German Politics Thread

Westerwelle died last year. Cancer. I think we can safely say that he didn't influence the party for quite some time.

Well, the FDP fell completely of my radar after they didn't make it into parliament. I literally haven't heard anything from them since 2013. Rösler was the last guy I even remembered. If they've retooled themselves, thats great. Germany could certainly use more viable options to keep protest votes in respectable alternatives.

Depends on if the FDP will manage to advertise its goals. Still, I think it needs a new leader, a fresh face.

Germany rejects Trump claim it owes Nato and US 'vast sums' for defence

Trump's claim is one version (and with one version I mean his own fairy tale world which has nothing to do with reality and with how NATO actually works)...another one is that the US could start paying rent for all the military bases it uses on German soil....

edited 21st Mar '17 11:30:31 AM by Swanpride

NPR: Germany Deports Native-Born Terrorism Suspects, In A First

I'm seriously wondering about the effectiveness of deportation as a counter-terrorism measure - wouldn't they just wreck havoc on whatever country they're dropped of from, likely targeting Westerners in an act of "revenge"?

It's times like this where I fall into the school that supports the death penalty. Keeping suspected violent extremists with confirmed intentions to harm others in prisons will only serve to radicalize their fellow inmates.

edited 22nd Mar '17 7:02:05 PM by FluffyMcChicken

I don't know...it actually seems to be a better deterrent than prison, considering that for all their self-righteous hatred, those people tend to like the luxuries of living in Germany. And we can hardly kill people before they have even attacked someone, neither can we allow foreigners whose declared goal it is to destroy our state and the people living in it walking around freely. And putting those people in prison might lead to them radicalizing other people. The last time we had a serious terrorist threat in Germany we ended up isolating the leaders in a high security prison for exactly that reason and while it worked, it was also cruel.

Plus, this only hits people who don't have the German citizenship. I just see a danger that the option might end up get used too freely, but then, our judges are notoriously liberal.

Has the grand coalition caused SPD to lose significant numbers of voters to Green or Left?

It's a little bit more complicated than that...in, that after the SPD pushed through the Agenda 2010, the left wing of the SPD split and joined Die Linke, thus strengthening Die Linke so much that it has been comfortably in the parliament since then and weakening the SPD to a degree that it was far, far behind the CDU for years.

In addition, the SPD had trouble to distinguish itself in the grand coalition due to Merkel putting the CDU further towards the middle. Hence Schulz. Who is a populist, if you ask me, but there are enough people falling for it.

@Swanpride: In that case, I can't muster as much hate for DL as I should be able to muster for ex-Communist Party Euro-haters. When a socialist party goes "ha ha, fuck the voters and the platform we ran on," you're going to see radicalized leftists and the death of the progressive left.

The SPD inherited in 1998 a country that was struggling with the costs of reunification, first signs of demographic decline (especially since back then more people emigrated than immegrated) and unemployment that was reaching an all-time high. Reforms were desperately needed, with the previous adminastration having failed to do so. As much as I dislike Schröder as a person, he did in this situation what was necessary and made huge political sacrifices to do what needed to be done. Perhaps not every reform was perfect but he paved the way for the strong economic performance of Germany today. That has my respect.

My problem with people who want to take back the reforms is that they have no understanding for Germany's long-term problems, particulary the pension-problem. The fact that e.g. the Left party and now the SPD wants to lower the pension age is pure insanity. But they'll do that because they want the voters. And honestly that the Left Party has criticized Merkel's refugee policy is for me hipocrisy at best (because they do not want to lose voters to the Af D).

I have a hard time to feel bad for the SPD, because they cleaned up a problem they created themselves under Schmidt. Schmidt expanded the welfare system knowing fully well that it wouldn't be sustainable on the long term, but it gave him the votes he needed so he did it. It worked as long as the economy was booming, unemployment was nearly zero and people still died kind of young, mostly due to a hard childhood or damages taking during the wars. It would have imploded eventually, the only thing the reunification did was accelerate the process. And that was actually a good thing, because I think it would have been harder to fix those problems during a time when people weren't kind of willing to cut down for a greater cause.

