Posted by Joerg Wolf in
German Politics on Friday, July 23. 2010
What is common in the United States, is rather rare in Germany: Expressing support of our soldiers in Afghanistan.
While most US critics of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan make extra efforts to distinguish between criticism of the strategy/purpose of the wars and the service of the troops, such differentiation usually is not made in Germany. I have never seen a car with the bumper sticker "Support our Troops."
The Bundeswehr troops do not get much support from citizens, media, celebrities or politicians. Instead many soldiers are concerned about the opinion polls that indicate popular disapproval of the Afghanistan war.
Therefore the Atlantische Initiative (my day job) has teamed up with Germany's biggest daily newspaper and started the campaign "Feldpost für unsere Soldaten!" We encourage our readers and members to write short personal messages of support for the Bundeswehr troops. We will then forward the best ones to the various bases in Afghanistan. Several hundred messages have already been published by our partners at the tabloid Bild.
"Bashing Germany is the new favorite sport for policy makers and economists who want a more balanced world economy," writes The Wall Street Journal and points out: "That Germany's economy is unbalanced is clear. Household incomes and consumer spending have stagnated for a decade, and economic growth has come almost entirely from exports and related investment. Consumption is set to drop 1.4% this year, even though the overall economy will grow 1.9%."
The WSJ explains the German position very well, even though it does not quite agree with it:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel argued in an interview last week that balancing the budget could even unlock consumers' wallets-whereas deficit spending might only lead to even-higher household saving. Germans save because they are worried the public pension and health-care systems will run out of money, and would save less if they had confidence in sustainable public finances, she argued.
Ms. Merkel's first term doesn't offer good evidence for that view, however. Germany cut its budget deficit from 4% in 2005, when she took office, to nil in 2008, before the financial crisis struck. In that time, Germans' household savings rate rose rather than fell-to 11.2% of disposable income, from 10.5%. The core problem is lack of growth in Germans' disposable income, not high savings rates which are largely justified for an aging population, say most economists.
Endnote: Does Obama sound French, when he says that he is "concerned by weak private-sector demand and continued reliance on exports by some countries with already large external surpluses."? He was clearly asking Germans to buy more American stuff. (Hey, nearly everyone is walking around with iPhones and the city is full with huge iPad advertisements. Or are that Chinese products?)
Finance Minister Schäuble hits back at Obama by saying: "Governments should not become addicted to borrowing as a quick fix to stimulate demand. Deficit spending cannot become a permanent state of affairs." Oooch. I think most Germans agree. According to polls a majority of Germans are even against tax cuts. Can you believe it?
We all need more team spirit. Obama's Afghanistan team is in disarray. Their egos seem to be as bloated as the ego's in the French soccer team.
While President Obama is angry with McChrystal's frank comments and perhaps insubordination, President Sarkozy is reportedly furious over the national team's behaviour inside and outside the soccer stadiums. It was not really a "team." He even cleared his schedule for a one hour meeting with the captain on the day of a general labor strike. That shows how important the soccer team is for France as a symbol of national integration and unity.
Germany's coalition government has been in disarray for months as well with some calling each other "wild pigs" and "gherkin troops" (rank amateurs). (There are also rumors that one cabinet member called the defense minister "rumpelstiltskin.") Though, thanks to the national soccer team's victory over Ghana today, Merkel's government won't collapse yet. ;-)
If Germany had failed to make it into the round of sixteen for the first time in history, it would have been a national fiasco. Let's do not forget that the German coach is not called "Trainer der Nationalmannschaft," but goes by the official sounding name "Bundestrainer," just like the top government titles "Bundeskanzler," "Bundespräsident" etc.
On Sunday, we will play against England. One British fan said on TV that the world cup was invented for England and Germany to play against each other. Good point. Still, it is regrettable (but not at all surprising) that the British tabloid The Sun uses military language to describe the upcoming match. Come on, guys. It's just soccer. The real war is in Afghanistan.
Guest post by Joe Joe Noory is an Architect, investor, and independent observer of news and opinion:
Somewhere between the emotional populism of wanting to burden the higher performing European states with guilt over resisting to bail out the Greek government, and the risk investors are being offered to take are the hard truths of bailing out of the broke Greek government by investing in their bonds: they might not just default on ?8,5 billion in obligations to bond purchasers due on 19 May, but run the risk of never being paid back for future bond offerings (of perhaps two years or less), much in the way depositors in an uninsured failed bank will never see a red pfennig of their invested savings on a default.
