Christian Wulff

The President of Germany has resigned.
Apparently, he was caught getting a loan for a house with terms that were just a little too good to be true.
Can't imagine anything like that ever happening in the US.

I’m dealing with the idea of being a person who has adapted. As an adapted person, when I return to America, people ask me chiefly about the language barrier. The language barrier is significant, and I believe that there are significant problems with economic models that assume that people (especially foreigners) living in a given market have access to “perfect information” so critical to the concept of rational actors in a market environment. Language obliges foreigners to either invest significantly greater amounts of time into hunting down the best deal; alternatively, they pay more than any given product is worth. They also may have considerable non-economic barriers (such as when founding a business, etc.) that the state itself puts up, either intentionally or due to a failure of communication. All of this is worth significant amounts of research, and is thus completely outside of the purview of this ridiculously unscientific essay.

You see, there are other complicating factors dealing with adaptation. The concepts of weights and measures becomes surprisingly difficult to manage, though some of these are easier to manage than others. For instance, buying ham at the supermarket or estimating distances. You find that you “translate” distances, in particular. This is not so bad – a meter is about a yard, and 400 meters is still a quarter-mile, and 10 meters is pretty close to a first down. And once you get used to the idea that 150 grams is about the size of the small cup they give you of deli salads, you learn to know to ask for that much; and a half-kilo is about a pound, in case you need that much ham. (Europeans don’t sell sliced much turkey, or roast beef either. So you eat a lot of ham.)

The worst is temperature. Temperature is complicated. You find that you memorize the scale instead of “translating” it. The yards-meters conversion is pretty close; the Fahrenheit-Celsius conversion is useless.¹ You look for yardsticks: 28° C is 82° F – that’s a pretty easy conversion (switch the 8 and 2!), and that’s pretty warm. Anything higher is just hot. Baking requires the conversion table, but my gas oven has always been pretty sketchy anyway, and so you never really know what temperature it was on any scale, so that doesn’t really matter. Unless you want to bake something.

As for cold, well, that’s when it’s nice to come from Colorado. It never gets as cold here as it does there. One yardstick that helps is that -40° C is -40° F, and almost everybody knows that 0° C is 32° F. The latter figure here is helpful, because that conversion in the footnote is much easier to use when it’s cold – you then figure out that 0° F is about -15° C, and it never gets too much colder than that (two F degrees are about 1 C degree). The -40° C = -40° F conversion is helpful for talking about January in Colorado. It facilitates discussion, though generally not about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of the Fahrenheit scale.

For longer distances, I find that the best thing to do is to measure it in hours. It’s generally the most relevant both in Europe as well as in America, though it carries different cultural implications, especially when you come from the West, and a two-and-a-half-hour trip to the mall is pretty normal. In two and a half hours, I can get from Brno to Poland, Slovakia, Austria, or Prague. All of them are completely different worlds in their own way. But again, those are four more subjects for four more essays. Moreover, of course, you should always make sure that you are on the right train. I had a friend that had a two-and-a-half-hour trip turn into a 10-hour trip due to his mistaken reading of the train schedule, confusing the “destination” station with the “arriving from” station. But I don’t think he’d like me to elaborate too much about that.

1In case you’re wondering, it’s T_C = 5(T_F – 32)÷9

"Just Don't Mention the War"

They've certainly started doing it in Greece.
This article, von den Speigel, discusses two of Greece's media heavyweights, an evening talk-show/news type host, Georgios Trangas and a cartoonist, Stathis Stavropoulos, and their references (repeatedly) to Germans-as-Nazis in regard to the crisis. Low class.

This article by Christopher Caldwell, (mercifully in English for those of you dismayed by the above link) is another very good discussion of the problems of "last time with tanks, this time with banks" attitudes in the Eurozone, particularly in Greece. It points out the Kanzlerin's tough position of trying to please both her domestic constituency, livid at the prospect of subsidizing pensions of more spendthrift nations, as well as Europeans (some in Germany as well) nervous about Germany being so clearly in the driver's seat.

