Merkel Wins Huge on Low Unemployment and Almost-Elminiated Deficit

And Don't Forget! Dave's NFL thread is below, with boobies. And Oregon Muse's book thread and Andy's gun thread. A feller could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with those things.

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Wait a minute -- I was told by Paul Krugman, Barack Obama, and the media that you have to spend, spend, spend to reduce the unemployment rate.

And yet in America, where we spent, spent, spent, the unemployment rate is distressingly high (and has forced millions out of the job market altogether), but in Germany, where they've pursued an Awful Austerity (ick!) program, they have low unemployment.

“It’s an Election Day like we haven’t seen for years,” Armin Laschet, deputy chairman of Merkel’s CDU, said on ARD television. “The FDP may still make it, but first of all it’s an endorsement of Angela Merkel’s policies.”

With unemployment near a two-decade low and the budget deficit virtually eliminated, voters backed Merkel’s handling of the domestic economy, Europe’s largest, and her push for austerity in the euro zone in exchange for aid.

While the Christian Democratic Union romped, they did so at the expense of their ally, the Free Democrats, who might not even get enough of the votes to have any seats in the Bundeswhatever at all.

Which, alas, means that Merkel might have to strike a deal with the Socialists.

The Greens, the SPD’s favoured partner, took 8 percent, and the anti-capitalist Left Party got 8.5 percent. The anti-euro Alternative for Germany got 4.8 percent, according to the television projections as of 6:20 p.m.

The projections showed Merkel’s party just three or four seats short of an absolute majority. She may still be forced into a grand coalition with her Social Democratic rivals.

I hate linking Politico but: The Greens may have been punished for "Veggie Day."

In what could be a cautionary tale for First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to tweak Americans' diets, Germans look set to punish the Green Party for urging that public cafeterias go meat-free on a designated "Veggie Day" each week in order to help the environment and reduce cruelty to animals. Borrowing colorfully from English, German newspaper Bild described public reaction to the idea as a "shitstorm."

At her party's final campaign rally on Saturday, Merkel joined in, slamming the Green proposal.

"You will never hear from the Christian Democratic Union party when you should eat meat and when you shouldn't," Merkel said to loud applause from her supporters and campaign workers in the Tempodrom theater.

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It was in many ways an easy shot for Merkel to take, but her resistance to "Veggie Day" seemed to involve more than just needling an opposition party over a perceived misstep. Having spent 45 years under Communist rule, she appeared to chafe at the state intruding into decisions as personal as what food to ingest.

Merkel noted that she herself skips meat on Friday, but that she'd be damned if she'd make that a government policy.

I haven't been this excited about Strong German Leadership since Hitler!

I mean, since Helmutt Kohl or whoever. I meant Helmutt. Auto-correct and all.

The left is going to keep pushing this notion as the State as paterfamilias...

Roman law and tradition (mos maiorum) established the power of the pater familias within the community of his own extended familia. He held legal privilege over the property of the familia, and varying levels of authority over his dependents: these included his wife and children, certain other relatives through blood or adoption, clients, freedmen and slaves. The same mos maiorum moderated his authority and determined his responsibilities to his own familia and to the broader community. He had a duty to father and raise healthy children as future citizens of Rome, to maintain the moral propriety and well-being of his household, to honour his clan and ancestral gods and to dutifully participate—and if possible, serve—in Rome's political, religious and social life. In effect, the pater familias was expected to be a good citizen. In theory at least, he held powers of life and death over every member of his extended familia through ancient right but in practice, the extreme form of this right was seldom exercised. It was eventually limited by law.

I don't know why it's required to explain, at this late date, why this conception of the State is primitive, backwards, and hateful of freedom and human dignity, but apparently it is so required.

posted by Ace at 01:27 PM

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