Harvard Business Review : intervista con Ron Johnson

Salve a tutti 
scusate se per qualche giorno non ho aggiornato il Blog ma sono stato parecchio impegnato. Comunque , 
pubblico un`intervista ,segnalatami  da un amico che conoscendo la mia debolezza e , l`ammirazione per tutto quello che ha fatto Apple , ha voluto gratificarmi  con questo articolo che parla  di vendite e di rapporto con la clientela .


Come potrete capire dai contenuti dell`intervista , quando un potenziale cliente entra in un qualsiasi negozio, lo fa per vivere un`esperienza e non per acquistare a comando(qualsiasi categoria merceologica) .
I consumatori oggi , sono pronti a comprare e a volte a pagare di piu` solo se  percepiscono di essere trattati come clienti e non come dei polli da spennare .Di un commesso che non sa nulla di quello che sta vendendo , non ce n`e` assolutamente bisogno . Fortunatamente , la professionalita` sta tornando in maniera prepotente .
Chi si ostinera` a perseguire logiche commerciali che andavano bene nel secolo scorso, e` destinato ad una lenta ma costante emorragia di fatturati , che lo portera` alla chiusura per la mancanza dei globuli rossi del commercio : i clienti !!!!!!!!!


Avremo tempo per approfondire quanto sopra .

HBR Blog Network

RON JOHNSON

Ron Johnson is the CEO of J.C. Penney and the former senior VP for retail at Apple.

An interview with  Ron Johnson appears in the December 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review.

What I Learned Building the Apple Store

11:16 AM Monday November 21, 2011 
by Ron Johnson | Comments (98)

This blog post is part of the HBR Online Forum The Future of Retail.

When I announced that I was leaving Apple to take the reins as CEO of J.C. Penney this month, the business press (and lots of others) began speculating about whether I could replicate the Apple Store's success in such a dramatically different retail setting. One of the most common comments I heard was that the Apple Store succeeded because it carried Apple products and catered to the brand's famously passionate customers. Well, yes, Apple products do pull people into stores. But you don't need to stock iPads to create an irresistible retail environment. You have to create a store that's more than a store to people.

Think about this: Any store has to provide products people want to buy. That's a given. But if Apple products were the key to the Stores' success, how do you explain the fact that people flock to the stores to buy Apple products at full price when Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Target carry most of them, often discounted in various ways, and Amazon carries them all — and doesn't charge sales tax!

People come to the Apple Store for the experience — and they're willing to pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that experience, but maybe the most important — and this is something that can translate to any retailer — is that the staff isn't focused on selling stuff, it's focused on building relationships and trying to make people's lives better. That may sound hokey, but it's true. The staff is exceptionally well trained, and they're not on commission, so it makes no difference to them if they sell you an expensive new computer or help you make your old one run better so you're happy with it. Their job is to figure out what you need and help you get it, even if it's a product Apple doesn't carry. Compare that with other retailers where the emphasis is on cross-selling and upselling and, basically, encouraging customers to buy more, even if they don't want or need it. That doesn't enrich their lives, and it doesn't deepen the retailer's relationship with them. It just makes their wallets lighter.

So the challenge for retailers isn't "how do we mimic the Apple Store" or any other store that seems like a good model. It's a very different problem, one that's conceptually similar to what Steve Jobs faced with the iPhone. He didn't ask, "How do we build a phone that can achieve a two percent market share?" He asked, "How do we reinvent the telephone?" In the same way, retailers shouldn't be asking, "How do we create a store that's going to do $15 million a year?" They should be asking, "How do we reinvent the store to enrich our customers' lives?"

It's not easy, of course. People forget that the Apple Store encountered some bumps along the way. No one came to the Genius Bar during the first years. We even had Evian water in refrigerators for customers to try to get them to sit down and spend time at the bar. But we stuck with it because we knew that face-to-face support was the very best way to help customers. Three years after the Genius Bar launched, it was so popular we had to set up a reservation system.

There isn't one solution. Each retailer will need to find its own unique formula. But I can say with confidence that the retailers that win the future are the ones that start from scratch and figure out how to create fundamentally new types of value for customers.

