Personal observations in my younger years (part2)

Sorry I am a bit late but here is the second part of how I experienced my younger years. if you want to read the 1st part before this one , you can find it here

First some fun fact history:

*Did you know that the American declaration of independence is inspired by the Dutch Act of Abjuration (dutch: Plakkaat van Verlatinghe)which absolved the Utrecht Union (the union that would become the country The Netherlands) of their oath of allegiance to the King of Spain in 1581 ?
*Did you know that the Netherlands were the first country with freedom of religion in their constitution ?
*Did you know that there almost had been no USA without Dutch financial and naval help after the American Revolutionary war?


Ok back to the story..

I told you how  Social democratic system was a well balanced system with the best parts of Capitalism and Socialism combined, regulated free enterprise and a social security system that had no equal in the whole world..
It gave the best possible education in the world, the birth of industrial giants in ship building, the largest import export harbor in the world (Rotterdam) there was hardly any unemployment.
As an electrician I could work anywhere I wanted and I earned quite well for a young starter I bought my house when I was 27 and I still live there ..

Our system worked more than perfect and it gave the north western countries a period of extreme economic prosperity that was until 80s when Predator American corporate investors bought their way in to European politics
Laws were changed to make it possible for American corporations to buy European companies..
Laws were changed to privatize governmental services and under the smoke screen that competition would make everything cheaper government companies like the railways, public transport, energy company, water company and mail service were privatized

And let me tell you  this statement that "competition would make everything cheaper" was the biggest governmental lie ever told , the energy prices sky rocketed the postal service was slimmed down so 25% of the postal workers were added to the unemployment number

But we were too blinded by the positive perspective we constantly got from the government that it needed time to settle that we did not notice that after the law was changed there was one hostile take over after the other
And when the first cutbacks governmental cutbacks started we discovered that we were preyed up on..
A news paper brought the news that unnamed secret investors with unlimited money were buying up our industry, dividing it in to smaller chunks and soled them with profit. Leter we discovered the name of this system: private equity investment (like Bain investment of Mitt Romney )
I think this 160 second Youtube Video explains in a few minutes what we in Europe had to find out in several years of cutting through the lies of the government.

But what we discovered this was only scratching the surface.
First it looked like the money was growing on trees but a few years later we began to feel the consequences of the deregulation and learned what private equity investors had done to our industry and technical companies..
It came to the point that even I as an experienced electro technician  lost my job.

Europe was unprepared for the wave of predatory  investors  out on making quick profit by by buying sound companies, reducing its workforce, dividing it in separate companies , take out giant loans on these companies (this money  ended up in the investor's pockets) and sold the separate companies again presenting the numbers from before the company was bought by these investors

Most of these companies collapsed within a year because under the weight of the loans taken out by the investor in the company's names..

This was the start of the downward spiral of he shrinkage of the European economy.

In my years of unemployment that was covered by the unemployment law in the Netherlands (and where I had paid for through my social insurance premiums) I started to study social political history and this has become a hobby of mine because this never ends, everyday new history is written..
By study I also got my diploma and several certificates  to call myself Electro technical engineer and in the15 year recovery between 1994 and 2009 I worked for a Technical Interim Bureau on several huge industrial projects, and saw from up close how our industry was sliced and diced up by these anonymous investors and finally seeing the small parts, where I have all worked for going bankrupt or being sold to yet other investment companies or -if they were lucky- another large technical company..

In 2009  I collapsed at work because of a what later turned out to be a mild stroke and later I experienced 2 heart attacks as my body's revenge for working 15 years like a crazy man to earn more and more money..
Now I am enjoying a modest disability pension and picked up my social political history hobby again and now focusing oh the other side of the coin, the USA..

And what I see is that it is still going on, the American system of uncontrolled market damages Europe as much as it damages the US itself, if you still cannot see that Corporate business bled the USA economy dry,  just look at the national debt, the poverty, the unemployment..
 When Europe is bled out the same way these corporate predators will focus on other economies to make it happen all over again..