Ifo's Hand-Werner Sinn indicated that very same sentiment on Wednesday morning, according to this wire piece:
The warning came as a new poll showed nearly two-thirds of Germans were opposed to helping Greece, with a majority believing that membership of the EU brought more disadvantages than advantages. Asked on MDR radio if Berlin would ever get its money back, Sinn, who heads the Ifo institute and is one of the top economic advisers to the government, said: "To tell you the truth, no." Greece "will not be in a position to carry out the necessary budgetary rigour" and will eventually have "to ask for Germany to waive the debt," he said. He warned that bailing out Greece could set a precedent for other euro area countries labouring under high debt and public deficits. "It would be understandable if the Italians or the Spanish put pressure on us to pay up now because it is an important precedent for them," said Sinn.
Before you react, take the statement for what it is: a warning. It isn't a characterization of the ur-Greek citizen, or a nationalistic reflection, or a cultural issue, but a warning that the discipline to raise revenue and cut budgets in face of the street protests and strikes of civil servants and dependants on entitlements. It isn't a characterization of what they did, but a warning of future events, one which prices them and tells us what something is really worth, just as watching those who short an equity or commodity does.
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
German Politics on Sunday, April 25. 2010
"Germany in Need of a Dream" is the headline of John Kornblum's op-ed, that I discussed earlier in: Has Germany Changed to the Worse? The former US ambassador to Germany adds to the mantra that 200,000 young fans of Obama attended his campaign speech in Berlin in 2008:
But as Germans will themselves often tell you: They have forgotten how to dream. Younger Germans feel this lack of inspiration as well. Dreams were what 200,000 of them were waiting to hear when they rallied to hear Barack Obama in Berlin two summers ago.
I was there. The crowd was a mix of all generations, not just young people. Not just fans, who "rallied". A few thousand Obama fans came hours before the speech and were able to stand in the front and smile and cheer into the TV cameras. Not just people in need of dreams came to see the new global superstar. Most folks were just curious, I think.
My atlantic-community.org colleague Ben Heine and I interviewed quite a few attendees after the speech:
Read Ben's article Obama in Europe: Continuity We Can Believe In: "Generally favorable towards Obama, many of the attendees we spoke to during the rally indicated they had come to hear the speech out of curiosity and interest in politics, rather than a specific desire to admire the presidential nominee."
Anyway, is Germany in need of a dream and are Germans waiting to hear dreams, as Kornblum is saying? I tend to disagree, but I agree to the extend that we need to overcome political cynicism and revitalize politics at the grassroots level. This requires much more than a charismatic leader, who would raise suspicions for historical reasons.
John Kornblum, a former American ambassador who has lived for nearly four decades around Germany, responds to the many articles that question Germany's commitment to the European Union:
Germany has changed very little, but Europe and the world have changed a lot. Therein lies the dilemma.
Unfortunately, his NY Times op-ed does not elaborate this dilemma sufficiently for me to understand it. However, he reminds us that Germany pursued self-interests in the past as well. Though, I don't think Germany pushed for NATO enlargement like this:
Many important postwar accomplishments were conceived and pushed by Germany, sometimes over the opposition of others - including the United States. Ostpolitik was controversial for years, as was NATO enlargement. Germany pushed them with determination. Helmut Kohl did not consult before promulgating his 10 points on reunification. He agreed to French desires for a common currency, but only if it could be a mirror of the Deutsche mark, for decades the European monetary standard. The euro stability pact, now the object of so much controversy with Greece, was the result. After 1990, the E.U.'s eastward expansion was Germany's way of firming up its Eastern flank. Slowly and without fanfare, Germany has been remaking the European Union in its image. At each step of the way, Germany made its wishes more palatable by paying more than its share. Part of today's misunderstanding is caused by Germany's success in using its contributions to build an image of selflessness.
It's a great analysis, but it would be even better, if Kornblum would get into more detail regarding these remarks: "Most maddening for most thinking Europeans is the knowledge that the Germans are right." and "European fecklessness seems to worry Washington officials these days." Any readers with interpretations?