·            

Woods 11/21/2011 10:54 PM

·           Here is the thing that Ron didn't mention about his success at Apple. Ron genuinely cares deeply about his customers and his employees. This came across in every interaction and email. How to care is something that can not be taught. It is uniquely Ron.  It makes you want to work harder for the cause and for Ron. It also elevates everyones standards. The A players rise higher and the lower level players leave because they can't keep up. Or, they fail to take personal accountability for their own success and end up being explainers rather than acheivers.

Also, Ron's capacity for information and data is mind blowing. He's the only guy that I have ever know who could read 10 different financial reports, cross reference the data in his head and pull an actionable story from it in seconds. He taught me to love numbers like reading a sports page.

It is my opinion that taking this job is not about making Money, it's about legacy. Ron will reinvent big box retail. It would be foolish to bet against him.

Dalla panchina di un marciapiede di New York : un`occhiata disinteressata alla proposta moda per uomo a fine 2011

Happy thanksgiving !!!!
Sono sopravvissuto anche quest`anno al per me malefico rito del tacchino ! Con i miei amici italiani di NY ci siamo seduti a tavola ieri pomeriggio alle 2.30 e ci siamo alzati esattamente 5 ore piu` tardi ! 

Turkey Italian style ( Bravo Roberto )

(neanche al  matrimonio di William e Kate saremmo rimasti cosi` a lungo ).


Comunque , lasciando da parte il tacchino e i bicchieri di vino ( ottimo ) che mi sono gustato , oggi vi scrivo riguardo un articolo sulla attuale proposta moda per l`uomo,  che mi ha fatto davvero riflettere ! 


Parecchi anni fa ,una delle canzoni di Battisti che andava per la maggiore diceva :
Confusione, , confusione , mi dispiace ....  se sei figlia della solita illusione e se fai confusione ...confusione !

A distanza di trentanni , questa canzone  , potrebbe essere la colonna sonora del 2011 del mondo del fashion . Il settore infatti , non e` mai stato cosi` confuso come negli ultimi anni , o  meglio , coloro i quali ci lavorano , non hanno decisamente ancora capito cosa sia successo un paio di anni fa . Continuano ad annaspare inconsciamente in balia dei loro BB o Iphones,   alla ricerca  dell`araba fenice , non riconoscendo ( o per incapacita` o per comodita` ) che le cose non sono piu` come prima.
E` sotto gli occhi di tutte le persone con un quoziente intellettuale normale  ( come lo scrivente )  , che la crisi economica che sta tuttora imperversando nei mercati di tutto il mondo, ha di fatto spaccato in maniera netta i consumatori .
Da un lato  quelli che possono permettersi il cosiddetto "lusso"  , e dall`altro , quelli che possono permettersi al massimo una canottiera da 9 $ da H&M o le rimanenze dei prodotti rimasti invenduti nei negozi di immagine ( negli outlets , le persone che rovistano in mucchi di merce oramai "avariata" assomigliano sempre di piu` ai cinesi o agli homeless che vedo nelle strade di New York  rovistare nei bidoni della spazzatura per recuperare le bottigliette di plastica a  qualche avanzo di cibo  e la % di questi " sfigati del fashion " credo sia intorno al 98% dei consumatori ).


Al centro il nulla ( un po` come i politici  italiani  del cosiddetto centro ;-) ). 


E` chiaro  , che quella che solo pochi anni fa era considerata la fascia media del mercato e` stata spazzata via dallo Tsunami economico del 2008 . 
Ricordo , che nelle mie riunioni di marketing di qualche anno fa , ogniqualvolta si parlava di mercato , veniva disegnata sulla lavagna , la famosa piramide di Maslow che avrebbe dovuto spiegare i bisogni dei consumatori  ( e`stata di sicuro applicata anche agli studi sulla curvatura  delle zucchine ).

Oggi invece, dopo i disastri economici che siamo riusciti a creare e  di cui le societa` cosiddette avanzate ne pagheranno i costi per  parecchi anni  , la piramide di cui sopra e` diventata una clessidra di forma irregolare . 

Nella parte sotto,  si posizionera` il 90% dei consumatori , mentre il rimanente 10 % sara` nella parte alta  .A tal proposito,il  professor Vanni Codeluppi  (sociologo all`universita` di Modena e Reggio Emilia ) osserva  che questo fenomeno che spacca in due, altissimo e basso, quasi cancellando tutto ciò che sta in mezzo e` globale .

