This is an essay where I cover the potential of the German Green Party achieving enough votes in the September 2021 German national election, to form a government under their party (with the SPD Party and Linke Party) as the coalition. The Chancellor would be Robert Habeck (assuming the current trends hold).
So these are the fifteen areas that I'll talk about with impact over this four-year period, and the chaos likely to follow:
1. Roads, Infrastructure, and Bans. Various measures will occur in this period. Leading them and shocking a fair number of Germans, will be the introduction of a speed limit on German autobahns. I expect at least two German states pushing back (Bavaria and Hessen), and likely able to keep unlimited speeds still on their autobahn structure. The majority of states will see a limit established.
The banning of diesel cars in the inner cities will continue, and taxation will increase on diesel fuel sold in the country.
Bicycle trails will see significant increases in funding, with major 'roads' established from city to city.
Funding allowances will be created for cities to eliminate 'car-streets' in major cities (like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, etc). Some of these streets will be limited to just bicycles, walkers, and battery-powered scooters.
2. Elimination of military weapon exports. I tend to expect most every company existing in Germany today to be told that the current contracts will be the last ones, and no weapons will be built or supplied beyond EU borders as 2021 comes to a conclusion. This will result in various companies evaluating the idea of leaving Germany (relocating to Poland, Czech, or Hungary). By the end of 2022, various jobs will be announced as ending...with companies offering the chance for some of the German employees to relocate. The Bundestag will display anger over the loss of jobs and the companies will respond that they didn't make these 'rules'.
3. The 'Greta-Patrol'. Because of the Fridays for the Future campaign, a significant number of kids will have been 'brain-washed' to certain political agendas. An effort will occur with the Greens dominating national politics....to give the 16-year-old kids the right to vote. All of this effort will lead to numerous kids being left-agenda types. Teachers will begin to realize by 2020 that they've lost control of the classrooms.
At some point, in 2021....the 'Greta-Patrol' kids will force classroom temperatures to be lessened (to save energy), and that only organic type meal options will be offered. The movement of kids of well-to-do parents....to private schools will ramp up, with 10-percent of the current public school system leaving. Some teachers will question the political stance of students and the directives handed down via Berlin's leadership, determining that it's time to forward resumes to countries like Australia, Canada, or the US.
By the end of 2022, at least one German state is investigating bullying and peer-pressure complaints over the 'Greta-Patrol', where non-enthusiasts of the agenda are being pushed around. A commission will be formed, and finds that complaints are legit. Warnings are given to schools, and the topic then becomes a public forum episode via television. By the summer of 2023, there's almost half of the German population who believe this movement is out of control, and that harsh measures need to occur.
Somewhere between 2022 and 2023, a word will be invented for a new phenomenon noticed in German schools. It'll refer to a 'save-the-world' anxiety/stress issue. Kids are now showing up at mental clinics...some as young as eight years old....having panic attacks and unable to cope with stress. Their principal problem? The 'Greta-Patrol' is dumping doom and despair commentary almost daily, and some kids can't handle the stress involved. Rehab centers are being created where kids go for a two-week stay to 'chill-out'. It's eventually called 'Kur-for-Kids', and doctors from around the world come to observe the German phonemum.
The 'Greta-Patrol' doubles down, offering a two-week boot camp each summer, where you get intense doses of living off the grid, making your own sandals, converting to vegan lifestyles, and learning to give up personal luxury items. In 2022, over 5,000 German kids attend the boot camp, and the number triples in 2023.
4. Public Transportation. Because of the banning efforts in 2021/2022, an enormous increase in public transportation starts to take place in major cities (Berlin, Frankfurt, Koln, Stuttgart, etc). The effect? They (the tram, subway, and buslines) simply don't have the assets or capability to transport this number of passengers.
An effort will occur to create a national ticket for all Germans (students, workers, retirees, etc)....the 365-Euro ticket. The ticket (demanded by the Linke Party and Greens) will be eventually found to be shorting the transportation sector, and by 12th month of this new program....it'll double to 730 Euro for adults and retirees. The money pouring into the public system? Based on requirements, it simply won't be enough.
Lateness to work issues? By summer of 2022, a number of companies around top dozen cities of Germany are complaining that this massive effort to get everyone to work via public transportation simply isn't working.
