The mixture of valid points, exaggerations, ignorance of context and completely false information makes it a bit... difficult to digest.

Generally speaking, a lot of errors were made regarding Cologne.

The police fucked up entirely and basically was unable to maintain control of the square in front of the central train station where shitloads of theft, sexual harassment and even a few rapes were committed.

The public media did not report on it properly. They did, in fact, refuse to report it at all at first. But that doesn't stem from an obession with PC nor is it special treatment for refugees/immigrants -- it's good old-fashioned pro-government bias. A few days later, they were all playing the same tune again: bad immigrants, bad muslims, need more law-and-order, close the borders, need new laws, etc. Same shit as always.

And yes, you cannot expect all these refugees to be model citizens from the get-go. Different culture, different language, segregation, no work permit, no familiy, maybe first-hand experience with war -- they are bound to commit crimes, assuming otherwise would be naive.

And accepting a million refugees might have been a bad idea after cutting down public personnel and services for two decades straight. But what's done is done. The question now is what can be done to improve the situation for everyone involved. What doesn't help is further segregation (refugee camps), private security (aka mobs hunting brown people, happened in Cologne already) or downplaying the massive problems.

As for that wierd tirade from 1:07 onwards about true Germans: except for all the people from Bohemia, Prussia and Silesia, aka Poland; or the millions of immigrants from Italy and Turkey; or the folks from former Yugoslavia; etc. Two thirds of the bloody country has family names that mark them as n-th generation immigrant. Half of my extended family is from what is now Russia (Kaliningrad) while my family name is distinctively Dutch. "Paid German taxes" gives a hint to his motivations. Folks in East Germany didn't pay German taxes: do they count? Refugees from former German enclaves ("Russlanddeutsche") didn't pay German taxes, nor did they speak proper German: do they count?

All in all a very misguided rant, too eager to abuse real fuck-ups for his own ideology. Rape culture, SJW, PC -- doesn't apply in this case. It's small government, media with establishment bias, a general inability for open discussion of problems, and a shitload of incompetent arseholes in positions of power (e.g.: chief of police in Cologne, gone now).

By the way, he forgot to mention the hundreds(!) of refugee shelters that were set on fire during the last few months. Bands of immigrants committing crimes are a problem, bands of Germans committing crimes are a problem.

We had a six digit number of prime suspects for trouble already: young, male, unemployed, un(der)educated, no fucking hope. It's the main cause for the persisting problems with Nazis in East Germany: no hope. Adding a million additional people, lots of them with equally bad prospects, without any serious effort to integrate them is bound to blow up in our faces eventually.

The best thing that can happen for the entire Eurozone would be a massive integration program in Germany. And by massive I don't mean a meagre billion Euros. We're talking 15-20 billion a year, for at least five years. The more the better. Even in the current economic regime, it would be much cheaper than the repercussions from staying the current course: doing fuck all.

I take issue with the part about birth rates and the 35-year population forecast.

Firstly, the premise that we (Germany) need to stabilise our population level stems primarily from the depopulation of parts of the country, the north-east most of all. However, the cause is not low birth rates. It's urbanisation, which is part and parcel of capitalism. Everything gravitates towards the centres while the rest becomes hinterland to be exploited for resources.

Secondly, population forecasts turn into horseshit real fast. If we were to look at a 35-year forecast created in 1980, we'd miss the reunification, the breakup of Yugoslavia by NATO, about a dozen wars in the Middle East and the destabilisation/desolation in large parts of Southern Europe. Nevermind the EU with all its freedom of movement agreements that were recently suspended.

If we had made a 35-year forecast in 1910... well, you get my point.

Thirdly, Europe is not a singular unity. Our ongoing assault on the economies of Southern Europe (aka austerity) lead to a mass exodus already, Same for the Baltic countries. Unfortunatly, those countries who lost a significant portion of their young and educated over the last years are also the countries who are least equipped to deal with mass immigration in an orderly fashion.

Which brings me to my fourth point: many folks make the argument that we cannot possibly pay for the integration of 800k refugees, much less for 400k a year. Well, we payed for reunification in the most inefficient, corruption-inducing and anti-social way imaginable by piling the cost exclusively on our version of social security. And you know what? It still fucking worked. If Germany can shoulder the cost of reunification, the EU can pay for 2-3 million refugees. End of story.

Finally, we need immigration. Not to maintain population levels, not to even out low birth rates. We need it to not become too homogenous, especially Germany. Too much consensus, too much group think, not enough confrontation and cultural diversity. Shake things up before people start believing their own bullshit again about their own superiority. We've seen it already vis-a-vis Greece.

