the relative intelligence of each group. In a previous work, he laid out, in anecdotal form, the various traits of each group. I would rather not give examples but his use of evidence was appalling for a man dubbed a scientist. It was this work supporting the idea that different nations possessed different traits that convinced me it was unlikely to be true.

Anyhow, since I don't think the Germans make up a genetically cognizable group, and I don't think one can infer traits of tribes of people from anecdotes or single historical events, let me suggest other reasons that have been stated in this thread as an alternative explanation for their economic success.

Germany has learned important lessons from WWI and WWII and moved away from nationalism and towards a more cooperative social structure. Workers are paid better wages and feel a greater sense of investment in the society they are a part of thus increasing productivity. Germans have invested in science education and particularly engineering, which is a driver of technological innovation and as a result have many industries where their products are renowned for their quality. Germans have engaged in a more responsible fiscal policy than many other European countries. Germans have been able to channel a lot of the energy other countries waste on petty attempts to be global police and instead focused on their domestic issues. Some degree of good fortune and circumstance coalesced with any combination of these policies. For instance, if you analyze the investments of even the most successful businessmen you can see that sometimes the most perilous pratfalls are avoided by chance. This would not be a singular explanation of German economic success, but avoiding unmarked hazards is crucial.

Besides, since one of the main benefits of this thread is to evaluate the reasons the Germans have had economic success I figured it would be great if the answers were instructive and not so depressing for us non-Germans.

[hngs]

The belief that the government, your neighbor and your employer are not out to screw you. In Greece, Greeks do not trust any of the aforementioned.

In the USA, we are witnessing a dramatic breakdown in social trust which is likely to have omnious consequences.

Social trust is the result of racial homogeneity. USA had a high social trust rate in the decades past... but then something changed 1965 onwards.

[Stavros]

Social trust is the result of racial homogeneity. USA had a high social trust rate in the decades past... but then something changed 1965 onwards.

I don't believe the concept of race has any real meaning; as an explanation of human behaviour it is worthless. Assuming for a moment that it did have meaning, and that all Rwandans are the same 'race' -how do you explain the complete lack of social trust 'racial homogeneity' ought to have created, when in 1994 one half of the population tried to kill the other half? And if you assume 'white people' in the USA are from the same race, how do you explain the Civil War? Even in the case of Germany as the posts in this thread have explained, the source of success is not specifically German: the capital that nurtured the German economy in the 1950s originated in the USA, but what percentage of that capital was created from the labour of Chinese-African-Irish Americans, or Any-American, if we must tag social groups in such a way? Capitalism doesn't recognise the concept of race, it knows no national boundaries, if you want to understand German success, thinking about what capitalism is and how it works would be a better start than this mystifying race thing.

[trish]

I think we may have the causation backwards here. Times of economic success and equity will tend to engender social trust. Times of economic collapse or economic inequity will tend to engender distrust.

[broncofan]

Social trust is the result of racial homogeneity. USA had a high social trust rate in the decades past... but then something changed 1965 onwards.
LMAO you choose seemingly at random the year after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. It's a shame that preventing establishments from systematically excluding black people had to have such harsh economic consequences. Perhaps if we just repeal this overreaching piece of legislation we can go back to those good ole days when we worked together as a homogenous unit. How can we trust one another when we're forced to dine together and use the same public restrooms? It's not that we object to this in principle, it's just the idea of the government forcing us to do it that I find odious;).

I think the present lack of jews in Germany also partly explains their success. Fewer immigrants, fewer jews, solid Aryan traits, no hispanics or blacks= a strong economy for all time. Who doesn't want to hop on board this economic juggernaut. As long as the Germans are at the helm, working together as a perfectly honed Teutonic unit, how can they fail? And if they do fail? Well, we'll blame the immigrants who are still in the country just as we selectively ignore their contributions.

And yes, I'm sure the sarcasm is unattractive, but the little light this thread has shed is not on economic matters but people's tendency to falsely attribute success and failure to immutable traits. It couldn't possibly be any top down decision, circumstance, or policy that accounts for a strong economy but rather lack of minority representation and good genetics. And the Japanese are good at electronics because they have tiny hands and us caucasians are too damn clumsy.

Okay, sarcastic rant aside. Can someone at least explain to me how we can reliably trace the economic success in Germany to their gene pool? And what evidence is there that people cease to trust those who come from a different gene pool? Also, is it just racial homogeneity that breeds success or only the racial homogeneity of certain ethnic groups? I've worked with Hispanics and African-Americans for the last five years and I don't have a problem trusting them. I understand the argument that even if race doesn't matter, people's perceptions of race might. But that would presume that the average person is a racist, and not just the average person on this site but in the workforce. My work experience has not been that people can't work together or live harmoniously unless they come from the same background. Has anyone experienced the apartheid utopia we keep hearing about? Is there some sort of synergy that occurs as a result of working with people who look like you?

[hngs]

I don't believe the concept of race has any real meaning; as an explanation of human behaviour it is worthless.

Well, thankfully scientifically measurable things aren't up to your highly valuable opinion. They're kind of... there.


Assuming for a moment that it did have meaning, and that all Rwandans are the same 'race' -how do you explain the complete lack of social trust 'racial homogeneity' ought to have created, when in 1994 one half of the population tried to kill the other half?

The Hutu and Tutsi do diverge genetically. They have some affinity, but are essentially different tribes. Their squabble was a tribal conflict, a type exceedingly usual in Africa and hundreds of years ago in Europe.


And if you assume 'white people' in the USA are from the same race, how do you explain the Civil War?

Well firstly, "White" isn't a proper racial classification. Southern Italians have very little in common with Swedes. Portuguese have very little in common with Bavarians. "White" is an entirely American invention and changes over time. In the beginning it included only people of British/German extraction. Then the Irish and Italians were added. Next it's going to include Mexicans, who are not European at all. The Civil War was about the North wanting a massive federal government while the Southern states wanted to stay more regional instead of being subjected to faceless pencil pushers in D.C. The Northerners later justified their war of aggression with ending slavery, which was entirely a non-issue back then.


