jcbrunner's history annex

Hi, this thread is intended as a discussion and annotation space to my non-fiction reading for the stuff that doesn't fit into the shelves and is relegated to the annex. What can you expect to see? My reading is mostly history (military history, social history, institutional history, art history) with a focus on 15th/17th century Europe, 19th century USA and Imperial China. Besides history, there will be some popular science, sociology, economics and politics - mostly what catches my eye in the newspapers, magazines and The Daily Show.

I like to "cluster" my reading, approaching a topic from different angles (calling it a syllabus would be too grand, though). As a recent and ongoing example, my cluster on the ill-fated English king Richard III (whose cardinal sin was to die in battle):

• a visit to York's lovingly cheesy Richard III museum and Micklegate Bar upon which his father's cut-off head was on display - done


• watching the Channel 4 Time Team special TV documentary about the discovery of the true location of the battle of Bosworth 1485 - done


• reading Shakespeare's play King Richard III and listening to the great Ian McKellen's introduction


• watching the film versions of Richard III (1955) and Richard III (1995)


• reading Alison Weir's The Princes in the Tower (which is actually more of a biography of RIII than the title indicates) - done and Michael Hicks' gloriously illustrated biography Richard III

Later in the summer, I will read Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order and see whether it can stand up to Finer's monumental three volume History of Government (assisted by Demandt's Antike Staatsformen) in comparative history.

Finally, I am slowly building up an Imperial China cluster to go along my read-along of The Dream of the Red Chamber, Part I, Part II in the Ancient China group.

Which also triggered the necessity for this annex as the Jia ladies would be bored by discussions about Chinese and Dutch cavalry. This marks the end of the introduction and the start of the thread discussion:

For context, I will quote @mercure - 29: "The sea routes also have had limited cultural influence on China compared to the overland Silk Road. Twice China was conquered by peoples from the grasslands and raids were even more frequent. Chinese soil lacks the selenium necessary to breed horses. As City of Heavenly Tranquility states, the Chinese difficulty in establishing a cavalry was like “one side always had a monopoly on tanks”.

Just as Moscow started out as the place where the Russians paid their taxes to the Mongols, Beijing owes its origins to the place where the Chinese came to deliver their tribute to their uncivilised neighbours. It was a terminus at the junction of two worlds, where a finger of the vast north China plain points north and meets a southerly extension of that great belt of rich grasslands that stretches as far west as the Carpathian Mountains. The book also states the camel caravans to and from Beijing only ceased in 1909."

My - 30: "Where was the Dutch cavalry? Despite plenty of flat land, I am not aware of famous Dutch cavalry units. City boys and peasants do not make good horsemen. I cling to the strategic choice explanation: war horses have no dual use and require a gentry (thus, the Southern initial horseflesh advantage in the American Civil War). Imperial China produced bureaucrats not generals; and mostly cheap infantrymen. It also learned early that buying off enemies is much cheaper than any war (its conquests only happened during times of internal economic stress)."

Mercure - 31: "The Dutch cavalry? Ha, I think (modern) Chinese ladies are more interested in this opportunity. Actually, I wouldn’t know. It would be a question I should ask you. It is a matter of some importance right now, with the Dutch government proposing to sell all tanks and thus effectively ending the existence of the cavalry and moving the last remains to its own museum. I find it funny that you bring up culture here. Contrary to previous discussions, my first response would be related to geography. The Netherlands have nobility that indeed liked the cavalry (although on the other hand, I thought our peasant cousins in the Transvaal were pretty good horse men, which would somewhat falsify your theory). Still, if you think of it, almost all Dutch military leaders with mausoleums were admirals rather than generals. The only Dutch general of notice in Martin van Creveld’s Command in War is Maurice of Nassau.

Being surrounded by the great powers of Western Europe, the Netherlands are an accident of history. Rich because of its river deltas with access to the French and German hinterlands (Napoleon called it “une alluvion des fleuves français”), it was the territory the English, Prussians and French did not want the other party to own as it would destroy the balance of power. That was also the reason for the reunification with the Southern Netherlands at the Congress of Vienna and the return of colonies after the fall of Napoleon: it was supposed to make the Netherlands a stronger buffer state (luckily, French interference ended this in 1831 already). Being surrounded by far greater powers, the domestic army has always been defensive in character, and as of the 19th century the military were supported by a policy of strict neutrality equivalent to Switzerland’s.

Next to location was the organisation of defence. It was centred on the province Holland, the richest and most powerful part of the Republic and later Kingdom. You could say that the province of Holland is a “green landscape with plenty of water”, that was put to use through the Dutch Water Line and later also the Defence Line of Amsterdam, which remained effective until the 10th of May 1940. The inundation of farm land is a great defensive tool for a small nation of shopkeepers, because it costs next to nothing in terms of space and money when there is no war. It was also very effective (except for the winter of 1794-1795 when the French invaded and all the rivers were frozen) until the Luftwaffe and the German field artillery made it obsolete. The water lines are now an interesting bicycle tour. And yes, the province of Holland consists of mostly man-made land where nobility has had little or no role to play since the autumn of the Middle Ages."

So, there are three topics I'd like to comment on: Dutch infantry generalship, cavalry and tanks. I'll start with Dutch generals where I have a weakness for the less well known Marlborough sidekick Overkirk (his Dutch and French names are counterproductive to creating brand recognition: Hendrik van Nassau-Ouwerkerk, Henry de Nassau d'Auverquerque). I would also count the burghers of Kortrijk (Courtrai) among important contributors to infantry warfare with their famous Battle of the Spoors (neglecting the differenciation between Dutch and Flemish).

It is difficult to become world famous if one only leads small battalions - and the Dutch tended, as trading cities/states do, to underfund their land forces. If I read Geert Mak correctly, I think the Dutch infantry's main purpose was internal crowd control. The Dutch would have been unable to resist a determined German or French invasion (see the Danish example. In contrast, the Swiss probably over-invested in its military. While they too would have lost against either the French or the Germans, the cost-benefit analysis made it an unattractive target - mountain warfare tends to bleed occupiers dry.).

Re cavalry: The Transvaal riders would be classified as mounted infantry. Their effectiveness in large part derived from their not acting like traditional battle cavalry (The Union in the US Civil War also created not cavalry in the classic sense but mounted infantry, which it then idiotically dismounted again in the Indian Wars that followed.).

To sum up, good cavalry needs: suitable terrain, a good supply of specially bred war horses and a pool of dedicated riders. In both the Dutch and the Chinese case, both didn't want to create tough cavalry forces - out of opportunity cost (in the Chinese case: cheap infantry, usable also as peasants/colonial developers) and out of opportunity threat: During the Taiping rebellion, the bureaucracy feared the creation of efficient (but uncontrollable) units. Like any dictator, they prefer numerous but weak (replaceable) generals.

Re tanks: Like warhorses in the late 15th century, tanks have reached a difficult position on their cost curve. Hugely powerful but terribly expensive, armies can only field limited numbers of tanks that in the event of their use can be knocked out quite cheaply by a combination of a few technicals (jeeps) equipped with mines, missiles and rockets. A tank will still be able to dominate its battle space and inflict tremendous casualties on its opponents but is faced with the risk that one lucky shot will destroy a huge capital investment. Getting rid of tanks is a good idea. More bang for the buck from lighter systems.

This sounds really interesting and I'll be keeping an eye on your thread.

Thanks.

It is intriguing to compare Richard III to the dwarf Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones (great novel and TV series). Both Laurence Olivier and Ian McKellen did not include the king's putative but probably unhistorical deformity. Tyrion is certainly smarter (but less powerful) than Richard III.

Speaking of July books, I also look forward to anthropologist David Graeber's book Debt: the first 5000 years. Debt as the forerunner and inverse of capital, an "obligation" that creates a "bond". Much of mankind's development happened in a non-capitalistic world.

>2 Samantha_kathy::

JC, I would not consider myself an expert in military matters like so many people on Librarything. I don’t even know much of the Dutch military track record, but I can give you some general observations on the Dutch military.

You had already copied my response about the peculiar position of the Netherlands in between three great European powers (Britain, France, and Prussia). First of all, when I checked Jonathan Israel’s The Dutch Republic and the website of the Dutch Ministry of Defense (that has a brochure in English also), I found that beyond the Water Lines there was a chain of defensive fortress towns mostly to the east of the province of Holland. However, you also need to keep in mind that the terrain is the same as the province of Holland’s in many of the other provinces. What struck me when I read the Ministry’s website was that they mention the economic circumstances in every period of their history. Cashing in on a peace dividend is ever recurring, and neutrality has long been its policy tool. That and alliances with Europe’s greater powers were the ways to survive (Gallia amica, non vicina was the long-term motto according to the Defence Ministry, which reminds me of the Dutch minister of economic affairs who sighed in an interview that France was a great country, but unfortunately full of Frenchmen). The Dutch consider themselves a hybrid of merchants and religious ministers. A martial mindset is not always part of the portfolio. Reputedly, Churchill considered Queen Wilhelmina “the only man in the Dutch government” during the Second World War.

The Dutch nation came into being during the Eighty Years War against the Habsburgs, that ended with the same peace treaty as the Thirty Years War. It was the time of these defensive fortress towns rather than inundations. Armies were small (10,000 – 30,000 men with 3,000 cavalry men) due to “budget constraints”. As the source of wealth was sea borne, the stress on the admiralty was a logical one. The Dutch have a force of marines since 1665, and that must be one of the oldest in the world.

Still in 1672 the Dutch managed to pull it off against the combined land and naval forces of Britain, France, Münster and Cologne. It would be followed by a long period of long slow decline, although the Republic raised about 100,000 men for Nine Year War and the War of the Spanish Succession (and the most profound alliance the Dutch may have ever concluded was to make Stadtholder William III King of Britain, and attract Britain into its conflict with France). The root cause for the Republic’s decline was in the rise of industry and mercantilism elsewhere in Europe after 1720. The Dutch empire was too small to sustain its wealth independently. And not unlike European Union today, the various provinces quarrelled among each other most of the time and often voted in their own specific interest in the States General. The Republic managed to maintain neutrality during much of the 18th century, but you will see interference of Prussia in the conflict between the House of Orange and the Republic’s regents. The French occupation was also the time of obscure military conflicts like an Anglo-Russian invasion. You may get a taste of the occupation’s global effects from my review of Een Nederlander in de Wildernis about a descendant of Holland’s Scottish troops.

Dutch forces against Napoleon were led by the Prussian trained crown prince. If I am not mistaken Wellington considered him brave but not very experienced. I would probably be more interested in Général Baïonette David Hendrik Chassé’s biography if it existed. After the Ten Days’ Campaign against Belgium and France in 1831 the Dutch enjoyed peace for over 100 years. Immediately, forces were cut to 20,000 men with matching cost cuts on weaponry. German unity and the Franco-German war of 1870 somewhat increased spending. The same happened after the Nazis came to power. The army was indeed used against rioting in Amsterdam, but I don’t think the good burghers rioted very often, and it may have been a secondary purpose.

This however was also a period of expansion in the Indies were the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army fought a series of wars to maintain and expand the colony to a Pax Neerlandica (the Dutch page lists all armed conflicts). These wars are probably more like the wars a Western army may face in the 21st century than the conflicts of the Dutch Republic or Waterloo. The colonial wars were smaller in scale (“expeditionary” in character), and/or were anti guerrilla wars in character. Three major ones come to mind: the Java War, the the Aceh War, and lastly the Police Actions after V-J Day. The various Wikipedia pages may guide you to the military leaders. I doubt if there are any books that cover these wars in any detail beyond ones in Dutch and sometimes Indonesian. Even the Wikipedia pages mostly use 19th century sources.

In terms of military leaders, by far the most (in-)famous was general Van Heutsz of the Aceh War. This favourite of Queen Wilhelmina was honoured with monuments in Amsterdam, Batavia and even one in Aceh itself (I also love this photograph). I have reviewed (in English) De Atjeh-Oorlog, a standard work on this long term guerrilla war that is in some ways quite reminiscent of the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan: it started for the wrong reasons, had everything to do with oil, and included a battle for “the hearts and minds” against an enemy under ever more Islamic influence. Incidentally, van Heutsz’ son joined the Waffen-SS and died near Munich in 1945. Meinoud Rost van Tonningen, another son of a Dutch Indies general (of Bali “fame”) was another important nazi. Of the Police Actions, I have reviewed De Eenling (originally written in French) about Captain Raymond Westerling, another controversial figure with a life that would fit a Hollywood movie. He has been the subject of an opera already and a movie is in the making. The Police Actions were the largest Dutch army ever raised, when basically a whole generation of young men was sent to the other end of the world. It must have been like Vietnam without drugs and high-tech weapons, but equally impossible to win.

The current proposal to terminate the cavalry has to do with the end of the Cold War. In the NATO doctrine, the Dutch were supposed to slow down the Soviet Union in case of an attack on northern Germany until the arrival of the Americans. They had over 900 tanks for that. Now that Russia is no longer seen as a threat (and Poland is probably considered a new buffer state unofficially), the termination of the cavalry can be seen as again cashing in on a peace dividend as well as the realisation that an army will most likely be used in small conflicts, among others in failed states like Afghanistan. Another purpose to cut less on air power and the navy is the defence of Dutch territory in the Caribbean, among others against Hugo Chavez. According to an interview with Robert Kaplan I attended, the Dutch submarines are the part most valued by the Americans.

So if we would have to put our hope on a general now, it would be David Petraeus, whose father was a Dutch immigrant.

>4 mercure:

Thanks for mentioning Debt: the first 5000 years. Until its appearance, you may want to peruse A history of interest rates that also starts pretty early in history. I have yet to read this standard work (Wiley books are expensive).

I have never had occasion to be exposed to the above information {interesting in its own right} but while reading a book on the Krakatoa volcano eruption {I forget the exact title} there was frequent mention of the Dutch East India Company. I found the company fascinating with its world wide information gathering agents etc.

>5 DugsBooks: You probably mean the one by Simon Winchester, Krakatoa. Incidentally, one of his books I have yet to read. In July, I will finally receive his new paperback book about the Atlantic which I ordered last summer based on the Bookdepository's faulty meta data (The Bookdepository's meta data about the Debt book is currently also wrong.).

>4 mercure: Before starting the Debt book, I should give myself a push and finish Reinhart/Rogoff This Time is different. Their critical debt ceiling level has come under scrutiny recently.

Thanks for your summary of Dutch military history. What always puzzles me is that the Spanish, French and the British/US tried to conquer/liberate the Netherlands on a South-North direction, against the grain so to speak. The Garden part of Market Garden was doomed thereby.

The Netherlands was the main European access point for the Spanish colonial goods. In the late 17th century, both trading partners were in decline. Germany was only slowly recovering from the 30 Years War catastrophe and the Spanish Empire was already moribund (exemplified by its feeble minded king whose demise triggered the War of the Spanish Succession).

1794 saw the later Duke of Wellington learn the tools of the trade in the Netherlands. His damning conclusion: "At least I learned what not to do, and that is always a valuable lesson." Russia, enjoying its new position among the big powers, loved to send its troops abroad. In 1799, they even hiked across the Swiss Alps. Later on, they would visit Paris.

I didn't know about David Petraeus' Dutch roots. Perhaps he can entice some of his former superiors and colleagues to a visit to The Hague ...

Which brings me to the warmonger Robert Kaplan. The second link (after his Wikipedia page) for googling "Robert Kaplan Iraq War" leads to an old Glenn Greenwald blog post: "In November, 2001, he (Kaplan) attended a secret meeting (along with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria), organized by Paul Wolfowitz, for the purpose of producing a report for President Bush on Middle East policy which, among other things, outlined all the great reasons why we should invade Iraq. Thereafter, both Kaplan and Zakaria became two of the country's most enthusiastic pundit-advocates for invading Iraq, without ever revealing their participation in Wolfowitz's meeting."

Doctors take the Hypocratic oath and are faced with medical malpractice. Foreign correspondents/consultants, unfortunately, can, despite a track record of being wrong most of the time, continue in their expert status and mislead the public. The evidence is in on the reliability of the "expertise" of Robert Kaplan, Fred Kagan, Tom Friedman etc. In a sane world, where Henry Kissinger would not be a foreign policy doyen, nobody would listen to, trust and employ them.

>6 jcbrunner::

The things that puzzle you, JC… Not everybody tried to conquer/liberate Holland from a south/north direction. There is the aforementioned Anglo-Russian invasion that started on the peninsula north of Amsterdam. And there is of course In the German invasion of 1940 that came from the East. You will certainly note the appalling state of the Dutch army being “inadequately armed by the standards of 1918”.

If you have a good map of Holland you will see that the area that is easy to inundate and full of rivers that need to be crossed is the land west of a line from Bergen op Zoom in the Southwest to Coevorden in the Northeast. Here the land is below sea and river level. The terrain to the South (and East) is mostly easier to navigate. This is also where you find this string of fortress towns. The Wadden Sea in the North is easy to defend, because there are few waterways available for ships. The North Sea Coast in the West can be patrolled by the Dutch and any allied navies and requires amphibious operations (it is easier at the point where the Anglo-Russian invasion landed). The Germans expanded the Atlantikwall (the English text gives no information about the Atlantikwall in Holland) by fortifying the dunes and by knocking down about all fishermen’s villages. This included Zandvoort, once beloved by your city’s favourite empress.

The lakes and dykes can make conquest difficult, and there is no better example than Kornwerderzand. Some tried to attack in the Southwestern river delta, e.g. in 1809 during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but many troops got sick of diseases like malaria. In 1944 the Canadians were more successful on the same island.

Terrain must have been the rationale for the Germans to use paratroopers in their attack on The Hague and Rotterdam, the latter having started before the Germans started city redevelopment somewhat prematurely.

Did Fareed Zakaria do this? His programme on CNN is about the only American TV programme I occasionally watch (besides MTV Cribs). Compared to much of the noise that comes from across the Atlantic he seems like a voice of reason. And he has great guests, who’d often deserve more time than the five minutes they get to produce some sound bites. I am really disappointed.

Kenneth Rogoff is one of Zakaria’s regular guests. I have This Time Is Different in front of me. On page 288 it mentions Greece and Portugal as candidates for “graduation” as of 2008. How things can change. I am very worried about some of the signals I read about the euro zone, e.g. the two G7 conference calls last week about Greece and the things Trichet was saying today. I cannot find much about a critical debt ceiling in the book. As far as I know it is not a number you can calculate. The Japanese manage to run a large debt to GDP ratio, because they have positive balance of payments and borrow all the money cheaply from banks offering savings accounts. America has the reserve currency advantage for as long as it takes. And if you finish the book quickly I’d still recommend The Holy Grail of MacroEconomics for a look at “balance sheet recessions”, as it is what the US is experiencing. Still I doubt if Koo’s medicine would work. And in terms of the Greek crisis, I see a lot more opinions than figures. I sometimes feel officials have become pundits too.

>5 DugsBooks::

I hope you liked the information. The wars mentioned were all after the Dutch East India Company had gone belly up in 1800. The Aceh War and the book De Atjeh-Oorlog is also of interest, because the war (and particularly the need to build trust through a hearts and minds campaign) was discussed by the Dutch military for the operation in Uruzgan, Afghanistan (although David Kilcullen was more important), with its somewhat atypical 3D approach (Development, Diplomacy, Defence).

>1 jcbrunner::

In terms of a Chinese cavalry, I looked it up in China Marches West, although it is not directly the subject of the book. Still, it states that

The Chinese learned very early the critical importance of the supply of horses to military success. The first clear account of the use of mounted men in China appears in the story of Zhao Wuling’s adoption of nomadic cavalry warfare in 320 BCE. Efforts to obtain horses by other means than trade with the nearest enemy account for the first major Chinese expedition into Central Eurasia. Han Wudi in 104 BCE sent an army of thirty thousand men to Ferghana to capture the famous “blood-sweating horses” of the Ferghana Valley. This expedition failed, returning with only 10 to 20 percent of its men. The second expedition, with sixty thousand men, succeeded in getting the horses, but again the cost in men and resources was high. Only ten thousand men returned home

The need to obtain horses is a constant in the book until the Qing, despite that

The Tang were able to build a supply of up to 700,000 horses through an extensive breeding program but still had to rely on extensive imports from Samarkand. They traded large amounts of silk with the Turks to obtain them.

Hence I conclude that the opportunity thread you mentioned was not that relevant, but opportunity cost certainly was.

>7 mercure: In desert warfare (which these Chinese expeditions amounted to), size is often a disadvantage. A nimble force can apply pressure to the opponent's logistical tail (see van Creveld's masterwork Supplying War. Horses are actually quite inefficient carriers, outperformed by men in their carriage capacity vs. supply needs (see Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. The only advantage of horses is their speed, easily negated by huge army sizes. Roads simply do not offer the capacity to move such a force quickly.

The conquest of the Netherlands poses similar problems (thanks for your fascinating info!). My solution would be a two forces approach. A small strike task force that breaks through the defenses up to the main major city gates and a supporting siege train to complete the conquest. The limited number of approaches and the near impossibility to switch among them makes it easy for the defenders to choke lines of supply. A tough nut.

Fareed Zakaria only slipped in, because Greenwald mentioned him. Zakaria is not a warmonger, he is an enabler whose wet noodle questioning creates an atmosphere of kabuki journalism. What looks like an interview is actually a PR statement.

MTV Cribs? My eyes glaze over the lack of taste of these nouveaux riches Gatsbys (my entertainment center, my jacuzzi, my cars, ...). The renaissance princes had much better architectural and landscaping taste. What is actually interesting on MTV is Jersey Shore, a wonderful anthropological window into a strange subculture ... (a 21st century West Side Story?).

Koo's book looks so interesting that I will make a detour to the library tomorrow. Fingers crossed that nobody checks it out before me. Krugman is also a big promoter of learning from Japan's lost decade. Unfortunately, learning from foreigners is not one of mankind's forte (or Rapa Nui would have been a commercial success).

Krugman on Rogoff (NYT, July 2010): "Unfortunately, the Reinhart-Rogoff paper now being cited all over the place – the one that suggests that there’s a critical level of government debt, at around 90 percent of GDP — doesn’t follow that strategy. All it does is look at a correlation between debt levels and growth. And since debt levels are not sharp extreme events, there’s no good reason to believe that they’re identifying a causal relationship ... What bothers me here is that Ken is using the authority of a fine, careful empirical study to support policy recommendations that aren’t actually grounded in that study, and also happen to be at odds with his own economic models."

On Europe, I am not so bearish. The political reluctance comes from the realization that a permanent North - Club Med transfer perpetuates the misrule of the local oligarchy. Asking for austerity from the dirt poor Greeks is bad. These are the hostages of the fight whether the EU can force the Greek billionaires to contribute a tiny bit to their country's recovery. During the 1990s, the EU's Maastricht process managed to clean up many European budgets (Maastricht by the way cost D'Artagnan his life.).

Your description of desert warfare is confirmed by China Marches West. China could not escape desert warfare, because the grasslands reached all the way to Beijing, where they hit upon China’s heartland. As said China was twice conquered by the peoples of the steppe, but raids for loot or tribute were a more regular feature. Like guerrillas the raiders did use horses to move quickly. China could not escape fighting them. So you should consider it like a counter-guerrilla war in the dessert where you have to buy your mode of fast transport from one or more of your potential enemies. And yes, I should read more books by Martin van Creveld.

I have below average knowledge of Dutch and Dutch military history and cannot assess the best way to conquer Holland. I think the German approach of 1940 (multiple places of attack, use of paratroopers) was smart given terrain and the weak and dispatched defence. It seems like a certain win and the bombing of Rotterdam was chiefly meant to speed up surrender so the troops could be reallocated to the attack on France. The Allied approach to bypass the North and the West of the Netherlands and aim directly for the German heartland seems equally wise. The northern half of the Netherlands remained in German hands until the 5th of May, 1945, although the humanitarian costs were very high.

If you look at the Eighy Years War, you will see that Maurice of Nassau used your approach

A small strike task force that breaks through the defenses up to the main major city gates and a supporting siege train to complete the conquest.

during the Siege of Breda of 1590 (I linked to the Spanish Wikipedia page, because it contains much more information than the English page). Peat was used for heating, and a boat full of peat (and hidden Dutch soldiers) was allowed into the city by the Spaniards. It is the Dutch version of the story of Troy.

Most of the time Maurice of Nassau resorted to traditional sieges, although he was an interesting moderniser of warfare. In that sense, also look up the homo universalis Simon Stevin, who started the use of calculations to assess the effect of guns and cannons, both for attack and for the design of fortifications.

Siege warfare is very expensive, so the economies of scale of a large empire like Spain’s must have been to their advantage. The Dutch were greatly helped by the capture of one of the Spanish treasure fleets to afford the siege of the strategic fortress town of Bois-le-Duc (Herzogenbusch in German), the best fortified town in the south of what is now the Netherlands. It required 24,000 soldiers and 4,000 cavalry men, partly from Germany and Scotland. Besides his professional army and precision volleys Frederic Henry also used one of the Republic’s best civil engineers to divert two streams and drain the city’s trenches (around the same time our Indonesian cousins of Mataram not only diverted rivers during their siege of Surabaya, but also poisoned the remaining water supply with forest plants, another interesting innovation). These sieges were not only massive military undertakings, but also tourist destinations. The king of Bohemia and the crown prince of Denmark were among the spectators.

Another approach of conquest would have been to surround and isolate the whole country. With its economy based upon transport, trade, and related services and its relatively sophisticated use of banking, the economy would quickly lose steam. This is what happened in 1672, although it did not bring the Republic to its knees. Even the might of France, Britain, and two German states did not bring the economies of scale to accomplish this.

I mainly like Fareed Zakaria’s programme, because it gives me an idea of what is hot in the United States. The items other than the round table discussions give the sound bites du jour. Oh, and you are absolutely right about MTV Cribs. I watch the shameless bragging in amazement whenever I zap past it. Unfortunately we do not have Fox News here on our cable network, so that remains a holiday favourite. It took me a while to figure out what I found so fascinating about it, but it is the constant fear mongering. Facts do not seem important at all. I recently read (and reviewed) Deer Hunting With Jesus that gave a coherent explanation about its target audience.

I am not so pessimistic about Europe in the longer term if we get past the current PIIGS problem in reasonable shape, but there seems to be a real sense of crisis if you catch the news items beyond the headlines about the Greek insolvency crisis. There is a lot of short-term nervousness in financial markets and among policy makers. I think that Northern Europe generally has its house in order and is relatively well positioned for the coming decade. Maintaining the euro would seem to require further fiscal integration of the euro area, and I do not know how that is going to happen. A multi national ministry of finance would require a democratically controlled process, and I doubt if Austrian, Dutch, Finnish and German voters will warm up to the idea of sharing that vote with Club Med citizens with a different mind set (although Austria seems strangely quiet in the current debate). I would not blame Greece’s problems solely on its billionaires. Corruption and a shadow economy are deeply engrained in all levels of society, and are supported by parasitical state and state corporations, with trade unions likely operating in the same manner.

I am also more pessimistic about the United States than about Northern Europe. Basically, the United States are currently trying a policy that is a mixture of fiscal (à la Koo) and monetary (à la Krugman) stimulus, but with very limited success. To me it seems Koo catches the situation better than Krugman. I occasionally read Krugman’s columns in the New York Times, but I am not impressed. It always comes down to increased expenses. He seems to me just another pundit. Equally Koo pays little attention to the long-term consequences of fiscal stimulus, both for the state coffers and for the mentality of the nation. Dogs and Demons may give you an idea about what happened in Japan. Both Koo and Krugman may claim that their policy is not executed thoroughly enough, but you may ask yourself if any form of financial stimulus can solve the issue, or will just make the problem more complicated. Some seem to think along the lines of structural adaptation to develop new industries requiring new skills. This will take a lot more time and pain. But it can be done, think Holland in the 1980’s, Finland in the 1990’s and Germany in naughties. It just takes at least a decade, and would probably also require a change in fiscal and immigration policy, among others.

The Dutch revolution is a topic I want to learn more about. First, though, I have to brush up my Swedish to read more about The Great Northern War. Currently, I am on a EU A2/B1 level of competence which allows me to read Swedish books at too slow a speed.

US TV as broadcast is unwatchable. Commercials with a bit of disjointed content thrown in. Smart consumers have long shifted to less disruptive environments that strip out most interruptions and make the content available at the viewer's choice. Sports and some political discussions are practically the only reason I turn the TV on.

Picked up and read Richard Koo. A good explanation of the Japanese lost decade. Don't like his soft solution. For my taste, he is too much a representative of the oligarchy. The correct solution to firms underwater is to fire its managers, nationalize the companies, reorganize, strip and sell their assets. Instead, the oligarchy reacted by merging these "too big to fail" entities into even bigger ones, propping up these sick beasts by endless public money.

The American Civil War also created a balance sheet recession in the South. Stripped of their main assets, the planters took decades to recover.

Krugman is a centrist technocrat (only in the deranged US environment can he be labeled as leftist) who has an impressive track record. Krugman only advocates monetary expansion because the sensible fiscal option of investing/replacing the crumbling (crumbled?) US infrastructure and going green is closed by Congress.

(I wouldn't be so hard on the Greek population. During my last visit to Athens, I was shocked at the existing level of poverty and inequality. The gap to Western standards was huge, the institutional limitations not helping in closing it. Basically, the old story of development economics: Big ticket show projects (EU flags plastered all over the place) amidst a sea of barely hanger-ons.)

Also picked up Dr Doom's Crisis Economics, which has an outstanding Huxley quote: "the charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different." An idea wonderfully executed in the 1980s French animated children's history series Once upon a time.

Finished the outstanding book by Dr Doom, Crisis economics. Its under chapter title allusions are hilarious (e.g. when markets behave badly, government and its discontents, the center cannot hold, dealing with derivatives). Now, I have read two book over the weekend but not the one originally intended.

Reinhart/Rogoff's table 6.6 is intriguing: Since 1800 (and up to 2008), Greece spent half of her time in default. Spain is the winner in the number of default with 13 times (23,7%). Italy, by contrast, is almost a saint (1 default, 3,4% - the Netherlands clocks in at 1 and 6,3%). Giving gifts to Greeks is expensive too.

The Great Northern War is a thing I know nothing about. Beyond Shöwall & Wahlöö and Lego and Ikea, Scandinavia is a terra incognita full of mosquitoes and expensive drinks to me. Europe has too much history. For the Dutch Revolt, I’d say Jonathan Israel’s The Dutch Republic is the best start, because it continues beyond the Revolt to include the country’s contribution to art, philosophy, and the likes. I have to admit I still need to read it myself, just like I need to read about Vienna’s fabulous contribution to how we view the modern world. I know the books and some I even have already. I just need to find the time to read them.

I read your review of Crisis Economics and gave it a thumb up. Does the book pay a lot of attention to parameters of crises in general? Amazon gives no chapter overview, unfortunately. I thought the book was more about the 2008 crisis only, and I think I have enough other books about that one. I am however always interested in the long-term view (not good for one’s career). I am not yet sure if Dr. Doom is more than a pundit with a fine taste in women. He got the crisis of 2008 right, but that does not yet make him more than a pundit. There are always hundreds of parties expressing opinions, and although these opinions may be skewed in terms of the bell curve, there’s always someone prophesying correctly, particularly in the shorter term. And for pundits it is always more important to have an opinion than a correct opinion. Without an opinion you don’t make the news, it is “publish or perish”.

Richard Koo is working for a bank, so he is not completely neutral either. And I do not agree with your solution that corporations under water should be nationalised. The central bank should enforce realistic assessments of outstanding credit by the banks in an early stage, so the companies can go bankrupt and the healthy parts can be bought out. If you can still do that if the rot has gone as deep as in Japan is another matter.

Nationalisation can have nasty effects, particularly in countries with high levels of corruption, where the ownership may end up in the hands of incompetent cronies (which would not necessarily happen in Japan), or lead to lots of influence of politicians and trade unions that will cause the companies to remain uncompetitive, a typical problem of the Latin world.

Only banks may be nationalised, because banks are part of the economic plumbing and different rules apply to them. This I would consider the standard approach, and it is what the Dutch government did in the case of Fortis/ABNAMRO. At the same time as nationalisation new management was installed. ING was not nationalised, but had to pay a heavy fee for financial injections and guarantees at the expense of share holders. At the same time management was changed at the requirement of the government. ING has to sell a lot of assets, which it does in America, not in Europe or Asia. Interestingly, ING’s problems were mainly caused by American legislation. The Americans required investment of savings in the US, and ING put that into ALT-A mortgages.

I don’t think I am hard on the Greek population if I think that Greece has a solvability issue. A solvability issue means that just increasing taxes etc. will not work. Greece should reduce outstanding credit and increase its tax basis, rather than taxing the poor sods who cannot evade taxes like everybody else. Besides hair cuts, credit can be reduced by a Brady Bond construction, but it seems the Germans are very much against it. It makes it all the more clear that the whole operation is not only meant to save certain banks, but also certain governments (France and Germany in particular). But I’d better be careful and not become just another pundit, e.g. by claiming that the sale of state-owned companies may turn them from loss making burdens on the treasury into profitable corporations. Tomorrow we can see how the drama unfolds. Paulson’s On the Brink would be an interesting companion to the show. I have seen The Inside Job, so I know that Paulson’s CV is not immaculately clean, but this is a good summary of what happened during the Lehman crisis. Additionally, it gives you a good understanding of the legal framework of authorities, the lack of consolidated data, and a few other such issues. Actually, the ECB uses exactly the same argument for Greek govies as the US Treasury used for Lehman collateral.

The American Civil War also created a balance sheet recession in the South. Stripped of their main assets, the planters took decades to recover.

Inflation is a twentieth century phenomenon. Before the twentieth centuries people were used to inflation and deflation, and deflation did not stop all economic growth. You might want to take a look at the Herengracht Index (here is an extensive rundown), which shows you price development at a prime real estate address corrected for inflation and measured over a period of 300 years. Its value has never been higher than in 1736. In the long run real estate prices after inflation have grown with a measly 0.2% p.a.

At least this brought the theme back to history.

The Great Northern War marked the rise of Russia as a great power and the end of Sweden as a European power player. Most battles and campaigns (apart from the Denmark-South Sweden theater) took place in Eastern Europe. Dreams of empire led to feverish costly campaigns into the middle of nowhere, protecting and conquering places of no value.

The local Danube mosquitoes are fierce bloodsuckers too, especially those in the National Park below Vienna ... Regarding the Viennese contributions to the 20th century, what took place in Vienna prior to WWI is only half the story. It continued in the United States where Viennese and Budapester Jews invented and perfected social phenomena (public relations, advertising, marketing, economics, radio, music, psychology, ...). An integral history has yet to be written. Similar to the Spanish expulsion of Muslims and Jews in the 16th century and France's of Protestants in the 16/17th century, Germany and Austria destroyed a major part of their growth engine.

Crisis Economics is targeted towards the general public, thus prior crises are only marginally touched upon, vignette style. It is really a book to drop into the lap of politicians. The world would be a better place if all members of Congress were required to read it in a cram session.

Its chapter titles are (my summary in parentheses):1 The White Swan (crises are not black swans) 2 Crisis Economists (Marx, Schumpeter, Keynes, ...) 3 Plate Tectonics (leverage, deregulation, contagion) 4 Things fall apart (illiquidity, de-leveraging) 5 Global pandemics (non-decoupling in crises) 6 The last resort (FED and its options) 7 Spend more, tax less? (fiscal policies) 8 First steps (Wall Street compensation reforms, regulation reform) 9 Radical remedies (more reforms) 10 Fault lines (US-China current account troubles, what to do) Conclusion (do the stuff I told ya, but it seems unlikely) Outlook (doom everywhere soon).

If a crisis can be handled without nationalization, I am more than happy for such a resolution. The problem with non-nationalization is the socializing of losses and privatizing the gains (as happened in the US, and seems the likely outcome in Greece). Major haircuts are the best solution but are stopped by powerful interests. After all, these investors received risk premiums for many years.

The crisis is very much one of banana republics with toothless regulation, incompetent bureaucracies and laws only for the little people. The crisis confirmed what Katrina already has shown: The Reagan revolution turned the US into an emperor without clothes. The US is just the largest of the PIIGS, with the key difference that its huge debt is denominated in its own currency. As the US saving rate is too small, it is entirely dependent on foreigners wishing to own US debt. We are truly living in interesting times.

Watch the entertaining Too big to fail for a less positive take on Paulson (Do Americans really use so limited a swear vocabulary? The French and Italians are much more creative in that matter.). Just like the institutions guarding against 9/11, Katrina, etc., the FED and the Treasury were asleep at the wheel.

The Herengracht index is marvelous. I'd love to read a micro history about the street through the centuries. See one of my favorite books, How Buildings learn, for illustrations about how streets and buildings change with time. The Herengracht time series shows that post war years hurt house prices the most.

The inflation after the Black Death in the late 14th century created major inflation that hurt economic development and led to many revolts in the almost capitalistic parts of Europe (among them, Ghent). It also paved the way for the slow destruction of many nobles on fixed income rents.

Accidentally, I am about to get to the Great Northern War in De wijze koopman, the at times fascinating biography of the Amsterdam merchant, mayor, diplomat, geographer and multiple Herengracht home owner Nicolaes Witsen, a story of an earlier stage of globalisation. Witsen had a trading business with Russia and occasionally consulted the czars about geographical matters in their own country. Peter the Great stayed in Witsen’s house when he worked as an apprentice on a shipyard in Amsterdam. Witsen maintained an ever more detailed map of “Tartary” and wrote a “labyrinthine” book about it that also included passages about Persia, New Guinea and Australia. I am now at the point where the czar’s envoy has come to Amsterdam to buy ships and muskets, so the Great Northern War has not yet started. Witsen was a point in a fascinating network that seems to have spanned the globe, but that concentrated among others in Amsterdam’s nepotistic corporate and governmental elite. You see a massive concentration of (international) talent and money and a thirst for knowledge, if only because it was considered good for trade. It was claimed that an Amsterdam trader should strive to become a mercator sapiens, but that environment also gave us Rembrandt, van Leeuwenhoek and Spinoza.

So it must be a bit like Vienna in the first half of the last century. Ha, you forgot architecture in your list of accomplishments! Richard Neutra’s buildings seemed to me quintessential American modernism, until I learned that he was actually born an Austrian. For the rest you are absolutely right. After the loss of life, Europe’s loss of brain power caused by the Second World War must have been a major set back for the continent’s development. Is there a biography of a family with a pivotal role in Vienna? I was thinking of the Wittgensteins, but maybe there are better examples.

Thanks for the update about Roubini’s Crisis Economics. Maybe I should still read his book. It seems that Europe has managed to kick the can down the road by potentially making Greece even more insolvent. In terms of improved taxation, which is something Greece certainly needs, there are historical precedents for the idea to outsource the management of taxation, say to the EU. Something equivalent happened in China during the Qing dynasty, when it also outsourced its Maritime Customs Service. From The Rise of Modern China:

Prince Kung appointed Horatio. N. Lay as inspector-general of customs on April 6, 1861, charging him with the duty of “exercising a general surveillance over all things pertaining to the revenue, of aiding the Chinese superintendents to collect the revenue at the various ports, of preventing frauds upon the revenue, and the standing sponsor for the good conduct of the foreigners engaged in the Customs Service.” .

Lay refused, but the Ulsterman Robert Hart accepted. The system worked not only because the tax was relatively low, but also because the service was orderly and predictable. It helped trade to take off. It financed all kinds of undertakings for the the state, including industrialisation and building a navy and railroads. The system remained in place until 1950.

Concerning the American swear vocabulary, perfidious Albion claims it is indeed less impressive, as you may appreciate from this older FT article:

From the tens of thousands of newspaper articles, blogs, corporate presentations and Twitter messages being analysed every day, MarketPsy builds a picture of investor feelings about 6,000 companies. When emotions are running high, the hedge fund steps in and trades. MarketPsy is tiny by hedge fund standards, but it is at the cutting edge of behavioural finance, the intellectual offspring of psychology and economics.
(…)
For now, MarketPsy trades only US stocks, as its linguistic analysis cannot cope with the irony and insults on British message boards and blogs.

Regarding attacking Fortress Holland, I saw another user of Libarything adding this Osprey book about the capture of Walcheren.

>14 mercure: My reading took my a bit to the south of Zeeland to Zeebrugge and The Blocking of Zeebrugge, a famous British naval night raid of WWI where they pushed a cruiser against a mole, similar to a medieval siege tower. The follow-up raid against Ostend failed miserably, perhaps blinded by the bleak ugliness of that sea-side resort. Never make the mistake to travel from cozy Bruges on to concrete Ostend ...

Neutra is great. Marta, Herford, a new German architecture and design museum in the middle of nowhere (90km from Hannover) I have yet to visit, had an exhibition about Richard Neutra in Europa: Bauten und Projekte 1960 - 1970 (no copies on LT), whose catalog I intend to buy after I have cleared a bit of my architecture reading backlog. There is also Rudolf Schindler who has built wonderful houses, but I couldn't stand the traffic noise in LA. This strange architecture film about Rudolf Schindler includes the background noise of the places filmed, a steady rumble of American traffic, which most cities in Europe manage to avoid. I couldn't live without quietness.

I've read that the best solution to tax collection problems are automatic transaction taxes. A fact medieval towns knew very well. Modern "fermiers" I see as part of the problem. Activities done with "imperium" should be performed by imperial i.e. governmental institutions.

About Vienna, the beauty of it was that it was decentralized and flourished in many fields (music, painting, decoration, furniture, philosophy, economics, political science, literature, medicine, ...).

In my Richard III cluster I have now read Daughter of Time, which instigated most of the modern "rehabilitation" project, but was disappointed. It is an early Da Vinci Code, fiction masquerading as fact mixed into fiction.

Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (1996) suffers from the Pacino's ignorance and unwillingness to do his homework. He blunders about live in front of the camera, dumbing things down unnecessarily. It is an insult to both his audience and to Shakespeare if he thinks he has to "correct" the G (George/Gloucester) to C (Clarence). His idea about the superiority/correctness of an actor's feelings clashes with a fact finding mission. Overall, a fun but self-indulgent project that pales in comparison to Ian McKellen's intellectual involvement.

Laurence Oliver's Richard III (1955) is very theatric. I love its tableaux vivants. Despite its limited number of actors, it achieves a great effect in composition. Laurence Olivier as Richard III is wonderful too, although it reminded me of Ian Richardson's Francis Urquhart (F.U.), which uses a similar technique of audience asides. A big mistake were the battle scenes in the dry Spanish landscape. Where is England's green and pleasant Land?

Ian McKellen's Richard III (1995) has a marvelous cast from Sir Humphrey to a young McNulty to Maggie Smith (who apparently has always been old even in 1995). The filming locations are stellar too: Tate Modern and the art deco Senate House. What doesn't quite work, is its breakneck speed. At only 104 minutes, many good lines are missing. Give me an extra ten minutes. The battle scenes don't work so well either. A minor point is the use of too modern tanks. The early ugly mid-1930 tanks would have contributed mightily to its weird steampunk look. The major reason why the battle scenes don't work is a change of the leadership role from the charging heroic leadership to the bunker-style leadership of today (see Martin van Creveld's Command in War. Richard III charging on his horse feels completely natural. Ian McKellen in a jeep? Totally unsuitable. While today's leaders love to play warrior dress-up (from Independence Day's pilot president to Bush's codpiece appearance), modern wars are directed from the war room. While the film ends on a hint of Kubrick, it does not match its consistency.

In London, by the way, Kevin Spacey is currently playing Richard III under the direction of Sam Mendes. A whiny, mid-life-crisis Richard III?

