The Drinking Game

In the United States, we have a binge drinking problem....particularity with university-age kids.  It's been an issue for a decade or two.

Here in Europe....the same type issue exists....although it's mostly those in their 30's and 40's.

In the past week, in France, some guys were out partying, and there came this challenge for a drinking contest.  The winner?  A fifty-seven-year-old guy.  He slugged down fifty-six shots of vodka and whiskey.  The press won't say how many minutes were involved in the challenge or what financial cost was involved (estimate at least a one-hundred Euro minimum).

The guy was proclaimed the winner, and then walked out of the pub.  Somewhere between the pub and his apartment or house.....he stumbled down and collapsed.  At the hospital later....he died.

It's one of many deaths and the French are tired of the mess.  So a law is being pressed through.  If you are of younger age, the encouragement crowd would be brought into court to face charges which could net you 15,000 Euro in fines, and a year in prison.  If you are of a mature age, the encouragement crowd would face six months in jail, and at least 3,000 Euro in fines.

Will it pass?  No far, no one says anything about discouraging this.  Will the judges enforce?  That's another question.

Can you imagine bringing witnesses into court on a challenge, and find that every single witness was already drunk....so how could you trust the value of their words?

So, don't get the idea that America has unique problems that don't exist elsewhere.  The same problems exist around the globe.

"Where's the Beer"

Last night, I sat and watched the ZDF (Channel Two) Culture Channel.  I admit, it's rare that I ever get around to watching that channel, and I doubt if they have more than fifty thousand Germans per evening watch it.

Around 1030 PM last night, they ran a documentary on Jimmy Carl Black, the drummer from Frank Zappa's band....Mothers of Invention.

It was probably one of the more interesting documentary pieces I've seen, but for odd reasons.

Jimmy Carl Black, was the kid who traveled in the big circles early on....made no real money....got a reputation as a five-star drummer....and toward the last ten years of his life....happened to bump into some German gal and settled in Germany.

The video piece was filmed in 2007/2008.....by two German gals (Boller and Brot).  They cover the last period of Jimmy's life, which they entitled as "Where's the Beer".  I know....it's an amusing title, but Jimmy probably liked it.

Jimmy was diagnosed with lung cancer in August of 2008, and died 1 November of the same year.  Roughly a 75-day period to reflect upon and settle up.  He was seventy, and had lived a pretty enriched life.  Over a seventy-year period.....he had accomplished legendary stuff.

For some reason, I reflected upon the documentary and Jimmy's adaption to Germany.  I think he generally saw himself as a guest, and enjoyed the decade in Germany.  The German ending to his story is a twist of fate in some ways.  He ended up finding lots of heavy rock fans in Germany, who appreciated the music.

So, if you happen to be up late one night, and this documentary called "Where's the Beer" shows up....open up a frosty beer, settle back and prepare for a five-star documentary.

And no, it doesn't mean I'll be going back to the ZDF Culture Channel daily or weekly.

The "Dorf" Explanation

Last night, I sat and watch HR (our Hessen state-run TV network).  The highlight of the evening was a brief eight-minute news piece on these "dorfs" in the state.....which now have no 'services'.  By 'services', I mean no butcher, no baker, no grocery, and no bank.  A "dorf"?  Well....an American would typically call it a one-dog town, where there's one stop-light, one gas station, and any gossip concerning anyone in town is five-star gossip.

It's a odd trend.  Years ago....most small towns of fifty homes....always had a butcher and baker.  If you had a village of a hundred-odd homes, you tended to have a small grocery operation and at least one bank.

They went through several Hessen towns which had seen fairly sharp downward trends over the past twenty years.  Their rail service?  Gone.  Their post office?  Gone.  Grocery?  Gone.  Some had an ATM machine still around but admitted they continually waited each day for it to be reloaded with cash.

Germany, since the wall going down in the early 1990s....has been on an urban trail.  Young people finish up their education, and if you live in a "dorf"....you find a job in a significant town forty to sixty minutes away, and then you move there.  The older folks stick around, and just always thought general services that they enjoyed for fifty years would be there.

What ends up happening?  Based on the way that the journalists told the story.....you just end up accepting this, and going on drive (maybe ten minutes.....maybe twenty).  What they didn't say.....was if gas stations were part of the deal.  I'd assume that a "dorf" of fifty residences.....would be sufficient for one gas station to survive.

For an American, it's part of the same thing that you'd see in rural areas of the south.  A bank might leave it's branch to shut down and just run an ATM machine.  The gas station?  It'll expand into a marginal grocery/gas station, which is just enough to make locals happy.  Post offices are fought over with intense commentary and political dialog.

It'll be curious to see how Hessen "dorfs" survive in twenty-five years.   If you have a community with no services, and nothing for at least thirty minutes driving.....why stay?  I could see vast areas of Hessen.....a town of fifty homes....just left to a dozen occupied houses, as the older folks die out.

State Unification in Germany?

Every year in the US.....there's at least one or two regional attempts to bring up the idea of splitting one US state into two, or three different states.  It's a marginal attempt, which is mostly designed to get media attention and just generate conversation.  Nothing much ever occurs from these events.

Today, an CDU political player in Germany put out a suggestion of redesigning the sixteen German states into six.  Not splitting, but unifying.

The CDU Saarland Prime Minister tossed her map into the discussion.  Bavaria and Baden-Wurttenberg get to stay mostly as they are.  Hessen is the big loser in this design.....getting the Saarland, Rhineland Pfalz, and Thuringia (one of the old DDR states).  The three states going into Hessen....are the poorest of the sixteen states.

The intent of this idea?  There are different ways to view this.

Sixteen current states require a legislature within each, along with various state-run functions from education and infrastructure, to family and social structure.  A vast amount of the structure would just be carved out and handled by the six new states.

State by state identification for politics?  That's been an odd problem.  Individual state elections are held on the state's own schedule, and have dramatic affect on national politics.  The news media can come out of election in Hessen, and proclaim a national agenda has arrived on the scene....whether true or not.

The bitter fight between the sixteen states for funding from the national level?  It'd carve out half the fight, if there were less talkers on the circuit.

The odds of this occurring?  Zero.  No one in Hessen would buy off on putting this state with the three poorest states.  There's also the problem of Bremen disappearing as a city-state....something that only Hamburg and Berlin have currently.

History has an odd angle to this discussion.  Around 1800....there were 300 states and city-states in the Germanic region.  By the mid-1800s.....it was down to 39 states (having combined a number together).  Various events after WW II and through the 1960s changed the state make-up.  After the wall came down.....several East German states were pushed into the current mix of sixteen.  To be honest, there isn't much history of states ever dividing...they tend to unite....if anything.

Bavarians will even tell you that if given some freedom on this.....they'd just like to emerge as a separate country entirely.  They generally think the taxation deal of Germany is harmful for them, and they never get their contributions back for what they put into the system.

So, when you see this topic come up on German news....just nod your head and expect a three-minute report on the newest political suggestion.  Some political chat show will throw a couple of folks up to give some intellectual argument over the idea.    And then it'll all this drop out of discussion rather quickly.

An Act of Stupidity in My Local Town

Two days ago here in Wiesbaden....we had one of those rare and unusual episodes unfold on a city bus.  I need to state upfront....Wiesbaden is a fairly relaxed and non-hostile place....where your worst issue in the city is either stepping onto dog-poo or wasting thirty minutes to find a decent parking spot.

City bus pulls up in the mid-town area....picks up folks near 4:30PM on Tuesday afternoon.  It's crowed and hectic.  Kids are back into school, and every bus from 1:30 to 5:30 is fairly crowded with folks going home.

So, down on Doltsheimer Road, some disagreement of sorts erupts between two German guys (one is an older guy near sixty, and the other is mid-thirties) and six teens. The local press isn't clear about what the argument was over...maybe cursing....maybe loud voices....maybe pushing.  But there is some commentary from the two German guys to the teens.  A push or two erupts.  Then a scuffle. The two German guys got the brunt of the attack by the teens....punching and scratching.

The bus driver sees the stuff unfolding....pulls over....and by the rules, opens the doors.  The six punks?  They run out and escape.  Cops arrive, in fair numbers, and search the area.....finding nothing.

The rest of this story?  The local press was very careful not to say this....but the six punks (three male juveniles and three female juveniles).....spoke English, and were likely high-school kids with the US Army Post here in Wiesbaden.  The press avoided suggesting that....but we just don't have any British teens in the local area.  Therefore, by default, these are American punk teens.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  Whatever happened on the bus got carried way out of hand, and these teens overreacted, with violent intent.  My humble guess is that the basic description of the teens has been surveyed and sent onto the American Army here in town.  Video?  Oh my.....every single bus now has three cameras, and records every single event.  So there's video tape of the episode, and some Army Provost Marshall guy will survey this and walk to the Hainerberg School director's office to ID the punks.

Unlike the US where you could do some really stupid stuff and walk away safely.....it's just not that way in Germany.  Too much video....smart cops....and investigative analysis that tends to put you into a bad situation.

If identified?  The Provost Marshall will bring the parents into the situation, along with the Army commander.  Better than ninety-percent chance that the kids will be directed to leave Germany.  This is usually where some stupid relative in the states gets a call asking them to take in "junior" or "Matty" for a year because dad's commander said they have to leave Germany.  From Ramstein in the 1990s....it was a pretty good statistical thing that at least one kid a year (minimum) from the community got tossed off back to the states.

