There are various German words, which just aren't easily explained or translated in some manner to make sense with a single line of explanation. Kirchenaustritt is such a word.
Remember, I write this blog as an American, for non-Germans.
Kirchenaustritt means.....you are a current member of some recognized church in Germany.....and you've decided 'enough is enough', and you are quitting the church. I should note....this is not where the church is quitting you or terminating you from the membership. You've simply given notice that you won't be affiliated with this church or religion any longer.
In Germany, it's actually a civil right....written into the basic law itself. Historically, this goes back to the 1840s and was made a Prussian (way before the German state) civil right.
Reasons for Kirchenaustritt? Well, there could be a hundred reasons. You might have gotten all upset about some commentary from the Pope. You might be hostile toward spending practices of your religion. You might be frustrated over some political agenda that your church has adapted. You might have personally changed your lifestyle and can't believe in religion. The list goes on and on.
The chief happening once you settle on Kirchenaustritt? The church tax ends. You have to remember....Germany has an percentage of your pay drawn out each month, to cover the church tax. Part of the reason for this.....is that while people may claim some religion....the truth is....they really don't attend church very often. You might live in a village of two-thousand people, with one single church.....and discover on a typical Sunday that only sixty people attend the church. Upon examination, you find that there are over six-hundred people in the village who are tax-paying members of the church. Maybe around Christmas and Easter.....the other five-hundred-odd people will show up for a service or two.
Here's the kicker for Kirchenaustritt.....once you make this decision, there's a fee involved. Naturally, you'd ask what kind of fee. The best way to describe this....an administrative fee for paperwork. Here in Hessen (my local state)....it's twenty-five Euro for you to quit the church.
State-by-state, there's different fees. For example, in Bavaria....it's thirty-one Euro to quit. In Bremen, it's five-Euro to quit. Brandenburg? Free.
Why a difference in fee.....state-by-state? It's an excellent example of how Germany is not a united country, and more of a sixteen-state federation. Each state has it's own general rules and fees, depending on what they want to accomplish.
Quitting usually requires one single form.....a couple pieces of personal information, and is then accepted by the clerk in your local town. For the most part.....they verify who you are and then stamp the document as official. Someone will take it and finalize it in some database, and within a week or so....you are out of the system. Should it cost twenty-five Euro? The clerk would be there anyway and already paid by the government. It's not that clear how the money fits into this deal unless it's just a profit-making gimmick to put more money into the local state government.
How many Germans quit on a yearly basis? This is a curious question. In a period of 1937 to 1939....roughly 1.2 million Germans quit their religion (Nazi era). In another period of 1991 to 1995, there were roughly 2.2 million Germans to quit their religion. In 2011, there were roughly 260,000 Germans to quit their religion. If you look over a twenty-year period....it's well over six million Germans who quit.
So, if you hear some German talking up Kirchenaustritt.....this is the whole explanation to what is going on.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
The Nazi Nuke Weapon Explanation?
It may or may not be factual in nature.
What you have is a lead-in story from a Austrian film producer who took some reports that existed a the end of WW II, and has pieced together this story of the Nazi war machine....putting a nuke weapon program into St Georgen an der Gusen....an Austrian village in the north of the country....just outside of Linz, and maybe an hour's drive from Passau, Germany.
It's a mountainous area that was fairly stable with a population of a thousand residents for decades....then came WW II, and from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s....massive expansion and they have over 3,600 people today. Their footnote in history? They had a large number of technology and industrial operations for WW II, with forced labor. It's not exactly a reputation that you'd want to live with, and the locals would like to just drop the past history and focus on the future.
So, onto the nuke topic. There's been a belief for years that Hitler's war machine had gone to a stage where the nuclear weapon idea was progressing. This film producer has identified the area and done a bit of digging. There's enough bits and pieces to suggest that he might be onto something.....but oddly enough....the local police stepped in and said he didn't have the permission of the owner to dig on the property. This guy notes that he has the full permission of the owner, and there's some apparent court action expected in January to allow him to continue on with his project.
What some folks anticipate is that there's more to the story. More radioactivity reported in the area? Yeah, that's part of the mystery to the episode. There's a belief that an actual nuke explosion (minor in nature) did occur somewhere in this mountainous area, and likely proved the successful nature of the program. No report....at least issued from any of the war-time powers....has ever suggested an experiment was concluded and a nuke explosion occurred. If one is proven....it opens up a number of doors and will cause more curiosity into what was going on.
The odds of the film producer being permanently halted from digging in the area? I'd take a guess at better than fifty-fifty. It opens up old wounds and hostility over blame. No one wants to hear the rest of the story.
What you have is a lead-in story from a Austrian film producer who took some reports that existed a the end of WW II, and has pieced together this story of the Nazi war machine....putting a nuke weapon program into St Georgen an der Gusen....an Austrian village in the north of the country....just outside of Linz, and maybe an hour's drive from Passau, Germany.
It's a mountainous area that was fairly stable with a population of a thousand residents for decades....then came WW II, and from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s....massive expansion and they have over 3,600 people today. Their footnote in history? They had a large number of technology and industrial operations for WW II, with forced labor. It's not exactly a reputation that you'd want to live with, and the locals would like to just drop the past history and focus on the future.
So, onto the nuke topic. There's been a belief for years that Hitler's war machine had gone to a stage where the nuclear weapon idea was progressing. This film producer has identified the area and done a bit of digging. There's enough bits and pieces to suggest that he might be onto something.....but oddly enough....the local police stepped in and said he didn't have the permission of the owner to dig on the property. This guy notes that he has the full permission of the owner, and there's some apparent court action expected in January to allow him to continue on with his project.
What some folks anticipate is that there's more to the story. More radioactivity reported in the area? Yeah, that's part of the mystery to the episode. There's a belief that an actual nuke explosion (minor in nature) did occur somewhere in this mountainous area, and likely proved the successful nature of the program. No report....at least issued from any of the war-time powers....has ever suggested an experiment was concluded and a nuke explosion occurred. If one is proven....it opens up a number of doors and will cause more curiosity into what was going on.
The odds of the film producer being permanently halted from digging in the area? I'd take a guess at better than fifty-fifty. It opens up old wounds and hostility over blame. No one wants to hear the rest of the story.
Explaining the Greek-German Euro Problem
Greece figured prominently in German news last night....actually pegged number one over the missing airliner and the sunk ferry off Albania with Germans onboard.
It's an epic story of Greek financial woes which have flipped Greece into deep trouble and left the average guy on the street there wondering about stability and the future.
The effort to take several political parties and form a new government.....involving a minimum of 150-odd members of the Greek Parliament? Fizzled. This is one of the problems when you have seven political parties in the mix. Prior to the election.....there were potentially up to twenty-one political parties running candidates....but only seven met the minimum vote level to move onto the next step.
This week's problem figures from the continued efforts to establish a President and get enough votes to solidify this guy. The seven-party balance has made it impossible. And the icing on the cake is that the loans that the EU are providing to cover debts.....require some focus on the future. Without the figure of the Greek President.....more loans are questionable.
What the German media is laying out is a dangerous scenario where people in Greece get hyped up and worried over their banking sector....and make a run on the banks. As one banker accurately described the simplicity of the problem.....you could have a couple of ATM machines in key neighborhoods which might fail one evening, and give off a false impression of a lack of money. The next day.....a rush to the local banks gets picked up by the news media and suddenly in two or three days.....the whole banking sector is crushed by this demand to remove cash (lots of cash).....which the banks simply can't provide.
What happens on 25 January? This next election will likely result in the current seven political parties still being around, but in differing numbers. Some people think the Radical Left Party will move up from second-place where they stand currently (52 members of the 300)......overtaking the New Democracy Party (108 members of the 300). There's a fear that the New Dawn Party (resembling the Nationalists Socialists of the 1930s) might also pick up another dozen-odd members.
The odds of stability coming out of this election? So far, you don't get that impression from any journalists.....it's more like 'round-2'.
Why does any of this matter to the typical German? There is this scenario of Greece reaching a point of despair and the right political mechanics to leave the Euro, and return to their old currency. The stability of the Euro will be called into question and the anti-Euro skeptics within Germany (probably five-to-ten percent of German society) will have more reason to discuss their own views on a national stage. On the list of topics for the 2017 German election.....this is one that both the CDU/CSU and SPD political parties would prefer to avoid. It only helps AfD.
So, when you settle down and view German news and the Greek election episode figures prominently....there's a good reason for telling this story. The events of 25 January 2015 might lay out one of the top stories of the year, and generate more skeptical views of the Euro.
It's an epic story of Greek financial woes which have flipped Greece into deep trouble and left the average guy on the street there wondering about stability and the future.
The effort to take several political parties and form a new government.....involving a minimum of 150-odd members of the Greek Parliament? Fizzled. This is one of the problems when you have seven political parties in the mix. Prior to the election.....there were potentially up to twenty-one political parties running candidates....but only seven met the minimum vote level to move onto the next step.
This week's problem figures from the continued efforts to establish a President and get enough votes to solidify this guy. The seven-party balance has made it impossible. And the icing on the cake is that the loans that the EU are providing to cover debts.....require some focus on the future. Without the figure of the Greek President.....more loans are questionable.
What the German media is laying out is a dangerous scenario where people in Greece get hyped up and worried over their banking sector....and make a run on the banks. As one banker accurately described the simplicity of the problem.....you could have a couple of ATM machines in key neighborhoods which might fail one evening, and give off a false impression of a lack of money. The next day.....a rush to the local banks gets picked up by the news media and suddenly in two or three days.....the whole banking sector is crushed by this demand to remove cash (lots of cash).....which the banks simply can't provide.
What happens on 25 January? This next election will likely result in the current seven political parties still being around, but in differing numbers. Some people think the Radical Left Party will move up from second-place where they stand currently (52 members of the 300)......overtaking the New Democracy Party (108 members of the 300). There's a fear that the New Dawn Party (resembling the Nationalists Socialists of the 1930s) might also pick up another dozen-odd members.
The odds of stability coming out of this election? So far, you don't get that impression from any journalists.....it's more like 'round-2'.
Why does any of this matter to the typical German? There is this scenario of Greece reaching a point of despair and the right political mechanics to leave the Euro, and return to their old currency. The stability of the Euro will be called into question and the anti-Euro skeptics within Germany (probably five-to-ten percent of German society) will have more reason to discuss their own views on a national stage. On the list of topics for the 2017 German election.....this is one that both the CDU/CSU and SPD political parties would prefer to avoid. It only helps AfD.
So, when you settle down and view German news and the Greek election episode figures prominently....there's a good reason for telling this story. The events of 25 January 2015 might lay out one of the top stories of the year, and generate more skeptical views of the Euro.
Monday, December 29, 2014
German News Update over Ukraine
Sometime this afternoon....Germans news media folks started putting out the word that a summit of some type will be held over the Ukraine episode....on 15 January 2015. Attendees? Poroshenko, head of the current Ukrainian gov't, Chancellor Merkel, the French head of state, and Russia's Putin. The hype is pretty thick on this.....with some high expectations coming out of the German media folks.
For the last nine-odd months.....I'd generally say that Ukrainian updates tend to make the news almost nightly. Germans follow the episode and feel some compassion for the Ukrainian people. I'd say roughly ten percent of society follow the Russian explanation for things and counter German political comments.
The problem with this summit? Generally, I'd say there's one remarkable group missing....the pro-Russian Ukrainians. Maybe it's one of those type meetings where Poroshenko is simply going to lay out a new strategy for a united Ukraine, and Putin will just sit and hear the talk. Maybe this is strictly an open door for Putin to take some positive move to ease the sanctions against Russia.
Frankly, over the course of twelve months....I'm kinda surprised at how this whole thing has developed.....splitting of a piece or two of Ukraine, and watching the Russians fall into a pit of despair over the sanctions. If sanctions were to stand for another twelve months? I'm not sure if Putin would still be around.
So, I'm guessing that Posorshenko is going to put some curious deal on the table....unifying Ukraine in 2016....probably in some six-step process leading up to that point. There will be some European involvement to ensure an improving economic balance for Russia.....if they allow each step to occur, and Putin will sit there in a curious mess which he can't fix unless he accepts their deal. As for the pro-Russian Ukrainians? They probably will be shaking their heads and wondering what this whole thing was about, and where it will conclude.
For the last nine-odd months.....I'd generally say that Ukrainian updates tend to make the news almost nightly. Germans follow the episode and feel some compassion for the Ukrainian people. I'd say roughly ten percent of society follow the Russian explanation for things and counter German political comments.
The problem with this summit? Generally, I'd say there's one remarkable group missing....the pro-Russian Ukrainians. Maybe it's one of those type meetings where Poroshenko is simply going to lay out a new strategy for a united Ukraine, and Putin will just sit and hear the talk. Maybe this is strictly an open door for Putin to take some positive move to ease the sanctions against Russia.
Frankly, over the course of twelve months....I'm kinda surprised at how this whole thing has developed.....splitting of a piece or two of Ukraine, and watching the Russians fall into a pit of despair over the sanctions. If sanctions were to stand for another twelve months? I'm not sure if Putin would still be around.
So, I'm guessing that Posorshenko is going to put some curious deal on the table....unifying Ukraine in 2016....probably in some six-step process leading up to that point. There will be some European involvement to ensure an improving economic balance for Russia.....if they allow each step to occur, and Putin will sit there in a curious mess which he can't fix unless he accepts their deal. As for the pro-Russian Ukrainians? They probably will be shaking their heads and wondering what this whole thing was about, and where it will conclude.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Public-run TV Under Pressure
There was an interesting news piece to come out in Germany this weekend....over the TV tax. It's a brief piece over an evaluation board that met and covered the tax.....coming to the conclusion that it has to be changed (yet again). The board? Composed of Treasury Department members.
If you read through the various accounts....you come to this basic description. The board says that for a tax of this sort to exist and be functional.....there needs to be a voluntary function for the user, not a mandatory function (such as we have now). It's supply-side economics....you can't have the supply-side folks deciding what they will do and then mandating it upon the consumer. If the consumer won't use the services.....then there's no way to ration or really explain the whole purpose behind the tax.
Right now, most folks pay in the range of 200 Euro a year for a residence and it's TV tax. This covers everything, from internet to TV, and includes radio.
Odds of anything coming out of this report? Zero. It'll be discussed, and the TV 'mafia' will just say that they need X amount of funding to operate. If you told them it'd be cut by five percent.....they'd freak out and try to use political 'muscle' to charm the governor's board that runs the operation.