Even in the case of Germany as the posts in this thread have explained, the source of success is not specifically German: the capital that nurtured the German economy in the 1950s originated in the USA

So wait, the Germans are supposed to thank Americans who firebombed 20,000 people in Dresden and decimated their economy just to terrorize the population so that a bunch of bloodthirsty communists could enslave half of Europe with the nodding approval of perfidious Albion? You're nuts. What brought Germany up to par again was Germans. Not American "capital," a ridiculous concept to begin with. America was an ass-backwards farmer nation at that point. Americans stole all the German patents and all of the top scientists too who then enabled America to go to the Moon. Subsequently as they retired in the 70's and 80's, NASA went belly up and does nothing useful today. I mean these laughable Mars operations are the same stuff that von Braun was doing.


Capitalism doesn't recognise the concept of race, it knows no national boundaries, if you want to understand German success, thinking about what capitalism is and how it works would be a better start than this mystifying race thing.

Capitalism doesn't work for the average person. It's terrible. It's more terrible that seemingly for most people Marxist Communism is the only other option, which is of course untrue.

Broncofan, All the studies I've read of African-American communities and their well-being say that according to every social metric we have, they were doing better during segregation. They were happier, had healthier families and there was much less crime in their community. Now, this fact may anger you and does a lot of people, but it doesn't change that it's a fact. People prefer their own kind.

People from different backgrounds aren't meant to be together. One can deny this all they want but it's not going to change. You can't change evolution by wishing.

[Stavros]

Well, thankfully scientifically measurable things aren't up to your highly valuable opinion. They're kind of... there.



The Hutu and Tutsi do diverge genetically. They have some affinity, but are essentially different tribes. Their squabble was a tribal conflict, a type exceedingly usual in Africa and hundreds of years ago in Europe.



Well firstly, "White" isn't a proper racial classification. Southern Italians have very little in common with Swedes. Portuguese have very little in common with Bavarians. "White" is an entirely American invention and changes over time. In the beginning it included only people of British/German extraction. Then the Irish and Italians were added. Next it's going to include Mexicans, who are not European at all. The Civil War was about the North wanting a massive federal government while the Southern states wanted to stay more regional instead of being subjected to faceless pencil pushers in D.C. The Northerners later justified their war of aggression with ending slavery, which was entirely a non-issue back then.



So wait, the Germans are supposed to thank Americans who firebombed 20,000 people in Dresden and decimated their economy just to terrorize the population so that a bunch of bloodthirsty communists could enslave half of Europe with the nodding approval of perfidious Albion? You're nuts. What brought Germany up to par again was Germans. Not American "capital," a ridiculous concept to begin with. America was an ass-backwards farmer nation at that point. Americans stole all the German patents and all of the top scientists too who then enabled America to go to the Moon. Subsequently as they retired in the 70's and 80's, NASA went belly up and does nothing useful today. I mean these laughable Mars operations are the same stuff that von Braun was doing.



Capitalism doesn't work for the average person. It's terrible. It's more terrible that seemingly for most people Marxist Communism is the only other option, which is of course untrue.

Broncofan, All the studies I've read of African-American communities and their well-being say that according to every social metric we have, they were doing better during segregation. They were happier, had healthier families and there was much less crime in their community. Now, this fact may anger you and does a lot of people, but it doesn't change that it's a fact. People prefer their own kind.

People from different backgrounds aren't meant to be together. One can deny this all they want but it's not going to change. You can't change evolution by wishing.

1) "Well, thankfully scientifically measurable things aren't up to your highly valuable opinion. They're kind of... there."
I assume these measurable things are, shall we say, Aryans on the one hand, Jews on the other? It is not a matter of my opinion, but a suggestion that you read more about the concept of race before assuming it is a scientific fact. Try Ivan Hannaford: Race, the History of a Concept in the West (1996).
As we are in Olympic fortnight, recall Jesse Owens demolishing the concept of race in Berlin in 1936 -it was supposed to be scientifically impossible for a Black man to perform better than an Aryan. Then of course, the 'scientists' decided their 'science' explains why Black men run faster than white men, why white men are better at swimming than Black men, and of course the Psychologist/Psychiatrists using their 'science' to prove Jews and White people are more intelligent than Black people.
I think Science has much better things to to with its time and money; and it has proven it so, just today with Curiosity landing on Mars.

2) "The Hutu and Tutsi do diverge genetically. They have some affinity, but are essentially different tribes. Their squabble was a tribal conflict, a type exceedingly usual in Africa and hundreds of years ago in Europe"
What rubbish is this? Genetic difference is globally less diverse than you might think: try Luigi Cavalli-Sforza Genes, Peoples and Languages (2001); and note that it was Imperial rule that invented the difference between Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda.

3) "The Civil War was about the North wanting a massive federal government while the Southern states wanted to stay more regional instead of being subjected to faceless pencil pushers in D.C. The Northerners later justified their war of aggression with ending slavery, which was entirely a non-issue back then".
This old chestnut again? If you accept that mid-19th century America was in transition, with a growing industrial economy in the north, a growing homestead/farming/mining economy in the west, the slave economy of the South becomes the obstacle to progress: not slaves as such. The late Gore Vidal argued that Lincoln was an Imperial President who put the preservation of the Union ahead of the Constitution -and argues the South would have given up slavery eventually anyway because it was economically unproductive compared to modern industry. But I will let the experts in American History argue over that one.

4) "So wait, the Germans are supposed to thank Americans who firebombed 20,000 people in Dresden and decimated their economy just to terrorize the population so that a bunch of bloodthirsty communists could enslave half of Europe with the nodding approval of perfidious Albion? You're nuts. What brought Germany up to par again was Germans. Not American "capital," a ridiculous concept to begin with. America was an ass-backwards farmer nation at that point".

