German Superwahljahr 2009

It isn't irrelevant in my eyes.

Are you really that sure? I can tell you some examples where the money of tax payers was/is needed in order to prevent companies & banking houses from going broke...

Sure. Politics has to completely stay out ... but when companies go bankrupt, everybody is calling for the state to save them.

On paper, we still have the so-called "social market" economy in Germany and thankfully no "Manchester capitalism". Unfortunately, many people get the impression that there's a tendancy to the latter (especially when you see the development of this huge financial crisis)...

So the red/green & also grand coalition haven't done such a bad job as Mr. Westerwelle from the FDP always tries to tell us.

But fact is that while the companies (especially the big ones) increased their profits, the average Joe had to stick with pay freeze since many years ... so I don't see such a huge benefit.

No wonder that "Die Linke" is gaining so many votes with their slogan "more social justice". There's an increasing number of people who earn so few money that they have to take 2-3 jobs in order to get by ... whereas other people get rewarded with millions for ruining companies.

The SPD under Schröder was right to impose reforms (as happened in UK under Tony Blair), but failed to explain them and also failed to care for social justice in return (what had always been the Social Democrats' mètier in the past). Now the party has to pay for this mistake ... whereas "Die Linke" is rubbing her hands with glee.

The only perspective the SPD has at the moment, is to avoid black/yellow and stick in another grand coalition (which I clearly prefer instead of a CDU/FDP coalition, since Angie won't get tempted for neo-liberal ideas as junior partner. Unless Mr. Westerwelle badly wants to leave the opposition by breaking his word and agreeing to a so-called "traffic light" coalition...

 

If you lose your job, then of course it's not irrelevant. But from an economic perspective, it is. Because as long as demand stays the same, every job lost because of mismanagement will be replaced somewhere else.

So when the government interferes and spends money to save the job of person A, they also prevent person B of getting a job. So ultimately, the tax payers money is completely wasted.

Yeah, but first of all, that's exactly what I criticize and secondly, this happens after the fact, when the mismanagement has already happened. When you invest in a failed company, you still have no reason to complain, because you knew what you were getting yourself into.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm criticizing. The people who scream for the government don't understand economics and don't understand that government interference actually hurts the country as a whole - in most cases...the exception being a protectionist world where the problems stem from unfair competition. But even here there are better ways to deal with it (on a political level between governments, not by propping up companies everywhere).

First of all, you should read about Manchester Capitalism. I bet you've never done so and just repeated the leftist propaganda. It was actually a workers movement and while it might not meet the standards of our day and age, it was a vast improvement over the status quo of the time. It has gotten its bad reputation in Germany thanks to the German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle, who obviously had an agenda.

But apart from that, I agree that our social market economy is a great thing. However, that still shouldn't include government interventionism. What it means is that the government provides a social safety net for its people, like health care, retirement benefits and unemployment benefits.

I agree. They have done a lot of stupid things, but their job market reforms were actually pretty good.

2 million more people in employment is a huge benefit if you ask me.
And again, negotiating wages is a matter of the free market. The Unions have to come to terms with the employers. The government cannot interfere and has no business doing so anyway.

That what makes me so angry. I think the term "social justice" is an oxymoron anyway. It would be just, to pay everybody according to their productivity. But that would be unsocial. It would be social to pay people for doing nothing, but that would be unjust.

I think this whole sentiment of "social justice" is nothing more than jealousy. If someone else made a good deal for himself, the best way to response is not to try to take it away from him, but to get a similar deal.

The Linke has slogans like "Wealthiness for everyone" but what they really mean is "Poverty for everyone". Because by penalizing the productive members of society, what you get is an unproductive society...just look at the GDR and how completely bankrupt it was on every level.

Fact is that a CDU/FDP coalition would be best for our country. And you should also read up on what "neoliberalism" actually means. It's a term, coined by the German Alexander Rüstow, one of the fathers of Social market economy.
Apart from that, the FDP rather defines itself as ordoliberal. So calling them neoliberal is like calling the SPD "communists".

Otherwise I agree though. In the short term, you're right. But in the mid term, the SPD has to try to form a coalition with the Linke if they don't want to become completely irrelevant. Which could of course be very dangerous for the SPD as well, not to mention a horrible outlook for our country.

The other alternative would be to completely cut ties with the Linke everywhere, but that would mean a very long time in the opposition and in East Germany it would probably be too late anyway.

 

Well, we obviously disagree over diverse positions.

I think that especially the current financial crisis shows what can happen if politics doesn't interfere into the free market in certain situations...

