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Freedom is contagious

2011-01-28T01:00:00.002+01:00

What's currently going on in the Arabic world is very promising - and exactly what George W. Bush has hoped for so much after the US attacked Iraq. Freedom is contagious. With one democratic country others will change as well. Widely known, this hasn't worked out. When has war brought peace and freedom the last time? World War II?

Now it were the Tunisian people ousting their autocratic president Ben Ali. Only few days later the people in Egypt start to demonstrate against their government - and so do the Yemenites.

Nothing says even one of the countries will end up as democracy. The riots might be quelled, other non-democratic forces might take over like fundamentalist Muslims or the military or the one autocrat might just be replaced by another. So far it's only a promise.

In some points freedom is like a virus: It can not live without a host. It's contagious and spreads from one host to the next. If the Jasmine Revolution does not succeed this time it might happen the next time at a different place. But by now it's already much more successful than any attempt to construct a democracy in Iraq and with far less casualties.

Bürokratenrepublik Deutschland

2010-11-14T21:00:00.000+01:00

"Arbeit muss sich wieder lohnen!" Hartz IV dürfe nicht dazu führen, dass es sich Arbeitslose im deutschen Sozialsystem bequem machen. Außenminister Westerwelle meinte im Sozialstaat gar spätrömische Dekadenz erkennen zu können. Nun erachte ich einen FDP-Politiker kaum als Kenner der sozialpolitischen Realität. Wie schwierig und absurd sich diese gestalten kann, wusste die Süddeutsche Zeitung letzten Montag zu berichten (Ausgabe vom 8. November 2010, Seite 3, "Das Versprechen", Autor Detlef Esslinger, nicht online verfügbar).

Geschildert wird der Fall der alleinerziehenden Mutter Judith Schröder aus Dessau, die sich mit damals 30 Jahren dazu entschlossen hatte eine zweite Ausbildung als Pharmazeutisch-Technische Angestellte anzufangen, weil sie in ihrem ersten Ausbildungsberuf Kosmetikerin keine Arbeit fand und Gelegenheitjobs alles andere als ein erfülltes Leben ermöglichten. Mit der Ausbildung fiel sie aus der Zuständigkeit der Agentur für Arbeit und wurde an das Bafög-Amt verwiesen. Allerdings gibt es Bafög nur bis zu einem Alter von 28 Jahren. Zurück bei der Arge Wittenberg muss sie erfahren, dass sie trotzdem kein Hartz IV erhält:

Auch wenn Bafög abgelehnt worden ist, haben Sie keinen Anspruch auf Leistungen zur Sicherung des Lebensunterhalts, weil Sie im Rahmen des Bafög dem Grunde nach förderfähig sind.

Dem Grunde nach hätte sie die Ausbildung hinschmeißen und es sich nun unter der Wohlfühldecke Hartz IV bequem machen können - oder auf Kosten der Arge nach Erfurt ziehen und die gleiche Ausbildung als Umschulung machen können. Denn das hätte die Arge bezahlt, nicht aber die Ausbildung in Dessau. Frau Schröder hat sich dagegen entschieden als Alleinerziehende weg von der Familie zu ziehen und wird die Ausbildung in Dessau beenden. Sie lebt jetzt vom Hartz IV-Anspruch ihrer Tochter, einem Ausbildungsförderungskredit und Unterstützung durch ihre Schwester.

Diesen bürokratischen Irrsinn kann man als Wasser auf die Mühlen der Hartz IV-Kritiker wie Guido Westerwelle auffassen. Oder als ein Beispiel dafür, dass Hartz IV vielleicht doch nicht so angenehm ist, wie es einem Anfang des Jahres angesichts der Diskussionen erscheinen musste. Oder einfach nur als das was es eben ist, bürokratischer Irrsinn.

Bekannt geworden ist der Fall übrigens nur, weil Frau Schröder Anfang September auf einer Veranstaltung mit Sigmar Gabriel, dem Vorsitzenden der SPD, sprechen konnte und dieser versprach sich darum zu kümmern. Nur dass Frau Schröder nichts von Herrn Gabriel oder der SPD mehr gehört hat. Dies aber nur am Rande.

Eines ist auf jeden Fall klar. Eine Diskussion darüber, ob die Hartz IV-Sätze zu hoch oder zu niedrig sind, bringt uns und die Hartz IV-Empfänger nicht weiter. Stattdessen sollten wir uns fragen, warum die Förderung z.B. nicht aus einer Hand (und Kasse) geschieht. Zu unterstellen, dass Hartz IV-Empfänger nicht arbeiten wollen, ist Polemik. Sicher gibt es viele, die sich aufgegeben haben. Und einige, die in der Tat nicht arbeiten wollen und sich im Sozialstaat "eingerichtet" haben. Daran geht aber ein reiches Land wie Deutschland nicht zu Grunde. All denjenigen, die etwas an ihrer Situation ändern wollen, sei es aus Eigeninitiative oder mit Unterstützung, sollten nicht auch noch bürokratische Hürden in den Weg gestellt werden.

Die Revolution ist abgesagt

2010-09-18T11:45:00.000+02:00

Mit dem Atomausstieg von 2000 konnten die Grünen einen lang gehegten Wunsch in die Tat umsetzen. Der Ausstieg war ideologisch motiviert, ökonomische Überlegungen spielten bei der Ausgestaltung eine ähnlich untergeordnete Rolle wie Sicherheitsaspekte der Atomenergie. Die erlaubten Reststrommengen der einzelnen Kernkraftwerke wurden zwar auf Basis deren Alters festgelegt, können aber zwischen den Kraftwerken untereinander verschoben werden. Die Atomindustrie wusste dies geschickt auszunutzen. So erklärte Jürgen Großmann, Vorstandsvorsitzender von RWE, einem der 4 Betreiber von Atomkraftwerken in Deutschland, in einem Interview Ende 2007:

Wir können den Reaktor in Biblis so fahren, dass wir mit den Restlaufzeiten über die nächste Bundestagswahl kommen. Und dann gibt es vielleicht ein anderes Denken in Bevölkerung und Regierung.

Die Atomindustrie hat dann auch alles unterlassen, was die atomfreundliche Regierungskoalition aus CDU, CSU und FDP noch hätte gefährden können. Zum Dank wurde der Ausstieg aus dem Atomausstieg ohne Prüfung pauschal im Koalitionsvertrag festgeschrieben.

Ein fragwürdiges Gutachten mit einem überraschenden Ergebnis

Ein von der Regierung in Auftrag gegebenes Gutachten sollte nach dem Beschluss noch die Rechtfertigung liefern, gestaltete sich aber mehr als fragwürdig:

Sie vergleichen die Folgen verschiedener Laufzeitverlängerungen mit einem sogenannten Basisszenario, dem bislang geplanten Atomausstieg. Während aber bei allen Verlängerungsszenarien zusätzliche, vom Betrieb der Kernkraftwerke völlig losgelöste Klimaschutzmaßnahmen berücksichtigt werden, finden diese im Basisszenario nicht statt. [..] Tatsächlich gibt es nur einen Schluss: Die Bundesregierung ist gar nicht daran interessiert zu erfahren, ob ihre energie- und klimapolitischen Ziele auch dann erreichbar sind, wenn es beim Atomausstieg bleibt. Den Gutachtern kam die undankbare Rolle zu, dieses Desinteresse quasiwissenschaftlich zu untermauern.

Und doch lässt das Gutachten unterschiedliche Lesarten zu. Während der Wirtschaftsminister Rainer Brüderle (FDP) Unterstützung für längere Laufzeiten aus dem Gutachten herausliest, schließt sich der Umweltminister Norbert Röttgen (CDU) der Deutung an, dass eine Laufzeitverlängerung entgegen den Schreckenszenarien der Atomlobby keinen nennenswerten Einfluss auf Strompreise und Versorgungssicherheit hätte:

Wer die Zahlen vergleicht, sieht, dass alle vier Szenarien [Laufzeitverlängerung um 4, 12, 20 oder 28 Jahre] die Ziele der Bundesregierung bei der Reduzierung der CO2-Emissionen, beim Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien und bei der Preiswürdigkeit der Energieversorgung erreichen und dass die Unterschiede nur sehr gering sind.

Durchsetzen konnte sich der Umweltminister allerdings nicht.

Ein fragwürdiger Kompromiss und ein geheimer Vertrag

Der Kompromiss der Regierungskoalition sieht nun eine Laufzeitverlängerung von 8 Jahren für die 7 älteren und von 14 Jahren für die 10 neueren Atomkraftwerke vor (damit im Schnitt von 12 Jahren, wobei allerdings von deutlich längeren Laufzeiten auszugehen ist). Im Ausgleich dafür erklären sich die 4 Atomkraftwerksbetreiber bereit (oder auch nicht), eine neu einzuführende Brennelementesteuer über einen Zeitraum von 6 Jahren zu bezahlen und anschließend in einen Fonds zur Förderung erneuerbarer Energien einzuzahlen. Erneut ohne Berücksichtigung bleiben Sicherheitsauflagen wie der ursprünglich geplante Schutz gegen Flugzeugabstürze oder Sprengstoffanschläge, ganz zu schweigen von der Problematik der Endlagerung und dem Atomlager Asse.

Schlimmer noch: In einem "Geheimvertrag" (die Regierung veröffentlichte den Förderfondsvertrag erst nach mehreren Tagen öffentlichen Drucks) sind die Kosten für Sicherheitsnachrüstungen auf 500 Mio. € pro Kernkraftwerk beschränkt bzw. Mehrkosten können auf die Einzahlungen in den Förderfonds angerechnet werden. Im Vorfeld war bei einer Laufzeitverlängerung von 12 Jahren noch von Kosten von über 20 Mrd. € ausgegangen worden, also rund 1,2 Mrd. € pro Kraftwerk! Stattdessen wird nun selbst der Weiterbetrieb der ältesten und tendenziell unsichersten Kraftwerke mit dem höchsten Nachrüstungsbedarf für die Betreiber noch lukrativ gestaltet. Dass der Minister für Umweltschutz und Reaktorsicherheit - an den Verhandlungen nicht beteiligt - sich im Nachhinein auch noch für den Vertrag nicht zuständig erklärt, bei dem Sicherheit gegen Investitionen in erneuerbare Energien aufgerechnet werden, lässt einen nur noch ratlos und kopfschüttelnd zurück.

Ein fragwürdiger Weg zum vorgeblichen Ziel

Das erklärte Ziel der Regierung ist der Ausbau regenerativer Energien. Indem man sich die Argumentation der Atomlobby zu eigen gemacht hat, wird nun genau das Gegenteil erreicht. Anfang 2010 erklärte der Umweltminister in einer Grundsatzrede zur Umwelt- und Energiepolitik noch:

Das ökonomische Konzept der konventionellen Energieversorgung, hier insbesondere die Grundlastversorgung durch Kernenergie, [ist] ökonomisch nur schwer mit dem weiteren Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien vereinbar.

So wird Strom aus erneuerbarer Energie zwar eine Vorzugsbehandlung eingeräumt (Gesetz für den Vorrang Erneuerbarer Energien (EEG)). Weil sich die vier Atomkraftwerksbetreiber aber auch 80% des Strommarktes teilen und sich mit dem Ausbau regenerativer Energien Konkurrenz für ihre eigenen Kraftwerken schaffen würden, treiben sie den Ausbau nicht so voran, wie sie könnten. Der Verdacht geht sogar soweit, dass Atomkonzerne in Projekte wie Offshore-Windparks einsteigen - nur um diese auszubremsen. Im europäischen Ausland dagegen investiert z.B. RWE Innogy massiv in den Bau von Windparks - um sich die dortigen Strommärkte zu erschließen.

Die Alternative

Nun kann man den vier großen Konzernen EnBW, E.ON, RWE und Vattenfall kaum zum Vorwurf machen, dass sie ihre Pfründe sichern. Es unterstreicht aber, wie sehr eine Alternative zur Verlängerung der Kraftwerkslaufzeiten notwendig gewesen wäre. Entscheidend ist dabei nicht, welcher Anteil der erzielten Zusatzgewinne abgeschöpft werden, sondern einzig, ob sich Investitionen in erneuerbare Energien rechnen. Die mittelständischen oder kommunalen Stromversorger wollten in die Lücke hineinwachsen, die das schrittweise Abschalten der Atomkraftwerke hinterlassen hätte. Dafür waren Milliardeninvestitionen geplant, die die Möglichkeit zu mehr Wettbewerb geboten hätten und nun zwangsläufig überdacht werden müssen. Auch der Vorsitzende der Monopolkommission stellt fest, dass der Wettbewerb verhindert wird.

Wenn man schon unbedingt am Atomausstieg rütteln will, dann doch nur, um diesen weniger angreifbar zu machen. Die nun vereinbarte Laufzeitverlängerung ist genauso beliebig und sachlich unbegründet - warum gerade 12 Jahre? - wie der ursprüngliche Atomausstieg. Stattdessen hätte er auf eine vernünftige ökonomische Basis gestellt werden sollen, wobei die Regierung Richtlinien und Mindestanforderungen festlegt wie den Schutz der Atomkraftwerke gegen Flugzeugabstürze und die Übernahme von Technologiefolgekosten; bei der Atomenergie etwa die Bergung des Mülls im Atomlager Asse, die Kosten für die Sicherung der Castortransporte oder die Suche nach einem Endlager. Statt direkt mit ausgewählten Konzernen Verträge abzuschließen, hätte der Markt im Wettbewerb die Laufzeiten der Kraftwerke geregelt. Alte Meiler mit hohem Nachrüstungsbedarf wären schnell abgeschaltet worden, nur neuere Meiler hätten noch länger laufen können, bis auch deren Betrieb ökonomisch unsinnig wird.

