It always amazes the gimmicks that Germans come up with....for commercial sales.
This week, there's a rumor going around that a Berlin group is focused on a new water-energy type drink....called Fukashima Water.
Caffeine and sugar-based? Well....yeah. But the water is pumped out of the deep wells of the town of Fukashima (Japan). It's tossed in some plastic bottles and shipped off to Germany.
Price? Unknown presently, but I'll guess that it sells for roughly the same as Red Bull (another energy drink).
Radiation in it? So far....folks claim it's 'clean'.
Would it sell? Around twenty years ago....someone came up in Germany with the Micheal Jackson Mystery Drink. It was a herbal tea gimmick, with a heavy dose of caffeine and sugar. It lasted on the market for about three months, then quietly disappeared. For the office snack fund....I actually bought a case of the stuff. I gave a few samples out to the office personnel and had hopes of it selling (I had twenty-four cans of the stuff). Six months later....other than the can I drunk and the two I used for the sample tastings.....I still had twenty-one cans. No one bought the stuff.
For some reason, I envision Fukashima Water going the same way. Maybe they'll find some soccer star or washed-up 1970s singer to advertise the stuff.....but I doubt if it ever takes off.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Our Dependency
We are utterly dependent upon people in our lives.....to do the 'right' thing.
When we board a bus in the morning....we depend upon the driver to safely get us from point A to point B....even if he's had a bad morning, suffering from limited sleep, or having issues with his wife.
When we board a plane....we depend upon the pilot to safely get us from point A to point B....even if his son is awful sick, his financial situation is deteriorating, or his wife dumped a major threat of divorce upon him last night.
When we go to the garage for significant work upon our car....we depend upon the mechanic to do the repair correctly and not make the car a dangerous vehicle to drive.
When we go to the local Greek restaurant around the corner....we depend on the cook in the back to be of sound mind and not attempt to mix poison in our food.
When we get approached by some policeman....we depend upon him to be free of anxiety and stress. He should be of a calm and professional nature. We shouldn't have to worry about him utilizing his gun in a simple traffic stop.
When we board some ferry to cross the river....we depend upon the boat captain to be competent and reliable at doing his job. We shouldn't have to worry about him hitting some rock or capsizing the boat because he was stressed out or drunk on the job.
When we come home tonight....we depend our our wife to cook and deliver some safe dinner....without rat poison or attempt to kill us.
When we have the heat repair guy come over and do some work with our basement furnace system....we depend upon him to fix the problem and leave it in operational order. We shouldn't have to worry that he allowed a gas leak to occur and an explosion to occur hours later....because he missed his mediation for the past two weeks and is acting bizarre.
A hundred years ago....our review of daily life didn't really involve a bunch of people doing their job....performing in a flawless way....and acting with minimum stress and anxiety issues. Today, I'd take a guess that I probably have to interact with at least a hundred people a day who might interfere with my own personal safety. By some miracle.....I survive an entire day.
After looking over this German Wings episode this week.....you come to a point of appreciating the complex nature that we live our lives upon. So many possible things can go wrong, and we overwhelmingly rely upon those odds every single day. We absolutely depend on people being capable of doing what they were hired to do, and in a safe and professional manner. It kinda shocks us when they don't perform at this level.
When we board a bus in the morning....we depend upon the driver to safely get us from point A to point B....even if he's had a bad morning, suffering from limited sleep, or having issues with his wife.
When we board a plane....we depend upon the pilot to safely get us from point A to point B....even if his son is awful sick, his financial situation is deteriorating, or his wife dumped a major threat of divorce upon him last night.
When we go to the garage for significant work upon our car....we depend upon the mechanic to do the repair correctly and not make the car a dangerous vehicle to drive.
When we go to the local Greek restaurant around the corner....we depend on the cook in the back to be of sound mind and not attempt to mix poison in our food.
When we get approached by some policeman....we depend upon him to be free of anxiety and stress. He should be of a calm and professional nature. We shouldn't have to worry about him utilizing his gun in a simple traffic stop.
When we board some ferry to cross the river....we depend upon the boat captain to be competent and reliable at doing his job. We shouldn't have to worry about him hitting some rock or capsizing the boat because he was stressed out or drunk on the job.
When we come home tonight....we depend our our wife to cook and deliver some safe dinner....without rat poison or attempt to kill us.
When we have the heat repair guy come over and do some work with our basement furnace system....we depend upon him to fix the problem and leave it in operational order. We shouldn't have to worry that he allowed a gas leak to occur and an explosion to occur hours later....because he missed his mediation for the past two weeks and is acting bizarre.
A hundred years ago....our review of daily life didn't really involve a bunch of people doing their job....performing in a flawless way....and acting with minimum stress and anxiety issues. Today, I'd take a guess that I probably have to interact with at least a hundred people a day who might interfere with my own personal safety. By some miracle.....I survive an entire day.
After looking over this German Wings episode this week.....you come to a point of appreciating the complex nature that we live our lives upon. So many possible things can go wrong, and we overwhelmingly rely upon those odds every single day. We absolutely depend on people being capable of doing what they were hired to do, and in a safe and professional manner. It kinda shocks us when they don't perform at this level.
Friday, March 27, 2015
The Age Rule
Up until this week in my local German state of Hessen.....we had this rule in place which had been around for decades. To be a mayor or city council member.....you had to be between 25 and 71 years old.
The logic? Well....it's simply the rule....no one can really say if it made sense or not. Maybe there were some screw-ups with eighty-year-old guys or with twenty-year-old guys as mayors.
A simple piece of legislation passed though.....through the Hessen state government which brings things back to a eighteen-years or older rule for mayor or city council positions within the state. There's no cut-off now.
Oddly though.....they then inserted another rule into the system which said that you have to pull eight years or more as a mayor or city council guy.....to get some type of government pension deal. It used to be from day one.....you got something of a pension.
The odds of seeing a eighteen-year-old German run for mayor's office? You'd have to get vetted by your political party, and I suspect in most large villages (1,000 residents) or a full-up city.....it'd be impossible to talk the political party apparatus into allowing you as a eighteen-year-old to run for such an office.
However, we have so may different parties now....that some of the older and more wiser of folks might look at their dismal chances of winning and just throw everything to the wind, and say that Huns.....the crazy eighteen-year-old kid who parties all the time and acts like John Wayne at local parties.....might get approved by the party apparatus, then find enough young folks in the village who'd vote for the guy as a 'protest-type' vote, then win.
My humble guess is that the Green Party will be the chief party testing younger political candidates. But I won't guess to the success of the idea. Who knows.....maybe after a decade....they agree to go back to the old age limit deal because they discovered youth isn't a great thing for the mayor's office.
The logic? Well....it's simply the rule....no one can really say if it made sense or not. Maybe there were some screw-ups with eighty-year-old guys or with twenty-year-old guys as mayors.
A simple piece of legislation passed though.....through the Hessen state government which brings things back to a eighteen-years or older rule for mayor or city council positions within the state. There's no cut-off now.
Oddly though.....they then inserted another rule into the system which said that you have to pull eight years or more as a mayor or city council guy.....to get some type of government pension deal. It used to be from day one.....you got something of a pension.
The odds of seeing a eighteen-year-old German run for mayor's office? You'd have to get vetted by your political party, and I suspect in most large villages (1,000 residents) or a full-up city.....it'd be impossible to talk the political party apparatus into allowing you as a eighteen-year-old to run for such an office.
However, we have so may different parties now....that some of the older and more wiser of folks might look at their dismal chances of winning and just throw everything to the wind, and say that Huns.....the crazy eighteen-year-old kid who parties all the time and acts like John Wayne at local parties.....might get approved by the party apparatus, then find enough young folks in the village who'd vote for the guy as a 'protest-type' vote, then win.
My humble guess is that the Green Party will be the chief party testing younger political candidates. But I won't guess to the success of the idea. Who knows.....maybe after a decade....they agree to go back to the old age limit deal because they discovered youth isn't a great thing for the mayor's office.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Cops on the Move in Hessen
Hessen cops were active this morning in Frankfurt....search warrant acted upon....with a Salafist Islamic organization. News media simply says it was one residence of several (it was in the Bornhelm area). Other warrants? News from HR says four German states (Bavaria, Hessen, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Schleswig-Holstein). All of this started around sun-up (6AM).
What the authorities in Hessen will generally say is that they've developed a new strategy. They kinda figured out that most all recruitment is against teens (shocker there, if you ask me.....it took them two or three years to realize that?). So, they've started a counter program to wise-up young guys in schools and make them ask stupid questions of the Jihad-pretender guys. They've also wised up on the Salafist leadership and think there's more to the picture than shown.
Info from the raids? My guess is that the leadership of the Salafist guys are fairly smart. They know the cops will focus on them, and therefore....little will be found in their residence. The money for the Salfist organizations? It's all charity money out of Saudi Arabia....clean. It's like going after a mafia unit....they figured the money-laundering tricks....communications work-around episodes....and how to structure secondary leadership to take orders and carry out the functions.
If I were the German cops....I'd recruit some mafia experts and bring them in to advise. They know how to run a quiet operation, and they would demonstrate the tricks to go after.
What the authorities in Hessen will generally say is that they've developed a new strategy. They kinda figured out that most all recruitment is against teens (shocker there, if you ask me.....it took them two or three years to realize that?). So, they've started a counter program to wise-up young guys in schools and make them ask stupid questions of the Jihad-pretender guys. They've also wised up on the Salafist leadership and think there's more to the picture than shown.
Info from the raids? My guess is that the leadership of the Salafist guys are fairly smart. They know the cops will focus on them, and therefore....little will be found in their residence. The money for the Salfist organizations? It's all charity money out of Saudi Arabia....clean. It's like going after a mafia unit....they figured the money-laundering tricks....communications work-around episodes....and how to structure secondary leadership to take orders and carry out the functions.
If I were the German cops....I'd recruit some mafia experts and bring them in to advise. They know how to run a quiet operation, and they would demonstrate the tricks to go after.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Smoker Story
Starting tomorrow....in any Wiesbaden city kid's playground area (all 150 of them)...smoking is forbidden.
Yeah....quietly, the city council moved this way a number of months ago. No one said much. The signs will go up tomorrow morning and it'll be a remarkable entry into a new era.
The trigger to this? The group asking for the no smoking ban wanted to set up a role-model type situation....so kids wouldn't see people smoking while playing. Yeah, it's a fairly bogus mindset, but that's the world we live in.
You are still safe in the city parks, and on the streets of Wiesbaden....at least for the time being. I suspect....within ten years.....most city streets will be a forbidden zone for smoking.
