Germany’s elections
A new buzz for Germany
Angela Merkel's CDU and the liberal FDP will rule Germany together
THE election campaign was soporific but the results are startling. The “grand coalition” of Germany’s two biggest parties, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD), has been voted out of office. Angela Merkel remains as chancellor but her new governing partner will be the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), which scored its best result ever on Sunday September 27th. The change of partners portends a sharp shift in the priorities and tone of Germany’s government.
The new “black-yellow” government is a reincarnation of a coalition that governed Germany from 1983 to 1998 but with the FDP now in a considerably stronger position. The FDP is a pro-business party that champions reforms of social security, civil liberties, and above all lower and simpler taxes. It strongly opposes many of the policies that Ms Merkel adopted during the grand coalition to placate her SPD partners, such as minimum wages and give-aways to pensioners. The course of government over the next four years will largely depend on how tensions relating to such polices are resolved.
Ms Merkel has already ruled out implementing some of the FDP’s more radical ideas, such as loosening regulations that protect workers from dismissal. Tax reform of some sort will have to occur. The FDP’s leader, Guido Westerwelle, says he will sign no coalition agreement without it. The CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), has been pushing for a 100-day package of tax-relief measures. But with a record federal budget deficit expected for next year and a commitment to reduce structural deficits nearly to zero by 2016, it is hard to see how the government can offer generous tax cuts. The outgoing finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, said they had “no chance”. His successor will face similar constraints but will find it hard to speak so bluntly.
The FDP and the CDU may clash over civil liberties. The FDP objected to many of the anti-terror policies backed by the conservative interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, most recently a proposal to expand the powers of the domestic intelligence agency. The two parties are closer on the vexed issue of nuclear power. They may well agree to allow nuclear plants to continue operating beyond 2022, the deadline set by an earlier SPD-Green government. Mr Westerwelle is expected to become foreign minister and vice-chancellor. He is better known for his views on taxes than on how to handle the relationship with Russia, what to do about Iran or how deeply Germany should be involved in Afghanistan, but he is unlikely to break sharply with current cautious policies. In any case Ms Merkel will still call the shots.
The election brought about what may prove to be a lasting realignment in German politics. It is a blow for both the Volksparteien. The SPD with 23% of the vote scored its worst result in modern history and moves into opposition for the first time in 11 years. But the CDU’s performance was no triumph either. Despite Ms Merkel’s popularity, it won just 33.8% of the vote, its smallest share in 60 years. The CSU in Bavaria is accustomed to winning more than half the vote in the state, but in this election barely topped 40%. After four years of horse trading and compromise in the grand coalition, the identities of both the main parties had been blurred and many of their voters were disenchanted. The gainers were the three smaller opposition parties: the FDP, the Greens and the ex-communist Left Party. Voter turnout was a record low of 70.8%.
The results mark a return to more traditional politics with the two big parties in opposition to each other and a clear distinction between right and left. The SPD will now have to reinvent itself. That will mean resolving bitter internal disputes between economic reformers such as the party’s candidate, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the party’s powerful left wing. The SPD had ruled out governing with the Left Party after this election. The two parties will spend much of the next four years groping towards a relationship to make a left-leaning coalition possible in 2013.
The burdens of conservatism in the Obama age.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Whew, I'm pooped. Jimmy Carter has got me run ragged with all the hating I'm supposed to do. Jimmy says I'm a racist because I oppose President Obama's health care reform program. Even Jimmy Carter can't be wrong all the time. And since Jimmy Carter has been wrong about every single thing for the past 44 years, maybe--just as a matter of statistical probability--he's right this time.
I hadn't noticed I was a racist, but that was no doubt because I was too busy being a homophobe. Nancy Pelosi says the angry opposition to health care reform is like the angry opposition to gay rights that led to Harvey Milk being shot. Since I do not want America to suffer another Sean Penn movie, I will accept that I'm a homophobe, too. And I'm a male chauvinist due to the fact that I think Nancy Pelosi is blowing smoke--excuse me, carbon neutral, biodegradable airborne particulate matter--out her pantsuit.
Also, I'm pretty sure Rahm Emanuel is Jewish, and you can't be against (or even for) President Obama without the involvement of Rahm Emanuel, so I'm an anti-Semite. Furthermore, although I personally happen to be a libertarian on immigration issues, I do agree with Joe Wilson that you can't say you're expanding health care to the poor and then pretend you're going to turn those poor away if their driver's licenses look a little Xeroxy and what's on their Social Security cards turns out to be a toll-free number for a La Raza
hotline. Thus I'm prejudiced against Hispanics as well.
