The Wealth of Nations

A fellow Democrat made the following observation:

Trickle-down economics is a great and compelling theory. Fact is it’s an urban myth.

Trickle-down economics is not exactly an urban myth. It’s based on the theories of the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith, and I had to wade my way through his incredibly long book, The Wealth of Nations, in a class I took.

The trouble is that Adam Smith lived in and wrote for village economies of the 18th Century, and what worked then and there doesn’t work here and now.

In the 18th Century, most people knew their neighbors; they all belonged to the same church; the wealthy considered it a moral duty to take care of the poor, and both the wealthy and all the church members knew where to find the poor. The churches had enough money to help when needed, because tithing was not only common, it was often actually enforced.

You can’t expect the wealthy and/or the churches to act as the only safety net we have in today’s world, though. In the first place, nobody but the government knows who all the poor are. In the second place, the strong social contract that obligated the wealthy to take care of them no longer exists.

Also, Adam Smith’s theories assumed that most of the wealth created in a community would stay within that community. That was true then. It is no longer true.

An Adam Smith tie

Trickle-down: It worked fine in the 1700′s, but it just doesn’t work anymore. All those conservatives running around in their Adam Smith ties need to go back to school and have this explained to them.

http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/AdamSmith/

Well, I am an American currently living in Austria, and thanks to my husband’s employment here, I am covered by the Austrian healthcare system. So I’m here to explode a few myths, like how Europeans can’t choose their own doctors, or how they have to wait forever for care, or how universal coverage is bankrupting the countries that offer it.

I chose my doctor here because his office is literally next door to my apartment building. If I need to see him, I call for a same-day appointment — or I can just walk over there. If want to, I can go to any doctor in the country, but I’m very happy with this guy.

I do less waiting here than I do back in the States. There is no deductible for visits to the doctor, or to the ER, or to the hospital. Prescriptions cost a few Euros. And I have a chronic, somewhat debilitating neurological condition, so I am a heavy user of medical services.

No one here has to file bankruptcy over medical bills. No one dies or suffers because they can’t afford medical care.

And there is almost no poverty here. No one starves or freezes on the streets. Okay, fewer people here live in McMansions, but I’m okay with that. And businesses are not fleeing Europe because of the higher taxes, no matter what you may have heard. Innsbruck, where I live, is booming. There is no sign of a recession, no glut of homes on the market, few empty storefronts, and low unemployment.

I don’t worry over here about bridges collapsing or the electrical grid failing. The infrastructure is kept up-to-date, and kept functional.

There is almost no violent crime here. There is no area of Innsbruck in which I would be afraid to walk, even at night, even by myself.

We have been in the homes of people who have jobs equivalent to our own, and I can tell you, from personal observations, that the standard of living here is as high as that in the States.

Julian and I have been living here for four months. We have chosen not to have a car, and that has worked out well. I can get on the bus (or the tram or a train) and get anywhere I want to be. Public transit runs on time, and is cost-effective and efficient.

Oh, and by the way, we know all about those higher European taxes Americans all worry about. We have had many frank and prolonged conversations with people doing just what we do for a living. We know how much they pay in taxes, and we know how much we pay. When you do the math, and balance their higher taxes with the services they get (including virtually free higher education — imagine not having to save for your kids’ college!), well, I, for one, would make that trade any day.

Of course, I happen to believe that kids ought to be able to go to college if they have the ability and the desire, no matter what their parents’ means may be. And I think that it is wrong to allow people to starve in our streets while corporate executives squirrel away their money in tax havens.

I don’t understand why we, as the largest economy in the world, cannot take some lessons from what is working in the EU. The countries are not monolithic; some of them are doing a better job of making things work than others. But to decide that having governments take care of their citizens is evil is ridiculous. Many EU countries are doing far better than we are, both economically and socially.

Frankly, if I could move all those whom I love over here, I would stay here, in a heartbeat. I do love my own country; but my country has chosen to use its deficit spending on ruinous wars, rather than taking care of its citizens and its infrastructure. The priorities of my government are not the priorities I support.

