https://www.theguardian.com/cities/...ivists-push-for-properties-to-be-nationalised In December last year the city senate tried to stop 316 apartments in three buildings on Karl-Marx-Allee, a grandiose Stalin-era boulevard in the east of the city, from acquisition by Deutsche Wohnen. If tenants across Berlin are feeling emboldened by the new grassroots campaign, it is because they believe its most radical demand can be supported by Germany’s 1949 constitution, the Basic Law. According to article 15 of the constitution, which was drawn up before the country had fully embraced the market economy, “land, natural resources and means of production may, for the purpose of nationalisation, be transferred to public ownership or other forms of public enterprise by a law that determines the nature and extent of compensation.” There has been a real crisis evolving in Berlin. When the Wall came crashing down, East Germany regarded that it owned all the property and thus sold vast tracts of apartments to major investors. Now 20 years later, the socialists are claiming this is not fair and the government should either buy the property back from these investors or confiscate it. There are many people on the left and in the Green Party who see nothing wrong with confiscating private property. Why should they pay for something they cannot afford to buy? Under their reasoning, there is some human right that should allow them to go into a car dealership and drive away with what they want because it is unfair that they cannot afford to buy it. The danger of allowing private property to be seized without compensation is that it will be devastating for Germany and Europe as a whole. Real property is critical to confidence. If the state can even allow a referendum where the majority of people will be handed the property of the minority, this is really a return to the days of the Nazis. They could not borrow funds on the open market so they targeted the Jews and expropriated all their property. Of course, in those days they killed them. Today, they won’t kill the investors. They will just take all their wealth. It seems that allowing referendums to retroactively change the law is very dangerous. If anyone wants to know why the euro could collapse to new historical lows, put this one into your thinking cap and ask if you want to invest in something that can be arbitrarily confiscated.
While I mostly agree, there is an argument there. The transitional government was a bunch of thieves and I am pretty sure all property deals were based on bribes. This is equivalent of letting your junkie neighbor to housesit only to discover that he sold all the furniture - would you consider that the deal should hold?
I don't know... This is crazy! Is the world gonna revert back to the 1940s cause of Inflation caused by massive Central Bank printing ? Raise interest rates back to 4-5 % average-peak cycle, and 1-2 % beginning of a new cycle... This very low interest rates just makes creation of money by banks way too easy, and it's lent out to anyone, real inflation worldwide from 09-19 was likely much higher then real inflation from 99-09. Fixing to some extent inequality and wage growth increase for workers is definitely achievable, and not that complicated... It will take deleveraging for a few years worldwide orchestrated by CB's, but once interest rates are back within 3-4 % ( in 5 years let's say ), everything would be fine for the next cycle... Crash 2019, recovery starts in 2020, slow growth with interest rates first sign of recovery, by 2025 4 % interest rates, responsible lending, competitive capitalist market and a way more affordable environment generally. Instead we are gonna keep interest rates at 0 % or go negative, give helicopter money and go full blown socialist. Nothing is making sense out of this, they aren't looking to fix the underlying issue at hand... Constant CB stimulus in major economies has become the norm and is causing serious Inflation worldwide, instead of addressing that problem, they want to loot
Guys, to put that into perspective: The guys who are demonstrating for their "rights" in Berlin are mostly people who still have very old tenancy agreements. Some of those contracts were and still are subsidized and most don't account for inflation, meaning rents were never raised. It is not uncomon to find a guy living in a flat of 150 square meters for around 400€ in the city center of Berlin which is a joke compared to the typical rent of roughly 2000€ for that kind of appartment. So of course those people freak out when they're kicked out of their appartments, when they have to leave the city for skid rows like Marzahn or Brannenburg were they can still rent for this kind of money. This whole fiasco shows that it takes longer than expected for the East Germans to adapt, I remember times when the ultra left wings openly discussed an anti tourist party. I would not give to many shits about private property seizure. This is a Berlin only thing and it won't ever happen. And of course transitional government was a bunch of thieves, so was transitional "government" in Russia when the UDSSR broke down. But the protesters don't even care. All they want is keep their status quo...which simply wont happen. You cannot live in Europes hippster town #1 were Hollywood buys property and still eat kebab for 2€, drink beer for 1€ and live for 2.50€ per square meter...while you doubled your income because you now work for one of the successful startups that opened shop 5 years ago.
Comparisons of inflation in monetary systems based on a fixed price commodity to inflation in fiat monetary systems based on productivity may not be valid. I would think they are not. And you've cast a too broad net with "worldwide". Your overstatements are going to wreck your arguments. I assume when you wrote, "Nothing is making sense out of this," you were referring to your own post. If so, I have to agree.
Thank you for reasonable commentary. The Guardian should fire the reporter who wrote that ridiculous article above and hire you instead. Papers like the Guardian and the NY Post depend on yellow journalism to stay in business. They learned how to do it from from William Hearst. And they have learned they can capture the infamous forty percent with their less than accurate , less than thorough stories. Same goes for Murdoch's operation.
I'm talking about pre 1971 compared to post 1971. But a better question is, "What are you talking about?" I assume you mean 2009-2019 vs. 1999-2009?? To which I say Huh? [Italics mine.]