Die Banalität des Guten | Telepolis
▻http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/39/39735/1.html
„Irgendein Klugscheißer hat mal den Spruch von der ‚Banalität des Bösen’ erfunden“, knurrt John Cusack in Zimmer 1408, einem Horrorfilm nach Stephen King aus dem Jahr 2007.
Nach Margarethe von Trottas Hannah Arendt-Film, der letztes Jahr das Zitat eindeutig verortete, war abzusehen, dass das Pendant dazu nicht lange auf sich warten lassen würde.
„Die Banalität des Guten“ ist die Kennmarke, die der britische Historiker-Journalist Timothy Garton Ash jetzt, im Vorfeld der Bundestagswahl, der Ära Merkel ins Gesicht drückt. Sein Artikel erschien im New York Review of Books
The New German Question ▻http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/aug/15/new-german-question/?pagination=false
The rhetoric of German policy remains sternly dogmatic, with German economics often sounding like a branch of moral philosophy, if not Protestant theology. Merkel, the daughter of an East German Protestant priest, once incautiously suggested that the southern European debtor countries must “atone for past sins.” The reality of Berlin’s policy, however, has been more pragmatic. For example, earlier this year it authorized state-controlled German banks to help create jobs for the unemployed youth of southern Europe. The chances of seeing more such constructive pragmatism, including wage increases that could stimulate German domestic demand, would certainly increase if the Social Democrats were to enter government, perhaps in a “grand coalition” with Merkel’s Christian Democrats.
Germany Fights Population Drop ▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/14/world/europe/germany-fights-population-drop.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130814
Large families began to go out of fashion in what was then West Germany in the 1970s, when the country prospered and the fertility rate began dropping to about 1.4 children per woman and then pretty much stayed there, far below the rate of 2.1 children that keeps a population stable. Other countries followed, but not all. There is a band of fertility in Europe, stretching from France to Britain and the Scandinavian countries, helped along by immigrants and social services that support working women.
Raising fertility levels in Germany has not proved easy. Critics say the country has accomplished very little in throwing money at families in a system of benefits and tax breaks that includes allowances for children and stay-at-home mothers, and a tax break for married couples.
Demographers say that a far better investment would be to support women juggling motherhood and careers by expanding day care and after-school programs. They say recent data show that growth in fertility is more likely to come from them.
“If you look closely at the numbers, what you see is the higher the gender equality, the higher the birthrate,” said Reiner Klingholz of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.