Reluctant Officials Cause Corona Gau by Thomas Seidel

Deutsche Version

Palgue Pillar in Vienna, Am Graben. Will we have to erect memorials to the victims of Corona in the future? (Source: wikipedia, GNU-Licence, Originator: Briséis)

As if the Corona plague were not already the worst health threat Europe has had to endure since the plague epidemics of the Middle Ages, the officials of their countries are stabbing the population in the back through inertia, passive resistance and deliberate opposition. Politicians everywhere seem powerless against it.

Everyone still seemed to have been taken by surprise by the first wave of corona. Despite new and worsening waves of influenza every year, no healthcare system in Europe (not to mention the rest of the world) was really prepared for the onslaught of such a deadly virus. For decades, the false credo of unconditional profitability of health care systems has jeopardized widespread medical care. Alleged overcapacity in the hospital system was eliminated. Any necessary stockpiling and precautions were reduced to a minimum.

The situation was no different in the pharmaceutical industry. For cost reasons, the production of raw materials for drug manufacture and even of high-quality drugs themselves was relocated to countries, whose quality standards had been increasingly questioned by experts for some time. Europe has become dependent on mostly Far Eastern suppliers for the supply of many medical products.

When the Corona epidemic broke out, nothing necessary was sufficiently stocked. Not enough breathing masks, protective gloves, not to mention intensive care beds, medical and nursing staff. Brutal procurement battles were the result. Aircraft loaded with medical products for Europe were simply hijacked and diverted by militarily threatening powers. Europe found no answer.

But the real health threat lies in the internal administrative apparatus of the European countries. An inkling of how things would turn out was given during the last summer months in Germany's school system. From March 2020 to August 2020, the responsible school authorities and ministries of education had a full six months to set up sustainable and resilient educational systems that could have offered pupils, trainees and students a modern alternative education even under the conditions of a virulent mass epidemic. Nothing happened!  Instead, there has been complete inertia among teaching staff, trench warfare and class warfare in ministries of education and school boards over the ideological question of whether lessons should be digitized at all, and if so, whether they should be. Initiatives by parents, e.g., to purchase ventilation systems at their own expense in order to maintain face-to-face teaching, were thwarted by the bureaucracy with flimsy references to technology that did not comply with regulations.

All this then escalated to absurdity in the second Corona epidemic wave starting in November 2020. The way the first tested vaccines were repeatedly delayed in their use by the responsible health authorities made it clear how arrogantly authorities simply put the lives of thousands of people at risk just so that the paths of their regulations would not be disturbed. As for the licensing of vaccines, it was probably less about clarifying medical and pharmacological issues and more about evaluating legal liability issues, with all their familiar legal dalliance. The unprecedented impudence, arrogance and contempt for humanity with which the authorities dealt with the epidemic then became apparent when everything came to a head in the approval process in Europe during the Christmas holiday season. Both the European and the German authorities initially had the guts to announce a date for the approval only after the Christmas holidays. Exclusively in order not to disturb the holiday rest of the officials. When the storm of indignation broke out over this, things suddenly moved faster, but not more unbureaucratically.

No sooner were vaccines licensed than it turned out that there was not enough production capacity at all to supply the European population even close to the deadline in the next eight weeks. While other non-European countries have used tricks to gain advantages in ordering vaccines from European manufacturers and brag about having their population herd-immunized by the end of March, the European citizens are once again seen as the stupid sheep who have been fooled by their officials and have to be patient until well into the summer of 2021.

For the outrageous way of official passive resistance, the daily due report of the current corona figures can be used every week. How can it be that over the weekend no or only fragmentary figures are reported to the Robert Koch Institute, just because some state authorities think that they do not work on weekends and thus have to report. It is unacceptable that offices go merrily into the weekend even when people are dying of the disease every day.

Not enough with all the bureaucratic obstructions in the medical control of the epidemic. Now it turns out that the economic aid applicants have also been deceived by their governments, even though thousands of billions in aid have been approved at the European, national and regional levels to mitigate the economic consequences of the Corona epidemic. Once again, it is the civil servants who only come out with the small print after the fact, as if it were a matter of their personal private assets and not of thousands of individual human lives and fates.

