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Corona consequences for companies How much longer does the state have to help?

Status: 06/17/2021 10:18 a.m.

Today, the federal and state economics ministers are discussing how to proceed with corona aid for companies. Warnings against a permanent state economy are getting louder. But some industries are still deeply in crisis.

From Axel John, SWR

Tim Sandrock walks through the 3500 square meter hall of his event company. He points to huge loudspeakers, lighting systems or projectors that are piled up to the ceiling. “That would normally all be used outside in mid-June, at theater events, village festivals or music concerts”says Sandrock. “The camp could be swept through completely. We haven’t moved the technology for at least 15 months.”

He is one of the two managing directors of Flo-Service GmbH in Mainz. The company has 25 employees and six trainees. The company organizes up to 1500 events per year with a focus on the Rhine-Main area. “From the disco ball for the teenage party to the stage technology for a Sting concert, we cover everything”says Sandrock. Although the economy is taking off again across the country, Flo-Service still has few orders at major events due to the pandemic requirements. Most recently, among other things, the Oktoberfest was canceled. This sends a devastating signal to the industry.

Hope for further help

“We are broadly positioned and have thus been able to limit losses. The Federal Employment Agency helped us a lot through short-time work with around 31,000 euros per month. The bridging aids were also extremely important to us last year”says Sandrock. “However, our company has fixed costs of 150,000 euros every month.”

“I very much hope for further government aid” – Flo Service Managing Director Tim Sandrock. Image: Axel John, SWR

Flo-Service mainly draws on its operating reserves before Corona. In addition, there was a tough austerity course. Overall, sales have decreased by a good third. This means that Sandrock is still in a brilliant position in the industry. Other companies make a minus of 90 percent or are no longer there. “In the long run, of course, you can’t finance a company like ours. I therefore very much hope for further state aid”, he says. Cultural events have a pre-planning of three to nine months. In the uncertain Corona time, that’s half an eternity. “I am optimistic that the worst is behind us. But we still need support for a transition period. Otherwise all previous payments would be pointless”, says Sandrock.

Economics ministers discuss further aid

The federal and state economics ministers meet today in Düsseldorf – for the first time in attendance. One question is: what will happen next with the support for the economy? The bridging allowance and short-time work allowance were only recently extended to the end of September and even expanded. Now it is about a renewed extension until the end of the year.

The host of the meeting, the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Economic Affairs Andreas Pinkwart from the FDP, has already made a decision: “I am in favor of the aid being extended beyond the end of September until the end of the year”, he says. “Sectors such as the trade fair and event industry or the showmen will continue to suffer from a drop in sales in the fall. The Federal Ministry of Economics also sees it that way. I would also like to advocate this course at the federal government.”

NRW Minister of Economic Affairs Pinkwart is campaigning for a further extension of the corona aid. Image: dpa

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister of Economic Affairs also refers to legal constraints. “Unfortunately, to fight the pandemic, we had to restrict the freedom of trade. That is why the bridging aid is not subsidy, but compensation. Parts of the economy are only now gradually returning to normal”says Pinkwart. Now it is a matter of creating transitions for the companies concerned.

Share of businesses in need is falling

More and more companies seem to manage this transition. According to a study by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), only eight percent of all companies saw their existence threatened by May. In April this value was still 13 percent. “The incidence values ​​are easing in many places, and at the same time private-sector companies in Germany are looking more optimistically into the future, “says IAB Director Bernd Fitzenberger. So far, the Federal Ministry of Economics has approved a total of more than 105 billion euros for the economy during the crisis. In addition, there is short-time work allowance of around 32.3 billion euros.

Criticism from economists

More and more economists are critical of the ongoing political assistance. Lars Feld is one of them. The 54-year-old economist is a proven regulatory politician, i.e. oriented towards the principles of market and competition. “The extension until the end of September is fine. But I do not believe in a renewed extension”, he says. “The upswing is in full swing. According to the Bundesbank, we will have growth of 3.7 percent in Germany this year. Next year it should be five percent. The need for an expansive fiscal policy that continues to be so strong is therefore decreasing.”

In addition, there are always deadweight effects at companies that find themselves in a difficult situation without this having anything to do with Corona. However, Feld limits his analysis with a view to the event industry. “If the state restricts certain companies in certain sectors of the constitutionally granted freedom of trade, then this must be compensated. But we will have to live with Corona in the long term. Therefore, I think it is questionable whether the events industry can continue as it did before the pandemic.”

Digital structural change also in the event area

Tim Sandrock in Mainz knows that too. In order to survive economically, Flo-Service had already digitized itself during the lockdown. “We have brought our analog offers into the digital space. Instead of a meeting with a projector, screen or interpreting service, we now also offer complete software solutions”says Sandrock. Corona has massively accelerated development. “There will be a growing digital share at events of all kinds in the future.”

