Please rewind history 50 years. Luxembourg: Kál og stál vs. Bankarnir

Ál, kál og stál eru alveg eins....ég get sagt ykkur hvað gerist þegar rikistjórn hættar að borga....

Luxembourg, má ég tala um besta dæmi?

May I remind you that some other nations have gone through this before?

Alsace and Lorraine, located between France and Germany, were the main reason why the Coal and Steel European Community was founded in 1951. At that time coal and steel was the future. At that time they were also convinced that growth lied just there.

However the crisis came and hit them hard in the 80s and these sectors never fully recovered. I can tell you what happened next because I have seen it with my own eyes when I lived in Luxembourg.

Luxembourg itself is the best example in practice of the future that lies in front of us. What happened there should be a lesson for Iceland:

- the region in Luxembourg country that invested in coal and steel (under the national company ARBED) is now in big crisis, with importat unemployment figures, with villages that are empty like ghost towns, social problems, etc... then the State stopped subsidising those sectors, economic life died.

- the city of Luxembourg itself invested in banks and international organisations. Today they make the country the richest in Europe.

At least 5000 civil servants working for the European Union live there with their families, 60% of the inhabitants in the capital are foreigners. They have the EU Court, the EFTA Court, the European Investment Bank, the Secretary of the European Parliament, the European Court of Auditors, the Public Health Directorate of the European Commission, EUROSTAT and a long list of other European institutions.......

The bank businesses and financial institutions are the strongest in Europe and provide thousands of jobs for young bright people. Luxembourg is investing in white-collar jobs and getting the best educated people of Europe.

Approximately 400.000 people cross the frontier every day coming from France, Germany and Belgium to work in the city of Luxembourg, where unemployment figures are around 1%.

Luxembourg has preserved most of its countryside and landscape whereas the neighbour countries have already lost their nature.

Don´t we want a future for the best educated generation of Icelanders?

Don´t we want to invest in education, health, international institutions and projects?

Do we want to be Ísland or Ál-land?

Do we really only want to be Coca-Cola dós land? I do not think so. 60% of Icelanders do not want heavy industry, that is a fact.

Please pass this message around:

It is simply not true that preserving the environment will reduce our standard of living, in fact, it is precisely the opposite.

"Green-growth" is possible, we desserve the best. Let´s choose the politicians that make it happen next 12 May.

It will be too late if we wait 4 years.

See the program of www.islandshreyfinginn.is

Fjármálaráðherra: Stóriðja ekki forsenda framfara

Athugasemdir

[Birnuson, 9.5.2007 kl. 11:42]

Sæl Elvira. Talan sem þú nefnir um atvinnuleysi í Lúxemborg er eitthvað skrítin. Samkvæmt upplýsingum frá Eurostat var atvinnuleysi í Lúxemborg 5,0 af hundraði í febrúar 2007 (landið þá í 8. sæti af 27 Evrópusambandsríkjum).

[Maria Elvira Méndez Pinedo, 9.5.2007 kl. 14:15]

Sæll og blessaður Sigurjón,

Takk fyrir athugasemdir. Ég er að tala um atvinnuleysi (x%) einmitt í Luxembourg-borg (sem á bankarnir og "European institutions") og ekki í Lúxembourg lönd. Þarna er miklu hærri þess vegna allt sem ég var að segja um kál og stál.

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