141–150 of 168 posts
At current polls it'll be SPD/CDU/Greens. Good. The AfD is a bunch of nazis anyway.
SPD, Greens, FDP also looks like a possibility. A government without CDU would be unprecedented in Germany. And IMHO not a bad thing.
The problem with Wahl-O-Mat is that only questions are displayed for which all parties provided an answer. Let's say there's a right-wing party wanting to deport all foreigners. But they want a tempo limit, want to invest in wind energy, etc... In the end you could end up with a lot of (false!) agreement.
Well, there is priority options for questions and you should review the results on individual questions (which is a separate page).
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Another problem is, that currently most parties are claiming to care all about the climate and would immediately take steps to fight the climate change after the election. Just if two of those parties have been in power for the last 8 years, you might want to weight their statement accordingly :)
Theoretically, a party could recognise something is needed during their first term, but feel they don't have a mandate from the voters until they've successfully been elected with it as one of their policies. For example, if I was elected saying the tax on beer should be lower, but having met with health experts I've changed my mind and think it should be higher. Of course, a cynic would say that's just an excuse for…
The problem with Wahl-O-Mat is that only questions are displayed for which all parties provided an answer. Let's say there's a right-wing party wanting to deport all foreigners. But they want a tempo limit, want to invest in wind energy, etc... In the end you could end up with a lot of (false!) agreement.
Well, there is priority options for questions and you should review the results on individual questions (which is a separate page).
"Should we provide more services for XXX?"
"Should we invest more in XXX?"
"Should we pay for all student costs for XXX?"
Is a really common refrain on these questionnaires, and the problem is, we all have an instinct towards 'wanting more stuff' even for the benefit of others.
The entire issue revolves around 'how to pay for' and 'the cost / efficiently' of such things - not whether or not we want them.
Who doesn't want free stuff?
I watched a young woman in Instagram take the Canadian test and her 'political views' boil down to 'all the stuff should be free, we should invest unlimited amounts in the environment, and we should have UBI that's higher than current minimum wage'.
I don't think this is a 'political view' rather, it's a undeveloped opinion based on the 'easy first order instinct' of wanting free stuff because that's what the question was asking.
If they paired every question the cost, such as:
"Free tuition for students, will be paid for by increasing average working years by 4 years, or taxes by 3% over entire working life"
"UBI policy, which will be paid for by 10% tax in increase on all citizens and/or increasing retirement age by 5 years"
"$10/day subsidized child care, paid for by 5% tax increase"
There are also innumerable issues that will be hard to fathom for the general population, like National Defence Procurement, Pension system etc..
I think we should be very careful about how we create these policy guides, they need more thought.
The one thing I will say about Germans is however, they have the 'cost' instinct, without fail it seems as though every political survey shows the 'cost' of something or the other being a primary concern or consideration. I never see that in Canada.
Perhaps we should make it normative that every political program announcement has to be accompanied by the cost estimation and payment mechanism.
etc..
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I would always assume that when a single-issue party gets elected, they would push mostly on that issue. Because if someone sympathizes with the Pirates, they do because of the core message, not because of their social policies (which any party is required to answer but some care less)
It's a sensible assumption to make, but unfortunately it doesn't happen that way. A successful single-issue party that has ill-defined goals in other areas is a ripe target for people pushing other single-issue agendas to insinuate those into the party programme. In my view this caused the death of the German Pirate Party - the initial impression of "generally centrist, but competent and uncompromising on tachnology/…
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I would always assume that when a single-issue party gets elected, they would push mostly on that issue. Because if someone sympathizes with the Pirates, they do because of the core message, not because of their social policies (which any party is required to answer but some care less)
Speaking of the German Pirate Party, I found it interesting that I haven't seen a single election poster about technology or direct democracy this year. The ones I saw were exclusively about the 1.5° climate goal, the gender wage gap, and another social topic that I forgot. Not sure if that's an actual strategy, or just the preferred way to empty their wallets while they have no chance to cross the frustrating 5% fir…
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Theoretically, a party could recognise something is needed during their first term, but feel they don't have a mandate from the voters until they've successfully been elected with it as one of their policies. For example, if I was elected saying the tax on beer should be lower, but having met with health experts I've changed my mind and think it should be higher. Of course, a cynic would say that's just an excuse for…
which shouldn't be a problem if you were transparent about meeting with said experts (name them) and explain your change of mind accordingly.
But your neighbour might see me as a liar, who promised one thing then did the opposite.
And your other neighbour might see me as part of a ruling elite that hears a clear statement of will from the people, then ignores it and does the opposite.
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> If there's one party who thinks climate change doesn't exist and one who believes in climate change but is unwilling to do anything about it That's obviously not the distinction between the parties here. The second one intends (or at least has a policy to) do something about it, but just not by raising the existing CO2 tax. Maybe instead they intend to raise the top rate of income tax and increase subsidies for pub…
> That's obviously not the distinction between the parties here. The second one intends (or at least has a policy to) do something about it, but just not by raising the existing CO2 tax. Do they, though? I don't know how familiar you are with the German political parties, but the concern about climate change is mostly empty marketing on all sides. We should stop running coal electricity plants, but somehow turning of…
Similar, it would be nice if any party would have a date when subsidizes to fossil fuel based power plants will end. There is unlikely that any party is in favor of having those subsidizes, but it seems equally unlikely that anyone is ready yet to be the ones to remove them and face the trade-offs of not paying those plants to keep the engines warm and ready.