Natürlich handelt es sich dabei nicht um einen freien Wettbewerb, weil auch die erneuerbaren Energien massiv mit Subventionen gefördert werden. Das ist aber auch legitim, denn deren Ausbau ist das Ziel - genau wie es früher der Ausbau der Atomenergie war, der über die Jahre mit 165 Mrd. € subventioniert wurde. Innerhalb der vorgegebenen Grenzen sollte aber Wettbewerb zugelassen werden, in den eine Regierung regulierend eingreifen kann. Anpassungen an neue Entwicklungen können später nahezu beliebig erfolgen, ohne aufgrund von Verträgen auf ein paar wenige Marktteilnehmer Rücksicht nehmen zu müssen. Das wäre die ökonomisch vernünftige Antwort auf den ideologisch motivierten Atomausstieg von Rot-Grün gewesen.

Mit ihrer geballten Wirtschaftskompetenz hat die schwarz-gelbe Regierung die Marktmacht der großen Stromversorger nun auf Jahre hin zementiert. Der Atomausstieg von Rot-Grün mag nicht ökonomisch rational gewesen sein, aber vielleicht gerade deswegen revolutionär - der Atomkompromiss ist dagegen eine Rolle rückwärts, ausgerichtet an partiellen Interessen der Atomlobby. Genau deswegen ist die "Revolution in der Energieversorgung" (Angela Merkel, Bundeskanzlerin und Vorsitzende der CDU) konzeptioneller Murks. Hier wurde nicht der Weg in "ein neues Zeitalter in der Energieversorgung" (Horst Seehofer, Vorsitzender der CSU) bereitet, sondern verbaut. Deutschlands Vorreiterrolle in Frage gestellt. Die Revolution abgesagt.

Auflösungserscheinungen

2010-07-19T01:00:00.000+02:00

Vor sieben Wochen ging es los - mit zwei Paukenschlägen. Roland Kochs Ankündigung seines Rückzugs dürfte noch breite Zustimmung in der Bevölkerung gefunden haben und konnte auch die Lenaseligkeit nicht trüben. Als aber nur wenige Tage später auch noch der Bundespräsident Horst Köhler sein Amt als Reaktion auf Kritik an seinen Äußerungen zu Auslandseinsätzen der Bundeswehr regelrecht beleidigt hinwarf, war Lena trotz ihres Sieges beim Eurovision Song Contest zum Vorteil aller (einschließlich ihrer selbst) zunächst erst einmal kein Thema mehr.

Dabei ging es munter weiter: Ende Juni kündigte Jürgen Rüttgers seinen Rückzug aus der Politik an, nachdem er Anfang Mai die Wahl in Nordrhein-Westfalen verloren hatte. Und nun auch noch Ole von Beust. Dies kann man als Vorwegnahme auf das mögliche (und mittlerweile gewisse) Scheitern der Schulreform sehen. Aber damit hängt laut von Beust der Rücktritt natürlich nicht zusammen. Ach ja, Dieter Althaus ist ebenfalls zurückgetreten und Günther Oettinger wurde nach Europa weggelobt. Eine zufällige Anhäufung von Amtsmüdigkeit? Oder doch Ausdruck allgemeiner Unzufriedenheit? Um das zu ergründen, muss man auf die letzten Jahre zurückblicken.

Schon in der großen Koalition fehlte jegliches Konzept für eine vernünftige Politik. Zum einen hat insbesondere in der zweiten Hälfte der Legislaturperiode die Weltwirtschaftskrise nicht viel mehr als Reagieren zugelassen. Zum anderen haben damals zwei Koalitionspartner regiert, die nicht wirklich zusammen gepasst haben. Deswegen wurde die große Koalition auch sang- und klanglos abgewählt.

So richtig traurig wird es aber erst mit der Wunschkoalition der idealen Partner von CDU, CSU und FDP. Schon bei den Kaolitionsverhandlungen krachte es gewaltig. Die entscheidenden programmatischen Punkte werden ausgespart. Um so schlimmer die Streitereien seitdem - die bis heute anhalten. Seien es die Verteidigung (Wehrpflicht oder nicht), die Gesundheit (Kopfpauschale oder nicht) oder die Steuern (mehr Netto vom Brutto).

Oder wie sieht es mit den Folgen der Weltwirtschaftskrise aus? Wollte man nicht die nächste Krise verhindern, die Finanzmärkte regulieren? Wenigstens bei diesem Thema muss man sich doch auf eine gemeinsame Linie einigen können. Herausgekommen ist das "sozial ausgewogene" Sparpaket. So schnell wie es die ersten Gegenstimmen gab, konnte man "sozial ausgewogen" nicht einmal aussprechen. Die Koalition ist sich selbst die beste Opposition.

Das schlimmste ist, dass nicht erkennbar ist, wo die Koalition hinmöchte. Es gibt kein Konzept, keinen Plan - von einer Umsetzung braucht man gar nicht zu reden. Barack Obama schafft es gegen erhebliche Widerstände auch in der eigenen Partei eine Gesundheitsreform und eine Finanzreform durchzusetzen. Und Angela Merkel? Sie lässt jegliche Debatten laufen. Und am Ende wird das Schlechteste von allen zusammen gerührt, so dass niemand sein Gesicht verlieren muss.

Selten war die Politik so konzeptlos, aussichtslos und demotivierend. Kein Wunder, dass alle Reißaus nehmen. Dass es auch ganz anders geht, hat Joachim Gauck bewiesen. Er hat den Vorteil sich nicht in der Tagespolitik beweisen zu müssen. Davon einmal abgesehen hat er es geschafft die Leute wieder für Politik zu interessieren, sie mitzureißen - und das fast unabhängig vom politischen Spektrum.

Womit wir wieder beim Bundespräsidenten wären - und der allgemeinen Unzufriedenheit. In die Bundesversammlung wurden dieses Mal zumindest von der Regierungskoalition überwiegend Politiker entsandt und weniger Prominente - sei es aus Zeitnot für die Nominierungen oder eben doch wegen der erwarteten schwierigen Abstimmung. Und trotz der Vorauswahl haben viele die geheime Wahl genutzt, der Regierungskoalition einen Denkzettel auszuteilen, indem sie deren Kandidat Christian Wulff drei Runden drehen ließen. Eines hatte er Joachim Gauck immerhin schon vor der Wahl voraus: Er durfte Lena bei ihrer Ankunft in Hannover nach dem Sieg des Eurovision Song Contests die Hand schütteln.

Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen.

2010-02-14T16:18:00.002+01:00

100 Tage Schonfrist werden üblicherweise einer neuen Regierung zur Eingewöhnung und Einarbeitung gewährt. Von der aktuellen Schwarz-Gelben Regierung hieß es allerdings bereits im Vorfeld, dass die soziale Kälte Einzug halten wird in Deutschland. Dabei wurde die SPD gerade wegen des vermeintlichen Verrats an der Stammwählerschaft - Stichwort Hartz IV - aus der Regierung gewählt.

Doch wie sieht es nun aus nach 100 Tagen Schwarz-Gelb? Deutschland steckt fest in seinem Wintermärchen. Es ist der wohl strengste Winter seit 30 Jahren. Dabei verteilt die Regierung Geschenke, dass einem warm ums Herz werden müsste. Während es letztes Jahr noch die Autofahrer waren, sind nun die Familien dran: 20 Euro mehr Kindergeld im Rahmen des Wachstumsbeschleunigungsgesetzes. Gut, den Hartz-IV-Empfängern wird dieses Geld an anderer Stelle wieder abgezogen. Aber dafür bekommen die Besserverdiener über den Kinderfreibetrag dann ein wenig mehr. Die Folgen werden dabei ähnlich drastisch sein wie die der Abwrackprämie: Da den Kommunen aufgrund der Wirtschaftskrise sowieso schon die Einnahmen aus der Gewerbesteuer fehlen, werden aufgrund dieser zusätzlichen Einnahmeausfälle und Ausgaben etliche kulturelle Einrichtungen die Preise erhöhen oder gleich ganz schließen müssen. Natürlich gibt es auch viele hausgemachte Probleme der Kommunen, doch dieses Gesetz verschärft die Probleme vollkommen unnötig - und die Folgen werden alle Bürger tragen.

Der zweite vieldiskutierte Punkt des Gesetzes ist die Mehrwertsteuerreduzierung für Übernachtungen. Wurde dies zuvor schon als unsinnig erachtet, so begannen die Diskussionen erst richtig, als bekannt wurde, dass CSU und FDP Millionenspenden der Hoteliers kassierten. Man darf es sich nicht so einfach machen und behaupten, die Politik wäre käuflich. Aber gerade die kleinen Parteien müssen den Begehren ihrer Wählergruppen entgegenkommen (kostenpflichtig), um in einer Koalition erkennbar zu bleiben. Dabei hätten nicht erst die Spenden für einen Aufschrei sorgen sollen, sondern schon allein die Tatsache, dass sich die CDU und insbesondere Angela Merkel von ihren kleinen Koalitionspartnern treiben lassen - Führungsschwäche nennt man das. Ganz zu schweigen davon, dass die FDP all ihre finanzpolitische Vernunft eines ausgeglichenen Staatshaushalts und einer Vereinfachung des Steuerrechts über Bord wirft und stattdessen weitere Ausnahmeregelungen und höhere Staatsschulden für die Bedienung ihrer Klientel in Kauf nimmt.

Und sonst? Nichts Genaues weiß man nicht - jedenfalls nicht vor der Landtagswahl in Nordrhein-Westfalen. Statt eine klare Linie vorzugeben, darf der Umweltminister Röttgen aus Wahlkampfgründen sogar den geplanten Ausstieg aus dem Atomausstieg wieder in Frage stellen. Ansonsten muss man aber davon ausgehen, dass auch andere Lobbygruppen noch von der Schwarz-Gelben Regierung berücksichtigt werden, seien es Vermieter, Apotheker, die privaten Krankenkassen oder die Pharmaindustrie. Schließlich muss sich Leistung wieder lohnen!

Wer die ganzen Geschenke bezahlen soll, wird also noch nicht bekanntgegeben. Guido Westerwelle hat aber am Beispiel einer Kellnerin mit zwei Kindern schon einmal einen ersten Vorgeschmack gegeben:

Diese Leichtfertigkeit im Umgang mit dem Leistungsgedanken besorgt mich zutiefst. Die Missachtung der Mitte hat System, und sie ist brandgefährlich. Wer dem Volk anstrengungslosen Wohlstand verspricht, lädt zu spätrömischer Dekadenz ein.

Sehr schön! Endlich werden die dekadenten Eliten zur Rechenschaft gezogen! Die Banker müssen ihre Millionenboni zurückzahlen und die Steuerflüchtlinge dürfen ihr Geld gleich auf den Marktplätzen der Republik verteilen - am besten direkt an die Kellnerin. Doch weit gefehlt! Statt auf die da oben zu schimpfen, soll die Kellnerin nach unten treten. Welche Dekadenz ausgerechnet bei Hartz-IV-Empfängern vorherrschen soll, weiß auch nur Westerwelle allein. Stattdessen stellt sich doch die Frage, was man Hartz-IV-Empfängern außer Geld und Würde noch nehmen soll.

Hartz IV war ein notwendiges Gesetz, wenn auch schlecht und teilweise verfassungswidrig umgesetzt. Nur hat dieses und andere Gesetze eben auch zu einem Ausbau des Niedriglohnsektors geführt. Aus der finanziellen Annäherung zwischen Arbeitnehmern und Sozialleistungsempfängern zu schließen, dass man den Zugang zu Sozialleistungen noch stärker einschränken müsse, ist vermessen - oder ein Kotau vor der Wirtschaft. Wie wäre es stattdessen mit der Einschränkung von Lohndumping? Mit der Auslagerung von Arbeitnehmern an Zeitarbeitsfirmen werden weder Arbeitsplätze noch die internationale Konkurrenzfähigkeit gesichert, sondern nur die Kaufkraft der Arbeitnehmer reduziert oder sogar die Sozialkassen belastet.

Ja, Leistung muss sich wieder lohnen! Wer arbeiten geht, sollte nur in Ausnahmefällen auf Hartz IV angewiesen sein müssen. Schon deswegen muss der gesetzliche Mindestlöhne eingeführt werden. Fast alle europäischen Staaten leisten sich diesen "Luxus".

Den Empfängern von Sozialleistungen ist nicht mit Generalverurteilung und Stigmatisierung geholfen. Die meisten haben sich ihre Situation nicht ausgesucht und würden diese auch gern wieder ändern. Zwar wird es immer auch Negativbeispiele geben, doch diese kann sich ein wohlhabendes Land wie Deutschland leisten. Mit geistiger Brandstiftung erzeugt man jedenfalls kein wärmendes Feuer.

Broadcasting to Politicians' Service

2009-11-28T23:53:00.003+01:00

In an outrageous act became reality what was expected but journalists and constitutional law exports and many more hoped to prevent: The conservative majority of the board of the public broadcaster ZDF denied extending the contract of chief editor Nikolaus Brender. The board clearly overstepped its competencies since it's not responsible for staffing while the general director Markus Schächter supported his chief editor.