5. Tax increases. To pay for all of the promised 'services', most Germans will be shocked by the spring of 2022 to find various new created taxes. Gas taxes will increase by 10 to 20 percent, enticing people to switch to battery-cars. Cigarette taxes will double, with customs officers reporting significant black-market smokes now being imported into the country.
A wealth tax will be created for those making over x-amount (my guess is 200,000 Euro a year). Along with this will come a super-wealth tax (for those over one-million a year). All of this will work to persuade people to move/relocate outside of the country. Various companies will move their headquarters beyond the German border, and it'll be a highly discussed matter by the end of 2022. Soccer teams will discuss the impact with the wealth taxes, and that big-name players will be asking to be traded to non-German teams. By the end of 2025, all of the top 50 big-name players in Europe will be outside of Germany.
6. Grocery operations. Rules and regulations will start to form over farm production, eliminating the use of nitrates, pesticides, insecticides, etc. Bavaria, Hessen, and the Pflaz region will fight Berlin leadership all the way to the courts, and find that half of the regulations will be allowed to stand. A production 'slow-down' will start to appear by the spring of 2023, with Chancellor Habeck meeting with various farmers and associations....trying to find some middle-ground.
Germans will walk into grocery stores.....surprised that they mostly have non-German vegetables/fruit, all-year-round now. Pricing? Anywhere between 10 and 40 percent more than they pay now. A commision will be appointed by Chancellor Habeck to find out why grocery prices escalated, and why German farmers are not able to provide at the level of the past.
7. Electrical consumption will increase, with consumers fairly surprised over escalating prices. A Green idea will come out, suggesting 'punishment fees' for those consuming a hefty amount of power each year. More and more people will be placing solar panels on their roof, to avoid heavy taxation or more cost for their electrical usage.
8. An effort to bring more and more electrical buses to German cities will backfire. Buses will not be able to provide the number of hours expected with the normal diesel buses.
9. Within a hundred days of the beginning of the 'Green' years, it's very likely that a German letter will go over to the US, announcing the end of the NSA-to-Germany relationship, and asking for the personnel/equipment to be removed. The US will likely cooperate, but quickly find that Poland is very happy to enter into a new relationship here, and everything moves there.
Shortly after that episode, challenges to the US basing will occur, and the US will move to vacate all German basing by the end of 2023. NATO will start to dissolve by mid-summer of 2023. Part of this trend will be blamed on Trump (elected again in 2020), but a great deal of this will revolve around the Green Party vision of Germany in the future. US troops? Some will end up in Poland, as that relationship is improved and changed.
Part of this change will involve cutting German military personnel by 25-percent by 2023, and most foreign missions will all end by early 2024. German military expenditures? The budget will drop by one-third over the 2022/2023 period.
10. Refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers will find an open-door with the Green Party leadership. The numbers will escalate to 350,000 to 400,000 coming into Germany yearly in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Integration issues will be noted in social media sites, with the public news journalists refusing to discuss problems or issues. Public perception will negative, driving a great deal of CDU normal voters over to the AfD. The election in 2025? It will result in public confidence with the Greens dropping like a rock.
11. Public Television. Roughly a year after the Green victory, public sentiment has centered on the pro-Green government in a negative way. Some will start suggesting it resembles the former GDR government of East Germany (the Communists). The public TV crowd (ZDF and ARD) go into 'defensive' posture and try to convince the public that this simply isn't true. A social media efforts starts up with a 'quit-the-TV-tax' stance. Over fifty-thousand Germans attempt to get out of the TV tax by the end of 2022.
By the end of 2023, a code-phrase will have been invented and former DDR phrases will be often linked to TV news and chatter. At least five moderators/journalists will quit by the end of 2023....coming to agree that some type of effort is being pursued by the leadership of public TV.
