Swabian Housewife caught

Well, even the Swabian housewife  is on occasions unfolding her own way and casts light and shadow on her path.

One of these occasions had been recently uncovered.

Indeed, harping on about principles, resulted in a disastrous consequences.The teaser of the article reads in my translation as follows:

sueddeutsche.de Economy
27 February 2019, 05:18 Hartz IV
Job centres spend 60 million euros to collect 18 million
• Job centers must also reclaim small amounts from Hartz IV recipients. This causes an enormous administrative effort.
• In 2018, a total of 18 million euros in small amounts of up to 50 euros were reclaimed. However, this cost around 60 million euros. This is shown by new figures available to SZ.
• Reclaims are made when job centres discover that they have transferred too much to Hartz IV recipients. The Federal Agency has long demanded a de minimis limit for smaller amounts.

But isn’t this exactly against the principles? Yes and no – as there are two principles: the one is about what we learn from an article in the guardian?

They shop frugally, use credit cards rarely and save up to a third of a property’s value before applying for a mortgage.

There is another, though in some way linked, principle: discipline and discipline-enforcing zero-tolerance policies – honoring the cent is the ultimate rule, even if it costs a fortune … and even if it for the price of self-denial. Looking at conservatism, it sometime too simple to reduce things on black and white – they are simply deep, dark black.