The RAF firebombed German cities; and yes, it was 'ass-backwards' America that poured money into the same country it had helped to destroy -oddly enough in the same way that it helped to re-develop Japan. Perfidious Albion ruled a third of West Germany and to this day continues to station troops in the North, and the Federal structure of post-war Germany which has been credited with being one ingredient of its success was promoted by Britain, France and the USA, ah the villains of history! Most Germans preferred it to Ulbricht's options.

And if you really do think the USA was an 'ass-backwards farmer nation at that point', ie in 1945, you probably eat more nuts than I do.

[hngs]

It is not a matter of my opinion, but a suggestion that you read more about the concept of race before assuming it is a scientific fact. Try Ivan Hannaford: Race, the History of a Concept in the West (1996).

Race isn't a "concept," which implies that it's up to the subject. It's visible to everyone. Everyone can see a black man. Everyone can see a European man. I don't need to read a book telling me that my eyes lie. I trust my own eyes more than some Marxist agitator.


As we are in Olympic fortnight, recall Jesse Owens demolishing the concept of race in Berlin in 1936 -it was supposed to be scientifically impossible for a Black man to perform better than an Aryan.

I've never heard anybody claim this before or after 1936. I've read a lot about this particular subject. The reason I've never heard of it is because you just made it up as a red herring. It's easy to argue against yourself...


I think Science has much better things to to with its time and money; and it has proven it so, just today with Curiosity landing on Mars.

What's better about it? You do understand that it's the type of fiddling that von Braun was doing in the 60's and that the act of space exploration has not gone forward at all since that time? Nazis, for being so retrogressive, still managed to develop all of the structural technology required to go to the Moon. In 12 years. During wartime. Crazy.



What rubbish is this? Genetic difference is globally less diverse than you might think: try Luigi Cavalli-Sforza Genes, Peoples and Languages (2001); and note that it was Imperial rule that invented the difference between Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda.

Imperial rule doesn't invent genetic differences. For your information, the raw number of genetic differences is irrelevant. Different races have different concentrations of certain genes. There was a study released about this just recently. I'm trying to dig it up but I can't recall where I read it. And in any case, racial differences are so obvious as to make anybody who questions the existence of race a complete clown.


This old chestnut again? If you accept that mid-19th century America was in transition, with a growing industrial economy in the north, a growing homestead/farming/mining economy in the west, the slave economy of the South becomes the obstacle to progress: not slaves as such. The late Gore Vidal argued that Lincoln was an Imperial President who put the preservation of the Union ahead of the Constitution -and argues the South would have given up slavery eventually anyway because it was economically unproductive compared to modern industry. But I will let the experts in American History argue over that one.

The U.S. went from a free country of sovereign states in a confederacy to a consolidated, Washington-directed dictatorship. The centralized teamed up with magnates to set up "internal improvements" that further entrenched their power. So the country came to be run by financial elite combined with whichever politicians they were backing. Then certain others showed up, and soon they dominated the financial elite, and through that the party system. The original idea of America was long lost at that point.


The RAF firebombed German cities;

Americans.


and yes, it was 'ass-backwards' America that poured money into the same country it had helped to destroy -oddly enough in the same way that it helped to re-develop Japan.

Yeah, thanks America for bombing everything to rubble. Couldn't have made it without you! :cheers:


Perfidious Albion ruled a third of West Germany and to this day continues to station troops in the North, and the Federal structure of post-war Germany which has been credited with being one ingredient of its success was promoted by Britain, France and the USA, ah the villains of history! Most Germans preferred it to Ulbricht's options.

Yes, because Germans had free choice in the matter. Germany is an occupied government and the whole BRD is basically illegitimate because it's forced on Germans with threat of force.


And if you really do think the USA was an 'ass-backwards farmer nation at that point', ie in 1945, you probably eat more nuts than I do.

America is still the most backwards nation in the so-called "West," only rivalled by "Great" Britain. You'd know this if you ever went to Germany, Sweden or say, Northern Italy.

[trish]

Yes, yes, my grandparents tell me they were so so much happier when they had their own public bathrooms, their own broken down schools and their own area of town to keep to. It was nice back then when whites were forced to sit in the front of the bus. When mobs kept you from the voting booth it was such a relief not to have decide which of two indistinguishable white guys should get your vote. Grandma says you didn't have to worry about losing your man to no white girl because he'd risk getting himself lynched real good.

Yeah, good times. So how were those happiness measurements made again?

[ditadior]

i have no sweet clue but looking at my family tree the german in me is where i get my body shape, ass and figure.

and my low tolerance to alchol. or maybe thats the irish and scotish..

[Stavros]

Race isn't a "concept," which implies that it's up to the subject. It's visible to everyone. Everyone can see a black man. Everyone can see a European man. I don't need to read a book telling me that my eyes lie. I trust my own eyes more than some Marxist agitator.

I've never heard anybody claim this before or after 1936. I've read a lot about this particular subject. The reason I've never heard of it is because you just made it up as a red herring. It's easy to argue against yourself...

What's better about it? You do understand that it's the type of fiddling that von Braun was doing in the 60's and that the act of space exploration has not gone forward at all since that time? Nazis, for being so retrogressive, still managed to develop all of the structural technology required to go to the Moon. In 12 years. During wartime. Crazy.

Imperial rule doesn't invent genetic differences. For your information, the raw number of genetic differences is irrelevant. Different races have different concentrations of certain genes. There was a study released about this just recently. I'm trying to dig it up but I can't recall where I read it. And in any case, racial differences are so obvious as to make anybody who questions the existence of race a complete clown.

The U.S. went from a free country of sovereign states in a confederacy to a consolidated, Washington-directed dictatorship. The centralized teamed up with magnates to set up "internal improvements" that further entrenched their power. So the country came to be run by financial elite combined with whichever politicians they were backing. Then certain others showed up, and soon they dominated the financial elite, and through that the party system. The original idea of America was long lost at that point.

Americans.

Yeah, thanks America for bombing everything to rubble. Couldn't have made it without you! :cheers:
Yes, because Germans had free choice in the matter. Germany is an occupied government and the whole BRD is basically illegitimate because it's forced on Germans with threat of force.

