So now 7.9 percent: As in May, inflation in Germany has approached the eight percent mark. After many citizens didn’t really want to accept the high inflation for a long time, more and more of them are now concerned with this: How am I supposed to afford all this?
According to official data, groceries cost 16.6 percent more this August than a year ago. If you shop at the weekly market, you will see completely different price increases.
The beef fillet at the stand of my favorite butcher in Berlin has always been expensive: a kilo still cost 65 euros in February. In the meantime, the price has risen in two stages to 95 (ninety-five!) euros. A head of broccoli costs 4.50 euros instead of three.
Sure, these are comparatively luxury problems. Treating yourself to a fillet of beef every four or five weeks instead of every three weeks certainly doesn’t hurt. But the end of the road for food prices in Germany is far from being reached.
And these skyrocketing expenses for daily needs are “only” added to insane energy prices. Some consumers are likely to face massive difficulties in the coming year at the latest – or even go bankrupt.
So who is supposed to afford all this? The traffic light must find smarter answers to this question than before. Yes, with the exception of a few very rich people, almost all Germans will have to limit themselves due to the consequences of the war. But that cannot be the main message.
Instead of putting a lot of effort into a follow-up model for the less useful 9-euro ticket, a concrete strategy for direct money transfers to all citizens should finally be developed in addition to massive tax cuts for lower and middle incomes. Direct one-off payments would be a much more sensible model than expensive, broadly diversified subsidies that can only benefit certain groups.
The expiring 9-euro ticket underscored the dubiousness of such subsidies: road traffic has hardly decreased while rail traffic has increased.
Rail tourism in particular was financed with tax money – not a particularly sustainable concept. The 2.5 billion euros would have been better put into the expansion of the public transport network, which is catastrophic in large parts of Germany.
To compensate for the consequences of inflation, direct one-off payments to everyone would be the wiser way: Every citizen can then decide for himself what he spends X amount on (the expensive fillet of beef) – or saves (the expensive additional energy payment).
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