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Coronavirus to Cost Germany $1.6 Trillion, Government Estimates

Coronavirus to Cost Germany $1.6 Trillion, Government Estimates

As lockdown takes economic toll, Merkel’s government mulls “coronavirus tax.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJYq7rNyUuY&t=23s

The German government has estimated the financial cost of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic at around €1.3 trillion, or $1.6 trillion, for the year 2020, the country’s media report. The news comes as German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is incurring huge debts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and fund economic recovery.

Merkel’s government is expected to finance the shortfall by raising taxes. Merkel left-wing coalition partner, Social Democratic Party of Germany, has demanded a special “coronavirus tax” to finance the fiscal shortfall. “Besides a wealth tax, as coronavorus solidarity tax or hike in the income tax is being discussed,” German business daily HandelsBlatt reported citing government sources.

Berlin may also announce a record tax hike on consumer goods this month, German newspaper Münchner Merkur predicted. “Around turn of the year consumers will face the biggest tax hike in 14 years,” the German daily reported.

The German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported the estimated cost of the Chinese pandemic:

The cost of dealing with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns in Germany is expected to reach €1.3 trillion ($1.6 trillion), according to government figures.

The calculation, published Thursday by the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), came in a Finance Ministry response to a request by Dietmar Bartsch, the parliamentary leader of the socialist Left Party.

The total sum includes “all aid packages, launched by the federal and state governments to date,” the loss of revenue due to the crisis and guarantees at the federal and state level for €826.5 billion, according to the report.

The report also calculated that a further €184 billion would be needed in 2021, although this may also include unused or partially unused funds from 2020.

The lockdown imposed by Chancellor Merkel has deepened Germany’s economic troubles, the British newspaper Financial Times predicted. “Germany is heading for a double-dip recession this winter after Berlin imposed a hard lockdown, economists have predicted, denting hopes that Europe’s largest economy will rebound to pre-pandemic levels by the start of 2022,” the business daily reported on December 14.

The European Union is also borrowing at historic levels to artificially boost the faltering European economies. The EU’s “governing council decided … to increase its bond purchase stimulus by 500 billion euros, to 1.85 trillion euros ($2.2 trillion),” the Associated Press reported early December.

With Britain now formally out of the European bloc on the New Year’s Eve, Germany will bear most of the financial burden for the massive economic stimulus rolled out for the EU.

The price tag for the Wuhan virus is expected go even higher as there is no end in sight for the pandemic. Germany recorded 1.7 million case of the Chinese virus, which so far claimed 32,000 German lives. The country has been in hard lockdown since November, dampening the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Germany’s main opposition party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), has slammed Chancellor Merkel for ruining the country’s economy with her hard lockdown measures. “She locks up citizens and destroys entire industries,” AfD chief Alice Weidel said recently in the parliament.

Despite the roll-out of a nationwide vaccination program, the lockdown measures are expected to be in place for an indefinite duration. German health minister on Wednesday declared that the coronavirus restrictions will last longer than previously expected and the country was “very far away from normality.”

In her traditional New Year’s address, Chancellor Angela Merkel described the pandemic as a “historic crisis” in the country’s post-war history.

This was probably Merkel’s last annual address to the nation as German Chancellor after 15 years at the helm. Merkel has announced her decision not to contest the next general election scheduled in nine months time. “Today I am likely speaking to you on New Year’s as Federal Chancellor for the last time,” she concluded.

‘Germany announces Christmas lockdown’

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Comments

And Germany survived the 40 Years War and lost at least %20 of the population

China’s “investment” in world domination is paying dividends. 30 or 40 yeats? This could be forever is bungled.

    mark311 in reply to alaskabob. | January 3, 2021 at 12:45 pm

    @alaskabob

    Economically when I was studying many moons ago China was on track to overtake the USA around 2050 anyway. Without any assistance from the incompetent western response to coronavirus.

      China’s plan has been stunningly simple: mere bribery. In context to our completely corrupted and smugnoramus society, it’s been working disturbingly well.

      Who thought so many millions of Americans would sell out our country for cash?

      And in Swalwell’s case: to sex with a prostitute.

      China won: Traitor Biden and Traitor ‘Ho are in the can – our country is no longer governable by honest people.

      We have to go our own way.

      alaskabob in reply to mark311. | January 3, 2021 at 2:13 pm

      Theft, bribery and a biological attack can hasten the process. In a benign country, such progress would be of no real consequence but not with the CCP. All that the Maoist Mechantile system has done is to empower them to more thoroughly control the planet…sooner.

The economic response is an interesting question arising out if the coronavirus. Does one go down the keynesian route and invest and spend out of the situation or does one raise taxes. I’m inclined to the former.

The cure was far worse than the disease, even if nothing was done during the disease phase.

The Friendly Grizzly | January 3, 2021 at 1:34 pm

They are becoming so broke they can’t even fund a military anymore.

Oh, wait…

Redistributive change and social contagion, when there are early, inexpensive, low-risk treatments to mitigate progress.

“Besides a wealth tax, a coronavirus solidarity tax …”

CHYNA started this mess. If it were me, I’d be discussing tactical nukes. But that’s just me ….

The Kung Flu shutdown was designed to do exactly what it is doing, crush populism. When the proles get uppity, the first thing you do is take all their money away from them. Then, you institute confiscatory taxes, to keep them from earning it back. Then, they are finally forced to become wards of the state to survive. You make them good little serfs, dependent upon the establishment for everything.

So, populism gets a foothold in the West. A novel virus presents itself. It is touted, by the Establishment media as an apocalyptic disease. Draconian measures are put in place, which totally disrupt society, isolating the members from each other, and shutting down the Global Economy, to impoverish members outside the Establishment and its minions. Then, to siphon off any remaining assets the populace may have, you tax them for impoverishing them to begin with. Gotta love it when a plan comes together.

“And Germany survived the 40 Years War and lost at least %20 of the population”

AIUI at the end of the Thirty Years War the population of Germany was one half what it was at the beginning. Most of the deaths were civilian deaths due to starvation.