The reward of renunciation is catastrophe Corona Crisis
By Heiner Flassbeck and Friederike Spiecker[This article published on 6/17/2020 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://makroskop.eu/2020/06/der-lohn-des-verzichts-ist-die-katastrophe/]
There is no return to the normality of before the crisis. The new lessons must be learned quickly, otherwise an economic catastrophe threatens. The course must now be set right, especially with regard to debts and wages.
Everyone wants to return to normality - also economically. But most of them do not want to admit it yet: The normality of before the crisis will no longer exist. After the crisis, the economy will no longer be the economy we knew before. It has turned out quite differently than the politicians and probably also the virologists and epidemiologists had imagined. The operation "Great Holidays", after which the world was supposed to simply return to the old familiar life after three or four months, failed grandiosely.
We do not want to talk again about the reasons for the failure. What matters now is not to make new serious mistakes that could damage economic development in Germany and the whole of Europe for decades to come.
A pattern that leads to completely wrong decisions is already looming. Just like after the financial crisis of 2008/2009, the coalition partners in Berlin are overtaken by panic fear of their own courage. After successfully combating the financial crisis with public debt at the time, the debt brake was written into the constitution at breakneck speed and the goal of a black zero was pursued for years - to the detriment not only of the German economy but also of the EMU partners.
Now the repayment mechanism that was set up at that time is casting its shadow in the current fight against the crisis. And the second major issue, which will be just as decisive for the long-term economic damage the Corona crisis will cause in Germany and Europe - namely wage settlements in the next 12 to 24 months - already seems to be heading in a fatal direction.
Repaying public debt quickly?
The first voices are already being raised in the CDU calling for tight schedules for the repayment of public debt. Paul Ziemiak, the CDU Secretary General, speaks of ten years in which all public debts, which are now being made additional, are to be completely paid back. He justifies this demand by saying that the previous policy of black zero now pays off in the crisis because Germany has "gained" leeway "that other states envy us for today".
The macroeconomic cluelessness that speaks from these words certainly fits seamlessly with the expectations of potential CDU voters, which makes this position understandable from a party political point of view. Unfortunately, this does not change their lack of macroeconomic logic. Throughout the governing coalition, people are talking about the issue of debt reduction as if it were only a question of political will to succeed.
But this is far from the case. In times of a thrifty corporate sector, it is simply impossible for large economies to wait as a state for a growing economy that is needed to reduce the budget deficit to zero and repay government debt. It is time to take note of the facts: There is no longer a corporate sector that invests so much that it has to go into debt.
In Europe as a whole, it is impossible to reduce public budget deficits or even repay old debts. Private households traditionally save money, and the corporate sector has been doing the same for about 20 years. However, saving includes the necessary borrowing if the economy is not to shrink at the same time. Those who ignore this macroeconomic logic and try to take economic policy measures that explicitly violate this logic achieve the opposite of what is desired: He provokes a worsening and prolongation of the crisis to the detriment of large parts of the European population.
Which sectors remain in Europe that can take over the debt making to compensate for the savings desires of the private sector? Only national budgets and non-European countries. But the latter will never allow Europe to run such high current account surpluses with the rest of the world that the national budgets of the European countries will, firstly, no longer have to run deficits parallel to private savings wishes and, secondly, will even run surpluses in order to reduce old public debts from the Corona era. Before this happens, there will be a trade war between Europe and the rest of the world or a devaluation race between the euro and non-European currencies (which is practically the same thing). Both scenarios would lead the world even deeper into economic crisis.
If this is to be prevented, the national budgets in Europe must, for better or worse, retain the role of the debt-makers - whether this suits the defenders of the Maastricht treaties or not. Even if the responsible politicians consciously tried to resist further public indebtedness in Europe, they would only prolong the economic crisis and thus unintentionally increase the debt position of national budgets. Because Europe will never have the opportunity to shift the burden of debt to the outside, i.e. to restructure itself through current account surpluses, it is absurd to want to make such a strategy, which contradicts all logic, the guiding principle of economic policy for the next ten years.
But this applies not only to Europe as a whole, but also and especially to Germany alone. Completely different from what Paul Ziemiak's quote at the beginning of his speech suggests, there is only one way for a country to let all three domestic sectors save without the economy collapsing: if it succeeds in forcing foreign countries into the role of debtors. And it can do this only by systematically undercutting prices on international markets, which cannot be offset by currency appreciation.