But how much better it would be if my own country would learn from people like me, who have actually lived abroad, rather than from propaganda and the fears of those who have only listened to propaganda.

Now, how many people do you personally know who have lived both in the U.S. and the E.U.? And are you going to believe propaganda (heavily financed by the wealthy), or are you going to listen to someone who has been here, and had the chance to compare?

As our oldest daughter says, this is what a biologist looks like on vacation.

My husband, Julian, went to college for eight years to earn his doctorate. He then put in four years as a “post-doc,” learning his specialty. That’s about what an MD puts in, and believe me, he’s smart enough to be an MD.

However, fortunately for everyone but the people who could sell us luxury goods if we were rich, the man really, really loves doing the kind of basic science that leads to the kinds of discoveries that change lives. He also loves teaching kids to love science.

Furthermore, although I know people think university professors only work 12 hours a week (that’s how long they’re in class, after all), get their summers off, and lie around loafing the rest of the time, my husband worked until 9:00 PM last night, and nearly midnight the night before. He ALWAYS has papers to write, tests to grade, research to do, students to help one-on-one, peer reviews to do, class prep to do. Believe me, it NEVER ENDS.

The people in our state can take away or radically cut his benefits, pathetic as they are. (We’re in a “right-to-work” state — which means “workers-have-no-rights.”) Last year, he got to work for two weeks for free, because of the budget crisis — and believe me, paying for his salary and benefits did not cause the budget crisis. The budget crisis was brought about by the people on Wall Street, and by our elected representatives who turned their backs while Wall Street screwed us all. (AND by the idiots in our state legislature who cut real estate taxes radically and shifted the burden of paying for education onto a sales tax — just in time to meet a roaring recession.)

Now, how much do you think he could make if he were working this hard, with his education and level of expertise, as a chemical engineer? And how much do you think he’s making as a college professor? It would be amusing to see what Bill O’Reilly thinks he makes, given his notions about what public school teachers make. If you get your ideas about the salaries of America’s educators from sources like Fox News, you should take whatever number you think he makes and then cut it in half. And I’ll bet you’ll still be on the high side. Even if he got the kinds of benefits I got when I was working for the state of Ohio (and he doesn’t), that still wouldn’t come close to closing the gap between what he makes as a professor and what a science doctorate plus 20+ years’ experience would earn him in the private sector.

What benefits we here in the “right-to-work” South have, we have largely because universities down here have to compete in the same job market with universities in states like Ohio and Wisconsin, where benefits have traditionally been used to balance the relatively poor pay one gets as an academic in the United States.

I used to work for the state of Ohio, which is not a “right-to-work” state. Ohio pays its employees pretty poorly, but it does offer them good benefits. But, believe me, I used to look at the huge gap between what I was making with my education and experience working for OSU, and what I could have made in the private sector. And I was tempted.

My husband, thus far, has not been too sorely tempted. He puts up with the low pay, the sub-par benefits, and the misperceptions about how much (or little) he does to earn his pay largely for two reasons: the personal satisfaction he gets from his job, and the fact that the people who really count (his peers and the kids he teaches) do understand how hard he works and how valuable he is. He also happens to have my complete support; I’d rather see him happy than rich.

But even Julian could reach the end of his rope, you know. If things get much worse in our state, we will not be much better off with him working than we would be living on Social Security and our retirement savings. And if he leaves, well, good luck replacing him. Why on earth would some newly-minted young Ph.D. choose public service over private industry these days, with benefits shrinking and public respect for public servants vanishing?

So, if you WANT the bottom feeders teaching your children and maintaining your infrastructure and managing your tax money, go ahead! Bust the unions and cut benefits to public employees.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My doctor's office, seen from my balcony

Got to check out the European health care system first-hand yesterday. Went to a physician (next-door, by the way — could have walked in; they don’t require appointments; can go to ANY physician I choose), who sent me to the University hospital for some tests. Must say I’m impressed with the efficiency, convenience, and /complete/ lack of cost. (Turns out Julian and I are covered under Austrian health care because he’s a guest professor at the University.)