>13 jcbrunner: I forgot to mention Stewart Brand's six-part documentary about How buildings learn which can be watched on Google Video. In the same techno hippie vein, I am enjoying Richard Sennett's The Craftsman, a nostalgic look about the disappearing skilled workers. In the first part, he hasn't yet discussed the extreme surplus created by standardization and automation. In my view, it isn't mechanization that dooms skilled workers but the ever increasing power to program tasks. The maker only produces the objects that make things. For this creative design task one doesn't need the number of hands necessary in production.

Finished and returned This Time Is Different. The book's tables are gems, the text is, from a current point of view, rather conventional and will not hold up well with time. What I am missing is the political dimension that are so important in creating the crises. It is the changing elements of politics and regulation., that create the illusion of This Time Is Different. Bookdepository informed me that Graeber's Debt book is on its way to me.

In a completist vein, two books by Simon Winchester have already arrived. The new paperback about the Atlantic and a used copy of Outposts about the remaining specks of the British Empire around the globe. In the introduction, he is all praise for the British Empire: "Comparisons between the practical aspects of living in almost any one of them, and of living in countries once ruled by rival Empires, nearly always tend to favour (all chauvinism aside, though I would not blame any reader for doubting me) whichever one was once directed from London. Compare, for example, the courts in (formerly British-run) Malaysia with those in Indonesia, where the Dutch so long held sway. Post a domestically bound letter in a village outside Bombay, and compare its progress with one similarly mailed in a town near Tijuana."

Perhaps one should send some colonizers to improve the current Royal Mail performance ... I love country comparisons. The classic example of Dom Rep/Haiti features prominently in Jared Diamond's Collapse. Recently, there was the interesting finding that the bureaucracy of the Habsburg Empire was less bad than its neighbors, an effect that still lingers on today.

Mercure, given that Winchester fingerpoints at the Dutch and I know nothing about Indonesia and Malaysia (well, TV Sandokan excepted), is his view basically correct?

I would not rate myself an expert in comparative colonial history, and even know very little of the subject. So here are just a few observations.

First of all, Indonesia is indeed more corrupt than Malaysia. Particularly the court in South Jakarta is known for decisions as damaging as they are hilarious. If you check Transparancy International (for what it is worth, some countries like Singapore target such lists with their policies), you will see that Indonesia is at number 110 with a rating of 2.8. Malaysia is at number 56 at a rating of 4.4. That, by the way, is higher than Italy’s at position 67 with a rating of 3.9. At the same time you will see that Burma, also an Indianised country in Southeast Asia but formerly a British colony, stands at number 176 with a rating of 1.4. Equally, the former Australian colony of Papua New Guinea (a neighbour of Indonesia) stands at position 154 with a rating of 2.1. If we look beyond Southeast Asia, we may focus on places like Zimbabwe and Kenya that have been long under British rule and that perform appallingly in this matter.

Elderly Indonesians have told me that they may have preferred independence, but that certainly the Dutch were not or hardly corrupt, and that they found developments in their country disappointing. If we compare Britain to the Netherlands on the Transparancy list, we see that Britain scores the 20th position with 7.6 points, and Holland number 7 with 8.8 points, which in itself does not say much about corruption during colonial days. The two books I have about the history of the Dutch East Indies have no separate subject about corruption in the 20th century. But let me quote from A Borrowed Place, about Hong Kong:

Unease about police corruption had been expressed since the inception of the colony, but after the Second World War the practice settled into a generally accepted and comfortable pattern. (…) An anti-corruption office was established but since this itself was part of the police force organisation its member were not encouraged to manifest too indiscreet an enthusiasm for their task. () Colonial complacency was shattered only when in 1973 it was discovered that one of the most distinguished veterans of the riots (…) had been on the take to the extent of several million dollars

As reasons for Malaysia’s superior performance other reasons may be given. Led by a man with much greater understanding of rhetoric than of economic development, Indonesia obtained independence in 1945 or 1949 depending upon whom you talk to. They did so after the ravages of Japanese occupation and a guerrilla war against the Dutch (when Dutch guns were sold to the nationalists, so there was embezzlement and corruption). The great Indonesian general Abdul Haris Nasution (the only theoretician of guerrilla warfare that led both a guerrilla and a counter guerrilla campaign, which makes me want to read his book Fundamentals of guerrilla warfare) was keenly aware of the consequences of such a conflict on those involved. Malaysia also had problems with guerrillas, but not to the extent of Indonesia. The country only obtained independence in 1963, which gave Malaysia more time to train cadres and to perceive the chaos across the Java Sea. If we would compare Indonesia to India, another country with a huge population, than they are much closer. India stands at position 87 with 3.3 points, closer to Indonesia than Britain to Holland.

Another comparison can be made in the Guyanas, where the former Dutch Guyana does better than its neighbour former British Guyana if you look at per capita GDP. Suriname is a nice example of how difficult decolonisation is. After the abolition of slavery in 1863 (much later than Britain, indeed), very quickly the Dutch school system was introduced. The Surinamese had and have a relatively high level of education. Elections were held since 1945 and self government was introduced in 1954. Independence was granted with a dowry of USD 1.5 billion in 1975, much to the envy of the president of Guyana. Suriname’s well educated middle class did not trust its own leaders and left en masse for Amsterdam and The Hague, and within five years Suriname had a military dictatorship. The return of democracy has led to alternating cheap populism and spending cuts, and continuous corruption and nepotism. At least Holland got great football players for its investment.

I reviewed Michael Backman’s Asia Future Shock. On page 124 he praises Burma for its “legal system based on English common law”, and on the next page moans about “outdated, obscure Dutch colonial laws” in Indonesia. It is what a friend of mine calls “business class lounge chatter”.

So I would say there is limited a proof for Mr. Winchester’s thesis beyond that it sells books

…

You are right about the content of This Time is Different. The text concentrates on the difficulty of maturing as a creditworthy country. Right now we see mature countries (Italy, the United States, Belgium) getting in trouble. It would have been nice if the policy causes had been added, but you probably ask for too much for one book. If we look at the countries currently monitored, then the causes are manifold. Ireland and Spain have banking problems related to a real estate bubble, because their national debt was/is relatively low. Iceland had a banking problem because of lax regulations. Portugal and Italy combine high debt with lack of economic growth, at least in part because of regulation that stifles economic development. Greece has that too, but hid it by cooking the books for a decade. Belgium and the United States have political problems. Ireland and the United States have a taboo on rising taxes for some reason. All other euro countries never realised that they may have to bail out the whole northern Mediterranean. The Dismal Science always surprises.

Thanks, there is something rotten in the states not Denmark. To find corruption is just a matter how deep one is willing to look. Glenn Greenwald's upcoming book "With Liberty and Justice for Some" will be a depressing and futile read. Austria's 1980s contribution to the topic, Tango corrupti. Currently, one former Austrian finance minister who has been caught in numerous schemes (the more harmless cases include him personally transporting a attaché case filled with 500.000 EUR from Liechtenstein to Austria) will probably escape unpunished. Ranked 15th, Austria can count itself among the less corrupt ones.

The shocking revelation of the decade is the institutional rot of trademark institutions. Scotland Yard open for pay for play at minimal sums no less, UBS doing on-shore off-shore banking (an act so plainly stupid and illegal that one wonders how its management manages/d to avoid jail). There was a great graphic that showed the dismal erosion of equity of Swiss banks - at the beginning of the 20th century, following the principle of risk avoidance, these banks were flush with reserves and equity. Now, marked-to-market, their balance sheets are stretched (EUR/CHF spiking isn't helping).

Ad Italy, Belgium, Spain and US: The crazy element is that most of these states were going in the right direction during the 1990s (decreasing their debt burdens, starting on fiscal discipline, Clinton surplus!), only to see a new generation of complacent to reckless politicians (Schröder, Chirac, Bush, Berlusconi) and regulators undo it all. Anyone driving around Spain, Florida in the mid 2000s could see an unsustainable real estate bubble. The general incompetence of the regulators and the legal system is startling too. From the California energy crisis/Enron to Italy and Greece grossly lying to Eurostat/ECB to the US torture turn, the institutional wet-ware has been exposed as highly vulnerable to internal and external attack.

The US senate reminds me of Poland's liberum veto. A few filthy rich corrupt leaders blocking their country's future. The number of countries with limbo locked politics (US, Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, ...) is growing. The art of the possible sees little progress. Where are the big projects that advance society?

The shocking revelation of the decade is the institutional rot of trademark institutions.

Gillian Tett had an interesting column based upon The Social Animal by David Brooks two weeks ago:

an important shift has taken place in relation to the concept of “self” – and “self-importance” – in American society (if not the western world more generally). In the first half of the twentieth century, (…) Americans were generally reluctant to talk too much about themselves, or promote themselves too aggressively in public. They were also cautious – or modest – when assessing their own skills.

In the 1960s, a significant change occurred when psychologists in particular, and society more broadly, started emphasising the “individual” rather than society. More recently, this cult of individualism has metamorphosed into a new obsession with the self and self-esteem, if not full-blown narcissism. “In 1950 the Gallup organisation asked high school students: ‘Are you a very important person?’ and 12 per cent said yes. They asked the same question in 2006, and the proportion was 80 per cent,” Brooks said.

Ms. Tett observes that

A nation that has become hooked on high self-esteem tends to take dangerous risks. It is also less willing to endure discipline or listen to advice, and is more fractious and friction-prone. Indeed, he blames this narcissism for a range of problems in modern American society, ranging from falling educational standards to political polarisation to the credit bust (essentially the argument is that borrowers were so over-confident that they failed to manage risks).
That might be overstating it. After all, the credit bubble had plenty of tangible causes too, and it is worth remembering that self-effacing Japan also suffered a devastating boom and bust in the 1980s. But the crucial question is whether there is any way to prevent this darker side of narcissism, other than demanding that everyone goes back to church – or enters a boot camp. Brooks did not offer any easy answers in Aspen; perhaps that will come in his next book.

Of course this does not only apply to the United States. You can probably see that in any block of TV-commercials in the world, and certainly in the country where I live. I could also point at the rise of populism in Europe, which seems partly a product of the emancipation of the lower middle classes. Another reason might be the tired state of elites since the great restart that was the end of the Second World War: they are not capable of big projects anymore.

We may ask ourselves why this has happened. In the 1970’s 1980’s (public) television and radio here had lots of programmes about “people’s rights” and assertiveness. Assertiveness has become a trait of “professionals”, the decade’s buzzword for people in the service industry who spend too much time in meetings (and I am one of them). The service industry is the most important segment of the economy in the developed world. Assertiveness is probably also an effect of rising wealth and choice (so I reject Ms. Tett’s church argument, particularly when applied to the United States were religious competition is plentiful). People with greater wealth tend to value privacy more.

Another factor might be economies of scale, which have made individuals’ roles often more anonymous. As somebody with a diploma in economics (albeit never used), I should point at the effects of another economy of scale: the increase of the money supply that started in earnest during the reign of Ronald Reagan. Reagan is credited with restoring America’s confidence, but he did so on the cheap. The money supply has not only created “frothiness” in the allocation of the money (it made every home buyer in quite a few countries - including my own - a speculator), but accumulated in institutions with lots of bargaining power. The documentary film The Inside Job is full of great examples. Globalisation is also a factor in the increased bargaining power of large corporations over workers and governments.

Ad Italy, Belgium, Spain and US: The crazy element is that most of these states were going in the right direction during the 1990s (decreasing their debt burdens, starting on fiscal discipline, Clinton surplus!), only to see a new generation of complacent to reckless politicians (Schröder, Chirac, Bush, Berlusconi) and regulators undo it all.

Berlusconi might be stopped soon, but across the Atlantic they still live in a different world. Fiscal discipline was enacted during Bill Clinton’s term as president, at the requirement of a Republican majority. That majority did not care about fiscal discipline at all during the presidency of George W. Bush, when the idea seems to have been that it were better that the Republicans spent it than a Democratic president. The motivation seems to be tactical, as Martin Wolf showed when he looked at the US deficit:

But in the 2012 budget, it is forecast to be $1,645bn (10.9 per cent of GDP). 58 per cent of this rise is due to unexpectedly low revenue and only 42 per cent due to a surge in spending, both of these changes mostly due to the financial crisis, not the modest stimulus package (about 6 per cent of GDP). The astonishing feature of the federal fiscal position is that revenues are forecast to be a mere 14.4 per cent of GDP in 2011, far below their postwar average of close to 18 per cent. Individual income tax is forecast to be a mere 6.3 per cent of GDP in 2011. This non-American cannot understand what the fuss is about: in 1988, at the end of Ronald Reagan’s term, receipts were 18.2 per cent of GDP. Tax revenue has to rise substantially if the deficit is to close.

Regarding my remarks on Simon Winchester, I was reminded of a column of Simon Kuper about Christine Lagarde:

The Economist, house magazine of the global Anglophone elite, called her “a superb communicator, a good negotiator and, by all accounts, an excellent manager”. Note which phrase came first. Lagarde is a woman for our times. To make it very big nowadays, speaking English usually isn’t enough. You need perfect English. (…) most people who speak Globish – the simplified, dull, idiom-free version of English with a small vocabulary – can triumph only inside their own countries. Nicolas Sarkozy, who speaks Globish, can run France. That’s his limit. This matters, because the national sphere has become the second tier. Status and money are flowing to the bankers, executives, novelists, thinkers, and politicians who make it internationally. (…) Globish is no longer enough. When you speak Globish, your IQ as perceived by others drops approximately 30 points. In Globish, it’s hard to say anything subtle, funny or surprising. And Globish-speakers cannot mimic how the Anglophone elite talks. Lagarde has that down pat. In the speech I heard, she discussed a column in an American newspaper, invoked Adam Smith, teased France for its arrogance, and argued for entrepreneurs and free trade (albeit regulated). In short, she talked like an American. Her command of English went beyond language.

Simon Winchester’s version of the truth will reign in this era, I think.

Oh no, not David Brooks, peddler of half-truths and sloppy thinking - quick, bleach my eyes, please. Here's Krugman with the latest Brooks smack-down. Most of the NY Times columnists are hard at work at dumbing America down by either writing novels or distorting facts. I haven't heard about Ms. Tett before but the column you linked to is not promising at all. Her life at Versailles must be oh so stressful. If these clowns did research, they would stumble upon a certain Mr Walt Whitman who declaimed, in a poem called "Song of Myself", "I celebrate myself, and sing myself" (a classic renaissance idea, by the way, but Brooks and co. want mankind to return to the Dark Ages, restored to the self-inflicted level of ignorance).

Church is the ultimate narcissism, giving up the world to care but for your own soul: Swiss 15th century saint Niklaus von der Flüe left his wife and ten children to become a hermit. As usual, Brooks arrives long behind the curve. Watch for instance, the 2002 BBC documentary The Century of the Self.

America's schools do just fine if you exempt the Gossip Girl legacy brats and the bottom forty percent who often are suffering from food deficiencies and obesity. Learning is hard if you are hungry and your teachers are paid less than office assistants. Creating fake self-esteem is a band-aid to cover a festering wound of under-investing in education, training people from a young age on never to look at certain facts (the old religious strategy of happiness in the afterlife if you keep on believing. Tinkerbell, Tinkerbell).

The Economist, house magazine of the global Anglophone elite - Haha, a little FT inside joke. The Economist wishes this were true, desperately sucking up to the US plutocracy. I still have a subscription but it becomes harder and harder to justify given the exodus of intellectual firepower.

Lagarde is a woman for our times. Indeed, an Anglophile corporate lawyer lobbyist, just the change the world needs now. Her command of English is exceptional for someone of her generation who learned foreign languages as a funny sounding version of their mother tongue. Fluent English is, I think, standard among younger educated Europeans. Dutch and Scandinavians probably have larger English vocabularies than their native counterparts. For US reporters and talking heads, Lagarde is great. No need for a translator and no mumbling during interviews. US tolerance for foreign accepts is so great that even British films have to be remade.

One of the crazy aspects is that for most Englishmen and Americans, language learning is a one-way street (and people who actually speak foreign languages fluently are relentlessly mocked). To truly understand problems, however, one has to understand the local language. The 1.000 member strong US embassy in Iraq with but a handful of Arabic speakers is a key example. If the guys from IMF and the World Bank ventured beyond the Hilton Hotels (and actually did their job), their reports would match reality much closer.

Gillian Tett is a journalist for the Financial Times who wrote a reasonably interesting book about the use of derivatives and CDO’s in investment banks called Fool’s Gold and the 2008 crisis. You would probably enjoy it (I have to admint that an acquaintance was interviewed for the book).

I did not know who this David Brooks was, and I still don’t know after reading the column Paul Krugman linked to. Or David Brooks’ lemma on Wikipedia.

It seems that Paul Krugman is now firmly in the camp of Richard Koo: government spending is all that matters to bring the buzz back into the economy. This despite that America’s economy has grown with 1.7% between 2007 and 2010, which is a pretty good result if you’ve just gone through the worst recession since the Great Depression. Like Koo, Krugman seems to think that fiscal expansion only exists if it goes up and above the current GDP-level. That is a way to look at things. I think a more traditional definition of fiscal expansion is simply more government expenses. And if the government needs to borrow, then that leads to more debt and more interest payments. If spending keeps rising that can be dangerous if bond rates are low: if bond rates start rising the interest payments may rise very quickly and cause great pain down the road. This is particularly the case if the population is aging. What Krugman shows is that the “automatic” stabilisers work, which is good for American citizens. It is also beneficial for society, because it stabilises demand and justly reduces the fear factor in economic life and stabilises corporate and private income and balance sheets. Actually, I had expected that the US had spent more money supporting the Freddies and the Fannies than it seems they have done. Mr. Krugman does not even mention them.

But simply pumping lots of money into the economy, just like Helicopter Ben ultimately would flood the economy with digital dollars, is another matter. Throwing money around makes no sense unless it is used for investments that create a greater return than its costs. America’s crumbling infrastructure seems a possibility, and investment in education often seems to work. Such projects may reduce structural problems in the US economy. But that is a long-term approach, which probably does not even need that much extra money. Mitterand’s first cabinet just gave more money to citizens. It was spent, much to the pleasure of foreign exporters. It did not help France very much. But then again, maybe This Time is Different. I am no expert on things American.

Fiscal stimulation has longer-term consequences. Japan now has a deficit of twice its national income while its population is aging. It only can afford this because so many Japanese keep their wealth in domestic savings accounts. With the number of retirees increasing they will start consuming these savings, and rates may go up. Exports may rise less with fewer people working in export industries and services. I wonder how the Japanese will solve that conundrum (using inflation that will blow away debt as much as the remaining savings?).

I don’t see what the fuzz is of some negative growth in the economy. Yesterday’s newspaper reported that we had the “highest average reduction in purchasing power” for 25 years here. They were talking about 0.5%. It may fall some more in the aftermath of the crisis. There were no protests and it was not a theme at the corporate coffee machine.

Thank you for the tip about The Century of the Self. I'd say you betray yourself as a good old Calvinist with your criticism of this Catholic saint. Personally I thank the church for giving us Dietrich Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Matthäus Passion. Bach still fills churches with white washed interiors with this divine music in godless Amsterdam.

You are absolutely right about the linguistically challenged Anglos and Americans. Just like it remains fun to say loudly in an American petrol station that their petrol is so bloody cheap, I love reminding Brits and Americans that most people in the world speak at least two and if they have a bit of education three languages. Most people speak a local/regional language and a national language, and often a smattering of English or some other language. This is different in Latin countries like Italy, France, and Portugal. The ultimate Latin countries however are Britain and the USA.

Equally I thought HBO was making TV series about boobies in Ancient Rome with English actors, because their accent sounded so interestingly exotic and antique? If they remake British movies, it is because of that hard to cope with the irony and insults (see message 14), I thought.

I fear you will not be able to convince me about FT's money honey Gillian Tett, someone who continues to argue for the self-regulation of banks even after the crisis and pushes the conventional wisdom of the Very Serious People. She is not as disastrous as Amity Shlaes, whose ignorant columns were quite embarrassing for the FT's reputation. In today's FT, she writes "In that sense, then, the art of predicting the path of rich “developed” market debt is starting to feel more and more like the “emerging” market world. It is an irony indeed." Apart from the fact that this tragic not ironic, this shift can only happen because the media fails to do its job. Her whole column is filled with "both sides do it", when this is patently untrue. She even manages to insert an unnamed serious senior Republican, so serious that he insists on cowardly anonymity. She fits in well with the Aspen crowd, where failed old conservative ideas are stewed up. Davos, at least before it became a media event, tried to offer business leaders new perspectives and start discussions. A function currently performed by TED.

Brooks performs a similar role as Tett at the NYT. A mouthpiece for the conventional opinions of the people who buy the overpriced garish stuff in the weekend edition. Brooks is known for shoddy research and bad ideas, most famously for saying "Obama‘s problem is he doesn't seem like a guy who can go into an Applebee's salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there." Applebee's, a generic food restaurant chain, does not have any salad bars. Brooks, Friedman, Tett and co. pose as men and women of the people - they clearly aren't and they don't have their interests at heart.

In other news, it is unfortunate that Carmen Reinhart has joined the dark side at the Peterson Institute, the equivalent of the Exxon chair in Global Warming. I wondered why she joined the US deficit dead-enders. Ridicule (1996) about the decadent court at Versailles is the film to see about the unwillingness of elites to solve problems.

Debt The first 5000 Years has arrived (while Amazon.de messed up A Dance with Dragons (sending out 180 copies pre-release and punishing the others with a late dispatch.). The wide-ranging (a bit under-sourced) Debt has some great quotes: "(Medieval) China was for most of its history the ultimate anti-capitalist pro-market state." The developmental effect of the capital accumulating engine of the dead hand (temples) is well told. Temples and monasteries are great for kick-starting growth - but can become millstones for other actors. Incidentally, the creation of Switzerland owes much to the locals crushing the economic power of monasteries which called upon the Austrians to protect and defend their rights ...

About language and culture challenged Americans abroad. the reality TV show The Amazing Race is a guilty pleasure of mine (although I will never catch up with the number of seasons they churn out. My backlog is already around ten seasons. The 18th (!) will start in September.).

About UK remakes for the US market: The UK product does not meet the real customer demands. As one hour of content in the US is barely 40 minutes net, the shows need different pacing and dumbing down, as a six minute arc limits narrative complexities. UK TV also has an eye for grim social reality. In US shows, even minimal wage earning receptions such as Dexter's Rita Bennett have fairly large houses with plenty of spare time. The BBC's conscious decision to liberally mix races is also not matched by US network TV (House's Eric Foreman is a notable exception.).

HBO and Showtime film in the UK and Ireland because it's much cheaper, the actors more versatile and less botox'ed.

Zurich followed Huldrych Zwingli, so Calvinism is only an indirect influence on me. Calvin's unconditional election never made much sense to me. Wouldn't God be a sadist to arrange this Welttheater with fixed winners? It also does not mix well with the idea of mercy and salvation as promoted by Jesus. The main problem I have with churches, and the Catholic Church in particular, is their willingness to inflict huge human suffering to preserve minute points (such as denying the Hussites the Eucharist in both bread and wine) and the hypocrisy of absolution.

Bach is great but way beyond my mediocre musical comprehension skills. Listening to a concert in situ at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig was one of best musical experiences of my life. The architecture and the music unite.

I’d rate Ms. Tett’s remark that the developed markets look more and more like emerging markets is “ironic” as an example of proverbial British understatement. But if you compare her portrait on the cover of Fool's Gold: How the Bold Dream of a Small Tribe at J.P. Morgan Was Corrupted by Wall Street Greed and Unleashed a Catastrophe with the picture on
her FT-page, then she has obtained a glamour boost since she moved to America, potentially even with a bit of Botox. But it would be impolite to speculate about that.

The theme of her column was the different understanding of financial markets between Washington and Wall Street to express “a problem of political governance”. This gives the column a clear point of view. And I have certainly missed quite a few of her columns, but in her book she does not advocate self-regulation of banks, but a different kind of regulation:

What social anthropology teaches is that nothing in society ever exists in a vacuum or in isolation. Holistic analysis that tries to link different parts of a social structure is crucial, be that in respect to wedding rituals or trading floors. (…) In most societies elites try to maintain their power not simply garnering wealth, but by dominating the mainstream ideologies, both in terms of what is said, and also what is not discussed. (…) In recent years, regulators, bankers, politicians, investors and journalists have all failed to employ truly holistic thought – to our collective costs. (…) A “silo” mentality has come to rule inside banks, leaving different departments competing for resources, with shockingly little wider vision or oversight. The regulators who were supposed to oversee the banks have mirrored that silo pattern too, in their own fragmented practices. (…) Regulators have realised, too late, that they were wrong to place so much blind faith in the creed of risk dispersion. (…) Excessively loose monetary policy stoked the credit bubble. So did savings imbalances and poor regulatory structures. Those tangible deficiencies must be addressed. Central bankers need to pay more attention to the structure of finance when they set monetary policy. Regulators must monitor banks in a more holistic manner.

Not everything that comes from the elites is bad. But it is interesting to see how the European political elites try to defend their positions against the springtide of the bond markets. The financial newspaper here reported yesterday that the costs of Italy’s various parliamentary bodies was about one billion euro, and that they were exempted from any cost cutting measures just concluded. Equally, university professors often exploit their own market niches, particularly in economics and finance. You can probably invite Paul Krugman to your party for the price of two thirds of an average yearly salary plus expenses.

Debt The first 5000 years will definitely be in my next Amazon dispatch. I have yet to understand how temples can be great for kick-starting economic growth. Among earlier dynasties rich Chinese used Buddhist institutions to evade taxes (Buddhist institutions were exempted from taxes). I just cannot find the quotation so quickly. Religious tourism might be a regional economic boost, and temples may have businesses, like monasteries in Belgium brew beer. But that is all pretty limited in scale and not by definition better than private enterprise.

In the windswept flatlands behind the dikes there are a few places where orthodox Calvinists believe in predestination, but it certainly is not a mainstream idea among the remaining Protestants here. And unlike Hussites if they disagree they simply segregate and found there own church. It would take years of learning and drinking Dutch gin to understand the differences and the causes of the schisms.

I'm not opposed to improving British fashion sense and style. Walking through the streets of British cities, the fashion preferences do not differ much from those in, say, Romania. Only the upper class has a knack for either retro, business or modern fashion.

Re Ms Tett, I still think that her analysis you quoted misplaces the blame. The risk managers at Lehman Brothers cried out about broken risk levels (Their chief risk officer is now managing risk at the World Bank!). The criminal CEOs did not listen and even continue to increase their risk exposure. Thus, it is not the (inevitably) growing division of tasks and labor but a failure at the top to do their job.

Matt Taibbi has shown that the Goldman Sachs guys perjured themselves at the US Senate hearings. The Department of Justice or other agencies could easily put a lot of these CEOs behind bars (for instance ABS require that the assets be designated in time before the securities are issued, which was often not the case and can be easily proven by just looking at the documents. Clarence Thomas has for years misstated financial forms and failed to recuse himself. In any sane system, he would have been impeached.). The systemic corruption of government is the true culprit. The civil servant of yonder has been replaced by rent seeking carpetbaggers. And they continue to win: Stellar Elizabeth Warren, who has written tons of smart books about this, has just been pushed out of managing the new US Consumer Finance watchdog. I'd be interested to read Ms. Tett's opinion about blocking Warren. I'd expect milquetoast about those mean Republicans not liking her.

Debt (printed on shoddy paper) is great. Sometimes a bit too sweeping and rushing from India to China to Europe in only a few pages, but filled with thought-provoking statements. Basically, it is a reworking of Marx' doom of the capitalists. Math works in favor of the debt holders, so that in time risk takers all lose to the house. Debt in turn concentrates itself in fewer and fewer hands until it explodes and Leviathan steps in. The solution is for government to regulate debt and provide mechanism out of debt slavery.

This is enriched by a debt-focused look at history. Cortes' rapacity is seen as an over-leveraged start-up whose only mean of financial doom was massive asset stripping which created a circulus vitiosus of further asset stripping.

Monasteries (or temples), in contrast, are the ideal form to build settlements and communities in forlorn places (such Irish monks in 7th century Switzerland or the Teutonic knights in the Baltic). First, besides the financial ROI you have an immaterial ROI (Bruno S. Frey explains the art market similarly). Ventures become "profitable" at a much lower threshold. Secondly, everything stays within the monastery (no capital drain) and finally, the monastery acts as a clearing house for all transactions (thus establishing a Coasean alternative to non-existing markets).

A Coasean analysis also shows that with time and development, the formerly productive dead hand becomes leaden to competition. Usually, political pressures crush the economic power of the monasteries by either forced contributions or secularization.

Debt also explains one of the puzzles I couldn't resolve beforehand: Why did Ming China import all that silver? Basically, Ming China reverted from paper money to a silver currency. As China lacked a proper silver supply of their own, their need to grow their money supply in a booming economy forced them to massive silver imports. This also diverted huge inflationary pressures from Europe.

A Marxist analysis on shoddy paper brings back memories of the Cold War. But if the author of Debt: The First 5,000 Years states that

“The solution is for government to regulate debt and provide mechanism out of debt slavery.”

He is far from revolutionary. The city of Amsterdam has run its own pawn house as an official credit institution since 1614. It was meant to reduce the power of usurers. The institution is still around, and has gained some importance because of new immigrants. According to Wikipedia, Italy had equivalent organisations in the 15th century. A low interest rate also helps to reduce the burden of debt, and that is helped by low, stable inflation. Volatility only adds to the risk premium creditors will require. I think in Europe we see a trend where private loans are no longer tax deductible, and that mortgages are becoming less so, if the process is not yet completed.

A great example of the negative effects of increased credit are the big private equity houses, that often laden their “investments” with debt. If you look at their debt characteristics in terms of Altman’s Z-score, they are often reduced to junk status. I am sure the book will deal with that subject too. Cortes was not the only asset stripper; basically every thief is that by definition. Heck, how many noble families started off as “asset strippers”?

You are right, criminal CEO’s should be brought to justice, and why that is not done is an interesting matter. In a recent article here in the paper Eliot Spitzer stated that it was very difficult. The CEO’s are usually well “isolated”. Mr. Spitzer claimed it often takes a long time and you need to find the people lower in the organisation who did not get a big bonus and who may want to become whistleblowers. It is just that in the end the whistleblowers are often among the losers. Equally, the income differences between civil servants and the private sector are becoming bigger and bigger. It will not always be easy to find the quality staff required to fight against the quality (and budget) of the large corporations. Equally, civil servants may want to move over to these corporations to earn “real money”. An acquaintance sees this also as a problem for any public service organisation buying goods: the salary is much lower than that of the sales managers at the other end of the table.

But why look at America, if we can find some pretty questionable behaviour here in Old Europe? This weekend’s sloppy stress test gave us insight in the government bond holdings of banks like Banco Pastor. They hold as their safest assets bonds of Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Ireland. A superb combination! What is that central bank doing? Another interesting detail I found here:

A study by Fathom Consulting found that German, French, Dutch, and Belgian banks have insured much of their Club Med debt with Anglo-Saxon peers through credit default swaps (CDS) . Gross CDS contracts are $292bn on Italy, and $168bn on Spain.

You may wonder who is on the other side in the broker’s book.

Mote’s indispensable Imperial China (and only 970 pages of text!) deals with Chinese money during the Ming:

The Ming statesmen, however, proved to be quite inept fiscal managers. Within twenty-five years an ounce of silver, nominally equivalent to a 1,000 cash paper note, could be exchanged for 35 notes, and by 1450 an ounce of silver could buy 1,000 of those one-string notes. Finally acknowledging that the paper was useless and that silver had replaced it, the government announced that it too would pay salaries and collect taxes in silver or its equivalents. Silver wholly superseded paper as the standard currency for larger transactions.

The book then talks about the various sources of silver and the great supply that came from trade with the Europeans:

The vast increase in the amount of silver in circulation in China, although not evenly distributed throughout the country, made money more readily available, lowered the value of silver in relation to copper cash and to commodities, and greatly stimulated certain sectors of the economy, especially those supplying and serving the export of goods to the world market.

At the same time, China became subject to wider variations in the flow of silver out of Mexico and Peru; its ultimate transfer to China dependent on conditions in markets as distant as Manila, Mexico, Macao, and Madrid. Sudden shifts in factors quite beyond China’s control or understanding could cause temporary crises in its economy; something like that appears to have happened in the 1630’s, weakening China just when it was beset by disasters at the end of the Ming.

This brings back the old argument that the amount of silver and gold cannot rise with the growth of the world economy.

Further on in Motte‘s book:

Did the inflow of money enhance the means of acquiring wealth and elite status and give persons in the elite alternate options for gaining and enjoying wealth that competed with official career patterns? Late Ming consumption patterns were decried at the same time as being of unprecedented vulgarity; but we can also see that the social vitality of the later Ming was greatly leavened by the enlargement of choices and sustained by new levels of wealth. By that measure, the spillover into Chinese society from the world’s silver flow and commerce was indeed significant.

As you can imagine, I would rather not comment on the British dress style. It is only a notch lower than here. Tocqueville would probably link it to an instinctive distrust of social codes. I hope.

Ming China? I slowly worming my way through Chinese history via the Harvard Series (now also in PB at a very fair price). Will I manage to finish China between Empires next weekend or take another stab at Gulik's? I am about to complete The Craftsman. The first part is excellent, then he cops out. Instead of discussing the plight of the disappearing skilled worker, he sings a paean of quality and genius. Most don't need (or can't afford) genius quality nor are most skilled workers that good. The shoemakers disappear because it is simply cheaper to buy new shoes (automation/ec. of scale + unskilled labor) instead of repairing old ones ...

About the only good effect of Sarbanes-Oxley is the requirement that CEOs have to sign off pretty much every important piece of paper. In a post-Enron world, they wanted to ensure a big paper-trail. Any decent prosecutor should, with a little knowledge input from the organized crime unit, be able to put them behind bars. If only these prosecutors were as fast in charging CEOs, as they are now indicting Aaron Swartz. For downloading nearly the complete JSTOR archive, they want to charge him with 35 years of prison. Ah, JSTOR, such great collections, such rotten access policies: No, I don't want to pay 20 USD for a ratty scan from the 1960s and I am too lazy to walk to a library that has access to that particular collection. Thus, as often as not, JSTOR has successfully locked me out of knowledge for no gain to them. Bill Gates or some government should just buy them out and make the knowledge freely available on the net.

The European stress test kabuki is fun. They made sure that only the village idiots end up in the net, among them Austria's stodgy Volksbank (People's Bank) which a few years ago engaged mainly in collecting savings and offering credit to small businesses. The folly of the Basel II capital requirements meant that these quasi riskfree operations were penalized compared to treasury transactions or loans to governmental institutions. Wedded with the immature craziness of financing longterm loans via LIBOR/EURIBOR, these were disasters in the making.

Banking is all about local and customer knowledge. Why they ventured so far afield is anyone's guess. The shiny presentations of investment bankers and glamorous field research trips were helpful indeed. I once had a great finance seminar with an old Indosuez (now part of Crédit Agricole) Africa hand who explained the great lengths they went, the safeties and precautions they took before they lent out money in Africa (and probably still got badly burnt from time to time).

Debt starts excellently. How it effectively demolishes the standard economics introduction to barter and trade is a joy to read. I wish sociologists and economists would join forces more often. Their complementary approaches allow to create much richer insights.

Having just finished Manfred Zach's appreciative collection of anecdotes about the wonders of public administration, I wonder whether the US is purposefully testing the terrible alternative not cover in old Bismarck's saying "bad laws and good bureaucrats may work out. Good laws are no help against bad bureaucrats." ("Mit schlechten Gesetzen und guten Beamten läßt sich immer noch regieren. Bei schlechten Beamten helfen die besten Gesetze nichts.")

Reading a biography about the old Austrian fox Bruno Kreisky reminds me of the creative forces of government. Good government can improve people's lives so much.

Winchester's Outposts was enjoyable. I didn't know that Britain commissioned some rocks officially as ships. The Ascension Island sailed as HMS Ascension, Tristan da Cunha as HMS Atlantic Isle.

>26 jcbrunner:

Well, the European stress kabuki temporarily became a Noh play with the announcement of last week’s “comprehensive package” by Barroso, Papandreou, and van Rompuy. They must have been incredibly tired to present such an important “solution” in such a boring manner. Now let us see how the Americans will deal with their debt ceiling. The Americans should hurry, so we can return to euro-bashing in the markets: Italy and Spain have to borrow at far higher rates than it will get in return for Greece. But whilst all this satisfies the information junkie in me, I cannot call this situation fun. I wonder how many billions of (job) growth investments have been postponed by all the recent newspaper headlines. Another question we may ask is if the current global leadership is weaker than before, or that the world has become more complex? It is probably a bit of both.

I personally hope that Bill Gates will wait with buying JSTOR until my retirement, because I would really not have time to go to an office anymore once that source of information becomes available. And you are a privileged man if you can walk to a library that has that available. You seem right about using Sarbanes-Oxley: finally the red tape could serve a purpose. However, I’d expect any prosecutor would first need a reasonable suspicion before he can start using these documents.

You say banking is all about knowing your clients, but that is not necessarily local anymore. Many multinational corporations now hold more cash than Timothy Geithner, and many corporations and institutional investors operate on a global scale, requiring global services on the basis of balance sheets with astronomical figures that can only be developed by global businesses. It is not only Basel II that sets this preference for government bonds. The ECB accepts government bonds, but no corporate bonds as collateral, although many corporations now have better balance sheets than governments. At the same time the return on northern European government bonds is appalling, creating a preference for Club Med bonds. You saw this particularly with banks in the Club Med countries, although due to the absence of currency risk, such banks could have also opted for investing in a mixture of German, French, and Italian bonds, to give just an example. And the policy to attract short-term money is not just a habit of banks, but also of governments nowadays. With yields as low as 40 basis points you wonder if the income still covers the trading and custodian costs. I would have loved to have joined your seminar, and wonder what the safeties had been: diamonds in Parisian bank vaults, combined with the embassy building as collateral? Michael Lewis’ The Big Short about the MBS/CDO-market is a great example of the mimicry in financial markets that led to so much problems. Many parties were involved in the sale of such instruments, but only the final owner had an interest in the creditworthiness.

I am not too fond of the Harvard Series on Chinese history, because much of the content is thematic, and lags the overall story. I must admit I have read The Early Chinese Empires only. F.W. Mote’s book has the overview, and pays attention to themes, albeit often only a few pages. Mr. Mote was coeditor of various editions of the Cambridge History of China. I’d suggest Imperial China once you reach the T’ang above the Harvard series.

>27 jcbrunner:

You are right about the fact that economists should join hands with other scientists. E.g. when I studied economics it was taken for granted that people would always consume more if they had more money. Nobody asked if that were the case, and why that was. Spent: Sex, Evolution and the Secrets of Consumerism may give you some interesting answers from evolutionary biology. You could also use that as an argument in favour of (somewhat) higher taxes for higher incomes, e.g. in the United States. The products you can buy with more money still signal evolutionary fitness, and should not stop the proper functioning of the market economy.

Via that nifty tool of the Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog, it is easy to determine which institution has the necessary JSTOR access package. The only nuisance is to actually go there or have an acquaintance go there. JSTOR was a revolutionary idea that has become a roadblock to the future.

Perhaps I should read The Big Short as well. I loved his Liar's Poker. I am at the moment not very inclined to read about the masters of the universe, though.

One of my favorite books is Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly about the human predilection to continue idiotic policies. A close second it Dietrich Dörner's genial The logic of failure about how and why humans run computer simulated societies into the ground. Humans are terrible at discerning dynamic effects. Instead of concentrating on static measures (such as debt ceilings), politicians should care for growth opportunities. I never assumed that Obama would prolong and even expand many of Bush's follies. It is absolutely crazy that the elites in both the US and Europe ignore basic macroeconomics. The current prevalence of caretaker politicians who do not want to rock the boat is also a tragedy (as recently lamented by Helmut Kohl).

You're not that far off regarding the financing. Basically, third-party guarantees and foreign collateral as well as front-loaded priority access to the project earnings. The rule of thumb is you need "two straps and one belt", i.e. triple protection. The indirect costs of bad government are huge.

One aspect of instore book buying that doesn't quite work online is the "3 for 2" offer. While the "3 for 2" books thus cost about the same as online, at least for me, the psychological marginal cost of the third book is lower and I am willing to take a chance on a book, I am not while shopping online.

One such book from my Manchester haul (most of which I still have to catalog) was How to live, a wonderful biography of Montaigne and at the same time a good introduction to his work. I love the concept of a writer's tower w/ library which both Montaigne and Montesquieu had thanks to the family castle. In contrast to the often wasted space of open plan architecture, the protected space and the easy accessibility of a snug tower is enchanting (perhaps I find time to visit CG Jung's tower in Bollingen, Switzerland, in September). Montesquieu's tower suffers from very bad lighting, medieval walls and tiny windows be damned. Montaigne's is vastly preferable. On the other hand, Montesquieu's is closer to the city.

Finally read Frankfurt's essay On bullshit in honor of the latest outpouring of Poor Standards who assign those nice triplets according to Calvinball rules. The last years have seen a tremendous decay in the validity of social scripts. The increase in bullshit reduces legitimacy and social cohesion.

This is one of the points I differ with Graeber regarding debt. It is not only the state that upholds and makes debt possible. His advocacy of the state's primacy neglects the obligations of close but lose social nets (such as the mafia, Italian medieval banking families or Islamic Hawala) in debt relationships. Prior to the ABS scams, a retail bank wanted to meet and get to know its debtors.

As Graeber himself admits, the state alone is powerless in enforcing the debts of the have-nothings, making periodic clean slates/defaults a standard practice. If every debt relation requires the full attention of the state to execute it, society breaks down quickly. How to integrate the have-nothings (of London and elsewhere) and provide them with a stake in society will be the crucial question of the coming years. Europe doesn't have the "luxury" of the American practice of dislocating the poor from view and completely disenfranchising them from democracy.

Debt: the first 5000 years is on its way to the city of canards, canaux, canailles (dixit Voltaire). My reading has been a bit slow lately, in part because of all the infotainment offered by our political and financial classes. And although I do not have a tower where I can retire with my books, I had rather seen a bit of money spent on books than this mayhem. Multiple banks (Société Générale particularly, Bank of America has this court case) are now rumoured to be in a very bad shape, which may cause an equivalently dry money market as happened with the Lehman collapse. That is not a nice thing. I maintain a list of books I may want to order on amazon.co.uk, and I noticed that in many more cases than normal, Amazon reported that stock was limited to less than 5 books. It seems Amazon is keeping its cash in the bank, rather than that they invest it in stock. Not a nice thing to see.

I am not so sure if we should blame the current generation of politicians for not rocking the boat, or at least, not in the case of Europe. The problems we see in the euro-zone right now were created by Helmut Kohl and his generation of leaders. They created a single currency zone with very few safeguards against the differentiating macro economic policies we see today. There were rules, but almost no penalties for anybody breaking the rules. The Club Med countries have always resorted to reducing the value of their currency when their debt became too big. With the introduction of the euro, the currency risk was transformed into a credit risk on a sovereign. The risks were known, even at an official level. E.g. the Dutch finance minister protested repeatedly against the acceptance of Italy in the first group of countries that converted to the euro. But it was considered politically incorrect not to accept a “founding member” of a united Europe as one of the founding members of the single currency, a rather silly argument. It is wonderful to be visionary and even to implement it, but you are only truly great if you implement it completely. They have basically stopped at the easy part.

I tend to agree that politicians seem to understand little of macro economics. In normal times that is of limited importance (particularly not in countries that have a culture of high deficits). Another remark seen elsewhere is that there seems a shift in the skill set of world leadership. The 20th century was very much the age of engineers, as China’s political elite still is. Somewhere in the early 1980’s it became the age of economists, financiers, and bean counters. Currently, most leaders seem to be lawyers, people that learn to plead whatever case comes their way, as I learned so eloquently from The Myth of the Rational Voter:

to get ahead in politics, leaders need a blend of naïve populism and realistic cynicism. No wonder the modal politician has a law degree. (…) The electoral process selects people who are professionally trained to plead cases persuasively and sincerely regardless of merit.

