Comments by "Lynott Parris" (@DenUitvreter) on "American Reacts to Afsluitdijk Dam - Impressive Dutch Motorway in the Sea" video.

As Dutch civil servants of the ministry of Traffic and Waterworks tend to brag: The Netherlands is already completed, "Nederland is al af." There were already plans to dam off that North Sea bay in the 17th century. But it was also the access to many port cities including that of Amsterdam, the trade hub of Europe back then. The food shortage of WW1 in which the Netherlands were neutral made the government give the go ahead. Also Rotterdam was now the main port with it's direct North Sea access in the West. The Great Depression helped, lots of unemployed who had to be paid support otherwise anyway. It was finished 2 years ahead of schedual. The reclaiming of land was mostly done post WWII. I was ready and inhabitable in the late 60's and in the early 70's the first towns emerged, planned of course. The new province, Flevoland has now almost half a million inhabitants and one city of over 200K people, Almere. That is in the top 10 of Dutch cities by size. The Afsluitdijk is actually one of the less impressive waterworks technically, it's huge but also just a dam. De Oosterscheldekering (where the head wind cycling championships are), the Maeslantkering and many others are more inventive and sophisticated.
23
@Alakablam No, the freedom certainly contributed but it was the invention of modern capitalism including a de facto central bank in combination with the invention of the wind sawmill in 1592 that allowed the Dutch to build ships 30 times faster and trade with much lower interest rates.
10
The Dutch golden age started well before the "Dutch East India" company/VOC, the 1570's while the VOC was founded in 1602, and was well past it's first half before the VOC started paying profits to it's shareholders. The city of Hoorn was relatively big in the VOC but it was the Dutch Republic's dominance of all European trade that made the age golden economically, the East-Indies trade of the VOC was just peanuts.
8
@Alakablam No. I have not forgotten that the invention of the wind sawmill in 1592 that allowed the Dutch to build ships 30 times faster and the development of modern capitalism here that allowed Dutch merchants to work cheaper because the de facto central bank kept the interests low. Freedom of and the end of Spanish oppression helped to of course, the Netherlands were already thriving before Philip II.
5
@Yvolve The 7 Northern Netherlands that is, the remaining 10 Southern Netherlands paid another 30% of the taxes. Of course the economy of the South would suffer hugely from the success of the Dutch Republic in the North, especially with the Scheldt river's North Sea access blocked. That massive cut in tax income with the war cost continuing for so long was a huge contributor to the downfall of the Spanish Empire. The invention of the stock exchange wasn't very important other than for the VOC and especially it's war effort against the Spanish ally Portugal. It didn't return profits to the shareholders for it's first 31 years and reinvested it in growth, expanding the network. So the rich bought the shares from the poor as a long term investment. I don't like Het Verhaal van Nederland. I suggest Paul H's YT channel with almost all "Andere Tijden" by Hans Goedkoop subtitled. Far less superficial and still modern.
2
The World Championship head wind cycling is at the Oosterscheldekering in Zeeland when there is a storm with the right wind direction.
1