Per this story just what did those happy go lucky, spendthrift Germans do to bust the Berlin piggybank? In my limited experience the words “fiscal irresponsibility” and “German” rarely go together in the post-war era. Granted it’s lost some of it’s industrial base, but 46 billion euros in debt! What happened?
According to this website: http://www.wasa.uk.net/person/diary/2002/Berlin.html
>>The city is completely bankrupt because of dodgy loans made by a bank, for which the city had to pump in millions of Euros as guarantee.<<
Doesn’t say which bank, however.
You answered your own question:
In the left central governments of Europe, where are providing gov’t services from cradle to grave is a considered political necessity, the chickens are coming home to roost.
Just imagine how the whole under-funded, ponzi-scheme / house of cards would come crashing down if debt financing rates were at 1980’s levels. It would probably be like the second coming of the Dark Ages.
I hope every stateside governor, mayor and local legislator reads that article and grows the nads required to inform the citizenry that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
To continue JBW’s talk, I am currntly taking a college course dealing solely with the city of Berlin. basically since the 70’s they have been dumping money on every crackpot project that coimes up. A few have paid off, but mostly they paid money to everything around.
Now they don’t have anymore. I was wondering how the hell they think they can sue the govenment to clean up their mess, though.
Remember, too, in 1989, the city government found itself with about 1 million more people, who didn’t have very much money, and therefore, didn’t make up much of a tax base, who were living in mostly substandard housing with mostly substandard utilities. It’s been expensive to raise living standards in East Berlin.