@eric3579

Does the Polish Six Flags guy look familiar? It's the very same racist imbecile who described the plan to create a unified driver's license across Europe as "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Ticket" while doing the Nazi salute.

I'd rather have a thousand Syrian refugees than people like him.

This comes up a bit short on some issues.

For instance, the ongoing drought in the Euphrates-Tigris area pushed people in Syria into the cities, adding pressure to already overstretched infrastructure.

Also, what about the West's glorious idea to run illegal wars of aggression in Iraq and Libya, which destabilized the entire region? Nevermind Afghanistan or the bombing campaigns in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. What about the gulag that is Palestine? What about the economic consequences of our obsession with free trade, taking away from developing countries the ability to protect and nurture their own industries? What about our subsidies of farm exports, thereby undercutting local farmers and destroying these peoples' ability to feed themselves?

All of these countries have heaps of issues of their own, but let's not forget that "we" not only didn't help, but actively made things worse in many cases. As cities drain resources from the hinterland, so do our centers of capitalism drain resources from developing nations. They are our hinterland.

Yugoslavia seems to have been forgotten by most people, but the split and following neoliberal treatment left the entire area in a state of instability. Kosovo today is basically run by organised crime.

So, as horrible as Assad's actions are, very few countries are in a position to offer meaningful criticism, having pissed away what little moral authority we had to begin with.

And as far as legal responsibilities towards refugees go, I'd say after torture, wars of aggression, global espionage, a stateless people in Europe (Roma/Sinti), destruction of a society (Greece), an openly xenophobic regime (Hungary), etc, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that "rights" are meaningless unless actively enforced by someone with the required amount of power.

Look at Calais, look at Lesbos, look at Lampedusa, and tell me all about our European morals and values...

Written by the grandson of a man whose family fled from Silesia in '45 with nothing but two bags and walked all the way to Lower Saxony on foot.

Other than Yugoslavia and Czechslovakia there is the split of Sudan, name changes for Benin/Dahomey, Myanmar/Burma. Many are included as countries that are in fact possessions of other countries. (Puerto Rico, Guam, Bermuda, French Guiana). The Caribean is pointed to as a country but the actual countries of the region are left out mostly (Dominica, St. Kitts & Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Antigua & Barbuda etc). Like I said in my comment I'm sure this wasn't intended to be an absolutely accurate listing even for 1995 and things were included to make the song work. Gaum is rhymed with San Juan and neither one is a country. What can I say, I'm a trivia player whose strong suit is Geography. And don't get me started on places like South Ossetia, Nagorno Karabakh, Nakhchivan, Transnistria. People can't even agree on how to spell them let alone whether they qualify as independent countries. And I shouldn't forget Somalia, Somaliland and Puntland.

Which non countries? I only noticed a few ex countries, like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.... which would be the out-of-dateness that you mentioned too.

It's a FZ's introduction to Ljubliana, Yugoslavia, 11-22-1975 song's performance.
"This is... this is an instrumental song, it's a tender, slow, moving ballad sort of song that cares with it the implied message that the complete woman must also have an asshole..."....[url redacted]

Politically. They started in the 80s before Slovenian independence, and their very first performance was banned before it started... they were dissidents as long as there was a Yugoslavia.

Russia and China got huge boosts to their stealth programs when Lt. Col. Dale Zelko's f117 was shot down over Yugoslavia. Even thought the tech at that time was 25 years old. It was still way ahead of anything they had even come close to producing. It's also rather funny especially since the idea of the design was based off a paper written by Pyotr Ufimtsev, a Soviet mathematician in 1964.

I do find it strange this design looks far more like the Northrop YF-23 then it does the F22. Makes you wonder if someone at Northrop got pissed the f22 was picked over theirs and this was their revenge.

One has to note that the comparisons between the different military campaigns is a tad far-fetched.
I would for example not necessarily classify the military escalation in Libya and Yugoslavia as American, but rather as European or NATO-initiated in nature (a fine but distinct difference since the overall chain of command and the distribution of the "spoils of war" is another).
One might also argue that Gaddafi probably pretty much ran himself into the ground on this one.

None-the-less, the perspective from someone not part of this military union (Russia, China, the League of Arab States, etc.) must be understandably dire at this point with basically the entire region toppling into turmoil.

There's still Yemen on the lists of potential powder-kegs...

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, what's stimulus money got to do with money supply? Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll answer that question:
The Treasury Department borrows the money from the Federal Reserve. This money is printed new and is NOT already in circulation. So, once those trillions get circulated into the economy, what happens? It inflates the money supply. Presto!

Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll correct you.

The Treasury Department borrows the money by selling Treasury bonds on the open market. Domestic investors and banks buy most of it, a big chunk of it is bought by other governments. Some might be purchased by the Fed using freshly printed money, but that's entirely based on what the Fed wants to do with the money supply, and has nothing to do with whether we did stimulus or not.

