blogGus - Thoughts from Gus Hagelberg

Popular Protest

2010-11-29T15:55:00.002+01:00

Perhaps some of you have heard about all the protests going on in Germany, France and England this Fall. Recently English students stormed Tory headquarters protesting austerity measures like increased tuition. Last week tens of thousands of Germans managed to delay a train delivering radioactive waste to a nuclear dump near Gorleben, a small down just West of the former Iron Curtain. For three days the major news networks were filled with reports of people hanging themselves from ropes above train tracks or tying themselves with chains to rails and roads. The train travelled from La Hague, France and into Germany where it met hundreds protestors filling the streets, train stations and even climbing on the tracks to delay the train’s progress. The radioactive waste had to be transferred on to trucks for the last few miles. At a street intersection just short of the final destination Greenpeace activists blocked the road with a vehicle disguised as a beer delivery truck. They retrofitted the truck and bolted it to the asphalt. Activists sunk themselves into drying concrete.
In Stuttgart, Germany citizens have been going to the streets week for week to protest the construction of an underground railway station. For months there have been weekly rallies with upwards of 80,000 people. Demonstrations this size have not been seen in this conservative southern German town for decades. Opposition to the construction plans have arisen because of the questionable benefits to public transportation and the immense costs, upwards of 5 billion Euros or almost $7 billion.
In France this Fall there were massive, country-wide demonstrations against the proposed increase of the retirement age from 60 to 62 (in Germany it has been increased from 65 to 67). The French protests were not only aimed at the increased age of retirement. As in Stuttgart, Gorleben and London, the protests reflect a general frustration among the public that they are being ignored by a class of political leaders interested only in serving their most persistent and powerful constituencies. Despite the danger of hanging my neck out the window, I might suggest that the Tea Party in the US garners much of it’s support from similar frustrations.
Why does the public feel alienated from the political process? Probably because they are. The lack of public participation in the political process in the US is much worse than in Germany or France. In these countries the election process is not dominated by million-dollar television spots paid for by private donations. In Germany, for example, each party is given equal amount of time for television commercials. Campaigning is limited to only a few months and you do not need a war chest of many millions of dollars to get elected. I furthermore see the majority-rule system in the US as extremely undemocratic. In the states only the voters who voted for the majority candidate are represented in parliament. Everyone else is left out in the cold. In Germany a party needs only 5% of the popular vote to gain seats in local or national parliaments. Elections on Tuesdays and having to physically register to vote are further factors making democratic participation more difficult in the US.
Even though it is easier to vote and find representation in places like Germany and France, large sections of the population feel disenfranchised. When the German government recently decided to extend the life of the countries nuclear power plants, it was obvious that lobbyists from the plant’s operators had influenced decision making. More than 60% of the public opposes these extensions. The multi-billion dollar train station construction in Stuttgart is also opposed by a vast majority of the population. Some claim that real estate investors have been central in pushing the project despite public opposition.
Of course it’s nothing new that plutocracy to a large extent best defines US and European systems. The wave of protests in Europe this Fall are a sign that people’s voices are being heard. The lack of violence during the protests in Germany are a positive sign that voices of protest will not drown out by images of stone-throwing youth. Such images serve only to feed prejudices and belittle serious public concerns.
The protests in Stuttgart surrounding the train project “Stuttgart 21” have been so successful that the government and industry interests have been forced to sit together with citizen interests groups to hammer out a compromise. The weekly meetings are aired live on television and the internet. This is an example of moving decision-making from the closed-doors of parliament onto the open-doors of public debate.

Digital Publishing: Solutions for Content Providers

2010-10-06T11:01:00.008+02:00

Newspaper, magazine and book publishers are presented today with challenges to their core business model. Revenue from readers and advertisers is in decline and the opportunities for shoring up these losses are slow in coming. The vast majority of daily newspapers in the US and Europe provide their content online without charge and internet access is available in over 80% of all households. Free web content is, in affect, stealing subscriptions away from the very publishers providing the content. In the US the decline of the newspaper industry has taken on momentous proportions. On average half as many journalists are employed in the US today compared to 1990. Declining readership automatically leads to a decline in advertising revenue. In addition, the readers who tend to move from paid print media to free online media belong to the younger generations, groups particularly attractive to advertisers. Although advertisers are moving more and more to the online market, the vast majority of revenue generated through advertising remains in print. The online market has not been able to generate the levels of revenue commonplace in the print market. According to Jack Shafer in his 2006 article on slate.com, a newspaper gets about one-tenth or one-twentieth the advertising revenue for an online reader as it does for a print reader.

This article is designed to sum up the present market situation for content providers, make some predictions about the future and present various solutions for maintaining subscription and advertising revenue.

Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp, said in August, 2009 “Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising [sic] its ability to produce good reporting”. He continued by saying that his news sources, including the Times and The Sun in the UK, and the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post in the US, would soon begin charging for online content. The New York Times has also announced that it will severely limit access to free news on its website from January, 2011. These radical, yet bold moves could signal a major change in the newspaper industry and a last-ditch effort to regain revenue. According to Richard Pérez-Pená (New York Times, January 20th, 2010), “Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the print newspaper, even those who subscribe only to the Sunday paper, will receive full access to the site without any additional charge”.

While the newspaper industry is suffering the most from the decline of readership and ad revenue, the future of the magazine and book industry is also far from certain. A new generation of tablet PC’s like Apple’s iPad are causing quite a stir among industry analysts. If tablet PCs turn out to be what they promise and present such an enjoyable reading experience, consumers may begin shifting to digital magazines and books. As can be seen in the music industry over the past ten years, new technologies, including iTunes and mp3 players, can have a far-reaching effects on revenue models. The overwhelming majority of revenue from music sales today comes from online services. The film industry is also presently going through a revolution due to the rapid rise in online sales. Blockbuster, the market leader in video rentals, has recently declared bankruptcy, largely due to competition from online and mail-in services like NetFlix. The illegal distribution of movies over the internet, moreover, will certainly influence box office and rental sales. New technological innovations and changing consumer behavior may also encourage magazine and book readers to migrate to digital reading devices.

As can clearly be seen, content publishers need to react to changing conditions. We can assume that newspapers will soon discontinue or severely limit free web news. Book publishers will increase marketing efforts in electronic publishing. Magazines will begin offering online, interactive versions of their magazines. Is that enough, however, to help newspapers regain levels of revenue previously gained through ads and subscriptions? Publishers need to create new business models that serve the needs of the new digital generation. High quality journalism has its price. Some may argue that newspapers and magazines used to be over-inflated institutions with too much power. It can hardly be of doubt, however, that newspapers and magazines play a vital role in a democratic society. They help form public opinion and thus must remain diverse and independent. Although there is a myriad of so-called bloggers out there reporting and writing news articles, the “blogosphere” can not be a replacement for professional journalism. Many European countries guarantee the continuation of independent news through state-sponsored public television and radio. The dominance of private media outlets in the US should encourage people to look more closely at the European model.

How, then, should media publishers respond to the threat to their traditional business model? First, they need to move away from free online content. High quality journalists cost money and that money has to somehow be earned. It’s a risky situation and no media outlet wants to be the first to shut down free access to their website. People are worried that if they limit access their readers will just click over to the next free website. This will drastically reduce website visits, leading to a reduction in advertising revenue. Newspapers will also lose access to readers and publishers ability to communicate with them. If, however, major outlets like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal set the stage for subscriber-only web news, it will make it easier for other to follow in their tracks. The loyalty of readers to their local newspaper should also not be underestimated. Web users will always find free news content, but if their favorite local newspaper is no longer available they may well feel inclined to pay.

The second response publishers need to take is to look carefully at their customer’s behavior. What are they willing to pay for? How much are they willing to pay? What type of information are they looking for that goes beyond simply a digital version of the printed publication? Over the past years consumers have grown used to getting information for free. It will take some work to convince readers that quality journalism is worth paying for. According to a survey by the Nielsen Group in February, 2010 of 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, 40% of consumers are willing to pay for newspaper content online. That rather optimistic figure is, however, somewhat dampend by a big ‘if’. Nielsen also found that 70% of the people surveyed would only pay for online news if it was better than that which they currently get for free. That can be interpreted to mean that consumers will avoid paying as long as possible. As long as they see opportunities to get the information they are looking for for free and as long as the quality is ok, they will be hesitant to pay. Publishers are then in a situation where they have to compete with multiple content providers. They need to create content that is superior to the competition. The fact that free content is not going to go away quickly makes it difficult to compete. If one farmer (farmer A) is offering slightly blemished apples for free and farmer B is offering perfect apples for 2 dollars a kilo, few will refuse the free ones. F armer B can, though, appeal to the consumers conscience by mentioning that farmer A stole his apples (assuming this is the case). Farmer B could also sell a few apples if she proves that her’s are organic and the other guy’s are not. Established newspaper and magazine publishers have the resources, experience and understanding of the market to make that bold move and begin offering excellent digital content. Many consumers will recognize the superior quality and be willing to pay.

In judging consumers willingness to pay for online content it is necessary to look at recent software and hardware developments. The readiness of consumers across the globe to pay for services online has grown drastically over the past ten years. Platforms like eBay, Amazon and iTunes have proven that people are willing to pay online. ECommerce today plays a central role in business activities. One reason for the success of online systems like eBay and iTunes is the ease of use and this is key to the success of paid news content. The astronomical increase in sales of music, Apps, movies and now books at Apple’s iTunes Store is a sign of the willingness for users to pay for online content. Apple’s easy-to-use, click-and-pay system has been very successful and has lowered the psychological barriers to paying online. People do not want to have to register separately each time they go shopping. Systems like PayPal have also made online payments much easier.

Another aspect is the amount of products available at one source. If someone is looking for used goods or bargains on new goods they hardly need to look further than eBay or Amazon. A music or film enthusiast can be pretty certain that by visiting Apple’s iTunes she will find what she’s looking for. This does, unfortunately, speak for centralized services and is not particularly conducive to anti-trust policies. There is justified critique that Apple, for example, has become too powerful in the music sales industry. Perhaps future open source platforms can successfully deal with these concerns. Nonetheless, consumers do respond positively to a single software solution that addresses all of their needs. It would be terribly time-consuming and discouraging if one had to visit multiple websites in order to find the best offer for a certain album. If newspapers, magazines and books were also available on such a popular platform, it would significantly increase consumers willingness to pay for such digital media.

Aside from software, attractive hardware is also key to judging consumer’s inclination to pay for online content. Despite the fact that computers and the internet have become so ubiquitous, we still prefer holding our newspaper in our hands and reading it at the dinning room table with a cup of coffee. Few people actually prefer reading a book on their laptop. What about tablet PCs? Are they going to change our reading habits? Is the hype about Apple’s new iPad just a hype or do people really enjoy reading “For Whom the Bell Tolls” on that nifty, little device? It is too early to tell where the development of improved “eReaders” will lead and how consumers will react. The chance that it will encourage people to read digital material, however, is significant and thus should encourage publishers to invest in the development of digital content.

A third step publishers can take to react to the new landscape in their industry is to cooperate with online platforms or create their own. The German Spiegel magazine is now available as a subscription only “App” for the iPhone and iPad. The New York Times also offers a commercial App which provides a more user-friendly version of their daily paper for mobile readers. Apple recently added books to it’s iTunes Store and is apparently planning to present a newspaper subscription platform for the iPhone and iPad (“Apple to announce subscription plan for newspapers”, John Boudreau, Sept. 14, 2010, San Jose Mercury News). Apple wants to take a 30% cut of the subscription fee and 40% cut of the advertising revenue. To what extent the newspapers will have access to the subscriber’s information remains a contentious issue.

The New York Times has announced the creation of Press Engine, a platform designed to help publishers deliver their content to digital readers like Apple’s iPad. This system differs from Apple’s planned newspaper publishing through the iTunes Store in that the publishers will be able to control their own advertising and subscriptions. The U.K.’s Daily Telegraph and the Dallas Morning News are among the early adopters who plan to contribute to Press Engine.

Google is also rumored to be preparing its own version of a subscription platform for news content. Googles Newspass would provide a system allowing publishers to charge readers for content.

The German company, Neofonie, is planning an alternative platform. It is also the producer of the tablet WePad. The Bertelsmann Direct Group und Grüner+Jahr will launch it’s own digital publishing platform called “Pubbles” at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair in October.

The fourth, and perhaps most difficult, measure publishers need to take is to increasingly invest in developing new concepts for digital content. It is not sufficient to simply put a pdf Version of a newspaper online and expect readers to jump at the offer. The digital generation has become quite sophisticated and has high expectations. Moreover, as mentioned above, there needs to be a tangible increase in the quality of the content to encourage consumers to pay. Digital publishing opens an entirely new mix of possibilities in interacting with readers and consumers. Digital media has a set of issues that differentiate it from printed media. Print media has been, of course, limited to ink on paper. Now, with publishing solutions for the internet, iPads and high-resolution smart phones, publishers can utilize video, audio, 3D and animations to engage new readers. These technologies also offer new opportunities for advertisers to communicate their message.

