Word: scandal
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...course, there’s a place for politics, and its well and good to devote time and thought to it, but at some point we have to take a break from red and blue maps, from tables of poll numbers, from endorsement speeches, and from the scandal du jour...
...coalition government led by center-right Chancellor Angela Merkel, the scandal could hardly have come at a worse time. Germany is already engaged in a deepening ideological battle over the bloated salaries of its top corporate executives. Socialists are calling for a statutory minimum wage, a move most conservatives oppose, as well as for a law to limit executive salaries. Many voters are angry that ordinary workers have to carry the burden of Germany's economic reforms while executives give themselves huge pay increases, and they have been flocking to an opposition party called the Left, an amalgam...
...most of Germany. But as the police swarmed out on Monday, it was becoming clear that society's wrath would be swifter and harsher than usual for Germans deemed greedy enough to shirk taxes. Even Merkel, generally reluctant to rush to judgment, seemed stunned by the breadth of the scandal. "I think a lot of people in Germany feel the way I do: that this goes well beyond what I ever imagined could be possible," Merkel told reporters...
...Merkel's political challenge now is to prevent the widespread anger over the tax evasion scandal from becoming a broader political crisis. In Germany, it's not necessarily enough to just throw a few corporate executives in jail and be done with it. A poll conducted earlier this month by Infratest Dimap found that 69% of Germans feel wealth in the country is unjustly distributed. And that sense could have political ramifications: polls show declining support for Germany's social market economic system. The Left has surpassed the Greens and the Free Democrats to become, with the allegiance...
...Meanwhile, investigators are expected to continue their search for suspects. Merkel, due to meet Liechtenstein's Prime Minister Otmar Hasler in Berlin on Wednesday, is pressing to close any loopholes that encourage tax evasion. Whatever the outcome of that effort, it appears likely that in Germany's tax scandal, the drama has just begun...