The conservative politicians do not even have a guilty conscience and consider the decision a normal process. Their understanding of separation of powers is totally flawed:

Jahrelang haben in der Tendenz CDU und CSU Wahlen gewonnen, nicht jedoch die SPD - das müsse sich doch im ZDF ausdrücken.
-- In the last years [the conservative parties] CDU and CSU have won the elections while the [left-leaning] SPD has not - this needs to be reflected in the ZDF.

On questions why politicians can choose "their" journalists the chairman of the board, populist and Minister President of Hesse Roland Koch (CDU) asks the counter-question:

Und dass Bischöfe diejenigen aussuchen, die über sie Bericht erstatten, damit haben Sie keine Probleme?
-- Why aren't you concerned about bishops choosing their journalists?

In his arrogance he ignores the fact that the church does not have executive power while it is part of the society - in contrary to politicians. The independence of the ZDF is now questioned of course. The comparison to Italian public broadcasting RAI where Silvio Berlusconi installed suitable journalists is legitimate. Unfortunately, just like Berlusconi, Roland Koch also gets elected repeatedly and despite all the scandals.

I can see only one positive aspect: A constitutional challenge might end the politician's influence on the board. It only takes one third of the members of the Deutscher Bundestag to vote for it. But when a politician of the SPD already speaks out against such a case since it might do harm to the ZDF I get angry. What can be worse than a public broadcasting service without independence from politicians?

Ursachensuche

2009-10-11T13:30:00.000+02:00

Die Wahlen sind vorbei. Das Ergebnis ist noch schlimmer als befürchtet - und als die letzten Umfragen vorhergesagt haben. Bei 26% wurde die SPD in Umfragen kurz vor der Wahl gesehen. Optimisten hatten sogar gehofft, dass die SPD ihr schlechtestes Ergebnis seit Kriegsende (1953: 28,8%) noch vermeiden könnte. Nichts war es. Ganze 23% standen am Ende zu Buche.

Woran lag es nun? Die Welt erlebt gerade die schwerste Wirtschaftskrise seit der Großen Depression. Davor gab es über mehrere Jahre einen weltweiten Aufschwung. Und jeder wollte einen möglichst großen Anteil vom Kuchen abhaben. Deregulierung war angesagt, Rekordboni wurden gezahlt. Die einzige Bevölkerungsgruppe, die davon überdurchschnittlich profitiert hat, sind die reichsten 10%. Deren Anteil am Gesamtvermögen betrug 2007 61,1% nach 57,9% im Jahr 2002. Alle anderen Bevölkerungsgruppen haben in diesen 5 Jahren anteilig Vermögen verloren oder maximal ihren Anteil gehalten (DIW Wochenbericht 4/2009, S. 6).

Die Auswirkungen der Krise sind gravierend. Die unmittelbare Folge sind massive Staatsdefizite durch die Rettungspakete, hohe Arbeitslosenzahlen konnten zunächst durch die Kurzarbeitregelungen vermieden werden, bescheren dem Staatshaushalt aber weitere Milliardenausfälle. Nun werden Steuersenkungen versprochen, von denen wiederum die Besserverdienenden überproportional profitieren. Und angesichts von Rekorddefiziten geht dies auch nur bei Rückbau des Sozialstaates - auf Kosten der Geringverdiener. Und doch sorgen die Deutschen für ein Rekordergebnis der Wirtschaftsliberalen bei den Wahlen. Absurd?

Ein Rückblick: 1998, nach 16 Jahren Helmut Kohl und Schwarz-Gelb, von denen vor allem die letzte Legislaturperiode treffend mit Reformstau zusammengefasst werden kann, kam es endlich zum Wechsel der Regierung hin zu Rot-Grün. Neben den wirtschaftspolitischen Reformen gab es auch sozialpolitische Reformen, deren Nachwirkungen nun für die SPD noch viel gravierender sind. Die Reizwörter sind Agenda 2010 und Hartz IV; von Verrat an der eigenen Wählerschaft ist die Rede. Und natürlich muss man es nicht unbedingt als Auszeichnung ansehen, wenn eine Partei, die "sozial" im Namen hat, vom liberalsten Wirtschaftsmagazin The Economist gelobt wird. Fakt ist aber, dass Deutschland unter Gerhard Schröder vom Sorgenkind wieder zum Musterschüler Europas wurde.

Härten und Ungerechtigkeiten lassen sich zahlreiche finden und über Korrekturen sollte sicher nachgedacht werden. Das Hauptproblem der SPD sind aber nicht die Gesetze selbst, sondern dass es versäumt wurde, diese und deren Notwendigkeit den Leuten zu erklären - und das über die ganzen Jahre. Die Basta-Attitüde von Gerhard Schröder war auch alles andere als hilfreich.

Mit dem Deutschlandplan hat die SPD den großen Befreiungsschlag versucht - und ist mangels eigener Hartnäckigkeit grandios gescheitert. Nach ersten abfälligen Kommentaren aus den anderen politischen Lagern gab es viel Zustimmung. Um es auf den Punkt zu bringen: Die SPD war die einzige Partei mit einer Vision für ein zukunftsfähiges Deutschland! Und doch verschwand der Plan viel zu schnell in der Schublade und hat am Ende faktisch keine Rolle mehr im Wahlkampf gespielt. Ist man an der eigenen Courage gescheitert? Waren die Parallelitäten zu groß zur Agenda 2010?

Die FDP sollte sich nicht allzu viel auf ihr Ergebnis einbilden. Diese Wahl war keine Wahl liberaler Politik, sondern in erster Linie eine Abwahl der großen Koalition, wie auch das Rekordergebnis der Linken zeigt. Und doch stellt die SPD einen Sonderfall dar; man verliert nicht einmal so eben ein Drittel seiner Wähler. Aber nicht wegen schlechter Politik, sondern wegen schlechter Kommunikation und unklarer Strategie ist die SPD gescheitert. Eigentlich kann es nur als positiv angesehen werden, dass die SPD jetzt nicht an der Regierung beteiligt ist. Eine weitere große Koalition hätte ihr angesichts der sich abzeichnenden Probleme im Staatshaushalt vermutlich vollends das Genick gebrochen. Die FDP wird auf den Boden der Tatsachen zurückgeholt werden, weil versprochene Wohltaten nicht finanzierbar sind. Und für 2013 hoffe ich auf eine neue SPD-geführte Regierung.

Lame Duck Season

2009-08-23T23:30:00.002+02:00

It's only one year ago. George W. Bush draw his last breaths politically. And the US had one of their most interesting election campaigns. Not because it was likely Barack Obama being elected the first black president, but because he wanted to fix the US:

That is our purpose here today. That is why I'm in this race. Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation. I want to win that next battle — for justice and opportunity. I want to win that next battle — for better schools, and better jobs, and better health care for all. I want us to take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America.

Now, Obama is struggling with fulfilling many of his election promises, in particular the health care reform. US media, even as serious as CNN, are reporting on the most ridiculous topics to discredit him or his plans.

But even this is more interesting than what's going on in Germany only one month away from Germany's most important election. It feels like they want to bring forward the lame duck season before election since we don't have one after it.

The conservative Christian Democratic Union refuses to debate. Their slogan is a meaningless:

We have the strength. Together for our country.

Or - with a plunging neckline:

We have more to offer.

Two programmatic issues called attention within the last half a year: The ridiculous election promise of tax cuts if there is some leeway. Germany has a record deficit this year due to the economic crisis and the aftermath will last for another few years. And the fight against the internet and its users.

The second major party, the Social Democratic Party has a credibility problem since they have been part of the government for the last 11 years. They are now supposed to be an alternative? They have been at all-time poll lows in the last months. The current crisis has been summarized with "privatizing profits and socializing costs". What could have been easier for a left-leaning party to base an aggressive election campaign on it? But there is hardly any attack.

Lately there was some ray of hope. So far the SPD stuck to their old mantra of "saving jobs" as seen again with Opel and Karstadt. Typically a pure waste of money since it's not possible to work against the market. But few weeks ago - what a surprise! - the SPD published its Plan for Germany. Creating 4 million jobs in future economic sectors like medical services and green technologies. That was something to discuss about at least. Maybe even reasonable when giving up trying to save old industries. But where is the debate on the plan? Instead media focused on a stolen car of a minister.

Don't we really deserve a better? Don't we have a bunch problems currently that politicians should have visions how to solve them? What will a possible TV debate between the two candidates Angela Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier be like? A sleeping pill? With the lamest election campaign ever I can also foresee the voter turnout: It's going to be the lowest in history. And with the law for blocking internet addresses both parties have gambled away their credits of trust from the next generation.

Disclaimer: I consider myself left-leaning, though supporting the ideas of free market within boundaries, i.e. regulations. At the moment it is really hard to see any reason for voting except for the civic duty. Yes, I will vote nevertheless. But I'm frustrated with the dullness of our politicians and what's NOT going on at the moment.

The Unhealthy Market

2009-05-24T21:57:00.005+02:00

Germany does not only have the world's oldest universal health care system, from an exterior view it apparently is even one of the best. Observing the discussions here you can get the impression though the German health care system is on the brink of ruin with patient care imperiled, doctors facing insolvency and sky-rocketing costs. I guess it depends on who you listen to, not to say who is lobbying.

One thing is for sure: The German health care system has a lot of inefficiencies. There are for example still 200 statutory insurances (dropped from 1200 in 1991; article in German) all having to offer the same services. The premium is paid as percentage of gross pay. Until last year there was at least competition in price, the range was from 12 to 16 %, half paid by employer, half by employee. In 2009 this competition has been eliminated and all insurances have the premium rate of 15.5 % (temporarily reduced to 14.9 % with the stimulus package). When any competition is eliminated why having 200 insurances, all with their administrative expenses?

Another example - the actual topic of this post - are the regulations for pharmacies. A pharmacy must be owned by a pharmacist (with the respective university degree) and he or she can only own up to 4 pharmacies. The European Court of Justice had to decide whether these regulations are compliant with European laws, in particular if the freedom of establishment is restricted disproportionally.

The court states the German regulation constitutes a restriction (paragraph 24) and justifies it as follows (paragraphs 28, 34):

Restrictions on those freedoms of movement may be justified by the objective of ensuring that the provision of medicinal products to the public is reliable and of good quality. [..]

The Member States [of the EU] may restrict the retail sale of medicinal products, in principle, to pharmacists alone, because of the safeguards which pharmacists must provide and the information which they must be in a position to furnish to consumers.

I agree that retail of drugs needs special education but why does the pharmacist have to own the pharmacy? Paragraphs 37 and 39:

It is undeniable that an operator having the status of pharmacist pursues [..] the objective of making a profit. However, as a pharmacist by profession, he is presumed to operate the pharmacy not with a purely economic objective, but also from a professional viewpoint. His private interest connected with the making of a profit is thus tempered by his training, by his professional experience and by the responsibility which he owes, given that any breach of the rules of law or professional conduct undermines not only the value of his investment but also his own professional existence. [..]

The operation of a pharmacy by a non-pharmacist may represent a risk to public health, in particular to the reliability and quality of the supply of medicinal products at retail level, because the pursuit of profit in the course of such operation does not involve [such] moderating factors.

This means a pharmacist owning the pharmacy is more ethically responsible than an employed pharmacist and his/her manager? Besides being questionable the assessment would justify similar regulations for any profession with responsibility for other people's life. Wouldn't the same apply to doctors employed in hospitals?

And don't forget the pharmacist can own up to 4 pharmacies. Obviously he or she can't be in all branches at the same time but needs employed pharmacists to operate the other branches. With the pharmacist being responsible for the branches' operation (paragraph 49):

Those branches are thus also presumed to be operated from a professional viewpoint, the private interest connected with the making of a profit being tempered to the same extent as in the case of the operation of pharmacies which are not branches.

The same can easily be achieved with less extensive restrictions. It should be easy to revoke an operating license for all branches from a company if there were a reason just as it is done now with the pharmacist.

This is topped by another justification for the regulation (paragraph 33):

Overconsumption or incorrect use of medicinal products leads, moreover, to a waste of financial resources which is all the more damaging because the pharmaceutical sector generates considerable costs and must satisfy increasing needs, while the financial resources which may be made available for healthcare are not unlimited, whatever the mode of funding applied. There is a direct link between those financial resources and the profits of businesses operating in the pharmaceutical sector because in most Member States [of the EU] the prescription of medicinal products is borne financially by the health insurance bodies concerned.

Pharmacy chains would have stronger buying power and could so negotiate lower prices with the pharmaceutical industry. According to an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (German; article itself is not available online, but appeared in the issue 115/2009, May 20, page 21) the prices fell significantly in countries like Norway after opening the drug markets.

The reasoning of the court is pretty lame. The arguments might have been provided by pharmacists associations. Many countries have deregulated pharmaceutical markets - and I haven't heard of any indication of jeopardized patient care. In contrary, the monopolistic market rather avoids competition in quality (German) according to experts in health care. The pharmacists have to be congratulated for their good lobbying work. Of course they have no interest in competition. The pharmaceutical industry has no interest in stronger negotiators. The politicians have no interest to approach such a sensitive topic, especially before this year's election. They rather repeat the pharmacists' arguments (German). At the end it's the people who have to bear the high costs of public health care.

By the way, most of the people involved in the discussions are not affected by the costs for public health care. What I consider one of the worst provisions in the German health care system is that people with a high income (lower limit is € 48,600 in 2009) can choose a private insurance rather than the statutory insurance - with the obvious effect of lower income people having to bear the burden of public health care. So while Germany might have one of the best health care systems there is definitely lots of room for improvement.

Who watches the watchers?