One major aspect now available to the publishing industry is video content. Not only can advertisers utilize this medium, more importantly news, analysis or text book content can integrate video material to enhance the message. We will increasingly see a merging of print, audio and film. Up until now television has not been able to integrate text and print media has not been able to integrate video and film. Just imagine the possibilities if the New York Times could utilize video technology just as successfully as ABC or CNN.

The possibilities for improving upon the format for transmitting news and books continues from there. Text books on iPads could include interactive quizzes, physics simulations or virtual chemistry experiments. Digital newspapers can offer expandable images, audio clips and interactive, 3D animations to their readers. The creation of this content obviously is costly. Many assets, however, are already available at the publishing houses and need only be converted and integrated. By simply viewing some of the websites of major newspapers it is, moreover, apparent that publishers are already investing in the development of multimedia content. Up until now, though, they have been giving it away for free.

Taking a closer look at developments in the text book industry also helps gain more insight into the choices publishers need to make. In early 2010 a consortium of educational publishers, including McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Kaplan teamed up with the company ScrollMotion to begin producing textbooks for the iPad. Other eReaders like the Kindle were seen by the group as insufficient for the needs of students. Evan Schnittman of Bloomsbury Publishing names three types of reading which need to be addressed when creating digital material; extractive reading, immersive reading and pedagogic reading. Extractive reading, for example looking up synonyms or definitions in a dictionary, is conducive to digital media and already widespread as can be seen by the success of Wikipedia. Fast and expansive search machines make reference work on the computer much easier than paging through a stack of encyclopedias on your desk. Immersive reading refers to reading books, journals or extensive articles. eBooks are addressing this market and tablet readers are serving these needs. The third type of reading, pedagogic reading, represents the greatest challenge for content producers, school book publishers in particular. Pedagogic readers are, for example, studying a chemistry textbook in preparation for mid-term exams. Serving this group of readers has proven to be elusive. Of course, students avidly use the internet to prepare for exams or to do research for a report. School book publishers, however, are confronted with the daunting task of moving material into the digital world. Could tablet PCs like the iPad be the solution to moving digital material into the classroom?

In order to save their business model, newspaper publishers will need to develop new concepts for regaining lost ground due to free internet news. Magazine and book publishers also need to react to changing technologies and reader’s habits and increasingly invest in digital publishing.

References

“Zeitungen rüsten sich für digitale Zukunft”, Sept. 22, 2010, Schwäbisches Tagblatt

“The Times to Charge for Frequent Access to Its Web Site”, January 20th, 2010, Richard Pérez-Pená, New York Times

“A Textbook Solution”, Elizabeth Weil, Sept. 16, 2010, New York Times

iPad and Education, http://www.apple.com/education/ipad/

“Apple to announce subscription plan for newspapers”, John Boudreau, Sept. 14, 2010, San Jose Mercury News (http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16075454?nclick_check=1)

“Changing Models: A Global Perspective on Paying for Content Online”, Nic Covey, February 16, 2010, nielsenwire, (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/changing-models-a-global-perspective-on-paying-for-content-online/)

“War’s das?”, October, 2009, Kurt W. Zimmermann, NZZ Folio

“Murdoch signals end of free news”, August 6, 2009, bbc news, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8186701.stm

“Moving into multiple business models, Outlook for Newspaper Publishing in the Digital Age”, 2009, PriceWaterhouseCoopers

“Google’s Newspass: Is the King of Free About to Help News Providers Get Paid?”, David Carr, June 20, 2010, New York Times

“Chronicle of the Newspaper Death Foretold, The newspaper industry knew it was doomed 30 years ago”, Jack Shafer, November 30, 2006, www.slate.com

Corporate Control in the US

2010-05-11T08:00:00.004+02:00

A friend recently sent me a link to an article by Chris Hedges "Why the Enlightened Liberal Class Is Complicit in the Country's Downward Spiral" (http://www.alternet.org/story/146711/why_the_enlightened_liberal_class_is_complicit_in_the_country%27s_downward_spiral?page=entire). For me the title is a bit misleading. It sounds like Hedges wants to blame the liberals for not getting off their asses and fighting for change. More important for me was the clear statement about the role of private, for-profit companies in running the country and its foreign affairs. Jeremy Scahill has done a great job of revealing the fact that private companies have almost taken over running the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. At home in the US, though, it's even worse. From school books to the secret service to oil rigs, the public sector with it's regulatory function has withdrawn to the sidelines. Amazingly and thankfully Social Security was saved from the tsunami of privatization.

Hedges presents a very thoughtful, concise statement about the state of affairs in the US. What are the ramifications of some of his statements? I mean we've been hearing about this for quite a while now but it's always kind of erie when I'm reminded of it. Gore Vidal said in an interview not too long ago that he sees the US moving towards fascism. It makes me kind of scared to think that private companies are running the show. Especially the secret service. You used to kind of have a bit of faith that government agencies are generally going to watch out for citizens rights (at least to a certain extent). But where is the country headed if you have for-profit companies patrolling the streets and happy to pick up some person they feel like calling a terrorist and sending him off to Guantanamo? Does that not mean that our personal freedom is being held hostage by some jerk CEO who just wants to cash in more government contracts?

Letter to the Editor - Germany Army in Afghanistan

2010-04-28T18:35:00.002+02:00

This week my letter to the editor of the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung was published.

In short I am criticizing the article written by Stefan Kornelius on April 4, 2010 in which he argues that the German Bundeswehr should be given full support in their efforts in Afghanistan. All of the debate in Germany regarding Germany's role in Afghanistan serves to weaken the German army. I argue that it's crazy to say that the German parliament and public should not criticize the Bundeswehr's role. It's part of a democratic society to constantly examine a countries foreign affairs.

Here's my letter:

Die afghanische Falle, Stefan Kornelius, SZ, 16.4.10

Der Beitrag von Stefan Kornelius zur Lage der Bundeswehr in Afghanistan: Die Bundeswehr benötigt sämtliche Freiheiten in Afghanistan, um ihre Arbeit Fach- und Sachgerecht durchzuführen. Die Einmischung der Bundespolitik und, noch schlimmer, die öffentliche Meinung, hindert und gefährdet die Soldaten. Was hätte einen solchen Vorschlag für Konsequenzen? Soll die Bundeswehr frei von allen Einschränkungen eines demokratischen Staates agieren können? Nein, die Einsätze der Bundeswehr müssen einer kritischen Debate unterzogen werden. Die Bundesregierung ist dazu verpflichtet ihre Mandate ständig zu überprüfen. Die Öffentlichkeit muss gehört werden. Schliesslich sind es die Söhne und Töchter der Bundesbürger, die dort ihr Leben riskieren. Noch wichtiger wäre es, auf die Afghanen zu horchen, die seit Jahrzehnten von angeblichen "friedlichen, Einsätzen" verschiedener Armeen leiden.

Mich wundert es, dass solche Meinungen in der Süddeutschen Zeitung gedruckt werden. Die einfache, populistische Argumentation von Kornelius gehört nicht in einer seriösen Zeitung.

Can I eat my iPad?

2010-02-01T09:06:00.002+01:00

It’s funny sometimes what sort of information gets thrown at you on the Internet. It was Wednesday afternoon and I began reading an article in the Nation magazine about the budget crisis in California. The situation sounds bad, real bad. I’m from California and I know that the place has gone through hard times before. The sense of urgency and distress in the article, however, was new to me. The tax base is basically crumbling away and the state legislature can’t do a thing about it. The term Prop 13 was mentioned numerous times, and not in a very good way. I grew up in a nice suburb of LA and Howard Jarvis and his Prop 13 were household names, names that put a twinkle in my parents eye. In 1978 state voters passed the initiative that limited property tax rates. My parents profited for decades by having an extremely low property tax. The state as a whole, however, has suffered because of the missing tax revenues. One lesser known part of the initiative was that the legislature could pass tax increases only with a two-thirds majority. Tax reductions, on the other hand, could be passed with a simple majority. The obvious result is that California has been decreasing taxes for ages, but has failed to increase taxes. Of course Californians are creative and innovative and figured out other ways of increasing state revenue. The infamous bond initiatives are one tool. Californians are presented at every election with a list of bond initiative which allow the state to borrow more money to fund education, health, or whatever.
Today in California the situation is critical. Community hospitals are closing, judges are donating parts of their salaries to help keep the courts open, public schools are in shambles. The government, though, is unable to respond. It reminds me of the inability of the Italian government to pass any laws because of the complex coalition of small political parties. In her Nation article (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100208/abramsky) from January 21, 2010, Sasha Abramsky notes how there is a Mad Max feeling in many neighborhoods. The public sector is dysfunctional. The government simply doesn’t work. The place is going (or has gone?) broke. Hopefully my fellow Californians are not planning on having the federal government bail them out. Obama just announced an across-the-board spending freeze (of course military spending is excluded) and received enthusiastic applause from both sides of the aisle.
How can this be in the land of Steve Jobs, George Lucas, Michael Jackson and Joan Kroc? There are so many rich people in this state. There is, still, a strong middle class, a thriving agriculture industry and, unfortunately, a massive military industry. The potential tax revenues from the film industry alone must be enough to save hundreds of community hospitals.
Now comes the funny part. After reading that article I felt a sudden excitement as I remembered that Apple Computer was having a “Special Event” in San Francisco. I quickly clicked over to apple.com and with rushing adrenaline read, gazed, watched and drooled over the newest technical wonder from Cupertino, the iPad. Only four letters and only a piece of aluminum with a glass cover and a bunch of tiny electronics inside. Not much? Well it’s enough to get my blood pumpin’ and I bet I’m not alone. Will this thin rectangular thing manage to come close to the mania that surrounded the introduction of the iPhone in 2007? I don’t know, but I’m pretty darn certain that it will stuff Steve Job’s coffers so full of cash that he won’t have any room to carry his new iPad. Am I a cynique? Am I deriding the ingenuity and innovation that makes America great?
Yes, I am. It’s just crazy. The state is going broke, the industry is reeling in the profits and the legislature is unable or unwilling to respond. What about the voters? Why are they not up in arms? Don’t they care about their schools, their fire departments, their bridges, their drinking water? The apathy is certainly running at an all time high. With so much inaction, incompetence and corruption in politics who can blame them? Is that the whole story though? Or is their a hidden story beneath all that adrenaline pumping through my blood when I await Apple’s next technological messiah? Are we all so busy shopping, are we all so consumed with our consumption that we don’t even consider standing up and saying “Stop. This is enough!”? Karl Marx referred to religion as the opiate of the masses. I think there is a lot of truth to that but today he would have to add the iPad to his list of opiates.

The US Role in poverty and war

2010-01-06T22:25:00.002+01:00

The journalist and activist Allan Nairn was interviewed today, Jan. 6th, 2010, by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now (http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/6/stream). I wanted to pass this information on because Nairn has some radical and impressive ideas which I think need to be heard.

Nairn says: "I think Obama should be remembered as a great man because of the blow he struck against white racism”. “But once he became president…Obama became a murderer and a terrorist, because the US has a machine that spans the globe, that has the capacity to kill, and Obama has kept it set on kill. He could have flipped the switch and turned it off…but he chose not to do so.” He continues, “In fact, as far as one can tell, Obama seems to have killed more civilians during his first year than Bush did in his first year, and maybe even than Bush killed in his final year.”

Joan Walsh on Obama's Speech "Yes, it's Obama's war now"

2009-12-02T08:42:00.004+01:00

Joan Walsh wrote on salon.com an article about Obama's Afghanistan speech. While she may have made some interesting points I felt she missed a central issue: How should the Left (peace movement) react? What can be done to stop the madness in Afghanistan? I made a few recommendations (see below).

Joan Walsch on Obama's Speech "Yes, it's Obama's war now"
An uninspiring speech sells a dubious policy, but progressives who feel betrayed have only themselves to blame
I may be the only person in the United States who was trying to wait for President Obama's Afghanistan speech to make up my mind about his war plans. Of course, I mostly failed at that. Sure, all of Obama's options are bad, but still, few decisions seem as clear-cut as this one. Escalation is hard to see as an exit strategy. Obama has no clear path to "victory." We are likely to waste more lives than we save. I thought that was true before Obama's big speech, and I still think it now, afterwards.
read the rest of her article here...

