I thoguth you might find the maps itneresting. soem countries like Germany and Italy are very unbalanced, in the case of Germany it's due to the unification that apparently only afected borders, not the situation of the common people in eastern germany...

Wealth in Europe

red = fewer than 50 percent
green = 125 and beyond

the gross domestic product GDP (i think, i've unfortunately forgotten what BIP means in English) per capita in 2001.

unemployment in Europe

light red = fewer than 4,75 percent
dark red = 13,45 and beyond

unemployment rate in 2002.

Frankreich, lol

Just as  suspected, Italy is sectionally divided.

Polen is exactly same with Turkiye...i think the Polish accession has close ties with German-Polish reconcililation.

Temüjin,your area appears in highly-well wealth and at an  acceptable unemployment rate.i am happy for you,pal.

Why is unemployment and poverty in Poland that bad? i knew it was a problem but didnt know it was to that kind of scale.

The Irish success is also a surprise to me, what is it mainly due to and how recent is it?

I see, thanks

I wonder does this mean the gap between the rich and poor is widening in Ireland? what i mean is that is this a reflection of the amount of wealth in the cities? When i went to Ireland about 5 years ago some rural areas seemed to be quite backward (i dont really like this term as i really enjoyed the more rustic places, but i cant think of another term atm ), and since their prosperity seems to be due to outside investors does this mean that the rich are getting richer and the poor are still not well off? sorry if im way off base here, i could be reading it totally wrong.  

I've heard that the post-secondary education is free in Ireland, and that has contributed a lot to their economic explosion.  Is this true?  And if it is, why haven't all countries realized this and begin funding their post-secondary educational systems more?  Or even the secondary schools (in some cases)?

Well, the answer is quite simple- 50 years of communism. For all that time there was no unemployment (or rather was hidden unemployment, people had jobs even if their work didnt bring any profits to their companies). In 1989 the system has changed from communism (or socialism) to capitalism and in short time half of the industries were closed, all their worker's lost jobs. Today in Poland is the highest unemployment rate in the whole EU, right now about 17%. There are some areas where unemployment is low (about 5-8%) but there are also such where it is about 30%. Especially in such cities like Lodz where during communism were only industries which all have buncrupted. While the young and educated people usually dont have much problems to find good jobs, noone has any idea what to do with those in age 40-50 who spent most of their lifes in the communist state owned companies. Their skills are belowe the requirements of the employers. I remember that when i was looking for secretary i recived about 200 offers but found only 10% of them fullfilling my requirements. From them all only 1 was good for me because the other wanted to earn much more monay than i was ready to pay. Between those which i rejected were also ladies who worked as secretaries in the state owned companies in the past and all what they could do was making cofee. Affcourse for people who gives jobs such situation isint bad because we can lower our costs by paying less and we can demand them to work longer and harder.

Thanks for that mosquito,

Is the current polish government pro-active about this sort of thing, like education for the unskilled/older workers if thats feasible? The point dragon made about free post-secondary education would be an interesting concept here too, i guess the money needs to be there to implement it and sustain it in the first place though. 

LoL! The curent polish goverment is not active in anything. They are band of idiots and the only thing they are doing is raising taxes for such hardworking people like im and giving it to the non working parasites. I must explain that right now we have goverment formed by the socialist party. Altough it will for sure change after the next elections in the next year and seems that libertarian and conservative parties will take the power.

I also must admit that many people started to work on their own, opened their own buissnes and are doing pretty well. Many polish companies are prospering, our export right now is much higher than our import and we got 5%-6% growth. The only problem is the goverment which keep raising taxes, what stops our companies from investing more monay and hiring more people. But our economy is still raising so it is only the matter of time when companies will be forced to do it.

i see

As you probably guessed im quite ignorant in terms of eastern european politics, well atleast it seems theres hope for the future. I read that your interm PM is meant to be a highly respected econmist yet he is unable to help the Polish government's current economic woes. Who holds the real power here parliament, PM, president? or are they all equally to blame? It seems though that the current government is very unpopular as you say, and the elections next year will almost surley bring about change. Do you think that this will really affect the current situation?     

I dont know if our PM is a "highly respected econmist". All i know is that he is damn social democrate and such people have very strange economical belives. 