2009-04-22T02:23:00.002+02:00

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The question has been asked since more than 2,000 years and translates to "Who will guard the guards?" In developed democracies the risk of abusing military power is rather low; people would not accept it and it's questionable if the army would fire on their own people. The means are more subtle nowadays and an overhauled translation is more appropriate: "Who watches the watchers?"

The threats to democratic states and societies are no longer foreign armies (except maybe for India and Israel and despite Cold War rhetoric during last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia) but terrorism and organized crime. In the last years they often had to serve as reason for undermining civil rights, e.g. with the USA PATRIOT Act.

In the latest installment German government or more exact federal police Bundeskriminalamt BKA signed contracts (German) with major internet service providers to block access to child porn sites, the law is still due. Nobody reasonable will argue against fighting child pornography, but what is currently discussed is more than questionable. There are 3 major points of criticism: relevance, effectiveness, appropriateness.

Relevance

A special investigator of Lower Saxony's state police says (German) the internet is used for communication, but commercial distribution happens via classic mail. Only later on material is distributed via P2P or Usenet - for free. So it will hardly prevent any production of child pornography since it does not dry out the cash flow.

Effectiveness

Different techniques are possible: manipulating DNS, filtering by IP or filtering by URL. The first one seems to be the means of choice - and is totally pointless. Scandinavian countries are using DNS manipulation. Minister of Family Affairs Ursula von der Leyen, who is actually pursuing the access blocking, claims 50,000 clicks are prevented (German) in Sweden every day while the CEO of Verband der deutschen Internetwirtschaft (German Internet Business Association) eco claims that most "clicks" are caused by search engines (German). Both statements can't be proven but the Swedish chief inspector against child pornography and child abuse concludes (German):

Our blocking measures don't help to reduce the production of pornography.

IP filtering can't be bypassed that easily, it needs for example a proxy server. More important is the potential collateral damage: Behind one IP address can be many web sites. URL filtering can also be bypassed via a proxy server, but it does not have the side effects of IP filtering. Checking every URL costs enormous resources though and is not feasible. Therefore the British use a combined approach of IP and URL filtering in their Cleanfeed system to reduce collateral damage and necessary resources - which doesn't always work out as we will see later on.

Appropriateness

An expertise released (both German) by the Research Services (Wissenschaftliche Dienste) of the German parliament Bundestag states that the blockade imperils the freedom of communication as granted by the German constitution. The Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries expressed concerns (German) about "major constitutional risks" - her ministry was not involved in the process.

The most critical point is the lack of control. It's the BKA compiling the blocking list, it has (obviously) to be kept secret and nobody can control what is on the list. And what happens if the objectionable contents were removed? I'm not suggesting that anybody is trying to introduce censorship since I'm just not a supporter of any conspiracy theory. But the infrastructure for censorship is created and it can be abused in the future with less noble intentions.

To make matters worse police is prosecuting people publishing leaked lists. After WikiLeaks released the lists of Australia, Thailand or Denmark the house of German domain owner was searched (German) for "distributing child pornographic material". Also the house search of - take a breath - a blogger who linked in his blog to another blog which linked WikiLeaks with the lists was ruled to be legal (German)! This example also points to another risk of those lists in case they are published: They help to distribute child pornography by providing link collections. To make it clear: In my opinion that's not a justification to prosecute publishers of those lists but a reason to not create them.

Other side-effects

Related to the lack of control is the question which links get on the list: End of last year Britain's Internet Watch Foundation ruled about the cover of the album Virgin Killer by German band Scorpions:

As with all child sexual abuse reports received by our hotline analysts, the image was assessed according to the UK Sentencing Guidelines Council. The content was considered to be a potentially illegal indecent image of a child under the age of 18.

The album was released in 1976 (!) and its cover has never been censored in the UK. It also used to be available on Amazon or other sites. After few days IWF rescinded the block. During the block British users could not access the page on the album (but the image by accessing the URL directly) and not modify any Wikipedia page.

The Australian list (of which it wasn't quite clear whether it is a fake or not) contained a dentist's website after it had been hacked, and artistic photographs by Bill Henson. Australian Communication Minister Stephen Conroy admitted they were added to the blacklist in error. But since people make errors who is controlling them?

Another critic is CareChild, a society to fight distribution of child pornography and child abuse, calling the plan of Minister of Family Affairs Ursula von der Leyen "symbolical politics" (German) promoting the distribution rather than fighting it. To prove their point they performed a test (both German) with 20 domains from the Danish list, 17 hosted in the U.S., 1 in England, 1 in the Netherlands and 1 in South Korea and Portugal (all different providers). Within hours 16 domains were switched off, the other 4 were determined to be according to the laws and the operators could provide necessary "record keeping documents", i.e. proving the age of the performers.

Quoting the Chaos Computer Club:

A statistical analysis of filter lists (German) from Switzerland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden revealed that more than 96% of the servers they banned are located in western countries, particularly the USA, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands. It is quite implausible that these servers and their operators cannot be shut down and prosecuted by means of international cooperation by law enforcement authorities. There is clearly a lack of political will here to establish appropriate priorities and to make the necessary resources available.

Both CareChild and CCC conclude that the blocking lists might encourage law enforcement agencies to simply put web sites on those lists rather than actually taking actions against their operators.

So in my humble opinion the blocking lists are not only questionable in pretty much every manner. When potentially illegal content is getting on those lists and nobody is allowed to control them they are also dangerous to the fundamentals of democracy with their lack of oversight. Read: Who watches the watchers? As I wrote I don't suggest anybody wants to introduce censorship. But with this populist acting for the sake of it the infrastructure for censorship is created. I don't want to rely on Plato's noble lie but not even provide the possibility to misuse.

PS: FoeBuD is starting an unfiltered DNS server (German) at 85.214.73.63.

Scrap the Scrapping Bonus!

2009-03-31T23:22:00.001+02:00

Unfortunately, the most successful means in the German economic stimulus package is going to have the worst consequences: the Abwrackprämie or scrapping bonus. Pretty much everybody knows it but this does not prevent the nonsense.

I already mentioned it in another post: Owners of cars that are older than 9 years can scrap their car, buy a new one (or a Jahreswagen: usually former company cars, less than 1 year old) and get a refund of €2,500. By today, only 2 months after announcing the program more than 585,000 applications (German, March 31, 2009) have been made. Originally the program was limited to €1,5 billions or 600,000 applications, so it has pretty much been used up. Now German government wants to extend the program until the end of the year - and waste even more money!

First point of criticism is that it hardly helps German car industry: only 36.7% of the new cars are from manufacturers producing in Germany - a rather short-sighted protective thought. In a globalized economy Germany would not only profit from car sales but also for example from machines used to build cars. Germany is still the world's biggest exporter (soon to be passed by China though). With Europe the connections are even closer, so it's really in Germany's interest to help other economies a well.

Second point is the official name Umweltprämie or environmental bonus. The only problem: There is NO environmental incentive to it, nothing about consumption, nothing about emissions and nothing about the size of the cars. Only hope is reduced consumption of newer cars. Neither in media nor by politicians it's called Umweltprämie anymore.

Third and most important point is the economical nonsense. In times of the worst crisis since WWII small car sales are at record levels. Opel - the nearly bankrupt subsidiary of GM - sold 60% more cars (German) in the first 3 quarters than in the same term of last year. Not only common sense but also historical examples show that the great success is only early demand, yet another bubble - cars that are bought now will obviously not be bought in 9 months. The sharper the plunge will be by then. The car industry needs to reduce its overcapacity (German) nevertheless.

But that's not the only distortion in the market: Now there is obviously an oversupply of scrap metal (German) while the market of cheap used cars is wiped out to a large extent. People having bought a car can't spend the money on other things anymore, let's say furniture, so other industries are compromised as well.

Remaining question is why the absurd show has to go on. I have only one explanation, the upcoming elections in September:

Chancellor Merkel is likely to renew the indirect subsidy program -- which is as popular as it is imperfect -- out of fears of a voter revolt.

Just to be exact it's not Merkel, but the whole government with both major parties CDU/CSU and SPD in the Grand coalition.

There must be at least 2 major changes to the program: Scrap the scrapping part and pay the bonus only as tax reduction for environmentally friendly cars with a CO2 output of 140mg/km or even lower. Then it would at least deserve its name Umweltprämie. This could simply have been done as part of the vehicle tax reform.

Fast Money

2009-03-31T01:26:00.001+02:00

What's the media's role in the economy crisis? It's hard to tell and Jon Stewart probably didn't want to provide an in-depth analysis, eventually he is still running a comedy show. It was following rant by Rick Santelli:

How about this, President new administration, why don't you put up a web site to have people vote on the internet as a referendum to see if we really wanna subsidize the loser's mortgages. [..] This is America. How many of you people wanna pay for your neighbor's mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills? Raise the hand! President Obama, are you listening?

that indicted Jon Stewart to have a closer look on poor judgment - not of the homeowners but of the financial experts of CNBC (March 4, 2009):

Less than a week later there was a follow-up (March 9, 2009):

Since the last one particularly picked on Jim Cramer the media made a War of Words between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer out of it - yet another example on how media works. Remember, Stewart's primary intention was to expose CNBC's financial expert's judgment compared to the losers with their mortgages...

Eventually, Cramer gave in and came to the show 3 days later - and he was pretty much torn limb from limb. This is the unedited interview of March 12, 2009, part I:

Unedited interview of March 12, 2009, part II:

Unedited interview of March 12, 2009, part III:

Yeah, the interview wasn't quite fair, Stewart wanted to smash Cramer, he made him look like a fool and Cramer had hardly any chance to defend. I think it's a great piece of not only entertainment though, Stewart has many points. He is not really blaming media (or CNBC in particular) as reason for the financial crisis but as another piece of the puzzle. And it was only Santelli's blatant remark that increased the height of fall and made it actually interesting for Stewart.

Cui Bono

2009-03-29T18:48:00.001+02:00

Just as in the UK (BBC) or in the US (PBS) Germany also has public broadcasting services. (Commercial broadcasting only exists since 25 years in Germany.) The idea is to provide objective quality news and information, as far as possible free from particular political and economical interests.

There are 2 ways of funding: commercials/sponsoring and fees. While separating the public interest in independent news and information from commercial interests of publishers works pretty well for newspapers the approach has been questioned repeatedly for TV stations in the last years, especially in form of Schleichwerbung or product placement.

The fees are collected by an independent authority called GEZ ("Gebühreneinzugszentrale der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland", “fee collection centre of public-law broadcasting institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany") from every owner of a TV, a radio or (since 2007) even a PC with internet access. The major problem with GEZ is its huge data collection: Whenever somebody moves and registers in the new town the GEZ gets the new address. Furthermore, the GEZ relies on address providers which ends in absurd examples of bureaucracy, when pets get billed or dead people like the famous mathematician Adam Ries whose 450th anniversary of obit is tomorrow.

The model has the advantage of no political influence though. It's only that the commercial influence should also be reduced by not allowing any commercials or sponsoring. This would mean an increase of the fee of less than 10 percent which is more than worth it.

Another massive influence raised my attention lately: Conservative politicians try to prevent that the contract of the chief editor of the Second German TV Channel (ZDF) Nikolaus Brender is renewed. The conservatives have the majority in the governing board of the channel. This raises the first question: Why has any politician influence on the program?

Second question is why they want to prevent Nikolaus Brender. Hesse prime minister Roland Koch started to justify his objection with the reduced numbers of viewers of ZDF news programs - which only applies to all news programs in German TV. In my opinion viewer numbers must not be a primary measurement for quality news - or we end up with yellow press news. That's why public broadcasting should not have a commercial interest with viewer numbers determining the earnings from commercials.

With the argument rebutted Koch switched to criticize Brender's personnel management - obviously this is hard to judge from outside. The ZDF director Markus Schächter wants to keep him though and a lot of prominent journalists of ZDF are supporting him in an open letter objecting the political influence.

Commentators rather think that Brender is simply too independent for the conservative understanding. Vacancies are filled based on qualifications and no longer based on the political camp which raises journalistic excellence. Besides, Brender just won the Hanns-Joachim Friedrichs Price for TV Journalism this week (which of course might just have been a choice to support him as well). Hanns-Joachim Friedrichs most famous quote is:

Einen guten Journalisten erkennt man daran, dass er sich nicht gemein macht mit einer Sache, auch nicht mit einer guten.
-- A good journalist doesn't allow himself to be taken in by any cause, not even a good one.

A news channel can not be measured by its audience and so the points of criticism by the conservatives are invalid. From pretty much every side Brender is supported for his quality journalism which should be the main motive of a chief editor in public broadcasting. Eventually Roland Koch is doing more damage by pursuing political influence to the ZDF than any editor could ever do - or as CEO of Axel Springer newspaper group puts it in the context of the government bailing out news organizations:

To put it in exaggerated terms, even a bankrupt media company is better than one that is funded and controlled by the government. The ZDF is a prime example of what happens when politicians try to appoint editors-in-chief.

This is not yet the end: Brender is not allowed to defend himself in front of the governing board. And to top that, former Bavarian prime minister Edmund Stoiber, also member of the governing board, claims the director of ZDF should take disciplinary actions against all journalists who supported Brender signing the open letter!

Pork-Barrel Politics

2009-03-24T00:21:00.001+01:00

Recently I wrote about the problems of European dairy farmers. Today I had to read about an approach of German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner (with support from Austria, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia) trying to stop the necessary market shakeout by postponing the lift of the EU milk quotas. Aigner is from Bavaria - and dairy farming is a key sector in Bavaria and especially its small farms will be hit hard. Luckily the approach was turned down. From the EU stimulus package €90 millions will be spent in Germany for rural development though. Aigner wants to give the money to the farmers. I hope the money is not simply thrown out the window...

