Kultur 9 - Reid Lott

The article Bureaucracy Gone Awry really detailed how detailed German records are. The idea of carrying around paper copies of certificates of everything seems pretty strange to me. Most of the important certificates that I have have copies online, so there is no need for a physical copy. Other certificates, like basic certification for Microsoft Office proficiency, carry so little value that there is no need to keep them. I can see why certificates can help determine the experience and qualifications of a person, but just like every job search, there are certain intangibles that applicants can't show through paper.

The article Love Thy Neighbor caused me to chuckle several times. The author hints at this a lot, but doesn't  outright say it, so here it goes: the best way to solve a problem is to go to your neighbor directly. Although this idea may be colored by my American experience, it is much easier than dealing with thousands of court cases each year to define what "excessive" really means. Knowing that this phenomenon is cultural, however, means that it will probably exist anyway.

In contrast with the typical German articles was Welcome to America.  Although this reading was optional, it contrasted well with the other articles. For instance, it compares the amount of bureaucracy is European politics to that of American politics. The article falls very short of making an actual argument, however, as it does not consider a third "test" country to use as a standard of comparison. The article leaves open the option that red tape is not proportional to size of government or that the correlations occur at non-standard intervals.