Carl's Germany update-

Friends,

I include some articles about the latest craze in Germany, anti-capitalism. Anti-Americanism helped Schroeder stay in office last time and ahead of upcoming regional elections he´s just as desperate. This will, and in my eyes should, infuritate some of you. Others may beg to differ. But it is worth sinking your teeth into. Some of the opposition, sniffing vacuous but fertile good ol' populism, embraces parts of this nonsense. But in general, they are keeping sane. Don´t know what to think yet...the rhetoric is escalating and getting kinda weird. I mean, comparing investors to locusts and the ones who said that to Nazis, is simply madness. And all this in the run-up to 60th anniversary of VE Day on Sunday. Then I will heading to the Bundestag, to listen to what will hopefully be a sober and calming speech by President Koehler.

Carl
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John Vinocur always has good stuff in the IHT, this is background on a troubled place.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/05/02/news/politicus.php
i am one of those quick-to-theorize types i guess...
then more specifically:

Schroeder Aide Steps Up Broadside On Unbridled Capitalism
DOW JONES NEWSWIRESApril 27, 2005 11:21 a.m.
BERLIN (AP)--A senior aide to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Wednesday stepped up the governing party's criticism of unbridled capitalism, which has become a centerpiece of campaigning for key state elections next month, declaring that "the state must set limits." Schroeder's Social Democrats have taken a rhetorical swing left as they try to hold off a strong conservative opposition challenge May 22 in the industrial western state of North Rhine-Westphalia - Germany's most populous and for decades a stronghold of the center-left party.
That has drawn a sharp response from German industry, which has accused Schroeder's party of endangering already shaky business confidence as it struggles with poll ratings undermined by a jobless rate of 12.5%.
Social Democratic Chairman Franz Muentefering , who launched the debate two weeks ago in a speech declaring that "international profit maximization strategies endanger our democracy in the long term," was unapologetic in an interview Wednesday with Germany's biggest-selling daily. "Business is there for people, not the other way round," he told Bild. "Anyone who thought that business could do everything better if only people would let it must see that this is wrong." "The state must set limits," he added. "And it must be in a position to enforce adherence to them." The interview came as Schroeder's Cabinet approved a plan designed to curb cheap labor from new, lower-wage members of the European Union by requiring foreign companies who have workers in Germany to pay them German wages. Germany's main employers association said the plan was counterproductive. "If it is implemented in this way, more jobs will be forced abroad or into the shadow economy or cut altogether," it said in a statement. In a separate interview with the weekly Die Zeit, Muentefering urged industry to create more jobs and charged that some companies are relocating jobs abroad "simply for profit." "It is indecent when one leaves in the lurch the place that made one great - in some cases rich - and where employees have their home," he was quoted as saying. He stopped short, however, of a suggestion last week by a regional Social Democratic leader that Germans boycott companies that lay off workers. Amid a steady flow of dismal economic news, the conservative opposition contends that the government is merely seeking to deflect attention from its own failings. This week, a closely watched survey showed German business confidence sinking to a 19-month low and the country's leading economists halved their 2005 growth forecast for Germany. Despite Schroeder's efforts to boost the economy by trimming the welfare state and implementing limited labor-market reforms, the economists argued that "no coherent concept designed to tackle the growth problem is visible. "This misery is homemade," said Volker Kauder, the general secretary of the opposition Christian Democrats. "Instead of putting the blame on others, this government should finally get to work itself." The Federation of German Industry said this week that Muentefering 's words were just adding to the problems. Schroeder's party "is doing everything it can at the moment to gamble away completely with class-war slogans confidence in business, which is in any case dwindling," said the organization's head, Juergen Thumann.

Europe Inc. Gets An About-FaceFrom Politicians
By MARCUS WALKER Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNALApril 20, 2005; Page A14
FRANKFURT -- Gerhard Schroeder used to present himself as a business-friendly centrist politician, but mass unemployment and impending defeat in a key regional election are pushing the German chancellor and his Social Democratic party into a more old-fashioned policy: Blame the bosses. Across much of Europe, politicians are retreating to antibusiness rhetoric, portraying free markets and international competition as threats to the social fabric. That is bad news for the prospects for further economic restructuring in Continental Europe, where many economists blame stagnation and unemployment on overregulation, rigid labor markets and unaffordable welfare states. "Reform is out of fashion in Germany," said Thorstein Polleit, an economist at investment bank Barclays Capital in Frankfurt. "We are heading for a year of political standstill," until national elections next year. Senior figures from Mr. Schroeder's SPD party are lining up to lambast German business, which they accuse of greed in laying off German workers and moving production to low-wage countries. Yesterday, the party's deputy head, Ute Vogt, encouraged consumers to boycott the products of companies that lay off large numbers of staff. Monday, the chancellor said he supported a speech last week by SPD Chairman Franz Muentefering , which argued that "the growing power of capital" needed curtailing. Mr. Muentefering said corporate "short-term profit-seeking" was in danger of undermining people's faith in democracy, by treating workers as dispensable commodities. The quest to blame business for the weak economy is picking up just as data show growth running out of steam. German economic sentiment nosedived in April, according to the ZEW survey of financial analysts, while industrial output across the 12-nation euro currency area fell 0.5% in February. The euro-zone economy is forecast to expand only 1.6% this year, despite the fast expansion of the global economy, and many economists predict Germany will expand 1% or even less. In France, too, leaders are treading carefully on economic restructuring for fear of a public backlash. Polls suggest a majority of French voters, partly driven by economic discontent, will reject the European Union's proposed constitution in a May referendum. France's conservative government is struggling to persuade voters that the EU won't import raw Anglo-American-style capitalism to the country.
Meanwhile, failure to deliver a promised revitalization of the Italian economy, including tax cuts, has hit the popularity of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose governing coalition nearly collapsed Monday after it suffered heavy defeats in recent regional elections. Economists warn that Italy also is likely to make little headway on economic restructuring before new elections are held. In his speech, SPD boss Mr. Muentefering attacked "certain financial groups" for cutting workers despite rising profits as part of a strategy to compete abroad -- a thinly veiled reference to Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's biggest bank and erstwhile flagship for national economic strength. In February, Deutsche Bank provoked union anger for announcing 6,400 job cuts on the same day as it published an 87% increase in annual profit to €2.5 billion ($3.25 billion). The bank's chief executive, Josef Ackermann, argued that greater efficiency was needed to keep up with global players -- a logic that has made Mr. Ackermann a target for German critics of globalization. Chancellor Schroeder's problem is how to win back lost voters by next year. The ruling coalition is widely expected to lose a bellwether regional election next month in the country's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, traditionally an SPD stronghold. The government's market-oriented changes in recent years, including lowering business taxes while cutting welfare benefits, have alienated traditional working-class supporters, but haven't gone far enough to lift the economy out of the doldrums

Carl Bergquist
temporary address:
Koertestrasse 30, QU
10967 Berlin
Germany