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More substantive than the one I answered (OP named random small European countries without any idea of what they are), and intended to have people question the
by wott 8y ago
More substantive than the one I answered (OP named random small European countries without any idea of what they are), and intended to have people question the nonsense of that association of Andorra and Albania and thus the pretended knowledge of the poster by at least looking what Andorra is.
Obviously nobody knew nor cares, and he could get away with spreading complete bullshit. I didn't think it could be so, I thought at least a few Europeans would be around, because everybody around knows that associating Andorra and Albania is like associating Monaco or Lichtenstein with Sierra Leone. Hence the sarcastic comment.
So, I'll spend 45 minutes writing this since nobody can read Wikipedia for 5 seconds.
Andorra is a principality, a tiny rich country located between France in Spain, uses Euro as currency, and has some traditional weird governance shared by the president of France and a Spanish archbishop. It is a tax haven which lives on tourism (semi-luxury, I'd say, most expensive ski resorts in the Pyrenees, if it did not change), duty free stores, and more or less shady banking. They speak Catalan, but also fluent French and/or Spanish for business reasons (and because they are so few and the country is so small). That is to say they are perfectly integrated with their French and Spanish neighbours.
So, this is a country of significantly less than 100,000 inhabitants (no, no figure is missing) with a rather fixed structure of "who owns what", that ranks in wealth/inhabitant among Australia and Germany. You still think it makes any sense to talk about immigration/emigration from/to Andorra?
On the other hand, Albania is an eastern country, which was already the poorest country of the Eastern block when it was still a thing; its wealth compares with Venezuela and Mongolia; it has more than 40 times as many inhabitants as Andorra and... a 'tradition' of massive emigration. For example, there is zero geographical, cultural, or historical connection between France and Albania, and yet they represent the most numerous asylum seekers in France; despite the fact that they have zero chance to be granted asylum, since their country is safe and they are not threatened by anyone, yet they keep on coming (same in Germany). There is also the Albanian mafia, spread all around the world.
So, now I have lost 45 minutes explaining stuff of public knowledge on a buried thread none will read... Great.
- dang 8y agoYou could have posted a simple factual reply. You could also have just let it go and not posted anything. The GP was obviously just picking two names at random and not saying anything in particular about Andorra. As for your 45-minute opus, it's fine to describe the country you live in and not so fine to put down the other country. In fact, you basically cross into slurring it. That's not ok on HN. Please don't do it again.