German charity of Götz Werner buys someone a drink

We run a fund raiser to cover legal costs for a good lawyer to file a suit against the Jobcenter Munich. It is about free speech which the JC M together with the Munich court have a problem with.

So I turned to Götz Werner, the ex-CEO of the German drugstore chain DM. He now runs a charity because apparently, that's what people feel they need to do, once you have a billion or so (of other people's money).

That explains why he sports a Mercator 'Professor' title that he shares with among others a German TV news reader and a run-down feminist granny. So he's got quite illustrious company.

A website is as well his, where he touts the unconditional basic income (Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen) and you can contact him via his representative Mr Christian Grether. Doing so I received a canned reply that Götz Werner is a pretty busy guy, gets lots of mail and a response may take a little:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

vielen Dank für Ihre Nachricht an Prof. Götz W. Werner und das Unternimm-die-Zukunft Team. Da uns sehr viele Zuschriften erreichen, bitten wir Sie um etwas Geduld bis wir Ihre E-Mail beantworten können.

Freundliche Grüße

Christian Grether

vom Unternimm-die-Zukunft Team

That's German for "Thanks for contacting us but don't expect a fucking answer because THE GÖTZ is legend!" It's just a German habit not to answer.

That usually gets me set and turned on. So I waited deliberately for six weeks, no response as expected, and called on Christian again. Oh, Christian Grether is a widely interested dude and writes theater texts like here, so that could explain it. Christian did not disappoint in the least and did what he just had to do and that was sifting through his drawer and reply with another canned email. After all, can you blame Christian? You somehow have to get rid of these buggers. Here is Chrischan live:

vielen Dank für Ihre Nachricht. 

Lieder muss ich Ihnen mitteilen, dass juristische Hilfe oder eine finanzielle Unterstützung durch Herr Werner nicht möglich ist. Hintergrund für die Entscheidung ist zum einen, dass sehr viele Menschen, Initiativen und Vereine ihn um Unterstützung bitten und zum anderen, dass er sagt, dass man mit Projekten oder Initiativen innerlich substantiell verbunden sein muss, um diese glaubwürdig in die Welt zu bringen. Aufgrund der vielen Bitten und Anfragen ist es nicht möglich, sich mit allen Projekten, Initiativen oder Vereinen, so vertraut zu machen, um glaubhaft dafür einzutreten. 

Ich bitte Sie dafür um Verständnis.

Beste Grüße

Christian Grether

Presse- und Referentenanfragen an Prof. Götz W. Werner

Remember, our request concerned 'free speech' and so it appears the Christian selected the wrong canned email. It would indeed be a little odd to call 'free speech' something where "you must be connected to projects or initiatives internally and substantially" ("dass man mit Projekten oder Initiativen innerlich substantiell verbunden sein muss"). I love such BS.

According to the wisdom of Götz Werner 'free speech' can be seen as a 'project' and/or 'initiative'. Why not. Thing is, he just does not have the time to acquaint himself with that thought.

So here you have a billionaire who, for heaven's sake does he ever get tired, writes also a blog with inspiring posts like "What is missing when everything is there?" or "With willpower to your goal", yet free speech and a blog that criticizes a German government agency responsible for the supply of cheap labor and poverty, no that's not to the professor's liking. Reading a little more on his website you soon realize this guy is into drivel. More on that later when it gets really funny.

At this point it would be fair to ask why does he, who was the owner of the biggest drugstore chain, do all that when he cares so much about others? Why run a charity in the first place? If he were really serious he could set up a fund that disburses every Christmas € 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 to every full-time employee as Xmas bonus. €5,000 for the cleaning ladies. He could offer 1% interest mortgages to his workers etc. etc. No, it has to be a charity and for a reason. Nothing gets close in terms of prestige. Even idiotic athletes now have one. Oh, and how do you like the Clinton Foundation?


You can not mention the name Götz Werner without saying at the same time 'Unconditional Basic Income'. That's his hallmark. However, once you start reading some posts about the UBI on his website you soon realize, the authors have no idea about economics, it is at times naive drivel and sometimes blatant nonsense. Like this sentence for example:

Mit den Gütern und Dienstleitungen entsteht das Geld, mit dem sie gekauft werden können. Dafür ist das Geld da. Es gibt so viel Geld, wie es käufliche Werte gibt. Sonst könnte man sie nicht kaufen.

It says 'with goods and services money is created (sic), with which they can be purchased. That's what money is for. There is as much money as there are goods. Otherwise you could not buy them.' You start wondering why is there inflation or deflation?

Some place else you read:

"Maschinenarbeit dagegen wird heute subventioniert, weil sie keine [der Lohnsteuer] vergleichbare Steuer zahlen muss, sondern eher durch degressive Abschreibungen gepuscht wird."

Google translate: 'Machine work on the other hand is subsidized today, because they have to pay no [income tax], but rather is pushed up by declining balance depreciation.' These weird reasonings made me stop reading after three posts.

Here is another goody:

"Wenn wir radikal auf Mehrwertsteuer umstellen wird das Land ein Arbeits-, Steuer- und Investitionsparadies." (Götz Werner, 2006) Basically it says, if we switch radically to VAT, the country will become a paradise of work, taxes and investments". It does sound somewhat eery, does it not?

Why does the replacement of one tax with another tax render a country to a paradise for investments?

It is obvious that G. Werner has never read Keynes and his law of consumption explained here:

The Keynesian concept of consumption function stems from the fundamental psychological law of consumption which states that there is a common tendency for people to spend more on consumption when income increases, but not to the same extent as the rise in income because a part of the income is also saved. The community, as a rule, consumes as well as saves a larger amount with a rise in income.

Abba Lerner puts it very plain what effect taxes have:

“The rational procedure is to judge all actions only by their effect and not by any vague notions of their propriety or impropriety. “By their fruits shall ye know them.” The effects of a tax are two fold. It increases the money in the hands of the government and, by decreasing  the money left in the taxpayer’s hands, it makes him spend less. The first effect is unimportant…..The important effect is the second, and the question of taxing or not taxing should be governed entirely by whether the effect on spending by the individual taxpayer is desired or not…”

Here the last quote from the Götz Werner website:

Auf die gesunkenen Preise kommt die höhere Mehrwertsteuer. Damit bleiben die Preise für den Verbraucher im Schnitt auf einem gleichen Niveau wie zuvor, und ein Grundeinkommen für alle ist in die Bedingungslosigkeit transferiert.

The decline in prices is offset by the increase in VAT. Thus, the prices for the consumer remain on average on a same level as before, and a basic income for all is transferred to the unconditional.

After this I gave up and instead searched if the word 'inflation' was mentioned somewhere and I came out empty. It is beyond me how anyone can seriously write about the UBI or in German the BGE without mentioning inflation.

This German here has clearly understood the mistake: Götz Werner buys someone a drink. (article in German)

Götz Werner could learn something from these guys and 16 Reasons Matt Yglesias is Wrong about the Job Guarantee vs. Basic Income.