Football: 1. FC Heidenheim - How A Small German Club Came To Play International

 (Drivebycuriosity) - If you are interested in football, in the US known as soccer, you might follow the Pan-European Tournaments: Champions League, Europa League & Conference League. This season 1. FC Heidenheim will participate, a club with a tiny budget. 

The club`s home is Heidenheim, a small industrial town (50,000 residents) between Stuttgart and Munich. The club isn´t supported by the fan base of a big city, neither are there huge sponsors. Anyway, in season 2023/24 the budget club arrived in the Bundesliga, the top German league. The newcomer finished 8th place in a table with 18 teams and in the recent days won the qualification for the Conference League.

Heidenheim`s rise was made by Frank Schmidt, the lead coach of the club. In 2007, Schmidt, a former soccer player, who also is educated in banking (Bankkaufmann), took the lead of Heidenheim when they played just in Germany´s Oberliga, the fifth tier of the professional system. Since then he had led the club upwards, even with tiny budgets. 

 

                      Combative Mindset

In his autobiography "Unkaputtbar" Schmidt explains his concept ( amazon). The word means "indestructible", contrary to the German term "kaputt gehen" - a quote by another German football coach, who praised Heidenheim`s & Schmidt`s very combative mindset.

According to Schmidt, Heidenheim`s sociological & economical background is shaped by the climate (highest and coldest stadium in German professional football) and the frugal regional "Swabian" mentality. Because Heidenheim relies on a tiny budget, the club can not keep top players for long. If one of them gets attention, for instance as goal shooter, a bigger club wants to buy him (the contract between club & player). These transfers support the finances of the little club. 

Therefore the coach often needs to find replacements who fit into the club and to Schmidt´s concept. For the new season, Heidenheim had to replace six players including Jan Niklas Beste, a specialist for corners & freekicks, who went to Benifica Lisabon, and their top striker Tim Kleindienst, who scores now for Mönchengladbach. But Heidenheims´s rise shows that the coach not only successfully replaced the "Leistungsträger" (top players), he shaped the team even stronger! And the new season started with 4 wins in a row!

Schmidt wrote: "Heidenheim is a chance for many players. We often chose players, who failed elsewhere. Players who start promising, but whose careers stall. These are very good premises - for the player as well as for us. Giving someone a second chance is not only human, it usually also pays back".

Heidenheim`s coach chooses players who are capable to confront new situations without fear and are passionate. Schmidt wants resilience, the ability to never give up. He claims that mentality can be exercised and can be exemplified by the coach. If the coach strives to win always, then the team endeavors to win always as well.

Schmidt doesn`t measure a player by the goals he scores, but by how many chances he realizes, and primarily, how he behaves, after missing a goal chance and if he is unflinching. And crucial is the willingness to reach the limits again and again and even to shift them sometimes. 

I believe thanks to this mentality Heidenheim will continue to impress.

Good luck to Schmidt and 1. FC Heidenheim.

 

 

 

Economics: Why Is America`s Economy Growing So Slow?

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - The US economy is growing, but disappointingly slow. Recent indicators - like the cooling job market  - suggest that the economy is getting even weaker. 

Unfortunately America`s economy is growing slower than in the past. The green line in the chart above shows the long-term trend, which is 3.1% real growth p.a. (growth of GDP adjusted for inflation  scottgrannis). Since 2008 the US economy is just growing 2.2% p.a. (red dotted line) - and the gap is widening. What are the causes for the lower growth trend?

In the year 2008 the American GDP dropped sharply, thanks to the recession, known as the financial crisis. The recovery in the following years disappointed. Economic growth returned, but since 2009 has been growing less than before the recession.

 

 ( source)

 

What happened? First, Obama happened. The liberal President shifted economic policy to the left side and expanded the government`s influence on the economy considerable. He did in fact not hike taxes much, but he expanded the regulations a lot. 