Reactions from the Left
I'm afraid I'm missing something in your article. You ask towards the end, "What's an Obama supporter to do?". Your answer was only to comment that Obama is just fulfilling his campaign promise and then you go on to complain about Dick Cheney.
If we on the left want to develop an anti-war strategy we must go way beyond that. Anyways, we all know that Obama promised to escalate in Afghanistan and we all know that Cheney is a disaster.
Here's then my answer to what the left needs to do:
1. Report on the war atrocities in Afghanistan: From civilian deaths, to destruction of infrastructure, to the craziness of invading a sovereign nation.
2. Report on the Karzai Government: The Karzai government is a form of legitimization of the US/NATO presence in Afghanistan. The West says Karzai wants us there, so we stay. Who is this guy, where does he come from, what is his government about. If the public were better informed about the total corruption and the total lack of internal political legitimization for Karzai, they might rethink their support of the War. Keep reminding people that Karzai's brother is the biggest Opium dealer in the country. Before the war less than 10% of global opium came from Afghanistan. Now it's over 80%. Is the US in Afghanistan in order to help it become the world's largest opium producer?
3. Look at the history. Britain failed in Afghanistan, Russia failed. Why should the US succeed. What right does the US/NATO have anyway to invade a sovereign nation.

Why is Germany in Afghanistan and why don't they want to get out?

2009-11-15T15:42:00.004+01:00

I’ve been pondering this question for quite a while now and decided to make a list of reasons why German is in Afghanistan. This is a collection of reasons I have run in to. I will try to extend or abbreviate the list periodically and would be happy to hear views from others.

1. Germany felt obligated to support the US after 9/11 and as a NATO partner. According to NATO bylaws Germany was, perhaps, obligated to join the US in Afghanistan. If this is true, though, how could Germany have avoided joining in on the Iraq War?

2. Germany felt obligated to support the US because the US “saved” Germany from Nazism. (Whether the Germans actually wanted to be saved is another issue.)

3. Germany wants to be a global military player. (Heard this from Tobias Pflüger.)

4. Germany wants to help fight terrorism. This has become an issue of national security. The former German Defense Minister, Peter Struck (member of the left of center Social Democratic Party (SPD)) said in a press conference on Dec. 5th, 2002 that the “Deutsche Freiheit wird am Hindukusch verteidigt” (“German freedom must be defended in the Hindu Kush”).

5. Germany wants to “save” the Afghans from the brutal rule of the Taliban.

6. Germany wants to save the women of Afghanistan from the evil Taliban.

7. As good Christians, Germans are obligated to help the oppressed. We can not turn a blind eye to those in danger. It’s our Christian calling to help our neighbors. (Heard this argument recently for the first time from a friend. I can imagine that it plays a role.)

8. Economic factors. German companies benefit from the war. (I don’t have any figures on this. Tobias Pflüger said he doesn’t play a big role. The German postal company DHL has, from what I’ve heard, profited from this war.) Of course all the German producers of weapons, military-related equipment, security-related equipment, various services used in war regions, etc. are directly profiting from the war.

9. Institutional factors. The Bundeswehr has become established in Afghanistan. Generals are making their careers there. Military leaders are digging into the trenches. There is always the institutional self-legitimization involved. Chomsky talks a lot about this.

Overproduction and Unemployment

2009-11-08T14:46:00.001+01:00

I’ve often asked myself why a modern industrial country is not able to get rid of unemployment. A terribly naive question some might proclaim. There just aren’t enough jobs out there to employ the population. That may well be true. In tough times cutbacks are necessary. Sales go down, layoffs are the result. You don’t need to be an economist to understand that. Even the government can’t create enough jobs to keep the masses employed. The tax base isn’t there. So full employment is pie in the sky?
Not necessarily. Let’s take the pie as an example. The not-in-the-sky-pie is divided up into 1 million pieces, each piece representing one job in a given country. There are 1 million jobs available but 2 million able bodied adults looking for work. Either we have 50% unemployment or we simply divide the pie differently. No longer does each person get an entire piece of the pie, rather they get only half a piece. Immediately we have 0% unemployment. Each person no longer has to work 40 hours a week but only 20 hours. We have more time to take care of our children.
Could this work? Could it be integrated into the “Grundeinkommen” proposals being discussed in Germany? Of course we don’t need to be so draconian to call for halving the work week. Unemployment rates in Western countries today hover somewhere between 4 and 8%. By reducing the average work week by 10 to 20% we should easily be able to wipe out unemployment. The German auto manufacturer VW installed the 4 day work week a few years ago in order to avoid layoffs. That equals a 20% percent reduction in the work force. This model has worked for VW. Why not try it out on a national scale?
Admittedly it is a radical and unconventional proposal. Admittedly I have not yet looked into the feasibility of such a move. What would the financial ramifications be? What would the effects be on the general wage scale? Perhaps we could find some answers by looking at the present program by the German government called “Kurzarbeit”.
Presently, German companies in financial trouble in which job cuts are being considered can implement “Kurzarbeit” or “shortened working time”. The goal of this federally funded program is to prevent job cuts. Basically employees work about one day a week less and are paid 20% less wages for a predefined period of time. The reduced pay is offset by a government subsidy. In the end an employee works say 20% less, is paid, however, only about 5% less. It’s designed as a way of helping a company get through difficult times without having to fire employees. During the current crisis large companies like Daimler and Siemens have taken advantage of this program. The German government has extended the program into 2010.
The logic behind “Kurzarbeit” is that the government will, in the end, save money because fewer people will become unemployed. The government is helping companies rescue threatened jobs and at the same time protected the coffers at the unemployment agencies.
So why not extend this program to a general policy where the government subsidizes companies which reduce the work week and thus create more jobs? We would immediately see drastic reductions in unemployment. Working people would, moreover, be much happier, healthier and more productive if they had more free time.
Think of all the possibilities for our society if people had more free time. Programs could be set up which encourage people to volunteer their time for community projects, non-profit organizations, local schools, etc.
Many aspects of the labor market reforms of the past ten years in Germany contradict the above-proposed policy. Germany has gone through a litany of changes in its social and educational system over the past years designed to increase the the size of the working population. Why would Germany conduct a reform which results in more individuals competing for a limited amount of jobs available?
It was, funny enough, the coalition government under Chancellor Schröder with the labor-oriented SPD and environmentalist Green Party that pushed a series of initiatives through the parliament between 1998 and 2005 designed to “modernize” the education system and reign in overspending in social services. The program came to be known as “Agenda 2000” and the reforms of unemployment benefits and social welfare are best known as “Hartz 4”. The center-left coalition passed reforms that conservative governments of the past could only have dreamed of. Social benefits were reduced, conditions for the unemployed were worsened and the financial belt was tightened on higher education.
The SPD and Greens were successful with their far-reaching reforms in part because a large enough percentage of the population was convinced that it was necessary in order to make German businesses competitive on the global market. They argued that it was necessary to reduce labor costs in order to halt the flow of jobs to cheaper foreign competitors and to discourage German businesses from closing domestic production facilities. Lower labor costs or lose jobs, that was the mantra of the labor reforms. People fell for the neoliberal myth.
Slowly, I think, people are realizing that it didn’t help. German companies continued to move jobs to cheaper labor regions like the Czech Republic, Hungary or Poland. While walking through the Hewlett Packard offices in Böblingen, Germany these days, one is hard pressed to find a German computer programmer. The German division of the company almost completely relies on Indian technicians. Domestic manufacturing jobs continue to decline, despite the reforms.
Part of the labor market reforms served to increase the age of retirement from 65 to 67. Another aspect tightened the rules for unemployed individuals, forcing them to accept jobs previously seen as unacceptable based on pay, location or qualification. Increasing the age of retirement saves the government millions simply because they don’t have to pay benefits to all those 65 and 66 year olds out there and those folks also pay into the pot for two more years. The other side effect, and the reform’s legitimization, was that there would be more workers available. Tightening up the terms of receiving unemployment also served to get people back on the labor market.
The issue I would like to discuss here is that of over production and unemployment. One effect of Schröder’s reforms was to increase the number of people in the labor market. They increased the age of retirement and decreased the number of years in higher education. Why would this be beneficial to Germany? There already is high unemployment. Why would one want to increase the potential number of workers? From a capitalist’s point of view, many would argue, unemployment is necessary. The bargaining power of business is much higher if they can choose between a multitude of desperate job seekers. If there was full employment, the employees would be able to bargain for higher wages and better working conditions. With the sword of Damocles hanging over the worker’s head in an environment of high unemployment, he hardly will feel motivated to demand higher wages.
Another issue that recently came up a long walk with a friend was that of overproduction. In our high tech, automated, efficient society way too much is being produced. Though only a wild estimate, I would guess that today’s working population could reduce their work load to 50% and Germany would have no problem producing all the goods and services it needed. How many jobs are involved in producing things that soon end up in the trash? What would happen if we started building cars that lasted 25 instead of 10 years? What would happen if we forbid the production and sales of military products? All those bombs produced in Germany are a senseless waste of time. Why build something that is designed only to destroy itself and other things and people along with it?

Overproduction and Unemployment

2009-11-08T14:46:00.000+01:00

The Costs of Empire

2009-11-08T14:21:00.000+01:00

On August 30th, 2009 Bob McChesney from Media Matters interviewed Christoph Hedges, author of Empire of Illusion. The topic was empire, the US empire in particular. I wanted to sum up the interview a bit.
Hedges argues that a central facit of the US Empire is the increasingly powerful oligarchy within the country. The effects of oligarchical rule are not part of the public discourse. The costs of maintaining an oligarchy are tremendous. One key aspect of this is the situation on the labor market.
The ruling elite continually strive to keep labor costs down. US jobs lost to Mexico as a result of NAFTA are now moving to China. Mexican workers earning 90 cents an hour are being replaced my Chinese prison labor earning 10 cents an hour
“Jobless Recovery” is a term being thrown around these days. It’s a recovery for Wall Street, nor for workers.
Unemployment in the US is running around 20%. The official figure is about 10% but the true numbers of unemployed are hidden. Reagan removed 1.5 million from unemployment statistics by defining military personel as employed. Clinton took off 5 million by creating service jobs which are under the poverty line and by removing people who have given up looking for work.
A rapacious oligarchy controls society. The top 1% of the population controls more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. That’s a short sentence that says a hell of a lot. Reading it one might say “wow, that’s bad” or just skim over it as just another doomsday statement. Assuming it’s true, however, serves us basically with the definition of oligarchic rule. If it’s true it also means that democracy is impossible in the US. How in the world could we have political democracy if we live in a system where a tiny majority economically controls 90% of the country?
We have allowed these people to hijack our country in the name of corporations who have no national loyalty.
Being competitive in labor today means that American workers have to be competitive with prison labor in China, those are the folks being paid 20 cents an hour.
The squandering of American labor to sustain the financial oligarchy and investment houses has a tremendous cost to the country. One part of this is that there will not be the resources to assist the growing class of disenfranchised. The percentage of the disenfranchised population is increasing. These people are not able to fulfill their roles in a healthy society. They are not able to pay taxes, partake in the labor force, general maintain a functioning society. By transferring jobs outside of the country the backbone of society, ie. the workers, is degenerating. What happens when the spine begins to degenerate? You get a slipped disc and that hurts and is debilitating. What happens if you either the health care system is so screwed up that you can’t get an operation? You remain unemployed and are a burdon on society. A society can only take so of a load before it collapses.
We are destroying the American labor force through high levels of unemployment, poverty working conditions, and the exporting of jobs. This is all done to maintain and strengthen the oligarchy.

Just Ramblin' On

2009-09-14T22:25:00.003+02:00

It’s pretty late now and probably a bad time to write something. That’s life, though. The days go by so quickly, I hardly manage to get the most important stuff done, get distracted by stuff like emails and Facebook posts, and then I don’t get around to doing what I had planned. So it’s almost 10 pm and I went through all the steps of distraction and now am doing what I had planned to do. Writing.
Before I get to the actual task of writing I would like to dwell on this issue of distractions for a bit. What are my favorite distractions: my MacBook, that’s a big one. Not only is the actual box distractive because it simply looks so elegant. It’s all those pictures and words that keep appearing on the screen when I keep clicking on those colorful buttons all over the place. Email, news, iPhoto, Flex programming, you name it. On my last vacation in France for two weeks I didn’t have access to a computer and, amazingly enough, I survived.
Other big distractions include the refrigerator, the cupboard with chips and chocolate or the television. I guess a distraction is a distraction when it’s something I didn’t plan to do, keeps me from doing what I had wanted to do (or should have done) and is generally not particularly healthy. If the assumed distraction is healthy then, perhaps, it’s not a distraction at all. What if the distraction actually makes me happy? Can that be considered a distraction?
These are all very complicated and deeply philosophical questions. This span of this article will not allow for a comprehensive look at the phenomenon of distraction. I must say, though, that simply writing these few sentences have helped me discover yet another form of distraction. Writing. Yes writing about distractions is seriously distracting me from what I had planned to write about. More than that. It has even served to make me forget what I wanted to write about.
Think. Think.
Yes, that was it, I had wanted to write about the global repercussions of thirty years of disaster capitalism on the life of the average American. No wonder I let myself so easily be distracted.
Hm, the clock is ticking and it’s approaching 10pm. My eye lids are getting heavy. The dark red Italian wine is taking its toll and the warmth of my bed is lulling me in.
So, back to the main topic - capitalism. Yes, capitalism sucks. Well, to more precise, “free-market”, laissez-faire, neoliberal, deregulated, friedmanian capitalism is a real pain in the ass. And no, I did not just start thinking about that after watching Michael Moore’s new movie. I haven’t even seen his new movie. I haven’t even seen his not so new movie before this one - you know about the health industry. I’ve been questioning the virtue of capitalism for a while longer. I think the first time was when I was about 7 and my Dad was telling me about his rich father. I don’t think my Dad liked his Dad too much. But anyway, he was saying that he doesn’t believe it takes real brains to get rich. The “real brains” think is paraphrasing. My Dad rather frowned upon such no-nonsense colloquial language. He thought it was important to try to maintain a rather sophisticated level of speech. I don’t mean to say he was stuck up or anything. He just thought it was important to use proper English and to not sound like an idiot.
Anyways, he did say that about getting rich. I interpret this statement of his to come from his general criticism of the unequal and unjust accumulation of wealth. How I dealt with those words when I was seven is hard to say. They did stick with me though and, in some way, at some point in my life, made me think twice about capitalism.
Capitalism - that’s such a mouth full. I almost feel awkward saying it (I mean writing it). It sounds almost silly saying “I think capitalism is very problematic”. When I say it in German it sounds much better. Perhaps when I say it in English I’m reminded of the total lack of critique in the system I grew up in.
Have any of you read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”. If not, please do. Very recommendable.