Where does my comments lead to?  GI's get forty-plus hours of in-processing when they arrive in Germany.  It's been that way for decades.  They give the Army or Air Force guy plenty of orientation into driving, German laws, drinking, and consequences.

American teens of military personnel?  There's just not much orientation, and they just get dumped into the local school and told a minimum amount of information.  I don't necessary blame the Army or Air Force....it's just that no one seems to worry about some stupid punk doing something and not grasping the implications or consequences involved.  In this case?  The stupid bus attack will have consequences.  

The Hooligan Debate

What occurred in Koln over this past weekend.....has consumed a fair amount of political chatter and debate.  The cops will generally pat themselves on the back to say that they really kept it under as much control as possible, with forty-odd injured cops as the results.  The hooligans and extreme-right-wing will say that they met and demonstrated over frustrations.  And the political folks generally talk of banning such demonstrations in the future.

Where does this go next?

A big demonstration is scheduled for 15 November in Berlin and Hamburg.  The authorities say they will use current laws in place to ban the marchers.

German law is very open and friendly toward any and all marchers, but then draws a line at violence or public destruction.  The minute that your parade or group starts to harm anyone.....the banning law easily gets pulled out and utilized.  Of course, just saying your march is banned and thus stopping it....is mostly a bogus rhetoric game.

The amusing side of this debate?  The Islamic groups and Kurdish groups who've run marches over the past six months....kept things generally peaceful (there's been one or two exceptions to that).  They aren't listed on the topic discussion list by the German political folks....it's strictly the right-wing and hooligan crowd being discussed.  Naturally, there's going to be frustration that the authorities sided with the Muslims....something that will be noted by the public.

From video of the Koln demonstration, you would notice that the police have added a number of video devices to their efforts....trying to identify people in the crowd, and probably use the video later for criminal proceedings.

What happens on the 15th?  My humble guess is that several thousand people will merge in both Hamburg and Berlin, without a permit, and demonstrate. Oddly enough, there are several soccer games requiring a massive police presence already planned for that Saturday throughout Germany.  So you can expect almost every single cop in Germany.....working that day (probably over-time)....and few will be on the road or street for normal operations.

Violence on the 15th?  If I were the hooligans, I'd try to run a simple profile, with the intention of no fights or violence.  But knowing the typical expectations of such episodes.....there's going to be trouble somewhere in the mix.

Finally, all of this simply gets snowballed into something, with the public sitting there that evening....asking questions and thinking over what they see.  The hooligans would like to get public attention.  Whether it works or not....is the question.

German Love Boat Bankrupt?

If you ever watch Channel Two (ZDF) in Germany, there's an occasional TV....at least once a month) called "The Love Boat".  It's always a prime-time show, with an actual cruise boat (MS Deutschland), with a fictional crew taking on six to ten fictional German characters with issues, on a marvelous trip to some exotic land.

The scripting runs in various directions.  Love lost, love found.  Angry and frustrated people finding relief.  Corruption and greed, meeting an end-point.  Depressed people finding things are wonderful in strange and new lands.

My general review of the show is marginal.  Half the show ends up being a sales pitch for the ship or the place they are visiting.  You end up being in love with the background scenery and the cultural display.  The script?  I usually give it two stars.  There's only so much you can do with the scripting and it's more of a tool to display German stars in certain settings, with marginal acting.

Why bring up this whole topic?  Yesterday, the MS Deutschland declared bankruptcy. For 2013, it's a five-million Euro loss.  The judge accepted the paperwork, and it appears that there's enough capital to cover the crew, operations, etc....through the end of 2014.  Some port in early 2015 will receive the ship, while it rests there during the next phase.

Typically, German law allows for state ownership briefly of assets like this while they sort out the ownership business.  Someone will usually come forward with a deal or plan.....offering some payback to the original company (never a one to one deal).  At least that's how it's done with real companies.  In this case....a ship might require some different handling.

The blame for this?  In a curious way, the ship had passengers and should have been at least making marginal profits.  What business reports say (what few exist) is that the owners had a bond deal going to 2012, pumping cash into the operation.  That cash (in the range of fifty million Euro) basically was used up to pay past debt, and less than ten percent of the cash actually went into infrastructure, repairs, or upgrades.

My general prediction is that someone will appear with ample cash.....buy up the bankrupt ship and for a couple of years proudly proclaim themselves as the luxury boat owners at fancy parties and events around Germany.  And then one day.....the bankruptcy episode will repeat itself again.

Thinking Outside of the Circle

Germans, especially political figures here in Germany....often surprise me with their logic and thinking.

Today, in local regional news.....a political figure for Mainz (just across the river) got into a discussion over the refugee business and how the city might be able to accommodate these folks.  They had to handle roughly 500 incoming folks for 2014, and their best guess is that a minimum of that number will come in 2015.  The guy talking here.....a SPD member....Kurt Mercator....even hinted that it'll go to 800.

It's hard to figure where he gets his numbers or if it's just a radical number pulled out of his hat.

This all worries the political guys because the news media takes cameras into these open halls and old depot buildings, and makes the arrangements look pretty miserable.

So, Kurt said there's a new idea on the table....as reported by the Rhein Zeitung (our local Mainz newspaper).  Kurt wants to get a older model river cruise boat that has cabins.  Yep.....a cruse boat that they would park on the Rhine.

Most of these typical Rhine River cruise vessels....say of the 1980's versions around....probably have near seventy-to-eighty cabins on board.  There's a eating area, with each cabin having it's own toilet and some simple furniture.

The negatives over this idea.  I sat and pondered.  First, you have to park it on the Rhine  and within the city of Mainz.  Typically, there's only two areas that we'd discuss this matter on.....the present area where tourist ships stop....which I seriously doubt it'd be there.  Or maybe further west where the old freighter port was located.

These cruise ships rely heavily up on professional cleaners and housemaids to tidy them up and prevent disease episodes.  Would that occur in this case?

One might worry about corruption built into this deal and maybe some "friend" of the SPD simply has an thirty-year old cruise ship that he wants to dump on someone or rent out.

How run-down would the ship be after three or four years?  That might be a curious question to ask and the owner might hang the liability upon the city, and they simply have to pay off the guy.

Locals taking a dim view of a cruise ship being used?  That's another odd issue that Germans might get upset about.  It's an image problem, and they can't really hide the refugee use of the vessel.

Finally, you come to the issue of some refugee kids playing around on the deck and suddenly falling off....then drowning.  You can sit and imagine the knee-jerk reaction of the city council and how quick they'd react.

Maybe it'll occur, and maybe it'll be a success.  It'll drag out all these future scenarios then.....more cruise boats retired and used for refugee ships.  Who would have thought it'd be that simple.

Electrical Cars and Germany

Battery-powered cars in Germany are on a trend.  In 2011, there were 2,154 total electric cars registered in Germany.  Last month (September 2014), the number was 21,256.

What's with the growth, and where does this lead onto?

I think  prior to 2010.....the amount of battery-power and number of kilometers per charge was a limiting factor, and the vast German mentality was that it wasn't worth the pain or cost to get involved.

At some point, the major players in electric car usage crossed some mythical threshold, and urban usage made some sense.  Germans live more in urban communities than rural areas, and the vast number require thirty kilometers or less in getting to work.

If you look around at the cost of fuel over the past decade....presently today sitting at 1.45 Euro per liter.....the electric car starts to be enticing.  A decade ago.....fuel ran near 1.10 Euro per liter.

Recharging stations?  If you sit and look around various communities now and some industrial areas....there's been a handful of recharging stations put up.  Some get used.....some have never been used.  I watched a news report one night where a community put up a station (charging the cost to you and your credit card) near a McDonalds on the autobahn.  If you figure the asphalt and charger, with the signs....the community put out over 20,000 Euro.  The McDonalds employees indicated that they'd never seen a single car sitting there for a charge.

The cost factor?  Renault has put up the Twizy....which is a bare-essentials two-seater....that they sell without the battery package.  You lease the batteries (no third-party involvement as far as I can see, just the dealer and you).  The cost 7,690 Euro for the higher speed version, with a fifty-Euro a month fee on the leased battery.  I admit...this 600 Euro a year for the battery is a negative, but that's the way they designed the gimmick.

The Twizy has appeal....being low in cost and a guy could use it for his drive-to-work car.  The negatives?  Max speed is 50 kph, and national laws forbid it on the autobahn or national roads, so it's local road or urban streets vehicle.  It's just in the range of being a guy's "toy".  Nothing more.

The BMW I3?  It's a hefty 33k Euro.  The Citrone Berlingo?  It's a hefty 26,220 Euro.

I suspect the cost factor is the anchor holding back a number of Germans.  You don't want to buy into a car which is only a work-car or shop-locally-car.

I also notice for the most part that no one talks about their electrical house bill prior to the acquisition of the car, and the new updated bill a year later after they procure the car.  It's an odd thing, that journalists just tend to skip over, and you have to imagine that there is some trade-off on gas versus electrical.  More or less?  Don't know.  If you bought into this deal and your monthly electrical bill suddenly shot up to 150 Euro more a month.....you'd be upset.  But then you'd admit the 225 Euro a month for gasoline bills just plain disappeared.

