The symptom of Germany’s (and Europe's) confusion is that it is hard to break with the tradition of state support for economically unaffordable and debilitating entitlements.

If my home catches fire, that is a crisis. Still, not all is lost if I meet a few conditions. First of all, I must know that being on fire is rather bad. Then, in case I have water, a hose and knowing what they are for, there is a chance that I can prevail in what amounts to an emergency. If I do not know the difference between water and gasoline, have no idea where to spray what, I am in trouble. If I take time to lament that the neighbor deserves to have his place barbecued more than I do, then I have a disaster in the making. Note that while the fire is here an act of nature, it is the wrong response that adds the really devastating man-made dimension to it.

Choosing not to respond when action is needed, reacting wrongly by firing at the wrong target and thereby magnifying the threat is common to all cultures, regions and nations. Just look in America’s case at the past handling of Korea and Vietnam. Making the bad worse by finding the wrong but convenient enemy — Bush, an Israeli conspiracy — advocating a march away from the proper goal is a spreading disease. Public positions suggest a repetition of a pattern cast in the past. Foreign and security policy depending on the approval of Ms. Sheehan, Baez and Streisand assures those who allow them to prevail do so over an eventually self-parched land. It is of no consolation that Europe’s current management of a number of its issues is not superior to America’s efforts to create her own disasters. If this cheers you up you should realize that feeling better because the other guy’s house is also ablaze does not save you from being soon housed under the bridge.

With this in mind let me fill you in about why I see headless chickens running around the compound when I direct my attention to the local, mainly German, scene. The impulse came a few weeks back. A scientist friend of mine called me to communicate the newest of the idiocies which we are informally collecting. Nut stories interest us because if, when and where they become credible, ultimately a lot of people die. Morbidly amused, we gather tales such as that at the time of 9/11 the Jews working in the Twin Towers were warned not to go to work that day. (Any reader who might wish to have it explained why this is a precious collectable is requested to stop reading here and to switch over to a blog like “MorefromMoore@moreons.com.") 

My buddy’s story: his neurosurgeon son invited to dinner a young anesthetist — good in her profession — from Brazil. During dinner the lady opined that there is something wrong with the 9/11 story. The Americans are cheating. My friend wanted to know what she considers to be the proof of the charge. Well, she explained, they have only shown rubble and never the people under it. The bodies are missing because, obviously, there were hardly any cadavers! From this point on what was to become an excursion into psychiatry could not be continued because the son did not wish to have follow-up questions put to the woman. 

Myths and reactions that prove some ideology right and the patient dead abound. State-side PC and the absurdities it produces (New Orleans offers a few cute specimen) confirm the veracity of the generalization. Europe’s analogous ailments, related in kind but (even) worse in their consequence, involve core issues.  One must be familiar with these in order to appraise the screen upon which the contours of the current crisis is projected.

Germany is widely regarded as Europe’s “sick man” of the moment. This is bad news for the Germans — and also for everybody here. If Europe’s economic motor sputters, the Continent  — including those countries that deserve better — slows down. With Europe ailing, the world economy fights the effect of large applied disc brakes. 

So what is wrong with Germany now? Her diligence, competence and reliability seemed to be exemplary when I was young. Today even BMW motorbikes are being traded in for reliable Japanese makes. Locally here it is not the Beemers Americans love, nor the Mercedes, but Subarus and Toyotas top the lists of reliability. Often when this comes up people opt for the easy explanation and talk about the consequences of the old Federal Republic of 65 million having to absorb 17 million Easterners. The thesis has a point. Like Soviet might, so the GDR as the economic powerhouse of the Soviet Empire, had been overestimated by friend and foe alike.

What substantiates the “point” above on the practical level? That they were taken in — including exchanging east marks for western ones at 1:1 — as though they would be equal. The comment of a then apprentice Magyar hotel manager who worked in West Germany to gain experience puts it into focus. The hotel where the lad worked did not like to take compatriots from the east. Why, I wanted to know. Well, because they work like Romanians and insist on the salary and the (welfare) rights of a German. The upshot: no jobs and disappointment on both sides of the divide.