In other words: Germany would have to repeat its current account surplus strategy of the past almost twenty years at the expense of its EMU partners. It will no longer succeed in doing so, because the economies of the EMU partners are now too much at the bottom for that. The first halfway realistic professional forecast for 2020, presented last week by the DIW, concludes that the German current account surplus will fall to 80 billion euros this year (after more than 200 billion in 2019).
Without destroying Europe completely, there is no way for Germany to return to the old situation with a high current account surplus. A renewed attempt by the German economy to undercut its European trading partners through relative wage cuts would be suicidal. Not only would German domestic demand be massively damaged once again, but the European partners, who are desperately fighting for economic survival, would be pushed under water for good.
Wage sacrifice is suicide
But precisely this suicidal variant is already in evidence - in addition to the politicians' desire to reduce the public deficit again and even turn it into surpluses to reduce debt. Not only that one hears nothing from the German trade unions apart from the demand for job security. Rather, there are already areas in which there is open talk of employees renouncing their wages in return for job guarantees from employers. The case of Lufthansa is of course spectacular, where pilots have offered to temporarily waive 45 percent of their salary in order to help the airline through the crisis.
There is no doubt that Lufthansa pilots are a special case: they receive very high salaries (which makes partial waivers easier), have completed very expensive training (which is reflected in the salary level), are correspondingly highly specialized and therefore have little chance of finding an equivalent alternative to their profession in Germany. In this situation, renunciation is obvious because, from a microeconomic rational point of view, it offers the only chance of saving the job and preventing a deep social crash.
For Lufthansa's cabin crew, this applies to a much lesser extent. They receive lower salaries, are not as highly specialized and are therefore easier to deploy elsewhere. For them, even if they are laid off but the economy as a whole gets back on its feet, the crash is far less dramatic because they are more likely to be able to change industries without enormous income losses.
But even the massive layoffs of pilots cannot save all their jobs if business-like flying is replaced to a large extent by video conferencing and other virtual means of communication and collaboration.
Maybe the corona shock was not the real cause of the crisis of flying, but it can be the trigger and accelerator of a profound structural change in the globalized economy that cannot and should not be prevented by salary sacrifice. The famous stoker on the electric locomotive does not make sense even if he travels for half of his former salary.
But one thing is absolutely clear: for the employees as a whole, wage and salary sacrifice is not a game of vabanque like for the pilots, but suicide by installments. The eloquent silence of the unions, however, gives rise to the fear that this is exactly what will happen. Wage renunciation, i.e. the employees' renunciation that next year wages in Germany will rise again by about three percent, will lead to a weakening of economic development in the short and medium term and thus to the destruction of jobs and in the longer term to deflation.
Where do the German trade unions still want to go? The figure shows that the collective bargaining agreements of the last ten years were already very close to the target inflation rate of 1.9 percent, i.e. effective real wages rose only slightly or not at all. Anyone who falls below that level or does not increase wages at all creates competitive pressure for the whole of Europe, which can only end in Europe-wide deflation.
Even in the transition phase, i.e. until price developments react to wages, weaker increases or even decreases in real wages due to weaker demand from employees mean that jobs are lost. If the price development then at some point equals wages, so that real wages remain constant again or even rise, the wage-related weakness in demand by employees will be replaced by a price-related reluctance to buy ("tomorrow it will be even cheaper"). Together with the planning uncertainty for every business calculation, this will finally paralyze investment demand.
What looks like a barter deal "wage concessions in exchange for job security" at the company level is a job destruction program at the macroeconomic level. Which means that despite the crisis and the general economic weakness, every effort must be made to pass the collective wage increases with at least three percent.
To make it clear once again: This is not about a party-political left or right turn, no normative wish list of what could be improved in terms of social policy. No, this is about the naked economy, namely macroeconomics, which must be protected from being driven into the wall out of ideological folly in order to protect everyone, from the least well-off to the well-off.
What must the state do?
The state is directly responsible for the fact that job security is the most important thing for the unions today. The Hartz legislation introduced by the Red-Green coalition at the beginning of this century has caused the economic and thus social downfall of an ordinary worker who becomes unemployed to be enormous. After only one year of unemployment, he finds himself at the level of the poorest in society, namely Hartz IV.
If this is not (yet) the case, because he has previously accumulated a bit of wealth through savings efforts, e.g. if he owns a condominium partially or completely paid off, he first has to use up a considerable part of this wealth (for the limits of assets under Hartz IV, see here) before the state helps him with the basic security. This has always been questionable from a justice point of view. But in view of the fact that overcoming the
corona crisis must now be about stabilizing expectations, the asset allocation for Hartz IV benefits is a first-order obstacle.