Politicians seem to be powerless in the face of this or simply want to let it happen. One gets the impression whatever chancellors, prime ministers or even state presidents decide, the executive civil servants don't seem to care. They continue to do their work by rule. The responsibility for all corona-related deaths, which are still to be deplored in Europe from April 2021, must be credited to the passive resistance of this civil service. Humanitarian lawyers should find a way to hold the body of Europe's executive officials accountable for this before the European Court of Human Rights. It is to be feared, however, that this will remain wishful thinking.

Deutsche Version

Retrospective of the year 2020 -by Thomas Seidel-

The great void

The spread of human civilization in the dark of the night

(Source: Google, FAZ)

Deutsche Version

However the year 2020 will be regarded in an overall historical context, it is clear to us contemporaries that it was an extraordinary year in every respect. It is easy to look back and list the facts and write about events that we all remember all too well. It is better to look at the big picture, to try to take a bird's eye view of human society.

There is no question that 2020 could enter history as the year of the stupid. For the stupid have revealed themselves to all of us in the still ongoing Corona crisis. For example, at demonstrations and in daily business dealings. They show themselves powerfully on television. They wear no masks and proclaim to be proud of it. The stupid are everywhere and come from every social class. Stupidity does not stop. No office and no position of power. Whether it is the official corona deniers in many countries of the world. Whether they are self-proclaimed freedom fighters against coercive state measures. Whether they are declared opponents of vaccination. Whether it is about stubborn civil servants in state administrations who do not want to deviate one iota from any procedures. Whether it is about those who want to put the right of the individual above the right of the general public. Whether it is about those who also grant those individuals those individual rights. Whether it is about greedy profiteers who try to gain an advantage for themselves out of every hardship. Whether it is about false preachers who still hope for a methaphysical salvation. Whether it is about the denunciators who satisfy themselves by always pointing the bare fingers at others, but in reality only want to distract from their own shortcomings. All these and many more have openly shown in society and in the family how unrealistic, selfish, vile and despicable they are.

But there is also no question that 2020 should go down in history as the year of heroes great and small. As seldom before, 2020 has shown the extraordinary humanity, helpfulness, understanding, compassion and devotion of which most, really the vast majority of people are capable. Whether it is those who are on the front line fighting the pandemic. Whether it is those who are trying everything to find ways out of the many emergencies. Whether they are people who simply sew a few masks, for example, when they are so urgently needed. Whether it is people who take care of their fellow human beings when they are even worse off than themselves. Whether they are people who are facing personal economic ruin and yet are trying to get their act together by all means. Whether they are people who perhaps simply show reason and do everything not to make the misery even worse. All these invisible and silent helpers have stood up to stupidity and ignorance and for that they deserve every recognition.

The stupid are so stupid that they shout their stupidity out loud. But a look at the whole reveals that humanity outweighs the stupid, the ignorant and the greedy. Unfortunately, the human is also always the quiet and silent.  But that it is there, this certainty holds an experience and carries a hope. The young generation should remember this the next time such a crisis inevitably occurs. In this respect, the year 2020 also brings a small consolation. Nevertheless, we should all hope that such a year will not happen again so soon. 

With this in mind, I thank all loyal readers and wish you a blessed Christmas and a better New Year 2021.

Deutsche Version

Pension reform is more important in the long run than Corona aid -by Thomas Seidel-

Without pension reform, this fate threatens the current generation later on

(Source: Google, Tagesspiegel)

These days, huge sums of money are being spent to counter the consequences of all kinds of crises. In the background is a problem that can easily unbalance all national budgets in the long run. It is the unresolved issues of a pension system that is in urgent need of reform.

The state pension system (statutory pension insurance) of 1891 is justifiably a German invention. However, it was not conceived for the benefit of the working population, but primarily served to provide a regulated supply of used human labour of the industrial society.  About 1900, society had a simple starting point.  People often remained local. There was little fluctuation. Retirement began around age 65. Life expectancy was low. Statistically, men died after barely five years of pension experience. 

At the beginning of the pension system, no money was saved for payouts. So the pay-as-you-go system was chosen. This means that the pension contributions of today's active workers pay the benefits to today's pensioners as well. No capital is built up. Nothing is saved. This principle still applies. One third of the payments are financed by contributions from employees. One third comes from employers' contributions. The last third comes from tax money. However, this share is getting bigger and bigger.