America is still the most backwards nation in the so-called "West," only rivalled by "Great" Britain. You'd know this if you ever went to Germany, Sweden or say, Northern Italy.

1) "Race isn't a "concept," which implies that it's up to the subject. It's visible to everyone. Everyone can see a black man. Everyone can see a European man. I don't need to read a book telling me that my eyes lie."
-Race has been imported into the consciousness of people precisely because of the claims made by some people that is is an objective 'scientific fact' -so its not 'up to the subject', but something that celebrates or condemns its subjects. And if you saw me would you automatically assume I am of the 'European Race'? How? My mother was born on one continent, my father on another -what race am I? I don't care, because it is irrelevant.

2) Re Jesse Owens: "I've never heard anybody claim this before or after 1936. I've read a lot about this particular subject."
Remind then what it is that Jesse Owens is remembered for, in addition to the gold medals he so richly deserved.

3) re: Space exploration: "You do understand that it's the type of fiddling that von Braun was doing in the 60's and that the act of space exploration has not gone forward at all since that time".
Hello? Mars calling earth...man, how did you do that? And what kept you?

4) "racial differences are so obvious as to make anybody who questions the existence of race a complete clown".
See point 1; plus the obvious quote: So, I amuse you? I make you laugh?

5) World War II -obviously I meant that the RAF also bombed German cities, notably Dresden. You can read about it here:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_dresden.htm

6) "America is still the most backwards nation in the so-called "West," only rivalled by "Great" Britain. You'd know this if you ever went to Germany, Sweden or say, Northern Italy"
I have been to Germany, and Italy (North, South, East and West) but sadly not Sweden. Clearly, its the going forwards that is the problem.

[hngs]

To start with, you really need to learn to use the quote function. You've been posting here since 2008 with almost three thousand posts.



-Race has been imported into the consciousness of people precisely because of the claims made by some people that is is an objective 'scientific fact' -so its not 'up to the subject', but something that celebrates or condemns its subjects.

No it doesn't. It just is. If saying someone is black condemns or celebrates them in your eyes, that's on you. Saying something is an ant doesn't celebrate it. You're being ridiculous. Do you even think about what you write?


And if you saw me would you automatically assume I am of the 'European Race'? How?

Is your ancestry completely European? Then you're of European descent.


My mother was born on one continent, my father on another -what race am I? I don't care, because it is irrelevant.

You can't be serious. Race isn't about continents. If a White guy is born in China, is he Chinese? Absolutely ludicrous. You're getting to the smirking level of crazy here.


Remind then what it is that Jesse Owens is remembered for, in addition to the gold medals he so richly deserved.

Jesse Owens is generally remembered for the bolsterous lie told in his name that Adolf Hitler refused to shake his hand, a lie which Mr. Owens himself repudiated many times. In fact, the retrogressive evil Nazis allowed Mr. Owens to stay in the first ever Olympic village among other Olympian athletes. Back in the good old U.S.A. however, he had to sit in the back of the bus. :D The myth of American tolerance is a real howler. Get this - the jew-gassing Nazis had a more integrated society than the heroes of America who "saved" the Germans from... uh, themselves I guess? Thanks again, yankee. :lol:


Hello? Mars calling earth...man, how did you do that? And what kept you?


Rocketry, the basic device to leave this planet, is hardly at all evolved from the first space flight. What we have now is better cameras. I mean, we can now take black and white photos of Mars for the meager cost of $2,5 billion.


See point 1; plus the obvious quote: So, I amuse you? I make you laugh?

Very much. I thought the type of reality-denying, delusional liberal nut you represent was a media myth.


5) World War II -obviously I meant that the RAF also bombed German cities, notably Dresden. You can read about it here:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/bombing_of_dresden.htm

Thanks mom. We weren't talking about the RAF though. You keep jumping across topics, which is frustrating.

[Stavros]

If saying someone is black condemns or celebrates them in your eyes, that's on you. Saying something is an ant doesn't celebrate it. You're being ridiculous. Do you even think about what you write?

Is your ancestry completely European? Then you're of European descent.

Jesse Owens is generally remembered for the bolsterous lie told in his name that Adolf Hitler refused to shake his hand, a lie which Mr. Owens himself repudiated many times.


Your fundamental point is that 'Race' is obvious, my points are
a) it isn't obvious, and I am a good example why because my parents were from different parts of the world; it is pointless trying to define me as a European because one part is, the other part is not; the need to classify is part of the problem. What matters -to me- is how I relate to other people and they to me, and that should not be based on mine or their appearance, the texture of hair, the shape of the eyes, and all the other 'signs' that mark people out as in your definition, one race or another, but who to me are, well, human beings.

B) Race as you very well know has been used as a scientific concept to classify human beings, and it didn't take long for other so-called 'scientists' to use the same data to 'prove' that some 'races' are superior/inferior to others; I don't agree with it I merely draw attention to the uses to which this nonsensical idea has been put.

I am mystified by your peculiar account of the Berlin Olympics; if you are not aware of the damage that Jesse Owens did to the concept of the 'Master Race' either you don't read much, or just disagree with what you do read.

Anyway, you are entitled to your opinions and to express them freely here, it's not my fault if your attempt to use reason and history to prove that something called 'Race' exists falls flat every time.

[Jericho]

and my low tolerance to alchol. or maybe thats the irish and scotish..

I seriously doubt that! :lol:

[hippifried]

Is your ancestry completely European? Then you're of European descent.
Well... That depends on how far back you go & who you're talking to. It gets even more convoluted when legal meanings are tossed in the mix. This is where everything becomes conceptual. We've been through this conversation before. How many generations does it take for someone of Turkish ancestry (maybe even the European part of Turkey) to be considered German, or even European?



You can't be serious. Race isn't about continents. If a White guy is born in China, is he Chinese? Absolutely ludicrous. You're getting to the smirking level of crazy here.
Apples & oranges. Race isn't about continents, but it's not about ethnicity,pigmentation, or linguistics either. People are blended all over the Afro-Eurasian land mass. Racial attributes developed from regional climatic conditions over a long period of time more than anything else. But people move around. More now than they used to I imagine.

