‘Estonia, the little country that could’

George Rebane

A friend and RR reader emailed me the link to a Washington Times article by Richard Rahn that summarizes the economic history of Estonia.  Readers may recall my posts from our 15-29jun08 visit back to the old sod (see posts under ‘My Story’, right column).  Misplaced modesty prohibits my adding anything to the Rahn article.  I only draw your attention to it as a part of the larger apologetics that may be seen to underpin my socio-economic biases expressed in these pages.  As such, the source may all be in my double-helix, or perhaps in the water I drank as a young child.  Hard to tell.

Comments

[Douglas Keachie]

Let's see. How many fluffer posts will it take to bury the Keachie thread?

[Douglas Keachie]

Oh MY! That was fast!

[Douglas Keachie]

There seems to be a slight hiccup in the Wordpress system that hides a previous comment until the second reloading. 2nd comment can be deleted.

[George Rebane]

DougK, you again misunderstand. The reason that I posted the reply is that your Union article will have its own venue on RR and serve as a dedicated home for the "Keachie thread". Au contraire, it is one of the objectives of this blog to prominently feature and highlight thinking patterns such as yours. By this comment, I encourage my readers to add their thoughts to 'Keachie Again Misreads Rebane'.

[Todd Juvinall]

Keachie is calling Nevada County Republicans racists so in my view he is simply a sewer rat with no intelligence.

[Douglas Keachie]

In the approximate words of George Rebane and Greg Goodknight, on many, many, occasions, "I made no such statement," @Todd.

[Todd Juvinall]

Yes you did. You think your so smart when you say you saw that imaginary truck racing away from the R headquarters. No, you said it.

[Douglas Keachie]

I made no such "Exact statement". read your Dirac, Todd. If he's too advanced for you, read Heinlein's concept of "fair witness."

[Steve Enos]

"in my view he is simply a sewer rat with no intelligence"... another quality post by Todd.

George, do these personal, insulting posts add or detract from this blog site and the ability to have a discussion regardless of one's views?

[Todd Juvinall]

Thanks SteveE for the compliment. Would you have Keachie call you a racist and like it? Probably not. You people on the left dish out your slime and whine like a child when we expose you. Read my blog and Keachies statement and then get back to us.

[Steve Enos]

Only Todd would take my above post as a "compliment". Seems someone needs to spent more time at church.

[Dave C]

How has Estonia's economy held up since the introduction of the Euro this year, as compared to other EU economies? Does Estonia have high volume trade with "troubled" EU nations such as Italy, Greece and Portugal, or do they generally trade among northern EU nations?

[Greg Goodknight]

George, nice piece. I suspect Milton & Rose Friedman would be proud that their popular treatment of economics and politics, "Free to Choose", would have had such an impact on Estonia. Doubly so since Rose Friedman was born in another Soviet province, Ukraine.

[Greg Goodknight]

Regarding Keach's statement, "In the approximate words of George Rebane and Greg Goodknight, on many, many, occasions, 'I made no such statement' ":

Keachie has a 'hysterical dialectic' that works approximately like this:

1) Greg Goodknight makes a rational statement A.
2) Keach makes an irrational deduction B at best tangentially related to A.
3) Keach later accuses me of saying B which I deny, asking for a quote as a substantiation.
4) Keach, unable to produce a quote, accuses me of lying about my past statements.

Keach used to substitute teach at NUHS, all I can say is I'm happy my son never had him, even for a day.

[George Rebane]

Estonia "another Soviet province"??? I think that Ukrainians, Estonians, and the natives of other conquered contries would never have considered themselves to have that status. Not a well known fact is that the US and several other major western countries never recognized that the Baltics were in fact Soviet Socialist Republics. America saw the Baltics as conquered countries, and so indicated with appropriate appended notes on every map issued by our government - e.g. see the pre-1991 maps put out by the US Defense Mapping Agency.

America also formally recognized and dealt with the Estonian legation in exile in Washington DC throughout the Cold War, kept Estonia's national gold stored in trust in Ft Knox (wisely shipped there before the onset of WW2), and returned same to Estonia when it regained its freedom.

[Greg Goodknight]

Somehow, I suspect the Russians dominating the USSR saw Estonia as a mere province. Kudos to Estonians (and Ukranians) for retaining their identities through difficult times.

