Dialog International

Life Expectancy Falling for Many Americans

While Europeans and Canadians are living longer than their parents, the opposite is true for millions of Americans, according to Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation: 

When compared to the international frontier for life expectancy, US counties range from being 16 calendar years ahead to more than 50 behind for women. For men, the range is from 15 calendar years ahead to more than 50 calendar years behind. This means that some counties have a life expectancy today that nations with the best health outcomes had in 1957.

While the USA ranks number 36 among nations in tems of life expectancy (Germany ranks 20), that doesn't begin to tell the story.  There are huge regional disparities in the US which reflect levels of poverty, lack of health insurance, lack of education, racial profile, etc: 

Die Gesundheitsausgaben pro Kopf sind etwa doppelt so hoch wie in europäischen Ländern, allerdings sind bislang viele Millionen Menschen überhaupt nicht versichert, was neben den großen Einkommensunterschieden ein wesentlicher Grund für die große Ungleichheit der Lebenserwartung sein dürfte. In den Counties, in denen die Zahl der Menschen mit einer Krankenversicherung am niedrigsten ist, ist auch die Lebenserwartung am niedrigsten. Für die Verlangsamung oder auch den Rückgang der Lebenssterblichkeit könnten neben zahlreichen anderen Gründen die wachsende Zahl der Fett- und Dickleibigen oder der Mangel an Ärzten für die medizinische Grundversorgung verantwortlich sein, so dass hoher Blutzucker oder hoher Blutdruck nicht ausreichend behandelt werden.

("Per capita health care expenditure is about double what exists in Europe, however up to now millions of people are uninsured, which, along with the large income disparities is a reason for the unequal life expectancy.  In those counties with the lowest level of insured the life expectancy is also the lowest. Some of the reasons why life expectancy has stalled or is on the decline would include the epidemic of obesity and the lack of doctors for basic preventive care, so that high blood sugar levels and high blood pressure are left untreated." )

At least 59 million Americans have no health insurance at this time.  President Obama signed the Affordable Health Care Act which would require all Americans to purchase insurance by 2014.  The Republican Party and its Tea Party base have vowed to repeal this act and has gone much further in by proposing the elimination of Medicare.  If they are successful, the number of uninsured Americans would double from the current level.  But who cares?  These people are poor and it's their own fault if they get sick:

Die Vereinigten Staaten sind im eigentlichen Sinne des Wortes keine Demokratie, sondern eine Regierung der Reichen, durch die Reichen und für die Reichen. Es kann keine Lösung der Probleme der arbeitenden Menschen in den USA und auf der ganzen Welt geben, die nicht mit der Enteignung der gewaltigen Vermögen dieser gesellschaftlichen Schicht beginnt.

(The US is not a democracy in the true sense of the word, but rather a government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. There cannot be a solution fo the problems of working people in hte uS and in the whole world with out first expropriating the tremendous wealth of this social stratum.)

Don't hold your breath.  The Republican solution to the health care crisis for poor Americans is simple and highly cost effectiveL "Don't get sick.  But if you do, die quickly!"

Operation Barbarossa and the Myth of the Preventive War

This month marks the 70th anniversary of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, code-named by the Nazis "Operation Barbarossa", which ultimately proved to be Hitler's demise - but at a terrible price. More than 27 million people in the Soviet Union - two-thirds of them civilians - perished following the invasion, along with five million German soldiers.  Today there is a concerted effort by right-wing groups in Europe to rewrite history and place the blame for Germany's invasion on the Soviet Union.  The efforts range from blatant attempts to rehabilitate Hitler and the Nazis as enemies of godless Bolshevism to historical revisionist efforts - stemming from the Historikerstreit of the 1980s - to put Stalin and Hitler on the same plane to render harmless or relativize the crimes of the Nazis. 