Incidentally, this also and especially applies to the solo self-employed affected by the crisis, who are not entitled to unemployment assistance and are therefore dependent on Hartz IV for their direct livelihood (apart from some state programs that tried to help with subsidies). Although the assets audit was suspended until June 30, 2020. But the probability that the affected solo self-employed persons will be just about as well off in the second half of the year as before the shutdown is low. This means that they will be required to use up any small cushion of assets they may have saved up from July onwards before they can continue to receive basic support. The expectations of this group of people should therefore be anything but positive.
The crash for the long-term unemployed, which was pre-programmed by the state through the Hartz legislation, means that the willingness of union members to strike for reasonable wage agreements has fallen considerably. The risk of losing one's social status when one loses one's job is so great that any threat by employers to close production plants and cause workers to migrate is caught up with, leading to concessions in wage negotiations. This legislation, which is explicitly based on the idea that the unemployed must be encouraged to make a greater effort to find existing jobs, was already more than questionable when it was introduced. Today it is extremely dangerous.
Those who now become unemployed lose their jobs because the state has forbidden them to continue working or has otherwise prevented or at least made it more difficult for their companies to produce. Threatening these people with the crash on Hartz IV is antisocial, unfair and macro-economically destabilizing. The state, which is directly responsible for the job losses, has the obligation-for moral as well as purely rational macroeconomic reasons-to ensure immediately that generous rules are introduced in the event of unemployment. An age-independent guarantee of 70 to 80 percent of previous income over the next two years would be a measure that would calm many minds and enable the unions to do what is now economically necessary.
We will not be able to avoid a profound structural change in the economy, whether we support it or not. But we can control whether many people, and especially the economically and socially weaker ones, will fall by the wayside or whether there will be fair chances for everyone to overcome the crisis quickly. If the state accompanies the structural change with strong unemployment insurance (and fair protection for those who are not entitled to unemployment benefits), all those who first become unemployed and therefore have to change jobs and retrain can get involved in the changes with a certain degree of fear.
If, on the other hand, the state leaves it at the current framework of unemployment insurance and basic security and concentrates primarily on preserving old structures on the capital side (see Lufthansa) or on promoting investment in new structures from an ecological point of view, it cannot be spared the accusation of putting the interests of investors above those of the working population. The belief that all economic prosperity
in the long run comes primarily from companies was already one-sided in the days when the corporate sector was still in debt and thus took on the macroeconomic task expected of it. Today it is clearly wrong.
17.06.2020
Hundreds of scientists for a minimum wage of 12 euros https://www.dgb.de/themen/+ +co++af90c5da-b000-11ea-9219-001a4a16011a
Hundreds of scientists argue for a gradual increase of the statutory minimum wage to 12 euros and against a "corona zero round" for the minimum wage. The text of the joint initiative was published today as a full-page advertisement in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The initiative is supported by the DGB.
DGB/B. Pietrzyk/123RF.com; Colourbox.de
In the joint text of the scientists under the title "No Corona zero round at the minimum wage - for a gradual increase to 12 euros! "The challenges of the Corona crisis show in all clarity how important a functioning welfare state and living wages are for the economic and social stability of a society. It is therefore important not to forego an increase in the minimum wage now and to show a clear perspective towards 12 euros". The scientists call a "corona zero round" of the minimum wage "counterproductive both socially and economically". In a recently published inquiry already a large majority (78 per cent) of humans in Germany had expressed themselves for a minimum wage of 12 euro.
From the perspective of the DGB, a strong signal from the minimum wage commission is now needed. Because a noticeable increase of the lower wage limit can improve the income situation of those affected in the low-wage sector. A Corona zero round, as demanded by employers, is not only economically dangerous, it would also be a slap in the face for all heroines and heroes in socially important areas. It would be unreasonable to withhold the upcoming increase in the minimum wage from them now. The employer side must therefore end its blockade attitude in the minimum wage commission and prove its ability to act in these times as well. It needs a prompt increase of the minimum wage to 12 euro. If this is not possible in the Minimum Wage Commission, politics must intervene and raise the minimum wage by law in autumn of this year as part of the planned evaluation of the Minimum Wage Act.
The complete text in the wording:
No Corona zero round with the minimum wage - for a gradual increase to 12 euro!
In June the minimum wage commission must again make a recommendation for the adjustment of the minimum wage. Against the background of the Corona crisis, there is currently a growing number of voices arguing for suspending the adjustment and freezing the minimum wage at its current level of 9.35 euros per hour. However, a corona zero round on the minimum wage would be counterproductive both socially and economically and would affect the weakest in society.
