"John Knight" <johnknight at usa.com> wrote:
>-- > parsetree wrote:
>> Americans consume things that are not necessities. They also have much
>> higher quality homes and many other things.
>>and "Richard C. August" <raugust at ptd.net> responded:
>> Dear Parse Tree,
>>>> Obviously, you have never been outside the USA.
Which of course is false since the man lives in Canada and not the
USA.
>> I lived in West Germany, prior to and during the Fall of the Wall. I
>> conversed in German with the German people, and was even "allowed" (read:
>> INVITED) into their homes). I ate at German restaurants. I shopped German
>> stores and drank at German bars. I can say, with DEAD CERTAINTY, that
>> Germany's homes are of MUCH HIGHER quality than US homes, and at a rate at
>> parity with German incomes.
See the numbers below.
>> Go take a vacation in Germany, and see their houses and buildings. See how
>> clean and well-kept and litter-free their streets are. Then come back to
>> America and vomit over the difference.
Why don't you move to Germany then, if it is so much better than the
US?
The nincompoop chimes in with:
>Having lived in Germany for 9 years, I can confirm that what Mr. August
>writes above is true and correct, which is why it's so embarassing when
>fellow Americans say such silly things as "Americans ... also have much
>higher quality homes and many other things".
so we turn to the web for data.
>APARTMENT RENTAL RATES 1997
>(3-room apartment monthly rent, US$)
>Netherlands 943
>Germany 1,064
>France 1,229
>U.S. 1,282
>Spain 1,307
>Japan 1,379
>U.K. 1,410
>Source: World Competitiveness Yearbook 1997
although several other sources give the German cost of living as 1.22
times that of the US. They must make up for rental costs in other
ways.
http://www.unesco.org/most/westeu12.htm
describes a typical housing project in Germany
>The dwellings for one to five persons with living spaces from 45 to 85
> sqm consist of six one- and two-person units suitable for old-age
> people, 13 units for female single parents with one or two children
> each, 12 units for one- and two-person households, and 11 units for
> families with one to three children. The common pavilion has a
> useable area of 110 sqm.
That is 500-900 sq ft. Few Americans would consider a 900 sq ft
apartment to be adequate for a family with 3 children.
Looking further:
http://www.fdj.com/english/data1.html
shows that the average housing space per person in Germany is 39 sq
meters per person (400 sq ft), while in New York, the average is 59 sq
meters per person (600 sq ft.), 50% more.
http://www.german-way.com/german/house.html
>A house in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland is a very expensive dream.
> The average cost of land and construction is double or triple that in
> the United States. Add to this a much larger down payment of between
> 30 and 50 percent, and you can see why most Germans live in
> apartments or condominiums. Only 39 percent of Germans own their own
> home, compared to 64 percent in the U.S. and 68 percent in the U.K.
> Those Germans who do finally realize the dream of their own house are
> often in their forties or fifties when it happens.
http://www.real-estate-european-union.com/english/germany.html
>Real Estate Prices In Germany
>Range Varies, for example:
>From around ?80,000 / $115,000 plus for a terraced home.
>Detached Homes from ?140,000 - ?600,000 / $200,000 - $875,000 and beyond.
>City apartments vary from ?300,000 / $440,000 with Munich a premium
As for Richard's love of old buildings that survived the wars:
http://www.netspace.net.au/~pettit/htg/renting.htm
>One of the most popular (and romantic) kinds of apartments to rent in
> Germany are in altbau buildings. These are the classic, old style
> buildings with high ceilings typically associated with Germany cities
> and towns. The designation altbau means anything built before 1914
> (between 1914 and about 1950 there was little construction due to
> World War I, the Depression, and of course World War II). Many, such
> as the timber and mortar (Fachwerk) houses that dominate German towns
> and villages, date all the way back to the Middle Ages.
>>Despite age and sometimes faulty plumbing and heating, an altbau is
> generally more expensive than neubau or 'new buildings," which mean
> anything built after 1950 to the present.
They may be romantic, but few people in America would consider "faulty
plumbing and heating" to be a plus in choosing a place to live.
The conclusion one reaches from all this data is that most Germans
live in apartments that Americans would consider too tiny to be
comfortable, many of which have faulty plumbing and heating. They pay
slightly less in rent for these apartments, but other costs more than
make up the difference (energy costs for example). Buying a house,
which typically requires a 30%-50% down payment, is way beyond the
dream of the typical blue collar worker.