On cue, the latest example of historical revisionism can be found in the völkisch-nation al weekly Junge Freiheit with a contribution by the military historian Heinz Magenheimer.  In the piece, Magenheimer revives the myth that Stalin was poised to attack Germany so Hitler had no choice but to launch a preemptive invasion of the Soviet Union:

Während die Forschung über die deutschen Kriegsvorbereitungen 1941 seit vielen Jahren ziemlich genau im Bilde ist, tappte man über das, was auf sowjetischer Seite ablief, lange Zeit im dunkeln. Erst die Freigabe russischer Dokumente in den neunziger Jahren und die Publikation wichtiger Akten erlaubten einen tiefen Einblick in die sowjetischen Kriegsvorbereitungen ab 1940. Schon der strategische Aufmarschplan vom 18. September 1940 ließ eindeutig eine starke Massierung von Panzer- und motorisierten Truppen im vorgeschobenen Frontbogen von Lemberg–Sambor–Strij erkennen, die nur Angriffszwecken dienen konnte.

("While the research on German war preparations in 1941 has been complete for many years, we have been groping in the dark concerning what took place on the Soviet side. Only with the release of Russian documents in the 1990s and the publication of important files have allowed for a deeper look into Soviet war preparations from 1940 on.  The strategic deployment of troops starting on September 18, 1940 resulted in a concentration of tanks and motorized troops in the advanced front around Lemberg-Sambor- Strij, which could on serve the purposes of an attack.")

But the evidence that Stalin was initiating an attack is non-existent.  For readers of Mein Kampf, however, there is plenty of evidence that Hitler planned all along to invade the east - his Drang nach Osten - to create Lebensraum for the German master race.  The 3-million man strong German invasion force encountered little resistance initially in 1941 from a Red Army force that was pretty much in disarray thanks to Stalin's bloody purge of the officers' ranks. 

What is clear is that Magenheimer, Junge Freiheit, and the right-wing historical revisionist are simply repeating the lies that Hitler and Goebbels used to justify the invasion:

Damit aber ist nunmehr die Stunde gekommen, in der es notwendig wird, diesem Komplott der jüdisch-angelsächsischen Kriegsanstifter und der ebenso jüdischen Machthaber der bolschewistischen Moskauer Zentrale entgegenzutreten.

("So the hour has come when it is necessary to take action against this consipracy of Jewish-anglosachsen warmongers and likewise Jewish ruling powers in the Bolshevist Moscow headquarters.")

 

 

When women write

Nobel Prize laureate VS Naipaul created outraged headlines a couple of weeks ago with his comments about women writers.  Naipaul first aimed high by launching a broadside against Jane Austen(!):

In an interview at the Royal Geographic Society on Tuesday about his career, Naipaul, who has been described as the "greatest living writer of English prose", was asked if he considered any woman writer his literary match. He replied: "I don't think so." Of Austen he said he "couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world".

Of course, this is patently absurd, since Jane Austen is a writer for the ages, while Naipaul will be remembered as a good writer of A House for Mr. Biswas and A Bend in the River. 

But the second part of Naipaul's diatribe against woment writers was rather more intriguing:

"I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not."

Naipaul, of course, meant this as a criticism, since if it is "by a woman" it is necessarily inferior (" I think [it is] unequal to me."), for women are trapped by "sentimentality, the narrow view of the world"; "And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too."  But, leaving aside the female-bashing, is Naipaul correct with his assertion that it is possible to identify a female voice "within a paragraph or two"?

Well, with some writers, yes.  I just (re)read Ingeborg Bachmann's Das dreißigste Jahr (1961) which is clearly written from a female sensibility, even though the narrative perspective is that of a young man (both third and first person). This is not to say that Bachmann's piece is "feminist tosh" (Naipaul), but rather that Bachmann has a distinctive feminine poetic voice that comes through in her prose.

On the other hand, consider the prose of fellow Nobel prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek, who, with her mastery of words is clearly "in command of a house" and whose fury destroys any sentimentality in its path.  I defy Naipaul, or anyone else, to put a random paragraph of Jelinek side by side with sentences by Thomas Bernhard and find any substantial difference.  Both are informed by rage, except Jelinek's is often directed at men (she is perhaps the perfect foil to Naipaul's misogyny).

And then there is the example of Anna Seghers, who often writes with muscular, masculine style.  Her best novel, Transit is written from the perspective of an anonymous 27-year old male and is completely convincing as such.  In general, Seghers is attracted to male protagonists.  Women are peripheral figures in most of her novels, including Das siebte Kreuz, DIe Toten bleiben jung, and Die Entscheidung.  But in the autobiographical novella Ausflug der toten Mädchen Seghers does switch to a distinctively woman's perspeciive. 