For an American viewing this.....it's an odd problem that gets discussed several times a year.
Prior to 1984, there was just public-run TV. Along came RTL to challenge the public-run TV crowd.....with commercial operations. The public-run TV crowd (thugs would be a more appropriate word) used every trick in the book to deny operations, and the original beaming of a signal came out of Luxembourg....not Germany.
Today....Channel One (ARD) and Channel Two (ZDF).....both public-run operations....still have significant numbers. But the other commercial channels are all expanding and drawing stronger audiences each year. If you pull the numbers for the 15-to-24 year-old crowd.....state-run TV is dismal and not having any audience. The over-50 crowd? They probably have a minimum of fifty percent of the audience.
If you count everything.....there's around twenty-odd stations now under the public-run TV folks. After Channel One and Channel Two......there's nine regional channels. As things went digital.....the public-run TV crowd threw a couple of new stations into the mix (a culture channel and a youth channel). The youth channel (NEO).....has been a fair failure, with some reports indicating around 50,000 viewers a day total out of eighty million residents. The culture channel features mostly 1970s and 1980s shows, and draws virtually zero viewers under the age of thirty.
The problem which you can see coming is that a growing audience is simply not using any of the public-run TV options. It might take another decade but you can sense that a major political topic will eventually erupt and some thirty-percent cut on the TV tax will occur to make the crowd happy. Three or four channels will disappear. Maybe a decade later....another cut and things might start to make sense.
The board's comments are correct.....there ought to be some connection to the tax paid, and the consumer ought to have some way of forcing change upon the public-run TV crowd. Currently....there is no such connection.
If you read through the various accounts....you come to this basic description. The board says that for a tax of this sort to exist and be functional.....there needs to be a voluntary function for the user, not a mandatory function (such as we have now). It's supply-side economics....you can't have the supply-side folks deciding what they will do and then mandating it upon the consumer. If the consumer won't use the services.....then there's no way to ration or really explain the whole purpose behind the tax.
Right now, most folks pay in the range of 200 Euro a year for a residence and it's TV tax. This covers everything, from internet to TV, and includes radio.
Odds of anything coming out of this report? Zero. It'll be discussed, and the TV 'mafia' will just say that they need X amount of funding to operate. If you told them it'd be cut by five percent.....they'd freak out and try to use political 'muscle' to charm the governor's board that runs the operation.
For an American viewing this.....it's an odd problem that gets discussed several times a year.
Prior to 1984, there was just public-run TV. Along came RTL to challenge the public-run TV crowd.....with commercial operations. The public-run TV crowd (thugs would be a more appropriate word) used every trick in the book to deny operations, and the original beaming of a signal came out of Luxembourg....not Germany.
Today....Channel One (ARD) and Channel Two (ZDF).....both public-run operations....still have significant numbers. But the other commercial channels are all expanding and drawing stronger audiences each year. If you pull the numbers for the 15-to-24 year-old crowd.....state-run TV is dismal and not having any audience. The over-50 crowd? They probably have a minimum of fifty percent of the audience.
If you count everything.....there's around twenty-odd stations now under the public-run TV folks. After Channel One and Channel Two......there's nine regional channels. As things went digital.....the public-run TV crowd threw a couple of new stations into the mix (a culture channel and a youth channel). The youth channel (NEO).....has been a fair failure, with some reports indicating around 50,000 viewers a day total out of eighty million residents. The culture channel features mostly 1970s and 1980s shows, and draws virtually zero viewers under the age of thirty.
The problem which you can see coming is that a growing audience is simply not using any of the public-run TV options. It might take another decade but you can sense that a major political topic will eventually erupt and some thirty-percent cut on the TV tax will occur to make the crowd happy. Three or four channels will disappear. Maybe a decade later....another cut and things might start to make sense.
The board's comments are correct.....there ought to be some connection to the tax paid, and the consumer ought to have some way of forcing change upon the public-run TV crowd. Currently....there is no such connection.
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Changing the German Voting Procedure?
Either on weekends or around holidays....you will occasionally get a German political figure to toss out some radical idea that wouldn't normally be discussed in public. This week....the general secretary of the SPD Party in Germany came out to discuss this idea of a longer voting episode. Instead of one single day (always on a Sunday) for elections.....Yasmin Fahimi suggested several weeks of open-voting. She also voiced the idea of different polling points.....saying you ought to be able to walk into a library or a train-station.....and cast a vote.
The driving slant on this? Typically, for an average German election....you don't get more than fifty percent of the adult public (over eighteen) to vote.
Reception to the idea of longer open-voting and different points? Kinda negative by other political parties. As they put it....the German voter is clever enough to grasp the one single day of voting, that it's always on an off-day for Germans, and that it's the same place in their neighborhood or town where it's been for fifty-odd years.
Being an American in German and watching the vote process....it's pretty simple. You are registered as you move into a town, city or village....with the address of your home. You have no choice....you MUST register.
A card will be sent to your address prior to the election, and it will note the location and hours that the voting establishment are open. Most towns and villages will open the voting station around 6 or 7 AM, on a Sunday.....and stay open until 6PM (or till the last person has voted in line).
Voting stations moving around in town? Doesn't happen. You can question a typical German and they will tell you their voting point has been at the same address for thirty-plus years.
The idea of putting the voting station at public points like train-stations or libraries, for a week or two? It's hard to say if it'd make any difference with the German public. There aren't any polls to say who votes compassionately and on a dedicated basis for thirty consecutive years.....or those who have never voted in a single election over thirty consecutive years. I admit.....it'd be interesting to know this part of the story for Germans.
What typically drives the occasional voter in Germany? It'll be an election tied to economics, pension reform, or some idiot that you really dislike and vote against (like Schroeder from the SPD of a decade ago). Most German elections simply aren't that thrilling or get people all enthusiastic.
The odds of this discussion over longer voting options and more possible stations to vote? I'd take a guess that it might generate some forum chatter for a Sunday night political talk show....but the average German probably doesn't care and it wouldn't make much of a difference.
In fact, I'll even say this. Right now....the average German election comes with the results of fifty percent of the public voting. If you could raise this to seventy-five percent.....would it change the average statistics? Would the SPD pick up half of the new voters? Would the Greens pick up ten-percent of the new voters? Would the AfD pick up the majority of the new voters? On this.....you just don't know. In some ways.....fixing or solving this.....might simply open up a bigger problem in German culture.
The driving slant on this? Typically, for an average German election....you don't get more than fifty percent of the adult public (over eighteen) to vote.
Reception to the idea of longer open-voting and different points? Kinda negative by other political parties. As they put it....the German voter is clever enough to grasp the one single day of voting, that it's always on an off-day for Germans, and that it's the same place in their neighborhood or town where it's been for fifty-odd years.
Being an American in German and watching the vote process....it's pretty simple. You are registered as you move into a town, city or village....with the address of your home. You have no choice....you MUST register.
A card will be sent to your address prior to the election, and it will note the location and hours that the voting establishment are open. Most towns and villages will open the voting station around 6 or 7 AM, on a Sunday.....and stay open until 6PM (or till the last person has voted in line).
Voting stations moving around in town? Doesn't happen. You can question a typical German and they will tell you their voting point has been at the same address for thirty-plus years.
The idea of putting the voting station at public points like train-stations or libraries, for a week or two? It's hard to say if it'd make any difference with the German public. There aren't any polls to say who votes compassionately and on a dedicated basis for thirty consecutive years.....or those who have never voted in a single election over thirty consecutive years. I admit.....it'd be interesting to know this part of the story for Germans.
What typically drives the occasional voter in Germany? It'll be an election tied to economics, pension reform, or some idiot that you really dislike and vote against (like Schroeder from the SPD of a decade ago). Most German elections simply aren't that thrilling or get people all enthusiastic.
The odds of this discussion over longer voting options and more possible stations to vote? I'd take a guess that it might generate some forum chatter for a Sunday night political talk show....but the average German probably doesn't care and it wouldn't make much of a difference.
In fact, I'll even say this. Right now....the average German election comes with the results of fifty percent of the public voting. If you could raise this to seventy-five percent.....would it change the average statistics? Would the SPD pick up half of the new voters? Would the Greens pick up ten-percent of the new voters? Would the AfD pick up the majority of the new voters? On this.....you just don't know. In some ways.....fixing or solving this.....might simply open up a bigger problem in German culture.
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Ten Observations over Germany and Immigration/Integration/Pegida
Remember, I'm an American....not a German.....so I have a different perception and view of this ongoing issue in Germany. Only my observations:
First, Germany had an average number of folks who came in and did the refugee status thing, and they were prepared for that number of people. Somewhere around 2012....at least in what I've seen....it started to bump up. It's probably three or four times the normal average of a decade ago, and escalating monthly. The plan "A"? Marginally working. Plan "B"? It's hard to say if one does exist.
Second, based on numbers.....some of the sixteen German states are getting extremely high numbers of refugees, and some are getting almost no refugees. The states in the eastern part of the country (old DDR)....are in the least category. It's noticeable and the states being pushed to accept more of the new immigrants are realizing their contribution and the cost associated with that. They aren't that happy, for a good reason.
Third, all of the political parties now realize this refugee and immigrant situation is a big negative with public perception. With the exception of the AfD.....none of the parties want to say much....except defend the new immigrants and the way it's being handled. The AfD folks appear to be siding with public sentiment, and making themselves into a magnet for negative talk by public forums. 2017 is only three years away and a national election could involve this topic as one of the top three....something that the CDU/CSU and SPD folks would like to avoid.
Fourth, because of paperwork and plan "A".....most immigrants/refugees are spending months and months in some compound area.....sleeping on a marginal cot.....and feeling like they are in some third-world land. Getting them out of the compound and into some type of routine German life? It might be a year or even two years before that first step occurs. Put yourself into this position.....how you feel doing two years in some prison-camp compound?
Fifth, you see a continual discussion over integration. Some folks think that just the language barrier is enough and if you master 2,000 German words and test well....that's ninety-percent of the barrier. Some folks think that a brief class of German law and history, with a multiple-choice test....wrap up the last of the barrier. Some folks think you ought to read five or six German classics.....ought to be thrown into the mix. Some folks think you need to forced into some civil duty experiences.....to feel German. Some folks think you need to be thrown into a small-town environment for five years instead of the magnet attraction of mega-city life which most refugees prefer.
Sixth, the radical mix of refugees is always curious. There are probably twenty different African countries which figure into the episode.....with Eritrea figuring at the top. Egyptians, Libyans, Iraqis, Syrians, and Palestinians figure into the group. Toss in the oddball characters who appear from Asia, and you've got a lot of folks who have different levels of education and maturity. Some can easily fit in and some will never fit. Some have strong desires to never return to their homeland.....some are still in a state of shock that they were forced to leave because of instability. The plan "A" refugee situation didn't really take this wide variety of integration into view when built.
Seventh, are all EU states contributing to the game? No. Fairness violation? Call it whatever you desire. The fact is.....a vast number of refugees just don't care to go off to Spain or Belgium. They've got a dream-place on their mind, and Germany rates pretty high.
Eighth, each community or city drawn (forced) to participate in refugee camps.....pays initially out of their pocket. There's some efforts by the national government to compensate but it's not exactly a one-for-one type cost pay-back. Benefit for the individual city or state? None.....you can ask anyone or just sit there and observe the whole picture.....there's just no pay-back in this.
Ninth, what happens in a decade? So far, I haven't seen any political authority or news media figure come into a forum or sit to ponder over the results of this in a decade. There were twenty-two million Syrians at the beginning of 2013. Based on the refugee situation and lack of continued unstable environment.....I'd say it's a pretty good guess that three million Syrians might be in Germany by 2023. Eritrea had a population of six million in 2013. I'd take an educated guess by 2023, at least 500,000 of their population will be in Germany. Then figure in the Russians, the other Africans, and various Middle Eastern players....and there might be 85 million residents in Germany....but only seventy-million are authentic Germans. What does that say about the future of Germany?
Tenth, for the sake of the argument.....let's say that 2017 comes and immigration/refugee status is topic number one for the election. Let's say that the CDU can wrangle out a thirty-one percent win (top vote party), and the SPD is pressed down to around fifteen percent of the national vote. Then you have the AfD folks (estimate of twenty-five percent) and the Linke Party (estimate of twenty-two percent), with the Greens carrying the remainder (seven percent). How exactly would you form a government from this deal? The CDU forced to partner up with not only the SPD, but the Greens....to meet the fifty-percent rule? What kind of government would this turn into and would it be able to last four complete years? The odds of immigration/refugee/Pegida going away? Zero, and more likely to increase into bigger issues as we get past 2015. Labeling Pegida as Nazi-pin-stripped players? What do you refer to people who push refugees into third-rate marginal compounds with a cot as your bed and maybe two years of life in a very uncomfortable situation? This media game has become a bigger issue than anything else....sadly.
First, Germany had an average number of folks who came in and did the refugee status thing, and they were prepared for that number of people. Somewhere around 2012....at least in what I've seen....it started to bump up. It's probably three or four times the normal average of a decade ago, and escalating monthly. The plan "A"? Marginally working. Plan "B"? It's hard to say if one does exist.
Second, based on numbers.....some of the sixteen German states are getting extremely high numbers of refugees, and some are getting almost no refugees. The states in the eastern part of the country (old DDR)....are in the least category. It's noticeable and the states being pushed to accept more of the new immigrants are realizing their contribution and the cost associated with that. They aren't that happy, for a good reason.
Third, all of the political parties now realize this refugee and immigrant situation is a big negative with public perception. With the exception of the AfD.....none of the parties want to say much....except defend the new immigrants and the way it's being handled. The AfD folks appear to be siding with public sentiment, and making themselves into a magnet for negative talk by public forums. 2017 is only three years away and a national election could involve this topic as one of the top three....something that the CDU/CSU and SPD folks would like to avoid.
Fourth, because of paperwork and plan "A".....most immigrants/refugees are spending months and months in some compound area.....sleeping on a marginal cot.....and feeling like they are in some third-world land. Getting them out of the compound and into some type of routine German life? It might be a year or even two years before that first step occurs. Put yourself into this position.....how you feel doing two years in some prison-camp compound?
Fifth, you see a continual discussion over integration. Some folks think that just the language barrier is enough and if you master 2,000 German words and test well....that's ninety-percent of the barrier. Some folks think that a brief class of German law and history, with a multiple-choice test....wrap up the last of the barrier. Some folks think you ought to read five or six German classics.....ought to be thrown into the mix. Some folks think you need to forced into some civil duty experiences.....to feel German. Some folks think you need to be thrown into a small-town environment for five years instead of the magnet attraction of mega-city life which most refugees prefer.
