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Posts by Bratwurst Boy  

Joined: 2 Apr 2007 / Male ♂ 		Last Post: 4 hrs ago
Threads: Total: 9 / Live: 5 / Archived: 4
Posts: Total: 12604 / Live: 4859 / Archived: 7745 		From: Berlin, Germany
Speaks Polish?: No
Interests: his helmet

Displayed posts: 4864 / page 127 of 163
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Bratwurst Boy   
12 Dec 2010
Law / Zloty lifts Poland's Economy [58]

Ireland got screwed big time

By whom Milky? Why do you leave that little detail out???

Background and causes

The Irish economy expanded rapidly during the Celtic Tiger years (1995-2007) due to being one of the most economically free countries in the world, having an unusually low corporate tax rate, and low ECB interest rates, among other factors. This led to an expansion of credit and included a property bubble which petered out in 2007.Irish banks, already over-exposed to the Irish property market, came under severe pressure in September 2008 due to the global financial crisis of 2007-2010.

/wiki/2008%E2%80%932010_Irish_financial_crisis#Background_and_causes

NOT Europes or the Euro's fault....but we are bailing you out now!
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / Sikorski doctrine - Eastern Europe under threat. Poland's foreign policy. [203]

Got lost? More like - was cut off by a certain neighbour of theirs :)

Nah...Poland still have theirs. ;)
It's more a spiritual thingie...

Yip! Civilization ended when cavalry disappeared from battlefields, that's what
I always say.

*nods heartily*
Torqi my friend...we live in the wrong age...without horses and helmets...:(
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / Sikorski doctrine - Eastern Europe under threat. Poland's foreign policy. [203]

France has atomic weapons and is not conducting isolationist policies.

HEY! It was YOU dreaming of an isolationist Poland!!!

Nukes won't help you in either way...they are useless. France needs them only as an Ersatz-dick as their real dick got lost somewhere in the fourties.

But we are still real men with helmets! Right?

*like - you better stop stealing our centre forwards or it's bye, bye Hamburg... for a start ;)*

Oh you are sooo mean! *pouts*
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / Sikorski doctrine - Eastern Europe under threat. Poland's foreign policy. [203]

OK - so, we'll get them just in case. Good that we agreed on that! :)

It isn't the defense potiential that might get people (Russians in that case) nervous.
Who is to say Poles won't use them as a tool if they see it fit?

:)

OK - so we don't build a wall. Good that we agreed on that!

The isolationist will have to in the end, to keep the people in the country...it's not your decision.
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / Sikorski doctrine - Eastern Europe under threat. Poland's foreign policy. [203]

You joker you! :)

You need an industrial economy and trade for becoming wealthy...you don't get that from peasants exchanging grain and livestock.
You need research and inventions for development so you need to keep up with foreign bright heads. You need contacts and agreements with your neighbours for your safety..etc.etc.etc.

An isolationist Poland would impoverish very quickly and people would try to leave for better shores.
But to keep things working you need their labor, you need a wall to stop them from leaving!
Your nukes would be so useless...
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / Sikorski doctrine - Eastern Europe under threat. Poland's foreign policy. [203]

Worst case scenario:

No, you wouldn't! You would need a wall to alone for keeping people from running away...

I doubt they would even sulk as it does absolutely not matter if you have any or not! They won't be used in any case. Even in the case of a conventional war.
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / Sikorski doctrine - Eastern Europe under threat. Poland's foreign policy. [203]

More Wikileaks cables about Poland and the East (Baltics)

guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-cables-nato-russia-baltics

The plan entails grouping the Baltic states with Poland in a new regional defence scheme that has been worked on in recent months and is codenamed Eagle Guardian.

"Ambassador Daalder acknowledged in these meetings that Germany had initiated the proposal," says another secret cable .The east Europeans were delighted. Paul Teesalu, a senior Estonian diplomat, described the policy shift as "an early Christmas present" when told last December in Tallinn, according to a cable.

/wiki/Eagle_Guardian
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

My point is nobody likes to give money away, least of all people who hold them.

Of course not! But knowing that every cent given away makes sure the Euros keep flowing they will pay!

but demands Poland keeps letting itself be f*cked.

How and why?
The problems with the Friedmans of this world is that they prefer to write misty and generalizing things. I prefer clear words.

65 milion german citizens to some 30 milion Poles, we're both losing pop at a same rate the problem Germany has its much farther beyond the return treshhold and then there's the Turks

Then make babies! ;)
The Turks are actually leaving more than they come and they get increasingly less babies the longer they live here...I don't see it so dramatically!

Which is somehow bad?

In the way that we have all the disadvantages of a transfer union and none of the advantages of a real union like...say...the United States of America.

Even as they also all together b*itch about the dumbos and arseholes in Washington as we do with Brussels, no citizen there talks of kicking out California or complains about supporting Idaho for example, as they feel as one country under one flag...a real union.

Europe is still far from a United States of Europe!
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

You're also the primary welfare giver, EU costs you more than you make on it for some time now.

