Archiv der Kategorie: politics

German Politics, oddly enough, quicklink

I’m frightened.

Fair enough, all this is probably even more speculative than the much debated question how long the US will stay in Iraq. Now that a lot of people believe that Joschka Fischer will go to Brussels next year to become the first ‘European Foreign Minister’ once the Constitution will be ratified, the establishment of his party is already vulturing for his current job.

According to SPIEGEL ONLINE, even the current Minister for environmental affairs, Juergen Trittin, is interested in the top-job in the German foreign ministery. Even though his most notable foray into foreign affairs was rather successful (he managed to get the Kyoto treaty through against W’s opposition), I cannot possibly imagine “Juergen-can-deposit-Trittin” as Germany’s top ambassador. No way. Never.

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German Politics, Iraq, US Politics

I’m not sure Henry Kissenger

I’m not sure Henry Kissenger is right here. According to SPIEGEL ONLINE, he criticised the German foreign policy for allegedly not understanding “the American psyche” and not trusting “the American motives”.

So good ol’ Henry tells Gerhard and Joschka to flagellate themselves for not being able to see the truth. Just wondering – if the US have a specific agenda and would like the rest of the world to support it, wouldn’t it be their obligation to convince said rest? In my book, it would.

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oddly enough, US Politics

Who likes Iceman?

This time Maureen Dowd got it wrong. W’s campaign video shooting on the American aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln just off the Californian cost may be provoking comparisons to ‘Maverick’, the protagonist of Don Simpson’s and Jerry Bruckheimer’s 1985 hit-film TopGun – but it’s dead wrong.

‘Maverick’ is a good cowboy, not a bad one. He’s the bearer of the good America of my youth. He’s the mustang that roams and runs wild in Marlboro country. He’s disregarding the rules until he learns that, sometimes, they do make sense. He loses a friend, then faith, he lives at the edge of despair, but he grows and returns as a wiser man. And, hey, he gets the girl.

We may be not be flying F-14s on a daily basis, but I am pretty sure most of us aspire to be some kind of ‘Maverick’, ‘the best of the best’, in whatever we do.

The screenplay for TopGun II, ‘the Washinton connection’, that Maureen Dowd is proposing today, would not survive any producer’s scrutiny for more than five minutes. No one would want to see a film in which the dull and rational Iceman would become the bearer of truth. Of course, W’s PR people know that, and that’s why they made him play ‘Maverick’.

But he’s not. Or, let’s say – should W indeed be Maverick, we would be only 20 minutes into the film. And I am pretty sure that Ms Dowd is not favoring another seventy minutes of a W presidency, including the question which horrible incident would make W lose faith and self confidence.

Let’s just hope we’ll never know who would have to play ‘Goose’ in the sequel…

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Economics, quicklink, US Politics

Much Ado about not much.

The McKinsey Quarterly looks at the incentive effects of the Bush dividend-cut proposal and decides that it, well, is largely a placebo. Won’t hurt, won’t heal, as most shares are held by tax-exempt entities anyway –

“The fact, however, is that tax-paying US individual shareholders own a minority of all US shares?28 percent in 2002, whereas tax-exempt US institutions and individuals who hold shares in tax-exempt accounts owned 61 percent. (The remainder was in foreign hands.) … Since these investors are indifferent to the issue of taxes on their dividends, they are unlikely to set in motion the kinds of changes in their portfolios that would drive up share prices.”

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Iraq, oddly enough, quicklink, US Politics

Saddam Hussein, MBA.

This is good. Condoleeza Rice has presented a new rationale for the current lack of Iraqi WMDs – while admitting that

“Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program is less clear-cut, and probably more difficult to establish, than the White House portrayed before the war”,

she readily explained why that should have been expected anyway – Saddam knew about “Just-In- Time” manufacturing – “Just-in-time assembly” and “just-in-time inventory”. Now really. But speaking of management buzzwords, I guess one could make a real case for Saddam excelling in “global sourcing”… (from the Autralian f2-netowork via Tom Tomorrow).

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German Politics, quicklink

Go Gerhard! Go. Finally the

Finally the chancellor is doing what he was elected for: to explain the world to the loony left within his own party and to demonstrate that Germany does not need a Margaret Thatcher to rebrand the SPD. The loony left is not happy to face realiy, to say the least.

