"Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model
Can Help You Get a Life" By Thomas Geoghegan The New Press,
$25.95, 336 pages  When Chicago author and labor lawyer Thomas
Geoghegan interviews a German banker in his new book "Were You
Born on the Wrong Continent?" he asks why, if things are bad in
Germany, the restaurants are full.  The banker replies by
quoting Norbert Walter, famous in economic circles as the former
chief economist of Deutsche Bank, who summarized the situation
this way: "We Germans are worse off . . . but at higher and
higher levels."  Germans have suffered in the global economic
crisis like everyone else, but Geoghegan points out that while
New York and London won the race to be money centers in
attracting international capital that turned out to be a saving
grace for the Germans. Their financial sector did not bloat
beyond recognition, there were no bubbles of reckless loans and
excessive debt, and in hindsight much of the financial press
reported, "We mocked them for losing