All of which is to say that the best writers have the skill to modulate their voice, or create multiple voices, to convey their art.

Don't know much about history

Sarah Palin's recent gaffe concerning Paul Revere was unfortunately representative of Americans' ignorance of history.  Her fellow Republican - Michele Bachmann, who recently announced her candidacy for the office of president - evidently didn't know that the "shot heard 'round the world" which started the American Revolution took place in Massachusetts. But for the "Know Nothings" of today's Republican Party, this makes these women emminently qualified to lead the nation.  After all, our children know less and less about history:  according to the recent NEAP Report, only 8% of American fourth graders could identify a photograph of Abraham Lincoln and mention two reasons why he was important.   German schools do better job of preparing children:  German 15-year olds beat their American counterparts in test results for two out of three areas of competence including history. 

Der Spiegel reports on the crisis in US education:

Das aktuellste US-Geschichtszeugnis, gerade vergeben, ist so unmissverständlich wie deprimierend: Amerikas Schüler fallen durch.

("The recent results on US history just released are immistakable as they are depressing: America's students are failing.")

Some of the root causes for the poor scores in history are the "reforms" pushed through by the Bush administration:

Vor allem aber legte NCLB den Schwerpunkt auf Mathematik, Schreiben und Lesen, als Grundlagen wirtschaftlichen Erfolgs. Andere Fächer wurden vernachlässigt - so Geschichte. [...]Auch viele junge Lehrer kümmerten sich heute nicht mehr um das Fach. "Sie sind nicht in der Lage, Geschichte zu unterrichten."

("No Child Left Behind placed emphasis on math, writing and reading as the foundation for economic success.  Other subjects were ignored - like history.  Many young teachers can't be bothered any more about the subject. "The are not able to teach history.") 

Der Spiegel also has a quiz on US history:  Wie amerikanisch sind Sie? / How American are you? I achieved a perfect score and got this feedback: 

Herzlichen Glückwunsch! Sie wissen ziemlich viel über die USA. So gut wie Sie hat kaum ein US-Schüler abgeschnitten.

(Congratulations! You know a lot about the US. Hardly any American students did better than you.)

Well, I'm confident I did better than Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann would.

 

Blame Greece? No, Blame Germany!

The populist German press - led by the BILD-Zeitung - has fueled the resentment of many Germans against their EU partners to the south. Why should hard-working Germans, who have done everything right, bail out those lazy Greeks. who retire early and go on extended vacations? The anger was further stoked recently by Angela Merkel, who had harsh criticism for the people of those countries Germany bailed out again and again by Germany. She basically accused Spaniards, Portuguese and Greeks of being lazy. “We can't have a common currency where some get lots of vacation time and others very little,” she said, according to the news magazine Spiegel. “That won't work in the long term.” She cited early retirement ages as further evidence Southerners just don’t pull their weight.

Never mind the fact that Merkel was mistaken: people in those countries do not retire any earlier than Germans and have the same amount of vacation.  According to economist Joerg Bibow, the chancellor should look in the mirror to find the root cause of the crisis in the Eurozone:

Germany likes to see its international competitiveness as the fruit of hard work and productivity. Yet, German productivity growth since 1999 does not stand out. What stands out is wage stagnation. Germany’s improved competitiveness was derived from reducing German wages relative to its European partners; the equivalent of a beggar-thy-neighbor devaluation in pre-euro times. The consequences of this strategy have proved disastrous: domestic demand stagnation in Germany, housing bubbles in partner countries with higher inflation, given that the ECB sets one rate that has to fit all. One way or another, the country that runs up trade surpluses must either lend or grant transfers to the deficit countries that make its own surpluses possible. Today, German policymakers refuse to do either. Fooled into believing that beggar-thy-neighbor was the right thing to do, popular demands appear to be just that. One cannot fail to see that insane austerity in the periphery serves to keep the euro low enough so that Germany can now grow on external exports.