[hngs]

Apples & oranges. Race isn't about continents, but it's not about ethnicity,pigmentation, or linguistics either. People are blended all over the Afro-Eurasian land mass. Racial attributes developed from regional climatic conditions over a long period of time more than anything else. But people move around. More now than they used to I imagine.

Why don't eskimoes have fair pigmentation, blonde hair or blue eyes? I mean, I could see them not having all of these... but at least a somewhat lighter complexion? No? What's up with that? Hint: it's because these kind of racial characteristics have nothing to do with climate.

[hippifried]

Why don't eskimoes have fair pigmentation, blonde hair or blue eyes? I mean, I could see them not having all of these... but at least a somewhat lighter complexion? No? What's up with that? Hint: it's because these kind of racial characteristics have nothing to do with climate.
Some things I've read say that caucasians are more closely related to neandertal. No tellin' what color they were. But then again; caucasians are all over the globe & come in every shade. The Ainu of Hokaido, the Aboriginees of Australia, & most people of the sub-continent & central Asia are caucasian. Meanwhile, all the various people of the polar region, from Lapps to Inuits, have similar physical attributes & are considered mongoloid. Same as American Indians, Chinese, Pacific Islanders, etc... Perhaps the recessive gene that causes a lack of melanin comes from thousands of years of self-imposed isolation.

[natina]

National Geographic's massive Genographic Project

Think of the Whitest person you know: someone with blond hair, blue eyes and almost translucent skin, not a drop of Black ancestry in them. Now think of the darkest person you know: someone richly endowed with traditional African features, not even a drop of White ancestry in their past. Well, guess what? Scientists now trace the origins of both of these people-and of all human beings who have ever walked the face of the earth-to Black Africa, to the region around what is now Ethiopia. As Spencer Wells, the director of National Geographic's massive Genographic Project, puts it: "Our species evolved in Africa, and a subset of Africans left that continent around 50,000 years ago to populate the rest of the world. Our earliest ancestors probably looked very much like modern Africans."
This would have been news to "Bull" Connor and Orval Faubus and countless other racists from our past. It is also news to most of our White

"I was able to trace the family trees of several prominent African Americans deep into slavery, following the paper trail. And then when the paper trail ended, we tested their DNA in an attempt to discover the origins of their mother's line or their father's line on the African continent."
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University Director,

everyone regardless if you are white ,Spanish ,Mexican or Asian

can traced there origins back to two Ethiopians ,a man and a women.

these two Ethiopians are everyones ancestors


http://www.africandna.com/tests.aspx
http://www.africandna.com/tests.aspx

http://www.africandna.com/


http://www.africandna.com/history.aspx
http://www.africandna.com/history.aspx


Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual.

POST # 2
----------------------------------

Spencer Wells (born April 6, 1969 in Georgia, United States) is a geneticist and anthropologist, an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, and Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor at Cornell University. He leads The Genographic Project

He wrote the book The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (2002),[2] which explains how genetic data has been used to trace human migrations over the past 50,000 years, when modern humans first migrated outside of Africa. According to Wells, one group took a southern route and populated southern India and southeast Asia, then Australia. The other group, accounting for 90% of the world's non-African population (some 5 billion people as of late 2006), took a northern route, eventually peopling most of Eurasia (largely displacing the aboriginals in southern India, Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia in the process), North Africa and the Americas. Wells also wrote and presented the PBS/National Geographic documentary of the same name. By analyzing DNA from people in all regions of the world, Wells has concluded that all humans alive today are descended from a single man who lived in Africa around 60,000 - 90,000 years ago, a man also known as Y-chromosomal Adam.

Since 2005, Wells has headed The Genographic Project, undertaken by the National Geographic Society, IBM, and the Waitt Family Foundation,[4] which aims to creating a picture of how our ancestors populated the planet by analyzing DNA samples from around the world.[5] He presents the knowledge gained from the project around the world, including at the 2007 TED conference, where he spoke specifically about human diversity.[6]





Spencer Wells - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_Wells)




Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (Part 1 of 13) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV6A8oGtPc4)


POST# 3

-----------------------------

The Eyes of Nye- Race (Part 1 of 3)


In this episode of Bill Nye's "The Eyes of Nye", Bill talks about how the notion of race in our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, is completely wrong and outdated. He and his colleagues in the scientific community show us how we are all of the same race, and that the notion of different races/sub-species in humans today is 100% scientifically incorrect.

The Eyes of Nye - Race (Part 1 of 3) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EyeNi6qsfs&feature=relmfu)

POST #4
-----------------------

“Black People Don’t Have Blue Eyes…Do They

http://mixedamericanlife.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/lars_erik_hauklien-black_girl_blue_eyes.jpg



http://mixedamericanlife.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/an-excerpt-from-my-book-%E2%80%9Cblack-people-dont-have-blue-eyes-do-they%E2%80%9D/

POST #5
-----------------------------
White skin appeared just 20,000 to 50,000 years ago, as dark-skinned humans migrated to colder climes and lost much of their melanin pigment.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/feb/20-things-skin


see there is no biological basis for the idea of a white or black or asian


Race is an old concept that should probably be discarded. It was

created by people who had a very limited knowledge of their world. If you

look at any genetic map (mitochondrial or Y chromosome DNA), you can

see there is no biological basis for the idea of a white or black or asian

race.

Here's a map

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/



Why don't eskimoes have fair pigmentation, blonde hair or blue eyes? I mean, I could see them not having all of these... but at least a somewhat lighter complexion? No? What's up with that? Hint: it's because these kind of racial characteristics have nothing to do with climate.

[hngs]

Seeing as the last post is nonsense, I wanted to get back to the fact that African Americans were better off before desegregation:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams137.html


In 1940, black illegitimacy was 19 percent; today it's 72 percent.

[hippifried]

Oh boy. Here we go again with more "facts" coming from pundit blogs.
This probably won't be all that interesting, but it should be good for a laugh.

