Student Loan Discolsure - hahahahaha

       The New York Times, we need to have a little talk about your Editorial of May 22, 2012, "Full Disclosure for Student Borrowers."  In this editorial, the paper states that outstanding student debt is a huge problem in America.  (Which it is, as more money is owed in America on Student Loans than on Credit Cards, and Student Loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy - but I digress)  The editorial goes on to describe a student who has no hope of paying her $120,000 in undergraduate loans, and states that the remedy for this student loan crisis is to make sure that colleges and universities are up front and clear about what loans are, what grants are, and what repaying a loan is going to look like.
      The last three sentences of the editorial sum up the New York Times' thesis nicely:

          Congress should also require schools to provide in-depth, annual loan counseling to students and set criteria for the information that must be provided. All schools should be required to disclose annually the average debt load of their graduates.  Before students borrow to pay for their education, they need to understand the obligations they are taking on, and how long it will take to pay them off.

Don't get me wrong, I completely agree.  Students and their families should be much better informed, and annualy informed, about the loans they are taking out.  I agree.

       But that's not the real problem.  The REAL problem is that a college education costs far and away more than it ever did before, and far and away more than it should.  I am 30 now, and I went to college in the fall of 2000, when I was 18.  I was very lucky to have been accepted by a highly selective private college, and I could not be more devoted to the place - which I absolutely loved and still love.  When I first matriculated, it cost around $32,000 a year.  I had everything you could ask for.  Small classes where the professors knew my name.  There was a recreational gym nicer than any gym I could afford now.  There were outstanding lab facilities, the grounds were spotless, the library well funded.  I studied abroad in London for a semester for the same price as normal tuition.  There were countless sports teams, there were countless campus plays.  My senior year I lived in a townhouse, which was owned by the college and for which my parents paid regular dorm fees, that had 2 bathrooms, 1 full kitchen, cable tv, and a washer/dryer - all for 4 students.  I had everything.  We couldn't go half a week without a famous speaker coming to campus to talk to us or an amazing band or arts organization coming to perform. I only wish I'd taken advantage of it all at the time!

       So here's how it is now.  That $32,000 a year is, adjusted for inflation, now around $41,600 in 2012 dollars.  Ok, fine.  That's a gigantic pile of money.  True.  However, the actual fees at my beloved alma mater will be almost $56,000 for the upcoming school year.  What is that extra $14,400 per year buying?  I, honestly, don't have the faintest idea.  Smarter and better informed folks than I have spilled plenty of ink trying to figure that one out.

       The real problem isn't loans, although providing loan counseling and making them dischargeable in bankruptcy would ease the burdens of many.  The real problem is that (for virtually all but the richest Americans) income is not increasing relative to inflation, and the cost of college is increasing much faster than inflation.  Higher education costs are just taking up more and more of a family's budget.  It just can't keep going on forever until a college education for one child requires average income parents to save 30% of their salaries for 18 years.  It just can't.  Cancelling the cable tv (as one NYT editorial online commenter suggested) isn't going to enable families to save enough.  We, as a society, need to make sure that any qualified student, regardless of his or her parents' income, has the opportunity to earn a college degree without crippling debt.

       The other issue at hand is that 18 year olds, kids who have been told for 18 years that they will fly as high as their dreams, are not going to be good judges of their own abilities to pay loans back.  It doesn't matter how much disclosure they get.  Their parents are often even more clueless.  Of course every parent thinks his or her little darling is going to get a high paying job at 22 or go on to medical school.  He was on the football team!  She was editor of the year book!  If a bank wouldn't loan an 18 year old $120,000 to start a business, why would the federal government loan her $120,000 to go to school to get a BA in anthropology?  Heck - a bank wouldn't give an unsecured loan to an 18 year old for $23,300 (the average student loan amount) to start a business. 
        Yes, disclosure about student loans would help.  I don't disagree.  But the real problem is the soaring cost of higher education.  Kids (and they are kids) will continue to take out these loans, because that's the only choice they have to get an education.  And let's not kid ourselves, the vast majority of good, physically safe, and well paying jobs go to college graduates.  Some of these kids will take out as much in loans as the forces that be let them.  And many of those who borrow much more responsibly will never be able to pay their loans back.  If you tell an 18 year old and his parents that he's going to need to get a job that pays $75,000 a year after graduation to pay his loans back and, um, eat - he'll still take out the loans, because they think he'll be one of the few to get that $75,000 a year job at the age of 22.  It's magical thinking - and WE ALL suffer from it.
       I appreciate that you are paying attention to the Student Loan crisis, The New York Times.  But you missed the target with this one.