Btw: You claim that companies (especially the bigger ones) who get close to bankruptcy due to mismanagement shouldn't be saved by tax payers' money (but hey, the banking houses are always worth getting 500 billions of tax money. What is the alternative then? What happens with all those people who are facing unemployment? Do you suggest to even expand the welfare state (I don't know any FDP voter who wants that) ... or don't you mind risking social riots in the country? It's always easy to say that the state shouldn't intervene.

The problem is that due to today's globalization, the employers are in the clearly better position than the Unions and capitalize on this. Why can many other countries in Europe afford wage floors and we not?

I don't think so. I bet there's many people in this country who don't need driving a Porsche in order to be happy.

Well, that's one of the reasons why they can't be taken seriously by the other parties (let alone their incompetence regarding foreign & EU policy). But there's also some points which coincide with the positions of SPD & Greens.

It's not about penalizing the prodictive members ... but about social justice in tough times (financial crisis etc.). A person that earns a lot of money, always has to bear more burdens ... or don't you agree? The paradox thing is that many FDP & CDU voters are complaining although the top income tax rate decreased significantly during the last 10 years (it was a lot higher under the Kohl government, as you certainly know) and despite the fact that Germany is still one of the few countries without wealth & legacy tax! Nearby it's high time to introduce a tax for stock exchange gains...

Well, everybody is free to have an opinion.

I don't think the party would be that irrelevant in another grand coalition (which is still possible) ... in contrast to the FDP in the case of another 4 years of opposition.

But I agree that the SPD is facing a tough time these days. As long as "Die Linke" won't change fundamental positions (especially concerning Europe & NATO), there surely won't be any cooperation at federal level.


Gute N8

 

I don't think you got the point: Bailing out companies doesn't affect the net-amount of jobs. It may save one company, but every job that is saved there won't be created somewhere else, where others have actually done a better job. It basically rewards the losers, while punishing those companies who've done a good job.


With the banking situation, I'm actually not that sure. Usually, I'd say: Let them fail! But the argument is that the entire economy depends on a healthy banking sector. So if we decide as a society that intervention is needed, then it has to be dealt with under the rules of the free market, which means that there are no free hand-outs, but that there needs to be a reasonable collateral. We should not reward the people who are responsible by giving them money. We should either get shares or real estate or any other collateral to cover the credits or securities.

BTW, the current crisis is not due to a government that didn't intervene enough. Just look at the state banks, they've done worse than anyone else. Even if there would have been a better "product control" by the government, it wouldn't have helped, because hardly anyone saw the risks and certainly no government bureaucrat.

On the other hand, if this crisis shows us that a functioning banking sector is vital for our society (like health insurance for example) then I'm open to the idea of a public banking sector...and we used to have that until the EU shot it down not too long ago...

Of course we can afford it, but it will hardly change anything, other than the fact that the people who are below that floor will lose their jobs.

It's really simple, as an employee, you have to generate at least your wage plus social costs. If you can't do it, your job will be cut.

Plus, all this globalization talk is just smoke and mirrors. I don't think that there's any country in the world that profits as much from it than we do. Of course this also means that we have to compete with other countries more so than before. But by intervening and forcing the companies to create more jobs or to pay higher wages, what you do is ensuring that we lose this competition and are left with no jobs whatsoever.
The alternative would be protectionism, and if there's one country that would suffer from something like that, it's us. We are dependent upon our exports as we don't have any natural resources. Shutting our borders would only hurt ourselves.

So really, even if you don't like the status quo, there is no better alternative. At least I've never heard of one, but maybe you can explain it to me, how we can save jobs, increase wages, prevent inflation and keep our exports going?

BTW, it's actually a good thing for our economy to outsource jobs that are based on cheap labor.

Again, I think social justice is an oxymoron. Monetary compensation is either just or it's social, but it can't be in between. But of course it can become anti-social when you overdo it.

And I think hardly anyone has a problem with high taxes for people with a high income. Even the FDP doesn't want to go below the 42% we have right now. The big issue right now is fiscal drag, which mostly affects small and middle incomes, and of course social costs, which are really destructive for jobs with low income.

Let's talk a little about these social costs. Especially the FDP stands for lowering them in order to create more jobs. Because what they do is to penalize creating jobs. Let's look at an example: You're in tax bracket I (married, etc.) and you want to earn 1,340€ per month after deductions (which is obviously not a high income). Then what your employer has to pay you before deductions are 2,000€. Roughly 400€ go to social insurance, while your taxes are only about 260€ (unless you're a member of any church, in which case you'll pay an additional 20€). But that's not the end of it, because your employer also has to pay 400€ into social insurances. So in order to receive 1,340€, you have to generate at least 2,400€ for your employer.
That's a very high threshold for jobs to become profitable.

So now back to the question of social justice. Is it just, that 45% of the money you'd make is taken away from you, and given to someone who doesn't do anything productive? It might be social, but it's certainly not just, and it prevents millions of low income jobs from being created in the first place, which means a higher number of unemployed people, which means higher social costs and so on...it's a vicious circle that we need to break as soon as possible.