In order not to complicate this structural change, Sandrock is also in favor of a foreseeable phase out of the aid. For the next few months, however, the company needs government aid again. If politicians decide in favor of renewed extension, Sandrock will submit an application. “But I am sure that the industry will recover quickly after Corona. I’m also counting on a catch-up effect. Man is a sociable being. That’s why we’ll be back.”

Sen. Andrew Brenner of Ohio State (bottom right) was exposed while driving while a Zoom meeting to discuss the ban on distracted driving US media reported that on May 7, Ohio Senator Andrew Brenner was exposed to an unfavorable situation, he was driving and discussing the bill prohibiting distraction while driving the state. The senator used fake backgrounds (indoor furniture) for online Zoom meetings with other congressmen, discussing passing a new bill banning distracting driving, such as watching videos or texting. Video calling. At the beginning of the meeting, the car was parked, but the senator turned on the backdrop pretending to be at home, then fastened his seat belt and drove away somewhere. The funny thing is Senator Brenner thinks his fake backdrop covers all meeting attendees. Explaining to the press, he still insists that making a video call is no different than making a phone call. “During video calls, I don’t pay attention to video. It felt like a regular phone call to me, ”he told NBC media. In the very short video below, you can see him looking at the screen many times, like you look at your phone while texting. This is considered distracting driving everywhere else, not just Ohio. Research has shown that checking a phone while driving causes distraction in 4.6 seconds. Things can go bad in such a short time frame.

Text ︱ Ge Zhaoguang

2 For the first eight months of 020, I was in Tokyo. I have been to Japan many times before, and I always want to hurry up to find research materials, so I am busy reading and writing, and I have no time to visit. This time it took eight months, and I was unavoidable to have the idea of ​​”going through Japan”. I planned to go south to Satsuma and north to Hakodate. I also planned to go to Nakajima in the Seto Inland Sea and Koyasan, the shrine of Shingon sect. Okinawa. But people are not as good as the heavens. I didn’t expect a pandemic that swept the world to make these plans go in vain. So I had to stay in Tokyo (not in China) and settle down to read some Japanese historical treatises.

Shun Let me just say that reading Japanese historical treatises in Japan was a plan made at the beginning of this time. However, even though I concentrate on reading Japanese history works, what I have in my mind is still the issue of Chinese history. Therefore, those Japanese historical treatises became the background for me to re-understand Chinese history in Asia. The selection here is a number of excerpts and notes from my books on Japanese history reading in Tokyo. I randomly picked a title and called it “Tokyo Reading Notes.”

Japan’s “Weekly Reading Man” launched a special topic entitled “The Perspective of the World” in 2020, and used more than a dozen full pages to focus on the various new changes that have occurred in the world. Compared with the Chinese reading community and the press, Japan It seems more “world-conscious”. When I was reading the newspaper, I paid particular attention to a dialogue about “patriotism”. This is the “True Patriotic” which was just published on the first and second editions of “Weekly Reader” on January 10th. produce? “. The two parties in the conversation are Kimen Takami (Professor of Otago University, New Zealand) and Uno Shigeki (Professor of Tokyo University).

In 2019, the two books of Ji Mian caused quite a stir in Japan. Iwanami Bookstore published his “Patriotic Structure”, and Million Years Book published his “Japanese National ための爱国の Textbook”. As he teaches in the English-speaking world, he has noticed the recent resurrection of “patriotism” as a political concept in Western academic circles. As a Japanese scholar, he is also concerned about whether the concept of “patriotism” can really be understood correctly in Japan? In other words, is “patriotism” a natural sentiment that Japan takes for granted?

Despite the Heisei era in the past thirty years, Japan once had Saeki Keise’s “Japan’s Patriotism” and Jiang Shangzhong’s “Patriotic Practice” two works representing the “patriotism” of the Heisei era. So, how can the correct “patriotism” be rebuilt in the Reiwa era? And what exactly is “patriotism” that Professor Jiang Jimian wants to say? In the conversation, Professor Uno of the University of Tokyo once asked whether the “Patriotic Textbook” written for the Japanese people criticized even moderate nationalism? Uno cited numerous reactions from all over Japan to the new emperor’s accession to the throne in 2019. It is said that at that time, there were a lot of praises to the emperor in Japan. For example, Japan with the royal tradition is a special country; even this is a thread of the tradition of the kingdom of Japan. This kind of Japanese praise is not necessarily an analysis of the status quo based on facts, but merely a repetition of the meaning of “Japan is Japan”. Uno believes that if he is caught in this mood and talks about “patriotism,” will he be hostile to words other than the patriot as “anti-Japanese”. The question asked by Uno is: Is this really “patriotic”?