Chancellor Merkel is traveling across America this week. She loves the United States, but she is still having trouble connecting with Barack Obama, writes Spiegel International (HT: David). The media loves to personalize politics. I think at the end of the day the problem is not the personal relationship between Obama and Merkel, but its structural. After long descriptions of the well-known differences in Obama's and Merkel's style of politics, Spiegel comes to the same conclusion in the end:
At the moment, the partners on both sides of the Atlantic are disappointed with each other. Whenever the Americans want something from the Germans, they are guaranteed to be turned down: on prisoners from Guantanamo, on sending significantly more soldiers to Afghanistan and on new economic stimulus programs.
Merkel, on the other hand, was repeatedly appalled last year at how inconsiderate the Americans were of German or European interests. Whenever she spoke to Obama about climate protection, he was only concerned with the consequences for the United States. When the Americans settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan, they didn't ask their allies first. Merkel also suspects that the United States is not interested in reining in the financial industry.
She is forced to look on as America becomes more and more enmeshed in a duel with China. Nothing is done that could impair Washington's position toward China, which is why the United States doesn't want to take on the burdens of a strict climate policy or a more tightly controlled financial market. German interests are of little importance, because Germany has little left to offer the Americans.
Atlantic Review appreciates that two Wall Street Journal contributors respond to our blog post on their article.
George Pieler and Jens Laurson took issue with the French finance minister's claim that German productivity ails Europe's economy. Joerg Wolf agreed with their criticism in Atlantic Review's post Germany as Maya the Bee, but expressed disagreement on the issue of tax cuts, even though that was not a central part of their article.
Jens Laurson and George Pieler have now submitted the following riposte, which we appreciate and are happy to post here:
In commenting on our Wall Street Journal piece ("Not so Faaaaast, Germany"), Joerg Wolf, Editor of the Atlantic Review, disagrees with the following observation: "Germany should cut taxes. But it should do so for its own good..."
Mr. Wolf makes three points which we should like to examine; hoping to clarify an evident misunderstanding that has arisen.
Mr. Wolf says Germany has been advised to cut taxes "especially of top earners, over the past twenty years. Such advice is neither helpful nor original and creative." Well, neither originality nor creativity was our intent, nor is that an argument against the argument. The question is, whether it is good advice. Certainly if it is such oft-repeated advice there must be something to it? For the record, we think cutting taxes is good-indeed essential-advice. This is partly because Germany has one of the highest top personal tax rates in world (47%). More worryingly, the German state absorbs nearly half the nation's GDP which means an astonishing, if hidden loss of productivity. This formula has worked for Germany so far, a reflection of popular acceptance of high taxes in exchange for government-guaranteed income security programs. We don't think that will work so well in the future, though. The German tax cuts over the last two decades Mr. Wolf mentions, in any case far outweighed by the tax increases in the same time, are irrelevant to this discussion.
George Pieler and Jens Laurson take issue with the French finance minister's claim that Germany's productivity is what ails Europe's economy. Writing in the Wall Street Journal they compare Germany with Maya the Bee. (Subscribers only, but you get the full article via Google News.)
Maya was a curious, busy bee, always buzzing from adventure to adventure. Her best friend, Willi, however, was less ambitious and had a more rotund physique. His catch phrase was the elongated, nasal cry: "Maya-don't fly quite so faaaaast."
We were reminded of the Willi character when French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde recently called on Germany to compete a bit less effectively. She argued that Germany's success in exporting goods and its high productivity supposedly puts undue pressure on the other European economies. Ms. Lagarde went so far as to suggest that higher German productivity, in part caused by restrained labor costs, might not be a "sustainable" model for the future.
Laurson and Pieler criticize the "concept of economics as a zero-sum game, i.e. France may only gain at Germany's expense" which "is so woefully outdated that one must wonder how Europe ever got as far is it did, economically. It utterly disregards the fact that competition doesn't weaken but strengthens economies."
WikiLeaks (HT: Marie-Claude) has published what it calls a Special Memorandum by the Central Intelligence Agency's Red Cell. The document argues that after the fall of the Dutch government "counting on apathy might not be enough," because "indifference might turn into active hostility if spring and summer fighting results in an upsurge in military or Afghan civilian casualties." Unfortunately, the recommendations for shoring up popular support are not as exciting as you would expect from a classified and leaked document. Some examples:
* Some German opposition to ISAF might be muted by proof of progress on the ground, warnings about the potential consequences for Germany of a defeat, and reassurances that Germany is a valued partner in a necessary NATO-led mission. * Emphasis on the mission's multilateral and humanitarian aspects could help ease Germans' concerns about waging any kind of war while appealing to their desire to support multilateral efforts. * Appeals by President Obama and Afghan Women might gain traction.