Can there be any surpise that people in Greece are taking to the streets to express their anger at German-imposed austerity measures? 

Germany's Burschenschaften and the dream of racial purity

The German Burschenschaften - or student duelling societies - have been around for more than 200 years.  My favorite description of the type of student who joins the Burschenschaft is in Heinrich Mann's classic novel Der Untertan.  The central figure, Diederich Hessling, is a fanatical Burschenschaftler who worships the Kaiser and is unthinkingly obedient to authority while maintaining a rigid dedication to the nationalist goals of the German state. These were the types that later became the vanguard of the Nazi movement.  Occasionally I would run into a few comical characters with dueling scars while working in banking in Germany, but I thought that the Burschenschaften had become more like American fraternities: innocuous drinking clubs that were useful networking opportunities for getting jobs after leaving the university.  Now I learn that they never really changed from the days of Diederich Hessling: 

The fossilised world of Germany's student-duelling clubs was in turmoil yesterday after the national umbrella organisation was shown to have adopted a Nazi-style race code demanding the banning of members with foreign parents on the grounds that they were insufficiently "Aryan".

Apparently a member was expelled from one of the societies even though he was born in Germany and had served honorably in the Bundeswehr.  Why was he not acceptable?  The members parents were of Chinese origin, and the poor guy didn't have Aryan blood running through his veins:

According to the umbrella organisation's race code, he did not qualify as a member of the "German people".Der Spiegel said the motion was accompanied by legal documents drawn up for the umbrella group by the Alte Breslauer duelling club in Bonn and apparently approved by a majority of the country's Burschenschaften. The documents stipulated that prospective members with "non-European facial and bodily characteristics" did not qualify as Germans. The documents, written in part by a right-wing member of the Bavarian conservative party, also said: "Especially in times of rising immigration, it is not acceptable that people who are not from the German family tree should be admitted to the Burschenschaften."

So the Burschenschaften continue to obey the Nuremberg Race Laws.  And in those cases where where it is difficult to validate racial purity from "facial and bodily characteristics"  a special committee has been established to approve or reject the prospective member's application.

EF-Magazin Endorses Ron Paul for President

After only one debate by the Republican candidates for the 2012 US presidential election the right-wing libertarian monthly magazine eigentümlich frei has already picked its favorite: Texas congressman Ron Paul:

"Doch ganz allgemein driftet die Meinung des amerikanischen Publikum in die Richtung Pauls. Eine vor wenigen Tagen durchgeführte und veröffentlichte Umfrage von CNN zeigt, dass 63 Prozent meinen, der Staat tue „zu viel“. Nur zwei Jahre zuvor waren es nur 52 Prozent. CNN stellt diese Frage seit 1992 und noch nie ist dieser Wert so hoch gewesen wie heute. Gleichzeitig ist die Zahl derjenigen, die meinen, der Staat tue zu wenig, auf 33 Prozent gefallen, so tief wie seit 1998 nicht mehr. Vor zwei Jahren stand dieser Wert noch bei 45 Prozent. Doch auch Sozialkonservative können sich nicht freuen, denn nur noch 46 Prozent meinen, der Staat müsse „traditionelle Werte fördern“, so wenig wie noch nie seit 1993. Vor zwei Jahren waren es noch 57 Prozent, vor einem Jahr 53 Prozent. Gegen die staatliche Förderung traditioneller Werte, und damit konform mit dem durchaus traditionsbewussten Ron Paul, sind 50 Prozent, so viel wie noch nie seit 1993."

(In general American public opinion is drifting towards Ron Paul.  A poll released by CNN a few days ago whos that 63% of the public feel that government is "doing too much".  Just tw years ago it was only 52%.  CNN has been asking this question since 1992 and the number has never been this high.  At the same time, the number of those who feel that the government is doing too little has fallen to 33%, the lowest since 1998.  Two years ago the number woas still at 45%.  But social conservatives also cannot be happy that only 46% believe the government should "push traditional values" - the lowest since 1993. Two years ago it was 57% and a year ago 53%.  50% are aligned with Ron Paul in  opposing the government's involvement with traditional values, the highest since 1993.)