One argument, however, that I don't hear very often from people on either side is the fact that at the outset, Greece was so ambitious to join the Eurozone in the first place. The Greek public was more supportive of joining the Eurozone than most other countries' populations, and presumably expected that it would be all gain, and no pain. Of course, the only reason they qualified was because Goldman Sachs rigged their books, but I suppose they felt they could secure a little extra without any effort.

For the Greeks, it was a bit like a faddish diet pill. "Just look! I only have to change the color of my money, and I'll be good to go! No more exercise plans, no more dieting! I've got Eurotrim® now, and just look at my figure!"

Well, there apparently were some inconvenient side effects when consumed not in accordance with the instructions on the label. So now the Greeks are blaming the pharmacy, the manufacturer, their doctor, the guy in the pub who gave them a second opinion, and their pet dog, but can't seem to realize that maybe they themselves might take some responsibility for their plight. And it's going to get uglier.

Entrepreneurs

This link tells the unlikely story of Petr Šourek, the founder of Corrupt Tour. Šourek's company offers tours of Prague and the Czech Republic's most (in)famous examples of kickbacks, bribes, no-bid contracts, and the like. You can also take a tour of the "nests" of Czech Republic, and see the villas where lobbyists and some of the shadier "byznysmeni" live, kinda like those trips through Hollywood where you can see the movie stars' homes.

According to the article, Šourek hopes to cover the costs, though he doesn't really expect to make a profit on his new venture. It's based more on the principle of bringing attention to the problems of corruption in Czech Republic, a country that Transparency International continues to give poor (and worsening) scores, especially compared to some of the other countries in our neighborhood.

One thing that is interesting about this concerns the way that Šourek is going about this whole "civil society" "raising awareness" "mobilization" thing. Much of the poli sci literature dealing with this sort of thing these days is dedicated to ideas about "policy entrepreneurs," mobilizing interest groups, and securing accountability though the ubiquitous "NGO." Discussions about civil society in this context sometimes exclude the idea that for-profit entities can actually contribute to a stronger civil society, and that volunteerism is the chief indicator of a robust civil society. We focus on non-profit NGOs, but our policy entrepreneurs obviously don't NEED to be in the non-profit sector. Indeed, it would be interesting to look at how company cultures in foreign firms affect Czech ideas about what role intermediate institutions -- either for-profit or not -- should play. Moreover, home-grown innovative initiative such as this are often the most sustainable, and it seems quite reasonable to believe that a for-profit institution might significantly impact government accountability and "raise awareness" of such problems. It will be another indicator of the relative growing strength of civil society if this becomes a viable commercial enterprise, and if Mr Šourek can do well by doing good, more power to him.

Newt vs. Mitt

Newt vs. Mitt

Your humble correspondent is having a tough time this nominating season. A couple days ago, I was reading the comments section on one post in NRO's Corner, and a guy wrote "sometimes he's great, sometimes I'm worried he's going to announce his plan for windmills on Mars." There's only one candidate in this race who this comment can be about, and it's not the guy with Stepford Hair®.

Fast forward to today, and sure enough, we're going to have a moon base by the time Newt is 8 years into his hypothetical Presidency.
I actually really sympathize with the guy. He has probably 5 really amazing ideas every day, and 10 disastrous ones. If he kept his mouth shut and put all 15 on notecards and re-read them in the evening, he himself could figure out which ones were the 5 good ones. The problem is that he just sorta announces all 15 of them at once. I'm not opposed to a moon base; indeed, I think it's a long time coming, and heaven knows (!) if we don't, someone else will. Nevertheless, Newt's biggest problem is that things like this feed into a public perception that the guy is a little too much of a bombastic dreamer, and not quite enough of a statesman. The deal is that Newt is brilliant. Really. The problem is that he's also just occasionally, well, bonkers, and has a tendency to light fuses while sitting on the firecrackers.