I'm a 61-year-old man with three young children and a yard to rake. While I appreciate the attention from our most ex- of ex-presidents, I'm really too busy to properly accomplish all this loathing and detestation. I quit smoking so I don't even have a lighter to set crosses on fire. We don't happen to own white bed sheets and I'm five nine and--dressed in Ralph Lauren candy stripes and tripping on fitted corners--I'd feel like a fool at Klan rallies (and Tea Parties and Town Hall meetings, to the extent that there's a difference).
Then I have the task of finding people to disrespect, denigrate, and discriminate against. I know people who are black, gay, Jewish, and Hispanic. But, unfortunately, I like them. When you like a person it's difficult to treat him (or even her) with the kind of vigorous and unrestrained bigotry that Jimmy Carter expects me to engage in. I have to go looking for people (people of the proper race, creed, and ethnic origin) whom I can't stand. That jackass from the gas company who kicked my dog (even though Valkyrie hardly broke the skin) won't do. The meter reader is a New Hampshire Yankee.
This is exactly the problem. I live in rural New Hampshire and we are, frankly, short on people who are black, gay, Jewish, and Hispanic. In fact, we're short on people. My town has a population of 301. When it comes to bias we're pretty much reduced to an occasional slur against French-Canadians. But my grandfather was French-Canadian, so I feel that it is somewhat inappropriate for me to express scorn for Frenchies. That is, liberals have a monopoly on self-loathing as a result of neurosis entitlements and affirmative anxiety programs for which I, as a Republican, do not qualify. Thus it is that I have to drive all the way to Dorchester and then out to Provincetown and down to New York City and back to be narrow minded enough to satisfy Jimmy Carter, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emmanuel, and their friend Hugo Chávez.
When it comes to oppressing those who are differently gendered, I have the opposite difficulty. With two daughters, a wife, and a female dog that bites, I'm badly outnumbered. It's all I can do to make an occasional wisecrack about time spent in the bathroom (or kennel) with the hairdryer. Even then I end up sleeping in the car. (The dog gets the couch.)
I thought about going to a "Hate Coach" to help me focus my insensitiv-ity and anger. But all the radio hosts were booked months in advance. In--stead I've decided to follow the example of large capitalist institutions (which are themselves famous for racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, maltreatment of illegal aliens, and glass ceilings for Nancy Pelosi, who will become a senator from California about when Arnold Schwarzenegger gets the Billy Crystal role in a remake of When Harry Met Sally). I am outsourcing my hate.
I have contracted with al Qaeda, Russia, and Cuba. When it comes to treating women and gays like hell (not to mention Jews), it's hard to beat the Islamic fundamentalists. The Russians are no slouches with a pogrom either, and they are racists par excellence. Russians not only vehemently despise blacks, they believe Africa begins at the Ukraine border. And when it comes to repression of Latinos, Cuba takes the gold, tyrannizing 11,184,022 out of 11,184,023 Cubans.
Fortunately for me the Obama administration has taken time out from its pursuit of health care reform to go wobbly in Afghanistan, cuddle up to Havana, and scrap the missile defense system in Eastern Europe to appease Moscow. This puts Osama bin Laden, Raúl Castro, and Vladimir Putin in a position to destroy the minorities and the disadvantaged in America. Of course, they'll destroy the rest of us too. But, meanwhile, I'm spared a lot of effort and aggravation. And I may have time to get all the autumn leaves bagged before the apocalypse.
P. J. O'Rourke is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Obama the Gambler
Betting That Machismo Is Not Foreign Policy
At his United Nations debut, Barack Obama urged global cooperation to combat nuclear proliferation, climate change and other problems that go beyond the borders of any one country. The speech was well received around the world, except in one place -- America's right-wing netherworld, which quickly began whipping people into a frenzy. For Michelle Malkin, the speech was evidence that Obama was "the great appeaser," though she went on to say, "From the sound of it, you'd think you were listening to Thomas Jefferson." (That's bad?) For Rush Limbaugh, Obama's speech was "basically a coup against America." At the National Review's Web site, a debate -- an entirely serious debate among serious people -- broke out as to whether the speech proved that Obama actually wanted the world's tyrants to win, in the tradition of past intellectuals who admired Mussolini and Hitler. This is the discourse of American conservatism today: Obama is bad because he loves "death panels" and Hitler.