But making Germany’s economic more flexible is a struggle for social equality, not against it. Why don’t people see that? It is a class struggle only for those corporatist functionaries bound to loose power. And loose it they will. Spiegel Online tells us about the chancellor’s Labour Day speech.

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compulsory reading, German Politics, Iraq, media, US Politics

Does it matter…

that I forgot to mention Paul Krugman’s latest column so far? It probably doesn’t. The very fact that I am reading his columns confirms that Paul does get sufficient public exposure even without my mentioning him [I wonder – does this sound pretentious or merely ironic to your ears ;-)].

But as Paul Krugman wonders whether it matters that the US population has been misled into war given that it allowed the most powerful military in the world to quite successfully flex its muscles and liberate-slash-conquer Iraq in a blitz, I think I would be guilty of omission should I not mention the column at all.

Now I don’t think that one should expect politicians to be entirely truthful about their motives, all the time. And I think I am cynical enough to say that Krugman is probably not actually expecting that

“… a democracy’s decisions, right or wrong, are supposed to take place with the informed consent of its citizens.”

He certainly knows enough about transaction costs and the reasons for having division of labour in politics, ie representative democracy. But the gist of his argument remains right: It is wrong, if not outright amoral, for the political class of a country to willingly engage in creating wrong perceptions in a major policy area – in Paul Krugman’s words –

“[t]hanks to this pattern of loud assertions and muted or suppressed retractions, the American public probably believes that we went to war to avert an immediate threat – just as it believes that Saddam had something to do with Sept. 11.”

We all know that truth can be a fickle firend sometimes. So it is probably correct to argue, that, in a purely logical sense, the US administration was not ‘lying’ to anyone, just as it claims –

“We were not lying,” a Bush administration official told ABC News. “But it was just a matter of emphasis.” … According to the ABC report, the real reason for the war was that the administration “wanted to make a statement.” And why Iraq? “Officials acknowledge that Saddam had all the requirements to make him, from their standpoint, the perfect target.”

By the way, the same argument can be made for those German union leaders and those within the social democrats who still claim that the German labour market does not need reform. But then again, I am not too sure about their motives being vile. Maybe their own perception has been clouded and they actually don’t know better… in which case we would be back to the old question: what’s better? A political class working against the people’s interest for reasons of a private agenda or for reasons of incompetence, pure and simple.

That’s certainly a tough call. Especially on a sunny socialist holiday ;-). [ author off to a beer garden. ]

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oddly enough, quicklink, US Politics

Bush vs. Masturbation

Following on Sen. Santorum’s recent intervention concerning the legal status of homosexuals’ privacy in the US,

“President Bush is proud to introduce an ambitious new phase in the fight to preserve all that is decent in America. Conceived and championed by the revered Republican think tank Americans for Purity, ‘Operation Infinite Purity‘ is dedicated to the complete eradication of masturbation from American soil by the year 2005.”

From the Whitehouse.org

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US Politics, USA

AAAAAAAAAAction!

Two weeks or so ago, a friend asked me if I knew anything about the budgetary problems California is facing during the current economic bust given a rapid fiscal expansion during the previus – particularly Sillicon Valley powered – economic boom. Well, I had to admit that my knowledge of US state budgetary affairs is minimal, to be exaggerating. But the good thing is, I am not the European who has to know about these things, as another one is apparently about to tackle the problem.

As the London Times explains,

“[e]veryone knew he would be back, but no one thought it would be this soon. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood action star turned Republican activist, might get a chance to run for governor of California in September, three years earlier than expected.

As the article reports, the budgetary problems have (how surprising) caused a decline in the current governor Gray’s popularity. This has led some activists to try to gather some 900.000 signatures needed to challenge the sitting governor ahead of the end of his term, which would be 2006. So these people apparently decided to ask the Terminator, who was apparently expected to run for governor in 2006 anyway, to run on their ticket now. For a reason:

“Political strategists believe that, after the war in Iraq, Mr Schwarzenegger’s gung-ho, machinegun-toting image would be more attractive to voters than ever. Even historically liberal Californians might elect a Republican, they say.”

But for all his advantages there’s a drawback.

The heavily-accented Mr Schwarzenegger, … makes President Bush look like a natural orator.”

But then again, Ronald Reagan, to make the obvious comparison, even rehearsed press-conferences as President. So isn’t the biggest question of all if the US constitution will be amended again to allow for Arnie as President in, say, 2016?.

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