12. Robert Habeck. Upon becoming Chancellor, his style will be cheerful, non-suit (no tie), and 'we-can-be-part-of-a-great-future'. He will approach the youth of Germany with the idea of 'giving-up' something....thus feeling good about it. Different campaigns will come and go, like giving up sugar-drinks, or giving up cell-phones at school, or giving up new clothing (used clothing will go into style). Habeck will try to use this new dynamic on neighboring countries, and find that they are mostly laughing over the change in government. Almost on a daily basis, Habeck in the first year is appearing on various TV shows and seems to be continually interviewed. Various TV journalists quote Habeck on a continual basis. By the end of 2024 (3 years into the Chancellor's job), Habeck's public approval has slipped a great deal, and over three-quarters of the country want him to limit his appearances to just once or twice a month on TV (being overdosed with the character factor).
13. Public affordable housing. Within sixty days of assuming the leadership function, the new government has an agenda.....finding 18 billion Euro to provide as an interest-free loan to the city of Berlin....enabling them to seize public housing property from private companies and settle via the court system. The courts swing into action. In six months, half of the properties on the list have been taken. Challenges via the courts come up, and move toward the national court.
As the weeks go by, other cities (Hamburg, Frankfurt, etc) are approaching for their interest-free loan. At least thirty cities are now talking about the same situation.
By the summer of 2023, reality has set in....the 18 billion Euro for Berlin has been entirely settled out, and they've only reached the 50-percent point of property settlements. The Greens at the national level are worried now because they've arranged for over a hundred billion Euro in interest-free loans, and it's obvious that people underestimated the amount necessary. Property seizures stop.
There are two groups with angry and frustrated citizens forming in Berlin. The first are the ones who are in the new public housing, and thought that their rent would drop by forty-percent.....discovering only a drop of 15-percent. The city explains that they need to pay back the interest-free loan. The second hostile group are the ones in the private properties which can't be seized now because the money ran out. All of this is bringing up demonstrations and public meetings.
By the end of 2023, it's been announced that numerous construction projects for apartment housing projects aren't being pursued because of the threat seen that the city governments might seize the properties.
By the summer of 2024, the whole grab and seize idea has been deemed a failure. All of the interest-free loans are called into question about how big cities benefited and small communities got nothing.
14. Drug use up. In various metropolitan cities of Germany, the public sentiment by summer of 2022 is negative about the amount of serious drug use going on. The Greens confront the issue, making marijuana legal across Germany. The public anger simply grows.
Some efforts center on money being used for homelessness and drug-recovery efforts. The government seeks new taxation to send out over five billion Euro to the metropolitan cities for a two-year program to combat the growing problems.
At least five big-name Green Party members are arrested by the end of 2023 for drug charges (cocaine, meth, etc). Some public sentiment grows in that the party members might be part of the problem.
15. A German word will be invented by the summer of 2022, for Germans who are exiting the country, and resettling elsewhere. It'll be used nightly by news journalists trying to explain the phenomenon. Canadian officials will note by the end of 2022 that they've had over 100,000 requests from Germany about immigration.
A government commission will form by the fall of 2023. The exit affect now concerns the teaching profession, German industries, and the police associations. The chief complaints center on taxation increases, problems with the food chain, too much regulation, anxiety over driving bans, and distrust of the current government.
Additional blame will be placed upon a lingering recession that started to some degree in 2019, but increased in the spring of 2022. A commission will be formed to find root causes of the recession, and the blame will shift to commerce and capitalism....'the evils of society'. For six months, a anti-capitalism slant will be coming out of the government....to the point where they realize they screwed up. That tactic simply increased the flow of Germans out of the country. By the fall of 2025 (the next election), almost 750,000 Germans have left the country.
Trend polling starts to take place in early 2025, with the election 9 months away. It's an odd situation. Metropolitan results across Germany show the Green Party easily at 45-percent of the vote. Non-metropolitan results? Way down to around 8 to 10 percent. In Bavaria, it's a harsh reality that SPD is gaining back votes lost previously to the Greens.
Public hostility? Between taxation issues, public TV tax frustrations, upsurge in asylum and immigration, and public affordable housing woes, the Greens have lost their image/brand. Leading back to the CDU winning in 2025? The immigration negativity leads to AfD gains, and they edge out to win in 2025's election. The Greens label them as fascists....drawing hundreds of thousands to pack and leave Germany because of the suggested chaos coming. To counter the 'Greta-Patrol', the incoming government chats over the idea of uniforms in schools, and raising the voting age back to eighteen.
Just my humble view of the politics coming in two years.
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