Siemens and the SPD

In the last week or two....within Germany....Siemens came up and announced some lay-offs.  6,900 worldwide.....half of them in Germany.  Business has slowed down to some degree.

Naturally, this attracted political interest in Germany, and got the SPD folks all hyped up....to the degree that the SPD chief (Schulz) sent off a public statement saying that Siemens was being 'asocial' and going against the common good of Germany.

Normally, the political statement would have gone by and Siemens would have avoided making any statement at all.  Well....times have changed, and Siemen's boss....Joe Kaeser....decided that it was appropriate to fire off at the SPD Party.

Kaeser noted: "Perhaps you should also consider who truly acts irresponsibly: those who proactively tackle foreseeable structural issues and seek long-term solutions, or those who are beyond responsibility and dialogue."

Kaeser then noted that over the past five years.....Siemens paid 20 billion Euro in taxes, fines, and pension contributions into the German government.

The energy topic?  Well.....Siemens brought up this issue too....in that the government apparently doesn't require any oil or coal fired plants....which is what Siemens was partly in the business of doing.

In some ways, with my own humble opinion....the SPD Party used to be a party that was connected to the working class, in various ways.  If companies did well....employees benefited and the government benefited.  Today?  It's a fake connection to the working class people that the SPD exhibits.  The idea that the business needs to profit or do well?  No one cares.  So, why bother supporting the structure within Germany.....when you could downsize or ship jobs off elsewhere?  I doubt if Schulz or the core of the leadership within the SPD Party realizes this today.

The twenty billion Euro shipped off to the German government?  Well....they spent part of it, and the EU got their hands on part of it as well.  What good did it do?  Unknown.  Bridges and roads were built, and the screwed-up mess of the BER (the Berlin Airport) soaked up part of this funding. 

Where this goes?  Well....The 6,900 jobs are permanently gone at this point, and if you were in the German government.....you might want to ask what exactly is going on and if the business strategy of the nation....is failing it's people.