Progress and it's Consequences

2009-08-17T00:38:00.001+02:00

We humans pride ourselves on progress. We’ve progressed from cavemen to kings, from hunter-gatherers to genetic engineers. We can build rockets that fly to the moon, cars that purr like cats and iPods that sing in our ears. There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way (babe). Though I often question the virtue of progress, I guess I wouldn’t voluntarily go back to the trials and tribulations of life in the Middle Ages.
In school we were taught about all the advances mankind has made over the centuries. We told of the glorious inventions of the industrial age and the huge technological steps made in the early 20th century. Seldom we were, or do we ask how all this progress is possible. If I were to take a wild guess I would say that the vast majority of what we consider progress was only possible because of war, slavery, brutality, oppression and plain old cruelty.
It’s a hypothesis I am not prepared to examine in depth for I’d have to take six months off of work (hey, what a great idea), but it is certainly worthy of a few moments thought. Of course there have been inventions that came through good hard work by individual scientists in their laboratories. As far as I know da Vinci didn’t have a team of slaves doing all his thinking for him. Just think about the role slaves played in history: Egyptian pyramids, railroad to the American West Coast, Roman cities.
What about war? How often has “progress” been used as an excuse the legitimize war? How often have we heard the statement “We have to fight this battle to preserve the American way of life”?
Taking these ideas into consideration serves only to increase my distaste of the concept of advancement.

Confessions of a War Resister - Matthis Chiroux

2009-04-24T17:58:00.004+02:00

Matthis Chiroux and the entire war resistance won a great victory on April 20, 2009. Matthis, who refused deployment on the grounds that, among many other things, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are illegal and violate international law, was awarded a general discharge for his refusal to activate as a member of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Matthis stood up to the monster and won. It's a sign of hope in a crazy system.

Read Matthis' complete confession here. It is rather long but I highly recommend you read the entire article. The honesty is moving and unique.

System critique and social movements

2009-04-22T17:40:00.004+02:00

In the interview published in the German “taz” newspaper on April 18th, 2009 with Klaus Werner-Lobo, specific topics about strategies for social movements were addressed. Werner-Lobo argues that it is not enough for individuals to express their political will through conscientious shopping. Compared with the power of the political elite the potential of environmentally- and socially-friendly consumption is very limited. I’ve had the feeling for a while now that the environmental movement, for example, has relied much too strongly on encouraging consumers to adjust their shopping behavior. It’s as if we could change the world and stop global warming by buying organic vegetables and driving hybrid cars.
Popular movements designed at defeating systemic injustice are the answer. As Werner-Lobo notes, it has always been a minority of well informed and well organized individuals who have managed to create a more just world (e.g. black liberation, women’s movement, worker’s rights). It is vital to identify the injustice in our system and to speak out against it. Education is of the highest priority.
Werner-Lobo also addresses the question of why the protests against the financial crisis have been so small. He argues that the public can’t really identify the problem. We have been convinced that we are all in the same boat (with the bankers). To mix up the system would be sawing off the branch we sit on. We need to address the fact that only a few have profited from the excesses of the past 20 years. They have profited at the expense of the majority, not to mention the environment.
The following interview with the author Klaus Werner-Lobo was published in the German newspaper “taz” on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 (http://www.taz.de/1/leben/koepfe/artikel/1/die-elite-missbraucht-das-system/)

"Die Elite missbraucht das System"

Der taz-Kongress ist eröffnet: Teilnehmer, Clown und Kapitalismuskritiker Klaus Werner-Lobo sagt: Ökologisch und sozial shoppen reicht nicht mehr. Wir brauchen eine solidarische Ökonomie.

taz: Herr Werner-Lobo, für den Spiegel gehören Sie zu den zehn wichtigsten Menschen, die die Antiglobalisierungsbewegung mit repräsentieren. Schmeichelt Ihnen das?

Klaus Werner-Lobo: Das ist ja völlig übertrieben, wenn ich in eine Reihe mit Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein und Michael Moore gestellt werde. Mein Buch war erfolgreich, ja. Aber vor allem bin ich nicht glücklich mit dem Begriff Globalisierungsgegner.

Kein gutes Label?

Erstens will ich mehr Globalisierung. Wir leben in einer globalisierten Welt, das ist eine Tatsache, da kann man dagegen sein oder dafür, das ist völlig belanglos. Ich will eine Globalisierung von Menschenrechten, von Sozialrechten, von Umweltschutz, überhaupt von Demokratie, von Rechtsstaatlichkeit.

Ist das nicht etwas, worin wir uns alle einig sind?

Nein. Die Profiteure der neoliberalen Globalisierung verhindern dies mit allen Mitteln. Die Globalisierung, die wir erleben, ist kein Naturereignis, sondern eine von Regierungen und Konzernen vorangetriebene Globalisierung des Kapitalismus.

Viele Länder haben von der Globalisierung profitiert, die asiatischen Tigerstaaten beispielsweise, oder?

Das kann man nicht so sagen. Die soziale Ungleichheit ist in den meisten dieser Länder ebenfalls gestiegen. Die meisten dieser Länder sind, gemessen an ihren Ressourcen, extrem reich, aber die Profite haben die Eliten eingefahren.

Investoren wandern weiter, wenn sie in einem Land Restriktionen unterworfen werden.

Das ist genau das, was ja passiert. Konzerne drohen, in ein anderes Land zu gehen, bekommen sie keine guten Bedingungen. China wollte vor zwei Jahren die Sozialstandards erhöhen, die ohnehin kaum existierenden Gewerkschaftsrechte verbessern, worauf Konzernverbände gesagt haben, wenn ihr das tut, dann siedeln wir ab in die Nachbarländer.

Liegt das nicht eigentlich in der Verantwortung der Konsumenten in den westlichen Industrieländern?

Nein, denn das käme einer Privatisierung von Verantwortung und der Absage an politische Gestaltungsmacht gleich. Verantwortung steigt mit dem Einfluss, und der Einfluss der Konsumenten ist im Vergleich zu den ökonomischen und politischen Eliten extrem gering.

Wie trostlos!

Ich wills nicht kleinreden, und ich bin selbstverständlich auch dafür, dass man so ökologisch, so regional, so sozialverträglich, so fairtrade wie möglich einkauft, aber wenn wir das pragmatisch betrachten, hat das relativ wenig Potenzial. Eigentlich geht es um den Systemfehler.
Anzeige

Der wie beschaffen ist?

Dass das derzeitige Wirtschaftssystem fast nur den Reichen nutzt. Da nützt es wenig, wenn ich jetzt meinen Kaffee oder mein T-Shirt aus fairer Produktion kaufe. Ich glaube, das Potenzial ökologischen und fairen Handels liegt eher darin, dass man sagt, dass das überhaupt das oberste Wirtschaftsprinzip sein sollte.

Das heißt?

Man müsste den profitgesteurten Kapitalismus durch ein Fairtradeprinzip, durch solidarische Ökonomie ersetzen.

Das mag plausibel sein - aber das schafft doch keiner.

Das dachte man auch im Mittelalter, zu Zeiten von Feudalismus, Diktatur und Sklaverei. Es war immer eine gut informierte und gut organisierte Minderheit, die etwas zum Besseren verändert hat. Also wenn wir sagen würden, wir können eh nichts ändern, dann gäbe es heute keine Demokratie, keine Gewerkschaftsrechte, keine Frauenrechte, keinen Umweltschutz, keine Schwulenrechte.

Kampf nützt?

Natürlich, und es fängt immer mit wenigen an, übrigens auch jetzt erfolgreich. Was die Welthandelsorganisation WTO in den letzten Jahren an Wahnsinnigkeiten geplant hat, davon ist ja das meiste verhindert worden. Denken wir an das multilaterale Investitionsabkommen, das es Konzernen ermöglicht hätte, einzelne Länder anzuklagen, wenn die höhere Sozial- und Umwelweltstandards einführen - das wurde gekippt.

Durch wen?

Von größtenteils 18- bis 25-Jährigen, die in Organisationen wie Attac oder in Gewerkschaften aktiv sind und sich und andere informiert haben.

Wie macht man denn aus dieser Minderheit mal eine Mehrheit?

Optimistisch würde ich sagen, dass die Möglichkeiten gewachsen sind, auch durch das Internet. Das Wichtigste ist Bildung. Wobei man sehen muss, dass die kapitalistischen Eliten auch die Bildungssysteme für ihre Zwecke missbrauchen und privatisieren wollen. Gerade in der Krise bräuchten wir riesige Konjunkturprogramme für Bildung, wie Barack Obama sie vorschlägt, aber unsere Regierungen wollen da offenbar nicht recht investieren.

Warum fallen die Proteste gegen die Finanzkrise so schwächlich aus?

Ein Grund könnte sein, dass die Leute das Gefühl haben, keinen klaren Feind und kein klares Ziel zu haben, weil uns die Banken und die Rentenprivatisierung de facto fast alle zu kleinen Finanzspekulanten gemacht haben.

Oder geht es vielen Menschen noch zu gut, als dass sie protestierten?

Ich bin mir da nicht sicher. Es gibt das Potenzial einer grundsätzlichen Systemkritik in der Bevölkerung, aber ich glaube, die Leute haben das Gefühl, dass sie ja irgendwie selbst schuld sind an der ganzen Misere. In den letzten 30 Jahren ist es der herrschenden Elite gelungen, den Leuten das Gefühl zu geben, dass alle eigentlich im gleichen Boot säßen. Ignoriert wird nur, dass wenige an dieser Finanzkrise wahnsinnig verdient haben.

Können wir heute überhaupt noch mit gutem Gewissen konsumieren?

Es geht nicht darum, ob wir ein gutes Gewissen haben - es geht darum, dass wir rational denken. Wir müssen uns gemeinsam an einer Neugestaltung von Demokratie und Gesellschaft beteiligen, und das lösen wir nicht, indem wir Gewissensforschung betreiben.

Wie denn?

Indem wir überlegen, was im System falsch ist, wenn wir als Gesellschaft die Fluglinien hoch subventionieren und die Umwelt- und die sozialen Kosten externalisieren. Und dann muss ich die politisch Verantwortlichen dafür zur Verantwortung ziehen. Und nicht den kleinen Mann, die kleine Frau, jene, die womöglich Hartz-IV-Empfänger sind und sich endlich mal leisten können, für 29 Euro nach Mallorca zu fliegen.

Gelegentlich schlüpfen Sie in ein Clownskostüm. Warum machen Sie das?

Humor hat sehr viel subversives Potenzial, er ist das beste Mittel gegen die Angst vor den Mächtigen. Schon im Mittelalter war der Narr der Einzige, der den König kritisieren durfte.

Wie verstehen Sie denn als Clown Wahrheit in der Gegenwart?

Der Clown ist das Sinnbild der Imperfektion, des Scheiterns, und das ist zutiefst menschlich. Diese Menschlichkeit gilt es der Scheinperfektion der großen Ideologien, der Marken und Shoppingcenter entgegenzustellen. Der Clown ist die Anti-Gewalt.

Serengeti

2009-04-22T17:30:00.002+02:00

This blog entry differs strongly from my previous ones. It’s personal, not political. It’s also humorous so you may want to read it even if you didn’t know my father.
I came upon this letter recently, more than 10 years after it was written and 9 years after his death. I just had to giggle reading this story. He did have a strange sense of humor and I think mine is not that different.