Will there be inspections done and people cited? I would imagine there's probably some guy on the city parks department who has some role as a smoker-inspection dude. Most smokers might take the role of the guy as a joke, but he'll just call up the cops if you don't play the game correctly.
Yeah....quietly, the city council moved this way a number of months ago. No one said much. The signs will go up tomorrow morning and it'll be a remarkable entry into a new era.
The trigger to this? The group asking for the no smoking ban wanted to set up a role-model type situation....so kids wouldn't see people smoking while playing. Yeah, it's a fairly bogus mindset, but that's the world we live in.
You are still safe in the city parks, and on the streets of Wiesbaden....at least for the time being. I suspect....within ten years.....most city streets will be a forbidden zone for smoking.
Will there be inspections done and people cited? I would imagine there's probably some guy on the city parks department who has some role as a smoker-inspection dude. Most smokers might take the role of the guy as a joke, but he'll just call up the cops if you don't play the game correctly.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
The Greek Solution
Generally, if you go up to a guy and ask him for a full view of his financial status....to say on a broad scale where the debits and credits are located.....after an hour, he'll give you a nice simple answer. He'll say he's still owing 100,000 Euro to the bank on his house, owes 8,000 Euro on his car, and has some retirement-related account worth 40,000 Euro. There's an answer to your question.
You could probably walk up to eighty million Germans, and I'd take a guess that sixty million of them could do their calculation themselves and give a fairly honest and truthful answer. Some folks have significant investments and it might take a week to assemble the data to say the debt/credit situation.
On a country level....generally, most countries have a number of smart guys around and if you asked them what financial level that the country itself lies in.....these guys can give you a ninety-percent answer. It might not be perfect....but it's fairly close.
Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal....there's an interesting piece over Greece and this statistical organization that helps to explain where Greece is on debt/credit.
Greece runs this organization called ELSAT. Their job is financial analysis....at the national level. These are the guys who say where tax revenue is coming on....where spending is occurring within the government.....and where bank loans are covering spending by the government.
Around 2010, because of the economic woes of 2008.....ELSAT hired up this new guy who came over from the international banking sector (IMF).....Andreas Georiou. This is a guy who studied at a regional Athens university.....went onto Amherst College in the US for a bachelors degree, and finished up at University of Michigan with a PhD in economics.
For roughly twenty years with the IMF, he had various responsibilities. He even picked up some exterior work as a professor for the University of Michigan.
In 2010.....he came over to run the ELSAT statistics department. He was there to crunch numbers. His results? Fairly dismal. His numbers drove a great deal of the trend toward austerity and got Greeks fairly negative about the whole financial situation.
Well.....some folks have hinted that he walked into ELSAT with an agenda....worked with German banks....and conspired to create this fraudulent austerity situation. This week...the Greek government is working up charges against the guy and intend to bring him into court.
The general accusation? Well....several folks within ELSAT say that Georgiou has no background or expertise with statistics. The same folks suggest that he can only deliver what he's told to deliver.....not necessarily the facts.
What will happen? One might take a guess that the new political situation in Greece requires some dramatic flip to dump austerity and keep Greece within the Euro. If they could prove that the statistical picture given back five years ago was totally wrong....that austerity is not necessary....that European pressure to reform is unnecessary, then they carve out a brief period of calm (my word for this 'mess').
The problem here.....it's almost impossible for a nation to sit down and balance their books today, and show a debt/credit situation. You might be able to talk about yourself.....but a nation of sixteen million or eighty million? No.
The banks will watch this soap-opera unfold and eventually say 'fine'.....go on and pretend austerity is not necessary but don't come and ask us for loans. Countries within the EU will likely say the same.....pretend austerity isn't necessary and just work this out on your own without our pocket money. At that point....this gimmick kinda falls apart, if you ask me.
You could probably walk up to eighty million Germans, and I'd take a guess that sixty million of them could do their calculation themselves and give a fairly honest and truthful answer. Some folks have significant investments and it might take a week to assemble the data to say the debt/credit situation.
On a country level....generally, most countries have a number of smart guys around and if you asked them what financial level that the country itself lies in.....these guys can give you a ninety-percent answer. It might not be perfect....but it's fairly close.
Yesterday in the Wall Street Journal....there's an interesting piece over Greece and this statistical organization that helps to explain where Greece is on debt/credit.
Greece runs this organization called ELSAT. Their job is financial analysis....at the national level. These are the guys who say where tax revenue is coming on....where spending is occurring within the government.....and where bank loans are covering spending by the government.
Around 2010, because of the economic woes of 2008.....ELSAT hired up this new guy who came over from the international banking sector (IMF).....Andreas Georiou. This is a guy who studied at a regional Athens university.....went onto Amherst College in the US for a bachelors degree, and finished up at University of Michigan with a PhD in economics.
For roughly twenty years with the IMF, he had various responsibilities. He even picked up some exterior work as a professor for the University of Michigan.
In 2010.....he came over to run the ELSAT statistics department. He was there to crunch numbers. His results? Fairly dismal. His numbers drove a great deal of the trend toward austerity and got Greeks fairly negative about the whole financial situation.
Well.....some folks have hinted that he walked into ELSAT with an agenda....worked with German banks....and conspired to create this fraudulent austerity situation. This week...the Greek government is working up charges against the guy and intend to bring him into court.
The general accusation? Well....several folks within ELSAT say that Georgiou has no background or expertise with statistics. The same folks suggest that he can only deliver what he's told to deliver.....not necessarily the facts.
What will happen? One might take a guess that the new political situation in Greece requires some dramatic flip to dump austerity and keep Greece within the Euro. If they could prove that the statistical picture given back five years ago was totally wrong....that austerity is not necessary....that European pressure to reform is unnecessary, then they carve out a brief period of calm (my word for this 'mess').
The problem here.....it's almost impossible for a nation to sit down and balance their books today, and show a debt/credit situation. You might be able to talk about yourself.....but a nation of sixteen million or eighty million? No.
The banks will watch this soap-opera unfold and eventually say 'fine'.....go on and pretend austerity is not necessary but don't come and ask us for loans. Countries within the EU will likely say the same.....pretend austerity isn't necessary and just work this out on your own without our pocket money. At that point....this gimmick kinda falls apart, if you ask me.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Karl May Movies Coming
Over the last couple of days....RTL (our commercial TV network here in Germany) announced that they have signed up the crew and gotten the permission to film three of Karl May's German-style cowboy classics.....for the summer of 2016.
A big deal? Well....in Germany, Karl May's cowboy classic series are legendary stuff....used in the late 1950s and up until the mid-1960s....and often seen by Germans as great literature.
Karl was a guy who got himself into various problems....mostly with the authorities. He spent a couple of years in debt prison (1865-1869). He was a teacher by trade....up until this prison episode. Something odd happened in prison though.....they gave him access to the library and he got addicted to cowboy westerns. Eventually, he decided that he could write as well as these German western writers....but with a twist on his characters and script.
Karl had three basic themes in his cowboy stories.
First, the chief Indian character was Winnotou. This character was a proud Indian who saved people and had a oath of ethics.
Second, Indians for the most part of his stories were always proud people and helped pioneers. Generally, the bad guys were always white guys or Latinos. It's hard to find any bad Indian characters in his books.
Third and final....there's always a cowboy in the midst of the story who is best friends with Winnotou.....with a couple of buddies who back him up and they always save the day in the end.
Karl write twenty-five-plus books in the 1890s and was a fairly prolific writer. The stories turned into movies? At least twenty of them were made into movies from the 1920s (silent movies originally) to full-up movies in the 1960s produced in Yugoslavia.
As for this current plan? They've signed Wotan Wilke Mohring (a Tatort detective actor) for the cowboy role and hinted that it'll be an American who plays Winnotou. Mario Adolph is slated to come back (he was in the early 60's movies).
A big deal? I'd go ahead and predict that these three Geman made-for-TV movies will be among the top productions of the year.
A big deal? Well....in Germany, Karl May's cowboy classic series are legendary stuff....used in the late 1950s and up until the mid-1960s....and often seen by Germans as great literature.
Karl was a guy who got himself into various problems....mostly with the authorities. He spent a couple of years in debt prison (1865-1869). He was a teacher by trade....up until this prison episode. Something odd happened in prison though.....they gave him access to the library and he got addicted to cowboy westerns. Eventually, he decided that he could write as well as these German western writers....but with a twist on his characters and script.
Karl had three basic themes in his cowboy stories.
First, the chief Indian character was Winnotou. This character was a proud Indian who saved people and had a oath of ethics.
Second, Indians for the most part of his stories were always proud people and helped pioneers. Generally, the bad guys were always white guys or Latinos. It's hard to find any bad Indian characters in his books.
Third and final....there's always a cowboy in the midst of the story who is best friends with Winnotou.....with a couple of buddies who back him up and they always save the day in the end.
Karl write twenty-five-plus books in the 1890s and was a fairly prolific writer. The stories turned into movies? At least twenty of them were made into movies from the 1920s (silent movies originally) to full-up movies in the 1960s produced in Yugoslavia.
As for this current plan? They've signed Wotan Wilke Mohring (a Tatort detective actor) for the cowboy role and hinted that it'll be an American who plays Winnotou. Mario Adolph is slated to come back (he was in the early 60's movies).
A big deal? I'd go ahead and predict that these three Geman made-for-TV movies will be among the top productions of the year.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Thugs, Hooligans and Blockupy: Frankfurt
Remember, I write this essay/blog as an American, with the view of an American, and most readers are non-German. So maybe I have a slightly different prospective on things.
Yesterday, the Blockupy riots started up in Frankfurt. It had been building up for a couple of days, in anticipation of the grand opening of the European Central Bank building on the west end of Frankfurt.
The general score by the end of Wednesday?
While some Blockupy folks hyped up 20,000 attendees....the cops put it more at 10,000. I noticed the news media....particularly HR (state-run regional network for Hessen) tried on several occasions to use the 20,000 number. But the cops stated it on several occasions that it wasn't more than 10,000.
Near the 7PM period, when HR tried to continue telling the story and report the mass crowd at the Opera Haus.....looking over the video....I'd say there were no more than 2,000 people around the structure. Most of the crowd had drifted away.
Most of the rioters from Frankfurt? No, that was part of the amusing side of the story. The news media covered the midnight arrival of several thousand riot-players at the central station in Frankfurt. I'd take a guess than more than seventy-percent of the 10,000 were non-Frankfurt folks.
As dawn arrived in the city....the Blockupy folks started their games on the west end of Frankfurt. Molotov cocktails and cobblestones were the primary weapons. Private cars burned.....police vehicles burned....windows of private business operations broken....damages will go into the tens of millions.
