The Earthquake that is Germany

Tyler Cowen who writes for both Marginal Revolution and the Volokh Conspiracy has a series on German reform efforts. He repeats the "old" joke about German revolutions:

Question: Why don't they have a revolution in Germany?
Answer: Someone would have to step on the grass.

"Germany's public employees, long perceived as lazy bureaucrats insulated from real-world pressures, are now facing the same demands for lower costs and more flexibility from governments that their counterparts in the private sector have been confronted with from German companies.

In negotiations taking place in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, federal and local governments are demanding not only a wage freeze but also the ability to extend working hours and curb overtime benefits, in what would be the biggest overhaul of state work rules in more than 40 years.

And what is the response from the labor unions?

"We are flexible, but we need to see a salary increase."

Needless to say, I tend to agree with Cowen. I would think that the attempts to improve the economy in Germany in spite of resistance is an important one.

I was born in Bayreuth, Germany in 1946 (I'm not going to say how old I am, you can do the math) and lived there from then till 47 and again from 1953 to 1957. I have many, many fond memories of the country of my birth. Too, my grandfather's father and mother immigrated from Hamburg, Germany and my grandfather spoke nothing but German until he learned English in the merchant marine and U.S. Coast Guard from around 1906 to 1915.

The tendency for some countries in Europe towards cradle to grave socialism has been a decades long experiment. The old Marxist/Leninist maxim of "from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs" has often been perverted to "from each, as little as possible; to each as much as he wants." A little harsh and overboard? Sure! Fairly accurate all too often? You bet! Now, the experiment is about to fold, the results in and the results are not pleasing. Germany, France are now experiencing the need to fold back previous expansions of the welfare state because the cost is becoming prohibitive.

Would that Mr. Bush and the spendthrift congress recognized that and cut back our own expanding bureaucracy and entitlement programs. Mr. Bush's newest budget may prove to be a nightmare. We are currently in a war, yet we are not being asked to sacrifice anything. The President is cutting back some programs, but replacing those with additional spending that may come back and bite us in the butt a' la "Guns and Butter" from the LBJ era.

But, I digress. It is good to see Germany begin to pull back. As long as we are "nations" with all that that implies, each citizen needs to "ask not what their country can do for them, but rather what they can do for their country." (with apologies, of course, to JFK)