Even the head of the IMF is a lawyer nowadays. Politicians use more and more spin, focus groups, etc. And the effect is a bit like modern day Hollywood movies: the level does not exceed the average adolescent (without offence to anyone).

In terms of macro economics, I think I am rather more in line with Kenneth Rogoff than with Paul Krugman, as expressed here:

The phrase “Great Recession” creates the impression that the economy is following the contours of a typical recession, only more severe – something like a really bad cold. That is why, throughout this downturn, forecasters and analysts who have tried to make analogies to past post-war US recessions have gotten it so wrong. Moreover, too many policymakers have relied on the belief that, at the end of the day, this is just a deep recession that can be subdued by a generous helping of conventional policy tools, whether fiscal policy or massive bailouts. (…) In a conventional recession, the resumption of growth implies a reasonably brisk return to normalcy. The economy not only regains its lost ground, but, within a year, it typically catches up to its rising long-run trend. The aftermath of a typical deep financial crisis is something completely different. (…) in a “Great Contraction,” problem number one is too much debt. If governments that retain strong credit ratings are to spend scarce resources effectively, the most effective approach is to catalyze debt workouts and reductions.

I wonder if there is still the opportunity to selectively grow the economy, or that governments will need to resort to financial repression. The Financial Times had an interesting article about the different approach to the credit crunch after Lehman between the United States and Germany.

"To some extent, over the past two decades, the US de-invested in the underlying labour market institutions."

The article is not complete in its argumentation. E.g. it omits the higher costs of firing staff in Europe, which in itself should also lead to more trimmed operations. On the other hand, I even say labour market institutions as we know them here in Europe do not fit into the mind set of America anymore. However, American trade unions seem to operate very differently from here. I do not think it is possible that workers are on the payroll of an automobile maker while just playing cards for years, as happened at General Motors. In Norhtern Europe they would have been laid off with full support of the unions. They would get a lot less income, giving them strong incentives to seek productive labour again. For a while they are at the costs of the tax payer. However, in America they were too, because their full ineffective salaries could be deducted from corporate tax.

I find it a bit crazy how Anglo-American journalists suddenly have rediscovered the merits of Deutschland AG. Not so long ago, the very same journalists slammed Germany for the same policies. After all, the distinguishing feature of the Merkel administration is not to rock the boat. It is also quite cheap to look to always well-managed and prosperous Bavaria for anecdotal confirmation and neglect to look to the parts of Germany that aren't working (Berlin, Meck-Pom etc.). Austria is full of German economic emigrants (as are its universities - the university of Salzburg has for the first time more German than Austrian applicants). Reforms are very necessary in Germany. It is just the case that Germany has not shot itself in the foot yet like the crazy policies pursued in the UK and the US.

That the FT has to rediscover that automatic stabilizers work and are a good practice is just sad. I think studying law is a good preparation for politics. The problems we are in is not due to the abundance of lawyers but to their failure to fulfill their professional duties and best practices/common knowledge (not interdicting/prosecuting torture, not applying the law). A whole range of professions (auditors, lawyers, judges, economists, etc.) were/are only nominally doing their job, failing their customers, their profession and the public.

Italy had a decade where they suddenly only paid German level of interest on their debt. Unfortunately, Italy squandered that opportunity for reform. It would have been quite easy to cut back the number of members of parliament (630!) and senate (315!) to a size that actually allowed dialog. A switch to lower rates now paid by all might have helped to get the shadow economy back into the legal one and removed the huge disincentives to work that exist in Italy. We will shortly see if the shock treatment currently planed actually includes sensible policies.

Today, I saw a great Antonio Gramsci quote on a poster in the city: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." (I didn't catch who financed this Communist indoctrination, though.)

About Amazon: I actually wish them to have low inventories. It would be ecologically sound if they copied Wall-Mart and installed Amazon service points at the big publishing warehouses. It makes no sense to ship books from the publisher to Amazon and then on to the customer if they can just send them directly from the publisher warehouse. I never understood why Amazon has invested so much in becoming a logistics company. The real profits are in digital products.

The only beef I have with them if I buy a book "available within 24 hours" that then turns into a game of three weeks waiting time because they did not have the book at their command.

I do not recall that the FT was very much against the European handling of the 2008 crisis, although probably some of its commentators were. If any Anglo Saxon newspaper recognised that Europe had more automatic stabilisers in its economic system, then it was the FT.

If I had the opportunity to go and study again, I would probably choose Germany, where student life is still nice and slow like it was here 30 years ago. Germans do not just study in Austria, they are also the largest group of foreign students in Holland (before the Chinese and the Belgians, although at 10% the percentage of foreign students is relatively low. In Maastricht the percentage of German students is some 30%, not that far behind Salzburg. Supposedly, the German students cause quite some friction here, because their Dutch fellow students consider them Streber. Dutch students don’t care much for high grades; they usually invest a lot of time in side jobs.

Germany may need reform, but Italy certainly needs it more. Lately, the financial newspaper here reported that the yearly costs of Italy’s parliament of 630 members was 1 billion euro. Even if it were a quarter of the amount, it would still be silly (although it probably includes pension payments for all old members). And for that amount of money, the Italian political system creates more entertainment than quality, according to this article:

It is clear at this stage that the problem of Italy is not only one of policies. The credibility problem includes those who should carry out economic policies. It is a problem of bad politicians over and above a problem of bad policies. And external pressure and conditionality can do little about it.

Incidentally, the Dutch government has proposed legislation to reduce the number of members of parliament from 150 to 100 (like it was in the 1950’s), feeling that it would be sufficient to deal with core issues and reduce the noise.

But if you read such articles about Italy, you very much doubt how Europe can re-organise the PIIGS excessive debt. I don’t think the German or the Dutch government would survive the introduction of Eurobonds, despite their advantage:

Replacing all national sovereign bonds (although not loans) with common eurobonds would create a market worth €5,500bn. It would be backed by governments that together owe less debt, run a lower combined deficit and have greater tax-raising capacity than the US and Japan. It would almost certainly lead to lower yields than the current eurozone average and virtually eliminate the possibility of a bond buyers’ strike.

The FT then gives the kind of advice French politicians would love:

Take the eurozone without Germany and its most like-minded partners – the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Slovakia. Also exclude Greece, which in any case needs special treatment. The remaining 11 countries can create a €3,500bn bond market with macroeconomic figures only marginally worse than those for the eurozone as a whole. (…) How would such a move go down in Germany? Economically, Berlin may find its borrowing advantage eroded if investors see an alternative euro-denominated bond market that is bigger and economically attractive. Politically, voters may fear being left behind by European integration even more than they fear becoming the paymasters of Europe. If so, the power is really in the hands of the eurozone’s other members. They should use it.

It is like the old adagium that if you owe the bank 100 thousand, the banks owns you, but if you owe the bank 100 million, you own the bank.

This week I finished Jacob Haafner’s Exotische Liefde, which made me think of our discussion about Simon Winchester’s praise for the British Empire. Jacob Haafner is a forgotten Dutch travel writer and merchant, who lived a few decades in India in the late 18th century. Born in Germany, he was an accountant in the Dutch factory of Negapatnam and Sadras on the Coromandel Coast south of Madras. The British conquered the area during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (which was partly rooted in Dutch support for the American War of Independence) that coincided with the Second Anglo-Mysore War, and Haafner was taken prisoner for one year. Haafner was strongly opposed to colonialism in general, including Dutch colonialism. But he was most angered about British colonialism in his “enlightened” age. In Exotische Liefde, originally called “Reize in eenen Palanquin” (i.e. “Travels in a Palanquin”), he talks repeatedly about British crimes against humanity and arrogant behaviour. E.g. in 1782 the British general Matthews sieged the city of “Onur”. The “diabolical white barbarians” killed not only the garrison, but also some 10,000 men, women and children. “The city was swimming in blood”. In “Omanpur” some 400 “young women and daughters” hid in a pagoda, that was opened by force by “monsters”, after wihcih the women were raped and killed and their gold and jewelry stolen:

In cruelty they exceed the worst barbarians.

Unfortunately, I could not trace the names of the cities back on the internet. Neither did I find info about the starvation Haafner reported in the city of Madras in 1782, where the British behaved "arrogantly" and with no understanding for the suffering of the native population.

Probably more interesting than his travel book is the history of his Essay on the Usefulness of Missionaries and Missionary Societies, written for Teyler's Theological Society (founded by the Mennonite merchant Pieter Teyler, who also financed the wonderfully quirky Teyler’s Museum in Haarlem). Haafner, ein feinfühlender Menschenfreund and penseur original et profond, argued that the best approach was to

try to Christianize the Europeans in the colonies and leave the local population alone. Haafner argued for the complete withdrawal of all imperial powers from their respective colonies.

Haafner still received the reward.

The FT is fine. Some times, I'd prefer the city arrogance towards the "continent" to be toned down a little and practice humility (ok, who am I to speak ;). All that posturing on "what Europe (or X) should do" isn't based on actual knowledge. It's quite strange (and then again not) to see the city advocate "heim ins Reich" advice. A virtual eurobond issued by the ECB (accepting bonds from the core group) might create a rival to US treasuries but would immediately offer the possibility of gaming the system either economically or politically. As the core countries are not faced with a refinancing problem, I prefer the signaling effect of nationally issued bonds. Sarko and Merkel are only partially motivated towards a European optimum; they play for national audiences first, if not their backers.

The dirty secret of legislating in Europe is that nowadays much of it is determined at European level. The national parliaments actually only tinker with it. One could easily abolish one parliamentary level (in Austria either the federal or the nine state parliaments). In Switzerland, member of parliament is a part-time job, which I think is the correct approach (experts formulate the laws, the parliaments cuts the necessary deals to make them into law - locking them into a room speeds up the process).

Studying in Germany is a Gumpian box of chocolates: There is a huge difference in quality and the system is filled with unfair distributional effects (based on history, location etc.). The humanities are terribly underfunded in Germany, while the technical universities bathe in money. The big change I would make, though, would not be at the university level but entering into one of those German combined apprenticeships that give you both university qualification (Abitur/Matura) and practical work experience (e.g. Bankkaufmann) at around 16/17 years of age. The people I met who had this formation were much more mature than their peers and could relate/apply the theories to their actual work experiences which multiplies the value of a university education.

The Germans studying abroad consist of, like any emigrant population, the top and the bottom of the curve. Averages stay at home.

Re empires, it is probably a case of van Creveld's low and high road to occupation. Subduing the local population with a tiny number of foreign troops requires the brutal use of the "big stick" in order to shock the majority into compliance. Combined with racist ideas that the "others" were barely human anyway, the massacres are to be expected as soon as the switch from the somewhat peaceful "trading" to the "conquest" strategy occurs. Reading The Scramble for Africa is both depressing and somewhat boring - occupying one spot after the other.

I am not particularly fond of Baroque Wunderkammern. Still, Teyler’s Museum looks very interesting. I've only been to the other Harlem.

Debt continues to be a delightful read. Ch. 5 "A brief treatise on the moral ground of economic relations" is both a good defense of communist aspiration (real communism not Soviet) and a good case that market transactions occur only under the conditions of (1) near equality and (2) separation. The two parties have to be able to meet at an equal level and also walk away if they cannot agree. I wish Graeber had an economics co-author. Then, he might have reached a true synthesis and not simply a claim about the supremacy of anthropology. Yochai Benkler's new The Penguin and the Leviathan: How Cooperation Triumphs over Self-Interest goes on my TBR. While his background is law, his contractual/network approach will be interesting.

Ch. 6 "Games with Sex and Death" is wonderfully weird. The strange rules humans invent to live together are a marvel. The idea of separating debts that can and can not be repaid is a good approach. Debt is all about power, an element Graeber has not fully touched yet.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer is informative, frightening and moving at the same time. Reading about how your own cells are starting to kill you makes me uncomfortable. Being reminded of one's mortality and helplessness is harsh. Vanitas! For a Baroque treatment, nothing works better than a visit to the Sedlec Ossuary near Kutna Hora, Czech Republic.

The FT is fine. Also, I don’t mind if some “City arrogance” shines through. It just clarifies its cultural roots. You may like it or not, but most of the important financial centres are in the Anglo-Saxon world. And if you deal with investment banks in the City your account manager may be from your country of origin, but often the credit analysts and risk managers are as English as greasy fish and chips, warm beer, and instant coffee (although the French banks seem to prefer their own breed to les roast beefs, probably because they can communicate more easily with their head office).

I also see no real solution for the PIIGS crisis. Eurobonds would take every incentive away from countries like Italy to clean up their mess. In the short run, the only solution seems to be that those that require some kind of support (temporarily) give up sovereignty related to their economic policies. It may not even be that unpopular, given the general level of dissatisfaction with elites in these countries. Eurobond debt levels decided by Brussels bureaucrats may only work until the next crisis, and if we put them to democratic decision making, we would have a large say of the PIIGS again.

I equally admire a combination of apprenticeships and a university qualification, for the same reasons as you give. We do not have that here, except for bachelor level education for the police and military. When I was in university I passed quite a few exams without really appreciating what I had been studying. But if you read Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior, you will learn that this isn’t really the purpose of a university degree anyway:

Harvard and Yale sell nicely printed sheets of paper called degrees that cost about $ 160,000. To obtain the degree, one must demonstrate a decent level of conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness in one’s coursework, but above all, one must have the intelligence to get admitted. (…) The Harvard degree is basically an IQ-guarantee

I recommend that book.

Teyler’s Museum isn’t really a Wunderkammer, but rather a museum of a museum, in the way I remember Vienna’s Naturhistorisches Museum from the 1980’s. It is still run by one of the three foundations erected by Teyler, and it still finances scientific research. In the 20th century it counted important scientists like Fokker and Nobel Prize winner Lorentz among its directors. As to Haarlem, I prefer the original to its American namesake. Not unlike Salzburg, Haarlem punches above its weight as a small town. Musically Haarlem is not that important, but it has some good art collections, plus enough cafés, and restaurants to relax when you come cycling from Amsterdam.

Regarding the development of colonialism in Africa, I have read another book than yours. I mainly recall from Verdeel en Heers (translated into various languages), that particularly the British government was often behind the curve when adventurers had already claimed another piece of the black continent for king and country. I cannot really relate your position about empires to Indonesia. Massacres occurred during the trading period as well (e.g. the massacre of Chinese in Batavia in 1740), and the conquest of Java was as much the product of skilful diplomacy as it was of military shock and awe. Racism was a factor, but not really that important, as even large parts of the colonial elite were “mestizos”. Racism grew with the arrival of Dutch women in the Indies. It reduced the number of relationships between Europeans and local women, and happened at the time when the Europeans came from an economically much more developed background.

I have started with Debt: The First 5,000 Years, but have no idea yet if it will really influence my thinking. Noting the first errors against economic theory, I agree the book could have been improved by an economics co-author.

This is just about the coolest thread I have seen ANYWHERE on the web for I don't know how long. You two have me fascinated! Keep it up.

Next round is on me.

Thank you for the compliment. It is nice to hear that others enjoy hanging out at my virtual Third Place (cf. The Great Good Place). Please feel free to join in. Instant coffee is prohibited though.

>35 mercure: For an anthropologist, he gets a lot of economics right ;)

You can't not be influenced by any form of communication (Paul Watzlawick channeling Heraklit - his Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein is hilarious and profound.). The two important messages of Debt so far for me are: 1. A fair debt relationship is a partnership of labor and capital, a shared venture where both have some skin in the game and want to see the venture succeed. Unequal debt relationships are unhealthy. If the bank always wins, it is exploitation. Graeber also discusses a third type of irredeemable debt to gods, family, tribes.

2. The importance of non-cash transactions in the pre-modern world. Charging to some tab and netting helped in a cash-starved environment (cf. the notorious cash-strapped spender Thomas Jefferson).

Harleem seems to be well worth a visit. I wasn't aware of the Dutch physics powerhouse and its steady delivery of Nobel prizes! You are sportier than me, though. Cycling 20 km to and 20 km back is at the limit of what I deem enjoyable, especially if one expects to spend enough quality time at the destination. Ages ago, I biked to some of the wonderful palaces in the Loire valley during August heat at the sweaty limit of presentability at the châteaux entrances. Don't believe Wikipedia's maximum temperature of 25 C!

Vienna’s Naturhistorisches Museum is finally trying to catch up to modern museum concepts, breaking from its stuffed animal storage paradigm. Currently, they are improving the dinosaur displays (but are unlikely to beat London's or New York's Natural History Museum). An annual tribute visit to the Fat Lady is mandatory. Personally, I prefer the leptosome/ectomorphic Cycladic art. The Vienna Museum will soon host a temporary exhibition about one of the NHM most infamous exhibits, Angelo Soliman - An African in Vienna.

Re PIIGS, Gerald M. Weinberg's First Law of Consulting is relevant here: It is always a people problem. The March of Folly will continue as long as the "madmen in authority" are not incentivized to change.

A major source of intellectual pollution emanates from Harvard University at least since the Russian privatization shenanigans where Harvard University and Andrei Shleifer forked over 25 million USD to pay off the US prosecutors. Naturally, they did not admit any wrong doing. Words you will never hear from a Harvard man "I am sorry" and "I was wrong". The other Ivies are much less affected. Harvard Business School's famous case study method is in practice a giant bullshitting (Frankfurt's terminus technicus) factory in selling half-baked ideas. Watch The Social Network to see Harvard men conning other Harvard men conning other Harvard men conning the public.

"The Harvard degree is basically an IQ-guarantee." worth at least some Iraqi WMD and some Enron raptors. Veritas! While there are still many excellent people at Harvard, its economics department is filled with many intellectual and ethical basket cases (Barro, Mankiw, Summers) whose pronunciations would fail any basic macro student. If economics were a true profession, their licenses would be revoked for malpractice ...

Unfortunately, a US university education is part of the scam that is destroying the American middle class (real estate, healthcare and education as described in Warren's Two-Income Trap). A US university education is a signaling rat race that works as a negative G.I. Bill. For a AAA price, questionable value is delivered. See for instance Mankiw's textbook Macroeconomics which Amazon offers for USD 90/130. Its German edition costs 22 EUR (31 USD). Oh, you'd like the English version for 51 EUR (75 USD)? Sorry, a US court just declared it illegal to re-import them into the US (Competition aren't US. Cheap Canadian medicine only for those who are able to pay for a trip north.).

A decade ago, I never thought that I would be witnessing an accelerating decline of the United States. Remember the New World Order, End of History and the National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity? Time to re-read Friedrich Dürrenmatt's dark tragicomedy Romulus der Grosse about the end of the Roman Empire. Who will be playing the role of the trouser-wearing Germans? Sorry, if this sounds so pessimistic. Time for some hope and change.

See also this interview with David Graeber at Naked Capitalism. The beef I have with the book, having now read a bit more than half of it, is that it does not discuss enough what makes debts so dangerous: the interest rate (usury) and liquidity problems for sudden repayments. The distinction between debts for consumption (including, the Ancient world, famine relief) and investment is also not as clearly made.

One interesting hypothesis Graeber develops is that the need for citizen soldiers keeps elite greed in check. The downfall of the Soviet Empire has certainly removed much of that constriction.

Finished The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. A great book. In the future, the 20th century will be the crazy century of cancer and smoking. It is tragic that the clear early links between smoking and lung cancer were drowned out. Millions of lives could have been saved. The unhealthy rise of smoking (and drinking) in the emerging economies is truly frightening to watch (esp. China).

I had found the interview at Naked Capitalism also, and had wanted to raise it in this message. Being some 220 pages into Debt: The First 5,000 Years I consider it more as an interesting book on ancient history and anthropology than as a book on economics, despite Debt’s start about errors in Adam Smith’ The Wealth of Nations (which I have never read, to be honest).

The history of the fürstlichen Hofmohren (only Austrians can come up with such a title) Angelo Soliman is absolutely dreadful, even by the standards of Europe in that time. Holland also has its dark history of slavery, but slavery was not allowed in the Netherlands. We thought until recently, when a historian found out that in the “multi-cultural society” of 17th century Amsterdam Sephardic Jews from Brazil were allowed to keep their slaves in the city. Some were converted to Judaism, and the graves of 15 of these bom servacan still be found on the old cemetery of Bet Haim. When I checked for info, I found this article (unfortunately in Dutch) about blacks in the Netherlands, which states that black inhabitants were not entirely uncommon since the late 16th century. I had expected them to visit cities like Amsterdam as traders (Rembrandt and Rubens painted blacks), but they have been found scattered even in small villages. Often they were the wives or children of Dutch plantation owners in the West Indies. Debt taught me that Nigerians living on the coast already sent their children to school in England, that was also new to me.

The point you raise about books being expensive in the US is something that happens in Europe with lots of products also. Most of my compatriots seem to bring iPads home from trips to New York where the amount is the same, but the USD 40% cheaper. The same applies to clothing, because the EU does not allow parallel imports.

The problems you see with America are seen differently across the big pond. At least that was my impression when I saw the recent cover of Time Magazine (that I never read) about the Decline of Europe. I have not yet written off America, although it is certainly sad to see how the Land of the Free is developing right now. I am curious how this will develop in Europe and Holland in particular. With its central position between French, German and Anglo-Saxon cultures, Holland has usually borrowed a bit from all. E.g. my father’s generation found German especially important for anybody studying engineering, and not only at a technical university. Some of Holland’s best anthropologists also wrote in German. At the same time, English was the language of intercontinental trade and French the language of philosophy and the good life. Since the 1960’s, American culture and the English language rule. Lately in a television programme about the “German economic miracle” the presenters were embarrassed by their lack of German language skills. Half the time they had to speak German. Nowadays more Germans study Dutch in university than the other way around. I wonder if Holland will reorient itself on its European neighbours if America’s decline would continue.

And yes, the first law of consulting is always right in the place where I shift paper. So back to my den for more reading about Debt. Good old Friedrich Dürrenmatt will have to wait, I am afraid (he was one of the first authors I had to read in school).

Do read some of Adam Smith. He is an excellent, surprisingly modern writer with a lot of interesting side remarks about politics, trade and society. I must admit that I haven't read all of the two hefty Penguin paperback volumes, though Smith is always worthwhile and relevant: "If any of the provinces of the British empire cannot be made to contribute towards the support of the whole empire, it is surely time that Great Britain should free herself from the expense of defending those provinces in time of war, and of supporting any part of their civil or military establishments in time of peace, and endeavour to accommodate her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her circumstances." The real mediocrity of her circumstances, what a wonderful expression!

I think you are a bit too harsh regarding Angelo Soliman. He might have been constrained in his station as a pet and butler, but he was a lodge brother of Mozart and lived much better than most of contemporaries. Being a toady to incompetent aristocrats vexed Mozart and Beethoven as well. The latter's frustrated insult about the Lobkowitzian ass made history. I see Soliman as a 18th century Roberto Blanco, Germany's favorite black person, or Rudi Carrell, Germany's favorite Dutchman. Within the constraints of their roles, they have/had rather pleasant lives.

I do love the Dürer portrait of Katherina in the PDF you quoted, which is now in the Uffizi. She looks quite tired of being sketched. Her not making eye contact and generally looking down is quite a contrast to the self-assured positioning of the merchant and noble(wo)men in the current (but ending soon) KHM exhibition "Dürer - Cranach - Holbein Die Entdeckung des Menschen: Das deutsche Porträt um 1500".

I love shopping for clothes in the US. Quality and prices are great. It is not so much the threat of parallel imports that keeps prices high in Europe but a rather cozy retail sector. The Swiss Franc appreciated by about 30 percent in a year but prices of imported goods barely budged in Switzerland (the book trade saw it as a highlight that it made books 10% cheaper.). Retail space is purposely arranged to defeat a move towards a more competitive US style retail environment. Great classic moves are, for example, the prohibition of lifetime guarantees.

Shopping for US electronic goods can be problematic because of the warranties. In the early 90s, I had a horror situation with IBM Austria which fought tooth and nail not to honor a Swiss IBM Thinkpad warranty. Multiple faxes from IBM Switzerland were necessary to move the Austrians to comply. A global replay, perhaps with Indian service agents, would not be to my liking (apart from the fact that IBM exited the laptop business).

Re Dutch German skills: The situation may be similar to the one in Switzerland. Many Swiss are ill at ease to speak German fluently and with wit and grace, for lack of practice. Just not speaking a language perfectly, is often noted by the natives as an implied IQ deduction, sort of the uncanny valley of language skills. Thus the switch to the more level playing field of English.

I have absolutely no problem with Angelo Soliman himself, but rather more with the “desecration and preparing of his corpse for the imperial cabinet of natural curiosities” being “posthumously displayed in a museum as a half-naked "savage", adorned with ostrich feathers and shells”. And I am rather puzzled that this happened with the corpse of a man that seems to have been well integrated. Did none of his elite friends protest this treatment? This goes beyond the anonymous body parts supposedly found in the storage rooms of Holland’s own museum of the history of science.

Incidentally, I was reminded of a discussion I once had with an Austrian lady in Jakarta a decade ago. The wife of a businessman or diplomat she was volunteering in the National Museum. I found it proof of the incompetence of Indonesia’s civil service that the museum did not seem updated since 1941, and that it looked quite sad compared to equivalent museums with lesser collections in places like Penang or Singapore. She completely disagreed. Just like Vienna’s Naturhistorisches Museum, there was no need for chance, she thought. She also thought that the civil service in Jakarta operated quite like in Vienna, to my surprise. Luckily for Jakarta, it got an extra building in 2007.

I am culturally programmed to dislike any shopping that offers me no discount. And I do disagree with you about parallel imports. Yes, you can import yourself from outside the EU, but you require permission of the patent or trademark holder to sell them. And these like to keep prices artificially high. A Dutch chain of stores tried this and failed, and this was later confirmed with new rules in one of the EU treaties. Anyway, it seems almost every vacated store space in the centre of Amsterdam is turned into a clothes shop, and certainly someone would offer these brand names cheaper if they could. Switzerland seems a different animal, where there are traditionally only two supermarket chains. Anyway, the Swiss are so rich, they can afford it.

Yes, I should read Adam Smith. And Van Creveld. But first more Debt: The First 5,000 Years. I am curious how things will develop from ancient history (I am now in the era of Ashoka), and if it will also cover modern Greece.

50 pages to go with Debt, though waiting at home in Austria, while I am currently in Switzerland. Your review sums up well the factors that prevent Debt from becoming another Guns, Germs and Steel. The missed obvious links to Frans de Waal's cooperating animals and economic sociology/sociologic economics hurt the book's case. My main gripe with the book is the focus on indistinct debt and not on the real culprit predatory interest. Given the insatiability of wants, driver of all economic evolution, government has to protect society's weakest from overconsumption and predators. In the New Yorker some time ago was a great article about the explosion of the predatory Pay Day loan companies that have mushroomed all over the South. Given that African American household have a median net wealth of only USD 8.000, these companies live off their financial misery. In 19th century Europe, trade unions created savings and credit unions to shield their members from such practices. Insofar, I think that Graeber overpromotes the danger of debt. If properly regulated and enforced, a modern state can and should prevent its citizens from overindebtedness.

Many of those savings institution's best product was a savings plan to finance a "proper" funeral, "a scheene Leich", still a Viennese treat (the Funeral Museum in Vienna is a special treat). Vienna, the city of death, has a rather baroque association in collecting body parts of the famous and unknown. The Narrenturm (Fool's Tower) houses an impressive medicinal freak show collection (federal pathologic-anatomical museum). The university of medicine is still struggling to decide what to do with specimen collected from Holocaust victims. Vienna Tourism is still lamenting the fact that Mozart's bones were not collected. Austria, though, is not unique in collecting body parts. Think Lenin, think Einstein's brain.

As always, the people you meet abroad are not good predictors of a domestic population's behavior. Apart from many of Austria's museums resistance to deal with the ugly events of the 20th century (First and Second World War as well as the short Austrian Civil War turned into a cold war/Austrofascism), it was/is mostly a money problem. Only in the last decade have museums received sizeable sums to pay for renovations. The now fully commercialized Schönbrunn Palace is barely recognizable if one visited it long ago (during its almost Communist decay phase).

I hate discounts, as they allow for too much price discrimination. I don't like to wonder all the time if I overpayed or not (or run after rebates, coupons, etc.). "Every day decent prices". Japan is too expensive. Otherwise, I love its no rebate, no tips, excellent service policy.

Currently reading the great Mao's Great Famine which is really about the Great Leap Forward. Only the last two parts present the grizzly and cruel bits. A management by objectives/benchmarking gone horribly wrong. I didn't know that Stalin suported Chiang Kai Shek not Mao. Mao's stark anti-Soviet stance prevented the Soviet Union from providing much help and advice. The Soviets had to watch in horror seeing the Chinese repeat all the Soviet mistakes of the 30s. It is strange that the Chinese leaders today still keep up the Mao cult (although it is receding). This book alone exposes Mao's callousness towards his people. In order to play another round of Sim City, he was willing to sacrifice millions of lives.

Ah yes, Vienna. When I worked there, most of my colleagues were more taken by the fact that Lutherans had an extra day off on All Soul’s Day than by anything else related to funerals. But they would do their filial duty if the family required so. I think good Catholic Austria has more public holidays than any other country in Europe, the Dutch and Swiss having the least. I have not yet seen Lenin, but I have seen Mao in Beijing. It was the only place where the Chinese went quiet.

Talking about Mao, I have seen Frank Dikötter’s book about the Great Famine, but I have read Jasper Becker’s Hungry Ghosts, which was written a decade earlier, and was also quite good. I knew about Stalin’s wavering attitude towards the Chinese Communist Party. That attitude, and the involvement of the Comintern, dates from Lenin’s days. The Chinese Communist Party was founded in the presence of the Comintern agent Maring, whose real name was Henk Sneevliet. Henk Sneevliet had earlier founded the predecessor of the Communist Party of Indonesia, the world’s third communist party until its extermination by Soeharto, so he deserves a bit more recognition than he gets right now. Sneevliet was later executed by the Nazis, and is currently commemorated by a concrete tube station in a windy suburb of Amsterdam. Sneevliet already preferred Sun Yat-sen, according to his lemma on Wikipedia. Stalin was more concerned with the security of the Soviet Union than with the global revolution, and wanted to avoid war with Japan at all costs. According to The Long March, the communists were dependent upon the Comintern for funding. It had sent over the German (well, Bavarian) agent Otto Braun, who would even displace Mao as leader for some time:

They disagreed on just about everything, except for their love of nicotine and women.

Braun wasn’t much of a success as a military leader, so he was replaced by Mao again after some time. Stalin kept on supporting Sun Yat-sen until the communists had travelled to Shanxi, the end of the Long March. The Long March is an excellent book, you will enjoy it. I added a review on its Librarything page.

Japan is a nice place, but expensive. Luckily for us euro-salaried poor, there is a cheap alternative of equivalent quality with every day decent prices: South Korea. In a way South Korea is Japan 2.0. Not only did it copy its clean, modern, friendly cities, but if the Japanese built 3 car factories, the Koreans built four. If the Japanese work many hours, the Koreans work more and drink harder. They even wear their business suits on Sunday. You could probably combine it with a trip to Panmunjom, although possibilities depend upon your passport. I could join the USO-tour to the Joint Security Area organised by the US army, which starts in the army’s compound in Seoul. In the very functional waiting room I found separate newspapers for the army, navy, and airforce. Reading these gave me a new understanding of the meaning of Empire.

I enjoyed a few things about Debt: The First 5,000 Years. First of all, it were the exotic forms of money used to “rearrange relations between people”. He established “honour” as an element necessary for the economy, which is not completely the same as cooperation. And I found his link between uncertainty and the survival of capitalis an interesting truism. Pay Day loans seem a typically American phenomenon. Medieval Italy pioneered pawn houses, Amsterdam has had one as a (profitable) public service supplied by the city since 1614. It is still in its original building. It was meant to reduce the opportunity for usurers, and found a new lease of life among new generations of immigrants. Hasn't God’s Own Country developed an equivalent service?

And now it is time to view the demise of the euro live while it happens. So how did you fund your trip to Switzerland? Did you smuggle Mozartkugeln or Grüner Veltliner?

I am not terribly fond of huge zoned cemeteries. They remind me of huge parking lots (which they are). A cosy green neighborhood cemetery is my preference (even if ground water contamination plays havoc among the living (cue the Brontës in Haworth).

The Austrian troubadours of the 1970s are great. Today, I visited the Swiss National Museum in Zurich which featured two excellent anniversary exhibitions. The first about Swiss troubadour Mani Matter whose Hemmige ("inhibitions") is an unofficial Swiss national anthem. His claim that civilization is based on inhibitions (cue Norbert Elias) is especially true in Protestant Switzerland. Wise Konsumverzicht is the foundation of prosperity (unfortunately, today's politicians save only costly and foolishly). The second exhibition celebrates the 50th anniversary of the World Wildlife Fund (which I learned now stands for World Wide Fund for Nature), founded by rich Brits in Switzerland. A pioneer of non-profit fund-raising, branding and marketing, WWF's mission change/creep from animals to ecology meant trouble for some of its early sponsors such as Shell.

Found a good used copy of Jung Chang's Mao. It features some of the most violent blurbs I know. TIME (who is still reading it?) called it "an atom bomb of a book", probably plagiarizing/americanizing The Times (London) formulation of "a bombshell of a book". The Long March goes on my TBR as well.

Very interesting to be introduced to the professional revolutionary Henk Sneevliet. A perfect "Seven Years in Tibet" follow-up if Hollywood had the "cojones" for a Communist biopic. Chinese investors may soon be seeking investment opportunities in Hollywood (or learn from Japanese mistakes).

A Swiss passport is quite handy for crossing international hotspots. I assume, though, North and South Korea will be unified before I arrive there. The last part of the Iron Curtain. Korea is on my destination list, Japan is higher, though. As a history buff, I have the (mistaken?) impression that there is more to see in Japan (even if it is often faked). My sengoku-jidai obsession can only partially be filled in Korea. Riding on a turtle ship is a fixture of a visit.

My trip to Switzerland didn't cost much. As long as Air Berlin keeps its independence from Lufthansa, the one-hour flight between Vienna and Zurich is fairly priced. During the former duopoly reign, the one hour flight cost as much as a trip to New York. The Swiss National Bank unfortunately intervened too late for my ATM withdrawal. I will check my credit card statements about the exchange rate used (Grüner Veltliner, by the way, is properly classified as an acid.). During my US visits, I always feel nostalgic about their ancient banking systems. Perhaps the huge concentration of the US banking sector may now lead to a wave of modernizaton. Government intervention can be quite helpful to advance systemic innovations and prevent rent-seekers from gouging the public (hurrah for the EU swatting of roaming charges; once again into the breach against excessive data charges, please).

I would say there is something very true in the idea that civilisation is based on inhibitions. And it is good to hear that you did not have to extend your Konsumverzicht too much while in Switzerland. Because te (like zu, i.e. “too”) is never good, except for tevreden (zufrieden, i.e. “content”), as the saying goes behind the dikes.

Ah, the World Wildlife Fund! I remember I was a “ranger” as a small child, and I have collected money to save the tigers of Bangladesh. But nowadays I associate the WWF more with its first president, the famous hunter of big game, women, and money-no-matter-how-he-got-to-it Prinz Bernhard zur Lippe-Biesterfeld. Some claim the figure of James Bond is based upon him. Multiple TV-series, biographies, and comic books have been made about our nation’s favourite scallywag. In the most serious of his biographies this once impoverished German nobleman and Great Conspirator (after all, he founded the Bilderberg Conference, named after a now mediocre hotel near Arnhem) is considered a "creature of his own myths".

So let us get back to Henk Sneevliet. He would not be the first communist who was the subject of Hollywood biopic. Remember there are at least two movies about Che Guevara. However, I would not be surprised if middle class Americans associate a bit easier with a cigar smoking biker than with a Comintern agent. To be honest you would have to prune such an agent’s biography to make it interesting as a movie. In one of Sneevliet’s other biographies on the internet, you will find the endless row of political parties and cessations I associate with communism. You will also see that on the Wikipedia page in English of the Indonesian Comintern agent Tan Malaka. The page in Indonesian is a lot livelier. There he is presented as the man who spoke 8 languages and lived in 11 countries in Europe and Asia, with different “love interests” everywhere. In most places he took a different identity, changing race as easily as nationality. Throughout the years he had become such a master of disguise that his Indonesian followers thought he had “magic power”. During his lifetime he had already been the subject of 5 Trivialromane, lightly based upon The Scarlet Pimpernel. Tan Malaka was mostly forgotten until a new (2200-page!) biography was written a few years ago. In the post-Soeharto era he has become a kind of a cult hero among students. I would bet on a movie about Tan Malaka before Henk Sneevliet.

I have not read Jung Chang’s biography of Mao, but only the much shorter Mao Zedong by Jonathan Spence. Supposedly Jun Chang’s book is one sided. I have even seen a book about her claims about Mao, but I have forgotten the title and author. Somewhere next year I hope to read Jonathan Fenby’s biography of Chiang Kai-shek (it has been on my to read pile for more than a year already).

That Turtle Ship looks great. At the same time, I would not say that Korea has less history than Japan. Chinese culture reached Japan via Korea. Just like in Japan (and the rest of Asia), buildings are not made to last, so the amount of history is almost as limited. Japan has a few more palaces, temples, and gardens left, but in general I would not rate it very differently. America definitely looks older than Korea, and places like New York often look at least as “nostalgic” as the great cities of Europe. But the American countryside can be great too. I remember spending lunch in a small town in Utah between a few groups of elderly Americans, the women all with set hair in a 1970’s style. Some of the bar stools consisted only of the leg. For a moment I seriously contemplated where to hide if John Travolta would walk through the door with a machine gun spraying bullets in the style of Pulp Fiction.

By the way, have we scared away Mr. Jazzmonger?

I think this might be a good thread to ask this--any recommendations for books about national/regional/cultural differences in political and economic corruption, how it's regarded, handled etc.? Ties to nepotism, the phenomenon of tipping, baksheesh, bribing...

P.S. The more of the world it encompasses, the better: the West, the Levant, the East, north vs. south...

I am afraid I cannot really help you with finding such a book. And if you find it, just let me know. I’d like to read it also.

All I can do is point you to the website of Transparency International. If you look at the countries that score best, they are almost universally small and rich, but that seems to be their only denominators. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are among them, but most are in the north western corner of Europe, but the two “little dragons” Hong Kong and Singapore do well also. But the two other little dragons South Korea and Taiwan are pretty mediocre. Most Western countries have been rich for a long time, but not the dragons, so that is not a deciding factor. Most countries Western Europe are Protestant, but not the two tigers. Hofstede had done an analysis of cultural values, you may find his Culture and Organizations interesting. Factors like “power distance” and “feminity” could play a role:

In the small power distance society a feeling dominates that the use of power should be legitimate and subject to the judgement between good and evil. (…) The law should guarantee that everybody, regardless of status, has equal rights.

Switzerland, Finland, Norway and Sweden score high here, but not Singapore and Hong Kong. And Israel and Austria have the lowest power distance. Hofstede looks at combinations of values, but I cannot find the subject of corruption specified in the index. I have not done a proper multi-factor analysis, however.

For the rest I can guide you to Corruption by Design: Building Clean Government in Mainland China and Hong Kong. That book is one my wishlist, so I have not read it myself yet.

>46 LolaWalser: Lola, I am afraid, I can't help you either. For fun, you could try to get a cheap copy of neocon Francis Fukuyama's 1995 book Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. The many Friedman Units passed by can not have been kind to the book though. Reality has a liberal bias. The "Mustache of Understanding" has a new book out to clog airports, That Used to Be Us, trashed in the WSJ. It is strange to watch the new WSJ, in its war on science and logic, take on Mr "My guts, my research".

Corruption is a measure of inequality. I highly recommend The Spirit Level which shows in country comparison after comparison that inequality is at the root of most social problems with the key finding that even the rich benefit from greater equality. I also look forward to Glenn Greenwald's book With Liberty and Justice for Some which will be great on analysis and short on feasible solutions.

Apart from the really rotten cases such as Italy where Berlusconi hangs on to his "part-time" job only to keep himself out of jail, the dangerous corruption is not externally visible and even accepted as normal (Iowa corn subsidies fueling US obesity or Tony Blair and Murdoch reshuffling the UK media). Max Weber's essay "Politik als Beruf" might be a helpful pointer. Unfortunately, too many politicians live not for politics (power, the greater good) but off politics (income). Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have become filthy rich by exploiting their political connections to the detriment of the population. The works of 2009 and first female Economics not-Nobel Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom about pooled resources and collective action are high on my TBR list.

Talking about media. Opening the Economist, I saw the new FT advert, which triggered a Fala moment. How dare they misuse Swiss national icon, Barry. That nobody at FT has a clue about dogs or avalanches is just the icing. Apart from the fact that St. Bernard dogs are search and rescue and not guide dogs, the FT clings to antiquated technology. Modern rescue work starts by helicopter and - in the other motive - Morse code is officially depreciated. Reading a soggy FT will be of little relief to their victimized (?) readers.

Now for something completely different: Jung Chang's Mao bio is one of the best books I have ever read. Written with furious vengeance and based upon hundreds of interviews around the globe (ranging from the Dalai Lama to Mobutu). The most shocking fact is that Mao never believed in Communism. In fact, his ideas are very close to Ayn Rand: "I am only concerned about developing myself. I have my desire and act on it. I am responsible to no one." With the difference that Mao turned his mad ideas into reality.

Belle Yang already remarked on the cat-like behavior of Mao - an extremely clumsy cat whose moves cause suffering and destruction to others but the cat itself walks away from the mess with callous serene indifference. The true miracle of his life is why his Russian handlers supported him and continued to support him and not his more able comrades (who were most often liquidated by Mao or sent onto a suicide mission).

The book also has given me a new perspective on many historic events: The Long March was Chiang Kai-Shek's move to use Mao as a key to control Sichuan. The Communist survival was never in doubt, as Chiang was essentially another of Stalin's clients. The Russians, in stark contrast to the Americans and the British, invested manpower and resources in China for two decades. This steady investment paid off in turning China red. Chiang defeated by the self-inflicted losses of his own turncoat commanders is probably one of the weirdest aspects of military history ...

On Wikipedia, Henk Sneevliet doesn't look like a typical womanizer but more like a train employee - if the Chinese were able to distinguish faces of the "hairy ones". Che was much better looking. The Benicio Del Toro project you linked to was beyond my tough biopic stomach and justly lampooned in Entourage (which itself jumped the shark around that time). The The Motorcycle Diaries is a very fine film, though.

The Royals, their scandals and lives is one aspect I manage to completely ignore. As a republican, I find the idea of monarchy repulsive. Most occupants of thrones do not exactly look like as chosen by god and the collective harm this method of personnel selection has caused in history is huge. Today, most remaining royals are public entertainers, entertainment I don't need.

In Switzerland, the local WWF projects were very, very mediocre. There simply are no Pandas and large animals to be saved. It is hard to bring up much enthusiasm for saving Sumpf- oder Feuchtwiesen (wet meadows). So there was this split between money raising for very interesting foreign projects and participating in rather plain local projects ...

Income equality seems a factor against corruption, but I would not see it as the panacea against it. Some countries with an unequal income distribution (like Hong Kong and to a somewhat lesser extent Singapore) have low corruption as well. One thing that seems to unite all countries with low corruption is a lower degree of ideology, religion and grands projets. In a country like Indonesia about the most corrupt part of government is the Ministry of Religious Affairs and I understand that it is the same in places like Egypt. The greatest tax dodger in Italy is the Vatican, one of the two countries that debased the currency of the Latin currency union in the 19th century, I learned yesterday.

