Germany is down and out.
13 months into his Chancellorship, Friedrich Merz is polling as the most unpopular German head of government in modern times.
That apparently does nothing to tamp down his cocky self-confidence and sense of self-importance, which so annoy the public.
And things may be about to take a turn for the worse as the German financial reality is biting.
To begin with, Germany is considering raising its pension age from 67 to 70 – the kind of move that set France ablaze for months while Emmanuel Macron tried to pretend all was great.
Germany is Europe’s largest economy, but it is stagnant, and the public finances are collapsing, so a ‘government-appointed commission’ has recommended a ‘radical overhaul of the pension system’.
The Telegraph reported:
“The commission, whose proposals are set to be presented to Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, on Tuesday, has suggested incremental increases to the pension age every decade according to life expectancy, rising to 70 by 2092 under its current calculations.
They propose a 2:1 ratio formula. For every additional year of statistical life expectancy gained by the population, eight months must be spent working and four months can be spent in retirement.”
Currently, Germany takes the contributions taken from current workers to fund the pensions of current retirees, but the former keeps shrinking, while the latter keeps growing.
“We want to reform our country in such a way that future generations, young generations, also have the opportunity to live in freedom, in peace and in prosperity,” said Mr Merz last week.
[…] The commission also wants to reduce the number of gold-plated civil servant pensioners who receive an average of more than €40,000 (£35,000) a year. A recent calculation by Welt newspaper found the annual cost of these pensions, which teachers in many states can access, to be €67bn (£58bn).”
Hellbound and Down 