Well of course the answer here, according to both sources, is not really. Frances Cairncross puts it like this:

This survey will argue that the promises governments have made to people retiring today are too large to be met in full. As a result, people will have to work longer, and retire later, than they do now. And the old will have to insure themselves for more of the cost of health care.

Fortunately there is a time window, of about a decade, during which the population of working age will be at a historic high. Projections by the OECD in Paris show that the impact of retiring baby-boomers will not begin to be felt until the next decade, and will culminate in 2025-35. So governments have a chance—but one that they must grab fast.

Indeed S&P;'s also reach a similar conclusion: if the bullet of reform is bitten early enough the worst can be avoided:

This scenario is not a prediction by Standard & Poor's. It is unlikely that governments will allow debt and deficit burdens to spiral out of control in the manner outlined.

Now a number of things could be said here. In the first place Frances Cairncross's objectives may well be rather different to those of S&P;'s. She is concerned, in part, to offer dignity to old age, and respect for societies as they age. In this I agree with her completely. We have converted ourselves into youth-centric societies, and our attitude and self-image need to change.

S&P;'s is more interested in fomenting pension and social security reform and they undoubtedy take a much more restricted view of the problem.

However this being said they both share one common rather re-assuring conclusion: acting in time can make the transition painless. Hear I am afraid I cannot be so anodyne: I think this is all going to be incredibly traumatic, and disturbing. As to acting in time, not only am I unsure whether our political systems allow for this, I am not even sure we know what we should be doing.

S&P;'s like many analysts produce reams of data - the government debt of country (a) will have reached (b) % of GDP by the year (c) - but I'm going to let you in on a little secret: none of us really know in any detail what the dynamics are going to be. In the end we are all guessing, and these guesses conceal large margins of error. Take the US deficit situation. S&P; says the sharp deterioration in US public finances over the past two years has prompted it to revise US debt forecasts sharply higher. "The US debt ratio is now projected to reach 158 per cent of GDP, almost double the 83 per cent projected two years ago."

Now think about this: it is pretty staggering isn't it? In two years the numbers have changed drastically, and all with a teensy weensy little deficit like 4% of GDP per annum for a year and a half.

So don't let them blind you with data: they are as much in the dark as you are, it's just that pages and pages of figures sometimes make people feel better.

And think of another little statistic: last year the German federal government ran a deficit of 4% of GDP to promote growth (thus emphasising the *growth* side of the growth and stability pact) yet no growth was produced.

Three years from now even the German government promise to be aiming for a zero deficit: I leave each of you to do their own back-of-the-envelope calculations about what kind of growth level they might achieve if they adhere to this line.

And if you continue with the annual deficit but don't get growth, then at some stage the absolute values (the % of GDP that the govt owes) start to get pretty scary - in Japan they're already over 150%, and in Italy and Belgium over 100%) - and at some stage someone starts to ask the awkward question whether you can ever pay all this back, and from that moment we don't quite know what happens, because, like they say, we've never been there before.

Now before leaving the topic of numbers completely I would just like to touch on one detail: the one aluded to in the title to this post. The point is what is the 'distance of death': we simply don't know, and this is another of those weak spots where all these projections start to get into trouble. We simply don't know whether the tendency towards increasing longevity which we have enjoyed over the last century or so will continue, or whether the rate of increase in life expectancy will accelerate or decline - and these details are pretty important if you want to get down to it and do the calculations. In fact what can be said is that most of the 'reassuring' scenarios tend to assume a 'favourable' evolution in life expectancy (in actuarial terms) and a recovery of fertility, neither of which may be justified: that is to say we are assuming the most favourable of scenarios.

Anyway instead of trying to speculate about numbers, which as I say are bound to be pretty suspect, let's try arguing from first principles, let's just look at what advantages and disadvantages an ageing society might have, and I'd like to examine these in the context of two variables which I often mention: technology and globalisation.

In the first place maybe it helps to think of a society as a single person, then what is happening is that with every passing day that person is older. Now in economic terms there must be an optimum age for a society to have. As a crude approximation you might think that the earnings curve is a reflection of this fact (or what we economists like to call a proxy). Broadly speaking, especially for qualified workers, wages and salaries tend to rise, peak and then taper off. This trajectory probably represents a trade-off between two factors: speed and experience. Within certain limits the younger you are the quicker you are (and the more 'risk open' you are), and the older the more 'wise' (and more resistant to change). The resistance to change factor isn't particularly surprising: as you get older the more you probably have invested in 'the way things were'.