The system in Germany has had one cardinal flaw from the very beginning. The pension insurance has remained a system of social status up to this day. Older, already existing pension systems were initially left in place as far as possible. Thus, a pension fund was created for blue-collar workers, white-collar workers, civil servants (in fact none), the self-employed (in fact none, unless there was already professional insurance, such as for doctors or lawyers), as well as a whole series of traditional professions, such as the miners' insurance for miners or the maritime insurance.  From a legal and insurance point of view, the statutory old-age pension scheme was a work of the century, conceived for generations.

Until politicians, especially after the Second World War, came up with the idea of buying votes with alleged improvements to old-age pensions. Since then, old-age provision has been the toy of political parties and lobbyists, so far mainly at the expense of current pensioners. There is no desire to constantly increase contributions. The aim is to spare employers the burden of social costs. So the benefits for pensioners were reduced from about 75 per cent to about 48 per cent of their last income today. The system of social status promotes inequalities. On average, civil servants receive more than twice as much in retirement benefits as pensioners in the private sector.

In the last 130 years, however, the conditions for old-age provision in society have changed drastically. Everything is in flux. Learned profession and actual activities drift apart more and more often. People change locations in order to find work at all. People constantly have to improve their qualifications. Family reasons interrupt the continuity of contributions. People work abroad for longer periods. Continuity in the individual income history for around 45 years of work is no longer guaranteed.

Despite various adjustments and reforms, the statutory pension insurance is too rigid and inflexible to cope with the dynamic changes in the world of work. The costs of old-age provision according to the pay-as-you-go model are foreseeably no longer sustainable. Therefore, old-age provision needs to be supplemented by the employees' own taxed net income. This is unacceptable for workers. Riester and Rürup pensions (The terms "Riester" and "Rürup" stand for two pension supplementary laws from around the year 2000. They were intended to regulate private old-age provision from taxed net income and make it attractive to save money. The Riester Act was for non-self-employed workers, the Rürup Act for self-employed workers. However, both laws fell far short of their goal) have only been an attempt and have never really taken off. Too intransparent, too bureaucratic, too inflexible.

At the national level, there is a need for a comprehensive old-age provision programs on several complementary pillars:

1. The abolition of the system of social status. Everyone who earns income from work must first contribute to the one state pension system. Even if this means that lower contribution rates have to be temporarily applied on a staggered basis for low incomes (such as for the self-employed).
2. There must be a central fund for all voluntary occupational pension schemes into which all contributions flow, regardless of which employer one is with. The fund should be gilt-edged and managed by a trustworthy body, such as a special department of the central bank. These pension savings must be tax- and social security-free for all participants in the accumulation phase.
3. It must be possible for every employee to make special payments into the fund free of tax and social security contributions. This must also apply to the settlement of time credits for pension savings in companies.
4. The age limits for retirement must be made much more flexible. This applies to an early pension just as much as to a late pension. Why shouldn't the individual decide when to retire after a certain pay-in period. The legally enforced forced exit from working life must be abolished. The desire for a longer or shorter working life should be realisable. This goes hand in hand with the generally much longer life span.
5. Entirely personal old-age provisions such as endowment insurance, real estate acquisition, fund savings or even simple savings should not be subject to flat-rate social security contributions if these assets are verifiably used for retirement.
6. Capital formation contracts for the purpose of later annuitisation may not be subject to contract brokerage commissions or fees.
7. Finally, there must not be cut-off date-related taxation of securities whose values are subject to constant price fluctuations if the purpose of the liquidation of securities is to annuitise them here as well.
8. The system must be transparent, understandable and comprehensible for everyone. Annual information on the entitlement status at different ages in the future from all insurance providers is indispensable.

A large number of these measures could be easy for a legislator planning for the long term, provided there is political will. The core of the existing pension system would remain in place. The asset protection of occupational and private pensions would become more attractive and people could gain more security and freedom in their very personal life planning.

Incidentally, it is an indictment that work has not long been done at EU level to find regulations that would gradually and in the long term lead to a uniform EU pension system. Politicians are obviously not aware of how many people are already choosing their jobs on the basis of where they will be able to claim the most reasonable pensions later on. National pension systems are in any case contrary to the idea of an EU-wide flexible labour market. What is certain, however, is that if a fundamental new start is not made very quickly, first in the national pension system, the younger generations will look for a government that takes their concerns seriously and are acting. 