Del resto, se trent’anni fa il 10 per cento della popolazione deteneva il 30 per cento del reddito complessivo mentre oggi ne possiede il 45 per cento, è logico che beni e merci ne siano influenzati.

Lo hanno capito tutti , ad eccezione dei managers del fashion.

Vi lascio , con un articolo apparso ieri sul NYT riguardo Barneys NY ,  una delle icone mondiali  del settore "fashion" .Qualsiasi azienda al mondo che produce abbigliamento  e relativi accessori come scarpe e borse,  vogliono avere i loro prodotti esposti in questo department store ,  alla fine pero`camminando tra i suoi spazi espositivi  come diceva il grande Lucio,  la confusione regna sovrana! 

CRITICAL SHOPPER

Enduring but Confusing at Barneys                     continuo ad andare da Barneys ma non capisco  (a chi vogliono vendere ) 

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

By JON CARAMANICA

Published: November 22, 2011

POP quiz: who’s more stylish, Usher or Cuba Gooding Jr.?

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Yana Paskova for The New York Times

Only Barneys New York holds the answers to such esoterica. It’s the level playing field of fashion, appealing to magnates and celebrities and tourists alike, a brand that, for all its overreaching of recent years, remains remarkably durable.

Under the guidance of the chief executive, Mark Lee, who was hired last year, Barneys is updating its men’s-wear offerings, hoping to restore its place of privilege for emerging designers and styles, beginning with the redesigned Co-Op.

The old Co-Op was the Grand Central Terminal of aspirational retail, a scrum of high and low, luxe and ham-handed hip. It was as close as Barneys got to a glam shopping experience, and it could be blinding.

But there’s little remarkable about the new Co-Op space, wide and long and inconsistently lighted, with stomach-level racks stuffed full of clothes that, from afar, look half black. Colors appear like oxygen tanks on icy mountaintops, badly needed and hard to come by. A Co-Op cafe, Genes @ Co-Op, looks like the situation room from “24,” each seat matched to a screen embedded into a long communal table. You’d maybe send your 7-year-old there to distract him as you try on Stone Island coats.

Into this mush walked Usher (looking lumpy, it must be said), who was quickly surrounded by a constellation of sales associates, following him from rack to rack as he selected things to take home. “He loves fabrics,” someone told me later. Maybe then he was excited to see sweat pants in a range of materials, from Alexander Wang’s black leather to Opening Ceremony’s heavy rustic wool. For real sweating, those pants.

In places, the Co-Op is still the store’s nexus of forward thinking: killer Junya Watanabe Comme des Garçons pieces, including a raspy brown argyle shirt with blue sleeves ($915); a long, rumpled horror-film-worthy black coat by Silent by Damir Doma ($1,340), or an appealingly slouchy alpaca sweater by Patrik Ervell ($350).

Now on the eighth floor, the Co-Op has never felt less connected to the rest of the store. Step down onto the untrammeled seventh floor, with its green cashmere Regent sport coats ($3,095), seas of Incotex trousers and a tribute display to Gianni Agnelli’s favorite suit, and it feels as if you’ve left a messy attic for the part of the house father frequents.

On six, it’s where father’s cooler brother hangs out, maybe in the Etro purple, yellow and brown gingham blazer ($1,450), the purple Valentini corduroys, or the rich brown Armani sport coat ($1,395) that, over a series of visits to the store, earned its way into my closet.

Those floors, six and seven, are unambiguous. The Co-Op is supposed to be similarly certain, but it isn’t. Instead, the store’s third and fourth floors are its secret weapons, its progressive soul on display without youth-baiting baggage.

On four, newish lines were impressive, especially Inis Meain, with its inventive Donegal sweaters, or Scout Original, with its bold Cowichan caricatures ($1,250). In the corner, a glut of John Varvatos looked like an old man still dressing in leather and wet with Grecian Formula. In another, oodles of James Perse hung like limp rags.

Downstairs on three, a beige Duckie Brown cashmere coat — belted, not buttoned — was erotically soft ($4,225). It would have looked phenomenal with the nuclear fallout boots (color: “dirty black”) by Alexandre Plokhov ($1,395), or over the beige and white shawl V-neck sweater by Alexander McQueen ($795). Off on one side were Raf Simons, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten: in a dream world, this is usually what I’m dressed in.

