"Lost", Fu Manchu, and Corporate Governance

I'm one of those "Lost" fans that can't help themselves. The writers keep throwing out so-called explanations that just make less sense than the original nonsense but persist. I just want some closure.

Since I'm not a complete idiot, I realize the "Lost" writers will deny me that basic human need. So I'm forced to find meaning in my addiction through alternate means.

In the most recent episode, "Lost" reminded me of a bit of comparative corporate governance insight buried in the show's convoluted storylines. If you think this is a stretch, bear with me for just one second.

Optimism & Jugaad

A newly released pole quantifies the optimism I mentioned in my earlier post on India. The Mint has a basic recap here. For a full copy of the survey conducted by London's Legatum Group, look here.

The Mint piece mentions jugaad, which is a Hindi word meaning basically "a quick and dirty fix." It's analogous to our "Yankee ingenuity" or the "can-do spirit" but implies a bit more in the way of obstacles.

I heard about jugaad from a number of people while I was in India. Its implication can vary widely. Some people use it positively, like Yankee Ingenuity. It can also be sardonic as hell.

Hopefully, the optimists win out. The Legatum survey suggests that entrepreneurs are nearly unanimous in wanting a more responsive and less corrupt government. As this constituency becomes more powerful, that may well come to pass.

Also, IBM is extending its start-up partnership program to India. That should give India start-ups some necessary infrastructural support and access to clients they currently lack.

European Disunion

Only a few weeks ago it seemed like Greece's EU friends would take care of it. That idea fell through, though, and now Germany and France are squabbling over whether to bring the IMF in to deal with the problem. As if things weren't bad enough on the Continent, Portugal's debt was downgraded with exquisite timing.

Germany's reluctance to bankroll a Grecian bailout is pretty understandable. Athens routinely cooked their books when times were good, and the Greek public is throwing fits over cuts to a posh welfare state they couldn't afford to begin with. Add to the Greeks' own bad behavior the fact that Germany is essentially the keystone for all of Europe's economy these days and you can comprehend why Germans might be getting a little frustrated.

These troubles highlight just how weak the EU is as a political institution. EU member states must beg their sister states for help--the equivalent of Florida having to go directly to New York every time it wanted to repair hurricane damage. Despite all the regulations coming out of Brussels, the EU is still more of a confederation than a real union. During the EU elections last year, I kept hearing a weary sort of optimism from Europeans about the future strength of the EU. The Grecian Dilemma (sounds like a Ludlum story about hair dye) casts more cold water on that dream.

Links

There was a very good article in yesterday'sNY Times about the testing culture in India's middle class, focusing on the need for more good colleges and universities to handle the country's huge young population. Random impressive statistic: 320,000 students applied for I.I.T.'s 8,000 open spots.

The university overcrowding was behind the Cabinet's recent decision to open up higher education to foreign universities--three cheers for another protectionist barrier falling!

To drive home the connection between university quality and development, here's an article from the January Economist about the "Engineering Gap" between the U.S. and India.

But that is not just an issue for outsourced jobs--the Indian tech sector still lags behind in creating new technologies despite its huge domestic market.

Red Tape Indian-Style

Certain times in history belong to specific places. Chicago in the 1890s, New York in the '50's, Paris in the '20s; where all the varied currents in the world seem to come together in one spot and define a moment. Right now the moment belongs to the BRICs; Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

To visit India now is heady stuff. In Mumbai they are repaving the airport's runway with a gang of women using hand tools and baskets full of gravel on their heads. But the airport is busy with new low-fare airlines, and increased middle class air travel is pushing that expansion. An Indian wine industry is gaining real traction.

Our generation is the last to know a pre-reform India--a country that derided its own stagnant economy as the "Hindu rate of growth." There was nothing inherently Indian about the poverty, though. It was the country's forty-year experiment in socialism that held it back. Rampant protectionism, planned economies, and a self-propagating bureaucracy strangled an economy that, at independence in 1947, was one of the developing world's most vibrant and industrialized. Now the restraints are falling away.

Bikes & Rules of Recognition

Apparently there is a big split among bike commuting advocates about traffic laws. While everyone agrees that the current rules of the road in most cities are designed to benefit drivers at everyone else's expense, one group claims bikers should follow the current rules while another holds that to do that adds up to treason against the entire bicycle community.