Are You For Real?

The May 18th The Ethicist column was written by Andrew Light, Director for Philosophy and Public Policy at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.  I don’t doubt that Andrew Light is a brilliant man who does some important work.  However, when he wrote this column, he was all out of whack.

 A woman wrote to The Ethicist explaining that her elderly parents want her to become her 40 year old brother’s legal guardian.  Her brother needs a guardian because he became heavily involved with drugs and alcohol as a teenager, has suffered brain damage as a result, and has spent the last 25 years of his life in and out of prison, halfway houses, and rehabilitation centers.  She has been estranged from him for years.  It is very clear from her letter that she does not want to be her brother’s legal guardian because he’s a mess, she has been estranged from him for years, she lives a 7 hour drive from where he is, and – here’s the kicker – because she’s a single mother with a demanding job.  But, he is her brother, and she wants to help her parents.  She also has no intention (and with good reason) of never letting him in her home or near her child.

Thankfully, Andrew Light says that she should feel free to turn down her parents’ request if she believes doing so would endanger her child.  Thank goodness.  But, he goes on from there.  He talks all about how he would rather give his son a kidney than a stranger a kidney, like that’s somehow surprising or relevant to anything.  He also says that he does feel that she has more of a duty to her brother than she does to most people, because he is her brother, and she should do what she can to help him as long as it doesn’t endanger her daughter.  Because, he says:

Just as you may have a stronger moral obligation to your brother than to anyone on the street, you certainly also have equally strong, if not stronger, obligations to your daughter.

I’m sorry, but who the what what?!  What do you mean “equally strong, if not stronger”?!!  The daughter comes first.  FIRST first first first first!  I can’t tell you how far down the list estranged adult siblings are, but they are WAY behind one’s children.  All he needed to say was that if she felt she couldn’t be a good mother and a guardian to her brother, than being a good mother comes first.  Period.  End of discussion.  No need to feel guilty.  Believe me, a single mother with a demanding job is probably (like most mothers) already beating herself up about something.

Nevertheless, he decides to throw a little wood on that being a good mother/daughter/sister guilt fire.  After rambling a bit about an NYU philosopher, Light closes his response with:

Even though you’re alienated from your brother now, I hope there was something in your past that brought you together. Now you ought to try to draw on that experience of being a sibling and do the best that you can in a difficult situation.

Light, dear friend, are you telling me that remembering when he shared his peanut butter with her 35 years ago is going to do anything to ease the fact that he has spent over half his life in and out of jail?  I don’t know, Light, I kind of feel like people sometimes become estranged for a reason.  Assuming there are some fond memories left, they are probably greatly overshadowed by very tragic, if not horrific, memories.  If you don’t understand that, then you’ve probably never known somebody who has anything like the kinds of problems that this woman’s brother has.

            But I also think that we need to face the facts here.  This woman is a single mother with a demanding job who lives 7 hours away.  Her brother has an incurable problem and will never be able to live alone as a stable member of society.  Even if she really wanted very much to be his guardian, I still do not think it would be ethical for her to agree to do it.  She just doesn’t have the time to have a demanding job, be a good single mother, and be the legal guardian to an incurable adult patient 7 hours away.  In this case, as in so many cases, it is most ethical for the family to leave the patient in the care of trained professionals.  A professional social worker, assigned by an offical and located near her brother, would be a far more appropriate guardian. 

