The Kur Business

There's probably a hundred cities and village throughout Germany....who have built themselves into some business related to the "Kur".  It's not a recent thing....this goes back for years and years.

The Kur is simply a therapy of sorts.....where you admit you have issues (physical, emotional or imagined).  The key thing to the Kur....is that there's money involved.  Somebody....a rich guy....a person with cash flow.....a person of wealth....or the government itself...is standing there and prepared to pay for the Kur.

Germans will debate you on this....that the Kur is for both the body and the soul.  You.....as the apprehensive American....will ask stupid questions.  Couldn't you just get the Kur by going off to Vegas for a weekend?  Oh no.  Couldn't you get the Kur by camping out in some mountain park?  Oh no.  Couldn't you get the Kur by eating nutritional foods, dumping your booze, and focusing on God?  Oh no.  This is best left for the experts.

There are a number of things that the Kur can encompass....rest, relaxation, discussion over prevention of issues, rehabilitation of your physical elements or your emotional loss,  surveying your stress and anxiety and talking you through different tricks to adjust your mind, and just plain changing your eating habits.

Wiesbaden kinda discovered after the Roman era.....that they had two interesting things related to the Kur business.....the warm spa waters, and great wine.  As things advanced in the 1700s.....there's a new view by the early 1800s.....of travel, and tourism.

If you got money.....especially if you were upper-class type folks....then you had special issues, and you needed the Kur.

Wiesbaden by the mid-1800s.....had put up the hotels....the business district....turned the spa gimmick into big-money....and eventually brought in a casino which was a world-class bar and nightclub.  Between entertainment, talkative Kur experts and doctors, fine dining, an abundance of four-star wines and liquors, and real culture.....Wiesbaden grew at a fairly good pace.

For the Kur business.....there's only three or four cities in Germany that might qualify as a four-star location by 1900...and Wiesbaden is one of those.  The Kaiser himself is one of the people that run through the city and enjoy the Kur business.

A gimmick? Well....it's unfair for an American to sit and view this.  To say that the waters, fine wine, long walks in the Kurpark don't have a changing effect....would be unfair for me to say.  I'm guessing everyone who came for the Kur.....got it.  Maybe they spent a great deal of money....but they got what they needed.  Could they have done it for ten percent of that amount?  Yeah.  Seven days at a two-star Orange Beach resort motel, with $7 meals at some buffet restaurant, and a case of cheap Pabst Blue Ribbon per day.....would likely do the same thing.

I know.....I'm not thinking like a German.  I'm not integrating like I should.  But the blunt truth is....I've been on the Kur myself for fifty-five years.....and probably never realized the impact of it.

The Four-Million Euro Case About Seven-Hundred Euro

Lately, the German court system has been on the front page of news items.  Yesterday....one of the biggest cases of the last year came to an odd end.

Christian Wulff....was a prominent CDU political figure from Saxony.  He'd made up to the big-time in 2010.....being appointed as the CDU choice as Germany's next "President".  It's more of a ceremonial post than anything else.  Generally, it means you aren't that big a political figure within the party.....and your demeanor is quiet enough to satisfy most of the opposition folks.

In the summer of 2010...there was a fair amount of political jockeying going on....with the SPD and Greens supporting Joachim Glauck....a former East German who had run up a political rights agenda for twenty-odd years.  Wulff won over Glauck.

In some ways....it was a bit of a internal fight, and some folks sensed that the fight didn't really end when Wulff won the Presidency.

Roughly eighteen months later....there's this scandal to erupt over Wulff.  The key scandal that got to become a court episode....involves this episode that occurred in 2011....when Wulff gets invited to some festive dinner episode, and he travels there with his wife and kid.  Somewhere in this festive occasion.....is a sort of payback for help he provided in getting some production movie deal done.

So the producer seemingly falls into this creation.  The hotel (a big-name spot), the dinner, and the child-care provided.....would appear to be covered by the producer....not Wulff.

The news media by the end of 2011....have decided that this is terrible.  A seven-hundred Euro bill.....paid by a producer.  Undue influence, etc etc, etc.

So an state investigation occurs.  Wulff officially leaves office.  Naturally, the former loser....Joachim Glauck....becomes the next President, thus making the SPD and Greens happy.

The German justice system went through two years of an investigation and a court episode.  Yes, over 700 Euro, which might or might not have been paid for by the producer, for Wulff.  Yeah, it's pretty silly.

At some point, the prosecution wants to just move this along....so he offers a 20,000 Euro fine, with no court episode, and just admit guilt.  Thus.....no jail time.

Well....Wulff said no.

I think the German media was shocked.  Their general impression was that the prosecutor had evidence...so this was a simple case to prove....why bother running it through the whole court episode?

The court came in yesterday and rendered the verdict.  Not guilty.  It was a shocker, and was the number one news of the entire day.  The news media?  They just couldn't believe it.

Wulff?  I suspect he's fairly angry about the whole thing.  He lost his reputation.  His second wife at some point said "enough" and separated from him.  He's out of politics now.  The state prosecution team?  Because of German law.....they have to cover the cost of the loss....meaning they pay for his legal fees.

How much was spent on the prosecution case?  For a seven-hundred Euro question of fault?  Well....the Economist sat down and did the math.  It's an interesting episode.  This prosecutor and his boss (Clemens Eimterbaumer and Frank Luttig)....put around four million Euro into the case (roughly $5 million).  Yeah.....four million to win a case of 700-Euro in questions.

What is generally said....the prosecution team kept looking and fishing for more evidence.  On and on.  Witnesses came and went.  There's a suggestion of 30,000 pages of documentation that got into the case.  German federal officials served papers on at least forty different bank accounts....circling several individuals.  What the Economist says....at least eight businesses or houses....had search warrants served.

The court kept examining material, and tossing out charges.  So what Eimterbaumer and Luttig were stuck with....was one sum of roughly seven hundred Euro....for a hotel episode around Octoberfest of 2008.

I kinda suspect that the German court system....watching Eimterbaumer and Luttig at work....got to a point of frustration.  Fishing for evidence....makes you look foolish.  Either something stands out or it doesn't.  So I kinda suspect that the court finally said....Ok, proceed with what you have left....which is one single episode....whose value is seven-hundred Euro ($900 roughly).  The court knew beforehand what they'd render, but figured this would be more of a judgement against the prosecution team than anything else.

So you can imagine this scene yesterday.  Innocent verdict.  End of the story.  Wulff totally off the hook.  The prosecution guys?  Well....they stumbled through tens of thousands of man-hours and at least four million-Euro of efforts.....with nothing to show for it.

Will the news media go back this weekend and start to look over the prosecution efforts?  I don't know.  Payback somewhere down the road?  I'm guessing the prosecution guys will be told to go and retire.  Wasting that much time and effort.....over what ended up as a seven-hundred-Euro case......is kind of comical.

Once in a while.....you find this odd story about German culture....which really says volumes about society in this modern era.  This is one of them.  There's a big loser in this case.....two figures actually.....and their entire life's work will be judged by four million wasted on this episode.

A Statue in the Kurpark

This is one of those history lessons that I occasionally toss out.

Behind the casino in Wiesbaden....is the Kurpark.  It's an English-grounds....designed for luxury visitors who came to Wiesbaden for the "cure".

The "cure" was mostly for the wealthy of Europe (not just Germans).  So you'd claim stress or anxiety, or symptoms of an unknown variety.  You'd pack up a chest of fine clothing, hope on the train, and arrive in Wiesbaden.  There were several upscale hotels, which you'd check into.

Over the coming weeks, you'd walk over to the casino in town and gamble.  You'd eat fine food, drink the best of Hessen wine, and sit in warm spa waters.  You'd sit and be visited by the distinguished doctor so-v-so, who would attend to your ailments (mostly fake).  You'd chat with other distinguished ailing folks, and pamper yourself to some "cure".

Along the way, you'd meet fascinating characters....political figures....men of wealth.....and writers.

So, this statue above is the city of Wiesbaden's way of honoring one of it's long-term "guests".  Gustav Freytag.

About ten minutes walking along the trail of the Kurpark....behind the casino.....you will come to this large bulky statue works.

Gustav has a fascinating slant on life.  He would end up writing one of the ten biggest German books of the 1800s.  Debits and Credits.....published in 1855.  Gustav was around thirty-nine at the time, and this one book would propel him to be an authority.....on the terrible ills facing Germany.  Namely...Polish people, Jews, and living beyond your means.  The social character of the book dwells on the wealthy and their manipulation of the economy......and that financial spirals are just around the corner unless you establish rules, regulation, and ensure the wealthy are kept under control.