All of this leads back around to the topic of the national grid.  Germans say (in today's news) that they are using seven-percent less electricity than they did in 2012.  It's not broken down and it might be curious how they saved on electrical usage by that much.

Let's say that by 2020.....there are 150,000 electrical cars on the road in Germany.  Will the grid be able to support a bunch of folks arriving back home at 6PM and all hooking up their cars for a recharge?  I would have my doubts.  In fact, I might even suggest that they'd eventually have a timer hooked up in the garage.....which put the charge through....at a cheaper point (like midnight to 5AM), and save forty-percent off their usage bill.

Electrical car usage in Germany overtaking US consumers?  I could easily see a point by 2030 where half the cars in Germany were battery-powered.  If range was extended and the general cost went down a bit on batteries.....it'd help.  But this grid thing......I have my doubts that anyone has sat there and done some imagination on this and realized the impact on electrical consumption and the current German grid.

Meeting a Brick Wall

The Wall Street Journal did a fine article yesterday (Monday, 27 Oct 2014), entitled "Mothers of Western Jihadists Reach Out", by Alistair MacDonald.

Briefly, she went to the Canadian families of two recently killed pop-jihadists in Syria, along with the families of the two guys involved recently in Canada with attacks on innocent people.....then talked to a German mother who lost her son to the pop-jihadist campaign.

All of this leads around to what drew these gentlemen to the "fad" (my name for it).  None of these guys felt part of their community....some were drug-users....and some were simply lost in the big world of life.  If you have ten minutes, the article is very worthy of reading, and makes you ponder a number of things.

Mullahs and charming characters came in....gave them something to think about, and drew them into mental decisions without a lot of complex thinking or serious decision making consequences.  In brief, they had nothing to live for, so pop-jihadism made sense.

In Germany, you sit and review the integration kids and young men who've come out of the system.  They were sitting in some foreign culture....doing OK in school and bound to fit into some marginal skill job.  Their family made the decision that life would be better in Germany.  The family arrives....the kid gets thrown into a school classroom that is probably two years more advanced than what he's capable of handling.  Toss in language issues, and he's automatically three or four years behind his normal age group.

In essence.....for the family's practical sense....they've condemned this kid to a reasonable expectation of failure.  The German school system?  It can do a lot....but this has failure written all over it.  A back-up or tutor atmosphere?  If you had money, fine.  If you had a parent who was intellectually developed, fine.  If you had a local social office or neighbor who was giving of precious study time and help, fine.  That's not the case in Germany.

So, every year....you can figure thousands of these immigrant kids have floated through the German system and somehow got enough credit to just be certified and dumped.  Some can hope for a job with the garbage pick-up service, maybe beer delivery guy, or perhaps a street-cleaner job.

In essence, the German system put a kid out there with no real expectations, and the Mullah has prime territory to roam and try to brainwash the kid into various schemes where death will be the final outcome....one way or another.

Fixing this?  I'm pretty practical on this.....it's physically impossible to pick up the bulk of these kids in the integration channel, and drag them to success.  It's not possible with the numbers involved.  You'd have to bring massive tutor services into every community, charm the teachers into identifying the kids who need real help, and then find the resources which currently don't exist.

All of this.....while trying to act cordial and friendly with a religious-dominated society in some way dragging along on integration.

The sad part of this story is that it's just another chapter to a long story on families trying improve their lives, and find a safe place for their kids.  They had good intentions.  It's just that they couldn't estimate the massive wall to be climbed and what really lays on the other side of the wall.

Talking German TV

I noted in German entertainment news....there's a TV project working its way around on RTL (commercial network).  RTL tends to run through an odd group of themes.....mostly aimed at the fifteen-to-forty year old TV viewer.  Reality shows, crime action dramas, and bold-faced comedies usually prevail.

The newest attempt?  A women's prison series, done in the humorous sort of way.  They've signed up the cast and everyone thought this was on the fast track, and yesterday....RTL had to admit that they slowed down the project because they can't find a prison-like place to film the TV show.

You'd think.....with various prisons out there.....some accommodations might be reached with areas "rented".  But that's not the case.  

All of this brings me around to the topic of formulas that work on German TV, and those which don't.  About seven years ago....RTL got the urge to do a science-fiction series on the light side.  The idea was....this journalist had developed some ability to go back one hour in time.....so they could dig into the entire story and have a through story written for the newspaper.  No one says much over the piece these days except the package was developed, filmed, and delivered.  It was never shown.

Yep, the dozen-odd episodes simply went onto a shelf and sits there today.  From the idea creation period, to the point when the executives looked over the end-result.....it just wouldn't work with German consumers.

Science-fiction pieces just aren't developed for German TV.  It's true for both state-run and commercially-run networks.  Over the past forty-odd years, there's been one short-lived Star Trek-like show.  Creation ideas like "V", or Mork, or Stargate, or Twilight Zone, or Doctor Who, or Fallen Skies, or Warehouse 13?  It's impossible to work with the German public because they are mostly realistic in the views of the world.

In Germany, there aren't aliens, UFOs, Bigfoot, or Loch Ness Sea Monsters.  There's an occasional episode with crop circles.....but German's don't really buy into this kind of stuff.  German intellectuals scoff at anything like this, and it all fades quickly out of the picture.

So the TV production crowd is limited to cop shows, reality TV, lesbian prison theme, comedy shows on school teachers, game shows, political chat shows, and cooking shows.

The success of Arrow, Stargate, and Doctor Who on German TV?  I suspect the German TV management crowd would just grin and say that they don't have the enthusiasm or drive to write this type of material and gamble big bucks on some weird idea of a nutty alien who lands and refers to himself as Alf or Mork.  But they are willing to pay for the German rights to broadcast the successful US shows like these.

So, prepare yourself for the summer of 2015, when the German women's prison comedy series finally arrives.....if they can find the right landscape to film it.

Explaining the EU and UK Revenue Mess

Around two weeks ago, the revenue guys at the EU came up with their final bill for countries to pay.....to be 'standing' members of the EU.  It was a bill kept close to the vest and supposed to be secret for several weeks.  It got out late last week.....several countries owe money in excess of what they already gave, and several will get a rebate.

The winners?  Well....Germany will get around 800 million Euro back.  France?  Almost a billion Euro.  Even Poland will get back somewhere around 400 million Euro.

The losers?  Well....the British need to pay another two billion Euro (roughly twenty-percent of what they already paid down over the year).

Frankly, the Brits are terrible unhappy over this sudden bill appearing, and said they just weren't going to deliver the two billion Euro check in December, as the rules require.

All of this brings me.....just another American on the landscape of the EU.....to a odd subject.  Roughly 140 billion Euro is carved out of all European countries over a normal year, and spent by the EU.

Where does the EU spend this money?  They basically take in all this money, then make "wise" decisions to dispense the money back out.....to the same people.  Yeah, I know.....it's redistribution of a redistribution pot.....but the EU representatives have to act like they 'gift' people.

The bulk of the pot?  It goes to agricultural requirements in various countries, and infrastructure improvements, along with emergency funding for floods or storms.

The British argument here?  Well, here is the odd thing.  There's a floating method where the EU figures up your legit budget, your legit earnings, then your underground or mystery money that floats through a EU member state.  In essence, they are saying that they know everyone has black money being earned, and spent.....so they've devised a way to ID this.  If you work to forbid this, or to counter the black money.....then you get bonus points (like Germany and France did this time).

The problem for the UK?  It's a terrible pain for them to suddenly find two billion Euro.  It'll challenge the public and force cuts upon every single British agency.  Even health care would have to endear cuts.  Finding such money in thirty days?  Almost impossible.

Forced out of the EU if you don't pay?  Yes, that's the general rule.  A bad thing?  Well....you won't have the simple open door for trade, which now exists for all EU members. In essence.....you will be forced to play, participate, and suffer.

What the British might do?  I'm guessing they will ensure maximum efforts to counter black money and secretive income deals around the nation....so in October of 2015.....they will get the two billion back.

An American would look at this and ask this stupid question.....why would I need to push my state's revenue over to some other group, which will reprioritize the spending game, in a totally different fashion?  The agriculture projects and infrastructure game?  Well.....they act as though it's a gift from them when they send your community two million Euro to fix up an art museum in terrible condition in your local town.  Same way when they send forty million Euro to a local airport for renovation, in the name of the EU.  It was my money to start with, and there's no reason for it to leave the country, then come back as some "gift".

So, when you hear about this hostile British reaction to the EU bill.....it's mostly shock on their faces of a two billion Euro bill......and roughly thirty days to find loose change in the budget to pay for it.

Why Germans Are Apprehensive About Islam

There's a little element of history that most Islamic folks come into Germany, and then miss.  Yeah, it should have been laid out in integration classes, or via the local Mullah character at the mosque, or via German newspapers or media devices.

You see, Germans have roughly 1,600 years of messing around with various elements of Christianity, and the Catholic Church.  When you dig into that period....it's not a very healthy relationship, or full of positive dynamics with generations of Germanic people benefiting from religion or "peace".