And BTW, we do have legacy tax, and it's up to 50%. Personally, I'm completely against a legacy tax because you're taxing money/property that has already been taxed before. Let's say you inherit a house that is worth 600,000€ (a pretty nice house, but in this example you get nothing else), then you have to pay 210,000€ in taxes (if you're unmarried) for something that was payed with money that has already been taxed - when you're in the lowest tax bracket (married, etc.) then you still have to cough up 114,000€. So it's not unlikely that you're forced to sell, because who has that kind of money sitting in their bank account?

And we also have a tax on gains made by trading stocks. You can avoid them however if you hold on to your stocks for at least one year. But that deals at least with short term speculation where you don't think about the company you're speculating on, but only about your wallet.

 

http://www.wahl-o-mat.de is now online...

Here are my results...same procedure as every year:

 

Linke 94/106
DKP 90/106
Grüne 85/106
MLPD 81/106
Piraten 68/106
SPD 65/106
FDP 44/106
CDU/CSU 27/106

 

While I have no idea how one can get that particular ranking... I have to say, I always knew you had a thing for old-school communism .

 

Wow, so you basically hate them all...

 

Here are the latest polls from todays "Politbarometer":

CDU/CSU 37%
SPD 23%
FDP 15%
Greens 11%
Linke 10%
Others 4%



Which Chancellor would you prefer:
Merkel: 62%
Steinmeier: 26%



I would like the following coalitions:
CDU/CSU-FDP 43%
CDU/CSU-FDP-Greens 29%
CDU/CSU-SPD 29%
SPD-FDP-Greens 25%
CDU/CSU-Greens 23%
SPD-Linke-Greens 20%



I would dislike the following coalitions:
CDU/CSU-FDP 36%
CDU/CSU-FDP-Greens 43%
CDU/CSU-SPD 49%
CDU/CSU-Greens 50%
SPD-FDP-Greens 53%
SPD-Linke-Greens 66%



These numbers look like a clear vote for CDU/CSU-FDP by the people. It's the only possible coalition that has more people for it than against it and according to the polls, they'd also have a majority in Parliament. Let's for the sake of our country hope that it will stay that way come the election...

 

Ok, here's a last answer to this topic (before it's getting boring for other posters).

And I think you didn't get my point. Or why didn't you answer to my questions...?

Of course it's not fair that some companies (especially the bigger ones) in serious trouble - mostly due to the incompetence of their leadership which often gets rewarded with millions for its failure - get financial support ... but please tell me the alternative! What shall happen with all those angry & innocent people who are losing their jobs due to mismanagement?

That's not true.

So why does it work in other European countries (even UK)...?

Why? Because the companies move to countries with cheaper workforce? Well, is that a reason to blackmail the employees in Germany despite growing revenues for companies during the last 10 years (I don't refer to the "Mittelstand", though)? When you see that many companies don't pay the amount of taxes they should (look at my above mentioned article) and then many people lose their jobs due to risky action ... you don't have to wonder about a growing number of protest voters!

No, it wouldn't. The alternative is to remind the bosses of their responsibility and force them to finally stop ruining companies with silly & risky action!

If there had not been done anything during the last couple of years (even though it's still not perfect), the goverment(s) surely wouldn't have managed to create new jobs (how you admitted).

 

They'd have to look for a new job obviously.

well great then...maybe you want to back up your claim?

Depends on your definition of "working". Of course it works, and it would also work in Germany...exactly the way I described.

Several things are wrong with this. And I don't necessarily mean your analysis, but the way people generally react.

First of all, you're clinging to this mismanagement-theme. But that has nothing to do with politics. When people are angry about mismanagement, they should protest against their management, not against the government.

Secondly, the money will always go where there is the biggest profit and that's a good thing. It ensures that the consumer can buy the best products at the lowest prices.

You may want to call it black-mail, but it's not. Getting a job is a contract that is mutually beneficial. You exchange your time for money, while the employer does the exact opposite. Such a contract can only happen, when both parties are happy with it, i.e. they don't get a better contract somewhere else.

Of course the wages will always be a result of supply and demand in this system. So if you as employee refuse to take en offer, it means that you can get a better offer somewhere else. If you can't then you accept it.

Of course everyone would like to get more money than their time is worth according to market prices, but that only works as long as everybody in the world does it and the result would be higher prices (because it's the consumer who ultimately has to finance the wages) which means that you won't have an increased purchasing power anyway. So even though you get more money, you're ultimately no better off...

If you increase all the wages by 10%, then all the prices have to rise by 10% as well...

Wow, that statement is so naive...

