May 5, 2006
HOW DO YOU SAY "HAD ENOUGH?" IN GERMAN?:
Public Housing in Private Hands (MARK LANDLER, 5/05/06, NY Times)
Ingolf Rossberg is the mayor of this majestic eastern German city. But watching him stride around his ballroom-size office, wreathed in smoke from his cigarillo, one could mistake him for a European real estate tycoon.Yet he is that after a fashion. Mr. Rossberg reached a deal in March to sell Dresden's entire stock of 48,000 city-owned apartments to an American private equity firm, the Fortress Investment Group, for $1.2 billion. In a single stroke, Dresden wiped out its burdensome public debt.
"We had to move fast," he said, "because if you had 10 German cities selling their property, it would be a buyer's market."
That may soon be the case. [...]
The foreign appetite dovetails nicely with Germany's needs: virtually every major German city is awash in debt. And with the limited health of a convalescing German economy, they have had few other ready ways to raise funds. Thanks to its sale, Dresden can promote itself as the first debt-free major city in the country.
Mayor Rossberg, who selected the Fortress bid after cutting a list of 83 bidders to three finalists, said, "We found that the interests of Fortress were parallel to the interests of Dresden."
The central theme of the Democratic Party for the past three election cycles, and the upcoming one, is that Americans have had enough of the Thid Way and want to revert to the New Deal/Great Society Second Way that gave us the 70s. To make that case, not only do they have to repudiate Bill Clinton's presidency--their only success since the 70s--but they have to ignore that the entire Anglosphere and even parts of continental Europe are headed in precisely the opposite direction. Now, it's at least theoretically possible that there's been an instant in the modern era when America was the most Leftist nation in the developed world, but I sure can't think of it and am deeply dubious that this is a new one. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 5, 2006 1:19 PM
You are right about Dems and seeming willingness to self-destruct. What better example that the 2nd way doesn't work than a look at Continental Europe? Stagnant growth, an unemployment rate that is twice that of the U.S.'s. On the other hand, ex-Soviets countries, with low, flat tax rates are growing at an incredibly fast rate.
Posted by: Michael at May 5, 2006 3:41 PMI'm still at a loss to explain why Gore went off the rails in 200 and decided to run a 70s style class war campaign, with Bob Shrum leading the charge.
With the exception of his naivity regarding the environment, Gore like Clinton had been a new dem centrist? Why abandon all that for proven failure? It seems he would've won in 2000 if he'd stayed in the middle.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at May 5, 2006 4:13 PMInstinct.
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2006 4:20 PMGravity.
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 5, 2006 5:09 PMGlobal warming fried his brain.
Posted by: jdkelly at May 5, 2006 5:53 PMUh, Ich habe genug.
Posted by: Ed Bush at May 5, 2006 6:10 PMShort answer: It's all Michael Dukakis' fault.
Long answer: The lefty myth about the 1988 election is that two weeks before the election, Dukakis -- advised by Shrum -- gave up his technocrat schtick and moved hard left. He instantly moved up in the polls and, as the lefties put it, if the election had been three days later, Dukakis would have won.
Thus, the left believes that the electorate hungers for a true lefty candidate. Gore, advised by Shrum and trying to separate himself from Clinton, moved left and won the popular vote. John Kerry, the most liberal senator, came within only 60,000 votes in Ohio from becoming President. Whoever is the nominee in 2008 will be sure to move to the left, too.
Posted by: David Cohen at May 5, 2006 8:18 PMRecall too that the most dangerous part of any campaign is falling for your own crowds. It drove Pat Buchanan left in 1992 and Gore left in the primary fight with Bradley. Neither ever came back.
Posted by: oj at May 5, 2006 8:36 PMIf McCain wins CA, what are the Dems going to say then?
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 5, 2006 11:46 PM