In their final stage, representative democracies are in danger of sliding down into a pure vote-buying bazaar. Here the representatives of the political establishment offer the money of the last productive forces of society to secure votes. We now know from Germany how much it costs to put together a government: a special loan of 500 billion euros on top of the already fiscalized debt is needed to create a creepy coalition between the Merkel party CDU and the socialists of the SPD. A high price to pay to put together a government that is unlikely to remain in office for 12 months.

Over the next four years, Germany will probably take on more than a trillion euros of new debt, around a quarter of its gross domestic product, which will bring it down to France's credit rating, which is already in a bad way. The European Union project is entering increasingly difficult waters.