It's true that Ron Paul has a loyal and dedicated following in the US, primarily among young, tech-savvy conspiracy enthusiasts. But this group will never be larger than 10% of the Republican-leaning voters.  (Concerning conspiracies,  German readers may know that Ron Paul is frequent contributor to the right-wing conspiracy site Kopp-Verlag.) Most Americans are turned off by Ron Paul's questionable views on race and race relations in the US.  Paul opposes the 1964 Civil Rights Act and has ties to neo-Confederate groups that commemorate America's era of slavery.  To some extent the celebration of slavery makes sense, since the core of Ron Paul's libertarian views is a cult of property, and what right does the US government have to interfere with one's right to own another human being?

The cult of property is also at the core of eigentümlich frei's editorial thrust.  I note that the anti-democratic libertarian thinker Hans-Hermann Hoppe is on the magazine's editorial board. 

Go West, Young Plagiarist. Guttenberg Coming to America?

Where do disgraced German politicians go to rehabilitate themselves?  Why, the United States, of course.  That is apparently where the "cut and paste baron" Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg is headed for a "sabbatical", before making a political comeback in Germany: 

The family will likely move to the US or London in time for their daughters to begin the next school year in the fall. But the former minister's many contacts in Washington make the US a more likely destination. He is known there as an advocate of US-German relations after taking part in a number of trans-Atlantic exchanges and holding high-profile talks at think tanks.

Washington DC is a friendly environment for plagiarists.  Baron zu Guttenberg can hang out with the Vice President, schmooze with famous historians,  or write pieces for The New Republic and The Washington Post.  And, to keep busy for two years and burnish his image, he may want to move north to Massachusetts to consider a guest lecturship at Harvard University.

In any case, we will welcome Gutti with open arms and help him pave the way for a triumphal return to Germany, where he can take his rightful place as Kaiser Chancellor. 

Deutsche Bank Investigated on Trust Operations - NY Times Spotlights Ackermann

For the past three years Deutsche Bank has tried to deflect any blame for the implosion of the subprime mortgage market, claiming that as trustee it had no role in the bundling and selling the underlying toxic securities.  Now Deutsche Bank's trustee activities are being investigated by New York State's attorney general: 

The stakes are potentially high. If the trustees did not follow the rules set out in the prospectus, they may be liable for breaching their duties to investors who bought the securities. That could expose the banks to costly civil litigation.

A complex process that produced hundreds of billions of dollars in securities during the lending boom, the issuance of mortgage securities began with home loans, which were then bundled into investments and sold to pension funds, mutual funds, big banks and other investors. The bundles were created as trusts overseen by institutions such as Bank of New York and Deutsche Bank; they were supposed to make sure the complete mortgage files for each loan were delivered within a specified time and with the proper documentation.

All signs point to gross negligence by the banks in their performing their duties as trustee:

The terms of these mortgage deals varied, but many of them required that the trustee examine each of the loan files as soon as they came in from the Wall Street firm or bank issuing the security. For a file to be complete, it would typically have to include all of the information necessary to establish a chain of ownership through the various steps of the bundling process, as when the originator transferred it to the issuer of the security who then moved it to the trustee.

Complete loan files were supposed to be delivered to the trusts within 90 days in most cases. If the trustee found any missing or defective documents, it was supposed to notify the loan originator so that it could either cure the deficiency or replace the loan. Such substitutions are typically allowed only in the early years of the trust.

Goldman Sachs has always been the center of attention here for its political and financial clout and for its questionable role(s) in the global financial crisis.  But over the weekend the New York Times published a comprehensive profile of Deutsche Bank's CEO Josef Ackermann, which appeared on the front page of its business section.  The reporter bent over backwards come across as "fair and balanced" and unfortunately glossed over Deutsche Bank's destructive role in the US mortgage crisis:

In fact, the reputation of Deutsche Bank, and its leader, has taken a few hard blows at home and abroad. Deutsche Bank was a big player in those toxic collateralized debt obligations that Wall Street sold during the American mortgage bubble. This year, a Senate report about Wall Street and the financial crisis concluded that Deutsche Bank continued to churn out C.D.O.’s even as the market was collapsing. A top trader at the German bank also wagered against some of the mortgage bonds inside those C.D.O.’s, the report found, much the way Goldman Sachs has been accused of betting against its own clients. (Goldman denies that.)