Email written by my father, Carlos Hagelberg, on Friday, Aug. 1st, 1997 to my brother John Serengeti Let us look at the Serengeti Plain. A herd of elephants is being led by the dominant male to water. In that watermelon sized brain rests the wisdom of the ages. He knows every spot of water within a thousand miles. They come upon a dry riverbed and he leads them to a low spot where he digs a hole and down one foot is water. The herd is saved. Now we see storm clouds gathering and a few drops fall on the cracked mud. Presently a flash flood of mud pushing a thicket of debris comes upon them and a lake is formed. The elephants now grown to a hundred play, no, frolic in the muddy water. We see a baby's trunk above the water with mother watching over. The elephants leave and then the big cats, the gazelles, wildebeests, and wart hogs and all arrive in turn. There is no hunting, no fighting, no competition, just drinking. And the last to come is the regal giraffe. He seems to want to avoid wetting his feet. He stands close to the edge and spreads his legs so they and the ground form an equilateral triangle. Even then he must kink his knees a little to get his snout in the water. One is struck by the ease with which the elephant can drink and the difficulty facing the giraffe Can something be done? Being an engineer and the consummate problem solver, I have designed a twenty gallon elevated water trough. It stands eight feet, four and three quarters of an inch high and is filled by a small electric pump, powered by a photovoltaic solar panel. At the base of the stand is a small basin which collects the overflow water and is one foot above the ground. It will serve mammals of lesser stance including man. One hundred of these units will be required, strategically placed throughout the plain. They can be manufactured for $489.00 each. I see no way to fund this project but to go to the people. I have therefor created a nonprofit foundation called "Save the Giraffe". I am very dedicated to this project and have decided to volunteer as its director for a fee of one dollar per year. I will supervise the construction, testing, delivery and installation of these units. In addition, I will determine appropriate sites and obtain the necessary permits from the local governmens. Five Land Rovers with a crew of twenty will be required to determine the sites and perform the installations. The entire project will require 18 months and cost $246,000.00. I see no insurmountable problems and the appeal to save the giraffe is undeniable. The urgency of this action must be apparent to all, so get out your checkbooks. Make your contributions payable to "Save the Giraffe Foundation" 3129 Via La Selva, Palos Verdes Estates, California 90274.

Bill Moyers interviews William Black

2009-04-14T22:31:00.002+02:00

On April 3, 2009 Bill Moyers interviewed William K. Black, author and professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Black has been speaking and writing about the banking crisis and asks the question “How did they get away with it?”. As the depth of the banking crisis unfolds people justifiably are asking how could such a thing happen? Why did the media not report on this, why didn’t Congress intervene? Some might say it’s a naive question. Noam Chomsky might say it’s obviously just another piece of the propaganda puzzle. Other’s, like the global NGO attac, might cry out and remind us that they’ve been talking about the dangers of a deregulated financial sector for years. Paul Krugman convincingly argues that the neocons have been scheming for at least 30 years to install the very regulation-free, profit-oriented, anti-social system that we have today.
William K. Black has a somewhat different approach. He charges that the banker class is struggling to maintain a coverup. They don’t want the public to know that the banks are insolvent. Obama has also chosen to follow this disingenuous story. According to Black the banker class is scared stiff that if the public found out the truth about the situation of the banks, there would be a run on the banks. Although this may be true, Black says, deposit insurance is sufficient to prevent the system from collapsing.
Black goes on to explain that the Obama Administration is in violation of the law regarding bank regulation. After the S&L scandal of the 1980’s the Prompt Corrective Action Law was enacted. This law, which requires the government to take banks with insufficient capitalization into receivership, is simply being ignored by the Obama Administration. The law actually requires the government to shut down many of the banks that have caused so much trouble.
One other aspect of Moyer’s interview with Black which I would like to repeat is the idea that the public has to be informed about the present crisis. One hears so often how complicated the banking system is. That’s baloney. You don’t need a masters in economics to realize that the banks are out of control. They are totally deregulated. The consumer is unprotected. The government has to step in and retake it’s role as protectorate of the people.
Here you can listen to or read Moyer’s interview with William K. Black.

Report from No NATO Protests

2009-04-05T23:24:00.002+02:00

It was a strange day on the German-French border near Strasburg. I entered the city just a few hours after Barack had shaken hands with Angie and Nicolas on the nearby bridge joining the two countries.. Barack and his 20 some NATO partners walked across the bridge over the Rhine and were greeted by a friendly handshake by the smiling French prime minister, Nicolas Sarkozy. I marched with about 5000 peaceful protestors to the banks of the Rhine and was greeted by a wall of German police. Unlike my compatriot Barack I wasn’t even allowed to step foot on the bridge. No friendly handshakes either. All I got were stone-faced stares from big, green policemen with big, white helmets.
It was an eery welcome I received. The bus I was on entered the border town of Kehl around 11 in the morning. The city was like a ghost town. The streets were lined with barricades, police buses were everywhere, small groups of demonstrators began to appear. Even though it was Saturday morning, the stores were all closed, the parking lots empty, the streets occupied only by police cars, police buses and police trucks. It’s a small city with a population of about 30,000 but there wasn’t a soul to be seen. It actually reminded me of the border region (or no-man’s land) between East and West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Our march of about 10,000 peaceniks made it to the Rhine bridge but not one centimeter further. The police blocked our entrance to the bridge and after seeing the dark smoke rising from the French side of the bridge I was certain they were not going to let us cross. As I’ve heard on the news there were violent riots in Strassburg, culminating in a hotel being set on fire. The German news only picked up on the violent protestors. I thinks this is again a lesson to the peace movement that we should not pay attention to how the news media reports on our events. We have to continue the struggle, unite and mobilize.

American Peace Activists in Tübingen

2009-04-05T22:59:00.004+02:00

On April 1st, 2009 Joseph Gerson and Matthis Chiroux visited Tübingen and spoke in front of an audience of about 40. The following article in the local German paper is a good report on the evening.

Barack Obama ist schließlich nicht Gandhi
(3.4.09, Schwäbisches Tagblatt, Tübingen)

Zwei Vertreter der amerikanischen Friedensbewegung sprachen in Tübingen über die Militärstrategie der USA

Vor ihrem Auftritt beim Protest gegen den Nato-Gipfel am Wochenende erklärten zwei Amerikaner auf Einladung der Linken am Mittwoch in Tübingen ihre Sicht auf die amerikanischen Kriege und die Rolle der Nato.

Wir haben die Völker versklavt.“ Matthis Chiroux findet drastische Worte für das amerikanische Vorgehen in Irak und Afghanistan. Der 25-Jährige hat unmittelbare Erfahrung. Er arbeitete fünf Jahre lang in der strategischen Kommunikation des US-Militärs. „Meine Aufgabe war, die Nato als Friedenstruppe zu verkaufen und die Kriege in Irak und Afghanistan als gute Kriege.“

Am Mittwochabend war er auf Einladung der Bundestagsabgeordneten Heike Hänsel von der Partei Die Linke zu einem Vortrag im Schlatterhaus gekommen. Ihm zur Seite stand Joseph Gerson, mit 62 Jahren ein in Amerika bekannter Vertreter der Friedensbewegung. Er verzichtete auf so drastische Worte wie Chiroux, sprach aber nicht weniger deutlich.

Den Afghanistan-Krieg skizziert er mit wenigen Strichen: Er sei kein Krieg gegen den Terror, den könne Militär gar nicht gewinnen. Es gehe um Rohstoffe und um die alte Strategie, die Ränder des eurasischen Kontinents unter Kontrolle zu bringen. Er beschrieb das komplizierte Machtgefüge, in dem die Taliban nur ein kleines Element seien zwischen Pakistan und Indien.

Aus Gersons Sicht wird der nächste Schritt der amerikanischen Regierung sein, in Afghanistan eine neue Regierung aus den Kriegsfürsten, den „War-Lords“, der Region zu bilden. Mit den mehr als 20 000 zusätzlichen Soldaten, die Präsident Obama nun schickt, solle Zeit für diese Umbildung gewonnen werden. Das in Deutschland dominierende Ideal-Bild von Obama teilt Gerson nicht. „Wir haben nicht Martin Luther King gewählt oder Mahatma Gandhi, sondern einen Politiker.“

Als Politiker müsse Obama den Druck von links und der Friedensbewegung spüren, um nicht viel zu viel von der Vorgehensweise seines Amtsvorgängers zu übernehmen. Für Gerson ist es zentral, die Konflikte um Rohstoffe zu entschärfen. Um weitere Kriege zu verhindern, dürfe der Wettbewerb um Rohstoffe mit Russland, China und Indien nicht an Schärfe zunehmen.

Sein junger Gegenpart Chiroux, mit dem er zusammen auch bei den Veranstaltungen gegen den Nato-Gipfel am Wochenende teilnehmen wird, schätzt den zentralen Antrieb der kriegerischen Interventionen anders ein. Für ihn sind die Kriege rassistische Kriege. Ihm geht das Wort „Sandnigger“ (Sandneger) nicht aus dem Kopf, das er immer wieder als Bezeichnung für Moslems gehört hat. „Nur weil wir einen schwarzen Präsidenten gewählt haben, heißt das noch lange nicht, dass wir keinen rassistischen Krieg führen können.“ Und später: „Erst wenn wir einen Moslem als normalen Menschen akzeptieren und nicht als Terroristen, hat die friedliche Entwicklung eine Chance.“

Aus eigener Anschauung weiß er auch, dass die verbreitete Vorstellung, Militär könnte „nation building“ betreiben, also einen Staat aufbauen, falsch sei. Zunächst gehe es einfach um Besatzung. Dann gelte: „Militär baut keine Staaten auf, es zerstört Staaten, notfalls im direkten Nahkampf.“

Für die Rolle der Nato fand Chiroux ein Bild aus der Computer-Technik. Amerikanische Militärs nutzten die Nato-Verbündeten genauso wie andere Alliierte für einen „Plug-and-Play-Imperialismus“. Um weltweit die amerikanischen Interessen vertreten zu können, würden die einzelnen Staaten nach Belieben in die Militärstrategie eingebaut.

War Resistor André Shepherd in Tübingen

2009-04-03T10:20:00.006+02:00

On Saturday, March 28th, the local theater house in Tübingen, Germany hosted an evening with the war resistor André Shepherd. The play “My Brother Tom” from the director Bettina Erasmy was performed. The piece depicts two sisters in a reality TV show and their brother suffering the trials of war. A central message of the play was the maddening effects war has on the soldiers and their families. The brother Tom was missing in action and the two sisters entered a reality TV show competition, in order to win the prize of being allowed to join the war and search for their brother. A totally absurd concept which, however, demonstrates how war can make people do stupid and crazy things.
After the play the director, André Shepherd, Henning Zierock from Culture of Peace, some of the actors and I (from the Tübingen Progressive Americans conducted a panel discussion. About half of the 150 visitors remained for the discussion. André spoke of his decision for deserting from the US Army and how he came to apply for asylum in Germany. There was a lot of interest and support for his case and we discussed just what could be done to assist people who reject war.

Protesting and the Green New Deal

2009-04-03T09:59:00.005+02:00

Johann Hari made a great statement in his article “Why we need the protests” in The Independant on April 3, 2009 about the G20 and No Nato protests. He argues that the current economic and environmental crises make it totally necessary for the people to go to the streets. Only with strong pressure from the people and a powerful social movement will the governments be persuaded to take action.
A Green New Deal is exactly what the world needs right now. From a Keynesian point of view governments need to pump borrowed money into the economy to get it going again. After the economy is healthy again the money needs to be payed back. A Green New Deal would jump start the economy and at the same time help avert the global climate crisis.