Ninety-four cops were injured to some degree, with the police reporting at least 500 rioters arrested.
The denial factor? Well, toward the end of the day.....a press conference with the organizers was held and they were fairly happy about the turn-out but then said the destruction wasn't part of their plan and some folks who were not part of their organization misbehaved and caused damage.
Yeah.....it sounded like the good Muslim versus bad Muslim theme.....or the good Nazi versus bad Nazi theme. Good Blockupy versus bad Blockupy.
Version one of the group is simply the talkers.....guys who run around and talk anti-capitalism and political ambitions of a leftist nature. Version two? Guy and gals who mostly act as anarchists and get hyped up on confrontation and damage.
Both versions think that the public buys off on their tactics in one way or another. That's usually not the case though. In most societies and civilizations....violent acts turn off voters and sour public reaction. You end up losing more than you gain. When you look at Gandhi and MLK, peaceful protests win support more than violent protests.
The chief theme of the Blockupy players. At the heart of the matter is the central banking structure (not just Europe) which is a tool (in the eyes of the protest movement) for harming third-world countries and limiting the lives of people without substance. In essence....money is the root of evil. So capitalism is more of a problem than a solution in this theory of sorts.
If you peel pack the layers....Blockupy will say that the bulk of Greece problems today.....goes back to the banking strategy in place. Same for the previous Cyprus episode. One might ask if Greeks were stupid enough to spend more money than they took in via tax revenue, but that would just confuse people.
Regionally, Blockupy will say the rental housing issue is also attached to the bankers and the government. Presently, rental apartment units across German urban areas (especially for Frankfurt) are being bought, and put into renovation status after years of decay. What happens at the end of the renovation? Rent prices escalate....by more than thirty-percent typically. Blockupy leadership has hinted on occasions that the regional governments need to step in and halt this type of behavior.
One of the odd things from the HR coverage last night was the west end discussion of Frankfurt. It was a two-minute video piece on the spiral downwards over the past decade and how this ECB building structure was hurting the area of Frankfurt, rather than helping it. Empty store fronts, neighbors talking of the old days, etc. It was an odd discussion. I've been around Frankfurt for over thirty years. The west end of town isn't the only area with negativity growing....there are five or six neighborhoods in Frankfurt which have shifted in a negative way. To say the ECB structure is the root of this? It's a comical way of using journalism in some fashion as a tool for convincing people of a fraudulent story.
The bottom line? Once the Blockupy thugs crossed the line and did damage on personal cars and property....they weren't on any humanitarian or good-will theme. When you looked at the video-clip of a family car burnt, and a crispy-blacken child's safety seat in the back.....they lost their positive image. They were hooligans. Destroying subway car windows, public transportation structures, restaurant windows? Thug behavior. By utilizing the news media and trying to put a mass movement story out as a popular thing? It just doesn't work. They need to go back and exam Ghandi's strategy.
Yesterday, the Blockupy riots started up in Frankfurt. It had been building up for a couple of days, in anticipation of the grand opening of the European Central Bank building on the west end of Frankfurt.
The general score by the end of Wednesday?
While some Blockupy folks hyped up 20,000 attendees....the cops put it more at 10,000. I noticed the news media....particularly HR (state-run regional network for Hessen) tried on several occasions to use the 20,000 number. But the cops stated it on several occasions that it wasn't more than 10,000.
Near the 7PM period, when HR tried to continue telling the story and report the mass crowd at the Opera Haus.....looking over the video....I'd say there were no more than 2,000 people around the structure. Most of the crowd had drifted away.
Most of the rioters from Frankfurt? No, that was part of the amusing side of the story. The news media covered the midnight arrival of several thousand riot-players at the central station in Frankfurt. I'd take a guess than more than seventy-percent of the 10,000 were non-Frankfurt folks.
As dawn arrived in the city....the Blockupy folks started their games on the west end of Frankfurt. Molotov cocktails and cobblestones were the primary weapons. Private cars burned.....police vehicles burned....windows of private business operations broken....damages will go into the tens of millions.
Ninety-four cops were injured to some degree, with the police reporting at least 500 rioters arrested.
The denial factor? Well, toward the end of the day.....a press conference with the organizers was held and they were fairly happy about the turn-out but then said the destruction wasn't part of their plan and some folks who were not part of their organization misbehaved and caused damage.
Yeah.....it sounded like the good Muslim versus bad Muslim theme.....or the good Nazi versus bad Nazi theme. Good Blockupy versus bad Blockupy.
Version one of the group is simply the talkers.....guys who run around and talk anti-capitalism and political ambitions of a leftist nature. Version two? Guy and gals who mostly act as anarchists and get hyped up on confrontation and damage.
Both versions think that the public buys off on their tactics in one way or another. That's usually not the case though. In most societies and civilizations....violent acts turn off voters and sour public reaction. You end up losing more than you gain. When you look at Gandhi and MLK, peaceful protests win support more than violent protests.
The chief theme of the Blockupy players. At the heart of the matter is the central banking structure (not just Europe) which is a tool (in the eyes of the protest movement) for harming third-world countries and limiting the lives of people without substance. In essence....money is the root of evil. So capitalism is more of a problem than a solution in this theory of sorts.
If you peel pack the layers....Blockupy will say that the bulk of Greece problems today.....goes back to the banking strategy in place. Same for the previous Cyprus episode. One might ask if Greeks were stupid enough to spend more money than they took in via tax revenue, but that would just confuse people.
Regionally, Blockupy will say the rental housing issue is also attached to the bankers and the government. Presently, rental apartment units across German urban areas (especially for Frankfurt) are being bought, and put into renovation status after years of decay. What happens at the end of the renovation? Rent prices escalate....by more than thirty-percent typically. Blockupy leadership has hinted on occasions that the regional governments need to step in and halt this type of behavior.
One of the odd things from the HR coverage last night was the west end discussion of Frankfurt. It was a two-minute video piece on the spiral downwards over the past decade and how this ECB building structure was hurting the area of Frankfurt, rather than helping it. Empty store fronts, neighbors talking of the old days, etc. It was an odd discussion. I've been around Frankfurt for over thirty years. The west end of town isn't the only area with negativity growing....there are five or six neighborhoods in Frankfurt which have shifted in a negative way. To say the ECB structure is the root of this? It's a comical way of using journalism in some fashion as a tool for convincing people of a fraudulent story.
The bottom line? Once the Blockupy thugs crossed the line and did damage on personal cars and property....they weren't on any humanitarian or good-will theme. When you looked at the video-clip of a family car burnt, and a crispy-blacken child's safety seat in the back.....they lost their positive image. They were hooligans. Destroying subway car windows, public transportation structures, restaurant windows? Thug behavior. By utilizing the news media and trying to put a mass movement story out as a popular thing? It just doesn't work. They need to go back and exam Ghandi's strategy.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Paying For Grandfather's Mistakes
In recent days, because of the hyped-up discussion over Germany and Greece....I've done a fair amount of reading. Because of Greece's current economic crisis.....politically motivated folks in Greece have grabbed upon this idea of reparations that Germany owes since WW II.
There are three sides to this discussion.
First, the discussion over people killed in Greece because of the Nazi army. There was a 115 million DM payment agreement in 1960 that covered people killed and infrastructure. It was signed off and most folks agree that you can't go back and revisit this episode over dead Greeks and blown-up bridges/buildings.
Second, there's this talk over what the Nazis took out of the Greek National Bank. Few Greeks grasp the paperwork trail on this. The Germans didn't come in and basically rob the bank....which is the typical way you steal money in war operations. They arrived....had a chat....and asked for a loan from the Greek National Bank (not the Greek government) to the German government. It's a loan.....period. On this paperwork is the interest rate involved....ZERO percent.
We can argue about the intent here....if the Germans would have ever paid this back or when they would have ever paid the money back, but on paper, it was a loan with zero percent interest.
In today's world.....this equals roughly fourteen billion Euro (considering growth and relationship to the Euro).....note: 2012 numbers used here in this discussion.
If interest was involved? Well.....the best and most reasonable guess that I've seen is around is roughly 100 billion Euro (using 3-percent as the rate of interest).
But we come to this odd circumstance....Greece passed a law years after WW II over the Greek National Bank. The most that the Greek government can own or claim is 35-percent ownership....the rest is private or internal.
So, let's go with this odd scenario. Greece claims Germany hasn't paid the loan back, and Germany agrees to pay the 14-billion back (no interest, as the paperwork claims). The people of Greece and the government.....can at best....only grab 35-percent of the fourteen billion Euro.....figure five billion Euro at best. What can Greece do with five billion? They can enjoy roughly five days of no austerity and then get back to the reality of no way of solving their mess.
Let's go to the second scenario.....that they actually invent a new law out of thin air which says the whole fourteen-billion must be handed from the Greek National Bank to the Greek people. Everyone gets some check for a couple thousand Euro and it's all flushed out in a matter of thirty days.
Let's go to the third scenario.....somehow, they convince the Germans to pay with interest.....so roughly 100-billion is paid out. That stalls the mess that the Greeks are in for a couple of months, but then they right back into austerity conditions.
The third angle of view? It's a curious thing that developed yesterday.....both the SPD Party and the Green Party of Germany came out and said they want a committee to view the whole discussion over the bank loan. Chancellor Merkel and the CDU/CSU? "No way" was the commenting of last night and I don't see the German public in any sort of friendly way accepting more talk over paying the Greece WW II money.
I come to this personal view of German society in 2015. The majority of people.....well over seventy percent of the adult population sees no personal responsibility of themselves or their society to WW II or the Nazis. Whatever their grandfather or grandmother did.....was their own stupid fault, end of discussion. There's a fair amount of hostility and frustration today.....seventy years have passed and no one thinks much over WW II today.
If you walked into some pub and watched a forum develop.....it wouldn't go very lightly for Germans paying back the Greeks for the bank loan. For some political party to grab onto this as a topic? Both the SPD and Greens would suffer because of independent voters seeing this as a big negative. Right now....the AfD is picking up votes across the country because of the immigration and refugee situation. If you added the Greek reparation deal.....this would help the AfD pick up more votes in 2017 (from both the SPD and Greens).
It is an odd situation. Why classify this as a loan? What was the Nazi leadership viewing to put this on paper, and insist on zero-percent interest? Why not just rob Greece and take the money? The paperwork leaves a trail and I'm of the mind that the fourteen-odd billion Euro probably is owed. But here is the odd factor in this whole discussion......if the Greek public can only claim thirty-five percent of the money.....it doesn't help or fix anything. It's one single pea in a bucket that could hold 1,700 peas.
