Daily Archives: 29 December 2011

Lessons from Germany

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Spiegel Online International talks about a (relatively) strong German economic performance in the coming year, following on the heels of a strong performance for 2011.  It also draws a contrast, while outlining the jealousy of its European neighbors.

Germany’s economic success does not make the country more popular among its neighbors, though. After all, this is the same country that has been blocking all proposals to use the European Central Bank (ECB) to provide more generous financing for embattled euro-zone countries. Some European countries appear to be secretly hoping that Germany, Europe’s economic paragon, will also soon feel the brunt of the crisis.

How did the Germans achieve this?  One path is through the intermediate-term outcome of some economic and governmental reforms they put into place in 2003, in part to cure themselves of being the “sick man of Europe.”  They:

  • increased, from management’s perspective, the mobility of their labor force,
  • provided stronger financial incentives for the unemployed to go back to work, rather than paying them unemployment “benefits” for not working,
  • reduced taxes,
  • reduced government debt relative to their GDP.

One of the things the labor reforms led to was increased hiring because the reforms made it easier for employers to hire.  In 2011 alone, for instance, a half million new jobs were created in a population of 81.5 million.  Their reforms also encouraged more people to try to go back to work.  The resulting increased employment rate matched up with the lower tax burden to leave more money in the hands of individual Germans.  In short, Germany took steps to free up its economy, moving it closer to an open, free market, especially in comparison with their embattled euro-zone neighbors, and embarrassingly so relative to the US.

Their European neighbors, on the other hand, are not implementing similar reforms; indeed, although the embattled euro-zone nations are cutting spending, they’re actually raising the tax burden on their populations and businesses.  Moreover, they’re eschewing reforming their labor laws which leave unions with a decisive upper hand.

Are there lessons here for us?  Let’s see: those half million German jobs would work out to nearly 2 million new jobs in the US in 2011.  Germany cut taxes, but like the failing nations of Europe, our government insists on raising taxes.  Our tax increases aren’t even intended to close any budget gap, or to pay down any national debt, either—they’re for supporting even higher spending.  And here we are, just as are the embattled euro-zone nations, mired in a three-year-old recession in all but name—stagnating away with high unemployment, rapidly increasing budget deficits, and exploding national debt.

Hmm….

More Federal Racism

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I wrote a bit ago about racism in our Federal government.  Here’s another example, this time in the milieu of a Federal court reaching deep inside a State to overrule the vote of the people of a local community.  All in the name of racial preference.

It seems that the voters of Kinston, NC, via a 2008 plebiscite, had decided that, rather than bearing the costs of primaries and to reduce burdens imposed by their existing electoral system on third party and unaffiliated candidates, they’d alter their city charter to provide for a nonpartisan election system, one in which anyone would be able to run for local political office, and no candidate would be required, a priori, to have a party affiliation or a potful of petition signatures to find a place on  the ballot.

But no.  The illustrious Federal Attorney General Eric Holder objected on the basis that

…elimination of party affiliation on the ballot will likely reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice.

In a decision filed just a few days ago via LaRoque v. Holder, 755 F. Supp. 2d 156, Federal District Judge John D. Bates, actually upheld Holder’s objection and ruled that the good people of Kinston may not speak for themselves; their decision does not count because the Federal government knows better.  A copy of Judge Bates’ ruling can be found here.

The basis of the Bates’ and Holder’s Progressives Know Better position?  It’s that asserted inability “of blacks to elect candidates of choice” without knowing party affiliations.  These worthies think American blacks a) are stereotyped into voting Democratic preferentially, b) are too lazy to find out who the candidates are without a party logo, and c) are simply too stupid to know what to do without someone telling them.

This is another example of the racism of low expectations.  And of the very stereotyping against which so many anti-racism organizations object.  Yet it’s the only way for a failed government to preserve its power: keep Americans properly on the plantation.