Tracy,

beg your pardon, but how do you come to the idea people in the former GDR (know to you as east germany) was as poor as somebody in latin america?
I myself never visited latin america, but you agree that the poor in the US stands better then those in the south.

If you would have offered a "poor" (i.e not the average) citizen of the GDR the whole living conditions of a mobil home or in a "no go zone", he would have rejected. And there was no homeless, and if, you wouldn't have seen.

BTW, the GDR was the only real democratic country ever. As the people like to change the system, administration withdraw from power after some demonstrations without a single shot. Try this in a country of the "free world".
::)

Agnes

>Yes I have been to poor 3rd world countries. I suggest you visit some more because I know from personal experience that your image of 3rd world poverty is not realistic. I lived in Panama for a year and spent a lot of time in other latin american countries. Not all living in poverty in 3rd world countries have refrigerators and electricity. If they did they would sell them for food. Look at Panama. I personally visited many living in real poverty there and they have four walls and a roof but a dirt floor, no electricity, and no fridge, ice, or radio, let alone color t.v. Medical care is only a dream to most of them. Their health was scary from lack of nutrition on a regular basis as well as bacterial infections and infections from bug bites. Some did not even have shoes. That goes for Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Honduras. Believe me the living conditions of the poor in those countries were NOTHING compared to the poor I saw living in the U.S., West Germany,
>Spain, France, Switzerland, Netherlands (I was in Den Haag in 1984 and then I drove around the country for 2 weeks), or Denmark. The closest to the Latin American countries' poorest conditions was East Berlin but even there everyone had a roof over their head, heat (albeit coal), t.v., a radio, a refrigerator, a stove, adequate (if ugly) clothing, and most of them even a vehicle. No comparison at all....