9th of November 1989 - 20 years later

20 years ago the animosities in eastern Berlin was almost at an end. Close to three decades of harassments from Stasi was ending with the opening of “Der Mauer” Ever since the Soviet dictatorship decided to build an "anti fascistic protection wall" in 1961, families had been torn apart and one of the most influential countries in Europe’s history began its healing towards its unification lead by brave men like Mr. Gorbatsjov, Mr. Kohl & President Bush. Communism did crumble and a free capitalistic market did emerge and Berlin is on the fast track to – yet again – become one of the leading cultural cities in Europe.

A lot of grim things have been said about capitalism over the last 12-18 months, but ultimately capitalism ‘just’ need to be tethered a bit and this have been deeply missing in the last few years.

I’d much rather have a kind laissez-faire economics environment, free press & freedom of speech, the possibility to travel when and where one sees fit, rather than a post-communistic plan economy where growth is zero or negative, a secret police within the state continuously spying on the citizens, no freedom of speech and with no places to go – other than where the state thought it were appropriate that you went…Gulag for instance.



Please take a moment to remember what was won 20 years ago. This day is every bit as important as the 7th may 1945 where Nazi-Germany signed the unconditional surrender to the allied forces, just a shame it should be another 45 years before thriving countries like Poland, Hungary, Czech republic etc. could taste freedom from oppression.

Happy E-Day.

/C

Who will be the next power; BRIC? EU? Santa Clause?

Currently we’re experiencing a financial crisis that nobody has been able to fully comprehend yet. This post isn’t related to what caused the problems (to low interests rates from the federal banks, derivate debt products, subprime mortgage etc.) but rather a speculation of what is next.

In my opinion Fareed Zaakarias book “The Post American World” is highly recommendable on this subject, but he fails to see the real issue here. In the sixth chapter of the book he claims that the main (or at least one of the main reasons) the American dominant era is coming to an end, is the open-ended engagement in Iraq (and Afghanistan) and this is costing the US its freedom of maneuverability. Now it’s important to remember that this work was finalized by the end of 2007 and published in May 2008 i.e. several months before the financial crises really caught on in September 2008. Rather than being the military evolvement that broke/drained the treasury of the US it was (is?) the financial crisis. After this crises first became a world market event governments, including The congress and The White House, around the world have poured gazillions of cash (€£$) into public spending, in order to keep the unemployment rate constant, or at least avoid that it exploded, but sometime soon the governments are going to run out of cash. When this happens then we’ll have the collapse, since consumers still are holding back on their private spending thus private company’s cannot grow their enterprise and we’ll eventually get a long time rescission, unless…..

Fareed Zaakarias assumes that the 21^st century will belong to the newcomers, or at least that the US will have to consult with other states, Brazil, Russia, India, China etc. and act multilaterally rather than unilaterally. Say for moment that we accept the thesis above, and expect the US to run out of cash it can throw into government spending programs by mid 2010. Now the US is hamstrung by its debt, especially to China, and even China on the other hand will have no interest what so ever in forcing the US to repay its loan prior to schedule due to risk of having to deal with a hostile President and/or Congress, and what might be.

One of the key factors to the non-western economical growth over the last 2 decades has been (is) the access to a sort of stable energy supply (oil, gas etc.), the reality that Russia wasn’t a factor, the only superpower left was the US and access to loans with exceptionally low interest rates. Now all of this is changing rapidly. Russia is resurgent, or tough only due to the massive demand for Oil and Gas thus trying to regain its previous super-power status, due to demands especially in China and India energy prices will rice. The possibility to be authorized for a low interest loan is unlikely, so this is where the EU should make its case. I won’t for a second argue that governments should direct research into specific areas but I’d like to see an overall effort to reduce the dependence of fossil energy inside the EU by say 50 % over the next generation i.e. 30 years. What will this accomplish? Most likely universities & business schools in partnerships or while competing with existing companies, will improve and re-think how we think of energy. The BRIC countries have to experiencing the same learning curve that have been creeping up on the west over the next generation, and then the energy alternatives are ready for mass distribution.

Devil’s advocate:

Won’t the non-western countries develop and discover the above themselves? Probably not. One main advantage kept by higher learning institutes in the west, is that when students enrolls on courses they have a sense of critique to the established consensus, whether it’s nature science, economics, philosophy etc. they want to challenge the sitting establishment and somehow I don’t think that’s the way to achieve a meaningful relationship with the rulers for example in China? But I might be mistaken…..

We have enough.

Most of the citizens in Western Europe have a home, a flat, either a rented or an owned. Most families have a small house, a terraced house or larger flat. Their kids go to school the majority of them can get meaningful employment. They have either tax paid health and medi care or through an insurance. I know that there are some areas where thing can get better – there always will be, but shouldn’t we, the west, be able to say that we did something when the end of history and the last man arrived (Fukuyama) rather than just see the western lifestyle burn in the fire of decadence of massive over consumption?

I hope that this crisis will act as a much needed wakeup call to the European Union whom I think and hope will seize the moment an become a world power.

……just some random thoughts from the balcony this lovely summer night.

/C