The Bible itself?  When it finally came into the Germanic regions in the 500 period, with the arrival of the Catholic Church....it was hand-written in Latin.  It was a franchise-type deal....intending to control the publication, understanding, and fit the scripture into the event at hand.  You could walk through a village of a thousand residents, and if lucky....you might find a dozen folks who read or understood Latin. A priest, bishop, or cardinal could take one phrase, and work it into a statement of their choosing.  The single individual?  They were not to be privy to the inner works of the book.

As time went by....the political relationship of the cardinals and bishops to local authorities took the level of taxation to a new point.  You really needed to contribute in some fashion.....to be part of the inner works of the religion of Christianity.  The money taken in?  It wasn't ever clear how the money was spent, and most might view abusive usage by Christian values.  Sound familiar?

The whole crusade thing?  The Catholic Church worked up everyone to go and fight a war over a place that had no value to the landowner, or average resident of Germany.  Sound familiar?

The Thirty-Years War?  Historians hate to discuss the Thirty-Years War because it amounts to five separate civil wars going on in Central Europe, with no clear winner, loser, or end-decision.  Deaths?  Well....counting the plague occurring around the same time.....most regions lost approximately half their populations.  Strangely enough, as you dig into the various conflicts....for some reason, the Catholic Church ends up as a central character in the whole theme of death at the doorstep of every single town in Germany.

The witch-trials of the 1500s and 1600s?  Same deal.  The Catholic Church often used the witch accusations to seize income and property of anyone who held it.....as part of the final process of settling up with the guilty party, with the final result being the death of the accused.  Jews killed in the process here?  Oh yes.....they were picked, along with any rich or respected member of the community that didn't have resources to put down a witch hunt.  Total killed in this 200-year era?  Numbers are never clear.  During one short period in Trier, they killed 368 individuals in a very short period.....all guilty of witchcraft.  Their property?  All seized by the church authorities involved.

If Germans don't see eye to eye with you or your religion, perhaps you might dig into history and understand the limited view that Germans allow on religion.  There's just so much that they might allow these days before their frustrations become evident.  Acting is if you arrived and gained some special religious freedom?  No.....you basically become suspect and every time you prove another little problem with your view or your peaceful agenda....you slide another step down a slippery slope.

Not to disappoint you, but what the Germans tend to offer is a fairly safe and comfortable place for you and your family.  The Germans will offer you the best roads in Europe, and the best mass transit system in the world.  The Germans will offer you competent police, a five-star legal process, and a educational system that could easily take your son or daughter all the way to medical school, make them into engineers, or turn them into outstanding members of the community.  Germans will even let you participate in the best free-market system within Europe....giving you opportunities that you just dreamed about five years ago.

The flip side of this?  The Germans are fairly apprehensive about any religion.  And when they ask stupid questions.....noting some illogical things.....or utilize a little bit humor to point at something that is hindering things....they are doing the best they can, under the circumstances.  These are not the kind of folks who buy into something with absolute belief....they learned a lesson or two in 1,600 years.

Just my humble two cents of wit and knowledge.

Another Fire

Off in the distance, as you look across the landscape of Wiesbaden, is our one and only skyscraper.  The old R + V building.

Last night, the fire department got called out again.  I've more or less lost count but since July of last year when I arrived....I'd take a guess that they've responded to at least a dozen fires in the building.  Last night was an episode on the 17th floor.  Several squads were called onto the episode.

The building is part of a complex....related to the old Movenpick Hotel, a upscale restaurant, and an old school.  All shutdown within the past ten years while owners have come and gone over the idea of tearing down the whole thing, and putting up some profitable building.

No one ever gets to the point where they've got the rest of the investment money, the entire plan, the approval of the city council, or the contract to tear down the whole complex.

I noted last week, the present owner has said they've got the plan almost ready to tear down the dilapidated building, but a comment out of the city council indicating this spring schedule....is more or less "wishful thinking".  No one expects anything much to occur.  The new building to go up?  The present owners only hint that it's a condo building for upscale residents.  I might speculate that it's on some level of planning for wealthy VIPs from the Middle East who fly in.....stay a week or two every six months....and fly out.

The whole complex was fenced in around five to ten years ago....when they already had security problems and could not keep teens out of the building structure.  While the elevator has been closed off and various security doors put into place.....nothing has really worked.  So punks show up....get to the top.....do some drugs.....set some things on fire in the process.....and it's a big episode for the fire department to react to.

Why the city won't step in and tear it down themselves?  I don't know.  If I were the fire department, I'd just notice that I won't react to any fires within the structure anymore, and hope it burns to the ground.  But then some civic-minded guy would respond that some poor doped up kids might still be in the building and that wouldn't be right.

The Paving Episode

I sat and watched a regional German network last week (HR) on a curious development with taxation.  Here was a community where the mayor and city council had signed onto a paving contract  to fix up a significant street in this smaller town.  This was likely planned out in 2013 (they left this part out of the story), and I doubt if anyone from the town attended the meeting, heard the whole story, and grasped what was coming down.

Anyway.....the road project is nearing an end.  They showed the pavement and it's a nice piece of work.

The way that things typically work in Germany for city paving episodes....there is a balance of three inputs of cash.  You the property owner, pay a certain amount of money into the city via property taxes.  The city takes a portion of that money, along with a state portion, then comes to you with a bill.  Your personal contribution....if this is a side street along your house and not a full-up city avenue.....is part of the deal.  So, typically, your bill for the paving along your house goes from a couple hundred Euro to maybe three thousand Euro.

Germans typically view the new pavement as an infrastructure thing, which adds value to the house, and makes the whole neighborhood look better.

In this case here?  The city came to property owners and handed a general bill of roughly 20,000 Euro.  Yeah, kinda shocking.  Unbelievable was the term used by some folks meeting with the news team and talking over this.

They didn't have this kind of money, and just couldn't see how they'd ever afford this.  20,000 Euro equals roughly $24,000.

The news team went around, and found a couple of other villages in the region....who'd done the same thing.  One gal speaking for her elderly parent....noted their paving bill was closer to 50,000 Euro.  The parent was totally frustrated and it was harming their health to even discuss the matter.

The city mayors involved?  Generally, they just say that state money didn't come as they wished....and the private resident has to make up the money.

Germans get by with a marginal property tax when compared against Americans.  The place I live in....has a yearly property tax of 650 Euro ($800).  For what is a half-million dollars in value.....it's a fantastic deal when compared to what you'd pay in Miami or Atlanta.  But the other side of the coin is that the city relies greatly upon state money, and if it's not there.....the city can assess some fee down upon you.

From what I could figure out of the story....legal options were being pursued, and the city expected legal challenges over these fees.  In the case of the guy owing 50,000 Euro.....I'd take a guess that he'll be forced to sell his house....just to cover the bill.  The folks owing 20,000 Euro?  They might be able to take loans, but if they are over the age of sixty.....I don't see German banks offering up this type of situation.  So they might be forced to sell.

This brings me back around to city hall meetings, and why it's of absolute importance to attend these, and grasp what the idiots there are going to do.  In this group of cases.....they proceeded with a contract....when they did not have the state funding guaranteed and in place.  Someone should have stopped them and noted that no one in the village can afford a personal bill of 20,000 Euro for paving their street.

Down the road?  I anticipate that when city elections come around next time.....everyone is fired, from the whole city council, and the mayor himself.  The new folks?  They will likely raise property taxes drastically, and use that to pay for the paving project. This will make ninety-percent of the village hostile because their measly 300 Euro a year for property taxes, has now gone to 1,200 Euro.  The odds of any new paving projects in this type of town?  Zero.  It'll be ten years before they agree to the next type project.....that's my humble bet.

From an American prospective......this would make an entire community hostile, and really destroy the political career of some mayor.  I'm guessing Germans might feel the same way.

The Partnership Story

There is this odd bit of political news out of Germany this week.  Political talks over in the eastern side of Germany (the state of Thuringia) led to a newly formed government....consisting of SPD and Linke Party members.

Since they were formed in 2007, the Linke Party has been this political group that most political parties in Germany felt were too different, too connected to the old Communist Party of DDR, and too much to accept within the public or the news media.  Forming a government with them?  It was simply out of the question for a partnership of any kind.

A couple of years ago here in Hessen, the Linke Party got a fair percentage of the votes and there was this brief talk of a partnership between the SPD Party and Linke Party for the state legislature here.  The minute this talk got public....several of the key SPD members stood up and said they'd resign rather than accept the Linke Party into the mix.  We aren't talking of dozens, but just the sheer thought of a couple of ranking members leaving....tossed the SPD guys here locally into a media pit.  The idea was stopped and it was a brief embarrassment for the SPD.

As for the Linke Party?  They came out of a merger of sorts.....with the former Communist Party membership, and a second smaller grouping of people who belonged to the SPD but were far-left in nature.  If you went back to the starting period....what you found was public support amounting to roughly five to eight percent of the German public.  Union members liked their stance on public policy.....former communists from the eastern side of the country liked their stance on controls and regulations....and those on minimum wage felt that the Linke Party was the only party listening to them.

So, with this one state partnership with the SPD.....things are finally looking up for the Linke Party.  It might open doors over the next five years, and maybe the Linke Party will find other partnerships.

