Photo: Envato / Symbolic image, editorial use
Good night, environmental protection - Part 2/4: The government of hollow phrases and unintentional honesty
While the prices of basic foodstuffs, especially non-subsidised plant-based alternatives, fruit and vegetables, but also hygiene and cosmetic products, which both rich and poor need to live, continue to rise for consumers and are now not exempt from VAT, the government is providing relief for companies that are already making massive profits.
Why is the CDU/CSU rejecting green, socially fair policies? The background to this political manoeuvre reads like a lobbying thriller:
- Merz and Söder had their photos taken in McDonald's branches during the election campaign, with Söder even publicly recommending the restaurant.
- McDonald's was a sponsor of the CDU party conference and supported the construction of a new office for the SME association.
- The hotel and catering association DEHOGA, which benefits massively from the tax cut, explicitly campaigned for Merz as chancellor.
- 500,000 donation to the CDU from catering entrepreneur Max Schlereth, operator of two upmarket Spareribs restaurants and profiteer of the tax cut.
What is being sold as a tax break is actually a 48 billion euro subsidy for fast food companies - while sustainable food continues to be penalised. 1 Party donations, canvassing, Merz and Söder at McDonald's - and VAT is already being dropped, especially for the big burger and fast food chains. A breathtaking case - which casts a dark lobbying shadow over the upcoming coalition. https://newsletter.foodwatch.de/ov?mailing=6BEFCV6M-GDQMJO
When Merz and Söder talk about the "middle class belly", they are not referring to the craft business next door;
They don't mean the small company with two employees that mine was fourteen years ago.
You're talking about people like Schlereth, who run a posh meat temple on the Viktualienmarkt, probably one of the most famous and expensive addresses in the world.
With Adenauerstraße in Bonn, Schlereth has also secured the somehow fitting "Chancellor" address for his second spare ribs experience restaurant. If you can call it that, a place where parts of animals that have died an agonising death are put on display. 2 WELCOME TO THE TEMPLE OF ST.RIBS! https://saintribs.com/muenchen/
Here, high society, the rich and beautiful are welcome. People like to socialise with their peers. How do I know that? Because I wanted to be like that once. I used to dine at the Wiesn in the Hippodrom, with champagne, cigarettes and coke, with suppliers, customers and friends alike. It wasn't the worst time of my life, I say without any regrets. I was catered for by Schuhbeck himself in the back room of the Platz'l. Nice. 3 That damned tax https://paddys.de/diese-vermaledeite-steuer/
That was long before the matter of tax evasion or corona aid, or whatever it was in the end, came to light.
Important:
The problem is not that there are successful business people who amass an incredible amount of money. Without entrepreneurship we wouldn't have any jobs, there's no question about that. The problem is that these people are getting richer and richer at the expense of less privileged people. And they don't have to do anything for it. The anti-social tax laws of the CDU/CSU and the former FDP do that for them. 4 DIW Berlin: Wealth in Germany continues to grow https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.781484.de/s_8614.html 5 Wealth inequality in Germany remains high despite significant increase in net wealth https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.679909.de/publikationen/wochenberichte/2019_40_1/vermoegensungleichheit_in_deutschland_bleibt_trotz_deutlich_steigender_nettovermoegen_anhaltend_hoch.html 6 The rich are getting richer - greatest social inequality in the eurozone in Germany https://www.wsws.org/de/articles/2014/03/01/diw-m01.html
Politicians have favoured individual influential rich people for decades and in return, for example, abolished the citizens' income. That is the problem. 7 Men, billions, power: How the lack of taxation on wealth cements gender inequality https://www.oxfam.de/ueber-uns/publikationen/maenner-milliarden-macht-fehlende-besteuerung-vermoegen 8 phoenix, Budget 2025: Statements by Friedrich Merz (CDU) and Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) https://youtu.be/-Gt-bT9ChIo 9 Taxing the super-rich fairly (again) https://www.oxfam.de/ueber-uns/publikationen/superreiche-gerecht-besteuern
If a lobby organisation comes along and complains about the slump in sales of cow's milk, cow's milk is simply made cheaper by lowering VAT, while plant-based alternatives are artificially made more expensive through higher taxes. To finance the tax relief for animal products, language and integration courses for migrants are cancelled and cut in half. The is the problem.