So in theory you could make a calculation: for a given level of technology, and a given rate of technological change (x) is the optimum age for a society to have (in strictly economic terms). OK?

But the rate of technological change isn't constant: it is accelerating. So what does this do to the calculation? Well esentially it gives more emphasis to reaction speed, and less to experience (putting this in Schumpeterian terms the rate of destruction of human capital increases) - ie essentially it brings down the optimum age, and the faster the technological change, the faster the age drops. This essentially is the first important argument I fear Frances doesn't consider, and I think it is a pretty important one.

Of course socially speaking the image of all those elderly people working more and more years to keep their societies functioning may be extraordinarily laudible, but let us never forget one thing: social worth and economic worth are not at all the same thing. So the extra work that we all get to do may in most cases have a diminishing economic worth.

And this brings me to the second topic: globalisation. In fact I found it rather surprising that Frances doesn't really get into this, since it is the very 'death of distance' which she was so prophetic in forecasting which may be the final kick which makes her somewhat 'rosy' view a rather questionable one.

As she says:

When the baby-boomers start to retire in large numbers, they will empty out workplaces—such as public services—that now have lots of staff in their 50s. To replace them, employers will have to come up with the sort of flexible deals they once used to attract women back to work. That may make it more appealing to continue to work.

Indeed, the workplace revolution that lies ahead may be very like the one that, in the course of the 1970s and 1980s, brought millions of mothers into the job market. Since then, the workplace has been feminised; in future it will be grizzled. A quarter of a century from now, retirement will look different from the way it does now: a mix of work and gardening, rather than gardening alone. For older people, work may then offer some of the charms that have lured so many women into the job market: stimulus, companionship and the freedom from worry that a bit of extra money can bring.

Now what is surprising is that she doesn't consider another form of flexibilisation here: the one which can be brought about across the telephone line. In fact American consultants McKinsey have been thinking about this. In forecasting that by 2008 IT services and back-office work in India would swell fivefold, to a $57 billion annual export industry employing 4 million people and accounting for 7% of India's gross domestic product they specifically cited the impending retirement of the baby boom generation in the US.

And of course - what a coincidence - just as the average age of our EU societies edges gently up and away from the decining optimum, many newly developing societies will have average ages which are steadily approaching it from below. So the balance must inevitably shift. In fact as the more mobile information type work moves steadily away we may become a highly polarised zone with a few extremely highly talented and rewarded young people, and an ever growing pole of 'the rest' accumulating in pretty low-end economic activities (the ones it is impossible to move) with a proportionately lower relative standard of living.

Which brings us back to the government debt, it's ever growing real value, and our ever diminishing ability to repay it. I'm sorry Frances, I'm sorry S&P;'s: somewhere out there lies a tipping point just waiting for us to come and find it, or to use an expression from game theory I've borrowed, there is a backward induction point from which todays 'market participants' may deduce the reality which I am trying to describe, begin the rush for the door and kick the whole machine into motion.

Full Disclosure: while writing this I have been listening nostalgically to a CD from the French folk singer Renaud Séchan (not to be missed as an actor in the film version of Zola's Germinal). I have just got to a track from 1980: Dans Mon HLM. Certainly prophetic, just how I imagine my old age. My apologies to those who don't speak French - I daren't translate!

Au rez-d'-chaussée, dans mon HLM
Y a une espèce de barbouze
Qui surveille les entrées,
Qui tire sur tout c' qui bouge,
Surtout si c'est bronzé,
Passe ses nuits dans les caves
Avec son Beretta,
Traque les mômes qui chouravent
Le pinard aux bourgeois.
Y s' recrée l'Indochine
Dans sa p'tite vie d' peigne cul.
Sa femme sort pas d' la cuisine,
Sinon y cogne dessus.
Il est tellement givré
Que même dans la Légion
Z'ont fini par le j'ter,
C'est vous dire s'il est con!

Putain c' qu'il est blême, mon HLM!
Et la môme du huitième, le hasch, elle aime!

The polls, however, have regularly forecast a near certain defeat in the Greek Cypriot zone and a close finish on the Turkish side. So if these polls are confirmed the result would seem pretty clear cut given that about two-thirds of the island's 800,000 population are Greek Cypriots. Turkish Cypriots control only one-third of the territory in the north and are only recognized as a state by Turkey.