Continuing with the nincompoop:
>The reality is that we are the biggest throw-away society in world history,
which is more or less what parsetree said in his first sentence.
>But, Richard, I'm going to raise the stakes on your argument one more notch.
>A house I bought in Russia is even better built, more solid, and will last
>longer, than just about anything I ever saw in Germany--except King Ludwig's
>castles, of course ); It's already 400 years old and looks like it will
>last another 2,000 years. There ain't NUTTIN' like this in the US, period.
Maybe you like living in 400 year old buildings. Most people I know
prefer heating and plumbing and air conditioning (though the latter is
not an issue in most of Russia).
>We have no statistics about what Russia was like before the jews Lenin and
>Trotsky were "allowed" to take charge
Of course we do.
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/czar3.htm
>While the other nations of Europe were gradually abolishing serfdom,
> Catherine the Great was extending it in Russia. Serfdom and slavery
> still existed in Russia in 1839 when de Custine wrote his Letters,
> and was not officially abolished until 1861. Nor was this a marginal
> institution; servile labor was the norm, not the exception.
>>The living conditions of the slave and serf have varied enormously by
> place and time. In Russia, their treatment was especially harsh.
> "They were attached to the soil, that is, without their lord's
> consent they could not leave the estate on which they were born, and
> a transfer of an estate from one nobleman to another automatically
> transferred the peasants' allegiance. To their lord the peasants paid
> dues, for him they performed compulsory manual labor, to him they
> rendered obedience as to a personal master." (Carlton Hayes, A
> Political and Social History of Modern Europe) Catherine the Great
> permitted the owners of serfs to sell them to colonists in Siberia or
> equally harsh conditions.
>>The Third Census of the Russian Empire (1762-1766) provides us with
> the estimates of the extent of bondage; in all probability, fully
> seven-ninths of the Russia population was unfree at this time.
> Notably, at least 40% of these serfs and slaves were owned by the
> Russian state; (the percentage swelled after the state nationalized
> the land and serf holdings of the Orthodox Church).
The article goes on to say that this percentage was still 64% in 1859,
citing "Source: James Mavor, An Economic History of Russia, p.418".
As for living conditions of the serfs:
http://histclo.hispeed.com/country/rus/cr-serf.html
>Serf Boys
>>Serf boys like their fathers were involved in year were engaged in
> agricultural work fields and farms. Serfs were not exclusively
> agricultural workers, but the great majority were so employed. From
> May through October serfs virtually commonly worked barefoot. Serfs
> during the winter wer given shoes. The serfs had rough shirts and
> trousers from a canvas. The Russian serf boys were divided into two
> categories - ordinary serf boys (krepostnye) and yard boys
> (dvorovye). Landowners varied greatly as to how they treated their
> serfs. This varied with both the landlord and the type of serf boy
> involved. Some brutal landowners would put boys into iron collars
> both as punishment and for discipline. At night some serfs slept in
> special sheds, all together on straw. Frequently in these sheds stood
> heavy wooden fetters. When serfboys lay down to sleep, they put bare
> feet into these fetters. These iron collars and wooden fetters were
> not the general phenomenon in old Russia, but they were used by some
> landoners.
...
>Yard boys in at the age of approximately 12-14 years were selected
> among the ordinary serf boys for work on the manor of the landowner.
> These boys were taken from their parents under duress or bought from
> other landowners. Yard boys were used for works in the house of the
> landowner, in his stables and farms. Some landowners used the boys
> for work at the small factories (manufacture of a paper, bricks,
> etc.). Yard boys lived in special barns on owner's villa. For slep in
> barns there were common wooden beds covered by straw. As blankets the
> pieces of a rough cloth were used. The regime for the yard boys was
> more severe, than with others serf boys. They were frequently were
> put in collars and fetters.
>Footwear: The yard boys, which worked in landowner's house, stables
> and farms frequently did not have any footwear and the year round
> went and worked barefoot. There were cases, when especially severe
> landowners punished the boys by forcing them to work barefoot in
> yards on a frost (to clean snow, carry fire wood, etc.).