Yeah, at the heart of this book....is this gentle jab that Jews are manipulating the business market of Germany.  Published in 1855.....it would get picked up and discussed at length by the intellectual and political classes of Germany.  Needless to say....it wasn't that popular with Jews.

From 1876 to 1881 (five years)....Gustav Freytag was a regular in Wiesbaden.   He lectured....he spoke.....he was a invited guest to various dinners and parties.  When he spoke....he spoke with authority, and influenced a fair number of visiting VIPs......to soak up his stance on the broad situation of business, economy, and change required.

Folks in Wiesbaden thought highly of Gustav, and after his death....erect this statue in the Kurpark.  In some ways.....if you wrote up the top twenty things you'd do during your extended stay for the "cure".....from 1876 to 1881....getting to some function and hearing Gustav speak....would have been on that list.

The other curious part about this story....is that Gustav Freytag stayed at the old Hotel Rose....which is a five-minute walk from the casino.

The Rose was a high-class establishment....probably one of the five best hotels in Wiesbaden in this era.  No one says much of the deal that Gustav had with hotel management, but one might assume that he was a guest there.....as well as an employee....lecturing folks and providing social commentary entertainment.

The Rose?  Well....it's hotel days kinda ended after WW II.  The US Air Force took control of it for a brief period (1945-1948).  For a while, it ran as a hotel but needed massive renovation.  So around 1959.....it got fixed up....but would have fewer rooms and be used for a number of years as a long-term stay facility.  You could say that it was slipping in status.

In the mid-1990s....there was an ambitious plan to turn the Hotel Rose into an old-fashioned upscale hotel again.  This apparently ran into bankruptcy issues, and got dropped.

A year or two later....the Hotel Rose gets picked up by the Hessen state real estate organization.  For four years around 2001....it was under massive renovation....to transform a fairly old building....into a modern state office building.  Today?  It's the Hessen state headquarters for the governor of the state.

If you walk by the state building....there's hardly anything to remind you of the hotel status....although the place looks grand and upscale from the exterior.

So, to put this all into prospective.....a German intellectual writer wrote a Uncle Tom's Cabin-type book....slamming the Jews and wealthy elite.....gets hired up to be a lecture celebrity with visiting wealthy Germans and Europeans....preaching his thoughts....and is respected enough at the end to get a five-star statue deal in a corner of the city park.

If you asked anyone from Wiesbaden to explain this....ninety-nine percent won't even be able to identify the statue, it's location, or what Gustav Freytag did.  Maybe three percent might remember Debits and Credits as a book.....but I doubt if I could find more than a hundred residents of the city of 260,000 who've ever read it, and most would not click on the thought of the Jew-baiting....already at work in 1855.

So, it is with history.....best left to be forgotten.

Wiesbaden's Little Chocolate Shop

Here in Wiesbaden.....at the corner of Luisenstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse (the Manhatten part of town)....is Kunder.

This is the four-star chocolate shop of Wiesbaden, where you can buy the best of the best....freshest....chocolate that you can imagine.  With alcohol?  Absolutely.

A fancy shop?  Yes.  You don't go there to buy the cheap stuff that you could pick up at Real or Rewe grocery shops.  This is where you intend to spend ten to fifty Euro.....buying chocolate as a special gift for someone.  Parking?  Forget about it....you'd best just find a parking garage in town, and settle in for several hours of shopping around.

A note.  Right across the street is the Kurpark.  On a nice spring day.....it's a good spot to hang out, relax, and have a chilled beverage.

My Village War Memorials

 My village is a small town....maybe four thousand residents....and it goes back at least eight hundred years.

On the hillside over looking it....is a cemetery.  At some prominent part of it....is the war memorial for those of the village who went off, and didn't come back.

Few Americans ever think over things like this.  From this small village....as wars came in the early 1800s on....it required some of the men to go off.  Up until 1914....Germany tended to win every war they got into.  So these memorials were a place where the vets would meet and remember those of friends and neighbors who didn't make it back.

This picture to the left....is the 1870-1871 war....with Denmark.  Around twenty local guys didn't make it back.  Their names are inscribed on the bottom of the memorial.

This memorial to the right?  It's for World War I.  Roughly twenty-five of them didn't make it back.

From the bottom picture?  These are the guys who died in World War II....who were brought back and buried in the cemetery.  There's another forty-odd guys who didn't get brought back, or simply disappeared.  They have a bigger memorial at the end of this section of the cemetery.

World War II claimed a high number of the village's men.

There are a fair number that got drafted up in the last twelve months of the war....with little training....and simply told to pick up a gun, toss on a uniform, and do what you can.

Up until World War I.....there is this prospective of the German military....that they can't be defeated.  For a hundred years....they fought various battles against the Hapsburgs, the French (several times), the Danes, and the Russians.  They generally came out ahead, and the war dead was an acceptable thing.  World War I and II....probably changed that prospective.

I would imagine the village is forever affected by this casualty count, as decades roll by.

German Trails and Urban Society

This is one of those odd things that an American would tend to notice after a month or two in Germany....that you could step outside your urban house.....walk ten minutes, and find yourself at the edge of a "great forest".  And in an hour or two.....be pretty deep into the middle of nowhere....wondering where the heck they are, and hoping nothing bad occurs.

This week, a nice bit came out in the local news here in Wiesbaden.  About thirty minutes driving west of Wiesbaden....is Wambach.  It's a small village of sorts....deep in the hills, with two or three roads leading into it.....but totally surrounded by national and state forests.  This gal....married....put on her hiking shoes and went walking on the 18th of February.  She hasn't been seen since.  Her husband.....out of the country on a sales trip.....got back....several days later, and has reported her missing.

She eventually was a hiker, and had some minor health issue.  Beyond that....there's nothing much else to go on.  The direction she took off?  Unknown.  No cellphone on her.

You can figure a six-by-six mile area to the west of town....all woods and trails.  She would have run into Rhein River if she'd head west or south.  Heading north....more roads, but just as much woods.

With the temperature around freezing for the past week.....I kinda doubt that she's survived at this point.

The problem is....you come up on nice trails, where you might bump into a dozen people every hour or two.  Then you get this frisky idea....take the rarely used and more adventuresome trails.....which tend to be next to cliffs or drop-offs.  If you stepped around the corner, and didn't pay attention....you could drop thirty feet easily on most of these.

You don't think about things like this.  Living in a built-up urban area.....lots of traffic and roads......society in every direction.  Then.....an hour later....you might be on some trail rarely used and find yourself laying at the bottom of some cliff....hoping someone might come along.

In some ways, it's great to just skip worrying about snakes, bears, and wild dogs....as an American in Germany.  Yet, one has to have some appreciation of a good map, a compass, and a cellphone. I'm kinda hoping this gal will be found, but seven days into this....I have my doubts.

Pay Raise Chatter

German politicians are kinda like American politicians....they come in.....chat about the poor state of pay, and then vote themselves a payraise.

Today, it got passed, and it's official.....a new deal for members of the German Bundestag.

The old rate was 8252 Euro per month.....yeah, roughly $10,000 a month.

The new rate?  9,082 Euro per month....figure around $11,000 a month.

This all becomes necessary because of this high cost of living in Berlin.  A guy just can't make it on $10,000 a month....having two residences...and enjoying the good life of Berlin.   There's booze requirements, fancy dinners, lunches with French people, fine coffee with Italian movie makers, lusty and bodius ladies, the finest brats in the world, and cinema experiences with Swedish movies that cover....well....artsy stuff from Sweden.

It was apparently a tough sell for the Bundestag to pass this deal.  Some felt there was just too much corruption going on....too many cop investigations....problems in life.  So, there's a slight hook to the deal.  If you are a Bundestag guy and get caught in a corruption deal (not kid x-rated stuff, or assault, or car theft, or drunken driving, or robbery).....just plain corruption....then you could get up to five years.

Course, no one said much.....because it means UP to five years.  The odds are.....you wouldn't do more than three months in some state half-way house or just get prohibition.  The news media will gloss over the deal.  It's a fair amount of money.....but the big guys who cover the 8PM news for ZDF....are probably getting at least 7,000 Euro a month....so they won't feel it's a bad deal.

