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FINNISH ECONOMY OUTPACING EU AS A WHOLE……!

FINNISH ECONOMY OUTPACING EU AS A WHOLE……!

By KGS8 years agoLeave a comment

Which is like referring to the GDR as the economic dynamo of the Warsaw Pact.

News 3.6.2016 16:26 | updated 3.6.2016 16:26

Finnish growth outpaces EU average

Quarterly growth was the strongest in five years, kindling hopes of a recovery. However exports continued to shrink, while Finland had the eurozone’s worst month-on-month fall in retail sales in April.

Finland’s economic growth exceeded the EU average in the first quarter.

Preliminary figures from Statistics Finland show a 0.6 percent rise in GDP from January to March on the last year. In the first three months of the year, it grew by 1.6 percent compared to the previous year.

The expansion was bigger than initially estimated, kindling hopes of a recovery.

The construction and service industry lead the promising upswing. Eurostat figures state that pan-European GDP was up by an average of half a percent in comparison.

The quarterly growth figure was best posted since 2011.

“Three causes of joy: strongest growth since 2011, still potential for growth in exports and eurozone (growth figure) overtaken,” economist Juhana Brotherus of Hypo Bank tweeted, comparing Finland’s year-on-year growth at 1.58 percent to the eurozone average at 1.53 percent.

Exports and retail sales slump

However Finland’s all-important exports continued to shrink – by 1.1 percent in the first three months of this year and 2.6 percent over a year.

“Construction and services are creating growth, while industrial production does not grow or contract,” Brotherus said on Twitter.

Meanwhile Finland showed the worst month-on-month fall in retail sales among eurozone countries in April, slipping 1.2 percent, the European Union’s statistics office said on Friday.

Retail sales, a proxy for household spending, remained flat in April in the 19-country currency bloc, Eurostat said.

The encouraging signs of economic thaw come as the centre-right government pushes unions to agree to a competitiveness pact. It aims to cut labour costs by adding three working days a year without increasing salaries.

Sources Yle, AFP, Reuters

Written by KGS

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There’s No Common Cultural Legacy For The Alt-Right

Still, is there something to it? Is there a common heritage that will cover El Greco and Hume and Dostoyevsky? Is there one that can include the Jacobites and the Jacobins? There is, but it is not racial, and white supremacists reject it because it rejects them. The unifying heritage of Europe is religious and philosophical. It is Jerusalem and Athens, in one famous formulation. Christian religion and Greek philosophy, filtered through Roman law and culture, are the foundation of European culture. The tensions, agreements, developments and settlements between these have shaped the Western world, and these roots of Western civilization are not congenial to white supremacy.

Christianity is universal in its message and Jewish in its origins. For centuries after its founding, Christianity’s center was the Mediterranean world, including Asia Minor and North Africa. Christianity has never been defined by race, and locally-grown racist heresies are only sustainable among those ignorant of Christianity’s teachings, origins and history.

Greek philosophy is likewise ill-suited to serve as a basis for white identity. It is either too universal (addressing the human condition in general) or too local—none of us live as citizens of an ancient Greek polis. Later philosophical developments in Europe, such as the philosophies of the Enlightenment, likewise tend to be too universal for white supremacists seeking a tribal identity. As for the scientific revolution that developed within Western culture (albeit with much borrowed from outside Europe), math doesn’t care what color someone is.

War is being waged against Western culture from within which is in essence a war against Christianity and its moral origins in the Hebrew Bible. By attacking these Biblical foundations in the name of reason and human rights, the culture warriors of secularism are sawing off the branch on which they sit. The only way to defend Western civilisation is to reaffirm and restore its Biblical foundations. My argument is a development of ideas I first explored in my 2012 book The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power.

We are living in an era which extols reason, science and human rights. These are said to be essential for progress, a civilised society and the betterment of humanity. Religion is said to be their antithesis, the source instead of superstitious mumbo-jumbo, oppression and backward-thinking.

Some of this hostility is being driven by the perceived threat from Islamic terrorism and the Islamisation of Western culture. However, this animus against religion has far deeper roots and can be traced back to what is considered the birthplace of Western reason, the 18th-century Enlightenment.

Actually, it goes back specifically to the French Enlightenment. In England and Scotland, the Enlightenment developed reason and political liberty within the framework of Biblical belief. In France, by contrast, anti-clericalism morphed into fundamental hostility to Christianity and to religion itself.

“Ecrasez l’infame,” said Voltaire (crush infamy) — the infamy to which he referred being not just the Church but Christianity, which he wanted to replace with the religion of reason, virtue and liberty, “drawn from the bosom of nature”.

Perfecting society

But this Enlightenment did not remove religion so much as pervert it. It took millenarian fantasies, the idea that the perfection of the world was at hand, and it secularised them. Instead of God producing heaven on earth, it would be mankind which would bring that about. Reason would create the perfect society and “progress” was the process by which utopia would be attained.

“I think that we should correct the vocabulary that we use, and call a spade a spade. It is all about Jihad, the Islamic effort to spread Islam globally”:

Terrorist attack – should be called Military Jihad.

Incitement – Media Jihad.

Al-Jazeera – Media Jihad Channel.

Imposing Sharia law – Judicial Jihad or Legislative Jihad.

Boycotting Israel (BDS) – Economic Jihad.

Emigration to EU and US – Emigration Jihad / Hijra Jihad.

Building mosques, Islamic education institutions – Cultural Jihad.

Halal food – Dietary Jihad.

Hijab or Niqab – Clothing Jihad.

Activity of MSA – Academic Jihad.

Activity of CAIR – Political Jihad / Public Jihad.

Collecting money for Islamic “charities” – Financial Jihad.

Political correctness – Submission to Jihad.

J Street, Peace Now, JVP and their likes – Jewish Useful Idiots who Serve Jihad.

Iran deal – Western Support for Nuclear Jihad.