- 03 Jan 2017 16:59
#14758455
You could already witness the "hot potatoe game" when it came to nominating a candidate for Federal President. Merkel was unable to come up with a candidate for her own party - everyone she asked, declined. Now Martin Scholz, formerly of Brussels, has declared that he won't compete with Gabriel for the candidacy for the chancellor in the upcoming elections, either (and Gabriel, as head of the SPD, has no choice but to run, unless he can find someone who'd do it in his place. Olaf Scholz, not related to Martin, the mayor of Hamburg, has also declined. See a pattern here?)...
Checking my privilege - yep, still good
What would happen if the Sahara became socialist? - For ten years, nothing, then we'd run out of sand.
Achse des Guten wrote:Why Nobody Wants to Succeed Mutti
The handling of critical voices has not been a good one in this country for a long time. One of my first defining memories of politics was a speech by Kurt Biedenkopf in the mid-seventies of the last century on the topic of pension problems. Biedenkopf was at that time Secretary General of the CDU and argued conclusively that because of the "Pillenknick" [sudden drop of the birthrate due to oral contraception], the pension system could no longer work as before. His explanations were correct, the need for action was obvious to me as a child. Whether his approach to the solution was the best, I could not judge, but a reform was without a doubt necessary.
I expected the adults to act sensibly and solve the problem. This, however, turned out to be a truly childish idea. In fact, Helmut Kohl was pissed off, and Biedenkopf's career as Secretary General took an abrupt end. The "solution" to the problem was Norbert Blüm, whose sentence "The pensions are safe" has entered into the annals of Germany (please make a note under "fake news"). If the problem of pensions at that time could still be solved at an expense, it is much more difficult today. This is similar to cancer: timely recognized, many species can be treated well. This is not pleasant, but the earlier, the less stressful is the therapy and the better the healing chances. Once the cancer has spread, it becomes seriously difficult, often impossible.
In order to cushion the transitional problems in retirement, one needs money. But we hadn't any, because it was spent elsewhere. Let us ignore the Euro problem here, not only Hans-Werner Sinn, but various economists have thoroughly analysed that. One of them even founded a party out of pure desperation, two actually [the author refers to Lucke, founder of AfD and Alfa]. Its dangers are, however, of no interest for most people.
On the other hand, let us turn to the question of expenses which are not so obvious. One has, for example, automatical cost increases through the work of parliamentarians. After all, we pay our deputies to make laws. There are no checks if the laws are necessary, everyone can do as they please. So they work diligently and regulate like there's no tomorrow. But laws have to be implemented, that is, the state apparatus requires more officials, the more laws it makes. Laws must also be checked, and there additional staff is needed. For staff you need offices, meeting rooms, conference rooms. The buildings need not only be built, but also maintained, so you need a building management, which in turn requires staff. As authorities should be as central as possible, the site is also very expensive. In addition, the staff must be managed, leave, sickness, warnings - you know the drill. For that you need again staff. That needs offices. And costs money. Even after it goes into retirement.
And so, from a tiny law, an avalanche of incidental and consequential costs is spawned, which increases with each "turn" by a multiple. Mr Trump's idea that for each new law two should be deleted is nice, but he underestimates the creativity of parliamentarians and lawyers. Who knows German "simplification laws", knows that it does not work like that.
Thus we already have the systematic problem of state inflation, which is structurally anchored in the fact that we do not limit state action. There is no objective need control or a ultima ratio principle of state action. What a pity.
Then, according to our basic law, Germany is a social state, which is good. This does not necessarily mean that we are a welfare state. But we are. The cost of the welfare state in 2015 amounted to 41.6 percent of the state expenditure.
This makes it clear that, in Germany, the core tasks of the state, such as external security and the production / maintenance of a legal order as the organizational structure of a prosperous coexistence, as well as reasonable external relations, are no longer the focus of state activity, but the originally non-state task of being an insurance for the protection against the imponderables of life.
On the domestic security level, the costs of the police and the fire brigade as well as the judiciary are "peanuts" compared to the social expenditure. Hidden social spending is hidden in many departments, such as addiction prevention and support in the health and consumer protection sector.
In a secular country, it is no longer the Lord who guards and protects us; it is the state. The replacement of religion by state ideologies has existed since the Enlightenment, a certain Karl Marx was subsequently one of the driving forces. One recalls his theorem of religion as opium for the people. This drug was replaced by political ideologies as cocaine for the people.
The shift of the state to an insurance institution, while at the same time limiting its financial possibilities, has as an inevitable consequence led to a sell-out in core tasks. We knew that the Bundeswehr can not defend anybody against anything, even before the tanks were armed with broomsticks. Or could have known if we had been interested. But since soldiers are known to be murderers, it is good that they do not have proper weapons, right? The completely inadequate conditions for the police have been known for a long time, but the population was completely apathetic. Against the "pigs" one can also gladly fight on May 1st as some kind of folkoristic event. A society that insults the guarantors of our security and drags them through the dirt will never be safe.