If I were the Germans.....I'd send some guy over....let them know that fourteen billion Euro of debt from the money loaned.....is absolutely forgiven. End of the story. Then what? Tomorrow....the sun will rise in Greece and they are just as deep of trouble. The debt thing paid back.....didn't really fix much of anything.
There are three sides to this discussion.
First, the discussion over people killed in Greece because of the Nazi army. There was a 115 million DM payment agreement in 1960 that covered people killed and infrastructure. It was signed off and most folks agree that you can't go back and revisit this episode over dead Greeks and blown-up bridges/buildings.
Second, there's this talk over what the Nazis took out of the Greek National Bank. Few Greeks grasp the paperwork trail on this. The Germans didn't come in and basically rob the bank....which is the typical way you steal money in war operations. They arrived....had a chat....and asked for a loan from the Greek National Bank (not the Greek government) to the German government. It's a loan.....period. On this paperwork is the interest rate involved....ZERO percent.
We can argue about the intent here....if the Germans would have ever paid this back or when they would have ever paid the money back, but on paper, it was a loan with zero percent interest.
In today's world.....this equals roughly fourteen billion Euro (considering growth and relationship to the Euro).....note: 2012 numbers used here in this discussion.
If interest was involved? Well.....the best and most reasonable guess that I've seen is around is roughly 100 billion Euro (using 3-percent as the rate of interest).
But we come to this odd circumstance....Greece passed a law years after WW II over the Greek National Bank. The most that the Greek government can own or claim is 35-percent ownership....the rest is private or internal.
So, let's go with this odd scenario. Greece claims Germany hasn't paid the loan back, and Germany agrees to pay the 14-billion back (no interest, as the paperwork claims). The people of Greece and the government.....can at best....only grab 35-percent of the fourteen billion Euro.....figure five billion Euro at best. What can Greece do with five billion? They can enjoy roughly five days of no austerity and then get back to the reality of no way of solving their mess.
Let's go to the second scenario.....that they actually invent a new law out of thin air which says the whole fourteen-billion must be handed from the Greek National Bank to the Greek people. Everyone gets some check for a couple thousand Euro and it's all flushed out in a matter of thirty days.
Let's go to the third scenario.....somehow, they convince the Germans to pay with interest.....so roughly 100-billion is paid out. That stalls the mess that the Greeks are in for a couple of months, but then they right back into austerity conditions.
The third angle of view? It's a curious thing that developed yesterday.....both the SPD Party and the Green Party of Germany came out and said they want a committee to view the whole discussion over the bank loan. Chancellor Merkel and the CDU/CSU? "No way" was the commenting of last night and I don't see the German public in any sort of friendly way accepting more talk over paying the Greece WW II money.
I come to this personal view of German society in 2015. The majority of people.....well over seventy percent of the adult population sees no personal responsibility of themselves or their society to WW II or the Nazis. Whatever their grandfather or grandmother did.....was their own stupid fault, end of discussion. There's a fair amount of hostility and frustration today.....seventy years have passed and no one thinks much over WW II today.
If you walked into some pub and watched a forum develop.....it wouldn't go very lightly for Germans paying back the Greeks for the bank loan. For some political party to grab onto this as a topic? Both the SPD and Greens would suffer because of independent voters seeing this as a big negative. Right now....the AfD is picking up votes across the country because of the immigration and refugee situation. If you added the Greek reparation deal.....this would help the AfD pick up more votes in 2017 (from both the SPD and Greens).
It is an odd situation. Why classify this as a loan? What was the Nazi leadership viewing to put this on paper, and insist on zero-percent interest? Why not just rob Greece and take the money? The paperwork leaves a trail and I'm of the mind that the fourteen-odd billion Euro probably is owed. But here is the odd factor in this whole discussion......if the Greek public can only claim thirty-five percent of the money.....it doesn't help or fix anything. It's one single pea in a bucket that could hold 1,700 peas.
If I were the Germans.....I'd send some guy over....let them know that fourteen billion Euro of debt from the money loaned.....is absolutely forgiven. End of the story. Then what? Tomorrow....the sun will rise in Greece and they are just as deep of trouble. The debt thing paid back.....didn't really fix much of anything.
The Voodoo Story
With an ample number of foreigners in Germany.....the court system here is challenged daily by interaction with people who continue their old ways from the old country. Integration classes? Maybe it helps to some minor degree....but people are accustomed to the old way of life.
Today, in the Frankfrut news....there's a final episode on a long court mess (it took six months). Basically an African pimp utilized two voodoo ladies (yeah, actual real voodoo) to help control a couple of African hookers that they brought into Frankfurt for the brothels.
You can imagine the German judge sitting there and trying to keep a straight face.
What generally unfolded is that the cops did a sweep of some brothel and came to grasp that some ladies were being forced to work there as hookers. Passports weren't readily provided and ended up being coughed up by some other folks (controlling the passports, I assume).
The investigation led around to human trafficking charges. The pimp and voodoo ladies? They simply wouldn't cooperate.
The case ended with the pimp getting around five years of prison. The voodoo gals were given around two years (originally four years but probation was part of the deal).
The odd factor? The German female prison system will have two voodoo gals within it. If you ask me.....there's going to be some type of cult growth out of this within a year or two. It' make a great TV movie script.....voodoo in German culture. That's just what we needed.
Today, in the Frankfrut news....there's a final episode on a long court mess (it took six months). Basically an African pimp utilized two voodoo ladies (yeah, actual real voodoo) to help control a couple of African hookers that they brought into Frankfurt for the brothels.
You can imagine the German judge sitting there and trying to keep a straight face.
What generally unfolded is that the cops did a sweep of some brothel and came to grasp that some ladies were being forced to work there as hookers. Passports weren't readily provided and ended up being coughed up by some other folks (controlling the passports, I assume).
The investigation led around to human trafficking charges. The pimp and voodoo ladies? They simply wouldn't cooperate.
The case ended with the pimp getting around five years of prison. The voodoo gals were given around two years (originally four years but probation was part of the deal).
The odd factor? The German female prison system will have two voodoo gals within it. If you ask me.....there's going to be some type of cult growth out of this within a year or two. It' make a great TV movie script.....voodoo in German culture. That's just what we needed.
Audits and Counterfeiting Passes
Yesterday, in mid-town Mainz....I had to hop on a city bus to get back home. Ten seconds after the door shut....a ticket-audit guy is upon me. I turned and could see a total of three audit guys making their rounds through the bus. No big deal....I pull out my ticket and he checks it out carefully.
The odds of getting an audit on a bus? Probably ten percent of all trips around the Rhine region will result in an audit. I would agree....prior to 8AM, it just never occurs, and after 5PM....it's almost never.
But there's an piece to this story. I get on this bus and there's only three stops before we cross the Rhine River and reach the 'tent' at Mainz-Kastel.....a major hub and dividing line between Mainz and Wiesbaden. It's at this point that the three Mainz audit guys get off. Oddly, two Wiesbaden audit guys get onboard the bus and then repeat the whole process again.
The odds of getting audited twice in one day? First time ever for me.....and it's amusing that it's the same bus and only five minutes since the last ticket check.
A month ago in Frankfurt news.....I noticed a police story. Frankfurt audit guys were on some subway train and instead of the typical hands-on or eyes-on check of the day ticket/monthly pass....they scanned it. It was an active monthly pass, but the date on the card was totally wrong and that's practically impossible to occur.
They end up confiscating the ticket and getting personal information on this holder. Cops get involved and they end looking over at a couple of non-Germans operating out of Frankfurt a small counterfeit Bahn monthly pass program. They were fairly smart about the monthly passes and knew they could sell the fake passes for a small sum of money. Cops won't say how much they made or how long they had been going on....but it's obvious now that counterfeit tickets/monthly passes are being used.
The odds of getting an audit on a bus? Probably ten percent of all trips around the Rhine region will result in an audit. I would agree....prior to 8AM, it just never occurs, and after 5PM....it's almost never.
But there's an piece to this story. I get on this bus and there's only three stops before we cross the Rhine River and reach the 'tent' at Mainz-Kastel.....a major hub and dividing line between Mainz and Wiesbaden. It's at this point that the three Mainz audit guys get off. Oddly, two Wiesbaden audit guys get onboard the bus and then repeat the whole process again.
The odds of getting audited twice in one day? First time ever for me.....and it's amusing that it's the same bus and only five minutes since the last ticket check.
A month ago in Frankfurt news.....I noticed a police story. Frankfurt audit guys were on some subway train and instead of the typical hands-on or eyes-on check of the day ticket/monthly pass....they scanned it. It was an active monthly pass, but the date on the card was totally wrong and that's practically impossible to occur.
They end up confiscating the ticket and getting personal information on this holder. Cops get involved and they end looking over at a couple of non-Germans operating out of Frankfurt a small counterfeit Bahn monthly pass program. They were fairly smart about the monthly passes and knew they could sell the fake passes for a small sum of money. Cops won't say how much they made or how long they had been going on....but it's obvious now that counterfeit tickets/monthly passes are being used.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Refundable Bottles
I'd take a guess that at least forty guys work their way around town and continually pick up bottles to take over to grocery stores in town for the twenty-five Euro-cents each.
If you had told me this effort would work a decade ago.....I would have laughed. But I've come to notice some guys have accumulated twenty bottles over a two-hour walk. Five Euro.....enough for three beers.
The thing that surprises me is that Germans readily toss the bottles. They won't make an effort to return them to drink-shops or grocery operations. I admit....it is a hassle and it was brought up early in the planning period that the regulations made things a bit difficult on getting your money back.
How much to folks just throw away by tossing the refundable bottle in the trash? I'd take guess in a year that a typical guy might toss forty bottles. You can imagine the scene.....you meet up with some buddy on the street and split a six-pack of beer, then leave the bottles/cans there as you walk off. The Hartz IV guy walks up....gets the six, and ends up with 1.50 Euro.
Just one of those odd things you start to notice after a while.
Five-Star Recruitment
After 2011....the draft ended, and they had to develop a recruitment deal to entice young men and women over to the German Army.
While at the Mainz Messe yesterday, I came across the Bundeswehr recruitment booth in the middle of the Messe.
It was a five-star deal....at least in my book. They had a 15 foot by 40 foot area......a tank....lots of posters with happy young people in action poses....a TV or two running action video....and maybe a dozen folks there to talk a career in the German military. They gave away t-shirts, soccer balls, etc.
The attraction for German youths? Well....if you were a seventeen year old kid and feeling kinda locked in second-gear.....limited movement....marginal success....no avenues to see a future, then the German Army angle is attractive.
