American Identity Card

Every foreigner visiting the US must carry a high tech passport with a crypto chip (which is not more secure than a normal paper passport by the way!). However, if you are a US citizen you do not need any government certified identity document. This is certainly paradise for all illegal immigrants and is considered a high security risk in any other state of the world. You cannot provide homeland security to your citizens if you do not know your citizens! The lack of a proper ID creates also all kind of problems when you need government service or if you want to vote in an election.  It will be interesting to watch when a official identity document will be issued for all US citizens.  

How to win a war if you can’t run a hospital

In most European countries people are not in love with their military any more. Too many families have been hit by the first and second world war and do not believe that the military can solve the world’s problems. Military organisations are also not the best examples of a good democratic organisation and are carefully watched. Americans obviously love their military although too many things went wrong in the last 40 years. The Reed hospital  desaster is yet another example that military organisations with support of the Bush government are going out of control.  Newspapers, TV stations and the general public obviously do not raise their voice anymore. The Reed affair may help to discuss the role of the military in the society more openly.               

Everyone has run for the hills

The financial market in the US is really fascinating. US citizens in contrast to most people in Europe did not experience big catastrophic events like war or strong inflation for more than two generations and still believe that everybody can get wealthy and healthy.  This allows the financial industry and their leaders to come up with new schemes to get the money from hard working people. These methods work for while and allow a small number of people to make fortunes within a couple of years. For them the American dream comes really true. The current mortgage crisis indicates the end of a financial business scheme.  Don’t worry – the US finance industry is already coming up with new financial schemes like private equity fonds or financial derivatives to get your money out of your pockets. People in Europe with their experience take much less risk. However, it is a little bit harder to become super rich in Europe than in the US unless you are a member of the Russian gas and oil oligarchy. At least this market seems to be the same all over the world. 
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