Sixth, the radical mix of refugees is always curious. There are probably twenty different African countries which figure into the episode.....with Eritrea figuring at the top. Egyptians, Libyans, Iraqis, Syrians, and Palestinians figure into the group. Toss in the oddball characters who appear from Asia, and you've got a lot of folks who have different levels of education and maturity. Some can easily fit in and some will never fit. Some have strong desires to never return to their homeland.....some are still in a state of shock that they were forced to leave because of instability. The plan "A" refugee situation didn't really take this wide variety of integration into view when built.
Seventh, are all EU states contributing to the game? No. Fairness violation? Call it whatever you desire. The fact is.....a vast number of refugees just don't care to go off to Spain or Belgium. They've got a dream-place on their mind, and Germany rates pretty high.
Eighth, each community or city drawn (forced) to participate in refugee camps.....pays initially out of their pocket. There's some efforts by the national government to compensate but it's not exactly a one-for-one type cost pay-back. Benefit for the individual city or state? None.....you can ask anyone or just sit there and observe the whole picture.....there's just no pay-back in this.
Ninth, what happens in a decade? So far, I haven't seen any political authority or news media figure come into a forum or sit to ponder over the results of this in a decade. There were twenty-two million Syrians at the beginning of 2013. Based on the refugee situation and lack of continued unstable environment.....I'd say it's a pretty good guess that three million Syrians might be in Germany by 2023. Eritrea had a population of six million in 2013. I'd take an educated guess by 2023, at least 500,000 of their population will be in Germany. Then figure in the Russians, the other Africans, and various Middle Eastern players....and there might be 85 million residents in Germany....but only seventy-million are authentic Germans. What does that say about the future of Germany?
Tenth, for the sake of the argument.....let's say that 2017 comes and immigration/refugee status is topic number one for the election. Let's say that the CDU can wrangle out a thirty-one percent win (top vote party), and the SPD is pressed down to around fifteen percent of the national vote. Then you have the AfD folks (estimate of twenty-five percent) and the Linke Party (estimate of twenty-two percent), with the Greens carrying the remainder (seven percent). How exactly would you form a government from this deal? The CDU forced to partner up with not only the SPD, but the Greens....to meet the fifty-percent rule? What kind of government would this turn into and would it be able to last four complete years? The odds of immigration/refugee/Pegida going away? Zero, and more likely to increase into bigger issues as we get past 2015. Labeling Pegida as Nazi-pin-stripped players? What do you refer to people who push refugees into third-rate marginal compounds with a cot as your bed and maybe two years of life in a very uncomfortable situation? This media game has become a bigger issue than anything else....sadly.
Saturday, December 20, 2014
An Improvement Over German TV Choices
Back around Christmas of 1997, while living here in Germany at the time....I'd finally gotten ahead of schedule and would have some free time on the night of the 24th of December for TV. I sat down and reviewed the TV guide, and came to realize that it was pretty limited.
The highlight that evening was Die Hard II. Behind that....two or three Christmas concerts, an old western, some repeats of 1980's murder mysteries, and a German-produced Christmas movie where Santa was being chased by guys with rifles (I actually watched an hour of the movie and could not understand how the executives of the non-state-run network agreed to make the movie).
I came to work the next week, and discussed this with a guy who'd been in Germany for six years. He'd noted the same issue year after year....none of the networks were thinking of anything much, and just put crap on Christmas evening (the 24th). Oddly, for the night of the 25th and 26th....there were a dozen four-star movies and shows. It made no sense except that they figured no one would care because no one was watching.
This week, I got my TV guide and paged up to the evening of the 24th of December....expecting the normal garbage choices.
Oddly enough....Die Hard II is slated again for the 24th. But this time, they've got competition.
Kevin Alone I and II will be featured. The Griswalds Christmas? It'll be showing as well.
There's the Last Unicorn featured on a non-state-run network.
Toy Story II will make it.
A decent German holiday show with interviews and singers will be featured, along with another German-produced Christmas comedy (2011 production), without any threats to Santa or his reindeer.
A four-star production from the DDR of 1967 will make it (Die Heiden von Kummerow).....with historical references of the old days....way before WW I or WW II.
A French production of Eselshaut will be shown (1970).....a kid's story basically.
And on SWR, a documentary on the wild cats of Germany. Yeah, for the critter folks.
Over the course of twenty-odd years.....some things have changed. Maybe for the better.
The highlight that evening was Die Hard II. Behind that....two or three Christmas concerts, an old western, some repeats of 1980's murder mysteries, and a German-produced Christmas movie where Santa was being chased by guys with rifles (I actually watched an hour of the movie and could not understand how the executives of the non-state-run network agreed to make the movie).
I came to work the next week, and discussed this with a guy who'd been in Germany for six years. He'd noted the same issue year after year....none of the networks were thinking of anything much, and just put crap on Christmas evening (the 24th). Oddly, for the night of the 25th and 26th....there were a dozen four-star movies and shows. It made no sense except that they figured no one would care because no one was watching.
This week, I got my TV guide and paged up to the evening of the 24th of December....expecting the normal garbage choices.
Oddly enough....Die Hard II is slated again for the 24th. But this time, they've got competition.
Kevin Alone I and II will be featured. The Griswalds Christmas? It'll be showing as well.
There's the Last Unicorn featured on a non-state-run network.
Toy Story II will make it.
A decent German holiday show with interviews and singers will be featured, along with another German-produced Christmas comedy (2011 production), without any threats to Santa or his reindeer.
A four-star production from the DDR of 1967 will make it (Die Heiden von Kummerow).....with historical references of the old days....way before WW I or WW II.
A French production of Eselshaut will be shown (1970).....a kid's story basically.
And on SWR, a documentary on the wild cats of Germany. Yeah, for the critter folks.
Over the course of twenty-odd years.....some things have changed. Maybe for the better.
The Nineteen Ideals of Pegida
There was an excellent article over at Focus (the German publication) this morning....over the Pegida (the anti-immigration crowd that is gathering steam now) in Germany. It covers the nineteen points that Pegida is now pursuing with it's membership and stressing to political parties across Germany. The nineteen points?
1. Pegida is for the admission of people under the umbrella of war refugees, or those who've been politically persecuted or threatened against their religion. Curiously, this goes hand-in-hand with the Basic Law (Germany's Constitution). This shows them on a positive light, at least in my opinion.
2. Pegida wants the Basic Law changed to include the right and duty to integrate. Currently, the closest you get is the right of asylum. There's some basic understandings and mandatory items written down for integration....but it's not exactly a "duty".
3. Pegida wants this temp "dumping-station" mentality to cease. Even they admit it's pretty bad when you throw some people into some warehouse or old building for months....with no clear idea over a more permanent situation. Of course, they didn't say who'd pay for this or how it would be paid.
4. Pegida wants more distribution and fairness built into who accepts the refugees/immigrants. Currently, the numbers show Germany having MORE than their fair share, and they'd like for these folks to be shifted around. Of course, the immigrants/refugees might not want to live in Spain or Sweden. And I doubt that the EU wants to sit there and mandate who lives where or why you have to get on a bus to Belgium.
5. Pegida wants to see less support personnel for the refugee homes/depots. To some degree, everything over the structure now is unplanned and not well thought out. You see this from the weekly news media reports. The guards at the gate? A necessity? No one from the government has explained this....other than saying it's to protect the immigrants within the secure compound. On the other side of this.....the immigrants don't speak German, and have virtually no idea of how the system works.
6. Pegida wants to see the processing paperwork time cut. They've suggested models of other countries. I would suspect that the Germans....ever brilliant at creating more and unnecessary paperwork....could find ways to trim the time involved in getting approvals for asylum.
7. Pegida wants the police funding improved. What this has to do with immigrants or refugees is unknown.....although cops are spending more time patrolling train stations and travel points.....looking for immigrants sneaking into the country.
8. Pegida is interested in developing the rules for deportation. If you failed, and don't qualify under the umbrella of exceptions.....they want you out at the earliest possible point.
9. Pegida wants a zero-tolerance policy. This is a broad type umbrella that they are suggesting. If you ask me.....there's probably a dozen ideals or projects which might fit under this concept....which is probably more geared against Muslims than anyone else.
10. Pegida wants to resist a ideology that revolves around violent or political ambitions. The Basic Law says men and women are equal.....any ideology (hint: religion) that suggests otherwise....is conflicting with the direction that Pegida is going on this. Of the nineteen points, this is the one blunt one against the Islamic religion. It is a broad umbrella which probably appeals to a large segment of German society.
11. Pegida wants an immigration program that is based like the one in Canada or Switzerland.....which basically means you ask questions, determine the value of the person and his background/education, then prioritize. It means if you have a guy with a marginal education and his chief talent is driving a taxi.....he probably won't get immigration papers. If you went to Australia and tried to immigrate......they'd ask you what your value was to society and you'd best have a good answer. This concept is another broad appeal item for Germans.
12. Pegida is for full sexual determination. An explanation? If you wanted to have certain sexual partners or some preference for your personal satisfaction....nothing should limit you. Hint: a strict Islamic code against such behavior would have to be tossed. Again, this is a broad appeal item across all societies in Germany.
13. Pegida is for the preservation and protection of Christian society and culture, which has been part of the big picture for roughly 1,400 years. Anything threatening that culture and tradition....is a problem. Again, this would gain broad popularity with the bulk of German citizens.
14. Pegida wants ballot measures open to the public....as they do in Switzerland. If you have some topic of serious debate....rather than talk it up in the Bundestag and let representatives vote on it.....Pegida wants it open on a ballot. In general, this might mean two or three ballots run on a yearly basis....maybe one single topic.....maybe five or six topics....all resulting in a public forum and vote. People in Switzerland are happy with the measure. German political parties are very negative about this. It'd basically put the political parties into a corner, and create a public thirsty for honest talk on matters. If you discussed this at length in a pub or open forum....most Germans like the idea. Selling it to the Bundestag is a totally different issue.
15. Pegida is totally against selling military arms to illegal organizations (hint: PKK of Turkey). The question would arise....who is illegal or who is legal. This question of who is allowed to buy German military hardware comes up yearly. The Bundestag argues a good bit over selling to even legit countries (Egypt or Saudi Arabia for example).
16. Pegida will be totally against some parallel society existing. The emphasis here is Sharia law or courts....they simply won't be accepted to exist in Germany. There are various attempts going on in the UK to allow such courts and laws to exist, as layers across society. Pegida probably has strong German society support on this idea....with more than ninety percent of Germans likely supporting this fundamental idea.
17. Pegida wants gender equality to be guaranteed. It's to say if this is related to the immigration/refugee issue, or some broader issue affecting German society. They generally think that the political push is to take all gender issues....blend them into some batch where there's only one single gender and pretend that society is gender-less. It's a complicated ideal and will be hard to sell across to Germans.
18. Pegida is against radicalism....whether is politically-induced or religiously-induced. Defining radicalism....might be difficult. Of course, they'd say that if they recognize it.....then that's it. You can see this issue as a problem.
19. Pegida is against preachers of hatred. This is a hard fast slam against Islam and would attract a large segment of German society to the ideal involved. Defining this for legal purposes? Well....it's not that simple.
It's an interesting group of political ideals, which the bulk would be of interest to the typical German. Where does this lead onto? Political forums will be forced to pick up the nineteen items and discuss in some public setting. The political parties of Germany for the most part.....won't like the discussions. The only party that might be very keen on getting active with the ideals....is the AfD.
Would the nineteen items have a presence in the 2017 general election? That's an interesting question. I could see six of these being really pressed hard across in forums and getting attention. For the AfD.....if they addressed the bulk of these and made the other parties take a negative view.....they might gain more votes. Right now, if a general election were held.....most folks anticipate the AfD folks would take ten-to-twelve percent of the national vote. In a hyped election with the nineteen ideals stressed? I'd give AfD a higher percentage near twenty-two percent of the vote.
So, it's on the table....nineteen fundamental ideals that Germans can preview and discuss. Some have merit.....some are difficult to imagine working in a modern society.....and some would mean a fair amount of change for German political figures to accept.
1. Pegida is for the admission of people under the umbrella of war refugees, or those who've been politically persecuted or threatened against their religion. Curiously, this goes hand-in-hand with the Basic Law (Germany's Constitution). This shows them on a positive light, at least in my opinion.
2. Pegida wants the Basic Law changed to include the right and duty to integrate. Currently, the closest you get is the right of asylum. There's some basic understandings and mandatory items written down for integration....but it's not exactly a "duty".
3. Pegida wants this temp "dumping-station" mentality to cease. Even they admit it's pretty bad when you throw some people into some warehouse or old building for months....with no clear idea over a more permanent situation. Of course, they didn't say who'd pay for this or how it would be paid.
4. Pegida wants more distribution and fairness built into who accepts the refugees/immigrants. Currently, the numbers show Germany having MORE than their fair share, and they'd like for these folks to be shifted around. Of course, the immigrants/refugees might not want to live in Spain or Sweden. And I doubt that the EU wants to sit there and mandate who lives where or why you have to get on a bus to Belgium.
5. Pegida wants to see less support personnel for the refugee homes/depots. To some degree, everything over the structure now is unplanned and not well thought out. You see this from the weekly news media reports. The guards at the gate? A necessity? No one from the government has explained this....other than saying it's to protect the immigrants within the secure compound. On the other side of this.....the immigrants don't speak German, and have virtually no idea of how the system works.
6. Pegida wants to see the processing paperwork time cut. They've suggested models of other countries. I would suspect that the Germans....ever brilliant at creating more and unnecessary paperwork....could find ways to trim the time involved in getting approvals for asylum.
7. Pegida wants the police funding improved. What this has to do with immigrants or refugees is unknown.....although cops are spending more time patrolling train stations and travel points.....looking for immigrants sneaking into the country.
8. Pegida is interested in developing the rules for deportation. If you failed, and don't qualify under the umbrella of exceptions.....they want you out at the earliest possible point.
9. Pegida wants a zero-tolerance policy. This is a broad type umbrella that they are suggesting. If you ask me.....there's probably a dozen ideals or projects which might fit under this concept....which is probably more geared against Muslims than anyone else.
10. Pegida wants to resist a ideology that revolves around violent or political ambitions. The Basic Law says men and women are equal.....any ideology (hint: religion) that suggests otherwise....is conflicting with the direction that Pegida is going on this. Of the nineteen points, this is the one blunt one against the Islamic religion. It is a broad umbrella which probably appeals to a large segment of German society.