[Stavros]

Seeing as the last post is nonsense, I wanted to get back to the fact that African Americans were better off before desegregation:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams137.html

The article is not about segregation, so I don't know how you can make the link, except as a form of wish-fulfillment. You might want to understand the American family from a broader perspective, because regardless of whether it is 'white', 'Black', 'Latino' etc, the pressures on families have been the same, and relate historically to Patriarchy and Employment.

Most of the newest immigrant groups to the US from the rural areas of the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East are intensely patriarchal families who have retained close ties to the village, as was also the case with many Scandinavian immigrants in the 19thc, some of whom were temporary migrants (working mostly in mining or agriculture for 6 months at a time) before deciding to settle permanently.

However, world wars reducing the male population, and the emancipation of women have fundamentally transformed the family -patriarchy has declined, women's employment has increased. The campaign to create 'nuclear families' in the 1950s failed because more and more women went to college and fought the kitchen-sink romance they felt was imposed on them. Add the increasing infertility of European and Asian men, and throw in the decline of mass unskilled jobs in industry, and you have either a crisis or a transition in family structure. The family is just not as solid as it once might have been, it is more flexible, diffuse, and raises challenges that the nuclear family doesn't have to face. Employment, accommodation, education and so on.

Black Americans may be more vulnerable to these trends because of discrimination in the jobs market, because in a capitalist economy jobs are the key to all sorts of security in health, education, food and work. Illegitimacy is just one indicator that sociologists use, rates are highr among 'White' families in Vermont, for example, but among 'Black Americans' in Hawaii, very low.

The challenge is to create jobs, and that I think is more important than some waffle about segregation, but I assume Louis Farrakhan would agree with you. Why not ask him?

Try Frank F. Furstenburg, 'The Recent Transformation of the American Family', in: Marcia Carlson and Paula England [eds] Social Class and Changing Families in Unequal America (Stanford University Press, 2011)

[ImmerGeil]

don't understand why now all of you speak about race and genetics:confused:

The genetic differences are smaller than the cultural differences.

Here is an example for a small genetic difference between black and white sprintershttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7884135/Centre-of-gravity-theory-for-dominance-of-black-sprinters-and-white-swimmers.html

Here is another explains the difference between east african athletes and west african athleteshttp://www.blackathlete.net/artman2/publish/Track_amp_Field_36/Why_Black_Athletes_Dominate_Sports_and_Why_We_re_A _188.shtml



But you can not establish that black plays better rhythm music because of their genetics.I could name hundred more examples like this so it doesn't make sense to talk that much about genetics.




By the way the term race related to humans is antiquated and is very often a use for degradition to certain population groups.

[muh_muh]

Here is another explains the difference between east african athletes and west african athleteshttp://www.blackathlete.net/artman2/publish/Track_amp_Field_36/Why_Black_Athletes_Dominate_Sports_and_Why_We_re_A _188.shtml

which ironically would be considered to be the same race
the idea of race as a concept in a species as geographically connected as humans is just stupid and will become increasingly so as humans from around the world mix their genes more and more

[hippifried]

By the way the term race related to humans is antiquated and is very often a use for degradition to certain population groups.

Maybe we should start calling the racial variants breeds. Why not? Yorkies & Great Danes are all dogs.

[trish]

Dogs are deliberately bred to amplify and attenuate specific attributes. The different breeds are a perfect example deliberate and artificial selection. The exact opposite is the case with human populations. Trades routes, wars, immigrations, the human sex drive and just plain curiosity have been stirring the mix for millennia. Modern economics, modes of transportation and communication have accelerated the process.

There is of course considerable variation in a number of human traits, but no particular variable trait or group of them is considered by anthropologists nor by biologists to divide humans into viable taxonomical races.

[muh_muh]

Trades routes, wars, immigrations, the human sex drive and just plain curiosity have been stirring the mix for millennia.

and lets not forget that human inter species diversity is in no way easy to categorize
for every definion of 2 races theres a million of gradual in betweens as you move your finger across the map from eg africa to europe

[hippifried]

Act of God, act of man, random, planned... What's the difference? It's the same result. Just like bluebloods lose their official heritage when they hook up with "commoners", the AKC considers "Lady & the Tramp" a tragedy. In this respect, dogs & humans are the same. Unless there's artificial restraints, they don't give a shit who they're fucking. Hence, an Afro-Eurasian land mass full of mutts. Since all those human curs have moved to the new world, there's no place left for purity of breed. Well... Except for the enclaves of the klan/nazis & the accident of being born into royalty. I wonder if any of them know who their ancesters really were. Personally, I'm a pure bred hybrid.

[buttslinger]

I don't know, but it wasn't Joseph Stalin.

[hngs]

the idea of race as a concept in a species as geographically connected as humans is just stupid and will become increasingly so as humans from around the world mix their genes more and more

So the concept of race will only fade once its been mixed out of existence? Impeccable logic. :Bowdown:

[trish]

Polymorphism is not by itself sufficient reason to create a taxonomic partition of a species. Persistent cross migration and cross breeding between polymorphic forms mitigate any such partitioning. Reproductive isolation is a definite requirement as well as the absence of intermediate forms. So yes, the logic is indeed impeccable. Life is dynamic. Forms merge and forms divide with time. Within human history it is questionable whether there ever was sufficient polymorphism, reproductive isolation and absence of intermediate forms to justify a taxonomic division into races. Sorry to disappoint you.

[broncofan]

hngs,
The conversation about whether there is genetic diversity between races sufficient to segment them into distinct categories is a red herring. The reason I say this is because your claim that the disappearance of racial homogeneity is responsible for the weakening of the American economy is a smokescreen for an otherwise transparent white supremacist argument.

There are many poor societies that are racially homogenous. What you are arguing is that Germany is racially homogenous and that their genes are superior. Racial differences relating to skin color, resistance to disease, to uv rays by no means indicate that one race is ascendant over the rest in terms of mental or physical ability. Since you seem to be claiming as much you should at least be honest and admit it.