Another important factor might be that all countries with low corruption have well-funded governments, that can pay normal wages to civil servants. Again in Indonesia, the third-world country I know best, civil servants with a university degree get such a low salary that they could never afford their children to have the education they had themselves. One of the firs things countries do if they want to reduce corruption is raise the salaries of civil servants. All countries with low corruption respect the economy have strong middle classes; the latter you may see as almost equivalent to an equal income distribution.

I understand the pain of what you and your countrymen feel about the abuse of national symbols. But it could be worse! Just realise what the thought leader among nations thinks about Holland after you read here and here. At least they say something nice about Switzerland here:

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of international debt markets knows that the price of Swiss government bonds has become ludicrously expensive. (…) A standard-issue Rolex costs more than a five-bedroom house in Detroit.

I don’t care much for Royals either, but the situation is a bit more complicated than you think. The House of Orange has been around in the Netherlands for more than 400 years, and there were a few opportunities to send them into exile. So it seems the population thinks it adds value one way or another. In a country where the cabinet is usually quite weak because there are always coalitions required, it might pay to have a national symbol. The House of Orange is far more popular with the common people than with the elite. According to the Queen's late consort, the venerable Prince Claus, "the Netherlands is a republic with a queen as the head of state". The House of Orange increased its popularity greatly during the Second World War. And it helps that the latest generation has kept the number of scandals down to an average divorce rate and just one known bastard child (horrible expression). But I may have missed some details, I read the wrong newspapers. Although if I see how much the FT reports about Berlusconi’s bunga bunga parties, I am not so sure anymore.

Berlusconi definitely outsmarted Henk Sneevliet in this matter, but Sneevliet had been married four times. Tan Malaka and Otto Braun were womanisers too. It seems there was more to the Comintern than meets the eye. Maybe I should check this Mao-biography as well. The translated version is now in the ramsch, but it takes so much space on my bookshelf.

And Feuchtwiesen: I live in one of them! Of course I care!

Thanks for the ideas to both of you. Off the bat, this rule seems to apply: if the state is owned by a "mafia" (be it the military, religious sect, political party, economic lobby, Cosa Nostra or any other band of thieves) it will be corrupt. Perhaps a corollary: in the degree in which the state is owned by a mafia, in that degree it will be corrupt.

JC, I thought the NY Times wallowed in the lowest depths dispensing the blathering hot-air punditry of Friedman, but then they hired David Brooks... I've been too scared to look for years now.

The greatest tax dodger in Italy is the Vatican

Not just a tax dodger--the Vatican refuses to pay its bills. The Curia dumps, the public flushes the toilets.

Corruption fits the broken windows theory. If everybody cares and holds ownership, corruption is difficult to sustain. The other important remedy is light: When the American public learned that millionaires pay proportionally fewer taxes than the lower middle class, defending the "job creators" became more difficult.

US newspaper op ed's basically serve to distract and confuse the remaining readers. Smart writers such as Krugman were an editor's mistake. They expected him to remain the centrist technocrat he is in his heart. Overall, never must an op-ed call out for distinct action.

I picked up Edwin O. Reischauer's charming autobiography My Life between Japan and America. What a mensch! The O. stands for Oldfather, an anglicized "Altvatter". His forefathers were gnarly protestant Upper Austrians who preferred to emigrate rather than to convert. I don't know how he managed to conserve his love for Japan given the fact that the Japanese (accidentally) killed his elder brother during the invasion of China and the atrocities of WWII.

As soon as I have finished the last two parts of Mao, I will start my "summer reading" of Fukuyama's The Origins of Political Order. All set to go. The final chapter of Debt was very, very disappointing, perhaps indicative of the fact that the Left has not yet developed a clear message after the crumbling of Marxism and the Third Way.

Fukuyama's first chapter is one big dance around the fact that his neocon buddies truly screwed the pooch on all three criteria of (1) the state, (2) rule of law and (3) accountable government in the US and abroad. It is a sad testament to academic freedom and his personal integrity that he is unwilling to acknowledge this, hem-hawing around, hoping for diligent readers to read between the lines. So, kids, forget about the current mess his buddies created. Let us travel back in time ...

The second chapter is a disgrace. In most universities, if this chapter had been handed in as a student paper, it would have been rejected in no time. While it is clear that the "science" part in Political Science plays the same aspirational part as the "democratic" in the former German Democratic Republic, a professor shouldn't make so many elementary mistakes about research and the scientific method. Does nobody read this stuff before it goes into print?

Fukuyama just cherry-picks ideas that confirm his prejudices, shielding his readers from a balanced presentation of the state of the art. He cites Frans de Waal (1989) multiple times on chimps to bolster his case on aggression but fails to even mention Waal's sex-crazy and cooperative apes, the bonobos. All of de Waals 2000 books are not taken into consideration. This is just shoddy research practice. Newer research emphasizes the importance of cooperation. Fukuyama stays in the aggression paradigm.

Methodologically, he switches back and forth between homo oeconomicus and homo sociologicus. While champions homo oeconomicus, to insert religion, his model switches to homo sociologicus only to loop back to his favorite rational actor. Then again, this is not science but a repackaging of his prejudices.

The chapter also has some major howlers. He says "contrary to the views of both religious believers and secularists, it is extremely difficult to prove or falsify any given religious belief." Tell Galileo about this thingy with the Earth and the sun. While many of his neocon buddies still believe in a 6.000 years-old Earth, science has amassed plenty of data to safely falsify such biblical statements. The Bible is also full of self-contradictions. But a believer will believe anything even if Jesus says otherwise ("no rich men in heaven").

"The biblical story of the Tower of Babel, in which God scatters a unified human race and makes them speak different languages, is thus metaphorically true." Except it worked just in the opposite way: Not languages first, then scattering but scattering first, the separation leading to the development of different languages.

The third chapter about bands and tribes is the first actually enjoyable to read.

Finished Mao, truly outstanding. Written with a fiery vengeance, it shows Mao as the ultimate Ayn Rand character. He manages to get to the top and stay there because he doesn't care about ideas (he is no communist) or people. Others are committed to either or both, a fact Mao ruthlessly uses to destroy them. As with most Randians, this narcissism comes with terrible management skills. Mao is the ultimate destroyer.

One take-away from the biography is that the US didn't lose China, as the Russians had for decades invested men and money to control it. Russia owned China. When Stalin switched to Mao, Chiang Kai-Shek was toast. This knowledge drove Mao to escape from Russian control.

Midway through The pursuit of a dream, an excellent account about the weird reality during and after the American Civil War. Jefferson Davis' twenty year older brother managed his slave plantation according to theory Y principles, offering his slaves good quarters, a basic self-directed justice system and productivity incentives. After the war, this plantation was turned into some sort of collective ruled by an educated and commercially experienced former slave (who used to manage the plantation shop) who engages in unusual alliances to survive in the depressed South. "Tomorrow is another day", for black folks too. This story should be turned into a film.

Finally, Solshenizyn's fact-fictionalized account of Lenin in Zurich engages in too much mind-reading. Lenin picked Zurich, because there, he had to pay the least amount of a émigré safety deposit (Berne would have been far more costly). During the holocaust banking turmoil of the 1990s, they also found Lenin's old accrued savings account (which he never closed. Its savings book had already become a Russian museum exhibit.). I didn't know that Lenin only arrived in Switzerland, because Habsburg Austria, where he was staying close to the Russian border, allowed this alien enemy citizen to emigrate across its territory at the start of WWI.

Isn’t Ayn Rand overrated in terms of importance? And is she interesting for Europeans? Basically I only know her as a subject in Why People Believe Weird Things. I do not think she has many followers in the Old World. I would know nobody whom she influenced, except for Alan Greenspan and the ideologue of Geert Wilders’ populist Freedom Party here.

The euro spectacle had me glued to the newspaper (on the internet) for much of the last couple of weeks. I read newspapers I usually ignore, like Die Welt. There I found this article about the housing of Comintern. In the 1920’s all foreigners working for the Comintern in Moscow were living in the Hotel Lux, which made it easy for the secret service to monitor them.

So wurde das "Lux" erst einmal zur "lustigsten Baracke" der Weltrevolutionäre. Denn wer hier logierte, war privilegiert. Während die Moskauer Bevölkerung in recht elenden Verhältnissen unter dem "Kriegskommunismus" darben musste, lebte man hier quasi in Saus und Braus. Deshalb bildete sich um das Hotel, was puritanische Funktionäre empörte, ein Straßenstrich.

Some like the Soviet Union’s first female minister and ambassador Alexandra Kollontai, had a very liberal interpretation of sex: it was like “a glass of water”, a lust to be satisfied. According to Die Welt, the new liberal divorce law was used to great satisfaction by many revolutionaries:

Wie die Österreicherin Ruth von Mayenburg, eifrige Kommunistin und Frau von Ernst Fischer, dem Ideologen der KPÖ und späteren Euro-Kommunisten, in dem Erinnerungsband "Hotel Lux" (der gerade vom Münchner Sandmann-Verlag – wohl nicht zuletzt, um von der Filmwerbung zu profitieren – neu aufgelegt wurde) erzählt, verstanden die Lux-Bewohner die neue sowjetische Gesetzgebung auf ihre Weise zu nutzen.

Ehen mussten nur einfach im Bezirksstandesamt registriert werden. Dabei fragte "niemand danach, ob der ausländische Bräutigam nicht vielleicht schon Frau und Kind daheim hatte, die einheimische Braut irgendwo einen sitzengelassenen legitimen Ehegatten. Da die sowjetischen Gesetze ohnehin nicht im Ausland anerkannt wurden, war eine solche ,Lux‘-Ehe für den männlichen Teil völlig risikolos.

Für den weiblichen Teil hingegen war sie von unschätzbarem Wert: Die Jungvermählte empfing als Morgengabe ab nun einen geschützten Wohnraum, aus dem sie niemand herauswerfen konnte, selbst dann nicht, wenn der holde Gatte gen Westen abschwirrte, um wiederum seiner revolutionären Pflicht zu genügen." Solche "Chancen" eröffneten sich besonders denen, die als Sekretärinnen für die Komintern arbeiteten. Deshalb spottete Karl Radek, Komintern-Beauftragter für Deutschland und wegen seines Sarkasmus’ gefürchtet: "Das ist unser Beitrag zur Evolution der Menschheit – vom Matriarchat übers Patriarchat zum Sekretariat!"

I get the idea the Brauns, Sneevliets and Tan Malakas were quite content with the bonus system of “really existing socialism”.

How are you faring with The Origins of Political Order?

>54 mercure: Re The Origins of Political Order, I am struggling through Part II. It reads like an undigested student report. Fukuyama lacks the deep knowledge to understand the societies he writes about. He is mostly engaged in confirming his prejudices. It is probably futile to seek knowledge from the guys who wrecked Iraq and Afghanistan. The author's onomatopoetic name is amply justified. Wikipedia informs me that he was an adviser to Ghaddafi between 2006 and 2008 (another project of his that turned out well).

Ayn Rand is fortunately unknown in Europe. The idea of Nietzschean supermen (which Rand typically spices up with a bit of rape) is unpalatable in Europe. In the US, it still impresses many a teenage brain. By her disciple Greenspan and the immature boys club of the Republican party, she had been a major influence in the Reagan revolution. I will probably read Corey Robin's The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin when it comes out in paperback. Rand is treated prominently.

You just sold me on Hotel Lux, a film I was uncertain of whether to watch it in the cinema. In Jung Chang's Mao bio, the prison element of these golden cage features prominently. In China, Jung Chang wrote, that the party allocated only sturdy workhorses as companions for Westerners as they seem to have been under the impression that they might break slender women. The sexual plight of secretaries is nothing particular to the Second World. Lyndon B. Johnson famously said to one given the presidential treatment: "This is your president! Move over!" Peter Drucker's hilarious Adventures of a Bystander is filled with nasty anecdotes about the sexual mores of American and British managers.

The exhibition about Angelo Soliman, an African in Vienna, is both entertaining and educative. He was an early barista, ein Kaffeemoor, serving coffee in style and color. What I didn't expect to read was racist judgments from Kant who apparently deemed it necessary to elaborate on African libido, whether ex ante or ex post wasn't indicated.

Yesterday, I read through Glenn Greenwald's long awaited and genially titled With liberty and justice for some which falls flat compared to the quality of his blog.

I also started Adam Hochschild's new book about British internal opposition to WWI, To End all Wars. Hochschild is brilliant in presenting the spleen of the late 19th century/early 20th century. If one likes Barbara Tuchman's style, as I do, Hochschild is a must read.

You might be interested to learn that I added my first book tagged "Indonesia", Bali to be precise, thanks to a gift from johninvienna. Balinese art collected by the daughter of an Austrian officer turned plantation manager in Sumatra, married to a Dutch hotel director who died from a heart attack induced by the enormous preparations for the visit of the Dutch governor-general, which forced her to return to Vienna.

What happened in the Hotel Lux probably happens in and around every expat compound, those other oases of Western imperialism.

Given your remarks about Fukuyama, I think I am going to give it a pass. Although it could be amusing if it matches the Monitor Group’s (that employed Fukuyama) work for Gaddafi:

Monitor proposed to write a book about Gaddafi's philosophy that would include transcripts of conversations between those western experts and the Libyan leader. It would show the world that he was "a man of action and a man of ideas … Gaddafi is well known but poorly understood, particularly in the west".

As for the reactionary mind in America, you might be interested in the book that Geert Mak is going to publish in May. It should be a follow-up of his book In Europe. This time he tries to describe what has changed in America in the last decades, and he tries to answer the question what Europe and the US still have in common.

Bali? It is a beautiful island with a remarkable culture. Bali has optimised the water supply to its rice paddies so cleverly (across villages and individual farmers) that modern computers cannot improve it. This allowed (and allows) them to invest lots of time in art and religion, which are two sides of the same coin in Bali. But if you ask me, the more interesting culture overall is Java. Java has multiple layers of culture (local animism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Western culture) that creating a special glow like in a Rothko-painting.

The euro kabuki has really slowed down my reading lately. And I am impressed by Austria’s visionary moves lately. It seems Austria tries very hard to lose its AAA-status. With a little luck Austria will lose less with supporting its banks than the remaining parties with their EFSF-contributions. I wish our government was this smart! In the mean time the paper here reported that the Dutch government is teaming up with Britain to reduce the influence of a Franco-German Diktat by enforcing economic policies on EU-members beyond getting their debt in order. L'Histoire se répète.

The main actor's penchant for slapstick is Hotel Lux' major flaw. To let the tragedy sink in, one has to resist breaking the tension too early with levity. The comedian Jon Stewart is guilty of doing the same. Instead of going in for the kill, he lets his prey escape with minor bruises (if he bruises at all). Joseph Vilsmeyer would certainly have made a much better film.

Re Gaddafi: The neocons thought they might do a Saddam. Turning a former leftist dictator to their side. As with Saddam and Reagan/Bush/Rumsfeld, such alliances of evil men do not hold for long ..

The main beef I have with Fukuyama is the culture of intellectual sloppiness of the strolling naked emperor. He even admits in the foreword that his book has many (little) errors. Many of these errors could have been easily corrected by just one diligent reader, e.g. in the chapter I am currently reading he refers to the fact that the Russians in contrast to the Europeans didn't build castles in the 15th century. Now, anybody worth his salt in early modern history knows about the gunpowder revolution. Medieval castles had become worthless as defensive structures. Low lying earth fortresses were what worked. The level of errors is breath-taking. In a student paper, I could nearly understand it. At a professorial level, it is a sad testament to the low standards in political science.

Some tasks Fukuyama sets out to do, are impossible. A narrative of a millennium of Chinese history and again of Indian history in less than 50 pages each is simply not feasible. If one uses a rigorous analytical framework such as Samuel Finer's great history of government, it just might work, but Fukuyama a) doesn't define the terms he uses and b) quickly abandons any consistency of writing about the nominal topic of the part or chapter. Part IV is labeled "The rise of political accountability". It actually is a potted history of Europe. Its component chapter 25 is labeled "East of the Elbe" and is actually about Hungary. The Elbe river that is well to the north of any part of Hungary. Defenders might argue that Hungary is actually to the East of the Elbe. But would you title a chapter about the US state Maine "East of the Mississippi"? Fukuyama, Friedman and the other critters that pollute the New York Times bestseller list publish one "truthy" book after another. There is no quality control whatsoever. Nobody calls this frauds out in the mainstream media. Cheney's memoirs are a collections of old lies which nobody deigns to point out.

Finally, Fukuyama has the strange urge to bash communism and islamic extremists, easy dead targets. The chain of evidence supposedly linking events thousands of years ago to actions in the 20th century is brazen, especially as Fukuyama simply refuses to even consider the US influence of, say, causing the Iranian revolution. No, this is really intellectually weak stuff that explains a good part of the stupidity that drives US foreign policy.

I am really looking forward to see/read Geert Mak's take on America. He has a certain Studs Terkel quality (of whom I just acquired two used books I have yet to catalog or read). Hopefully, he will be less sloppy than what happened to his documentary about In Europe, which wasn't broadcast in Europe because it had numerous minor errors (such as falsely making Bulgaria part of the Habsburg Empire which Austria naturally didn't want to see on its TV.). I still enjoyed watching many episodes (in Dutch) on the producer's website.

Austria, unfortunately, is quickly approaching Belgian political blockade. Mired in a decade of massive neo-liberal corruption of all three major parties, the politicized judicial system has developed a strange game of indicting but not convicting corrupt politicians. It's like playing chess without removing any pieces. The dead duck indicted corrupt politicians remain, blocking any chance of reform and fresh faces.

Still, the underlying state machinery is working properly - despite what the Anglo Saxon echo chamber tries to promote (e.g. the so called "think tank" The Lisbon Council slams Austria and Germany for not reforming enough. Fine, until you look at who they identify as reform champions - Estonia and Greece!). Austria is and remains a safe bet. The Central Banks should really freeze some of the traders out by pushing up margin calls and deposit fees. It is ludicrous that Austria pays the rating agencies EUR 300.000 for their services. As I read recently, a sovereign AAA is enormously less risky than a commercial AAA (think AIG). Pushing up Austria's cost of borrowing (which in turn pushes up mortgage costs linked to the SMR) is truly evil. Unfortunately, the Central Bankers work for the banks not the people, so instead of punishing traders and banks, they will continue to place burdens on the general populace.

I am also reading the almost antiquated 2009 book It takes a pillage which presents a now familiar picture of Wall Street corruption and ineptness.

Also mid-way in the Steve Jobs bio, which arrived in German translation in the shops before I received the English one by mail. The European pricing is really funny, though. In Germany and France, you get the translated version for 24 EUR, in Italy the translation costs 17 EUR, while the English original goes for 16-17 EUR. Steve Jobs' value was being the true jerk that stood up to the other jerks (Disney, music industry, telecoms) temporarily protecting nerds (whose contributions Jobs liberally appropriated later. Jobs' preference for closed systems is his big flaw.). It is a good bio, although the author's sucking up to the rich and powerful is a bit nauseating.

Re your reading of Anmerkungen zu Hitler: Firstly, the lower class Iron Cross was handed out like confetti in the world wars. Even the higher ones were quite liberally distributed: cheap morale builders (as the US military has learned, today's officers have a distinct Soviet/Boy Scouts flair with all those ribbons). Secondly, the German officer corps were aristocratic. Hitler's low class origins (apart from being a "foreigner") would have prevented from him becoming an officer. Furthermore, he was asocial, not exactly what a junior officer should be. Finally, the pacing of Haffner's book is one of the best I have ever read. It uses the influence technique of the yes commitment: He gets the reader to say yes on a small point, the points grow larger, chapter per chapter, until he finally rams home the point that Hitler is a traitor to the German nation - a point difficult to accept to many Germans who swore oaths to their Führer. One of the most shocking elements of living in Austria is discovering the lurking existence of many old unrepenting Nazis (fortunately now being mostly weeded out by the grim reaper). Instead of the wisdom of the elderly, one often meets quite ugly minds (there isn't a German expression for the opposite of the "Greatest Generation"). These elderly people grew up under full Nazi propaganda during the 1930s and became more fanatical than their less brain-washed parents. Haffner's book with its yes, yes, yes technique may have helped open many minds.

About Hitler's books, the author's lack of familiarity with German culture makes his analysis often flawed, e.g. a reference to Karl May would be just as normal as a modern politician referring to James Bond or Harry Potter. Everyone was familiar with the main characters and stories.

Thank you for your comments on Anmerkungen zu Hitler (my original review/synopsis was not complete, so I have reloaded it). No doubt about it, it is a very good book, and very well paced. What made me feel a few itches was that it so clearly tries to proof a thesis, which is my interpretation of your Influence argument. But it is history. I have learned to appreciate history as the great debunker of theories. Basically every theory in the social sciences is flawed, because the human animal and his constructions have so many factors that they are always at least somewhat inconsistent. I lacked a bit the inconsistency in Mr. Haffner’s book. Basically, Mr. Haffner basically brings forward the same thesis, namely that Prussia and Germany are civilised countries, in The Rise and Fall of Prussia (and I have no problems with that). And regarding Karl May, in a way you are right. Some managers in my office construct stories on the basis of football, so why not Karl May? Still, I would not expect the minister of defence here to argue strategy in Afghanistan on the basis of Asterix.

I thought that Austria’s fall from grace had more to do with the communis opinio that countries have to bail out their banks at all costs. Austrian banks are heavily exposed to places like Hungary, and have proven to be just as able to cook their books as elsewhere (e.g. CDS’s sold posted as guarantees). It may not be the quality of government finance, but rather the off-balance liability that causes the concern. Actually, the risk ratings of European sovereigns are highcompared to their bond spreads if compared to corporates. And the spreads for Britain and the US are lower than for the European triple-A countries. You may even wonder if corruption affects bond spreads if you see this news item or read this story.

By the way: have you read Der Donauraum im wirtschaftlichen Umbruch nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Währung und Finanzen in den Nachfolgestaaten Österreich, Ungarn und Tschechoslowakei 1918-1929? According to the FAZ, this is one of the best books to learn about how to break up a currency union. The Czechs seem to have a lot of experience with this process.

And as we speak, Holland’s spreads are also going up, mainly due to news that the economy has shrunk with 0.3% in the last quarter. Dutch consumers have immediately tightened their purse strings given the economic news. And this is really sad. The current crisis in Europe has now really become a crisis of political competence, not unlike America’s.

I am not such a great fan of Geert Mak. I feel he writes too much like a Dutch-Reformed minister, particularly in his otherwise interesting book Jorwerd : The Death of the Village (coming to think of it, his style has some similarities with Haffner). His book Amsterdam :A Brief Life of the City paid too much attention to late 20th century counterculture. I have only seen a few parts of the In Europa series of documentaries. The one about the Berlin Wall was pretty good. Hmmm, yes, it may be considered sloppy if you did not know that Bulgaria was never part of the Hapsburg Empire. But then again, Bulgaria is probably as well known as the Republic of Kalmykia is in Austria. History here is firmly oriented towards the Atlantic. After antique history and the Italian Renaissance, you learn about the Dutch Revolt and Golden Century, the French and American Revolutions, the age of imperialism, and then on to the World Wars. Regarding things to the east, you do not even meet the first German before 1940, so to speak. My reading about Prussia and Hitler was like a detour into the steppe, following Adenauer’s definition.

Talking about the steppe, your assessment of Hotel Lux reminded me of the movie A Foreign Affair by Billy Wilder. It could have an been excellent drama, but it half of it is comedy. Set in Germany shortly after the Second World War and with an excellent Marlene Dietrich, it is a little known film still worth watching. You can only speculate what the two refugees of old Europe were discussing after hours.

With Marlene Dietrich, we know quite well what she loved to talk about: horribly inedible German/Berlinese food: „Ick will wat Feinet.“ There is a shocking difference between the glamor of her roles and her down-to-earth sauerkraut and cabbage lifestyle. This difference played a major role in her relationship with the foppish Erich Maria Remarque. Their collected letters are quite charming: 'Sag mir, daß Du mich liebst . . .'. I must confess I haven't seen A Foreign Affair but will promptly do so.

Re Dutch history, I would have thought that the importance of the Rhine and the European blue banana of prosperity and the Hansa trading network are major themes. In a big picture history look on Europe, you have the perpetual fight between France and Germany over a collection of smaller states in between (Benelux, Switzerland, Savoy, Piedmont, Milan).

I haven't read the book about the Donauraum. Maybe I check it out in the library. Much of Austrian banking's eastern exposure is pedestrian private real estate that would be quite safe. In the long run, real estate values in prime locations in Prague, Budapest etc. will continue to appreciate. The stupidity of the banks was caused by their reliance of re-financing long term loans with short term money. Unfortunately, European monetary economic mismanagement (and local incompetence and corruption) has caused a short term cash flow problem. It is tragic that Europe can't manage to lift itself out by creating its own Marshall plan, assisted by ECB easy money for the people (not the traders).

Re Prussia, tongue in cheek, I hold the opinion that it is culturally "Russian" with pockets of civilization surviving in the cities. Situated beyond the Roman limes, their experience with civilization is quite recent and not very deep. I wish unified Germany had kept its capital in cozy Bonn ...

Asterix, which is highly sophisticated on a deeper reading akin to Alice in Wonderland, certainly offers valuable lessons re Afghanistan: The mightiest empire cannot defeat the local crazies at the fringe of the empire. Cut your losses and let the crazies stew in the glory of their backwardness ...

Wouldn’t it be that you have lived in Vienna too long, if you think that a part of Germany beyond Bavaria is a horror? When I worked in Vienna I was occasionally called Deitscher, because I ordered Brötchen instead of Semmeln. It was not meant to be a compliment, but I interpreted it otherwise: it was during the reign of Kurt Waldheim. Anyway, Holland was also partially above the limes (roughly, the border of the Roman empire went through the city of Utrecht). Even more so, the people who lived there during Roman days have all migrated southwards, and were replaced by people from further north during the Völkerwanderung. So as you can imagine, I feel taken to account, because if Prussia is Russian, than actually, it is Central Asian, according to Russia and Asia: Nomadic and Oriental Traditions in Russian History.

I really have to get myself an economic history of the Netherlands. The Hansa network was important for Holland in the Middle Ages, although if I recall it, Holland was at the fringe of the network. The economic epicentre of the Low Countries was in Flanders at the time. Much of that moved north during the Dutch Revolt. I do not know how important trade with Germany was at the time, although I think it was limited. You usually hear about trade with Scandinavia, Britain, France and beyond, but little about Germany. Germany was more the source of cheap labour, a role it performed until the middle of the last century. The German Gastarbeiter were treated with a certain contempt. Remember also that Holland has been at peace with its eastern neighbour almost continuously, which was itself mostly a collection of smaller states. Britain and France were the aggressors. I had not heard the term Blue Banana before. I think the Dutch would find such a model strange without the inclusion of the Paris region. French multinationals invest reasonable amounts of money here.

Regarding the euro crisis, I try to enlighten our liberators from across the ocean in this thread. Feel free to contribute also. Following Holland’s contribution to international punditry Willem Buiter in this interview, I feel the situation is pretty grave. ECB easy money? I think there has been plenty of easy money. But you might get just what you want according to this article. When the ECB interest rate policy is checked versus the Taylor Rule for the countries of ECB Board Members, the match is pretty good. Now, five out of six Board members come from the sinners Portugal, Italy, Spain, Italy and Belgium. In the news today: ABN AMRO has reduced its exposure to Belgian government bonds (they bought Austrian bonds, among others). These are interesting times.

What you may find interesting is the calculation of the benefit of the euro for workers. According to the Dutch Bureau for Policy Analysis, that benefit is roughly equivalent to one week's pay. Given that Holland is a smaller country surrounded by other euro countries, the benefit for Austrians is likely going to be lower. I expect this is the benefit before the costs of the current crisis. The benefit is much lower than that of free trade zone, which stands at 1.5 months of pay at least.

I think the last time I read Asterix was at the same time as I read Karl May. But you have a point here.

Pace Fukuyama, the transliminal origins of the Dutch might explain their unstoppable barbarian urges to roam across Europe in caravans/RV during the summer ... As an excellent small Roman museum some 100 km to the north of Vienna in Mikulov, Czech Republic, shows clearly the Limes worked not as a Berlin Wall but more like the US-Mexican border with intense exchange and settlements on both sides of the border. The Roman city of Carnuntum (pop, 50.000; only a devastating earthquake there triggered the translocation and rise of Vienna) guarded the amber trade road from the Baltic to Italy. So the proto-Dutch barbarians beyond Utrecht would have been under heavy Roman influence. Looking at a current GDP per capita map of the Netherlands, proximity to the Limes is beneficial (exception: Groningen).

I just finished a good survey of Venetian economic history (remaindered), Venedig 800 1600, which stresses the importance and dependencies of early global supply chains from China or India to Arabia/Ottoman Empire to Venice to Germany or Flanders. German silver (think Thaler or Dollar) were important export goods.

Re bananas, Paris, like Madrid, Vienna, Berlin and Moscow, follows the model of centralized and concentrated power structures that drain their surrounding cities, whereas the cities within the Blue Banana have developed a co-opetive (cooperative and competitive) power-sharing. The Euro is the ultimate Blue Banana project, unfortunately steered by Paris and Berlin, two power centers distinctly beyond it and having a different outlook.

The BBC has a nifty Eurozone debt web tool (although the debts to the major nations only account for a small percentage of the total foreign debt, e.g. out of Spain's 1800 bn only 450 bn EUR are accounted for by the flows illustrated). The Irish are truly owned by the Brits again: 390K EUR foreign debt per person. Ireland has now almost as much foreign debt as Spain!

Re benefits of the Euro in the core countries, one has to account for different effects. There was a burst of inflation at the beginning as signal prices jumped from 10 ATS to 1 EUR (=13,76 ATS) especially in the service sector. For goods, the increased visibility of unwarranted Austria surcharges on to the German price level had a very beneficial effect. For the core countries, which had a hidden monetary union anyway, making the connection explicit was economically sound. The cardinal sin was including unsound Italy which opened the door to further marginal candidates. Nevertheless, it could have worked if the institutions had been led not by technocrats, e.g. in Spain, one could have limited new building permits to rein in its metastasizing real estate sector ...

Finished Fukuyama whose book is also mis-titled. It ends after the Glorious Revolution not the French Revolution. His display of ignorance is truly astounding, e.g. on page 457, he writes: "In the United States in the period leading up the Civil War, a minority of Americans in the South passionately sought to defend their "peculiar institution" of slavery." In reality, abolitionism was the minority opinion well into the Civil War (cf. Foner). If Fukuyama's knowledge of US history went somewhat up to the level of a Texas school board history book, he would at least be aware that the Southern states voted in favor of secession.

The book is filled with easily checked errors. Given his name, Fukuyama should have at least some familiarity with Japanese history which should have prevented him from such howlers as on p. 447:"... (the Tokugawa feudal lords) agreed not to introduce firearms among themselves because they did not want to give up their traditional form of sword- and archery-based warfare." Besides the fact that successful sengoku jidai warfare was a combination of yari (pikes) and guns (not sword and archery of times past), the radical disarmament of the population and the restriction to ceremonial weaponry was caused not by a love of tradition but hard-nosed politics. Guns are indiscriminate killers and might disrupt the shogun power monopoly.

Fukuyama's book is similar to the US invasion of Iraq: Based on false premises, corrupt ideas and lazy execution with disastrous results, it still found an eager audience, captive in its self-inflicted ignorance. It is not a comforting thought that the next generation of American leaders is trained by such lights as Greg Mankiw, John Yoo and Francis Fukuyama.

A propos Semmeln, such worthless lumpy white bread shouldn't be eaten at all.

If you want to know why Austria may soon lose its AAA-rating, look no further than here. It is vintage USA 2006. I remember driving on the motorway in Arizona and listening to commercials on the radio saying: “you also deserve a new truck! Come to our store and within 30 minutes you drive away in your new car, no matter your credit history!” Let us see if Austria is better at prosecuting the management of this bank than the country that spends 5% of GDP on lawyers (legal fees because of the Lehman bankruptcy are already at 1.5 billion dollars, I read). After all, SAS70 and ISAE 3402 are just as cumbersome as SOX.

You are right: there was trade across the limes, and you see that reflected in the various maps of the Roman Empire in the Low Countries. If you watch such maps in Italy the Roman Empire includes all of the Netherlands. Most Dutch maps put the border along the Oude Rijn, so through the middle of the country. Note also that the two southern provinces remained catholic until the late 1970’s, whereas the north mostly followed the wisdom of John Calvin. Legal contracts in Latin have been found far north of the Oude Rijn border. But then again, this exhibition in Paris claims that Vercingetorix’ garlic eating surrender monkeys were also not as primitive as previously assumed. They did not even eat a lot of wild boar! It is claimed that before the Romans, the French were already fine craftsmen, and doubtlessly also Cordon Bleu cooks and eminent philosophers. Likely however, Holland was much more primitive. The technology to live in the peat lands was known to the Romans (some of the canals they dug still exist), but most was spread by monks from the 8th century onwards.

So yes, my ancestors were noble savages, just like the Swiss, if I am not mistaken. And that is not too bad, just look at Belgium. Belgium was part of the Roman Empire and their political situation is like Italy without the bunga-bunga entertainment (although this is fun). Proximity to the lime might be useful, but Holland’s province deepest into former Roman territory (Limburg) is also the country’s rust belt. Although it does not look like Charleroi in Belgium (a Dutch poll chose it as the ugliest city in Europe), unemployment is over 10% and lots of people grow noxious weeds, or migrate to areas with more jobs. Pure horror for an order minded Swiss or Austrian.

You may be pleased that the newspaper reported today that fewer Dutch savages will visit the Alpine ski slopes this winter. Dutch cost savings are expected to include winter holidays. And it is obvious why so many Dutch roam across Europe with caravans/RV: other countries simply cannot match the quality of peanut butter, chocolate chips and potatoes that the Dutch require. Just tomatoes may be obtained locally, if they are not too expensive.

Austrian Maria Taler were an important currency in the Horn of Africa until quite late, if I am not mistaken until the 20th century. Venice was the end of the Spice Route until the Portuguese found the route along the Cape of Good Hope. The first Dutch ships to the Spice Islands (just before 1600) still made massive profits, but when shipments became more regular that profit quickly deteriorated (eventually most money was made on intra-Asian trade). This may have had to do with the regular supply, but also with changing food habits in Europe. I learned from A Revolution in Taste (which I can recommend) that in Medieval Europe, food was still very much based on rules defined by Galen, with lots of spices used for a (medically) balanced diet. Food very much resembled Moroccan cuisine as we know it today. New medical insights reduced that requirement, and food tried to stress the individual taste of ingredients. Cynics may claim that the brag factor of spices may have fallen with the steady supply, but I cannot support that with quotes. Economic history is very much on my list for the coming months, also comparative economic history. Kenneth Pomeranz’ The Great Divergence about the rise of Europe versus China just arrived in the mail. Expect a review/synopsis in due course, and certainly before any of Fukuyama’s book. And I get now what you mean with Paris and Berlin being outside the productive axe.

I meant the remarks on the benefits of the euro slightly differently than you interpreted them. I recognise the same issues you mention around the introduction of the currency. The Dutch government made it worse. It managed to get into the euro at a slightly lower than neutral rate, which was a nice benefit for Dutch companies, and led to inflation costs for consumers. But the one week value (i.e. probably 2%) of the euro should be seen as increased Pareto optimality due to cross border trade (i.e. Ricardo’s theory of the benefit of international trade). Cross border trade with Sweden and Denmark (and likely Switzerland) have risen at almost the same rate as with other euro countries.

I had seen the tool. Yes, Ireland’s credit is massive, but the banking sectors of Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and Holland are also creating relatively high levels of credit (Iceland’s was 10 times GDP before the crash). E.g. Holland is not only exporting 70% of what it produces, it is also an important centre for trade finance and tax planning. Whereas the “gnomes of Zürich” have cornered private banking, the Dutch have cornered a large share of the corporate tax planning sector. E.g. U2 and the Rolling Stones are Dutch corporates (and did you know that Holland had a village called Zurich?).

One question. I am reading Sebag Monefiore’s Jerusalem , the Biography (every chapter was checked by an expert, the author stated in the introduction), which states among others that

In 1776, some 10 per cent of Americans were church-goers; by 1815, it was a quarter; by 1914, it was half.

I find that somewhat counter-intuitive. Usually America’s religiosity is explained because of its Puritan background in New England. You would then expect that church going would have reduced throughout time. Is there an explanation for this?

Prosecutions in Austria? You must be joking, Sir. First of all, all the documents will be in an incomprehensible language which the Finanzmarktaufsicht will be unable to understand and will spend millions on having useless page after page translated. Secondly, it will be a chain of shell companies (Raiffeisen Hungary is a subsidiary of Raiffeisen International which is not quite a subsidiary of Raiffeisen Zentralbank which is in turn owned by the hundreds of local Raiffeisen cooperatives which own themselves) that even the eagermost use of international Amtshilfe will be unable to penetrate. Finally, Raiffeisen (background The Green Giant - the picture though is too bleak, Raiffeisen has done much good in developing rural areas) owns the Conservatives ... the red Chancellor meanwhile has spent 100.000 EUR on his Facebook presence, including buying 5.000 fake friends and cheering sock puppets: Virtual government at its finest, understandably he doesn't want to toil in real politics.

The Celts were prosperous and rich in gold - which financed a good part of the Roman deficits. There are numerous museums and exhibitions that show the wonderful gold craftmanship of the Celts, always a crowd pleaser. The Swiss, by the way, claim Celtish ancestry of the Helvetii whose aggressiveness against the Gauls supposedly started Caesar's intervention.

Vercingetorix was a brave but foolish warrior who didn't understand guerrilla warfare. Bottling himself up in Alesia was truly boneheaded. What the besieged endured, however, was the opposite of being a surrender monkey.

Dutch vegetables are truly impressive, although Vienna seems to be mostly supplied from Spain, Italy and Israel. I have not seen a Dutch label recently. It is always fun to return home to Switzerland to see the home grown "Swiss quality" vegetables a quarter of the European size at quadruple price. On the other hand, while probably not quite as tall as the Dutch on average, the average Swiss "gnomes" will tower over the average Brit. The quip also neglects the decentralized nature of Swiss private banking in Geneva (French money), Basel (German money) and Ticino (Italian money).

The Dutch must travel further if they consider Charleroi the ugliest city in Europe. When I visited the restored city center a few years ago, I found it not unpleasant but strangely deserted of human life. Mentality-wise, Austria and Belgium are a good fit (Belgian owes its sprawling bureaucracy to the Habsburgs), as do their protestant neighbor states Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Re US church-goers, the highly decentralized nature of US open settlements made it difficult to provide church infrastructure. Harvard and Yale both started as divinity schools but never managed to churn out enough graduates to rid the market of incompetent whiskey priests, to use Catholic parlance. Much of US religion was private: Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln reading the bible by themselves (before becoming an atheist). The increasing urbanization of the US made church-going much easier. The church in the United States is also one of the few public places to mingle. Overall, I would think that the figures sound plausible for organized church going, but it neglects the very important element of private, family worship.

Having now seen A Dangerous Method about Sabina Spielrein, CG Jung and Freud, I found they didn't succeed in the dramatic aspect. The Spielrein biography I have read created a much bigger (and stronger) character. Keira Knightley is pushed into the background. A propos background, despite having filmed in Vienna with the stars present, it looks like they used the blue screen for the Belvedere park scenes, which is anyway not a nice park for walks as it lacks protective space, being an open incline from top to bottom, and park banks. Both the Stadtpark or Volksgarten would be much closer to Berggasse 19 and nicer to walk in.

Alesia? What is Alesia? Nothing ever happened in Alesia! I have finished Jerusalem , the Biography, and I am sure it was no fun to lose from Roman war machine. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s book is quite good; you will probably like it (I wrote a review that you may want to peruse). The author has tried successfully to keep his book about this religious centre factual. However, in a way that is also a weakness of the book. Because the author sticks to the facts, the book offers little in terms of analysis. E.g. I would have found it interesting if the author had discussed the question if Jerusalem’s history is more violent than the surrounding countries ( I did not get the idea).

Ah, and I am happy to read that the Austrian prime minister is faking his Facebook friends. That makes our prime minister look somewhat less silly. Last Saturday the newspaper here reported how civil servants from the European Union support the presidents and prime ministers during euro summits. They said they had difficulty finding ways to turn the ideas of politicians into policies, let alone implement them. They also said there were three prime ministers who occasionally required extra education during summits. These were Zapatero, Berlusconi, and Rutte, the Dutch prime minister (a trained historian). Not exactly a club I would want to be a member of. But probably some of the 24 other prime ministers just faked their understanding. The article also stated that the German chancellor surrounded herself mostly with lawyers and historians (how come that does not surprise me) and Sarko with investment bankers (given the balance sheets of French banks that gives me the creeps).

It is funny to see how particularly the British returned to old clichés about Europe. Even the Guardian thought it had to come up with this description:

When the dust settles, Friday 9 December may be seen as a watershed, the beginning of the end for Britain in Europe. But more than that – the emergence for the first time of a cold new Europe in which Germany is the undisputed, pre-eminent power imposing a decade of austerity on the eurozone as the price for its propping up the currency.

The prospect is of a joyless union of penalties, punishments, disciplines and seething resentments, with the centrist elites who run the EU increasingly under siege from anti-EU populists on the right and left everywhere in Europe.

There is of course a grain of truth in it. Somehow the creditor nations seem to get away with making only the debtor nations responsible for what went wrong. And without the prospect of growth, the coming decade will be pretty bad for Mediterranean Europe. Equally,Holland is certainly not happy with Britain’s Alleingang. Although Germany has changed in the last decade, the approach of Germany and France is often seen as to “statist” to the Dutch taste. We shall see how things develop. For now, the kabuki remains a source of intelligent infotainment.

Dutch vegetables look impressive indeed, but that does not say much for their taste. Holland is one of the largest exporters of agricultural products. Until quite recently it was the second (in terms of value) after the United States, but I suspect that Holland has lost that position to one of the BRICs. Agriculture is an industry here, and for a long time, size and looks have been more important than taste. This changed a bit when the Germans, themselves not spoiled with a great cuisine, lost interest in Dutch tomatoes and called them Wasserbomben (“water bombs”). And these roses you buy in Vienna or Seoul were probably grown in Kenya and just auctioned in the Netherlands.

It could very well be that the gnomes from Zürich are averagely taller than the Brits. It has been quite some time since I spent time in Switzerland (Zug, by the way is another fine banking centre loved by the Dutch). Britain is still a class society with a culture of hard work and TV dinners, pretty much like their American cousins. My weekend newspaper reading included an article about the growing divide here between higher and lower educated. That is seen as far more important than income inequality in defining people’s opinions and health. And regarding the British, Some Dutch suspect the island nation of mild levels of inbreeding. Still, here in the west of the country we like them. Culturally, the Dutch are supposed to be most like the Danes, but very few people travel up north to go and check. I do not think that the Dutch hold any specific opinion of the Swiss beyond the standard clichés. But the British can be nicely eccentric, and that is appealing in an egalitarian country. E.g. during the last two years Holland has embraced Redmond O'Hanlon as an intellectual teddy bear and star of two series of television documentaries. He is now the star of O’Hanlon’s Heroes about Victorian discoverers (in English), which seems to include no Dutchmen. And now that Saint Nicholas has left the country and Christmas is coming nearer, I am about to start reading Churchill’s Empire. As I associate Christmas with such sins like champagne, whisky and cigars, it always reminds me of the Greatest Brit. The Dutch do not have advent calendars, so I have made it a bit of a tradition to read a book about Sir Winston during this time of the year.