11. Pegida wants an immigration program that is based like the one in Canada or Switzerland.....which basically means you ask questions, determine the value of the person and his background/education, then prioritize. It means if you have a guy with a marginal education and his chief talent is driving a taxi.....he probably won't get immigration papers. If you went to Australia and tried to immigrate......they'd ask you what your value was to society and you'd best have a good answer. This concept is another broad appeal item for Germans.
12. Pegida is for full sexual determination. An explanation? If you wanted to have certain sexual partners or some preference for your personal satisfaction....nothing should limit you. Hint: a strict Islamic code against such behavior would have to be tossed. Again, this is a broad appeal item across all societies in Germany.
13. Pegida is for the preservation and protection of Christian society and culture, which has been part of the big picture for roughly 1,400 years. Anything threatening that culture and tradition....is a problem. Again, this would gain broad popularity with the bulk of German citizens.
14. Pegida wants ballot measures open to the public....as they do in Switzerland. If you have some topic of serious debate....rather than talk it up in the Bundestag and let representatives vote on it.....Pegida wants it open on a ballot. In general, this might mean two or three ballots run on a yearly basis....maybe one single topic.....maybe five or six topics....all resulting in a public forum and vote. People in Switzerland are happy with the measure. German political parties are very negative about this. It'd basically put the political parties into a corner, and create a public thirsty for honest talk on matters. If you discussed this at length in a pub or open forum....most Germans like the idea. Selling it to the Bundestag is a totally different issue.
15. Pegida is totally against selling military arms to illegal organizations (hint: PKK of Turkey). The question would arise....who is illegal or who is legal. This question of who is allowed to buy German military hardware comes up yearly. The Bundestag argues a good bit over selling to even legit countries (Egypt or Saudi Arabia for example).
16. Pegida will be totally against some parallel society existing. The emphasis here is Sharia law or courts....they simply won't be accepted to exist in Germany. There are various attempts going on in the UK to allow such courts and laws to exist, as layers across society. Pegida probably has strong German society support on this idea....with more than ninety percent of Germans likely supporting this fundamental idea.
17. Pegida wants gender equality to be guaranteed. It's to say if this is related to the immigration/refugee issue, or some broader issue affecting German society. They generally think that the political push is to take all gender issues....blend them into some batch where there's only one single gender and pretend that society is gender-less. It's a complicated ideal and will be hard to sell across to Germans.
18. Pegida is against radicalism....whether is politically-induced or religiously-induced. Defining radicalism....might be difficult. Of course, they'd say that if they recognize it.....then that's it. You can see this issue as a problem.
19. Pegida is against preachers of hatred. This is a hard fast slam against Islam and would attract a large segment of German society to the ideal involved. Defining this for legal purposes? Well....it's not that simple.
It's an interesting group of political ideals, which the bulk would be of interest to the typical German. Where does this lead onto? Political forums will be forced to pick up the nineteen items and discuss in some public setting. The political parties of Germany for the most part.....won't like the discussions. The only party that might be very keen on getting active with the ideals....is the AfD.
Would the nineteen items have a presence in the 2017 general election? That's an interesting question. I could see six of these being really pressed hard across in forums and getting attention. For the AfD.....if they addressed the bulk of these and made the other parties take a negative view.....they might gain more votes. Right now, if a general election were held.....most folks anticipate the AfD folks would take ten-to-twelve percent of the national vote. In a hyped election with the nineteen ideals stressed? I'd give AfD a higher percentage near twenty-two percent of the vote.
So, it's on the table....nineteen fundamental ideals that Germans can preview and discuss. Some have merit.....some are difficult to imagine working in a modern society.....and some would mean a fair amount of change for German political figures to accept.
Friday, December 19, 2014
Overcoming Pfund?
Pfund is this unusual word that you come across almost daily in Germany. If you walk into a grocery or order up at a take-place, and you walk out with a can of Coke or a bottle of Pepsi...you pay Pfund (a deposit) on the can/bottle. It's generally twenty-five Euro cents and on up. It's the same with beer or bottled water. Juice and milk are exceptions to the rule.
Pfund started in 2003. The idea was carried over by the environmental crowd, and was supposed to decrease the tossed-can issue that Germans whined about. The grocery and drink industry were pretty frustrated over this mess, but slowly adapted. Most Germans would pat themselves over the back for the success that they've seen.
Today, because of the pressure that the industry put back on the government.....there's a requirement of all German drink-producers.....a symbol on the can or bottle to indicate it's a Pfund-item.
I bring all of this up because in the last month.....I've been at two food outlets here in Germany.....buying a soda can, and there's no Pfund involved. I asked when I tried to return the can to the same stand or outlet, and they just smiled. I looked at the can....no symbol. It's Austrian-produced.
Yeah, someone finally figured out the whole angle to the gimmick. Just avoid buying German-produced sodas or beer. The law only applies to German-produced items.
I admit.....it might be just a local thing that someone dreamed up and has a couple of trucks of Austrian Coke driven up each month....but it's a good demonstration of free enterprise.
How many Germans hate the Pfund law? I have no idea. When it first started....I'd take a guess that half the public really didn't buy into this concept or appreciate the amount of pain that it involved. You collect your cans or bottles now, and make a weekly trip to dispose of them at the corner grocery. The grocery chains all bought into expensive machines to count and accept the cans/bottles. There's a fair amount of money tied up into the end-product....empty cans/bottles.
Will they write more Pfund laws to outlaw non-German sodas? Maybe. But that's at least ten years away, I think.
Pfund started in 2003. The idea was carried over by the environmental crowd, and was supposed to decrease the tossed-can issue that Germans whined about. The grocery and drink industry were pretty frustrated over this mess, but slowly adapted. Most Germans would pat themselves over the back for the success that they've seen.
Today, because of the pressure that the industry put back on the government.....there's a requirement of all German drink-producers.....a symbol on the can or bottle to indicate it's a Pfund-item.
I bring all of this up because in the last month.....I've been at two food outlets here in Germany.....buying a soda can, and there's no Pfund involved. I asked when I tried to return the can to the same stand or outlet, and they just smiled. I looked at the can....no symbol. It's Austrian-produced.
Yeah, someone finally figured out the whole angle to the gimmick. Just avoid buying German-produced sodas or beer. The law only applies to German-produced items.
I admit.....it might be just a local thing that someone dreamed up and has a couple of trucks of Austrian Coke driven up each month....but it's a good demonstration of free enterprise.
How many Germans hate the Pfund law? I have no idea. When it first started....I'd take a guess that half the public really didn't buy into this concept or appreciate the amount of pain that it involved. You collect your cans or bottles now, and make a weekly trip to dispose of them at the corner grocery. The grocery chains all bought into expensive machines to count and accept the cans/bottles. There's a fair amount of money tied up into the end-product....empty cans/bottles.
Will they write more Pfund laws to outlaw non-German sodas? Maybe. But that's at least ten years away, I think.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
A Drinking Story
Alcohol consumption is one of those unusual topics that come up in German society and news. Being an American, I'd typically say that we Americans have some heavy drinkers and can generally match up with what Germans do. I would also make the comment that Germans have built up a resistance to alcohol and sometimes will surprise you with their ability to handle it.
This comes up today, after reading over an article from the Rhine Zeitung (the local Mainz newspaper).
Down in Speyer.....cops got called out. A guy was noted half-way passed out and folks felt concerned.
The cops arrived and decided to use the analyzer that they carry in the car.
The older guy half-way passed out? He seemed to be agreeable to this and volunteered for the test. As far as I know.....he wasn't in a car and there's no chance of points being taken away via the license business.
I suspect the cops were expect something around 1.5 to 2.0 on the alcohol testing....more than enough to say the guy was drunk. The machine maxes out at 5.5.
Well....the guy maxed out. Yeah.....5.5.
What the experts will say is that you ought to be dead at 4.0-to-4.5. Alcohol poisoning ought to be in progress and you really need to be at the hospital....dying any minute now.
What the reporter put into the story was that this gentleman had wrapped up at least five bottles of vodka. The time span was left out and maybe the guy had spread the five bottles over five hours, or maybe even ten hours.
The positive to the story is that the guy got over to the hospital and they checked him out. He's alive and still ticking.
How drunk was the guy? He might have been 6.0 and maybe even on up to 6.5. Normally, under all conditions.....a guy ought to be dead. Yet this guy survived on.
So I come back to my German associates and note the following. Germans consume a fair amount of alcohol and beer. They build up a slow reaction to it. When you hang around a German....especially in a bar setting.....you might want to think about this, and just keep your own consumption under control of what you consider is normal. Don't try to out-drink a German.....I just don't think it's possible for American to win at such a competition.
This comes up today, after reading over an article from the Rhine Zeitung (the local Mainz newspaper).
Down in Speyer.....cops got called out. A guy was noted half-way passed out and folks felt concerned.
The cops arrived and decided to use the analyzer that they carry in the car.
The older guy half-way passed out? He seemed to be agreeable to this and volunteered for the test. As far as I know.....he wasn't in a car and there's no chance of points being taken away via the license business.
I suspect the cops were expect something around 1.5 to 2.0 on the alcohol testing....more than enough to say the guy was drunk. The machine maxes out at 5.5.
Well....the guy maxed out. Yeah.....5.5.
What the experts will say is that you ought to be dead at 4.0-to-4.5. Alcohol poisoning ought to be in progress and you really need to be at the hospital....dying any minute now.
What the reporter put into the story was that this gentleman had wrapped up at least five bottles of vodka. The time span was left out and maybe the guy had spread the five bottles over five hours, or maybe even ten hours.
The positive to the story is that the guy got over to the hospital and they checked him out. He's alive and still ticking.
How drunk was the guy? He might have been 6.0 and maybe even on up to 6.5. Normally, under all conditions.....a guy ought to be dead. Yet this guy survived on.
So I come back to my German associates and note the following. Germans consume a fair amount of alcohol and beer. They build up a slow reaction to it. When you hang around a German....especially in a bar setting.....you might want to think about this, and just keep your own consumption under control of what you consider is normal. Don't try to out-drink a German.....I just don't think it's possible for American to win at such a competition.
Nothing Much Worth Discussing?
The political news for today is rather in Germany.....over SPD's Sebastian Edathy.
The basic introduction? Somewhere in 2011....some Canadian cops busted a guy for kid-porn. The guy had some kind of listing of customers. Several hundred were Germans. The German cops were given the list and started an investigation. Days led onto weeks, and onto months.
Somewhere on that listing of several hundred Germans was the name of Sebastian Edathy. To this point, it's all factual.
Somewhere in the fall of 2013....the name of Edathy got pushed around and the investigation crowd knew his position and where this was leading onto. The rest of the story is merely speculation, with unknown but presumed dates.
Someone finally came around October of 2013 to brief the Secretary of State (of Germany). Around this same time period, the election occurred. The results of the election meant that the CDU and the SPD needed to meet....discuss a joint Bundestag effort....and cabinet-level posts.
What we generally know is that the CDU head who'd likely know of such investigations because of his job.....decided to tell the head figure of the SPD about the investigation. In the practical sense....he was doing the SPD a favor. But legally, everyone keeps hinting that it was unethical and wrong.
All of this comes out in early December of 2013.....with the CDU guy who passed the info to the SPD.....fired by Chancellor Merkel.
A year has passed, and they've finally to a point where the Bundestag (particularly the Linke Party and the Greens)....would like to know who knew what and passed what info around.
A normal person would ask how a whole year passes and this is the most pressure-driven topic of the day....but this is Germany. As for the cop investigation over Edathy? No one is saying much. The cops are really shut down on comments....fearful of making it a bigger mess. The news media won't say much. There may never be a full-up court case. The laptop which might have evidence to build a case? It's commented widely that it was stolen while Edathy was riding a train from point A to point B. Yeah.....that's what he told them.
Does it sound like some witch-hunt with political parties after political parties? Yes. Anything much to expect out of this? If one single guy gives testimony and it conflicts with the comments of another guy......I'd expect this go into round-two. Beyond that.....there's not much of a worthy nature from this whole mess to sit at a pub.....have a beer over.....and discuss for more than six minutes.
The SPD would like for the whole thing to go away. And I'm kinda surprised that Edathy hasn't disappeared off into some woods in Bavaria. Beyond that? Nothing.
The basic introduction? Somewhere in 2011....some Canadian cops busted a guy for kid-porn. The guy had some kind of listing of customers. Several hundred were Germans. The German cops were given the list and started an investigation. Days led onto weeks, and onto months.
Somewhere on that listing of several hundred Germans was the name of Sebastian Edathy. To this point, it's all factual.
Somewhere in the fall of 2013....the name of Edathy got pushed around and the investigation crowd knew his position and where this was leading onto. The rest of the story is merely speculation, with unknown but presumed dates.
Someone finally came around October of 2013 to brief the Secretary of State (of Germany). Around this same time period, the election occurred. The results of the election meant that the CDU and the SPD needed to meet....discuss a joint Bundestag effort....and cabinet-level posts.
What we generally know is that the CDU head who'd likely know of such investigations because of his job.....decided to tell the head figure of the SPD about the investigation. In the practical sense....he was doing the SPD a favor. But legally, everyone keeps hinting that it was unethical and wrong.
All of this comes out in early December of 2013.....with the CDU guy who passed the info to the SPD.....fired by Chancellor Merkel.
A year has passed, and they've finally to a point where the Bundestag (particularly the Linke Party and the Greens)....would like to know who knew what and passed what info around.
A normal person would ask how a whole year passes and this is the most pressure-driven topic of the day....but this is Germany. As for the cop investigation over Edathy? No one is saying much. The cops are really shut down on comments....fearful of making it a bigger mess. The news media won't say much. There may never be a full-up court case. The laptop which might have evidence to build a case? It's commented widely that it was stolen while Edathy was riding a train from point A to point B. Yeah.....that's what he told them.
Does it sound like some witch-hunt with political parties after political parties? Yes. Anything much to expect out of this? If one single guy gives testimony and it conflicts with the comments of another guy......I'd expect this go into round-two. Beyond that.....there's not much of a worthy nature from this whole mess to sit at a pub.....have a beer over.....and discuss for more than six minutes.
The SPD would like for the whole thing to go away. And I'm kinda surprised that Edathy hasn't disappeared off into some woods in Bavaria. Beyond that? Nothing.
