A Guy from the Netherlands and Merkel's logic
I think it was last week when Merkel, our chancellor, introduced the new Cabinet to the media. The most shown part of this event was a question of a reporter from the Netherlands who asked the following:
"Mrs. Merkel, you're talking a lot about money, about finances of the Federal Republic of Germany, today. Now you want to assign a person to the Financial Ministry who has claimed in public (in the German Bundestag) that he had met a weapon salesman only once and forgot that he received 100.000 DM from him. How can you call such a person 'very competent' to entrust the finances of this country to him in the crisis."
The answer of Merkel was just: "Since this person has my trust". When the reporter asked once again (since it is the money of 82 million people) she did not want to say anything anymore. A weekly satire series yesterday said:
"She can trust the person since that person has her trust. Wow, that's logical!"
Background on the weapon salesman
You probably had some problems understand the background of this question. It's many years ago (1999) when there was a party funding scandal within the CDU, because some politicians (former chancellor Kohl, former CDU-treasrurer Kiep and also Schäuble) have accepted money from different companies or lobbyist without passing them on to the party or paying taxes. The involved politicians all say something different, some claim they had given the money to specific persons, these persons again deny etc...
However, the discussion about the illegal party funds have started again when the weapon lobbyist was finally extradited to Germany. There has then been a hearing in the German Bundestag about the incident, but it still is not known where the money has gone.
I hope you know understand why the question has aroused. In case there are some questions, just comment, and I will try to answer them.
Links
- Article in the Dutch news paper telegraaf for which the reporter works.
- Youtube video with English translation in the informational box on the right.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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