[cc-community] German Federal State announces economic stimulus package aimed at IT industry and at enriching Public Domain
Ulrike Elteste (Mahlmann)
Ulrike.Mahlmann at gmx.de
Thu Apr 2 04:11:40 EDT 2009
Hi Kristian,
> > I’m so sorry, but I’m from Continental Europe and so this is only an
> > April Fool’s Day joke.
>
> But quite a good one compared to others I have stumbled upon so far
> today. Anyway, just one thing on that:
>
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
> > Who says that the money from the economic stimulus packages must be
> > spent on economically pointless sales promotion activities like the
> > idiotic German “break-up-your-old-car-and-buy-a-new-one subsidy”?
>
> Problem being however that, so far, people still aren't up for this,
> and politicians obviously have to cater for a (dumb? blind? ignorant?)
> majority, (...)
I understand this feeling of resignation, I share it most of the time, but we must shake it off. Look, President Obama is saying that "yes we can" let General Motors go the path of Chapter Eleven. And a real piece of news from Hesse is that it started an initiative in the second chamber of the Federal parliament (Bundesrat) lately to prevent the patenting of living organisms because it hurts small and medium-size enterprises and farmers: http://tinyurl.com/dbuojw (boy, they definitely need an IT person, the initial URL had 308 characers; if the link does not work go to the Ministry of Agriculture of Hesse and look at "Pressemitteilungen", 25 March).
I'm convinced that this is a good moment and we need to seize it. Parliaments have decided upon huge economic stimulus packages --- but don't know yet what to spend the money on, especially at the local level. They will only place more flower pots in our pedestrian areas (after repairing our schools and universities, hopefully) if they're not given any better input.
Also, if a politician has the least bit of a sense of responsibility, he or she is desperately looking for ideas and new concepts right now, if only to write a nice election program. I once read a slogan at a local theatre: "Times of poverty are times of change".
So if you can think of a good project in the area, do go to your local politicians and demand the money for it. Don't say "Let's spend money on culture" - make them see the benefit for the economy as whole.
Ulrike
--
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