The View from Berlin

It’s not easy to learn about a country by going there to promote your books. I just got back from doing media interviews for the German edition of Bait and Switch, which has the fascinating title Qualified and Out of Work, or something like that. In two days of back-to-back interviews in Berlin, the only exotically foreign thing I noticed was the ashtrays in the hotel lobby.

But if a book-promoting author doesn’t get to learn much about the country she’s in, she inevitably learns something about the country she’s from, if only from the questions that come up with deadening regularity. First, there are the inevitable preliminaries: Yes, it gets cold in Virginia too (where I now live), and no, it is not true that Cheney tortured that guy before he shot him. Then follows an exchange that goes something like this:

German reporter: But America has such low unemployment, how can there be a problem?

Me: True, America has very low unemployment, certainly compared to Germany’s current rate of 11 percent. But unemployment is no longer a good measure of well-being. Look at the fact that the unemployment numbers went down last fall while the poverty rate actually went up.

That’s not supposed to happen. In the 70s, liberals believed that full employment would be the solution to all our problems and they fought for legislation to guarantee it. Now we have 4.7 percent unemployment and about 13 percent poverty, which shows that the American economy is a fabulous job-generating machine, only it’s generating a lot of jobs that don’t pay enough to live on.

GR: Still, even in America, unemployment is lower for the college-educated middle class than for the workers, right?

ME: Yes, although the unemployment figures conceal two things: One is the number of people who’ve given up on their job searches. Maybe they’re dry-walling the neighbors’ basements or babysitting for the neighbors’ kids. They’re just not searching for a professional job anymore. Secondly, there’s the matter of “underemployment” – white collar people who have swallowed their pride and taken whatever job they can find, maybe stocking shelves at Best Buy or Wal-Mart. At my urging, the Economic Policy Institute in Washington is undertaking a study to determine the underemployment rate, and we should have some preliminary numbers by the end of April.

GR: Losing a job is psychologically devastating, yes? I have journalist friends who were laid off by their newspapers here but they keep showing up at press conferences so that it looks like they’re still working.

ME (fighting off the suspicion that this GR is one of them and that this is not a real interview at all): Well, of course. There are many studies showing that job loss is a risk factor for depression, divorce, alcoholism and all kinds of bad things. But practically speaking, one of the biggest problems – in addition to the sudden loss of income of course – is that when you lose your job in America, you lose your health insurance.

GR: But you can buy your own health insurance-- right?—with your free enterprise health system.

ME: It’s very expensive, and you’re going to have a hard time finding any at all if you have what we call a pre-existing medical condition.

GR (frowning as he struggles to understand what kind of “free enterprise” health system it is that does not provide insurance to those who need it most): You know all our German business leaders are saying that we have to take America as an economic model and pare down our welfare state. Right now, for example, a person who loses a job gets 60 percent of their pay for a year. After that runs out, they get what we call “social security,” or about $500 a month for as long as they need it. The people who favor the “American model” want to cut that even more than they already have.

ME: I sure hope that doesn’t happen, because whenever European governments cut their welfare states, certain American pundits say, “See, welfare states don’t work!”

GR: Well, Germans will fight back. Look at the big strikes here earlier this month over pay cuts in the public sector. Why don’t Americans do something like that? Americans are supposed to be – how do you say? – feisty. Why are they so passive?

ME (suppressing the desire to mention the outcome of the last world war and beginning to eye the ashtray with an evil, atavistic, longing): Uh, I think it’s time for the next interview now. Auf wiederzehen and have a nice day.

Comments

[Hattie]

The pressure for the "American model" is on in Germany and France. I hope they don't fall for it, or get it forced on them.

[CJ]

" ...no, it is not true that Cheney tortured that guy before he shot him."

Are you certain?

The 'bogusity' of unemployment statistics has always been a pet peeve of mine - the results of the underemployment-rate study should prove interesting.

[John]

I have always felt that one of the cruelist places in the world for the poor is America. Perhaps it is the price you pay for being a loser in the most lucrative economy in the world. But if you are excluded from it, America is hell on earth. Money, money everywhere...but not a penny to be had. Europeans are more egalitarian, their social safety nets are an important part of their culture...which is undeniably more caring and compassionate than here in the U.S.. If this somehow makes them weak or inferior to America it is sad.
Have we not, as human beings, evolved above the raw rule of the law of the jungle? Or are we petty, brutal creatures living in a veneer of social grace. I wonder.

[Jess]

In Berlin/Germany this subject - welfare state, US as economic model, etc. - are very much under discussion as the people are highly politicised and have many years of incredible social support infrastructure behind them. Of course the current government is going to 'modernise' an 'outdated' and 'unsustainable' system. It will take some time for things to get as bad as they are in the States, but that that's the road we've embarked on is beyond question. I am more worried about the state of countries like Ireland; Europe's fastest growing economy, thanks in large part to very close ties with the US and an emulation of many of its business models. The population there could not be said to be politicised and the distinction is increasingly between the 'winners' and the 'losers'. People need to be reminded constantly that there but for the grace of God go they - please go and speak in Ireland, Barbara!