Just don't ring the bell - observations at the Farewell Party for Mario Draghi- by Thomas Seidel

German version

Joint ovations for the European Anthem, from left to right: Christine Lagarde, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel Mario Draghi with wife, Sergio Matterella, Ursula von der Leyen, Volker Bouffier
Source: ECB

On the occasion of Mario Draghi's farewell as President of the European Central Bank (ECB), distinguished guests from the worlds of politics and business will pay their respects in Frankfurt am Main. A great deal of gratitude is due to the man who allegedly saved the €uro from destruction. The event gives the observer a deep insight into the internal mechanisms of the European bureaucracy, but it does not provide any information on how things are going to go on in monetary matters in Europe.

The European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main has never experienced anything like this before. Three heads of state and government of European countries, an elected President of the European Commission and a designated successor to the President of the ECB will meet in Frankfurt am Main on the premises of the European Central Bank in order to bid farewell to its current President at the end of his normal term of office. 

Volker Bouffier, Angela Merkel, Mario Draghi
Source: Thomas Seidel

This raises protocol questions. Mario Draghi himself greets the highest dignitaries at the entrance to the building and walks them along a blue carpet, as if the ECB's landlord were at eye level with these ladies and gentlemen. Of course, the President of the ECB is the top representative of a very independent EU institution, and one can even say that it is the only EU institution that really works effectivly! But is a central bank president who is not directly legitimised by a democratic election really so on an equal footing with heads of state and government? The honour of this parade for the outgoing President of the ECB and the special gratitude expressed in the speeches of the protagonists paint a different picture.

Draghi is rightly praised for being a deeply convinced European who has practiced the more than two thousand year old brace of a common European understanding of culture to this day. One rightly admires the fundamental knowledge of the economy and, more importantly, the ability of Draghi to convey this to less economically educated decision-makers within the framework of global contexts. Draghi is rightly revered as the saviour of the €uro, if one wants to believe in the solitary integrating power of the common currency without the banking, capital market and fiscal union. But it is precisely the achievement for which Mario Draghi and the Central Bank Council like to praise themselves the most today, the creation of over eleven million jobs in Europe, that is influenced by so many other factors outside the ECB that the concrete share of monetary policy in it is rather difficult to discern.

Christine Lagarde has much to do
Source: ECB

Mario Draghi leaves a very difficult legacy to his successor Christine Lagarde. The ECB has now bought so many government bonds indirectly, and continues to do so, that some countries are no longer able even to issue more debt obligations. This will inflate the ECB's balance sheet for decades to come. Most €uro member countries will not be able to pay back their debts in generations to come, and for political reasons most will not want to. The ECB's purchase programme and the flooding of banks with money have destroyed the interbank money market in the long term. Nobody knows how this can be repaired! Zero interest rates or even negative interest rates, that has been learned from Japan since 1995, lead to nothing, except to the artificial respiration of already dead branches of the economy, which one simply does not want to let die for the sake of political opportunity. Inflation targets are imaginations. When Wolfgang Schäuble (former minister of finance in Germany) once wanted to know from Mario Draghi where the prayer mill-like repeated formula of "knapp unter zwei Prozent" (which in English can only be murky expressed as "below but close to two percent") comes from, his answer is supposed to have been: "der Otmar wars" („this was Otmars definition“ meaning the former German chief economist of the ECB Otmar Issing). In fact, inflation has not disappeared. It is taking place to an alarming extent on the stock and real estate markets. There, new speculative bubbles are forming unrestrainedly, which, as in the last financial crisis, can burst at any time. However, since their values are not included in the current consumer-oriented definition of inflation measurement, many people do not really perceive inflation, although, subjectively speaking, many things are becoming much more expensive. In fact, over the past eight years the ECB has solved fewer problems than it has moved them elsewhere. Christine Lagarde can now devote herself to all of this for the next eight years, as long as day-to-day political events allow time.