Just downstairs, on the shiny glass-and-metal second floor, with its Italian designers and a sense of recklessness in the air, things got tough on the eyes once again; a whole column could be devoted to the glittering fuchsia mock-neck by Prada ($860), a refugee from a costumer’s closet. Better was the ground floor, with the promising collection by Piombo, one of the store’s latest additions, especially the burnt red pants, or the beefy green car coat ($1,095). (Best to ignore the casual-wear from brands that should stick to suits — denim from Kiton and Brioni, say.)

What you forget about Barneys is that it’s a department store. Barneys is for everyone: for the sad-looking gentleman sheepishly asking to try on a pair of velvet Louboutin slippers with patent leather toes ($995); for the overly tanned, slightly balding 40-something guy trying on slick, tight coats over his skinny jeans; for the older fellow eyeing Berlutis on the ground floor; for the woman who stepped out of the elevator on eight and chirped, “Is this the jeans floor?”

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Yana Paskova for The New York Times

The staff is ubiquitous, and extremely helpful, likely because so many customers appear to be in need of so much help, with money to spend and the sincere hope that someone will tell them how to do it.

On the fourth floor, as I was salivating over a navy Nigel Cabourn coat with a bottom half made of Harris tweed, I saw a customer who needed no such assistance. In a sharp blue puffy vest and perfectly fitting jeans, he was walking purposefully but regretfully toward the elevator, telling his friend how much he loved that one jacket, but the fit just wasn’t quite right.

He looked back over his shoulder a couple of times as if to reconsider, but Cuba Gooding Jr. knew perfectly well that if it didn’t fit well now, it wouldn’t fit well later, and so he left, empty-handed and immaculate.

Barneys New York

660 Madison Avenue, (212) 826-8900;barneys.com.

HORSE, MEET WATER You can change the store, but you can’t necessarily change who comes through the doors. Barneys still serves many constituencies, and gaining customers at the leading edge doesn’t yet mean sacrificing those bringing up the rear.

HIGH AND DRY As a brand extension, Co-Op is a savvy move, but the new version is no less chaotic than the old one. There’s no narrative, just clothes that tease with lower prices and stranger fabrics (if you’re lucky).

DESERT OASIS Ignore the top and bottom of the store and gun straight for the middle: the third and fourth floors are full of imaginative and beautiful clothes that don’t pander.

Italian baby loves Led Zeppelin

USE (Stati Uniti d'Europa )

Settembre 2021 : nelle carte geografiche che verranno scaricate nei loro tablets da tutti  i bambini del          " Vecchio Continente " che si preparano ad affrontare il loro primo anno scolastico, l`Europa si presentera` cosi`! 

Map illustration by Peter Arkle

'Life is still far from easy in the peripheral states of the United States of Europe

 (as the euro zone is now known).'

 Il giornalista del Wall Street Journal Niall Ferguson, ha immaginato nel suo articolo di un paio di giorni fa.  come sarà il Vecchio Continente tra 10 anni.

Una entita` completamente diversa da quella che conosciamo oggi , rimodellata da dieci anni di pesante crisi che ha  definitivamente cambiato  Stati , confini  e usanze.

Nel 2021, l`Euro e` ancora la moneta circolante e finalmente l`uso elettronico dei pagamenti  ha soppiantato il contante ( per cui la tracciabilita` dei movimenti di denaro ha costretto i cittadini del Sud a pagare le tasse ) e Vienna ha preso il posto di Bruxelles come capitale degli Stati Uniti d`Europa 

L'euro inoltre, è stato adottato anche dai due paesi baltici  che mancavano (Lituania e Lettonia ) e dalla Polonia, che insieme all'Estonia sono divenuti i paesi che più di ogni altro attraggono gli investimenti della Germania ( bassa tassazione e i salari minimi dell`area Euro )
Nel frattempo, la  Gran Bretagna di David Cameron grazie ad un referendum popolare e` uscita dall`Unione Europea .

Per la periferia dell`Impero ( Italia,Spagna, Portogallo, Irlanda, Grecia) , le cose continuano ad andare male,infatti , la disoccupazione in questa parte di Europa è intorno al 20%. 