But Markus Söder, the most embarrassing food blogger ever, stands for just such a policy. Markus Söder, the man who always sounds like he's downing a pint of beer, has now worked his way up to become the country's unofficial "burping minister". Yes, there are actually recordings of him burping on stage - his policies could hardly be described more symbolically. Who needs sustainable agriculture when you can fill the microphone with a decent burp? 10 2 Bored Guys, Markus Söder makes a big deal of the Internet https://youtu.be/1UU8lvik2pg
Söder's latest coup: he wants to appoint Günther Felßner, a genuine agricultural lobbyist and convicted environmental offender, as Minister of Agriculture. Felßner, who himself has been discharging illegal silage waste into nature for years, will probably be the first to pour slurry over the environmental laws. footnote] Saving the agricultural turnaround: preventing Söder's lobby ministers https://aktion.campact.de/soeders-lobby-minister-verhindern/appell/teilnehmen-mc [/footnote] 11 taz - Farmer misses entry into Bundestag: Lobbyist Felßner wants to become Minister of Agriculture even without a mandate https://taz.de/Landwirt-verpasst-Einzug-in-Bundestag/!6068465/
And Friedrich Merz - the man who has managed to establish himself as the least likeable right-wing populist in CDU circles in a very short space of time. Yesterday, his poll ratings fell again in the new Politbarometer. Now 73% of respondents share my opinion and say that he deceived voters with his statements on the debt brake during the election campaign. Think about what that means. Three quarters of Germans think our future chancellor is a fraud. Even almost half of those surveyed (44%) from his own ranks say so. 12 ZDF political barometer: Great reservations about Merz as chancellor https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/politbarometer-vorbehalte-gegenueber-merz-100.html
In his speeches, he manages to fit somewhere between neoliberal "I love the rich" rhetoric and right-wing "They're all social parasites" slogans.
His comment, "Those who work must not be the stupid ones", which he delivered with that inimitable mixture of patronising arrogance and millionaire pity, is unforgettable. Yes, because the low earners in Germany are doing sooo well - they don't even need affordable housing, stable pensions or a functioning welfare state. Why should they when you can pump all the money into tax breaks for companies and the rich? 13 "Stupid remarks": Greens lash out at competitors https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/id_100567070/-dumme-sprueche-gruene-teilen-gegen-mitbewerber-aus.html 14 Thanks to his own party, Friedrich Merz is back in the right corner https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/analyse-von-ulrich-reitz-dank-der-eigenen-partei-steht-friedrich-merz-wieder-in-der-rechten-ecke_id_180425261.html 15 "Hart aber fair" : "We can of course continue to kick downwards so that we don't look upwards" https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article255778764/Hart-aber-fair-Wir-koennen-natuerlich-auch-weiterhin-nach-unten-treten-damit-wir-nicht-nach-oben-gucken.html
"We are now focussing on the hard-working in our country and not on those who are in need of support, even though they could actually work," Merz said. Word for word. You can see it for yourself in the linked source in a phoenix recording. What kind of disgusting arsehole thinks like that? 16 phoenix, CDU/CSU election campaign conclusion: Speech by Friedrich Merz | 22/02/2025, "Performance before need" https://youtu.be/pa9h5BfOwk8?t=1354
I have to reproduce word for word what Friedrich Merz, probably our future Federal Chancellor, said. He insinuates that all recipients of citizen's allowance don't want to work and blames them for Germany's structural problems. Classic AfD narrative. If asylum seekers, asylum seekers and migrants - the poorest in our society - are not the scapegoat, then it is the recipients of citizen's allowance.
He accuses recipients of citizen's allowance, the poor of our society, in all seriousness and repeatedly and publicly of "sluggishness, comfort, laziness". What kind of disgusting person would talk about other people like that? 17 phoenix, CDU/CSU election campaign conclusion: Speech by Friedrich Merz | 22.02.2025 https://youtu.be/pa9h5BfOwk8
And then there was his embarrassing attempt to "win back" AfD voters by flirting with the same topics as his blue-brown colleagues on the far right. Merz is not above engaging in open agitation against welfare recipients, portraying migrants as a burden and repeatedly catering to underlying resentments. This is no coincidence - it is his trademark.
