Dear You,
you might have read about the huge budget crisis into which our German government now slithered when our cheeky Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (the one who can't remember which part he played in the Cum-Ex-Scandal) planned to put not-used Corona-crisis money - only wimpish 60 billions Euro - into other pots, e.g. climate protection measures.
The independent Federal Constitutional Court rendered a verdict against that shenanigans, so now our politicians are looking desperately for new interesting ways to find that money. By the way: our money, paid by us, the taxpayers. (The 137.000 euros we taxpayers have to give for annual make-up and hairdresser of our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Annalena Baerbock, are only ridiculous flyspeck compared to those 60 billions euro).
I am a modest expert in the handling of money - in my book Home Basics, 10.000 of the over 60.000 books sold were bought from a Swiss building association which gave it to every young person who opened a savings account there. They liked my chapter on money and how to use it wisely.
Well: the Kakebo above is a housekeeping book from Japan, invented by the Avantgarde-thinker Hani Motoko in 1904. She was the first female journalist of Japan.
The books helps you to control your money, be disciplined and evaluate your data, and the best of it: you set yourself goals, see where you spend unnecessarily money on - in short: you see very clearly the results of your actions.
If our politicians don't have 38,7 billions for Bürgergeld they must reduce it and NOT raise it for 2024 for 12%. Bürgergeld is a good thing for people who have lost their job - but when you don't have to try to find work to get it that might be one reason why so many migrants want to come especially to Germany - and from the Ukraine refugees in Germany only 18% are in work, while in other European countries two thirds have found a job.
It might help if our politicians used the Kakebo.
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure 19 pounds nineteen and six, result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery."
Mr. Micawber (Charles Dickens: Great Expectations)
The sad thing is: it is our money and thus our misery. And sorry to say: most of us don't have any "Great Expectations" at the moment.
. .
This is so typical of pols.. Moving money around regardless of its original purpose, then wailing when they're caught. And acting as if taxpayer money was their piggybank. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteDear Boud, I join in your sigh!
ReplyDeleteNormally I try not to be upset by politicians - but I feel that there grows a big anger in me without being able to do much about it. I don't want to get wrinkles from Them - I don't have a make-up artist for 137.000 euro per year, haha - so I just take a stroll through the fields...
Sadly I believe most governments in the world are similar. And we pay for it.
ReplyDeleteYes, Emma, agree - but even when many are alike we are glad to live in a democracy.
DeleteSo true.
DeleteThat 60 billion Euros made my news feed. But then, it's a lot of Euros.
ReplyDeleteIf I understand that right, Joanne: those news were mentioned on your American TV?
ReplyDeleteDo German politicians have a more difficult budgetary crisis to tackle - ridiculous inflation, high unemployment, struggling workers etc etc? It seems to be horrible everywhere eg Argentina.
ReplyDeleteDear Helen, there are a lot of problems, as everywhere - but I think they create new (and avoidable) problems when they try to trick. Of course there are many burdening items, and I would not discuss that it is necessary to help those who need it - but I want to be informed, not to be lied to. And to shovel money out for really superfluous things is bad - if the money is not enough one has to look hard - write into a Kakebo - and find out where it is possible to save.
ReplyDeleteIt appears that politicians around the world are all tarred with a similar brush. I have just learnt that PM Sunak spends 40million pounds of our hard earned tax money per year hiring a personal helicopter for his jollies around the country.
ReplyDeleteDear Rosemary, IF I had little humour left, and felt like laughing, I would use irony and say: "What? Only 40 millions? That's peanuts!" (as the Deutsche Bank once said when they didn't want the money of mediocre little savers - who never forgot that when the bank later tried to get our peanuts nevertheless :-)
ReplyDeleteNowadays I only hear "billions! billions! billions!" - it is very funny to read Mr. Micawber's coins of "twenty pounds nought and six" as annual income..
My sister told me she started to disregard those kind of "news" because we can't do any thing (at the moment, only in elections) but get wrinkles because of anger and rage that we feel when we hear it. She might be right... Sorry to leave you - my helicopter has arrived!
I'd not heard of the Kakebo system before, dear Britta, but I think it would work writ large for the Treasury Department of any nation you may choose to think of. But Simple is a dangerous approach, for the entire populace might rise up against the Elected saying they could just as easily run the country with the giant Kakebo, so national finances must be shrouded in jargon and mystery, all the better to hide all manner of shenanigans.
ReplyDeleteOn a happier note, how marvellous your book was distributed by an enlightened Swiss bank!
Dear Pip, I use the Kakebo for 3 years now. It gives me a survey - and shows me when it might be necessary to think about spending unnecessarily. No word against quality or even luxury - but some words against heedless impulse buying - better to look why one thought that necessary and what is behind it.
DeleteI am happy that I do not have to "scrimp and save", as the Beatles sang in "When I'm 64" - and thankful to know that I can do home ec.