Look at Germany Sok...does it look as if we are on the brink of destruction??? Around us periphery states are breaking up, with us paying for them and still our economy flourishs, our consumer spending us up and our unemployment numbers are down like 18 years back!

Think!!!!

Economic and political sovereignty.

What is it! First he berates Poles for giving up economic and political sovereignity as being members of a german led EU but once the EU goes south they won't survive because they lose their economic and political soverignity???

My head hurts only from trying to follow Friedman!

(I need my helmet!)

Poland has 38 million population, compared to German 82 million.

Well..then the future looks bright! As Sok said there will be only 38 million Germans soon anyhow...:)

Either full on single entity, or a huge freetrade/movement zone (which would make more sense...).

Right now we are stuck in the middle..
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

Where Friedman is wrong:

From the point of view of Germans - and the least interesting views are expressed by the increasingly weak elite

Crap! The EU is darn good for german interests! We are an export nation which flourishes on open borders, free movement, one currency!
Most of our export is with the EU...it's been GREAT for Germany!

But the period in which EU subsidies will flow into Poland is coming to an end, and problems with Poland's retirement system are looming.

Only if they mess it up...doesn't look like it now.

I completely agreed that the Germans do not covet Polish sovereignty. I also said that intentions don't matter.

But what else does?

Yes, I know that neither Germany nor Russia intends Poland harm. But an elephant doesn't necessarily plan to harm a mouse. Intentions aside, the mouse gets harmed.

What crap! What is he implying here? Poland the mouse is doomed whatever the neighbours do?
Just because they exist??? What does he mean with "harmed".

If Germany bets wrong on the European Union, it will survive. Will Poland?

More crap!
He likes to swallow in misty descriptions...what does he mean with "surviving".

Finally, the Poles must maintain their relationship with the global hegemon.

And out comes the american nationalists! We are leaving the time of the US as the global
hegemon...he seems to deny/ignore that development too!

But in the end, the United States has fought three times in the 20th century to prevent a German-Russian entente and the domination of Europe by one power

Absolutely crap on all counts!!!
This man is ridicoulous.

WWI was fought on behalf of GB and is seen as a big stupidity now by most. Also Germany
and Russia had been enemies then, no entente.

WWII was fought against the Nazis after they declared war on them. Russia had been
allies...no Russian-German entente then either!

He should read up about the most recent NATO summit in Lisbon where Russia is no longer the enemy but a partner and big cooperations are subscribed.

Also the US can very well live with a dominant power in Europe as long as this power is another democratic country. Or as Kissinger once asked so famously for a phone number to call in all things Europe.

They have no problem with a number in Berlin at all!

The Germans and Russians are not monsters at the moment, nor do they want to be. But as Chopin makes clear.

Well...then what about your USA, dear Mr. Friedman. If you believe countries are beings which can't help themselves and are victims of a certain fate you surely would agree that the US can become a monster too, regardless of it's intentions...

Crap!
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

his analysis of EU, german and polish situations is spot on.

That what I mean...there is personal bias and wishful thinking and then there is objective evaluation.

That you declared Germany dead for as long as I have known you is no secret either. Of course you will like those parts of Friedmans "analysis" which fit you where you will deny others.

That's also only wishful thinking and personal bias. Don't mix them up!

Which bits according to you is he wrong about?

Okay...gimme some time...I'm giving you the quotes
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

The Chopin quote wasn't by me...the mods put it in there.
I don't have a problem with Chopin...but with Friedman! ;)

He's 100% spot on about EU and Germany though.

Well Sok, you can't have it both ways....he is wrong on the EU and Germany too!
He is consistently wrong...not only on certain topics! ;)

He is the Ambrose Pritchard of the geopolitics. Whenever I read economy "wizard" Pritchard I know I only have to take the exact opposite of his opinion, analyses and predictions and I will

be mostly right! :)
(I do that for years now)
Friedman is to take similiar! ;)
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

I think he genuinely wants Central Europe to do well, especially Poland.

Maybe...but then he should stop talking about Polands impending, inescapable doom.

He believes with American military aid Poland can achieve great things

Maybe...but then he better stop talking about Polands failure in believing in far away countries alliances and help. He himself agreed that Poland can't be helped from far away...

promotes the idea of "expect the unexpected".

Actually he doesn't! He talks more about the "same old". As if WWII would be upon us again, totally ignoring the groundbreaking changes which happened.

He is definitely a person that thinks outside the box.

Maybe....but if he only would stop selling his fantasies and personal opinions as "analysis"!

(We have better analysts here on PF)
Bratwurst Boy   
8 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

If there is anything to take away from all this, it's that no developed countries will ever enter conventional warfare again

Well..that's exactly what Friedman denies.

He is quite sure the next Molotov-Ribbentrop pact is only a matter of time because we can't help it...being neighbours on the great northern plain, it's our fate!

Gah!

What crap!!! :(
Bratwurst Boy   
7 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

Do you guys think it's true that the Northern European plain will never truly be a place of perpetual peace (as he claims)?