Affecting the national election in 2017?  Presently, the SPD is suffering a good bit on national votes and it's going to be impossible to break the thirty-percent point unless some major stumble by Merkel or the CDU occurs.  The SPD might find one great candidate.....push on a campaign with only three factors in the election...and then just barely beat the CDU but be sitting there with only thirty-five percent of the national vote.  They'd have to partner with the CDU under all normal expectations....but with the Linke Party option.....they might be able to partner with them and the Greens.....thus getting the fifty-percent number to control the Bundestag.

That's basically what this excitement is mostly about.  A previously forbidden partner on anything, now accepted to some degree.  As for some SPD members disliking this scenario?  Yeah, I could see a dozen national-level folks just saying they've had enough and just retire.  As they say.....we will cross this bridge when we come to it.

A Tax Trick from Hungary

It generally amazes me when you gaze around at Europe (beyond Germany) and note the naive nature of society.  This morning....Hungary came up and announced some interest in a new taxation gimmick.  It's an internet tax on IP providers.....roughly 60-US cents (roughly 50-cents in Euro) for each gigabyte of data traffic.

Naturally, this got some Hungarians peppy because they know that if you pass such a tax....it's not the company that ends up inventing the money.....it's the public that pays the tax into the side pocket of the IP company.

The term that a capitalist would use....sin-tax, fits appropriately into this.  You need to find something that people can't live without....likes smokes, booze, gasoline, airline tickets, etc.  We've reached the point now where internet usage fits this sin-tax scheme perfectly.  We download TV programs, video-clips, and music.  If you took the average sixteen year old kid and looked at gigabyte usage.....you can figure at least one gigabyte per day, so you can figure roughly $15 a month as a minimum.  Over a year, that's going to add up to a minimum of $120.

Where this goes?  The news people will only say that a anti-tax crowd are already forming and hoping to knock this down immediately.  Some political party will come out in opposition, and then chat forums will start to talk about this daily.  What were the tax revenue folks thinking when they invented this idea?  I'm not sure.  Maybe it was some non-computer literate guy, or just someone thinking sin-tax schemes that might work.

Six Euro Eighty a Day?

We had a brief court episode brew up here in Hessen, with two smaller towns suing the district budget folks for more funds to cover the foreign refugees then settled into the towns, and the allotment system that the District (really the state of Hessen itself) uses....is unfair.

The current allotment is 6.80 Euro a day, per refugee here in Germany.  The number of refugees forced onto the two towns with the court-challenge?  Twenty-seven.

The judge in the district threw the case out....saying the allotment of refugees was a percentage situation, and the towns have no choice but accept them and find adequate comforts for them.  As for the 6.80 Euro a day....a separate case already exists and will be discussed at another court.

What most say is that you'd need three times the 6.80 Euro a day per refugee to adequately feed and care for them.

The general problem is that none of these towns had any real plan in place or ever considered the idea of being forced to accept refugees.  Now that they've arrived and gone past the one single family that they kinda expected.....there's issues.  Personally, I think the 6.80 Euro per person idea might snowball into a separate issue with the welfare class of Germany, and this idea that they've been forced to accept a minimum level such as 6.80 as being normal.  If the refugees get 15 Euro a day, then you'd have to reshuffle German welfare (Hartz IV), and double the entire budget over the national program.

The allocation issue?  Right now....these towns are simply fussing over 27 total refugees.  By spring of 2015, it might well be 100 to 150 refugees.  It would be curious how this plays out because none of the towns have internal structure for long-term refugees, their introduction to German society, or potential low-level entry jobs for people with minimum background or training.

You can predict down the line.....at various towns in Hessen....it's going to be an issue that frustrates the locals.

Teens Stopped at Frankfurt Airport

Just one of those odd pop-jihad stories that pop up now in Germany.

Here are three American teenagers.....15-to-16 years old, from Colorado.  Somehow, they get this idea to ditch school some day last week, get a ride over to Denver International Airport, fly out to Chicago, and then to Frankfurt.  Final destination plan?  Make it to Turkey, cross the border and become pop-jihad wives or solders.

The three were all of Islamic background, from Africa.

From what the German press will say is that the scheme was suddenly figured out somewhere in the midst of the trip....probably between Chicago and Frankfurt.  One report from Denver says that one teen had stolen $2,000 from Mom, and used that to pay for the tickets.  All three had passports, and no one in Denver said anything about a 15-year-old kid traveling alone.

Once alerted, the US authorities called Frankfurt's border patrol guys at the airport, and they figured out the three, and started to quiz them.  Then they sent them back to Denver.

The current investigation?  All the cops will hint is that they think someone was leading the girls....mostly online.....to develop this plan.

As far as I know, it's the first time that Germany has had to deal with a situation like this, with external residents trying to move through Germany to Turkey and become part of the civil war.

On the Topic of Witches in Germany

I am a amateur historian.  I've probably covered well over 2,000 books in my life over history and get into various elements of both US and European history.  One of my favorite areas of research is the Salem Witch Trial period of American history (1692).

When you stand back and examine the episode....several episodes come into play.  This is roughly 150 years after the Bible had been translated from the Catholic Church held copy of Latin, into English, and published widely.  The English of the era had progressed to the point where reading was a demanded skill, and the Bible was chiefly used as the instrument of instruction.

Adding to the event.....the Bible was taken and interpreted by various religious groups, and viewed against personal beliefs in different ways.  They utilized the Bible to prove their point, and the interpretation could go from one far angle to another.

Toss in the fact that there weren't any "adults" around to challenge fraudulent usage of law and punishment.  Then toss in immature teens using bogus statement as entertainment.  And in the end, you had people suffering and being tortured to death.

Germany had the same element going on, except it came earlier.  The biggest and best example is the Bamberg Witch Trial period (1626-1631).

It was a rural area for the most part, run by Prince-Bishop von Dornheim.  What we can generally say is that the Thirty-Years-War had been going on for a couple of years, and lending itself to be mostly a civil war, with no real enemy except themselves or their neighbors.

A bad harvest season had led onto discontent, and the Prince-Bishop had probably more frustrated and aggravated people on his hands than he could handle.

A Germanic language copy of the Bible had begun to get passed around, but it probably had minimal effect on this crowd.  So, some accusations got passed around.  A witch here, a evil spirit there.

Over the six year period, around three-hundred people were executed in some fashion.  Some figures will push it as high as six-hundred.  Some were children....one was noted as an infant.  A number of them were simply adults caught in a word game and not sophisticated to argue their way out of an accusation.

The Prince-Bishop would devise a torture chamber and it was used to a fair degree.

At some point, realizing the maximum benefit of death....the Prince-Bishop got around to true property owners and people of "title".  Using the accusation game....individuals were taken into custody, asked questions, and doped into admissions.  Their property taken after death.

This all peaked by 1631.  The various reports had reached the regional authority who came to question the Prince-Bishop over men of title being put to death.  So ended the Bamberg witch episode.

The enriched fertile ground for this of activity?  It takes a naive society, coupled with corrupt leadership, and the necessity to blame someone for some fault.

In my local area here in Hessen where I live....there is the town of Idstein.....not more than ten miles away.  They went through their witch period in 1676/1677.....executing thirty-nine men and women for crimes of witchcraft.

What is generally said is that the whole witch-hunting thing started as early as 1630.  The routine was yearly brought up, and continued on for decades.  The hunt business was generally run by Count John  (the regional authority) and appeared to be a personal vendetta of sorts.  For some reason, around 1676....it hit a peak with various individuals brought in and questioned by the Count.

Local history says that thirty-one women and eight men were executed over this two-year period. No numbers are given for those tortured and spared death.  The end of the hunt?  Well....it's curious.  Count John dies in May of 1677, and his son (twelve years old) took up the post of Count.  The son, via his regent....disbands the hunt business, and life settled back to normal after that.

A nutcase running simply an entertainment episode.  Well....yeah, that is the simple part of the whole story, and relates to most all of these episodes in the same way.  It's sad in a way.....all done for terrible reasons.

Ten Bits of Advice on Rhine River Cruises

The bulk of summer season has ended, and it's around six months prior to the new Rhine River cruises.  Enough time to think and plan over an excursion.  So my advice.

1.  There is one major company (K-D), and roughly twenty minor companies running cruise ships along the Rhine.  There are a couple for the Moselle as well.  All have web sites, travel times, and cost listed.  Plan around their schedule.

2.  It's absolutely hectic to go on a cruise in July and August.  So I advise you avoid this period, unless it's a Monday through Friday trip.

3.  Length of a trip?  You could actually show up at site #4, ride sixty minutes up to site #7, and get off there, returning to your destination by rail.  You will find almost every Rhine port that a ship pulls into....has a railway station, and it's a simple deal to travel.

4.  Get on early in the day.  An example, K-D starts in Mainz in early morning hours, with the second stop in Bebrich (Wiesbaden).  Neither has great parking advantages, and you'd be better off to travel there by rail or by charter bus.

5.  Don't buy food on the cruise vessel.  Generally, I can't think of any occasion that I got a three-or-four star lunch onboard.  The beer, wine, and coffee are great.....but I'd take a pass on food.

6.  Seating?  In July and August on weekends....forget about it....it's standing room only.  That's the reason why May and June are so appealing.