The Horse Tax
The high court of Hessen (my local German state) moved to agree that a town's efforts to tax horses....is legal.
This all centers around a town in north Hessen.....Allendorf. The city council noted a number of folks who live in the local area, and have horses which are used for commercial purposes (racing, shows, etc). So, they invented a local tax of 200 Euro a year on each horse.
The non-commercial use horse owners? They get an exemption, as long as they can prove that their horse is just a regular horse without any economic benefit.
This started back in 2012, and was seen as an infringement upon local horse-owners. They took up the line and so far....no court has gone against the community's new tax. An attempt at the national level? I'm taking a guess it'll happen, but they may decline to even hear the episode.
What happens in an episode like this? I'm guessing that several folks own stables and grazing property at the end of town.....where these commercial-use horses are kept. It's probably high-value property. The town has around 5,000 residents, a local airfield, and noted for historical houses within the center of the town. The city probably would like to build or attract new real estate players....so the stable property has great value but would never be sold. With a tax on each horse....I'm taking a guess that the stables are reviewing options to pack up and leave the local area.....thus putting the property up for sale eventually.
I'll take a simple guess here....by 2016....there's not a single horse within the city district that is being taxed. They vacated the town, and have moved onto greener pastures elsewhere.
Figure new property development by 2018 at the latest.....all quietly done, and accomplished by a simple tax on horses. Pretty nifty work....using the system to force-transfer property from one owner to another.
This all centers around a town in north Hessen.....Allendorf. The city council noted a number of folks who live in the local area, and have horses which are used for commercial purposes (racing, shows, etc). So, they invented a local tax of 200 Euro a year on each horse.
The non-commercial use horse owners? They get an exemption, as long as they can prove that their horse is just a regular horse without any economic benefit.
This started back in 2012, and was seen as an infringement upon local horse-owners. They took up the line and so far....no court has gone against the community's new tax. An attempt at the national level? I'm taking a guess it'll happen, but they may decline to even hear the episode.
What happens in an episode like this? I'm guessing that several folks own stables and grazing property at the end of town.....where these commercial-use horses are kept. It's probably high-value property. The town has around 5,000 residents, a local airfield, and noted for historical houses within the center of the town. The city probably would like to build or attract new real estate players....so the stable property has great value but would never be sold. With a tax on each horse....I'm taking a guess that the stables are reviewing options to pack up and leave the local area.....thus putting the property up for sale eventually.
I'll take a simple guess here....by 2016....there's not a single horse within the city district that is being taxed. They vacated the town, and have moved onto greener pastures elsewhere.
Figure new property development by 2018 at the latest.....all quietly done, and accomplished by a simple tax on horses. Pretty nifty work....using the system to force-transfer property from one owner to another.
The "Red Hats" Decision
Yesterday in Germany, came the announcement from the German Supreme Court over an order to the Bundestag. There's been a case sitting there which concerns taxes, and the rules which determine taxation. The "Red Hats" (the symbolic uniform of the court) said it wasn't fair or right.....so they are giving the Bundestag roughly eighteen months to figure up a new way of handling this taxation issue.
The issue?
Germany has a very high number of family-run business operations. The number often quoted is 2.7 million which are in some way owned by a family and will pass from one member to another. Out of a population of eighty-million Germans.....it's a fairly high rate.
Somewhere in the statistical data.....you will find somewhere between 150 and 200 of these family-run companies.....make a billion Euro a year.
The German law in place says that stability in jobs....was key to priorities. So, they made a rule that said as one generation of ownership passed on....the new members were not going to be taxed via an inheritance tax. The fear was....since a lot of this property is actual business structure, property, or things of a physical form.....people would have to sell off some or all of the property, thus creating a loss of jobs somewhere in the mess.
The "Red Hats" said you have to be fair to all.....so tax them.
You can imagine the hostility and frustration with the family-run business operations. It's the beginning of the end. Whatever comes out of the Bundestag over the next eighteen months....will be unfair.
The present problem? It's a divisive point between the CDU and SPD. Both groups kinda hinted that yesterday evening. The two parties control the Bundestag and generally have to come to some mutual agreement to keep things progressing. On this.....they aren't agreeable.
Oddly enough....the SPD has spoken up and said the simple solution is for the family-run operations to settle up with the government by just giving them a percentage of the business. No one said the number.....but I'd take a guess at five-percent.
You can imagine the government guy standing there and accepting his five-percent ownership. Some new German government office would be created to audit and control such ownership. Thirty years would pass, and another owner would pass on.....requiring another five-percent of the organization to move into government hands.
The CDU? They don't like this idea at all.....but they know what the "Red Hats" have done, will eventually have an effect on employment around the country. Family-run operations will be forced to sell or downsize as each generation moves with new ownership.....meaning job cuts.
My suggestion? No one says that the owners must retain their German nationality. The company can stay right there where it is and pay German taxes.....but if I were the old guy running my own company.....I'd go and find a new country like Czech where there's no stupid taxation rules like this. I'd convince my son or daughter to join up with me and become citizens of a more friendly European country. When dad passes on.....the business just moves easily to the son or daughter.
This won't rank in the top ten issues for Germany for 2015.....but the implications of what is done will sour a lot of business owners and create a hostile environment for the next generation of owners. And somewhere in this mess.....more unemployment will loom.
The issue?
Germany has a very high number of family-run business operations. The number often quoted is 2.7 million which are in some way owned by a family and will pass from one member to another. Out of a population of eighty-million Germans.....it's a fairly high rate.
Somewhere in the statistical data.....you will find somewhere between 150 and 200 of these family-run companies.....make a billion Euro a year.
The German law in place says that stability in jobs....was key to priorities. So, they made a rule that said as one generation of ownership passed on....the new members were not going to be taxed via an inheritance tax. The fear was....since a lot of this property is actual business structure, property, or things of a physical form.....people would have to sell off some or all of the property, thus creating a loss of jobs somewhere in the mess.
The "Red Hats" said you have to be fair to all.....so tax them.
You can imagine the hostility and frustration with the family-run business operations. It's the beginning of the end. Whatever comes out of the Bundestag over the next eighteen months....will be unfair.
The present problem? It's a divisive point between the CDU and SPD. Both groups kinda hinted that yesterday evening. The two parties control the Bundestag and generally have to come to some mutual agreement to keep things progressing. On this.....they aren't agreeable.
Oddly enough....the SPD has spoken up and said the simple solution is for the family-run operations to settle up with the government by just giving them a percentage of the business. No one said the number.....but I'd take a guess at five-percent.
You can imagine the government guy standing there and accepting his five-percent ownership. Some new German government office would be created to audit and control such ownership. Thirty years would pass, and another owner would pass on.....requiring another five-percent of the organization to move into government hands.
The CDU? They don't like this idea at all.....but they know what the "Red Hats" have done, will eventually have an effect on employment around the country. Family-run operations will be forced to sell or downsize as each generation moves with new ownership.....meaning job cuts.
My suggestion? No one says that the owners must retain their German nationality. The company can stay right there where it is and pay German taxes.....but if I were the old guy running my own company.....I'd go and find a new country like Czech where there's no stupid taxation rules like this. I'd convince my son or daughter to join up with me and become citizens of a more friendly European country. When dad passes on.....the business just moves easily to the son or daughter.
This won't rank in the top ten issues for Germany for 2015.....but the implications of what is done will sour a lot of business owners and create a hostile environment for the next generation of owners. And somewhere in this mess.....more unemployment will loom.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Explaining the New Road Tax in Germany
It'll take a minute or two to explain the new German road tax deal.....for those of us affected. Everything is now finalized as of this afternoon.
All residents in Germany must now pay for registered vehicles and RVs within Germany.....once a year, which will be deducted from your bank account (typically set up with the local authorities). The max per vehicle is 130 Euro (roughly 165 dollars).
Depending on the size of the engine (100 CC).....with an emission class of three....you pay 6.50 Euro for a gas vehicle, or 9.50 Euro for a diesel vehicle. For the emission class of four/five.....you pay two Euro for a gas vehicle or 6.50 Euro for a diesel vehicle. For the emission class of six....you pay 1.80 Euro for a gas vehicle, or 5.2 Euro for a diesel vehicle.
The RVs will be based off the weight of the vehicle.....but most of the bigger RVs will easily reach the 130 Euro range.
Foreigners? They made it as simple as they could.....you'd buy the sticker at the gas station, and it'd generally run ten Euro for ten days. You can buy a two month consecutive ticket for twenty-two Euro....via the internet.
Start-up? Right now.....they say 1 January 2016. Course, they've yet to reach the court episode or have the EU get involved to stop it. Most journalists are writing up the opinion that the EU court system will have a say in the final matter.
Oddly enough....electric cars have no requirement for the new tax deal. And motorcycles/scooters also were waved off the tax.
Can you avoid the tax entirely? That's the odd thing. If you avoid the autobahn structure and all B-roads within Germany.....just using C-roads or city streets....your entire tax would be refunded. The question came to how you'd prove this, and what they say is that you would "log" the trips you made throughout the year, and just present the log.
You can imagine explaining this to some guy.....having to keep a log book and show the five-hundred-and-ninety-six trips of the year with the car, and how none took place on a autobahn or B-highway.
How many Germans might reach the plateau of not paying the tax? I'd take a guess that 100,000 electrical vehicles will easily reach this group. And I'd take an estimate of a minimum of one-million Germans who keep the stupid log and actually present this to get their money back.
All residents in Germany must now pay for registered vehicles and RVs within Germany.....once a year, which will be deducted from your bank account (typically set up with the local authorities). The max per vehicle is 130 Euro (roughly 165 dollars).
Depending on the size of the engine (100 CC).....with an emission class of three....you pay 6.50 Euro for a gas vehicle, or 9.50 Euro for a diesel vehicle. For the emission class of four/five.....you pay two Euro for a gas vehicle or 6.50 Euro for a diesel vehicle. For the emission class of six....you pay 1.80 Euro for a gas vehicle, or 5.2 Euro for a diesel vehicle.
The RVs will be based off the weight of the vehicle.....but most of the bigger RVs will easily reach the 130 Euro range.
Foreigners? They made it as simple as they could.....you'd buy the sticker at the gas station, and it'd generally run ten Euro for ten days. You can buy a two month consecutive ticket for twenty-two Euro....via the internet.
Start-up? Right now.....they say 1 January 2016. Course, they've yet to reach the court episode or have the EU get involved to stop it. Most journalists are writing up the opinion that the EU court system will have a say in the final matter.
Oddly enough....electric cars have no requirement for the new tax deal. And motorcycles/scooters also were waved off the tax.
Can you avoid the tax entirely? That's the odd thing. If you avoid the autobahn structure and all B-roads within Germany.....just using C-roads or city streets....your entire tax would be refunded. The question came to how you'd prove this, and what they say is that you would "log" the trips you made throughout the year, and just present the log.
You can imagine explaining this to some guy.....having to keep a log book and show the five-hundred-and-ninety-six trips of the year with the car, and how none took place on a autobahn or B-highway.
How many Germans might reach the plateau of not paying the tax? I'd take a guess that 100,000 electrical vehicles will easily reach this group. And I'd take an estimate of a minimum of one-million Germans who keep the stupid log and actually present this to get their money back.
Talking Malls
There's a trend over the past decade in Germany....to build American style mall operations, and expect success to come easily.....then find that the shops are drawing marginal customer support, and the business plan is all screwed up.
Here in Wiesbaden.....they built a three story mall near the Bahnhof. I'd guess that at least sixty stores exist in the building and it's a marvelous piece of architecture. A couple of the shops have folded up over the last four years, and this past summer....they finally agreed that the food operations in the place need some type of pumping-up.....to attract more people at lunch from the surrounding areas. In other words.....they are failing to reach their financial goals.
This week, out of Berlin....the Mall of Berlin finally was sold off.....for one Euro. The place was finished off around three months ago, and it's having a hard time. Numerous construction issues are not fully resolved, and various characters have not been paid for completion of work.
The new use of the Mall of Berlin? A music/dance club. Yep, imagine 200,000 square meters of club space, with ten thousand people hanging out on some evening.
All of this brings me back around to the idea of making American-style malls into a German shopping experience. For some reason.....it barely works. Old-style German shopping districts still attract people and have not been losing customers to the American-style.
Here in Wiesbaden.....they built a three story mall near the Bahnhof. I'd guess that at least sixty stores exist in the building and it's a marvelous piece of architecture. A couple of the shops have folded up over the last four years, and this past summer....they finally agreed that the food operations in the place need some type of pumping-up.....to attract more people at lunch from the surrounding areas. In other words.....they are failing to reach their financial goals.This week, out of Berlin....the Mall of Berlin finally was sold off.....for one Euro. The place was finished off around three months ago, and it's having a hard time. Numerous construction issues are not fully resolved, and various characters have not been paid for completion of work.
The new use of the Mall of Berlin? A music/dance club. Yep, imagine 200,000 square meters of club space, with ten thousand people hanging out on some evening.
All of this brings me back around to the idea of making American-style malls into a German shopping experience. For some reason.....it barely works. Old-style German shopping districts still attract people and have not been losing customers to the American-style.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Pegida Introduction
Toward late afternoon in Dresden on Monday night.....fifteen-thousand Germans gathered as a protest group called "Pegida". What does it stand for? “Europeans Against Islamization of the Occident”.
What you could have predicted a year ago, has finally occurred. The news media and political folks were always lucky in that these anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim demonstrations generally involved far-right or neo-Nazis. Well....with the Pegida movement.....we've now crossed the line into non-radicals and non-Nazis.
I sat and watched the news media cover this, and interview people on the street. It was a completely peaceful march on Monday night, and the political comments were very limited.
If you sit back and look over the Pegida movement....it started with a simple Facebook site....maybe a hundred-odd members who came out for a protest. Now? It's progressing to a larger movement, which will likely progress outside of Dresden.
The general problem for the government? The national election is three years away. What you'd really like to prefer is that anti-immigration and anti-Islam platforms don't get into the political process building up here. It'd turn the 2017 election into a three-ring circus. From the five big parties.....all have been careful to avoid the topic. The AfD crowd might be the only one that has walked carefully over the topic and suggested immigration has hit a wall and needs some reform.
Add this into the factor.....all of this growth is happening in the midst of winter when people usually don't like to be out in the cold weather for an extended period. What happens in five months when we get to spring-like weather? Massive growth and expansion into other cities?
Pegida is going to be around for a long while, and it might have some significant influence on the 2017 election.