You should not be surprised that the Dutch do not travel very far in Europe. It all depends upon the distance they can cover with their caravans/RV’s. But I am not so sure if Belgium’s bureaucracy is the fault of the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs left in the 1795, so that is 35 years before Belgium became an independent state. In between were the reforms of code Napoleon. When it became independent the Belgians had to find an unemployed German prince to get themselves a king, but the political leadership was French speaking. The Walloons prospered and introduced the Industrial Revolution on the European Continent. But their coalmines and steel plants suffered after the Second World War and now the Flemings prosper while the south is a rust belt. The communities have grown more apart than ever, and that makes Belgium look like the Habsburg Empire (or the European Union). They now have a federal government and three community parliaments, but that is all relatively recent.

Thank you for your comments on US church-goers. I can appreciate the argument, but shouldn’t this have led to the same result in places like Canada and Australia? Particularly Australia follows a European rather than an American path to development. And then one last question: how serious do Austrians take “Austrian economics”. When I studied the debate was Keynes vs. Monetarism. Hayek was appreciated for his analysis of socialist economies. The Road to Serfdom is pretty mainstream nowadays. I don't recall Mises was ever mentioned. When I asked a more recent graduate, it does not seem to have changed very much here. Austrian economics is a subject lightly touched upon.

The Road to Serfdom is quite nutty and defeatist. Much of the recent calamities are due to the disappearance of the Communist threat that ruined Hayek the hypocrite's sleep.

Austrian Economics is as Austrian as the Amish are Swiss. The last one left long ago. It is also questionable if it is really part of economics and not (political) philosophy. I attended a seminar on Austrian Economics which interested all of six people, so more like a privatissimum. Funnily, here in Vienna, there exists a private business school financed jointly by Gaddafi and US plutocrats surrounding Gary Becker that wanted to resurrect Austrian Economics on Austrian soil (or manure?), mostly staffed by the right-wing FPÖ (which troubles Paul Krugman time and again, see his column last Friday). One of Gaddafi's sons attended the school while staying at a nice villa in Döbling filled with his Eastern European prostitutes and tigers. With the Masters of the Universe and the Gaddafis in trouble, I wonder how long that school will stay open.

O'Hanlons Helden looks wonderfully quirky. A wonderful find! Unfortunately, English excentricity can go horribly wrong too. My appreciation of another Tory, Sir Winston, has diminished with the years. He was more like a broken clock, right about a few things but mostly wrong. A remnant of the 19th century, he promoted too many a folly (Gallipoli, Germany's weak underbelly) for which others paid with their lives. Still, the world has to be eternally grateful to him for keeping Britain in the ring when she stood alone. And he is a marvelous writer, indeed.

In reading, I am close to Jerusalem (which made The Economist's notable books list) with Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, which is about the fragility of Smyrna/Izmir, Alexandria and Beirut. Their fragile cosmopolitanism was in danger from the suburbs and the countryside, cities doomed to return to provincialism. In Smyrna, it was often the Dutch ambassador who alone stayed at his post (being somewhat neutral) while civilization collapsed around him.

From The Economist's list, I also finished Poor Economics which shows that while it is easy to improve the lives of the poor with just a little push, it is hard to change their environment. Poverty means a lack of safety nets and an absence of options. An individual approach is not sufficient, the community has to be awakened.

I need to finish Easterly's somewhat defeatist The White Man's Burden too, which I abandoned mid-book.

Of course Hayek could claim that his means were reduced by taxes for social security. But Hayek was not really against social security. From my own review/notes of Road to Serfdom: With the Intellectuals and Socialism:

However, freedom is not laissez-faire unlimited. Individuals should be given the best conditions for planning, and should be helped by conditions for competition. This could include a legal framework limiting working hours, requiring sanitary arrangements, and providing an extensive system of social services is fully compatible with the preservation of competition.

Particularly his support for health care is often quoted. I did not think I found anything in my abridged version of Road to Serfdom, that would not get the support of most social democrats. I know very little of Austrian economics, except that they do not believe in any form of stimulus under all circumstances. And that seems to fit the rather incoherent set of ideas expressed by Republican hopefuls for the American presidential elections. If support for populist parties in the polls here would not hover around 30%, I would laugh at their ideas.

I think I would include a scene of that Döbling villa in a movie about the Qaddafi clan. I wonder who should direct that movie, I thought for a moment of Werner Herzog. Such a movie could be immensely colourful; you could also include his “Amazon” bodyguards and his parade with camels and horses through Rome. With as the lead story how a handsome young colonel of a newly independent nation destroys his family and ruins his country, all for the sake of raw power of vanity.

Sir Winston Churchill wasn’t a successful father either. You would see most of your opinion confirmed in Richard Holmes’ In the Footsteps of Churchill: A Study in Character (I left a short review). Among other cases the author expresses his surprise of Churchill’s acceptance of the appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer, although he could hardly manage his own finances. Churchill had to write marvellous books, because he had to sell a lot of them. He enjoyed an expensive life style (despite that he got his cigars free for most of his life). Churchill’s Empire deals with his racism, among others. Still he was an interesting figure, and a key player in many important events of the last century. The fascination of young Brits with Nazism remains strange. It is not just Tories doing this, and neither are they the only ones disbehaving overseas. Jerusalem , the Biography mentions that in the 4th century British pilgrims already had a bad reputation in the Holy Land, and drunken Englishmen (think bold shaven head, pale skin colour and polo shirt) are still the scourge of Amsterdam. Much better to watch Redmond O’Hanlon. The series is quite good indeed.

Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean has been on sale here, but I have decided to skip it. The official reason is that it would clog another 5cm of shelf space, but unofficially it would give me a large dose of Fernweh. Although it is a good book, I am not sure if I would put Jerusalem on my list of most notable books of the year. Frankly, my reading has been a bit lazy this year, with many easy-to-digest history books. I shall do better in 2012.

Certainly, solving poverty is not an easy thing. Still, some countries have done it quite well. Institutional factors seem quite important, which seems to match your remarks. You may want to check out The Four Little Dragons: The Spread of Industrialization in East Asia (as long as you do not mind that the author was the great prophet of Japan’s rise to global dominance in the 1980’s). None of these countries relied upon market forces only. It is a short book.

How is the latest euro zone news received in Vienna? Here the economy has fallen into recession, and the cabinet plans new budget cuts. Falling consumer spending because of economic uncertainty will take a large part of the blame. There is no more “low hanging fruit”, so the next round of cuts is going to hurt. Some of the measures contemplated seem good for the economy anyway (e.g. increasing the retirement age earlier), but I wonder how long Northern European voters will still remain patient with Brussels. I just saw a comment by Nouriel Roubini, who claims the EUR/USD should fall back to parity to bring relieve to Club Med. That is not good for any holiday plans.

I am replying with admiration for your interests and analysis of history. Keep it
up. I feel as if I am completing a doctorate in world history.
wtnaud

>67 WTNaud: Thanks, we are a bit understaffed re South America and Africa to call it "world history", more like "Statler and Waldorf on world theater".

>66 mercure: EURUSD is mostly irrelevant, as the imbalance is intra- not intercontinental. A slight devaluation of the Euro wouldn't hurt but might send the Brits over the cliff. The BBC's top economists reveal their graphs of 2011 chart 8 - unit labour costs and chart 12 - real exchange rate show the real problem Europe faces today. The banking crisis is pretty bogus and solvable, given political will. Chart 8 shows that relative to Germany, the PIGS and France have increased their unit labor costs by 20 to 40%. As this happened without a large relative increase in productivity, this hurt their competitiveness. Italy and co. used to devaluate these problems away, a path now closed off.

Even if the ECB ran a high inflation policy, strikes for higher pay would loom and defeat that measure. The Club Med is in a pickle, and so is Germany (and hanger-ons) that chained itself to them. Chart 12 starkly shows these national economies driving into different even opposite directions. If one could only split the Euro zone into two, but France would never its relegation.

Fernweh is good, and the opposite of Heimweh (homesickness) also known as "la maladie suisse", the Swiss disease in France, as the Swiss soldiers in French service, like the US soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan, had a high suicide rate. It was said that listening to certain home melodies would suffice to trigger suicides, sort of like Gloomy Sunday, a fatal Hungarian song (quite a good German film by the way with gorgeous Erika Marozsán as the female lead). 2012 marks the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's Russia campaign which is linked to another melancholic song in Swiss history, the Beresinalied sung by the red-clad Swiss covering the French retreat at the river Beresina against wave after wave of Russian attackers. Few of the Swiss survived, but they returned with all their colors to Switzerland. I find the text of the Beresinalied very moving in its melancholic positive outlook: "Our life is like a journey of a wanderer through the night" (similar to FC Liverpool's You'll never Walk Alone).

Re Hayek, like most cults, his modern worshipers have developed ideas only loosely connected to the man (see Rambo Jesus and living socialism Marx). The trouble with most libertarians and Austrian Economists is that their preferred e.coli Social Darwinism problem solving method is unworkable and costly. Their appetite for competition also evaporates rather quickly if they are personally exposed to it. German ordo liberalism is a much more mature and sensible approach that takes up some of Hayek's ideas.

It has been a tough week for Europe's politicians. Chirac, finally, has received a tiny slap on his wrist for his decade-long reign of corruption, to which acting German president Christian Wulff's indecent refinancing sounds rather trivial but will hopefully topple this perfect example of a managerial politician who is in it mostly for personal gain.

The frustration with the political elite has led to the prominence of the "German word of the year 2010" Wutbürger (angry citizen). These (conservative) angry citizen are basically authoritarians and apolitical. They just want to go on with their lives. Now these Spießbürger (in Switzerland, they are called Füdlibürger in reference to their predilection of sitting on their behind) see their life affected and constrained by inexplicable external forces which makes them angry, dangerously angry. In contrast to the irrelevant protesting students and the underclass in the banlieues/inner-cities, the working of society depends on their doing their duty. Because they are apolitical and only crave for order, they risk to be manipulated for nefarious purposes (see Germany in the 1920s and the current US tea party movement).

I would even count Elizabeth Warren, Glenn Greenwald, Lawrence Lessig and Paul Krugman to be part of this phenomenon. These are, at heart, conservative technocrats (only in up is down USA are they leftists) who discovered that the system isn't working. Firstly, they simply thought that it was an information problem. If they tell the owners about the issues, the owners will see that the world could be quite easily a better place. I remember Krugman being baffled that the media and the public accepted George Bush's blatant lies. Larry Lessig went before the US Supreme Court to remedy the insane corporate copyright system and was shocked to discover that the law as taught had little relevance when it opposed the reigning power structure. Republic, lost just arrived, I skipped to reading his solutions in part IV which argues for sensible but politically infeasible changes to the US constitution. If they couldn't even push through a minuscule tax increase on millionaires, how do they think to prevail in changing the constitution? I admire their energy in carrying on a futile fight against the March of Folly.

In Austria meanwhile, Austria's equivalent to Louis C.K., the comedian Roland Düringer, who has already made a comedy in 1998 about the Austrian self-destructive obsession in DIY home construction Hinterholz 8, has used a text from a Wutbürger book in a strange tirade Wir sind wütend! (we are angry!) to articulate the public frustration about the corrupt and inept political establishment. In an aside, I find the visual and auditive similarities between (Viennese/Lower Austrian) Düringer and (Upper Austrian) Hitler quite striking. Austria's voters have opted for "none of the above" for quite some time. The caretaker governments continue to govern passively and to the benefit of insiders. Salvation can only come from an improved economic climate.

Switzerland is on an interesting path towards a political solution: Its parliamentary system has seen the emergence of new spin-off parties that have cost the established parties 10 to 15 percent per election cycle. In other less parlamentarian countries, the avenue left is the internal take-over of a major party (similar to the way the US Republican tea partiers did - unfortunately fighting for the 1%).

Redmond O'Hanlon is wonderfully weird. His messy book-filled home is a marvel, made for Hollywood. I wonder if one can take a tour in Oxford (at least, after his wife has cleared a tiny path)? His vicar parents must have been strange indeed: Burning their own child's (scientific) books in the backyard, who could still have had such ideas in the 1950s?

One of his gadgets in the series I find unpractical: While I like trolley cases for city tourism (killing about 1-2 per year - the books I buy murder the tiny wheels), I find a backpack much more convenient in open terrain, apart from the fact that trolleys slow you down and tend to bury themselves into the earth.

Statler and Waldorf? I am not that old! I am more of the generation of Beavis and Butthead, although I personally prefer the wonderfully politically incorrect Fokke & Sukke (yes, these are common names in some parts of the world). Unfortunately their jokes are difficult to translate. And although I would not claim to know much about Africa, I have made a couple of trips there.

I presume Nouriel Roubini thinks that if the EUR/USD sinks to parity, all Singaporean secretaries will flock to Paris to buy a Hermes handbag, and all American millionaires will order a Ferrari. That would give temporary relieve to southern Europe. But it would take incentives for reform away. Southern Europe had a great chance for reform with the introduction of the euro, and wasted it. But the consequence of that conclusion is quite brutal. It is Merkel’s policy of deflation, probably for more than a decade. As far as your graphs are concerned: Germany had run up high labour costs in the 1980’s and 1990’s. If you take a longer view, the graphs would probably look a bit better. As an alternative solution for the sovereign debt crisis, according to the FAZ, Italy can easily solve its own problems, given a bit of old-fashioned financial repression. Anyway, the original aim of the euro, to give France some power over Germany's economic power, has failed.

Last week the financial paper here reported that Germany is already exporting more to the BRICS than to the PIIGS. You may wonder how relevant southern Europe is going to be in the medium term. Mediterranean Europe’s demographics are also appalling, although Germany is not doing much better here. And about splitting the euro into two, I had proposed to start with a “latino” and a “germano” in 1998. There’s no prize for the currency I saw fit for Greece. Now it is a bit late and costly to try, as you may appreciate after this paper from 2008.

In Road to Serfdom Hayek is not very radical, but I have never read Ludwig von Mises. On the other hand, in Capitalism and Freedom, the monetarist Milton Friedman argues that licenses for doctors only create a monopoly and should be abolished. Still, if you read this book nowadays, you see that the liberalisation of the economy has largely worked. Exceptions are the financial services areas and executive compensation (and the latter may have more to do with the dominance of finance). I have just added Minsky’s Stabilizing an Unstable Economy to my pile of books to read for another take on the macro economic effect of bubbles.

Ordo liberalism is not a known economic school here, but it seems somewhat like how northern Europe is operating (not Holland; Holland practices mercantilism through domestic democratic compromises). I do not think there are still that many dislocations from subsidies to business sectors and corporations nowadays. There are of course all kinds of legislation that influences markets, e.g. minimum wages, number or hours of the working week and in Holland even the distance to the nearest window in an office. Although I have not studied the case beyond reading a few newspaper articles, it seems that the way Sweden solved its banking crisis in the 1990’s would be textbook standard: a controlled way of taking over banks at the lowest possible rate, punishing existing shareholders. Is that right? Again, cultural factors are important for the success of such an Ordo-Liberal approach. I would not recommend it to countries whose Congress may decide that pizza is a vegetable.

I enjoyed the Wikipedia article about Wutbürger. We have that species here too. On the one hand it is a bit strange of Der Spiegel to complain that people are no longer so tolerant of bad politicians (“früher gelassen und „staatstragend“, jetzt aber „zutiefst empört über die Politiker“). The Wutbürger are described as elderly and I would claim that NIMBY behaviour is common among younger generations as well. The Tages Anzeiger matches the Netherlands better than the Bavarian beer hall of Der Spiegel.

Holland’s maverick politician Geert Wilders targets “Henk & Ingrid”. Henk and Ingrid, common Dutch names, are a standard family in the suburbs with probably two children and a mortgage. Henk is essentially the breadwinner, and Ingrid has a part-time job. They feel they are the backbone of society, spending the majority of their income on taxes and that same mortgage. They “worry about their own world”, as the Tages Anzeiger says. They want to live in a clean and safe environment, something that was at risk in the affordable parts of Holland’s larger cities after the 1980’s. People were worried about the social consequences of immigration, and to some extent they were right. Later, there were long waiting lists for health care that took years to solve. Traffic jams are notorious, while road improvement was sometimes blocked for decades by environmentalist groups subsidised by the same government. Henk and Ingrid may feel that they have not been taken very seriously by politicians and opinion makers. Although Wilders himself used to be opposed to extensive social security, he modelled his party on the Danish anti-Islam party that wants to maintain existing social security. Hence, Wilders’ party could be considered as left-wing with a strange opinion about Islam. I don’t think his voters care much for his radical pro-Israel stance. Wilders now pays less attention to Islam. The Greeks are his new Turks.

Wilders certainly is an authoritarian person. He needs to be, because his party attracts more fortune seekers than talented people. Given that, I do not think his party can outlast its founder and as yet sole member, but that could be different if Wilders stays around for another decade. And there also seems to be a higher tolerance for authoritarianism among his voters. E.g. his party proposes minimum punishments to be included into criminal law, a concept as yet unknown here. This is clearly to influence a society deemed to “weak”. He also rallies against “left-wing hobbies” like subsidies for the arts, while at the same time proposing “animal cops”. Again, lately authoritarianism was linked to education level, and his party attracts mainly people with lower levels of education. Wilders’ is the first party that specifically targets such a group of voters. The more established parties try to attract all layers of society. But like in Switzerland, these parties are eroding. Erosion is worst now among the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, although there seems to be a revolving door aspect. So far the system still works, because parties still require coalitions to govern. Then again, it seems to have been easier for established parties to “take responsibility” and take decisions that are not always popular with their electorate, but still necessary. The trust between political leaders and their electorate is lost.

I think the trolley is part of Redmond O’Hanlon’s persona in this series, just like the story of his parents who burned his science books. The story is not told in this older interview, so it seems to have gained importance. The existence of such parents in the 1950’s will not surprise the Dutch. We have our own minorities who do not want insurance and do not inoculate their children. They think they should put their trust in God (not Allah, our Muslims are much more modern). O’Hanlon breaks through his persona in the part on fetishes in Gabon, when he compares the believe in fetishes to his own consumption of medicine. His cottage is a marvel indeed, almost like a Wunderkammer. I am sure Hollywood could not improve on the Pelican House. I would gladly bring a good bottle of whisky for a look around, preferably with a chat with the man himself (but not about his parents). O’Hanlon is no exception on the island with the bulldog spirit. If you read Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography of Bruce Chatwin, you will find it full of crazy aunts and uncles like O’Hanlon. As for O’Hanlon’s library, last year I had a tour of the library of Artis, Amsterdam’s 170-year-old zoo. O’Hanlon kept his books there when he prepared for the series, and borrowed other books from that library, which contains among others correspondence with Charles Darwin. It is in a wonderful 19th century construction, but rather more orderly than O’Hanlon’s residence in Church Hanborough.

The Beresinalied reminds me of the work of the Dutch poet maudit Jan Slauerhoff (he smoked opium as a ship’s doctor in Asia!). He wrote some wonderful novels set in far flung places and poetry that is a tad sentimental by modern standards. They are great as fados, though.

Alleen in mijn gedichten kan ik wonen.
Zoolang ik weet dat ik in wildernis,
In steppen, stad en woud dat onderkomen
Kan vinden, deert mij geen bekommernis.

Never heard of Slauerhoff, looks interesting. His books translated into German seem to be forgotten.

I am quite enjoying two of my too many Xmas books: Ian Morris' Why the West rules for now is based on his social development index of four factors: energy consumption, urbanization, literacy and military power. The devil is in the details, though: The US uses up double the amount of energy per person than Japan. This is hardly a measure of development, quite the opposite in fact - a measure of inefficiency and outdated technologies. Urbanization also over-promotes heavily centralized countries. I'd say countries with multiple centers are more vibrant and developed. The most unusable scale, however, is his military power index (West today: 250 points, West 1900 5 points, West 1800: 0,5 points. Absent a time machine and the rare battle for Endor, military power comparisons only make sense in a relative not absolute arms race (similarly sports records are difficult to compare - current Marathon runners can't claim the wins of their predecessors.). His Team West is a rather motley crew, ranging from Egyptians to Italians to Americans. Team East creates odd Sino-Japanese bedfellows too. Apart from his awful taste in movies (especially his references to the oeuvre of Roland Emmerich, Germany's revenge for Michael Bay. Emmerich uniquely manages to mess up both drama and history, see or better don't see his latest turgid Anonymous), it is an enjoyable big picture history of the world.

The second one is the already mentioned Republic, lost by disillusioned former Reaganite and youngest 1980 Republican convention member Lawrence Lessig. His (familiar) examples about the messed-up US system are truly depressing, given that his proposed solutions are unlikely to see the light of the day ("rootstrikers"? Haven't Americans outsourced all their gardening to Mexicans?).

Finally, I finished two books about two US cities: The Devil in the White City combines an account of the 1893 Chicago world exhibition with a mass murder story. I am probably in the minority of preferring the world exhibition story sans murder. The story about the architects Burnham, Root and landscape planner Olmsted as well as Buffalo Bill and the Ferris Wheel is quite enchanting on their own.

The second is a book about San Francisco by Simon Winchester: The Crack in the edge of the world. He unfortunately rambles around too much from Iceland to Alaska. The SF earthquake itself is restricted to only three (good) chapters. I also found it strange (or showing Winchester's age) that he considers geological discoveries from the 1960s "modern". Overall, a weaker effort.

You have quoted one of Slauerhoff’s most famous poems. It is the one printed on the wall of the house where he was born. Slauerhoff is even more powerful in his, hopefully funny, poem In Memoriam Mijzelf:

Door vijanden omringd,
Door vrienden in den nood
Geschuwd als aas dat stinkt,
Houd ik mij lachend groot,
Al is mijn ziel verminkt,
Mijn lijf voor driekwart dood.

that was also put to music (not a good recording, however).

If you are interested in Slauerhoff’s novels, I’d recommend Het Verboden Rijk that has been translated into German. The novel combines multiple story lines. It retells the story of Luis Camoes and his life in Macau and China and slowly merges it with a 20th century Irish ship’s wireless operator, who is lost in China; both are doomed to wander the earth. Michelangelo Antonioni would have made an excellent movie from the novel (think a combination of l’Avventura and Professione : Reporter).

Ian Morris’ book has been on my “potentially interesting” list for some time, but I was a bit discouraged by some negative comments on Amazon. I am sure it is difficult to compare societies, particularly because we have few reliable data about the past. Therefore, I can imagine that you use energy consumption as a factor. In general energy consumption is higher in more developed societies. I also do not have much of a problem of wide ranging groups of countries if you want to compare development in the long run. After all, centres of development change through time. In some of the books I read, Europe’s development is compared favourably against China’s, because Europe has multiple states in competition. China on the other hand had a clear centre most of the time, weakening internal competition. I understand that Why the West Rules is quite in line with Guns, Germs and Steel, giving mainly biological and geological reasons for differences in wealth. I would find that a bit myopic. Institutional progress and philosophical or religious ideas can play a role too. It does not make the factor “chance” any less important.

Ha, Simon Winchester! Yes, the man has some curious opinions, as expressed in the Murdoch-rag The Times:

But seeing how South Korea has turned out — its Koreanness utterly submerged in neon, hip-hop and every imaginable American influence, a romantic can allow himself a small measure of melancholy: North Korea, for all its faults, is undeniably still Korea, a place uniquely representative of an ancient and rather remarkable Asian culture. And that, in a world otherwise rendered so bland, is perhaps no bad thing.

This makes Winston Churchill sound most reasonable in Churchill’s Empire. Although not for everybody, it is a good biography. You may not always like what you read, but it does make clear why this man could lead Britain through its darkest hours. I have read the book in tandem with De Schatten van Lombok (I reviewed both), about the Dutch conquest of the island of Lombok. In both books you find the belief in social Darwinism and a “right-or-wrong-my-country” mentality, but the Dutch never had that mystical believe in their own exceptionalism, it seems. Given the way the Americans currently operate in the "triumphant phase"of their imperialism, maybe Churcill was right about the special character of “the English-speaking nations”.

Just like “the Austrian School” may give the Viennese a sense of pride in steering the world’s current superpower’s ideas, so it seems the Dutch still have some influence on the coming presidential elections (well, at least this Tuesday). This all thanks to a certain Bob Vander Plaats in Iowa:

Vander Plaats is a 47-year-old former high-school principal who fails, once every four years, to win the governorship.

Supposedly, this man is a bit of a kingmaker in the Republican Party, through his

Presidential Lecture Series that introduces potential presidential candidates to three audiences, in three Iowa cities, over the course of a day. Tim Pawlenty was the first lecturer this year, Ron Paul the second. Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum are scheduled to speak as well.

As Vander Plaats whisks candidates throughout the state, he will be teaching them how to talk to caucus­goers.

With free pizza, Bob gets the audience going:

You wanna know how to confuse a Dutchman? Go up to him and say: ‘Hey, I’ll mow your lawn for free. On Sunday.’ Free! But Sunday! Free! But Sunday!”

Raucous, chair-shaking laughter.

Pizza, Dutch jokes, gay marriage: out of such elements consensus will be forged.

You sold me on Slauerhoff. I'll read The Forbidden Empire in 2012, even if magical realism is not my cup of taste (nor is Italian cinema). I sampled some of his other poems filled with contradictory issues and themes.

Morris is a fun read. The main issue I have is that he cheats on Team West. Team China remains fairly constant over time, while the continuity from Egypt to Greece is not assured. David Abulafia explicitly denies this continuity in The Great Sea, a beautifully written book I try to read in parallel to Morris' - The perils of the Xmas book glut! The Levant book is also waiting to be finished.

For Morris, I would have preferred a more complicated setup: Team Northern Europe, Team Southern Europe, Team Russia, Team Subsahara, Team Middle East, Team India, Team China, Team Japan and Team South America, Team North America.

Lombok sounds very interesting and about an area I know nothing about. It is not clear to me why the Dutch wanted to conquer the island at all. Apart from becoming a modern tourist resort, I can not detect much of interest to colonialists.

In his book about Korea, Simon Winchester is quite vocal in condemning North Korea. His nostalgic streak lets him hope that North Korea will preserve some of its backwardness after the dictatorial regime crumbles instead of being Americanized. A look at the transformation of Eastern Europe (heavily commercialized NEW Europe) would quickly kill this notion.

Austria takes about as much pride in "Austrian economics" as do the Swiss about the abomination the Americans call "Swiss cheese" which has no relation either to quality cheese nor to Switzerland. Austrian economics as practiced is a form of plutocrat theology.

The vile clown show in the US is depressing. High-fructose sugar et circenses! While the economy is being looted in plain sight, the public is distracted by political reality TV show (Watch out for the bad crocodile!). Barack Obama squandered a game-changing election. The upcoming US election turnout will be very low given the bland choice between the tool of Wall Street and a Wall Street fop. Will the American Caesar or Caligula's horse enter the race in 2016?

Slauerhoff’s book is magical realism, but not in an extreme way. It was inspired by Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and particularly An experiment with time by a certain John William Dunne, as you may find explained here (mostly in German and French). Dunne had developed a half scientific, half esoteric theory about dreams and time, that also inspired Aldous Huxley and Jorge Luis Borges. The idea was that people are a prisoner of time, and we should accept that faith. The theory was based upon dreams and a fourth dimension. It is better just to enjoy the book.

Why would you want to make the teams in Morris’ book so small? Right now the world’s reserve currency is the US dollar. But if you travel back in time the West’s reserve currency were those of Britain, France, the Dutch Republic, Spain and Portugal. That is already three teams on your list that have strongly interacted. Strings of Chinese copper coins were long the common men’s coins across Southeast Asia, for which you have no team defined.

There has always been a lot of exchange, particularly between Europe and Asia and later also between Europe and other continents (most “successfully” with North America and Oceania). The Islamic world was an information highway from Kashgar in China to Toledo in Spain, although mostly between Baghdad and Cordoba. This more or less ended when conservative Sunni Muslims got the upper hand in the Middle East. If you read Aladdin’s Lamp, you will notice that from the Greeks down to Newton speculation diminished and empirically proven theories rose in importance. This happened via various centres in the Middle East that reduced speculation and increased empiricial proof, just like later the Europeans. Equally, Northwestern Europe in the late 16th century expanded upon innovations from Italy like Fibonacci’s business calculations (based upon Indian examples he had picked up in what is currently Algeria) and the first experiments stock companies, which led to the innovation of the private limited company in 1602 in the Netherlands. am just about to finalise Empire of the Mind about the history of Persia. Its 19th century history is very much like China’s. Within its elites there were enough people who understood how the country had to modernise to keep up with the Imperial powers Russia and Britain. But the leadership was conservative, not unlike what we just saw happening in Berlusconi’s Italy. Elites often prefer to lose wealth but keep the balance between stakeholders the same, rather than change the balance between stakeholders in order to prosper.

Lombok only became a tourist resort when hippies discovered the potency of the island’s mushrooms, hence relatively recently. Even now it is still a backwater. The interest for the colonial government must have been mainly in the field of safeguarding the sphere of influence and a mission civilisatrice: together an “ethical imperialism” (obviously, the author of De schatten van Lombok does not agree). Others point at the importance of prestige, state formation and economic motives. This was the time of high imperialism and the scramble of Africa. Boundaries were not yet finally set (Asian culture had a different concept of boundaries, as you may learn from Siam Mapped; it was based upon influence and tribute, rather than upon lines on a map). British and American privateers had occupied the northern half of Borneo. The American war in Iraq was a carbon copy of the Dutch war in Aceh: some unreliable source had convinced the government that Americans would want to occupy this area rich with petroleum. Despite a battle for the hearts and minds, it led to a very bloody religiously inspired guerrilla war that basically lasted until after the disastrous tsunami half a decade ago. The Dutch feared that Britain would want to occupy Sumatra (rich in oil, natural gas, coal, tin, tobacco, palm oil and rubber) even after the fall of the Japanese in the Second World War. Churchill’s Empire states that Churchill was indeed interested in occupying the northern tip of Sumatra, but only because then British warplanes could bomb the Japanese in Singapore. The civilising mission in Lombok was partly genuine. The treatment of the Muslim Sasaks by the feudal Hindu Balinese was far from nice, and the Sasaks had sent envoys to the government asking for help. You may have read the novel Max Havelaar, an important inducement for the Ethical Policy. In the novel the Netherlands is called a “state of robbers”, but the author basically advocated more colonialism to break the old feudal elites and improve the lives of the common people.

And then there were economic reasons. The archipelago was full of natural resources, sometimes known, sometimes not yet surveyed. Think of New Guinea. When the British and the Germans showed interest, the Dutch claimed half the island and built two cities on the northern and southern tip of that border to stake that claim. Thanks to this the Netherlands had higher mountains than Switzerland or Austria. When climbing the Carstenz Top in 1936 gold and copper deposits were discovered. The Grasberg Mine is now the largest gold and the third largest copper mine in the world. Oil was found in Borneo, gold expected in Celebes. Between 1905 and 1925, with the rise of the outer territories exports rose nine fold. It fell again during the Great Depression, but in 1940 they contributed 70% of total exports. The wealth in natural resources of the Dutch East Indies was a prime object of Japanese interest. In 1940 Japan had demanded bauxite and petroleum delivery to keep its war machine rolling.

Let us hope the American elections may get some genuine debate about the West’s future course beyond what Der Spiegel called “the Seven Dwarfs”. The Financial Times is cynical:

Journalists are most disappointed of all because Mr Romney gliding to victory is a weak story. Were the press any other industry, cynicism about its self-interest in promoting marginal challengers would prevail. Local television stations, many of them owned by giant media companies such as Fox, count on election-year revenue bumps from political advertising in important primary states. If the nomination contest is effectively over by, say, the Michigan primary on February 28, money will remain on the table. But for reporters, rooting for the underdog, any underdog, it is really a matter of wanting a more dramatic story. The strait-laced frontrunner winning Iowa and New Hampshire before securing the nomination early on does not count as a compelling narrative. Hence the media’s pretence of taking seriously a succession of non-viable candidates with outlandish views.

Looking forward to reading Slauerhoff. At only 191 pages, it is very manageable. The German school book publisher Klett-Cotta failed in inserting the title into the curricula. Interestingly, there are more Dutch than German copies of this title available in the Austrian library network catalog.

The colonial El Dorado lottery was strange indeed, with the true payoff often very different than initially expected. What amazes me is the tiny, tiny number of colonizers/explorers who conquered such large territories. An interesting case of colonial bug I found in Shades of Greene where Graham Greene and his cousin, both totally green as explorers, tramped across Liberia in the 1930s, turned into Journey without maps (said to be not that good. His cousin Barbara Greene's account Too Late To Turn Back is supposedly much better. There is a recent travel book that retraces their steps, Chasing The Devil).

Re Morris. By inclination, I am a splitter not a lumper. I like complexity (sorry, I slipped on including Southeast Asia - despite your best efforts, it remains in my blind spot). I'd wish to see Morris' work get the Hans Rosling treatment. Morris' restricted focus on China and the "West" (including Assyria!) becomes troublesome as soon as commercial relations are established with India.

The split between Southern and Northern Europe has unexpectedly popped up in the US presidential campaign. It turns out that Rick Santorum's granddad just managed to slip into the US before the gates to southerners were shut. Naturally, Santorum lied about his granddad's story (who had to work in a coal mine till he was 72!) and completely missed its point. The march to respectability (and whiteness, despite the best efforts of the Jersey Shore) of the Italo-Americans is an amazing story. The Italian community actively tried to lobby and influence the content and production of The Godfather (and its TV offspring). What is truly disappointing about the US election is the terribly mediocre candidacy of serial liar and empty suit Mitt Romney. He makes John Kerry look almost presidential. Barack Obama truly is a lucky man.

Meanwhile, Germany is still dancing with Wulffs. The German president fortunately has only a bit more to do than a Walmart greeter, so it doesn't really matter. Germany's last president resigned for saying the truth about the unwinnable war in Afghanistan. The current one, free from moral qualms, will try to hang on. Philipp Hildebrand, director of the Swiss National Bank, however, directly profited from USDCHF currency speculation. Both Wulff and Hildebrand are mostly guilty of inept Blagoevichian not Berlusconian corruption. I wonder if this kind of corruption was just seen as business as usual some time ago (Mitterand, Chirac, Franz-Josef Strauss, ...) and is sign of toward a cleaner future?

I am a splitter not a lumper

Absolutely! And if I combine your advocacy of government steering of the economy with a love for the Muppet Show, you may even be considered a closet commie, undermining American freedom with your sharp remarks on blessed GOP-practices. You are probably just one or two messages away from suggesting that the world is more than 6,000 years old!

In the corporate world here you have to work towards consensus all the time, so I have become somewhat deranged by that. Personally, I do not have a special relationship with America. It is a nice country with lots of nice people, and it is a pleasure to travel in the US. But I can say that a dozen other countries also. I would see myself rather emigrate to the Lucky Country than to the US. Still, like everybody else, I try to follow major American developments. America is still a thought leader for things closer by. Whatever happened Stateside usually happens in the place where I live about 20 years later (which is an improvement compared to the 19th century, when Heinrich Heine apocryphally stated he would emigrate to Holland at the End of Times, because everything here happens 50 years later). And then there is political support. Contrary to what Americans seem to believe, they get support for even such foolish initiatives like the war in Iraq. This war had no majority support among the European electorate, but about every conservative government except France sent troops. It was the end of a career for some talented people, no matter what you think of them.

That said, have you read Santorum’s wiki lemma? It seems that being a representative of the American people is much more appreciated than even in Italy. Rick Santorum’s grandfather’s investment has paid off, even if you include the “scrip” into the equation. There is not much interest in the Wulff-case here, but certainly the rules got more restrictive during the last few decades. Before the late 1980’s nobody cared about front running. It is the cause of wealth of many a blue blooded family. Mrs. Hildebrand was just 25 years behind the curve, that’s all. Or the world has caught up with Switzerland, of course.

It is quite easy to explain why you needed so few people to run a colony. First of all, in the late 17th and 18th century, the (Dutch) East India Company made most of its money from a combination of freight and trade (and did so more than its English competitor) within Asia. Textiles were bought in India and exchanged for spices, sandalwood, incense, etc. in the Indies. Those products were sold to the Chinese and the Japanese. Japanese silver was sold in Persia, etc. Thanks to its extensive network it was always ahead of competitors. Its infamous monopoly on spices in the Moluccas was just part of the Company’s business.

The conquest of land took off relatively slowly, and skilled diplomacy was at least as important as military might. The East India Company and the later colonial governments worked mainly through alliances with local rajas and sultans. This basically remained the pattern until the end of the colonial era: you had a native regent and a European resident. Some of these local rulers became fabulously wealthy because of the innovations brought by the Europeans. It is also a reason why the arts were so developed: without the possibility of war, the arts became an expression of royal status (unfortunately for the Ministry of Tourism, much of that investment went to theatre, music and dance, rather than to monumental buildings). Most of the soldiers in the colonial armies were natives. As long as the purpose was to make money, the Dutch operated like any other (modern) multinational company: you bring some management, the rest you source locally (Dutch multinationals are relatively decentralised). Cost control and the yearly “profitable balance” were very important. When policies in the Indies were liberalised and became ethical, more people from Europe were needed. Income now had to be generated from European capital and knowledge (which was a nice coincidence: in the 17th and 18th century the Europeans were no more modern than their Asian counterparts). Plus more investment was needed in education of the native population, if only to fill the lower and medium level skilled jobs in these companies. This was not always to the liking of the Europeans living in the colonies. They feared the demand for independence once the population would receive education, a fear confirmed by some modern studies.

Although I am more interested in modern Asian society than in colonial history, I am often surprised about what you can learn from it. You could do worse for your MBA than study 350 years of colonial P&L. Colonial societies were multi-cultural avant la lettre, the wars fought were strikingly modern, and it is quite interesting to see how previous generations dealt with Islam. As a result I read more about it than I would expect to do.

Is Ian Morris American? Americans seem to think that emerging Asia consist of China only. I get the idea they produce more books about China than about the rest of Asia combined, just like they did about Japan in the 1980’s. Which is good for the rest of us. But I can think of a reason why so many economic historians focus on China. China has a long history of extensive bureaucracy, and a lot of that material is still available. New dynasties continued the modus operandi of their predecessors. It is probably easier to guesstimate economic data about China than about any other place in Asia (think only about the grain storages). Plus China made many inventions. It is a serious competitor.

I hope I did not offend any American readers. Especially for them, here is another instructive look at how Europeans use their national values to judge each other in the euro-crisis:

Burgess was in no doubt that the taste for the whip had affected the way Britain had been run, and he was probably right about that. In the 1970s, the Bank of England had an instrument for controlling the amount of credit in the economy, which its practitioners lovingly called the corset. Enough said. When Denis Healey accused the Thatcher administration of sado-monetarism everybody got the reference. With its references to fiscal restraint and the tightness of monetary policy, economic management at the time was coloured by the language of the dominatrix – and still is, of course.

Why was this? Burgess thought it had quite a lot to do with the British public school system in which there existed "a kind of bond of shameful-shameless intimacy between the members of the ruling class those schools were concerned with turning out. To have beaten, been beaten, witnessed the same beatings is a red badge of something."

(…)

The language of S&M is also now part of the eurozone discourse. The joint letter sent last month by Sarkozy and Angela Merkel to Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council, explaining the Franco-German plans for future governance of the single currency stressed "fiscal discipline" and the need to "detect and correct departures from sound economic and fiscal policies long before they become a threat to the stability of the euro area as a whole".

There's plenty of raw material here, given a tweak or two, for a modern version of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's Venus in Furs. "Mario, you have allowed the Italian budget deficit to rise above 3% of gross domestic product." "Yes, mistress Angela, I deserve to be punished for my lack of fiscal discipline. Please do not spare me."

Graham Greene, he is a fine author. Lately I enjoyed the film The Quiet American. Not spectacular, but Greene's storys are always entertaining. Plus as a Viennese you love The Third Man, of course. But why would Klett-Cotta include Slauerhoff in German curricula?

Australia, really? In your old days, will you want to fight for the last drop of water, Mad Max style? Global warming isn't kind to down under. I am more partial to its smaller, kinder and greener neighbor, despite the extra weird accent.

Mrs. Hildebrand, being a good wife, was propped up by her husband to catch the bullet: It was him doing the inept insider trading. Having been caught and forced to resign, he is rewarded by a one million CHF severance package. What I found amazing is that it was Hildebrand's own private bank advisor who first tried to dissuade him from the trades and then went up and down the chain of command of his bank to alert about the shenanigans. While management preferred to look the other way, it was an IT employee who was willing to expose it (and will, in all likelihood, now face jail time for whistle blowing).

While I was aware of unsanitary Santorum, I ignored his curriculum - a classic Catholic conservative, mentored closely by his priest. Apart from the weird world view, it is the inconsistency that is crazy: Banning anabolics - a big no; banning contraceptives - a big yes? It is sad that Pennsylvania isn't a more progressive state (Appalachians voting against their own self-interest). I love its beautiful green scenery and history. PA would be high on my list for a US pied-à-terre. No wonder the PA Dutch and the Amish felt almost at home.

The downside of managerial colonialism is the risk that it may be kicked out by a more forceful and populous colonizer or the natives. Success is all about not rocking the boat too much ... not taxing the natives' favorite beverage or putting pig grease in their bullets.

Morris is a British brain infusion to Stanford. I really like his book as he highlights the importance of climate change on history and the parallels between the East and the West in their developments. His pocket histories of China are also extremely well done. Re your points about China, Morris actually opens his book, quite cheesy in my opinion, with the argument that only a Chinese conquest of Europe could have been possible.

David Abulafia's The Great Sea is also a joy to read. Having read perhaps too much books about the mare nostrum, it is more of a (splendidly illustrated) recap for me. The Badisches Landesmuseum in Karsruhe, Germany, currently shows Cycladic art, one of my favorites, the original garish colors have been washed away. I have ordered the catalogue but don't know yet if I can manage to pay a visit (as the exhibition already closes in April).

Francis Fukuyama, meanwhile, is big in spewing nonsense about the future of history in Foreign Affairs (the magazine where the color-blind one-eyed tell the blind machine gun operators about the world) and European identities. Fukuyama discovers the pillarization (verzuilung in Fukuyama's usual sloppy misspelling of Verzuiling) of Dutch society (on that topic, NZZ had a great article about one part of those pillars, some Dutch vocal religious nuts who refuse to watch any ungodly TV). You see these Europeans are so different from the Americans with their D and R, reading the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal, watching the Giants and the Jets, the Mets and the Yankees ... The whole book of Whats the matter with Kansas is about this topic. It is always wonderful for the foreign policy "experts" to half-bakedly discover something strange abroad what they could find plentiful at home. Would the measures intended for Iran work on pushing the Oklahoma Talibans into the 21st century? If not, please don't implement it.

Graham Greene is one of my favorite authors, with his combination of travel, history and politics. The Quiet American is a little gem (despite Michael Caine playing Michael Caine) which suffered from its US release during the hyper-patridiotic time of the attack on Iraq. Instead of contemplating the lessons of the Quiet American, the Bushies went for Vietnam, First Blood Part II.

While I live in Vienna and love the city, I am not and would never consider myself Viennese. The Third Man is one of the greatest movies ever made. The camera work is outstanding, especially if you compare the results with the shooting locations. The camera man's craftsmanship improved upon reality. There is a wonderful must-see private museum about the Third Man in Vienna (open usually only on Saturday). (Post) WWII is a taboo period for official Vienna and Vienna tourism, so the museum's collection of the Allied occupation, care packages and checkpoints is especially valuable.

Re Slauerhoff, as magical realism is missing in German literature (which veered towards realism post WWII, though Günter Grass usually includes some magical crusts), Klett-Cotta probably thought that the slim booklet would be a suitable taster for schools instead of the chunky One Hundred Years of Solitude (a book I started and quit numerous times).