Handover of the Central Bank Council meeting bell. Mario Draghi claims not having used it even once in all eight years. As in the poem by Edenhall, Mrs Lagarde: Don't ring the bell!
Source: ECB

Something else has been made in this event even more obvious. You can feel how the European institutions and bureaucracies really work. A small, fine elite of very well-trained and well-paid people has already developed there, who can easily communicate with each other in many languages. This group of people prefers to remain among themselves and is moving ever faster away from the everyday reality of the people who ultimately finance this elite through their daily work. But the distances to each other are getting bigger and bigger. This is an important reason for the developing populism everywhere in Europe. There the tribunes of the people speak in the language of ordinary people and like to be heard quickly. One of the most important tasks for the new President of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, will be to put this communicative imbalance back on track. Only if people understand why a central bank acts as it does will they perhaps feel well looked after under the symbol of the single currency.

At least the heads of state are well protected! Police in front of the ECB building
Source: Thomas Seidel

The time for Guy Fawkes seems to have come by Thomas Seidel

Mask of Guy Fawkes
(Source:  https://pinnocchioblog.org/2017/12/15/
die-ohnmacht-der-worte/guy-fawkes-maske-anonymous-vendetta/)

In these modern times, people primarily understand a parliament to be a representation of the people. Elected or appointed members of parliament should participate in some way in the legislation. Whether democratically legitimized or not, an assembly of many in some way represents the will of the people.

Modern parliaments emerged from much older Councils. Among the Germanic tribes, for example, a "Thing", a term that can still be found today in some Scandinavian popular representations, such as the Folketing in Denmark or the Storting in Norway. In early medieval England this developed into a council, called "witan" or "witenagemot", aptly derived from the words "wita" ( wise man) and "gemot" ( meeting). In other words, a "meeting of the wise man". Even without having drawn on the great philosophers before that time, people knew almost instinctively that a kind of swarm intelligence should be used for general and difficult decisions. Apart from the mechanisms of reconciling the interests of competing parties, such swarm intelligence is still expected to be more wise than the solitary decision of a single person. That is, in essence, the very raison d'être of a parliament.

Palace of Westminster 2007
(Source: wikipedia, CCL, Originator: David Hunt)

The English and later British Parliament, which is considered by many to be exemplary in the world, has fought hard over many centuries to defend its position in the power system of the island state. The 5th of November 1605 is known to every Briton and is celebrated every year as the Bonfire Night. On this day the soldier Guy Fawkes tried to carry out with some co-conspirators an attack on the parliament and the king Jakob I., the so-called Gunpowder Plot. More than two tons of black powder had been placed in the cellars of the Westminster Palace, where the parliament met. The attack was prevented. From today's point of view, the reason for this seems hollow. Since then, the cellars have been inspected at the annual opening of the Westminster Parliament. Parliament seems to have been saved.

But what is currently going on in the British Parliament in connection with the Brexit is likely to despair all British voters. It looks as if Parliament has lost its swarm intelligence and all the rest of its wisdom. Never before has this people's representation spoken out many times and repeatedly only against anything, but never for anything. Never before have the British people's representatives done so much damage in such a short time as they have done now. More than ever the time seems to have come for a Guy Fawkes.

What Britain has forever gambled away -by Thomas Seidel-

German version

Queen Elizabeth II (m). Her predecessors has given the royal power to the
Primacy of the Parliament subordinated. Today she can only represent and
admonish. The Queen can no longer stop Parliament.
The Royal family on the balcony of the Buckingham Palast on 16th June 2012
(Source: wikipedia, CCL. Originator: carfax2)

The great hope of the proponents of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union is actually reactionary: one dreams of the good old days of a long gone empire. Perhaps a little more realistically one longs at least for the Commonwealth of Nations. In any case, however, they want to be sovereign again as soon as possible. Let nothing be said by the EU. Above all, away from the hated European jurisdiction, which is so much influenced by continental Europe and has nothing to do with Anglo-Saxon legal traditions.

Many British citizens are prepared to accept considerable disadvantages for this. This was made clear by a Briton who was simply asked on the street about the negotiations between Britain and the EU: "There was no box for a deal, it was just "Stay" or "Leave". So far so good. In the meantime, most Britons have realized that the loud promises of the political Brexit boosters will not come true. Nevertheless, they only want one thing, to get out of the EU!

