More and More Leave Germany Behind

Faced with poor job prospects, high taxes and an intrusive bureaucracy, more and more Germans are choosing to emigrate. Most of those who leave, though, are highly qualified -- which could mean devastating economic consequences.

They are fed up, truly fed up. Fed up with the constant bickering over the costs of wage benefits, social reforms, elimination of subsidies, store closing hours and all the other symbols of a country stuck in bureaucratic and legislative gridlock.

They are tired of living in country where landing a job is like playing the lottery, a country where not even half of citizens live from gainful employment and a country in which even academics in their mid-40s are already considered problem cases when it comes to job placement. In other words, they are fed up with living in a country where all opportunities already seem to be taken: opportunities to succeed in one's career, to own property and to achieve prosperity.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,446045,00.html

Ché Guevara with Oil

The psychological profile of Bolívar continues. "Confident of his power to the point of being manipulative, sometimes unforgiving, excessively self-focused. I also see parallels there." The psychiatrist finally sums up his thoughts on the matter: "I see two men who refuse to be deterred." But Chávez, he adds, has a far more pronounced, leftist political concept, which has developed into an independent system of government. "What should I call it...?" Chirinos searches for the right expression.

Narcissism-Leninism, perhaps?

Chirinos isn't sure whether he likes the expression. But he does offer a professional caveat. "The term narcissism describes an illness -- and Hugo Chávez is certainly not ill, in the clinical sense."

There is a soft rustling noise coming from a small waterfall in the psychiatrist's treatment room. Soft music -- Frank Sinatra's "My Way" -- comes from hidden loudspeakers. Everything seems geared toward keeping things calm.

Chirinos says his goodbyes. "I've spent a long time thinking about which current politician Hugo Chávez could possibly resemble. This sense of mission, this certainty dispelling all contradictions, this Biblical language with its division into God and Satan, absolute good and endless evil. I can only think of one man: George W. Bush."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,druck-427440,00.html

The New Power of the Mining Giants

At the age of 37, the man from Germany's Erzgebirge Mountains who would later call himself Charles Rasp was still searching for happiness and fulfilment. He wasn't allowed to marry the woman he loved, a countess. And he was traumatized by the horrors he'd witnessed as an officer of the Royal Saxon Army during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 -- a war in which his best friend died at the front.

Rasp emigrated to the Australian state of New South Wales and earned his living with odd jobs on farms. One September day in 1883, he was riding a horse along the boundary of the farm when he noticed a peculiar cliff near the landmark known as Broken Hill.

The black stone had a dull shimmer to it. Rasp, who thought it was an outcrop of tin, took a chunk of the rock with him and examined it. His sample really did contain tin, but it also contained zinc, lead and silver. As it turned out, the deposit Rasp had discovered was one of the largest of its kind in the world. "I was pretty naïve," Rasp later admitted.

He staked a claim to the territory of 40 hectares, and joined forces with six other farm workers to found a mining company, which they called the Broken Hill Proprietary Company -- BHP in short. Today it is the world's largest resource corporation.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,436987,00.html

Buyout Firms Hurt Bondholders by Gorging on Dividends

By John Glover and Cecile Gutscher

Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) -- After Weetabix Ltd., the maker of Britain's best-selling breakfast cereal, fired 7 percent of its workers and canceled the employee bus service to free up cash for debt from a leveraged buyout, the Kettering, England-based company borrowed 130 million pounds ($249 million) so it could enrich owner Lion Capital.

Bondholders worldwide are suffering a double whammy this year because more than 80 companies controlled by LBO firms have borrowed at the expense of workers and debt investors just so they can pay themselves dividends, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and Standard & Poor's.

``We don't like it,'' said Andrew Wilmont, who helps manage $65 billion of fixed-income assets at Axa Investment Managers in London. ``The more you leverage up the company, the less the company has to fall back on if things turn bad.''

Firms such as New York-based Blackstone Group LP and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. completed $269 billion of LBOs this year by borrowing at least $166 billion in loans and bonds, according to Bloomberg and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. data.

Companies owned by the LBO groups sold an additional $30 billion of debt this year for dividends, said S&P. The payments have helped the firms recoup 86 percent of their investments within two years, according to Fitch Ratings in New York.

LBO firms, which typically borrow two-thirds of the money they pay for acquisitions, used to wait three to five years before profiting from selling shares in their companies

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=al92C6_Sn040&refer=exclusive

With kidney transplants, a question of how to ration life

DENVER — It was Monday, Shawn Stringfellow's usual night to shoot pool.

He gunned the engine of his Harley-Davidson and pulled out of the restaurant parking lot as his fiancee waved goodbye.

 

He was 30 years old, healthy and happily employed as a heavy-equipment mechanic. Soon, he and Kellie Highland would be married.

"I love you," she mouthed, as his black leather jacket disappeared into traffic.

With his crisp goatee and helmet-less head, Stringfellow looked like a tough biker. "If I wanted to wear a helmet, I'd ride in a car," he liked to say.

He had a soft side, though. He roared down the street wearing jeans covered with tiny hearts that Highland had scribbled in ballpoint pen during dinner.

He'd promised to be home by midnight.

Life is unpredictable. Just before 11 p.m., he finished his last beer at the pool hall and fired up the Harley. A few miles down the interstate, he drove off the side, struck a construction barrel and rolled his motorcycle.

The next day, May 7, 2002, he was on life support. His heart was still beating, but he was brain-dead.

With his family's consent, calls went out to transplant centers throughout the region. He was an ideal organ donor.

Dr. Ben Vernon, the transplant surgeon on call across town at Porter Adventist Hospital, received the news around midnight: two young kidneys — blood type A-positive — available in Denver.

A patient of his stood a strong chance of getting one. This man had waited a long time — three years. To Vernon, it looked like a go.

He instructed his staff to summon the patient to the hospital. The staff also called Dr. David Gillum, another member of the transplant team.

Gillum sat up in bed and shuddered: The patient was 85 years old.

Were they serious?

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kidney5nov05,0,4019712,full.story