Unbeknownst to almost anyone in the English-speaking world, Germany has gone bankrupt last week. The stealthy state bankruptcy that was enforced by violating the constitution and undermining the “debt brake” (Schuldenbremse) that was constitutionally implemented in the early 2000s to make sure that the German state would not be on the brink of defaulting on its debt again went by without much notice, except a short piece in the abominable Financial Times that was historically inaccurate, to say the least, but in line with the class interest of the same people who drove Germany’s fiscal policy against a wall.[1]
What happened? On Wednesday last week, the German Supreme Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) has ruled that the SocDem/Green/Liberal neo-illiberal government’s budget plan to funnel 60 billion Euros left over from credits for Covid relieve into the climate hysteria-enabled Energy Transition was unconstitutional. Another 200 billion from the same budget were blocked by decree. In other words: the government budget is effectively non-existent – and the government hamstrung. In a functioning democracy in line with the Constitution, this would have triggered new elections. But not only did no one even mention elections, German finance minister Christian Lindner (Liberal Party, FDF) suggested to proclaim a retroactive State of Emergency for the current fiscal year. The Supreme Court’s decision was to be declared naught, and the debt brake – the only financial policy that allowed Germany to not crush its own economy all at once – suspended.
This downward spiral comes at a time when the government has shown its true colours in relation to the Constitution, the Grundgesetz, for a while now. Especially the current government does not think much of it in the first place, beginning with Covid lockdowns, vaccine mandates, and ending somewhere with Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser (Social Democrat), the most dangerous woman in Germany, demanding a Roland Freisler/Nazi era “reversal of the burden of proof” for convicting people of crimes: no longer is a federal court required to prove the guilt of a defendant, but the defendant must prove his innocence.[2] The attempt to pass this totalitarian law was primarily motivated to quench “dissident speech”, including criticism of the government. Yes, Germany has become a state in which you can no longer publicly criticize the government. To call this undemocratic would be an understatement. Thanks to Neonazi-Nancy, this is on the verge of becoming a reality, mission creep and all.
Now what exactly is this “retroactive” State of Emergency that will allow the German state to reach even deeper into the pockets of its subjects who are already facing the highest tax burden in the whole of Europe? As Roland Tichy reported on his excellent blog, Tichy’s Einblick, on Thursday:
Now is the time for the really big deception strategies. The most obvious would be the declaration of an invented state of emergency. “Climate emergency” is one such deception; a predicament that does not exist, because the climate cannot be influenced at all by any wasteful orgies of German politicians. “Climate emergency” stands for the attempt to further defraud the taxpayer.[3]
Just how effectively the Climate Emergency defrauds the citizens (though I no longer use the term “citizen”, which contrary to fact suggests that Germany has remnants of a civil society) can be seen in the misdirected use of government funds and its neglect to fulfil actual state tasks. Of course, elderly people receiving eviction orders to make room for refugees is one way to make a lot of money for landlords [4], as these evictions are state-subsidized, but will the gigantic black hole that is the German government budget be filled with putting lots of old people on the street while letting subjects of other states move in and live off social welfare? In order to understand the insanity of the German political class, it is not enough to wonder where the 896 billion Euros the State has received in taxes in the fiscal year 2022 alone have gone. The point is that filling the hole does not even seem to be the plan. The Climate Emergency has broader implications: oil heating and meat eating-prohibitions may not be very rational, but the State can catapult itself into the position of total sovereign, who, as readers of political theorist and Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt know, is defined as the one who decides about the State of Emergency. Quod erat demonstrandum. We have the Reds, Greens, and Illiberals now who will walk the walk and talk the talk of deciding on the state of emergency whenever something does not quite work according to plan (and all the effort with the “consultations” behind closed doors, expensive dinners, and pleasantries with members of the Supreme Court just before the ruling!). After all, the breach of the Constitution may be the last chance to restore trust in a degenerate, life-defying coalition that makes one almost wish for the return of monarchy. And yet, why does the German State get a free pass at such irrational behavior? Tichy:
… this is only possible because citizens behave like docile lambs and trust the state, however much they have been and continue to be cheated. In the event of state bankruptcy, however, this trust should be considered to have been exhausted. Put signs like "No traffic lights here [an allusion to the Red/Yellow/Green government]" or "Greens are not allowed in my boiler room" at the entrance to your house.
Protest immediately when you hear terms such as "wealth tax", "climate tax", "inheritance and wealth tax increase". These are all just euphemisms for a raid that is intended to close the holes that the previous raid in the high-tax country of Germany has only torn because the politicians in this country have proven to be completely incompetent. In a state bankruptcy, political resistance to any cash-in plan is an act of self-defence: no euros for the bankrupts and their swindles. This is about reversing the burden of proof: the state and its organs must justify why they need this money.
The current class – the Habecks and Lindners and Baerbocks and Scholzes and Lauterbachs – are prepared to go all the way, as we have learned from the past 3 years. The German Wirtschaft is already dead. With the rejection of the Supreme Court ruling, the judicial system may be next. Democratic institutions are gone, schools and universities have become a training site for state functionaries, the media go out of their way to become more efficient versions of the Stürmer. See for example the influential, self-avowed “Anti-Fake-News Site” Volksverpetzer[5] that literally means The People’s Squealer. Would a government site called The People’s Squealer even be possible in the UK? Or in France?
In one point, however, I disagree with Roland Tichy’s analysis. Pure incompetence is never as evil as a pure power craze, though it may lead to similar results.
The Zeitenwende is as much deliberate as it is evil.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/60674329-5be3-4802-a05a-851ee2990efd. No, it was not the “debt brake” that broke the budget, but the spending orgy of the political class on the Energy Transition, among other things.
[2] She recently towed back on this hard line by limiting its application to civil servants.
[3] https://www.tichyseinblick.de/tichys-einblick/wie-ueberlebt-man-einen-staatsbankrott/
[4] https://weltwoche.ch/daily/rentnerin-muss-fuer-asylbewerber-wohnung-raeumen-sie-wird-zwangsversetzt-wohin-weiss-sie-noch-nicht/. See also: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/suedbaden/unterkunft-fuer-gefluechtete-mieter-sollen-ausziehen-100.html
https://www.volksverpetzer.de In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pig Squealer’s job was to sell propaganda and brain washing as fact. Reality has clearly imitated fiction here.