Pope Spurred Free Markets in East Europe
NewsMax.com Wires
Tuesday, April 5, 2005
Pope John Paul II and former President Ronald Reagan hammered away at Communism until it fell, along with its sponsor country, the Soviet Union.
The Pope's principled anti-Communism helped bring about freedom in his native Poland - and precipiated the fall of the U.S.S.R., the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall and all vestiges of Soviet totalitarianism.

In its place, freedom, democracy, capitalism and economic growth have rushed in to take their place. Indeed, Investor's Business Daily reports that, today, former Soviet block countries are freer than Europe's older democracies - such as France.
 
 

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, the region has led much of Europe in adopting free market reforms that are helping governments grow their economies while allowing businesses to take advantage of lower wages, less taxes and decreased regulation, the paper found.