Thank you very much.
My first question is for Mr. Scholz and Ms. Amsden.
Thank you both for being here and for your presentations.
In those presentations, you made almost the same comment. It was about how to reduce debt to 28.5% in one case and 25% in another. Reducing debt is not in itself a bad thing. Mr. Scholz suggested reducing corporate tax in order to get business to a competitive level. But, since 2000, the tax on businesses in general has been reduced. The tax rate at that time was 28% or 29%. It has been reduced; it think it will be 15% soon. That meant quite a substantial decrease in revenue for the federal government, partially made up for by increases elsewhere.
Basically, it was a substantial drop. Some things have been mentioned. Some people have said that it resulted in idle money piling up. Others have said that investments were going to increase. The reality is that, if you compare the present situation with the situation in 2000, 2001 and 2002, real investment has been stagnant for a long time. The logic used by a lot of economists is to think that reducing taxes will increase investments and everything will be fine. In reality, we have not seen that direct correlation at all.
I would like your comments on that. You can start, Mr. Scholz. You can answer afterwards, Ms. Amsden.