I am quite certain Oz’ water problems can be solved. There are not that many people in Australia, just 5 million more than in Holland. Our compatriots on beautiful Curaçao have produced drinking water from the sea since 1928. It is energy-intensive, but Australia can pay the costs from its natural resources. And they do not need to produce so much cheap wine, of course. I have only been to the original Zealand and never to New Zealand. But the few Kiwis I met told me that it was really a bit remote. So as long as I do not fear that Armageddon is near, I’d prefer Australia. It is a beautiful country with a relaxed lifestyle. I would have no problem travelling to the office by ferry like people do in Sydney. And it is close to my beloved Southeast Asia.

“Managerial colonialism” has the disadvantages you explain, and it was known all along. The stern empire builder J.P. Coen, who turned Batavia/Jakarta into the capital of the Indies, had requested a volksplanting (i.e. a colony) of Europeans from the Lords XVII, the Board of Directors of the East India Company. But he never got that idea accepted (one of my colleagues was greatly impressed by Coen when he read how Coen wrote the Lords that they were the greatest danger to the success of the East India Company; ah, those were the days!). Such colonies were only founded on the Cape of Good Hope and in New Netherland and the latter was not even part of the East Indies. “Managerial colonialism” worked for 350 years. Then indeed a more populous coloniser came along in 1942. In earlier times the Dutch had compensated their imperial overstress by carefully crafted divide and rule. E.g. the Dutch were quite aware of the potential power of Islam in the archipelago, and they tried to play down its role. The Javanese nobility were told they were descendants of a far older and finer Hindu/Buddhist culture, for example. After the end of the Japanese occupation the Dutch sent a generation of young man to reoccupy the Indies. Militarily, the Indonesian Republic wasn’t much of a match. The Dutch needed Marshall Aid to rebuild the country however. And that aid was made dependent on resolving the Indonesian conflict. So you may ask who brought an end to this: the Indonesians, the Japanese, the Germans or the Americans.

The Mediterranean? I have to confess I am such a philistine that I have never read the books of Fernand Braudel. But quite a lot of authors about Asia were inspired by him (e.g. Anthony Reid and K.N. Chaudhuri). So in the mean time I am going to concentrate on the Indian Ocean, the inland sea of Islam.

Unfortunately, the Fukuyama-piece was not very impressive. And he is certainly no match for the articles in the NZZ about Holland, which were really quite good. There are indeed similarities between Switzerland and Holland, but the Second World War has changed the Dutch from being neutral to being a faithful member of the various Western alliances. And actually, despite the mayhem about Europe on Friday the 13th, the Financial Times seemed more sombre about the U.S.:

According to the latest US Census, in 2010, white people will become a minority by 2040. The decennial survey also revealed that 46.5 per cent of Americans under the age of 18 were non-white – up from 39 per cent in 2000. Between those years, the number of white children shrank by 4m while the number of American children in total grew by 6m. This was almost all because of the growth in the Hispanic population. As the age of fiscal austerity begins to bite, the grey-brown divide is likely to become more political. “At some stage we are all going to realise that we only have about 80 per cent of the wealth we thought we had before 2008,” says Mr Lind. “When that happens, politics will get uglier as each group fights to defend its piece of the federal pie.”

Let us hope the racial factor stays out. And of course these issues are familiar to Europe as well.

In the last week I finished La France sans ses usines and Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System, which make a nice combination with all the euro trouble. La France sans ses usines deals with the causes for France’s enduring trade deficits, which, unlike America, it cannot cover partly from its status as the global reserve currency. In the chapter on the euro, Exorbitant Privilige describes that these trade deficits have been an enduring problem. Even very close to the moment the euro currencies were selected and the conversion rate was established, France was near a devaluation. France does not produce the products that it can sell with a hard currency like Germany. Both are recommended reads for these "paranormal" times:

But delevering now has a new spectre to deal with. Not just credit default but “zero-bound” interest rates may be eating away like invisible termites at our 40-year global credit expansion. Historically, central banks have comfortably relied on a model which dictates that lower and lower yields will stimulate aggregate demand and, in the case of financial markets, drive asset purchases outward on the risk spectrum as investors seek to maintain higher returns. Near zero policy rates and a series of “quantitative easings” have temporarily succeeded in keeping asset markets and real economies afloat in the U.S., Europe and even Japan. Now, with policy rates at or approaching zero yields and QE facing political limits in almost all developed economies, it is appropriate to question not only the effectiveness of historical conceptual models but entertain the possibility that they may, counterintuitively, be hazardous to an economy’s health.

Importantly, this is not another name for “pushing on a string” or a “liquidity trap.” Both of these concepts depend significantly on perception of increasing risk in credit markets which in turn reduces the incentive of lenders to expand credit. Rates at the zero bound do something more. Zero-bound money – credit quality aside – creates no incentive to expand it. Will Rogers once fondly said in the Depression that he was more concerned about the return of his money than the return on his money. But from a system-wide perspective, when the return on money becomes close to zero in nominal terms and substantially negative in real terms, then normal functionality may breakdown. We all start to resemble Will Rogers.

The sun is also not kind to the fairer, not yet croco-skinned Australians. Sydney and Melbourne certainly are livable cities. However: Have you seen Underbelly, a sort of Melbourne's The Wire? The first season is brilliant (then it goes south).

Skin color is a red herring. The Americans have accommodated into "whiteness" from both sides of the spectrum (Irish, Italians), a phenomenon abhorrent two to three generations ago. As soon as Hispanics grow richer, they will be magically become "whiter". Italian junk food has already conquered the states, closely followed by Tex-Mex. Race is a false marker for poverty. Cultivating Hispanics is the only way the Republicans can survive in the long run (hopefully without the detrimental side effects à la the Italian supreme court justices).

The interesting bit about Fernand Braudel is that the three books that I have read by him are completely different (well, also directed at different audiences). His Civilization & Capitalism 15th-18th Century is wonky, data-driven, while his Mediterranean book is philosophical. His basic intro world history book A History of Civilizations is Samuel Huntington minus that man's fearful jingoism.

David Abulafia's ancient history part is well done, following the classic Boléro approach that ends in Roman hegemony and decline. I am now around the 1500s where such a story line is missing (the complexity and external interference killed Norwich's treatment about the Middle Sea, which Abulafia calls "not his favorite Norwich book" (British for a train wreck). I don't know whether my hypothesis is sustainable but up to now, Abulafia puts the Mediterranean pretty much in opposition to Continental Europe, downplaying and failing to mention its influence. It will be interesting to see whether his anti-French and anti-Germanic views assume a more prominent place in the book. He started his career with a hit-job biography of the cosmopolitan "nice German" Emperor Frederick II, who receives too few lines in this book. The meanest slur, however, is reserved for Charlemagne whom he calls an "incestuous mass-murderer". The noun is probably part of the job description of most rulers (and not called out whilst discussing other rulers), the adjective is mostly an unproved and unlikely insinuation. The more the book approaches the present age, the more the "Great Sea" shrinks in importance.

The Indian ocean, in my not so humble view, suffers from an absence of great cities - Out of Capetown, Karachi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Rangoon, Singapore and Jakarta, only Singapore that is playing in the global league.

Slauerhoff has arrived and I am just about to finish the book. What an alienated, lonely and brutal world he paints. In contrast to Graham Greene's whiskey priest, I fail to develop empathy for his characters. The German translation is written in rather antiquated German (by a contemporary of Slauerhoff) and doesn't include annotations or illustrations, almost guaranteeing failure, apt for the book's topic, unfortunate for its author. A bit of supporting text about Portugal, Macao, colonialism and Camoes could certainly have been added to the short book.

The big disappointment among Xmas presents is Hedy Folly. Richard Rhodes has phoned in a short and weak book that, at least in its Vienna parts, is filled with bloopers that a simple Wikipedia search could have prevented. So many missed chances and un(der)developed topics that could have mitigated that her invention ended up on a secret shelf and was never used. The best part is about George Antheil's Paris years (which forms also the only watchable part of Midnight in Paris, in which Rachel McAdams illustrates Lamarr's quote "Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.").

The problem of France are not its factories. France is actually one of the most productive nations on the planet (if one compares apples with apples). The real problem are its entrenched etatist elites: The upcoming French presidential election pits a typical énarque against a servant of the French corporations, which promises change without change.

Talking about unappealing choices, what says the Mormon Church about lying and greed? Willard Romney has been running for president for nearly a decade and failed to realize that "massaging" his taxes isn't improving his electoral chances. He truly is a Mormon Berlusconi.

In Europe, meanwhile, the Club Med is in a quandary. They have to suffer both from expensive financing (the ratings at last approaching realistic spreads) and the monetarist strait-jacket. External pressure will however not result in the necessary internal reforms as that would require the elites to relinquish control. I would never have thought that the global economic mismanagement would be worse than during the Great Depression. At least the scientific peons are trying to burst Elsevier's shackles. There is hope still ...

No, I have not seen Underbelly, but I know that Melbourne has got quite a cool climate and something like a mild winter. Getting croco skinned will take some time there.

Fernand Braudel is a fine example to counter any prejudice that the French are lazy. The man’s production is simply phenomenal. I am certainly going to read his Civilisation and Capitalism books one day. But according to La France sans ses usines, France does have a problem with the goods and services it produces. Companies like Citroën and Renault operate in market niches where price competition is more important than Mercedes and BMW. You could state that making high-speed trains is also easier to copy than producing specialised machinery. Simply said: if you want excellence, you end up with a German company more often than a French one. I do not see how French big business can profit from the ideas of the enarque François Hollande. Trying to read books, I do not really follow the French elections yet, but he seems inclined to old-fashioned socialism. It will only drive France’s (highly competitive) multinationals overseas. As you know, the French have a different attitude towards the state than in other European nations. The French have scored some excellent results with that, but if you want to develop a Mittelstand like the Germans have, you should also do something about a mentality where most students want to become civil servants after graduation. Have you read Bonjour Paresse? This strange concoction of reality and Marxism about office life in a large corporation could not have been written east of Strasbourg (or north of Charleroi).

It does not surprise me that the Mediterranean shrinks in importance after 1500. That was about the time of stagnation and relative decline of Spain, the Italian states (not to mention the Byzantine Empire) vis-à-vis the Dutch Republic, Britain and France. The centre of European gravity moved north. Northwestern Europe cut out the Arabs and Venice in the trade with Asia and realised its own scientific and economic revolution. There are lots of books about the Mediterranean as an inland sea of a great civilisation, but are there any about the North Atlantic?

I do not know what your definition of a great city is, but I would not think that Singapore is yet a great city, although it is certainly not as bad as Andie Xie stated:

Actually, Singapore's success came mostly from being the money laundering center for corrupt Indonesian businessmen and government officials

Singapore is a good centre for business, but its creativity is mainly aimed at generating financial wealth and mostly imported (think expats in research centres). In terms of the arts Jakarta does better, I’d say. Although Singapore is making progress with concerts in parks, etc., it is still a country without a counterculture.

I also do not know how long you have to be great to be considered a great city and if you can be considered one ex post. As the centre of the Moghul Empire, Delhi certainly was a great city for some time, as was Isfahan. Most of the capital cities of the Empires along the Indian Ocean were quite inland, however.

Southeast Asia was too densely covered with jungle and rivers to develop large long-lasting empires, according to Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce. When I read about the history of Java, it seemed as if there was little infrastructural investment upon conquest. The books mention no development of roads to the newly conquered areas., whereas the Dutch Governor Daendels only needed one year to develop a 1,000 kilometre military road along the island (under harsh conditions for the native workers; in the documentary film Jalan Raya Pos locals tell the ghosts of the perished workers still roam the Javanese hinterland). In Thailand and Burma capital cities regularly changed. E.g. in Burma Pagan was a great centre for a few centuries. But new dynasties or fortune tellers would often initiate a change of capital city. Hence no city in the region has the long history of Paris or London. Impermanence is a key element of Southeast Asian culture, Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce argues correctly. Urban structures were mostly made of wood. Wealth was kept in precious metals and gems and thus very portable. When an army raided city people would "fade away into the forest and wait for the invading force to tire of plunder and depart".

Centres of trade are often also centres of wealth where culture can prosper. The centres of trade along the Indian Ocean have changed a lot through time and places like Suratte (access point to the Moghul Empire centred in Delhi), Goa (centre of the Portuguese Indies) and Malacca (for a century and a half or so the centre of trade for Southeast Asia with quite complete services) have all returned to the status of backwaters. Geograpy gets part of the blame in K.N. Chauduri’s Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean:

The slow long-term decline changes which took place in our millennium were mainly in the steady advance of coral reefs in some areas of the Indian Ocean and in the retreat of the sea around riverine deltas. The growth of the coral gradually obstructed sea passages that had been open before and perhaps led to a changing pattern of navigation and trade routes. This was particularly true of the Red Sea.

The monsoon may have played a role also. Goods were transported on segmented journeys: some people brought stuff from China and the Spice Islands to Malacca, where others passed it on to India, etc. if you often have to wait for the right wind, your productivity is relatively low. But this argument is not supported by scholarly argumentation: I made it up myself.

Is Paul Krugman a closet German? The angst of Götterdämmerung in his column is a bit over the top, I’d say: I do not see a “you-know-who” waiting in the corridors. Some Americans seem to think Europe is already at the brink of war. They do not realise that Europeans have cashed the peace dividend and would not even have the equipment anymore to chase each other. Plus we are still quite some time from reaching the misery of the Great Depression. Even in the countries mentioned by Krugman, social security and the minimum standard of living are now far above the 1930’s. But he is right that things are certainly not moving in the right direction. If we concentrate on the macro economic element:

The irony is that a fiscal treaty that set out to reduce the eurozone’s debt could be the cause of a debt explosion, because it greatly increases the risks of a semi-permanent slump in large parts of southern Europe. If that were to happen, nothing could save the eurozone.

And that would be a bad price to pay for Germany, given that:

We find that the lower German real exchange rate lifts the country’s nominal trade surplus roughly 4 percent of GDP (or €100 billion) annually and the real trade surplus about 3 percent of GDP annually.

Clearly, nobody expects Germany to pick up part of the bill.

Another interesting argument I found in the Dutch financial paper (I have no link however). If all countries would reduce their debt level to 60%, investors would have 2,300 billion euro for which they’d have to find a new purpose. Particularly after the Spanish Succession War the Dutch Republic ran huge debts of up to 250% the national income. Still the interest remained around 2.5%. People were not interested in the redemption of bonds, because they were considered among the safest storages of wealth available. But that was in a time without social security and an aging population that expected government care. Still, I find it an interesting argument. This time is different looks at occasions of default and argues back to debt levels. Obviously, in certain cases countries can maintain high debt levels without defaults (I understand Britain was another case in its superpower days when it was the global reserve currency). I wonder if there is any book looking at sovereign debt from this perspective. America may get away with this.

So far, the low interest rates are causing mostly problems here. A building society in Rotterdam is having trouble raising cash for the collateral on its interest rate hedges and some Dutch pensions may be cut next year because of the low 30-year swap rate used to calculate the value the liabilities.

As far as I have read the news, you seem right that “external pressure will not result in the necessary reforms” in the case of Greece, but I am a tad more optimistic about Italy. I would not put much trust in “agenda for growth” proclaimed by the European Commission, however.

And I am sorry to hear that you did not like your purchase of Slauerhoff. Hopefully you enjoyed the latest editions of O’Hanlon’s Heroes.

Sorry for the delayed response. I don't think Slauerhoff's intent was to be "liked" but to make one think. His is a jagged text about the alienating and brutalized world of colonialism. The bleak world of Soviet realist writing about the horrors of capitalism comes closest in style and content. I found his account of the checkered history of Macao interesting. Overall, a worthwhile read of a full-force demonstration of the evils of colonialism, powered by greed and theft. Trading only occurs if there is some sort of balance of power. Exploitation is the dark default of globalization. Apple's wage slave labor problems are just the most recent case of unrestrained Manchester capitalism.

Can and should we save factories? Even in China, it is the service sector that is expanding (as far as one can trust Chinese statistics - Apple's teenage workers would obviously not find their way into such a statistic). Manufacturing jobs are crushed between automation and cheaper labor abroad. The hard question is which supply chains are worth fighting for.

The age of labor-intensive manufacturing is over in high labor cost Europe. In Austria, for example, the Dutch Royal Philips is bleeding about a hundred manufacturing jobs a year. Both upscale and downscale factories are disappearing: The dreary labor intensive ones are moving to Eastern Europe or China, as do the heavily automated ones - because the rest of the supply chain has moved there too. Philips is just too nice a company (its products often suffer from poor usability, however) and is being slaughtered in the market place by its nimbler competitors. There is the urban legend that Philips USA has never been profitable during the last quarter of a century (which might also be due to the US custom of granting their corporate profits extensive Caribbean vacations).

Paul Krugman's name hints at (Jewish-)German origins. His understanding of Germany and Austria is, however, often faulty as he only looks at the numbers which often do not tell the complete story. He has opened his blog to a colleague of his to publicize the dramatic democratic deterioration in Hungary, which passes under the radar of the bigger crises. If only the people in charge started listening to Krugman. His current account chart really exposes the heart of the problem. The recent words from ECB president Mario Draghi about the need to reform the social systems does not hint at his understanding. One might even call his stand callous. After all, he was a director at Goldman Sachs just at the time when they hid a good portion of the Greek debt from the European institutions, which now causes the Greek social system to probably lose 30 billions of pension funds invested in Greek sovereign debt. At least banks are happy with Draghi - NZZ called him their rainmaker for providing huge risk-free carry trades. Crooked Timber, by the way, is discussing Graeber's book.

For Greece, a Euro exit and devaluation would be the best option, but might trigger a PIIGS domino. So the mission (or March of Folly?) remains sacrificing Greece to save Italy, Portugal and Spain, until those countries magically achieve better governance. This excellent review of Steve Jobs' bio has me thinking about Plato's mistaken glorification of the philosopher kings. Popper's open society is under attack again.

A propos government, I am really enjoying the Danish TV series Borgen, sort of a more profound The West Wing with great characters. It is currently playing on Arte TV under the idiotic German title Gefährliche Seilschaften while its French title is more apt Borgen, une femme au pouvoir. It is best enjoyed in the original Danish with subtitles. Arte TV also offers a (German) Denmark at a glance infographic (French version). Season 2 features an episode titled "In Bruxelles nobody can hear you scream". What's not to love? Also, its overall positive, government affirming message is quite a contrast to the British cynicism of House of Cards or Yes, Minister (both wonderful shows, too).

I've read Charles Murray's latest Coming apart - his Falling down: It is getting lonely in his bunker. If the Republicans even lost Clint Eastwood, there is not much credibility left ("Half time" is also a very generous assessment.). Murray's book is an exercise in not looking at the big elephant in the room and asking the wrong questions, e.g. he points out that food prices have not risen in the last forty years. The obvious question what else has become more expensive (housing, health care and education) can not, must not be asked. He would have found all the answers to his questions in Elizabeth Warren's book The two-income trap, but he is not looking for answers but scapegoats. The intellectual bankruptcy on the right is a truly sad spectacle. It is truly frightening how Murray can live in the American Versailles and even write about the Super ZIPs of the super rich suburbs around Washington DC without once asking what is the source of this huge, relatively modern recession resistant wealth.

Having been disappointed by Richard Rhodes latest work, I picked up his earlier biography about the French-American birdman John James Audubon, which is a good read. One interesting factoid is that the redemption of the bonds of the Louisiana Purchase starved the country of cash and triggered a recession (Panic of 1819) which transformed Audubon from merchant into a painter. Today, Audubon would promote his project on Kickstarter.

No worries. I was not a moment afraid you were caught in an avalanche near Lech.

I have not read Slauerhoff’s biography, but he is not known as a leftie. And Slauerhoff is certainly not a socialist realist. In his home country he is admired as the Bohemian poet and writer of the never ending quest for happiness beyond the horizon. I also do not see him as an anti-colonial author, but rather an author that used exotic locations as his background, not unlike Joseph Conrad (of whom I have only read Heart of Darkness). China was never really colonised by Western powers, and the Japanese and the Sinefied Qing dynasty hardly play a role in Slauerhoff’s stories set in China. Slauerhoff also produced a set of short stories called Het Lente-Eiland, among others about Xiamen. The life of the local Chinese seems appallingly tough in his description, but if you look around in some of the old Hakka villages (the ones not upgraded for tourists), then these descriptions seem rather plausible.

When I visited China for the first time in 1988, life was much tougher than it is today. I remember queuing for the bus in Beijing. When the bus arrived a scramble for entry started. Being taller and with the added 15kg in my backpack I had no trouble pushing myself in. I was congratulated by the locals: “Mister, you fought yourself in like a soldier!” That was just one of the many times that China seemed many miles behind in civilisation compared to the gentle Indonesians and Thais (and probably the main reason why I like them so much; they have taught me that poverty is no reason for lack of civilisation). My experience of China came 15 years after the end of the Cultural Revolution, and that must have left its mark on the Chinese psyche. But if you read about China during the Long March it was a far from pleasant country also. And you may want to polish your opinion on the opportunities for factory workers in China by reading Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China. I have visited the workers quarters of such a factory in Batam in Indonesia. Ms. Chang may be a bit positive (in the American style), but she is mostly right.

Is Philips too nice a company? I don’t know, they are about the last non-Asian company involved in consumer electronics, so they must have been doing something well. However, Philips is now moving away from such products. Besides their Light division, Philips is concentrates on medical equipment and the like. Philips no longer makes its own TV-sets, it just sells them under its name. It does not yet want to do away with TV-sets, because of the brand recognition it gives. But competition is indeed too fierce for them, mainly in terms of price. In terms of innovation, they seem to speak very respectfully of Samsung, according to one of my colleagues who has worked in the Philips lab. Incidentally, that Philips lab was world famous, also for its research in fundamental physics. They invented the cassette recorder and the CD. But they have downsized their research and their last innovation was the Senseo, the poor man’s espresso machine. Research now has to pay off in the short run. It seems that it does not. On the other hand, recently Philips has returned, “repatriated” in modern American politico-speak, some production work from China to the Netherlands for their high quality shavers. However, it did not lead to an increase in jobs in that factory. Japanese brands like Sony and Panasonic get just as hammered by Chinese competition as Philips.

By the way, did you know that the Philips family was related to Karl Marx? Marx was a first cousin of Gerard Philips. The thought leader of the Proletariat asked for money from the small town banker and industrialist multiple times. Supposedly, Marx visited the Philips family they were still based in the quaint little town of Zaltbommel. Philips moved its industrial production to the village of Eindhoven, because of the availability of cheap labour in the area. There is really nothing new under the sun. Since the last decade, Philips has moved its headquarters to Amsterdam, like so many Dutch multinationals. Many do not produce anything in or near the city, but they like the availability of financial and legal experts and the large international airport (with the best connections to China in Europe). Even ING has its head office at a comfortable distance to any group activity that brings in the money.

I doubt we can save factories. Since the 1970’s we have changed the way products are made. We now assemble modules, and the modules can be developed by any specialised company. Assemblage skills are easy to develop, so we find them in low wage countries were the authorities give protection and telecommunications and connections to harbours and airports are good. The precision parts are made in places like Taiwan, Japan and Singapore, that, as you said, are at least close by and better protect any patents you may have than China or Indonesia. Apple no longer produces anything but marketing and design. Apple has very few workers in the United States, but pays its executives better than Goldman Sachs, which at least does the “work of God”.

It is not by accident that CEO’s and CFO’s have seen such magnificent pay rises. Much of the previous century was the age of engineers. But with the development of modules it is much easier to concentrate on finance and branding and require fierce competition from potential producers. There is certainly a cultural and an ideological component at work here. In northern Europe, executive salaries are much lower than in the US, but the trend is partially secular. There is no longer a need for head offices to be close to the places were products are developed and built. The efficient allocation of capital is far more important than producing anything. Because of its excesses, we may soon enter the era of the lawyers. In financial markets, we already see that. I would not be surprised if some 20-30% of all investments of banks has an important regulatory component. The effect is an ever increasing need for economies of scale. The coming regulation of derivative trading may actually increase concentration risk. It may reduce the chance of a 6 sigma event that a bank that is too big to fail goes belly up, but in return we get the 8 sigma event of an institution that is too big to safe.

For the time being, the German Mittelstand has found the best market niche: highly specialised knowledge that helps others making money, so they don’t care so much about what they pay the Germans. And for the rest the Germans have reduced costs by reducing wages and increasing temping dramatically. Philips is following the German example by moving out of consumer goods into machines. For the rest, Philips is mainly seen as a smart buyer and seller of companies in the field of applied technology. In brief: much of the time it operates like a private equity company. And Eindhoven is still thriving. Because of Philips it got a Technical University. Because of Philips spin-offs and that Technical University it is a centre of high tech production. Among others it produces machines to make micro chips. These are sold to Taiwan and Japan to produce the chips that the Chinese assemble in computers that are sold to the French and the Americans (and the Dutch, of course).

You may just wonder if all the developed world can copy the German example. There are only so many machines and luxury handbags the emerging markets may want to buy. At a global level, wealth is still rising at unprecedented levels, but it may mean that we in the developed world stagnate or even lose some of our high incomes in the short run. Which is not as bad as some think. Lose 5% of your income, and you return to your income around 2008 or 2006. Life was not very different then. That is if you have not maxed out on mortgages and other forms of debt.

But you cannot really save factory jobs unless you close borders, which is usually not good for quality either. You may safe some jobs for the time being. These jobs will reduce the wealth of the nation, but most likely they will not develop into new industries, as happens when developing countries limit access to their markets. Labour costs will always remain high in developed economies.

What many people here find annoying is the loss of regular jobs from other corporations, e.g. the former state postal service. They made all staff redundant and replaced them with people paid per postal article. This was once a safe job, now the mail is brought by a Rumanian or other East European who does not even speak the language of the land, just to shave off minimal costs to corporations and citizens.

That we ran large deficits certainly did not help. On Monday evening there was a television interview here with David Graeber, which you can find here. It is part of a series of documentaries about the financial crisis on public television. The quality of the documentaries is a bit uneven. The part about the lessons for Greece from Argentina (Spanish spoken) was pretty good, the one about the American housing market and Goldman Sachs (mostly in English, among others with Nomi Prins was not so good). Watch at your peril (and I have heard others praising Borgen, so I may want to watch that one in the near future). There is also the Australian economist Steve Keen, advocating debt forgiveness.

Krugman’s analysis seems to be meant for domestic American consumption. As such he is right. But if you want an analysis why Greek “austerity” is over-the-top, you would find more elegant examples in the articles of the FT’s Martin Wolf. He often bases himself on the work of Richard Koo, which we have discussed before. But I wonder if even that is the whole story. Lately, we finally get more information about how bad Greece’s public finances are managed. That goes far beyond corruption, which in itself does not have to lead to a failed state. Of course Greece is not really a failed state, but it goes that way when it comes to public finance. It also explains the enduring popularity of the euro, despite the bullying of the Troika.

This surprises less if you read this:

Everybody's income is falling but prices just don't," said Constantine Parastatides, a pensioned engineer. According to the EU and the IMF, oligopolies, transport bottlenecks, rigid market rules and inefficient policing are key reasons why prices in Greece are not falling as fast as they should to help restore the country's competitiveness. Under Greece's bailout plan, prices will be more tightly monitored and the competition authority given more teeth. "There is shameless profiteering in the market. Market police, competition watchdogs, the authorities - nothing works," said Vassilis Anagnostopoulos, a 38-year-old firefighter whose wages have been cut 40 percent.

Or this ”personal journey to the heart of Greece’s darkness”:

Almost none of the moralising clichés were true. Greek taxes were more than a third of gross domestic product, near the European average. And if Greeks were anti-business, why then were there more small entrepreneurs per capita than anywhere else in Europe? Government was not bloated in terms of employees – at a fifth of the labour force, it was about the European average. Corruption was clearly a problem, but our data showed it was concentrated – incomprehensibly to non-Greeks – in the health sector, where minor “gifts” to doctors secured early scheduling of surgeries.

What government suffered from most was a lack of technology and human-resource management. There was no computerised budget management; social security records and property rolls were maintained manually; sharing of routine data or work assignments across ministries was almost non-existent

You really wonder what change sending German tax collectors will make. If people do not pay their tax bill (beyond the middle class wage slaves that cannot escape taxation), you have to sue them in court. How good does Greece’s court system work?

So there may be some good reasons for bullying the Greek state into the current EU-programme:

“The programme is much, much more ambitious than economic reform,” said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe analyst at the Eurasia Group risk consultancy. “This is state building, as typically understood in traditional low-income contexts.”

However, that article also states:

Mr Rahman said the scale and the speed of the reforms demanded raised questions about whether sceptical eurozone lenders were setting up Greece to fail sometime within the next year.

That might be indeed the case. By buying some more time, Spain and Italy get the opportunity to proof their measures work. Both these countries are too big to save. At the same time,: Greece is not interested in a full default and introduction of a new currency yet:

Paul Krugman observed in his New York Times blog that Greece was trapped between an austerity programme that forever aggravates the debt problem, and a default that will not be feasible until the country reaches a primary surplus – a budget surplus after payment of interest on debt. This is not expected to happen until 2013. As a result, he wrote, the Greek political establishment would have no choice but to wait and see.

Unlike Argentina, Greece exports little and even has to import much of its food. Or as Munchau argues in the same article:

If a default were to result in an exit Greece would introduce its own currency, at a nominal conversion rate of one-to-one against the euro. The new drachma would devalue substantially. Greece’s manufacturing export sector, accounting for about 7 per cent of economic output, would gain substantially, but not enough to lift the country out of its crisis. Tourism accounted for 18 per cent of GDP in 2008, but Greek holiday destinations have become very expensive and, to remain competitive, prices would need to come down – ideally by some 50 per cent. This could not be done through an internal devaluation, where nominal wages and prices were reduced. The sum of tourism and exports, plus the prospect of strong export growth as the terms of trade improve, should be sufficient for a euro exit strategy to work – but only if it is well prepared and executed.

The irony is that Greece would still need to implement reforms similar to those that international lenders are currently demanding. The government would need to be able to collect taxes. It would have to stamp out corruption. It would need to ensure a substantial degree of labour market flexibility. Trade unions would need to be blocked from negotiating wage increases that offset the benefits of a nominal devaluation. Greece needs a big double-digit real devaluation, which would require a wage adjustment. The government might need to supplement such a strategy with an outright incomes policy.

Yesterday Stephen Roach (of Morgan Stanley, not Goldman, and Morgan suffers from exposure to the PIIGS, or PIGSI for the politically correct like Krugman; and by the way, Goldman ain't what it used to be) summarised the Asian experience of structural change as positive:

The panelists agreed on two points: first, they initially detested the wrenching adjustment programs dictated by the terms of the International Monetary Fund’s so-called conditional bailouts (the South Koreans still refer scornfully to the “IMF crisis” of the late 1990’s). Second – and here’s where the surprise came – they all agreed that, with the benefit of hindsight, these excruciating adjustments were worth it, because their crisis-torn economies were forced to embrace structural reforms that paved the way for their spectacular economic performance today.

By the way, I appreciate Paul Krugman may be a tad emotional about European history given his personal background. But he is also a well respected public intellectual, and that gives him a different responsibility. With his statements about mass murderers in the corridors he puts himself in the same league as Rick Santorum:

In the Netherlands, people wear different bracelets if they are elderly. And the bracelet is: ‘Do not euthanize me.’ Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands but half of the people who are euthanized — ten percent of all deaths in the Netherlands — half of those people are enthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don’t go to the hospital. They go to another country, because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, they will not come out of that hospital if they go in there with sickness.”

Now you know why I consider moving to the scorching sun of Australia in a few decades.

As for the purchase of Louisiana here is a copy of the share that made that purchase feasible.

The financing of the Louisiana Purchase is a very interesting topic. I'd have expected the paperwork of the issue to be in French (Batavia being under French supervision) or English. Technically, Barings was trading with the enemy, as the War of the Third Coalition started prior to the conclusion of the negotations. The war also allowed the bankers to squeeze Napoleon into accepting a rather large disagio. Both Hopes and Barings are now part of Dutch banks, ABN Amro and ING respectively. The Scottish Hopes made their fortune trafficking Quakers and slaves to America.

Issuing the bonds in US dollars and thus accepting a huge currency risk from an upstart country, whose first treasury secretary would be murdered by the country's vice president the following year, in uncertain times was a brave decision by the bankers that paid off. At least they could rely on hard-nosed, Geneva-born polymath Albert Gallatin, the longest serving treasury secretary of the United States who was at the helm for most of the bonds' duration. In memory of his 250th anniversary, Geneva arranged for a nice little exhibition about him (which is closing soon).

My take on Slauerhoff is that he despaired of mankind. Chang's book is on my TBR radar. One part in her husband's book Country Driving deals with the same topic of Chinese factories. Nobody clamors for full Western standards, but many best practices are quite cheap to implement and just require caring for a fellow human being. If Apple manages to control the quality of its gadgets, it may also monitor the hours worked. The problem of extensive outsourcing is that responsibility diffuses to such an extent that nobody is willing to claim that the buck stops here. The effective disenfranchisement of the American poor quoted in the linked article is devastating: "There's no time off on Election Day. "What if I want to vote?" I ask a supervisor. "I think you should!" he says. "But if I leave I'll get fired," I say. To which he makes a sad face before saying, "Yeah.". As you mentioned about the postal services, the outsourcing destroys public places and social linkages.

I've noticed that you have been reading up on Dutch social housing architecture during the ugly age of concrete. Vienna, fortunately built its social housing infrastructure of Red Vienna in an earlier era with warmer materials such as brick (because it was labor-intensive during the harsh post WWI years). Red Vienna (or Austromarxism) is not well represented among the museums here in Vienna. Recently, a small museum opened in the former laundry of the famous Karl-Marx-Hof which was not exactly praised in the press by being called the "best Karl-Marx-Hof-Museum of the world". Not much competition in the running ... The crazy element about Vienna's social housing flats was their tiny size: 39-49 m2 (today, two are usually combined to form one renovated unit) - on the other hand, rent cost only 3 to 5 percent of a worker's monthly pay (comparable to about what a worker today pays for his triple play cable bill & public TV/radio charge). Architektur des roten Wien has nice external pictures of the different housing projects, but lacks floor plans.

I don't like the coldness of most International Style buildings. The Bauhaus Meisterhäuser in Dessau look nice on the outside but have a decidedly Soviet charm on the inside and crazy color schemes. The problem with the International Style is its totalitarian approach of creating a finished composition instead of allowing for organic growth (Gaudi, Wright, ...). As these cathedrals of concrete resist modernization, their survival is uncertain. Vienna is currently rebuilding its two post-WWII main train stations (West- und Südbahnhof), unfortunately exchanging the concrete for today's bland fashion material, glass.

Re Greece, the first thing I would do, is kick out any advisor or public servant connected to Harvard. Harvard is the fons et origo of most problems (more still than the ideologues at Chicago), indulging in sloppy thinking and stale ideas similar to the medieval Sorbonne. Relying on Harvard medicine doesn't help most patients, it just bleeds them.

Greece actually doesn't exist - it is a collection of different parts that need different strategies. The tourist islands which have relied too much on cheap tourists have become uncompetitive compared to Turkey and Bulgaria. The nicer islands need to move upmarket and promote quality tourists. A devaluation probably cures the islands' problems.

The second part is the poor backward Balkan hinterland whose problems probably can only be cured by widespread emigration. Even the short distance from Athens to Marathon feels like traveling back to the time of donkey carts. Cheap labor is available, but transportation is atrocious.

Which leaves the third part and key to the solution: the city of Athens, where nearly 40 percents of Greeks live. It is a bewildering mix of a First and Third World city where you can step out of an ultramodern building to buy a live chicken on the street. I was also quite surprised by the social stratification by skin color in Athens (from light olive skinned managers to brownish employees to quite dark-skinned workers). The key to success lies in both developing Athens' First World economy and making it pay for the services to all, while slowly lifting the rest out of poverty and improving infrastructure. Bleeding the poor will not safe much money nor make the First World economy parts improve. The key to its revival is removing bureaucratic and political choke points (which the men in command are obviously unwilling to release. As they already have their nest eggs abroad, there is very little Europe can do, to make them comply. The easiest way is probably to buy them off.). The EU measures, following the Harvard prescription, unfortunately only target the poor and vulnerable. The achievements of the Enlightenment (individual liberties, rule of law) end up on the cutting block. Paul Krugman's upcoming book will likely propose sensible and obvious investments and reforms that are politically infeasible in both Europe and the United States.

Having read Charles Murray's book, I thought I had already filled my annual fruitcake quota. Oh no, Sir. Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City comes highly recommended (FT, Economist, blurbs from all the conservative talking heads from Steven Levitt to Boris Johnson). Intended as a sort of neo-con answer to Jane Jacobs' monumental Death and Life of Great American Cities, he starts off as a Tom Friedman with brains but quickly abandons all neutrality. Rot and decay of the US cities is all due of the poor, the unions and especially, the "blah" people (to use the Santorium terminus technicus). Providing infrastructure and services for the poor only attracts more poor people (instead of the totalitarian glory of a high-rise ghetto of and for the rich - see this crazy perfect SIM City, I predict this fellow will like Dubai a lot.).

Glaeser is the perfect Anti-Engels who wishes for the creativity of the satanic mills to return. In Glaeser's view, the poor enjoy the freedom of job-hopping, to learn what they like and can do well. "Salt Lake City is full of Mormons because it's a good place to be a Mormon. London has many bankers because it's a good place to manage money. Cities like Rio have plenty of poor people, because they're relatively good places to be poor. After all, you, even without any cash, you can still enjoy Ipanema Beach." Rich and poor, all have the freedom to sleep under the bridge ... Naturally, this guy has the credentials of the university of Chicago (which used to come to prominence by important fieldwork in sociology) and Harvard.

The decline of Rotterdam is mentioned (I don't know yet if its revival will be mentioned too.). Interesting that Bernard Mandeville was a son of the city, never would have guessed. The Glorious Revolution created an interesting bi- to tri-national structure.

Meanwhile, the Bundesbank and some German politicians seem to deeply regret not having signed a prenup agreement before the monetary consumption. As with the Son of Maastricht regulations to punish offenders, the principles of insurance and risk management work the other way. The premium has to be collected before mishaps happen. Watching the barn burn down only works in good ol'e Tennessee.

It seems the Greek drama is temporarily contained. All the panic about banks going bust and “weapons of mass destruction” (i.e. credit default swaps) going off has disappeared. Still, I found the most impressive piece of news the opposition of the pension fund of Greece’s Ministry of Finance against the bond swap. Finally, Greece exceeds best practices elsewhere, at least in the field of Chinese Walls and rules against front running:

Another holdout fund, Teaypoik, covering finance ministry workers, faces a cash crunch after following the example of hedge funds betting that Greece’s debt restructuring would not be completed before a €14.4bn bond matured on March 20 – forcing the government and international lenders to make full repayment. Teaypoik put its entire cash reserves of €3m into the March bond, leaving the fund with barely enough cash to pay employees this month. “The fund took advice from a financial consultant. It made the bet and lost,” said a finance ministry official. “That is why we are holdouts. We are hoping we will be rescued.”

Of course this is no reason for Schadenfreude. The fund’s participants have every reason to be angry at its management. And if you’d ask me what to do in Greece, the first thing that comes to my mind is to tap the ideas of the Greeks themselves. That improves the commitment and should lead to solutions that best fit the local situation. But if I read this, I am not so certain. My ideas would be quite standard. Increasing competition and generating cash seem the main things to do. Cost reductions are part of the strategy, but I would not force people in the Balkan hinterland to emigrate. Anyway, who would want them? Northwestern Europe is already saturated with immigrants with low levels of education. It takes about three generations before they start contributing more to the tax coffers than they actually cost. Not a good idea now we are required to have pro-cyclical government budgets in Europe. Maybe they can drive taxis in New York. But seriously, are Austrians going on holiday to Bulgaria? You guys are a lot closer to the steppe. I know only one person who tried to go there on holiday. She is Russian, and thought the quality of service was way below her motherland. I have never understood why the EU accepted Rumania and Bulgaria as members, but makes such a fuzz about Turkey. The Target-2 positions are becoming more of an issue here as well. Germany’s claim on Target-2, the clearing system of the European Central Bank, is 6,670 per citizen, Holland’s is 10,140. The Dutch share of Target-2 is also smaller than the German, so less of the claim is redistributed.

Ha, you thought Geneva would be the only city with an exhibition about a banker! But last year we had one here in Amsterdam too. I missed it, because it must have been more interesting than I expected. The website is still there, but only in Dutch. There is however also lemma on Wikipedia for Walraven van Hall. Wally van Hall belonged to a family of bankers and seamen. When the Nazis cut the payment of the families of sailors of the Dutch merchant navy who sailed for the Allies, he set up a fund to give these families financial support. He later expanded that to help finance income for railway workers that went on strike, illegal newspapers, people in hiding and other illegal activities. He did so through gifts, loans and one of the greatest heists in financial history. Through his network he got help from many people. Tax inspectors gave him lists of rich citizens, whom he talked into giving gifts. With some trouble he had organised guarantees from the Dutch government in exile. And with help from workers in the central bank he also promissory notes from the bank’s vaults. Right under the eyes of the Nazi management, they were replaced with fake ones to use them as collateral for bank loans. It helped that there was no more electricity and the deposits were lighted with candles. In today’s money the heist would have been about half a billion euros. All was properly administered and settled after the war. Worthless bonds from the Czarist Railways were often used for documentation. Wally van Hall ran an organisation of some 2,000 people all around the country. One of the members of his team gave his name away when he was caught by the Nazis and tried to save his paramour. Given his disappearance he had expected that Walraven van Hall had taken precautions. Van Hall had not and the Banker of the Resistance was executed in early 1945. The heist is cool, but I am even more impressed how quickly he managed to create such a large and smooth running organisation under such difficult circumstances.

You are right, it should be relatively easy to maintain reasonable standards of operations, although you never know what happens when there are no inspections. Meanwhile here, the job market is now becoming more and more like China. Last week it was reported that 98% of last year’s new labour contracts are for the short term only, even if most of the work has a long term character. This has something to do with Dutch labour laws and with high levels of economic uncertainty. But people on temporary contracts will not buy new cars and will not get mortgages. I wonder if the old situation will return if the economy picks up again. Do employers in Switzerland and Austria also operate like this?

I’d expect it of the Swiss, who share an equivalent attitude to debt. I just learned that Anglos cannot help it that they are such big spenders. It is all their language’s fault that they spend like Greeks:

In languages such as German, Dutch, Finnish and Japanese, speakers can use present-tense verbs to refer to future events (“weak future-time reference”). In Spanish, Greek, French and English, events in the future must take specifically marked future-tense verbs (“strong future-time reference”).

Mr Chen found that countries speaking weak future-time reference languages tend to have higher savings rates and less debt, because they don’t discount the future as strongly as countries speaking languages that force you to treat the future as an entirely different temporal modality.

Americans are particularly pitiful, now that life in the United States in itself has a negative value:

"Since 1965, the cost-benefit ratio of American life has been approaching parity," Farness said. "While figures prior to that date show that life was worth living, there is some suspicion that the benefits cited were superficial and misreported."

I read two books about urban planning in Amsterdam after a visit to the Van Eesterenmuseum, which is actually more a guided tour through one of the post-war suburbs. Geuzenveld and De verfdoos (both reviewed in English) are nice books, because they bring the story with a historical context. I spent a large part of my youth in one of these areas and I have fond memories of our flat, playground and school. Our family house was filled with furniture like described in De Verfdoos and if I were to have any taste in interior design, it would be Bauhaus-inspired. Licht, lucht en ruimte (light, air and space) are certainly values I can appreciate in my surroundings, just like rust, reinheid en regelmaat (calm, cleanliness and regularity).