In another example the president of the association of German automobile industry (VDA) claims to take back (German) the raise in truck toll on German autobahn from beginning of this year. This is supposed to help German transport agencies with foreign competitors. I just wonder how since it would affect all trucks on German streets. Also the idea was to bring transportation from streets to rails, i.e. it was a means of environmental policy. Why should this be stopped now? Because of a market shakeout? That's a desired effect! So far government says no (German) but the automobile industry is one of the strongest lobbying groups in Germany so I'm not sure how long this still stands.

Have in mind the government is currently already wasting €1.5 billions as part of the stimulus program for car sales in form of a scrapping scheme: For scrapping a 9-year old car and buying a new one you get €2,500 from the government. In times of the worst crisis car registrations in February were at a 10-year high! Imagine the plunge when the money for the scrapping scheme is running out:

Critics of scrapping schemes point out that they are like administering a shot of adrenaline to a sick patient — first there's a rally, then there's a collapse. [..] Christian Streiff, boss of France's PSA Peugeot Citroën, warned such incentive schemes have an "inverse effect" — they essentially guarantee an implosion in the market once the subsidies stop.

And also just of today another example: Last year there were major data-protection scandals in Germany, not to talk about illegal surveillance of employees in a bunch of companies like Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa or Lidl. All of a sudden all politicians wanted to protected customer's and worker's privacy. That's long gone. The most important point, an explicit opt-in on transfer of customer data to other companies, is now discussed again. Since it might cost jobs I don't think this rule will make it into law.

The Incomprehensible

2009-03-22T17:36:00.002+01:00

One of my first thoughts on the latest school killing in Germany was slightly cynical: How long will it take that "Killerspiele" (First person shooters are condemned sweepingly (German) as "killer games" in Germany.) are indicated - once again - as a reason for the killing? It took only one day.

Hardly anybody will actually say these games are a reason but simply the fact that only one day after the shooting the police discloses (German) they found Counter-Strike on the killer's computer and the repeated claim for bans of those games reveal the reasoning. Why is that?

Putting the numbers in context: In the U.S. in 2005 it had 16,692 homicides, 11,346 by guns. That means statistically 46 people were murdered every day, 31 by guns. The deadliest school shooting (Virginia Tech massacre) took the life of 33 people. And how many people die in "family tragedies" (German euphemism (German) for homicides within the family, usually with suicide of the perpetrator) every year as just recently (both German)?

But nothing causes as much sensation - and claim for actions - as the school killings. Is it the sheer number of victims? I think it is rather the impossibility to comprehend the incomprehensible, the idea of somebody causing as much damage as possible before committing suicide, the question how nobody could have noticed the gunman's psychological strain. A murder with robbery happens out of greed, a family killing out of jealousy or despair, they are "explainable" - a school killing, in both its extent and randomization of victims, can not be explained with a single reason though, if at all.

But then why do people look for simple solutions? Is it the only thing to hold on to? Some examples:

The ban on (German) "killer games" is a classic. First person shooters are usually approved for people of age 16 in Germany if they are diluted (e.g. no showing of blood). Otherwise they must be only sold to adults. Minister of Family Affairs proposed test purchases to control shops stick to the law. One chain completely stopped selling of games with 18-plus ratings.

Controls in rifle clubs are rather new. It's only that 1.5 million people are organized in the parent organization Deutscher Schützenbund. Should everyone provide a psychological assessment?

Chancellor Angela Merkel even thought out loud about unannounced controls for weapon owners. Without any concrete reasons how is that consistent with the Grundgesetz (German constitution, basic law), not talking about sheer practicability?

A more reasonable idea is the separate storage of weapons and ammunition (the quote from Handelsblatt), others propose a limit on the number of weapons (German), even more unlikely is the total prohibition of keeping weapons at home (Where should they be kept?).

One of the saddest proposals is the one for swipe cards, metal detectors and security guards (see the quote from Die Welt) at schools. This will turn schools into prisons:

[Schools] shouldn't be turned into bunkers, and they can't be turned into fortresses without their ability to teach suffering. After the murders in Winnenden, it's understandable that people would start discussing things like swipecards and metal detectors. But there is no such thing as absolute security, and every added bit of preventative technology brings with it the danger of making people feel even more vulnerable. If you go into one of the schools in the United States that has been outfitted to become a high-security facility, you feel anything but safe and secure. Instead, you feel completely lost at sea.

All the proposals have some things in common: The effectiveness is at least questionable. Germany has already one of the tightest weapons law in Europe if not the world. Similar the regulations on video games or films. And then there is always the black market to get either video games or weapons and ammunition.

And second all the proposals only address symptoms, not the causes. No video game (World Of Bullshit, German) has ever caused a school shooting. The membership in rifle clubs might actually provide acceptance though I would argue if anybody needs to learn how to shoot except for security services as police or military.

But what about the perpetrator, not Tim K. in particular but in general. What about personal responsibility of people associated with such killers? What about parents allowing their children to play the games (or not knowing it)? In analogy to the proposals above why does nobody think about testing parents whether they qualify for raising children? What about teachers, classmates, coaches, friends? What about the selective German school system? Will psychological counselors help to find precarious "candidates"?

These questions shall illustrate the complexity of the problem where easy solutions just don't work - and question the mentioned proposals even stronger. The bottom line is: We are living in a free society. There is and will never be 100 percent security. As hard as it might be to accept, especially because of their senselessness: School shootings are rare. Giving up freedoms for questionable means can't be the solution. Neither can just going on - but that's exactly what simple solutions tend to. It's in everybody's responsibility to take care. Sounds naive? Maybe it is but the government simply can't help and is not supposed to help. If society does not change on its own accord we just have to live - with the incomprehensible.

Let Market Fix It!

2009-03-16T21:41:00.002+01:00

Last week I saw the documentary Let's Make Money in cinema. Despite some awkward conspiracy theory tendencies it shows some really interesting examples of globalization gone wrong. One of it is cotton production in Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world. Not long ago I also posted about an approach to help German farmers called "Ein Herz für Erzeuger" or in English "A Heart for Producers" which I consider totally wrong.

Now how are the two stories linked with each other? It's as easy as that: Due to globalized markets paying huge subsidies to European and American farmers does not only distort the local markets but has effects on the markets in the whole world. And just as with the milk seas the cotton subsidies lead to over-production and an extremely low price for cotton. According to the film's website the US spend $3 to 4 billions on cotton subsidies (German) per year. This costs Burkina Faso around $150 millions per year while they get only a fourth of it as development aid - from the US, EU and Japan together! (The EU isn't better of course: Cotton in Spain is subsidized with $1 billion per year as well.)

This means the most severe problems in the developing countries (or emerging markets as they are called now as one episode in the film shows) could be fixed just by opening markets in the EU and the US - without any additional payments in form of development aid. Surprisingly, this is capitalism in pure form, simply following the maxim of market fixing itself. I understand this doesn't make it easier to pursue in the EU but what about the US!? Next time somebody complains about Big Government (in both the EU or the US) I suggest to get rid off agricultural subsidies. But wait, it might just be the same people complaining about Big Government and getting elected by farmers...

PS: Some amounts I converted from Euro to US Dollar at current rate of 1 Euro = 1.30 US Dollar.

PPS: The film also has an episode on Cross Border Leasings (German) I wrote about recently as well.

Good News for People Who Love Bad News

2009-03-01T02:03:00.001+01:00

If you haven't lived hermetically the last year you couldn't have missed it: There is a crisis going on. Hardly anybody doubts it is worse than anything else since WWII. I was impressed though that the same experts that hadn't seen the crisis coming wanted to tell us how bad it's going to be. Starting in October, when the crisis was still a financial crisis, not yet an economical one in Germany (Germany's unemployment rate was the lowest in 16 years) following predictions have been made for the economical growth/ downturn in Germany:

15.10.2008, German government: 0.2 percent.
03.11.2008, EU commission: 0.0 percent.
06.11.2008, IWF: -0.8 percent.
25.11.2008, OECD: -0.9 percent.
05.12.2008, German federal bank: -0.8 percent.
05.12.2008, Deutsche Bank: -4 percent.
10.12.2008, RWI: -2 percent.
11.12.2008, IFO: -2.2 percent.
22.12.2008, IfW: - 2.7 percent.
19.01.2009, EU commission: -2.3 percent.
21.01.2009, German government: -2.25 percent.
28.01.2009, IWF: -2.5 percent.
23.02.2009, Deutsche Bank: -5 percent.

It is like a competition on who makes the worst prediction. I seriously wonder whom are all the bad news supposed to help. Or to say it with German comedian Dieter Nuhr:

Wenn man keine Ahnung hat, einfach mal Fresse halten.

(More polite translation: If you don't have a clue, shut up!)

But there have actually been some good news like unexpected increases in certain indexes based on people's expectations for the future. It's just that the economic institutes don't seem to trust their own surveys. And a report about Germany's export growth in 2008 reads: Export growth is lowest in 5 years! That's how a good news (growth!) is turned into a bad news. And I've always been thinking economy is so much about psychological effects. So shouldn't we interpret every ray of hope as a positive sign rather than turning it down!? I would really like to know if this is a special German mentality issue or if there is the same phenomenon in other parts of the world as well.

Business Opportunity

2009-02-23T23:30:00.001+01:00

Today I want to tell you a short story. Imagine I have a car. It doesn't matter if it is an old one, a fast or a cool one. I have a car. Now there is another person taking a look at my car. Following dialogue gets started:
He: "You have a nice car! Can I lease it from you?"
Me: "But then I don't have a car anymore."
He: "That's not a problem. I will lease it out to you immediately."
Ring! Ring! Ring! Alarm! Sounds suspicious.
Me: "What's the point of it!?"
He: "Wait, it's even better. I will you pay you money for this business!"
Ring! Ring! Ring! (Was that an alarm ring or the money sign in my eyes?)
He: "Yes! We are investors, the leasing rates are our investment and so they are tax deductible. We will just give you part of the tax reduction in advance."

Now replace me with German municipalities, the other person with American investors and the car with municipal facilities and services like incineration or sewage plants and you get so-called Cross Border Leasings (German). The article says around 150 contracts have been concluded over 30 to 80 billion Euros.

On the second ring I (smart-ass me, not the supposed me from above) would have asked pathetically if this isn't fraud - if not legally (obviously there was a loophole) then morally. A court in Cleveland, Ohio ruled in one case (Case No. 1:07-CV-857) last year that the tax saving has to be paid back by the investor - at least.

But now the German municipalities are left behind with these financial constructs and the problems they cause. They were backed by the now infamous Collateralized Debt Obligations which are nothing worth anymore (if they were ever) - and the German municipalities have to take all the risks and pay for possible losses.

This is economical growth simply based on the flow of money. Even better, the money wasn't actually flowing except for the initial payment. The investors borrowed the money from the same bank the German municipality had to pay the leasing rate to. And the investors did not have access to the money but it was used to pay their leasing rates. So it was simply moving money from one account to another, fictitious transactions which I consider fraud at the expense of American and German taxpayers.

One final point to add: The article only points finger at the German politicians for taking such high risks rather than questioning the approach because of the moral issues. Since moral obviously doesn't pay off and you can't charge somebody for irresponsibility politicians should finally be liable for their actions in office. They would think more than twice about such high-risk transactions.

Disclaimer: If I have oversimplified the case and there is economical sense in such a transaction I would really like to hear it. Feel free to contact me!

A Heart for Producers

2009-02-15T01:42:00.003+01:00

Last week I had to try hard to keep from laughing. I was shopping for grocery and saw a new campaign: Ein Herz für Erzeuger (A Heart for Producers). The idea: Rather than spending 49 cents on a liter of milk you pay 59 cents and the additional 10 cents go completely to the farmer. This is ridiculous in many ways!

In Germany there is both a charity campaign Ein Herz für Kinder (A Heart for Children) for needy children and a magazine Ein Herz für Tiere (A Heart for Animals respectively Pets). And now needy farmers? So first it's simply a ridiculous name from a marketing perspective - or am I the only one who thinks first of a donation account when hearing this campaign name?

Second, why should I pay more for the same product? For my good nature or my conscience? I'm sorry, but this is the same milk from the same intensive livestock farming where cattle is fed with the same antibiotics! Isn't it understandable I don't feel sympathy for this kind of farming? If I want to have a better product for which I'm willing to pay more I'll get organic milk.

Third, I'm not denying that many farmers, especially small businesses, have major problems with the low milk price and their costs. But the problem is far more complex (German) - and needs painful consequences. For years the market for milk was totally regulated (just like every other agricultural product in the EU) by setting quota how much a farm can produce. This led to the infamous so-called milk seas or butter hills - products produced beyond the market's needs, bought with huge subsidies by the EU and destroyed or fed to livestock.

Now the quota system is going to be removed - and the market will fix the distortions caused by the regulations: The price will likely drop due to the oversupply. Some farms might switch to the production of organic food which gives them higher income per unit (a liter of organic milk costs 89 cents). But there will definitely be individual fates, especially small farms, that will have to shut due to reduced income. But it is not possible to work against the market or it will cost an enormous amount of money. It makes more sense economically to spent the money otherwise despite the costs for social benefits or other support for the victims of this change. Only one thing is sure: The 10 cents can't prevent that change. If at all it will extend the agony.