In the polish political system power belongs to goverment and PM is only the head of the goverment. To rule effectivly the goverment needs majority in the parliament which current goverment dont seems to have. The opposition wasnt able to form its own goverment and with the support of president current goverment can still hold power but with very limited effectivness.

As for goverment and its influnece on the economy i dare to say that polish economy is now developing rather in spite of the efforts of goverment than thanks to its efforts.

thatS' very true also for eastern Germany, many complain that 15 years after the unification everythign's still the same and statistics have even shown that mayn eastern Germans want Socialism back.  and the last regional elections in Saxony and brandenburg were disastrous. in a region in Saxony, the NPD (right-wing) party gained 10% (!!!) of the seats in the regional parliament.  the funny thign is the other major gainig party there was the PDS (leftists), and they have formed a coalition...

the problem is 50 years of Communism can't be cured overnight, or the east will also drag down the west and ultimately ruin the whole country for the next hundred years or so...

I agree. But actually im proud of my countrymen who do much better than eastern Germans even without those hundrieds billions of marks which western Germany pumped into their eastern brothers. Maybe we have 17% unemployment but millions of Poles are doing in capitalism pretty good without any foreign help. Right now i have read that Poles from Szczecin (Stettin) and its area are buying real estates on the german side of the border, because small 1 room flat in Stettin cost as much as house with big garden (1000 sq metters) on the german side which is completelly depopulated. Thousands of Ossies (if i remember it is the word by which western Germans calls eastern) left their homes and moved toward west because were not able to live in their own land.

here are some online articles in German:

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,323185,00.html - http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,323185,00.h tml
http://shortnews.stern.de/start.cfm?id=541953&rubrik1=Politik&rubrik2=Inland&rubrik3=Regional&sort=1&start=1 - http://shortnews.stern.de/start.cfm?id=541953&rubrik1=Po litik&rubrik2=Inland&rubrik3=Regional&sort=1& ;start=1

well, to sum it up, it's about money and the national PDS already condemned the unholy alliance.

Originally posted by Temujin completely true. it's funny, maybe the German population in eastern germany get's replaced by Poles one day

This is even more funny. Before Poland joined EU the opponents of integration were saying to not join EU because Germans will come and will try to buy all the land while in reality it are the Poles buying land in the eastern Germany because land in eastern Germany became much cheaper than in Poland.

Yes, but that was an empire of subjugated and then assimilated peoples, now it's an association of free states, those things tend to be fragile.

What have you been smokin' Genghis. The US is hardly a homogeneous nation. You have the mainly Irish liberal New Englanders, The New Yorkers are a breed of their own. You have the Christian Fundamentalists in the south, the farming communities in the midwest, people like californians and texans... I mean the list could go on and this isn't even the recent immigrant groups.

The US is rife with its own rivalrys and its own local agendas. Not terrible different from the EU, or do you equate the same language with homogenaity.

The US is not a melting pot, its a tossed salad, sure the parts are mixed together but you can tell the different parts things are made from. 

Yes, I know it's not uniformly homogenous, but Americans all across this country have roughly the same values, economic system, language, historical identity, etc and most of the differences you gave are just regional differences by people who think and act "like Americans".  I guess I should say that it is homogenous in relation to the EU.  And yes, it is changing as Jalisco said, but it will be very unlikely that the US will become a polyglot state like the Austro-Hungarian empire or modern day Switzerland.

And I don't understand what you're saying Kubrat.  The EU can't force its members to remain in the EU, and I believe that sooner or later the divergent interests of the variegated states of Europe will eventually win out over this short stage in European history.  I can really see this taking shape because of the differences between Western European nations like France, Germany, Italy, Spain, etc. and the less industrialized states like Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary over economic issues.  Or perhaps political issues such as relations with Russia if the Russians become more assertive.

Yes, I know it's not uniformly homogenous, but Americans all across this country have roughly the same values, economic system, language, historical identity, etc and most of the differences you gave are just regional differences by people who think and act "like Americans".  I guess I should say that it is homogenous in relation to the EU.  And yes, it is changing as Jalisco said, but it will be very unlikely that the US will become a polyglot state like the Austro-Hungarian empire or modern day Switzerland

Hi Jim,
Yes, you are right. The US will not become a polyglot country. As matter of fact, most of the inmigrants are americanized during their stay.
I have seen this with relatives and friends that has lived for a certain period of time in the USA. Specially, if they have kids. The kids mainly speaks english and very few spanish.

Regards