Millions of employees are currently suffering considerable losses of income as a result of short-time work. The economy is in a deep recession. A freeze on the minimum wage would put additional pressure on the situation. In order for the economy to regain momentum, it is necessary to strengthen public investment and expand private consumer
demand. To this end, it is necessary to stabilize expectations of income increases in private households. An increase in the minimum wage can make an important contribution to this, as the minimum wage has an important signal effect on overall wage developments. This can strengthen the confidence of private households.
Many of the employees now regarded as "systemically relevant" in the Corona crisiswhether in agriculture, retail, the bakery and hairdressing trades or in many other everyday services - receive very low wages, often close to or even only at the level of the minimum wage. For the newly won appreciation to be accompanied not only by applause but also by sustainable income improvements, these industries need to be systematically upgraded. In addition to a strengthening of collective bargaining, a significant increase in the minimum wage can also contribute to this. The challenges of the Corona crisis clearly show how important a functioning welfare state and living wages are for the economic and social stability of a society. It is therefore important not to forego an increase in the minimum wage now and to show a clear perspective towards 12 euros. This would correspond to about 60 percent of the median wage, and thus to the target figure that is currently also being discussed as a criterion for appropriate minimum wages in the European Union.
The collective bargaining agreement concluded in the food service industry at the beginning of March 2020 shows how this could work. Under this agreement, leading bistro and restaurant chains such as McDonalds, Burger-King, Starbucks, etc. have committed themselves to gradually raising the lowest collectively agreed wages to 12 euros by the beginning of 2024.
Does anyone else remember the coup in Bolivia a good half year ago?
Left indigenous President Evo Morales had clearly won the presidential election at 47.1 % against 36.5 % for the strongest challenger Carlos Mesa (middle-right) on October 20, in order to be recognized in the first round of Bolivia electoral law, it takes a 10 percentage point head start. In the quick count, the lead was now scarce. When this was in 83,8 % of the electoral votes and Morales only led with 7,1 % pp, there was an interruption. In the end, however, Morales won directly, with 10,57 percentage points lead.
This "trend turnaround" was seen as evidence of an alleged electoral fraud. Violent demonstrations were supported by military and police, which eventually led to the proclamation of new elections and then the resignation of Evo Morales and other MAS leaders. Finally, the right-wing conservative vice president of the Senate, Jeanine Ánez, became president, with the support of the military in a legally highly controversial construction (interim). Protests against this have been violently suppressed by the military. I visited a place of these massacres in sewing Cochabamba in February. First, new elections should take place on January 22, then on May 2020, 3rd, meanwhile, the new elections are scheduled for September 6th Meanwhile, Anez has created diverse facts that do not belong to the power of an interim president, including the 180° turn in foreign policy, which is now tight on US course.
The accusation of electoral fraud was instrumental in the world by the US-controlled OAS Electoral Observation Mission, which was the only one that had a relevant international election observation mission in the country. The coup was also welcomed by the USA, the federal government and here even by the Greens and considered a path
to democracy. https://www.gruene-bundestag.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/historischermoment-in-bolivien
Almost all " quality media " took over the narrative of the electoral fraud of the OAS, including the " fact check " of the Tagesschau
https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/bolivien-wahlmanipulation-101.html, although the " trend turnaround " could be explained clean even then by the strongholds of Morales only at the end. There was no evidence of an electoral fraud.
Now even the New York Times has disrupted the allegations of electoral fraud at the time. One can be curious whether the media in Germany and also the federal government corrects their assessments at the time. Corresponding requests to the federal government are on their way.
https://amerika21.de/2020/06/240578/bolivien-wahlbetrug-nyt-widerlegt
Fabio de Masi, DIE LINKE: Economic stimulus package - Who does the washing up?
We have to pump money into the economy during the crisis, so that money is earned in the country again. We welcome the child bonus and the support for municipalities. But clapping is not enough, where is a permanent care bonus? Germany needs more public investment in the future. The debt brake is threatened by the hammer of cuts after the election. That's why we need a wealth tax for billionaires after the Corona crisis - so that the people who now run the business for everyone don't have to do the dishes.
Source: The left. in the Bundestag via You Tube
30 years of the victory of capitalism Descent of a superstar
By Thomas Fricke/ Spiegel columnistArrogance came after the fall of the wall: 30 years after the supposed triumph, it is becoming clear what a dramatic crisis of credibility capitalism is now facing.
