Continuations

Germany elected its national parliament yesterday and the results are quite interesting. Angela Merkel’s party the CDU/CSU added substantial gains going from 33.8% in 2009 to 41.5% of the public vote now. That is almost the largest majority for any German chancellor (since Konrad Adenauer). These gains were aided by the collapse of Germany’s historic third party, the FDP which went from 14.6% in 2009 to 4.8% now which, if confirmed, means the party will no longer be represented in the German ...

It’s too soon to know how long Germany’s current apparent economic strength will last or if it is even entirely for real. Nonetheless, there is one interesting aspect of German employment policy that is worth considering because it appears to be working. Germany has the concept of “Kurzarbeit,” which literally translated means “Shortwork." It is a program that permits companies to keep employees partially employed with the government funding some (but not all) the balance to their most recent...

Here are a few more observations about Germany, even though I have already been in London for a day and a half, but there is a lot going on in Germany at the moment. On Sunday, Germany held Federal elections and the results will bring about a significant change in the governing coalition. Germany will move from a CDU/CSU+SPD coalition to a CDU/CSU+FDP coalition. Now if the alphabet soup of German parties doesn’t mean anything to you, think of CDU/CSU as fiscally and socially conservative, SPD...

I still follow German politics a bit, if for no other reason than talking to my parents and friends who live there. But right now there are interesting things happening there that are relevant to US politics. Germany has federal elections coming up on September 27 and had state elections in three states last week. The state elections showed a fascinating split with two smaller parties, “The Left” (“Die Linke” and the “Free Democratic Party” (“FDP”), scoring major gains. The Left is a combinat...

One of the reasons I get a fair bit of reading done is that I avoid watching lots of television. On a flight to Germany last week though, I got sucked into watching Babylon Berlin. The series is set in Berlin in the 1920s and is incredibly atmospheric with a rich historical background that is worth learning about. The song and dance scene above is set at the Moka Efti club, which actually existed, as did many of the historical figures in the series. Of course the plot of the show itself is fi...