The little guy on the street?  Well....that's different.  Most Germans are hovering between 2,000 and 3,000 Euro a month.  Most will say they aren't happy, but feel lucky that they have a job.  Some will state the obvious....they haven't had but one raise in five years, and it was barely two percent.

The regular German will grumble about this.....talk about it at the pub.  The bus drivers will agree.  The trash collectors will agree.  The baker will agree.  Even the hookers will probably agree.

But, since they moved the whole government deal to Berlin.....you have to deal with real costs in the life style you lead.  Nothing is cheap there.  A simple studio apartment, with no balcony, no parking, and maybe 400 square feet, but near a S-bahn station...would cost you around 400 Euro.  You want fancier digs....add on another three hundred Euro....and parking maybe seventy-five Euro.  You want the upper side of town....fancy three-bedroom place....with a garage for two cars?  You could be talking 3,500 Euro.  

So, when the topic comes up, and your German associate gets peppy...you can understand why, and just buy him another beer to help him get over it.

The Three-Hundred Strong

I like using a map to illustrate a point.  Most people....even Germans for that matter....never quiet grasp that it was just a couple hundred years ago....that Germany was really three hundred cities and city-states, and everyone mostly drifted around to fighting little wars for petty things...or for religious reasons....or for revenge.

You could have your own kingdom....enjoy the fruits of a small area of forty by forty miles....and then one day....have some idiot knight arrive with six hundred guys, and suddenly....you are homeless or dead.

None of this was long-term acceptable.  So around 1789....a meeting occurred.  Discussions centered on the benefit of larger states and more stability.

The German word that got tossed around in this discussion....was Kleinstaaterei.

It generally means....a political system in need of a kick-in-the-pants because reform or change isn't working at the city or state level....so federal action is the only way to make it work.  From this 1789 meeting....it was deemed that all these city-states and small empires....weren't helpful for the bulk of the German population.

In the modern era....you might occasionally hear kleinstaaterei uttered on a chat forum via TV.  It usually means the guy is being critical that some expected reform that ought to be done within a state....isn't happening.  The only fix or solution....in the mind of the critical guy....is to bring on a national reform package and just force everyone to accept what is not acceptable at a local level.

If it sounds like a US issue as well....well....yeah...it is.

So, don't go always thinking that Germany has always been one big happy family of sixteen states, and that it's a totally united country in the big picture.  It's three-hundred communities....bound in this modern era....and just accepting of things that normally wouldn't be acceptable in their own neck of the woods.

Wiesbaden and Its Cameras

Blitz cameras (speed cameras) are a fact of life in Wiesbaden.  There are a total of nine (as of this week) stationary cameras mounted on steel columns or posts, and actively working within the city limits.

Most folks can name at least half the streets affected, and generally watch carefully for the cameras.  Since they are mounted.....they don't move.

The newest one?  Down on Berlin Strasse.

The local paper (the Kourier) did up an article on the topic.  These stationary steel posts.....cost around eighty thousand Euro each ($100,000).  What the city will admit over the 2013 period....they collected around two million Euro in fines (equals roughly $2.5 million dollars).  It's a fair sum of money.

You'd think after a year or two....folks would get smart, and memorize the cameras, and thereby avoid them or the flash.  But....that doesn't seem to happen.

One advantage that the stationary camera has over the move-around-type....is that they are placed into position with a great deal of practice and science applied, and the court cases are not able to beat the rap of the ticket.  There's a belief among Germans....that mobile speed cameras are barely fifty percent reliable....thus inviting people to fight the case in court.  The German cops won't say the win-lose ratio.....probably for obvious reasons.

More cameras in the future?  I would make a humble bet that the current group will be doubled within five years.  It's just too big of a money-maker for the city to avoid.  Hostile feelings?  Well....yeah.  Fifty Euro here, a hundred Euro there.....a guy could get to feeling fairly negative about this sort of thing.

The "Stolen" Laptop

With the newest German scandal in full-swing....it got brought up in Focus this morning....that the guy at the center of this police probe (a SPD political figure)....sent an official fax to the Bundestag representative....that his government-procured laptop was stolen.

This guy...Sebastian Edathy....got pointed out by the Canadians for downloading x-rated kid videos....that went through the Bundestag server system....to his official laptop.

The German cops, I suspect....are stuck.  They can show that he sent a request via the Bundestag server to the Canadian server.....getting the video.  But you need to have the hard drive in your hand to show the final bit of evidence to convict anyone in a German court.  Even if it was over-written....you could pick up enough pieces on the hard drive....to show the file existed, and thus the case is complete.  End of story.

Well...in this case....with the advanced warning that he got....there's nothing to collect.  Convicting in a German court?  The slam-dunk effect is gone....maybe there's a small bit of conviction that you could do....but with appeals and the nature of the internet....I suspect that he will walk free.

Being an American and watching this unfold.....you see an odd crowd asking bold questions....journalists, the Linke Party (the former communists), and the Greens.  That's it.  Both the CDU and SPD....consider the episode to be wrapped up and just let the cops clean up with the final bit of the mess.

Late yesterday....near almost six PM....the SPD guys finally announced that they'd kicked Edathy officially out of the party.  He's not a member any longer.....so the media can quit coming over to them for comments.

As for the stolen laptop?  I'd take a guess that it's deep in some river or lake....not some state-run garbage yard or buried in some guy's backyard.  How could a guy be stupid enough to download onto his government laptop?  I'd suggest a drug test on the guy.....and establish that he's doing a couple of drugs....which makes him a nutcase to deal with.

I think most of the Bundestag guys are sitting there....hoping for another NSA revelation by Snowden....to take this spotlight away from this mess.  That's about the only hope they have.

The Newest Scandel

For about a week, I've been sitting back and gazing over a German scandal of sorts.  A decade or two ago....the US used to have four-star scandals.  Today?  The media covers them for roughly seven days, and then it all disappears.  This German one....might last on for weeks.

The deal is this....some SPD political figure of limited notoriety at the national level (less than one percent of the public can recognize the guy if tasked)....has this chance to download x-rated videos via a Canadian distribution point with young teens (or less) featured.....on his Bundestag-provided laptop, which goes through the Bundestag network.  Yeah, it's pretty stupid doing this on a company or government provided laptop, through their service.

There is some argument over what was downloaded.  Some news sources hint that one video was of a thirteen-to-fourteen year old gal.....the rest are definitely underage.  All of this is illegal of course.

The Canadian cops kinda stumble into the service, and note all the customers.  Here's this German purchase, with an IP address tied to it.....so they go to the German authorities.  The German cops get to a point early on....when they realize this is the Bundestag server....and it will be difficult to serve a warrant.  So things are discussed and worked out.  Days pass....maybe even a week or two.

By this point, the Interior minister is aware of the search, and knows the person that it is aimed against.  The Interior minister is Hans-Peter Friedrich....a CSU guy (from Bavaria).  He's a mixed bag.  Down in Bavaria....they like the guy.  At the national level....he's an acceptable pain.

Hans now realizes that it's a SPD guy who is the target of this.  Naturally, he decides to tell the head of the SPD party, and at least one other individual.  Legally, he probably violated a couple of ethical rules....but in terms of being honest within the government and the SPD party....maybe this was a wise idea.

Cops finally get some details of the download, and go to the SPD guy's house or apartment.  For some reason.....he doesn't have any IT equipment around, and there's a strong suggestion that he got notified by someone.  The German news media won't admit this....but since the later part of October....they've been in this investigative mode and simply haven't found anything of great substance to arrest this with.  Over a hundred days.....no arrest.

In the world of kid smut.....it only takes the cops a couple of days usually....to get enough evidence to arrest someone.  We are way past that point, and I suspect....without any hardware or hard drive....there's no real way to connect the dots on this guy except this download activity noted on the Bundestag server and the address business back in Canada.  In court, this would be a weak case.....without any further evidence.

All of this was kept quiet....up until two weeks ago.  Things went into the toilet at that point....as the Chancellor called Friedrich into her office.  He's moved from the Interior minister job months ago.....to the Agricultural Ministry today.  Well....she's angry about him telling the SPD leadership about the details early on.  Friedrich was directed (or says he voluntarily did it)....to resign.

As Friedrich went out the door....the head of the Bavarian CSU party is peeved over the whole business of the affair....noting their guy was legit, and other members of the SPD are at some fault, and they ought to resign.  There's some unhappiness right now at the top of the German government.

Last night.....all of this got featured on the Gunther Jauch 9:45 show.....which is usually political chat and such.