7.  Weather?  It can go from one extreme to another.....extremely hot and windy....or extremely cool and windy.  Ask about the weather and be flexible on what day you make the trip.  If you know it's going to be hot sweaty weather.....then I'd still bring along some wind-breaker jacket.

8.  Rates?  It goes from four Euro to seventy Euro (depending on where you get on and off, and if you want a return ticket).

9.  Hint, the boat takes forty-percent longer going down the river, than going up.  So, an entire day trip from Mainz to Koblenz, and back.....is an awful long trip.  Kids won't be enthusiastic about such a trip.

10.  Drinking.  Well, folks get relaxed on such a trip and start drinking excessively.  Guys do it....gals do it.  And by the end of the trip.....you barely walk off the vessel and you might be drunk.  In fact, too drunk to drive.  So, utilizing a bus charter deal....would be strongly recommended.  You might want to control your drinking a little....to avoid some really bad moments later.

This Rail Strike

Mid-day Sunday now, and the strike continues on.  Based on commentary late last night by the public.....there's limited support for the striking railway union guys.  A lot of people went and made alternate plans, and disrupted their weekend plans around Germany.

From what the German press reports today....roughly seventy percent of the railway runs have been cancelled so far.  So trips are still operating, although at a minimum rate.

ARD TV reports that the final deal offered on Friday was a five-percent pay-raise in 2016, with a one-time 325 Euro bonus for all union members.  The idea of the two less hours a week of work?  No. The idea of letting conductors, security folks, and railway support staff falling into this union?  No.

Monday travel appears to be back on schedule, at least right now.  There is some hint from the union that if negotiations don't go well this upcoming week.....they might return for another one-to-two-day strike for the next weekend.

Bus service carrying the load?  The ARD folks had a brief discussion with bus leadership last night.  They were "thrilled" (my word, not theirs)....over the circumstance, and doing well in terms of passengers and profits.  It would appear.....every single bus is full and they might even be running additional buses to meet demand.

Where does this all lead?  Let's say that the union gets everything they want.  Somewhere by 2016....the necessary profits of the Bahn have to be cut in someway, and cost will be pushed upward.  This means ticket prices rise again.

Presently, a flight between Berlin and Frankfurt will cost you around 110 Euro in the off-season (round-trip).  If you use the current special rate, the one-way deal is 29 Euro, with just over four hours of travel time on the rail.  The Bahn folks have been running special rates for Frankfurt to Amsterdam of around 39 Euro for a one-way ticket. At some point though....the special rate deal has to end, and go back to double or triple that rate.

The bus deal?  Presently, you can make the Frankfurt to Berlin trip, one-way, for about fifteen Euro (that's the special rate), and regular rates might run to twenty-five Euro.

People are paying attention to this and asking more questions about where the buses leave from and the travel time.  If there was another rate hike for passengers in 2016....it might draw some curious advertising from the bus companies, and finally start to take away passenger runs.  Currently, there's two trains leaving Frankfurt every hour, to Berlin, during the prime of the day, and maybe one per hour in the non-prime period of the day.

The rate of a regular ticket if the special wasn't used?  Roughly a hundred Euro. The special deal was supposed to run for the summer months, and apparently still continues now into October.

In the long-run, this strike business is making people consider the options, and with the right advertising and TV-directed focus.....I could see the Bahn losing a quarter of it's long-distance passengers.....mostly over frustrations.  You generally went by rail because if offered some comfort and generally got to the destination on time.  If you prioritized your requirements.....buses might come out better.

My advice?  It took decades to overcome the state law forbidding bus travel around Germany for long-distances.  I might review my options, and use them a bit more often.

Explaining the Exchange Rate World

Remember, this is a blog written by an American, designed for Americans and ex-pat's, and not Germans.  So the topic today....is the Euro and the exchange rate.

When I arrived in Germany in 1978....one of the top ten things you had to grasp and understand was the Deutsch Mark (DM) situation.  You got paid every two weeks, and you converted some part of your income at the base bank (Rhein Main for me) over to DM.  At the time, it was roughly 2.25 DM to the dollar.

After a while, you learned that the rate went up and down....daily.  It's not something that you'd typically think about while living in the US....but here, it's different.

Folks had a strategy, while realistic or ill-conceived.....that the rate was always better two days prior to pay-day.  I never believed this idea.....but lots of Americans would buy their DM prior to pay-day.
I would say the low point of that two year point for me when when the DM rate got down to 2.05.  Naturally, this meant you got less DM, or you paid more for your DM than when it was up around 2.2.  Course, if you were only buying enough for pocket-money, beer and weekend entertainment....you only needed 150 DM to accomplish that, and the difference between 2.05 and 2.2 isn't that big of a deal.

I left in 1980, and came back in 1984 to Germany.  The exchange rate had radically changed during the Reagan era.  It was now 2.85 for the average that year.  You could buy a lot of marks for a better price.  1985 went to an even higher level with it almost hitting 3.5 at some point.

I knew enlisted guys who went downtown Kaiserslautern and bought BMWs in 1985.  I went on numerous tours and trips that year, with lots of DM in my pocket.  Tens of thousands of GI's in Germany had a great year....spent a ton of money....and it all came back to the exchange rate.

When I came back in 1992...it had sunk to the 1.6 DM to the dollar level.  The Air Force tried to make up for the negative situation....giving you enough housing money and a fair allowance....but you tended to limit your spending off-base to strictly restaurants and limited travel.  

By 1998, it was pressing up toward 1.8 DM to the dollar and people were more positive.  There was talk of the Euro coming in, and always a hint of better exchange rates.

The initial stage of the Euro?  It was set to roughly 1.1 Euro to the dollar.  That lasted roughly a year, and later fell to .79 by 2004.....two years into the Euro period.

Americans who were civilians and working in Germany?  We were all pretty aware of the rate.....fairly negative with the original deals worked out with our companies.....and questioning how this made sense for our budget planning process.  If you had a mortgage of 1,200 Euro on a house....it was pretty simple in 2002 and you were paying roughly 1,200 dollars for the place.  Two years later, at .86, you were now paying $1,395.  That's roughly $200 more than what you started with only two years ago.  Where did the $200 come from?  Savings or what you would have put toward a new car.

The typical German?  They never saw this or had to play this game.

At some point in 2008, it actually got down to around .64.  I sat in some meeting with the American company I worked for, and a dozen of us in the room were voicing issues.  There had to be some increased allowance to cover this cost of living issue.  The sad truth was that the company signed a contract with the US government for services, and it had nothing in it to work in a more dismal Euro exchange environment.  The company wouldn't lessen profits, and other than just leaving Germany....there wasn't much to say or do.

Our company boss had actually sat down with a currency expert in Frankfurt.  Personally, the currency guy even admitted that there just wasn't a logical reason for the Euro to have fallen from 1.1 to .64 over this period except for a US-led strategy to cheapen US-made products, and entice Europeans to "buy cheap".  It was a strategy developed while in the DM era with the Clinton Administration and continued to be played out with the Bush Administration.

I've sat and read over the idea.  It won't be discussed by anyone much beyond the banking folks, and they tend to see some type of manipulation going on. It's the only way to entice Europeans to buy American-made products.  You see the same concept with tourism....a German is able to buy a remarkably cheap but up-scale vacation in the US for 1,200 Euro.

In recent weeks....the Euro has been climbing.  It's presently around .76 and there's a number of Frankfurt currency folks talking of a .80 trend by January.  A handful of folks even think the Euro might slide on up to .90 by the end of 2016.  The manipulation factor?  Well.....if you were German, or French, or Italian.....you'd like to really sell more products in the US.  But with the rate down near .65.......that just wasn't going to happen.  Now at .76?  Things are getting interesting.

The US losing an edge on the market by their products getting less cheap to sell in Europe?  Well, yeah.

More Americans touring Europe because of a cheaper Euro?  Well, yeah.

I've spent around four decades around Europe, and have come to view the exchange rate as a curious thing.  I had a business professor who used the price of a McDonalds menu bag in Paris to explain the real cost of life compared to the US standard pricing for the same bag.  It was a five-star explanation and made perfect sense.  The same logic doesn't work today. The issue is.....McDonalds of Gemany now buys almost all of it's products within Germany, with nothing imported in for the operation.  What the bag costs.....doesn't relate to anything within the US now.

It's hard to get across this whole discussion of currency and value to a typical American, or for that matter.....a typical German.

It matters, but it's like an invisible wall, and you don't know you've hit it....until you actually stumble up against it and feel some pain.  Just my humble two cents on currency.

The Taxation Game

The US has an enormous problem, which the national government tries hard to avoid.....individual states benefiting companies....courting them in various ways.....enticing them.....to move from one region or state, to another.  I don't think this really started to get noticed until the 1980s, and over the past decade....it's gotten magnificent stages.

Roughly five years ago....Volkswagen made a decision to put a one-billion-dollar plant up in the US.  Several states got into the "bidding war".  At the end, it was a decision between what Tennessee could offer with Chattanooga and what Alabama could offer with Huntsville.  Property for the site would have been purchased and offered freely by the state.....tax benefits were offered....roads would have been built with no cost to Volkswagen and it's new factory.  It was a long list of great deals.  In the end.....Volkswagen selected Chattanooga.  In terms of jobs and tax revenue from those employees.....it's a big deal to the state for the decades to come.