Whilst in the long run the problem may well 'resolve itself' with Turkish membership of the EU, we should not lose sight of the fact that the ethnic rivalries which surround us are not noticeably diminishing, and that while many of us may now find it hard to remember what the world was like before e-mail and the mobile phone, in the world of 'ethnic cleansing' things move more slowly. Historic memories make a 30 year time gap (or one generation) seem but a day. (This should also not be forgotten by all those of us whose eyes today are focussed in horror on what is happening in Iraq).

In conclusion I would just like to refer you to David Officer's pretty 'fair and balanced' Cyprus blog 'Changing Trains' where he quoted this yesterday from the Cyprus Mail:

Only when the first version of the plan was submitted did people get a genuine idea of what a federal settlement would be like and it was nothing like it had been described by the politicians over the years. Politicians had been misinforming people for decades about the type of settlement they could deliver, creating false expectations by setting unattainable targets. So when the plan was presented people felt cheated and wronged, not by the politicians, who immediately started slamming it, but by the UN and the international community that were seen as favouring the Turkish side. As usual, the foreigners were blamed.

Opposition to the Annan plan was fuelled by another factor – Cyprus’ imminent accession to the EU. Greek Cypriot confidence has grown ever since the signing of the accession treaty last April, people feeling that as part of the EU the free areas’ security has been taken care of. Feeling that their security was guaranteed, the need of a settlement ceased to be an imperative.

And the politicians are back to playing their old games, creating unrealistic expectations about the type of settlement that can be secured after accession. The human rights of everyone would be guaranteed, there would be no exemptions from the acquis communautaire and the Turkish side would have no choice but to accept the type of settlement that Greek Cypriot side wants, politicians have been arguing. All we have to do is avoid signing a peace deal before May 1, when we will become full members of the EU.

Nobody can say whether this line of argument is correct, but it does seem to feature a large element of the wishful thinking that has always characterised our politicians’ Cyprus problem discourse.

In reading this extract I can't help being put in mind of a quote I recently took from Trichet:

there is the unfortunate phenomenon that public opinion very often discovers the problems at the moment they are tackled, when governments, parliaments and social partners carry out the structural reforms that are urgently needed.

This phrase has been haunting me rather recently, as it does seem to some up something important about the way our perception of the future may have changed. I don't think it was always like this. I think there was a time when our political system was capable of generating visionary goals, and then working systematically towards them. It seems today that we are somewhat more retiscent in our attitudes to what the future will bring.

I also like yesterdays quote from Mathew about France being singular in that there 'the voters lie to the politicians'. Could it be that this has a far more general application, and that a game strategy is emerging wherby each party does its utmost to keep their true objectives well concealed from the other?

And only last Friday workers in Italy took to the streets to protest the latest in a line of pension reforms there.

In the French context Jacques Chirac's room for manoeuvre is limited because of France's pledges to bring its public deficit under control. It has agreed to reduce the deficit from 4.1 percent of gross domestic product in 2003 to 3.6 percent this year and to bring it below three percent by 2005.

So it may be that talk of right and left here is a bit misplaced: the vote is against whichever government happens to be in office, fails to achieve economic growth, and finds the messy problem of health and pension reform on its hands.

Some observers seem to want to suggest that the reason for the disatisfaction is the pace of the reforms: voters are 'frustrated' since the reforms are not proceeding quickly enough. This wouldn't be my reading: they are 'frustrated' that the reforms are happening at all. They accept the 'reality' in the abstract, but don't like that same reality once its implications are clear. They have been lead to believe that all of this can be achieved relatively painlessly, but in fact it isn't that easy.

This at least could be the impression gained from the tens of thousands of German pensioners - some of them in wheelchairs, others leaning on walking sticks - who took to the streets yesterday to protest government pension reforms. In fact (in one form or another) Germany has some 20 million pensioners, and they form about a quarter of the population. It should not need underlining, of course, that they constitute a very important consituency among Germany's active voters.

It's not that I particularly welcome and relish in the reforms myself. I would rather they weren't necessary. I think the welfare system we had was fine, brillant even, while it lasted, but it contained one fundamental flaw: it didn't see the inversion in the pyramid. It didn't forsee that rising generational cohorts would one day be followed by declining ones, and that this transition would in time start to threaten not only the foundations of the welfare system, but even the process of economic growth itself.

