Autumn brings change and foreboding. But most of all, he brings me inspiration. Unfortunately, as Telekom writes, the fiber optic connection I ordered a year ago is still a long time coming. Her “local expansion partner” informed her “that the continuation of the expansion is being delayed due to external influences”.
That set the tone for me. Jens Spahn (44), as Jens Spahn (44) was recently quoted in the media, is to blame for the crisis in the automotive industry in Germany, former VW bosses who “suddenly put everything on the electric car card”. Friedrich Merz (68) corrected a few days later in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus that Mr. Habeck had to admit that “with what he (…) has done in recent years (…) he has caused the greatest damage to the German economy the automotive industry and no amount of subsidies can repair this damage.”
“I wish the federal government (…) the strength to correct,” shouted the then SPD Prime Minister of Brandenburg, Hubert Woidke (62), at an election campaign event in Cottbus in June. Three months later, SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz (66), who was in New York, reacted to this, which was also due to his invisibility during the election campaign narrow election victory for the SPD As usual, curt: “It’s great that we won.”
Europe is facing an “existential challenge,” wrote Mario Draghi (77) in his paper at the beginning of September European Competitiveness Report. Because the loss of the latter also means the loss of the EU’s raison d’être. “The only way for Europe to become more productive is to change radically.” The new collective debt planned as part of radical change forced the German Finance Minister Christian Lindner (45) to quickly comment: “That can be summarized briefly: Germany should pay for others. This can’t be a master plan.”
Shortly afterwards, when the US company Intel eagerly awaited the plans for the Chip factory in Magdeburg stopped
, the minister quickly explained again: All funds that are no longer needed, at least 10 billion euros, “must be reserved to reduce open financial issues in the federal budget. Anything else would not be a responsible policy.” Apparently, the strategic ambition was lost along with the funding object.
“You don’t build up competitive advantages overnight,” said car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer (73) in the Phoenix program at the end of the car summit, the non-event of the month that was intensively prepared and followed up by the media and politics. in which nothing lasting came of it. “It takes 20 or 30 years to work systematically on it in research, development and industry. This is long term. And that’s not Germany.”
“If we continue as before, a fifth of German industry will be at acute risk in the next few years,” said BDI boss Siegfried Russwurm (61). concrete numbers and approximate time horizons together. What is urgently needed is “a real social and political consensus that Germany must remain an industrial country because we have no alternative to it.”
Each of these points would warrant its own autumn column – but this is only a small selection, just a snapshot of the discourse. The economy is groaning, the traffic lights are groaning, problems are being explained away or presented as solutions. Ideas for the future? Let’s not do it. Long breath? We don’t have it. Where will all of this lead? We don’t know.
Politics has gotten lost in the constant election campaign, industry does not know whether it is dying because of or with years of rigidity in tradition, society’s conflict arenas remain unsatisfied as long as capital can still be made from their conflicts. In mid-September, when asked on ARD about the most important individual political measure to be taken for the economy, candidate for chancellor Merz cited the correction of citizens’ money. I don’t know who should take this seriously.
The omnipresent helplessness, it ends up infecting me too. I’ll stick with Telekom and postpone the answers until next time. External influences, you know.