[Hattie]

I get my New Yorkers late, because I live in Hawaii, but I just read the horrifying piece about poor Cajun teenage mothers, "Swamp Nurse." I cannot imagine anything this bad happening to any woman in Germany. So far.

[Barbara E]

Jess -- As it happens, I am going to Ireland in a couple of weeks, where I'll be enjoying the Guiness,promoting Bait and Switch, and telling them what's happened with the "American model" in its birthplace.

[Hattie]

Ah, Guiness in its birthplace! Have a nice trip.

[theresa]

If I remember correctly, off-shoring as we know it began with US Airlines sending to Ireland redeemed tickets to be processed. This was in the mid-80s when all tickets were stil paper and needed to be accounted against collected (or uncollected) fares. At the same time, US insurance companies and telemarketers were shifting sales and operations from the coasts to areas then benefiting from Farm Aid, since those losing or who had lost the family farm to agri-business were happy for these jobs and after decades toiling in the fields, laughed when people called it "work." These rural Midwestern and Irish jobs were the first lost to India, although the Irish have replaced them with other service specialties, while the former farmers were not so lucky.

Ireland is currently prosperous and via EU membership, tending towards multi-culturalism (a situation not aprreciated by all its residents,) but like India, their new niche is precarious at best. Even two years ago, the US entrepreneurs who had started companies in India to handle off-shored tasks were already eyeing Malaysia and the Philippines for even cheaper labor pools.

[Jess]

Oh wonderful! I don't know if you are only going to Dublin or also Cork. Cork is great; 'the rebel county' with the wittiest and maddest people in the country. In the last 10 or 15 years, since the Celtic Tiger began to purr, however, their rebellion is increasingly limited to illegally parking one of their 2 cars while they quickly nip into the shops to take advantage of the sales.

Immigration, legal and illegal, has become a burning issue. I'm not sure if anyone is talking about health care, though they should be. Property prices have speculators in a gleeful frenzy.The unemployment rate is something like 2 or 3 percent. Unions are almost gone. While this continues the majority are happy to buy houses at the inflated prices, have their 3 'foreign' holidays per year, and behave as if a mere 15 years ago almost everyone they knew wasn't on the dole and thinking about emigrating. Memories are short and so is sight - the poor, and they do still exist, are increasingly invisible somehow.

Ah, but it's a great place nonetheless. If you do go to Cork, drink Beamish.
Have an inspiring effect! And a good time, practically inevitable.

[Barbara E]

Jess -- Only Dublin this time unfortunately, though I did get to Belfast a year ago.

[dearkitty]

See my report on big demonstration by workers from many European countries, interview with German strikers, etc. at

http://dearkitty.modblog.com/core.mod?show=blogview&blog_id=809554

[Chris Hanson]

The comment about WWII is peculiar. The USSR did more to win the war than the USA did, however, you could say that the USA outsourced most of the fighting.

[BG]

I'm not too happy about how this interview (the interviews?) seem(s) to turn into a competition where the poor are poorer. Maybe you could have held your interview sessions in a local employment agency - I'm sure Berlin doesn't look much like an anonymous, boring hotel lobby there.

[A3K]

"The comment about WWII is peculiar. The USSR did more to win the war than the USA did, however, you could say that the USA outsourced most of the fighting."

The Soviets were defending their homes. The Americans were defending an ideal.

So you could say the Soviets outsourced that war. If you cared about accuracy.

[Robert Burns]

My Father was was a Merchant Seaman who sailed the world for over forty years surviving world WarII, Korea, Viet-Nam and the first Persian Gulf fiasco. I would see him periodically while I was attending College during the early 1970's. Of course, he would always ask:"How's school?" Then, after I'd filled him in he'd say: "Listen carefully, I don't see anything wrong with a college education but you better learn how to do something valuable with your hands because the way I see the world headed you may very well need it." I was always a little puzzled by that advice at the time, however, I did follow it and now at 55 I appreciate it more than ever.
Young people need to diversify their capacities in conjunction with their talents and apptitudes and thereby reduce their vulnerabilty to the vicissitudes of the corporate career and ultimately the sword of indigence.

[Cosima]

The last question wasn't as stupid as you make it sound; I have always wondered if, when and how Americans lost their "Möglichkeitssinn" (sense for potentialities). The American system is elitist, racist and socially determininistic. Germany faces similar problems, although they are not as pervasive/acute -- but here, people actually worry about these issues. In the US, unfairness is just part of everyday life. Why have so many Americans given up hope that things will ever change, or can be changed for the better?