There are several mystery items left in this episode.  Who warned this SPD guy of the pending search?  Did the cops alert the guy.....like some episodes in Belgium that got everyone all disturbed that cops were part of the problem (not the solution)?  How many people knew about this stuff?  A dozen, a hundred, or a thousand?

As scandals go....this is a two-star episode that is evolving itself into a four-star mess.  You'd think Germans would be more worried about taxes, pension reform, or the NSA stuff....but no....this is topic number one.

As the Wind Blows

While a guy might sit around in Germany and assume that there's never any substantial arguments between locals, bitter feuds with politicians, or journalists yanking on the public's chain for "progress".....you'd be wrong.

Over the last couple of weeks....things have been developing with a new wind-turbine energy farm.  You know the type.  A syndicate of sorts....gets up investment capital....does some research.....and finds the perfect place to put up a dozen-odd wind-turbine structures.  Typically, they go and find open rural property out....far enough away from culture, society and protectionists.....that it never runs into difficulty being approved or built.

Well....some Mainz folks got around to this idea of a wind-turbine farm....up on the Taunus ridge area of the Rhine Valley area....with the city of Mainz and Wiesbaden within that view.

Logic?  Well....it's on the ridge....so it captures a fair amount of wind for the operation.  No one will say enough for thirty-hundred-and-sixty-five days....but you'd probably have enough wind for at least ninety-percent of the time.

Well....all of this was cruising along, until it got out of the Mainz community, and into the Wiesbaden community (across the river).  They aren't in the same state, and they tend to be of limited agreement on things.  It's hard to imagine two cities....barely a mile apart....separated by a river, and having this much of a negative feeling on things.

So, as the local press in Wiesbaden (the Kurier) reports.....the Wiesbaden folks are fairly hostile over these 200 meter towers being constructed (figure 650-odd feet tall, which makes it a fairly noticeable thing from any point of the valley).  Multiply that by a dozen-odd structures....all built on top of the ridge itself, and you put a remarkable landscape obstacle out there.  

I noted at one point...."landscape vandalism" got brought up.  It's hard to define....other than things looking out of place.  Back three hundred years ago....locals might have said that about the various Dom (Catholic church buildings built), and over the last hundred years.....folks might have said that about bridges being built.  Times change.....people accept things more than in the past.

So, the fight is on.  One city insisting on being part of some approval process....even though the structures are to be built on the other side of the river, by the approving city leadership.  Are the Mainz political folks pumped up for a fight?  It's hard to say.  Arguing about landscape purity, or suggesting economic or landscape vandalism....won't help much in this type of discussion.

At the heart of this discussion?  Well....those nuke plants are on a list to be shut down.  You basically need to build wind-turbine operations a bit faster than the original concept of a decade ago.  Building turbine operations in a non-windy area....makes no sense.  I suspect the Mainz leadership will point this out, and claim that there's a limited window of time to get active and think about the future.  Yeah.....landscape be damned.

For an American, it's an interesting debate.  You sit down, pondering a problem, come to a solution, and then discover that by fixing one problem....you merely open the door for a second problem....where more discussion is required....another solution necessary....and the potential for a third problem down the road a bit.

The Name Game

Most Germans will tell you that they never look on the side of a box or a product....to see the comment "made in".  To those folks.....it doesn't matter.  I'd take a humble guess that for roughly forty percent of Germany...the "made in" comment does make some difference.

Germans will readily agree....if they buy some product made in Germany...it typically costs more.  Figure at least twenty percent more.  If you wanted finer quality underwear, socks, shoes, furniture, or cars made in Germany....then there's a price tag attached and you have to be willing to pay that bit extra.

Products made in France or the Netherlands?  There's not much difference in pricing.  There might be drugs produced there, which are cheaper sold in Germany.

Italian products?  Typically....a German might be food products without any questioning.  An Italian-made car?  Well....folks start to ask quality questions, and things get difficult to sell.  A vacation in Italy?  No problem....those sell easily.  A house in Italy?  Well....back to the quality question again.

Spain?  Norway?  Denmark?  Austria?  Switzerland?  These are all European countries....with different pricing schemes that work, or marginally get by with sales in Germany.  Agricultural products to be always sold and rarely questioned.  Pricing is generally the issue to prevent German sales from taking off.

So we come to those oddball countries.....like Turkey, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania.  There's a short list of successful items which seem to have enough quality in them....to be a good sales item in Germany.  Then you come to some items.....especially cars and motorcycles....where there's a big question mark.

Looking across the shoe market in Germany?  If you want a decent pair of shoes for less than fifty Euro.....it won't be German-made, or European-made.  It's either an Asian-produced product or from a country like Bulgaria or the Ukraine.

Looking across the t-shirt market?  Same deal...inexpensive German-made t-shirts are non-existent.  If you were agreeable to a 16-Euro t-shirt ($20)....then we can talk German production.

So, this all brings me to PRC.  It's a term that you see in abundance now on products bought in German stores.  You see....for the typical German.....there's no name recognition for PRC to China. Yeah, I know some Germans will get testy and say I'm way-off on this.  But if you stopped a hundred Germans on the streets of Wiesbaden today.....ninety of them would have no idea what PRC relates to.

I had to go out yesterday and buy a replacement toilet-seat.  An emergency purchase?  Yeah....it's best not to get into those details.

I arrived at my local Obi (the big-store for hardware), and shopped for five minutes to find the right toilet-seat.  You can spend sixteen Euro and buy an extremely cheap seat made in Bulgaria.  From my brief browsing.....of the forty possible toilet seats sold by Obi.....I could not find a single one made in Germany.  There were a couple made in Italy.  And then I came to some superior quality seats....made in PRC.

I know what PRC stands for.....probably for over forty years of my life.  It doesn't bother me to buy a quality-made PRC item.  It's just that they tend to produce cheap-crap, and they don't ever get any bad shame for such production.  When they do produce some quality stuff....you feel shocked.

The bottom line?  When you see a German eyeballing the side of a box or product, and trying hard to read some size four-font.....it's because they'd like to know who made it.  For them....it matters.  It matters more....than the price on the item.

The Swiss Election Story

Over the past couple of days....if you watched enough of CNN's international stuff....you caught some brief moment of a Swiss election and a number of negative comments over the outcome.  It may not make much sense.  So, let me introduce you to the Swiss nature of things.

Switzerland is a fairly independent place....smack dab in the middle of Europe.  The Swiss don't get into anyone's business....except their own.  They like their style of culture, life, and nature.  They don't like outsiders telling what to say or do.

So, over the past decade....as the EU and most European countries had a fairly liberal immigration policy.....the Swiss were divided.  Murders and assaults by foreigners.....got to be front page news in Switzerland.

So the political folks called for an immigration election.  Either they were to have open immigration and open-doors for foreigners to work in the country.....or they would deny them.

Now, there's an interesting part to the Swiss culture that I've kinda left out till this point.  You see....as small as Switzerland is....it's a country about the size of southern Alabama.....it's got three separate cultures at work.   French, German and Italian. There's no such thing as a purely Swiss-Swiss culture.

You can imagine national agendas at work....with three different news media groups at work...various newspapers in different languages with different values in full display.  Everyone in Switzerland has a different view or slant on things.

Adding to this issue....there's a problem with having enough trained and capable folks for employment.  Over the past decade or two....they got used to bringing in cheaper labor, from outside of Switzerland.  The medical services crowd will tell you that they actually depend heavily on non-Swiss for the nursing profession.

So this past Sunday.....the vote was counted.  It was a narrow victory for those wanting absolute limits on immigration in Switzerland.  50.3 percent against 49.7 percent.  Then you start to go region by region, and realize that the German and Italian areas....were more against immigration allowed, than the French region.  Major urban areas were mostly for immigration.

This has upset the general trend in Europe of the past decade, and that's what most EU-watchers point at.  You don't want trends like this starting up....to undo everything the EU has started.....at least some folks seem to think this way.

The curious thing?  Roughly a quarter of the current residents of Switzerland are foreigners....immigrants.  They didn't get a say in this vote....but they can detect some national trend going against them.

The vote implies now....that the government has to go this direction and has three years to accomplish the goals of the vote.  Some government folks are a bit disturbed over the implications.....meaning some significant economic choices have to be made in the future....which lead into issues and problems.

What drove this whole process?  A number of Swiss look around at crime, statistics, assaults, murder, drug usage, cost of living increases, and apartment prices today versus twenty years ago.   You have to blame these on something, and the immigration factor is probably a issue which should have been discussed lightly a decade ago....but no one wanted to put it on the table.

