Things Noticeable this week

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by george anson

Eric Blair aka George Orwell in one of his wonderful essays along with many futurists and scientists have argued for a technocracy. Experts appointed to fields on the basis not of political dogma but what is best for everyone in terms of improving technology, infrastructure and peoples lives as a result on the basis of the latest trends and information gleaned from science.

My immediate thought upon finishing reading that paragraph was it would never work because politics IS how a society determines what is best for everyone. The argument appears to be based on the assumption that everyone will always automatically agree on what is best but if that were true we wouldn't BE arguing about it.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by Brecht

Look, I'm really not that naive to believe that our US friends live in a democracy.

We don't. The United States of America is a republic.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by DTravel

We don't. The United States of America is a republic.

How do Americans mean that? ... meaning: a republic but not a democracy?

[bloke57]

Originally Posted by palo5

Putin, on the other hand, has an approval rating over 80%

...or else!

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by palo5

How do Americans mean that? ... meaning: a republic but not a democracy?

Well, I remember an old college professor of mine saying "a republic is not necessarily a democracy", so he's right in that regard. The oldest, still existing republic in the world is San Marino but I doubt it was a democracy in the preceding centuries.

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by palo5

How do Americans mean that? ... meaning: a republic but not a democracy?

A matter of definition my friend.


The republican form is defined as one in which the powers of sovereignty are vested in the people and are exercised by the people, either directly, or through representatives chosen by the people, to whom those powers are specially delegated.

A common definition of “democracy” is, “Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives” — we are that, too. The United States is not a direct democracy, in the sense of a country in which laws (and other government decisions) are made predominantly by majority vote.


The main similarity between a republic and a democracy is the election of officials to lead the government through majority vote. Both forms of government tend to use a representational system where citizens vote to elect politicians to represent their interests and form the government.

[Puhbear69]

Originally Posted by SanteeFats

A matter of definition my friend.


[....].

We are having a different experience here:

The former DDR (= GDR in English, = German Democratic Republic).
It wasn't a democracy and neither a republic but a totalitarian state with a socialistic united party and a so called "democracy", a state of the "Workers and Farmers". The workers and farmers doesn't count in this state, but they called it a democracy ... just a fraudulent labelling.

From the US I'm having a different view too, what's called over there a "democracy" (if I'm thinking of the enormous funding of money for the parties !).

[Brecht]

Originally Posted by Puhbear69

We are having a different experience here:

The former DDR (= GDR in English, = German Democratic Republic).
It wasn't a democracy and neither a republic but a totalitarian state with a socialistic united party and a so called "democracy", a state of the "Workers and Farmers". The workers and farmers doesn't count in this state, but they called it a democracy ... just a fraudulent labelling.

From the US I'm having a different view too, what's called over there a "democracy" (if I'm thinking of the enormous funding of money for the parties !).

The GDR hat its deficiencies but it was the only true antifascist German state. The way it was dissolved, looted and sold out by the Treuhand made it quite obvious that the reunification was actually annexation. Another legacy of the recently deceased Helmut Kohl.

[Puhbear69]

Originally Posted by Brecht

The GDR hat its deficiencies but it was the only true antifascist German state. The way it was dissolved, looted and sold out by the Treuhand made it quite obvious that the reunification was actually annexation. Another legacy of the recently deceased Helmut Kohl.

The word " deficiencies " is a very, very, very friendly description of what has happen over there. It remembers me at the memories of the ultra right wingers, that Hitler lastly has build our highways.

Antifascist State - agreed but not fully. (secret services: the West and the East were rather d'accord in it's personal). It's a superstition that there were no former Nazis in that government in about the first 20 years.

With your second sentence we are d'accord.
But you have to consider: the GDR was nearly bankrupt (the whole Infrastructure was desolate). The West had paid trillions and trillions to the East.
The South Korean should rather reflect about, if an eventually reunion in a couple of years would be good for them.

On one hand we (the West) better had left them alone, on the other hand than we had to build "The Wall even higher"..
You can weight yourself, what's better.

[Nobody1]

A few remarks on economic development in both German states. Let's start in the post-war period. The initial conditions for both states could not be more different.


The DDR was the only German state that paid war reparations to the destroyed Soviet Union. The reparations consisted amongst other things of the few undestroyed industrial facilities in eastern Germany, which were dismantled and rebuilt in the Soviet Union. After the war, the DDR had to create almost everything out of thin air, while the West German economy was able to grow fat under the safe umbrella of the Marshall Plan and the London Agreement. Both enabled the so-called Wirtschaftswunder of the post war peroid in the western part of Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London...External_Debts

We must pay particular attention to the fact that East Germany was, and still is, a predominantly agricultural shaped region with very little industry. It was the dominion of the so-called Landjunker.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostelbien

The DDR was thus at a historical disadvantage from the outset since the industrial and financial centers were located almost exclusively in the western part of our country. Supported by a partner who stinks of money and whose homeland was not destroyed by the war. Nevertheless, the economic growth of both German states was comparable during the post war years. Which is a quite considerable achievement, if you ask me.

Let us now come to the time of reunification. Almost all companies of the East German industrial sector were wantonly destroyed after the reunification in order to secure market shares for Western competitors. Responsible for this was the so-called Treuhandanstalt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treuhandanstalt

East German companies and corporations were sometimes sold off to western interest groups for just one Mark. Some were restructuring cases, some were not. But in almost every case there were subsidy fraud. State subsidies which were intended for the restoration of East German companies were redirected, and flowed straight into sugar-coated balance sheets of the Western enterprises that had bought them. To the general joy of their shareholders. A good example of such cheap trickery is the Warnow shipyard in Warnemünde, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warnowwerft_Warnemünde

This is just one example among many. The East German companies were gutted and abandoned. They went bankrupt and their workers and employees became unemployed. Some of them sought a new existence in the West, but most were too old for a change of location. This led to the next problem. The over-aging population. Merkel tries to counteract this self-inflicted demographic problem by the politically desired settlement of war refugees. And this leads to another problem. The political revival of right-wing extremism in Germany.

The partly rotten industry in East Germany can not be denied. There were also numerous environmental issues. All that is true. But I saw these conditions in the West as well. Keyword 'ThyssenKrupp'. And we never poisoned our cities with lead water, or buried nuclear waste unprotected in ground water flooded salt mines. I live now for almost 30 years in the Ruhr area and know what I'm talking about.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atommülllager_Gorleben

The 'totally rotten industry' of East Germany, however, is just a cheap (but very popular) Propaganda fairytale. You can easily recognize this by the simple fact that much of the Western goods were produced in the East, for example, the predominant part of all catalog goods. The labor costs were more favorable, which, of course, represented a competitive advantage. A detailed balance sheet on that subject is accessible in the final report of the German Bundesbank on the German unification of 1999. I'm too lazy at the moment to look for it, sorry. You can google yourself if you want to find it.

The Schwermaschinenbau-Kombinat 'Ernst Thälmann' in Magdeburg, whose modernization was completed just before the German reunification, was then one of the most modern machine building companies in Europe. SKET is still alive and kicking. One of the few lucky bunnies that have escaped the economic carnage after the reunification.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwer...hälmann“

Btw, the company where I completed my professional training was very well equipped. We had everything we needed to produce our goods (heavy machinery) for international markets according to applicable norms and quality standards.