The rest of your arguments only further expose your bias against non-European individuals. I tend to trust African-Americans when they tell me that segregation was dehumanizing and evil. This is not just because the Supreme Court acknowledged this in its landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education, where it said that the purpose of segregation was not mere separation of the races but the subordination and marginalization of Black people. No, this is because there are real life witnesses that can describe for you the injustice of segregation if you care to listen.

And no, German society under the Nazis could not be described as integrated when some people were being rounded up into camps and liquidated. German society today can make that claim much more convincingly, but you don't attribute their success to that trend because you have an agenda. The rest is all a subtle ruse on your part to contradict what many esteemed humanists have oft-said, that all men are created equal.

[hngs]

hngs,
The reason I say this is because your claim that the disappearance of racial homogeneity is responsible for the weakening of the American economy is a smokescreen for an otherwise transparent white supremacist argument.

No it isn't. I believe in freedom. People should have the free choice of associating with whomever they want or don't want to, without petty tyrants like yourself forcing them to mix at gunpoint, which is what happened after BvB. You really need to consider where you are posting. This is a board for tranny chasers and you're calling me a white supremacist. This is the smirking level of crazy I was talking about earlier.


What you are arguing is that Germany is racially homogenous and that their genes are superior.

Did I say this? Where? I believe I just pointed out that German society is the result of Germans. The fact that you consider Germany superior is simply your view. I didn't say it.


The rest of your arguments only further expose your bias against non-European individuals. I tend to trust African-Americans when they tell me that segregation was dehumanizing and evil.

I tend to trust the social indices that say that African Americans had a healthier society before they were forced to mix with whites. I'm also convinced that Africa was better for Africans before whites went there. This allows the indigenous people to create societies of which they are capable without having some tyrant issue their system of governance upon them.


And no, German society under the Nazis could not be described as integrated

Talk about a red herring. That's not what I said. What I said was that in the 1936 Olympics, Jesse Owens was allowed to stay in the Olympic village with the other athletes, whereas in the United States he was not allowed to drink out of the same fountain as a white. This is absolute fact. So by your illogic, Nazi Germany was a more tolerant society. Understand? No, you don't, which is the problem. I'm simply rephrasing what you believe and all of a sudden it becomes a massive insult.

[trish]

To claim that German society is the result of Germans is to ignore the fact that every European society has been heavily influenced by a Middle Eastern desert prophet claiming to be the son of the god of creation. It ignores the fact that there would be no German society without the Marshall Plan and that the German economy depends upon work permits and the immigrant labor who have little hope of ever being citizens.

[Stavros]

Curious that Adolf Hitler in his time, and the Germans before during and after two world wars right up to the present day -and for good reason- idolised, manipulated, and ultimately have just enjoyed the music of a German described by one biographer thus:

"His somewhat flat broad nose and rather wide mouth, his small piercing eyes and swarthy [dark] complexion, pockmarked into the bargain, gave him a strong resemblance to a mulatto.”

When he moved to Vienna and develop one of the most illustrious careers in music, this Heroic German lived for a while in a place known as the Schwarzspanierhaus, the house of Black Spaniards. The belief is that the family had originated in Belgium and that during the age when Spain ruled the Low Countries, Africans who had migrated to Spain arrived in Belgium through the armed forces, or as traders, who knows?

And if that isn't enough, consider the Ethiopian called Ibrahim Petrovich Gannibal, the grandfather of the man considered to be simply the best Russian poet of all time, and would you adam and eve it, one of the grand-daughters of this most Illustrious [er, and Black] Poet of All the Russias, married a grandson of Queen Victoria called George Battenberg...but let's not go there!

As the poet said:

Not for the wordy agitation,
Not for the gold or bloody ways,
We have been born for inspiration,
For charming sounds and for prayers.

Alle menscher werden Bruder indeed!

[muh_muh]

and the immigrant labor who have little hope of ever being citizens.

where the hell does that come from? that is patently false
basically anybody who has been living and working in germany legally for 8 years has the right to become a german citizen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law#Naturalisation_as_a_German_ citizen

[trish]

Good to know, much_muh. I obviously labored under the opposite impression. Has this been the law for some time? In any case, it makes my point even stronger: Given their numbers, immigrants have a strong influence on German culture and society, especially if they are allowed to integrate into that society.

[muh_muh]

dunno but i dont remember that there ever were any strong restricions on becomming a german citizen as long as you fullfilled some basic requirements
the reason most immigrants dont is usual national pride and that there really is hardly any benefit to it other than being able to vote
as far as i know immigrants are elligible to pretty much every social security german citizens are including unemployment benefits free schooling etc

[broncofan]

I also don't think it's right for the impression to be created that those who attribute economic success to race or genetics are pro-German and those who think the Germans have probably made sound fiscal decisions are not. I think it is truly ironic that decades after Germany abandoned the militarism of the 30's and 40's, developed an open and free society and began to thrive that some would argue that the ideology underpinning those dark years is responsible. That's some policy lag if I might say so.

And we see many forms of this argument. Some say it's racial homogeneity and not something about the Germans. Before attacking the theoretical deficiencies of this argument, this creates the impression that Germany is an apartheid society, which it is not.

But theoretically, such an argument implies that mixing races is like mixing oil and water and that there's some sort of biological incompatibility among races; people who in fact are fundamentally so similar that our species is a genetic bottleneck compared to others. You don't see a Jew or a Mexican or a Black guy in a workplace who are somehow unable to communicate or work together or be civil. This is a total myth.

And the ideas being promoted above are similar to the reasoning in Plessy v. Ferguson where the Justices to their shame argued that separate but equal doctrine was only seen as racist because of the construction put on it by minorities. This nonsense was later repudiated in Brown v. Board of Education. The separate but equal doctrine was never intended to be coherent and never intended to live up to its name. First, there were dozens of ethnic groups who could not be classified as either black or white and so under a literal interpretation could not use any of the duplicate institutions. Second, the effort required to duplicate institutions for every race is not just insane but would be extremely inefficient. Third, there was not literal equality as the institutions provided for African-Americans were substandard by design as African-Americans were intentionally kept from enjoying the privileges of full citizenship that was promised to them by the 14th amendment.

