Germany’s federal government is preparing massive cuts to social welfare benefits, pensions and healthcare starting in the autumn. Chancellor Friedrich Merz made this clear last Friday at his summer press conference. The business pages of the main media outlets are also full of suggestions on how to save billions at the expense of the needy, pensioners, the sick and wage workers.

It is now clear that the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union and Social Democrats (SPD) deliberately omitted the planned social cuts from their coalition agreement and delegated them to expert commissions in order to first push through the massive increase in military spending. They apparently anticipated tremendous resistance if they had announced a huge increase in rearmament spending and social cuts at the same time. But now, as Merz made clear, there is no more time to lose. Workers and the most socially vulnerable are to pay the costs of rearmament and war.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    14 days ago

    Would have been fucking awesome if they funded it from the top echelon of the German socioeconomic strata, instead of stealing funds from people who actual fucking need it :|

  • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml
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    14 days ago

    socially vulnerable are to pay the costs of rearmament

    This sounds like a populist victory waiting to happen

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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      13 days ago

      It’s very revealing how casually liberals spit out populist as an insult. The derogatory use of the word unmasks their real conviction that majority rule is only admirable when the majority thinks like them. Strip away the varnish and their ideal is not democracy at all, but a stewardship by the enlightened elites who keep the unwashed masses at bay.

      • SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml
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        13 days ago

        casually spit out populist

        You’re right, populism can be good. The word I should have used here is exploitative demagogue.

    • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOPM
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      13 days ago

      Merz is preparing the weapons so that when the AFD, which he will paint as opposition to his Fascism-lite regime eventually wins, they can do full Fascism.

  • TCB13@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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    13 days ago

    This is what happens when you’re trying to support millions of immigrants, you just fuck over the people who payed for the system in the first place. But hey, poor immigrants from “Siria”.

    • Hanrahan@slrpnk.net
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      13 days ago

      What happened, your gf left you for somone.with.a bigger penis ?

      This is happens when you don’t tax capital properly

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        13 days ago

        It’s so weird for a country as large and wealthy as Germany to have its Chancellor show up and say “Oops! All out of money!”

        Have you checked… Zurich? Literally sitting on trillions of Euros over there. Nevermind the extensive domestic industrial capacity that’s being idled because of what’s effectively been a 20 year long capital strike.

    • whome@discuss.tchncs.de
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      13 days ago

      This is what happens when you don’t tax the rich and need to save money wealth concentrates at the top.