The other day I got hold of the German ZDF Politbarometer. It’s an opinion poll, that is done every 4 weeks. 1.250 people are participating. Questionnaire is all across politics like, „what if this Sunday would be German Election Day“ or „how good/bad is the economic situation“ or „sympathy ratings for the most important political people“ and so on.
Normally, I am just interested in the question, where the parties are positioned right now – have they lost or gained percentages and therefore how the overall political climate in Germany is.
This time I looked thru the entire results and wondered quite a bit about the outcome of the questions regarding the economic situation in Germany. There are 4 dedicated questions:
1. How is your personal economic situation? 58% good – 32% average – 10% bad
2. General economic situation in Germany? 24% good – 50% average – 24% bad
3. Economic competence of the parties? No 27% – conser. 27% – social 15% – green 7% – liberal 6%
4. Future economic development? Down 51% – unchanged 26% – up 12%
58% of the Germans judge their personal economic stimulation as good while the overall situation is mainly average to negative. Obviously none of the political parties have a good economic competency and even 27% think that the parties have no competency at all. Which leads to the conclusion, that in the future there will be average or rather negative development in the economy.
We had nearly 3 years of pandemic, we have a war in Europe, inflation is in the range of 5-8% for more than a year now and technically Germany is in a recession as there is negative growth for two consecutive quarters. And still – 58% judge, that they are doing good. And 32% average. Which adds up to 90% in Germany judge the actual economic is not bad – rather good. At the same time there is a brutal judgement, that the parties have no competence (I make it black and white) and the outlook is also rather negative for the economy.
If 90% of any nation are feeling economically good or at least save, there is absolutely no sense of urgency in this nation to change something. You might debate, if the activities to help the climate are too fast (34%) or too slow (42%), but in essence there is no urgent need to change, as I am feeling ok personally. It also explains, why the macro crisis (inflation, war, pandemic) seem to be not too relevant. If the economic power is still that good – no need to worry.
Unfortunately, I don‘t have comparable data from our European neighbors. But looking into Italy, France, Spain and (not EU, but in even worth shit) UK, it seems to be that the judgement from the people about their economic situation is (far) worth than in Germany.
In essence, the German economy is powerful and robust compared to other nations. Hence, in crisis the people living in this society are much more protected. But it doesn’t fuel innovation and development. It’s an environment that is stagnating sooner or later and therefore suffer harder (as they are not used to it). Finally, when the downturn comes to such a massive tanker like Germany, a change in behavior and suddenly start to act with urgency and innovation is a huge cultural change and can’t happen over night. The earlier the state and the politicians in charge (and opposition) will wake up and recognize this, the sooner the people can start acting and using their actual power to fuel innovation and continue to lead the world with a strong economy. And the more people recognize this and vote accordingly (and do not vote for sleeping decision makers), the faster the parties might hear the signal this as well.
