börsianer börsiana

The experimental nature and political integration that characterize the euro and the European Union I think may be draw unfair attention, as something perceived as more novel and catastrophic than it really is. Japanese public debt stands at some 230% of its gross domestic product (Bruttoinlandsprodukt), placing Greece squarely in the middle with 152% to America’s 99.5% reported debt that’s just at the break-even mark. Japan even managed to reach these heights outside of the strictures of a monetary or trade union and was free to fine-tune its economy and despite a robust manufacturing sector.

Most of the industrialized states in Western Europe hover around eighty percent. Some can abide and that’s a clever little measure that puts us all in our places all a great spectrum of investment and returns but of course that too is imperfect, not capturing intangibles and not taking into account circumstance like needs and means. Much impatience and frustration (right or wrong) is being visited on Germany for action, and Germany probably will in the end, before the capital and patience of the public evaporates, make a move that inspires a strange, predatory sort of confidence—a more direct endorsement, seemingly, than the mechanisms of bureaucracy. Such heroic cooperation, however, begs the question whether member states are agreeing to whatever bundle of rules and accords out of solidarity and desire to reform, regroup or just in a bid to get enough support to continue the same game. Germany certainly would not want to see all the avatar currencies returned, making a situation where the once-and-future Deutsch Mark is considerably more valuable than a splintered euro. Is such reasoning for this experimentation and not political unity the driving-factor behind a broader movement of aid and assistance?

swatches

I suppose I am not organized or disciplined enough to be a proper curator—or stick with an intelligible theme—and such things do matter among miscellany and easy-of-access considering what goes forgotten and neglected, but I was looking for a specific kind of pattern and all these diverse textile designs did strike me as having some sort of association, in a Jungian common-fate sort of way. The first is a very mod pattern from 1960, British I think. The second is from an artist working in the 1920s named Maria Likarz and suggests a hail of unread emails. The third is a 1950s Eames Era inspired print that looks like something viral, a transmission. The fish pattern is by Wiener Werkstätte compatriot Hans Carl Perleberg and I think is brilliant for the hues and direction. The blackboard abstraction is by Orphian movement founder Sonia Delaunay. And the narrow stack of arches are also from the workshops of Vienna and prefigure one of the standards of Art Dèco architecture, whose successor style—like all these other periods—hold a timeless that maybe groups them together.
















 

ex ante or porto portugal you are permanently punished

This week’s vote in Ireland whether to accept or reject the conditions of the European Union Fiscal Compact, a treaty meant to promote financial stability and responsibility through punitive measures and supranational controls, was a stirring of an issue that goes dormant as member states shuttle in queue and declare what they expect their prerogatives to be.

All countries, with the exception of the UK and the Czech Republic, have now assented and one can expect the process to lurch quietly towards enforcement next year. Ireland, uniquely contrary and potentially ruinous, had a pivotal decision, not so much for deigning to participate, but for letting the voters of Ireland make that mandate—being the only EU member to put the Fiscal Compact up to a plebiscite. Public engagement results in education and a better understanding of the expectations and consequences. The Irish constitution has to now be amended in order to conform to the terms of the compact, which demands that signatories stay just under budget or face fines and surrender trade and tariff matters to the EU government. States still retain control over tax regimes and public projects but it is a legitimate question how meaningful that exercise of prerogative and priorities are still when tethered within the latitude of treaty rules and whether the conditions of this pact are going beyond the reserved rights of individual sovereignty as put out in the language of the Lisbon Treaty (Vertrag von Lissabon). Rejection would mean that Ireland or any other dissenter would be ineligible to receive emergency aid and rescue funds. The EU has the bully pulpit, along with the deportment of its top performers, but also has a sloshing budget of billions with only nominal and ethereal accountability and negatively reinforced, and it seems to me that this poses more of a danger than a deterrent, like keeping a standing army in times of peace.

peer gynt

Though still several weeks away, I am very, very excited about planning for our next big vacation—this time to explore a bit of Norway, and the maiden voyage of our new camper van. And there is definitely something too about being about to plot one's own course that is only gotten through driving. I have been studying quite a bit about the history and culture of the place and find it interesting how the more attention that one pays to a subject (parallel to the car we are waiting to take possession of, which seems to be on the road everywhere right now) happenings and coincidence seem to coalesce and get in the spot-light.