            Andrew Light, this woman wrote to you to ask if it was ethical if she admits to her parents that she’s not superwoman.  She wanted The Ethicist to say it’s ok if she chooses to care for her own child, her career, and her own sanity before she cares for the junkie brother she hasn’t seen in years.  Most people would have done just that.  You told her it was only ok, if she had to, just as long as she thinks about it, thinks about it hard, thinks about any good childhood memories, and thinks of anything – even the tiniest thing – she could possibly do for her brother, because she does have an obligation towards him.  A single mother with a demanding job came for help, and you gave her a whole bunch more baggage to lug around for no purpose at all.  And that, Andrew, I find to be unethical.

Oh The Ethicist – how I used to love you

I can’t tell you how much I once enjoyed reading the weekly The Ethicist column by Randy Cohen in the New York Times.  Sadly, the column took a turn for the worse when Cohen retired from writing it last year.  For a year, Ariel Kaminer from the Metro section filled in, but she was never as great. Kaminer recently headed back to the Metro section, and a woman named Betsey Stevenson, a visiting professor of economics at Princeton, wrote the May 10^th The Ethicist column. 

            One woman wrote in that she and her family had planned and paid for a trip to Disney World in Florida, but then she didn’t want to go spend money in Florida because of her disgust with the Trayvon Martin case and Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.  Writing as the ethicist, Stevenson told the mother that although voting with your pocketbook is important, the money was already spent.  Therefore, she should go to Florida, pack a vacation’s worth of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so as to not spend any more money in Florida, and not show anybody the vacation pictures so that nobody else will be encouraged to vacation in Florida.

            I hate to say it, Stevenson, but that response is idiotic.  First, the logistical practical problems with this advice.  Whether that family is traveling by car, train, bus, or airplane – I guarantee you that bringing a vacation’s worth of food is insane.  With all the sun screen, hats, clothes, medicine, etc. that mom has to pack, you think adding a vacation’s worth of food is a good idea?  You think eating nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for days is a good idea?  They won’t be able to poop after the first day!  How about eating healthy?  Isn’t that a good thing to teach children?  Because eating nothing but non-perishable, suitcase-packable food isn’t going to be too healthy for too long.   

            Secondly, the economic practical problems with this advice.  I agree that voting with your pocketbook is important and something that should be taught to children.  But the affective version of voting with your pocketbook goes like this: 

Dear Corporation X,

I will now be purchasing your competitor’s product/service because I object to your labor practices/offensive advertisements/political actions.  If and when you cease to engage in these problematic labor practices/offensive advertisements/political actions, I will consider resuming purchasing your product/service.

Signed, Consumer

Voting with your pocketbook has to be targeted and specific to be effective and meaningful.  The person/people/corporation you object to also has TO KNOW that you are doing it.  In this case, the mother had a problem with the laws in Florida.  I understand and agree with those objections.  But, well – she’s not a voter in Florida – so she really doesn’t have a say in how Florida writes its laws.  Even if this mother could get her money back from Disney World, Disney is a multinational corporation, and boycotting it to punish a local government in a place where it has one theme park is not exactly going to be effective.  Now, if that mother wants to found or join a group of people who say they won’t be spending tourist dollars in Florida because they are upset about Trayvon Martin, then that would be specific, targeted, and might get noticed.  But I doubt it.  Local municipalities don’t tend to like tourists from outside telling them how to run things inside.  What we, as American voters, can do about another state’s laws that we don’t like is to push for stronger laws and regulations at the federal level.  That’s something this woman could do that would teach her family about taking part in democracy in a way that could be actually effective. 