At the end of Obama´s regime the Federal Register, the daily depository of all things regulatory, has topped off at 97,110 pages, by far an all time record (image above ). The number of rules and regulations within those 97,000 pages is 3,853, the highest in 11 years. Of these final rules, 629 were flagged by agencies as having notable effects on small businesses ( forbes). Obama`s hundreds of new regulations cost the average household roughly $26,000 over a lifetime, according to a new study ( city-journal).

Obama´s regulations threw more sand into the delicate wheels of the economy and raised the costs of doing business substantially. “The regulatory state has grown under this administration seemingly without regard to the costs, practicality, or even legality, of rules pushed through by federal agencies," complained Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue (politico ). No wonder that the growth trend of the US economy slowed.

 

                                   Bad Politics
 

 

 (source )

During the regency of President Trump the economy regained a bit. Above this paragraph you can see a segment from the Scott Granis chart above, where I amplified the period 2016-2020. The blue line (actual GDP growth) shows that in the second half of Trump`s regency the US economy grew a tad faster than the prevailing trend, till the Covid recession broke the trend.

What caused this acceleration? In 2018 Trump cut several taxes, including corporate taxes and several individual taxes ( investopedia)! The impulse of these tax cuts, which will expire in 2025, is slowly working through economy. The reduced taxes are stimulating investing and inspire to work more, creating more income. 

Unfortunately Trump created a new headwind for the economy by starting a trade war against China. His tariffs on imports from China disturb supply chains, put additional costs on US corporations and reduce consumption. Trump`s new tariffs work like tax hikes and compensate partially the positive impulse of his tax cuts.

 

( source)

The image above this paragraph amplifies the last segment of the Scott Granis chart, covering the Biden regency. After the short-lived Covid recession US economic growth came back to the sluggish trend (which includes the Covid recession). 

The blue line shows that during the Biden presidency the economy grew a bit slower than under Trump. Unfortunately the Biden administration continued Trump`s trade war and made it even worse by restricting the exports of computer chips to China. 

Biden also repeated Obama´s left shift. He increased the role of government and expanded the regulations. Biden`s administration regulates dozens of necessities, such as Internet service, household appliances, nursing homes, electricity, health insurance, and of course fossil fuels. According to a recent report since taking office, President Biden’s agency rulemakings have cost the federal taxpayer $1.37 trillion and counting ( budget.house.gov). Another study calculates a lifetime per family burden of $47,000 from Biden’s new regulations ( city-journal).

To make things worse Biden uses a powerful tool to strengthen the role of the government: antitrust. For a long time antitrust enforcement stood for the interests of the consumers and tried to punish corporations for bad services, low quality & variety and too high prices (consumer welfare).  

Soon after Biden became President he changed the concept of antitrust and the leadership of the agencies that enforce antitrust in the US: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Biden announced Lina Khan, a radical left-wing, Chair of the mighty FTC and antitrust attorney Jonathan Kanter, another zealot, became head of the more than 800-person antitrust division of the Department of Justice (driveby ). Khan & Kanter belong to the Neo Brandeisian movement (named after Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, 1916-1939 wikipedia). The Neo-Brandeisians declare consumer welfare as irrelevant and want to expand the government’s role in the U.S. economy significantly ( pbwt.com dailyjournal promarket reason). Khan`s FTC views large & successful companies as evil and prefers "that the government, rather than the private sector, orchestrates the functioning of the economy" ( .ftc.gov)

Biden protege Khan tries to expand her already extensive might. She argued - in an article for a Marxist paper - that antitrust must be reconfigured toward the redistribution of economic and political power and away from concerns regarding price (lpeproject  realclearpolicy). According to former FTC-Commissioner Christine S. Wilson Khan`s FTC represents a Marxist ideology and tries to replace the market process of supply and demand by a continuously regulated environment (ftc.gov ). Khan & Kanter started to sue Amazon, Google, Meta and other companies. They try to protect competitors, which are less efficient and successful. Even if Khan & Kanter lose, their law suits slow down decision processes in the economy and raise the costs of doing business considerably.