Sometimes I think he talks wishful thinking, seriously.
I doubt he wishes for us to live in perpetual peace. He is decidedly anti-european, he wishes for
Europe to split...

I don't trust him.
Bratwurst Boy   
7 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

But what strikes me the most in Friedman thinking is kind of archaizm in it.

!

As I'm writing this it becomes clear to me that oversimplification in Friedman analysis lies in thinking about Poland, Germany and Russia as a separate blocks. The current reality is different though.

Absolutely....
I don't know in what world Friedman lives in but it's not mine nor yours!

But what struck me positively was that he hadn't found much support for his generic, archaic thinking by the contemporary Poles he spoke with. He was dumbstruck by that!

Maybe him commenting from far away America might have something to do with it...
Bratwurst Boy   
6 Dec 2010
News / "To understand Poland you must understand Frederic Chopin" (Stratfor Friedman) [74]

I'm no fan of Friedman and he wallows in clichès and stereotypes with the occasional
wrong fact thrown it but that is for the Poles to decide.

Read for yourself:

To understand Poland, you must understand Frederic Chopin. First listen to his Polonaise and then to his Revolutionary Etude. They are about hope, despair and rage. In the Polonaise, you hear the most extraordinary distillation of a nation's existence. In the Revolutionary Etude, written in the wake of an uprising in Warsaw in 1830 crushed by Russian troops, there is both rage and resignation. In his private journal, Chopin challenged God for allowing this national catastrophe to happen, damning the Russians and condemning the French for not coming to Warsaw's aid. Afterward, Chopin never returned to Poland, but Poland never left his mind.

stratfor.com/analysis/20101202_geopolitical_journey_part_7_poland
Bratwurst Boy   
24 Nov 2010
History / Roman Dmowski-Patriot, Nationalist, Anti-Semite? [252]

True Jews numbered a lot less in Germany than in Poland, yet they were half of all doctors, lawyers, business owners, Germans felt the same as Poles did in the pre war days.

Nope, they weren't...the pre-war Jews made not even 1 percent of the german population (and not everyone of them belonged to the elite) so they can't be "half of the doctors, lawyers, business owners etc".

That's another myth...similiar to the myth that they were the reason for Germany's fate.

Since the far majority of the Jews lived in the bigger towns, but the majority of the Germans of that time still lived in the rural parts chances were that most Germans never met a Jew personally.
Bratwurst Boy   
24 Nov 2010
History / Roman Dmowski-Patriot, Nationalist, Anti-Semite? [252]

Not at all.
I'll use your favorite Wiki to prove you wrong:

A definition of anti-semitism? Okaaay...thank you, I didn't know about it!

Heh:)

Just look at at the propaganda and you will see the arguments against Jews are all the same,
even today, even here in this thread!

"Some nifty, manipulative people only out for their own gain to the disadvantage of the non-Jews..."

Sounds familiar?

"Sucked dry"

Nazi propaganda

Tell me again where the difference is to Dmowskis propaganda?
Bratwurst Boy   
24 Nov 2010
History / Roman Dmowski-Patriot, Nationalist, Anti-Semite? [252]

On the contrary to Jozef Pilsudski Dmowski thought that Jewish long run objectives are absolutely not in line with national Polish agenda so Jews were his #1 enemies.
Not in the Nazi sense of subhumans but as a very dangerous factor of Polish political arena.

Absolutely the same, there are no differences!
You are searching for drawstrings here Borrka...

Just look at Nazi anti-Jew propaganda...it's because of their anti-german plans (objectives) that they were declared enemies of the german people by the Nazis.

google.com/images?hl=en&q=Nazi%20jew%20propaganda

"Bolschevists, communists, warmonger, nifty exploiter of the hard working masses, political manipulators"...exactly the same stuff!
Bratwurst Boy   
15 Nov 2010
History / POLES NOT KEEN ON REPRODUCING? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GERMANS AND RUSSIANS? [67]

Germany assimilated Slavic lands and people so naturally all Germans are part of Slavic.

That works both ways! :)
Alot of Poles have at least partly german heritage. As I said before, this part of Europe is heavily mixed for millennia.

And there are about the same number of Germans living outside of Germany as inside...a steady immigration over the centuries made sure of that. (Alone 25 Million in the US)

I just recently watched pics about villages of german immigrants in southern Brazil...they kept to a traditional lifestyle as even the modern Germany-Germans don't do anymore. It was nice to see little blond girls and boys speaking and writing german in their german schools and running around with lederhosen under palm trees! ;)

So I'm not concerned about Germans "dying out".

With Poles it is similiar...they too wander around alot...

Germans in Brazil:

Germans Poles
Bratwurst Boy   
14 Nov 2010
History / Are Poles happy with the current Polish borders? [134]

Lwów and Grodno were turned into dumps by our eastern neighbours, you're calling for Poland to give away regions it rebuilt for the past 65 years in exchange for dilapidated dumps that our former eastern provinces became in the past half century? Thats just silly.

Not if your heart is innit....
You would do so gladly! :)

Borders are a thing of the past anyhow (at least between us)