What you could have predicted a year ago, has finally occurred. The news media and political folks were always lucky in that these anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim demonstrations generally involved far-right or neo-Nazis. Well....with the Pegida movement.....we've now crossed the line into non-radicals and non-Nazis.
I sat and watched the news media cover this, and interview people on the street. It was a completely peaceful march on Monday night, and the political comments were very limited.
If you sit back and look over the Pegida movement....it started with a simple Facebook site....maybe a hundred-odd members who came out for a protest. Now? It's progressing to a larger movement, which will likely progress outside of Dresden.
The general problem for the government? The national election is three years away. What you'd really like to prefer is that anti-immigration and anti-Islam platforms don't get into the political process building up here. It'd turn the 2017 election into a three-ring circus. From the five big parties.....all have been careful to avoid the topic. The AfD crowd might be the only one that has walked carefully over the topic and suggested immigration has hit a wall and needs some reform.
Add this into the factor.....all of this growth is happening in the midst of winter when people usually don't like to be out in the cold weather for an extended period. What happens in five months when we get to spring-like weather? Massive growth and expansion into other cities?
Pegida is going to be around for a long while, and it might have some significant influence on the 2017 election.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Wetten Dass End
Last night, off Channel Two (ZDF) of German TV, came the final episode of Wetten Dass. Over the course of thirty-four years, Wetten Dass had been played out around 215 occasions (Wiki's numbers).
An American would describe it this way. If you took Ed Sullivan's old show, tossed in some David Letterman interviews with singers and stars, then blended in some pet tricks and amazing people stunts, then topped it off with three singers/groups over the entire evening....that was Wetten Dass.
It's hard to explain the successful formula. It ran only six to seven times a year...meaning it was not a regular TV show, and you had to watch the weekly TV schedule to see if it was running or not.
It was a live show, which meant that some things would go wrong, and it was part of the whole show.
In the 1990s when I started to watch it.....I came to see the 'bets' felling into two categories. Around twenty percent were really amazing stunts or pet tricks. The rest were lame, or fairly dangerous. A number of the stunts would never have gotten onto US TV as a live events, and might have been branded as very risky.
It was a tough show to carry out. It'd always start with a bold introduction, then came guest number one....with six general questions. Then, the bet, with the introduction of stunt number one. Then a singing act would occur, and then you'd repeat the whole deal again with guest number two. There were around twenty such segments built into each show, which amazingly enough....packed up and moved for each live show to another site in Germany, Austria or Switzerland.
What brought the show to an end point? Thirty-four years of production, and a hefty number of Germans who watched it? It came down to three issues.
First, the 2010 episode where a stunt went wrong and a young guy ended up permanently paralyzed was one of the issues. Some folks finally asked safety questions and looked back at dozens of risky stunts that were approved and allowed to be part of the show. There's some negativity from the one screwed-up stunt that rested upon continued production.
Second, there is a declining audience of young people who were active participants as viewers. If some big band like Tokyo Hotel were on the show.....they had some younger viewers. Othewise, no.....they didn't watch. It was different in the mid-1980s.....there was little else to watch. Today? You could ask a hundred German fifteen-year-olds, and I'd take bet that less than ten watched the show routinely.
Third, it was a gimmick show developed around the 1980's mentality of throwing live shows, promi interviews, songs, and stunts all into one three-hour show. It's like running two three-ring circus operations at the same time. The interviews were simply crisp six-question situations where a Hollywood guy could show up and feel happy that nothing terrible would get thrown at him, while he advertised his latest movie.
Adios? Well, I'm one of those people who think it'll go quietly into a redevelopment phase for two years and then come out as a vastly different show....to fit the modern era. And it'll likely lose the live-show status.
And if someone thinks that I'm a critic of the show? Well....no. I think they tried to be too many things and ended up with a gimmick show that had family appeal. This worked in the 1980s. I just don't see how it works in this era.
An American would describe it this way. If you took Ed Sullivan's old show, tossed in some David Letterman interviews with singers and stars, then blended in some pet tricks and amazing people stunts, then topped it off with three singers/groups over the entire evening....that was Wetten Dass.
It's hard to explain the successful formula. It ran only six to seven times a year...meaning it was not a regular TV show, and you had to watch the weekly TV schedule to see if it was running or not.
It was a live show, which meant that some things would go wrong, and it was part of the whole show.
In the 1990s when I started to watch it.....I came to see the 'bets' felling into two categories. Around twenty percent were really amazing stunts or pet tricks. The rest were lame, or fairly dangerous. A number of the stunts would never have gotten onto US TV as a live events, and might have been branded as very risky.
It was a tough show to carry out. It'd always start with a bold introduction, then came guest number one....with six general questions. Then, the bet, with the introduction of stunt number one. Then a singing act would occur, and then you'd repeat the whole deal again with guest number two. There were around twenty such segments built into each show, which amazingly enough....packed up and moved for each live show to another site in Germany, Austria or Switzerland.
What brought the show to an end point? Thirty-four years of production, and a hefty number of Germans who watched it? It came down to three issues.
First, the 2010 episode where a stunt went wrong and a young guy ended up permanently paralyzed was one of the issues. Some folks finally asked safety questions and looked back at dozens of risky stunts that were approved and allowed to be part of the show. There's some negativity from the one screwed-up stunt that rested upon continued production.
Second, there is a declining audience of young people who were active participants as viewers. If some big band like Tokyo Hotel were on the show.....they had some younger viewers. Othewise, no.....they didn't watch. It was different in the mid-1980s.....there was little else to watch. Today? You could ask a hundred German fifteen-year-olds, and I'd take bet that less than ten watched the show routinely.
Third, it was a gimmick show developed around the 1980's mentality of throwing live shows, promi interviews, songs, and stunts all into one three-hour show. It's like running two three-ring circus operations at the same time. The interviews were simply crisp six-question situations where a Hollywood guy could show up and feel happy that nothing terrible would get thrown at him, while he advertised his latest movie.
Adios? Well, I'm one of those people who think it'll go quietly into a redevelopment phase for two years and then come out as a vastly different show....to fit the modern era. And it'll likely lose the live-show status.
And if someone thinks that I'm a critic of the show? Well....no. I think they tried to be too many things and ended up with a gimmick show that had family appeal. This worked in the 1980s. I just don't see how it works in this era.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Update on the Kassel-Calden Airport
I've talked on several occasions about the Kassel-Calden Airport....a two-hour's drive north of Frankfurt. It was renovated and completed in early 2013....at a cost of 271 million Euro. It is, by my own observation (I spent forty minutes walking around the interior and exterior) one of the finest small airports in Europe, without any real commercial use or passenger traffic.
HR, my local network, did a news piece on the airport today....laying out the future problems and negativity seen by the current state government (CDU/Greens).
Current travel out of the airport? Presently, Germania (a low budget airline) is running one regular flights out of the airport....to Antalya, Turkey. On a season basis.....they run a couple of flights per week to Palma de Mallorca and Fuerteventura. There's talk that they will start up a Hurghada flight once or twice a week by March, and a couple of flights per week to Heraklion. With summer in full session and best statistics working.....you might see eight flights a day (arriving or leaving).
Even with these hopeful bits of travel....the state government is still having push some funding into the airports operation....to keep it open. The hint from HR's write-up this week is that the patience of the CDU/Green government is going to absolute maximum in 2017. If the airport can't build upon it's structure and get some type of business improvement....the whole operation will be sold off. But the question might be.....if they can't get a profit going now....what idiot would walk in and buy this newly renovated airport with it's 8,200 foot runway?
It's hard to say what the regional authorities were doing back in the 1990s when talk came up about modernizing this old airport/runway area. It was previously a 5,000 foot runway and used mostly by private individuals to keep their airplanes for use.
The local town of Kassel? It's a population of roughly 200,000 residents, with some growing aspects of industry. Maybe the city saw some dynamic of growth....if they had a real airport nearby and could attract more international operations into the region.
Connected to the Frankfurt Airport? Situated two hours north of the Flughafen in Frankfurt.....it'd be far better for FRAPORT to buy into the Hahn airport (almost up for sale now), with a distance of roughly 90 minutes away and has a 10,000 runway. Add in the fact that Hahn has no night-time landing rules, and it simply makes better sense.
What happens to Kassel-Calden Airport? I'm taking a guess that they will scrap together some other small discount airline operations and somehow find a way to get past 2017, but eventually admit by 2020 that it's just not ever going to survive with the business plan that they have. Maybe some Chinese airline company will come in and buy the airport....making it a major cargo port to China.
Bottom line? If you ever passing through Kassel....I'd recommend to you a trip out to the airport is worth making.....just to see an enormous waste of money/tax revenue. You'd just walk away shaking your head over this one.
HR, my local network, did a news piece on the airport today....laying out the future problems and negativity seen by the current state government (CDU/Greens).
Current travel out of the airport? Presently, Germania (a low budget airline) is running one regular flights out of the airport....to Antalya, Turkey. On a season basis.....they run a couple of flights per week to Palma de Mallorca and Fuerteventura. There's talk that they will start up a Hurghada flight once or twice a week by March, and a couple of flights per week to Heraklion. With summer in full session and best statistics working.....you might see eight flights a day (arriving or leaving).
Even with these hopeful bits of travel....the state government is still having push some funding into the airports operation....to keep it open. The hint from HR's write-up this week is that the patience of the CDU/Green government is going to absolute maximum in 2017. If the airport can't build upon it's structure and get some type of business improvement....the whole operation will be sold off. But the question might be.....if they can't get a profit going now....what idiot would walk in and buy this newly renovated airport with it's 8,200 foot runway?
It's hard to say what the regional authorities were doing back in the 1990s when talk came up about modernizing this old airport/runway area. It was previously a 5,000 foot runway and used mostly by private individuals to keep their airplanes for use.
The local town of Kassel? It's a population of roughly 200,000 residents, with some growing aspects of industry. Maybe the city saw some dynamic of growth....if they had a real airport nearby and could attract more international operations into the region.
Connected to the Frankfurt Airport? Situated two hours north of the Flughafen in Frankfurt.....it'd be far better for FRAPORT to buy into the Hahn airport (almost up for sale now), with a distance of roughly 90 minutes away and has a 10,000 runway. Add in the fact that Hahn has no night-time landing rules, and it simply makes better sense.
What happens to Kassel-Calden Airport? I'm taking a guess that they will scrap together some other small discount airline operations and somehow find a way to get past 2017, but eventually admit by 2020 that it's just not ever going to survive with the business plan that they have. Maybe some Chinese airline company will come in and buy the airport....making it a major cargo port to China.
Bottom line? If you ever passing through Kassel....I'd recommend to you a trip out to the airport is worth making.....just to see an enormous waste of money/tax revenue. You'd just walk away shaking your head over this one.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Almost Forgotten
On 26 October 1980.....a bomb went off at the Munich Octoberfest. Total dead.....thirteen. Injured....roughly two-hundred. Somewhere in the mess....even one US Air Force member who lost both her legs from the episode.
The original belief was that the bombing was the work of the Red Army Faction (RAF). Oddly enough, that went out the door quickly, as they realized the guy who planted the bomb was among those dead. He had placed the bomb into a garbage container there at the fest and had barely stepped away when it went off. The general belief is that it went off prematurely.
As the days progressed, it came to be believed that the guy was a extreme right-wing neo-Nazi character.
During this fall period, there are three significant bombings in Europe, which all lead back to right-wing neo-Nazis. The second bombing was in Italy where eighty-four people died from an explosion. The third bombing occurred in Paris where four people walking by a Jewish site were killed by a bomb set there.
Why bring up this episode from 34 years ago? Well.....the final report was settled upon the idea that this one guy.....built the bomb....and carried out the act. There was no conspiracy.....no group....no master plan. End of the story. Case closed.
Over the past year or two.....they've stumbled across various things which were obviously left there for people to wonder about over the years. People at the site and were victims.....didn't really believe the one single guy theory. To be honest.....political figures in Germany also had doubts. Enough evidence has been uncovered now....to reopen the case.
What journalists are suggesting in various pieces....is that several people likely were part of this plan as a group (all neo-Nazis of course).
Cops will admit.....after the wall went down, this bombing was one of the things that they pursued Stassi (East German spy agency) files and hoped for some type of lead or tie-in.....but found nothing.
What are they looking at closer? The only general comment made is that there is a woman who had additional information of value....who they did not interview in this 1980/81 period. Mystery woman? Yeah.....more or less. Either she knew Gundolf Kohler, or she knew other members in some conspiracy.
Tracking down some bombing like this....thirty-four years later? I'd generally shake my head and say that it's just wishful thinking. But Germans tend to take apart things and it's possible that they might get some characters into a room, and deal out something where they admit more to the story. Maybe there was a conspiracy, with three or four additional people involved. Maybe they wised up after that bombing and just quit. Maybe they went onto bigger and bolder things. You just don't know.
Anyway.....another slice of West German history, which had been almost forgotten, and now dragged back up for more discussion.
The original belief was that the bombing was the work of the Red Army Faction (RAF). Oddly enough, that went out the door quickly, as they realized the guy who planted the bomb was among those dead. He had placed the bomb into a garbage container there at the fest and had barely stepped away when it went off. The general belief is that it went off prematurely.
As the days progressed, it came to be believed that the guy was a extreme right-wing neo-Nazi character.
During this fall period, there are three significant bombings in Europe, which all lead back to right-wing neo-Nazis. The second bombing was in Italy where eighty-four people died from an explosion. The third bombing occurred in Paris where four people walking by a Jewish site were killed by a bomb set there.
Why bring up this episode from 34 years ago? Well.....the final report was settled upon the idea that this one guy.....built the bomb....and carried out the act. There was no conspiracy.....no group....no master plan. End of the story. Case closed.
Over the past year or two.....they've stumbled across various things which were obviously left there for people to wonder about over the years. People at the site and were victims.....didn't really believe the one single guy theory. To be honest.....political figures in Germany also had doubts. Enough evidence has been uncovered now....to reopen the case.
What journalists are suggesting in various pieces....is that several people likely were part of this plan as a group (all neo-Nazis of course).
Cops will admit.....after the wall went down, this bombing was one of the things that they pursued Stassi (East German spy agency) files and hoped for some type of lead or tie-in.....but found nothing.
What are they looking at closer? The only general comment made is that there is a woman who had additional information of value....who they did not interview in this 1980/81 period. Mystery woman? Yeah.....more or less. Either she knew Gundolf Kohler, or she knew other members in some conspiracy.
