The bad news is that German editorialists are still harping on the row over capitalism smoldering between the Social Democratic Party and big business. The good news? The many colorful, boundary-pushing metaphors the papers have come up with to explain the debate, one even invoking Julia Roberts.
Getting back into office would be a breeze if the SPD had a bit more of Julia Roberts' charm.
The only good aspect of this ostensibly dull and unhelpful debate is the colorful language it's brought out. On Sunday, Dieter Hundt, head of the BDA employer's association, told the ZDF television station, "What is going on in this country at the moment makes me puke." Not exactly your typical sound byte.
Editorials on Monday, too, come through with creative means of revisiting a tired discussion. The Berliner Zeitung gets the prize for creativity for comparing the stolid, albeit somewhat dandyish Muenterfering, with the prostitute played by Julia Roberts in the hit film "Pretty Woman." In the film, Roberts softens the soul of calcified capitalist Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere, by teaching him to love and be loved. When the film opens, the paper says, Lewis is "a particularly nasty example of the particular type of locust" Muenterfering hates: He buys firms that are flailing and then vivisects them for his own use and profit. Unfortunately, Muenterfering, in his quest to soften the hearts of big business owners, "doesn't have the same weapons at his disposal as Roberts." Instead, says the paper, "he has a wooden hammer which he uses all too happily in his fight against the capitalist plague." While the paper agrees, in principal, that some capitalists are bad guys, it insists that labeling them a locust plague and making them responsible for all of the German economic growth and stagnant businesses is "ridiculous."
For its comparison, the left-leaning Sueddeutsche Zeitung opts for a tad less tawdry fare, reffering to the words of Ernest Hemingway in its commentary about the senselessness of German bureaucracy. Apparently Hemingway spent time in Germany's Black Forest in 1922, during the US Depression, and wrote a journalistic report about how children who wanted to go fishing were required to have a fishing map of the area. Hoping to poke fun at the German desire to regulate even the great outdoors, he spent two days trying to get his hands on the laughable item before giving up. But, says the paper, the existence of something as silly as a 1922 fishing map remains a symbol of all that is wrong with Germany. It's not too much capitalism, but too much bureaucracy. "In addition to high taxes and non-wage labor costs, bureaucracy is the most important reason for the nation's minimal economic growth." By example, the paper says that if an entrepreneur wants to open a business in Germany, "he has to wait 45 days for permission and visit nine different agencies. In Australia, he has to wait two days and visit two agencies. In the US, it's four. The German system also has five times the amount of regulations as the British one." The regulations are not helping, the paper says, in fact, "the opposite" is true. And while all nations need rules, in Germany "an obsession with rules" is weighing everyone down.
The business-oriented The Financial Times Deutschland doesn't lean on others for its allusions, but manages to come up with its own brutal assessment. "The small library with the shortest books in the world will soon be gaining a new title: The economic policy of the SPD. The Social Democrats are happily removing themselves from all serious discussion about the economy. Even if their capitalism debate is successful politically, a call for a 'business-friendly nation' and 'ethical business practices' ...has never helped an economy recover from massive unemployment." Instead of really analyzing Germany's problems closely and looking for solutions, the government is operating by "gut feeling," the paper says. Such a policy cannot be successful.
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is stunned by the appearance of the "locust list," calling it "more than offensive and odd." It insists that "before a jubilant hunt for asocial market radicals begins, those doing the talking should be silenced." It attacks the nonsensical aspect of the SPD anti-capitalist argument, saying that in business takeovers, "naturally sometimes many people have to be fired, and sometimes the businesses that are purchased go bankrupt. That is part of the risky business of holding companies." The paper goes on to enumerate the problems with putting certain firms on the locust list, saying that some of the firms listed have actually grown and added workers in recent years. In sum, the paper insists, "the frontal SPD attack on the economy is exaggerated. The goal is to gain power and a new mandate. In this, the government is serving itself, not the people."
The rightist Die Welt sees the whole capitalism conflict as a big bar brawl that has gotten so out of hand that "no one knows exactly what it is about or whose side they are on." The big problem, says the paper, is that everyone on all sides is toying with fear. Voters are afraid of being unemployed, the government is afraid of no longer being able to explain their policies in the face of massive unemployment and even the opposition is afraid to put forth an idea for fear of alienating voters. "But," says the paper, "A debate about the state of the economy cannot be spearheaded by a fear-reflex."
The financial daily Handelsblatt takes a slightly more nuanced view of the capitalism debate, looking not at how it will affect the SPD, (which it offhandedly dismisses because "no one trusts them anymore") but at how it will shape the opposition Christian Democrats. Essentially the CDU strategy has been not to have one. Rather, they have sat back and let Muenterfering engage in his tirade. This silence "may allow the CDU to win the elections in North Rhine-Westphalia," the paper says. "But it won't be on the merits of their strength. Rather, it will be because of the SPD's weakness." And the longer they stay silent, "the harder it will be to win voters over to their own program." It's a program that -- gearing up for the 2006 parliamentary elections -- will necessitate some sort of reform plan of its own.
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