22-03-2005 02:34									#1
	The Grand Coalition Full PM-box? Change here!

Apparently, Shroeder and the CDU and CSU (right parties) have formed an informal alliance. Shroeders coaltion (SPD-Greens) controls the Bundestag, but the CDU-CSU alliance controls the Bundesrat. It seems that now they will be working together to solve germanys economic problems

on top of this, he is wanting to cut corporate taxes from 25% to 19% on the profits. the average taxes paid by corporations ins germany will now go from aorund 38% to 32%, which is less than the average of both italy and france. the reduction is meant to combat the lower corporate taxes that exist in the 10 new EU members.

futhermore, there will be a 10% tax cut for small family companies passed down through heritage. they estimate 66,000 companies will be affectd every year.

it seems that the increase in size of the EU, although i didnt support it, and the grand coalition, might get germany moving again inthe right direction.

on the web Grand Alliance by AFP

	22-03-2005 03:20									#2
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Germany certainly needs to give companies some reason not to leave the country and lowering profit taxes will help. Dong this will slow the exidus of jobs but it won't do much to net new jobs. To create new jobs, and thus solve Germany's unemployment problem, they need to lower the costs associated with hiring workers & make it easier to hire or fire workers. It just costs to much to hire someone and it is next to impossible to fire someone. Why bother hiring anyone if it takes an act of god to fire them during a down turn and then you have to pay for their unemployment and retraining for years and years because they likely won't find another job which pays as well as the last job.

Germany needs to learn that it has priced and regulated itself out of many if not most of the jobs there are in this world.

	22-03-2005 03:23									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Germany does what Finland is supposed to do. Funny, in here, SDP ****s it all up for the rest of us. IN Germany, they actually try the right thing, unheard of from SDP around the world.

That party should be labelized as terrorists org, for bringing nothing but misery to people.. oh yeah and turning riches to poor and poor to even more poor.

	22-03-2005 04:28									#4
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Grand Coalitions suck. I hate them, unfortunately the way our political system works they are sometimes necessary. Right now, the opposition can block 60 % of the proposed laws. That's ridicilous.

Grand Coalitions lead to crappy results. This is what happens, when you mix two (or more) different approaches to fix a problem.

We had a formal Grand Coalition between 1966 and 69. In that time, CDU and SPD made governing Germany only more complicated. They redistributed the power between the states (Länder) and the federal government in a way, that made neither the states nor the federal government capable of acting.

Germany does need a Grand Coalition to restructure the political system. But a Grand Coalition for passing some policies sucks. If you mix up leftist and rightist approaches, you'll usually get the worst of both of them.

This is actually what happened to all the Schröder reforms (Agenda 2010 and stuff) and what will happen to the next reforms.

We had a Jobgipfel ("job summit") last week between the leaders of the government and the opposition where these "tax cuts" were passed. However, the whole summit was more or less a failure. These reforms won't lower the unemployment rate.

Summary: Grand Coalition. Allowing the opposition to meddle into the affairs of the federal government.

	22-03-2005 04:51									#5
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I don't know why CDU/CSU is doing this. Schroeder and his party should be the one taking the heat for Germany's near triple-dip recession.

	22-03-2005 04:59									#6
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Because, they are in the difficult position. If they just block everything Schröder wants, they'll lose public support (since everybody knows that reforms must be made and the people are becoming sick of politicians doing nothing). That already happened often enough and made the CDU/CSU losing ground in the polls.

Schröder is a very clever tactician. He's smarter than the opposition leaders in that regard. The opposition can't risk to block all reforms (especially those, which they basically want, too), and on the other hand, they don't want Schröder to have success. If any of these measures actually work, Schröder will be the one who gets the credits.

	22-03-2005 05:38									#7
	Inflate your Upload Space

Apparently, the CDU/CSU aren't very good politicians. They need to pull a Maggie Thatcher and stake out their own ground.

	22-03-2005 06:13									#8
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

The end is what matters, not the means.

	22-03-2005 07:15									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Countries need to get together and form some sort of an international agreement about the minimum corporate tax rate, or they'll end up at zero and income tax will go through the roof.

	22-03-2005 07:21									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

They already do have a minimium. Zero.

If a country wants to compete then they need to keep their taxes low enough that their other advantages (closeness to market, lower transport costs, more efficient workers, easier access to capital, better infastructure, etc) can off set the higher costs. Several countries forgot to keep an eye on what alternatives businesses had so they raised their tax & regulatory burden to the point that businesses just up and took their marbles else where.

The solution to high taxes is to spend less then you don't need so many taxes.

	22-03-2005 07:27									#11
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Originally posted by Oerdin They already do have a minimium. Zero.

Yes. That's bad for all private citizens out there, because we are the ones who are going to get screwed if corporations whore themselves out to the lowest taxer.

quote: The solution to high taxes is to spend less then you don't need so many taxes.

Riiight...

The solution to unpatriotic private businesses is for the public sector to step in and corner the abandoned market sector.

	22-03-2005 07:30									#12
	Put an end to popups!

And which abandoned sectors would that be? Your problem seems to be with free trade removing the restrictions which allowed governments to raise costs way above reality.

	22-03-2005 13:20									#13
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quote: Originally posted by St Leo Riiight... The solution to unpatriotic private businesses is for the public sector to step in and corner the abandoned market sector.

Money knows allegiance to no flag. If you had some, you'd know that.

	22-03-2005 14:22									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

Germany has a fleeting chance I believe in the next year or two, to completely its restructure its welfare and social system. People will protest, but those must be ignored. Germany must reduce labor rigidity laws NOW. Argentina held onto the laws making it nearly impossible for businesses to fire workers. Now look where Argentina ended up in 2001.

Faced with these tasks, I feel that Schroeder is not competent for the job.

Germany has a chance right now. If they screw it up.. well... unemployment will shoot up even more. That is if they follow the left wing bullshit in the country, and not a neo-liberal economic method.

So: Reform or Die.

	23-03-2005 04:02									#15
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

quote: Argentina held onto the laws making it nearly impossible for businesses to fire workers. Now look where Argentina ended up in 2001.

you know exactly why argentina went down the shitter in 2001, and it wasnt because of rigid labor markets.

	23-03-2005 05:07									#16
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

The main reason was the debt burden was to high most of this was brought abut by large government deficits but the fundimentals were to wacked out to maintain the dollar peg. Thus the sharp fall in the local currency and their inability to repay dollar dominated loans. If they had attracted more foreign investment with free markets and less regulation then likely they could have avoided default or at least maanged their currency decline instead of being hit with it al at once.

	23-03-2005 05:21									#17
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

And if Argentina had not tried to privatize their social security system with debt - the WSJ did a couple of good articles on it before the current debate on SS privatization in the US.

	23-03-2005 05:53									#18
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Privatization is rarely a good idea because the costs are so great the only way to finance it is through massive increases in debt. The CBO says it would take $2 trillion in additional debt to pull off bush's phase out of Social Security.

I also find it dispicable the way the Administration and Congressional Republicans have sicked their attack dogs on the AARP. The AARP's only crime was pointing out that doing nothing costs $1 trillion over 50 years while Bush's plan costs $2 trillion over 35 years and that it doesn't insure anyone gets anything.

	23-03-2005 16:48									#19
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TANSTAAFL