Geissler Interview

Jörg Schönenborn's
Interview with Heiner Geissler*
Phoenix-TV "Fireside chat" 11.04.2010**

	) General Secretary of the CDU 1977-1989 under Chancellor Helmut Kohl. (1910)
	**) The first 45 of 60 minutes
	Eulenspargel: Heiner Geissler expresses independent views. They do not necessarily reflect the formal standpoints of the CDU. And they have a social core. Something one cannot claim of Gerhard Schröder's program Agenda 2010 (red-green coalition 1998-2005).

BACKGROUND

	CDU	"black"	Christian Democrats (Conservatives). Chancellors e.g. Konrad Adenauer, Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel
	CSU	"black"	Christian Socialists (Conservatives in Bavaria). On Federal level always in fraction with the CDU
	FDP	"yellow"	Free Democrats / Liberals. Currently in coalition with the CDU
	SPD	"red"	Socialists. Chancellors e.g. Willy Brand, Helmut Schmidt, Gerhard Schröder
	Linke	"deep red"	Far left-wing. Mostly successor of the East German Party of pre 1990 (SED -> PDS)
	Grüne	"green"	Greens
	Hartz 4		Social benefits for longterm unemployed in lieu of unemployment benefits
	ALG I		ArbeitsLosenGeld. Unemployment benefits (maximally 1 year)
	ALG II		= Hartz 4

THEMES [titles: Eulenspargel, text in german]

( 1) Poverty is up, prospects for breaking through the social ceiling are down.
Social market economy bye bye

( 2) Hartz 4 a main cause

( 3) Minimum wages as remedy, especially against wage dumping.
Myth: cheap labour necessity because of competition.
"The unsocial market economy"

( 4) Myth: Minimum wages break the backs of service companies

( 5) Hartz 4 violates human dignity and decimates the middle class

( 6) Hartz 4 separates people from their previous contribution to society

( 7) Myth: Western wages must hold pace with wages in China

( 8) Gigantic US trade deficit a major cause of economic woes

( 9) A bad development: the breakthrough of Neoliberalism from the 1980s

(10) Crises leave behind no learning effect I: the crazy tax goals of the Free Democrats and the voter

(11) Crises leave behind no learning effect II: no chance for a financial transaction tax.
The big veneration of finance and the financial actors

(12) Capital must serve people, not vice-versa

(13) Today's reality: human beings as cost factors - example health care system

(14) A couple of consequences of Neoliberalism

(15) Black-yellow coalitions: good in the 1980s-1990s, bad today - why?

(16) Political leadership style