Diegetics

maybe its the new green german flag

after merkel's defeat by die gruenen..

The irony is that perfidious Albion and les mangeurs de fromage qui se rendent (CESMs) have been in an unnatural and grudging alliance for over 150 years - largely thanks to Germans. Well, Russians for two periods.

After paying all the huge penalties to Britain , France & Israel - it is a wonder that Germany has done so well. It is indeed a miracle . And they have come to terms that they need to bribe rest of europe in monetary terms (aka support for Euro) to get respect.

But since war was the main reason for their past ruins , it is understandable why Germans shudder war.

Britain & France - major colonial powers profitted immensely from wars (French profitted even when surrendering - another miracle) and they seem to be too trigger happy.

The losers are the american tax payers. American obsession to dance to european tune/ european protection is costing us money. When europe remains a welfare state , Americans dont think twice about spending trillions on military and warfare , but tighten their belts to save billions on welfare.

Alexis,

Your numbers are off the mark significantly.

Versailes treaty demanded Germany to pay the equivalent of 780 billion dollars in gold , of which germans paid sitxth to eighth before Hitlers ascendence. You are counting only WW2 damages.

http://www.uchastings.edu/faculty-admin ... ations.pdf

German reparations for atrocitities against jews exceeds 60 billion.

My point is not against reparations itslef - but about how Germany bounced back from these blows in rather short time. It just shows the ecomonic jaggernaut the germans are capable of constructing without any handouts.

Contrast this with the asian & african colonies - which were looted by French & British. They left the raped countries with no compensation of any kind. During the wars , both british & French relied on the colonies resources (the Bengal famines that killed more than 3 million in india/bangladesh is directly related to British redirecting the resourcesto support war , and sepoys were a key component in British army). But none of the reparations ended in colonies.

When Britain & France attack another oil rich country under various pretexts, the aggression should be viewed with colonial past.

If I remember correctly , Euro was a project envisioned by Kohl & Mitterand - and its goals were good. Atleast it keeps Dollar honest , by providing an alternate fiat. Issue was with lack of finacial discipline among some of the euro nations.

Regadring NATO - it was formed to protect Europe , but the military industrial complex warned by Eisenhover has made sure that it survives. Nato has overlived its useful life and western europe does not have Russian threat anymore. It is simply a blackhole for US taxpayers.

Yes, Germany is an economic powerhouse and rules the Euro roost - but it hardly matters longer term, because they really are dying out, while the French and British are not. Eurostat map of 2009 birthrates. That's crude birthrate (births/1000) not total fertility, and reflects the age structure as well as the number of children per woman. Thus Turkish TFR is now down to 2.1, but the young population structure means the total will continue to grow for a generation ; conversely Germany has had low birth rates for over 30 years. It would not matter if Germany was good at integrating immigrants, but it is not.

Replacement is around 13; France 12.8, UK 12.7, Germany 8.1 (went down further to 7.9 in 2010). Note the "Fertile Crescent" [/irony] from France to Scandinavia.



Annoyingly, the legend wouldn't copy so:
dark green 12-17.6
light green 10.8 - 11.3
bright yellow 10.0 - 10.8
pale yellow 8.1 -10.0

East European birth rates have recovered somewhat since the 90s, except for Hungary. The euro demographic hole coincides with the old Holy Roman Empire (and Portugal, endo ). What is it with Germans, why won't they have babies? (not even their Turks).

We used to have a fair number of german posters back at ATOL, all gone now: Alan, arnulf, carroll quigley, and of course Tarnhari. Anybody kept in touch with any of them?

Isn't Germany just more advanced than most other countries? Is this perhaps the future for everyone (even ultimately including the Islamic world and Africa)?



Kids are expensive. I could certainly never afford them and I could never understand how people even less well off than myself could justify having them. Germany is even more expensive than Canada.

If you're already broke, and the world is falling apart, where is the motivation?

"Spengler" tells us there is a religious reason to do so, but you could easily argue this case in complete reverse, that is, that bringing kids into such a world is perverse, and that they may never forgive you for it.

When I was younger, we were told by the Club of Rome and other concerned citizens that the world was headed toward catastrophe. Bringing children into a doomed world probably seems immoral to many people.



[note, that personally, I don't think the world is really doomed, but I'm not absolutely sure about homo sapiens]

So when does the ethnically native German population start shrinking?