The Computer

There's a good story over at the Local today...announcing that nineteen million Germans have never used the internet.

It doesn't really surprise me.

From the age group of Germans over forty....I really doubt if half of them have used a computer ever. I remember the episode two years ago downtown where they finally forced computers on the car tag 'mafia' in the county court house. They refused to cooperate and all of them (except the money clerk) were forced into other jobs at the courthouse. The dozen who worked in the office....were all in their early 50's and no talked much around the court house about how this mess came to be ended. I walked in one day....and it was all 20-year old folks....who quickly got me in and out in eight minutes (something that would have required the old team over 45 minutes).

When you go into a village and notice a travel office still in existence.....it's because most Germans refuse to use a computer in making reservations or to find the cheapest deal. They still count on that travel clerk to get them to Turkey for their summer vacation.

If you have a compliant about your garbage....well, folks typically call the office involved. They don't care to mess with an e-mail address.

So out of eighty million Germans.....nineteen million aren't going down this path....and it may be a number of years before you see a internet-prone group of Germans in existence.

My Son and Tax Revenue Thoughts

My son has issues with German taxes. Mind you...he's just an apprentice who makes barely 350 Euro a month after taxes.

His comment yesterday...was kinda true.

There was this point in the 1950 and up through the 1970s...where every town in Germany was building a water treatment plant. The funny thing was that they'd have a population of 5,000 and then build a plant for 15,000. It was intended for growth...but there were never statistics to prove this was right in the first place.

Then, these plants started to show up even in towns of 2,000 people.

At some point, in the 1990s...the government began to realize the amount of water treatment....was many times over the German population....probably enough to supply all of France free water if they asked for it.

In my local area....with a 4-mile radius from the town center....there were around five water treatment plants in the circle. It didn't make any sense.

At some point, they started a renovation deal and then told various communities to start shutting down their plants and hook up with a bigger town next door. There probably was hundreds of millions spent in the 1950s and 1960s on their grand scheme....mostly all wasted.

Another note by my son?

Our village has a local school for the 6-10 year old kids. For three decades...it functioned without a gym. A bus pulled up each afternoon and loaded up a group and took them to the town gym about a mile away.

I have no idea what they paid for the bus, but it was a simple pick-up-and deliver scheme. The town gym? Free. It was heated and maintained by the village....at no cost to the school.

Parents in town were unhappy about this arrangement, and eventually talked the school into buying property and spending around $250k on a gym building and property about 250 feet away from the school.

As my son points out...the school now pays for heat and cleaning for the tiny gym....just big enough for half-a-basketball court.

My son says they could have kept going with the village gym which sits there free...and just kept the bus deal going.

I'm kinda thinking he's right. There's issues over how the German government funds just about any project...and folks just need patience to eventually get their favorite project done.

My Son's Old School

My son attended the Haupt Schule over at Hochspeyer. It was.....a very crappy old school.....by any German standard.

Five years ago....the district announced this million Euro upgrade for the school. The first renovation since it was built in the 1960s. So around three years ago....they started this project. My son finished the school in June of last year and the final piece of the renovation was to be done this summer.

It's an interesting mess that has occurred.

Somewhere around 2008, the big dudes of the district decided this really nice school (after it's done).....ought to be used for the smart kids (those destined for university), and not the Haupt schule environment (the average kids).

This school already had a chemistry lab and a computer lab which was going to be 4-star in nature.

This change upset the locals who had been waiting ten years for this renovation. So lots of folks got angry.

Eventually, the big guys of the district came to agree that this was a really big argument that they were going to lose.

So they made this terrific decision....turn it into a early-grade school....Grun schule. This was to be for kids in the first grade to the fourth grade. The necessity for the chemistry lab and the computer lab? Zero. Don't worry....it's already built. So it's a total waste.

This was their revenge on this whole argument.

So around one third of the total money wasted on this renovation....went for a huge upgrade, which no kid will utilize in the future. Around $1.3 million dollars....and at least $300k was wasted on stuff you can't use in the early years.

My son points this out....because he's paying taxes now....and kinda upset over the stupidity of the local school district.

So it goes.