The future?  I would imagine somewhere in the next five or six years.....some company realizes they've got empty positions and can't fill it with quality people.  They note this to the government who simply shrugs and nods that they understand this.  The company talks to other folks, and eventually decide to move operations to Austria, or Italy, or France....where they can find folks readily and easily.  Swiss communities will complain about the loss of better paying jobs.  Nursing slots will be harder to fill....which leads to emergency meetings where they discuss the trend and the possible solutions.

The more you try to fix something.....the more it usually is more screwed up down the line.

A Nightclub Story

About one a week....there's some story in the German news....which I tend to pull out and laugh over for a minute.  This is one of those.

So, this gal....young gal in search of a gentleman of sorts....was at a nightclub down in the Wurzburg area (Bavaria).  In the winter-time....Germans tend to keep the clubs a bit warm, and naturally....folks sweat excessively....as they dance and toss their butts left and right.

At some point, she needs to 'refresh' herself (Bama slang....for toilet visit).  She's got her friend, their purses, and headed off.  

There are two key items in this friend's purse....which strangely enough....look near alike.

There's the deodorant (probably nicely scented women's Right-Guard), and there's a container of pepper spray.  I had a Arlington associate one day show me her cannister....right there in the purse and I felt it was a bit worrisome....what if some happened with your hand hitting the wrong thing?  My associate didn't see this as possible.

Well....this Bavarian gal....took up the pepper spray, and sprayed a second or two of the stuff.  That was about all it took.  That bit emptied out the bathroom quickly, and the smell got into the main nightclub area.  Security in the place quickly reacted....throwing folks out of the place, and the cops got called.

Some ambulance apparently got called, and eye issues was noted by the ambulance crew for the most part.

Charges?  The club hasn't said yet.  I think they'd like to avoid publicity on this.  The cops?  Well.....stuff like this happens, and it's generally not a big deal.  They know German gals have various issues that pop up with guys at such clubs.

As for the gal?  I would imagine that it'll be a long time before she goes off to any German nightclub, and she might get a nickname out of this....."Pepper".

The Love Parade Case

Around three-and-a-half years ago....24 July 2010....we had a parade of sorts here in Germany.  Parades come and go.....most happen around February and March for the festive season.  This particular parade on that July day.....was the Love Parade.....held in Duisburg, Germany.

For an American, a description of the Love Parade is probably necessary.  The original Love Parade was held in old West Berlin, in the summer of 1989.  There were basically three themes to the Parade.  There was the techno music deal.....which ran from one end of the parade to the other end.  There was ecstasy usage by a fair number of the parade participants.....which kinda fell into the general population of techno music lovers.  And finally, there was the gay theme.  It's safe to say that it was a weird parade that ninety percent of all Germans probably would not be attending.

Germans tend to say that the original Love Parade in 1989....probably had around two hundred attendees.  Yeah, it wasn't much of a parade.  Some would say it was more of a local protest than an actual fest or parade.

Well, things grew.  Around the late 1990s.....the city of Berlin now began to note almost a million attendees.  City officials were divided over the Love Parade.  It brought out some business....but you had the city tied up in a massive traffic jam for an entire day.  And the techno and ecstasy theme probably wasn't appreciated very much.  Some political groups supported the parade....mostly because of the gay theme and the general public view of an "innocent" parade.

Somewhere in 2002....folks began to notice fewer attendees.  No one really speculates much on why....but it was more than apparent in 2003....that the thrill was lessening.  Berlin city residents had become negative about the episode.  And it's safe to say that the standard support that the Love Parade planners had from political parties....by 2003....it was evaporating.  Holding the parade in Berlin....wasn't going to be practical.

For 2005 and 2006....there was no parade....because of issues with the city and the poor planning efforts seen by the Parade leaders.  So, evolution came to the Love Parade....and it moved to the Ruhr region of Germany (north Germany).  In 2007, the parade brought in over one million attendees and was back at the full power level.

Things looked bright for the parade....2008 brought the highest ever number of attendees.....going close to 1.5 million people in attendance.  You would think that things were back on track but planning in 2009 was fairly screwed up and the parade got cancelled.

2010 was supposed to be the big comeback for the Love Parade....to be held in Duisburg.  Folks were expecting a minimum of one million to show up.

Somewhere in the midst of the things that day of the Duisburg parade.....an overflowing crowd stampeded themselves into a tunnel area.....twenty-one people died and over five hundred were injured in some fashion.  No one could remember an parade in the history of Germany....turning into such a mess.

News teams went live, and carried the action of ambulance crews working hard to save lives and recover the victims.

Naturally, the cops and authorities stepped in.  Everyone settled down into a blame game.  It's reasonable to say that no one felt responsible for the mess.

So, three and a half years have passed.  This week....the Duisburg authorities are now preparing a case of sorts....against some individuals....for bad planning which triggered the deaths to occur.

The news media believes around a dozen individuals will face charges.  Most of them are connected to the planning committee of the Love Parade.  It's suggested that a couple of city employees are also going to be dragged into court.

I doubt that anyone wants to say with any confidence that a guilty situation will be found for some of these people.  Good lawyers, limited evidence, and unexpected high numbers of attendees will be a cornerstone of the case in court.

The Love Parade ended that day....24 July 2010.  There hasn't been any suggestion of another parade.  I doubt if any city in Germany would contemplate allowing such a parade to occur again.  Most will likely say that a limited participant parade (less than 200,000)....is about the only way that they'd agree to such a thing.  The bonds required?  If you were the planning committee....you'd face a hefty issue of a city bond required, and need a fair amount of cash which isn't always possible with such parades.

Maybe in twenty years....the Love Parade episode will be forgotten, and maybe there will be some rebirth of the Love Parade....on a much smaller scale.  For an American....to imagine a million folks showing up.....mostly high on ecstasy, sipping a fair amount of wine and beer, dancing to throbbing techno music, dressed in the barest essentials of clothing, engaged in acts of nature on the street or in city parks, and gay....well.....it's a parade of an unusual nature.

More on the Limburg Church Renovation

A couple of months ago....I blogged over the Limburg Catholic Church, and the renovation work that went up to around thirty-one million Euro (roughly $40 million).  This bishop in charge of this....Bishop Franz-Peter van Elst Tebartz....got sent off for a while by the Vatican while in some recovery status.

The expenditure of that much money has the locals in Limburg pretty riled up, and was page one news for almost a month.  The church kinda hoped that a independent review and this disappearance of the Bishop for a while....would eventually clear the air.

Well....they probably guessed wrong.

For some reason, they felt it necessary to return the Bishop back to Limburg after this month or so in recovery.  I don't know who advises the Pope....but that was a big screw-up.

This past weekend....it got out that the authorities figured out that these companies working the renovation project.....had bills that didn't conform to the whole story.  So, they kinda looked around and found this 'secretive apartment' (don't ask, secret apartments are the norm I guess).  And there's more receipts and documentation in this apartment.

All the news folks will say....is that there's going to be a higher number than thirty-one million Euro (significantly more....is a term used in more than one newspaper).

The anticipated shocker?  I suspect if they come out shortly and say a number of fifty million Euro....all heck will break loose.  You could have leveled the entire compound and rebuilt the place from scratch...for around twenty-five million Euro.  To suggest around fifty million was spent on renovation will wrap up the business, and encourage thousands in the region to quit the church public tax scheme.

Germany has a continual display of badly managed projects.  I would imagine if you did a public audit of one hundred construction projects.....almost all of them are built with some screw-ups, corruption, and significant greed.  Between political parties, and friends of politicians......it's an open-door situation for bad management.  

Germany and the Renting Mess

Over the past decade, I've come to view dozens of TV news shows and documentaries which featured the topic of the "bad renter" and the problems in kicking them out here in Germany.

A lawyer will tell you that Germany has an amazing number of laws.  There are laws to protect kids, bakeries, old folks, car enthusiasts, hunters, fish, dogs, etc.  Among these laws....there a couple of things geared to protect the rights of someone who rents an apartment.  Most of the time....they work right.  Occasionally, it's a big mess.

Yesterday, I sat and watched a twenty-five minute piece on a guy who owned a building with his little coffee bar (a minor success), his small apartment behind the business, and a big five-room apartment on the second floor.  The people who'd rented this fairly nice apartment for a very low-price (roughly 550 Euro)....should have been paying forty percent more (my humble opinion).