08.11.2019
Black Friday in Brazil 2017: Was capitalism really the right decision?
When communism began to collapse 30 years ago in the summer, the US political scientist Francis Fukuyama declared that the story was over. Humanity had reached the ideal state, so to speak - democracy and capitalism.
Task done. Earth happy.
Today the finding seems like a bizarre intellectual aberration. Three decades after the demise of communism, the earth seems somewhat hapless:
- Climate crises loom;
- the drifting apart of rich and poor has reached hardly tolerable proportions in many places;
- bizarre presidents of once market-oriented nations are threatening trade wars;
- and more than half of the world's population is led by autocratic or populist governments, as Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz recently pointed out. What has gone wrong? The answer may lie in the certainty of victory that drove capitalism to one or two excesses in the decades after the fall of communism. In the arrogance after the fall of the Wall, so to speak. So much for the end of history.
Bitter irony
It is ironic that democracy and a market economy are now in as deep a crisis as they might never have been without the exuberance that began in fall 1989.
The fall of the Wall accelerated a trend that had begun in the early 1980s with the arrival of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Britain. According to this, it is always good economically per se if the state withdraws; if everyone thinks of himself first instead of thinking about society; if everyone makes provision for himself instead of counting on help from the state; if everything is exposed to strict competition; if the rich are relieved of taxes; and if banks, like other financial jugglers, can speculate with money as freely as possible.
All this had already cracked as a new dogma until the fall of the wall - whether through the 1987 stock market crash or Reagan's getting into debt. When communism was gone, only the normative power of the factual was much stronger - and the very human thought: whoever wins is right.
Won yes - but good without limits?
In other words: because communism had obviously failed, which is true, capitalism was considered good. And it was all the more difficult to argue that it is therefore not immediately right for capitalism to let off steam.
East Germans felt what this meant when they were promised flourishing landscapes by switching to glorious market economies. And then Treuhand gave free rein to the idea that anything that does not immediately stand up to competition simply cannot be kept. Even if this led to mass unemployment.
More at SPIEGEL+
In the years that followed, governments around the world made ever more insane reforms in favor of the financial world, shadow banks and derivative junkies; markets were opened overnight to cheap competition from China under the motto of glorious competition. And even a red-green government pushed through that the rich pay less taxes and the worse off are sanctioned.
Contradiction? Useless
Those who expressed doubts in these times as to whether everything had to be privatized were told that no one wanted to return to socialism. Killer argument. Who wants the Honecker again? Sure.
What such self-assurance can do can be seen today. When rich and poor diverge so dramatically in so many countries, it has of course to do with financial markets where only a few are among the big winners - or with the fact that taxes on the rich have been reduced. When entire regions in the USA crashed economically because they could withstand Chinese cheap competition as little as one or the other factory in eastern Germany once could withstand western competition, this also has to do with a naïve idea of self-regulating markets and human speed of adjustment.
More at SPIEGEL+
Debate on Capitalism: Politicians are more powerful than entrepreneurs By Christian Reiermann
When the financial crisis of the century occurred in 2008, it was not the result of socialism, but of unleashed financial markets - and the naive assumptions that they are always efficient. If more has not been done to combat climate change so far, it is also because many governments have relied too long on some sacred signals from the markets, instead of actively ensuring much earlier that electric mobility, for example,
becomes established. If there are no railroad lines, digital networks or capacities in building authorities today, it is because it was long considered to be quaint for the stupid state to withdraw everywhere because everything private was supposedly better.
There may be a lot of reasons why people today choose Trump or Brexit or AfD or other right-wing populists - and rage against everything and everyone. One reason for the phenomenon seems to lie in the new circumstances that the triumph of capitalism has brought with it.
Studies increasingly point to this. In 2016 Trump conspicuously won many votes in the Rust Belt, which was rusted by cheap competition. Brexite received above-average votes in places where the economic decline of old industries and state cutbacks in benefits coincided. And in Germany, in the recent European elections, the AfD received particularly strong support in regions that had tended to lose out in the fierce competition. Just a few loser regions? Not at all. Just how devastating all the side effects of the market-liberal certainty of victory have been is suggested by last week's Forsa survey*, according to which one in three people in Germany today doubt that everyone in the country benefits when the economy is doing well. And almost 80 percent say that the privatization of state services has gone too far in recent decades. And not even 30 percent of those surveyed are still in favor of further intensifying the globalization of business and finance.