In Europe over the past decade.....the same type of environment has been found to exist.  Big companies like Fiat, Amazon, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Apple have looked around and found great deals.  These deals were noticed, and various countries have been complaining that these giant companies just aren't paying their fair share of taxes....mostly to the rest of the EU members.

I noticed INFORWORLD discussing the matter with Google in Ireland for 2013....their headquarters in Europe.  They employ 2,500 Irish folks....a hefty number and a big deal to the local economy.  In exchange....for the twenty-two billion in revenue they made for that year.....they had a tax percentage rate of .16 percent.  In Germany, Google would have paid fifteen-percent.  That's a difference of 14.84 percent.  You can add the twenty-two billion in various ways and figure there's at least thirty billion that should have flowed into the normal country revenue pot and the EU taxation pot.  Instead, it's less than one billion.

The EU this past week sent the "dogs" out on the issue.  Several countries were selected (Ireland, Netherlands, Luxembourg).  Wrapping up this investigation quickly? I doubt if anyone hears much on the EU team and it's finding until the summer of 2015.  It'll take a while to dig into what was promised and guaranteed by each state.

The problem here, if you sit and look over the strategy.....major companies create a significant number of jobs, and European countries are fairly desperate now for job creation.  Every single member of the EU has an unemployment situation which puts undue pressure on the leadership of various communities and the states themselves.

You can walk around Frankfurt in a normal year and note that small shops and companies....come and go.  A guy will create a new shop....hire six employees....make a marginal profit....and five years later give up, with the six employees dismissed and on the unemployment line.  A new grocery will appear at one end of town, employ thirty employees at a minimum wage, and somehow do well enough to survive for decades.  These are all small fronts, with limited results.

Look around Frankfurt for new companies that appear and offer up 500 or 1,000 jobs?  It's rare that you see these.  If someone showed up and talked with some lobbyists or political figure in Frankfurt, over the possibility of 1,500 jobs being created from a new factory or industry.....they'd quickly get city interest, and quietly.....they'd sit and figure out ways to entice the company into coming.  A new bus-stop or run by the industry in a remote area?  Maybe helping pay for the parking situation with city money?  They would find various ways to get the jobs into Frankfurt.  But then you find this corporate taxation deal standing there.  Fifteen-percent is the German standard.....which is not a waiverable thing.

Generally in Germany.....there just aren't that many big new factories or industry operations being created.  Around fifteen years ago, in the Kaiserslautern area.....some company got a great deal on property out around 10 km away from town, and built up a specialized type factory which employs roughly 500 folks.  It's in the middle of nowhere....a farming area....with plenty of open parking and no hindrances.  Yeah, they pay the fifteen-percent taxation but they have easy access to a local autobahn, and can expand out with no issues. They picked an area with high unemployment, and know that they can offer minimum wages for the local area, and avoid high cost employees.  That was the plus-up.

I suspect as the weeks go by, and this EU taxation review team settles into work there in Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.....someone will quietly point out various deals that Austria, Germany, France, and the UK have also offered.  But they aren't the gold-deals that Google or Apple got.....but they fit into the same bucket.....something free offered in exchange for job creation. The EU folks will start to realize that it's a bigger issue, with no real solution.

The truth is.....the EU needs jobs creation and industry taxation.  All of this great infrastructure and social benefits stuff....cost money and someone has to pay for it.  Gimmicks are a part of the game, and if you were desperate enough to want 2,500 jobs created out of thin air.....you will play the game.

My humble guess is that everyone in Europe will come to agree by 2016 to some new minimum corporate tax rate.  It won't be fifteen percent, like in Germany.  My bet is that they say the minimum should be eight to ten percent.  And with that.....Google, Apple, and Dell will all have to rethink their strategy and decide if it's time to move further east.....into Turkey or some non-EU country to get the benefit they desire.  Heck, they might even decide that Switzerland with it's high cost of living, but non-EU status.....might be a wonderful place to escape to and operate their business front.

In this taxation game....someone has to win, and someone has to lose. If you look at California today.....various big and medium sized companies are discussing an exit from the state because of taxation and high-cost of living influencing the profit margin.  The state has become something that was not in the original planning strategy from decades ago.

The same may happen to Ireland, Luxembourg, and Netherlands.

The Thirteen-Year Problem

This is a story which will only appear around in Hessen.  I doubt if the German national news will cover much on this, yet it becomes an interesting piece.

The curtain on  this story rises up around 2001 in Germany as four tax-audit folks from the state office here in Hessen (Wiesbaden-Frankfurt) got all disturbed over orders given by the leadership of the tax office (usually run by the dominating political party of the Landestag of the state).  Over a period of several years....various evaluations were dealt out to the four, with negative commentary by the leadership.  By 2006, the four were led to a physiological review, and were noted as having "paranoid querulatorish" issues.

What are "paranoid querulatorish" issues?  Well....you could read through twenty pages of text from various experts.....but the definition comes down to the fact that you can't adjust, and you are fairly paranoid about readjusting.

A fake psycho analysis?  I've read two commentaries on the field of study, and both doctors tend to dump on this idea as bogus.  They view it as a tool used in any type of case....where someone refuses to change and you can cite some mental disorder to get rid of the folks.

So, this is the curious thing.  The four tax-audit folks were led through the process and deemed finished within the government office.  Medically sent out the door by 2006.

By 2009, the four folks had returned to fight on this episode.  What can be said is that the health folks deemed the whole usage of "paranoid querulatorish" issues as bogus.  They actually showed up in court....cited enough evidence, and the whole episode was called into question.  Strangely enough....that wasn't enough to bring back the forced-into-retirement tax-audit group.  No.....this required more court action.

This week (2014).....five years after the medical establishment deemed the whole thing bogus...the state apparatus finally stepped in as the court forced them to take the corrective actions, and bring the four OUT of retirement.

The doctor involved in the original determination?  The court will merely say that he's been fined for actions against three of the forced retirement situations.  The fine appears to be a private deal between the court and the doctor.

The hostility left?  The SPD went into blast-mode and demanded that the CDU (which had their guy at the very beginning start this) say some type of apology over the affair (lasting over thirteen years). None came.

What's left?  The local news media is quiet about this.  The four tax-audit folks will be allowed back in and probably get some type of position.  The problem is that things have changed.....management is totally different than thirteen years ago.....and they will be viewing any hindrance to their job as another hostile game.  I would suspect that the government also has to negotiate with them, providing some damage pay-off.....maybe in the range of thirteen years of pay.

Abusive use of mental exams and fake analysis?  Well....yes.  And because of the way that German law works.....this took thirteen years to clean up.  It says alot about the system, and why Germans get frustrated at times on the way that the system is built.

Finally, this little comment ought to be spoken over how this all started.  The tax-audit folks in this episode?  They were standing around the Hessen region and investigating the fraud taking place with bankers and investment-type earners.  They were basically told to stop their intensive audits.  You have to stand there now, and wonder.....who got paid off in the CDU.....who ordered who in the CDU leadership to push the four to this degree....who helped the find the right doctor to take these four of circulation.....and who walked away from millions in taxation in Hessen by paying off the right political guy?

It would be curious....but the Hessen news media guys just aren't capable of digging into an episode and asking some really stupid questions.  Somebody here.....needs more than a mental exam....they need serious jail time, more than ten years.

A Little Fight In Frankfurt

This is a story over urban planning, lack of housing, high-rise living, and neighborhood warfare.

When you drive into Frankfurt (a stone's throw from my house).....you tend to see a city that is flat around the entire outer seventy percent of the city.  High-rise office buildings, hotels and condo buildings exist at the city center and have been readily accepted for the past forty years.  If you look at the dynamics of the city center.....there's at least twenty-odd skyscrapers planned for the decade ahead for Frankfurt.  All of that, in the city center....was acceptable.

Well....a new urban planning effort is underway on the northwest side of Frankfurt.....pretty far out from the city center.  The drafted plan?  A fourteen-story high-rise situation....approximately eight kilometers from the center of town.  There is the suggestion that others would follow, if this one gets firmly into place and built.  The neighborhood affected?  Riedenberg.

The locals don't want it.  Over 1,500 have registered complaints so far, and the numbers continue to rise.  The issues?  It bring chaos, more traffic, crime, skyscraper "shadows" upon the landscape (yeah, they actually said that), and urbanization.

All of this planning comes up against the a rule which was laid into place about two decades ago.  The rule basically said that you could buy only up to four floors.  This kept the landscape within reason, and made people think of things as non-urban.  I know.....it's hard to fool someone into thinking a four-floor building is less urban than a six-floor building, but that's the type of naive public that you deal with here.  The same type exist in Washington DC, with a similar four-floor rule.  A waiver would have to be accomplished, and likely set the stage for more waivers in the future.

There are three problems here which are unique to German society and driving this entire debate.

First, not in my backyard (NIMB).  It doesn't matter if you talk power-generator wind-mills, or bridges, or apartment houses.....Germans bring NIMB into most discussions.  They want things to stay the way they are.  Then they counter that they need more clean power, more accessible bridges to cross rivers, and more apartments.  It's a false argument because you can't have one without the other.  Go suggest a new gas station for your end of town which currently has none.....then watch the flares go up by community groups as they fight to preserve the neighborhood from a single gas station.

