Dutch Queen Beatrix, who turns 75 on Thursday, announced she was abdicating in favor of her son, Prince Willem-Alexander, who will become king on April 30.

There's such a fine line as to what is PWEC material and what isn't on this website sometimes. Things get so blurred quite often.

Um, I think it's safe to say that a change in the Dutch monarchy is not something that will bring out heated political debate on SimHQ.

Perhaps a European can explain to me why they keep these deplorable throwbacks to totalitarianism amongst themselves?


PWEC

Perhaps a European can explain to me why they keep these deplorable throwbacks to totalitarianism amongst themselves?


PWEC

Maybe the 'P' part of PWEC doesn't mean anything here, after all. Cool. I guess anything goes, right Panzer?

Perhaps a European can explain to me why they keep these deplorable throwbacks to totalitarianism amongst themselves?

Maybe the 'P' part of PWEC doesn't mean anything here, after all. Cool. I guess anything goes, right Panzer?

Well, first of all, at least in The Netherlands, totalitarianism hasn't been the case really. We have a parliamentary democracy since 1848 within a constitutional monarchy. The save you an hour of boring and tedious history, we're democratic as hell and the queen hasn't got jack **** to tell, and it was already like that at the start of it.

Man, we even need a referendum if the government decides to place new white coloured public recycle bins in parks. Reason, the birds might see the colour white as an invasive object within their natural habitat. I'll tell you... In times of an economic crisis, that's what keeps our government busy. In the meanwhile, immigrants are lying on their stolen/leftist government funded coach, leeching off their leftist government funded funds, recently graduated academics won't get a job because companies die trying to survive, and CEOs are sent home with a �15 mln. thank you for 2 years of miss management. But let's keep focus.

Back to the queen and these deplorable throwbacks. It's mostly show, sentiment, and culture, there really isn't any value added in the chain by the queen or the royal family in general. The only actual job she performs from time to time is that of a marketing/PR woman. When she's going abroad on one of her fancy trips, she sometimes acquires large orders for Dutch companies. Oh, and she recieves �16 mln. a year. Tax free, that is. Pretty decent salary for an order acquisitor I'd say.

Did you by any chance see the footage in which she says how utterly grateful she is for all those years of lovely support from the Dutch population?! Well, she can start expressing her gratefulness by injecting 30 years of exorbitant salary into the population if you ask my opinion.

So, I think I upped the PWEC factor quite a bit now!

...but wouldn't it be easier just to use the correct Euro to Dutch Guilders exchange rate to solve your economic problems since the shopkeepers, stores etc... took advantage of the currency switch by doubling the prices overnight on everything and making themselves rich? Personally, I like the Queen. It's kinda sad to see her step down.

The main reason to keep the royals is simply because a) tradition and b) you get someone who is bred and taught from their birth to be your nation's representative. You get someone who is educated in manners, who doesn't bow in submission before an Emperor by mistake, or puke in their laps. And you avoid scandals like having nazis elected as your head of state (hello Kurt Waldheim).

Funny that you touch upon that subject. It is absolutely true yet sometimes it seems no one notices that, especially not beyond the Dutch borders. Prices indeed got rougly doubled overnight, exchange rate is Guilders:Euros 2.2:1, and prices almost changed on a 1:1 ratio. But in an economy it's like this: the baker doubled the price of his bread, the landlord thought: well since he's earning twice as much, I might as well double the rent. Moreso since the landlord also has to eat and has to pay twice as much for a bread than he used to. See where I'm going?

Only way you could revert this in a relatively short timeframe is by governmental interference in the form of controlling and regulating prices. But guess what would happen then in our overly social and left wing country besides the fact that Brussels doesn't like that? Exactly, everyone will start screaming because they once read an article or two about liberalism and now 'their freedom' is taken away. And in my opinion that's the problem of a democracy, but since a democracy is the only acceptable form right now you'll have to cope with it. Every fool's vote and opinion counts, so if they'd have to hand in 10 Euros to recieve 100 Euros over a longer stretched timeframe in the future, it's a no go.