MEGAN MCARDLE QUOTES GERHARD SCHROEDER:

Indeed, to Schroeder’s eye, there is hardly anything worth cutting, right down to the generous dental benefits. “I do not want to return to an era when you can judge someone’s wealth by the state of their teeth,” he observed.

Megan notes that in the United States, we’ve achieved this goal:

The reason that I comment on this is that one thing you can’t tell people’s wealth by, in the dog-eat-dog dystopia that is America, is their teeth. Their sports gear, their vacations, their choice of dinner spot, yes, but not their teeth, at least not where I am.

(There’s an interesting discussion in the comment thread, too.) However, as this photograph of European Central Bank head Wim Duisenberg would seem to indicate, the Euros have achieved equality by choosing, um, a different path. . . .

UPDATE: A frightening observation.

ANOTHER UPDATE: People ask me what I know of European dentistry. Well, when I was a kid and we lived in Germany (my dad was teaching at Heidelberg) I went to a German dentist. She had the same name as a famous war criminal. I think it may have been the same woman. . . .

And my dentist in New Haven had as a major part of his practice redoing the inferior dental work of foreign students.

On the other hand, when my brother was working at the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a high-ranking diplomat was kicked in the mouth by a horse. He had repair work done by an oral surgeon in Lagos, but then returned as soon as possible to the States, on the assumption that he’d have to have everything redone by someone competent. He went to a bigshot oral surgeon in Washington, D.C., who looked at the X-rays and said “this is beautiful work. I wouldn’t change a thing.”