The public prosecutors are also a very nice topic, where one can only quote Wikipedia:
Critics also criticize the abolition of the principle of legality, since some public prosecutors are now overloaded and underfunded, so that at least in the case of allegedly smaller offenses, there is often no investigation at all or the effort is limited to finding grounds for terminating the proceedings. In this way, the principle of opportunity is exempted from the exception to the rule, while the principle of legality is sacrificed to mere farce and almost entirely to the principle of opportunity - with fatal consequences for legal peace and justice. The practice by the several public prosecutors to settle procedures on the grounds of allegedly minor offense may lead to long-term problems. On the contrary, the principle of the rule of law demands that in cases of probable cause, criminal offenses must be pursued. Through the active cessation of procedures to save labor - because of understaffing - , the rule of law would be depreciated (in dubio pro duriore).
Anyone who had to deal with public prosecutions has experienced that not only minor offenses are closed. The list of inadequacies can be pursued arbitrarily, both in the area of justice as well as in administration down to the community level.
All this has been known for a long time and is the compelling consequence of limited resources. You can only spend money once, as everyone knows from their own experience. Contrary to widespread opinion, the state money is not like manna from heaven. If you are taxing "the rich" (an often heard demand), they are swiftly gone. Who has money is mobile.
Now, "those who have recently arrived" suddenly and unexpectedly created a new security need that didn't exist before. We were surprised to find that we are out of our depth. How can that be? Yes, how? The sovereign, the people, is dissatisfied. On the one hand, because suddenly there appeared a tremendous amount of money that we could have used well for ourselves, on the other hand, because life becomes really unpleasant, like, with crime and terror and stuff. Germany as a wellness all-inclusive package (gladly also as offer with 3 for the price of 2) is at the moment not the paradise it once was. And we are entitled to paradise on earth, here and now, or perhaps not?
The rulers are in a pinch. Money is indeed plentiful, but still more plentifully given away. The GDR also began with flourish, until the unfinancibility of the system became apparent. We have unfortunately already used up the future, we have not only high debts, but also vouch for the debts of others. So you can make a couple of cosmetic changes, but there is not much latitude. To get that back, you would have to change the whole framework, carry out reforms that would be painful - but that is not at all possible.
Chancellors like Schmidt and Schröder, who have done this, have lost their positions of power, and the common politician has learned from their fate. That is why the surprising energy revolution happened - politicians didn't want to withstand the hysteria of the people, that could have cost their heads. Dito regarding the refugees. Imagine the pictures of desperately sobbing mothers with hungry children in their arms on the impenetrable German border - no chancellor is reelected for such images. You have to act as a rescuer, no matter what floods, be it the [river] Oder or refugees. Everyone knows that.
At the moment, politicians can't see any way out, at least not one in which they would have chances of winning an election. We simply don't have he money we'd need to plug all our - meanwhile numerous - holes. By the way, neither do we have money for serious deportations that cost extreme sums. We have already used our leverage as a wild card in another game. It's even too late for the confession "We are running out of options," because the present progressive no longer meets the crux of the matter. It is the typical phenomenon of the 3rd generation, which light-heartedly and mindlessly gambles away the wealth that the grandparents built up and the parents maintained. Used to carefree well-being for too long and having become immobile, we are no longer able to get our act together.
There is also no single personality who throws their hat into the political ring. Nobody really wants to become a chancellor, because everyone who knows the ropes a little, knows that he'd be the captain of a sinking ship. You'd rather leave that to Mutti.
And she, together with her cronies, does the only thing that can still be done: curb criticism, silence the lambs. Nothing shows more clearly the clueless- and helplessness of the "establishment" than their fixation on the topic of how to prevent/restrict/relativize critical voices. Whether it is the action against Die Achse, whether it is the punishment of "hatespeech" and "fake news", whether it be the personal discrediting of dissidents or the attempt to simply impose "gag law".
Whoever takes recourse to those means proves that they have lost control. What is even worse is that there is no one who could or would competently take back that control. Not for everyone there is an alternative and thus a considerable part of the people is left out in the rain.
You could already witness the "hot potatoe game" when it came to nominating a candidate for Federal President. Merkel was unable to come up with a candidate for her own party - everyone she asked, declined. Now Martin Scholz, formerly of Brussels, has declared that he won't compete with Gabriel for the candidacy for the chancellor in the upcoming elections, either (and Gabriel, as head of the SPD, has no choice but to run, unless he can find someone who'd do it in his place. Olaf Scholz, not related to Martin, the mayor of Hamburg, has also declined. See a pattern here?)...
Checking my privilege - yep, still good
What would happen if the Sahara became socialist? - For ten years, nothing, then we'd run out of sand.
- By FiveofSwords
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- By Rancid