The debate about Germany's qualities as a business location is back. Economists are diagnosing not just an economic cold, but a severe structural flu. The lack of growth, which is meagre at best, no longer allows for any great leaps forward. The dynamism and productivity of companies has been declining for years. The capital stock is crumbling. Prosperity built up over decades is in danger of slipping away. At the same time, companies are being drawn out of Germany because lower costs, higher returns and more dynamism lure them abroad, and above all because there is more freedom in the implementation of their ideas.

The growing impression is that nothing seems to work properly in Germany anymore: Railroads, bridges and schools are dilapidated in many cases. The country is lagging behind in education, digitalization and new technologies. Only the bureaucracy and legal machinery seem to be in top shape. It is always finding new ways to stifle creativity, commitment and business ideas.

And when politicians launch a project to which they ascribe the term „reform“, it is not about setting the course for the economy, such as tax, growth and competition policy. Instead, they go straight into the boiler rooms and say which herb is good for smoking. These are not the issues that bring about more growth, more prosperity and more progress, but rather allow or punish behavior - of course always with seemingly unalternative arguments such as the environment and justice, because it is always made out to be a question of good and evil.

It is a different story when special groups of voters are being courted, such as pensioners. The government is leaving no stone unturned to win them over with a pension guarantee. It's almost funny: in the climate debate, the young and the unborn are the ones who are referred to when climate targets and the ecological transformation are to be implemented. In pension policy, the young don't seem to count anymore. It is the elderly who are being spared and the young/unborn are being asked to pay!

It is not just the constant disputes within the coalition that are unsettling consumers and investors. Rather, it is the many inconsistencies in government action, the immature and inadequate transformation plans for the energy industry, the obvious inability to look at people's actual living conditions and the unwillingness to actually tackle the problems in the economy. The latter may be due to the ever-present subliminal anti-capitalist stance. But without capitalism, there can be no social policy.

Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) is right when he warns that the bad mood is bringing the economy and the location into disrepute. Pessimism is contagious. And it is no coincidence that the Germans have slipped down several places in the „World Happiness Report“. But he seems to be under the mistaken impression that the pessimists are to blame for the disastrous situation. Instead, the government, for its part, should ensure that the location becomes attractive again. That would automatically lift the mood. And Berlin's politicians lack perspective, reliability and substance.

Where to start? First of all, there are the long-known shortcomings: too much bureaucracy, too high taxes, dilapidated infrastructure. Germany needs an agenda on how to rectify this as quickly as possible. Berlin also needs to roll out the red carpet for new technologies as a pillar of the future: artificial intelligence, robotics, electricity storage, quantum computing, hydrogen production, perhaps even nuclear fusion. Why not launch a program to bring fibre optic connections to all Germans' homes faster than previously expected? What is missing everywhere is a master plan for the location - and a commitment to take concrete steps to achieve this. Incidentally, the CDU/CSU also seems to be on the fence. Voters are sensing this. Otherwise, the party would have long since scratched the 40 percent mark in the polls.