The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

"Hard but fair": Educator describes everyday inflation - "This year it will work, next year it will be tight"

2022-05-25T06:41:57.922Z


"Hard but fair": Educator describes everyday inflation - "This year it will work, next year it will be tight" Created: 05/25/2022, 08:31 "Hard but fair" (ARD): The guests at Frank Plasberg on May 23, 2022. © WDR/Dirk Borm "With the current inflation, it's getting down to business," says the ARD stock market expert on "Hart but fair". An educator reports on the hard everyday life in times of sky


"Hard but fair": Educator describes everyday inflation - "This year it will work, next year it will be tight"

Created: 05/25/2022, 08:31

"Hard but fair" (ARD): The guests at Frank Plasberg on May 23, 2022.

© WDR/Dirk Borm

"With the current inflation, it's getting down to business," says the ARD stock market expert on "Hart but fair".

An educator reports on the hard everyday life in times of skyrocketing prices.

Berlin – "Germany has become an expensive country." With this statement, Frank Plasberg makes it clear that this evening will not be easy to digest.

The prices for food and energy, for housing and for mere existence, they are exploding.

Officially, the inflation rate is 7.4 percent.

But the real price increase is far higher.

That becomes clear after a few minutes in the talk at “Hart aber fair”.

But what are the reasons, who are the players in the background, are there any winners?

And who are these?

The descriptions of the educator Jens Diezinger cause dismay, moments of dismay and, yes, compassion.

Five high earners and a father of five.

It reflects life out there, the state of society.

A family with five children, both parents need two jobs each to make it somehow.

4000 euros net and it's barely enough to live on.

Diezinger has 260 euros more for groceries alone.

Every month.

His weekly shopping earlier: 80 euros.

Today 140. Added to this are the exploding heating and petrol costs.

When Diezinger looks ahead to the next year, his mine darkens.

He is such a fundamentally positive person, as Plasberg attests.

"Hard but fair": "What the traffic light has put on the table to date is a patchwork"

How are people like Diezinger relieved?

"What the traffic light has put on the table to date is a patchwork," confirms Gitta Connemann.

She doesn't think much of "a 9-euro ticket on overcrowded trains and buses" and demands: "We need real relief, and the best way to do that is through taxes."

Anja Kohl classifies the demand very soberly.

"They had 16 years to do every tax reform in the world, and they didn't do anything, absolutely nothing," replies the ARD stock market expert to the CDU politician, earning great applause from the audience.

The fact that mineral oil companies immediately pass on every jump in price to the petrol pump, but sit out a falling oil price and leave prices up, is not only noticed by the stock exchange specialist.

She denounces "that the cartel office is watching idly".

Inflation: What to do when money is melting in your hands?

“As a consumer, you can no longer do anything”

There are also said to be agreements between the discounters when it comes to groceries.

At least that's what educator Diezinger found on site.

"I can say it about the cream cheese, I can say it about the apple spritzer.

One raises prices and the others follow suit.

As a consumer, you can no longer do anything about it.”

“How do you manage that?” Plasberg wants to know.

"Save," says the teacher.

“It's tough when there's so much month left at the end of the money.

And there we are with the 22./23.

not so bad at all.” He almost only drives to work now.

"I have to make sure that I get to the first of the month so that I can fill up again."

The description of his tragic status quo never ends: the parents share the bedroom with two of the children.

The family buys children's things in part from bazaars.

In order to enable the modest annual vacation at the North Sea, the little ones voluntarily do without Christmas presents.

And yet eating ice cream together in Büsum has to be laboriously saved.

“This year it will still work”, says Diezinger, “next year it will be tight”.

also read

"Increasingly feverish and unstable": Ex-secret service agent reports of "chaos" surrounding Putin

"Civilization may not survive": star investor Soros criticizes Putin and Merkel

"What's wrong?" asks Plasberg.

"I don't want to say mistakes," says FDP man Christian Dürr.

He reports what the traffic light government has initiated: energy money, children's bonus, fuel discount.

"The traffic light now relieves small and medium-sized incomes in the amount of 37 billion euros." The additional tax revenue from increased prices would only be 16.9 billion.

"Hard but fair": These guests discussed with Frank Plasberg:

  • Gitta Connemann

    (CDU, Chairwoman of the SME and Economic Union)

  • Jens Diezinger

    (educator, father of five)

  • Anja Kohl

    (ARD stock exchange expert)

  • Christian Dürr

    (FDP parliamentary group leader)

  • Jürgen Hinkelmann

    (master baker with 61 branches and 600 employees)

Diezinger paints in dark colors how such well-intentioned calculations and supposed relief actually have an effect.

The educator says he received a corona bonus last year.

Result: At the end of the year he had officially earned 138 euros too much, so that his teaching aid exemption was cancelled.

That's why he had to pay 900 euros for his children's school books himself.

Cold progression is called something like that - and CDU Mrs. Connemann boasts that the grand coalition has dismantled it.

A statement that leaves Kohl "very irritated".

The coalition missed exactly that.

Kohl also states: "Mr. Diezinger earns too little for what he does." It is an "extremely responsible job for our society".

The stock exchange specialist brings some frightening numbers to the tableau this evening: In the past ten years, taxes have risen by 42 percent, but income has only increased by 30 percent.

"In 1965 you could make 18 times the average gross salary, then you were in the top tax rate.