The difference between the German model and the US model? In the US system.....you could walk into a recruitment office and in less than a month....as long as you provided all the paperwork and appeared ready to pass the physical.....you'd get into the system.
The Germans want you to take the physical ahead of time, take a standard PT test (to include the running), and pass the weight to height margin they have established. There's a test to ensure your mental side, and they want some positive comment by the previous school teachers. In simple words, when you sign up and get accepted.....the odds of you flipping out or failing in boot-camp are extremely low. This also means there's a fair amount of time (three to six months) where you express interest and actually get to the point where boot-camp is approved.
I stood there watching the young crowd getting the pep-talk by the recruitment guy. He was a good salesman. There were probably forty young folks in the area and hearing the talk. On the outer fringes....a dozen of us older folks....simply viewing the salesmanship routine. The talk I got in November of 1976 to talk me into the Air Force? It was one-star stuff compared to this effort. Action-packed video.....job potential discussions....plenty of training.....all stuff that kids of today would ask questions about and feel as requirements.
Yeah, if I was 19 years old and young again.....I'd probably sign up with these guys.
Mainz Messe
Location? On the far south of Mainz.....over near Mobel Martin (the new furniture sales store)....there's a large open area with fest-like tents put up. Plenty of parking.
Public transportation? Take bus number 76 from the Mainz train station (30-minute ride).
Ticket entry opens at 9AM, but they won't open the gate until 10AM (just be warned about that). It stays open until 6PM. I would suggest a minimum of three hours.
Food? Lots of greasy stuff. Beer and water are served throughout the fest tents.
Adults enter on a nine-Euro ticket. There is a family ticket, which is better suited for cost savings.
A place to drag twelve-year-old kids to? No....forget about that deal. And most teenagers probably wouldn't care much either.
Cheap Travel on the Horizon?
There's a curious travel story up on Focus today (a German news magazine)....which discusses the idea of Ryanair....an Irish low-budget airline....which intends within four years to have a fourteen Euro one way flight from Europe to the US (basically seventeen dollars at the current rate).
Now, I should note that when they say fourteen Euro.....that's without the taxes and fees included. Typically, within Europe....Ryanair runs a fair number of flights which usually cost between ten and fifty Euro, but once you add the fees/taxes onto the deal.....you can figure another forty Euro tacked onto the deal for the one-way flight. I do agree....it's the cheapest deal around and it's rare that you beat a discount deal with them.
Safe? Well....they haven't ever crashed a jet or had any negative comments about safety. If anything....these are the guys who'd charge you for just about everything. Want a Coke? Figure a couple of Euro. Want something to eat? Maybe five to ten Euro.
The plan laid out by Focus? They suggest that several cities in the US (Boston, Chicago, NY City, Miami and eight other cities), along with fourteen cities in Europe.
In order to avoid the long distance carbon tax that the Europeans force onto all flights out of Europe.....they'd likely have the plane land in Dublin and you'd have to sit for an hour or two until you catch the next leg of the flight out.
How much of an effect would a fourteen Euro flight have on Americans? Well....the Euro is shifting it's position. Lots of good deals will occur when it gets to around one Euro to one dollar (by end of 2015....it'll happen). If Ryanair timed their event correctly......they could probably two or three thousand Americans hyped up on discount trips and willing pay 150 Euro for a one-way flight (ticket, fees, and taxes) into Europe.
The airports in the US where this would be staged? Typically, Ryanair prefers to pick no-name airports to operate out of. For example.....their landing in the Frankfurt area is not at the primary Frankfurt airport.....it's over at Frankfurt-Hahn (a thirty-minute drive from Frankfurt and west of town). The same would likely be true of landing spots in the US. They might claim to land at NY City....but it's likely to be some airport sixty miles west of NY City.
Bottom line? It'll be a curious deal if this plays out. A guy with two weeks of time-off....a thousand dollars in his pocket? He could fly off to Europe....spend ten days in Rome on the cheap. Five years ago, with the bad exchange rate figured into things....a ten day trip to Rome with legit tickets per person and a reasonable hotel....with food and incidentals figured into the deal....would have been 2,250 dollars a person. Between the better exchange rate and a fourteen Euro flight deal.....a thousand might be enough to do the same trip.
Now, I should note that when they say fourteen Euro.....that's without the taxes and fees included. Typically, within Europe....Ryanair runs a fair number of flights which usually cost between ten and fifty Euro, but once you add the fees/taxes onto the deal.....you can figure another forty Euro tacked onto the deal for the one-way flight. I do agree....it's the cheapest deal around and it's rare that you beat a discount deal with them.
Safe? Well....they haven't ever crashed a jet or had any negative comments about safety. If anything....these are the guys who'd charge you for just about everything. Want a Coke? Figure a couple of Euro. Want something to eat? Maybe five to ten Euro.
The plan laid out by Focus? They suggest that several cities in the US (Boston, Chicago, NY City, Miami and eight other cities), along with fourteen cities in Europe.
In order to avoid the long distance carbon tax that the Europeans force onto all flights out of Europe.....they'd likely have the plane land in Dublin and you'd have to sit for an hour or two until you catch the next leg of the flight out.
How much of an effect would a fourteen Euro flight have on Americans? Well....the Euro is shifting it's position. Lots of good deals will occur when it gets to around one Euro to one dollar (by end of 2015....it'll happen). If Ryanair timed their event correctly......they could probably two or three thousand Americans hyped up on discount trips and willing pay 150 Euro for a one-way flight (ticket, fees, and taxes) into Europe.
The airports in the US where this would be staged? Typically, Ryanair prefers to pick no-name airports to operate out of. For example.....their landing in the Frankfurt area is not at the primary Frankfurt airport.....it's over at Frankfurt-Hahn (a thirty-minute drive from Frankfurt and west of town). The same would likely be true of landing spots in the US. They might claim to land at NY City....but it's likely to be some airport sixty miles west of NY City.
Bottom line? It'll be a curious deal if this plays out. A guy with two weeks of time-off....a thousand dollars in his pocket? He could fly off to Europe....spend ten days in Rome on the cheap. Five years ago, with the bad exchange rate figured into things....a ten day trip to Rome with legit tickets per person and a reasonable hotel....with food and incidentals figured into the deal....would have been 2,250 dollars a person. Between the better exchange rate and a fourteen Euro flight deal.....a thousand might be enough to do the same trip.
German Jobs-Center Episode
Last night on RTL (our commercial network here in Germany) came the first 2015 show of Team Wallraff (the German version of Sixty Minutes....back when Sixty Minutes actually put fear into the hearts of targets). Last year, they spent an entire show going after some franchise operations of Burger King here in Germany.
The topic last night? The German government-run Jobs-Center. For a basic introduction.....the Jobs-Center is a complex where they help the youth into job training situations, help the unemployed find jobs, and help on retraining.
What most Germans will say is that there was a time and place for the Jobs-Center to operate (from the 1930s to 1980s). The usefulness in today's atmosphere is questioned.
Team Wallraff last night went out after one particular function of the national Job-Center program.....helping the long-term unemployed.
They used a curious statistic from the fall of 2014. For one particular month.....there were 2.7 unemployed Germans....out of eighty million.
Well....to be honest....there's some numbers which weren't blended into this 2.7 million number. For example, 450,000 Germans were unemployed as well, but on job training programs. Just about any program counts as a job training program. It could be a Microsoft-related program for four weeks on Excel or Word. It could be a confidence-building program. It could be a public speaking program. So those folks basically don't count.
254,000 people were unemployed but not counted because they were sick. A doctor signs a note and for that period that the note is in effect.....the guy is not listed as unemployed.
168,000 Germans were listed as "old", which meant they weren't counted as unemployed even though they are unemployed. The age deal? Unknown, but it appears that these are all people under the age of 65.
Another 294,000 Germans were unemployed but not listed as unemployed.....for 'other' reasons. This wasn't explained at all by Tea Wallraff and makes one wonder what 'other' means. One might assume long-term unemployed, but it's not clear.
So the bright and cheerful five to six percent unemployment rate? Well....it ought to be eleven to twelve percent, which is an awful high rate.
Another part of the episode covered the stupid seminars. Seminar talkers were often brought in to waste the time of participants with fake training. In one seminar.....the speaker wanted a participant to think over the job of an astronaut. It's hard to say what the intention is....other than there aren't many unemployed astronauts, and maybe it was a mind-game at best.
For the Job-Center crowd, it was a blow below the belt.
The German program tries to be what the US state-by-state unemployment program can't be. They run a all-in-one concept. They try to funnel people into jobs and act as a conduit. They have a fair sized pot of money and use various old tricks and newly devised tricks to make the unemployed numbers look better than what they are. It's a politically motivated crowd because it's the government in the end that looks good or bad. Incompetence? Well, it's like any government agency, it's got more than a few incompetent managers and executives.
Last year, The Wallraff Team got a fair amount of national coverage over what they uncovered in public life. I suspect this opening episode will do the same.
The topic last night? The German government-run Jobs-Center. For a basic introduction.....the Jobs-Center is a complex where they help the youth into job training situations, help the unemployed find jobs, and help on retraining.
What most Germans will say is that there was a time and place for the Jobs-Center to operate (from the 1930s to 1980s). The usefulness in today's atmosphere is questioned.
Team Wallraff last night went out after one particular function of the national Job-Center program.....helping the long-term unemployed.
They used a curious statistic from the fall of 2014. For one particular month.....there were 2.7 unemployed Germans....out of eighty million.
Well....to be honest....there's some numbers which weren't blended into this 2.7 million number. For example, 450,000 Germans were unemployed as well, but on job training programs. Just about any program counts as a job training program. It could be a Microsoft-related program for four weeks on Excel or Word. It could be a confidence-building program. It could be a public speaking program. So those folks basically don't count.
254,000 people were unemployed but not counted because they were sick. A doctor signs a note and for that period that the note is in effect.....the guy is not listed as unemployed.
168,000 Germans were listed as "old", which meant they weren't counted as unemployed even though they are unemployed. The age deal? Unknown, but it appears that these are all people under the age of 65.
Another 294,000 Germans were unemployed but not listed as unemployed.....for 'other' reasons. This wasn't explained at all by Tea Wallraff and makes one wonder what 'other' means. One might assume long-term unemployed, but it's not clear.
So the bright and cheerful five to six percent unemployment rate? Well....it ought to be eleven to twelve percent, which is an awful high rate.
Another part of the episode covered the stupid seminars. Seminar talkers were often brought in to waste the time of participants with fake training. In one seminar.....the speaker wanted a participant to think over the job of an astronaut. It's hard to say what the intention is....other than there aren't many unemployed astronauts, and maybe it was a mind-game at best.