   Conclusion: America`s economic growth has been subdued because the Obama & Biden administrations both increased regulations. Trump´s trade war against China, which is continued and made worse by Biden, creates an additional headwind. Bad politics are holding growth back and are reducing the wealth of everybody.

 

Books: God Save The Kinks - A Biography By Rob Jovanic

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - A quite a while ago "The Kinks" belonged to my favorite rock bands - besides the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who & The Animals. I got electrified by the rough and distorted guitar riffs of their "You really got me" & "All day and all of the night" - two songs that defined rock music in the early 1960s and laid the foundation for hard rock, punk, noise rock and heavy metal. And I enjoyed their later melodic pieces like "Days" and the atmospheric "Waterloo Sunset". But in the 1970s the group disappeared from my radar and my attention went to Jimmy Hendrix, Pink Floyd and others.

Out of curiosity I read the biography "God save the Kinks" by Rob Jovanci ( amazon). I wanted to know what happened with these pioneers. On more than 300 pages the book narrates the many metamorphoses of the group, but also explains why they disappeared from my radar in the 1970s even though they created studio albums through the 1990s (and solo albums past 2000).

The heart - and the engine - of the band were the brothers Ray Davies, the composer and lead singer, and Dave Davies, the lead guitarist. Ray´s sheer infinite creativity and Dave´s guitar technique helped to define rock music and influenced countless other composers & performers. 

But the group`s development was shaped by manifold struggles between the brothers and with other band members, who were coming and going. "The Kinks" story reminds me of a quip by a journalist about another group, I believe it was about "King Crimson": "They where hold together by their centrifugal forces". 

Over their whole career the Davies brothers - and some of the other, often changing, band members - behaved sophomoric, aggressively and erratically. The Kinks came up to the cliche of a spoiled rock star. There were fist fights on the stage during gigs, they performed boozed, ruined their hotel rooms, suffered nervous breakdowns and more. These issues could be the reason that the iconic Kinks stand in the shade of Beatles & Rolling Stones, who behaved much more professional.

But maybe their behavior was inspired by their band name, maybe it was part of their business model and was meant to entertain their fans. The anecdotes about fights, sexual experiments, divorces, accidents & incidents and about "paranoia, depression, heavy drinking and living on the edge" make the book really interesting.

It is interesting that while their singles & studio albums became more and more mediocre, what showed in the British sales numbers, the group became even more popular in the US and filled huge stadiums. But this tells us more about the American taste than about the group.

Anyway, rock music wouldn`t be as we know it without The Kinks and Jovanic gives a wonderful introduction into their kinky world.

Books: Lempiere`s Dictionary By Lawrence Norfolk

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - Some books stay in my memory for years and I need to reread them after a decade or more. "Lempiere`s Dictionary" by Lawrence Norfolk belongs to them (amazon). I was once fascinated by Norfolk´s eloquent style, the baroque cornucopia of ideas and the mystical plot. Maybe I was also impressed by the stylish cover of the paper version. And the book got the Somerset Maugham Prize.

Recently I reread the novel on Kindle. This time it didn`t work for me. I still indulged in his style, Norfolk commands an universe of words and he is generous with them.

But most of the book is just overgrown with word salads and tedious to read, maybe the author tried to copy James Joyce - or did he want to mock his Irish colleague?

This time I found the over-complex plot just confusing. It seems to follow a conspiracy stretching over 2 centuries integrated in an alternate history about the once powerful East Indian Company, there is a secret society, there are bizarre murders, a sub-terrain command center, pan-European weather situations, robots, Greek & Roman mythology, Turkish invaders, pirates, incest, vendetta and much much more. I lost track of it.

The book has way too many random ingredients, which makes it inedible, stylish or not.

