Last night on the public TV chat forum 'Anne Will Show' (ARD, Channel One)....they brought in five guests guests with the moderator Anne Will. The chief topic? The transformation of the welfare program (Hartz IV).
The two guests that really mattered were Jens Spahn (CDU guy (Merkel's party), started acting vocational studies as a banker....got into university and then studied politics and law, who is today the Health Minister.....and Sahra Wagenknecht (Linke Party, chief of the party, far-left political enthusiast).
There are probably twenty major sub-topics that go with the Hartz IV program....to include unemployment, job training, job placement, etc.
So at some point....the topic finally came up....forcing or pushing unemployed academics (college degree folks) into handicraft/skilcraft training.
No one really says that there is a huge number of college degree folks sitting around and collecting welfare pay. It might be curious to ask this question, but generally....as long as you didn't have a worthless degree (like French literature)....if you got laid off, you could probably get another job within three or four months. The same can be said for those with the 'Abi' who have a two-year certification in a skilcraft. The bulk (probably over ninety percent of Hartz IV recipients)....are people with no career path, who fell off-track and nothing to show for a new job.
But for some reason, in this public discussion forum....the question got tossed around if you could FORCE an academic to become a baker, or technician of some type. It was a worthless question. But they forced it toward the leftist of the group....Wagenknecht. She responded that you couldn't go and force that academic into such a situation....unless you correct the pay difference from the guy's old job and this 'lesser' job field.
It was a poor answer, and Spahn just came back and tormented Wagenknecht over the answer.
Last year, I watched some German public TV chatter and they talked about this unusual number situation developing....where more German kids were opting for college/university.....than going for an 'Abi' (the skilcraft certification). It's the first time in German history where the numbers were greater. At the time, the experts noted that this was not a practical thing to enjoy....that the numbers would give Germany shortages in the future (twenty to thirty years from now).....if the trend continues.
Do Germans watch these shows? That's another factor. The working-class Germans? I doubt if you can find more than 5-percent who might watch one single forum per month. The intellectual or academic crowd? It might be closer to 50-percent who watch at least one per month.
The general problem I see is that you have people arguing over the solution or repair needed for Hartz IV, and these are generally all academics who you might question if they really have any background or understanding. I might go and suspect that they'd just go and resolve problem X in one way.....to just re-invent the problem as problem Y for another day.
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