Why we need the protests
Johann Hari: The protesters are the ones we should listen to at this summit
The way out of the credit and the climate crunch is the same - a Green New Deal
Friday, 3 April 2009
When this hinge-point in human history is remembered, there will be far more sympathy for the people who took to the streets and rioted than for the people who stayed silently in their homes. Two global crises have collided, and we have a chance here, now, to solve them both with one mighty heave – but our leaders are letting this opportunity for greatness leach away. The protesters here in London were trying to sound an alarm now, at five minutes to ecological midnight.
Many commentators seemed bemused that the protesters focused on the climate crunch as much as the credit crunch. What's it got to do with a G20 meeting on reviving the global economy? Why wave banners saying 'Nature Doesn't Do Bail-Outs' today? Because both crises have their roots in the same ideology – and both have the same solution.
We are facing a collapsed economy and a rapidly warming world because an extreme ideology has dominated world affairs for decades. It is the belief that markets aren't just a useful tool in certain circumstances; they are an infallible mechanism for running human affairs. If the economy ebbs, the market will put itself right by punishing wrong-doers. If the climate begins to unravel, business will rectify its own behaviour voluntarily. Now we know how well this market fundamentalism works.
...
Read the complete article from Johann Hari.
j.hari@independent.co.uk

Reinstating Usury Laws

2009-04-02T08:23:00.003+02:00

In the April, 2009 issue of Harper’s Magazine Thomas Geoghegan gives an in-depth analysis of the present economic crisis in the US. In his article “Infinite Debt: How unlimited interest rates destroyed the economy” he argues that the uncontrolled rise of interest rates are key to understanding why the US economy is so screwed up. High interesest rates, he maintains, are more important than the deregulation of the New Deal.
Geoghegan looks at the causes of the decline of manufacturing. Why is the auto industry so messed up? Why is the US not producing any tangible products anymore? What are the consequences of this shift for the middle class and for the working population?
The article presents a very convincing explanation why capital in the US has shifted from the manufacturing sector to finance. If investor X sees that he could either put his money in the auto industry and get an 8% return or he could invest in the financial sector and get upwards of 35%, one need not wonder why capital is shifting to finance. It would have to be a very principled investor to not be lured by such figures.
In the past 20 years the US has seen interest rates blast through the roof. The deregulation of the banking sector has brought with it the successive crumbling of traditional usury laws. As Geoghegan points out Western Civilization has always maintained strict limits on interest rates. It goes all the way back to Babylon. The present day empire, however, has succeeded in removing the traditional caps on interest. Even though the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates relatively low, banks and other lenders are able to pass on outrageous interest rates through creative mechanisms like variable interest rates and a confusing web of fees and fines.
Why is this so important? I will try to summarize Geoghegan. For one it has made investing in financial institutions extremely profitable. Returns in manufacturing don’t even come close. This has led to a general divestment in manufacturing. This causes the loss of blue collar jobs, a weakening of the ability of American manufacturers to compete on the global market and an increased trade deficit.
The ramifications go even further. The loss of manufacturing jobs has led to the weakening of the unions. Workers in the financial sector are harder to organize. Moreover, reduction of manufacturing jobs has led to the increase of unqualified service jobs. These jobs are poorly paid, the workers are harder to organize and when there are unions they are not as influential as the traditional labor unions.
Here again my naive mind keeps screaming - “We Can Change This!” Reinstating strict laws limiting interest rates charged by banks is something even Joe the Plumber would vote for. It would not be difficult to convince the public, if they aren’t convinced already, that paying 50% interest on credit card debt should be should be outlawed.

Banks and the Free Market

2009-03-29T19:05:00.005+02:00

Robert Misik wrote an interesting article in this week’s Freitag, a German newspaper, Misik discusses the problem of presenting alternatives to our present capitalist system. The word “socialism” is often heard in leftist circles and the tone of the mainstream debate on how to rescue the system sounds much more radical than we’ve heard in a long time. Across the party spectrum in Germany the ideas of nationalizing banks has become normal.
One thing he spoke of is particularly noteworthy. He mentioned how the financial sector is innately unsuitable for the game of free market capitalism. Actors in the free market are subject to the dangers of risk. This is what makes the system more “efficient”. If a company or even a market sector fails to survive the dog-eat-dog fight on the field, they collapse and disappear. A particular company may be eaten up by a competitor or their business may simply close and their products disappear. Banks, on the other hand, can not collapse or simply file for bankruptcy and then open up shop down the street. A bank has it’s customers money on their books. The federal government insures that the customers will not lose their money in case the bank fails. This means a bank can partake in risky business without fear of bankruptcy.
Up until the 1980’s the US had a system of stringent regulations to prevent banks from abusing this situation. The deregulation in the era of neoliberalism has presented banks and other financial institutions with an invitation to take advantage of the system. Today we have a situation where financial institutions are broke, they don’t have the collateral for the money they have lent. They can’t be allowed to go bankrupt like businesses in other sectors because customers would lose their savings. This all shows that banks should either be nationalized or more strictly regulated. I would vote for nationalization. In the last 20 years we’ve seen how easy it is to abolish a regulatory system.

Who made this mess?

2009-03-26T23:18:00.004+01:00

Matt Taibbi’s piece in this weeks Rolling Stone Magazine is a great analysis on how the US got into the mess it’s in. What are credit-default swaps and how do they help a few schmucks get filthy rich? Why are huge banks and insurance companies allowed to carry out their business with virtually no governmental oversight?
There’s no doubt the US economy, and the whole world’s for that matter, is in big trouble. Not much to debate on that. The question is how we got into this mess in the first place. Taibbi presents a convincing argument that specific political decisions (most under a Democratic clock) are responsible. It was all legal. AIG and Citibank were given free reign when Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which essentially began a cycle of massive deregulation of the finance industry. It laid the ground work for such dubious constructs as credit-default swaps (CDS). These god-awful things would simply have been illegal prior to the deregulation craze of the 90’s. Credit-default swaps essentially allow financial institutions (you can’t just call them banks anymore) to lend money without significant (or in some cases without any) cash reserves to back those loans. They are basically lending money they don’t have and raking in the interest.
It’s not a morality issue. You can’t expect bankers not to take advantage of the system if the government invites them to do it. It’s the US government making conscious decisions about deregulating the financial industry. Some argue that it’s all so difficult to understand. Is that an excuse for passing stupid laws? If a Congressman doesn’t understand a law he just signed, then he’s either negligent or corrupt. Both of which are reason enough to throw him out of office. Those congressmen who did actually understand what it meant to overturn the Glass-Steagall Act (a law from the thirties which prevented banks from selling insurance) should also be dethroned. Why weren’t they all thrown out of office? Was it all too complicated for the public to understand? Taibbi argues that the Democrats got behind deregulation because they were in search of a new, wealthy base for financing their elections.
So we had a situation of greedy Democrats looking for generous campaign contributors and happy, go-lucky Republicans always game on helping their rich friends get richer. They went about tearing down a system of checks and balances that had prevented banks from acting like madmen. Now we have the US folk bailing out AIG because their “too big to fail”. Here in Germany they’ve come up with great doublespeak, calling companies like AIG “system relevant”. People seem to be buying it. We can’t let ‘em fail or our whole system will collapse like a house of cards. If we don’t want the house to collapse on our heads then we better at least start dismantling it and start building a new one.

The Big Takeover
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine, March 19th, 2009
It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.
Read the rest...

Does the USA need universal health care?

2009-03-21T12:56:00.000+01:00

Whether or not the present democratic president and the overwhelmingly democratic Congress will manage to pass a universal health care package is still up in the air. I’m not up on the latest state of the debate except to hear that Obama is against the “single-payer system” and that this is causing quite a stir among liberals. Single payer would be something like Medicare. All pay into a single, government-run pot and a public institution runs the program. Canada has such a “Medicare for all” system. I haven’t yet understood why some are so adamant about single-payer. It would get the private insurers out of the system and, assumedly, reduce general costs compared to a mixed system like in Germany where insurance companies are involved. It works here in Germany that you have highly regulated insurance companies administering all social insurance payments and expenditures. I just hope that the debate about which kind of universal health care system doesn’t kill the chances of implementing getting the system installed.
It would appear that there is now a general consensus in the country that health care for all is necessary. The majority believes that it’s simply the right thing to do. Not only would universal health care help contain runaway health costs, it would patch a big whole in the social safety net left unfilled by Roosevelt and his New Deal.
The initial costs of subsidies for universal health care are very high. They are estimated at over $150 billion per year. That’s a heck of a lot of money. It just happens to be about the same amount money, however, that the government could additionally take in on tax revenue if the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire after 2010. That’s no-brainer I would say. Let the rich pay a bit more in taxes and you’ve already got enough money to pay for the necessary subsidies.

What’s the right up to these days?

2009-03-21T12:52:00.003+01:00

Living in Germany I’m not totally up on the goings on in the world of American media propaganda. Sometimes, though, I catch little glimpses of what’s going on. It seems that comics are becoming a favored tool of conservatives to animate their followers and convert the fence sitters. Within just a few weeks three different comic strips crossed my digital desk. Taken together they smell fishy.

The first one was the comic strip published in the New York Post in February. A dead chimpanzee was portrayed with a two big bullet holes in his chest. Two white policeman stood above him, one with a smoking gun in his hand saying “They’ll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill”. The reference was obviously to Obama, the racist undertones not subtle at all. A cry of outrage followed and the disturbing news made it all the way across the Atlantic.

The next one was sent to me as an email attachment by a conservative member of my extended family. There were at least 20 further recipient addresses visible in the email. The sender commented the comic strip with, “Do I need to say anything else?”. It was a Wizard of Id comic strip. Obama, being portrayed as the king is giving an election speech to the peasants. Hi announces that he promises, “FREE healthcare, FREE education, FREE housing and jobs for everyone”. After asking whether there are any questions, a peasant asks “What do we need JOBS for.

The last comic strip had an illustration of a condom with friendly face. He jokes that a condom best describes the present administration’s policies:
“A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.”
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence. It does seem funny to me, though, that within 60 days of an Obama Administration these comics have been appearing. The radical right certainly works in mysterious ways and I’m certain they’re waiting in the wings to attack and fight any policy changes that might help create a more equal and just society.

Health Insurance and Weizenbier

2009-03-16T00:14:00.000+01:00

For about the first half of my 20 year visit here in Germany people always asked me one of three questions upon meeting me:
“Man, how could you move from Southern California to Germany?”
The multitude of innuendoes with this question, at least my interpretation thereof, included the assumption that life in Southern California with it’s weather, beaches and movie stars, can not be topped. By leaving all that for cold, rainy, grey Germany I must be a bit crazy.
“When are you going to go back to America?”
The innuendos here were not very subtle. Certainly, my new friends must have thought, I wasn’t planning on staying here. At the time I didn’t think of it in this way, but it’s not a very welcoming question to pose to a potential immigrant.
“How did you learn German so well?”
In retrospect this question is also full of subtle allusions. Why, for one, would people so often be surprised by my almost fluent German? Could one reason be that so many immigrants to Germany speak such poor German? A lot of them do, I must admit. Many Americans I have met here have a pretty heavy accent. It’s particularly difficult for US Americans to adopt to the soft, partially rolled “r” typical to German. The stark American “err” is common and does little to help reduce the German’s joking about Americans speaking as if they had chewing gum in their mouths.
I don’t mean to make it all sound so terrible. The Germans are actually not that bad. My encounters with Germans (you run into them all over the place here) have been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve tried to give up judging a population and basing my impressions on my experiences. I am pretty sure, at any rate, that the questions a German immigrant in America is confronted with are quite different.
Anyways, having been so often asked when I’m going back “home” and why I moved here has made me continually reflect on the question of my life here in Germany. Why have I remained here for so long? Am I happy here? What would my life be like if I were in the US. I won’t go into all those questions here. That could get boring. I would, however, like to mention one issue that often pops into my head when I compare life here with life in the US.
Health insurance! Yes, it’s health insurance that always came to mind when someone asked me why I don’t want to move back to the US. Funny, huh! I was a young man upon first arriving in Germany (I mean, I’m still young, but back then I was r e a l l y young.) I was in my early twenties, going to college, traveling Europe with my girlfriend, why would health insurance come to mind. Wouldn’t the main advantages I would have perceived been things like free college education, easy and inexpensive travel opportunities to places like Paris, Rome and Amsterdam? Or what about the Oktoberfest, Bratwurst and the Black Forest? Admittedly those fringe benefits have been enjoyable (except for the Oktoberfest). Other, less exotic things, though, have also kept me from fleeing back across the Atlantic to Mom, baseball and apple pie.
The frequent visits to my village doctor convinced me that the Old World had something to offer that I would not find back home. It’s called universal health care and it’s as normal here as Weizenbier. After moving out of the student dorms, I lived in a small village a few miles outside of Tübingen with my girlfriend. We had a small flat with a big view of the surrounding farmland and forests. The population was around 2000. A two-lane highway cut through the center of the village, forming an unnatural division. To get to Dr. Möck I had to push the pedestrian walk button and wait for the traffic light to switch. The strong sense of social control prevented me from even considering darting across before the light switched. I had learned a tough lesson about jaywalking within a few weeks of arrival. At a busy intersection in the main city I crossed another two lane street on red after having seen that no cars were coming. As I safely reached the other side a small boy, perhaps 10, stood in front of my path and literally yelled at me “Denken Sie nicht an die Kinder?”, “Why don’t you think about the children?” My German wasn’t very good yet, but I immediately got the essence of his outrage. I was a bad example for the children by crossing the street on red. This social component of life here was a hard lesson for a California kid like me.
I enjoyed my visits to my village doctor. His practice was in the second floor of a residential house, certainly a century old. The creaky sound of the steps leading up to his practice and the wooden beams on the ceiling of the waiting room gave proof of this. The doctor’s friendly eyes, set behind his round, wire-framed glasses, helped me relax. “So, what’s bothering you”, he asked. “Oh not much. I have been having stomach aches lately and was wondering if you had something for me”, I asked. “Tell me about your diet”, he asked. I told him that I’ve been a vegetarian for about a year and have even experimented with a vegan diet. He was surprised about that and said that I should consider eating some animal products. “One shouldn’t go to extremes”, he recommended. When I told him I didn’t even eat eggs, he urged me to give them another try. “Eggs are full of essential vitamins and minerals”, he explained.
I left his office that day, took a long walk through the cold, dark forest and concluded to loosen my stringent diet. I became a part-time vegetarian. This may not be the best proof of a functioning health care system, but it was my first introduction to one and for me it was convincing. Whenever I felt sick, at least more sick than just the normal cold or flu, I didn’t hesitate to go visit my Dr. Möck. I must admit, in my first year in Germany I went to the doctor more than my previous 10 years in the US. After the first couple years of euphoric free doctor visiting, my visits slowed down dramatically. Now, twenty years later, doctors visits are still free (since about 2 years patients must pay an 8 dollar “practice fee” when visiting a doctor) and I still enjoy going to my “house doctor”, as they call them here. I haven’t been to him, though, in ages. The last time was about 2 years ago when I injured my knee playing soccer. I certainly belong to the percentile of the population who pays in way more than they take out. I don’t, however, have any qualms about that. Perhaps one day someone in my family will be unlucky enough to need expensive medical care.
14,5% of my pre tax monthly paycheck goes to my health insurance plan. My employer is required by law to match that amount. This percentile is the same across the board, regardless of age, geography, genetic disorders, whatever. It is a lot of money, but apparently way less than what the typical American pays. It’s important to note that my insurance plan is mandatory and it covers basically everything (homeopathy, Bach Flowers and acupuncture are, unfortunately, not included). My three kids are covered, my wife is covered through her employer. We as a family basically do not have any concerns that if someone gets sick we will run into financial difficulties. Adults do have to pay for a certain percentage of prescription drugs, children are do not.
I am not too familiar with the situation in the US. It’s been a long time since I’ve lived there and lots has changed in those year. I was quite shocked, however, to hear of a friend in the US who had to pay for the hospital costs of her child’s birth. That concept is totally unthinkable for a German. On a radio program I heard the story of a family who was forced to sell their house and move into their car in order to pay their medical bills.
Perhaps these are exaggerated anecdotes. As far as I can tell, though, the US system is extremely expensive, ineffective and unfair. The US is the only Western country without universal health care. I would not feel at ease with a family of three kids if I had to wonder how we were going to cover the medical costs if my son had influenza or my daughter broke her arm. Maybe a new wind is blowing in America these days and the country will manage to overcome whatever it is that has kept it from installing such a basic form of social welfare.