It is mentioned in the response of the base to this that the national identity of post-war Japan may not be in the sense of race or region, but mainly stems from the economic success of the post-war period. However, the “lost thirty years” of the economy after the 1990s has gradually eliminated this foundation of national identity. He quoted the British academic community, saying that the identity of the United Kingdom is related to the economic status and education level, and there is a polarization between the “どこでも school” and the “どこか school”. But what’s interesting is that although Japan’s rich and poor are very different, they unanimously say some unfounded patriotic remarks. What Japanese are great, Japan is special. He admits that the kind-hearted and gentle nationalism is of course because he feels that he is not one, but in the group, which makes him feel more secure. Such patriotic sentiment must have its truth.

However, Professor Ji, who is familiar with Western political thought, specifically distinguished “Nationalism” and “Patriotism” theoretically based on the British political thought pedigree (Note: Uno is a little skeptical, in Japanese language The meaning of “patriotism” in China is often mixed. Is it really possible to distinguish clearly?). In terms of fundamentals, Patriotism and Nationalism are different in etymology. The former is a necessary condition for building a good political community. He quoted Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero, BC 106-43) as saying that there is a citizen’s motherland, and there is a natural motherland, and the citizen’s motherland is more important than the natural motherland. . He explained that the so-called citizen’s motherland is the motherland that forms a community in accordance with the law. It must have republican political value and a political system to realize this value; and the natural motherland is only the birthplace of us, the ancestors live in for generations, where our parents are. Yes, that place with homesickness. Obviously, what he meant was that the citizen’s motherland is a national identity based on political systems and political values, and it corresponds to patriotism; while the natural motherland is based on blood and geography, which corresponds to Nationalism. Because the former is related to the universal political value and system, it is easy to move towards a moderate orientation. But at the same time he also admitted that this kind of patriotism does not necessarily occupy the mainstream in modern society, so he deliberately studied and elaborated on it in “The Structure of Patriotic”.

In the long conversation that followed, they discussed “patriotism” and “loyalty”, discussed the “critical” and “desperate” in patriotism, and discussed how to understand “patriotism” in their hearts. The basics agree that the so-called “patriotism” must ask why it is loyal and what is it loyal to? If it is based on understanding and value, then, just like Christianity’s dedication to God, it also has the meaning of dying for the country. After all, human beings do not exist as individuals but as groups. This conversation is very long and very long, occupying two full pages. I haven’t finished reading the two books by Professor Jiang Ji Mian. However, I vaguely feel that the publication of these two books is precisely related to the “reverse globalization” in the current world, that is, the re-emergence of “national interests”. In recent years, people have increasingly noticed that after the 1990s, the originally imagined globalization, the Internet, market trade, and universal values ​​did not really dilute the existence of the country, and “there is no end to history.” On the contrary, under the protection of a special political consciousness and political system, it has contributed to the rise of the country and made it more difficult to “transcend national borders”. There is no doubt that all countries in the world today are faced with universal values ​​and national values, whether global priority or national priority, whether culture is special or common, and issues related to “identification”. Whether it is the “Brexit” of the United Kingdom, the “refugees” in Europe, the “America First” and the establishment of a high wall in the Trump era of the United States, and the changes in Erdogan, Turkey, the unity of Islam and the political freedom of the world Conflicts will eventually prompt the academic and ideological circles to start to understand the “country” and “identity” again. Fukuyama’s recent works, which I read some time ago, actually show this trend.

Just today, I saw that the topic of intense discussion on the Japanese Internet is the so-called “anti-Japanese forces”, perhaps, it happened to involve this thorny problem. Today the University of Tokyo announced the dismissal of an Associate Professor Osawa Nobuhira. It is said that he was originally the youngest associate professor of East University. The original appointment period was six years, and the reason for the early dismissal was his extreme remarks. He declared that he “will never hire Chinese people”, attacking that the Institute of Oriental Culture we are familiar with is under the domination of certain countries, and also attacked other professors for no reason. I am not very clear about the reasons for this, but seeing the official news released by the University of Tokyo, it is obvious that the University of Tokyo feels that a university must never touch the bottom line of “political correctness.” The dismissal of Daze is also based on social responsibility and is also to stop it. This kind of thing happened again, prompting all faculty members to completely abide by the ethical code.

But what is interesting is that I have seen that Japanese people on the Internet have criticized the University of Tokyo a lot. So, is this extreme regional “nationalism” or what Professor Ji Mian called “patriotism”?

Ge Zhaoguang

Institute of Literature and History of Fudan University

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