There is a risk that on the basis of the above my reader will conclude that the assimilation resistant GDR folks alone are the problem. After all, they have been taught by the system in which they grew up to expect help not from their doing but from the “state.” As pleasing as this might be, the comforting theory is not the full truth. Surely, integrating and transforming about 20% of new citizens from an underdeveloped background is a daunting task. (The failure of most foreign aid projects also harkens back to the limitations involved in throwing money at problems of misdirected development.)  Unfortunately Germany’s problem runs deeper than the mis-education of the middle aged citizens of the defunct Socialist régime.

A few statistics from a public opinion survey that really shocked this writer will make the point. 29% of the eastern section of Germany would vote for the old Communist (SED) Party, re-named “The Party of the Left.” Schröder’s leftist Social democrats and the centrist opposition get 27% and 28%, respectively.  Interestingly, only 5% think that the economic malady can be cured by those “left of the Left. “ The conclusion is not implausible that these numbers reveal that what is expected of the extreme left is more dole and not more employment. This expectation is what is likely to be hidden behind the opinion of 43% that the reformed SED stands for “social justice.” Revealingly, 40% of the eastern households are financed by transfer payments from the Western member states. In practical terms the phrase seems to mean, “justice is when others must give what I get.” From here on the story whose numbers I got from the (left-leaning) Spiegel become worse because “Socialism is a good idea that has been badly implemented” is an assertion that gets 56% of approval in the West and 66% in the East. Marx’ critique of capitalism still makes sense for half of the Westerners and 3/4 of the Easterners.

Stunning as this might be, one should not be surprised. After all, Mr. Müntefering, the Social Democratic Party’s Chairman, is the one who consents to getting pictured before a larger-than-life statue of Marx. He is also vocal in talking in Marx’ mid 19th century parlance, about “vulture capitalism,” the “parasites” and of “exploitation.” Just reading about it makes the writer feel anew as a participant of a Red-pioneer meeting of the Stalin era. Bad as it is, this is still only one of Germany’s lesser problems. A more major one is that in essence equating efficiency and success with anti-social behavior (such as in “blood-sucking exploiter”) prompts skills and capital to flee the country. Fleecing citizens who cross the border for the cash they are suspected to attempt to remove into safer havens abroad is unlikely to stop economic desertion.

The paramount problem with Germany is, to use the initial analogy, not even its effort to put out modern fires with hand operated pumps from the Three Stooges set without water in the tanks that are connected to leaking hoses. The main calamity threatening the country is that while it needs better governance there is no party or politician in the right-of center, centrist, or left of center coalition to provide it. The debate between Schröder and Angela Merkel that I have watched a few hours ago would have been an eye opener had the performance not confirmed earlier impressions. Germany needs a Super-Thatcher and Ms. Merkel is many things but hardly a re-issue of Lady Thatcher. The debate went in her favor only in the sense that regardless of her average delivery and plain looks she lost to Schröder by less than expected. Schröder was his usual arrogant self who managed to say without blushing things such as that he plans to continue to further the welfare of the country just as he had done in the past seven years. In the name of the opposition Ms. Merkel claimed to be for change but actually promised more of the same while also claiming that the performance of  past had been miserable.

Only a fool will risk a binding prediction in contested elections. Actually, in this case the crux of the problem might be that the results might not be of decisive importance. The symptom of Germany’s (but also Europe’s and even the US’) confusion is that it is hard to break with the tradition of mandated state support for economically unaffordable and debilitating entitlements. Germany’s virus might well be the unearned right to this, and the time honored allocation of that. Most people are willing to accept that the support the others receive is as harmful as it is unwarranted. In one's own case, however, self-perceived “social spirit” prevails over common sense and the now shrinking limits of what is makeable. “Bread and Circus” creates dependent segments in the electorate. Even if the crisis can be tied to the system of giving something to nearly everyone at a ratio that is the reverse of societal contribution, especially when there is a crisis, no one will want to surrender his share of the, well, dole. Promising under such circumstances a turn-around deserving the name is a poor way to win an election.  Once elected, implementing reforms that go deeper than promised on the way into government, is likely to be blocked by the vested interests that will be well represented in all the parties of the future legislature. Therefore, regardless of who wins, it is likely that specimens of the plucked and headless poultry will continue to set the tone in the chicken coop.