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Who is going to be stupid enough to save up and set aside when the government is nice enough to step in?
Photo: Malte Mueller/fStop/Getty Images
If you follow the German debate about increased energy prices and the cost of living from England while on holiday, you rub your eyes in amazement.
How the Germans roll over themselves with promises and ideas to relieve and help.
The only question that seems to concern everyone is: How expensive will heating be in winter?
Almost every day someone makes a new proposal on how the state can protect citizens from the consequences of the Ukraine war and the wrong and negligent energy policy of the past decades.
Any examples?
The Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband demands much higher Hartz IV rates.
The SPD calls for all-round protection for tenants if they can no longer pay their ancillary costs due to the rise in gas and electricity prices.
There should also be protection for landlords who have problems if they miss the additional costs that the tenants have not paid.
The SPD general secretary Kevin Kühnert has even suggested setting up a government aid program so that people who cannot actually afford a house can also buy a house.
I'm now waiting for the SPD to kindly pay my rent in full.
Who is going to be stupid enough to save up and set aside when the government is nice enough to step in?
A recent proposal by the head of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jan Eder, drew a lot of criticism, saying that all swimming pools should actually be closed and that people should be advised to jump in the lake.
That may be nonsense, but it touched on a sore point: So far, in the discussions about relief, it has been pretended that the Germans could continue to live like this, with their high energy consumption, the finance minister would just have to keep unpacking new bazookas.
I am following the German discussion from England, where I and my family are visiting relatives and acquaintances in various places for a few weeks that we have not seen for years due to the pandemic.
Seen from here, it is striking how strongly the Germans call for the state.
Some call this a "full insurance mentality" or an authoritarian attitude.
That's not new.
If you look back, it has been common since the financial crisis at the latest to calm people down with money.
During the corona crisis, the then Finance Minister Scholz pulled out the “bazooka” in 2020 in order to stabilize the economy with billions.
Most recently, a comprehensive relief package was put together in the spring, with a tank discount and a 9-euro ticket.
more on the subject
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Strategy against the energy emergency: It has to cost something nowA guest article by Michael Böhmer and Jens Hobohm
Wool blankets push by landlords: That's why real estate companies really want to turn on the heatingBy Michael Kröger
In England, when you think of a bazooka, you think of it as a gun, not an aid package.
Even Chancellor Olaf Scholz's amazing sentence: "You'll never walk alone" - a promise not to leave the Germans alone in the coming winter - would not come off the lips of a British Prime Minister in this form, unless he is Liverpool FC fan talking about football.
Anything else would be a form of cultural appropriation – and people here are very sensitive to that.
From the first few days here, I noticed how differently the English debate seems to be going.
You notice it when you read the newspapers or talk to all sorts of people, from nurses to pensioners.
Hardly anyone in public is calling for relief packages.
There is also hardly any expectation that the state will completely compensate for the price increases.
And that despite the fact that inflation in Great Britain is 9.4 percent, much higher than in Germany.
Despite an existing brake ("price cap"), energy prices have already risen by 54 percent in April and are expected to explode further in October.
Nevertheless, one hears far fewer complaints.
And there is also no run on fan heaters, as is evidently the case in Germany in midsummer.
It seems as if the British are more used to making sacrifices, expect less from the state and have a different concept of responsibility.
It's not that there haven't been any relief payments on the island, they were decided by former finance minister Rishi Sunak, but they were much more nuanced, targeting mostly low-income households and retirees.
Only a flat-rate energy money of 400 pounds (476 euros) goes to all households.
However, it is already becoming apparent that it will not be enough to offset the enormous increases.
A committee of the House of Commons has also determined this.
There are no concrete plans as the ruling Conservatives are putting all their energy into finding a new party leader and prime minister.
Liz Truss, current favorite, is all about tax cuts, despite evidence that tax cuts mostly benefit high earners.
Your competitor Rishi Sunak initially kept a low profile, but under pressure has changed direction and proposes a reduction in VAT on energy prices.
Many Brits have long since started taking care of themselves.
A retiree living on the state pension told me that she sold her washing machine to save energy.
She prefers to wash her clothes by hand.
She uses tea bags several times.
Anyone who owns a piece of land grows their own vegetables on it to reduce expenses.
Especially among older people there seems to be something like an enthusiasm for saving.
It brings back memories of the war and post-war period, when saving became a patriotic civic duty.
Even the younger generation does not call for the state or immediately ask the question about the system, as has become fashionable in the financially well-endowed, academic middle class in Germany.
In the weekend magazine of the Financial Times, a security guard named George Bass describes in three pages how he and his wife are trying to get by on his monthly salary of about 1,600 euros despite the increased costs.
He now eats porridge twice a day, he writes, because oatmeal comes from Scotland, so there shouldn't be any problems importing it.
Bass, the security guard, doesn't demand more money from the state, but asks: Why isn't he paid better?
The Guardian reports that the number of over-65s looking for work has increased in recent months.
According to the British Office for Statistics ONS, there is evidence that it is mainly older people who have already retired but are now realizing that their money is not enough.
"The great unretirement" is what the Guardian calls it.
The great return from retirement.
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I'm not saying that the English model of doing without and working more is better and that it should be copied in Germany.
That would be nonsense.
I'm just saying that, despite all the justified criticism, we Germans are perhaps a bit spoiled and that we might have to consider whether the state really has to help everyone.
In Germany, out of a strange understanding of justice, people distribute with the watering can without looking closely to see whether the money is actually going to where it is needed.
Even during the pandemic, it was not true that the virus would affect everyone equally.
"There were many winners in the pandemic," said the President of the Bundestag Bärbel Bas recently in Der Spiegel.
Several industries have made record profits.
And many private individuals can cope with higher energy prices better than others.
How would it be if the winners of this society played their part in social cohesion more than before?
For example, through a wealth levy or higher inheritance tax.
You could call this new levy energy solos.
Or cost of living solos.
This could fund more support for those who really need it.