Wilhelm III of Orange (1650 - 1702)
He accepted with his wife Queen Mary the "Bill of Rights"
thereby subjugating the royal power to the will of Parliamnet
(Source: wikipedia, licence free, Painter: Gottfried Kneller)

This urge for freedom, this unwillingness to bow to foreign patronising has a very long tradition in the British Isles. The beginning of this tradition can be traced back very precisely to history. It began with the passage of the "Bill of Rights" on 16th December 1689. The Upper and Lower Houses passed the bill. The acting equal royal couple William III of Orange and his wife Mary from the House of Stuart recognized the Bill of Rights. Thus they subordinated the royal power for all time to the primacy of the parliamentary will. Since then, Britain has managed to successfully resist all internal and external hostilities. Absolutism had as little chance on the islands as the radical Republicans of the French Revolution. Napoleon was defeated. No one could oppose the imperial rise to dominating world power for almost one hundred years. The manifold hostilities of the first half of the 20th century were overcome by the British with blood, sweat and tears, with many losses. After the loss of the Empire, London, at least, grew into the financial centre of the world, where simply anyone could deal anything.

Great Britain developed a liberal attitude towards a society that was fundamentally open to the outside world. At least when it comes to doing business. In more than three hundred years, this has created a basic trust among national but above all international investors in the functioning and reliability of British society, British law and British institutions. One could be sure of his cause. People on these islands have never been conquered by foreign powers since 1066. With their culture and self-image, they have set standards all over the world. Great Britain was, perhaps even more than small Switzerland, the safe harbour for doing business. Even those businesses that have already been sanctioned in other countries, such as the USA. This feeling of trust has always attracted a lot of money to the UK. This has not least led to the sale off of large parts of British industry. This also applies to British properties, at least in the south of the islands. But at least for a part of society this has brought work, income and partly also prosperity. But not for other large parts of British society. It is a joke on the whole thing, that it is precisely this neglected part of society, that is most resolutely demanding Britain's withdrawal from the EU. Because they will be the ones who will suffer most through their own choices when they leave the EU.

London 360 degree panorama
For over threehundred years everbody can deal everthing with everbody here
(Source: wikipedia, GNU-licence, originator: Diliff)

However, Great Britain has lost one thing irretrievably: the confidence of international investors, which has been painfully built up over three hundred years, through Brexit. Trust is extremely volatile. Whether Brexit becomes effective on 29 March 2019 as planned, or is postponed by months or even two years, confidence is already gone. And it won't come back any time soon. That is what the majority of Britons simply gambled away in just one thoughtless moment. But exactly this gambling is their true innermost nature. But a seasoned Brit knows when he has lost and will take this burden on himself. Cheers!

Cheers!
(Source: imgur.com/gallery/O7KKgHC)

On the death of Karl Lagerfeld by Thomas Seidel

German version

Karl Lagerfeld
(Source: FAZ,  originator: Helmut Fricke)

Many tears will flow and the Seine will overflow its banks. 

Anyone who has ever seen Karl Lagerfeld at work has been deeply impressed by his good taste and the stylistic confidence with which he knows how to say every minute what fits together or not. The Fendi and Chanel fashion houses in particular have been happy to rely on his judgement for decades. Karl Lagerfeld once said of himself in an interview that he could only draw a little, otherwise he wouldn't do anything! That was a little too much understated. 

To say that Karl Lagerfeld had talent was not enough. You can't measure how big and how deep the universe was that Karl Lagerfeld had in his head. But it was certainly immeasurable in every respect. His multiple libraries with an unbelievably large number of illustrated books give at best an idea of what Lagerfeld had seen and, above all, what he could imagine. One had the feeling that everything Karl Lagerfeld had ever seen and experienced was an inspiration for him. But above all he had the view. His photographs give us an impression of what he looked at and how he saw. And yet they will only be able to reflect a fraction of what he imagined in his innermost being. It's not unlikely that the world wasn't really enough for someone like Karl Lagerfeld. Some of what he did, or rather "staged", did not seem to be of this world. In this respect, Karl Lagerfeld enriched everything. 

Karl Lagerfeld was also a witty interlocutor. When he used his German mother tongue, everything he said came across undeniably in his flippant Hanseatic manner. He babbled how his muzzle had grown. He did not mince his words and spoke about things as he saw and felt them. This could be funny, lively and entertaining for the knowledgeable. But the ignorant had to turn away in shame. 

Karl Lagerfeld was also the best example of how the mind can be enriched by mastering foreign languages. Spiritual boundaries fall, worlds come together. Lagerfeld set an example, even though he had to live in France for professional reasons. But the most important thing we have to learn from Karl Lagerfeld is that from a certain level there are no more borders.