The renting folks were a mess.  They had a dog that crapped on the balcony....no one cleaned it.  The entrance had a smell.  Cigarette butts were everywhere around the outside of the building.

So a lawyer got called in to start paperwork to kick them out.  With rights, you can drag this procedure in Germany out for a whole year....especially if the lawyer screws up on any minor detail.

The TV crew went through the steps.  No one from this family wanted to really be on TV, and they utilized gov't provided lawyer help in fighting this the entire way.  I came to figure....they were all Hartz IV recipients (welfare folks).

So the day finally came when they were kicked out and this owner could view the damage.  There was dog crap throughout the interior of the apartment, various mold and mildew, and lots of small damage.  I'd take a guess that you'd have to spend around $10,000 minimum to clean up the place....repaint....and fix the broken stuff.  The bathroom sink, tub, and toilet?  Totally ruined.  Figure another $10,000 for bathroom renovation by itself.  Who pays?  The guy can try to drag them into court, but they'd just get the government to pay for their lawyer help and the fine in the end.

The TV show guy knew that part.  The government won't do much of anything because of those particular laws.  But it's a curious thing.  The camera kept rolling as the owner and the TV guy stood in the room where a baby bed was located....with dog crap and a vast amount of dirt around everything.  One of the rent folks had a kid.....in really bad and unsanitary conditions....which would invite a social worker to start a file....demand inspections.....and threaten the various members of the family with fresh new laws that they weren't that familiar with.

Yeah.....it was a twist here.

So, from the social office folks in this town.....they will get calls today from residents who viewed the show and ask what exactly they will do about this poor kid.  They probably don't like the pressure.....but the TV show guy figured the best way to fix this problem....was to put the very people helping the renter crowd....on their butt.  Harassment via inspections, the health department, and the social office.....punishment in a way.

Years ago.....everyone wanted various rights as a person renting a place in Germany.  Well, they got them.  But they got a four-star mess attached to them as well.  My humble opinion.

The German Power-Line Talk

Imagine your local power company came up and said they had tons of power from one part of the state or region.....likely in excess....which could be used in another part of the state or region, but the grid wasn't made to move this amount of power.

So, they'd talk to you over building one enormous tower-line system across five hundred miles.  You might think it wise, but then you'd ask....whose property will you build this line upon?  Then the discussion would get quiet.

Well....in Germany....for decades now....they've been building wind-powered generators for electricity.  They'd got them all over Germany....but a more significant number are in the far north....near the sea.

Naturally, the wind up in the north part of Germany blows almost daily, and there's reported to be plenty of excess electricity.  With nuke plants on the shut-down list.....the power guys have sat down and developed this idea.  Build a transmission line from the extreme north of Germany.....to the heart of Bavaria.  Eight hundred kilometers long.

It'd have to be approved by several German states (because of the amount of legal troubles involved), and no is saying that it's guaranteed at this point.

Are there outside influences going on?  Well....if you operated nuke plants in France, Poland, or Russia.....you wouldn't want this coming along to interfere with energy sales in the future when the nuke plants are shut down.  Germans have asked questions and kinda grasp that without the nuke plants.....there's likely to be some type of shortage....maybe minor....maybe bigger than they'd like to accept.  Who'd sell this power?  Their neighbors....who all kept the nuke power concept.

Germans have a series of law to protect private property and personal ownership.  From the Basic Law list of features....there's article fourteen which says that the government can take your property, with a just pay-off.....for necessary projects.

You can imagine some folks sitting there now....gazing at the map and realizing that in their county or region.....there's likely three hundred farms which will be affected.  The amount of a "grab"?  It's hard to say.  A tower might only consume 100 feet by 100 feet.  Some farmers might not have a big fit over two patches taken and three thousand Euro put on the table for each patch.  Course, that big issue of cattle being under such lines and static electricity passing into a nearby house or barn....might come up.

There's lots of little issues with this closing of nuke plants tied into the future.  Rarely do journalists sit down and crunch the numbers and ask logical business and accounting questions.  If consumption continues at the same trend.....how much is needed in fifty years?  If you don't use nuke power....where does all this power come from?

Disneyland Welfare in Germany

Around twenty years ago....most Germans came to whine about welfare and the trend of "over-paying" welfare cases.  Things got bad enough, that even the SPD agreed that things couldn't stay the same (it was a shock when liberals agree on stuff like this).

So they talked over the old system, and how things could be fixed.  To be honest.....this talk took years.  Around 2003, they finally came to an agreement.  It would be slowly implemented, and in January of 2005....it'd be in full effect.  The new name?  Hartz IV (four).

The basic deal is that you get 394 Euro per adult in the family (figure roughly $480) per month, with housing (utility cost too) and medical covered in a separate deal.  There's some extra money for kids, and there's a potential to get extra funding for things if you suddenly come up and admit drastic issues.

To be honest, it was a major cut, and for two or three years after implementing it.....the network news journalists and the newspapers thumped on  the government officials big-time.  People who'd been on long-term welfare woke up in a shock....realizing the cuts made and their lifestyle went down a big step.  In some ways, as the government officials had predicted.....folks got bold and accepted employment....just to get out of this marginal hole they'd been in for years.

Well....this all comes up now....because a German court got dragged into a new debate with Hartz IV.  You see....this Spanish family came into Germany.....the "freedom of borders" rule allows for this as folks seek better employment in the EU, and they couldn't find work.  So they stayed.....walked up to the local welfare office, and asked for Hartz IV.  Initally, they were turned down.  Later, the court ordered the temp deal of allowance.

Now, the court has made a final ruling on this.  The EU rule says you must provide for all within your state....if you provide regular plain welfare.  This includes Spanish unemployed that show up, Italian unemployed that show, Greek unemployed that show up, and even Dutch unemployed that show up.

Naturally, you can guess the general feeling in Germany this morning as this ruling is read, and political folks get kind of hostile.  They didn't build Hartz IV for non-Germans.  They never envisioned it being used in such a manner, and kinda sit there.....pondering....just how big a problem is this going to become.

My humble guess is that a dozen political figures will sit down with welfare office officials.....and start to discuss some radical change.  It won't happen in 2014, or even 2015.  Discussions like this usually take a year to get the right idea put forward, and then a year or two of discussions.

Basically, welfare in Germany (I predict).....will come to an end by 2016.  It'll end up being a rigged up deal where you must apply for a German-only public service job....which is mostly fake but you probably end pretending you work for eight to twenty hours a week.  This is about the only way that you'd stop some flooding of two-hundred thousand unemployed Europeans crossing the border and asking for German welfare.

The big picture.....once you make a four-star gimmick that everyone thinks is great.....it usually attracts everyone to get in on the action.  Sadly, it's like building a great Disneyland operation in your local town where residents get in for half-price.  Later, a bunch of folks move into the town, demand the half-price deal, mostly all unemployed....and you wonder how the park and the town itself can sustain and survive.

Germans, Minimum Wage, and the Economy

In Germany, when economic experts meet up and have a lunch-time chat.....there's a running list of a dozen-odd topics that will typically come up.  Tax reform, pension reform, medical insurance reform, etc.  Somewhere toward the last couple of topics....will be 'hidden economy' stories.  Economic experts like this...because it really tells the creative nature of Germans, business operations, and the trends for the future.

The 'hidden economy' is this open area where folks pay for services in cash with no receipts and no paper trail.  Yeah, it is kinda illegal.

The current tally of 'hidden economic' cash flow?  Well....they say (it's an estimation because you can't get true figures on this)....it's around three-hundred billion Euro (more or less).  This is cash that transfers from hand to hand....for any reason.  The amount for illegal employment (cash only work)?  They've figured this to be just over one billion Euro a year.

How does it work for unregistered employment?  Well...you have this bathroom renovation project, and you found these two Turkish guys who have done work like this, and they would gladly do it for you....for cash.  You supply the materials....the guys show up on a Monday, and finish by Friday.  You pay for a non-warranty situation, and hopefully....it's all done right. No taxes, no social payments, no pension costs, no health insurance cost.

How many Germans do renovation work like this?  A lot.  From an American perspective....Germans just plain hate paying top price for quality work.  So they look for shortcuts, and generally are very hopeful in the work done.  Most projects probably meet the general desires.....some are fairly crappy and the German is stuck hiring a real professional German to fix everything done....which means double the cost of the original project.