The hospital did blood work, urinalysis, and ultrasound. First-class equipment, nice people taking care of me. (They all spoke English, of course.)

My wait at the hospital was about an hour, but that’s because I didn’t recognize their pronunciation of my name the first time they called me. I’ve decided I kind of like “Dee-ah-nay,” though.

Diagnosis: Gastritis, which makes sense. (I seem to have a recurring problem with it.) IV drugs, and a prescription, and come back (anytime — just walk in, day or night) if the pain returns. Everything free, except the prescription, which was €5.10. However, that €5.10 is the quarterly cost for that medication; refills within the quarter will be free.

Conclusion: Gastritis stinks. The European health care system rocks.

Austria 2011 – or, Two Americans with Very Little German Between Them Move to Innsbruck for Four Months

You, me, and Bode Miller

A couple of weeks ago, as I was passing the hotel in which we stayed the last time we were in Innsbruck, I happened to notice a sign advertising a Super Bowl watching party:. €35; all you can eat and drink; American food and Jack Daniels; live bands. Somewhat amused — how many people in Innsbruck could one possibly find who would actually stay up to 4:00 AM to watch an American football game, after all? — I mentioned the party to Julian. Julian mentioned it to Peter. And the next thing I know, I’m buying three tickets for The Hotel Grauer Bär‘s Super Bowl watching party. Seems Peter is a big fan of American-style football, and although Julian is hardly a rabid fan of anything, he does like to watch the Super Bowl. Additionally, Peter told us that Bode Miller, who spends a lot of his time in Innsbruck, occasionally shows up for this kind of shindig. I’m not sure we believed him, though.

I bought our tickets — ticket numbers 6, 7, and 8 — the Thursday before the big game. Three days before the game, and only eight tickets sold; I was beginning to envision a sad little cluster of expats huddled around a flatscreen TV in one of the Grauer Bär’s large lounges — and since the word “expat” always puts me in mind of Hemingway, make that a sad little cluster of absinthe-drinking expats. Maybe, in fact, it would be just Peter, me, Julian, Bode Miller, his ex-Miss Austria girlfriend, and a couple of middle-aged businessmen from the Midwest, drinking absinthe and discussing politics in a world-weary manner.

The party was scheduled to begin at 9:00 PM. Peter said he’d be there around 9:30. Julian and I got there at about 9:45, and found the line to get in reaching out the door and down the block. Nine hundred fans, almost entirely Austrian fans, and mostly under 30 years of age, had shown up at the Grauer Bär to watch this strange collision sport we Americans insist on misidentifying as football.

We got in, checked our coats (numbers 343 and 344) and began wandering from room to room (to room to room to room), looking for Peter. The Grauer Bär had rented additional meeting rooms from the technical school behind the hotel. There were three or four large viewing rooms with multiple screens (and buffets and bars along the walls), a dance/concert room, two or three other rooms with bars and buffets, a smoking room, and a VIP room upstairs from the entrance, where, presumably, there was more food and drink and music and viewing screens.

Amazingly, Peter found us, among the twenty-somethings and the Tirolean Raiders cheerleaders and the Tirolean Raiders (the top-ranked American-style football team in Europe, or so I am given to understand), and we found ourselves food and drink and (eventually) seats in one of the viewing rooms.

Every now and then, we wandered into one of the other rooms to see what was happening there.

This band was playing hits from the ’50′s and ’60′s.

Occasionally, we got ourselves something more to eat or drink.

The American-style food on offer included hamburgers, french fries, onion rings, baked beans, pizza, potato salad, pasta salad, American muffins, and donuts.

Fortunately, Austrians do draw the line at drinking Bud or Miller. This was one of three bars serving Austrian beer and Jack Daniels.

Guests of honor included members of the Tirolean Raiders American-style football team, along with the cheerleaders.

And, sure enough, sometime around 10:30 or so, Bode Miller showed up.

Bode Miller was followed around everywhere by a TV crew and a gaggle of fans . . .

. . . and, apparently, by me.

. . . or, to be fair, by me and our friend Peter, since Peter took at least half these shots.