So, to end where I started, let's go back to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and their conclusion that the resounding defeat for the conservatives in the French regional elections is:

yet another example of the European malaise that has already taken hold in Germany, Poland and Italy. All face the same key domestic troubles -- a stagnating economy, unemployment and fear of an uncertain future, the paper wrote and added that if one is to believe the opinion surveys in these countries, people there are familiar with these problems and know that the creaking western European welfare state has to be reformed if it is to survive. Governments promising reform are elected, but then to fail to live up to their promises.

The level of activity doesn't seem to high at present. One India-base observer had this to say (perceptively in my opinion):

Balaji E., General Manager, Ma Foi Consultants, a recruitment firm.......commenting on actual level of outsourcing from France,....says, "France has not been doing too well economically and has a relatively high unemployment rate. There isn't much outsourcing happening now."

He also reasons that Europe is typically an employee-driven market unlike the US. "A European country would face greater resistance in outsourcing jobs."

Nonetheless France's economic lethargy is only being masked right now by the even greater lethargy to be found in Germany. Having not exactly outperformed in the 'great China race' French companies will like all their other EU and US counterparts find themselves cost-pressured to seek solutions. As and when they do Pondicherry, and numerous other former French colonial outposts, will be waiting. Could this at least turn out to be be the unexpected proverbial sting in the once great colonial tail? And could this once obscure village which the French - who arrived there in 1673 - converted into a flourishing trading centre be yet again reborn thanks to its newly revitalised cultural resource?

If I may lapse into editorial mode, I must say I'm with Trittin on this one. I'm far from an environmental extremist, but I like to breathe clean air as much as anybody does. And trading in emission rights seems a sound way to get the air a bit cleaner.

Indeed this sort of scheme is much loved by economists who otherwise cast a gimlet eye on state intervention. Tradeable emissions rights shove the 'externalities' back where they belong: with those who create them. Firms that can't reduce their emissions will be penalised; firms that can will earn money by doing so. And that's as things should be.

I will confess, though, that I am less excited by the plan itself than by the fact that the Greens are pushing it. You see, many years ago I belonged to the Greens. (How many? Let us say only that it was well before Gerd Bastian topped himself and took Petra Kelly with him, but well after the party's posters had begun to look professionally-done.) I wasn't privy to the leadership's thoughts on the matter; but among the rank and file with whom I ate tofu and marched against the Wackersdorf reprocessing plant, tradeable emissions rights would have been seen on a par with tradeable rights to eat babies.

There's been much (sparkly crystal-clear all-natural mountain spring) water under the bridge since then, and there's little these days on which I see eye to eye with the Greens. But clearly they have come a long way. Not only are they backing emissions rights trading, they're taking the plan seriously enough to go the mattresses over it. What's more, Trittin is making angry noises about state subsidies for the energy branch, especially the indefensible subventions to the indefensible brown coal industry.

It would be un petit peu exaggerated to claim that the Greens were on the verge of a liberal renaissance. But in recent days there have been some heartening glimmers of liberalism in the party. Exciting stuff, and I for one will cheer if the Greens move in that direction. After all, Germany sorely needs a liberal party.

One significant factor which may be in the minds of Italian citizens today is that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been - along with Jose Maria Aznar - one of the firmest eurozone supporters of the Iraq war. (Interestingly Klinga over at Living in Europe draws attention to the way a similar atmosphere may also exist in Poland). But this concern over the risk of a possible attack comes on top of an already weak confidence situation following an apparent economic growth standstill and the high profile Parmalat scandal.

The Italian confidence report is in fact the second from Europe to show the effect of the bombings. An index measuring German investor and analyst sentiment published last week posted the biggest decline in 16 months.

With exports affected by the 20 percent plus euro appreciation, economic growth in Italy ground to a halt in the final quarter of last year. Indeed Italian industrial production continued to decline in January for the second consecutive month.

The euro's gain against the dollar, which has made European goods sold to the U.S. more expensive, has weighed heavily on any recovery which may have been in the offing in Italy. Exports to the U.S - which are responsible for 10 percent of Italy's total exports (the US is its third-biggest trading partner) - fell 27 percent year on year in January2004.

Meanwhile in France, which is the second-largest economy in the euro zone, consumer spending was unchanged in February from the previous month, according to the Paris-based statistics office Insee.

All of this means there is increased pressure over at the ECB. Leading EU politicians like Gerhard Schroeder and Jean-Pierre Raffarin have been urging the European Central Bank to lower interest rates in an attempt to revive growth. ECB officials including President Jean-Claude Trichet have previously rejected the calls, saying that borrowing costs are already low enough.