Years ago, I had a German mechanic who would occasionally voice the comment on some repair....if I were to pay in cash (with no warranty).....he'd do the situation for twenty-five percent less than the normal deal.  Typically, these were always the five hundred Euro or more repairs.  Naturally, I have a slight German tendency, and went for the golden deal.  Out of six such occasions on the cash-only deal....I came out badly on only one occasion.  As much as I saved on the five good occasions....I needed all that cash to pay for the sixth episode that came out screwed up.

Cash-only transactions?  Well....there are various gimmicks to the system.  For example....as a brick mason....you find some doctor who desires a major brick wall around his house, which would typically cost 25,000 Euro for the type he wants.  So the doctor offers a simple deal.....free service for twenty-four hours a day for the next three years, with some cash, to have the wall built.  Years ago at Rhein Main, I worked with a brick guy who agreed to build some German dentist his new house....off the books.  All the dentist paid was for the materials and half the normal cost of work.  In return, the dentist agreed for the rest of his life....to provide free dental care for this guy, his wife, and his daughter.  Over a three-year period....the brick guy got off work, and did two or three hours of work, with another ten on Saturdays.  None of the income was reportable....so it was all tax-free, and the free dental service was a cherry on the cake.

Why does this topic come up now in major ways?  Well....there's talk of a minimum wage finally coming to Germany....of 8.50 Euro an hour.  Most political folks predict it will occur, and be concrete by the end of 2014.

The economic folks have come to this opinion....more under-the-table employment will occur, with folks volunteering work time for cash.  This means.....work achieved....but less tax revenue collected.  And that usually means....more taxes have to be geared into the system....to make up for the loss.

So as this new minimum wage business starts up and everyone is talking up the positives.....you might want to view the entire picture.  There's some funny angles to this image.

My German Bear Story

Once in a while.....if someone draws up environmental story on Germany....I will go and pull out the Bruno story.  It's worthy of a book (being factual), but it's more of a epic comedy of things-gone-wrong.  This is the brief condensed version of "Bruno the bear".

Once upon a time....back around 2006....German authorities got this report of a bear sighted down in Bavaria.  This was an odd thing....mostly because they'd killed every single living bear in Germany back one-hundred-and-seventy years ago.  So they searched around and found tracks.

The best they can say....after looking at evidence....he'd cross the border from Austria, and maybe came out of the mountains of Croatia and Italy.

The initial feeling was....wonderful.  We've not had bears in Germany for such a long time, and everyone was thrilled to have a bear.  Naturally, he needed a name, so they named him Bruno.

Now, you'd pause here, and note....Germans haven't had to deal with bears, and typically....bears aren't friendly or vegetarian-types.  So over the next week or two....reports came in....dead sheep.  Dead chickens.  You know...stuff that bears would eat for daily requirements.

So it took around three weeks for Bavarians (not Germans)....to get aggravated and hostile over Bruno.  The authorities met.  You can sense the dramatic nature of right-leaning political figures, hunters, farmers, and journalists.  Other than the soccer world cup going on....there's nothing much, so a bear discussion is big stuff.

Hours were spent, and finally....some leadership authority determined that it was ok to hunt Bruno down....and "dart" him.  That means....tranquilize Bruno enough....load him on a helicopter or truck, and dump him across the border into Austria or otherwise.  We never were sure about this part of the plan.  Other than capturing Bruno....the rest was kinda left to our imagination.  I'm guessing the Swiss were believing in bear-dumping and really didn't want him on their property.  The Austrians were felt the same way.  The Italians might have even enacted radar and had Italian troops placed to prevent any 'bear-dumping'.

So days passed, and a couple of game hunters went out with the tranquilizer guns.  The thing is....you can't just run up on such a bear, and think you got eight seconds to load the dart, aim, and fire.  The damn bear is smart, and he might be on your leg in three seconds.

It's hard to say if the dart-hunters believed in this episode or not.  Their heart probably told them it was a senseless and wasted effort.  They tracked Bruno up and down hills, and after around ten days....came to admit that this stuff just wasn't going to work.

So another meeting of the political folks of Bavaria took place.  They needed real hunters.  Not the local Bavarian guys, or some university professors with dart-guns.  So, it was a short list of bear hunters.

You could hire the Russians....who love a good hunt.  But bringing in some Russians....just gives older Germans some unease.  Russians walking around....guns....vodka every hour.  No.....can't hire the Russians.

So, you go and consider the Americans.  They haul ass, hunt big-time grizzly bears in Alaska, wear $2,455-elk fur jackets, carry expensive GPS modules on their belt, drink Pabst-Blue-Ribbon, and talk honky-talk chatter after hours at one-star saloons.  You just don't want those kind of hunters in Germany....period.

So, you are left with the Finns.  Yeah, I know....the Finns.  It's an odd consideration.  Finns hunt bears with passion.  Few, if any.....Germans....have ever met a Finn.  So, there's a natural feeling....if you haven't heard nothing bad, it must be good (that's German logic, not mine).

So the Bavarian political guys chat over this topic, and find some Finn bear hunters who would come down.  There's a price in getting them to Bavaria, but it's not like hundreds of thousands of Euro.  Looking back, it was probably enough to pay for hotel expenses, food, booze, and maybe a souvenir beer mug at the end.

The Finns drive down.  Yeah, it's a fairly long drive.  But they have to haul their special bear-hunter dogs...the Karelian Bear Dogs.  What Finns will say....there's no dog like this in the world, and they hunt bears until hell freezes over.  No one was around in Germany to know much about the dogs....but they assumed that Karelian dogs must be awful determined dogs.

The Finns arrive....get briefed up, and pick the last known location of Bruno.  Then, the next morning....the hunt starts.

It's best to say that it's summer in Germany....kinda hot....and you really do sweat a bit in the middle of the day.  By mid-afternoon, the Finns have encountered three issues.

First, Finland is a place with sloping hills, a gentle summer temperature, and a guy can wander around all day.  Germany....especially in Bavaria....has some depth to its hills, and tires a guy out in just three or four hours.

Second.  The temperature?  Well....close to ninety degrees.  It's safe to say that the Finn guys were awful parched and in a state of dehydration at the end of day one.

Three.  The Karelians?  Well....it's an interesting thing.  These dogs live and hunt in an area where it's awful damn cold in the winter, and just barely moderate heat in the summer (80 degrees would be considered HOT for a Finn).  So, the Karalians at the end of day one....were finished off and just weren't going much further.

Finns aren't stupid.  With that said....they spent that night grooming (cutting) the Karelians hair, and they tended to look half-Karelian and half-Poodle the next day.  Well...maybe not Poodle-like, but they just weren't the same fierce dog that arrived on day one.

Days were spent with the Finns.  Up and down hills.  Bruno led them on a great chase.  After around ten days....nothing.  The political guys were a bit peeved.  They expected action.  The Finns?  I suspect they were dead tired by the tenth day.

Onto plan "C".  The Finns were relieved of the job, and open season was announced.  Yeah....any German hunter with a gun....could haul out and track Bruno down....as of such-and-such day.

Strangely enough....that was all it took.  Some guy found the trail....hunted Bruno on day one of the open-hunt, and got him.  That's all it took.  No fancy darts.  No Finns.  Just open season.

Now, a debate started up.  You see....Bruno was shot in an area that was halfway between two counties....so they both piped up that they deserved the body of Bruno (for display purposes).  Some folks wanted to claim the bear for commercial gain (don't ask, I have no idea how you'd make a buck off a dead Italian bear in Germany).    Finally, Bavaria (the state) stepped in and said that Bruno was a state bear....so they'd put him with the collection in Munich....where the last known bear in Germany....was also mounted on display.

I kinda know this part because I went down to the museum and actually saw the real Bruno on display.

Bears in Germany.  Well...if any German environmentalist pipes up in a conversation about bringing the wolves and bears back into Germany....he's mostly blowing hot-air.  The last thing on Earth that Germans appreciate....is wild animals of a threat.

Personally, I think there's a four-star movie script here waiting.....big-game hunter American (Clint Eastwood), environmentalist (some trampy British gal), some German comedian (Gerd Dudenhoffer) in the mix.  Course, it'd end badly for the bear, and we might need to rework this ending to be a kinder, gentler, and more productive situation.

The Bigger Story over Education Numbers

Two odd statistics got dropped this week into the middle of the news.

First, it's been reported by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK)....that a lot more kids are enrolled in university programs today....than eight years ago (360,000 in 2005 to 500,000 in 2013).  The hint was....German kids....but as you read deeper into this blog....you will come to a different view.  