            Thirdly, I have ethical problems with your advice, Betsey Stevenson.  You are suggesting that this mother actively practice – and teach her son – to believe in guilt by association on a grand, grand scale.  Don’t misunderstand me, what happened to unarmed Trayvon Martin in Florida was absolutely appalling, tragic, and should never have ever happened.  But, our objections should be with George Zimmerman, the law itself, and perhaps also the slow moving local law enforcement – although Zimmerman has indeed subsequently been charged with second degree murder.  It’s not quite right to punish the 19 million people who live in Florida and all corporations working there.  That’s painting with too wide a brush.  Because the next person to come along may paint with an even wider brush.  What if the next person blames anybody who has ever even visited Florida?  What if the next person blames the entire United States?  Children have a very strong sense of fairness, and this woman shouldn’t teach her child that 19 million people are to be shunned just because they live in the same state as a bad man and a bad Stand Your Ground law.  What would her son say to the classmate who goes to visit her grandparents in Florida?  Should he tell her that her grandparents are bad?  What about the teacher at his school who went to college in Florida?  Should he think that teacher is bad, too?  And for how long?  When do the people of Florida stop being bad?  When all 19 million of them write a giant apology note?  After 10 years?  After George Zimmerman is convicted?  When?  What exactly does this woman want the corporations in Florida to do to win back her business?

            As disgusting as George Zimmerman’s actions were and as problematic as the law is, it’s not ethical to teach a child that it’s right to punish all businesses or individuals that are in any way connected to Florida.  You never know.  Maybe some asshole who lives in your state will do something horrible, or your local laws will be revealed to be hugely problematic.  Will you really want someone in another state to blame you personally?
          Post Script - I do have one thing I agree with that mother and Stevenson about.  It is more than reasonable to avoid a vacation destination because you disagree with its political climate.  There is a beautiful country with absolutely fantastic beaches and wonderful food that I simply, will not visit at present, because I strongly disagree with the amount of underage sex tourism that happens there.  I do not judge people who visit that country, I do not judge citizens of that country I meet, but I will choose to spend my family's vacation budget elsewhere.  But, the mother who wrote to The Ethicist didn't choose to spend her vacation dollars elsewhere because she wanted to spend them in a place that was more in tune with her political values - although would have been a decision I would have agreed with.  There is nothing wrong with wanting to spend your money in a place you believe has better values.  That's a good thing.  But Florida had the Stand Your Ground laws on the books long before the tragic Trayvon killing.  The law was in place before the mother made her trip reservations.  She was, in fact, reacting to a specific incident and the bad deeds of one man by attempting to punish a multinational company that also does business within a certain geopolitical boundary that also contained that bad man.    And that, well, confuses me.

Actually, Science can't fix the American economy

            Politicians and the news media keep telling me that what is happening on my Facebook news feed isn’t actually happening.  Whenever the high unemployment rate of recent college graduates comes up, we hear somebody saying that what the United States needs is more young people studying science, technology, engineering, and math, aka the STEM fields.  Politicians of both parties and countless journalists have cried out for more American students to earn degrees in STEM subjects.  President Obama even started the first White House Science Fair in an effort to encourage young students to study science.  Even Newt Gingrich’s implausible moon base idea went along with his effort to improve math and science education in the United States.

            Everybody from journalists to politicians to high school guidance counselors repeats the same refrain:  the country needs more scientists and mathematicians; study a STEM subject, and you’ll have a job.  So, why is my Facebook news feed filled with countless posts like, “Keep your fingers crossed for me!  After six months of waiting tables and volunteering, I finally have a job interview!” from friends of mine who have PhDs in STEM subjects?  Hold on.  Aren’t these guys supposed to be the ones in demand?

            Frank Bruni joins this misinformed chorus in his April 28, 2012 opinion piece in The New York Times entitled “The Imperiled Promise of College,” in which he discusses the problems recent college graduates have in finding good jobs.  Regarding young Americans in the workforce, he states:

The thing is, today’s graduates aren’t just entering an especially brutal economy. They’re entering it in many cases with the wrong portfolios. To wit: as a country we routinely grant special visas to highly educated workers from countries like China and India. They possess scientific and technical skills that American companies need but that not enough American students are acquiring.

Just about everybody with regular podium access is in agreement about why so many recent college graduates are unemployed – more just need to be STEM majors.  We are often told, STEM graduates have jobs and will fuel the economy to get better and better.  Problem is, they are completely wrong.  There is, in fact, no shortage of Americans with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math.  No shortage at all. 