Cohu (via German Joys) compares recruiting videos from the German, Austrian and Ukrainian military and also includes a beer company's video ad that is promoting the US military.
While the Ukrainian video is ridiculous, the Austrian copy-cat version is just stupid. The Bundeswehr clip is a typical commercial highlighting the fun aspects of serving in the military, while ignoring everything else.
The American clip is by far the most effective advertisement in my opinion (and cohu's) and did not cost the taxpayer anything. The video shows how Americans appreciate the service and sacrifices of their troops and shows how glad they are that the soldiers made it back home. No triumphant atmosphere. The clip is so low-key and appears authentic and honest. All the mess the soldiers had to live through is somehow included in the atmosphere. That makes it honest and patriotic and an effective promotion. Just my opinion, of course.
Does Germany need such videos showing appreciation? Would such messages work in Germany and increase support for the Bundeswehr's mission in Afghanistan?
Can you imagine a German beer company making such an advertisement with soldiers returning from Afghanistan? (BTW: The Bundeswehr consumed 990,000 liters of beer in Afghanistan in 2007.)
The NY Times's Nicholas Kulish writes that what is happening in Germany is the opposite of what the US commercial shows. There are "no parades for Hans":
Often, as I have passed through the main train station here in the German capital, I have seen the sad, lone figure of a soldier, heavy pack on his back, waiting for a train like the rest of us, but separated from the crowd by the uniform he wears. No one would stop to thank him for his service or to ask whether he had been deployed to Afghanistan. The loneliness was obvious, but at times I even sensed what I thought might have been fear, at the occasional hostile looks the soldier would receive alongside the impassiveness of the broader masses on the platform, who just tried to pretend he wasn't there. (.)
The German men and women in Afghanistan set off for war without the support of the populace, and they know that when they return there won't be crowds cheering in the streets, ready to make heroes of them. Germany has turned its back on hero worship. The soldiers fight alone.
What are the most and the least effective military advertisements you have seen? I am most interested in honest, authentic and or funny ones, like the Danish Norwegian KFOR Boys. Yes, sure, post anti-military advertisements as well, if you like, but no gory stuff, please.
I am quite excited that Germany participates in the Eurovision Song Contest with an original, charming and funny artist, who can actually sing and is a bit crazy and therefore represents the new Germany very well. Lena Meyer-Landrut will perform the song Satellite at the Eurovision Song Contest, which was written by an American-Danish duo.
Although for the first time in years, Germany deserves "douze points," I don't think Lena Meyer-Landrut will get them from the other European countries. Animosities against Germany are too strong. Most Europeans have stronger emotional ties to other countries.
Resisting a bailout for Greece, digging in over economic policy and opposing parts of a strategy for Europe's growth, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will arrive Thursday at a European Union summit meeting ready to play an unfamiliar role: the bloc's naysayer. Once the invisible glue that bound the Union, German policy is now being dictated by less idealistic priorities rooted firmly by national interests.
I guess, we act now like a "normal" country. Well, so be it!
Germany's previously strong monetary and political support for EU integration did not make us popular enough to win the Eurovision Song Contest either. It just paved the way for German unification, but we got that now and have to focus on bigger national interests, like the Eurovision Song Contest and the Soccer World Cup.
My statements to the Russian English language TV station Russia Today probably cost us a few votes from Greek's Eurovision Song Contest community as well. The 10 minutes live interview took place last Friday. The video clip is from a weekly round-up and mentions just a few short statements of mine:
Germany's coalition government has been in disarray for months as well with some calling each other "wild pigs" and "gherkin troops" (rank amateurs). (There are also rumors that one cabinet member called the defense minister "rumpelstiltskin.") Though, thanks to the national soccer team's victory over Ghana today, Merkel's government won't collapse yet. ;-) 
In commenting on our Wall Street Journal piece ("Not so Faaaaast, Germany"), Joerg Wolf, Editor of the Atlantic Review, disagrees with the following observation: "Germany should cut taxes. But it should do so for its own good..."
George Pieler and Jens Laurson take issue with the French finance minister's claim that Germany's productivity is what ails Europe's economy. Writing in the Wall Street Journal they compare Germany with Maya the Bee. (Subscribers only, but you get the full article via Google News.)
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