Most of the buildings in these suburbs do not have concrete exteriors however. Concrete was used in the 1920’s in one area nicknamed Betondorp (“concrete village”; I linked to the Dutch page, because it has more pictures), but that was exceptional. Bricks were scarce at the time. Amsterdam is very much a city of brick stone, more so than Vienna. Few tourists dare to venture beyond the magic square mile of the Red Light District, “smoking coffeeshops” and Anne Frank House, but Amsterdam has a nice heritage of 20th century architecture.

When Vienna was building the Karl-Marx-Hof, which I have visited of course, the architects of the Amsterdam School were still building “palaces for the working class”. Architects like Piet Kramer and Michel de Klerk used elaborate patterns of bricks with a hint of art nouveau to make social housing look like something special. Just like with the Karl-Marx-Hof, there is now a museum dedicated to these blocks. The houses may not have been as cheap as Vienna’s bassena blocks, but at least they had toilets and running water (which my flat in Vienna in the 1980’s still lacked; the price was very cheap, though; the people who lived there were used to it). Inside the houses were small and had small windows. The style evolved and became a bit simpler in Berlage’s Plan Zuid, extending the city to the south. This is mostly a middle class area (Anne Frank lived here before she had to go into hiding) and still one of Amsterdam’s most popular and pleasant areas to live. It helps that these houses are spacious.

Already during Berlage’s time, Modernism came up. The Modernist areas closer to the city centre are growing in popularity now that they have been renovated. City planning got somewhat out of hand in the 1950’s. Inspired by Le Corbusier, most of the old quarters of the city were to be replaced by highrises. The chief of police proposed to fill many of the city’s canals to give way for cars and trucks. Only a few old blocks should remain for tourists. As far as I remember from Sjowall and Wahloo, this is what Sweden did with Stockholm. The destruction of the inner city did not materialise, but the ideas were tried in another new suburb. The model with its honey comb structure looks great. There was complete segregation of roads and pavements and complete segregation between zones for housing, working and recreation. The scale was unprecedented and criticised by an earlier generation of Modernist planners. All the flats were set in a park, so everybody had more or less the same view and all the houses had the same size. It was egalitarianism gone wild. At the same time incomes rose quickly and every family had a car. Other towns offered family homes with a private garden and the Bijlmer became a refuge for new immigrants. In the 1970’s that meant low incomes, narcotics and other problems. Much of the old flats have been knocked down, which is a pity, because they were actually quite nice. I lived in one for a few years. Amsterdam however returned to older tried models of blocks enclosing gardens, just like Berlage or the canal zone. And the paternalism of Modernist city planning has also disappeared, fortunately. Is Triumph of the City really this bad? It was on my list of books to read.

Rotterdam is not doing as well as you may think. The runner-up city suffers from a weaker economic structure and an educational mismatch between its population and its businesses. The container has made a lot of simple jobs in its massive harbour redundant. Amsterdam is lucky to have a large international airport and lots of tourism that offer jobs where a low education is sufficient. Rotterdam is keen on attracting "the creative class", but it has to do it with lots of subsidies for museums, jazz festivals, etc.

Meanwhile, I am working my way through Figes’ The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia. It is a tough job: 650 pages of appalling life stories. But still much better than actually living that life, of course. It is just a pity that the author’s generalisations are really mixed in the text. You have to read the book carefully. Still, I do not understand why books about Russia always have to be the length of War and Peace.

The Whisperers is the second tough nut to crack after Minsky's Stabilizing an unstable economy, which I highly recommend. The first part of the book contains an excellent analysis of Keynes. The second part contains Minsky's own theory that a modern "financial economy" is by definition unstable. There is more to the book than I could absorb when reading it once. Most newspaper articles mention Minsky's analysis of economic actors that lead to more risk taking if the economy is stable. There are however also intrinsic destabilising elements in modern capitalism, that require me to go through Minsky's meandering lines of thought at least one more time.

The black sea coast of Bulgaria has become the modern Ibiza and Mallorca - a cheap place for sun, sea, music, sex and booze for the masses. The Euro troubles has redirected Austrian (and German) tourism from the classics of Italy, Spain and Greece towards the non-Euro countries of Turkey, Bulgaria, Croatia.

The trouble with Turkey is its size. It would soon become the EU's most populous state. Just look at the US and Texas to see how pernicious an influence a large uneducated, fundamentalist part can have on the whole. Turkey is large and vibrant enough to survive alone. Treaties with EU should be sufficient to ensure good integration. Re Romania and Bulgaria, I see the advantages of having them inside the tent. Still, I would have preferred a "Europe of different velocities" where member countries (à la Schengen) can join different initiatives. Giving the nascent democracies full voting power was a mistake. This, however, would also have meant to re-qualify the member status of, say, Italy and Greece with their spotty institutions. My ideal EU would be a confederacy that ensures close economic integration and defense but otherwise highly decentralized. If the EU continues on its present path, I'd prefer to eliminate the national level and promote regions (of about 10 million people each) as political units instead. Currently, the aggregation of the different national consensus results in terrible overall decisions.

Switzerland's and Austria's labor market, as I think most developed countries do, develop into more and more hub-and-spoke companies where a small extremely well paid core manages a network of progressively worse paid and uncertain spokes. The trouble with this quite sensible arrangement is that the government is not doing enough to reverse this re-balancing of risk towards the weaker parts of society. See also the UK Tory government's new initiative to slash the top tax rate, which certainly will not help to balance the budget.

Triumph of the City unfortunately is a soulless and intellectually shoddy book. It follows in the inductive footsteps of David Brooks and Tom Friedman in taking the author's personal experience as typical. Edward Glaeser grew up in a middle class family in New York city but now, as a top paid Harvard professor, he is part of the top 5-10 percent. Like Brooks and Friedman, he doesn't notice this, however, as he dances to the tune of truly rich people to whom his personal wealth seems quite "middle class". Multiple times in Triumph of the City, Glaeser asks the question: What makes a city attractive to a billionaire? This is simply not a rewarding question as a billionaire can create his own environment. A city bundles demand for extreme specialization and creates much (free) public goods. I have not read many books that indulge in a Marie Antoinette or Old Scrooge callousness towards the poor and the unfortunate as Glaeser's. Wiki quotes the abstract of one of his paper's on obesity: (Poor) "people have self-control problems", thus Glaeser's remedies are to make poor people's lives more miserable to trigger their discovery of valuable skills. Given that poverty in the US is heavily skewed towards African-Americans, much of it resembles preaching against fat, lazy blacks.

Apart from being written by a mean man, the book suffers from extreme "truthiness". This starts with soft climate change denial: He says, he is no climatologist, thus he can not judge what "appears", "seems", etc. to be a climate change. This is simply unacceptable. He is no historian either. Would he be comfortable with saying that he can not confirm the Holocaust happened? The science is in. Denying in hard or soft form, the reality of climate change is no different than denying the Holocaust. Even under these weak premises, the question he asks is irrelevant. Yes, New York city is "greener" than living in Texas. But Texas will not become New York city any time in the future. A sensible question would have been to compare energy use in a Southern European city with the energy waste in Texas. Then one could have learned that with little to no loss in life quality, one could save half the energy.

Glaeser is also ignorant about the cities he writes about. He basically only knows New York. His account of Paris is breathtaking in its ignorance. He seems to have been on a tourist trip centered on the Champs Elysées. His Paris is the one depicted in Amélie. He crazily mentions time and again that Paris is living mostly from nostalgic tourism and the past - but like Tom Friedman, facts cannot disturb such minds. His two main solutions (skyscrapers and education) don't work either in the way he intends, because he ignores the whole literature about clusters (neither Michael Porter nor Paul Krugman are mentioned in the bibliography). Skyscrapers only work for rich folks. French HLM or the infamous projects in US cities have shown that (non-supervised) elevators and floors become invested with crime and neglect. But this naturally doesn't concern Glaeser as he only dances for the 1%.

In sum, a book only partially grounded in reality, based on an incomplete and often wrong understanding of theory, mixed with a truly toxic political philosophy, is the perfect candidate to become a US bestseller and to be praised by The Economist and the usual suspects.

Similar praise is heaped upon the upcoming book Why Nations fail by Bates Medalist Daron Acemoglu. The book starts by contrasting the two sides of the Arizona/Mexico border. A quick look at a similar situation at Philadelphia, PA and Camden, NJ would show that "nation" is not the correct unit of discussion (setting nation = state is also a strange choice for a Turkish-Armenian-American author). Firstly, however, I will read one of my Xmas books, Thinking, Fast and Slow.

I've now seen three of the ten exhibitions for the 150th Gustav Klimt anniversary. The Leopoldmuseum is, up to now, my favorite. I particularly like the reconstitution of his Japonistic office room from a photography and the Sommerfrische Attersee lake side garden table arrangement for browsing the catalogue. It is Klimt's landscapes (not his decorative works) that I like best. A twin exposition Klimt and Monet would be quite enjoyable (if it were affordable). The BBC currently has a three part documentary running about Art Deco: Sex and Sensibility. presented by a modern Andy Capp slaughtering the non-English words - kimowno, art decow. Still, a good portrait of the main art deco cities Paris, London/Glasgow and in the next episode Vienna.

In the Leopoldmuseum exhibition, there is also a large photo of the Viennese old Naschmarkt with the Sezession in the background, a vastly superior solution than the ghastly wound that car traffic currently inflicts on the place (similar to Boston's North End). Ideally and unfeasibly, it and the Ringstrasse should be turned into a pedestrian zone.

Talking about things Viennese, I've seen that you finished Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, which I should also read some time, although Stalin's thuggishness is a big detractor. I prefer my dictators more cerebral, so I go with Lenin. Lenin and Stalin both stayed in Vienna. Stalin lived there at the same time that Hitler did. There is still a marker on the house where he lived (which is officially protected from removal by the peace treaties, making it one of the last surviving Stalin monuments outside the former Soviet Union.).

A world war earlier, Margaret McMillan's The Peacemakers ("Paris 1919" for Americans) is very Tuchmanesque (McMillan is a great-granddaughter of the UK premier). A great cast who made a lot of stupid decisions.

No wonder that Keynes was livid about their boneheadedness in the highly readable and short The Economic Consequences of the Peace (very Krugmanesque). As the true elite culprits were not or could not be punished (the German Kaiser in exile in the Netherlands, the Austrian in Switzerland), the punishment was redirected on third parties that were unable to carry the burden. As Krugman does now, Keynes then showed that the policies inflicted did not make sense, e.g. somehow Germany should have to resume its economic life with only two-thirds of the pre-war coal requirements.

Finally, Glaeser triggered my interest in Mumbai. Over the summer I intend to read Shantaram, plus two books that show the city from the top (the returning expat and first world problems in a third world country view of Maximum city : Bombay lost and found and the outstanding report from Slumbai Behind the beautiful forevers. Having read the latter, one will never trust an Indian statistics again. The giant inequality really makes it into a land of interlocked thievery. The richest man of India's personal 27 story building with 600 employees would make a good Bond villain hideout. Isn't also wonderful how the Times article ends in the upbeat notion that the pauper desires nothing more than work for the jobcreator?

Nicholas A. Basbanes' long promised book about the history of paper is still outstanding. A German journalist has written a nice book about the same topic: Weiße Magie Die Epoche des Papiers.

People here go on holiday to Turkey, mainly because it is cheaper than going to Spain, Italy or Greece. An added advantage this year is that the Turks do not go on strike so often. But Bulgaria and Rumania are basically unknown entities. I think nobody would have thought about Bulgaria and Rumania joining the European Community had they been a few hundred miles further to the east or the south. They are small, badly governed (but now with an equal say in European affairs), very poor and have bad demographics. The only reason to let them into the club could have been to gobble up the former Soviet satellites and move the Iron Curtain further to the east. I wonder if the treaties Turkey now has with the European Union would not have sufficed for these countries. Turkey on the other hand is a vibrant country indeed, albeit also with increasingly bad demographics (Iran is another country with a very low birth rate). It is a bit strange that we allow Bulgaria into the club, but not the country with one of the largest NATO-armies. And the mandatory standards for access to the European Union have improved quite a few practices in Turkey, e.g. the rights of minorities. By showing Turkey the cold shoulder that process has now stopped.

I can think of a few good reasons for reluctance about Turkey. For too long Turkey has seen Western Europe as the place to drop its undereducated farmers. The right to settle anywhere in the European Union would probably mean a greater influx of people for which there are no jobs. Additionally, Turks have maintained strong ties to their country of origin and the Turkish government occasionally uses this to threaten Western European governments. That is not exactly polite behaviour. A European Union at multiple speeds would indeed be best, but how do you organise that? Italy and Greece have spotty institutions, but it is difficult to take countries out of confederate functions (like a single currency) if they lapse. In other areas, e.g. Schengen, this should be quite feasible.

I doubt if slashing the top income tax rate in Britain makes much difference. We are talking about a very small group here. The tax cuts are supposed to go hand in hand with slashing tax exemptions. This can even lead to higher tax income from the rich. It worked like this in the Netherlands where tax evasion and cheating had become national sports because almost nobody considered the rates fair anymore. The British tax cuts are different from the Bush tax exemptions. The Bush tax exemptions seem to apply to a much larger group and to a larger percentage of GDP. The main reason not to slash the top income tax rate is social cohesion, and that works differently in countries with a winner-takes-all mentality like Britain. I agree with the hub-and-spoke model for the labour market. And I do not think such a model is going to be very meritocratic. It reminds me of China as described in the The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers, where a group of insiders can set the course for the country and implement it. It is efficient in the short term, but weak in the long term. Interestingly, large groups of Chinese who profited from this model all want to leave or at least have foreign passports.

I am afraid I am going to give Triumph of the City a miss. It would have fitted nicely with the books about city planning that I have recently read. Last was Terug naar de stad: geografisch portret van Amsterdam, a book very much about the quality of 17th to 19th century architecture, because the functions of these smaller buildings could be changed more easily, thus allowing for organic growth.

Stalin’s formal education was a seminary to become a priest, but according to Simon Sebag Montefiore Stalin was the most intellectual ruler Russia has ever seen, and that includes Lenin. A few times the book mentions the Mozart piano concerto he listened to or the opera he attended before moving against one or the other member of his government. According to Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Stalin claimed to read some 500 pages per day after his 16-hour work day, which often ended with a drinking bout and a film. So although Stalin’s formal education was limited, he certainly had a most impressive intellect and broad interests. What all these revolutionaries had in common (beyond their brutality) was that they were all high risk takers. And not risk takers like investment bankers (capitalising on other peoples money while socialising the losses), but people who were willing to gamble their lives for power as much as for their ideals. You may also see continuity from the days of Peter the Great, who tried to force change upon Russia by ukase and was willing to use the axe on whoever disagreed with him. Mr. Sebag Montefiore mentions a year with more than 60,000 train accidents in the Soviet Union. The only answer the Soviet system had was more repression. Even Monty Python could not improve on that one. There is an amazing amount of detail in Mr. Sebag Montefiore’s book and it is great to read it in tandem with Orlando Figes’ The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia. Both books rarely touch the headlines of the day, but deal mostly with the toll on insiders and outsiders of Stalin’s rule.

By the way, did you follow the quarrel between Paul Krugman and the neo-Keynesians? I did not, but supposedly Krugman understands little of the speculative uses of money as described by Hyman Minsky and his followers.

the outstanding report from Slumbai Behind the beautiful forevers

I heard the author, Katherine Boo, on radio recently, and one thing that struck me was what she said about the slums' garbage pickers, that they are developing the 21st century's major skill par excellence--opportunistic scrounging for any little bit that can be sold, any little job that can be found. For the vast majority of humanity there will never be professions, careers, callings, grand projects, decent work: only frantic rooting through the garbage.

Yes, I know I'm slow to be realising this only now.

>88 LolaWalser: Lola, the book is a great read and much too short. The book actually contradicts the theme of skillful garbage pickers. The best pickings are stealing sorted raw material (e.g. denuding a fire station's valves). The garbage pickers pay with their health for their meager earnings. Most of the garbage could be pre-sorted/recycled as many modern states do. India, however, has inequality baked in deep in its system. Why should somebody touch garbage if there are people beneath one who aspire to it? Its an infernal chain of people kicking the one below them. Cheating is the only way up. The book thus reads like an Indian version of Deadwood.

It might be best read alongside Poor Economics (which deals mostly with India). I wish the authors and Boo teamed up to for a documentary. The sad fact is, as Poor Economics reveals in its final pages, that the poor hit a ceiling very fast and are pushed down again by the hazards of life (no safety net). Most aid is squandered and an inordinate amount is spent in just checking that some of the money ends up where it should (and would be in the best interest of the recipients). It is truly depressing.

>87 mercure: Saint Krugman's travails with friendly Down Under fire are both unhelpful and for the current situation irrelevant. It is a luxury to discuss minor theoretical issues and imaginary fears while the US economy continues to bleed. The first priority should be, d'oh, fiscal (not firing teachers and public servants, filling road holes, repairing bridges, ...), an avenue closed by a timid president and a nest of Republican zombies. Obama probably could get some money from the IMF or other international bodies (but he prefers to tighten belts instead of thinking about giving a blood infusion to a Bush battered victim).

Re-appointing Republican Bernanke will rank as a major of Obama's self-inflicted defeats. The FED should pursue inflationary policies, forcing banks to not only trade but lend the money to the real economy. Whether this will cause only minor inflationary escalation (as Krugman says) or a major one (as the banking economists say), should be dealt with once the patient has fully recovered. Steve Keen, by stabbing Krugman in the back and diverting his attention from the real enemy of the US economy, helps the Republican zombies obfuscate the real issues. Keen still has credibility which can not be said about the tainted Republican hacks.

For more about hacks, turn to the latest Europe debate with Friedmanite talking head Niall Ferguson, German conservative journalist (SZ, Die Zeit) Josef Joffe, Tony Blair's Karl Rove aka the Dark Prince Peter Mandelson and former Maoist Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Europe doesn't really stand a chance if the dice are loaded. The piper plays the commissioned tunes ...

Romania isn't that small and its people would roam into the EU even if it had not become a member. I would have preferred an EFTA-type antechamber as a training and institution building area. Most of Europe's problems lie in the weak EU presidency. Missing is a leader such as Jacques Delors who has both the clout of a major EU nation behind him and took an independent EU stand. Unfortunately, national politicians were afraid of competition - Lisbon gave us a president, a first vice-president, six further vice-presidents and 19 other commissioners (many of which were pushed-upwards national legacies such as Austrian's contribution who in a fair world would have seen his doctorate gone as his plagiarism was only a little bit extravagant as the Hungarian president's).

Finally, being the most intellectual Russian ruler is a tallest midget question. I don't buy that Stalin was more intellectual than Lenin who was a university educated lawyer with a noble, educated family background. Lenin spoke many languages and performed on an international level, while Stalin spoke Georgian, Russian and managed to understand some German. Lenin had real trouble in getting Stalin to put pen to paper and write a short report "Marxismus und nationale Frage" during his time in Vienna, which Stalin himself termed nonsense. I'd pick Lenin for brainpower, Stalin for an alley brawl.

The one great pick of Stalin was the Soviet anthem, which the Russians after some deliberation reinstated with new text because it is so good.

If I abstract from visits to Spacca Napoli and the South Bronx, Bombay was the first third-world city I visited. I cannot say that I really appreciated the city in all its glory; I still had to learn what to look for. But the slums on the way from the airport were extraordinary compared to what I have seen since. These slums are (or hopefully were) all grey as in dirt grey and the stench easily reached the inside of the air conditioned airport bus. Bombay’s slums seem worse than any other place I have visited. But rather, I should point you to the book A matter of style : social security and livelihood in upland East Java if you would not want to limit yourself to the urban poor. I consider it one of my favourite books. It is a highly readable doctorate thesis about a rural community and how people apply different risk strategies to earn a living and organise their own social security networks. The author is an anthropologist, but he has basically written a study in applied micro economics. What he shows is that these people are far from “indolent”, but limited in the possibilities they have. It does not stop them from trying out whatever might work for them. The author also looked into the effect of financial aid. He basically concluded that there was a trickle down effect of aid given to the region, but that it was meaningless as direct aid to the poor.

But wasn’t Lola also talking about developed economies when she quoted that “opportunistic scrounging” is going to be “the 21st century's major skill par excellence”. Here more than 10% of the population is now self employed, deliberately working on temporary contracts. This works fine in times of full employment, when some may earn up to twice what they would earn on a normal labour contract and you are more flexible in finding projects or employers you like. On the other hand, the self employed get hit in times of recessions. It only works if such people have enough savings. Luckily with the baby boomers retiring we may see more vacancies coming in the near future. On the other hand, the aging of society will also reduce the growth rate of the economy. One of the other points is for such people to remain competitive. You may become self employed when your programming skills are in demand, but you have to maintain your knowledge and skills once new technology takes over. Normal employees will often automatically get training and work with new processes or machines. Particularly the latter may sometimes be different to organise for the self employed. There are various proposals here to reform the labour market to make it on the one hand more flexible, but also to support/encourage competitiveness for the self employed.

I do not know if I would really enjoy a Europe as designed by Jacques Delors. The euro was a grand projet that was fabriqué en France. Just to summarise all my prejudices against la grande nation, it may have been onceptually great and it may have worked in an environment of centralised dirigisme, but I do not think it was the result of careful thought. French solutions work in France, but not elsewhere. I am also rather suspicious of intellectuals in politics. The first utter failures that come to mind are of course Jean-Paul Sartre and all these other fellow travellers of the 20th century. François Mitterand was an intellectual by most counts and implemented yesteryear’s socialism in the first years of his reign. What remains of his legacy is debt and a little glass pyramid in the centre of Paris. Leninism wasn’t long on human rights, despite the various languages its creator spoke. If the number of languages is a measure of competence, George W. Bush is probably America’s most competent president of the last one hundred years, because his Spanish is still a tad better than Obama’s bahasa Indonesia. The young Bush read about 50 books per year plus the Bible from cover to cover when he was a president. What did it bring the Free World? Obama finished two studies (political science and law), but he is still not very effective. Has Switzerland had any intellectuals as political leaders? Holland’s most esteemed politician of the last century was Willem Drees (“the national alderman”), who had a diploma as a bookkeeper and started his career as a stenographer. His doctorate was honoris causa and he was certainly not nobility (you really have been in Kakanien much too long!).

Politics is the art of the possible, not Hollywood for ugly people. I consider Deng Xiao-ping, Harry Lee and Margaret ("les yeux de Caligule, mais elle a la bouche de Marilyn Monroe") Thatcher as some of the most effective politicians who improved the lot of their country in the second half of the 20th century. None of them would like to be considered intellectuals, although Harry Lee speaks at least 4 languages (but none perfectly). Getting back to Stalin, he did perform on an international level. He failed in his assessment of the intentions of Nazi Germany, precisely because he had studied history. But Stalin was no minor to Churchill and F.D. Roosevelt. And of course I agree that Stalin was a thug and more a man of deeds than a profound thinker.

Just last week I read a column of a professor in economics who complained that few of his students had any specific intellectual interests. Besides the diploma, most were more interested in any kind of management duties they can do (student or hockey club, environmental pressure group, etc.) and overseas traineeships. These students are right. To be successful in an economy that supplies a lot of services via large corporations, a basic understanding of Powerpoint and Excel is enough. For the rest you must have negotiating skills and you must be able to crack the secret codes of the elites. The only relevant subjects you could study are game theory and political science. But this probably applies to Holland only; e.g. in America you better invest a lot of money in an MBA from a celeb university. The Dutch are too stingy for that. And we also lack the Bush tax cuts, of course.

I think it is good Vienna keeps the marker for Stalin, even if they claim to do this because of a treaty that has long lost relevance. It is an interesting symbol of Austrian history. I liked the way Stalin’s hair imitated the waving flags you often see on communist propaganda posters. Stalin still stands on his pedestal in the People’s Republic of China and probably North Korea. And the Soviet anthem has a great melody. This is my favourite version: a 3:41-minute opera.

I won’t tease you with Saint-Paul-de-Princeton this time. But just increasing the money supply leads to Ponzi finance that will harm economic stability. In itself it will not create the stable environment needed to create investment and economic and job growth. Is Bernanke really disappointing you with the money he supplies? He buys up most US government debt lately without questioning if the money is consumed (on social security, the armed forces, etc.) or invested. I must confess that in some ways this is smarter than what the ECB does. The interest income generated by American bonds flows back to the US government. The ECB gives the money to banks that buy PIIGS-bonds (well, not Greek bonds). The interest income flows to the banks, thus supporting the shareholders who first created the mess.

Sorry for the delayed response, a deadline ate up all my spare capacity.

Oh Naples, a truly shocking experience. Crossing from Italian speaking Swiss Ticino into Italy proper is one of those visible cultural boundaries (despite Flemish insistence, I failed to note a sharp difference between French and Flemish Belgium. The Flemish are more Belgian than Dutch.). Northern Italy is prosperous, so experiencing Naples as a child was truly stunning. One of the first times, I really saw poverty - the carelessness, the disorder, the stench, the noise and the garbage. Incapable of cleaning up, Naples exports its garbage, earlier to Switzerland (which had built excessive waste management facilities) and Germany and now apparently to Rotterdam!

If you really want to slam Mitterand, it is the totalitarian and unusable French National Library not Pei's nice pyramid that needs to be mentioned. The pyramid uplifts the bland architecture of the Louvre. Versailles too, I find an unattractive despotic cake with only a few bright spots.

You really ram your knife in by mentioning Bush the lesser. Bush's reading is the yang to the Shakespeare typing monkeys' yin. The Youtube samples about his Spanish dsiplay at best an intermediate competency. He switches back to English at the earliest moment possible, not the mark of an advanced speaker. Foreign language skills in the US and UK are truly a sad matter, particularly the scorn displayed by the blind for the skills of the one-eyed. Instead of being proud about the fluency in French of Tony Blair, he was hazed about it constantly. It is a European goal of getting its citizens to speak at least two foreign languages (which shouldn't be the stretch goal that it apparently is.).

You switched the topic from Sebag Montefiore's claim that Stalin was the most intellectual Russian ruler to the merits of intellectuals in power. As mentioned above, Lenin had the better education and starting position. I mentioned his noble origin because, in Russia, the nobility filled the position of the absent bourgeoisie in Russia (from Tolstoy to Nabokov).

Thinking is obviously somewhat opposed to doing. In my opinion, a good politician knows how to ask good questions, manages to move stakeholders and aspires to achieve feasible, sensible goals. Thatcher certainly was a good leader but she overstayed her welcome. The desirable leadership style is also situational and the UK needed a turnaround manager. In the last years, she kept cutting instead of rebuilding the UK's capabilities. England's North has still not recovered. The UK unfortunately is becoming even more London-centric. It is an interesting question what the English do without the Scottish brain infusion if the Scots jump ship.

A new German book about Stalin has garnered good reviews and the Leipzig non-fiction book prize: Verbrannte Erde by Jörg Baberowski. His Humbolt Uni introductory lecture (PDF in German) makes many good points and offers a few gruesome facts, such as the 12 men who executed 20.000 Russians in 14 months - a new form of Anne Applebaum's review of Masha Gessen's The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. My backlog is too big at the moment, but a twin read of these books could offer valuable insights.

The BBC's treatment of the Viennese Jugendstil/Secession was stellar. A wonderful portrait of the city. Watch it if you can, just brace yourself for the presenter mangling many names (Adolf Loos is not pronounced "lose"). I loved the touristic use of an octocopter (whose privacy violations are probably illegal in Europe). I'd love to have a portable version for my sightseeing. The docu also mentions the inheritance troubles surrounding the Stoclet Palace which explains why the current exhibition in Vienna about Klimt's Stoclet frieze regrettably does not feature modern in situ images.

As far as my reading is concerned, I am currently learning (a bit longwinded) about the Dutch in New Amsterdam: The island at the center of the world. One unfortunate Dutchman has just been eaten by Mohawks. Here is to poor Tymen Bouwensz!

No problem, my own response is only fast because I write this on the train from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. Russia nowadays is surprisingly pleasant: crossing the border at the airport was friendlier and faster than in America. The days of grumpy Soviet service have clearly gone. The young generation has embraced consumerism with a vengeance, but also works cheerfully in the countless fastfood and coffee chains. In other areas progress is not so clear. The only newspaper I have seen people reading on the tube was Metro. Instead of the propaganda of Izvestia they now read gossip about Hollywood stars. Metro's Swedish publisher must be one of the many Western companies that have a ball here. Moscow is packed with Mediamarkts, Billas, Ikeas and McDonalds and all cars are made by foreign brands. A quick tour of some supermarkets seems to confirm that almost no Russian consumer brand has survived the opening of markets. The vodka and Sovietskoe Shampanskoe brands are an exception, as is Beluga caviar.

Of course I asked myself what this consumerism means for the indomitable Russian Soul that is willing to sacrifice life if the motherland is in need. Moscow's endless number of fat necked bouncers may be enough to stop what is left of the Wehrmacht, but I am less certain about the People's Liberation Army, particularly in the long run.

Still, in many ways Russia remains a parallel world. What struck me most is how Russia has managed to maintain so many bourgeois values long lost in modern democracies (with Vienna being a potential exception to this rule). People hardly speak a foreign language and the cleaning jobs are done by migrants from the eastern end of the former Soviet empire, instead of the Turks and beurs of Western Europe.

Moscow is certainly not a beautiful city. For a place that practiced five year plans for so many decades the building styles look decidedly chaotic. Even now output figures and of course money are more important than aesthetic pleasure. And it is sad to see many splendidly restored churches, whereas the Narkomfin Building, the original example for Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation, is falling apart.

If Russia is still a separate world, so is Belgium. The Flemings are mentally much more like the French than their northern neighbours (without the French knack for Cartesian thought, but with the backroom power plays; it is not meant as a compliment). In terms of how cities look, the difference is not so clear. Dutch Maastricht looks more French than Lille in France. But you notice the French influence in Belgium immediately when you see the billboards and from the lack of any zoning laws.

The mentioning of the small Louvre pyramid (a symbol for death and burial) was purely rhetorical. I wanted to juxtapose something with Mitterand's mountain of debt. The pyramid is quite nice, particularly if you hear elderly French ladies complain about it in their cramped appartements on one of these wonderful Parisian boulevards. And the pyramid is a symbol for the expansion of the Louvre, albeit to a large extent with shops. It even has or had a chamber dedicated to the consumption of McDonald's malbouffe.

Mastering two foreign languages is a lot by first world standards, but in the third world it is quite common. In Holland we are falling back from three foreign languages to one. The Dutch youth thinks that it would be much easier if everybody learned English. With the rise of Asia, where everybody learns English, this does make some sense. Germany has been through two decades of decline, which has not helped to popularise schwere Wörter (Dutch for "falsche Freunde"). There are now more Germans studying Dutch than the other way around. And who reads German literature or watches French films? Holland's Bildungselite has died out. The current return of the "gymnasium" as the favourite school type to prepare children for university (where Latin and Greek are taught) has more to do with keeping out the riff-raff. And just like Britain is becoming more London-centric, Holland is becoming more Amsterdam-centric. The highspeed Thalys train that connects Amsterdam with Brussels and Paris does not even stop in the Hague, the Dutch seat of government and an official United Nations capital city.

I do not have Mr. Sebag Montefiore's book with me here, but he mentions some of Stalin's butchers by name. He also pays a lot of attention to Lavrenti Beria, who was both a very capable manager and an absolute bastard: Uncle Joe called him "our Himmler". Masha Gessen's book did not get such a good reception in the Dutch papers; supposedly it supports too many conspiracy theories. A short book by a Dutch correspondent was said to be better. You may also want to read more about Peter the Great. Peter was a non-conformist like no other, a kind of Steve Jobs in a more violent time and with a more violent occupation.

Ah, yes, The island at the center of the world. The author claimed to have recovered the work of Adriaen van der Donck. But I have seen a fine 1960's copy of that work (in English) in one of Amsterdam's second hand bookstores so I'd nominate Mr. Shorto for the Simon Winchester Award for telling highly profitable nonsense. I doubt if New Amsterdam can really be linked to the success of New York. As a colonial venture, I'd be more interested Johan Maurits "the Brazilian". Johan Maurits was a nobleman and an intellectual who spoke multiple languages, and who brought scientists and painters to Dutch Brazil to develop his colony. He is still considered one of the best governors Brazil has seen. His modest mansion in the Hague is now the fabulous Mauritshuis museum. Note that the Maurits' wiki pages in the various languages give very different details about his accomplishments.

What makes New Amsterdam special is that it was one of only two places where the Dutch established a volksplanting (a colony of Europeans). The other one was the Cape of Good Hope. All other trading posts were mostly occupied by Company personnel, ex-personnel and their offspring. In the Cape the purpose was obvious: the local population could not produce the food required for ships to the Indies. If you read Kinders Van Die Kompanjie, most leaders of the Cape were just passing by; they preferred posts further east that were more financially rewarding. Bringing more Europeans to posts other than the Cape or New Netherland was rejected by the Lords that ran the companies: being good capitalists they loved their monopolies and they saw these endangered by private settlers. The offspring can still be met in places like Sri Lanka and Ghana.

Two streets in New York carry my family name. The name giver was a governor and likely also a slave owner, and supposedly there are also blacks with my name in America, which I find pretty cool (I just hope they did not get the name as slaves). Streets and hills outside New York state also carry my family name. If I had the time, money and talent I would want to write a book about these people. You can find them in all levels of American society now, which could be an interesting theme. I would be interested to find out why so many have become so conservative, whereas the motherland embraces modernity (or the mother continent; it also applies to Germans, Brits, etc.).

What is also surprising is that Dutch was still spoken in the former New Netherland until the early 20th century: a sort of pidgin Dutch survived in New Jersey's Catskill Mountains among an racially mixed community (probably what Americans would now call "trailer trash"). All what now remains of the Dutch presence are words like "boss", "cookie", "hunky dory" and of course "kinky".

The Hague like Berne is a beautiful but sleepy city. Thus, it is no wonder that both cities are only indirectly linked to high-speed trains. The time loss of braking makes the reduction of stops a necessity for a successful line.

Wow, you are almost homo faber-esque in travelling the globe by bus, train, plane ... A "lux" train from Charkiv/Kharkov to Kiev I took some years ago was surprisingly comfortable (even though the Soviet Union had been buried for more than a decade, the stationary of my ticket still featured a CCCP label (perhaps they got a kick out of handing out the old stock to foreigners). Moscow's harsh climate is tough on humans and buildings. The uncertainty of Russian property rights will limit the incentive to invest in the upkeep. Demolish and build anew seems to be the prime paradigm (at least in Ukraine and Eastern Europe).

I have actually planned to read up on Peter the Great's Swedish opponent Charles XI, now that my Swedish is at a B1 level. About five Swedish books are already awaiting their turn.

While it could be much tightly edited, I quite like the island at the center of the world. One just has to ignore the crazy claims of US book marketing. The early global repercussion and squabbles among the trading companies are fascinating, especially how one small shocking action at the end of the world, the Amboyna massacre in which the Dutch tortured (for Americans: enhanced interrogated) and executed a few unfortunate English traders, influenced events in both Europe and America.

Travel to the US is truly a sorry affair. Firstly, the non-visa visa (with a fee, part of which is to finance US travel marketing) which in contrast to a true visa you are not assured of entry to the US but may be sent back on the next plane. Then, the fingerprinting and stupid questioning. Entry into East Germany and Communist Hungary, Romania etc. was much better organized and probably better at vetting real threats. A tiny example of how the US security moloch is failing at even the most basic tasks: Perhaps somebody could inform the CIA snoops that Switzerland's has a new central bank president (and the old was forced to resign some months ago). To make the oversight even worse, someone at the CIA has "reviewed" that page on April 18, 2012, at least it is marked thus.

Re the conservative nature of colonies, it follows basic evolution: The restricted size means less variation. However, the new environment makes for many progressive changes too. It is often a question of framing (e.g. whether Iran is progressive or conservative or both at the same time). An amusing detail of more conservative colonials is the bear on the coat of arms of New Bern, NC, which lacks the red penis of the city of Bern. In medieval times, the citizens were proud about the virility of their symbols. In 1512, the pope Julius II himself (currently featuring as a cardinal in The Borgias on TV) awarded the Swiss canton of Schaffhausen golden horns and testicles of their ram on the coat of arms and thus they remained ever since ...

In France, meanwhile, it looks like Sarko is toast. Only the unlikely all out support of the far right (protest) voters could preserve his presidency. Sadly, Hollande's program is mostly unworkable nostalgic boilerplate.

#92

And who reads German literature or watches French films? Ow, ow, it hurts! :)

I was persuaded about the continuing vitality of French culture by The story of French. Thank Dieu for Québec.

>94 LolaWalser:

Ow, ow, it hurts! :)

I was only talking about Holland and its attitude to high culture, not the rest of the world. As a matter of fact, in Saint Petersburg even the local equivalents of Essex girls seem to go to ballet or to the opera. And my appreciation of Matisse and Repin paintings was seriously distracted by blonde bimbos in miniskirts and high heels visiting the same museums as I did.

You should not take an opinion about France seriously that comes from a country where
a vice prime minister could famously say that France was a great country, but unfortunately full of French.

On the other hand, French culture hardly reaches international audiences beyond the odd film. French pop music figures nowhere else and Michel Houellebecq may be the only French best selling literary author of the last decade. I could not tell you the name of a single French painter. That is not surprising, because modern art is more about the story you tell (and thus the product you sell) and thus in what language, than about what you actually produce. Equally, the Nobel Prize may be more related to the proximity to the English language than the quality of a nation's scientific institutions. English dominates in international publications. People like Johan Huizinga (or Robert van Gulik) would leave passages in French, German or Latin untranslated. This is no longer the case in newer editions. This gives an advantage to Anglo Saxon authors and a not always justified advantage to the Anglo Saxon view of the world. It has the advantage of efficiency, however.



>93 jcbrunner:

Certainly, the Borgia pope could assess the quality of Swiss guards as well as the quality of (his) testicles. But is The Hague as sleepy as Berne? E.g. The Hague has about 4 times as many inhabitants and an agglomeration of about one million. Your elder cousins may have danced on this and this global hit, made in The Hague. But since then, The Hague has become more quiet, probably concentrating on its core competences of bringing the country bureaucracy and the world international law through affiliations to the UN's International Court of Justice and the various tribunals against war crimes. The International Court of Justice makes it a UN capital/head quarter city, together with Geneva and New York.

Kiev is a wonderful town, but rather provincial compared to the Soviet Union's number one and two. And contrary to Ukrainian practice, the Russians have left a lot of Lenin statues and other CCCP-symbols standing. Young Russians photograph them with the same smile as I do.

Saint Petersburg certainly outshines Kiev. It is a beautiful town with its centre mostly in tact. The Soviets mainly expanded the city to the south, thus leaving the centre unspoiled. Uncertainty about property rights seems no existential danger for old buildings in Pitr. The Nevsky Prospect is one long string of late 19th and early 20th century architectural jewels and the canals are very pleasant to wander along also. On Baltic rainy days the city has the "austere harmony" that Pushkin raved about (wasn't Pushkin killed by a Frenchman?), but the city starts to look cheerful in yellow, blue and green once the sun starts shining. My reveries were only stopped by an old fashioned military parade on the grounds before the Winter Palace. This included all parts of the armed services, vehicles with ground-to-air missiles and a 200-man drumband playing old Soviet favourites like The Sacred War:

Let us put a bullet into the brow
Of the rotten fascist vermin

I could only guess whom they feel this song is about nowadays. And when all regiments started shouting I thought for a second I was at
another rally in another time.

I also took the bus to the old Novgorod, once the easternmost outpost of the Hanseatic League, but now a city only slightly bigger than Berne. It does not seem to be thriving and seems mainly populated by old people. The trip gives you some appreciation of rural Russia. There are about 3-4 villages on the 250 km pot-holed motorway and a third of these villages consist of old wooden houses falling apart. Certainly land is cheap here and seems to have few functions.

Your interest in Charles XI may be based upon his military accomplishments. I am more interested in social change than in military matters, and then Peter the Great really shines for his willpower and accomplishments. Think of a young prince with good intellectual capacities and a strong will. As a boy he hangs out with foreigners that teach him things unknown or unappreciated by his court. Unlike many CEO's Peter really wants to understand how things really work. At great costs to him personally and to his people he even manages to implement his modern ideas. He simply buys scientific collections and starts an Academy of Science. Architects are brought and start vocational schools. It goes on for some time. Dubai and Singapore are child's play compared to Saint Petersburg.

Unlike ethnic cleansing of the Island of Banda the Amboyna Massacre is mostly forgotten in the Netherlands. I read about it in Nathaniel's Nutmeg, a book that deserves the Simon Winchester Prize for Profitably Recycling Feel Good Ideas about the British Past. Please note the second preposterous part of the book's title: "How one man's courage changed the course of history". The author's "excellent research" was restricted to old English sources, so no wonder who came out as the good guys in the conflict between English and Cloggies. Milton also made the link to the history of New York. I felt it had more to do with opening the American market for his book, rather than that it has real significance for American history. If you look up the lemma for the First Anglo-Dutch War on Wikipedia, then you find better reasons for conflicts: dynastical, religious and geo-political reasons as well as greed and opportunity. On the other hand, although the pay for workers of the East India Company was notoriously bad, they went through quite a lot of trouble to get their men back if they were taken prisoner or hostage by some local raja. They would easily send over a ship for months if they thought it would work. This may have applied to the British as well.

That said, with giving up New Netherland, the Dutch effectively left North America to the British, French and Spaniards (they would also return Acadia to the French for good reasons). In return it secured access to West Africa and the sugar plantations of the Caribbean. It could continue its business of sending gin, guns and knick-knacks from Europe to Africa (Dutch gin is still used in African rituals; I found it as easily for sale in rural supermarkets in Cote d'Ivoire as champagne), slaves from Africa to the West Indies and sugar from the West Indies to Europe. Also, the British left eastern Indonesia and its spices to be a Dutch monopoly.

Colonialism was never a gentlemen's game. Chaps like Giles Milton may want to study the the Phaeton Incident or the British conquest of the Cape of Good Hope after the Batavian Republic was made part of Napoleon's France. In both cases, the British sailed under false (i.e. Dutch) flag. On the Cape the British commander lyingly convinced the Orangist commander of the garrison Robert Jacob Gordon (also an explorer of South Africa, quite like Matthew Flinders in Australia) that he acted on behalf of the stadtholder, who was then in exile in London. When the betrayal came out Gordon committed suicide. The Phaeton Incident led to the seppuku of the magistrate of Nagasaki, although the British failed in their intention. For years, the only place where the Dutch flag waved was in Nagasaki, Japan.

Is Sarko toast? I am not sure yet. France rarely elects real socialists. Personally, I don't care if the guy wears a Rolex or not. He has not really accomplished the change he has promised, but change is difficult in France. On the international front he operated quite responsibly.

We now see an interesting development here in Holland, where the old Labour Party was sided with the left and right wing populist parties when an emergency budget across parties had to be concluded (because of Wilders' right wing populists unwillingness to further support the cabinet). Other left-leaning parties like the environmentalist "green-left" (sister party of the German Gruenen) supported the government after some adaptions. There seems to be general support for many of the policy changes and budget cuts among the population (e.g. rising age of retirement, changes to the tax treatment of mortgages). The decline of Labour may now speed up even faster than that of the Christian Democrats.

The French gave the Dutch their flag, the two tricolors messing up inattentive minds ever since. The Dutch often speak out what the Germans feel too constrained to say (knowing that dominating the French shouldn't be combined with rubbing it in their faces).