The Madrid bombings, however, have increased speculation about a rate reduction. The implied rate on the three-month Euribor interest-rate futures contract for June delivery has it seem fallen today to 1.93 percent today from 2 percent on March 11. That rate is now lower than the ECB's benchmark refinancing rate of 2 percent. The markets themselves have today responded to an interview Trichet gave to the German paper Handelsblatt yesterday (see below) by selling the euro in anticipation of a rate cute.

To give us an idea of where all this may be leading Handelsblatt has an English version of the Trichet interview. In the interview he suggests that the bank might be ready to cut interest rates if domestic consumption does not strengthen as expected. The ECB's next rate-setting meeting is on April 1. Many commentators had thought that it was unlikely we would see any rate move in the near future. Now, given the shift in rhetoric, it seems that the Bank's governing council members are at the very least likely to debate the issue.

You keep complaining about weak consumer confidence. Could lowering the interest rate help to prop it up?

In the normal course of economic activity, recovery most often starts with net exports, then passes over to investment and then, as the third stage of the rocket, so to speak, arrives at consumption. The first two rocket stages have ignited and we continue to follow the relevant hard data. We now have to examine very carefully the ignition process of the third stage. It is clear that household consumption is not only driven by the impact of stronger exports and investment, but also by consumer confidence. We have ascertained that consumer confidence today is not necessarily at the level that would be justified by the basic economic data.

Why is that?

I see three reasons. First, the development of the labour market is not satisfactory. This in turn comes from the structural impediments which characterise Europe and from the previous phase of the cycle. We have good reasons to think that this situation will progressively improve. Second, there is the unfortunate phenomenon that public opinion very often discovers the problems at the moment they are tackled, when governments, parliaments and social partners carry out the structural reforms that are urgently needed. This late and brutal discovery could have a negative impact on confidence. Had the public been more aware of the underlying problems, the reforms, when decided upon and implemented, would have increased confidence. That is the reason why we believe that transparency, pedagogy and tireless explanations are an essential part of preparing structural reforms: we all have a role to play in this domain, including the ECB, to make clear to people the advantages of the reforms as regards growth, job creation and higher standards of living. And third, there is a further point which touches upon the primary objective of the ECB. In a number of countries part of the population has the feeling that the inflation rate could be higher in the future and that their purchasing power will not be appropriately preserved. This has a negative influence on consumer confidence. We, on our side, have all reasons to trust that we have inflation under control and that prices will be in line with our definition of price stability. And we tell the public that we, as the guardians of the currency, are defending their purchasing power, that they can trust us and that they can invest and consume with full confidence.

Unpatriotic or economically imperative? The uncompetitively high cost of labour in Germany is fast becoming a source of friction between business leaders and the government in the eurozone's biggest economy.

Companies argue their only choice is to move jobs abroad, a solution which is set to become easier with the imminent eastwards expansion of Europe.

But Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, fearing a mass exodus of jobs to low-wage countries at a time when German unemployment is already cripplingly high, has roundly slammed such deliberations as "unpatriotic".

The debate seems to have hotted up in recent weeks, with companies, particularly in the high-tech sector, apparently mulling plans to relocate thousands of jobs abroad.

The powerful metalworking union IG Metall said that the electronics giant Siemens was considering relocating up to 10,000 jobs in its mobile and fixed telephony divisions and its automatisation, energy and transport businesses in order to cut labour costs.

Corresponding plans had been submitted to employee representatives in the activities concerned in recent weeks, the union said.

But it is not only the IT sector -- which is estimated to have lost around 70,000 jobs last year -- that is following the call of lower costs abroad.

The airline Lufthansa is to move large parts of its accounting department and its purchasing activities to Poland and car maker Volkswagen already builds around 13 percent of its vehicles in central and eastern Europe.

And the VCI chemicals industry association found that while the domestic research and development (R and D) budgets of its members were set to stagnate this year, the companies were planning to increase their R and D spending outside Germany.

The DIHK federation of chambers of commerce poured oil on the fire of the controversy this week by appearing to throw its weight behind some sort of campaign for companies to turn their backs on Germany.

DIHK President Ludwig Georg Braun advised companies "not to wait for better policies, but to act and take advantage of the opportunities offered" by the eastward expansion of Europe.