The agenda 2010 has a lot of aspects which I do blame Schröder for....above all that it didn't close a number of loop-holes, opening the doors for companies to abuse the notion of being allowed to hire people short-term to limit the risk of being stuck with an employee during a time when you actually can't afford to keep him by using short-time contracts as a method to fill a permanent position. It is a distasteful practice, and could be easily stopped with the right set of rules.

And yes, we can't lower the pension age. People always seems to think that the money they paid into the system is saved somewhere for their old age, but that is not how it works. The current generation pays for the old one. So if the current generation barely earns enough to survive and there is a high number of unemployed and people who already need help from the welfare system to pay their insurance aso, there is naturally not enough money to pay a higher pension. Plus, it is actually not that desirable for everyone to stop working. In some jobs it becomes necessary at some point, but if you are still able to work, being forced to spend your days at home is sometimes the worst for you health-wise. Studies show that old people do better if they are still active in the community in one way or another.

edited 24th Mar '17 2:01:16 AM by Swanpride

It's interesting to me to compare the Danish system (well, before two decades of almost uninterrupted liberals) of unemployment to the German one. In Denmark, it's always been considered normal to have tenuous employment contracts.

See, besides the welfare payouts you get simply for being an unemployed citizen, if you lose your job or quit, for the next two (used to be four) years, you get a payout from your union equivalent to about 2/3 the wage you made while employed. This way, you don't lose your shirt while looking for new employment.

This means that companies have a relatively easy time adjusting to economic shifts. If times are bad, they can let people go and know they'll be taken care of by the system. If times are good, they can take on more people knowing that if things go wrong, they can easily downsize.

This was even praised by past liberal governments and the Work Providers' Union (yes, even the capitalist overlords have a union), but it has been somewhat eroded in the recent past and made the system much less equal than it was in the past.

Any candidate who would propose a significant policy change not because they actually think it's a good idea (or worse, know it's a bad idea) but just because they want the votes can go screw themselves, IMHO.

I...don't like populism.

edited 24th Mar '17 2:30:47 AM by M84

German workers also get high unemployment benefits if they leave or loose a job - at first, it becomes less with each passing year until you fall into the Hartz 4 category.

The Danish system sounds good as first glance, but wouldn't go along with the German system at all. In Germany the idea is that there is a certain bond between employer and employee, which is necessary for the vocation system to work. There is no worth for an employer to invest into the education of the employee if said employee doesn't stay on long enough that the investment pays off for the employer. We need to find some sort of middle ground between flexibility and workers rights.

You know, there also have been cases in Germany of employees agreeing to cuts during the crises for the good of the company, and once the worst was over, the salaries where adjusted again, with no-one losing their job in-between and the company being able to hold onto a highly skilled workforce. But stuff like that only works if there is trust between the employer and the employees.

Unless you go into a particular kind of services profession like grocer, your employer isn'tresponsible for your training here - it's left to trade schools or universities with voluntary workplace courses if you want to expand your resume.

The employer/employee relationship in Denmark is very much centered around unions and work providers. It was something of a scandal when the Social Democrat government in 2012 interfered with a teachers' strike.

That's how democracy works, you know. If the voters want something, then they have a right to elect someone who will give them what they want.

Obviously, there need to be counterweights to democracy to ensure the protection of human rights, but if you want to get elected, you have to sell the voters a platform that they're willing to buy.

And then you end up with a country like Greece.

If you want to have a functioning democracy, you need politicians who -while making promises- stay honest about what kind of things they can actually implement. One important strength of Germany's political landsscape after WWII was that it had responsible polizicians who did not try to surpass each other with empty promises.

I expect from politicians like Schulz who certainly knows the details of Germany's future problems to not make pledged he knows would be harmful to Germany's future.

Is that a cultural thing or is it from something in German law?

Am I the only German troper to get Ads from the Greens for Saturday....

(Joke's on you Ad Server, I voted the day before Yesterday)

Add-blocker

It's partly a cultural thing...but also partly a matter of education. Germans are at least a little bit better informed politically than your average US citizen.

There is currently a lot of Schulz hype, but I have the feeling that there will also be a lot of hype backlash, soon. And as soon as the EU investigation becomes more prominent in the media, Schulz popularity will sink again. Hopefully in favour of the other moderate parties.

I am honestly not so sure that Germans are better educated in politics.

The CSU has 56 seats, so Germans being better politically educated is patently and demonstrably untrue

That's a smaller proportion than Republicans have in the US.