Angelika Surely you have already heard of the American protest movement "Occupy Wall Street," which began in New York and spread like wildfire to several American cities--eventually, its offshoots have even reached Germany. I've seen this coming for a long time, for people in the USA to finally taking to the streets, as the gap between rich and poor is particularly wide here.

Michael Inexperienced German tourists coming to the U. S. are often surprised when a T-shirt priced at $9.99 suddenly costs $10.84 at the checkout. The difference is due to the sales tax levied by the respective county. Similar to how Germany uses value-added tax (VAT), the state uses this trick to tax already taxed income again. And just like in Germany, the seller is merely an intermediary, passing the tax collected from the customer to the tax man without benefiting from it themselves. Unlike in America, it would be illegal in Germany to add VAT for end consumers only at the checkout; the price on the label already includes VAT. Americans find it normal for the checkout to add an odd amount.

Michael The mega-retailer Amazon is headquartered near Seattle in the state of Washington, one of the few remaining sales tax havens in America. And since the catalog retailer Quill, which is based in the state of Delaware, took the case Quill 1992 vs. North Dakota to the Supreme Court and won, it is established that companies without a branch in the state cannot be forced to collect the local sales tax.

Michael It is known in Germany that microwaves in America are sold with a warning that they are not suitable for drying pets. And we have often mentioned that American schoolchildren usually don't ride bicycles or walk to school, and only the less fortunate use public transportation. Recently, a case from the state of Tennessee even made headlines, in which a patrol officer stopped a 10-year-old girl on her bicycle on the way to school. and promptly drove her back to her parents and explained to the astonished mother that children should only ride bikes under supervision. Crazy.

Michael The population in San Francisco is quite diverse. As I've mentioned before in Rundbrief 07/2005 , 44% of the population here are white, 31% asian, 14% latino, and 8% black. The map in Figure 2 shows that members of an 'ethnicity' often concentrate in specific neighborhoods. It should come as no surprise that mainly asians settle in Chinatown and that predominantly whites live in affluent neighborhoods like ours in Noe Valley. The latinos (mainly South Americans) mostly live in the Mission district. In the southern part of the city, there are somewhat more affordable areas where, interestingly, a very balanced mix of skin colors can be found. The blue centers on the map with predominantly black populations are the neighborhoods of Tenderloin, Hunters Point, and Sunnydale, which are unfortunately partly known as social hotspots.

Angelika We find ourselves once again in the middle of an election campaign. Although presidential elections are not until November 2012, the American system of primaries ( Rundbrief 02/2008 ) has kicked off their election campaign. In the primaries, party members themselves decide who will be sent into the presidential race for their party. The first primaries will take place at the beginning of 2012. Since everything is already set with the Democrats, as only Obama is running and his nomination is just a formality, all the focus is on the Republican candidates. The Republican base is concerned with only one thing: Who can succeed in defeating Obama?

Michael At the latest since the Tarantino film "Inglourious Basterds" in which an American spy gives himself away by ordering three beers with the wrong fingers, it should be clear that Americans and Germans use different finger signs.

Michael As an avid newsletter reader, you've already read in Rundbrief 03/2011 about the revolution of the electronic Amazon book readers of the "Kindle" brand. In Germany, too, they seem to be catching on quickly; the German Amazon site offers a decent selection of contemporary titles.