Now 1.4 times is enough.

With a gross income of EUR 57,000, you are already in the top tax rate.” Her conclusion is fatalistic: “We are in a complete imbalance.

Now this exorbitant inflation is on top of that.”

FDP faction leader Dürr on "hard but fair": "There must be more left"

Dürr is annoyed by Anja Kohl's statements: "That was actually always my speech module." Plasberg warns that the speech modules should now be left out.

That's why Dürr draws up his roadmap for solving the problems: "It would be our task to make it fairer, no question about it.

For that I need political majorities, I want to be honest about this.

We don't have that at the moment.

We'll talk about it at the traffic light.

I hope and fight for something to happen now.

I share the concern.

There has to be more left, that's what I'll do at the traffic lights, that's clear."

Gitta Connemann is dissatisfied: Pensioners and students have been forgotten in the federal government's 37 billion package.

She proposes a cut in income tax, not VAT.

And addressed to Dürr: "Bold theses do not replace facts."

Anja Kohl provoked a moment of speechlessness when she let the statements of the two CDU and FDP representatives bounce off.

"I cannot believe that Ms. Connemann and Mr. Dürr, who were or are both in government responsibility, are saying that they do not have the majority for decisions."

Short break.

Kohl continues very slowly: "Yes, what then?" Long pause.

Think.

Silence.

The seconds pass.

None of those addressed really want to answer.

Dürr finally dared to propose a “tariff on wheels” without explaining the concept in detail.

"That would actually be my goal, that would almost be a revolution in Germany, I'm aware of that, but I'm happy to work for it.

I need partners for that.” Connemann waves his hand.

“Then you would have to convince the Greens and the SPD.

I think it will be difficult.” The speechlessness is conquered.

"I'm right away trying to do more of everything," says Dürr.

“The only part of being responsible is that something is affordable.

Otherwise we would be fooling the Diezinger family.

Inflation, this truth has to be spoken out, it cannot be replaced 100 percent by the state, but that we relieve where it is really unfair, I am the first to be there.”

And how is an energy flat rate received by the Diezingers?

The family man says soberly: "It hits and is gone.

Might get me a tank of gas, but otherwise it doesn't help me much."

Gitta Connemann on "Hard but fair": "People notice that they can no longer afford normal things"

In recent years, inflation has averaged 1.4 percent, says CDU Ms. Connemann.

“We are now at 7.4 percent.

The costs explode.

Of course, at some point it can also be explosive because people realize that they can no longer afford normal things.” Referring to the yellow vest protests in France, Frank Plasberg interjects dryly: “Yellow vests can also be bought in Germany.”

Master baker Jürgen Hinkelmann has amazing things to say about the rise in food prices: "We don't have 7.4 percent inflation," he says.

“Inflation here is between 28 and 29 percent.

None of us knows where it's going."

"The fact is," states Anja Kohl, "the entire food trade is controlled by a kind of oligopoly, by discounters and retail chains." A farmer earned 19 percent from his grain in the 1970s and only 7 percent in the 1990s .

"In 2020 it was only four percent." She advocates transparency and control in pricing.

"You don't have to expropriate immediately if you keep a close eye on the corporations." There is an urgent need for "an authority that can now see what's happening with this threatening inflation".

Plasberg sidekick Brigitte Büscher in the Ukraine: Impressive report earns applause

A great moment of the show is an eight-minute clip, a small report.

Here, Plasberg's sidekick Brigitte Büscher, who is otherwise solely responsible for online feedback and viewer comments, shows her qualities as a reporter.

Your film portrays a German farmer who grows crops in western Ukraine.

Markus Schütte commutes between Berlin and the Ukraine, where he has 50 employees on the farm.

And he no longer knows what to do with his harvest since the war raged.

How much air does he have left?

"Four weeks, maximum." And when does he have to give up his country?

“If it is occupied by Russia.

Only."

The single player gets big applause.

"We rarely have that," says Plasberg without envy.

Reporter Büscher then sums up how she experienced the German-Ukrainian farmer: "That really kills the man, despite his calm demeanor.

He hopes for the EU, he hopes for the green corridor.”

The stock market expert Kohl, who is on the scene, urgently warns: “I can only advise politicians to take this food inflation extremely seriously because it widens the social gap again.

The value chain is so threatened that we have to reckon with further increases in food prices.

I would immediately suspend VAT on staple foods.” The current, exorbitant inflation is not comparable to the past.

"This is something completely different.

The two-year pandemic, extreme supply bottlenecks", China with its inhumane lockdowns, on top of that a war in the middle of Europe and finally "a European Central Bank that is completely doing the wrong thing".

The expert's statements are tough: "I see the great danger of a global economic crisis."

And it only sounds hopeful when she concludes: “I see the danger of a fall.

If we really get that, inflation will ease off a bit.”

Conclusion of the "hard but fair" talk

This show was disturbing in many ways.

Here are the insights into the "normal" life of an educator and his family.

There the many economic backgrounds of a mega-inflation, which is now really picking up speed.

All of this left the viewer torn: full of information and yet – or perhaps because of it – fatally at a loss.

(Michael Goermann)

Yes to tax relief?

Vote with us.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-05-25

You may like

Life/Entertain 2024-03-05T19:16:50.015Z
Life/Entertain 2024-03-06T04:55:21.994Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.