There is a serious case to be made that it's not worth taking the United Nations seriously, that it's an anachronistic institution based on 60-year-old geopolitics and a platform for tyrants and weirdos. But while much of that is true, the United Nations is the only organization in the world to which all countries belong. As such it does have considerable legitimacy. And that means power. As David Bosco points out in Foreign Policy magazine, over the past two decades the Security Council has authorized "more than a dozen peacekeeping missions, imposed sanctions or arms embargoes on 10 states, and created several war crimes tribunals to prosecute those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity, including sitting heads of state." It's worth putting in the effort to shape its decisions.
Obama's speech was part of a calculated strategy. In sentiment it recalls Richard Nixon's line after losing the California governor's race in 1962: "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore." Obama was telling the world: The United States is willing to be cooperative, to rejoin international institutions, to adhere to treaties. But in return, other countries will have to help solve some of the world's common problems. You can't just kick us around anymore.
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Let's go back one year. Many countries had come to believe that America showed little interest in the world. This hostility had become an easy excuse to reject even modest concessions to U.S. requests. If this sounds partisan, recall that after he was elected president of France in 2007, the pro-American conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was asked by Condoleezza Rice what she could do to help him. "Improve your image in the world," he said.
There is a phony realism brandished on the right these days that says no one will ever cooperate with America. Russia and China have their own interests, and any attempt to find common ground is naive. We might as well all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." Now, of course countries have their own interests, which are often in conflict. But they also often share some interests. A central task of diplomacy is to explore those areas of agreement, build on them and thus create a more stable world. That's why we have treaties on everything from trade to taxation, adhered to by most nations for their collective benefit.
In fact, Obama's approach has already produced remarkable results. Russia and China, after long opposition, agreed last week to a toughening of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In a striking shift, Russia signaled that it may support tougher sanctions against Iran. The Obama administration's decision to cultivate a relationship with both countries, to listen to their concerns, is paying off.
Obama's outreach to the world is an experiment, and not merely to see if the world will respond. He wants to demonstrate at home that engagement does not make America weak. For decades, it's been thought deadly for an American politician to be seen as seeking international cooperation. Denouncing, demeaning and insulting other countries was a cheap and easy way to seem strong. In the battle of images, tough and stupid always seemed to win.
Obama is gambling that America is mature enough to understand that machismo is not foreign policy and that grandstanding on the global stage won't succeed. In a new world, with other countries more powerful and confident, America's success -- its security, its prosperity -- depends on working with others. It's a big, bold gambit. I hope it works.
Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International and the author of "The Post-American World." His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.
Maddow Guest Krugman Cites Cause for End of Great Depression -- and Doesn't (Egad!) Credit FDR
Don't you love it when a liberal lapses into candor?
Here's a recent example of this delightful phenomenon, courtesy of Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC this past Wednesday, with New York Times columnist and Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman one of Maddow's guests.
Maddow and Krugman talked about a speech given by Sarah Palin to investors in Hong Kong, and of Krugman's new book, "The Return of Depression Economics," when Maddow asked him this (click here for audio)--
MADDOW: What did the Depression teach economists about how to get out of one or avoid one?
KRUGMAN: Well, it told us a lot about how to avoid one, which is that you really have to, you have to put some constraints. I mean, to put it roughly, banking is very useful but extremely dangerous and banks have to have all kinds of, you know, fencing put around as a protection. They have to have some guarantees so that we don't have bank runs, so people know their money is safe, but then they also have to have regulation so that bankers don't take huge risks with other people's money, on a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose basis. We forgot all of that. A lot, the short line about how we got into this crisis, is we forgot what our grandfathers learned at great expense.
Getting out of, now that we're in the mess, that's much harder. I mean, the last time we got out of it with a world war, which is not something we hope to repeat.
... As opposed to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal getting us out of the Great Depression, which every American has heard from infancy, on a daily basis, for most of the last century.
To paraphrase Krugman, central government planning did end the Depression -- albeit in Berlin and Tokyo, not Washington.
Hearing Krugman's remark, I envision him taking the place of mail carrier Cliff Clavin on the sitcom "Cheers", who upon making a similarly awkward observation would ask his fellow barflies, "Did I say that out loud?" That you did, Professor Krugman, and your students for the moment are most appreciative. Feel free to break from dogma in the future.
Also worth noting is Maddow's characteristic response to Krugman --
MADDOW: But a world war that wasn't as a war useful. It was useful because it was a huge economic outlay by government.
KRUGMAN: That's right. It was an enormous fiscal stimulus.
Got that? World War II was "useful," as Maddow puts it, "because it was a huge economic outlay by government" -- instead of the conflict's arguably more important role in ending the Holocaust and Japanese barbarity in Asia.
Howard Fineman: Enough TV, Mr. President. How About Governing?
How do you know when an extraordinarily liberal politician is failing badly?
