German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has had a tough week. As this BBC article explains, he did survive the SPD leadership vote on Monday, but some dismal economic statistics were released this week, and as this Frankfurter Rundschau article notes (also the source for the fine graphic below), poll results show that the public doesn't have much faith in Schroeder's coalition or in his reform plans. The big red bars show the percentage of people who don't believe that the reforms will provide for 1) an affordable social welfare system, 2) improvements in the economy, and 3) more jobs. Not a promising start for a major reform program.

Plus, Schroeder was met with outright hostility at a large union event on May 1st, as you can read here. Union officials passed out whistles and attempted to drown out his speech. Schroeder's response to the whistles from the crowd:

Whoever blows on whistles -- instead of discussing things, instead of making arguments -- proves that he has full cheeks but an empty head.

And he's speaking to people who are supposed to be his core supporters! Man.

MORE: UMMM, I took the liberty of altering the Frankfurter Rundschau's graphic to make it more accurate. The original version is available here. As far as I'm aware, 68 is still less than 76 or 87 in Germany.