For the Job-Center crowd, it was a blow below the belt.
The German program tries to be what the US state-by-state unemployment program can't be. They run a all-in-one concept. They try to funnel people into jobs and act as a conduit. They have a fair sized pot of money and use various old tricks and newly devised tricks to make the unemployed numbers look better than what they are. It's a politically motivated crowd because it's the government in the end that looks good or bad. Incompetence? Well, it's like any government agency, it's got more than a few incompetent managers and executives.
Last year, The Wallraff Team got a fair amount of national coverage over what they uncovered in public life. I suspect this opening episode will do the same.
Monday, March 16, 2015
Mainz Messe Today For Me
I went to the Mainz Messe today.....it's a all-in-one commercial show on the outskirts of Mainz that runs for a week. Renovation ideas, vacation places, leather goods, fancy tea, purses, etc.
Among the halls there.....there's two booths set up over a unique topic.
Both one is this anti-Frankfurt Flughafen....the regional airport here in Hessen. Various political parties and neighborhood groups have organized to take on the expansion efforts of the Frankfurt airport.
Years ago.....it was a simple complex on the south side of Frankfurt....built out in the late 1940s as a commercial airport. In the 1950s and 1960s.....it was small enough that no one really cared about their various expansion efforts. In the 1980s....they talked up the extra runway and business boomed....triggering more landings/take-off's. Noise increased, and folks got pesky about late night or early morning traffic.
The other runway added in the 1990s? That just got the neighborhood groups more hyped up. So a massive effort has caused limits to taking off or landing. The airport is basically shut-down for roughly six hours each evening. It can't be called a twenty-four operation like some locations. If you miss the window to land.....you get redirected to one of three or four optional airports where there's no limits. I know.....it's odd how this developed.
Both two? It's the pro-Frankfurt airport crowd. They talk up business, expansion and how things are being done to limit noise.
The planners to the messe knew that both groups dislike each other greatly. So while they had them in the same building.....they were on different rows.
Me personally? If I'd been the planner....I would have both them across from each other and let them gear up their campaigns within a couple of feet of each other.
If the regional airport planners of the 1950s had known how bad this whole thing would have developed.....they would have moved the airport another twenty miles further south, into the heart of farm territory and bought everything within miles of the runways. For some reason, I don't think they ever saw the airport expanding and taking on the business they currently have. Nor do I think the current crowd thinks much about the year 2050 and just how big the Frankfurt airport will be by that point.
As for two booths attracting anyone? Well....I passed by both twice, and each had two or three folks who they were chatting to. The pro and anti crowds take pleasure in how they support or dislike the airport. If you cornered the political folks....they'd all admit that there's 100,000 people who work in some capacity for the airport....pay taxes.....and influence the travel industry of Germany to a great degree. The same folks will chat on how noise is the number one problem within the approach of each runway, and detrimental to the health of thousands who live in the region.
Things are bad enough....that each group now works up commercial booths at region fairs....to gather their support. It's an odd part of local life.
Among the halls there.....there's two booths set up over a unique topic.
Both one is this anti-Frankfurt Flughafen....the regional airport here in Hessen. Various political parties and neighborhood groups have organized to take on the expansion efforts of the Frankfurt airport.
Years ago.....it was a simple complex on the south side of Frankfurt....built out in the late 1940s as a commercial airport. In the 1950s and 1960s.....it was small enough that no one really cared about their various expansion efforts. In the 1980s....they talked up the extra runway and business boomed....triggering more landings/take-off's. Noise increased, and folks got pesky about late night or early morning traffic.
The other runway added in the 1990s? That just got the neighborhood groups more hyped up. So a massive effort has caused limits to taking off or landing. The airport is basically shut-down for roughly six hours each evening. It can't be called a twenty-four operation like some locations. If you miss the window to land.....you get redirected to one of three or four optional airports where there's no limits. I know.....it's odd how this developed.
Both two? It's the pro-Frankfurt airport crowd. They talk up business, expansion and how things are being done to limit noise.
The planners to the messe knew that both groups dislike each other greatly. So while they had them in the same building.....they were on different rows.
Me personally? If I'd been the planner....I would have both them across from each other and let them gear up their campaigns within a couple of feet of each other.
If the regional airport planners of the 1950s had known how bad this whole thing would have developed.....they would have moved the airport another twenty miles further south, into the heart of farm territory and bought everything within miles of the runways. For some reason, I don't think they ever saw the airport expanding and taking on the business they currently have. Nor do I think the current crowd thinks much about the year 2050 and just how big the Frankfurt airport will be by that point.
As for two booths attracting anyone? Well....I passed by both twice, and each had two or three folks who they were chatting to. The pro and anti crowds take pleasure in how they support or dislike the airport. If you cornered the political folks....they'd all admit that there's 100,000 people who work in some capacity for the airport....pay taxes.....and influence the travel industry of Germany to a great degree. The same folks will chat on how noise is the number one problem within the approach of each runway, and detrimental to the health of thousands who live in the region.
Things are bad enough....that each group now works up commercial booths at region fairs....to gather their support. It's an odd part of local life.
Frankfurt and Blockupy
Over the past couple of months in Frankfurt, there's been a confrontational group to arise....Blockupy (pronounced blo-u-pie).
Frankfurt over the past twenty years has transformed itself. It's not the same Frankfurt that I was entertained with in the 1970s/1980s. All across the north end of the river....construction is going on at a high pitch, with new office buildings and skyscrapers appearing yearly now.
As many positive things as you can say about the new image of the city.....there's this off problem that has been noted over the past decade....affordable housing is crapped out in the city of Frankfurt. Older apartment buildings are being bought and renovated. As soon as renovation is done....there's a info sheet given to the tenets which usually details the fine work done and the new rental prices expected in six-to-twelve months, and it's usually more than a thirty-to-fifty percent rise.
Part of the problem here is that apartment building owners weren't exactly thinking renovation when they bought the investment properties thirty years ago. You can find lots of places that were built in the years after the war, and rarely were any renovations done except for the heating systems.
The city council has not really stepped into this mess to find some solution. They've encouraged new housing construction, but that usually has a rental cost situation which half of the population of the city are disturbed with. Your only real alternative is to find some place in towns outside of Frankfurt and transit into your job via the U-Bahn/S-Bahn.
So, this Wednesday....Blockupy is staging a traffic halt around Frankfurt. We aren't just talking cars, trucks and buses. They also intend to block trolley-car and subway movement. The chief target after blocking movement? The ECB (European Central Bank).....a structure about ten minutes walking from the central train station.
Why the ECB? Blockupy says that the ECB is part of the problem with Greece recovering from their economic crisis. Big money ordering people around, with no understanding of society.....that's the Blockupy theme.
A lot of this entire episode is about a "show"....simply drawing the media to film them in action, and then report it. Hostilities? I suspect that a lot of the Frankfurt population will be peeved and angry over delays. It's probably more of a HR-type episode.....to draw more interest and recruits for spring period demonstrations.
Fixing the housing issue? Frankly.....no. There's a transformation going on with most all major German cities. Where the government has gotten involved....it's usually to find property on the outskirts of town and build simple rental properties. What you can predict is that these are apartment buildings which will go for thirty to forty years with no renovation.....then repeat the same formula again....with new owners coming in with cash....renovating....and suddenly the public waking up to find rent went up fifty-percent again. It's a proven process and the government's solution simply repeats the same outcome each time.
Bottom line? Wednesday ought to be interesting with Blockupy and their stoppage of traffic in Frankfurt. As for solutions? Forget about Wednesday's value.
Frankfurt over the past twenty years has transformed itself. It's not the same Frankfurt that I was entertained with in the 1970s/1980s. All across the north end of the river....construction is going on at a high pitch, with new office buildings and skyscrapers appearing yearly now.
As many positive things as you can say about the new image of the city.....there's this off problem that has been noted over the past decade....affordable housing is crapped out in the city of Frankfurt. Older apartment buildings are being bought and renovated. As soon as renovation is done....there's a info sheet given to the tenets which usually details the fine work done and the new rental prices expected in six-to-twelve months, and it's usually more than a thirty-to-fifty percent rise.
Part of the problem here is that apartment building owners weren't exactly thinking renovation when they bought the investment properties thirty years ago. You can find lots of places that were built in the years after the war, and rarely were any renovations done except for the heating systems.
The city council has not really stepped into this mess to find some solution. They've encouraged new housing construction, but that usually has a rental cost situation which half of the population of the city are disturbed with. Your only real alternative is to find some place in towns outside of Frankfurt and transit into your job via the U-Bahn/S-Bahn.
So, this Wednesday....Blockupy is staging a traffic halt around Frankfurt. We aren't just talking cars, trucks and buses. They also intend to block trolley-car and subway movement. The chief target after blocking movement? The ECB (European Central Bank).....a structure about ten minutes walking from the central train station.
Why the ECB? Blockupy says that the ECB is part of the problem with Greece recovering from their economic crisis. Big money ordering people around, with no understanding of society.....that's the Blockupy theme.
A lot of this entire episode is about a "show"....simply drawing the media to film them in action, and then report it. Hostilities? I suspect that a lot of the Frankfurt population will be peeved and angry over delays. It's probably more of a HR-type episode.....to draw more interest and recruits for spring period demonstrations.
Fixing the housing issue? Frankly.....no. There's a transformation going on with most all major German cities. Where the government has gotten involved....it's usually to find property on the outskirts of town and build simple rental properties. What you can predict is that these are apartment buildings which will go for thirty to forty years with no renovation.....then repeat the same formula again....with new owners coming in with cash....renovating....and suddenly the public waking up to find rent went up fifty-percent again. It's a proven process and the government's solution simply repeats the same outcome each time.
Bottom line? Wednesday ought to be interesting with Blockupy and their stoppage of traffic in Frankfurt. As for solutions? Forget about Wednesday's value.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
The War Tourists?
This weekend....various German news media groups are commenting on the number of Germans now in the Ukraine.....fighting against the Russian separatists. What they generally say is that a minimum of one-hundred Germans are now there, and fighting.
Naturally, I'd sit there and ponder upon the same logic where Germans (Islamic-Germans) packed up and went off to Syria.....getting the German government all upset and worried over their return.
These Germans in Ukraine? Not a ounce of worry by the German government. They aren't rushing to develop new laws or asking about identification of these folks.
The word used in some German articles? War-tourists. Yeah. I know.....it's an odd phrase.