  

Books: The Star Diaries: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy By Stanislav Lem

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Stanislav Lem belongs to the most underestimated science fiction authors. Most people may just know his novel "Solaris" from the film adaptions by Andrei Tarkovski (1972) & Steven Soderbergh (2002). But the Polish author wrote a lot more and blended science & logic into fascinating plots. My favorite is the novel "The Invincible", a thriller about technology, evolution and humans role in the universe ( driveby). I also enjoyed Lem`s Tales of Pirx the Pilot" ( driveby).

I just finished "The Star Diaries: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy. (From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy Book 1)
" ( amazon). The book is not really science fiction, rather a collection of aphorism and philosophical musings, partly written like fairy tales like Gulliver`s travels. 

The more than 300 pages are filled with countless funny ideas, some are remotely based on physics and cosmology, others are bizarre word plays. Lem plays with the paradoxes of time travel, dives deep into religious controversies, explains evolution and much much more. 

Reading this book set my head spinning.

Economics: The War Against Business - The Google Antitrust Ruling Explained

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - There is a war against business. The Biden administration is punishing any corporation which is successful, big & popular.

This week an US court decided against Google in an antitrust law suit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Amit Mehta, an appointee of Obama, claims that "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly." ( entrepreneur). The DOJ Google lawsuit is joined by unsuccessful competitors, including search engine provider DuckDuckGo, Bing (owned by Microsoft) and by service-recommendation site Yelp (searchengineland ).

The decision is not surprising and can be explained by economics (driveby ):

"1. The judge supports competitors of a successful firm that want to harm their rivals or appropriate parts of their businesses; 

2. The judge sides with firms disadvantaged by technological change that seek to mitigate market outcomes unfavorable to them; 

3. Economist also refer to personal ambitions of government administrators who can make "a name" with huge verdicts

4. The legal profession (trial lawyers) earns huge sums of money.

Economists call this "Rent Seeking".

Judge Mehta´s decision and the monopoly claims are unfounded. Google`s market position is already challenged by a growing number of AI services like Perplexity AI. I use still Google search & maps very frequently because they are free and the alternatives are inferior. Google cannot force me or others to uses their services. The corporation reached her dominant market position by being the best search engine and provider of internet maps.

Google - and other Big Tech corporations - want to make profits, as all entrepreneurs do, and they are successful. Profit seeking is the engine of America´s success. Google & Co. are investing ever-increasing amounts on research and development to innovate new products and stay competitive.

But the government tries to stop that. Judge Mehta´s  verdict is fundamentally anti-business, if not anti-capitalist. It reminds me of China´s leader Xi Jinping, who has curtailed successful corporations like Alibaba, Tencent & Baidu, because he does not accept other gods beside him and he wants to bring them even more under the yoke of the government.  

 

Contemporary Art: Shadowland - Eastern European Artists of the Post-Communist Era @ Marc Straus New York

(Drivebycuriosity) - Gallery Marc Strauss on Grand Street belongs to my favorite art galleries  (marcstraus ). I spotted so many interesting shows there. Recently I enjoyed an exhibition with paintings by Eastern European artists, all created after the fall of the wall. The show is called "Shadowland" (exhibitions ). I already blogged about some art works which impressed me with their exceptional expressionist style (driveby ).

 

But there are many more fascinating paintings. On top of this post you can see "Europe I" (2020, oil on canvas) by Alexander Tinei followed by Robert Fekete`s "We have the same feelings" (2010); Serban Savu`s "Three Friends" (2009 ) & Josef Bolf´s "Atrium II" (2009).

 

Above this paragraph follow another painting by Serban Savu: "An Unimportant Day" (2009 ) & Marius Bercea`s "Black Sea Tan" (2009 ).

 

Above you can see "Untitled" (2008 ) by Josef Tiric & "Untitled" (2015) by Marin Maijic.

Above another image by Another Tiney: "Tailor" (2010); "Blurred Naratives/Stalker" (2007 ) by Elvis Krstulovic & "July 17th" (2010) by Zlatan Vehabovic.

To be continued