Tracking down some bombing like this....thirty-four years later? I'd generally shake my head and say that it's just wishful thinking. But Germans tend to take apart things and it's possible that they might get some characters into a room, and deal out something where they admit more to the story. Maybe there was a conspiracy, with three or four additional people involved. Maybe they wised up after that bombing and just quit. Maybe they went onto bigger and bolder things. You just don't know.
Anyway.....another slice of West German history, which had been almost forgotten, and now dragged back up for more discussion.
Google news and Spain
Spain passed what they called a "Google tax" law a while back. It basically said....if Google clipped a piece of an article from a Spanish news source....even just three lines like they typically do for Google news.....they had to pay that newspaper or source money. The belief was that this mere lead and three simple lines were intellectural property held by the news source in Spain.
After a good deal of arguing.....Google gave up. So, about a week from now....rather than pay and start a new trend....Google is shutting down all references to Spanish news. When you browse and look for news items from Spain....there will be nothing there.
The Spaniards are quietly sitting there and thinking.....well, they expected Google to act in a certain way.....and they went the opposite way. What happens now?
The servers in Spain that support the newspapers will start to notice a LOT less traffic. My humble guess is that ninety percent less over the first week, and then they recover some viewers by the end of January who find the sites and simply 'hot-page' the news source to their browser.
A permanent fix? I have my doubts. I suspect by the end of 2015.....some talks will occur and this law might be thrown out. For the rest of Europe, there's some countries viewing the affair and the results. It's safe to say there's a large segment of privacy-enthusiasts who are anti-Google. Anything that Google touches.....from maps to personal data, onto advertising...worries these people. They actually sit around and worry about Google imagery and their backyard being shown on a world display.
In the 1600's, the Age of Enlightenment occurred. Information was brought out of the darkness and put in full display of the public. We are still in this period of Enlightenment.....fighting over information and data. And the truth is.....we may never exit the Enlightenment era.
After a good deal of arguing.....Google gave up. So, about a week from now....rather than pay and start a new trend....Google is shutting down all references to Spanish news. When you browse and look for news items from Spain....there will be nothing there.
The Spaniards are quietly sitting there and thinking.....well, they expected Google to act in a certain way.....and they went the opposite way. What happens now?
The servers in Spain that support the newspapers will start to notice a LOT less traffic. My humble guess is that ninety percent less over the first week, and then they recover some viewers by the end of January who find the sites and simply 'hot-page' the news source to their browser.
A permanent fix? I have my doubts. I suspect by the end of 2015.....some talks will occur and this law might be thrown out. For the rest of Europe, there's some countries viewing the affair and the results. It's safe to say there's a large segment of privacy-enthusiasts who are anti-Google. Anything that Google touches.....from maps to personal data, onto advertising...worries these people. They actually sit around and worry about Google imagery and their backyard being shown on a world display.
In the 1600's, the Age of Enlightenment occurred. Information was brought out of the darkness and put in full display of the public. We are still in this period of Enlightenment.....fighting over information and data. And the truth is.....we may never exit the Enlightenment era.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
A Business Survival Story (out of Germany)
In the mid-1990s....I was stationed at Ramstein Air Base. The BX folks (AAFES) ran the uniform shop on base, which had a tailor operation contracted out to the BX. It was a small operation....generally two or three people there and making a decent profit (nothing, I assume, to brag about).
At some point, the BX decided to do a compete on the contract with the folks involved. The old crew had been there a while, and the folks competing.....decided to bid lower, and won. There was a bit of hostility and frustrated by the old crew. There was roughly a three or four month period for the turn-over to occur.
The old crew....some smart Turkish-Germans....decided to take advantage of the remaining period and do something that no one expected.
They found a small business front in Ramstein-village and rented it. It was barely two minutes driving from the front gate.
They printed up thousands of business cards to show the new location, the new name, and to let people know that their old reliable tailors were being pushed out.
X-day came, and the new crowd arrived. Over the next twelve months.....I'd take a guess that half of the business clients from the base went with the old tailor to the off-base operation.
The profits that the BX figured from the new contract? A fair amount less. They certainly wouldn't talk about it or put this topic into any forum. The off-base tailors? I'd take a humble guess that they were making half the amount of money that they made before. Expanding off into the German community? They put some advertising out there, but the bulk of business was always the GI's from the base.
It was one of those rare occasions that a business normally would fail, but somehow....figured out an escape point, and survived only because of business cards and enthusiasm.
At some point, the BX decided to do a compete on the contract with the folks involved. The old crew had been there a while, and the folks competing.....decided to bid lower, and won. There was a bit of hostility and frustrated by the old crew. There was roughly a three or four month period for the turn-over to occur.
The old crew....some smart Turkish-Germans....decided to take advantage of the remaining period and do something that no one expected.
They found a small business front in Ramstein-village and rented it. It was barely two minutes driving from the front gate.
They printed up thousands of business cards to show the new location, the new name, and to let people know that their old reliable tailors were being pushed out.
X-day came, and the new crowd arrived. Over the next twelve months.....I'd take a guess that half of the business clients from the base went with the old tailor to the off-base operation.
The profits that the BX figured from the new contract? A fair amount less. They certainly wouldn't talk about it or put this topic into any forum. The off-base tailors? I'd take a humble guess that they were making half the amount of money that they made before. Expanding off into the German community? They put some advertising out there, but the bulk of business was always the GI's from the base.
It was one of those rare occasions that a business normally would fail, but somehow....figured out an escape point, and survived only because of business cards and enthusiasm.
The Co$t of Democracy
Democracy isn't free.
It's a good quote.....even I'll admit that.
This week, they held a meeting in Wiesbaden (my local town here in Germany) and discussed the live data-stream they had of state meetings. For two years, the state has sponsored (meaning they paid for the service) of a data-stream deal.
You could hit the menu button, and get live chat of CDU, Greens, SPD, Linke Party folks...discussing and arguing over state business here in Hessen.
When this idea was put forward originally.....everyone was thrilled because their people....their voters....their supporters...would get to see their star players in action. Kinda like the Bundesliga (the German soccer league). Various folks would be on the offense, and some folks would be on the defense.
They'd chat up about new bridges needed here...more social services for the elderly in Hessen....more integration programs....more sports support....more road money.....etc.
This data-stream service? It wasn't free.
The state folks were paying roughly 150,000 Euro (figure $200,000 roughly) for the sign language support. There were apparently some other cost additions....so it was fair chunk of money. Someone finally got around to asking how many people generally clicked and watched the live data-stream. The local newspaper, the Wiesbaden Kurier, says that it was generally 120 folks logged in and watching the debates/discussions. That's it. With a population of 5.9 million....they could only get 120 folks to watch state discussions.
Yeah, I would tend to agree that it's just not that big of a crowd interested in things like this.
Around three years ago, I was looking at the daily viewer listings for state-run TV networks in Germany. NEO, one of the networks designed for younger crowd.....out of eighty million Germans....could only muster around 50,000 folks for an entire viewing day (twenty-four hour cycle). You can figure most of the 50,000 came at peak hours between 6PM and 11PM. So in the mid-afternoon.....they probably had only a thousand Germans watching their network. Financially viable? No, but then it's state tax funds that pay to run it.
The 120 folks logged into this data-stream? Maybe a dozen of them are newspaper journalists or bloggers. Probably forty of the folks are admin folks who work for the party members in attendance....just admiring their boss during the frequent arguments that occur. Another twenty-odd folks watch from the state-run TV networks....for material they can use for their nightly news. The remainder are probably just retirees with some fascination over German state politics.
All of this brings me around to the idea or concept of cost analysis. We (I mean generally everyone on the face of the Earth)....rarely sit down and ask what something costs....and what benefit society gets from this expenditure of money. Bridges that allow 300,000 people to cross daily, and move tons of food around some community....are worth what was spent on them. Statues of 100,000 Euro value of demons fighting other demons....well, they might not be as valuable to the community as you think. This is why on a general basis....regular people don't buy sun-dials anymore.
It's a good quote.....even I'll admit that.
This week, they held a meeting in Wiesbaden (my local town here in Germany) and discussed the live data-stream they had of state meetings. For two years, the state has sponsored (meaning they paid for the service) of a data-stream deal.
You could hit the menu button, and get live chat of CDU, Greens, SPD, Linke Party folks...discussing and arguing over state business here in Hessen.
When this idea was put forward originally.....everyone was thrilled because their people....their voters....their supporters...would get to see their star players in action. Kinda like the Bundesliga (the German soccer league). Various folks would be on the offense, and some folks would be on the defense.
They'd chat up about new bridges needed here...more social services for the elderly in Hessen....more integration programs....more sports support....more road money.....etc.
This data-stream service? It wasn't free.
The state folks were paying roughly 150,000 Euro (figure $200,000 roughly) for the sign language support. There were apparently some other cost additions....so it was fair chunk of money. Someone finally got around to asking how many people generally clicked and watched the live data-stream. The local newspaper, the Wiesbaden Kurier, says that it was generally 120 folks logged in and watching the debates/discussions. That's it. With a population of 5.9 million....they could only get 120 folks to watch state discussions.
Yeah, I would tend to agree that it's just not that big of a crowd interested in things like this.
Around three years ago, I was looking at the daily viewer listings for state-run TV networks in Germany. NEO, one of the networks designed for younger crowd.....out of eighty million Germans....could only muster around 50,000 folks for an entire viewing day (twenty-four hour cycle). You can figure most of the 50,000 came at peak hours between 6PM and 11PM. So in the mid-afternoon.....they probably had only a thousand Germans watching their network. Financially viable? No, but then it's state tax funds that pay to run it.
The 120 folks logged into this data-stream? Maybe a dozen of them are newspaper journalists or bloggers. Probably forty of the folks are admin folks who work for the party members in attendance....just admiring their boss during the frequent arguments that occur. Another twenty-odd folks watch from the state-run TV networks....for material they can use for their nightly news. The remainder are probably just retirees with some fascination over German state politics.
All of this brings me around to the idea or concept of cost analysis. We (I mean generally everyone on the face of the Earth)....rarely sit down and ask what something costs....and what benefit society gets from this expenditure of money. Bridges that allow 300,000 people to cross daily, and move tons of food around some community....are worth what was spent on them. Statues of 100,000 Euro value of demons fighting other demons....well, they might not be as valuable to the community as you think. This is why on a general basis....regular people don't buy sun-dials anymore.
Monday, December 8, 2014
Just Something Unfair
For a couple of weeks, I've been following the death of local Turkish-German gal....Tugce Albayrak.
Tugce was a twenty-two year old young woman.....bound for greater things in life. Somewhere in Offenbach, a neighborhood of Frankfurt, on 15 November....Tugce got into a disturbance which concerned three young men (all around 18 to 20 years old) and two teenage girls (described in various media accounts as 16 years old). Tugce told the three guys to act mature and verbally took them down a notch.
Somewhere outside of this burger joint (McDonalds)....in the parking lot.....one of the three guys pushes Tugce to the ground. There's video of the episode and I've watched it. My general impression is that she wasn't prepared for that, and slams to the ground at a hefty impact. The episode causes a concussion, and sends her off to the hospital. Roughly two weeks later, she's dead.
The whole thing has gotten folks in Frankfurt drawn into a complicated story. The three guys? All Turkish-Germans. The guy in question who pushed her? Local news now says he'd been drinking heavily that evening....suggesting that he might not have realized what he was doing.
HR, our local TV news folks.....has come out to say that cops repor the guy in question had a blood alcohol rate of 1.4, when he was tested two hours after the event (having been arrested).
Grievous bodily harm is about the only charge they can toss at the kid. It's the same type of charge you'd use if some guy was driving a car and hit another car.....causing permanent bodily damage on that victim or killing them. I'd take a fair guess that the prosecutor will try for maximum jail-time on the guy.....but it'd surprise me if he gets more than four or five years in prison.
What interests me of the Tugce episode is that here you have some bright kid....fully into German life, and probably bound for a successful career in some profession. For some brief moment, she did the right thing, and defended some someone with the only weapons at her disposal....verbal commentary. She did a good job. And then, some screwed-up drunk kid got involved into the final result. The unfairness factor of life.....hard at work.
Tugce was a twenty-two year old young woman.....bound for greater things in life. Somewhere in Offenbach, a neighborhood of Frankfurt, on 15 November....Tugce got into a disturbance which concerned three young men (all around 18 to 20 years old) and two teenage girls (described in various media accounts as 16 years old). Tugce told the three guys to act mature and verbally took them down a notch.
Somewhere outside of this burger joint (McDonalds)....in the parking lot.....one of the three guys pushes Tugce to the ground. There's video of the episode and I've watched it. My general impression is that she wasn't prepared for that, and slams to the ground at a hefty impact. The episode causes a concussion, and sends her off to the hospital. Roughly two weeks later, she's dead.
The whole thing has gotten folks in Frankfurt drawn into a complicated story. The three guys? All Turkish-Germans. The guy in question who pushed her? Local news now says he'd been drinking heavily that evening....suggesting that he might not have realized what he was doing.
HR, our local TV news folks.....has come out to say that cops repor the guy in question had a blood alcohol rate of 1.4, when he was tested two hours after the event (having been arrested).
Grievous bodily harm is about the only charge they can toss at the kid. It's the same type of charge you'd use if some guy was driving a car and hit another car.....causing permanent bodily damage on that victim or killing them. I'd take a fair guess that the prosecutor will try for maximum jail-time on the guy.....but it'd surprise me if he gets more than four or five years in prison.
What interests me of the Tugce episode is that here you have some bright kid....fully into German life, and probably bound for a successful career in some profession. For some brief moment, she did the right thing, and defended some someone with the only weapons at her disposal....verbal commentary. She did a good job. And then, some screwed-up drunk kid got involved into the final result. The unfairness factor of life.....hard at work.
The Maut That Never Was
For months now, there's been big talk of a new vehicle tax game in Germany. All this leads back to comments at the close of the last election in 2013....where Germans generally indicated that they felt foreign vehicles passing through Germany.....were not paying their 'fair share' on roads.
The general idea has led to the concept of a Maut.....a fee that a foreign vehicle owner would pay as he crossed the border....getting a decal.....and having roughly two weeks of driving off the tax paid. This would all lead to lesser fees or taxes paid by the German car owners on their yearly registration cost....balancing out to be 'fair'.
If you note.....I've said the term 'fair' a lot in this article, and that's the selling point by political figures, and the buying point by individuals who vote.