Not to mention, even if the Fed prints money and buys a treasury, there's no guarantee the buyer won't just hold the dollars as a reserve of some sort, and keep it out of circulation.

>> ^blankfist:
And you asked what happens to wages during inflation? Well, I don't know

An honest answer. Too bad you kept writing...

>> ^blankfist:
[L]et's look at history, shall we? There are plenty of examples in history (Rome, Germany, Yugoslavia), but let's look at Zimbabwe in the 2000s because it's really easy to google. According to wikipedia, Zimbabwe's "annual inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (6.5 x 10108%, the equivalent of 6 quinquatrigintillion 500 quattuortrigintillion percent, or 65 followed by 107 zeros – 650 million googol percent)."

Yes, inflation can happen. But looking at nominal price levels alone doesn't answer why inflation is bad.

>> ^blankfist:
But that's fine, right? Because they just increased the wages and everyone went back to happy Krugman land and ate marshmallows and played with bunnies. Oh no, that didn't happen at all, did it? No. In the end the Zimbabwean Dollar was destroyed, and the people were forced to adopt foreign currencies.

Well here's the thing, have you actually looked at what's happened to the wage level in Zimbabwe? Is the problem that wages never increased at all, and that inflation meant no one had any purchasing power at all?

Or was it something a little more esoteric like a collapse of market confidence that really buggered them?

>> ^blankfist:
It's not as easy to fix as "putting upward pressure on wages". In fact, the people who are first impacted are the people on the bottom, because ALL (and I mean absolutely ALL) inflation enriches the government first, the big businesses with government contracts second, the rich third, and ultimately it's the poor and retired who suffer through the adjustment phase.

Again, you're hamstrung by not actually understanding the underlying economic principles. If the main issue with inflation was really this confiscatory debasement you're talking about, then that would in large part be fixed by greater wage flexibility.

>> ^blankfist:
And what of the people with savings? Are you so willing to write them off with a big dildo shoved up their asses, because they're not currently "earning" a wage? What of those people who saved and saved because that's what society told them was prudent for their retirement? What does your precious Krugman messiah say of the grandmothers and grandfathers who see their savings diminish while their social security payments play catch up with the current cost of living changes?

The answer there is that inflation screws people with large amounts of liquid money (the rich), and helps people with debt (the not-so-rich), while making holding assets look more promising than holding cash in any form. People who saved for retirement by stuffing $100 bills into their mattress get screwed. People who put their money in a savings account may get screwed if the bank doesn't offer them competitive interest rates. People who invested in a mix of stocks and bonds will see those stocks go up in nominal value, while the bonds will likely become worthless (depends on the exact terms though).

People who rely on Social Security will be fine, so long as a) wages as a whole go up with inflation, and b) conservative morons don't come in and cut the COLA below inflation for no reason. It's part of why anyone who wants to privatize Social Security is pretty much a fuckwad.

In the end, the negative effects of stable but high (~10% or so) inflation wouldn't be so bad. There's basically no downside to inflation around 2-4%. And by the way, we're sitting somewhere around 1% right now, with not even the remotest hint of hyperinflation.

The only way for us to really trigger hyperinflation right now is if conservatives follow through on threats to make the US go into default on its debt. But that won't be hyperinflation because of the Fed printing money, it'll be because conservatives will have trashed our nation's credit rating because they're stupid.

@NetRunner, what's stimulus money got to do with money supply? Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll answer that question:

The Treasury Department borrows the money from the Federal Reserve. This money is printed new and is NOT already in circulation. So, once those trillions get circulated into the economy, what happens? It inflates the money supply. Presto!

And you asked what happens to wages during inflation? Well, I don't know, let's look at history, shall we? There are plenty of examples in history (Rome, Germany, Yugoslavia), but let's look at Zimbabwe in the 2000s because it's really easy to google. According to wikipedia, Zimbabwe's "annual inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (6.5 x 10108%, the equivalent of 6 quinquatrigintillion 500 quattuortrigintillion percent, or 65 followed by 107 zeros – 650 million googol percent)." But that's fine, right? Because they just increased the wages and everyone went back to happy Krugman land and ate marshmallows and played with bunnies. Oh no, that didn't happen at all, did it? No. In the end the Zimbabwean Dollar was destroyed, and the people were forced to adopt foreign currencies.

I'm sorry, but inflation is bad. Very bad. It's not as easy to fix as "putting upward pressure on wages". In fact, the people who are first impacted are the people on the bottom, because ALL (and I mean absolutely ALL) inflation enriches the government first, the big businesses with government contracts second, the rich third, and ultimately it's the poor and retired who suffer through the adjustment phase.

