The shocks that remade German politics

Adam Tooze has an excellent post. Some teasers. He starts off with an excerpt from The Economist.

In a recent piece in the Economist Jeremy Cliffe put it well: 

Why, then, is Germany less mighty than it looks? First, its size can be a weakness … too small to dominate Europe (proportionally it is about as big in population terms as California in America) but big enough that others feel daunted and seek to contain it … Second, Germany’s establishment is different. America has a powerful executive, Britain has a high degree of centralisation and France has both, but in Germany power is diffuse and plural. Opinion is more diverse than the notion of a monolithic German interest and outlook allows … So multilayered and multifaceted are German politics and public life that the country can be in fact frustratingly introverted. Even at the peak of her powers, Mrs Merkel was more a crisis manager than a visionary leader.”

He then addresses Germany's climate/energy policy that is high on aims but rather low on promised results before he then turns to Germany's real problem, the connection between inequality and macroeconomic imbalance and shows an IMF flowchart.

Today, Germany runs a trade surplus which, in proportion to GDP, is far in excess of the levels achieved during the golden age of the “economic miracle”. 

Here are Germany’s figures in European comparison from an excellent recent report by the IMK, the macroeconomic research institute of the German trade union movement, now headed by Sebastian Dullien.

He then turns to Germany's main problem, weak consumption and high income inequality. Coincidentally, the FAZ shitpaper today runs an article "Rich as never before" which regurgitates a Bundesbank publication.

Do read the full post. Lots of good graphs.

"sexualization may be a marker of social climbing among women that track the degree of status competition in the local environment."

Heiko, se non ti lecchi le dita ...

Remember then Justice Minister und midget Heiko Maas' drive against sexualized advertisements and plan to ban it by a law in 2016?

That small Heiko is a fucking idiot with a penchant for older retreaded women is no secret but it is even more reassuring that there is now proof.

Income inequality not gender inequality positively covaries with female sexualization on social media

Significance

Female sexualization is increasing, and scholars are divided on whether this trend reflects a form of gendered oppression or an expression of female competitiveness. Here, we proxy local status competition with income inequality, showing that female sexualization and physical appearance enhancement are most prevalent in environments that are economically unequal. We found no association with gender oppression. Exploratory analyses show that the association between economic inequality and sexualization is stronger in developed nations. Our findings have important implications: Sexualization manifests in response to economic conditions but does not covary with female subordination. These results raise the possibility that sexualization may be a marker of social climbing among women that track the degree of status competition in the local environment.

Oh, poor Heiko seems to be wrong on so many counts.

Abstract

Publicly displayed, sexualized depictions of women have proliferated, enabled by new communication technologies, including the internet and mobile devices. These depictions are often claimed to be outcomes of a culture of gender inequality and female oppression, but, paradoxically, recent rises in sexualization are most notable in societies that have made strong progress toward gender parity. 

That's bad news for feminists and Heiko is a feminist with a shaved cunt.

Few empirical tests of the relation between gender inequality and sexualization exist, and there are even fewer tests of alternative hypotheses. We examined aggregate patterns in 68,562 sexualized self-portrait photographs (“sexy selfies”) shared publicly on Twitter and Instagram and their association with city-, county-, and cross-national indicators of gender inequality. We then investigated the association between sexy-selfie prevalence and income inequality, positing that sexualization—a marker of high female competition—is greater in environments in which incomes are unequal and people are preoccupied with relative social standing. Among 5,567 US cities and 1,622 US counties, areas with relatively more sexy selfies were more economically unequal but not more gender oppressive. A complementary pattern emerged cross-nationally (113 nations): Income inequality positively covaried with sexy-selfie prevalence, particularly within more developed nations. 

Sexualization drives sales

To externally validate our findings, we investigated and confirmed that economically unequal (but not gender-oppressive) areas in the United States also had greater aggregate sales in goods and services related to female physical appearance enhancement (beauty salons and women’s clothing). Here, we provide an empirical understanding of what female sexualization reflects in societies and why it proliferates.

And on that bombshell Heiko should consider anal tightening.