The federal government is making fuel cheaper. It makes heating cheaper. It makes studying cheaper. It makes bus travel cheaper. It will raise pensions to record levels. She lowers taxes. All together it sounds like Cockaigne. And yet: nobody is really satisfied with it. Except for the government, of course.
Nothing, at most the Ukraine war, worries the Germans at the moment as much as inflation. The price increase is their biggest concern. 7.4 percent has not been the case for 40 years. Permanent four percent inflation, and the savings are gone in 18 years, calculates one in the Bundestag.
Always informed: The course of the war in Ukraine in the ticker – debris field on the river: Ukraine destroys Russian pontoon bridge – apparently hundreds of dead
Tomatoes are now almost twice as expensive as they were a few weeks ago. The ancillary costs for living increase by several 100 euros for an average family. For them, life may not have been at the limit – but it was close even before that.
And now the biggest concern of all Germans: record inflation in expensive Germany. The opposition says that one must now “counteract”. But when energy is running low due to the Ukraine war and Germany’s most important workbench China is standing still due to Covid, when there is what the Green Dieter Janecek calls a “global supply shock” – what should you do about it – do more?
The relief that the federal government is giving its citizens in this legislative period is 67 billion, calculates Markus Herbrandt from the FDP. So: 67,000,000,000 euros. Although we may have to say again what no one in the Bundestag said: Strictly speaking, the Federal Government is not exonerating anyone. Because the federal government has no money of its own. She just manages it. The money belongs to the citizens, the federal government just redistributes it. Just this.
67 billion – that’s not enough for the Union. Perhaps this not being enough also has something to do with the date of the next state election. It takes place in North Rhine-Westphalia, where 18 million people live, which is why it is a small federal election.
This Sunday at around 6 p.m. it will be decided whether Friedrich Merz will get into the crisis or Olaf Scholz. Both have witnessed that state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia can shave federal governments. A certain Gerhard Schröder lost his chancellorship after comrade Peer Steinbrück had botched NRW.
The Union argues peculiarly, carefully written. Jens Spahn calculates: “The money is there.” Fifteen minutes later, CSU man Sebastian Brehm calculates with pleasure and sadism, which is why the liberal Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner “goes down in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany as the “debt king”.
Jens Spahn is right, because every inflation point flushes the state ten billion more into the coffers. But Brehm is not wrong either – Germany – including shadow budgets – has never incurred 300 billion new debts.
But 300 billion new debts and more than 30 billion tax and social cuts are also a good argument why more is somehow not possible. A few hours later comes the tax estimate: plus 220 to 260 billion for the state. Germany still seems to be a rich country.
There’s a lot of scuffles in the Bundestag today, there always is, but there’s no grand narrative. Christian Lindner just had to leave the plenum. Blame him for the Union. Because he is now meeting the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kuleba, the FDP is fighting back. Just skirmishes.
Sahra Wagenknecht has put on one of her glowing battle costumes. Today it is yellow. These prices “eat away people’s income and wealth.” And when Robert Habeck says, “we’re all getting poorer,” then that’s wrong. Because oil and armaments companies are getting richer. There she has a point, the class warrior. The news ran today that Aramco, the Saudi oil store, has replaced Apple as the most valuable company in the world.
Wagenknecht railed against the sanctions policy, which hurts the Germans more than the Russians. The ruble is in fact in a frighteningly good shape, valued higher than at the beginning of the Russian war. The leftist Klaus Ernst later grumbled about the sanctions argument, he lacked the elegance of Wagenknecht, including the rhetorical one.
“Moscow’s fifth column,” scoffs Jens Spahn afterwards. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the left is starving at just three percent, things are looking grim. The AfD has long since replaced the left as advocate for the notoriously dissatisfied.
Jens Spahn: The Corona Minister from before switched to economics. Which does not mean that he has given up his ambitions. You can tell by his comparisons, which always play in the front row.
Joe Biden has made inflation the “top issue”. One hears “nothing” from the German Chancellor on the subject. There is something to it though. The comparatively aloof impression that Scholz conveys also dominates the price debate. He lacks emotionality, as a Hanseatic and as a Scholz. Scholz is not a caretaker.
P.S.: The embarrassment born of necessity to replace Russian gas with sheikh gas from Qatar now has a nice new name. And because he comes from the Greens, from the ranks of the climate minister who runs this business, you might call it “greenwashing”. The word is:
“Diversify energy purchasing.”
If you need diesel or petrol or at least cozy warmth, you may not find it so easy to “diversify your energy purchases”.
