Politics
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 On the occasion of th G20-meeting in Toronto, the German Economics minister Herr Schaüble said that without restoring confidence it would not be possible to get consumer spending and business investment going. Similar remarks were made by David Cameron and Señor Zapatero of Spain. All maintain that confidence is a pre-requisite to get growth going and that, therefore, it was imperative to reduce fiscal deficits. Reducing the fiscal deficit will restore confidence at first. |
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| Submitted by Hanns-Jürgen Hodann on Sat, 07/03/2010 - 16:50 | |
Insight: Confidence Trap and Growth|
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This insight provides another reason that should not be overlooked when arguing against torture and shows why its use to obtain information is not acceptable. To obtain information torture is quicker and more efficient then the alternative: in-depth investigation. However, the use of torture, because of its purported eficiency and fast results, will lead to reliance on it as method to obtain badly needed information. |
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| Submitted by Hanns-Jürgen Hodann on Tue, 06/08/2010 - 20:55 | |
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Contraflow bus lanes seem to produce a never ending succession of accidents involving pedestrians. An understandable reaction is that pedestrians are careless and that more visible indicators of the potential danger is an appropriate measure. This leads to the 'Symptomatic Solution' - but unfortunately accidents are not usually stopped by symptomatic solutions. Another but potentially far more costly and time-consuming approach is available: investigating a fundamental solution. |
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| Submitted by Hanns-Jürgen Hodann on Thu, 06/03/2010 - 15:31 | |
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Terrorists use acts of terrorism to force governments to make concessions. However, when attacks are directed against democracies they create powerful negative feedback loops that militate against concessions. In system terms: the harder you push, the harder the system pushes back. (Although the insight represents a 'fixes-that-fail' structure, individual reactions against the attacks can be seen as negative feedback loops.) If terrorists knew about system effects, presumably they would see the utter futility of their acts. |
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| Submitted by Hanns-Jürgen Hodann on Sat, 05/22/2010 - 16:10 | |
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The principal driver of German behaviour within the EU has been to demonstrate that Germany was a reliable and peaceful partner within the EU. German desire for re-unification meant making other nations in the EU (through exemplary behaviour) disposed to support this eventuality. However, after re-unificaton in October 1990 the gap between the desired state( to bring about re-unification ) and the actual state disappeared: no gap, no action. Germany no longer had any incentive to behave less sefishly than other EU nations. |
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| Submitted by Hanns-Jürgen Hodann on Thu, 05/20/2010 - 20:03 | |