Top 10 Albums 2008

2009-02-08T21:44:00.003+01:00

2008, the year of Chinese Democracy is over. Unfortunately, neither the one nor the other worked out. I don't even want to append as expected because I can hardly imagine anybody was actually expecting anything. And all the hope for 2008 was already used up.

Anyways, in 2008 I bought again around 40 CDs, most of them within the last days of my trip to Philadelphia because CDs are so much cheaper in the US than in Germany - and that's not only due to the Euro exchange rate. So I only influenced the US Amazon 2008 charts, but not the German one. Maybe that's why not even one of my personal Top 10 made it into the latter :-)

And what does it tell you about the year 2008 in music (or the people buying music) if the first 3 places are taken by albums from 2006 and 2007? I found some great CDs though and here it is, my personal Top 10:

The Walkmen - You & Me

Gus Black - Today Is Not The Day...

Rainald Grebe - 1968

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

Kings Of Leon - Only By The Night

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Sun Kil Moon - April

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride

Randy Newman - Harps And Angels

Most surprisingly there is a German album on the list. I can't remember when the last one was even close to that. But '1968' by Rainald Grebe is so amazingly sarcastic - I'm still laughing whenever I listen to it. As a sample his performance in German satirical TV show Neues aus der Anstalt: Der Präsident.

Most of the other 12 songs are even better, but this one fits Germany's Presidential elections this year. Since the president doesn't have actual power in Germany (that's also what the song is about) the parliamentary elections at the end of September are more interesting. Though German democracy isn't actually endangered let's see what uses up our hopes this year :-)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2009-02-02T05:55:00.000+01:00

Reading an article about Angela Merkel reminded me of finishing my classification of politicians which I have in my drawer since quite some time: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Don't ask me why but somehow this movie title came to my mind. More serious it's the programmatic, the ideologist and the opportunist. Of course this classification isn't scientific at all, I just made it up during last year's US election campaign.

Let's start with the ideologist, the obvious example is George W. Bush. His 2 terms can be characterized by the ideology of the everlasting fight of Good vs. Evil. Unfortunately, for pursuing his goal of spreading democracy especially in the Middle East to "build a safer world" he regarded every means as justified - including those I consider to be preserved for the Evil:

Those methods, including the use of stress positions and forced nudity, continued to spread through the military detention system, and their use “damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.”

Not talking about all the problems that got out of focus, ignored and grew into crises on their own. Even looking back Bush shows hardly any sign of regret (and even less does Vice President Dick Cheney). I consider that very typical for people blinded by ideology.

The second characterization is opportunist. There is no ideology he blindly sticks to, but the lack of leadership and predictability is also the problem in these times of crisis - just as with German Chancellor Angela Merkel:

She put together a rescue package for banks that so far hasn't had much effect. She has come up with an economic stimulus package that may not be enough. She hasn't made a single major speech. There is no sign of a claim to leadership, whether in Germany, Europe or the world.

Former Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of the Green Party describes her style in an interview as follows:

Until now, if opinion polls are anything to judge by, this approach has served her well. She always takes positions that allow her to maintain a majority. However, in this global crisis, that is simply the wrong attitude. What is needed now is strategic, large-scale planning -- in the European spirit.

A more recent article is even more excoriating:

A major crisis actually presents an opportunity for a chancellor. Everyone is at a loss, everyone is plagued by uncertainty, and virtually everyone is waiting for someone to take charge. And what has Merkel done? She has joined those who are waiting. She has become the leader of the waiting game. [..] What counts for her is that she has a result. It doesn't matter what it is. It is typical of a chancellorship that searches for harmony but lacks leadership.

Of course her behavior could be interpreted simply as cautious - if she just wouldn't change her opinion too often. Not long ago environment was an important topic for the former Minister of Environment:

Chancellor Angela Merkel has gone out of her way to show herself as a climate saviour. In August 2007, she had herself photographed on a block of ice in Greenland in order to draw attention to the consequences of climate change. Just a short time before she helped to negotiate a global climate "roadmap" at the G-8 summit in Germany.

Now that's no longer valid since it might cost jobs? This argument sounds very familiar, just like the failed strategy of the US economy, in particular car industry. If only many experts would not see green technologies as a chance to create thousands of jobs. In my opinion she endangers Germany's leading position in environmental technologies and so jobs in the long run.

Or the economic crisis:

The chancellor seemed unsure of herself when it came to preventing the impending collapse of the banking system. [..] First she touted an international solution before eventually bowing to pressure from German banks and agreeing to a coordinated European approach. [..] Merkel also flip flopped when it came to the political consequences of the economic downturn. At first, her office announced that she and Steinbrück had agreed to bring forward a plan to make health insurance premiums tax-deductible. But then she dropped the plan when it came in for sharp criticism.

Sure, she is still by far preferable to French Omni-President Nicolas Sarkozy with his aimless actions for the sake of acting. But I'd like to know what she is actually up to.

Somewhere in the middle is the programmatic, with a general plan laying out the base for the politics, an idea, but not blindly sticking to it like an ideology. The means are chosen as the cases arise but according to the greater plan. For being successful this needs good judgment and a strong team of experts - and a strong leader for this team.

My hope is that the new US President Barack Obama will fulfill this role. So far he has laid out the general guideline in his speeches: being a president for all US Americans, no matter what descent, what religion, what region or walk of life. The speech in Berlin showed that he doesn't intend to limit the guideline to the US, but also apply them internationally.

He has also chosen his team of experts for which he received praise from left and right (actually more from right since the lefts are kind of disappointed he didn't choose more radical candidates). He now has to prove his judgment and his leadership of this alleged team of rivals.

As little scientific my classification is as blurred are the borders between the groups. Bush was forced by the "circumstances" aka economic crisis to give up the neoconservative ideology and rather spend a whole lot of money to bail out banks - which just underlines his failure even more. A weak leader will switch from his program to opinion polls as guideline of his politics just when leadership and guidance is needed the most. (That is what I think actually happened with Angela Merkel.)

The last 2 months were a lame duck season not only in the US but also in Germany if not Europe. Everybody seemed to wait for the inauguration of Barack Obama. Now Obama made an impressive start. Let's see how it is going to work out.

Update: There is a new article on Angela Merkel's failure:

[..] A chancellor without a compass, a head of government without authority and a party leader who lacks the support of her own people.

The Speeches to the White House

2008-11-10T05:35:00.001+01:00

Last Tuesday, on November 4, 2008 Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. His way to the White House has been marked by great speeches. I want to start with the keynote address at the Democratic Convention on July 27, 2004 in Boston. It was the first time he and his central message became known to a broader audience beyond the borders of Illinois (not to me though):

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America.

At the end of 2004 Obama didn't feel ready for running for president in 2008. Within the next 2 years he had changed his mind no longer ruling out to run:

When the election is over and my book tour is done, I will think about how I can be most useful to the country and how I can reconcile that with being a good dad and a good husband. I haven't completely decided or unraveled that puzzle yet.

It was the time when the media recognized his qualifications but questioned his experience to be ready in 2008. But there was no question he was going to play a bigger role in American politics in the future. At the end of October in 2006 the Time had a cover story on "why Barack Obama could be the next President". And the German author Florian Gathmann wrote recently in retrospect (German) to his 2-months scholarship in the summer of 2006 at the Chicago Tribune that there was no way around Obama:

In den folgenden zwei Monaten, die ich in Chicago bei der "Tribune" verbringe, ist an Barack Obama kein Vorbeikommen mehr.

His article "Der Gesegnete" (German, "The Blessed") was released on October 27, 2006 in German newspaper Thüringer Allgemeine, refering to Obama's first name Barack meaning "blessed" in Swahili. On February 10, 2007 Obama finally announced his candidacy giving the guideline for his politics:

That is our purpose here today. That is why I'm in this race. Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation. I want to win that next battle — for justice and opportunity. I want to win that next battle — for better schools, and better jobs, and better health care for all. I want us to take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America.

It's this style of patriotism - loving the country, but looking for ways to perfect it, not ideologically! - that's so atypical for a politician and that impresses me the most.

But on July 7, 2007, when I flew to the US to work for one year in Philadelphia, I still had not heard of Obama at all. It must have been at some point within the next 3 months that I got to know him since I remember being all for Obama already at the Democratic debate at Drexel University in Philadelphia on October 30, 2007.

Eventually, on January 3, 2008 the primary season started - when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was still expected to wrap up the nomination of the Democratic party on Super Tuesday (February 5, 2008). But she had a false start with losing Iowa to Obama - and no plan for beyond Super Tuesday.

Obama had it's own struggles with the unwelcome race issue bubbling up incarnated by Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for 20 years. He could rebut the cliche of the "angry black man" by giving a speech on race in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008. He analyzed that "black anger" and "white resentments" result from historical discrimination and social injustice (and the perception of it) nowadays - and that they have to be taken seriously. But it takes more than talking about the symptoms to fix one single cause. The idea must be to overcome race:

It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper. [..]

This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. [..]

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care. [..]

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job. [..]

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag.

Again the central points are 1. perfecting the 2. one America.

At the end Obama secured the nomination as Democratic candidate for the presidential election with the last primaries on June 3, 2008. In the evening he gave his nomination speech in St. Paul with the main focus on reuniting the party after the tough fight with Hillary Clinton. His opponent on the Republican ticket was Senator John McCain who secured his candidacy 3 months before on March 4, 2008.

On a campaign tour around the world Obama introduced himself to international leaders in the Middle East and Europe. The highlight on this tour was for sure his speech on July 24th, 2008 in Berlin to 200,000 people around the Victory Column in Berlin - and the millions in front of the TV screens in the US. Here he put his message with profound references to history not only of Berlin into a global context:

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down. [..]

In this century - in this city of all cities - we must reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.

Unfortunately, it was only two weeks later when so many called for the next Cold War when the conflict for South Ossetia between Russia and Georgia broke out - and called Obama's inexperience to people's mind and his comfortable lead in the polls started to shrink. But while many Western politicians including McCain ("Today, we are all Georgians!") were very fast to blame the Russians while the the sequence of events wasn't actually that clear.

Another three weeks later, on August 28, 2008 Obama accepted the nomination at the Democratic Convention in Denver after choosing Joe Biden as his running mate for Vice President. With the general election entering the critical stage his speech was much more aggressive, but still he did not divide the country but only separated himself clearly from John McCain:

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.

The next day McCain presented Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate for Vice President. In my opinion he chose her to appeal to both disappointed Democratic voters of Hillary Clinton in the primaries and to the conservative Republican base. The surprising choice seemed to work out for McCain by electrifying the Republican base. He even took the lead in CNN's national polls of polls in early and mid September.

It was not before Palin gave two disastrous interviews and especially the economic crisis became acute that Obama gained ground again. McCain was criticized for his crisis management, not having a consistent campaign. He couldn't untie himself from the Bush government, which was hold responsible for the economic crisis, despite his reputation as maverick. As last argument he tried to denounce Obama as friend of a terrorist (because of his alleged connection to Bill Ayers) and socialist (because of his tax plan) while Obama could simply keep a steady hand: In his 30-minutes infomercial six days before the election Obama presented his program without even mentioning Bush or McCain. Simply everything played into Obama's cards. On November 4, 2008, after a nearly flawless campaign of more than 20 months, Senator Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States and gave his victory speech later in the evening in Chicago.

So what do I expect from the President Obama? Not less than "changing the world"! That doesn't mean he is supposed to fix all problems the US face at the moment or even the world. He will have a hard time to solve only part of them within the next 4 years: tumbling economy, 2 wars, crumbling infrastructure, cracked image in the world, inefficient social security systems and imbalances in the constitutional powers. But I expect him to introduce another tone in US politics, to reach across the aisle not only in the US but also work together with the partners in a multilateral world.

I might be naive but I'm positive this will allow Obama to address the problems. If some of them can't be solved in his first term and not even in a possible second term it still might pave the way for the future. The world isn't just black and white as it was seen in the last 8 years. Obama often showed in the debates or his speeches that he is willing to see gray shades - and hopefully this change leads the world into a bright future :)

Cause and Effect

2008-06-03T05:02:00.006+02:00

Just 2 weeks ago I wrote about the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus arguing that allowing students to carry weapons on campuses would make them safer places. Obviously I don't agree with it, but think that's rather ridiculous. Now in the face of everyday incidents the British government started an advertising campaign supporting my point of view:

If you carry a knife, you are more likely to get stabbed yourself.

The question is if this statement can stand deeper investigation, especially in terms of cause and effect. I expect at least the statistical correlation to be verifiable. I would not be surprised though if the actual correlation is between the crime rate of the districts those people live in and the chance of getting stabbed (which is a quite logical conclusion since stabbing is a crime on its own). And those people just carry knives with them to feel safer.

The campaign wants to make 2 points directly supporting their view though: The chance your knife is being used against you: A knife that you don't carry with you can obviously not be used against you. And (not only out of this) the only imaginary safety, similar to what I asked 2 weeks ago ("How do they think this is going to work out?"):

When someone is attacked by a knife they normally find out AFTER they have been stabbed.

Whatever cause and effect are, the point is made - and I highly support it. Imagine only few people don't carry a knife anymore. The next time they argue they can't pull their knives immediately. They stay with words - or fists which are at least not as harmful as knives. Now just imagine what this means for the US and guns!

If you are not too sensitive watch the videos like the imaginary knife wounds lecture.

Some people just don't get it!