As international bestsellers are judged more or less as succeeding in the US and UK market, it is indeed difficult for foreign authors to penetrate the bubble, especially in incurious America where you will get compensated for believing that eating chocolate isn't the healthiest thing to do (if you don't combine it with your daily vegetable, i.e. pizza). Literature for domestic consumption fails to provide the necessary context. Thus, Houellebecq's generic bleakness is easier to transfer than Jean-Marie LeClezio's experiences with French colonialism in Africa (Nobel 2008). French painters are indeed scarce. I thought of Louise Bourgeois and Niki De Saint-Phalle (both deceased), as well as Sophie Calle whose perceptive comments on modernity I quite like. She is adept at working in English, confirming your point.

Sarko is toast, as long as the left manages to keep up the high turnout. The conservative right-wingers won't vote for the quasi-immigrant Sarko. The young urban racists were not pleased with his law-and-order tough guy stance (famously calling the demonstrating/revolting youth "rabble"). I think both these groups will abstain from voting in the second round. Are French socialists actually socialists? Mitterand, for instance, started as a Vichyite conservative nationalist. The French ruling caste switches effortlessly between government and "grandes entreprises". So, ètatisme yes, socialism no. Hollande seems to me more like a placeholder. It will be interesting whom he nominates as prime minister. Re the Netherlands, I hope we see this as a turning point of the end of fake-Liberalism across Europe (especially the UK) which has pushed mostly a big business agenda.

So Giles Milton isn't recommended? I have read his ok Samurai William. His other two titles are buried in my TBR pile somewhere (cheap copies abound, so I picked them up, started reading but dropped them).

Peter the Great is certainly worthy of study (Massie's biography is a great read - his Catherine the Great is on my TBR list as soon as it comes out in paperback). He vaulted Russia into the modern world for which the country was unprepared. Like many Arab states, the stress of a pre-modern society and modernity causes a lot of friction. A more gradual approach might have created more sustainable institutions. The fragility of the power structures requires a lot of repression.

Saint Petersburg and Moscow are relatively high on my tourism list. I want to improve my Russian first, though, as especially the smaller museums are Russian language only. In St. Petersburg, I will certainly visit the Nabokov museum (see also its abandoned LT catalog). I wonder whether I prefer St. Petersburg or Stockholm? I experienced something similar to your visit of Novgorod outside Riga, Latvia. Leaving the major cities is almost like traveling back in time to an era of wood and animal powered vehicles.

The somewhat in your face dress preferences of Eastern European girls is a result of gender inequality and, especially in Russia, the scarcity of (and therefore competition about) non self-destructive men. While I prefer them to dress a bit more classy, it is certainly preferable to the non-winning Chav combination of obesity and miniskirts I had the displeasure of witnessing in Manchester, UK.

The Hague (like Berne, St. Pölten or former Bonn) is a quiet nice Beamtenstadt (a city of civil servants), what the US founding fathers intended for Washington, DC and what it remained until the US Civil War which brought business to town.

When comparing Swiss cities, one has to take note of the extreme Swiss decentralization into a myriad of municipalities. A major trend in Swiss administration has been to create bigger administrative local units. The municipalities around Bern have been amalgamated into a Verwaltungskreis Bern-Mittelland of 15 km around the city (around 400.000). The metro area comprises about 600.000, so I feel quite comfortable in comparing the two capitals (both dwarfed by other domestic cities).

As a member of the MTV generation (when it was all about music), I thought that Venus was a signature title of Bananarama. There is nothing new under the sun. Bern's musical output, besides a dialect rock cluster which obviously is restricted to Swiss-German boundaries, has developed quite good troubadours, e.g. Peter, Sue and Marc (their Eurovision 1981 contribution Io senza te, their fourth start for Switzerland, each sung in a different language) or Stéphane Eicher. I am currently reading about an escape from Bern to Lisbon in Nachtzug nach Lissabon. When a Bernese encounters a Portuguese woman, the conversation is more fruitful than answering a German question (one of the most famous Swiss cabaret numbers - incidentally, the ticket for Bern-Worb costs 6 CHF today while the 1960s meal including a glass of beer referred to in the sketch was 2,75 CHF).

The wonders of Venice (video) are beautifully shown in this time-lapse video, while its sister video about Zurich illustrates its freakishly clean roads and a (to use another 1980s reference) Doozer-like dedication to contruction (via MeFi).

Yiddish, German and Dutch share the expression "een leven als God in Frankrijk" (i.e. a life like God in France) by which they mean a very good life. But God is omnipotent. I do not know if life in France is equally good if you are not God, but maybe we can ask Sarko. He should have been dethroned for insufficiently reforming France, but I do not think that this has cost him his job. This was the first time I saw any Dutch interests in the French elections. Let us see when the retirement age in France returns from 62 to 60.

Incidentally, the Dutch flag is much older than the French Tricolore. The current French flag dates from the French Revolution whereas the Dutch flag is based upon the livery of William the Silent. William lived two hundred years before the French Revolution. You may see the flag on marine paintings from the 17th century by the father and son Van de Velde, which I would expect you can find in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum.

And while we are still talking about France: what is wrong with eating Nutella? I thought crepes with Nutella were one of the reasons why French women don't get fat?

think you are a bit more optimistic about producing an international bestseller as a non-English author or film maker than I am. Any look at your neighbourhood bookstore (or better even, an airport or railway station bookstore) shows you mostly translations from the English. It is all a matter of efficiency:

Many foreign publishers can read English, and so three-quarters of all translations of books each year are from English. (…) Writing a book in any language but English is, almost always, like throwing a stone into a pond and watching it sink.

Simon Kuper, who himself speaks at least four languages, also has some interesting things to say why Brits and Americans should not bother learning foreign languages:

Learning a second language can actually disadvantage native English-speakers. If you speak mediocre French, you might find yourself speaking it in a business meeting with French people. That way they will sound quicker and smarter than you. Force them to speak English and you win.

I have only read one book by Giles Milton. I once looked at Samurai William, but I was again displeased with the nonsensical second part of the title: The Englishman Who Opened Japan. Japan was already open at the time of William Adams. There were Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish ships sailing to Japan. That and his lack of using foreign sources for Nathaniel's Nutmeg was enough to turn me off. There are enough other books dealing with Japan's international relations during the Tokugawa Shogunate and I would prefer authors with a reputation for balance.

Lately, I have finished Derek Wilson's so-so biography Peter the Great (it was in the sales corner) and Riasanovsky's more impressive A History of Russia. The latter nuances Peter's record in some important areas. E.g. there were almost constant shortages of money (no surprise) and Russia's population may have fallen during his reign. Still, Peter the Great remains great. I would have liked to see a book comparing him to other notable enforcers of change, like Atatürk, Reza Shah and Muhammad Ali Pasha and the leaders during the Meiji Period in Japan. Certainly, a more gradual approach would have worked better. But these people operated within an environment where there was neither a tradition nor were there the institutions to modernise society more gradually.

It would be very fortunate if you spoke Russian when you would visit Saint Petersburg and Moscow. I did not, or not beyond kartoffel and appelsin and a few other friendly words. Russians learn English in school, but it is a bit like Muslims learn the Koran: it is all about knowing a certain text, but a lot less about understanding it. As a consequence even orders in restaurants sometimes go wrong. People are happy to help, but it often comes down to gesturing (what Indonesians so aptly call bahasa Tarzan). Certainly you will get more out of your visit when you speak the language. I have not visited the Nabokov Museum, but I did go to Maxim Gorki’s posh Jugenstil house in Moscow and Sergey Kirov’s bourgeois flat in Saint Petersburg. Kirov not only had an American refrigerator, he also employed one of the cooks of the tsar. Kirov’s museum is recommended, with its portraits of Lenin and Stalin and the red telephone for Soviet leaders Orlando Figes mentions in The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia.

I would not know if you’d prefer Saint Petersburg or Stockholm. But I left the grand old lady on the Neva by train to Helsinki, just like Comrade V.I. Lenin had done in July 1917. Arriving in Helsinki meant quite a change with all its slabs of concrete. But I have no idea how Helsinki compares to Stockholm.

Isn’t the thesis that Russian women dress so provocatively because of the scarcity of non self-destructive men a sign of somewhat materialistic thinking on your side? I would rate myself no more an expert on the female mindset than most other men, but if you ask women why they dress the way they do, they usually first say “for themselves” and secondly “for other women in their circle” (i.e. to establish their position in the hierarchy of women). Also, would dressing like a bimbo really help getting the attention of a non self-destructive mate, or would it also attract the wrong kind of men? I would say the latter. I would argue that this dress style is another highly theatrical expression of admiration in Russian life. Guys wait for their girlfriends with roses and roses are on the memorial plaques of writers’ houses and war monuments. Even Lenin statues still get carnations here and there. These museums in the houses of writers are another expression of how you almost must look up to geniuses, because there isn’t much to be seen. Orthodox church services consist of singing, blessing and the kissing of icons while the spoken word is absent (although Peter’s baroque Peter and Paul Cathedral had something that looked suspiciously like a Calvinistic pulpit): it is all form and emotion. People enjoy formal culture, be it opera or Italian painting: there is no Madame Tussaud or Saint Petersburg Dungeon, like you will find in London or Amsterdam. Extremely well dressed people let their daughters play piano in the lobby of a five star hotel (which I entered to take pictures from its roof). I think Russian women dress like objects of desire for others to look up to and to receive compliments. It is an expression of femininity, not a Judgement of Paris.

Yiddish, German and Dutch share the expression "een leven als God in Frankrijk" (i.e. a life like God in France) by which they mean a very good life. But God is omnipotent. I do not know if life in France is equally good if you are not God, but maybe we can ask Sarko. He should have been dethroned for insufficiently reforming France, but I do not think that this has cost him his job. This was the first time I saw any Dutch interests in the French elections. Let us see when the retirement age in France returns from 62 to 60.

Incidentally, the Dutch flag is much older than the French Tricolore. The current French flag dates from the French Revolution whereas the Dutch flag is based upon the livery of William the Silent. William lived two hundred years before the French Revolution. You may see the flag on marine paintings from the 17th century by the father and son Van de Velde, which I would expect you can find in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum.

And while we are still talking about France: what is wrong with eating Nutella? I thought crepes with Nutella were one of the reasons why French women don't get fat?

I think you are a bit more optimistic about producing an international bestseller as a non-English author or film maker than I am. Any look at your neighbourhood bookstore (or better even, an airport or railway station bookstore) shows you mostly translations from the English. It is all a matter of efficiency:

Many foreign publishers can read English, and so three-quarters of all translations of books each year are from English. (…) Writing a book in any language but English is, almost always, like throwing a stone into a pond and watching it sink.

Simon Kuper, who himself speaks at least four languages, also has some interesting things to say why Brits and Americans should not bother learning foreign languages:

Learning a second language can actually disadvantage native English-speakers. If you speak mediocre French, you might find yourself speaking it in a business meeting with French people. That way they will sound quicker and smarter than you. Force them to speak English and you win.

I have only read one book by Giles Milton. I once looked at Samurai William, but I was again displeased with the nonsensical second part of the title: The Englishman Who Opened Japan. Japan was already open at the time of William Adams. There were Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish ships sailing to Japan. That and his lack of using foreign sources for Nathaniel's Nutmeg was enough to turn me off. There are enough other books dealing with Japan's international relations during the Tokugawa Shogunate and I would prefer authors with a reputation for balance.

Lately, I have finished Derek Wilson's so-so biography Peter the Great (it was in the sales corner) and Riasanovsky's more impressive A History of Russia. The latter nuances Peter's record in some important areas. E.g. there were almost constant shortages of money (no surprise) and Russia's population may have fallen during his reign. Still, Peter the Great remains great. I would have liked to see a book comparing him to other notable enforcers of change, like Atatürk, Reza Shah and Muhammad Ali Pasha and the leaders during the Meiji Period in Japan. Certainly, a more gradual approach would have worked better. But these people operated within an environment where there was neither a tradition nor were there the institutions to modernise society more gradually.

It would be very fortunate if you spoke Russian when you would visit Saint Petersburg and Moscow. I did not, or not beyond kartoffel and appelsin and a few other friendly words. Russians learn English in school, but it is a bit like Muslims learning the Koran: it is all about knowing a certain text, but a lot less about understanding it. As a consequence even orders in restaurants sometimes go wrong. People are happy to help, but it often comes down to gesturing (what Indonesians so aptly call bahasa Tarzan). Certainly you will get more out of your visit when you speak the language. I have not visited the Nabokov Museum, but I did go to Maxim Gorki’s posh Jugenstil house in Moscow and Sergey Kirov’s bourgeois flat in Saint Petersburg. Kirov not only had an American refrigerator, he also employed one of the cooks of the tsar. Kirov’s museum is recommended, with its portraits of Lenin and Stalin and the red telephone for Soviet leaders Orlando Figes mentions in The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia.

I would not know if you’d prefer Saint Petersburg or Stockholm. But I left the grand old lady on the Neva by train to Helsinki, just like Comrade V.I. Lenin had done in July 1917. Arriving in Helsinki meant quite a change with all its slabs of concrete. But I have no idea how Helsinki compares to Stockholm.

Isn’t the thesis that Russian women dress so provocatively because of the scarcity of non self-destructive men a sign of somewhat materialistic thinking on your side? I would rate myself no more an expert on the female mindset than most other men, but if you ask women why they dress the way they do, they usually first say “for themselves” and secondly “for other women in their circle” (i.e. to establish their position in the hierarchy of women). Also, would dressing like a bimbo really help getting the attention of a non self-destructive mate, or would it also attract the wrong kind of men? I would say the latter. I would argue that this dress style is another highly theatrical expression of admiration in Russian life. Guys wait for their girlfriends with roses and roses are on the memorial plaques of writers’ houses and war monuments. Even Lenin statues still get carnations here and there. These museums in the houses of writers are another expression of how you always must look up to geniuses, because there isn’t much to be seen in these museums. Orthodox church services consist of singing, blessing and the kissing of icons while the spoken word is absent (although Peter’s baroque Peter and Paul Cathedral had something that looked suspiciously like a Calvinistic pulpit): it is all form and emotion. People enjoy formal culture, be it opera or Italian painting: there is no Madame Tussaud or Saint Petersburg Dungeon, like you will find in London or Amsterdam. Extremely well dressed people let their daughters play piano in the lobby of a five star hotel (which I entered to take pictures from its roof). I think Russian women dress like objects of desire for others to look up to and to receive compliments. It is an expression of femininity, not a Judgement of Paris.

The rats are leaving the ship. Switzerland now has its own US member of Congress mole (who sits on the House intelligence committee), even if it is partially damaged goods. Michele Bachmann, of all people, has been granted Swiss citizenship via her husband. According to NZZ, around 5-10 percent of marriages between a Swiss and a foreigner are motivated by the latter's desire to acquire Swiss nationality. As Swiss voting material is only available in the four national languages, I can at least hope that she will not trouble her mind with Swiss issues.

Doesn't "living like God in France" always carry an undertone of "yeah, for some time, but then let's return home where stuff works." How long can one "seine Seele baumeln lassen" (literally: dangle one's soul)?

The 60 years retirement age in France is a pure marketing gag. To attain it, you need to have paid contributions for 41 years. The people who meet that criterium (in Austria, they are called "Hackler") will keel over soon thereafter, as workers have not participated in the general expansion of the life expectancy (due to poor lifestyle choices such as smoking, drinking and obesity). Thus, this is actually a practical way to couch good public policy (sustainable social systems) in leftist terms.

I've seen the four part TV documentary about the history of Paris - 2000 years of bad hair days, presented by a modern Toulouse-Lautrec: Metronome. The eponymous book doesn't go as deep as I wish. The documentary's main fault is dividing it into four 500 years blocks which squeezes modern Paris into too tiny a space.

Interesting that the red in the Dutch flag is the result of an orange textile quality malfunction. South Africa underwent a similar switch from orange to chilli red. The island at the center of the world is quite a good read (despite its stupid title). Apart from the hyperbole, it is the unresolved clash between the author's American exceptionalism and his love for Dutch culture that causes schizophrenic moments. It is also preposterous to think that a tiny remote village with a broken windmill would have pre-shaped a world metropolis. Shanghai too has little in common with the fishing village it once was.

I had expected to hear more about Peter Stuyvesant in the book. His name was imprinted on my mind due to the backcover ads for a cigarette brand carrying his name on Germany's major cinema magazine (when it still printed more than Hollywood copy). "Der Duft der großen, weiten Welt" (The scent of the big world) turned smelly but apparently still exists (I haven't seen an ad, though, for ages).

Even though Nutella is Italian in origin, I think of it as a typical example of typically dour German chocolate culture which prefers calories to taste. Most US chocolate is ghastly too. When, in New York during the 1980s, the hotel offered an Easter egg hunt for kids, my joy of gathering a huge amount of chocolate eggs turned sour when I discovered that they were almost inedible ...

I hope you're not listening to the advice of this Kuper guy. The Americans enjoy the opposite of success in following his advice in Iraq and Afghanistan, limiting themselves to a handful of Arabic and Pashto speakers. What could go wrong? Kuper seems tone-deaf too: "Force them to speak English and you win." Forcing people tends not to win hearts and minds. Being the smartest person in the room usually doesn't result in accolades (and large orders). Trying not only to understand the other but to try to talk a few words in the other one's language creates a straight path to the people's hearts: "Ich bin ein Berliner." Especially if a speaker from a dominant language switches to a minor language (the big money, however, lies in confirming US and UK stereotypes; thus the never ending stream of stupid op'eds and pundits).

Russia and Eastern Europe have preserved many 19th century habits. It is a crazy mix of 21st century technology and ancient modernity. The futurism of Soviet modernity always carried with it a flair of backwardness. The Flaneurs on the boulevards, in the malls and museums may be accounted for by the often crowded living conditions where the public space becomes one's extended living room.

I arrived at Helsinki via hovercraft from Estonia (with the inevitable booze tourists with prepackaged booze trolleys). Helsinki's considerable charms are hidden. It is city to be discovered, while Stockholm flaunts its regal beauty, being much older and richer.

Why would an honest patriot like Michele Bachmann want to have a Swiss passport? Even if she is unhappy with the American tax regime, she still has to pay American income tax as long as she hold an American passport. Or doesn’t Switzerland extradite its citizens to America? Fake marriages happen everywhere, I think Hollywood even made a romcom about it once (called something like Green Card). I would say the state has no right to question the purpose of a marriage. It gets a bit more complicated if you give equal rights to cohabitation, which civilised nations nowadays do. When I was in Russia, I could not imagine that a well educated Muscovite woman would still want to move abroad to escape poverty, as happened before. Even the drinking seems to be reasonably in control in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Vodka is banned from kiosks and you do not see everybody walking down the main street with a bottle of beer in his hand, as was the case in Kiev a few years ago.

”Living like God in France” does somewhat have the undertone you mention here, but only very mildly. It can also express quasi envy. We also use Bourgondiër (Burgundian) as an expression for someone who enjoys a good life and particularly good food (with the obvious meaning that this is not the case with the native life style). I don’t know much about French pension rules, but I understood once that you could retire if you were 47 if you met a set of very specific criteria: you’d have to be a woman, a mother, have at least 3 children, you have to be single or divorced, you had to work for the RER (the Parisian underground railroad) and you’d have worked for the RER a certain number of years. If that is correct it would mean that all kinds of factors influence the retirement age. Although discrimination by sex seems impossible in the European Union, I’d expect. I am sorry to hear that Metronome doesn’t dig very deep, because it was on my list of books I might be interested in.

I just finished Jonathan Israel’s doorstopper The Dutch Republic. I learned among others that Dutch painting lost some of its colourfulness in the 1620’s due to the lack of high quality dyes from the Americas. Maybe that is also the reason why the Dutch flag changed the colour orange to red. I have no idea why the South Africans changed orange to red so recently. Maybe they thought that red reduced the impact of the white minority somewhat further. Actually, my Hindustani friends claim that the red, white and blue so popular in Europe are all related to India’s red, white and green. The Indian flag stands for sacrifice (red), purity (white) and hope (green), as Indonesia’s merah putih stands for courage and physical life (red) and purity and the spiritual (white). Somewhere in the shared past of our Indo-European roots the green has turned blue. Maybe due to a lack of the proper dye.

Why were you so interested in Peter Stuyvesant? We remember him here mostly as a cigarette brand also, although he has a small statue in Amsterdam’s West India House (Russel Shorto has his office there). The cigarette brand used to have a slightly glamorous image indeed, the world of intercontinental travel and jetsetters. Cigarette ads are forbidden in most European countries nowadays and I do not think they try to market the brand in any other ways. But Stuyvesant was not really special as a colonial governor. His main claim to fame is that the city he governed grew into New York. There are some arguments to the claim that New Amsterdam naturally became New York, e.g. its mixed population and its strong focus on trade. That was different from many of the British, French and Spanish colonies in North America. Also, the location on the Hudson River was very good, because you could travel deep into the interior. But this applies to Macau too, which has been completely overshadowed by Hong Kong on the other end of the Pearl River Delta. You could say the same about Malacca and Singapore with their access to the Straights. I would not hold the number of citizens against New Amsterdam. Often, colonial outposts had very few citizens in the 17th century and many grew into metropolises (Bombay, Calcutta, Jakarta, Cape Town, Buenos Aires). There is a first mover advantage here. Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze has hundreds of millions of people in its hinterland. It is no wonder that Shanghai has the world’s largest harbour.

Simon Kuper is a fine columnist for the Financial Times. He often comes up with interesting themes that few others cover. And as said, he speaks at least four languages. What he described here is simply a fact. Of course you are right: speaking a language is important for getting access to a culture and certainly helps getting things done. But some need this more than others. Some don’t need this at all:

“I agree we need some help -- but the Bros always wins!!” Goldfarb agreed. “Absolutely, will and skill always win, and that be us!!!!” Concluded Fuld: “Got it so do u.”

Flâner in Russia in winter? I do not know if I would think that is always a fine idea. I’d prefer a Viennese coffee house during that season.

They should have forced La Bachmann to correct her name to Michelle or Michaela.Supposedly the citizenship application was triggered by her kids who can now study in Switzerland without having to pay a fortune for a good education. There is a harsh numerus clausus for foreigners in place (Germans, mainly) that doesn't apply to Swiss citizens (medicine excepted).

Metronome unfortunately aims to low with shallow reveals such as Pont Neuf being the oldest bridge. I only started the book, though. Perhaps it gets deeper later on. Have a look at the website I linked to see whether his input is of interest.

A thousand pages about the Dutch republic? While the book seems enticing, the necessary time commitment less so. Re Stuyvesant, not knowing the story but the ending I expected more drama (which failed to occur). Then again, I remember the name of the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, for reasons unknown. The gray cells that have to store this information seem wasted.

Red is blood, blue is water or sky. No need for Indian ideas. The red of the Swiss flag is derived from the flag of Schwyz which at its origin was plain red symbolizing the blood of Christ. The green-blue ambiguity is puzzling but not a problem for the core European languages as it is in Japanese (aoi). Indonesia's flag, by the way, is just a copy of Solothurn's (and many others such as Vienna, Salzburg and Vorarlberg). With a lack of originality comes great company.

Learning a language is not a binary event. In any case, it doesn't take much time to be able to speak a few words. The 100 hours necessary for A1 competency (or a 30 days à 30 minutes Pimsleur course) takes less time than watching all series of "24". David Sedaris had a wonderful story about his experiences with Pimsleur in the New Yorker last July. Refusing to learn a foreign language is the mental equivalent of obesity.

Having attended Swiss philosopher and writer Peter Bieri's Sigmund Freud memorial lecture last Sunday, I started his Handwerk der Freiheit, which tries to construct a philosophical model of human decision-making. I love its very Swiss title "Handwerk der Freiheit". The English language doesn't have a single word for Handwerk with its rich connotations of handicraft or artisanry or mechanical art or tinkering. A Scottish philosopher might have spoken of "the mechanicks of freedom", but mechanics assume a finality that the meddling and molding hands in Handwerk don't have. Rodin's The Thinker similarly uses his hands to help birthing ideas. Michelangelo combines the two supreme human organs of the brain and the hand in the central element of the Sixtine Chapel.

I also finally started Kahneman's Thinking, fast and slow which is outstanding and witty (even if many ideas have already become common knowledge). The basic human decision process can be well described using a combination of Bieri, Kahneman, Gary Klein and Dietrich Dörner's system model of human thinking as specified in the über-complex Bauplan für eine Seele.

When I pushed the Post Message button, I realised I should have informed you that I also used Simon Kuper’s tactic. The first time was when I was staying in Vienna. I spoke German all the time (my spoken German is very rusty now, I noticed this week), except the one time I had to get my passport stamped by the police. By changing to English I changed their advantage to mine. When I left I asked them directions to the nearest U-Bahn station. That led to some discussion: the proposed direction would be “too complicated for a foreigner”, one said in that curious Viennese dialect. I also use Kuper’s tactic when I deal with the authorities in Indonesia (border passport check, etc.). By not speaking the local language, I seem less familiar with the local culture and I have a smaller risk to be asked for bribes. The locals think that this is a clever thing to do. So note that I only use Kuper’s tactic when dealing with authorities. But I am not learning all the languages of the countries I visit. I stick to the 5.5 or so I know now, plus two where I can bluff my way through. I tried Cantonese for a day, but it is really difficult with all these tones and the total unfamiliarity of words. It takes a long time before you can make any conversation and I needed regular correction of the tones. If I had really had a long term contract it would have been different of course.

The core text of The Dutch Republic is 1,130 pages. Its size is the main reason I would not recommend the book to anybody without a special interest in Dutch history. In a way this is a pity, because hidden in the text are little gems of knowledge. E.g. the rudimentary welfare state in the Republic supported some 10 percent of the population. I had always considered this an estimate of the percentage of people who cannot take care of themselves and will rely on the help of others, although I had thought the percentage to be tilting towards 15. Israel’s book is one that will produce lots of footnotes for other authors. I understand he did the same in Radical Enlightenment. The book follows all discussions within and about Baruch de Spinoza’s circle in great detail. This might be scientifically right, but it is cumbersome for anyone with a more casual interest. You said before you were interested in the military novelties of the day. Israel quotes G. Parker’s The Military Revolution multiple times.

Chris Patten was the last British governor of Hong Kong and tried something that the British had rejected for 150 years: give democracy to the natives. The communists abolished it within hours after they took over power on the night of the 1st of July, 1997. It was raining very hard that night and all the British not attending the ceremony were drunk. To be remembered as a colonial governor it helps if you were either the first or the last. Hence I am sure you remember Francisco de Almeida and especially Afonso de Albuquerque, the first European vice roys in Asia (for the Portuguese). Others are maybe only remembered in the former colony. All Indonesians know J.P. Coen, the man who turned the village of Jayakarta into what would later become their capital city. They even turned Coen into a comic book figure, based upon Asterix. Coen was the leader of the Romans, of course. He was also eating bread all the time. However, Coen’s statue no longer graces Jakarta’s Waterloo Square.It was taken down by the iconoclasts of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, that failed miserably itself only a few years later. Still standing is Jan van Riebeeck’s statue in South Africa’s Mother City. But South Africans are not very harsh in their judgement of the past: less than a kilometre to the southeast of Van Riebeeck’s statue you can find Queen Victoria on a pedestal. Under her reign the British invented the concentration camp as the only way to neutralise South Africans. I only chose this example, because the camps were deadlier than the Zulu War, another Victorian mile stone. South Africans also remember Simon van der Stel, the first racially mixed leader in the country: Van der Stel was the son of an Indian slave. The town of Stellenbosch, with its famous university, was founded by him. He also left a wonderful mansion and an estate that produces fine wine below Table Mountain. Among the statues still standing, albeit as a copy of the original, is Sir Stamford Raffles’ in Singapore, the city he founded. Lee Kuan Yew’s advisor for economic affairs Albert Winsemius urged the founders of the Republic of Singapore not tear the statue down. By not alienating Western businesses as the other countries in the region did, Singapore could expand its position as an entrepot harbour with new industries. The rest is history. Incidentally, Raffles was not the person who rediscovered the world’s finest Buddhist monument, or led the expedition that rediscovered it, as Raffles’ Wikipedia lemma in English says. Firstly, the existence of the monument was known to the locals all along. Secondly, Raffles only sent some civil servants led by a certain H.C. Cornelius to recover the monument, while he himself stayed comfortably in his little palace named Buitenzorg (Sans Souci).

Thinking Fast and Slow is on my list as well, although I have already read other books covering the same subject. This makes me a bit reluctant to purchase the book. With over 100 books on the pile To Read, I have temporarily stopped buying new books anyway (unless I see something very cheap). I am currently reading The Great Divergence that tries to answer the question why Western Europe outpaced East Asia economically in the 19th century. Reading this book about economic history is quite a humbling experience. It contains lots of new facts and gives me the idea I know nothing about either region.

If you are interested in the brain and decision making, you may also be interested in Wir sind unser Gehirn. by the man who discovered the difference in brain structure between hetero and homosexuals. With 300,000 copies sold it has been a bestseller here, although it is only now available as a cheap pocket book. The author argues our character and decisions are greatly shaped by our genes and by chemicals that came into our body in the womb or when we were just born. We do have a free will, but within serious physical constraints. Given that the book is not translated into English, here is a review in German:

Besonders ausführlich informiert Dick Swaab über sein eigenes Forschungsfeld "Die Wechselwirkung von Nervensystem und Hormonen". Durch jahrzehntelange Untersuchungen kommt er zu dem Schluss: Vieles was vor der Geburt in unser Gehirn "programmiert" wurde, lässt sich später nicht mehr ändern. Veranlagungen für viele Krankheiten, für aggressives Verhalten, aber auch für die sexuelle Orientierung entstehen seiner Ansicht nach bereits vor der Geburt. Leidenschaftlich plädiert er deshalb gegen Umerziehung, Bestrafung und Diskriminierung Homosexueller oder Transsexueller. Deutlich stellt er dar, wie geschlechtliche Identität und sexuelle Ausrichtung eine Besonderheit im Gehirn ist, die gilt es kennen und akzeptieren zu lernen.

Der Niederländer wirft in diesem Buch aber auch wichtige Fragen auf. Fragen, die auf Widerspruch stoßen werden: Kann man einen Pädophilen moralisch für seine sexuelle Orientierung verantwortlich machen, die aufgrund einer genetischen Veranlagung oder einer atypischen Hirnentwicklung entstanden ist? Kann man einem pubertierenden Jugendlichen, der erst noch lernen muss mit seinem von Sexualhormonen umgekrempelten Gehirn richtig umzugehen, vorwerfen eine Straftat begangen zu haben?

Ein absolut freier Wille und eine Welt, in der jeder seines Glückes Schmied ist, existiert laut Swaab nicht. Dennoch gibt es den Bereich eigener Verantwortung. Und so muss auch der Hirnforscher eingestehen: Ohne Strafen funktioniert die Gesellschaft nicht. Aber es sollten seiner Ansicht nach nur solche Strafen verhängt werden, deren Wirkung nachgewiesen ist - am besten durch unabhängige Studien.

Auf den ersten Blick erscheint dieses Buch wie ein Gemischtwarenladen, gefüllt mit vielen unterschiedlichen neurowissenschaftlichen Informationshappen. Beim Lesen aber entsteht ein zusammenhängendes Bild. Zu informieren und zu belehren, ist dem Hirnforscher Swaab jedoch nicht genug. Er bezieht klar Stellung: von der Sterbehilfe bis zur Evolutionstheorie. Immer wieder reizt Dick Swaab zum Widerspruch und regt so - in einer freundlichen, aber hartnäckigen Art - zum Nachdenken an.

I must admit the book is not yet on that pile of over 100 books to read, although I find Mr. Swaab’s ideas intuitively correct. It just made me think: would Michele Bachmann want such a book on the curriculum of her children’s education?

But I am not going to bother about her. It is time to read Willem Buiter’s proposal to bring out the helicopters and shower us all with money. Paul Krugman would be proud of me.

One more proof that la Bachmann is no Einstein (who was a dual Swiss-American citizen and in favor of world peace which triggered FBI surveillance). For a Republican, her thoughts evolved remarkably fast (cough, Iraq, Katrina, same-sex-marriage, ... cough). Foiled is Switzerland's Thurgovian candidate. The Swiss canton of Thurgau is known as Mostindien (Cider India), a boon for admen (he is playing the Swiss anthem). Michele's short term co-citizen Anoop Singh would blow out her prejudices.

Thinking fast and slow fills my perfect Xmas present spot. Otherwise I would either have waited for the paperback or checked it out in the library. I'm not too fond of the current wave of determinism. Genes are important but it is usually a combination of nature and nurture.

Thanks for alerting me about Borobudur, a place to visit if I ever venture into that corner of the world. Youtube fortunately offers good virtual visits. One interesting cultural concordance is that the circle is holier than the square.

The Great Divergence is on my TBR list, too. While I try to keep my book buying down, promotions such as Bookdepository's soon ending 10% off (while having raised prices across the board lately) easily breach my defenses. Overall, reading is still a cheap hobby.

Re your experience with the Viennese police. Austrian officials are highly status conscious. Your ability to converse in English confirmed your "foreigner with money" status which they were unable to assign based on your Dutch accent. The Viennese are singularly bad at distinguishing different German accents, many being comfortable with a binary Prussian (Piefke) vs. the rest.

"Too complicated for a foreigner" is correct but better phrased as "too complicated for a non-local". Directing them to larger roads with landmarks instead of sending them into medieval back alleys is sound advice. Being asked for directions is my useless super power (It's a skill acquired by explorative trial and error like fixing computers.). I've been asked for orientation in the craziest of locations (where it was clearly apparent that I was not a local).

The choice of language is a powerful tool. Monolinguals obviously are dependent on others to establish such a connection. Such a fish out of water situation happened to a wounded US Navy Seal in Afghanistan who did not know the Pashto word for "water". Only the English language skills of the locals and their clemency made him a Lone Survivor.

Language dominance games can be fun or torture. When in Flanders, I kept speaking French which many locals refused to speak and only answered in English. I wish they enforced the national languages only clause in the glorious tribute to European weirdness.

#101

Red is blood. White is bone. Blue is water, sky, or the planet at distance.

Hue ambiguity is likely due to the double x chromosome in the one person,
or unchanging defective vision varying in degree across a population. Eye drop
experiments on monkeys suggest it can be corrected for. I have heard men and women
perceive red differently, at the cone and/or rod level.

Rushing a big red object to completely fill a goldfish's field of view causes it
to dart for cover, every time, I find.

I will have to test my uncle's goldfish next time I visit him. Apart from fearing cat-shaped objects, they are too primed on humans to shy away.

As a Swiss, my first association with "white" is either snow or milk. In heraldry or vexillology, white is a stand-in for silver (argent). The Vatican's yellow and white flag is actually a big no-no, as the two metals of silver and gold should never touch. As far as white flags are concerned, I particularly like the French colonel's flags of a white cross on a white field.

As far as gendered color perception is concerned, xkcd has the numbers. Knowledge of German is helpful in spelling Fuchsia right, as it was named after the botanist Fuchs, "Mr. Fox".

The new French premier minister Jean-Marc Ayrault knows something about speaking German too - as a former German teacher. Understanding Germany will be a critical asset in French policy. Monsieur Ayrault speaks fluent German, but his French accent would would blow his cover after two sentences. While French politics is notoriously corrupt, I think there are few premier minsters with a criminal record for corruption. As in the case of Chirac, verdicts usually happen after the politician's loss of power.

The Greek tragedy of the slow bank run. As there will always be plenty of tourists with euros, a switch back to the drachma will mostly affect government employees who will be paid in funny money while a euro-based black market economy will thrive.

If the EU were truly interested in solving the crisis, it would partly fund (by bond issues) the indirect social security contributions of the Club Med, thus lowering the real labor costs which are at the heart of the problem. This would restore some of the lost competitiveness at far lower cost than waiting for wages to fall. It would, however, require the Germans to accept that, in the interest of all, it would have to support the Club Med populations (instead of their bankers). Secondly, the Berlusconi problem of Club Med leaders squandering necessary reforms would not go away.

Meanwhile, if the FT review "Austerity bites" of Saint Krugman's latest book is correct, his demands are extremely modest. Undo the idiotic Republican policies at the local level, a 4 per cent inflation target and mortgage debt refinancing. End this Depression now more or less pleads for an end of austerity but is a far cry from a New New Deal. I won't buy this book, as the FT reviewer's judgment of "a short book that shows some signs of hasty assembly from the raw materials on Krugman’s New York Times blog" is valid for Krugman's last two books which I was quite disappointed when they arrived in their slim and low-quality print. As US talk-show appearances somehow require peddling books, I wish he would just wave a prop.

He won't convince the corporate Democrat Obama who keeps touting his austerity record. In contrast to FDR, his message is: I welcome the hatred of the poor. He is fortunate to run against an out-of-touch, bullying, lying and animal abusing modern silver-spoon Gordon Gecko. If the Republicans manage to torpedo the US economy further, it looks like that the Republicans can move the results in Ohio to within cheating distance.

I am enjoying Nessa Carey's The Epigenetics Revolution which offers an update to the wonders of genetic progress. Sort of in the mode of and a follow-up to Matt Ridley's Genome. The speedy advances of the last ten years are truly crazy. Medicine will be utterly transformed soon. It will be like the internet and cellphone unaware 2004 protagonist in Night train to Lissabon.

Is the European Song Contest still popular in Austria and Switzerland? Here it is not. Only mothers-in-law and their gay-best-friends still watch that silly programme. It has been a long time since the Contest produced even a one-hit-wonder. But then again, I might be out of synch with the masses: I recently learned from a colleague that some Dutchmen indeed go to Bulgaria for their holiday. Supposedly, it is “cheap and old-fashioned”. I’d say the European football championship is the one competition that unites Europe in front of their television sets.

When I went to report to the Viennese police I was very young, wearing jeans and bringing a form that I was a Praktikant, so I do not think they thought I was an expat. I did not have a high status. I also do not think their reaction was really negative. Rather, I found it funny. And it tells you that sometimes it can be useful to turn the tables. The choice of language is a powerful tool, but it can also be divisive, as Belgium has proven for 5 centuries. If you speak French to a Fleming you have a 59% chance that he understands what you mean. If you speak Dutch to a Walloon you have a 19% chance that he understands you. And even if you speak French to them and pronounce it phonetically correct, they may still not understand you. When the issue is cleared they will tell you how they pronounce the language of Molière it in their local dialect. Belgium has long been a place of isolated dialects. Only television is now bringing a kind of standard pronunciation to the country. The fact that Flemings answered you in English might just have been for practical reasons. Unless you work in Brussels you will hardly use French. Another interesting factor is the advent of commercial television in the 1980’s. Before that time people used to watch other countries’ public television. With a greater supply of programmes in their own country, people have become more centred on their home turf. In Belgium this means that the Flemings watch Flemish television. In Holland we no longer watch James Bond synchronised in German.

As is confirmed in A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols, traditionally the Chinese hold a square as a symbol for the earth and a circle is a symbol of heaven. However, although Southeast Asia is situated in equal distance to China and India, it received more influence from India. Borobudur is no exception here. In Sri Lanka all Buddhist village temples are simple white washed spherical structures, but this is less the case in Thailand and Cambodia (modern “Bangkok-style” temples are the Rococo of Buddhist art). Often the top of a temple is an obelisk, symbolising mythical Mount Meru, the abode of the Hindu gods. In Ageless Borobudur (an excellent book that I reviewed) the Javanese Gesamtkunstwerk is interpreted as a winding journey to moksha, redemption. The top of the monument then symbolises Arupadhatu, the formless world. I cannot find a quotation where the author links that directly to a circle, and anyway, the top is spherical.

Ha, since you are a member of the tribe Michele Bachmann craves to belong to, I had expected you do not hold much of biological determinism. But that was not what Mr. Swaab said. The free will exists, but it is limited. I hold this intuitively correct, because man is nothing but a large set of chemicals, organised in genes and cells, that usually react in a predictable manner. Nature and nurture may be more linked than you think, if tobacco smoke influences the development of the brain and smoking is a vice of society’s weaker segments. Life is messy. It seems however that The Epigenetics Revolution can correct some lack in my knowledge.

I must admit that I have peaked a bit too early in the euro drama. Now that a Greek catharsis seems about as near as the European football championship I have grown a bit tired of its slow development. I think the great problem of the euro zone and the main reason for the reluctance of Germany and its allies is the lack of control about developments in Club Med. If the south would be able to reform its economy quickly, more help would be more easily available. In a way, this is also what happened when the German Federal Republic took over the bankrupt Democratic Republic: the East effectively handed over complete control of its development. The costs of that takeover in itself will make the Germans more reluctant: West German citizens still pay increased taxes and see the quality of their public services deteriorate because the money is flowing east. At the same time, after two decades unemployment and other social troubles are still much higher in the former East Germany. How can you fund social security expenses by bonds? Yes, it would reduce the labour costs in the garlic zone, but it is highly doubtful that the state can cover the costs of the bonds from increased tax income later on. Cash transfers seem more appropriate, I’d say. Controlled increased inflation would be another solution. That inflation will have to remain high, unless the PIIGS change the habit of paying salary increases higher than the economy at a certain exchange rate can afford. Mitterand had seen that correctly: if you want to combine the Italian lira with the Deutschmark, you end up with the French franc. High inflation increased the costs of credit which is detrimental to economic growth, something you do not like in an environment with negative demographics.

Another thing that seems difficult to maintain in a single currency is the macro economic structure. Belgium pays low pensions and interest on mortgages cannot be deducted from taxes. Houses are cheap and Belgians pay off their mortgages so they need less money when they are old. In Holland we have high pensions and deducting interest on mortgages is a national pleasure. It has been only two years since the Dutch learned that having a small or no mortgage or is actually nicer than being loaded with debt. Still, house prises in Holland are still much higher than in Germany or Belgium. Germany has no pension savings to speak of. Holland has, but Dutch senior citizens expect high quality services that most people can only afford with government subsidies. Because of their higher retirement income they pay more taxes, but this will still become unaffordable sooner rather than later. How will you combine these different expectations and different balance sheets into one monetary policy? So far, economic convergence has not occurred in Europe. One reason for that is that Europeans have completely different expectations of their government services and taxes. These differences have grown for more than a century. I doubt if you can correct that in a decade. The current populist backlash against "Brussels" could have been expected.

The European Song Contest as a music contest has long jumped the shark. What makes it fun are the MST3K snark radio and internet commentaries. That said, the contest has recovered somewhat from the cesspit of the early 2000s when it was nearly buried by East European trash. If I could reform it, I would restrict the form to its song origin (no dance performance) to ease comparison. Secondly, voting needs to account for the extreme disparities in size. It is crazy that micro-states such as Malta or Estonia can award the same number of points as, say, Italy. Within the national voting, I would shift to a mixed voting of sms votes, expert jury and event parties. Currently, Switzerland awards its top points always to Germany, Turkey, Serbia and Portugal - which is exactly the vote of the non-Swiss population. The Netherlands has also developed a fondness for Germany since sms voting was introduced. As those sms are vital for the financing of the event, it will be futile to demand its abolishment. Local parties/events should determine the national allocation of points, as it would be less likely to see the present sms ballot stuffing. Anyway, this would have been a better entry for the Russians.

Euro 2012 will indeed be the major event of the year. I particularly like the composition of the preliminary rounds which offers classic regional duels (NLD-DEU. ITA-ESP FRA-ENG) while allowing the participants to probably advance. Most national teams are unable to fill all positions on the roster with quality players (who also suffer from a lack of training together), thus the quality of football will not match that of the Champions League. The speed and intensity of yesterday's final was outstanding drama.

As the browser on my phone is already croaking under the load, I have opened a new one.