A tale of two Germanies

[zoidberg]

I found this to be quite surprising:

"July's unemployment figures again showed the gap between western Germany and the struggling ex-communist east. While the jobless rate was 8.3 percent in the west, it was more than twice as high in the east, at 18.5 percent."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22818-2003Aug6?language=printer

[Frederic Bastiat]

1. German education system in the shitter too

http://www.iht.com/articles/85972.html

Germany has emerged as an academic underachiever in a succession of studies released over the last 14 months by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, showed that German 15-year-olds came in 21st among those in the 32 leading industrial nations, well behind Britain, Japan, South Korea and much of Continental Europe. Worse, German students scored "significantly below the OECD average" in all three of the disciplines studied: reading literacy, mathematics and science.

American teenagers rank higher than the Germans in all three subjects despite studies that found one in 10 young Americans cannot find his country on a blank map of the world.

"Nobody knew" about Germany's slippage, explained Andreas Schleicher, who carried out the study. "There is no central examination system, there is no way of knowing what the system actually delivers and so no one really worried."



http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=105244&owner=(The%20Associated%20Press)&date=20030805132818

FRANKFURT: It sounds like every child's dream: only four and a half hours of school a day, no attendance taken, a free day if a teacher is sick, no punishment for playing hooky.

But this is no dream, as Germans have suddenly awakened to discover; it is the sorry state of their schools.

Germany's education system, like its economy, was once considered the pride of Europe. Worries about the stagnating economy have recently preoccupied Germans, and now they are realizing that their schools are also in trouble.

Things are so bad that it is not only parents who are complaining. High school students grumble that it is hard to take school seriously.

[Brian Sweat]

2. This is no surprise.

Prior to reunification, East Germany was basically a third world country. It will take more than 12 years for them to catch up.

[acerbic]

4. Too big an exaggeration...

Prior to reunification, East Germany was basically a third world country.

It had probably the highest standard of living in the Eastern block: of course nothing close to Western Europe but certainly not "third world".

[gandalf]

3. Why a "tale" ? And why surprising?

It is sad reality since 14 years now, and there are no signs of a turnaround, even though literally billions of Euro are pumped into the eastern part of Germany every year.
Kohl, chancellor at the time of reunification, driveled something about “flourishing landscapes” that were to expect, people believed him, and he was re-elected. In reality, it was clear that the eastern part would stay a kind of mezzogiorno for a long time.
Even now the productivity is lower than in West Germany. Big business build factories there only if they can get huge subsidies by the government.

After the assassination of Rohwedder (allegedly by the RAF), Birgit Breuel became chief of the “Treuhand” institution the task of which was, if possible, to privatize and sell former state-owned companies. When Breuel had the job, many jobs were cut in these companies, they were quickly sold, sometimes much too cheap, while the transactions were structured by large American investment firms (that is conspiracy theory, naturally. A propos conspiracy: Breuel is the daughter of Alwin Münchmeyer, partner of the German bank bank “Schröder, Münchmeyer, Hengst & Co”, which had connections to American investment banks, and to Prescott Bush, father of George Bush, via Brown Brothers Harriman).
Perhaps it was not the most important task in the eyes of Breuel to make decisions that would help the whole east Germany economy in the long run…

[Yupster]

5. Germany just today

announced its second quarter GDP results. The German economy is now officially back in recession having negative economic growth for two quarters in a row.

They had just gotten out of recession last year.