First off, you have to remember that Germany's unemployment rate is far higher than ours... it's commensurately harder for Germans graduating from school to get work. Hence, they stay there longer.

In a larger, European context, the right to stay in school for eight years is enshrined with many other hard-won rights, such as the right to doctor prescribed cocaine and marijuana, the right to a government-subsizided sex change, and the right to unlimited, multigenerational welfare.

Americans alternatingly glance longingly at this social-democratic model and deride it for inefficiency; in either case, it's going out of style fast. The endless benificence of the government, which still remains in places like Japan, which still employs (and pensions!) push-button elevator operators, is fading fast.

This, like many other aspects of labor policy in Germany and the EU, is meant to strip the "social democratic" EU, Germany. can no longer be afforded in the age of united Europe. Let's look at a few of the reasons why.

1)To compete with the US and Pacific Rim products, Europe must cut costs. Its governments do this by cutting domestic social spending and raising revenues in new areas. Its businesses must counter strong unions' wage pressures by forcing each country's employees to compete with employees, and products, from a larger pool. Forcing out the permanent students fulfills both cost-cutting functions.

2) What is Germany's role in the EU, and its forbear, the European Economic Community? I believe that it maintains its historic aim - domination of Europe.

Germany's economic behavior is crucial to its current attempt. Where brute force, as exemplified in world wars I and II, failed to accomplish the aim, the apparent innocence of German economic activity, and the active collaboration of elites in its political and economic control of the EU, makes this attempt far more likely to succeed.

With Germany as the preemninent political entity and economy in Europe, and with a process of inevitable centralization of European political and economic policy, it has the best chance it's ever had to prevail.

So, in the final analysis, Germany's actions like slamming the door on its permanent students must be viewed not as a minor inconvenience for pampered middle class kids. In fact, we should be afraid because Germany is breaching one of the final frontiers of social-welfare degradation by attacking this privilege of the middle class. It means, if you're in Europe, that the next reevaluation of your country's education policy may kick YOU off the gravy train.