Supporting this defunct, bogus doctrine is self-discrediting and claiming that being on a tranny forum forecloses any argument that you could make a racist argument is equally foolish. The problems that exist in the African-American community are not a product of too much freedom or because our society is too inclusive. They certainly would not be fixed by segmenting our society into racial spheres where people don't live or work together and ride separate cars on the train. And I haven't seen any evidence that such a system exists in Germany or is responsible for their economic success. Nor is there any evidence that allowing African-Americans to dine at restaurants with white folks has created all sorts of social ills. But please do tell me about the dangers of not being able to put up signs such as "no blacks allowed."

[broncofan]

"This is a board for tranny chasers and you're calling me a white supremacist. This is the smirking level of crazy I was talking about earlier."

I don't see how this argument follows. Being a minority does not mean one cannot be a racist, being a woman does not mean one cannot be a sexist, and looking at tranny pornography certainly does not mean one cannot express white supremacist views. If you need proof of that, look at the posts of Hard4Janira or fastingforlife.

Anyhow, I did not say you were a white supremacist, I said that the racial homogeneity argument is a white supremacist argument. There's a reason many white supremacists call themselves white separatists. They pretend that their dream is to live all by their lonesome in this great land and not be disturbed by the darker races. But how do they achieve that objective? Why do they seek that objective? What we are talking about here is a conceptual difference without an actual difference. There's not only no reason to make this your goal, there is no way to accomplish it without force, without breaking up thousands of interracial marriages, and without dehumanizing people of different backgrounds who don't see the evil of integration.

I didn't say you're a white supremacist, but to me, the goal of racial homogeneity has its roots in the white supremacist movement of the early 20th century.

[hngs]

Too tired to write a longer reply so all I'll say is that I prefer to live amongst people who are like me. I think most other people do too, be they black, yellow or green. Do I hate blacks? Hell no. I like black tgirls. But they are their own kind and I like the diversity of races. I like the fact that I can look at asian or black porn. There are those people, such as yourself, who are so tyrannical that they want to mix me with people I don't want to associate with at gunpoint. I will always resist this kind of tyranny. I will always acknowledge that larger groups exist, while being an individualist. I see both sides, instead of having your tunnelvision. But indirectly calling me a white supremacist is a real howler, being that most white supremacist would beat me to death.

[broncofan]

Too tired to write a longer reply so all I'll say is that I prefer to live amongst people who are like me. I think most other people do too, be they black, yellow or green. Do I hate blacks? Hell no. I like black tgirls. But they are their own kind and I like the diversity of races. I like the fact that I can look at asian or black porn. There are those people, such as yourself, who are so tyrannical that they want to mix me with people I don't want to associate with at gunpoint. I will always resist this kind of tyranny. I will always acknowledge that larger groups exist, while being an individualist. I see both sides, instead of having your tunnelvision. But indirectly calling me a white supremacist is a real howler, being that most white supremacist would beat me to death.
It does not matter whether you would be accepted by white supremacists. I am not sure why you don't understand that anyone can advocate such an argument, regardless of whether other people with such views would find them in other ways acceptable.

I don't see it as tyrannical to make institutional racism unlawful. It seems a different type of tyranny to mandate separatism and insist that there's not enmity involved. I am not surprised that you enjoy Asian and Black porn, as what is better than being able to view erotic images of other races without actually having to deal with them personally.

You act as though you've been misunderstood. I think I understand you well. You want to live in a society where people are separated based on superficial differences. That's not the United States. It's not Germany either. It was the United States during an era that's been universally condemned as racist by our courts and by an overwhelming majority of the public.

Actually, the larger point is that Germany does not have this social structure, and therefore it is impossible to attribute its economic success to this dystopian fantasy. Let's not get any more personal. I am not saying you are a racist. I am saying you expressed a racist viewpoint. I don't think that's hairsplitting.

And another point is this; if you feel that you have not said anything worth being uncomfortable about and are certain I have mischaracterized your views then rest assured the other people on this site are very intelligent. They will surely not believe you have advocated institutional racism just because I said so.

[ImmerGeil]

Have to dig this thread to doubt the proper question that was asked.Just because other european nations like Greek,Spain...standing in bigger trouble and Germany having less problems does not mean that it is a succesfull country.

Can't imagine that other countries are so much less efficient related to their work ethics.

There are real big problems in Germany.


4th lowest birth rate of the world.Thus excess of age.


Bad education:Too much Pupils aren't even able to do an easy job and it's getting worse from year to year.


Bad Immigration:Most immigrants aren't graduates.Only 38% of the immigrants here have a job!!!


Brain Drain:Every year Over 150000 people leaving the country.And these aren't people who are living from welfare.Most of them are well educated.

[Prospero]

All kinds of Bad things in Germany. Bad Kreuznach, Bad Orb, Bad Ems, Bad Godesberg, Bad Konigsburg, Baden Baden.... I could go on.

So maybe the germans are so successful because they take a lot of baths?

[JamesHunt]

Have to dig this thread to doubt the proper question that was asked.Just because other european nations like Greek,Spain...standing in bigger trouble and Germany having less problems does not mean that it is a succesfull country.

Can't imagine that other countries are so much less efficient related to their work ethics.

There are real big problems in Germany.


4th lowest birth rate of the world.Thus excess of age.


Bad education:Too much Pupils aren't even able to do an easy job and it's getting worse from year to year.


Bad Immigration:Most immigrants aren't graduates.Only 38% of the immigrants here have a job!!!


Brain Drain:Every year Over 150000 people leaving the country.And these aren't people who are living from welfare.Most of them are well educated.

Maybe I should of named the thread "Why Have The Germans Got All The Money" then.

I keep hearing on the news that German citizens are getting pissed off with their tax euros bailing out Europe, so why have the Germans got all the money?

[JamesHunt]

Putting it another way, why isn't Greece bailing Germany out?