In ogni caso, con  l`entrata in vigore  di un nuovo sistema fiscale federalista (nel 2012 ),e grazie ai nuovi posti di lavoro che si sono venuti a creare ( giardinieri o camerieri nelle seconde case che i tedeschi hanno acquistato ) ,la qualita` di vita in questi paesi ( il 20 % della popolazione ha piu` di 65 anni ) e` ancora accettabile . ( riguardo quest`ultimo punto devo ammettere di essermi sbagliato,infatti  pensavo saremmo finiti a fare i camerieri o i giardinieri ai cinesi ) 

Quasi dappertutto ( ad eccezione della Germania ) i partiti nazionalisti sono al potere ed in scandinavia la Norse League controlla quelle che una volta erano le socialdemocrazie di Norvegia , Finlandia, Svezia  e Danimarca.


In soloun  paio d` anni , l`euro e le politiche economiche dei suoi "sacerdoti "a Bruxelles ,aveva di fatto cancellato i governi di : Paesi Bassi, Slovacchia, Belgio, Irlanda, Finlandia, Portogallo ,Italia , Spagna e Slovenia a cui era seguito dopo pochi mesi il crollo del governo francese a quel tempo guidato da  Nicolas Sarkozy.
Cionostante, e contro le cupe  previsioni che  giravano nel 2011, il governatore della BCE Mario Draghi era riuscito a salvare l`euro e a trasformare la banca stessa in una specie di istituto finanziario di pronto intervento ( una sorta di emergency room per i paesi al collasso ).
Fantapolitica ?????? Mah !

2021: The New Europe

Niall Ferguson peers into Europe's future and sees

 Greek gardeners,German sunbathers—

and a new fiscal union. 

Welcome to the other United States

hBy NIALL FERGUSON

The euro is still circulating, though banknotes are now seldom seen. (Indeed, the ease of electronic payments now makes some people wonder why creating a single European currency ever seemed worth the effort.) But Brussels has been abandoned as Europe's political headquarters. Vienna has been a great success.Welcome to Europe, 2021. Ten years have elapsed since the great crisis of 2010-11, which claimed the scalps of no fewer than 10 governments, including Spain and France. Some things have stayed the same, but a lot has changed.

"There is something about the Habsburg legacy," explains the dynamic new Austrian Chancellor Marsha Radetzky. "It just seems to make multinational politics so much more fun."

The U.S. has lost its position as the best place to do business, and China and the rest of the East have so mastered the ways of the West that they're charting a whole new economic paradigm, Harvard historian Niall Ferguson says in an interview with WSJ's John Bussey. Photo courtesy of Jeff Bush.

The Germans also like the new arrangements. "For some reason, we never felt very welcome in Belgium," recalls German Chancellor Reinhold Siegfried von Gotha-Dämmerung.

Life is still far from easy in the peripheral states of the United States of Europe (as the euro zone is now known). Unemployment in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain has soared to 20%. But the creation of a new system of fiscal federalism in 2012 has ensured a steady stream of funds from the north European core.

Like East Germans before them, South Europeans have grown accustomed to this trade-off. With a fifth of their region's population over 65 and a fifth unemployed, people have time to enjoy the good things in life. And there are plenty of euros to be made in this gray economy, working as maids or gardeners for the Germans, all of whom now have their second homes in the sunny south.

The U.S.E. has actually gained some members. Lithuania and Latvia stuck to their plan of joining the euro, following the example of their neighbor Estonia. Poland, under the dynamic leadership of former Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, did the same. These new countries are the poster children of the new Europe, attracting German investment with their flat taxes and relatively low wages.

But other countries have left.

David Cameron—now beginning his fourth term as British prime minister—thanks his lucky stars that, reluctantly yielding to pressure from the Euroskeptics in his own party, he decided to risk a referendum on EU membership. His Liberal Democrat coalition partners committed political suicide by joining Labour's disastrous "Yeah to Europe" campaign.

Egged on by the pugnacious London tabloids, the public voted to leave by a margin of 59% to 41%, and then handed the Tories an absolute majority in the House of Commons. Freed from the red tape of Brussels, England is now the favored destination of Chinese foreign direct investment in Europe. And rich Chinese love their Chelsea apartments, not to mention their splendid Scottish shooting estates.

In some ways this federal Europe would gladden the hearts of the founding fathers of European integration. At its heart is the Franco-German partnership launched by Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman in the 1950s. But the U.S.E. of 2021 is a very different thing from the European Union that fell apart in 2011.