            I first suspected there was no shortage when I ordered a pizza my senior year of college, and it was delivered by a young man who graduated with a math degree the year before.  These days, I am almost ten years out of college, old enough that many of my friends have gotten advanced degrees in STEM fields.  Except for those who went into healthcare fields or who are teaching high school, almost all of them are either unemployed or greatly underemployed.  I have a friend who has a PhD in biochemistry and has been working as an unpaid intern in a lab in hopes that he’ll get a paid job soon.  I have another friend who went to an Ivy League university, then worked as a chemical engineer.  Last year she decided to go to pharmacy school after her employer cut everybody at the company back from 40 hours a week to 35.  Another friend has a PhD in physics has moved three times in the past five years following low paid temporary post doc that goes nowhere to the next low paid temporary post doc that goes nowhere.

            The shortage isn’t of qualified American STEM professionals.  The shortage is of good American STEM jobs.  But you certainly don’t have to take my word for it or listen to my anecdotal evidence.  Read “Into the Eye of the Storm:  Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand” by Harold Salzman of Rutgers and B. Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown.  It available for free online and was (chillingly) published in 2007, before the recession.  To quote:

Analysis of the flow of students up through the S&E (author’s note:  Science & Engineering) pipeline, when it reaches the labor market, suggests the education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand:  S&E occupations make up only about one-twentieth of all workers, and each year there are more than three times as many S&E four-year college graduates as S&E job openings.

So, if there is no shortage of STEM professionals, why does everybody from my high school guidance counselor, to journalists, to politicians seem to think there is?  Why do they think that convincing students to enter STEM fields will solve a number of economic problems?  That is a riddle for the ages, but I will hazard a guess.  Practically all guidance counselors, politicians, and journalists do not have degrees in STEM fields themselves, nor do they work in STEM professions.  They, as a general group, don’t really know the realities of the STEM job market. 

            But the idea of encouraging science and technology sounds so good, doesn’t it?  What can’t science fix?!  Science fixed polio, why can’t it fix our economy too?  The idea is so simple, so possible, so positive, so doable, and (most importantly) so doable by somebody else.  It is so much easier to say “Just major in math, kids!” than to admit that no matter how hard they work and no matter what major they choose, many college graduates are never going to be able to find work relevant to their degrees.  Fixing the American economy is not going to be as simple as saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” 

It is time that politicians and journalists wise up and realize that encouraging chemistry majors is not going to lower unemployment.  That is something my Facebook news feed could have showed them a long time ago. 

Think about that for a second . . .

Originally Blogged: Monday, April 16, 2012

As much as I love you, The New York Times, you have really scraped the bottom of the idiotic barrel publishing N. Gregory Mankiw’s “Competition is Healthy for Governments, Too” in the Economic View section on April 14, 2012. Mankiw argues that state and local governments compete with one another as businesses do, because American citizens can easy move from their home state or municipality to a different state or municipality if they believe another area uses tax dollars more efficiently. Moving outside the country is apparently too difficult, but moving from state to state is easy –according to Mankiw. This is why, Mankiw argues, Romney’s healthcare mandate in Massachusetts is not oppressive, while Obama’s very similar healthcare mandate for the entire country is more problematic. Because, Mankiw states, “Anyone who finds the Massachusetts health insurance mandate objectionable can easily move to live-free-or-die New Hampshire.” Mankiw is a professor at Harvard University and an advisor to Mitt Romney.
        Dearest Professor Mankiw, I’m not a university professor, I don’t have a PhD in economics, I don’t have an MBA. I am, however, an American citizen and an active voter. I also have something you don’t have, which is apparently the ability to see the world as it actually is, not as it exists in some fantasy novel disguised as an economic textbook. I’m going to lay some truth on you here, N. Gregory – people can’t just up and move to another state that easily. Here’s the scenario.
       I am a married woman with a job, a husband with a job, and three children in school. I live in Louisiana, where my family has lived for four generations. My parents are there, as are my husband’s parents. My children like their teachers, and they like playing with their cousins on the weekend. My spouse and I are happy in our jobs. We own a house, but our mortgage is a few thousand dollars underwater. Luckily, we are employed and can afford the payments anyway. My husband and I are graduates of Louisiana universities, and I am active in my sorority’s local alumni association. All of our professional references and contacts are local. I speak a little Cajun French and make great crawfish. Are you really saying, N. Gregory, that I am going to up and move my family to Washington State because I think the public libraries and the roads are better there? Even if, somehow in this difficult economy and with no local contacts, my husband and I both found jobs with equivalent salaries in Washington State, do you have any idea what it would cost to just up and move an entire household across the country? To sell a house at a loss? Not to mention the non-monetary costs of uprooting children and leaving friends and family.
       People don’t do that for longer library hours and fewer potholes. They don’t do that even if they are renters and don’t have roots as deep as the family described above does. Do you really think that moving across state lines is as easy as changing the Sunday night family dinner location from Red Lobster to Red Robin? Because that’s what you said, you said it was easy. Professor Manikew, state and local governments are not businesses. They do not compete like businesses. Pretending they do may make sense in your mind. It may make sense in an economic equation on a chalkboard. But it doesn’t make sense in the real world, and Americans live and vote in the real world.

