How to find a compromise

Finding a compromise is not always easy. But I'm sure I can explain it with a tiny example of German politics.

Before the elections in September 2005, the SPD (comparable to the Democrats in the USA) said with them there will be no raise of VAT. The CDU (comparable to the Republicans in the USA) said there's a need to raise VAT by on percentage point. None of them got enough votes, so there is a big coalition of both of them in power.

Addlebrained people might be going to think that a compromise between no raise and a raise of 1 percentage point might be something like a raise of 0.5 percentage points. They're mistaken. They're dumb, stupid and crazy.

As you can learn from our goverment, if one party wants no raise, and the other one wants a raise by one, the compromise is a raise of 3. That's right, VAT in Germany will go from 16% up to 19% by the end of this year. Well done, government, thanks for showing us how to compromise.