2008-05-20T07:00:00.001+02:00

I would have thought students are just more intelligent but it seems that's not compelling reasoning. Have you heard of the SCCC, the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus? This organization is not affiliated with the NRA, but has the same ridiculous mindset: Guns for everyone will make this world a safer place. Actually I wrong them because they don't want guns for everyone but only

those individuals--age twenty-one and above, in most states--who possess valid concealed handgun licenses/concealed carry weapons permits to be afforded the same right to carry on college campuses that they are currently afforded virtually everywhere else.

But that's not the point. The question is how more guns should make this happen. I mean how do they think this is going to work out? The person running amok is presenting himself and everybody got a free shot? I would rather fear that in such a situation full of panic self-proclaimed wannabe heroes just shoot wildly around and cause even more casualties. Ever heard of friendly fire? More than one fifth of the deaths in the Operation Desert Storm has been killed by friendly fire - and we are talking about professional soldiers here, in a "controlled" operation (as far as it is possible). Not hobby shooters with people running around panicking.

Also what do you think is going to happen when everybody is allowed to carry a weapon? Isn't it likely that the potential gunman will just take more powerful weapons, e.g. full-automatic ones or grenades? Just think about it, we are talking about people that want to cause as much damage and casualties as possible. There own life usually doesn't matter to them anymore. Another example, what happens in case of somebody taking hostages? Do you want to have uncontrollable people around trying to free the hostages and endangering their lifes?

The believe in weapons is naive to say it mildly. It's just hard to scare somebody who wants to sacrifice his life. That's why George W. Bush's War on Terror had to fail and that's why the idea of the SCCC or the NRA can't work - neither on campuses nor on the streets. Maybe it's just a problem of too many guns on the streets. Maybe somebody should just start thinking about the actual problems in the (American) society. But that would require intelligent people which I would have hoped you can find easily on universities.

Sharia is for Everyone!

2008-02-10T01:37:00.008+01:00

One of the most ridiculous proposals I read lately was the one by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who is also leader of the Anglican church. He proposed to allow certain parts of the Sharia, the central body for the Islamic law, to be used in western societies. By allowing Muslims to apply the Sharia in questions of day-to-day life like marital or financial matters he wants to raise the acceptance of Muslims for western life style.

In the first place I wonder why this is necessary at all? Yes, everybody should have the right to move to a place where he wants to live. And western societies seem to be very appealing because of their prosperity. But this prosperity results from a certain society model. So if somebody wants his part of the prosperity he has to be part of the society - including its rules and laws. It's not necessary to like everything, and there are definitely many things that can be improved in these societies. But immigrating people first have to accept the rules and laws - and not the rules and laws have to be changed for immigrating people!

Second why is the church that tolerant against the Islam? Let's have a look at other relevant groups like homosexuals. The same Dr. Rowan Williams on an openly gay bishop:

In most of our provinces the election of Canon Gene Robinson would not have been possible since his chosen lifestyle would give rise to a canonical impediment to his consecration as a bishop.

If his consecration proceeds, we recognise that we have reached a crucial and critical point in the life of the Anglican Communion and we have had to conclude that the future of the Communion itself will be put in jeopardy.

In my opinion that's hypocritical.

Another issue with this proposal is outlined by Henryk M. Broder (That's where the title of this post is from.): Can British who are not Muslims also select the rules of the Sharia - and only marry for a certain period? No longer "Until Death Do Us Part" for Christian marriage?

Broder writes often about inter-cultural matters. Lately he wrote an article entitled Suicide for Fear of Dead (German). And that's really what the actions (German) in these western societies look like:

In Brussels (Belgium) policemen were instructed to no longer smoke and drink in public during Ramadan - to not offend Muslims.

In Zürich (Switzerland) they should even refrain from drinking and eating for one day - to learn more about Islamic culture.

The BBC appends "Peace be upon him" whenever they name the Prophet. Broder mentions that it might be ridiculous when the BBC reports about suicide bombers in the name of Allah and the Prophet, peace be upon him.

Following the British interior ministry "Islamic extremism" is now "anti-Islamic activities".

The Bishop of Breda (Netherlands), Tiny Muskens, proposed to rename God to Allah.

In Canada completely veiled women are allowed to vote when they have two identity certifications and one witness of identity.

Respect for other cultures is good - but this goes way too far. Do officials in Arabic countries fast during the Lenting season? Can basic rights in voting still be assured if the person voting can not even be identified? I wonder what they are doing on the air ports - or is security more important than those fundamental rights?

Another ridiculous proposal came from the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Germany should establish Turkish high schools and universities. (Turks are by far the biggest group of immigrants in Germany.) Necla Kelek calls his push for Turkish educational institutions an "intrigue against integration" (German) - and I fully agree with her. This does not help with integration but makes the separation permanent.

Yes, a lot has been done wrong in integration of immigrants in many western societies. But the examples above are misunderstood integration. Integration means helping the immigrants to adapt their way of living, to learn the language and the culture. It does not mean that the immigrants have to give up their own culture - as long as the habits comply with the rules and laws. And especially it does not mean that the affiliating society has to change for the immigrants.

Lately there was also a discussion in Germany about integration. It all got started with a brutal attack on a pensioner by a Greek and a Turkish young man in Munich. State Governor of Hesse, Roland Koch, used this as an opportunity to make an embarrassing and polemic election campaign against "criminal young foreigners". Indeed the ratio of foreigners to the whole population is disproportionate to the committed crimes in Germany. (The numbers are quite different. While they form around 10% of the German population around 20% of the suspected criminals (German) are immigrants.) But this is probably more a problem of social background than origin - foreigners are just not criminals per se. And here we are back to the questions of integration. According to the PISA study in hardly any country the social background determines the future chances as much as in Germany. By the way, not suprisingly Roland Koch got applause from the Neo-Nazis for his campaign - and luckily it backfired though his party still won the election.

So the western societies definitely have to do their homework in questions of integration - not by giving up their culture or basic rights, but by welcoming the immigrants, by helping them to get started and provide fair chances. Starting a new life in Germany does not seem to be easy. The people still have to learn a lot, even after 50 years of major integration. Eventually Germany can't without immigrants.

Update: There is now also an article about Dr. Rowan Williams available on the English Spiegel Online website, taken from Der Spiegel magazine, which provides more background information.

Update: Henryk M. Broder wrote a new article on this topic, in particular on Geert Wilders and the recently released Islam-critical video "Fitna". Due to serious threats to the LiveLeak staff the video had to be removed for some time from the web site though it's now back online. Is there any further need to comment on this?

Top 10 Albums 2007

2008-01-12T06:51:00.001+01:00

I'm neither a journalist nor a musician. I can't really describe why I like this or that album. It has to be somehow good music. Interesting. It should be able to "entertain" me more than three times. It's unlikely that an album which is easily accessible becomes one of my favorite ones.

I'm also not limited to a particular genre or kind of music. If you really want to subsume it somehow then maybe under Alternative. But this probably does not mean much more than that hardly any of the albums I like will be in a Top 10 chart list (based on sales). Ok, this time there are actually two albums in Amazon's Top 10 (The White Stripes on 8 and The Shins on 9, next is Wilco on 25). Which makes me think the Americans have a better music taste than the Germans. I admit I even own the number 1 from the latter list, but it's not that I only like what others dislike. Herbert Groenemeyer is very famous in Germany and he has a good mixture of "difficult" songs and stadium hymns. "12" was a bit disappointing though. Back to the German charts, the next one I like is only on 22, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Stadium Arcadium", which is actually from 2006, and only on 29 there is finally one of my 2007 Top 10 albums, "Our Earthly Pleasures" by Maxïmo Park. Also in Germany there is hardly any store where you get more than the most recent Tool album - while in America so found I found hardly any store which does not have all of their albums.

Anyway, back to 2007, here is my Top 10:

Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

The Shins - Wincing The Night Away

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder

Maxïmo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures

Soulsavers - It's Not How Far You Fall, It's The Way You Land

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

Radiohead - In Rainbows

Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City

Some of the bands I really like released new albums last year, but didn't make it onto the list. Editors, Interpol and especially Spoon did not quite meet my expectations - or their former albums were just way better. I neither wanted to put a Best Of or Live album on such a list like R.E.M.'s "Live".

By the way, I bought 42 albums in 2007 (compared with 36 in 2006 and 79 (!) in 2005 - I admit that year was crazy). Many of them were older though since I often wait until I get a good bargain and I completed my collections of Wilco and Spoon. By also selling 26 albums (mostly on Amazon) I have now more than 450 albums on CD.

Spring AOP: Dynamic Proxies vs. CGLib proxies

2007-12-15T07:33:00.002+01:00

Spring's AOP is proxy-based. Spring provides two different options to create the proxies. One is based on JDK dynamic proxies and works with interfaces, the other one utilizes CGLib and is based on classes. (That's why the property is called proxyTargetClass respectively proxy-target-class.) For the moment I just want to provide a quick summary on the pros and cons of both options:

JDK dynamic proxies:

The class has to implement interfaces. Otherwise you will get ClassCastExceptions saying that $Proxy0 can not be casted to the particular class.

Eventually dynamic proxies force you to program to interfaces since you can not cast the proxy to the class - a feature I really like about them.

CGLib proxies:

The proxies are created by sub-classing the actual class. This means wherever an instance of the class is used it is also possible to use the CGLib proxy.

The class needs to provide a default constructor, i.e. without any arguments. Otherwise you'll get an IllegalArgumentException: "Superclass has no null constructors but no arguments were given." This makes constructor injection impossible.

The proxying does not work with final methods since the proxy sub class can not override the class' implementation.

The CGLib proxy is final, so proxying a proxy does not work. You will get an IllegalArgumentException saying "Cannot subclass final class $Proxy0". But this feature is usually not needed anyway. (This issue might be solved in the future.)

Since two objects are created (the instance of the class and the proxy as instance of a sub class) the constructor is called twice. In general this should not matter. I consider changing the class' state based on constructor calls a code smell anyway.

You have CGLib as additional dependency.

Both options suffer from some issues (not really issues, but you have to be aware of them):

Most important proxy-based AOP only works from "outside". Internal method calls are never intercepted.

Second, the object has to be managed by the Spring container. Instantiating it yourself using new does not work.

The proxies are not Serializable.

Regarding performance of the one or the other method I have read different things. I remember having read a blog post about CGLib proxies being better, one of the comments says dynamic proxies are. Actually the Spring reference has a paragraph on this itself:

There's little performance difference between CGLIB proxying and dynamic proxies. As of Spring 1.0, dynamic proxies are slightly faster. However, this may change in the future. Performance should not be a decisive consideration in this case.

I emphasized the last sentence by intention.

Especially for enforcing programming to interfaces and allowing constructor injection I strongly prefer the JDK dynamic proxies.

Please tell Microsoft about this problem

2007-12-04T06:21:00.000+01:00

If you are a Windows user you probably know this request quite well. No, this post is not yet another Microsoft or Windows bashing (though I switched to Mac OS X lately). It's only about an incident I had last weekend on the Times Square in New York where I really did not expect to see that message:

(I took the picture on Nov 24th 2007, around 4:30 pm.)

When I saw this on one of the big screens I really had to laugh. How embarrassing is this? For Windows and Flash (though I was surprised and impressed that these screens are running on Windows and Flash). It will be (justified) bad press for them though. Everybody sees his prejudices proved on the big screen. But it is especially embarrassing for the advertiser. How many thousands of people are walking over the Times Square on Thanksgiving's Saturday? At least it was incredibly crowded and I was probably not the only one who noticed that.

When the shit hits the fan ...

2007-09-14T04:07:00.000+02:00

Not that long ago I received my first Mac, more exactly the top MacBook Pro with 17" high resolution wide screen. I was quite unhappy with the Mac OS X - and actually I am still not satisfied. One of the things I first complained about was the way of deleting files. It's not possible to do this directly, but it always has to happen via the trash bin. Now I know why they handle it that way which did not help me though ...

Now what actually happened? On last Monday I visited the overly expensive King Tutankhamun exhibition. They have impressive stuff there, but the most famous golden mask is missing - and you are not allowed to take any pictures. But it was a nice evening and on the way home I took the one or the other picture. At home I wanted to copy them to my MacBook and here the story actually starts.

Mac OS X has some really strange features. The first one is the mentioned above: I'm not able to delete files directly. Of course I want to delete the pictures from the memory card after having them copied to the hard disk. Here we get to strange feature 2: Deleting them on the memory card does not free the memory since they are still on the card's trash bin. But you neither can selectively delete items from the trash bin - it's an all or nothing and strange feature 3. I want to keep stuff in the trash bin where it makes sense, being forced to empty the trash bin completely is rather stupid.

Now I found a workaround which seemed quite comfortable. I use CocoViewX for viewing and managing my pictures. It's not as good as IrfanView which I used to use on Windows, but much better than iPhoto. The latter is kind of unacceptable for me since it insists on managing them in its own directory structure and creates 3 copies (originals, data, modified) of all of them - I have 3.5 GB photos! Anyway, CocoViewX notices when there is a memory card with photos and offers to import them with the 3 options of keeping the photos on the card, moving them to trash or deleting them directly on the card. The last one is what I'm looking for and used. So far, so good. It creates an import folder where it puts the new pictures.

After I sorted the pictures and moved them to my folders I wanted to delete the import folder. Again CocoViewX offers the three possibilities to keep it, to move it to trash or delete it. I knew this folder is empty and I'm very, very sure that I want to delete it. But I was to lazy to switch to the mouse and wanted to switch the buttons with the keyboard. I played around with Tab and left key to which I'm used from Windows, with different combinations of the modifier keys. I only found Apple+Left changing the directory in the background but nothing moved the focussed button. Apple seems to be completely unusable without a mouse!