There's been some talk that just staying neutral on this is not possible, and Germany needs a law to put these guys in the same fear of consequences as the Islamic-Germans who are in Syria. Generally, I'd say some judge will eventually step into the middle of this and get all disturbed over the unfairness angle of the present law. As for attraction to run off to Ukraine? There just aren't that many young German guys interested in this idea. At best, you might find five-hundred Germans who are curious about it and could be talked into buying a uniform and a rifle in the Ukraine for their little adventure. For the Syrian episode....there might be two or three thousand guys who a curious notion about participating in an ISIS campaign.
Naturally, I'd sit there and ponder upon the same logic where Germans (Islamic-Germans) packed up and went off to Syria.....getting the German government all upset and worried over their return.
These Germans in Ukraine? Not a ounce of worry by the German government. They aren't rushing to develop new laws or asking about identification of these folks.
The word used in some German articles? War-tourists. Yeah. I know.....it's an odd phrase.
There's been some talk that just staying neutral on this is not possible, and Germany needs a law to put these guys in the same fear of consequences as the Islamic-Germans who are in Syria. Generally, I'd say some judge will eventually step into the middle of this and get all disturbed over the unfairness angle of the present law. As for attraction to run off to Ukraine? There just aren't that many young German guys interested in this idea. At best, you might find five-hundred Germans who are curious about it and could be talked into buying a uniform and a rifle in the Ukraine for their little adventure. For the Syrian episode....there might be two or three thousand guys who a curious notion about participating in an ISIS campaign.
Friday, March 13, 2015
The Head Covering Story
The German Constitutional Court met and had a discussion over the state law within Germany which banned head coverings for teachers. A pair of Islamic women fought the ban (North Rhine-Westphalia).
The court decision today? It wasn't constitutional.
Hessen has been talking about putting such a ban into their rules, but this ruling will likely stall the event for the time being while they review how the judges discussed the constitutional side of this episode.
The problem I see with this discussion is that you have Catholic nuns who utilize a head covering, along with various non-Islamic women. Even cancer survivors....with loss of hair....utilize head coverings. It'd be hard to write a ban which allows some to continue on and others banned.
On the personal side.....you see so many individuals who wear hats, bandannas, oddball hats from back to the 1800s, and caps....within German society. The head covering thing is something a regular guy can accept. The facial covering? No. Once you get that point....it's like accepting the Mexican bandit mask or some Batman-like disguise as being 'normal'. It's not normal.
More discussions? It'll come up again in the constitutional court. I'm willing to bet on that.
The court decision today? It wasn't constitutional.
Hessen has been talking about putting such a ban into their rules, but this ruling will likely stall the event for the time being while they review how the judges discussed the constitutional side of this episode.
The problem I see with this discussion is that you have Catholic nuns who utilize a head covering, along with various non-Islamic women. Even cancer survivors....with loss of hair....utilize head coverings. It'd be hard to write a ban which allows some to continue on and others banned.
On the personal side.....you see so many individuals who wear hats, bandannas, oddball hats from back to the 1800s, and caps....within German society. The head covering thing is something a regular guy can accept. The facial covering? No. Once you get that point....it's like accepting the Mexican bandit mask or some Batman-like disguise as being 'normal'. It's not normal.
More discussions? It'll come up again in the constitutional court. I'm willing to bet on that.
The Degree of "Force"
There's a discussion going on within Hessen (my local German state) over mentally ill people. It's a discussion that involves the authorities, the political folks, the medical establishment, and the court system.
How much 'force' should the court have in protecting mentally ill individuals....who might bring harm to themselves or to others?
This discussion centers around a bill being studied by the Hessen government, for law purposes. Hessen absolutely wants some type of regulation for this type of situation. The push reason? The German Constitutional Court (their version of the Supreme Court) deemed a 2011 law with two German states on their method of taking control of crazy people with violent tendencies to be wrong and crossing the line.
The chief problem so far in this discussion? Doctors aren't exactly onboard with the state agenda. Forced measures are seen by doctors as only for a last resort type situation. You'd have to step through various points, to reach this forced-point.
A guy could walk around Frankfurt on an average day and find a dozen people who freely walk the streets and are mentally unfit (a danger to themselves or others). The odds currently of the guy getting picked up and put into a facility? Zero. Basically....the guy has to go and hurt someone.....then the authorities act on that episode to try first for regular prison. Once the medical establishment steps in (they wouldn't do it when he was crazy and had yet to harm anyone)....they will vouch 'yes'.....the guy is crazy and go for a mental institute instead.
How many Germans ought to be in facility? No one really says. It might be 20,000 individuals.....it might be 100,000 individuals. You just don't know. The primary focus here on this discussion is how much 'force' will be put into the next law and how effective it might be at saving people.
How much 'force' should the court have in protecting mentally ill individuals....who might bring harm to themselves or to others?
This discussion centers around a bill being studied by the Hessen government, for law purposes. Hessen absolutely wants some type of regulation for this type of situation. The push reason? The German Constitutional Court (their version of the Supreme Court) deemed a 2011 law with two German states on their method of taking control of crazy people with violent tendencies to be wrong and crossing the line.
The chief problem so far in this discussion? Doctors aren't exactly onboard with the state agenda. Forced measures are seen by doctors as only for a last resort type situation. You'd have to step through various points, to reach this forced-point.
A guy could walk around Frankfurt on an average day and find a dozen people who freely walk the streets and are mentally unfit (a danger to themselves or others). The odds currently of the guy getting picked up and put into a facility? Zero. Basically....the guy has to go and hurt someone.....then the authorities act on that episode to try first for regular prison. Once the medical establishment steps in (they wouldn't do it when he was crazy and had yet to harm anyone)....they will vouch 'yes'.....the guy is crazy and go for a mental institute instead.
How many Germans ought to be in facility? No one really says. It might be 20,000 individuals.....it might be 100,000 individuals. You just don't know. The primary focus here on this discussion is how much 'force' will be put into the next law and how effective it might be at saving people.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
The Container is What Matters
This week, the British got around cigarettes and packaging. They handed down a law which basically says that you can only sell containers of smokes.....with just the name of the brand....no color, no logo, no design, nothing else. On the front will continue to be the national "smoking kills" expression.
Legal experts say that it'll be challenged and likely run into some issues....either within the UK court system or the EU system.
I sat and thought about this and the attitude of most smokers. It won't really matter about the containers. If the British law folks really wanted to hurt the smokers and their purchases....you'd just require the tobacco to be pure, with no preservatives or additives (like tar). Just plain tobacco.....but the reality is....they don't want to really hurt the sales because then you'd lose tax revenue.
I pondered upon this whole thing....knowing it'll come to Germany sooner or later. A smart guy would go out and get some Vietnamese or Chinese aluminium box companies to start making commercial tin boxes.....with full rich color, and the logo.....then sell these for like ten Euro each. Guys would buy the plain containers and pull the smokes out.....putting them in their fancy container instead.
Well.....it's an idea anyway. So, I'm giving away a million-Euro idea.....to anyone who wants it.
Legal experts say that it'll be challenged and likely run into some issues....either within the UK court system or the EU system.
I sat and thought about this and the attitude of most smokers. It won't really matter about the containers. If the British law folks really wanted to hurt the smokers and their purchases....you'd just require the tobacco to be pure, with no preservatives or additives (like tar). Just plain tobacco.....but the reality is....they don't want to really hurt the sales because then you'd lose tax revenue.
I pondered upon this whole thing....knowing it'll come to Germany sooner or later. A smart guy would go out and get some Vietnamese or Chinese aluminium box companies to start making commercial tin boxes.....with full rich color, and the logo.....then sell these for like ten Euro each. Guys would buy the plain containers and pull the smokes out.....putting them in their fancy container instead.
Well.....it's an idea anyway. So, I'm giving away a million-Euro idea.....to anyone who wants it.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Talking Dollars and Euro
Yesterday....the Euro hit .90 in relationship to the dollar. That's the bank rate for me to buy a Euro for roughly 1.10 dollars. It's been around ten years since we were at this level. The general forecast for the remainder of 2015? More of the same....meaning we ought to hit a minimum of 1.05 Euro to the dollar by late fall.
What does this mean in the world of business? Well....Germans will be less likely to buy American products....because of the pricing. Same for Germans going to the US for tourism. More Americans coming to Europe this summer? Yes. It'll likely convince another 200,000 Americans to take the plunge and travel to Paris for the summer....that weren't thinking this way last summer.
I sat and read a business report this afternoon...by the end of 2016...the dollar ought to buy 1.15 Euro....maybe more. A weak Euro? Yes, and if you were connected to Germany since the 1980s.....you can remember the glory days of mid-summer 1985....when you could buy almost 3.5 Deutsche Marks for a dollar. Young American GI's bought BMWs and took long trips across Germany that whole summer.
There are some banking folks who talk up the idea of large sums of money leaving Europe for the next five-to-ten years. Where does the money go? No idea.
To suggest that the Euro might hit 1.2 or 1.3 by 2017? Well....it sounds crazy, but it might just happen.
A GI in the mid-80's lived high off the hog. It was a lousy salary.....I'll admit that. But when you did up the transaction in Marks and if you used a VAT form to get sales tax removed from the item.....you were kinda shocked at pricing levels.
A return to those days? You might look at the event unfolding as one last 'blast' before reality returns to the Euro a decade from now, and we dwindle back down to .70 to the dollar. Take what you can get.
What does this mean in the world of business? Well....Germans will be less likely to buy American products....because of the pricing. Same for Germans going to the US for tourism. More Americans coming to Europe this summer? Yes. It'll likely convince another 200,000 Americans to take the plunge and travel to Paris for the summer....that weren't thinking this way last summer.
I sat and read a business report this afternoon...by the end of 2016...the dollar ought to buy 1.15 Euro....maybe more. A weak Euro? Yes, and if you were connected to Germany since the 1980s.....you can remember the glory days of mid-summer 1985....when you could buy almost 3.5 Deutsche Marks for a dollar. Young American GI's bought BMWs and took long trips across Germany that whole summer.
There are some banking folks who talk up the idea of large sums of money leaving Europe for the next five-to-ten years. Where does the money go? No idea.
To suggest that the Euro might hit 1.2 or 1.3 by 2017? Well....it sounds crazy, but it might just happen.
A GI in the mid-80's lived high off the hog. It was a lousy salary.....I'll admit that. But when you did up the transaction in Marks and if you used a VAT form to get sales tax removed from the item.....you were kinda shocked at pricing levels.
A return to those days? You might look at the event unfolding as one last 'blast' before reality returns to the Euro a decade from now, and we dwindle back down to .70 to the dollar. Take what you can get.
