Coffee And Corporatism: “Made For Germany”

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

While Chancellor Friedrich Merz is staging cheerful coffee chats with corporate leaders on his feel-good tour across Germany, the country’s economic collapse continues unabated. The pressure still doesn’t seem great enough to trigger a political turnaround.

The “spontaneous” economic summit between Merz and 61 German corporate executives was, above all, a PR stunt. The loudly publicized – and long-planned – investment pledge of €631 billion comes across as a desperate attempt to spread optimism in the midst of a crumbling economy. Substantial outcomes? None. What truly impressed – at least media insiders – was the logistical performance of the chancellery’s staff: managing to gather 61 DAX and industry CEOs at the same place, at the same time, is indeed a feat.

Jealous glances toward Washington?

Merz’s PR coffee round may well have been inspired by Donald Trump’s investment roadshows. The U.S. president acted like a statesman who understood what really matters: his foreign trips always centered around securing concrete investments for the American economy. Case in point: his recent Middle East visit. Trump travels abroad, negotiates geopolitics, and returns with trillion-dollar deals aimed at reindustrializing the U.S. – that is economic policy.

A look under the hood of the German economy paints a bleaker picture: in the past year alone, net foreign direct investment outflows totaled €64.5 billion – after €67.3 billion the year before and over €112.2 billion in 2022. A substantial portion likely flowed into the U.S., which remains the benchmark for global investment and capital.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Merz avoided most contact with economic reality during his federal state tour. Enclosed in the hermetically sealed Berlin bubble, decision-makers overlook key developments: hundreds of thousands of new unemployed since the lockdowns, stagnant productivity, and ongoing erosion of core industrial structures – all consequences of a regulatory frenzy that long ago lost all restraint.

And anyone following the press releases from Brussels and Berlin must concede that the political class has abandoned rational thinking entirely in favor of its climate obsession.

Media Management as Last Resort

The current government strategy under the Merz coalition consists mainly of two elements: plugging growing budget holes with new taxes and debt – and launching a media campaign to obscure their own failures.

Germany’s core industries, such as mechanical engineering and construction, are now in outright depression. Since 2019 – even before the lockdowns – production in these sectors has dropped by up to 15%. In the hotel and hospitality sector, real sales fell another 4% year-on-year in May. The situation is catastrophic. Households, after years of inflation, are battling collapsing purchasing power.

Symbolism Over Substance

Instead of addressing the real causes of the crisis – exploding energy costs, climate regulation, grotesque overregulation – the government opts for media smokescreens. The federal government’s tourism coordinator was proudly tasked with announcing a potential reduction in the air travel tax. A little backup for the “travel chancellor,” who seems to have developed a taste for trips and now believes he can better relate to the people. The actual savings from this tax tweak? Around €12–13 per flight. Tasteless.

Meanwhile, taxes and levies continue to rise: payroll costs, CO₂ pricing, property tax – German taxpayers foot the bill for an unhinged political class that has lost all sense of moderation in its push for a welfare-maximalist nanny state and invasive economic micromanagement.

Censorship, Sabotage, Staging

In this context, the sabotaged ARD summer interview with AfD leader Alice Weidel fits seamlessly. A bizarre spectacle, reportedly co-scripted by public broadcasters and the police, according to whistleblower claims. It marks yet another peak in the left-statist war against dissenting opinion. A surreal contrast emerges: on one side, economic and security collapse; on the other, the rainbow utopia as the multimedia endgame of the political “elite.”

To uphold this green-socialist illusion, more resources, expanded media control, and silent cooperation from state institutions are required. Even the current debate about politically influenced judicial appointments to Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court fits this pattern.

Germany is sliding into a new form of socialism. The state’s share of GDP now sits at 50%. More and more sectors are being regulated or nationalized. The energy sector is being taken over by the state. Market principles are being eliminated.

Merz’s coffee chat with CEOs may have generated photogenic PR content – and it confirms the corporatist spirit of German big business. These are the prime beneficiaries of the record-breaking debt bonanza that Merz, Klingbeil, and friends will soon dump onto the taxpayer’s shoulders.

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About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.