Reading half the article

When stuck for summat to do in Frankfurt, often when waiting for the local train service home, I often drift into book/magazine stores and take a look round.

In the days when my finances were in better shape, I might have bought a magazine. These days I am prone to only browse through one or two (never for too long, they tend to complain!).  Yesterday the front cover of the current affairs magazine, Focus, caught my eye. Focus is a bit more conservative than its two major rivals, Spiegel and Stern (both of which I read on my too frequent trips to the doctor's surgery these days), so maybe it would have summat to challenge my brain cells - never get too dogmatic, alternative views must be considered before being rejected.

The (translated) article header was "Obama or Romney, which choice would be better for Germany?". A no-brainer, obviously Obama (not just for Germany but IMHO for the US as well!), but consider the arguments anyway.

This of course caused logistical problems - like how do you read a six page article in depth without paying the €3.70 you cannot afford for the magazine?  Which meant three separate visits to read the relevant bits, and skipping the bits that you already know (given my masochist tendencies, as I follow American politics more closely than even most Americans, quite a lot of the article could fall into that category).

It started with the interesting punchline that 90% of Germans would prefer Obama (as only 85% of Germans turn out to vote in elections, that seems a bit high, the last time I saw such a stat here was the number of Germans who opposed involvement in the Iraq War - and the figure must include most German conservatives who are usually very pro-American).  "This is maybe based upon a misconception",  it continued.

Ignore the humorous references to Obama being "Mister Cool" and Romney being "Mister Pannenmann" (Panne - slip, glitch, mishap) and get to the meat.

Rather like the German government embarked upon government savings programmes (= cutting spending on things, interestingly including defence!) in 2009 and 2010, so Romney would do for the US. This of course is the proverbial "good thing". More stability in the world economy usw.

All well and good. Not reading the article in full, I didn't catch the bit where his tax plans (according to neutral economists) would add 5 trillion dollars to the US Debt .... Savings elsewhere will not cover anything like that. Looked for Bill Clinton's comment about "arithmetic" - didn't find that either.

Then at the end there were the traditional bits that Romney would be better for the markets (the Dow Jones has risen 5,000 points since Obama replaced Bush, so I do not quite see that), the Dollar (yesterday the "crisis hit" (????) Euro hit a 4-month high against the US$, the strong dollar though disappeared with the end of the Clinton administration - its decline is into its 13th year). And .... Anyone who checks recent history will see that all the economic stats which supposedly work well with the Republicans in power actually work far better with the Democrats running things (unemployment under Obama is too high, but given the crisis in 2008, it could have been a lot higher - and while you are there check where it was throughout the Reagan years, pretty much where it is now). 

Interestingly the article concluded with a load of hedging. Reading the (complete) Washington Post article by the always excellent E. J. Dionne yesterday, it is obvious that an Obama win would still leave difficulties with a GOP dominated congress, so things will not change that much. But relationships would remain pretty much intact. Things are far better in that respect than during the Bush years, and as Romney on economic and foreign policy comes across as "Bush on steroids" (to slightly misquote Bill Clinton), change would hardly seem to be in Germany's interest - for once majority opinion is correct!