Readers’ letter to the Süddeutsche Zeitung

The following letter has been sent to us by one of our readers. He did not unfortunately appear in the newspaper, but instead here with the Alliance for Democracy. We are of the opinion that the tricks used by the Merkel government in order to keep its budgets in line with the Fiscal Pact, even though the country is bankrupt, are gladly concealed by the press. Perhaps this must be so, and we suspect that this is how muzzling by the government functions, in order to protect our allegedly safe investments, and make further claims on them, in order to support the state in the event of the crash, as far as this is necessary.
Reaction to the article by Stefan Ulrich “The damn three percent” (15.2.13)
“In the article I miss the fact that the supporting countries have all been doctoring their budgets for years, in order to comply with the conditions of the debt brake.
The debts of the countries (implicit and explicit) are never shown. New debts will only reveal themselves in the coming years. The actual trickery works as follows: The observation of the Fiscal Pastes would be impossible for Germany, just as it would be for other supporting countries, if the support of other countries, as would only be right, were financed via the national budgets by means of borrowing, but not by a construction which circumvents this by the commitment to liabilities, the initiative of citizens, instead of the state via its liabilities for loans, which the insolvent, supported countries (have to) take out, and because of the liabilities of German citizens with the banks also receive from them; instead of which the state takes out loans on behalf of the citizens, burdening them further – a national budget should include all matters and affairs which concern the citizens – and then passes these loans on direct to the supported countries (unofficial contravention of the debt brake, even if only valid from 2016). For Germany the following now applies: In a realistic situation, which would cost the citizens less in interest, the requirements demanded by the Fiscal Pact would remain partially unfulfilled. The delaying of insolvency is the consequence; its costs become debts, which are borne by the people of the country in the form of high interest rates. This is what France is experiencing at the moment, whose national deficit is much more than that states in the press (including the Süddeutsche Zeitung); this also applies for Italy, Germany, Finland and Spain.
Spain exceeded the Maastricht deficit mark in 2011, 2012 and 2013; France in 2012 and 2013. Both countries are therefore following the trend, because the principles recently published in the report of the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) confirm why saving is completely senseless, and they now also confirm what consequences this permanent saving frenzy has: There is no more money, there is nothing more to be saved – zero growth in all 27 EU countries and a minus of 0.3% for the 17 Euro countries. The Spanish and the French are still exceeding the limits, despite having tampered with their budgets. This confirms all the more how high the debt really is. France is operating officially with a debt level of 91.4% of GDP, whereas it has in fact long since exceeded 100% (excluding other liabilities). No wonder that the French want to increase the applicable limits, as Mr. Hollande announced. Germany too is no longer at the official 83 to 85% level, but is far above it.
Particularly shabby is the fact that the supporting countries manipulate their national budgets by means of liability structures, something which is quite impossible for the supported countries. If the new and overall debt of the supporting countries is now compared to that of the supported countries, there is no longer any fundamental difference. The only difference is that the incomparable now appears comparable in terms of the amount. This is the same as comparing apples with pears.
If Germany wants and could reduce its new borrowing by 2014 to € 6 billion by savings in all ministries, then it will only be by means of these manipulated budgets. Without the tricks, billions more Euros of savings would be required in order to make Schäuble’s dreams come true.”