Northern Europe Vs Southern Europe

[Simple Minded]

Gosh Endo, you might even one day empathise with us if things go on like this.

Let me tell you a story:

Some years ago I was working for a financial institution and I had an interview, near Lisbon, with the Swedish manager of a Swedish firm in Portugal. The meeting was scheduled for 12 noon. I was at his office at the appointed time and the Swede arrived 30 minutes late. It was Spring and he looked quite cheerful, a big smile on his face, and no apology whatsoever for being late! I realized he had been completely subverted by our ways, forgetting that while we enjoy life we can also be on time... He thought that enjoying life and being on time were incompatible... That's when I realized we could beat them...

maybe he just went out for a nooner with a southern belle...

or as the Borg say "you will be assimilated..... resistance is futile....

[Simple Minded]

Hey! The North hardly whines... more a Southern thingie

Right-e-o. The South wines, the North beers . . .

Oddly enough, in the US, the north wines while the south beers........

almost common ground...

[Endovelico]

Gosh Endo, you might even one day empathise with us if things go on like this.

Let me tell you a story:

Some years ago I was working for a financial institution and I had an interview, near Lisbon, with the Swedish manager of a Swedish firm in Portugal. The meeting was scheduled for 12 noon. I was at his office at the appointed time and the Swede arrived 30 minutes late. It was Spring and he looked quite cheerful, a big smile on his face, and no apology whatsoever for being late! I realized he had been completely subverted by our ways, forgetting that while we enjoy life we can also be on time... He thought that enjoying life and being on time were incompatible... That's when I realized we could beat them...

Now I wonder what happens when a Southerner has an appointment in Sweden...probably much too early so he will be home before his warm and sunny siesta?

A warm and sunny "siesta" ("sesta" in Portuguese) in Sweden?...

[Parodite]

Gosh Endo, you might even one day empathise with us if things go on like this.

Let me tell you a story:

Some years ago I was working for a financial institution and I had an interview, near Lisbon, with the Swedish manager of a Swedish firm in Portugal. The meeting was scheduled for 12 noon. I was at his office at the appointed time and the Swede arrived 30 minutes late. It was Spring and he looked quite cheerful, a big smile on his face, and no apology whatsoever for being late! I realized he had been completely subverted by our ways, forgetting that while we enjoy life we can also be on time... He thought that enjoying life and being on time were incompatible... That's when I realized we could beat them...

Now I wonder what happens when a Southerner has an appointment in Sweden...probably much too early so he will be home before his warm and sunny siesta?

A warm and sunny "siesta" ("sesta" in Portuguese) in Sweden?...

Thought he'd take the first flight back to the South where the good life is

[YMix]

Honest Questions:

Better or Worse Overall: Soviet times or now.....?

This is a huge question. I could not do it justice in a couple of words.

What that is important to you is better or worse?

Getting better or worse?

What's important to me is getting worse.

[monster_gardener]

Honest Questions:

Better or Worse Overall: Soviet times or now.....?

This is a huge question. I could not do it justice in a couple of words.

What that is important to you is better or worse?

Getting better or worse?

What's important to me is getting worse.

Thank You VERY MUCH for Your Post and Maintaining the Forum, YMix

This is a huge question. I could not do it justice in a couple of words.

Please feel free to say on........ Many words are good too....

What's important to me is getting worse.

Again, please feel free to say more if you are willing....

Right now I am imagining something like Dmitri Orlov's description of how Russia managed to muddle through after the fall of the Soviet Union.....

[Parodite]

This Southerner's vision about Europe explains why I am a Northern free market libertarian who doesn't want to live in a United States of Europe. With such deluded minds there is no common future. Only perpetual war in the parliament.

Did The Dutch Start The End Of Social Europe?

The Dutch government’s recent announcement that the welfare state will be substituted by an undefined “participative society” may be the news story of the year — or at least deserves to be. No doubt the headlines oversimplify as usual. But the alarm is sounding: if the Dutch, who are a paradigm of wealth, efficiency, and democracy and are at home in the globalised world, declare the European social model defunct, what can we expect in politically hobbled, closed societies like ours? How not to be depressed if we are told that the havoc wrought by austerity policies will mean the unsustainability of the chief hallmarks of the EU social model, which we see as a natural aspiration for any individual or nation? Does this mean that Europe will no longer progress, that it has hit a ceiling and can now only recede?

[...]

[Endovelico]

This Southerner's vision about Europe explains why I am a Northern free market libertarian who doesn't want to live in a United States of Europe. With such deluded minds there is no common future. Only perpetual war in the parliament.

Did The Dutch Start The End Of Social Europe?

The Dutch government’s recent announcement that the welfare state will be substituted by an undefined “participative society” may be the news story of the year — or at least deserves to be. No doubt the headlines oversimplify as usual. But the alarm is sounding: if the Dutch, who are a paradigm of wealth, efficiency, and democracy and are at home in the globalised world, declare the European social model defunct, what can we expect in politically hobbled, closed societies like ours? How not to be depressed if we are told that the havoc wrought by austerity policies will mean the unsustainability of the chief hallmarks of the EU social model, which we see as a natural aspiration for any individual or nation? Does this mean that Europe will no longer progress, that it has hit a ceiling and can now only recede?

[...]

I suppose Northern Europeans can always rebuild some kind of Hanseatic League dedicated to the greatest possible exploitation of anyone not fortunate enough to live in their cold and soggy countries.