1) see above, higher wages won't increase your purchasing power.
2) Progress comes via taking risks. No risks = stagnation
3) Even if everyone in the world was "responsible" (whatever you mean by that), it only takes one "irresponsible" person to bring the whole system down.

Sure, progress has been made. But that doesn't mean that we can stop now...fiscal drag is getting worse and worse over time and jobs are still burdened with social costs.

 

Ha ha, very funny to see that "Die Linke" and "SPD" allegedly don't care for human rights, whereas the FDP (who surely wouldn't mind a company doing business with any dictator if it was allowed) abstains according to "Wahl-o-mat. And even the Greens allegedly abstain. Really amusing...


Btw: How surprising that I got the most agreements with the SPD, followed by the Greens, Linke, CDU/CSU and FDP.

CLICK

 

Wow, this seems to change really fast...

According to almost all polls from the last few days, CDU/CSU & FDP got 49 %, falling below the 50 % range for the first time since a longer period.

Well, according to diverse polls, black/yellow were the clear winners as well last time ...


Gute N8

 

Oops, I've just realized that you've cut off the bars...so it looked like you had a very low score with every single party...but apparently, you love them all

 

here are my results. I am a bit politically schizophrenic . Therefore I am often stuck between parties that have little incommon (i.e. FDP and Greens).

 

Of course not...it was meant to be tongue in cheek...

But there are indications of course. If you look at traditional conservative states like Bavaria or Baden-Württemberg, then you see that they're doing much better than states which have had a mixed history or have been traditionally "red". Not only economically, but they're also much better at pretty much everything else, from education to crime-rates, from unemployement to industrial research, from average income to life expectancy.

Of course it would be simplistic to just credit politics with that, but there is a correlation non the less. Either conservatives make people smart, rich and healthy or smart, rich and healthy people vote conservative. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

At the same time, Baden-Württemberg is the territorial state with the most people who have an immigration background (25.3%), only Hamburg and Bremen have slightly more (26.3% and 25.6% respectively...which is to be expected as they're city states). Bavaria has a lot less (19.2%) but is still above the average for Germany. So even when it comes to integrating immigrants (something the left parties think is their strength), it's actually the conservative states that are apparently doing the better job (here's another example.).

If you look at East Germany, then you'll see almost the exact same picture, with Saxony and Thuringia being miles ahead of the other states.

The reason for all this IMHO is that the center-right parties are just more pragmatic and not as much driven by ideology as are the center-left parties (the extreme left and right parties are obviously extremely dogmatic).
The center-right parties just do what's best under the given circumstances and not what would be best under some ideal utopian circumstances.

 

How about the traditionally conservative voting Catholic rural middle class, which makes up quite a big part of the population of the Southern states? I mean, Munich - historically THE center of the Southern German worker's movement - isn't only one of the richest cities in Germany, and the economical center of Bavaria, but is also almost the only place in the entire state which has been governed almost exclusively by the SPD for pretty much ever. The rural population in Northern Germany has been mostly voting conservative/right wing forever, btw. It's the urban centers that vote left (in Lower Saxony Hannover and Braunschweig, by far the state's biggest urban and industrial centers, have traditionally been SPD/Communist [pre-1950s] strongholds - while the surrounding rural areas vote right wing/conservative).

And of course BW and Bavaria had to deal with a dying mining and steel industry which employed a huge part of their population, as well as economically weak coastal regions, traditionally depending on the dockyards and the fishing and textile industry. Wait...

 

Sure, it's common wisdom that cities tend to the left while rural areas tend to the right.

But why are they dependent on dying industries? Nobody forced them to. It was just that these industries used to be very convenient and they failed to adapt early enough.
It was the southern states who accumulated all the high tech companies, even though they had a solid industrial base with their auto industry...they didn't rest on their laurels.

 

BTW, give it up for our next chancellor

 

BW never got federal money, it is the only state that has always been a paying state while Bavaria is the only state to ever turn itself around and go from a long term money receiver to a long term money giver.

Lower Saxony for example has never paid and always received...obviously they didn't put that money to good use. Now I'm not the biggest expert here, but I'd think that Lower Saxony and Bavaria are somewhat similar. Bavaria obviously has more inhabitants, but structurally, they're similar. Both have a strong auto industry and both are very much shaped by agriculture. So why is it that Bavaria pulled away so blatantly?

In 1980, Bavaria received €206 million, Lower Saxony got €385 million. In 2008 Bavaria paid €2.9 billion, while Lower Saxony still received €323 million. So somewhere in between, Bavaria made some good choices while Lower Saxony didn't. Now to be fair, LS did have a conservative government from 1976 to 1990 and now since 2003, but otherwise, it has traditionally been "red".
Bavaria has been "black" ever since 1957.