Whether there are objective reasons for all this - or it reflects a subjective feeling: If just under 60 percent of the people in the country are against continuing globalization by giving up national independence, then that is no nagging at details. Neither is it when almost 90 percent feel that the unequal distribution of income and wealth is increasingly threatening the cohesion of the population. And two out of three doubt that the rich really deserve their wealth.
All this rather reflects a fundamental crisis of confidence. And it probably explains better than anything else why, three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there is so much resentment about politics and doubts about elites and a perceived loss of control. More on this topic
Future analysis: What comes after the performance society An essay by Stefan Schultz
Of course, this does not mean that we now need communism again. Bullshit. It would help to realize how fatal it was to confuse the end of communism with a license to conduct liberal economic experiments on human beings.
There are interim solutions. According to the survey, 80 percent of Germans say that the government should protect people more strongly if globalization or digitization threatens to cut jobs on a large scale. Almost 90 percent want more investment to be made in schools, climate protection or railroads. For example.
That is not socialism. However, it could help to repair the damage that the postreunification capitalist triumphalism of the past thirty years has fatally brought aboutand to develop a healthier understanding of the economy again. Otherwise, those who try to take advantage of popular discontent with a lot of nonsense could be among the winners for a long time to come.
* The survey was commissioned by the Forum New Economy, an economists' network co-founded by SPIEGEL columnist Thomas Fricke
Russian Capitalism and the Coronavirus
Russia's social and labor spheres under pandemic conditions
Coronavirus is not a worldwide conspiracy. Quarantine measures have been adopted both in authoritarian (not Communist) China, where living people were welded up behind sealed doors, and in democratic Europe. Everywhere, economies and the big capital that lies behind the media and the governments of the world suffered huge losses. Separate experiments in Sweden, Belarus, and especially Brazil that endeavoured to ignore the problem have demonstrated the public danger of ignoring the pandemic. Russia had a number of beneficial advantages that allowed it to weather the epidemic with fewer losses:
- Poverty and a lack of mass external tourism;
- Low population density and low frequency of communications between regions;
- A fairly responsible population ready to follow instructions (in this, we are psychologically closer to the Germans than to the Italians);
- Anti-epidemic traditions, built back in the period of the Empire and especially the USSR.
The outcome turned out to be the second-highest number of infections in the world as of May, but more importantly, an inescapable, serious decline in incomes and a deep political reversal in the social mood that the authorities had obviously sought to avoid. Why did this happen? (…)
The Russian capitalist state has proven its low efficiency during the corona crisis. A strong state is not one that can disperse its own citizens with the help of police batons, but one that can overcome serious challenges with minimal losses to society. In this case, the recipe was initially understood: a short, hard quarantine to allow the healthcare system to adapt and flatten the epidemic curve. Realizing such a scenario required that people have a full refrigerator.
At the same time, the authorities had no intention of feeding the population during the pandemic. The neoliberal methods of "targeting" its help to citizens quite expectedly came down mainly to an inconclusive PR campaign, clearly confirmed by the figures and examples above. It was only natural that people who find themselves without money began to massively ignore the "self-isolation regime" and look for insidious machinations behind anti-epidemic measures.
A serious blow was dealt to the economy. According to former Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin, the number of unemployed will reach eight million. We have been reminded again of the robberies and street shootings that seemed to be in the distant pastso far in isolated examples, but everyone understands that crime is caused by the lack of unemployment benefits.
The consequences for the health of the population are difficult to assess, and hope remains that the virus will expire on its own and that collective immunity will form.
The most important conclusion is also obvious, namely that global threats such as an epidemic can only be overcome by socialist measures: a developed public health system and public funds that provide high unemployment benefits and help small businesses as a serious generator of jobs.
The alternative to this is not even a continuation of the status quo-that is impossible in a changing external environment. Rather, the alternative to democratic socialism is the
"Iron Heel", in the words of Jack London-the dictatorship of the oligarchy. The coronavirus epidemic has confirmed that fact quite explicitly.
Source: Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
Network policy
Snowden warns: "The surveillance state we are creating now will survive Corona
The former NSA employee and whistleblower warns of the tracking measures being taken against the pandemic worldwide 26 March 2020, 18:00
Edward Snowden is concerned about how many countries are dealing with the corona virus.
Photo: APA/AFP/dpa/JORG CARSTENSEN
More and more countries around the world see surveillance methods as a way of combating the coronavirus. The German government was also considering using smartphone tracking of individual persons, for example in the search for contact persons of a sick person, but these plans did not make it into the corona law for the time being. However, Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz declared on Thursday that they would examine how other countries were dealing with the issue - the "new normality" would not be the same as before the coronavirus.