And what of the people with savings? Are you so willing to write them off with a big dildo shoved up their asses, because they're not currently "earning" a wage? What of those people who saved and saved because that's what society told them was prudent for their retirement? What does your precious Krugman messiah say of the grandmothers and grandfathers who see their savings diminish while their social security payments play catch up with the current cost of living changes?

Un. Fucking. Believable.

>> ^quantumushroom:

The Top 200 Chomsky Lies.
Oh, that's right, it's FOX that has an agenda.


Let's look at the very first "lie" in that list:

The "Lie": “in comparison to the conditions imposed by US tyranny and violence, East Europe
under Russian rule was practically a paradise.”

The "Truth": The communists murdered 4 million people in the Ukraine; 753,000 in Poland;
360,000 in Romania; 300,000 in Belarus; 200,000 in Hungary; 100,000 in East Germany;
100,000 in Lithuania; 70,000-100,000 in Yugoslavia; 30,000-40,000 in Bulgaria; 20,000 in
Czechoslovakia; and 5,000 in Albania. Other atrocities included the murder of over 500,000
POWs in Soviet captivity and the mass rape of at least 2 million women by the Red Army.

I don't have to know anything about the context of the quote to see that the response is nonsense. Nowhere in that quote does Chomsky say that the Russians did not commit any atrocities. He also did not claim that the US committed more genocidal acts than the Russians. He said "conditions", which most people would understand meant things like running water, sewage removal, food and shelter availability, employment availability, and such. So the whole list of atrocities is missing the point of his statement entirely.

Now maybe the conditions were arguably better under US control. I certainly don't know. But the fact that the very first "lie" is so poorly refuted, and the fact that there is absolutely no context around Chomsky's quote given, makes this list entirely pointless.

And I would also ask what you think Chomsky's "agenda" is.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^Yogi:
I think given a bit of time I could reach the same correlation with countries the US has attacked and nearly destroyed or has effected extremely negatively. I could prove up to at least the video posters standards that the US military does more for stifling science and general well being of other countries populations than anything else on earth. So to me this is an incredibly simplistic look and conclusion to come to when you're talking about humans and their development throughout history.

You mean like.. Japan?
Alright, so thats 65 years ago, but i mean, Japan was really, really fucked. Before the A-bombs, the destruction level of japanese cities ranged from 50-90% completely destroyed. Every single city. But today Japan is the most technologically advanced nation on earth. It rose from the ashes. so did germany, and Vietnam, and so many other countries that have been bombed to bits, whether its by the US or anyone else. if you want more recent examples, go to Croatia/former Yugoslavia. War is a terrible thing, and yes, the aftereffects are terrible and can last for centuries (just ask any child born near Hiroshima the last 65 years) But it is not sufficient reason to be stuck in the dark ages.


No that's a single event and then they got a chance to build themselves up. That's not like say Haiti who has been terrorized by the US for the last century or Cuba who's been terrorized for the last 50 years. It's not the same Japan vs Iran for example which we have been trying to stomp into the ground through various means for 50 years as well.

To me this is just way to complex the world is too complex. You can say Islam is stunting science if you want but the way he's going about proving it is incomplete.

>> ^Yogi:
I think given a bit of time I could reach the same correlation with countries the US has attacked and nearly destroyed or has effected extremely negatively. I could prove up to at least the video posters standards that the US military does more for stifling science and general well being of other countries populations than anything else on earth. So to me this is an incredibly simplistic look and conclusion to come to when you're talking about humans and their development throughout history.

You mean like.. Japan?

Alright, so thats 65 years ago, but i mean, Japan was really, really fucked. Before the A-bombs, the destruction level of japanese cities ranged from 50-90% completely destroyed. Every single city. But today Japan is the most technologically advanced nation on earth. It rose from the ashes. so did germany, and Vietnam, and so many other countries that have been bombed to bits, whether its by the US or anyone else. if you want more recent examples, go to Croatia/former Yugoslavia. War is a terrible thing, and yes, the aftereffects are terrible and can last for centuries (just ask any child born near Hiroshima the last 65 years) But it is not sufficient reason to be stuck in the dark ages.

the gypsies speak romani language that integrated many words from the languages dominant in that area of the balkans, serbian and bolgarian. when they talk with 'civilians', as they reffer to non-roma folk, they usually talk in serbian language. the movie's surreal plot and characters were in part inspired by goofy italian spy/crime/comedy comics, especially "Alan Ford" by Magnus&Bunker, which was very popular back in socialist Yugoslavia (in the limo scene one of the gangsters is seen reading it). soundtrack is fantastic and all-present throughout the story, as is the classic 1942 movie Casablanca