* * *

It was fitting that the disintegration of the EU should be centered on the two great cradles of Western civilization, Athens and Rome. But George Papandreou and Silvio Berlusconi were by no means the first European leaders to fall victim to what might be called the curse of the euro.

Since financial fear had started to spread through the euro zone in June 2010, no fewer than seven other governments had fallen: in the Netherlands, Slovakia, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Portugal and Slovenia. The fact that nine governments fell in less than 18 months—with another soon to follow—was in itself remarkable.

But not only had the euro become a government-killing machine. It was also fostering a new generation of populist movements, like the Dutch Party for Freedom and the True Finns. Belgium was on the verge of splitting in two. The very structures of European politics were breaking down.

Who would be next? The answer was obvious. After the election of Nov. 20, 2011, the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, stepped down. His defeat was such a foregone conclusion that he had decided the previous April not to bother seeking re-election.

And after him? The next leader in the crosshairs was the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was up for re-election the following April.

The question on everyone's minds back in November 2011 was whether Europe's monetary union—so painstakingly created in the 1990s—was about to collapse. Many pundits thought so. Indeed, New York University's influential Nouriel Roubini argued that not only Greece but also Italy would have to leave—or be kicked out of—the euro zone.

But if that had happened, it is hard to see how the single currency could have survived. The speculators would immediately have turned their attention to the banks in the next weakest link (probably Spain). Meanwhile, the departing countries would have found themselves even worse off than before. Overnight all of their banks and half of their nonfinancial corporations would have been rendered insolvent, with euro-denominated liabilities but drachma or lira assets.

Restoring the old currencies also would have been ruinously expensive at a time of already chronic deficits. New borrowing would have been impossible to finance other than by printing money. These countries would quickly have found themselves in an inflationary tailspin that would have negated any benefits of devaluation.

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Getty Images

Some bumpy moments in recent EU history.

For all these reasons, I never seriously expected the euro zone to break up. To my mind, it seemed much more likely that the currency would survive—but that the European Union would disintegrate. After all, there was no legal mechanism for a country like Greece to leave the monetary union. But under the Lisbon Treaty's special article 50, a member state couldleave the EU. And that is precisely what the British did.

* * *

Britain got lucky. Accidentally, because of a personal feud between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the United Kingdom didn't join the euro zone after Labour came to power in 1997. As a result, the U.K. was spared what would have been an economic calamity when the financial crisis struck.

With a fiscal position little better than most of the Mediterranean countries' and a far larger banking system than in any other European economy, Britain with the euro would have been Ireland to the power of eight. Instead, the Bank of England was able to pursue an aggressively expansionary policy. Zero rates, quantitative easing and devaluation greatly mitigated the pain and allowed the "Iron Chancellor" George Osborne to get ahead of the bond markets with pre-emptive austerity. A better advertisement for the benefits of national autonomy would have been hard to devise.

At the beginning of David Cameron's premiership in 2010, there had been fears that the United Kingdom might break up. But the financial crisis put the Scots off independence; small countries had fared abysmally. And in 2013, in a historical twist only a few die-hard Ulster Unionists had dreamt possible, the Republic of Ireland's voters opted to exchange the austerity of the U.S.E. for the prosperity of the U.K. Postsectarian Irishmen celebrated their citizenship in a Reunited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the slogan: "Better Brits Than Brussels."

Another thing no one had anticipated in 2011 was developments in Scandinavia. Inspired by the True Finns in Helsinki, the Swedes and Danes—who had never joined the euro—refused to accept the German proposal for a "transfer union" to bail out Southern Europe. When the energy-rich Norwegians suggested a five-country Norse League, bringing in Iceland, too, the proposal struck a chord.

The new arrangements are not especially popular in Germany, admittedly. But unlike in other countries, from the Netherlands to Hungary, any kind of populist politics continues to be verboten in Germany. The attempt to launch a "True Germans" party (Die wahren Deutschen) fizzled out amid the usual charges of neo-Nazism.

The defeat of Angela Merkel's coalition in 2013 came as no surprise following the German banking crisis of the previous year. Taxpayers were up in arms about Ms. Merkel's decision to bail out Deutsche Bank, despite the fact that Deutsche's loans to the ill-fated European Financial Stability Fund had been made at her government's behest. The German public was simply fed up with bailing out bankers. "Occupy Frankfurt" won.