The dissenters' argument boils down to this: bikes are different than cars and need their own, bike-specific traffic laws; since they don't have those, the current laws are invalid; since the current laws are invalid, cyclists shouldn't follow them. Well, that sounds fine at first - especially because it rips off some old fashioned American political rhetoric - but there's a big difference between "invalid" laws that are unjust (e.g. segregation) and those that are invalid merely because they could be better.

The really bad principle behind the argument that bikers shouldn't follow the traffic laws is that only cyclists are considered capable of determining whether traffic laws are valid. No dice, friends. If you don't like the current rules, agitate to change them - but I missed the memo giving Critical Mass a veto over traffic laws.

Real Americans

Frank Rich's editorial in the Sunday Times was one of the better bits so far about the recent torrent of race baiting from GOP barkers. The upshot of Rich's thinking is that righty-whitey accusations and rants indicate deep anxiety about their soon-to-be minority status.

There's a lot more to it than that, of course. Sure, some people are surely struggling with Big Questions about What Their Country Means; experiences other than Mayberry-certified stories now carry the President's and the Supreme Court's stamp of authority. But some of the vitriol seems motivated by a pure instinct that white folk must not cede their place at the top of the pack.

In Other News

Japan is starting jury trials. More accurately, a current case is the first jury trial in Japan in over sixty years but they are conducting mock trials to work the system out. The usual warring theories abound: jurors can't make good decisions, judge only courts lack transparency, etc.

The current system involves three judge panels. This first jury case involves both six jurors and three judges. Curiously (at least from a UK/US point of view) at least one of the judges has to agree with the jury's verdict.

The article mentions a few other interesting details. First, Japan boasts a 99% conviction rate. I have a hunch that the Japanese police are not 99% good. Second, Japan had a jury system from the mid-1920s until 1943. It seems like an odd exception to the US-designed political overhaul after the War to leave out a jury system.

As an added historical tid-bit: Japan actually adopted the German Civil Code not longer after the Buergerliches Gesetz Buch was adopted, during the Meiji period when Japan was busily modernizing everything.

Cobbles are for Suckers

If there is one word for biking around Munich, it is "civilized." This works on a couple levels. First, there's no antagonism between bikes and cars - they actually give you the right of way and pay attention - making it a lot safer (hardly anyone wears a helmet). Which means, second, that there's no dumb bike culture. Which means, third, you can ride grandad bikes without feeling like a middle-aged guy whose mom packs his lunch.

These are the only bikes you can actually ride while wearing a suit and there aren't many things to make you feel more civilized than biking in a suit. Until you reach the cobble stones. They are uncivilized. They are dumb. It was fine when they were the only sensible alternative to mud and dung but they are officially well past their sell-by date. Hours after a long ride today and my ass still hurts.

There's a batch of urban planners that advocate for reviving cobble stones in the States, claiming they do everything from reduce pedestrian injuries (slower car speeds) to emanate somethingorother that will magically undo all the real and imagined damages the car has wreaked on American community. These people are charlatans.

Michael Jackson, Iran, and Anticipation

I know it's a big deal that Michael Jackson died, and it's a big deal in Germany too (they love him here), and that Iran is holding the world on edge, but I only care about one thing right now.

Counting the Days

Sunday is almsot here . . .

Public Service Announcement

1. Americans do not watch class action suits like they are the Roman games.
2. That woman burned by the McDonald's coffee? She was disfigured for life in some very sad, personal ways, and this had happened to more than McD's customer before. The jury smacked McDonald's because McDonald's was negligent and callous and disregarded basic standards of human decency.
3. We have a more or less non-existent social welfare system. When we get hurt and lose our jobs, we don't still get to take our two week national naptime (I'm looking at you, Holland).
4. Some of us have actually heard of your country and do know where to find it on the map.
5. You need immigrants, you idiots. Shut up and let them make money.
6. Seriously, guy - I know more about your country than you know about mine. Cut me some slack. I really like it here. I happily disfigure your language all the time. I even made a joke in German today. That's the second this week. Yes, dammit - I play soccer all the time . . . and, yes, I understand offsides.

German Legal Term of the Day

"Quotenkonsolidierungsverfahren" = pro rata consolidation procedure.

This is a very specific phrase/word having to do with consolidation of interests in banking. (Here's an old report discussing different views on the subject . . . if you're really that interested, the mention of pro-rata is at the very end.) In some ways, like with some of the other words I've shared, it's no different than shoving an entire English phrase into a single word. But in other ways, it sums up the German approach in one ten-syllable shot.