Back to Basics

2009-03-11T15:38:00.002+01:00

(*I first wrote this back in October, 2008, when the world was still intact.)

The White House and the US Congress have handed over billions of dollars to the ailing financial industry and is getting ready to pass on billions more to the auto industry. Many argue that these bailouts are necessary to prevent further damage, to stop the loss of millions of jobs. Henry Paulson’s moving plea to House Leader Nancy Pelosi (is there not a picture of that anywhere?) was grounded on such fears. If AIG was allowed to failed the international ramifications would have been catastrophic.
What does this mean for the state of our economy? Does it represent a major turning point or has the volume just been turned up on a policy pattern long since in practice? My gut feeling is that something radical is changing. On the other hand one doesn’t have to look far to find examples of government bailing out big biz when it’s in troubled waters. For me it brings the myth of free market capitalism into the light. Milton Friedman and his Chicago School were not as successful as they are made out to be. Who can honestly argue that the US economic system over the past 30 years has been allowed to run free of government intervention? The Chrysler bailout of ’79 and the S&L crisis of the 1980s are glaring examples of government jumping in to save the sinking ship. We could take a look at NAFTA to again clearly demonstrate governments biased role in US and world economics.
Take a look at US military intervention and try to figure what that has to do with “free market” capitalism. Were US and international food distributors vying for contracts in Iraq after 2003 have a level playing field? Could it possibly be that certain companies like Halliburton and KBR had preferential treatment?
What sort of a predicament are we in? We are living through a phase of capitalistic growth financed and defended by the public sector and payed for by the private sector. The tragic consequences are felt by many, speculated upon by some and concealed by a few. Are we all just a bunch of lemmings heading for the cliff? Do we want to blindly stand around and watch Washington bury the last hopes of a healthy future?
The US government, opinion makers, elite and the populace in general needs to reorient priorities. We need to ask ourselves what it it that we really need? What is enough? This is, of course, a gigantic issue and there are no easy answers. Let us look, however, at a simple issue to try frame this shift in consciousness.
Boots. Boots are an easy topic. Not very controversial. Unless you live in the tropics or the desert, everyone needs a good pair of boots. The boots should keep you warm and dry and be relatively comfortable. If you were to take an opinion poll I bet that the vast majority would say that they want a pair of boots that will last a long time. So why do so many US Americans buy boots that either don’t keep them warm or don’t keep them dry or don’t last very long? Advertising, commercialism, consumerism? Stupidity? I would argue that it’s a mixture. Intelligence plays a role. I you’re smart enough you don’t get sucked into a consumer trip that is damaging to yourself. In certain environments, though, it’s hard for anyone to avoid the appeal of consumerism and marketing.
Certainly if you take a typical consumer and let him choose between two pairs of boots and provide him with sufficient information, you will find her making a reasonable decision. Boot pair A is 20% cheaper, is warm but doesn’t repel water effectively and has been know to not last more that a couple years. Boot pair B is not as pretty, doesn’t have a brand name, is more durable but more expensive. Pair B is known to last for over ten years. Take away the commercials, take away peer pressure (no teenagers allowed in this experience) and I bet our consumer will make a reasonable decision.

Inequality in our Times

2009-03-08T23:09:00.001+01:00

Ronald Reagan asked the American public in the 1980 presidential campaign “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?”. I remember how my high school wood shop teacher responded. He said he did not feel better off that 4 years prior and that that spelled big trouble for Jimmy Carter. At that time the country was suffering from hyperinflation and the oil crisis was fresh on people’s minds.
Reagan perhaps won the election because of the economy and his well-formed question served to remind people of their woes. The question is certainly appropriate in a presidential campaign. People’s perceptions of the economy and how they’re doing financially clearly affect their election preferences. Bill Clinton, not always as eloquent as Reagan but also a good talker, said bluntly “It’s the economy, stupid”. There’s also no doubt that Obama’s landslide victory in 2008 was aided by a faltering economy. Some even say he wouldn’t have been elected if it weren’t for the economic crisis. I’m not sure, though, if such comments came from the same folks who said he wouldn’t have been elected if it weren’t for Palin or if the weather had been better on that Tuesday afternoon.
There is one thing, though, that I would change about Reagan’s question. I’d add a zero to the four. “Are you better off than your parents were a generation ago?”, I would ask. I would have to give Paul Krugman credit for the question. In his book “The Conscience of a Liberal” he deals extensively with this question. Why has inequality risen in the US since the end of the post WWII economic boom? Why has the middle class shrunk so drastically?
I will skip the part of the debate asking whether inequality has risen in the US in the past few decades. Krugman goes to lengths about this and for me it’s so obvious. I moved to Germany twenty years ago and have seen from the outside how poverty has risen, job security has sunken and sending a kid to college has become, for many, impossible. The US society in general has become more unequal. The strong, vital middle class that expanded from the 40‘s to the 80’s has gone to pot, as the British like to say.
Total equality in a society is probably unattainable and, perhaps, undesirable. Egalitarianism in a large, modern country was propagated in Soviet-socialist states like the GDR. Officials and supporters of such a system wanted others to believe that theirs was a classless society. However, the ruling party, the SED, with all it’s members and cohorts was so large that it must clearly be seen as a class in itself.
I sense a tendency among conservatives in the US to go so far as to argue that egalitarianism is utopian and borders on totalitarianism (ie. Soviet Union, China, etc.) Therefore, they say, we don’t even need to try to make our society more equal. It’s useless, leads to totalitarianism, would be boring and, most importantly, goes against our “human nature”. The argumentation continues to point out that the government can’t dictate equality. The individual will pull herself up by her bootstraps and morph herself into a successful, middle class citizen. Government needs to stay out of our business and let each person run their lives as they please. This powerful argumentation has become mainstream thought. Luckily, though, we are entering a new age in which the conservative movement is slowly creeping into the dark corner it belongs in.
What are the personal and social ramifications of living in a society with radical differences in income levels? We can take it to a personal level and ask ourselves how we would feel if a colleague is earning twice as much as you are. He does pretty much the same work. Perhaps he was lucky enough to get assigned to a client who brings in way more revenue that your clients. He receives bonuses based on the success of his sales. This doesn’t feel too hot. You get resentful. You see that he is not supporting you much with your projects. Each employee in such a constellation looks first to make sure his sales go up. Cooperation suffers.
The primatologist Frans de Waal looks at social behavior of apes in his book “Our Inner Ape”. He tells about the time he witnessed a group of chimpanzees enjoying the olive leaves they had been fed through the cage. The leaves were a welcomed variation to their normal diet. Day after day they received their leaves and were quite content with them. The chimps even were careful to make sure that all members of the group got their fair share. One day zoo helpers gave a pair of chimps some grapes. From that day on the others, who hadn’t received grapes, refused the olive leaves. They were no longer good enough.
That apes also experience envy is rather eye-opening. What does envy cause among a group of humanoids? If one high school kid comes cruising to school with mag wheels and stainless steel hubs he will create envy among his peers. Soon you will see other boys showing up with pimped up cars. If one house on my block is twice as big as the others and the owners have a swimming pool to top it, certain social dynamics kick in. Perhaps the other neighbors will ban together and scorn the rich family. Perhaps some will do their best to become buddies with the rich guy, hoping some of his wealth will rub off on them. At any rate it does cause some disturbance in the complicated social quilt bonding a community together.
It becomes a question of justice. If everyone in a community is poor then the community comes together in their efforts to overcome their plight. If a few members become disproportionately wealthier than the rest, the “lessers” begin to question the fairness. No one likes to see some fat cats taking off with more than their fair share of the cake. The sense of community begins to break down.
Summing this up, one can say that inequality in a society leads to envy which results in an increased sense of injustice. This further leads to decreasing cooperation and increasing social turmoil. With the risk of oversimplification I conclude that it must be the goal of a society to strive toward more equality. Income disparity in America today has become purely grotesque. Why should a college kid with the, granted, cool idea of creating the social networking site Facebook be able to become a billionaire within a few years? Is he really that much smarter than me? Is he that much more productive than me? Where is the justice in this picture? I’m no fortune teller but I will predict that pretty soon enough of us apes are going to get tired of munching on olive leaves and demand some of those grapes.

As time goes by...