[George Rebane]

GregG, your suspicions are spot on, even unto this day.

[Steve Enos]

Yes... "Kudos to Estonians (and Ukranians) for retaining their identities through difficult times".

[D. King]

From the link:

"...but the communists let it decay - like everything else they touched."

Wow, who would have thunk it?

[Todd Juvinall]

George, weren't there a bunch of Knights from Estonia that traveled to the Holy Lands during the Crusades?

[Dave C]

Holy Cow, George! Estonia exiled their gold reserves to Ft. Knox in 1939? Not only a good move, but a hell of an investment when you compare $35/oz in 1939 to around $350/oz in the early 90's. This must have done wonders to curb inflation when Estonia emerged to independence when floating their own currency on the open market.

[George Rebane]

Todd, no Estonian knights per se existed during the time of the Crusades. At the time Estonian tribes were fighting the invasion of German knights (Teutonic Order) that were crusading in the Baltics bringing Christianity.

Estonian forays into the middle east occurred during its viking centuries (few know that Estonians were also viking raiders) and involved raiding voyages all the way to Gibraltar and down the Russian rivers to the Black Sea. All that ended when Germany finished its conquests in the 13th century and Estonians became their serfs and second class citizens.

DaveC, I'm not sure that Estonia's repatriated gold ever left Ft Knox. Many countries keep their precious metals there for obvious reasons. The monetary gain over the years was only in nominal terms, buying power remained about the same. The interest thrown off by other Estonian accounts kept by the US was used to pay for maintaining the Estonian legation during the Cold War.

[Douglas Keachie]

Now that The Union has shut down the commenting section, it is not possible to backtrack through his comments to produce the "I made no such statement." George, on the other hand, basically said he made no such statement about taxes above $250,000 being 100%, but he certainly did a fine job of insinuating it, by posing a future in which the poor, poor, entrepreneur would not have any money available to make new hires.

For a much clearer picture of our immediate future and the problems we face, I strong suggest rereading "Player Piano." Just what do we do with all the citizens displaced by the wonderous automation illustrated in this morning's editorial column in The Union? Ignore them and call them lazy SOB's and throw them into debtors' prisons? Can we automate the prisons too?

[George Rebane]

DougK and other similarly perplexed readers - all my Union columns are posted on RR on the same day that they appear in the newspaper's print and online editions on the second Saturday of the month. The RR version has a link to the Union's online version.

And, as if on cue, Mr Keachie again illustrates his literary interpretive skills in his 0832 comment, which apparently is misplaced from comment stream to 'Keachie Again Misreads Rebane'.

[Douglas Keachie]

Dear GeorgeR, It's not all about you. Yes, your stuff is available, unless you were one of the sock puppet posters. I was talking about the persona ggoodknight, who is never, of course, to be confused with the real person, Greg Goodknight.

Once again Rebane misreads Keachie, possibly?

[George Rebane]

Yes DougK, Rebane had definitely misread Keachie, and remains perplexed.

[Douglas Keachie]

The way you have used the word in the past, with respect to moi, you'd think it was a pejorative, so now I am perplexed but good.

[Greg Goodknight]

George, I'm afraid Keachie is just using your blog to vent his longstanding grudges. The "persona" issues come from using The Union blog rules to deal with the plethora of anonymous sock puppets he gleefully created at The Union in order to throw insults at me and others.

[Greg Goodknight]

George, back to your post up top... regarding the water you drank as a child, that could have been close. I recall a once popular cook quoting the writer Lin Yutang as saying "What is patriotism but the love of the food one ate as a child?".

[George Rebane]

Well GregG, I'm going to have to stick with the water ;-) because I don't really recall any "love of the food (I) ate as a child" other than to stave off hunger during the war years, and the simple fare we had in the post-war refugee camp. My love of food really started when we arrived in America. But then again, that may prove Lin's point about my patriotism.

[Jim]

Here's three pages of valiant Estonian history for ye:

http://www.mosinnagant.net/global%20mosin%20nagants/TheUseOfTheMosinNagantInEstonia.asp

[George Rebane]

Jim, thank you very much. That site has a very readable and good short summary of Estonian history. My father was in the Estonian army around 1930, and I was intently looking to see if I could find him in one of the pictures (I couldn't). Thanks again.

[JimS]

He was out shootin'. Tally ho, George!