Though I am sure that the majesty of nature, one of the chief things to find out, is something immediate, I suspect that knowing at least a little of the historical and cultural context of a destination (or a whole string of them) infinitely contributes, beyond the facts and the figures and preparedness, to the whole grand experience of discovery and reconciling the unexpected.

shadow-boxing

With the confirmation that the United States and Israel collaborated on the complex and aggressive computer virus, Stuxnet, that lamed Iran’s nuclear programme, the command and control of war-fighting limned a clear picture, which is coming into sharper focus.

Nontraditional threats, at least the ones that are being paraded publicly, demand a new keenness of response and watchfulness. What is being lent to this quiver—this arsenal, however, sometimes seems like a bag full of equivocations and though not a personal vendetta something to prove, full of hubris and machismo. The legions of drones and agile units at one’s disposal are something outside the purview of checks and balances (only the Congress retaining the power to raise armies but falling below the threshold of expense and native blood) and are not unlike the braggadocio of Iraq and others designed to intimidate their neighbours, regardless of what fangs were behind the threat. America’s behaviour is approaching the limits of might conceded or vested in any democratic government and are a deflection of that same threat, reinterpreted as courtly intrigues (though one may meet their end without dignity or ceremony, carried out from above like a bolt from Zeus) and was former only found in Shakespearian characters and comic book super-villains.

dialect continua or oh rosamunde, we’ll have a barrel of fun

Though still rather persistently disheartening, the myths of formative language years (that the brains of juveniles are plastic enough to easily pick up a new language but adults become too set and rigid) or that bi-lingual exposure results in a poorer language arts skills in both tongues have been debunked.

I’d be happy to attribute my dithering German abilities to shyness and laziness rather than some physical and developmental limitations, and I am finding that when trying to delve deeper than the gist of a article or a conversation, being able to more than follow but to repeat, report and better participate, I get very muddled with the prefixes—those inseparable parts of words (er-, ver-, ent-, ab- and so on) that are more transformative, nuanced than their English counterparts. When I come across a new word (usually in writing and usually something that that I’d just elide over when heard) I try some techniques, memory-hacks, to make the meaning stickier. Ent- as a part of speech can be especially tricky to puzzle out sometimes, for example, but usually connotes to me a casting out or taking off or a loss. The similarly-sounding Ente is a canard, a more concrete concept, and encountering an unfamiliar word, I try to imagine a deprived duck doing whatever root-word Ent- is modifying. It can be jarring to hear and drive some people crazy when things are too mixed, but I also am finding that intentional Code-Switching (Kodewechsel) is also helpful—specifically when all hope seems lost trying to remember a word encountered constantly that still needs to be looked up. It’s rather heavy-handed and nonsensical, but one can plop down a stubborn word into a familiar jingle or marketing phrase and then never forget it again: like “Alive with Vergnügen” or “Sippe of the Cave Bear” or “the committee for Truth and Versöhnung.” Eventually, I think it does stay without the need of employing such silly tricks.

bootstrap or birthright

For a land built for the most part on immigration, it seems sometimes like an arcane technicality that only natural born United States citizens can hold the office of presidency. I found the Birther hysteria undignified and distracting, although I didn't much appreciate California's bid a few years ago to amend the US Constitution so that a cyborg could become president. Turning the tables a bit, Reuters' examined the birth certificate of another contender in the election, illustrating that though a generation removed, the issue invited controversy and interpretation in the other camp as well. The candidate's father was born in Mexico, and once upon a time, sought the nomination of his political party to vie against Richard Nixon as a more moderate choice. The campaign was short-lived but demanded a definition of what a natural citizen is exactly, his parents both Americans. At the time, most judges and experts agreed with his reading. It does not seem, however, that being born outside of US territory was quite accidental, since religious colonies of dissidents were founded there to protest another very special type of non-traditional marriage that the US federal government was against and the family only, it seems, returned to America because of the Mexican Revolution.