We were spotted as genuine Americans, and got to talk football with rabid Tirolean fans. Above, Julian tries to remember which the hell city the Cardinals are now playing for.

I’m sure we’re all glad to read that partying until 4:00 AM didn’t mess up Bode’s training. (It would probably be bad manners to mention that Bode lost his next race, badly. Really badly.)

Eventually, of course, the game got started. We missed all the commercials, which were not shown on Austrian television, and the announcers spoke German, but otherwise I expect our experience of the game was pretty much like everyone else’s.

I thought the half-time show was okay, by the way. The Black-Eyed Peas beat the heck out of over-the-hill British rockers.

Useful things learned:

• It is faster to walk home at 4:00 in the morning in Innsbruck than it is to find a bus.
• Austrians put mayonaisse on their french fries. If you don’t speak up quickly, they’ll put it on your fries, too.
• On the other hand, Austrians do not put mayonaisse in their potato salad. Vinegar, yes. Oil, yes. Mustard, maybe. But not mayonaisse.

Austria 2011 – or, Two Americans with Very Little German Between Them Move to Innsbruck for Four Months, continued

In Austria . . .

The flights to Innsbruck went smoothly, with the exception of our dash through the airport in Frankfurt. We should have been better prepared for this; it was at least our third time going from Frankfurt to points south, and that means trying to find gates B1 – B9, which are cleverly hidden. (I know we did this at least once before, with a crowd of teenagers, when we chaperoned a school trip to Italy. I vividly remember following the signs to B concourse, only to find that all B gates were there except B1 – B9, and that there were no signs we could find to guide us to the gates we wanted. Damned if we didn’t go through exactly the same thing this time. I must remember that in order to find gates B1 through B9, it is necessary to find the escalators, and look up. The sign for B1 – B9 is cleverly located at the top of the up escalator.)

After going through passport control twice (I’m still not clear why — maybe once to check our passport and another to check our Schengen visas?), we managed to get on the shuttle bus for our flight in plenty of time, and got on a prop jet for the last leg of our journey — a rather thrilling flight that, towards the end, gave us a fairly close-up view of the Alps around Innsbruck, from considerably below their summits.

Peter met us at the airport, and (miraculously) had a car that held all of our suitcases. A few minutes’ drive brought us to our lovely little apartment, which turns out to be off a main road, and has a lovely view of old and new buildings in Innsbruck, and the Alps that surround us.

View from the balcony, looking toward downtown Innsbruck. Diane, checking Facebook on the first morning in Innsbruck. Another view from the balcony .

Gunde and Peter took us to a lovely, traditional guesthouse for dinner. Both kept apologizing for the cold, but the weather is actually much warmer than we expected. I don’t think we’ll make much use of the heavy clothes we brought until we head up one of the mountains to ski and do some sight-seeing.

Julian has this morning (January 5th — Happy Birthday, Shauna!) headed off to the lab. Later, I will go out and do some shopping. We need more plug adapters, and some everyday items like shampoo and conditioner. Gunde, bless her, brought us a care package, so I don’t think we’ll need groceries for a day or two.

Useful things learned:

• As mentioned, watch out for that sign for gates B1 – B9 in the Frankfurt airport. Head for B concourse, find the escalators, and look up.
• Those carry-ons with wheels? Good idea.

Austria 2011 – or, Two Americans with Very Little German Between Them Move to Innsbruck for Four Months

Preparations . . .

Introductions:

Julian (husband) is on the biology faculty at Winthrop University in Rock Hill. His areas of research are:

• Ecology and Systematics of Marine Meiofauna
• Evolution and Function of Stem-cell Systems in Lower Bilaterians

Diane (wife) is a freelance writer.

Julian’s mentor, friend, and doctoral advisor was Reinhard Reiger, the late head of the Institute for Zoology at the University of Innsbruck.

During the last meeting of the International Society of Flatworm Biologists, Julian was invited by Peter Ladurner of the Institute to do a semester of research in Innsbruck. Winthrop gave permission, so we found ourselves moving to Austria for a semester.