You can figure from a country of roughly eighty million residents.....it's a fair sum.  From the US....considering two-year and four-year programs....public and private....it's around seventeen million kids enrolled in roughly four thousand type schools across the US.

But the jump here is what got the Chamber folks a bit worried.

You see....as the second part of this statistics episode....they came to realize that apprentice training dropped from 330,000 to 315,000.  It's a slight trend that makes folks look at the future.

Germany has been in a locked-in and concrete mindset for generations....over practical knowledge needed for the majority of jobs in the country.  To admit this huge increase and how it plays out....is a big deal.  You don't want some kid standing there in 2020 with a university degree, and his chief daily work is collecting statistics over usage of water in one town, compared to another.  It's the kind of work that a high school diploma kid....could easily do with minimum apprentice training (not university work).

Well....but then you start to ask stupid questions.  Like...how many foreign students hang out in Germany.  The answer?  Around 2011....the German government came to admit that roughly eleven percent of the university population.....are non-Germans.  This group includes Chinese, American, Austrian, Swiss, French, Russian, etc.

In 2011 alone....there were 22,828 Chinese students (DAAD numbers) in the German system.

Adding to the mix....China admits they have roughly 36,000 Chinese students enrolled in German language programs spread through at least ninety-six Chinese universites.  The eventual step for a number of these students?  They will likely get their four-year degree in China....get sponsorship for a masters and possible PhD at a German university.

The numbers that the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry worries about.....might not be a true picture.  This huge increase in college enrollment?  The bulk might just be all foreign students.  The decrease in the apprentice training program?  It might relate finally to a declining German population.

Numbers often tell a story....but the story might be bigger and more diverse than you'd like to think.

German News Items

There are a couple of minor notes in the German news this week.

First, Alice Schwarzer comes  up in the news.  She's a figure-head of women's rights and leads a fair amount of the discussions held on media panels on women's topics.  Alice got caught by the German tax guys....having a secret account in Switzerland.  After a long drawn-out discussion....Alice has come to some fine...roughly two hundred thousand Euro ($250k).  This is for an account set up in the 1980s....of a fair nature but we aren't talking about millions....more likely to be in the range of up to one million.  The direct talk of the problem?  Well....some folks think it's unfair that this all comes out in the press....they should have kept Alice's problem quiet and under cover.  Some are kinda hinting that Alice's big press forward on women's rights.....invites criticism of her ethical nature.

Second, some media professors and analysts have come out with personal judgements of "Jungle Camp" (RTL's sixteen day wannabe-in-the-jungle episode with 2nd-rate promi-stars).  It's mostly a lecture over what went wrong over the sixteen days, and how RTL needs to recruit better players for next year.  I doubt if many Germans care about this criticism being laid out.  Jungle Camp...in the minds of most....was simply a soap-opera of a rare nature.  To think anyone takes it that serious and pour over hundred of hours of video to reach some educated conclusion?  Well....there are better things in life to worry about.

Third.  Over in Thuringia....a German state....they had a chief of agriculture.  His main job....as you can imagine....get scientists, farmers, and produce folks...lined up and moving in a positive direction.  It's not a job that you'd get much attention with....except for a vacation trip that the chief of agriculture took.  You see...he went off to Africa, got into a safari....pulled out a fair amount of cash.....and apparently got a chance to shoot and kill an elephant.  Naturally, there's pictures taken.  For some reason....he didn't seek too much on an anonymous nature.  The pictures got sent around, and eventually ended up with some folks who got hostile.  You can't have some chief of agriculture....going off to shoot elephants.  The local press says that he's been relieved while a study is made of the "mess".  So far....no one can say it's illegal to shoot an elephant in some other country, and there's no ethics violations noted in German law.  To fire the guy....they will have to bend over backwards, and likely pay him an excessive amount of money to avoid court appearances.  The comedy of sorts....invites Germans to study the idea of more laws....to ensure they don't run off and kill lions, tigers, whales, sharks, or any creature.  You can imagine the discussions from this episode.

Fourth and final. Berlin's new airport is back in the news.  The short history here....this grand new airport was desired, and the state was willing to allocate the massive amount of property to make it happen.  Two private companies bid on the construction and operation of the airport (going back to the 2001/2002 timeframe).  One won, the other sued claiming it was a screwed up bidding process.  The state stalled the whole thing.  So both companies combined a bid....making them both part of the process and the absolute guaranteed winner.

Well...the city of Berlin had a new mayor around this time period, who held some meetings and determined that the combined bid effort would not meet a satisfactory process.  No one has ever stood up in the media to explain why private efforts were deemed a failure, and why a state-run mechanism would solve all problems.  The cost for this state-run construction episode?  In the 2004 period, it was deemed to be around 2.8 billion Euro (roughly 3.4 billion dollars).  A fair sum.  Construction physically started in Sep of 2006.  It was supposedly done and complete...with a ceremony held in the summer of 2010 for completion.  The subway leading into the complex?  It wasn't done for another eighteen months.  The actual operational capability of the airport four years after the opening ceremony?  Zero.  It has thousands of issues.  They went out and found 15,000 suitcases (don't even ask) and tested their new conveyor system....finding it was more of a failure than a success.  The price of construction, and the "repairs"?  Well...the current government had been talking five billion (with probably another billion hidden in road and railway costs).

So this week....a local member of the Berlin gov't....opposition party no less....says that it'll consume seven billion by the end.  The opening date?  No one will discuss this matter in public except for journalists.  The general given date is 2016 (six years after the grand opening ceremony).   It's a topic that most Berlin residents will consume and discuss for hours...with no real result.

The RV Lifestyle of Living in a German House

I live in a spacious German "double-wide"....yeah, that's American slang for an awful small apartment.  In July, after moving back to Germany and going into 'retirement'.....I came to realize the impact of moving into this place near Wiesbaden.

I dislike using the expression 'small'.....but it's appropriate.  You basically walk in the front door and enjoy ten feet of hallway space....a typical thing for German apartments.  Between a shoe rack, a small cabinet, and a bigger cabinet for brooms and mops....the hallway is the only room with a open feeling.

The bedroom was designed with a customized bed and cabinet closet.  The door is permanently affixed to seventy-five percent open......which means that you can't have the door ever absolutely open.  Yeah, it's a bit awkward to get used to.

The 'office'?  Well....it's big enough to cram a small bed into....a bookcase....a closet....and a cat tree.  Mounted on the way is a nifty cabinet piece, which took four people almost two hours to assemble and place.

The bathroom is kinda like an RV bathroom....maybe one notch bigger.  I have to share it with the cat, and he doesn't like that much company when he does his business.

The kitchen?  A giant room of sorts.....big enough to wave your arms around, with a four-person table.  The cabinets are precisely staged, and as long as you don't buy another toaster, coffee maker, or juice-maker....it's ok.  The stove?  It's a modern ultra-fancy type....with forty-four functions.  I try to stay away from it.  The fridge?  Well....I have the wondrous ice-maker type.....which dispense Tunus-glacier ice and water (the Tunus mountains are nearby and our water seeps out of that and runs down into our valley where they dump it into the city water supply).

The living room?  Well....it's compacted, and then compacted again.  As long as no other furniture or electronic gear are ever purchased again.....it'll all work.  Space to move things at other angles?  No.  There is no repositioning of any living room item.

The balcony is the only real private spot on the house....sad to say.  It has a fair view of the valley, and off in the distance....Frankfurt.  On a fair day in summer....I can almost watch airplanes landing at the airport (at least, the lights are seen).  With a table and two chairs.....you can sit and ponder upon just about anything.  Adding more comforts to it?  Well....it's best not to bring that up.

I have to be careful over commentary to the landlord (the wife).  If I bring up broke items....it usually peeves the landlord off.  Complaints over lack of space?  Yeah, that will peeve the landlord as well.  Commentary over wall color or temperature or funny smells?  It's best to just avoid any words, and just grin (to bear it).

On various days, I have this RV-type feeling....like I'm on some campground, and taking one step from the living room to the bathroom.  In a way, it's a camper mentality.  I'm adjusting to this and likely will improve very little....except to praise the landlord for the little creature comforts of the place.  It could always be worse.....it's just that somehow.....you'd wish for a recreation room....a pool table.....a carport with a couple of chairs.

So, if I seem to be acting like a camper on occasion....you can understand why.