But at least the article mentioned (IMF economist) Simon Johnson's verdict that Josef Ackermann is "the world's most dangerous banker". 

FInally, Deutsche Bank has backed down from its retaliation against a foreclosure fraud investigator who blew the whistle on the bank's massive signature forgeries on thousands of mortgage documents: 

Deutsche Bank has dropped the son of high-profile foreclosure fraud investigator Lynn Szymoniak from the foreclosure case against her, according to new court documents.

Deutsche Bank has dropped the son of high-profile foreclosure fraud investigator Lynn Szymoniak from the foreclosure case against her, according to new court documents.

The bank had added Szymoniak's son, Mark Cullen, to the foreclosure suit this May, a move that many experts saw as an act of retaliation against Szymoniak, who has publicized banks' widespread use of forged signatures in the foreclosure process to improperly give borrowers the boot. On June 8, lawyers filed a "Notice of Dropping Party" with the Florida court dismissing its previous claims against Cullen.

 

Angela Merkel in Washington - A Turning Point?

From President Obama's opening greeting in German - "Herzlich Willkommen!" - to the 19 gun salute to the awarding of the Freedom Prize, the state visit of Chancellor Angela Merkel was a remarkable display of pomp and friendship.  We've been told by Der Spiegel for the past two years that Angela and Barack dislike each other, but there was nothing but smiles, good cheer and mutual admiration during the visit.  The president even joked that they both had something in common - "You and I look nothing like our predecessors." - and to cap it all off James Taylor peformed "You've Got a Friend" at the White House dinner.  So does all of this mean that the anger over the Westerwelle Doctrine has subsided?   Is this a turning point in US- Germany relations? 

The German-Marshall Fund’s Stephen Szabo suspects that the Obama administration is making such a show of Merkel’s visit because it is coming to the realization that Germany “is now clearly the most powerful and important power in Europe” due to its economic might. Even though up until now Merkel has been “a reluctant partner at best,” Szabo says, the United States recognizes the need to lean on Germany to maintain European stability while turning its attentions to problems elsewhere in the world. Obama “hopes that by treating Merkel as Europe’s leader she will start to act like it,” Szabo says. And Merkel, many observers figure, might be a nice fit for the job of uber-buddy for Obama.

And the German press, naturally, was quick to see something sinister behind the White House's lavish red carpet treatment of the chancellor: 

Die Argumente für jene fürstliche Behandlung, in der sich die Kanzlerin sonnte, sind vorwiegend politischer Natur. Obama hofft, der Kanzlerin verschiedene Zusagen zu entlocken: Er will ein größeres deutsches Engagement in Libyen. Und er hofft, dass die Bundesregierung ihren Druck auf den Iran verstärken kann, sein Nuklearprogramm endlich offenzulegen. Spielt Merkel nicht mit, könnte es sehr lange dauern, bis ihr in Washington wieder der rote Teppich ausgerollt wird.

(The chancellor could bask in the royal treatment, but there is a compelling poltical argument behind it all.  Obama hopes to get several concessions from the chancellor:  he wants a more robust German engagement in Libya.  And he hopes that Berlin will stip up the pressure on Iran so that it will reveal it nuclear program.  If Merkel doesn't play along, it could be a long time before Washington once again rolls out the red carpet.)

Presence of the German leader in Washington led some commentators to reflect on the differences between the German and the US economies:  recovery in the US has stalled, but the German economy is firing on all cylinders.

The brief story is that, despite its reputation for austerity, Germany has been far more willing than the United States to use the power of government to help its economy. Yet it has also been more ruthless about cutting wasteful parts of government.

The results are intriguing. After performing worse than the American economy for years, the German economy has grown faster since the middle of last decade. (It did better than our economy before the crisis and has endured the crisis about equally.) Just as important, most Germans have fared much better than most Americans, because the bounty of their growth has not been concentrated among a small slice of the affluent.

You mean to tell me that cutting taxes for the millionaires and billionaires is not the strategy for growth and prosperity?