>Iron collars: In Russia prior to the beginning of the 19th centuries
> the special design iron collar (rogatka) for serfs was applied. This
> collar had outside long thorns. In such collar it was impossible to
> lay. The boys put in such collars for works in fields and on
> pastures, that they did not sleep in working hours. That the
> shepherds boys could not drink milk on a pasture, by him sometimes
> put faces in a special metal bridle. The same bridles put on boys
> working on vineyards (southern Ukraine, Crimea), that they in an
> working time could not could not eat grapes. Iron collars without
> thorns were applied for serfs, working on factories. Such collars
> usually had an iron chain, which was attached to a wall on a place of
> work. The British traveller J.Cox, visited Russia at the end of XVIII
> centuries wrote, that personally saw tvo serf boys 12 and 14 y.o. in
> collars with chain.
Clearly, your 400 year old house was NOT the sort of thing that the
vast majority of the Russian people lived in.
http://www.cba.uiuc.edu/orer/V4-3-2.pdf
discusses life just before the revolution under Stolypin, who came to
power in 1905:
>At the time, agriculture accounted for half the nation's GNP and an
> impover-ished peasantry constituted 84% of the population. The
> peasants lived in approximately 100,000 villages across Russia, most
> without electricity and some inaccessible even by road. Their customs
> had changed little since the Middle Ages. Land was owned communally
> by the whole village and periodically redistributed in an egalitarian
> fashion by village elders. Capable individuals had no incentive to
> improve their farming practices, since the rewards would effectively
> revert back to the commune. The result was soil exhaustion and
> technological backwardness. The peasant commune was a primitive
> socialist society. Stolypin blamed the peasant commune for many of
> the ills affecting Russia. Since individual peasants rarely owned any
> land of their own, they had no reasonto respect anybody else's
> property. Whenever the squalor of village life became unbearable,
> they attacked the property of landowners, shopkeepers, or whoever
> else happened to have more than they did. These revolts had to be
> suppressed by force, propelling Russia into a cycle of revolt and
> repression. Stolypin's solution was privatization. He wagered that
> the peasants would leap at the chance to own their farms
> independently of the village commune. He enacted a land reform that
> gave peasants the right to claim land they worked as private
> property.
>...
> By 1914, over 40% of peasant households held their land as private
> property and many more waited for their petitions to be processed. To
> the dismay of socialist intellectuals, the peasants firmly rejected
> the notion of communal land tenure.
(the latter was the reform that the nincompoop's hero Stalin reversed
in the 1930s when he recollectivized the Ukraine).
Oh, and life in the peasant house, called an izba:
http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/russian_peasant/
>On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, the narod, or "dark people",
> were four of every five people in Russia. Less than two percent could
> read, one in three of their children died in their first year, and
> their wretched, miserable lives were not due for improvement for
> another half century. It had, in theory, been worse.
...
>Emancipation of 1861 seemed at first to be a success: the freed serfs
> received about 80% of the land they had tilled. Heartened by this
> turn of events, however, the peasants proceeded to embark on a
> breeding spree and managed to promptly double the number of people
> trying to live on the already crowded land. This did little to
> improve their lot.
>The narod lived in small houses, called izby. Built of loosely fitting
> logs, with brush and straw for roofs, these huts had no chimneys lest
> escaping sparks ignite an entire village. A common sight in the
> winter was a peasant izba with acrid smoke streaming from
> ill-fashioned windows and cracks around the door, family inside
> smoking like so much meat. Window is a generous term, of course. Most
> 'windows' were merely holes in the wall covered with something
> vaguely translucent like stretched and dried bulls' bladders,
> allowing "only the faintest amount of light to penetrate into the
> izba's murky, grimy interior at midday."[6] Ironically, one of the
> harshest forms of torture practiced by the Imperial government was
> kopchenie -- being smoked to death like bacon.[7]
>>Coprophagia Recapitulates Diptheria
>The izba was crowded as well. Long wooden benches served double-duty
> as tables and beds. In the winter, wrote one visitor, "together with
> the peasant in his hut... live from ten to fifteen lambs with their
> mothers, two or three pigs with piglets, two or three calves, and
> sometimes a young colt."[8] While these menageries no doubt served to
> keep peasants warm during the long Russian winters, there can be no
> doubt they stunk like hell. Adding insult to injury, the narod were
> woefully ignorant of sanitation, and the excrement of all
> inhabitants, man and animal alike was left inside the house. The
> animals were usually as hungry as their owners, and devoured it with
> glee. In these conditions, it should be no surprise that infectious
> diseases were as familiar -- and predictable -- as the sun and the
> stars.
The nincompoop proves ignorant yet again.
lojbab