On the other side of the ledger, we have The Perfect Republican, who seems to have every advantage.
Private sector experience? Check.
Executive experience? Check.
Ability to compromise with Democrats? Check.
Calm, collected demeanor? Check.
Nationwide name recognition? Check.

But then, there's the inconvenient fact that no one likes him, and he makes George H. W. Bush seem like a wild-eyed visionary of the first order. Even the (political) assets he has have become liabilities. He can't seem to justify what he did in finance capitalism, or explain why wealth and investment is a healthy thing in a market economy. His executive experience has become an albatross of the first order, and negates the best argument the GOP has against the current President. His ability to "compromise" with Democrats has come off like an unprincipled stance on every issue he touches, and the calm outlook has revealed an Obamesque technocrat, rather than a discerning leader. But hey, thanks for the Olympics. We're sure you'll win Utah.

Whether or not Governor Romney is or isn't these things, the fact of the matter remains that people are in no mood to wait to find out whether or not he really is ready to occupy the White House. They want solutions, they want them explained, and they want them now. Moreover, we still have no idea why Governor Romney is running. Every campaign needs a narrative, something that ties in with a coherent idea of what America is and what it should be. Governor Romney has not provided that; Speaker Gingrich has an idea, but it often comes off as schizophrenic and disjointed.

Sooner or later, we'll have to see a Romney "vision." And voters will have to be convinced that a Gingrich vision is something more like the USA they know and love, and less like a sci-fi novel, even one where we're the Good Guys. Both frontrunners (I think) see America as a wonderful, dynamic place -- a land of opportunity and a long tradition that rewards those who work hard, play by the rules, and combine modern life with our rich cultural heritage to leave something worthwhile for the next generation. Romney will have to articulate that; Gingrich will have to limit it to that. We have seen the Obama vision for America; can anybody offer a better one?

Required Reading for Monday

John O'Sullivan, on the Euro crisis, corporatism, and sovereignty. Excellent post from Conservativehome.

Fight! Fight!

This is a fascinating essay: Kundera vs. Havel, 1968, just after the tanks rolled in. Kundera comes down on the side of optimism, yet concerned about further rocking the boat because Czechoslovakia is a small nation; Havel, on the other hand, calls for a more active Czechoslovak society, pointing out that

Really: if we are going to persuade each other that a country that wanted to establish freedom of expression --something that is a commonplace in most of the civilized world --and that wanted to prevent the omnipotence of the secret police, stood as a result of this at the center of world history, then we will not seriously become anything but smug fakes, ridiculous in our provincial messianism! Freedom and the rule of law are the first preconditions of a normally and healthily functioning social organism, and if some state tries, after years of absence, to renew them, it is not doing anything historically immense, but simply trying to do away with its own abnormality, to normalize…

As they say, read the whole thing. The Havel quote is better, but Kundera's no fool either.

Important News

For some people, Christmastime means one thing: Last Christmas by Wham!. Fortunately, and because Your Man in Brno is a rather polite person on this site, we will not say what kind of people these are. But Whamfans! were horrified to hear about George Michael's sudden onset of pneumonia and subsequent hospitalization just in time to dampen their holiday spirits. According to this report, however, it's only because of Czech chronic and not anything more serious.
 
Readers may now go back to whatever less important things they were doing.

Required Reading for the Day....

is this piece by one Paul Goodman.

An interesting story....

This little tidbit came across the wire today... turns out Czech Republic and Austria are going to redraw their borders a little bit.

There's about 60 acres of land on either side of the border the two countries want to swap, so that it's easier to control flooding. The Czech part is owned by three semi-independent state agencies (neither the article on the Czech side nor another article from ÖRF here says anything about who owns the Austrian part), and it appears that getting all the signatures on both sides of the border are mostly a formality. Still, while it's not so common to see European borders shift, we should keep in mind that anything can happen.