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I'm not a long term reader of English language press, but in this case I refer to politics, which even American conservatives are claiming to be conservative.
Low income taxes, a balanced fiscal budget, a sustainable foreign trade balance, low inflation. I think all of this will be better next year, both in F and D, than in the US.
But in Germany there was even fulfilled another conservative rule, namely low income growth. I have seen you have a median income diagram, where there was not so much income growth in the US, but the average income rose quite significant in the US. In Germany the average income stagnated as well quite a bit, while the GDP grew.
Now some people are afraid that if the US has recession, this will hit Germany very strongly due to the high export dependency. If this is true and there is a US recession, then France should do better this year than Germany I think. If Germany can manage a US recession I would be quite convinced, that as well the sluggish income growth in the last decade was not so bad.

Of course conservatism is not only about economics. E.g. religious or at least some philantrophic philosophy is as well part of conservatism. And again, the US conservatives talk all the time about Jesus and abortion and how important the church is, but if one looks to the policy actual done, I can't see much of this talk to transform into substancial politics. In Europe there is always a sense for helping those who can't help themselves, what is part of what distinguishs conservatism of liberalism.

Taken literally conservatism of course means as well no fast change and a certain cautiousness with it. Therefore e.g. climate change or war should be horror for every conservative, as well as completely unregulated "wild" market.

Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers

by Martin (weiser.mensch(at)googlemail.com) on Sun Feb 3rd, 2008 at 10:09:12 AM EST
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