Germany: Germans sour on capitalism amid corporate scandals

[Joanne98]

Germany was just warming up to a more hard-edged capitalism. Then came the scandals.

Engineering giant Siemens is under investigation in Europe, the US, and China on suspicion of paying up to $2 billion in bribes to win foreign contracts. A German court last month convicted two Volkswagen executives for their hand in improprieties including corruption and corporate-paid prostitutes. Now, a massive tax evasion probe has implicated hundreds of Germans including the CEO of Deutsche Post.

The scandals have undermined public trust in the integrity of corporations, bolstering a growing shift to the left and its social welfare ideals. The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner in Germany's grand coalition, has been steadily eating away at the popularity of the ruling Christian Democrats (CDU). The Left Party, meanwhile, has become the third most popular party since it was formed – in part by former East German communists – last year.

Both scored gains in regional elections this winter, campaigning on unemployment benefits, childcare support, a national minimum wage, and reining in corporate salaries.

Average Germans have watched the gap between rich and poor here widen in recent years, on the back of, among other things, increasing salaries at many of the country's top corporations. Kienbaum, a management consulting company, estimates that salaries for German executives jumped 17.5 percent in 2006-07.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14986

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. How dare they....

disrespect the GOD OF ALL GODS.:sarcasm:

[angstlessk]

2. makes you wonder why hundreds of millions is just not enough for those crooks?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. From what I've seen in my life, it would seem that capitalism to

some (many) is a system in which one can practice legal crime.

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. The winners not only write the history, they evidently also write the laws.

It's why they get so peeved when they are expected to abide by them...! Entitlement, entitlement, entitlement.... Or maybe now, confiscation, confiscation, confiscation. Our miners' union in the UK had its assets sequestrated by Thatcher's Government. That was very, very naughty. Once again, the Germans come up trumps!

[David__77]

4. SPD/Left schism is interesting.

We have triangulators in the one hand, proponents of the "Third Way," and then we have true progressives in the Left Party. The core constituencies of the SPD are moving toward the Left. If they cannot come to an agreement for coalition, it will be problematic in the short term. Maybe ultimately a Green/Left minority coalition will be possible.

[Karenina]

6. Unbridled capitalism is a cannibal.

[freethought]

7. Wasn't freeing up German corps from regulation

and oversight part of Angela Merkel's whole platform? Her admin are supposed to made up of more free-market thinkers? Lower taxes, regulations, privatization, and all that good stuff?

Well! It looks as if the some of these German companies have simply taken their cues from American ones!!!
Nice goin' folks. Welcome to the neighborhood.