2009-03-06T10:37:00.000+01:00

Blog Entry year 2008, um I mean 2009. How time flies these days. Can’t seem to get it off my mind how the days and weeks go by so quickly of late. This obsessive attention-paying began early last year when I started up my own start-up. After working full-time for 10 years at a small software company I decided to start my own biz (www.dynamicwebcreations.com) [sorry, web site still not translated to English]. After long deliberations and even longer walks through the winter forest behind my house, I came to the conclusion that I would keep my old job and start a new company at the same time. By boss wasn’t too crazy about this because I was the only project manager left in the company after a recent process of voluntary and in-voluntary downsizing. There wasn’t much stopping me at that point and so I’ve been working at home a few hours a week trying to get my little firm up and going and at the same time working my buns off for Welsch & Partner.
It’s not the work load or extra stress that I’ve been mostly bugged by. Rather it’s gotten annoying how I keep noticing how Thursday has arrived before Monday is even done with. Recently a friend said that I should try to do “new” or “different” things each day to prevent this time racing thing. That reminds me of the advice another friend gave me at least 15 years ago. He had just finished his training in speech therapy so probably got the idea from some seminar. “Try to do things in an opposite fashion than usual”, he said to me in German. I think it sounded more profound in the original voice. After 15 years I haven’t forgotten so it must have been important. He said if you always tear the toilet paper off the roll with your right hand, try it with your left. If you always put your left leg in your pants first, try putting your right leg in first. I must admit, unfortunately, that I didn’t even follow his advice back then. Perhaps that’s my problem. The second friend’s advice, however, did influence my behavioral patterns; at least a few times. I’m not sure if it helps, but I would say it’s worth a try.
Walking through the woods on a snowy morning, listing to Bob McChesney on WILL-FM radio interviewing Naomi Klein, running up and down the court in a heating soccer match trying to make the perfect pass or shoot the perfect goal, discussing ethics and morality with my 18-year old - those are all things that, I do believe, I enjoy and help prevent time from racing away from me. Perhaps it’s simply an attitude thing. If I wouldn’t get so hung up on the fact that the weeks go by so quickly, they probably wouldn’t. My wife Susa says, “Great, the week is already over. Then the weekend is here and we can take a trip somewhere.” She does sense that days go by quickly but it doesn’t seem to bother her a bit.
I guess it’s also the feeling that my life is just passing by too quickly and before I know it I’ll be this 80 year old fart telling my grandchildren to enjoy life before it passes you by. That’s exactly what my grandmother told me. She was anything but an old fart I must say. She was a gentle, kind, loving women who outlived her husband by a few years and was lucky enough to have my mother nearby to visit her every day. We grandkids, my father and my mother’s sister also visited her regularly. Her deep, clear voice, still slightly tainted by 60 year old Polish roots, would repeat the same handful of anecdotes at the end of our short visits. “Take advantage of each day”, she said, “for life is so short. Enjoy while you are still young.” She was always either standing or sitting at her desk chair, as if sitting in one the soft-cushioned sofa or recliner chairs would cause her short, thin body to sink into oblivion. She had beautiful thick, gray hair, collected in gentle curls. I think she had the same hairdo all the years I knew her. One of the outstanding events in her routine was going with my mother to a particular hairdresser in neighborhood shopping center. Damned if I can’t remember the name of the woman who did her hair.
Those simple few words of hers about enjoying life are buzzing around my head today. Here I am half way through my life. Back then I was at the beginning of my life, she was at the end of hers. What significance did her words have for her? She had lived so long and seen so much. As with many elderly people, she was suffering from a mild sort of dementia with which childhood memories become very pronounced and memories of recent years become weaker. She spoke often of her childhood. A memory made all the more pronounced because of the tragedy and pain she must have gone through. She was born in Poland and emigrated to America at the age of 19 with her mother and two sisters. The father stayed in Poland.
I know little of her childhood aside from the few stories she repeatedly told us. I wonder now why she always repeated the same three or four stories and never told us much more about her past. Perhaps because we didn’t ask. Looking at my own experience I can imagine how pronounced those memories must have been. I, too, emigrated to a foreign country at the age of 19. Amazing, this correlation just struck me while writing this. My emigration was, of course, very different from hers. I left modern, freeway-infatuated California and moved to autobahn-infatuated German. I had a German girlfriend to guide me. My grandmother moved from war-torn Poland to Motor City, Michigan. Her life in America saw the country move from the Great Depression to the Great Compression and on to the Great Society. She witnessed the historic rise of an affluent middle-class America and she and her family were the right archetype rising immigrants. The fact that they were Catholic may have dampened their rise. Along with their language, she, her mother and sisters partially gave up their religion to become real Americans. I remember her telling me (before her dementia), that as a young family in Detroit their greatest dream was to become Americans.
How funny. How different. While I too left my homeland at the age of 19, I did not take my family with me. They all stayed there. My umbilical cord to home was not as strongly severed as that of my grandmothers. I didn’t even “emigrate” to Germany back then. I just was going to do a year abroad, see Europe and have fun with my girlfriend. As things often go, girlfriends that stay girlfriends tend to become more than just girlfriends. Before I knew it she wasn’t just a lover, she was a lover with some individual being growing inside of her.
My emigration was more of prolonged visit for the first years. Although I’ve never done it before (perhaps I could try some day), emigrating to America must be very different than emigrating to Germany. Here (I’m in Deutschland) becoming “German” is next to impossible for immigrants. I, actually, don’t even want to become one. I don’t know why but I still, after 20 years in this country, I still consider myself American. I have a German wife, three German kids, two of which have German and American passports. I am happy here and want to stay here but the integration is different. My grandmother wanted from day one to become a true American and she succeeded in that.
What does this all have to do with my present issue of time perception. I dunno. I just read in the paper that the US is sending telescope into orbit called “Keppler” (a German scientist by the way). They hope to find life on another planet. Maybe one of those German scientists (a bit of pride in German’s history even flows through me) has my answer. It was, I believe, Einstein (yes, he was German, in fact a Swabian born in the same town my wife was) who figured if you you traveled far enough into outer space and then came back to Earth you would be somewhat younger than your twin brother. I don’t know, however, if he also realized you’ld be dead because the human body can’t put up with all the cosmic radiation out there. Hm, guess I’ll just have to go with my grandma’s advice and try to enjoy each and every day.
ciao,
Gus

Letter to Family and Friends, December 2008

2008-12-30T20:04:00.000+01:00

It seems again like this year has passed so quickly. We will soon have a 9 in our date and I’m hardly used to the nineties being gone. The decade is almost over and I don’t even know what to call it. We had the seventies, later came the eighties and the nineties. What are we in now, the zeros? Are we heading toward the teens? Whatever.
One thing I do know is that since working at home for one-third of the week, the weekdays go by very quickly. Now for instance. It’s Tuesday evening and I could swear it was just the weekend. I do, though, feel like my days are intense, full of change and good times. At least I do my best. I still enjoy soccer and taking a long walk through the forest (not at the same time, though). I have fun fooling around with Theresa, teasing Joshua and watching Julian become a man. Just today I was debated with Julian about the validity of “conspiracy theories”. I am happy that we find the time and space to discuss such issues.
Joshua’s never-ending curiosity is fun to observe. Theresa continues to astound us with her acute awareness of things going on around her and her sharp memory.
When the youngsters are out and about, Susa and I are enjoying times together without kids around. This happens more lately. Julian and Joshua are often out with their friends and Theresa also sometimes spends an afternoon at a friend’s. It’s a strange feeling when we are home alone. The flat is quiet and we can talk without constantly being interrupted. In a way I feel a bit strange that I’m getting older, something hard to deny when I watch my kids sprout up and getting more and more independent. On the other hand, it’s pretty cool to realize that after 18 years it’s the first time that I don’t have a child under 7 years to take care of. Rather emancipating. Perhaps it’s a bit like the changing of the guards, or like a generational change. My oldest is becoming an adult. I’m becoming the father of an adult. If Julian is a generation below me and he’s an adult what does that make me? I think I’ll push off thinking about that for another ten years or so.
In a way I still feel like a kid. I was always the baby in the family. At least that’s what I’ve been told (by certain, as yet unnamed, siblings). For quite a while now I’ve been a father but in a way don’t even feel like I fit into that role. I mean, my father was a father and I’m not like him. Am I? He was so much older and, ya know, father-like. I couldn’t be that way. Could I? Now Julian is 18, but I’m only just getting used to being a father. Strange.
Talking about strange, uh, I mean change, what do you all think of our new pres? Have you read either of his books? I just read his first one and was pretty darn impressed and moved. Perhaps being a good author isn’t in and of itself a qualification for the highest office in the land, but I would say it definitely boosts up one’s credentials. After reading his book he seems to me to be reflective, thoughtful, caring, intelligent and determined. I do have a lot of hope that Obama’s presidency is going to be a sort of catalyst for positive, progressive change in the US. Perhaps like a kick in the butt of a sleeping cow.
It was great fun having Dave and Barb here for a visit. They were great sports about looking around town via bicycle and bus. Looks like Dave truly enjoyed testing my recumbant bike. Within just the few days they were here we got to do quite a bit of sightseeing - castles, cathedrals, monasteries and old towns. It was cool that a friend of ours took us on a gondola boat ride and at the same time told us about the very old history of the university of Tübingen. I really got to show off “my” town because when they were here the autumn colors were fantastic with leaves glaring in shades of red, orange and yellow.

The dangers of a consumerism

2008-04-10T10:30:00.001+02:00

We live in a consumer-oriented society. That piece of information is certainly not particularly spectacular. Most people in America probably have a positive association with this term? We do need to consume, of course. Without consumption we humans wouldn’t last too long. What’s the issue, then? I want to discuss unbridled luxury- and waste-oriented consumerism. What percentage of products produced today are luxury items? That of course depends on how we define luxuries. I don’t want to get too much into that and will just say that luxury items are things we don’t need to survive, to live in a safe and healthy environment and to ensure the perpetuation of these conditions (I'm sure I forgot something, but let’s focus on the other stuff now.)
Why do we purchase all these luxury goods? Certainly we do get some satisfaction out of them, which makes us happier (a reasonable human right!?). Many would argue that a fancy car is necessary in order to get to work faster and safer and to impress customers (ensuring perpetuation of job). Perhaps heated leather seats, navigation system and an engine with 12 cylinders is necessary to help me relax after a stressful day on the job (without which one would suffer stress and thus endanger perpetuation of job).
I will argue here that such redefinitions of luxury are not acceptable because any one could then say I have to have that swimming pool to relax in. If I didn’t have in there would be now way I could put up with my stupid boss. Therefore we will assume here that people are not buying luxury items because, they are in some freely-defined way, non-luxury after all. Why then do members of a society like the US or Germany spend such large proportions of their discretionary income on things they don’t really need? In order not to make this too complicated, I will not discuss what people do with their disposable income. I would, though, use a broader definition of discretionary income. Expenses for savings, paying off debt and the like should be included in discretionary income. If I as a father fail to save some money for the future and go spend all my extra cash on some “toys” then I’m endangering the perpetuation of the above-mentioned conditions. Of course, if I take out a credit in order to buy a luxury item, I am using my discretionary income. Personal debt is a huge problem, especially in the US. If I am spending borrowed money to buy luxury or essential goods, I am, in effect, reducing the amount of money available to pay for essential goods. When I later have to pay the bank bank, I will not be able to simply use my disposable income, I will be forced to use whatever money I have. I therefore see the personal debt crisis in the long run reducing individuals disposable income. By having less disposable income the chances increase that one uses discretionary income to pay for luxury goods.
I don’t have any figures at hand, but I assume that the average person does spend a fair amount of their discretionary income on luxury items. Such behavior can, in turn, endanger an individual’s financial security. So, let’s go back to the question of why we purchase luxury items under such conditions. Some may argue that we consumers are simply pawns in the global capitalist game. We are cajoled into irrational behavior by a complex system of propaganda. We are taught from an early age that health and happiness can be acquired by collecting and maintaining certain material goods. The pretty, shiny things are the means to reaching the end (happiness, health, safety, etc.). (On the side: if we believe this, agreeing on a definition of luxury becomes more difficult.) This might sound rather conspiratorial, but you don’t have to look far to see that we are bombarded from every conceivable angle with ads telling us to buy, buy, buy. Of course we are, for the most part, free to choose what we purchase. Look, though, at the development of fast food in the US over the last 30 years. The amount of fast food consumed in the US has skyrocketed. Are people forced to eat 5 hamburgers a week? No. Has the rise in fast food consumption added to the rise in obesity, heart disease, cancer? Without having the facts at hand, I will say categorically yes. How can this be explained except by a concerted effort by a very powerful industry, with lots of friends in high places?
Irrational consumer behavior can often be attributed to malevolent activities of powerful institutions. Look at the sub prime loan scandal. Were home buyers warned that they were undertaking treading in dangerous waters? Were rating firms in the same boat with banks in trying to dupe potential buyers into making loans they never should have? Or should we take to heart what Georgie Bush said in this context: ‘They should have known what they were getting into and therefore it’s their own fault’. Certainly there is a place for personal responsibility and people need to think about what they’re doing. But if potential buyers are systematically being confronted with false information then even the smartest consumers are threatened.
Now I have made my point that we do have widespread spending on luxury goods that threatens an individuals livelihood. The question that is most burning to me is why we have this system of useless and harmful consumerism. One part of the equation, I assume, has to do with profit-making. A healthy capitalist system needs to grow. By creating ever more consumer markets, this growth is assured.
Another part of the equation was recently brought to my attention. Consumerism is part of a system designed to perpetuate and secure the stability of capitalism. We have been trained to believe that the consumption of luxury goods is an integral part of a happy and healthy life.
How much of the production cycle of today’s society is in no way necessary and principally used to catalyze the profit-making machine?
What role has and does oil play in the ability for modern capitalism to have reached this point? Would the incredible concentration of wealth in the hands of a few have been possible without oil?
What if we just cut out all the production of luxury items and just gave the money directly to the company bosses? Would that be any different than the way things are now? Now we spend a large percentage of our income on things we don’t really need. Perhaps we are happier when we buy and drive a new car (Fromm’s Ersatzbefriedigung). I’m not so sure, though. Perhaps we are somehow being convinced that we need a new car, a new washing machine and a new mp3 player. While we may be creating jobs with all of our purchases, we are, in effect, stuffing money in the pockets of the chief executives. What good does all this consumption madness do for us? Am I really better off when I can show off my new Mercedes? Does this aid me in my pursuit of health and happiness?
Of course we all need to consume to survive. In our capitalist society we have to purchase goods that we can consume to help us survive. I’ve just been reading up on Marx’s ideas about the value of goods. Put very simply, is not the value of a particular good that which someone is willing (or forced) to pay? If I build a chair and am able to sell it for $100 then the chair’s value is $100. If the buyer turns around and sells it for $200 then the value of the chair almost doubles (we have to assess some of the additional value to the service provided by the new seller). If there is a monopoly in play, then a seller can set the price, and thus the value, wherever he or she pleases. Value, then is quite “beliebig”. It’s dependent on external conditions and doesn’t have much at all to do with the goods themselves.
So there are lots of ways for “profiteers” to go about their business. They can set up monopolies, create need (marketing) or a litany of other tricks to increase the value (price) of their goods. Is not consumer madness one of the best ways for sellers to make, increase and sustain their high profits?