Differences between the US and Germany?

I have been told that in the US a person that has suffered a bancruptcy can get a second chance but that in Germany such a person is lost forever. It occurred to me that this difference might stem from the Hegelian master and slave problem. A person is not a man if he has not lived through a death challenge. If he does not dare the challenge he becomes as slave. The bancrupt person died, so to speak.

What is not clear is if the nowadays risk-averse Germans, which can be seen in the differences between Germany and the US on the economy and on military matters, on nuclear power, are truly Hegelian or not. A death challenge to become a serious person is a rather silly adventure. Modern education would be meaningless since an educational endproduct would not be useful without a risk to vanish. Hegel spoke before public education though.

One category of functionary in the modern society, the soldier, firefighter and police, could of course be selected on Hegel's basis. I guess we know today that the percentage of humans that qualify in this category is rather small. Smaller in Europe than in the US, apparently.

The US and Germany seems to have less and less to say to each other. When Angela Merkel was over the last time and gave a speech before Congress she irritated the hosts by pushing for greenery. Now recently they took a stand against nuclear everything. The economy, Middle East policy, Libya.

So, while the Swedes sit and watch their BBC productions on TV, do they become more German or Anglo-American? I don't see any polls on these issues. Why are we afraid of discussing this? There was a recent poll on a higher interest for Swedes to join NATO but this is not a discriminatory between Germany and Anglo-America. The German-US split might break NATO. That is probably why Obama gave Angela Merkel the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that can be given a civilian.