The comments immediately drew fire from the government, currently battling to bring down the chronically high level of unemployment in Germany.

Schroeder slammed the remarks as "unpatriotic". And the new secretary general of Schroeder's Social Democratic SPD party, Klaus Uwe Benneter, was similarly enraged.

"When industry leaders talk down Germany as an economic site in such a way, they're acting irresponsibly," he fumed.

Even the opposition CDU party was up in arms, with the head of the CDU's social committee, Hermann-Josef Arentz, attacking Braun's comments as "bare-faced cheek".

But business leaders insist they have no choice.

The head of the BDI industry federation Michael Rogowski said moving production out of Germany was the only way companies could remain competitive and "secure those jobs that are left in Germany."

High-tech companies such as the software giant SAP agreed.

"If we don't move, then we can't be competitive. We lose market share and then we lose part of the jobs in Germany as a result," SAP chairman Henning Kagermann said in an interview with Financial Times Deutschland.

It was "an economic imperative" to move to low-wage countries.

The head of Siemens' fixed-networks division ICN, Thomas Ganswindt, said that by moving activities abroad, "we're following the markets. Globalisation means that we create value where there is demand for it, that is to say, where there is growth. At the moment, growth is taking place elsewhere."

The attractions of relocating are clear -- an IT employee in India, for example, earns around a third of the amount his German counterpart takes home.

But that was not the only problem. The head of IBM Germany, Walter Raizner, pointed the finger at Germany's inflexible labour market laws.

Countries that had changed their laws were now closer to full employment than Germany was, Raizner said.

And DIHK President Braun rejected the allegation he was unpatriotic.

"True corporate patriotism lies in pushing for consistent policies of reform," he argued.
Source Yahoo News

His disappointment with the book is primarily caused by its unwillingness to fundamentally challenge some of the myths of rationality of current US foreign policy. Quite to the contrary, Mr Pfaff has no inhibitions to call them all by their name, despite being aware that many of the myths of past and present American foreign policy and politics, particularly the notion of a "unique historical mission — whether or not divinely commissioned" — are not open to logical refutation.

That said, I think the last part of his essay is one of the most eloquent descriptions of the communicative disaster that happened particularly between Europe and the US in the last two years.

"Every country has a "story" it tells itself about its place in the contemporary world. We are familiar enough with the American story, beginning with the City on a Hill and progressing through Manifest Destiny toward Woodrow Wilson's conviction we are "to show the way to the nations of the world how they shall walk in the paths of liberty.... It was of this that we dreamed at our birth." The current version of the story says that this exalted destiny is fatefully challenged by rogue nations with nuclear weapons, failed states, and the menace of Islamic extremists. Something close to Huntington's war of civilizations has begun. National mobilization has already taken place. Years of struggle lie ahead.

The "isolation" of the United States today is caused by the fact that its claims about the threat of terrorism seem to others grossly exaggerated, and its reaction, as Brzezinski himself argues, dangerously disproportionate. Most advanced societies have already had, or have, their wars with "terrorism": the British with the IRA, the Spanish with the Basque separatist ETA, the Germans, Italians, and Japanese with their Red Brigades, the French with Palestinian and Algerian terrorists, Greeks, Latin Americans, and Asians with their own varieties of extremists.

America's principal allies no longer believe its national "story." They have tried to believe in it, and have been courteous about it even while skepticism grew. They are alarmed about what has happened to the United States under the Bush administration, and see no good coming from it. They are struck by how impervious Americans seem to be to the notion that our September 11 was not the defining event of the age, after which "nothing could be the same." They are inclined to think that the international condition, like the human condition, is in fact very much the same as it has always been. It is the United States that has changed. They are disturbed that American leaders seem unable to understand this.

When American officials and policy experts come to Europe saying that "everything has changed," warning that allied governments must "do something" about the anti-Americanism displayed last year in connection with the Iraq invasion, the Western European reaction is often to marvel at the Americans' inability to appreciate that the source of the problem lies in how the United States has conducted itself since September 2001. They find this changed United States rather menacing. An Irish international banker recently observed to me that when Europeans suggest to visiting Americans that things have changed in Europe too, as a direct result of America's policies, "it's as if the Americans can't hear." A French writer has put it this way: it has been like discovering that a respected, even beloved, uncle has slipped into schizophrenia. When you visit him, his words no longer connect with the reality around him. It seems futile to talk about it with him. The family, embarrassed, is even reluctant to talk about it among themselves."