ALLIANCE FO§ DEMOCRACY

But will every European pay?

Investors and savers were enraged when the IMF presented a paper that said that a tax should be levied on all assets, in order to pay for the huge national debt, or in other words the failed attempts to rescue the Euro. The Bundesbank let it be known in its current monthly report, which was published on 27th January 2014, that it would be in favour of such a tax. It should be levied only once, and only in an extreme emergency.
According to calculations of the “Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW)” (“German Institute for Economic Research”), such a one-off charge in Germany on private assets in excess of € 250,000 would bring in about € 230 billion. And this in order to avoid the flight of tax and capital. All in all, the tax would enable the bankrupt countries of the Euro zone to solve their national bankruptcy without foreign financial aid. In the same report, the Bundesbank backpedalled, and stated that the tax did not need to be levied by any Euro country at the moment, because all Euro countries were refinancing themselves either on the capital market (and also via the mini base rate), or they were already in the middle of an aid programme.

This gives rise first to the question of why the IMF ever proposed such a solution if everything is still fine. According to the report of the Bundesbank, are bankrupt countries suddenly supposed to be any less bankrupt, seven years after the outbreak of the economic and financial crisis in the Euro zone? It is still too early for an all-clear, according to the Bundesbank (rtr/dpa); even if the recession is over and the premiums on bonds fall again, the crisis countries should not relax in their zeal for reform. So it is difficult to believe that countries such as Greece, Cyprus and Italy have refinanced themselves, and all aid programmes are supposed to have helped, because the countries paying for their bankruptcy have all long been in the position of having to be sustained by their citizens: and in the form of many charges, sometimes concealed, sometimes quite open, even though ultra-rich Greek industrialists have so far not had to contribute to the rescue of the country. In Upper Italy too, treasures lie in private caskets; the country nevertheless received significantly indirect aid in the form of government bond purchases by the European Central Bank (ECB), by which Italy was able adroitly to delay national insolvency, something which the Greeks failed to do, because there, the impending end of the national budget emerged to the light of day. The Cypriots however invited their richest citizens to pay for the winding up of banks.

The statement of the Bundesbank, that the crisis countries had instituted far-reaching structural reforms on employment and product markets, sounds almost schizophrenic. The positive effects would only really be felt with the expected recovery of the economy. Only in this way could such growth develop a dynamism which would also create employment. The sometimes dramatic rise in unemployment seemed to have come to an end - albeit it at a depressingly high level, which means: Nothing is fine. The unemployment figures remain high. Nor do countries have the level of debt under control. The national debt quotas had increased significantly once again - to sometimes very high levels of well over 100 % of economic performance. The deficits would fall, but they were still high. The Bundesbank still sees a great need for adjustment. Overall, according to the Bundesbank, public finances are still susceptible to negative shocks.
After such a report, and besides bewilderment, there remains above all the question of why the Board of the Bundesbank allows itself the luxury of publishing such reports which are either lies, or present something which is impossible. The SPD puts the icing on the cake, because the comrades announced that they were also in favour of greater participation of private assets in the consolidation of the public budgets, according to deputy faction leader Carsten Schneider. “I support the findings of the Bundesbank in favour of greater participation of private assets in the consolidation of the public budgets”, declared Schneider. The financial transaction tax and a levy on assets were suitable instruments for making the instigators of the crisis and the profiteers from state aid participate in the costs. So it is good to know that the Europacrats intend to better protect assets up to € 100,000 (if at all?) and have even decided to do so. The CDU/CSU has so far remained quiet on the subject.
There are probably few people in Germany who have € 100,000 earned by honest work, and so it remains to be hoped that politicians for example will not again be exempted from such regulations, because in their case it is rather to be suspected that the country would gain a great deal, and that in this way they might at least make a small contribution in return for the crimes in connection with the failed rescue of the Euro, because the citizen, no matter how much he has saved, is already paying for this economic misery.
If politics still tries in this way to push ahead with the long-postponed bank union, for which the citizen will of course also have to pay, then it can only be said that the machinations of politics and banks have become criminal and unbearable, and that such decisions can never be in the interests of the people, and do not happen at all for their benefit.
Such reports and such intentions show how coarse and incapable of action politics has become in the confusion of the crisis, and that it cannot take much longer before the citizens’ assets disappear into thin air. Angela Merkel must however still wangle it so that the otherwise so well-behaved Germans, who understandable want to hang on to their hard-earned savings, have to bow to the power of Europe - that would take her out of the firing line of popular displeasure, and incidentally refill the national treasury. When people have later become accustomed to the situation, it will be possible for Mrs. Merkel to keep the crisis going, and to preserve party-political face for a while, just until the coffers are empty again, and the bankrupt Germany has to milk its citizens again. This will keep the crisis alive, along with the dreams and lies of party politics.