Two reports in one day: With the help of a study, the family entrepreneurs denounce what they consider to be far too high taxes in Germany and see the "fiscal attractiveness of the location" in danger.
A report by the development organization Oxfam wants exactly the opposite: Because the super-rich and their corporations are getting richer, there is a lack of money to fight hunger in the world.
The recipe: taxes up!
There could be a great debate about who is right.
The problem is – when it comes to taxes, inequality and redistribution, the two interest groups hardly talk to each other.
This applies to Oxfam and family businesses, but also in general, as a one-sided panel discussion at the German Institute for Economic Research showed once again last week.
Instead, both sides impress with argumentative one-sidedness.
Have family business owners ever asked for anything other than lower taxes?
What should an optimal tax rate actually look like, with which a family business owner is satisfied and the state is functional?
And how does Oxfam actually explain that hunger has decreased worldwide over many years, although or precisely because there were more rich people at the same time?
And why is Oxfam always all about money and not all the other things on which the development of poorer countries depends?
It makes no sense to repeat the same building blocks over and over again without dealing with the arguments of the other party.
That may give the supporters whose interests you are representing a good feeling in their stomachs – it doesn't advance the debate that way.
Social media doesn't make things any better.
They often promote mutual teasing more than the exchange of content.
The FDP politician Otto Fricke aptly summarized this lack of culture on Twitter: "We are more interested in who (allegedly) made which mistake than in what really happened and what we could learn from it."