For US whistleblower Edward Snowden, such measures are by no means justified. During an interview at the Copenhagen International Film Festival, he asked what actually prevents authorities from maintaining surveillance methods once the coronavirus has been defeated.
The interview with Snowden. CPH:DOX
Suddenly permanent
States would tend to prolong dangerous situations. They would feel comfortable with their new power and like it, Snowden warns. Suddenly, emergency measures could become permanent - and could be used, for example, to combat oppositional groups. Governments with surveillance tools would tend to cite new threats as grounds for further use - such as terrorist groups. "They already know what you are doing on the net. They know if your cell phone is moving. They may soon know what our heartbeat and pulse rate is. What happens if they mix this information and use artificial intelligence as well," Snowden asks openly. The former NSA employee is particularly concerned about the use of artificial intelligence in combination with surveillance.
Balance already difficult in normal times
It is already difficult to find a balance between privacy and security in normal times - it is even more challenging during a global crisis situation. He does not want to deny the danger of the coronavirus, but he believes that vaccinations and herd immunity are the solution, because surveillance measures could come quickly to stay. One has to think of the world we live in when the coronavirus is defeated. (muz, 26.3.2020)
Poverty: "No politician can say he knew nothing".
June 21, 2020 at 11:30 An article by: Editorial office
Homeless people, Hartz IV recipients, fugitives: The Corona crisis has also presented these people with special challenges. Gerhard Trabert, a physician from Mainz who has been helping the poor on the ground and providing medical care for them for many years, shows in the NachDenkSeiten interview how the poor are doing in the pandemic. Trabert comes to the conclusion that even in the Corona crisis, the dividing lines between the poor and the better-off in our society are clearly visible. In the interview, the Professor of
Social Medicine also criticizes politics: "Politicians often keep a great distance from the poor. Politicians are more concerned with the lobbyists of this capitalist democracy". From Marcus Klöckner.
Mr. Trabert, you are a doctor, you have been actively working for the poor, the disadvantaged in our society, for a long time. How do you experience the effects of the pandemic on the poor?
Even at the beginning of the pandemic it was clear to me that there is one group that we have to take special care of: the homeless, the homeless people. When we deal with this group of people, we immediately realize what the pandemic means for the poorest. Exit restrictions have been imposed, but these people have no place to live at all. They often live outdoors or in emergency shelters. They cannot stay indoors at all because they lack a place to live. This was a dramatic situation for our patients. Points of contact that normally offer at least some help, such as blackboards, tea rooms, various counseling centers, suddenly reduced their services, sometimes they closed down completely. The homeless people were completely on their own. I know from people who have spent the night in public places that the toilets were also closed.
Since public life came to a virtual standstill, there was no longer a bottle deposit in the city's wastebaskets. The reality is that for many poor people the bottle deposit is a source of income that they urgently need.
How have you helped the people?
Through our work we are of course very close to the people, we know their living situation, we see what they are missing. We knocked on the door of politicians at an early stage and talked about the problems.
The toilets were then reopened. We demanded that accommodation facilities be made available for homeless people. Be it in pensions, hotels etc.
How did the city of Mainz react?
Quickly. For example, 30 people without accommodation could be accommodated in a hotel with the mediation and financing of the city of Mainz and the Rhineland-Palatinate Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. The quick action was also urgently needed, because homeless people are the main risk group for Covid-19, as they are often chronically ill and their immune system is under strain.
We have been able to observe a very respectful treatment of each other. As an association together with other aid organizations we have looked after the people there. A sponsorship system was established. The hotel provided the people with breakfast, lunch and dinner and a lot of empathy and understanding.
How else did you help?
We drove through the city, distributed packed lunches, changed our polyclinic to the infection situation so that we could continue to treat people who were or are ill. If needed, we could also carry out Covid-19 tests. Our social workers also continued to accompany and support the affected homeless people, while observing the protective measures. Are there other groups that are particularly affected by the pandemic?
The people who live on social transfers, i.e. unemployment benefit 2, social benefits and supplementary financial assistance.
At the beginning of the pandemic, it became clear While people with sufficient financial resources were able to stock up on food and other necessities for living, this was not possible for social transfer benefit recipients.
They were not able to buy in stock and were thus forced to go outside more often, to buy few items for little money more often. This also put them at a higher risk of infection. In addition, this group has to use public transportation more often because they do not have their own car. This also increases the risk of infection. Furthermore, there is no money for masks. Although handmade or, as they say, "everyday masks" such as scarves and shawls can also be used, they do not offer as much protection. The normal surgical masks are better. We have called for the Hartz IV rates to be raised by 100 euros for the period of the pandemic.
The Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices has published information on how to handle the masks hygienically in everyday life. If one looks at the references, one must say that it is realistically nevertheless almost impossible in the everyday life to consider these permanently.
You are absolutely right, with these fabric masks this is almost impossible. Who has more money, has therefore also here advantages. He can buy several masks, dispose of them after use, put on a new one. The mask is like a dividing line between the poor and the wealthy.
From the political side, information on how to handle the masks should also have been passed on to the population in easy language. I would consider a language in pictograms to be very useful. We must not forget: There are almost 10 million functionally illiterate people in Germany, i.e. people who can read and write, but have difficulty understanding more complex content.
If I hear it correctly, you have observed policies at the local level that at least help the homeless, but the situation is different for federal policy. Why is the federal government so hard on helping the poor?
The city of Mainz has reacted well. But not with everything, and that's not true of all local communities. Even though I find it hard to understand, I suspect that it has a lot to do with ignorance and unawareness. Politics is simply too far removed from the reality of life for the poor.
You also talk a lot with politicians. Have you had any concrete experiences?
We have a lot to do with representatives of the Ministry of Health in RhinelandPalatinate. On the one hand, the ministry has promoted the care of homeless people in a hotel, and on the other hand, in discussions it was heard that the poor could tie a scarf to their face. All the things I mentioned in our interview are not taken into account there. I notice again and again in such conversations that there is a lack of basic knowledge about the living situation of poor people. Politicians often keep a large distance from this group of people who are affected by income poverty. Politicians are more concerned with the lobbyists of this capitalist democracy.
If I, as the government, am making 9 billion available to save Lufthansa, then I must also have the money to support all recipients of transfer payments in the current situation so that they can protect their health and maintain hygiene standards.
You say that politicians are often also ignorant. But basically it has been known for a long time that poverty is a reality in Germany.
That is true. No politician can say he didn't know about it, especially regarding the health consequences for those affected. The national poverty conference, initiatives for those affected, associations like us: you, all of us, refer again and again to the conditions. But nothing is really being done - across party lines! That is a scandal for me. If politicians
were really to be credited with ignorance, one would have to assume that they are beaten with ignorance.
Politicians may have decided on initial restrictions, but hardly a word has been said about the fact that it makes a difference whether a financially well-off citizen with a spacious condominium or his own house should abide by the decrees or the single mother living in the cramped social housing without a balcony or garden.
Yes, we see the dividing line there as well. Especially children from low-income households have been and still are disadvantaged. Children from parental homes that do not have access to the Internet and do not have a laptop have problems. For such children it is not an easy situation if they cannot withdraw in the narrow living conditions to do their homework in peace.
But these conditions are not only a problem in the Corona pandemic. Such children also suffer when everything is "normal". The pandemic, however, reinforces the educational disadvantage once again. The OECD has been saying for years that in no other European country does the social status of parents have such an influence on the school and educational careers of children as in Germany. Here, too, politics must take urgent action. We talked about the homeless and Hartz IV recipients. Is there any other group that is particularly affected by the current situation?
The group of refugees. It is a catastrophe that these people have to live in the cramped collective accommodation. We have Covid-19 infections there time and again. Politicians should have reacted much earlier.
So the problems affect many people.
Yes, of course. As if under a magnifying glass, the crisis makes many structural disadvantages that have existed for years more visible. There is the problem of the "cheap labourers", i.e. the people who come from Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, who work in agriculture under the most difficult conditions. The pandemic has shown how dependent we are on these workers, but also how important their work is.
Or the workers in the meat processing industry. The catastrophic conditions there have been widely reported. Especially the inhuman living conditions, especially the housing conditions here in Germany, to which these people are at the mercy of, must be stopped immediately. In my eyes this is a modern form of slavery.
Not to forget the nursing staff. At the end of March the maximum working hours there were increased from 10 to 12 hours. As soon as the situation eases, this must be changed again. We have also seen how valuable and important the work of the nursing staff is. Applause is not enough for the nursing staff. The working conditions must be improved, the wages must be increased.
Or let's think of the short-time work allowance. We can see that in this country the wages are still far too low. Loss of earnings cannot be compensated by a part of the workers or at most only for a short time. The minimum wage would have to be increased significantly.
Politicians must now use the findings as quickly as possible to address precisely these deficit areas. It must now take structural measures to improve the conditions lastingly.