Thursday, March 16, 2017

The Trust Factor

I paged through the German newspaper BILD today.  There's an interesting survey conducted by GfK.....an market research institute.  They polled Germans and asked....who do you trust?

Number one: The police.  Eighty-five-percent of the public said they had trust.  It's a remarkable number and says alot about the general behavior of the cops, and the respect that the public gives them.

So, after the cops.....you drop 20-percent (a hefty drop), to the legal branches of the government (the court, justices, etc).  Sixty-seven-percent of the public gives them a note of trust.

Bunched in with the legal system is the German military (64-percent), and the Euro (58-percent).

Then you get down into mid-40's....with the news media and the churches of Germany.

At the bottom of this list are three curious groups: the internet (35-percent), commercial companies (30-percent), and political parties (18-percent).

As much as people chat about fake news now from German public TV....the internet is only trusted by one in three individuals.  The VW scandal and various bank episodes have helped to sour Germans on commercial operations.

Then you come to the least trusted group of them all.....grouping the CDU, SPD, Greens, etc.....all into a very untrusted group of individuals.

Yes, Germans trust their local cop....more than the local priest or regional bishop, and a lot more than the news media.  They kinda says something about German society.

It would have been curious if they'd broken this down into age groups, or Bavarians versus Hessens....but it's a survey which would offer a number of topics for some political forum, and asking the public why they just don't trust the news media or political folks that much.

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