Why don't construction prices go down?

And I can no longer understand this doomsday mood. Everyone is just whining now, everything is bad with us. Where does that actually come from? Sure, we have had better times, but also worse ones. A little optimism and a "Let's pull the cart out of the dirt" mentality would do us good. It gets really funny when the answer to our problems for almost 30% of the population is supposed to be "Mister back to the past" Merz.

Don't worry, due to the firewall cleverly installed by Merkel and other left-wing forces, the Union is forced to continue coalitions with at least one of the two planned economy parties. They will agree on the lowest common denominator and in important issues: migration, economy, infrastructure as well as housing construction, nothing will change and everything will continue as before. With Trump, they now have, in addition to Putin, another new scapegoat for all sorts of things...

And I can no longer understand this doomsday mood. Everyone is just whining, everything is bad with us. Where does that actually come from? Sure, we’ve had better times, but also worse ones. A little optimism and a "Let’s pull the cart out of the mud" mentality would do us quite well. It gets really funny when the answer to our problems for nearly 30% of the population is "Mister back to the past" Merz.

Of course, it’s whining at a high level, but it’s easy to say when you have a certain standard and earn enough, but one can also sugarcoat everything. Let’s pull the cart out of the mud hasn’t existed for a long time. A few days ago I saw a study from the Ibp- Fraunhofer Institute about the energy consumption of school buildings. I thought of my daughter’s elementary school and just laughed. The windows are from 1965, broken, the toilets are wet and cold. But yes, we can keep squeezing private builders with demands even more. Or Pforzheim, a large city with 140,000 inhabitants. Currently, it doesn’t even have an indoor swimming pool. The old one was simply starved to death. The new one was supposed to cost 19 million, then 63 million. Now the first plan is 98 million euros. Oh yes, I boil inside when there is money for many things but not for children and the elderly. I’m slowly starting to sound like ...

Is this supposed to be a joke? No money for the elderly? 140 billion EUR alone in the federal budget are spent annually on the pension subsidy.

That is my tax money, in addition to substantial contributions to the statutory pension insurance. And mind you, without any chance that I will still get a reasonable pension in 27 years...

How much, conversely, is allocated for education? 10 billion per year?

To be honest, I believe if Habeck had simply been able to implement his projects without the saboteur Lindner repeatedly throwing sticks in the spokes and stones in the way, and with adequate support from the amnesic sock puppet Olli, much more would have already been set in motion. Habeck currently has the greatest economic competence of all the top politicians. Definitely more than "I'm middle class"-Merz and "debt brake is ours, you're in the Basic Law"-Lindner or "I cut 15k, totally refuse basic security and thereby save 100 billion"-Linnemann or "Mr. Mask Deal"-Spahn.

I was not trying to make the discussion a big deal. Let's each try again to be a little optimistic. Everyone can already have a positive influence in their small microcosm. What I only see at the moment: responsibility is only being transferred to third parties (mainly politicians). "You are responsible for me doing better. If not, it's your fault." I am of the opinion that everyone is the architect of their own happiness. Please don't misunderstand, of course politics has a big influence on our lives. But politics is not everything. And by the way: there are company bosses who are just whining, but announce record results the next day.

And by the way: There are company bosses who are always whining, but announce record results the next day.

That has often been the case in recent years, yes. However, one has to look behind the facade.
The automotive industry is currently doing so poorly because the China business is weakening. By the way, it's the same for us; our sales in China have collapsed unprecedentedly. But VW in particular has earned a very significant part of its group profits in China and has thus ultimately subsidized the German core brand for the last 10, 15 years.
And that's the case for all companies that are currently announcing or already implementing massive job cuts, plant closures, and relocations.

And no, unfortunately, in this game we are no longer the architects of our own fortune, because in Germany we will never be able to compete with wages and energy costs in Asia and the USA, neither now nor in the next 20 or 30 years. Those who import raw materials can never be cheaper than those who have the raw materials in their own country and make something out of them themselves.

In this respect. No, there is no reason to cry or chatter teeth; on the contrary. Now we have to get to work and turn the tide. Those who cannot be the cheapest must be the most innovative, fastest, highest quality or become so.
And yes, times are getting tougher, and with a generation that basically no longer really wants to work.
We have massive problems even finding people who are willing to spend 2 weeks straight in a hotel and work 9 hours daily, occasionally 10 hours if necessary, 6 days a week.

Oh yes. Speaking of FDP and Linnemann... those who can work and reject reasonable work should be set to zero.
I do not demand that an unemployed 55-year-old mechanical engineer with knee arthritis carry 40 kg sacks of cement all day as a construction helper. But he can certainly work as a gatekeeper. Or as a crane/excavator operator on a construction site.
However, I would completely cut benefits for a healthy, fit 20-year-old without vocational training if he rejects 2 or 3 offers as a construction helper.

In any case, I do not spend months every year "on investment" and in hotels worldwide to finance the social hammock for others who could work.
By the way, I have been voting Green for 15 years... but on this point, the CDU and FDP are right. We can no longer afford that.