Winter is coming and its coming in various...
Winter is coming and its coming in various forms. For one, we see a somewhat bleak and cold outlook for the next months as the war raging in Ukraine reshuffles economic provisioning systems in terms of food and energy. The situation will be particularly detrimental to many of those who lack the money to pay surging food & energy prices, or the capabilities to quickly adapt to changing circumstances. For another, it could also become a harsh winter for European industries, which also suffer from increasing prices and bottlenecks in supply-chains – as a consequence, these industries face very strong incentives to relocate production to evade the energy price surge. Finally, we should also be prepared to witness a comeback of the Coronavirus in the form of rising incidences across the globe. As safety measures have become less stringent and much more heterogenous across countries, it feels a little like a large-scale experiment testing whether the ‘evolutionary drive’ of the Coronavirus is really going in a direction that is less damaging and dangerous for the average citizen. While I think the latter is indeed a plausible hypothesis, I am still unsure about the net impact we will experience. But, for the better or the worse, we seem damned to find this one out…
One rather positive thing I associate with the fact that ‘winter is coming’ is that the many newly enrolled students in our MA program in Socioeconomics at University Duisburg-Essen will have the opportunity to start their studies, which is always inspiring as we do not only have many students (especially if compared to any standard econ program ;-), but ours are also highly talented and motivated people. It is always an honor to teach to them and guide them towards their degree.
However, for me personally the start of the term also implies the start of a harsh commuting schedules with the Deutsche Bahn (German Railway Services). For those who do not know Deutsche Bahn, let me just say it is a really neat example of just how self-damaging the German fetish for being prudent actually is. While, in theory, German trains can go up to 300 kilometres / hour (that is about 190 MPH), they really rarely reach this speed because of a lack of (a) adeqaute tracks, (b) efficient maintenance of trains, (c) professional long-term planning of track-routes. Eventually, this leads to the fact that the average speed on my commuting route is more about 70 miles per hours. So in case you ever need a case study on how not to do public services, I can recommend you check out “Deutsche Bahn” as a possibly appropriate case ;-)
All the best,
Jakob