The voters are sure the government hid the looming economic meltdown until after election day. Sound familiar? Derek Scally reports on Germany's economic woes
Germans are watching their cent these days. The country is in the middle of its worst financial crisis since unification, the economy is teetering on the verge of its second recession in 12 months and unemployment is stuck at 10 per cent. Despite the pinch, however, more than 350,000 people splashed out this week and bought The Tax Song, a satirical single that blames the whole mess on the chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, and his broken election promises.
"Today the promises you make are tomorrow the promises you break. Elected is elected, you can't fire me. That's the great thing about democracy," sings a Schroeder mimic to the infectious melody of the summer hit, The Ketchup Song.
In the video, a Spitting Image-style puppet smokes fat cigars and flushes a copy of the constitution down the toilet, warning voters: "I'll raise your taxes, I'll empty your pockets. Every one of you fools stashes some cash away, but I'll find it no matter where it is".
Just 12 months ago Germans emptied their mattresses in a frantic shopping spree, buying yachts and cars with their stashed deutschmarks ahead of the introduction of the euro. These days, more than a few wish they had held on to their rainy day money.
"I voted for Schroeder rather than the conservatives because I thought he'd earned another four years. But now he's turned around and broken one promise after another," says Matthias Hallaschka (28) as he buys a copy of The Tax Song in a Berlin record store.
Like their Irish counterparts, many German voters are sure the government hid the looming economic meltdown until after election day.
Days after Schroeder's government returned to power in September, the finance minister disclosed a €15 billion hole in next year's public finances and announced he would have to borrow at least €32 billion just to balance the books. That has already pushed Germany's national debt well above the limits imposed by the stability pact, designed by previous German finance ministers to keep the euro stable.
To fill the gaping hole in the public finances, the government has broken its promise of no new taxes with new levies on everything from fuel to flowers, a new capital gains tax and the abolition of home-buyers grants.
The opposition parties have accused the government of electoral fraud while Oskar Lafontaine, the one-time finance minister, compared Schroeder to the last chancellor of Weimar Republic, Heinrich Brüning.
"It's as if Heinrich Brüning - the chancellor who caused mass unemployment and paved the way for Hitler - has risen again," wrote Lafontaine in his regular column in the tabloid newspaper Bild. "Now as then, people are uncertain and are spending less and less money."
Bild's campaign against the government reached a peak this week when the newspaper's editors decided to replace the editorial column with the lyrics of the Tax Song and the taunting advice of the singing Schroeder: "If you want to save money go shopping in Aldi or Lidl".
That's exactly what Germans are doing in their millions. Supermarket chain Aldi has seen its annual revenue rise by around 10 per cent this year to an estimated €25 billion, according to one trade magazine.
With money tight, the discount chains such as Aldi and Lidl are appealing to growing numbers of people from all social classes. That much is obvious from the cash register queue at the Aldi supermarket in the Berlin neighbourhood of Kreuzberg. Queuing with the usual assortment of alcoholics and pensioners is a middle-aged woman with freshly styled hair, wearing expensive-looking jewellery and an evening dress.
"Aldi is an experience, I have to admit," says the woman, who declines to give her name, and stares at her manicured nails. "It's times like this that you have to forget your pride. When it comes to Aldi products and the expensive brand-name ones there is no difference, except for the amount of money left in your wallet at the end."
There are no well-groomed women in the queue in the Lidl supermarket in the neighbouring district of Schöneberg. Hans Selge (25), a student, says he notices how badly people have been hit by the downturn when he is out shopping.
"Things are really bad. There was a man in his 70s ahead of me in the queue and all he left with was a large bottle of vodka and a few loose cabbage leaves that he got for free," he says.
While Aldi and Lidl are packing the customers in, Berlin's most exclusive shopping street is dying. The Fasanenstrasse, a by-word for inconspicuous consumption, was the most sought-after address in Berlin for luxury stores such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton. After steady growth in the 1980s and 1990s, there is little consumption these days, inconspicuous or otherwise. Even the best customers, the Russian mafia wives, are staying away from the leafy side-street.
"I used to rely on the customers attracted to the designer shops. Now there are no customers whatsoever and all my neighbours are packing it in," says one gallery owner on the Fasanenstrasse.
Many luxury stores have already gone out of business, while jewellery store Cartier is moving around the corner to the Kurfürstendamm shopping thoroughfare in the hope of attracting more customers.
The slump has not just hit retailers, but also the gastronomy and tourism sectors too, meaning it will be a lean Christmas all round.
These days, Schroeder's name is mud. Two months after the election, surveys show support for his Social Democratic Party (SPD) has dropped 10 percentage points to just 26 per cent, the sharpest fall in popularity in German post-war history. More than two-thirds of voters believe Schroeder hoodwinked voters to get re-elected.
"Voters refuse to believe that the ruling coalition wasn't aware of the full extent of the financial situation before the election," says Prof Everhard Holtmann, head of the Institute for Political Science at the Martin Luther University in Halle.
Meanwhile, leading German economists have warned that the government's plan to overcome the financial crisis with tax hikes and spending cuts is a "recipe for bankruptcies".
"In a period of economic stagnation, tax hikes are fatal," says Ludwig Georg Braun, president of Germany's chamber of industry and commerce, the DIHK. "Tax hikes are going to drive medium-sized business into bankruptcy, and poison the labour market." The mood in the chancellery is already poisonous, according to one SPD member of parliament.
"The party leaders are in a panic. Everyone is at a loss about what to do. I've never seen them so rattled," says the MP. "Schroeder just doesn't want to hear any more bad news." Neither does he want to hear the The Tax Song.
"I don't have any plans to make any comment on that," he said this week, when asked about the song. He added he would "prefer it if political debates could be conducted in a more factual manner than is currently the case".
As Schroeder braces himself for a winter of discontent The Tax Song has entered the charts at Number One. Schroeder's singing alter-ego can be heard on the radio every few minutes revelling in the fact the chancellor is now "as popular as athlete's foot".