But at least they do some inquiring then.. Flint just shouted something that fit his embellished idea of the USA.

Practicing MDs usually don't go shouting what's at the top of their minds without some research

Nope it won't. It'll trouble them, but they'll get around it sooner or later. What will actually stop them from pouring (or dripping) in is economic development in their own country.

Also an argument of power ("I'm the security expert") is according to discours analysis a wrong one. I'm nearly a graduated historian, but that doesn't mean I'm right all the time about historic events

"When I mention "M1" and flooding dollars on the market.......and you have to ask what that is, in the same breath
as lecturing me about SOCIALISTS not knowing economics......"

For one thing, I do not represent the entire socialist community. Second, I haven't had any decent economy in 4 years (besides a course about economy throughout the ages, where the different types of money are rather redundant). And indeed, in dutch, we have different names for those too.

Keynes can be described as a socialist, and his economical knowledge was good enough to save capitalism in the '30s

Let's keep it as a suggestion then

You could at least have made this thread on the right board!

[General -> Community]

And perhaps you did make the original one, but honestly, does it really matter?

Only his knob is truely french. The rest is french-ish..

Virginia Astley - A darkness has reached its end

Happy Bday!

The Books - An animated description of Mr. Maps

Wich seems to mean you live in a social segmented state where the rich get all the chances and the poor are just there to do the dirty jobs. Regretful...

"think about it - 19th century was the age of free market capitalism; do you really think wallonia poured money into flanders? ridiculous! you cannot compare the solidarity mechanisms in a modern welfare state to a 19th century government! and you're a history student right??? there was even a big depression and famine in flanders during those days"

Yes, I'm indeed an student in history, but I fear you're wrong. When Belgium gained its independency in the 19th century, it was a virtually bancrupt state. It attracted industry (like Cockerill etc) just because the goverment was so eager to invest in the industry. Indeed, Belgium was a liberal state, wich gave every opportunity to its industry, but that doesn't mean it didn't stimulate the industry. Also, the "famine" argument is false, as it's not relevant in this discussion.

"I in fact know of a VUB academic who calculated that back then flemish economic development was already being stiffled in favour of wallonia in those days, this was due to the large industries like mining and metallurgy (typical walloon industry) enjoyed very nice taxation structures while traditional activities such as fishery and wool industry (typical flemish economy) did not (I can send his publication if you give me an email adress)"

The wool industry collapsed in the late 18th century, shortly followed by the "vlas"industry. It might have had a small revival, but when the industrialisation kicked in in England in the 18th century, it was a dying economy none the less. If the Belgian state did hinder that, it was merely in line with it's liberal character. And fishery could never be a huge sector in the Belgian/Flemish landscape.

"the only thing wallonia did for the flemish population was offer bottom of the ladder jobs to flemish immigrants who moved there and completely integrated in wallonian society and who in mere decades became as walloon as the walloons themselves"

Again, this is exactly what a liberal state would have done. I'm not defending them, not at all. I despise liberalism cause it's inhuman, as you greatly demonstrated. All I'm trying to point out is that it's not the "Belgian" but rather the "Flemish" influence that colours our view on history. I'm not saying the Belgian state was righteous etc, but they did stimulate flemish economy, in their own ideal of liberal development. After all, they were mostly self-made-men, who believed in strong personalities. They believed such people would be victorious no matter what.

"you sir should not parrot silly propaganda"

I do not parrot, not more than you. If anything, you can say there's little "Belgian" propaganda in our part of Belgium, wich can't be said about the Flemish propaganda.

"to a lesser extent what bothers me is that the money is part of an economic revival programme; this is not entirely false but it is a bit dishonest; the "wallonian marshall programme" was put forward by Elio di Rupo not more than a couple years back precisely to counter criticism of money being poured into a bottomless economic pit; if you have a hint of critical thought in your brain you will notice that this essentially means the belgian and european tax payers have in fact been pouring money into a bottomless economic pit for years"

Perhaps, but doesn't that imply that we would actually benefit more from Wallonia in a few years than we did for the past decades?
Also, the economic revival plan was not entirely Elio's but also a suggestion of the European Union, further inspired by a similar project for Ireland. I'm not defending the PS either, as they have a whole bunch of crooked politicians they ought to get rid of, but generalising Elio's defence to Wallonia isn't reasonable either.

"as to the success of the wallonian marshall programme, the figures are being hotly contested by certain wallonian (MR) politicians themselves and indeed there is a tradition of adapting the statistics to try and make trends rather than reflecting them; high profile investments in wallonia have until now always been due to extreme compensations someone would only be willing to make if they can have someone else foot the bill (eg ryanair and the airport contract and the formula one contract)"

That's rather unfair to say. You can't claim that another political party is mor reliable than another. The figures I heard about were published by the "rekenkamer", a controle organ of the federal government. And here too you should define "high profile investments". As far as I know, other high profile compagnies like Google and Microsoft also decided to settle in Wallonia, rather than in Flanders.

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To conclude, I highly contest your claim that I'm lying, but rather that I know of facts that aren't known too well. This is because the view on the history of our country in the schools is "flemish", rather than "belgian".