Over the weekend....FOCUS (a German weekly news magazine) put out an excellent analysis over the current plan, which lays out one serious fault. You see....in the formation of all this planning....no one really said anything about the Maut and the yearly tax fee on German owners all coming under one single umbrella. It's now apparent that one single German entity would manage the foreign vehicle Maut, and a totally different government entity would manage German car owner taxes....after the first year of implementation.
Naturally, this begs the question.....would both implement increases in the tax without consultation or telling the other what they were doing? The SPD now thinks that. As a partner in the government's coalition.....they have the final say in this whole plan, and it's getting near a point where a vote would be taken. FOCUS says they won't get to the passing point without some modification or change.
So, all this talk, and literally tens of thousands of man-hours spent by various government analysts to come up with a workable Maut program that was fair, and vast efforts to sell it to the media and the public....may simply be the Maut that never happens? Yeah, that's the funny thing about this whole story.
What you can sense is that the government wanted to go along with the Maut idea to some point....get it implemented, and then continue a trend of pushing it higher and higher against both foreign cars coming into German and against the average German car owner. The generally perceived strategy is you invent as many small and minor taxes/fees as possible.....edging each higher.....with the average German never realizing the big picture number in the end. That's why Germans typically pay half of their entire paycheck toward "something" (pensions, health insurance, taxes, fees, etc).
My humble guess? Unless something big occurs to change the road-tax and car registration fee business around to one single German agency.....I don't believe it'll happen. But why not bring it under one single agency? That's the logical solution and simple to sell to the public.
The general idea has led to the concept of a Maut.....a fee that a foreign vehicle owner would pay as he crossed the border....getting a decal.....and having roughly two weeks of driving off the tax paid. This would all lead to lesser fees or taxes paid by the German car owners on their yearly registration cost....balancing out to be 'fair'.
If you note.....I've said the term 'fair' a lot in this article, and that's the selling point by political figures, and the buying point by individuals who vote.
Over the weekend....FOCUS (a German weekly news magazine) put out an excellent analysis over the current plan, which lays out one serious fault. You see....in the formation of all this planning....no one really said anything about the Maut and the yearly tax fee on German owners all coming under one single umbrella. It's now apparent that one single German entity would manage the foreign vehicle Maut, and a totally different government entity would manage German car owner taxes....after the first year of implementation.
Naturally, this begs the question.....would both implement increases in the tax without consultation or telling the other what they were doing? The SPD now thinks that. As a partner in the government's coalition.....they have the final say in this whole plan, and it's getting near a point where a vote would be taken. FOCUS says they won't get to the passing point without some modification or change.
So, all this talk, and literally tens of thousands of man-hours spent by various government analysts to come up with a workable Maut program that was fair, and vast efforts to sell it to the media and the public....may simply be the Maut that never happens? Yeah, that's the funny thing about this whole story.
What you can sense is that the government wanted to go along with the Maut idea to some point....get it implemented, and then continue a trend of pushing it higher and higher against both foreign cars coming into German and against the average German car owner. The generally perceived strategy is you invent as many small and minor taxes/fees as possible.....edging each higher.....with the average German never realizing the big picture number in the end. That's why Germans typically pay half of their entire paycheck toward "something" (pensions, health insurance, taxes, fees, etc).
My humble guess? Unless something big occurs to change the road-tax and car registration fee business around to one single German agency.....I don't believe it'll happen. But why not bring it under one single agency? That's the logical solution and simple to sell to the public.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
German TV Program Worth Watching
Last Sunday....via ZDF (the Channel Two network from public-run TV)....I had the first installment of 'Germany Saga'. It's a six-part series from Professor Christopher Clark from Cambridge University. Later this week, I caught the second part of the series.
Each of the episodes run for approximately forty-five minutes, and does a five-star job of telling a piece of history that you'd expect out of a Cambridge University professor. In some ways, it was a great lecture and he guides you through to meet Karl the Great, and later brings you to the vast Roman period and what meant to the average German.
It is a fine series. Rarely do I say great things about state-run TV in Germany...but they did a great job in hiring the professor, and letting him tell the remarkable history of Germany, in his own way.
If you were reviewing or taking a university program through German history....I'd strongly recommend Germany Saga and just spend an entire Saturday going through the entire series. Things would make sense, and you'd more easily piece together the 100 pieces of the German puzzle.
This Sunday (10th) will feature the episode "What Unites Us" at 7:30PM, the third segment.
Each of the episodes run for approximately forty-five minutes, and does a five-star job of telling a piece of history that you'd expect out of a Cambridge University professor. In some ways, it was a great lecture and he guides you through to meet Karl the Great, and later brings you to the vast Roman period and what meant to the average German.
It is a fine series. Rarely do I say great things about state-run TV in Germany...but they did a great job in hiring the professor, and letting him tell the remarkable history of Germany, in his own way.
If you were reviewing or taking a university program through German history....I'd strongly recommend Germany Saga and just spend an entire Saturday going through the entire series. Things would make sense, and you'd more easily piece together the 100 pieces of the German puzzle.
This Sunday (10th) will feature the episode "What Unites Us" at 7:30PM, the third segment.
A True-But-Fake Movie
For entertainment, I sat and watched RTL's version of Gotz von Berlichingen this past Thursday night. I don't really consider myself a critic or movie expert.....I might be a historian expert of some degree, and I can generally tell you if a movie is good or bad.
This version of Gotz von Berlichingen? Well....it's a curious piece.
Meedia reports that roughly 3.8 Germans watched the movie.....which generally makes it a success....maybe not a big success but still a success.
Henning Baum as the lead character? A charming portrayal and a decent acting job. Maybe not four-star but still he made it a believable.
The translation to reality in this early 1500s period? I sat and was fairly amazed at the background, landscape, and items related to the period. They did their homework, and presented a fairly truthful representation of the period.
As for relating to this real-life and the actual story? They tied a couple of truthful events, into a mostly creative story....thus making it worth watching. A historian, I suspect, would have laughed over the whole thing at the end.
As for the voo-doo gal in the leather bikini attire? Yeah....pretty fake.
Here's the thing.....with so much rich history sitting there for German writers to use and create great movies and TV series....there's so little of it used. So when you do finally get to some piece of history worth making a movie over.....you end up rewriting half the story to fit sex, corruption, or creativity into the mess....making people happy with the end-product.
So, if you do happen to see two-hour movie (Gotz von Berlichingen) around....sit and watch it. It's worth it. Just don't get the idea that it's 100-percent truthful.
This version of Gotz von Berlichingen? Well....it's a curious piece.
Meedia reports that roughly 3.8 Germans watched the movie.....which generally makes it a success....maybe not a big success but still a success.
Henning Baum as the lead character? A charming portrayal and a decent acting job. Maybe not four-star but still he made it a believable.
The translation to reality in this early 1500s period? I sat and was fairly amazed at the background, landscape, and items related to the period. They did their homework, and presented a fairly truthful representation of the period.
As for relating to this real-life and the actual story? They tied a couple of truthful events, into a mostly creative story....thus making it worth watching. A historian, I suspect, would have laughed over the whole thing at the end.
As for the voo-doo gal in the leather bikini attire? Yeah....pretty fake.
Here's the thing.....with so much rich history sitting there for German writers to use and create great movies and TV series....there's so little of it used. So when you do finally get to some piece of history worth making a movie over.....you end up rewriting half the story to fit sex, corruption, or creativity into the mess....making people happy with the end-product.
So, if you do happen to see two-hour movie (Gotz von Berlichingen) around....sit and watch it. It's worth it. Just don't get the idea that it's 100-percent truthful.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
The Old Neroberg Hotel in Wiesbaden
It was a combination hotel, cafe, and restaurant.
The chief selling points? It had a grand view, and a great cafe area that people marveled about. For style and grace, there wasn't much better than the Neroberg.
In this 1880's period, there was a water-powered train added to the bottom of the hill. You'd board the train, and water would pull the train to the top (about one kilometer away). It'd require 7,000 liters of water for each 'trip'. It still operates today.
If you look over at the far right.....this is the point where you could view the entire city of Wiesbaden.
In the 1930s.....a major pool complex was added, and would be positioned to the far right of the structure, about 200 meters from the Greek Orthodox Church also in the vicinity.
The hotel survived WW I and WW II with almost no issues. In 1945, the US Army came to acquire the property for housing senior military officers. For roughly eleven years.....the property was used by the US Army, and then around 1956 turned over to the German government. What can be said was that the hotel needed renovation badly at this point.
From 1956 to 1965....various segments of renovation were completed.....but the best that one could say was that the facility was best to be used as a cafe and restaurant. As a hotel....it was basically finished.
By 1975, the city had decided to try a second theme with the older complex.....a musical stage of sorts. It was a success to some degree, but appears to be a money-pit awaiting some miracle re-birth. Various ideas were approached.....some with private capital. Each found negativity among the residents and political players of Wiesbaden. None could get permission to go past the planning stages.....thus becoming an anchored-down crappy old building with no future and only a glorious past. The conference-center hotel idea? Shot down eventually.
A small fire in the spring of 1986 resulted in more discussions.....some minor renovation work to preserve the structure "as is" for the time being. Later, 1989....almost to the same day.....another fire occurred and pretty much dissolved any more renovation plans or revival of the old structure. No one says much over whether it was intentional or accidental. But this episode was enough for the city to certify it as unlivable. They tore the rest of the building down at that point.
What you have today at Neroberg is a small tower, a cafe, several monuments, a Roman-like theater pit, miles of hiking trails around the hilltop, a commercially-run tree-climbing fun-club, and a plaque to identify the old Neroberg Hotel. That's it.
For the view alone, I'd highly recommend you go and visit the site....riding the train to the top. Plan for a three-hour visit to enjoy the view, have a wine, and enjoy the precious moments of life. Don't go in late fall or in the midst of winter....it's just not worth it. June or July is prime time.
For a brief time....from 1881 to 1914....it probably was one of the most desirable hotels in Wiesbaden. Up through WW II.....it was the place where you'd want to come on Sunday afternoon in spring and summer to have a beer, apple wine, or cup of coffee. Today? It's still an interesting place but it's got lots of competition for cafe experiences within the city.
The old battles of what to do with prime old properties? About a mile away, just at the edge of the casino grounds.....you have the old Movenpick Hotel complex which has the same issue. It's in decay....having no use for two decades now.....and twenty different parties in the city trying to have a say over how some developmental organization will end up using the property....once they tear the place down (the only skyscraper in the city). Oddly enough, it's on fire about every month or two....by teenagers. Firemen come and put out the fire, and then settle back to wait on the next phonecall. Kinda odd, but follows the same script as the Neroberg complex.
Just another history piece of the city of Wiesbaden.
Selling Hahn Airport?
The Hahn airport is going up for sale.....well....if Hessen agrees to the deal.
Here's the background to this. Hahn has relied upon state aid at various times to carry it through to some marginal success. In the old days....the system was developed where a state could continue with various deal and funding programs to help a marginal airport survive. In this case, the airport about forty miles to the west of Wiesbaden/Mainz....is currently the joint property of the states of Hessen (17.5 percent) and Rheinland Pfalz (remainder). The EU developed a standard which insists on limited support for airports, for ten years. After that.....either the airport survives or it fails. Since Hahn can't make a profit, there's only course left here.
The Hahn model for success? It's a twelve-thousand foot runway, with a marginal number of buildings. It was supposed to be where low-budget carriers (like Ryan Airways) would operate and avoid hefty costs.
Somewhere around 2007, Hahn's passenger numbers hit a peak with four million folks using the airport. If they'd sustained that number.....we wouldn't be talking about this sale today.
Every year since 2007, we've seen a five-to-ten percent drop in passengers. For 2013, it was near 2.66 million. (Wiki numbers)
What the news folks tend to say is that the Pfalz has called up Hessen and dropped the subject of selling it into their lap. Hessen might ask a few questions, but they will agree within a period of time to the deal.
Who buys Hahn? That's a curious question. There might be a Chinese company or two....interested in the more remote airport, with an extended runway. FRAPORT, the owner of the Frankfurt Flughafen....might come to be interested.
There's a curious limit to the Frankfurt airport in terms of operating time. Local folks living around the Frankfurt operation have forced over the years a closed-time, usually around midnight for flights to stop, and at start-up somewhere between 0530 and 0600 AM. Naturally, if you get delayed and approach the midnight time.....the flight usually gets pushed into landing at an alternate airport. Hahn, being somewhat close to the Frankfurt airport.....would be an interesting property to utilize. Toss in some rapid-rail transport between the two airports, more use as a cargo port, and it might make more financial sense.
My humble guess is that by the end of 2015....it will be sold off, and there might be some big changes coming to Hahn over the next five years.
Here's the background to this. Hahn has relied upon state aid at various times to carry it through to some marginal success. In the old days....the system was developed where a state could continue with various deal and funding programs to help a marginal airport survive. In this case, the airport about forty miles to the west of Wiesbaden/Mainz....is currently the joint property of the states of Hessen (17.5 percent) and Rheinland Pfalz (remainder). The EU developed a standard which insists on limited support for airports, for ten years. After that.....either the airport survives or it fails. Since Hahn can't make a profit, there's only course left here.
The Hahn model for success? It's a twelve-thousand foot runway, with a marginal number of buildings. It was supposed to be where low-budget carriers (like Ryan Airways) would operate and avoid hefty costs.
Somewhere around 2007, Hahn's passenger numbers hit a peak with four million folks using the airport. If they'd sustained that number.....we wouldn't be talking about this sale today.
Every year since 2007, we've seen a five-to-ten percent drop in passengers. For 2013, it was near 2.66 million. (Wiki numbers)
What the news folks tend to say is that the Pfalz has called up Hessen and dropped the subject of selling it into their lap. Hessen might ask a few questions, but they will agree within a period of time to the deal.
Who buys Hahn? That's a curious question. There might be a Chinese company or two....interested in the more remote airport, with an extended runway. FRAPORT, the owner of the Frankfurt Flughafen....might come to be interested.
There's a curious limit to the Frankfurt airport in terms of operating time. Local folks living around the Frankfurt operation have forced over the years a closed-time, usually around midnight for flights to stop, and at start-up somewhere between 0530 and 0600 AM. Naturally, if you get delayed and approach the midnight time.....the flight usually gets pushed into landing at an alternate airport. Hahn, being somewhat close to the Frankfurt airport.....would be an interesting property to utilize. Toss in some rapid-rail transport between the two airports, more use as a cargo port, and it might make more financial sense.
My humble guess is that by the end of 2015....it will be sold off, and there might be some big changes coming to Hahn over the next five years.
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