When extraordinarily liberal journalists like Newsweek's Howard Fineman not only notice, but are willing to write about it AND get their critique's published.
Adding insult to injury, in Fineman's most recent column, he expressed concern that "[u]nless Obama learns to rely less on charm, rhetoric, and good intentions and more on picking his spots and winning in political combat, he's not going to be reelected."
Ouch. But there was much more in Fineman's, "The Limits of Charisma: Mr. President, Please Stay Off TV":
Despite his many words and television appearances, our elegant and eloquent president remains more an emblem of change than an agent of it. He's a man with an endless, worthy to-do list—health care, climate change, bank reform, global capital regulation, AfPak, the Middle East, you name it—but, as yet, no boxes checked "done." This is a problem that style will not fix. Unless Obama learns to rely less on charm, rhetoric, and good intentions and more on picking his spots and winning in political combat, he's not going to be reelected, let alone enshrined in South Dakota.
The president's problem isn't that he is too visible; it's the lack of content in what he says when he keeps showing up on the tube. Obama can seem a mite too impressed with his own aura, as if his presence on the stage is the Answer. There is, at times, a self-referential (even self-reverential) tone in his big speeches. They are heavily salted with the words "I" and "my." (He used the former 11 times in the first few paragraphs of his address to the U.N. last week.) Obama is a historic figure, but that is the beginning, not the end, of the story.
There is only so much political mileage that can still be had by his reminding the world that he is not George W. Bush. It was the winning theme of the 2008 campaign, but that race ended nearly a year ago. The ex-president is now more ex than ever, yet the current president, who vowed to look forward, is still reaching back to Bush as bogeyman.
Amazing.
To be sure, losing Howard Fineman is not anywhere near as serious for Obama as losing Walter Cronkite was for Lyndon Johnson.
However, with each passing week, more and more liberal journalists are realizing what those that didn't drink Obama's Kool Aid knew when he first threw his hat into the ring in 2007: this is a completely inexperienced politician with absolutely no track record of legislative success.
As Fineman noted, "Never much of a legislator (and not long a -senator), Obama underestimated the complexity of enacting a major "reform" bill."
Hey Howard: where were you when candidate Obama's detractors were pointing out his astounding lack of legislative accomplishments and just how green he was as a senator?
Oh, that's right -- you were aiding and abetting his White House run by not bothering to report such insignificant details.
Nice of you to tell your readers now almost eleven months AFTER Election Day; you and your editors should be so proud of your journalistic expertise.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.As we pass the one year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers, journalists, politicians and market analysts have seized on the occasion to offer seemingly sober assessments of what went wrong and what went right in the lead up and aftermath of the biggest financial event since Black Tuesday.
The most popular storyline offered by these Monday morning quarterbacks is that the mistaken decision to allow Lehman to fail resulted from the Bush Administration’s misplaced faith in the free markets. In this telling, the real crises began in the days following the Lehman bankruptcy, which unleashed a financial panic that would have caused complete economic collapse – if not for the subsequent federal intervention.
In reality, Lehman’s demise was simply the result of an unfolding crisis that began years before. Popular belief aside, allowing the institution to succumb to the overwhelming debts on its balance sheet was perhaps the only correct decision made by government since this crisis began. The propagandists’ complete reversal of cause and effect now threatens to spur the government to compound prior mistakes and bring on the next phase of the financial crisis. Unfortunately, this chapter will likely be much more dangerous than what we saw last fall.
In March of 2008, in the aftermath of the Bear Sterns “bailout” (which itself was a major mistake), equity shareholders walked away with a generous ten dollars per share, all creditors were made whole, and most employees got jobs and bonuses from JP Morgan. As a result of this largess, the Fed created a very serious problem for itself. After Bear, the perception took hold that investment banks were too “interconnected” to fail. The resulting moral hazard decreased the financial stability of the banking system and exposed taxpayers to open-ended risks. The Bush administration rightly determined that a message needed to be sent that Bear was an isolated case, and that capitalism still held sway on Wall Street. The fall of Lehman, which was helped along by the unrealistic recalcitrance of its chairman Richard Fuld, would be that clear signal.
However, politics quickly trumped economics, and the Lehman trial balloon soon turned into the Hindenburg. Washington had no stomach for the ensuing financial carnage, and when other institutions began to topple, Bush, Paulson and Bernanke abandoned their prior convictions and threw all they had into the ensuing bailout bonanza. As a result, the moral hazard that they had sought to avoid now exists on a scale unprecedented in our history. Capitalism has been extinguished on Wall Street, and our financial institutions now exist as public utilities. The presidents of our biggest banks are now the highest paid civil servants in the world!