Yet the opposition Social Democrats essentially pursued the same policies as before, only with more pro-European conviction. It was the SPD that pushed through the treaty revision that created the European Finance Funding Office (fondly referred to in the British press as "EffOff"), effectively a European Treasury Department to be based in Vienna.

It was the SPD that positively welcomed the departure of the awkward Brits and Scandinavians, persuading the remaining 21 countries to join Germany in a new federal United States of Europe under the Treaty of Potsdam in 2014. With the accession of the six remaining former Yugoslav states—Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia—total membership in the U.S.E. rose to 28, one more than in the precrisis EU. With the separation of Flanders and Wallonia, the total rose to 29.

Crucially, too, it was the SPD that whitewashed the actions of Mario Draghi, the Italian banker who had become president of the European Central Bank in early November 2011. Mr. Draghi went far beyond his mandate in the massive indirect buying of Italian and Spanish bonds that so dramatically ended the bond-market crisis just weeks after he took office. In effect, he turned the ECB into a lender of last resort for governments.

But Mr. Draghi's brand of quantitative easing had the great merit of working. Expanding the ECB balance sheet put a floor under asset prices and restored confidence in the entire European financial system, much as had happened in the U.S. in 2009. As Mr. Draghi said in an interview in December 2011, "The euro could only be saved by printing it."

So the European monetary union did not fall apart, despite the dire predictions of the pundits in late 2011. On the contrary, in 2021 the euro is being used by more countries than before the crisis.

As accession talks begin with Ukraine, German officials talk excitedly about a future Treaty of Yalta, dividing Eastern Europe anew into Russian and European spheres of influence. One source close to Chancellor Gotha-Dämmerung joked last week: "We don't mind the Russians having the pipelines, so long as we get to keep the Black Sea beaches."

***

On reflection, it was perhaps just as well that the euro was saved. A complete disintegration of the euro zone, with all the monetary chaos that it would have entailed, might have had some nasty unintended consequences. It was easy to forget, amid the febrile machinations that ousted Messrs. Papandreou and Berlusconi, that even more dramatic events were unfolding on the other side of the Mediterranean.

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Mark Nerys

Back then, in 2011, there were still those who believed that North Africa and the Middle East were entering a bright new era of democracy. But from the vantage point of 2021, such optimism seems almost incomprehensible.

The events of 2012 shook not just Europe but the whole world. The Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities threw a lit match into the powder keg of the "Arab Spring." Iran counterattacked through its allies in Gaza and Lebanon.

Having failed to veto the Israeli action, the U.S. once again sat in the back seat, offering minimal assistance and trying vainly to keep the Straits of Hormuz open without firing a shot in anger. (When the entire crew of an American battleship was captured and held hostage by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, President Obama's slim chance of re-election evaporated.)

Turkey seized the moment to take the Iranian side, while at the same time repudiating Atatürk's separation of the Turkish state from Islam. Emboldened by election victory, the Muslim Brotherhood seized the reins of power in Egypt, repudiating its country's peace treaty with Israel. The king of Jordan had little option but to follow suit. The Saudis seethed but could hardly be seen to back Israel, devoutly though they wished to avoid a nuclear Iran.

Israel was entirely isolated. The U.S. was otherwise engaged as President Mitt Romney focused on his Bain Capital-style "restructuring" of the federal government's balance sheet.

It was in the nick of time that the United States of Europe intervened to prevent the scenario that Germans in particular dreaded: a desperate Israeli resort to nuclear arms. Speaking from the U.S.E. Foreign Ministry's handsome new headquarters in the Ringstrasse, the European President Karl von Habsburg explained on Al Jazeera: "First, we were worried about the effect of another oil price hike on our beloved euro. But above all we were afraid of having radioactive fallout on our favorite resorts."

Looking back on the previous 10 years, Mr. von Habsburg—still known to close associates by his royal title of Archduke Karl of Austria—could justly feel proud. Not only had the euro survived. Somehow, just a century after his grandfather's deposition, the Habsburg Empire had reconstituted itself as the United States of Europe.

Small wonder the British and the Scandinavians preferred to call it the Wholly German Empire.