1. Last year, I met a German fellow while travelling in northern part of Thailand. We had drinks while staying at the same hotel. He invited his parents (from Germany) to visit Thailand. He was in his late 20s, and left Germany for Hong Kong, working for a Chinese sporting good company as a marketing director. He was unhappy about Germany's (a) "socialist system," (b) "high taxation and regulation," (c) "the Turkish and Kurdish immigration that would not assimiliate into German society." According to him, the downtown areas of many major German cities look like Turkey (a 3rd world country). Turkey of course committed the first genocide in the 20th Century - murdering almost 50% of Armenians in 1915! In fact, Adolf Hitler told German officers who were ambivalent about the Holocaust - "Who now remembers the Armenians." Oh, I got off the tangent.
Anyhow, this German fellow was extremely pessimistic about Germany's future and did not want to return back. His other worry was that Germans are aging and there are fewer young people to support the old ones. He was just fascinated by the economic growth of China.
2. Last week, I met a German cell phone network engineer in San Francisco, who is on assignment in Texas. He was also pretty pessimistic about Germany's future. He did not like Schroeder's government and did not see any concrete results in Markel's program. His other worry was that Germans are aging and there are fewer young people to support the old ones.
He realized that "sacrifices must be made" but was unsure whether Germany is ready or willing to do it.
a) that pretty much identifies who says that, if "socialist" is a dirty word to him b) ditto c) sounds bordeline racist to me, especially as the last point is patently untrue. Having shesh kebab stores in the streets does not make German cities look like Turkey... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Falafel is a tell tale sign of imminent social decline.
You know like O'Reily and the Falafel that drove him to say dirty, dirty things. As we all know if only Mr. O'Reilly had not had contact with this hussie food from the Middle East he wouldn't have been driven to falaphilia. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
Is telling. All hail slave labor & unlimited pollution... *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
