New crisis, old feeling: It’s that sense of faint at the fact that many people in the country are personally struggling to survive, while some companies are allowed to stuff their pockets with the citizens’ nest egg because government regulations offer the opportunity.
Are gas suppliers profiting from the increased prices war profiteers? – Possibly. What is more disturbing, however, is that some of them could soon become political winners as well. Because that could have been prevented.
But whether it was GroKo back then or Ampel today: In the crisis and in the heat of the moment, one government after the other has unwittingly created machines of enrichment under time pressure, which lead to businessmen becoming profiteers. Spring 2021: Operators of private corona test centers across the country stole billions and billed for tests that were never carried out because the government was not intended to monitor their actions. Jens Spahn, Minister of Health and architect of the centers at the time, had “forgotten” them in a hurry.
Spring 2022: The traffic light is drafting a tank discount to relieve the population – and after it has been passed in Parliament, it can only hope with trepidation that the oil companies will also pass it on to customers.
Oil companies, which are allowed to decide on the passing on of the tank rebate by constructing a political instrument, and gas suppliers who are still profitable, who will soon be able to help themselves with the planned gas levy from the citizens, can hardly do otherwise than the tax billions that politicians raise for them the road lays, also take away.
For their part, they may make themselves vulnerable to their shareholders if they knowingly do not put profitability first. Just as you can’t blame a wolf for killing a sheep, you can’t blame companies for their focus on profit. That’s not evil – that’s their design. One would think that politicians would be aware of this type of construction.
But when the damage becomes apparent, the designers of the poorly adjusted political instruments suddenly flee into the field of morality. Jens Spahn said when the massive fraud in the test centers became apparent: People should be ashamed. But shame is not a category. He should have provided for an inspection.
Robert Habeck said when the windfall effects for healthy, profitable companies became foreseeable with the gas surcharge: Although they may now have a legal claim, it is morally wrong for companies to apply for it.
If you don’t build in binding, legally secure mechanisms to ensure that the goal of a measure is also achieved, you will ultimately only have appeals.
The companies then no longer create value, but robbery. And the citizens? Time and time again, they fall victim to the hot needle with which the crisis constructs are knitted.
Even during the Corona crisis, reference was made to the haste with which Spahn had pounded the test centers out of the ground. In the energy crisis, Anton Hofreiter once again named the haste with which Habeck set up the crooked gas levy. Fortunately, there is still time for corrections in this case.