Despite the fact that German attorneys have all these long words, they use American nicknames for corporate take-overs. And they like them because they make it sound cool; poison pill, saturday night special, white night, black night, green mail, squeeze-out, etc. They make long words, we try and sound like gangsters.

Photo Album Updated

I fixed the problem with the photo links to the right. They're updated now with a lot more shots.

Feed the Birds

Went to London for the weekend. Three observations. First, Frankfurt-Hahn Airport is really a bus station with planes.

Second, if the coffee costs only 70p - don't buy it.

Third, when I woke up in the bus on the way back into town yesterday I actually saw the skyline and thought, "nice to be home."

The European Disunion

I haven't written about the recent EU elections yet (which wrapped up on Sunday after four days of voting) because, frankly, nobody was talking about it. There were articles in the papers but they were stuffed by news of the iminent (and now effective) insolvency of Anachron, the Opel deal, and the Air France search. Last week, one of the Frankfurt papers ran a double-spread about the European Parliament but it's tone was almost like a travelogue, a peek into a far-off alien world.

The Hearings That Weren't

If you haven't heard any of This American Life's coverage of the financial crisis, check it out. Teaming up with the folks from Planet Money, TAL does a great job. Their most recent broadcast deals with the government regulators and the credit rating companies. Both function - or are supposed to function - as gatekeepers. During the last decade or so, they did anything but.

If the latest episode doesn't clarify why some level of legal literacy is important in a democracy, I don't know what will. For years, under Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses, American kept saying they wanted less regulation. Based on their anger these days, it doesn't seem like they knew what they were asking for. But they got it, in spades.

German Legal Term of the Day

Hypothekenschuldverschreibung = "collateral mortgage bond"

I share my office with two other "trainees," Daniel and Nafissatou. Daniel is German and Nafissatou is Nigerien by way of France (that's Nigerien, not Nigerian - from Niger). Nafissa doesn't share my love of long German legal terms. She just shakes her head at them. Daniel is amused. As proud of the Bundesgesetz as German lawyers are, they have a very good sense of humor about some of its tics.

My boss once said he thought the only [European] language with longer words was Finnish. But then "you have no vowells." It's the tiny victories.

Sounds of Frankfurt

Also: more photos of Mainz and Frankfurt (including new graf) in the slide show on the right.

Me, Mainz, and I

Mainz is a small city not far west of Frankfurt, sitting at the point where the River Main flows into the Rhein.  The Rhein is one of Europe's major rivers, and always has been, so Mainz has hosted some illustrious guests; the Romans, Seubi, Alans, Belgae, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne, every Holy Roman Emperor, Guttenburg, Napolean, Nazis, Patton, and Patrick.

I took the trian over to Mainz on Saturday.  It was raining, and cold, and majestic in its own way.  The cathedral is a towering heap of red stone hulking the middle of another recreated Altstadt.  It is not a charming building.  It is enormous and dark and full of great tombstones erected by the important that are covered with dancing skeletons.  But the other buildings run right up into it, right against the outside walls so that the entire place feels crowded in and it would seem perfectly reasonable if some 18th century prince turned the corner and looked down his inbred nose at you.

Up on the hill, above the cathedral is a citadel built during the mid-1600s.  It sits above the ruins of a Roman amphitheater, once the largest north of the alps (no, I have no idea if that's impressive - it looked small).  The entire citadel is preserved and you're free to wander the ramparts and look down at the Rhein, keeping an eye out for the Hessians (you could also walk over to the other side and watch out for Bonnie).

All this was great, despite the rain, but the actual reason I was there was the Roman fort.  There was - supposedly - a tower built by the Romans in the first century.  I walked around Mainz for three hours in the rain, asking docents and strangers and any one else if they knew where the Roman tower was.  No one knew.  Mainz has some great parks, by the way.

And there is a Roman tower, part of a fort built in the first century.  It is inside the citadel, in the southwest corner behind the old canteen.  The Romans built it as part of their attempt to link the Rhein and the Danube and keep all the Germans out of Gaul.  They weren't succesful.

You can keep your Franks, Carolingians, and all the rest.  Just trying to keep the tribes straight (why were the Belgae so far south, anyway?) is impossible.  Their names all sound familiar but none of the history makes any sense with everyone running back and forth across the river and moving from Poland to Spain and back again.  And here is this little tower, not much to look at, but still standing almost intact after two thousand years.  Good builders, the Romans.