3 ms·

Europe is redistributing enormous amount of money from rich to poor countries within EU. Spain would still look like an underdeveloped country without the massi

by Loic 16y ago

Europe is redistributing enormous amount of money from rich to poor countries within EU. Spain would still look like an underdeveloped country without the massive injection of money coming from the EU. EU (the organisation), even with problems here and there and the need to take a good diet, is working wonderfully at equalizing the rich/poor countries. This is why most of the countries do not want Turkey to be part of EU, under the EU rules, this would mean an insane amount of money going to Turkey every year for maybe 30 years or more. With respect to the article itself, not everything is rosy in Germany, a large part of the population is living out of the social help system (7.5 millions people) and another large par is getting miserable wages, in the range of 4€/h or less. So yes, the German economy is robust, but the social state is struggling too.

mooism2 16y ago
The EU does redistribute a large amount of money between its member countries... but this is still small compared to intrastate transfers.
_grrr 16y ago
> Europe is redistributing enormous amount of money from rich to poor countries within EU Yes, they are, but it's a political hot potato, arguably without mandate, and I doubt that it's on the scale of national regional development funds. Don't get me wrong, I am pro Europe, but I think politicians have done an abysmal job of explaining the project to voters (esp in the UK).
tallanvor 16y ago
The US has around 37 million people (over 10% of the population) who receive food stamps, and that number may be greater now. Some of the people on unemployment may also be receiving food stamps, but not all of them. Another 4+ million are on some sort of state welfare or aid program (again, some those may also be included in the 37 million number). So Germany's 7.5 million people in the social welfare program doesn't seem that bad.

by Loic 16y ago

mooism2 16y ago

The EU does redistribute a large amount of money between its member countries... but this is still small compared to intrastate transfers.

_grrr 16y ago

> Europe is redistributing enormous amount of money from rich to poor countries within EU Yes, they are, but it's a political hot potato, arguably without mandate, and I doubt that it's on the scale of national regional development funds. Don't get me wrong, I am pro Europe, but I think politicians have done an abysmal job of explaining the project to voters (esp in the UK).

tallanvor 16y ago

The US has around 37 million people (over 10% of the population) who receive food stamps, and that number may be greater now. Some of the people on unemployment may also be receiving food stamps, but not all of them. Another 4+ million are on some sort of state welfare or aid program (again, some those may also be included in the 37 million number). So Germany's 7.5 million people in the social welfare program doesn't seem that bad.