Richard Eastman lately forwarded a mail to me: What is a Billion

It started to trigger a thought. I started to discuss with friends. I got … frustrated.

Having started with “a clean account” after World War II, Germany is now Third globally in state indebtedness. Paying off 1 Billion a year and no interest on the debt, it would take Germany 130 years to pay off. It took the politicians only some 55 years to reach that point.

Okay. So our national debt is unmanagable (or so the politics tell us), but instead of consolidating our national household, we spend +12 billion for development aid in other countries? That is a +140% increase compared to 2003 and is more than 50% of what the (somewhat larger) U.S. spend. If we keep the pace, we surpass them in 3-4 years… Austria and Switzerland together spend about 3,5 billion. China or Russia do not even show up on the chart. So we have the luxury to further increase taxes (Germany”s tax rules exceed the tax rules of all other worldwide countries together), add on to bureaucracy – but we have no money to provide child day care centers?

With the WIG-project, I also learned that such development could not be financed in Germany. Sure, I did not believe it – all basic technology has been developed and brought to prototype, aside the know-how, there are funds available. What a shock to learn (from DLR!), that these funds are “meant for basic research, not for R&D to convert existing technologies to products”…

Germans emigrate. We become an emmigration country – while Ireland or Portugal, the former poorhouses in Europe convert to immigrant countries.
An “unword” in Germany is the “migrator”, people trying to come to Germany. No, they are not immigrants in the eyes of the politicians – they are neither integrated.

I saw a report lately on the Weimar Republic (the one that lead to the Third Reich). I don”t know, if I was the only one, striken by the similarities. Oscar Lafontaine is called a demagogue even by the respected press and he mentioned on TV lately he feels that to be a compliment (I compare to Weimar Republic!). People vote for extremist parties – because the Grand Coalition in power today fails to address any of the peoples needs. Polititicans wonder, why the voters get tired of voting? Extreme parties increase their influence. From what I hear on the streets:

Footnotes:
¹ I am a fan of space travel, get this right. I doubt, NASA being very effective, so I love commercial projects, such as Mars Direct or SpaceShipTwo. I believe NASA has become a bureaucratic dinosaur needing commercial competition.
² Humantiarian Aid is not in question. What I question is “monetary aid”, known to end up anywhere but where it”s needed. And to increase the amount spent (by +140% in five years) when consolidating the national household is said to be a top priority.