They envy us. They obsess about us. They have guilt. They can't ideologically accept that a DECENTRALIZED PRIVATE CAPITALISTIC system can work.
Look at when Germans arrive in the US or transfer to a US school. They are lost. Not just because it's a foreign place to them, but because they have a hard time operating outside a regimented structured environment. "I need to pick out all my classes and make sure that I get the right ones so I graduate in 4-5 years?" I'm responsible for my health care? My retirement?...............
Why do they always mention the 35 million uninsured in the US? Because in traditional German fashion they justify themselves through guess what? Schadenfreude. “See Ursula, our socialist medical care is soooooo much better.” The Germans and French live in a structured world where you are on some sort of rail track from birth to grave. A German feels insecure and sees the US as mere chaos. Signs everywhere (No centralized law that strictly controls how signs must be placed on road sides), roads that change from one state to the next (Not controlled all from Berlin and standardized)……… “How can this MESS possibly work?” Private healthcare? Private retirements with different policies and standards. Private utilities? Private schools? States that even have different laws from one to the other. They even have their own military (National Guard). Curricula and teachers certification is different from one state to the next! The French dictate in their colonies what will be taught down to the DAY in class. Mine awareness may be a huge threat to the kids somewhere in Africa, but hell, we’ll teach them where Nice is in France!
I sound crazy, but it’s true. They may not articulate it like this, but in the end it’s that they can’t deal with an unstructured, decentralized non regimented world. They see the merits in centralization, state ownership, and involvement in near all aspects of day to day life.
Real world example! Years ago an airline went bust and Germans were stranded somewhere (I forget exactly what country). Their response was to demand the German government to pay or provide for their airfare home. These people squatted at the airport and waited until “Vater Staat” came to get them. We must appear very strange to them! But if I sound crazy and unbelievable, look at what they are now doing in Brussels. They have a norm for the curvature of a “standard” banana and the size of a cucumber. The German thinks he has a private economy because just 52% of the Frankfurt airport is state owned! Because some of the German rail (Bahn), Telecom…… is in private hands. Look at Airbus, Lufthansa, EADS, German schools (All state owned), Universities (Near all state owned and financed)………. They live in a SEMI-Market economy. Hence they have a SEMI-functional economy. Look at who is bust and subsidized with billions and who is still hanging on gasping for life and providing the little bit of breath left in the German economy? The private sector! BMW, Mercedes, Audi, VW, Bayer, MAN, Siemens, AEG, Zeis……. Not their rail which has been broke for over a decade and sucking money from those who are profitable. But do you think the Germans will let them die? No. Just as with the German ship building (Vulkan Werke) they pump money into them to crutch them up and keep them going even though they are not economically viable.
They can’t accept that the way we do things works! They have this belief (It’s a dogma) in socialism. It’s a good word there! Again language gives you away. Would you call anything “socialist” in the US? We use it as an insult. "Kerry is a "socialist"." As a politician, would you want to be characterized as being a “socialist”? Hell NO! But in Germany “social” is a good word. The Social party of Germany (SPD), the Christian Socialist Union (CSU-and they are the ultra right yet main stream in Germany)….. The word “socialist” there is no insult, in fact it’s a good word and they can’t understand the negative connotation Americans have placed on it.
There are some cultural differences. Our ideas of how an economy runs and should be managed is very different from theirs.
Reality has them standing in front of an abyss today. Let them talk. They won't listen. They're too intellectual, arrogant, spiteful of us and know better despite ALL indicators, historic evidence, contemporary "credible" economic theory. I truly believe they will ride this into the ground! The Germans are stoic and stubborn. A bad combination when you’re wrong about something.
Red6