Monday

The Germans are not used to good things from Marcel Fratzscher. A year ago he demanded compulsory social year for pensionerscausing widespread outrage. Shortly afterwards, he flirted with the suggestion that older people would be deprived of their right to vote.

He considers the tax increases to be promising because – as he notes almost scornfully – the owners cannot move their apartments abroad. Two comments are important about his idea.

First: A permanent increase in property taxes would drive up rents in the country and spoil the joy of purchasing home ownership for many people.

Fratzscher’s cupping attempt is otherworldly

Second: A tax on property appreciation could penalize owners who have not realized the value of their home. You have financed a house or apartment for years, following the government’s desire for retirement provision.

They are happy that their property is now worth a lot more, but they don’t want to sell it. The state will one day benefit from the increase in value as soon as inheritance tax becomes due.

Fratzscher’s cupping attempt is just as quixotic as his proposal to sentence pensioners to forced labor. He has to face questions about whether he is abusing his public office.

Fratzscher only preaches in one direction

The professor of macroeconomics has been president of the German Institute for Economic Research since 2013 and lives on tax money. His statements are extremely one-sided. The “FAZ” author Rainer Hank rightly called him a “loud claqueur of the Social Democrats”.

Fratzscher only preaches in one direction. He appears as a champion of redistribution who wants to take money out of citizens’ pockets in ever new ways. In view of a looming budget gap of probably 30 billion euros, he should think about how the federal government, the sixteen states and their authorities could reduce costs.

In his institute, the professor is in charge of around 300 employees. He should let them research whether up to ten percent of employees could be saved in many ministries. An immediate hiring freeze would be the first step.

Attempts to save money have so far failed due to protests from the apparatus

When Christian Lindner was still Finance Minister, he thought out loud about how many levels in his ministry (currently: 2,321 positions) could be saved. The howls of protest were enormous. Savings models in other ministries have also failed so far due to resistance from the apparatus.

Everyone who calls for cutting bureaucracy overlooks the fact that there are millions of bureaucrats. They depend on their rules. Marcel Fratzscher could make great contributions to this area.

Tuesday

It’s always a pleasure to hear and see Joachim Gauck. Whether with Maischberger or, as on Sunday, with Miosga: it is a clever German speaking who carefully weighs thoughts and words. He doesn’t avoid any topic. At 86 years old, his head still functions perfectly. This may surprise some people who think back to 2017. At that time he did not stand for re-election as Federal President “for reasons of age”.

His brain and vocabulary were in excellent condition, but he didn’t want to put his body through the long business trips.

FOCUS founding editor-in-chief Helmut Markwort was an FDP member of the Bavarian state parliament from 2018 to 2023.