Diapers on Weekends

Originally blogged: Saturday, February 25, 2012

The weekend is finally here and that means the Weddings! Travel!! The Ethicist!!! The Magazine!!!! The Magazine, you guys, the Magazine! Oh how I love you, The New York Times. Nevertheless, I think we need to have a quick word about Jack Ewing’s article of February 22, 2012, In Germany, a Limp Domestic Economy Stifled by Regulation. First off, there are some fascinating things going on in German politics right now. The German President, Christian Wulff, (and yes there is a president in addition to the Chancellor) just resigned in disgrace. A money scandal, a cover up scandal, possible immunity – all that usual sleezy politician stuff. The man who will probably be the new President, Joachim Gauck, is a former Lutheran Minister from the former East Germany whose father was sent to a secret Siberian gulag from 1951 to 1955. Gauck himself spoke out against Communism from the pulpit. He also has been separated from his wife, the mother of his four children, since the early 1990s and for over ten years has lived with his girlfriend.
        Juicy stuff there, people – politics, sex, money, religion, Siberian gulag. And yes, The New York Times is covering it, but only with a few brief paragraphs that you have to search all over the website to find. Instead, they shove Ewing’s piece, In Germany, a Limp Domestic Economy Stifled by Regulation, up to the top of the website all day with a big enticing color photograph of delicious bread. This article is about supermarket opening times. Yup – we’re not going to have a big article with fancy color photo about the German President resigning, we’re going to designate a long article and comments section to consumer regulations in Germany, most notably supermarket opening times. And the commenters are losing their shit over it.
       For a brief background into grocery shopping in Germany, it’s almost exactly like grocery shopping in the United States but with a few subtle differences. Assuming you work a relatively typical schedule, the grocery stores are open before you leave for work and are closed after you get home. They just aren’t open on Sundays. After you move from the United States, it takes you a few weeks, and then you get used to it. You do your grocery shopping, you just don’t do it on Sundays. If you are too incredibly stupid to shop in advance, you can always go out to eat, go to one of the Kiosks that are open longer hours but have limited options, or go to the stores in the train station that are always open on Sundays. Honestly, it’s really not that big of a deal.
         However, according to Ewing’s article: Germany could add about 10 percent to growth over the next decade if it removed barriers to competition and other inefficiencies, according to the O.E.C.D. Surprisingly, the untapped potential in Germany was almost as high as that in Italy and higher than that in Spain, according to the O.E.C.D., an indication that the German domestic economy is not as superior to its southern neighbors as is often assumed. Ok, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, I’m not sure what regulations and inefficiencies that you are talking about here. It would seem to me that Germany is the least of your problems. But according to Ewing, the German economy would grow if Supermarkets were open on Sundays.
       Herr Ewing, I do not have a doctorate in economics, but I am a woman who has to buy groceries so that my family can eat. So, let me be clear about something: I buy the same amount of groceries, I just don’t buy them on Sunday. We still eat on Sunday, we just don’t buy groceries then. We do not go hungry on Sunday. The people in Germany buy the same amount of groceries, just over the period of 6 days instead of 7. It’s actually MORE efficient. The supermarkets sell the same amount of groceries, but they don’t have to pay to keep the store open on Sunday. All this extra efficiency would be a problem if supermarkets really weren’t open for enough hours to allow all working adults to do their shopping. But that isn’t the case. Because, kiddo, if you can’t get your grocery shopping done before 11 pm Monday through Friday or from 9 am to 5 pm Saturday, you’ve got problems that Sunday grocery store hours can’t solve.