Second, everyone in Frankfurt will readily agree that housing is a major problem.  It's risen up to the top three problems of the city.  The mayor speaks on this weekly.  The community planners often get drawn into debates over this.  The solution as they all get around to talking about.....is building more apartment buildings.  The location of these?  Well....there simply isn't enough room within the inner city of Frankfurt anymore.....so you have to build on the outskirts....near to S-Bahn or U-Bahn stations.  There is no choice.  Anyone stating privileged urban goals.....needs to think about where you put homes in the future.  Building fifty or sixty kilometers away?  It just won't work.

Third, there are lots of areas around Germany which have enjoyed urban growth and not seen decay or crime figure into the situation.  Those success stories?  They rarely if ever get told.  I don't see many spoken about on German news or documentary shows.  I know they exist.....I can see those neighborhoods in Wiesbaden.  If the high-rise communities come to the outer edge of Frankfurt.....they need some inspiration and planning to make the locals feel it's not inviting a mess later.  To be honest.....most just don't want it to be another Offenbach (a negative neighborhood of Frankfurt).

So, if you hear of hostile talk in Frankfurt over construction permits.....this is the basic story.

Update: 24 Oct 2014: City mayor of Frankfurt stops the project.  Too much public pressure.

TV Empire Building

I'm not a big enthusiast of German public-run TV.....which I should say early on in this blog.  When you stir in the TV-tax, the massive empire beyond Channel One and Two, the marginal appeal of what they offer, and the occasional infighting between the governing board and the leadership of the public network.....it's a joke.

This week, Channel One/Two (ARD/ZDF) came to announce that their new joint project of creating a public network designed for the youth (14 to 29 years old).  The original goal was a full-up network, broadcasting across the satellite, and via the internet.  This goal was basically stopped via the state ministers who saw a large and costly network device with no significant payback. The internet project was accepted as the only solution.

The internet media project is set to start with forty-five million Euro.  Where it comes from?  ZDF and ARD have to give up funding to cover this.  Somewhere in this mix.....you get the feeling that another TV tax hike will be necessary within three years, or some type of advertising will have to be hyped up to cover bills.

Why the necessity of the new network for youths?  This is a fascinating topic.  NEO, a minor state-run TV network under ARD/ZDF was supposed to provide the programming and aim toward this age group.  I've watched NEO on occasion.  Based on numbers, NEO is marginally surviving with viewers currently.  There was a point three years ago where NEO was producing roughly 50,000 viewers a day....out of eighty million Germans.  No one appreciated what they offered, and there is just not much sentiment for the younger Germans to drift over to state-run TV programming of any type.  So, they've decided that NEO isn't the solution.....thus creating this newer project.

There are several interesting facts.  First, German teens are drifting over to internet programming and it's indicating that in the decade or two to come.....they won't be using satellite TV very much, or using Channel One or Two.  Second, German teens don't care for the programming style of the national TV managers....preferring action adventure shows, Marvel-type programming, American comedies, and individual tastes.  Third, Channel One and Two try to be all things for all people.....which ends up with prime-time TV shows which appeal to one age group but not another.  Fourth, German kids aren't buying into news pieces or documentary-style programming.  Fifth, the Channel One and Two folks generally hate reality TV....considering it beneath them and their values....which goes totally opposite to German teens.

Here's the deal.....if the state-run TV managers can't find a way to attract the teens....they will be getting up into their thirties and forties eventually, and start to question why even having an entire national state-run TV situation, or the TV tax.  Within twenty years, I could see the public demanding a fifty-percent cut in the tax, and forcing the network to par down their large empire (two major network operations, and almost twenty smaller state or regional operations).

What does forty-five million Euro a year buy?  By the time you figure fifty-odd technicians, planners, and documentary developers.....twenty percent of the money is gone.  Toss in some conferences, equipment purchases, graphics IT technology, and travel for projects.....there's another twenty percent of the money gone.  What does the remaining thirty-odd million buy in terms of shows?   That would be curious to know. Maybe it's loaded with six hours a day of music video, and five hours of just interviews on the street.  I'm guessing the limited funding left will kill off any creative abilities.

Somehow, the state-run TV managers must find a way to attract the younger viewers, get them to see that a good product can be developed and appreciated, and then shape them into accepting a fruitful relationship.  The odds here?  Zero.  The state-TV folks will cringe when the youths say they want zombie shows, science fiction, and more thrilling shows.  That's not the culture that they want to deliver and promote via a thriving society.

So, sit back and watch.....forty-five million Euro....yearly....sinking quickly.

The Gimmick on ID Cards

For several months, German authorities have been discussing the issue of Islamic members of German society who just pack up and go off to the Syrian civil war.  They see a massive problem down the road when these individuals decide to return to Germany, and bring violence back to places like Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, etc.

The gimmick?  Germany has the power to turn down passport requests.  Every nation has that authority.....passports are not a right.  But Germany has a law which mandates that every citizen MUST have a national ID card.  This card is similar in size to a credit card....has a picture....and notes some basic information on it.  It's plastic and built to last years.

This has been in effect for decades.  If you stop any German on the street as a cop.....you can ask for the national ID and they must provide it.  Without the national ID, you get detained, taken down to the police station and face potential hours as they assemble who you are and the whereabouts of the ID card.  Typically, if you were stupid enough to leave it at home.....they might take you to the house and let you produce it.

How often might a cop stop and ask for the ID?  You could go forty years and never face a situation where it's required beyond the voting situation or opening a bank account.  If you travel via a German airport, to another German airport.....you will have to produce the ID.

The Germans have enacted a new deal where the national ID for individuals selected, will be replaced by a paper ID document.  Yep, replacing the plastic document with a paper document.

On the cover, it says that this ID is not valid for travel beyond the borders of Germany. With the plastic ID, you could travel to any EU country.....without a passport....using the simple plastic ID.

I admit....it begs questions.  If identified as a potential risk, I would imagine the local auslander office (the foreigner office from the county or district) would call you or send a letter....asking you to come by within X number of days.  At the office, they'd ask you to surrender your regular plastic ID card, and accept the paper card.

Frustrated and hostile customers?  Oh my.....yes.  For this reason, I would imagine most offices will only do this a certain day of the week, and have at least two cops within the building to handle unruly customers.

The German Interior Department hasn't said how one gets nominated or pushed into this situation.  That detail was left out of the presentation yesterday.  One might assume that your name gets on some list by the local cops, by hanging out with the wrong crowd.  One might also assume that the BND has a watch-list already of hundreds or thousands of potential civil war players, and would just push the list over.

Stopping the dual-citizen players?  That's a minor issue remaining.  Germany made the decision to please the Turkish members of its society.....allowing them to continue with two citizenships.  They still retain a Turkish passport and can go around this new gimmick entirely.

Fixing the problem?  I would patiently sit back for 90 days and see what legal challenges are put forward.  People won't be happy, and by dragging them down to the office and taking away the national ID....might provoke them to just say "screw-it" and take off via some method (fake passport, etc).  Some extremists might use this to provoke the local membership and draw media attention.

From the list of potential answers.....this was the logical next step.  It's hard to find more four-star answers to this problem.....other than forcing people to take additional integration classes and challenging the Muslim religious leaders of Germany to tone down their message.  

Germany and Ebola

Almost every night this week....the 8PM Channel One (ARD) news is leading off with the US Ebola scare stuff.  The curious thing is that they basically cut and paste off the entire CNN storyline of the day, and just repeat what CNN says.  Maybe that's ok, but you just wonder.

I noticed this week that a group (prominently known anyway) of German scientists.....National Academy of Sciences.....came out and noted that the current trend with Ebola is NOT repeating itself in the normal way as it'd done for two decades.

It's an interesting twist to this as they noted.  It generally got noted in the Congo.....went through a yearly grouping with maybe 500 folks who would pass away (max), and then kind clean itself up and disappear for a while, then repeat.  Rainy season, dry season.....type of thing.

This time.....it moved 1,500 km over to the western coast, and put itself in the midst of a group who'd never seen it before.  Medical advantages?  None.  The numbers game went wider this time around and has yet to peak.  Reasons given?  None really.

At the end of their commentary....they added a little hint, basically saying that the design of this Ebola strain is NOT the same as the one seen previously, indicating it's mutated in some fashion.  Beyond that.....they won't say much else.

It should be noted that this week, Germany tossed a fair amount of money toward the African efforts, and the one patient in Germany for treatment has passed away.  Beyond that.....no one new has come up with the disease.

The US response at the end of this week?  Oddly, the US Army folks going off to Africa got the last of their stuff ready and got ready to leave for the Ebola-assistance episode.  Note, the Army gave them four hours of training.  Yep, that was it.  It's hard to say if that was good training or lousy training.  I admit....yearly, when you talked about chemical warfare training in the 1970s or 1980s.....you got four hours of training, and then ten minutes in some tear-gas chamber to experience the thrill of using a gas-mask.  Maybe four hours is enough.....maybe.

Finally, the US President identified his new expert or national lead on Ebola.  The guy is a political figure....zero science background or medical experience.  It's hard to say what they really expected or wanted.....but I doubt if any news team will be interviewing the guy because he really doesn't know much beyond the political side of the story.  Maybe a wasted effort, but the US has some figure to be publicly known as the Ebola Czar.