Update, January 2nd: It’s our last night in the states until May 13, 2011. Two of the kids (“kids” aged 21 to 31) and four of their friends, children, and significant others are now in charge of the house and the animals.

Wow.

Thanks to our friend Peter Ladurner at the Institute there, we have found a wonderful apartment to rent. Note: This turned out to be really, really lucky. It’s incredibly hard to find an apartment in Innsbruck, and nearly impossible if you are (as we were) arriving at the height of the ski season. Serendiptously, Anil (a post-doc at the University) had gone in to see the department secretary to tell her that he was looking for someone to sublease his apartment while he was out of the country, because he really didn’t want to lose it and then have to look for another when he got back. The next day, Peter went in to the secretary to tell her he had a couple coming to stay in Innsbruck and ask her if she knew of anyone looking to sublet.

However, before one can spend more than three months in Austria, one must first apply for a Schengen Visa. This can only be done in person at the nearest Austrian consulate . . .

. . . which for us is at the Austrian Embassy . . .

. . . in Washington, D.C. Here, one applies for a Schengen visa, which is a Visa that lets you into all the countries that have signed the Schengen Agreement.

With the sudden realization that we leave in little more than a week, one of us has become obsessed with the weather in Innsbruck. The other has started to panic.

More to come . . .

Useful things learned:

• Before you go to the consulate, you first call them. The phone number is listed on the web site, and each phone call costs €12,70, for which you will need to have your credit card handy. However, the people you are talking to do not actually work at the consulate. And, alas, not everything they tell you may be accurate, and there may be a thing or two they leave out. For example:
  • We were told we would need to bring our application fee in exact change, and in Euros. So we did. When we got there, we found out we needed to have our application fee, in exact change, in dollars.
  • We were not told that we needed to bring a self-addressed, postage-paid envelope for the consulate to use in sending us our visas. I notice that this information has now been added to the web site, but I didn’t see it at the time (despite printing out that page and using it as a check list), and they did not mention this on the phone.
• The Consulate does not make appointments for visa applications. You just show up. Make sure you check their list of holidays before you turn up, though, with your 18 documents and your fees in exact change, dollars. The Consulate is closed for U.S. and Austrian holidays.
• Wanna stay cheaply and conveniently in the D.C. area? We rented a cabin in Pohick Bay Regional Park, and caught the Metro in.

Mark Sanford

Okay. I’ve joined every anti-Mark Sanford group I can find, but the fact remains that there seems to be nothing we South Carolinians can do to make our governor accept the stimulus money for education.

What’s he’s doing is not technically illegal, so we can’t impeach him. Those who drafted our state constitution failed to include a provision for a vote of no-confidence. The state supreme court ruled that the state legislature can’t accept the money if Sanford turns it down.

It seems we’re running out of options.

With no place else to turn, I’ve placed an ad on Craig’s List.* Oddly enough, Sanford is wildly popular with certain elements within the Republican Party. So, why not let them have him? If out there somewhere there is a state crazy enough to prefer back-to-basics conservatism (whatever the heck that may be when it’s at home), I’m sure a majority of South Carolinians would gladly trade Sanford for their stimulus funds.

*Originally, I post Sanford for sale under “tools,” but that ad got flagged and removed. The ad is now posted under “politics.” Some people have no sense of humor.

The picture that says it all

The election is over, and we no longer have to worry about what McCain would do to the Supreme Court, or about what four to eight more years of conservative control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives would be like. Thank God in all her goodness . . .

There are still worries, of course. The stock market is in the tank, the housing market is in the tank, the job market is in the tank. Having Obama as president doesn’t magically solve any of these problems, nor does it make disengaging ourself from the deadly, disastrous, illegal, and costly war in Iraq an easy thing to do.

But the changes in the political landscape do make good things possible, and I am going to take a brief moment to bask in the Obamaness of the moment.

Please join me on the Facebook Group, “For a little while, let’s all bask in the Obamaness of the moment,” <http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48203962496>. Share election night memories, war stories from the campaign, whatever.