       You should see some of these comments on the article. Some commenters believe it is their God given right to be able to buy diapers on Sunday and that these policies infringe on personal freedoms. Seriously? You have to buy diapers on Sunday? You woke up Sunday morning and your child needed diapers for the very first time? I am trying to wrap my head around this situation. You wake up on a Sunday morning, ready for your cup of coffee and your copy of The New York Times, and all of a sudden, your child – who had never needed diapers before – needs diapers! Oh no! Diaper emergency!!! Let’s assume that there is somebody too out of it to know enough to stock up on a few extra diapers the other six days of the week, and that person can’t find a few hidden diapers stashed away in the bottom of the diaper bag, and that person doesn’t have neighbors or friends with little kids then – heaven help us – that person might have to go to a kiosk or a grocery store in the train station. Sure, that person might have to pay at a bit of a markup at a kiosk or be a bit inconvenienced by going down to the train station, but that’s what you get for not being prepared. God have mercy on our souls!!!!
       And all this brings us to pharmacies. Pharmacies are not mentioned in the aforementioned article, but they are relevant to the discussion. In cities in the US, you typically have no problem finding a pharmacy open 24 hours. Pharmacies are practically on every corner, many with very long hours, and many open for 24 hours a day. In Germany, there is one pharmacy in each city district that will be open for 24 hours. They trade off. One week it will be one pharmacy, the next week it will be a different one. There is a sign in every pharmacy window telling you where to go if you need your pills at 3:00 am. As far as I can tell, this is a win-win situation. Pharmacists get to work nicer hours, and everybody is taken care of in the event of an emergency. The vast majority of people who need medication can get it during normal business hours. If someone is really, truly sick during off hours, then he or she often genuinely needs to be in an urgent care medical facility. Every citizen and legal resident of Germany has excellent health insurance, so it would never be a financial hardship to go to the emergency room or call an ambulance. But I know there are people, I have been one of these people, who are too sick to wait for business hours but aren’t sick enough to go to the hospital. I understand. And those people will probably be a bit inconvenienced having to travel a little further to the one pharmacy in their district that is open 24 hours. Yes, it’s a pain for those people, but those people and those circumstances are few and far between. And everybody else benefits the rest of the time. The pharmacy staff doesn’t have to work longer hours, the pharmacy saves money not keeping the lights on all night, and prices on ibuprofen go down.
       So, my dear The New York Times, I know that in New York City, you can get just about anything any time of the day or night. But it turns out that you can have a healthy economy and keep everybody covered in an emergency WITHOUT a 24 hour all things to all people store on every urban street corner. New York is the city that never sleeps, but in Germany, everybody gets a good night’s sleep except for a few brave souls keep their storefronts open – just in case.

So, when you move to Germany

Originally Blogged:  Friday, February 24, 2012

            After moving to Germany, it took me about a month to realize how absolutely asinine The New York Times’ coverage of Germany is.  We’re talking a – you wouldn’t pass Journalism 101 – level of idiocy.