Anyway, in the second screen shot you see were I ended and I selected "Yeah, throw it away". And what happened? Due to the changed context in the background it threw away my complete "Bilder" (meaning pictures in English) folder! Despite the question is still for the import folder! It took some seconds until I noticed what happened.

Then I slowly started to think about what I really lost: 200 pictures of my last two months here in Philadelphia, so since I arrived in the US. Beneath them pictures of my trips to Washington D.C. and New York City. Some I sent already to friends, so I could get at least little variants of those ones, 12 to be exact.

Then I thought about what and how to rescue. Undelete for Mac OS X! Everything I found was anything but promising. I found references to tools like Stellar Phoenix, File Salvage, Data Rescue II and Virtual Lab Data Recovery, but none of them was free. But wait, there is still the memory card! I have a second notebook here running on Windows XP. I knew there are free undelete tools for Windows and with one of them, FreeUndelete 2.0 I could recover most pictures from my NYC trip.

And the rest? All 4 Mac OS X tools offered evaluation versions where you can search your disk for recoverable files, but not actually recover them. I tested all by downloading them directly to a second 1 GB memory card. Stellar Phoenix did not even found my logical drive, Virtual Lab could not (potentially) restore my pictures to the memory card if I remember correctly. Both File Salvage and Data Rescue II worked at least and I scanned my disk. They found more than 5,000 JPEGs. Wow! Paying $100 and then additionally the work of filtering files? I nearly gave up and only wanted to ask a colleague of mine the next day who has more experience with Mac OS X. Unfortunately he has never been in need for such a tool.

But in the evening I started again to search for a tool. A Unix/Linux operating system but no open source tool for undelete?! I finally found one called PhotoRec by CGSecurity. It's rather low-level, started from the shell, but provides a menu. Unfortunately, it can not just scan the free space but only the whole hard disk. It groups restored files by 500 in one directory. Since I knew I would run out of space on my 1 GB memory card I cleaned up the directories as soon as they were "finished", i.e. had 500 files in them. PhotoRec found thousands of useless operating system files, mostly very small, some bigger ones like the background images. I had no problem to keep the space usage on the card rather low. As soon as it got to my actual pictures I could not keep up, the card filled more and more. When the free space reached 10 MB I stopped the process in hope I could continue afterwards - unfortunately not. Anyway, after more than 5 hours and scanning around 55% of the sectors of my hard disk and restoring 19,000 (!) JPEGs I also had most of my pictures from Washington D.C. and Philadelphia back - and was quite happy.

I sent Christophe Grenier (that's what CGSecurity stands for) an email about my observations with the tool. He responded pretty fast. Regarding scanning the whole disk instead of only the free space he wrote

Currently this feature is only available for FAT and NTFS. I hope to provide it for Ext2/ext3, HFS/HFS+ isn't planned.

He also told me how to start from a specific sector by modifying photorec.ses. This file contains a huge list of scanned sector ranges starting from 0. All entries up to those ones that should be scanned must be dropped. This worked pretty well on evening 3. It took only another hour for scanning the rest and restoring another 1,000 JPEGs, nearly all to be deleted anyway.

Yeah, so overall I had to filter out around 120 pictures out of 20,000. First criteria was of course the size, which should have sorted out around 80% of the pictures. Since my hard disk is rather new it is also not that fragmented yet and my pictures came mostly in groups. I could easily delete the ones I had on my backup and keep the other groups. All in all it were 2.5 days because of annoying features in Mac OS X and bugs in CocoViewX - where I consider the first one worse than the latter.

It really annoys me that Mac OS X does not allow me to delete things directly especially since I can't delete stuff selectively from the trash bin. This might be good in general since it is so hard to restore deleted files. But I usually know what I'm doing and don't want to be patronized by my operating system. Since there are more issues I have with Mac OS X (about which I might blog in the near future as well) it might even happen that I switch to another one (with Linux more likely than Windows).

The next big thing!

2007-08-10T01:14:00.001+02:00

No, I don't talk about Web 3.0 or a successor for Spring and JEE, not even about the upcoming Cocoon 2.2 release. It's only about the next Cocoon GetTogether which will take place for the first time in Rome this year as it has recently been announced. It will last from October 3rd to 5th with a two-day hackathon and one day conference as usual.

For those who don't know it a short history. Starting in 2002 for the first three years it was held in the beautiful town of Ghent (Belgium) by the Outerthought guys as an occasion to meet each other (developers and users!). With around 100 € it has always been a rather cheap event. The American spare ribs of a local restaurant (somebody knows the name or a link?) became most famous and a tradition at the Cocoon GT.

In 2005 the Cocoon GT moved to Amsterdam organized by the Hippo team. Amsterdam is a wonderful city as well, more night life and sights, but was therefore more expensive, especially the hotels. And the spare ribs were not half as good as the one in Ghent. We came back to Amsterdam in the last year though.

And now it's Rome and the Sourcesense team. Again it's a very interesting town where it is worth to leave the laptops once in a while. I have been there already - 11 years ago ... it would be time to visit Rome again. But not this year, since I won't make it to the Cocoon GT. For the time being I'm in the US and would spend my holidays to visit the interesting places here.

For anybody who is interested in Cocoon or uses it I can only recommend the Cocoon GT. It has always been very interesting and enlightening. You can meet the developers and get deep-inside views or get your hands dirty when working on your first bug during the famous bug hunt.

For a few impressions also take a look at the pic tu res.

1,000th post

2007-08-07T02:21:00.000+02:00

Nothing that really matters to the general public I guess. But I made my 1,000th post yesterday in the Spring forums. At the moment it's the community I'm most active in after I worked with Spring on my last two major projects.

The first project was a major refactoring. The web application was mainly separated into a web tier based on Apache Cocoon and a business tier without a container or distinct architecture. I introduced Spring for the dependency injection in the business tier and replaced the home-grown transaction framework with a JTA-based solution. Besides the database we access a Corba server and the file system transactionally so we need distributed transactions and two-phase commits. I wrote an XAResource/ JCA implementation for Apache Commons Transaction. Unfortunately I can't release this stuff as open-source but have to reimplement it when the time allows it. I use Jencks which integrates the Apache Geronimo transaction and connection management, so I don't need a full-blown JEE server, but I can use Spring and Apache Tomcat.

The second project was a portal. Starting from scratch was really nice. I could reuse my JTA/ JCA stuff and added JMS to the picture. As portal server Liferay 4.1.2 was chosen - and I learned to hate it quite fast. So many issues especially (but not only) with IBM DB2. Lately I switched to 4.3.0 - and I am quite happy with it. They have improved tremendously and now I can also recommend it. For the portlets I used Spring Portlet MVC which was really new at that time and had still the one or the other issue. But in contrary to Liferay (this improved a lot as well) and especially Hibernate (that's a topic on its own) I really got help from the community and issues got fixed really fast. That's when it makes fun to live on the bleeding edge and is not only frustrating.

Getting more and more used to the different parts of Spring I also started to share my knowledge. First it have been the custom scopes (which I used in both projects) and proxying (mostly for declarative transactions), later I added Spring MVC in general, Spring Portlet MVC in particular and the PropertyEditors to the picture. And so that's what I focus mainly on in the Spring forums.

Actually my home community is Apache Cocoon. That's were I started in end of 2000 and I became a committer in mid 2003. Unfortunately, by not working really with Cocoon for the last two years I lost more or less track of its development. I still try to bring me in from time to time though (as lately by propagating PropertyEditors as in Spring ;-) ). I'd like to work more again in this community again in the future, especially with the forthcoming next version 2.2.

Killing Music

2007-08-04T05:31:00.000+02:00

Do you remember "Copy kills music"? That was a campaign of the German department of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an umbrella organization "representing the recording industry". In 1999 the campaign tried to prove with a ludicrous reasoning that copying kills music. What they actually meant and even said so in the text is that it endangers the earnings of the recording industry. The consequences read as dramatic as follows: The recording industry will no longer be able to finance risky projects off the mainstream and so the musical landscape will become desolate.

In my opinion it's the recording industry itself or better said its major players that needs to be blamed. Which were the last 5 qualitative albums released by major players? Nobody needs to wonder at the decreasing earnings which is caused mostly by the copying as I admit. But in the meantime you have to pay around 16 to 18 € for any CD in Germany in a shop, Amazon is around 2 € cheaper. And they missed the move to the internet. If there would have a been a platform like iTunes right from the beginning I claim they would have not these problems nowadays. By the way, this is no call to copy music. Just to mention it: I have far more than 400 original audio CDs.

Now it was Elton John who said that the Internet destroys music. At least he refers to the creativity not the money. The internet is supposed to be preventing people from going out and being creative. This results in only 10 fantastic albums per year - while there have been 10 per week in the early 70s. Maybe it's only the taste in music that has changed a lot in the meantime? For sure I don't consider many of those fantastic albums as fantastic as Elton John does. Anyway, he wants to shut down the internet for 5 years and expects better music to arise! And:

Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet.

In my humble opinion both the IFPI and Elton John just don't understand what the internet is about - but on completely different topics. Elton John asks the people to communicate since this results in creativity. I say there is no better communication platform than the internet. Face to face would be better of course but there is not somebody for every interest around.

The IFPI says the internet endangers the recording industry's earnings and so the jobs. I say I don't care. This does not mean I don't care about the affected people - it's simply from an economic point of view. Or in other words: Who cared about the gunsmiths when they got obsolete? Things just change. And yes, I consider the recording industry being obsolete in its current form. I don't need their talent scouts and their marketing for mainstream music. They should only focus on the production and distribution of the actual recordings. Then they would not need to care about copying and to lobby for more restrictive laws. They require to access the internet connection data which internet provider need to store for 6 months in the near future in Europe (for those that like the lengthy German words it's the so called Vorratsdatenspeicherung). Those data were targeted for anti-terrorism investigations and should now be misused for civil law cases. That means I have to relinquish my fundamental right for privacy for a purely monetary interest of another party. In my opinion not even the so called war against terrorism justifies those restrictions of the fundamental rights since their effectiveness is at least questionable. You might remember that the US authorities had actually very many data about the 9/11 terrorists but this could not prevent their attack. But I completely digress ...

Back to the internet killing music in concerns of creativity and earnings. There is already an example that belies both fears: open-source software development. Who claims there is no creativity involved makes him/herself ridiculous. And there are also a lot of successful companies which base their business around open-source development. The secret is that they add value to the simply copyable source code by providing services, training or more trivial things as discs and documentation.

I really can't see why music should be so different from software. So what can the music industry learn from open-source software? How will it look like in the future? Actually we just need to look back before the arising of a music industry. Probably the music itself will get less important from an economic point of view. It's the additional value that will matter in regards of money. People will still buy audio CDs as they do now despite the possibility of just downloading the music. The performances/concerts will also get more important.

First steps have already been done. Most famous example of a successful career started in the internet are for sure the Arctic Monkeys (though I don't like the music). Another band following this example is Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (I really like it a lot). Furthermore the recording industry seems to recognize that any attempt to prevent copying is doomed to fail. (Don't consider Apple and EMI as benefactors, they made it for pure economical reasons.) I guess this change of view started with the huge disaster of Sony BMG's DRM based on a rootkit. Now only others need to follow and listen to their customers instead of fighting them.

I might conclude with a slightly modified version of the quote of Elton John:

Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the music industry.

But since I need them for getting my audio CDs I guess it's more appropriate to conclude with a quote of one of their managers named Irving Azoff. Unfortunately I found this quote only used by somebody else as conclusion of a preview of the music industry in 2010 and have no idea in which context Irving Azoff used it originallybut here it goes:

When all the changes are done there will be still music.

Update: Universal joined the party

The Univeral Music Group has announced to sell some of their music without DRM - at least for the time being. And Amazon followed short after EMI what I missed at that time.

There is always insufficient information ...

2007-07-15T05:39:00.000+02:00

From a long experience on several mailing lists and forums I can tell you there is (nearly) always insufficient information. So thanks go actually to Andrew Stevens for the name of this blog. I laughed sooo much about his post on the Cocoon users list.

But what makes a post actually a good post?

1. Have in mind there are no dumb questions. Even if it has been asked a hundred times. This only means that the answer might be hidden too much in the documentation (a problem the Cocoon documentation suffers from a lot). The users must be taken seriously and so their documentation needs. If the code gets an end in itself the project will get obsolete. So listen to the users.

2. That's actually more a 1b. RTFM. Really, please try to solve an issue you have first on your own. Read the documentation, reference, manual, whatever it is called. Search the mailing lists. Use Google or your search machine of choice. Rarely that issue hasn't occurred before (though somebody must be always the first one obviously). Even if you can not solve the issue on your own having read the documentation will help you to understand (and later explain) the issue better.

3. Give your post a meaningful subject. "Help" is not a good one. Any mentioning of "urgent" is useless, you won't get your answers faster. Don't waste people's time with reading stuff they are actually not interested in.

4. Give context to your issue. Maybe you are trying to achieve something in a completely unusual way - if not even a dead end. Since nobody might have tried it that way and can't help you with your actual issue they might know alternative solutions or workarounds though. It makes it also easier to try to understand your issue.

X. Use an appropriate way of writing and styling your post. You should only post in plain text to mailing lists. That's not because all developers are purists, it's a matter of readability in the mailing list archives. Reading a HTML-mail in the archive is like reading the HTML-source of a web-page - or even worse since < and > are often escaped to < and >.
In forums it's the other way around. Reading code in variable-width fonts is really hard, not to forget that the code loses its indentation since the whitespaces get collapsed in HTML.

XX. To be completed ...