Who will win the German Elections?
Germans are of a frame of mind we last saw in Britain and USA in the late seventies, just before Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher became leaders of their respective nations. It is hard to properly remember what Britain was like before the Thatcherite revolution, moribund, old fashioned, leaderless and heavy with bureacracy in both state and capitalist industry and burdened with high taxes and ridden with the class system.
At that time no one could imagine the unimaginable, no one could do anything but wince at the thought of Mrs T devasting the old inefficient heavy industries and throwing millions of people on the dole. Nor could they cope with her decision to create a propertied class by selling council houses at a discount to the tenants. But she did all of that. I know because I was there in the forefront of many campaigns against these Tory policies.
Despite this, by the end of the century, I owned my council house and I had gone to university and gained two degrees.
Now it is almost certain that were it not for Mrs Thatcher, I would be someone who spent his entire life working down a coal mine that produced coal at twice the world price of coal. I would never have travelled the world and I would never have been able to understand the notion of Europe - even though Mrs T hated that - and I would never have been able to see the light and move to South Germany. Because Mrs T was right - the more control you give people over their lives, the better they work and the more they prosper. The more you cut taxes the more money individuals have to spend the more the economy remains bouyant.
Here people are as much concerned about tax cuts as they are about tax increases! But they hardly appear concerned about work practices that are terribly damaging to the economy.
Let me give you an example. Last weekend some colleagues decided to go into the City at the weekend and have a meal and some drinks. The first restaurant was full, so was the next, finally they found a local haunt - The Enchilada Bar and sat in the outside section. After a lengthy wait, the staff finally came and moved them because it was too let a) to sit outside and b) to have a meal. They managed to order a drink, but it took so long to come that they simply drank it and then went home.
Instead of spending fifty or even a hundred Euros they spent the price of two drinks - about ten euros. Now multiply this all over even just the South of the country and you will understand why so many natives fly off for a package holiday in Florida or Cuba, taking all that hard earned currency with them and eliminating its potential for economic growth here.
Can't spend - won't spend.
Germans are of a frame of mind we last saw in Britain and USA in the late seventies, just before Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher became leaders of their respective nations. It is hard to properly remember what Britain was like before the Thatcherite revolution, moribund, old fashioned, leaderless and heavy with bureacracy in both state and capitalist industry and burdened with high taxes and ridden with the class system.
At that time no one could imagine the unimaginable, no one could do anything but wince at the thought of Mrs T devasting the old inefficient heavy industries and throwing millions of people on the dole. Nor could they cope with her decision to create a propertied class by selling council houses at a discount to the tenants. But she did all of that. I know because I was there in the forefront of many campaigns against these Tory policies.
Despite this, by the end of the century, I owned my council house and I had gone to university and gained two degrees.
Now it is almost certain that were it not for Mrs Thatcher, I would be someone who spent his entire life working down a coal mine that produced coal at twice the world price of coal. I would never have travelled the world and I would never have been able to understand the notion of Europe - even though Mrs T hated that - and I would never have been able to see the light and move to South Germany. Because Mrs T was right - the more control you give people over their lives, the better they work and the more they prosper. The more you cut taxes the more money individuals have to spend the more the economy remains bouyant.
Here people are as much concerned about tax cuts as they are about tax increases! But they hardly appear concerned about work practices that are terribly damaging to the economy.
Let me give you an example. Last weekend some colleagues decided to go into the City at the weekend and have a meal and some drinks. The first restaurant was full, so was the next, finally they found a local haunt - The Enchilada Bar and sat in the outside section. After a lengthy wait, the staff finally came and moved them because it was too let a) to sit outside and b) to have a meal. They managed to order a drink, but it took so long to come that they simply drank it and then went home.
Instead of spending fifty or even a hundred Euros they spent the price of two drinks - about ten euros. Now multiply this all over even just the South of the country and you will understand why so many natives fly off for a package holiday in Florida or Cuba, taking all that hard earned currency with them and eliminating its potential for economic growth here.
Can't spend - won't spend.
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