            But let me first sing a love song to the New York Times.  I have read The New York Times every day since I was twelve.  Although we lived far way from New York, my parents had a paper copy delivered to the house every morning.  They still do.  And heaven help the person who tossed it in the recycling bin before everybody in the house got to read it.  The entire content is online, but there’s just nothing quite like the paper copy.  I went to a small liberal arts college far away from New York, but I paid the $33 to the college bookstore every semester to have the paper copy of The New York Times delivered to my mailbox.  Then I went to grad school in New York City.  I could only afford the weekend paper, but it was delivered right to my little studio apartment door on the 5^th floor.  Right to my apartment door!  I felt like a princess.  What’s not to love about The New York Times?  I love the Magazine, the Travel Section, the Review of Books!  The crosswords!  OOOh – the crosswords!!  Even the ads are amazing.  My idea of a wonderful weekend morning is a coffee and the paper copy of The New York Times. 

            But now I live in Germany and must read The New York Times online, which brings me to my original point – the coverage of Germany is all kinds of stupid.  The Euro is a new and fascinating currency, this is true.  The Great Recession has presented new challenges, most notably the fact that Greece was allowed to borrow more money than it could hope to repay.  Yet the Germans are weathering the storm fairly well and are poised to lead Europe out of the crisis.  Many have speculated as to why the hard working, frugal Germans would help the Euro zone countries who were not so good with money. 

            In one particularly idiotic rant in The New York Times’ Op-Ed section on September 25^th of last year, Todd G. Buchholz declared:

Germany’s real motivation to help Greece is not cash; it’s culture. Germans struggle with a national envy. For over 200 years, they have been searching for a missing part of their soul: passion. They find it in the south and covet the loosey-goosey, sun-filled days of their free-wheeling Mediterranean neighbors.

He goes on to defend this broad statement about millions of Germans with quotations from Freud (an Austrian), Nietzsche, and Goethe, among others.  Great.  Goethe.  You know what, Goethe, we will talk to you when we need an action update about the French Revolution, but I think we’ll talk to somebody a bit more contemporary when discussing issues with the Euro, shall we? 

            Mr. Buchholz does not interview a single living German or Greek person, but prefers to quote these long dead chaps.  But, my dear Herr Buchholz, does the concept of national envy really make sense to you?  Do you really think that fifty million Germans really want to be Greek?  Really?  Don’t you think they just want to go to work at the insurance office and then take their daughter to ballet practice and then go out for Thai food and then go to bed?  Do you really think they are focusing on a national envy more than they are thinking, you know I should really pick up the dry cleaning?  Don’t you think they know how lucky they are to live in a politically secure, safe, clean country with good education and health insurance?  Sure they have six weeks paid vacation and enjoy going to sunny beaches, but who doesn’t?  Lots of Americans go to Mexico for vacation and love going to Mexican restaurants, but that doesn’t mean that Americans have a national envy of Mexico.

            One more thing about this whole Euro zone bailout business.  It is well known that several rich states, such as New York, pay more money in taxes to the United States federal government than they receive in federal benefits.  Several poor states, such as Alabama, pay less money in taxes to the federal government than they receive in federal benefits.  Does that mean that New York is bailing out Alabama?  Or, do New Yorkers and the federal government understand that we rise and fall as one nation and one US Dollar?  Germany and Greece are certainly not in the same country like New York and Alabama – not by a long shot – but they do have the same currency.  So, let’s do a little thought experiment.  Let’s pretend that every state has its own currency.  New York, as a very rich state, would have a strong currency, could borrow money at low rates, could pay for infrastructure, and could attract top talent from around the country because it could pay workers in a very strong currency.  Alabama, as a relatively poor state, would have a weaker currency.  It could borrow money at high interest rates or not at all, and it would be hard to attract talent because nobody wants to get paid in weak Alabama dollars.  Worst of all, lots of talented, smart Alabamans would probably leave to work in states with stronger economies and currencies.  Alabama’s economy doesn’t really affect New York’s economy.  In fact, the New Yorkers like how strong the New York dollar is, because it helps them lure top talent from states with weaker currencies.  Now, in that case, do you think New York would be so happy to pay for Alabama’s benefits?  Of course, one can only speculate about an answer, but it’s definitely something to think about.

Please stay tuned for future installments of Has the Grey Lady Been Drinking?