GERMAN FAILURE AGAIN

Socialism is very German (Marx and Engels were German, not to mention a certain National Socialist -- and Bismarck made Germany the world's first welfare State in the late 19th century) -- unfortunately for Germans

Koerber is one of 145,000 Germans who fled the fatherland last year amid record postwar unemployment, pushing emigration to its highest level since 1954, Federal Statistics Office figures show. Last year was also the first since the late 1960s that emigrants outnumbered Germans returning home from living abroad, the statistics office said. Even more troubling to German officials and business leaders, many were skilled workers like Koerber. The loss of such people, they say, may threaten Germany's economic competitiveness in the future.

"Many highly qualified young people are leaving our country to seek their fortunes elsewhere, while only very few top people have been attracted to Germany in recent years,'' said Ludwig Georg Braun, president of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, which represents more than 3 million companies. ``This development is causing us growing concern."

Unemployment reached 5.2 million, the highest level since World War II, in February 2005. Joblessness has declined since Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats took office last November. Still, the unemployment rate stood at 8.2 percent in June, according to internationally comparable figures published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. By the OECD's reckoning, the jobless rates in neighboring Austria and Switzerland were 4.9 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively.

"People say things aren't getting better in Germany, and nothing's going to change any time soon,'' said historian Simone Eick, director of the German Emigration Center in the northern port city of Bremerhaven. Indeed, ``some indicators suggest that this may be the start of mass emigration."

For Koerber, the decision to leave was largely one of taxes. In Germany, where the highest tax bracket starts at 52,152 euros ($66,600), he would have to pay 42 percent of every euro above that level. In addition, the German value-added tax -- a kind of national sales levy -- is 16 percent, which is scheduled to rise three percentage points next year. ``I only get 25 percent deducted from my salary and that includes everything,'' said Koerber of his pay packet in Canada. ``And I'm in the highest tax bracket!'' The goods and services tax in Alberta is 6 percent, cut from 7 percent in July, he said.

Other German expatriates cite what they say is the over- regimentation of the labor force. ``Life in Germany is totally over-regulated,'' said Christian Kaestner, 38, an attorney who moved from Munich to Cape Town, South Africa, in 1997. ``There are hardly any freedoms left, and you keep bumping into regulations and prohibitions.''

Today's emigrants are likely to choose Canada, New Zealand and Australia, or, within Europe, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands. An estimated 2,300 German doctors are working in Switzerland, more than 8 percent of the Swiss total, said the Bern-based FMH Swiss Medical Association. Taking into account gross pay, taxes, insurance and the cost of living, doctors make more money in Switzerland, said Matthias Dettmer, 31, an assistant pathologist in Zurich from the southern German city of Tuebingen. He makes more than double his former colleagues in Germany, who earn what he calls a ``cleaner's pay.''

More here.

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ELSEWHERE



The Communist roots of Islamic terrorism: "Modern terrorism was born within a year, 1967-1968. International socialists (communists) started the fashion all over the world simultaneously, which should make us suspicious about the common roots. National socialists followed suit, turning Marxists of Muslim origin into Islamists of Marxist origin. In May 18th, 1967, Yuri Andropov took over the leadership of the KGB. The Russian security services evolved into a state within the Soviet state, as it became clear when Andropov became the communist party's general secretary after Leonid Brezhnev's death, in 1982. During Andropov's era, which was far longer than that of any other KGB chief, the Soviet secret services supported international terrorism through satellite states and Marxist "liberation fronts". "On becoming chairman of the KGB in 1967, Andropov immediately announced his intention to revive KGB 'special actions' as an essential tool of Soviet policy during the Cold War."

A JUDGE to raise wages?? "The federal receiver in charge of fixing California's prison health care system asked a judge Tuesday to bypass the bureaucracy in Sacramento and grant $24 million in raises to medical workers in order to attract more of them to the state's penal institutions. Saying he was skeptical of the state's excuses for inaction on salary adjustments, receiver Robert Sillen asked U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson to raise pay by up to 64 percent.... Sillen's "motion for a waiver of state law" was his first exercise of muscle since Henderson last winter hired him to bring the prison medical system into compliance with constitutional standards for humane care. A judicial order at the time specified that if the state put up legal or other roadblocks, Sillen should ask Henderson to set them aside. Sillen on Tuesday told Henderson that staffing vacancies -- 44 percent among X-ray technicians, for example, and 42 percent among pharmacists -- are crippling his efforts."

Why Michiganders are moving out: "Liberals dissatisfied with the Bush economy have, through the wonders of federalism, an alternative. They can move to Michigan. The state represents a rough approximation of ideal liberal economic policy. It is heavily unionized, taxed, and regulated in a failed attempt to close its eyes to the dynamic forces of the market and globalization all around it. This stew has helped make Michigan the economic sick man of the Midwest. It is suffering from a one-state recession all its own, mostly because it has failed to foster the most profound economic force in the universe - opportunity. The state has been losing out to more business-friendly environs both overseas and in other states for decades, but has refused to adapt accordingly."

The State: An Anecdote: "Reported in "Harper's Index" (Harper's, October 2006, page 13): Minimum amount of USDA farm subsidies since 2000 that have been paid out to people who do not farm: $1,300,000,000. That's $1.3 billion. One program. And this by an institution -- the state -- that many conservatives trust to build nations abroad and many left-liberals trust to make better decisions for each of us individually than each of us individually will make for ourselves."

Some new cities outsource city hall: ""Newly formed cities are giving the keys to city hall to private companies that say they can run a government better than bureaucrats. Mayors in 'contract cities' say they get better services for less money; more flexibility, because private employees can be hired and fired more easily than workers under civil service rules; and lower debt, because they can own fewer buildings and less equipment."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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