Since market forces are no longer allowed to allocate capital and control risk, these decisions are now made by government regulators and are then passed through to their subordinates on Wall Street. This perverse organizational structure constitutes a new form of American fascism.
The pain of allowing Lehman to fail will be dwarfed by the agony of bailing out the rest of Wall Street, which is now a foregone conclusion. Just because the Lehman bankruptcy created unpleasant consequences does not mean it was a mistake. On the contrary, sometimes doing the right thing hurts – especially if it is done to avoid even greater pain down the road. It just seems that our representatives are incapable of asking for short-term sacrifice. There is no price they are not willing to force the rest of us to pay to assure their own reelection.
In reward for its gross culpability in creating the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has been rewarded with extensive new powers. Given the damage it was able to inflict in the past, I can only imagine the havoc that will be wrought by the new “Super Fed.”
If the current policies continue, the America we know – for which our forebears risked so much – will cease to exist. The constitution originally established by our Founding Fathers has been under attack almost since inception. Up until now, the greatest damage occurred during Roosevelt’s New Deal. However, the current assault on our birthright could be a knockout blow. The last vestige of republican government now hangs in the balance.
Peter Schiff
As we pass the one year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers, journalists, politicians and market analysts have seized on the occasion to offer seemingly sober assessments of what went wrong and what went right in the lead up and aftermath of the biggest financial event since Black Tuesday.
The most popular storyline offered by these Monday morning quarterbacks is that the mistaken decision to allow Lehman to fail resulted from the Bush Administration’s misplaced faith in the free markets. In this telling, the real crises began in the days following the Lehman bankruptcy, which unleashed a financial panic that would have caused complete economic collapse – if not for the subsequent federal intervention.In reality, Lehman’s demise was simply the result of an unfolding crisis that began years before. Popular belief aside, allowing the institution to succumb to the overwhelming debts on its balance sheet was perhaps the only correct decision made by government since this crisis began. The propagandists’ complete reversal of cause and effect now threatens to spur the government to compound prior mistakes and bring on the next phase of the financial crisis. Unfortunately, this chapter will likely be much more dangerous than what we saw last fall.
In March of 2008, in the aftermath of the Bear Sterns “bailout” (which itself was a major mistake), equity shareholders walked away with a generous ten dollars per share, all creditors were made whole, and most employees got jobs and bonuses from JP Morgan. As a result of this largess, the Fed created a very serious problem for itself. After Bear, the perception took hold that investment banks were too “interconnected” to fail. The resulting moral hazard decreased the financial stability of the banking system and exposed taxpayers to open-ended risks. The Bush administration rightly determined that a message needed to be sent that Bear was an isolated case, and that capitalism still held sway on Wall Street. The fall of Lehman, which was helped along by the unrealistic recalcitrance of its chairman Richard Fuld, would be that clear signal.
However, politics quickly trumped economics, and the Lehman trial balloon soon turned into the Hindenburg. Washington had no stomach for the ensuing financial carnage, and when other institutions began to topple, Bush, Paulson and Bernanke abandoned their prior convictions and threw all they had into the ensuing bailout bonanza. As a result, the moral hazard that they had sought to avoid now exists on a scale unprecedented in our history. Capitalism has been extinguished on Wall Street, and our financial institutions now exist as public utilities. The presidents of our biggest banks are now the highest paid civil servants in the world!
Since market forces are no longer allowed to allocate capital and control risk, these decisions are now made by government regulators and are then passed through to their subordinates on Wall Street. This perverse organizational structure constitutes a new form of American fascism.
The pain of allowing Lehman to fail will be dwarfed by the agony of bailing out the rest of Wall Street, which is now a foregone conclusion. Just because the Lehman bankruptcy created unpleasant consequences does not mean it was a mistake. On the contrary, sometimes doing the right thing hurts – especially if it is done to avoid even greater pain down the road. It just seems that our representatives are incapable of asking for short-term sacrifice. There is no price they are not willing to force the rest of us to pay to assure their own reelection.
In reward for its gross culpability in creating the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has been rewarded with extensive new powers. Given the damage it was able to inflict in the past, I can only imagine the havoc that will be wrought by the new “Super Fed.”
If the current policies continue, the America we know – for which our forebears risked so much – will cease to exist. The constitution originally established by our Founding Fathers has been under attack almost since inception. Up until now, the greatest damage occurred during Roosevelt’s New Deal. However, the current assault on our birthright could be a knockout blow. The last vestige of republican government now hangs in the balance.
In-Depth Look - German Election
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