Until recently, our federal chancellor and the Great Coalition wanted to save the entire economy. Then some polls showed that apparently the majority of the citizens are not in favour of saving enterprises that have financial problems using the taxpayers’ money.
Our federal chancellor was quick to react – now she no longer saves companies in distress. The first company to fall victim to this new strategy was Arcandor. The great mail-order company Quelle in Fürth, an Arcandor daughter and for me one of the great symbols of the economic miracle, threatens to go under. Incidentally, the beautiful picture of the Quelle building is from Wikipedia.
Now the Bavarian state government wants to save Quelle GmbH through a guarantee of payment to the tune of 20 million Euros. The state of Saxonia wants to contribute 5 million Euros. Along with an extended federal guarantee (what exactly is that?), the total guarantee should be 50 million Euros for Quelle. However, in the same news report it says that Quelle will need another three-digit million Euros in order to survive. That does not inspire too much confidence in me.
The 50 million Euros are needed for editing the Christmas catalogue. Do they not understand that the mail-order business today can only work in esoteric business sectors? Now you could counter that the mail-order companies should also publish their catalogues in the internet. But this is what they have been doing for a long time – and probably with no success. The normal Quelle shopper does not use the internet (and dies out). Competition in the internet is extremely powerful.
In the internet, we have global business platforms such as Amazon and eBay. Customers look for the most competitive offers through search machines and buy from small or big specialized firms. You can get the tailor-made suit in Hong Kong (or England) with personal specifications as to material, lining, etc. cheap and fast. So why would anybody bother to take the risk of dress size or be content with what everybody wears?
How are shopping centres and mail-order companies supposed to have a chance of survival in the internet if – according to the real “point-of-sales” and in the paper catalogue world – they do not have a future today?
But that does not matter. The 50 million Euros are just “peanuts”. And besides: it is election campaign time.
Here is a case in point: the IKB has just been extremely cheaply bought by an American investor – and badly needs money already!
And even without this, we increase the federal debt to another 310 billion Euros until 2013. Still, my contacts at civilian and communal offices are worried about how to maintain their service over the next few years. Because, regardless of the enormous extra debt, massive budget cuts are imminent. Dear politicians – how does that fit together?
RMD
(translated by EG)
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