Reparations Talk
This week in Greece....some political chat folks hyped up the idea of Greece going out for reparations against the Germans (WW II stuff). It's been discussed on a couple of occasions. But this time....they suggested that the time was right to go and grab German-government owned property in Greece.
Grabbing the embassy? Well...no....that would create a fairly big stink.
There are only two properties in all of Greece.....owned by German government....the German Archaeology Institute....a fairly historic building in Athens and dates back a number of years. The big deal with the Institute? It's library, with several thousand volumes on Greece history. With the structure.....I'd take a guess at value being up around two or three million Euro. It's not huge....but it has historical value. The library assets? That might be into the millions, if you sold the book collection one-by-one.
The second structure? The Goethe Institute. This is a fairly modern building in Athens. I'd take a guess on it's value at being between two and five million Euro.
Grabbing either? Well....after you grab it....then what? It's not like it's made of gold or has substantial value. Reuse? I'd be curious what any idiot would want with such a structure. Locals would grumble that you chased out people who generally spent money on the economy.....what will you replace those folks with?
I come now to this odd feeling. Somewhere in the background of all this BSing and chatting within Greece, and this talk about reparations.....I have the feeling that some Turkish guys are talking this up and the hyped-up Greek guy is simply NOT paying attention.
Imagine doing something real stupid and Germans wake up to this event. They spend roughly a billion a year on vacations to Greece. What does the German do when you create this grab-a-building game? He stops going to Greece. He starts thinking about summer vacations in Turkey. Turkey wins.....Greece loses.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but this whole reparations thing now has a funny feeling about it. Who wins and who loses......and I just don't think the Greeks are thinking about the big picture.
Grabbing the embassy? Well...no....that would create a fairly big stink.
There are only two properties in all of Greece.....owned by German government....the German Archaeology Institute....a fairly historic building in Athens and dates back a number of years. The big deal with the Institute? It's library, with several thousand volumes on Greece history. With the structure.....I'd take a guess at value being up around two or three million Euro. It's not huge....but it has historical value. The library assets? That might be into the millions, if you sold the book collection one-by-one.
The second structure? The Goethe Institute. This is a fairly modern building in Athens. I'd take a guess on it's value at being between two and five million Euro.
Grabbing either? Well....after you grab it....then what? It's not like it's made of gold or has substantial value. Reuse? I'd be curious what any idiot would want with such a structure. Locals would grumble that you chased out people who generally spent money on the economy.....what will you replace those folks with?
I come now to this odd feeling. Somewhere in the background of all this BSing and chatting within Greece, and this talk about reparations.....I have the feeling that some Turkish guys are talking this up and the hyped-up Greek guy is simply NOT paying attention.
Imagine doing something real stupid and Germans wake up to this event. They spend roughly a billion a year on vacations to Greece. What does the German do when you create this grab-a-building game? He stops going to Greece. He starts thinking about summer vacations in Turkey. Turkey wins.....Greece loses.
Maybe I'm wrong about this, but this whole reparations thing now has a funny feeling about it. Who wins and who loses......and I just don't think the Greeks are thinking about the big picture.
Germans and Reformation
Last night.....Channel One (ARD) of Germany.....ran a chat-forum show (Sandra Mashingberger's People and Politics).
Normally, I don't care for it. For some reason, I was channel-flipping late and hit the show early on for a while, and came back to it later.
It was an odd group to sit and chat on a significant topic.....Islam. Two were big players of the Greens and the CDU. Both were within their zone and probably worth listening to. A TV journalist got into the mix, with limited background. Then you had two comedians (a Turkish comedian and a Swiss comedian).
The thing I've figured out over the past few years about comedians in Germany....some are awful bright individuals and are leaning more toward satire than raw comedy.
Around the second point of the chat forum that I came back to the chat.....the Swiss comedian made a fairly blunt point. He's read the Quran three times. He's not stupid and it's apparent in his discussion. As he kinda points out.....Christianity and the Catholic Church had the reformation period. They cleaned up their religions and society realized the problems with the religion that came out of the early ages.
So, the Swiss comedian.....Andreas Thiel....came to this blunt point. The Quran as he's suggested is loaded with violence....it's a planning document for war and oppression. In his mind, the Quran and the religion needs a reformation period, and the Quran itself needs some type of re-write.
Just to suggest the re-write idea.....you get into difficult territory. It's a document designed to be iron-clad and unable to be revised in any shape or fashion. Just convincing folks to work it into other religions....was hard enough. To suggest that you might take it and remove some of the violent language or suggested outcomes for offenders? It is near impossible to suggest this in a group chat situation.
Presently in Germany, the trend is going negative about Islam and society. More than fifty percent of German society believes it's a violent religion presently and they fear it. It's not the kind of fear that you have with the global warming crowd, the Nazi crowd, or the Greek economic failure crowd. This is a fear where people see someone on the street and have an image in their mind, and it's not a happy image.
The thing with these chat forums.....especially late at night....I doubt if more than 300,000 Germans out of eighty million probably watched it. Maybe half will sit there and make a mental note over what was suggested about a reformation-type period required. But it's simply an untouchable thing. People would take it in the wrong fashion, and then they'd say we were all confused about the Catholics and Christians of the 1600s.....different type....different society....different outcome. They'd suggest that Islam is different....built with the right incentives.
The thing....reformation fixed a bad thing, and no one argues about that today. It's hard to find a single person who is in favor of life and Christian-Catholic infighting prior to the Thirty-Years-War. That's reality.
Normally, I don't care for it. For some reason, I was channel-flipping late and hit the show early on for a while, and came back to it later.
It was an odd group to sit and chat on a significant topic.....Islam. Two were big players of the Greens and the CDU. Both were within their zone and probably worth listening to. A TV journalist got into the mix, with limited background. Then you had two comedians (a Turkish comedian and a Swiss comedian).
The thing I've figured out over the past few years about comedians in Germany....some are awful bright individuals and are leaning more toward satire than raw comedy.
Around the second point of the chat forum that I came back to the chat.....the Swiss comedian made a fairly blunt point. He's read the Quran three times. He's not stupid and it's apparent in his discussion. As he kinda points out.....Christianity and the Catholic Church had the reformation period. They cleaned up their religions and society realized the problems with the religion that came out of the early ages.
So, the Swiss comedian.....Andreas Thiel....came to this blunt point. The Quran as he's suggested is loaded with violence....it's a planning document for war and oppression. In his mind, the Quran and the religion needs a reformation period, and the Quran itself needs some type of re-write.
Just to suggest the re-write idea.....you get into difficult territory. It's a document designed to be iron-clad and unable to be revised in any shape or fashion. Just convincing folks to work it into other religions....was hard enough. To suggest that you might take it and remove some of the violent language or suggested outcomes for offenders? It is near impossible to suggest this in a group chat situation.
Presently in Germany, the trend is going negative about Islam and society. More than fifty percent of German society believes it's a violent religion presently and they fear it. It's not the kind of fear that you have with the global warming crowd, the Nazi crowd, or the Greek economic failure crowd. This is a fear where people see someone on the street and have an image in their mind, and it's not a happy image.
The thing with these chat forums.....especially late at night....I doubt if more than 300,000 Germans out of eighty million probably watched it. Maybe half will sit there and make a mental note over what was suggested about a reformation-type period required. But it's simply an untouchable thing. People would take it in the wrong fashion, and then they'd say we were all confused about the Catholics and Christians of the 1600s.....different type....different society....different outcome. They'd suggest that Islam is different....built with the right incentives.
The thing....reformation fixed a bad thing, and no one argues about that today. It's hard to find a single person who is in favor of life and Christian-Catholic infighting prior to the Thirty-Years-War. That's reality.
The 1-1-0 Guy
Sometimes, I come to realize that Germany has a fair number of 'nutcases' (as the US will admit that we also have a fair number of 'nutcases'.
This morning in the local news, the Frankfurt cops came to disclose this story over a local guy there in Frankfurt....who has called the cops or 110 (9-1-1)....roughly 400 times since 2013. He's called them from the house, and from pay-phones. Explanation? None. They came this past week and arrested him.....but he's already been turned loose by the judge.
Cops are fairly upset with the guy at this point. They've gone to the extreme now. Local authorities instructed the telephone folks to block any and all access to emergency numbers from his home phone. He's probably the only guy in Germany, who can't dial out to 110.
They've also brought charges up against in court. Up until last week, as the HR network news folks report it....he's got a dozen charges on misuse of the emergency number, and the latest episode simply pushes it to number thirteen. Cost per episode? If the judge applies the law (when the case is finally heard in court)....he'll have to pay 500 Euro per episode.
Background on the guy? None. They won't say if he's employed or on disability. They noted his age at 32, but other than that....nothing else.
A mental evaluation? The German authorities can apply various laws and take possession of a person if they appear to represent a threat to themselves or to those around them. Once in a facility, tests can be run and the results could get you a permanent room in a mental facility. So far, as far as I've seen....he has yet to cross the line of threatening behavior.
Continued games with the emergency number? I'd kinda expect it. He apparently does use pay-phones as well, and he'll resort to those as necessary. Eventually, they will have to find some reason to do the mental exam and force him into a mental facility.....my humble opinion.
This morning in the local news, the Frankfurt cops came to disclose this story over a local guy there in Frankfurt....who has called the cops or 110 (9-1-1)....roughly 400 times since 2013. He's called them from the house, and from pay-phones. Explanation? None. They came this past week and arrested him.....but he's already been turned loose by the judge.
Cops are fairly upset with the guy at this point. They've gone to the extreme now. Local authorities instructed the telephone folks to block any and all access to emergency numbers from his home phone. He's probably the only guy in Germany, who can't dial out to 110.
They've also brought charges up against in court. Up until last week, as the HR network news folks report it....he's got a dozen charges on misuse of the emergency number, and the latest episode simply pushes it to number thirteen. Cost per episode? If the judge applies the law (when the case is finally heard in court)....he'll have to pay 500 Euro per episode.
Background on the guy? None. They won't say if he's employed or on disability. They noted his age at 32, but other than that....nothing else.
A mental evaluation? The German authorities can apply various laws and take possession of a person if they appear to represent a threat to themselves or to those around them. Once in a facility, tests can be run and the results could get you a permanent room in a mental facility. So far, as far as I've seen....he has yet to cross the line of threatening behavior.
Continued games with the emergency number? I'd kinda expect it. He apparently does use pay-phones as well, and he'll resort to those as necessary. Eventually, they will have to find some reason to do the mental exam and force him into a mental facility.....my humble opinion.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Took A Walk Yesterday
Yesterday, I took off to Frankfurt for a photography project. Frankfurt is one of those places that I tend to admire. I lived around the area in 1978 and 1979. I'd jump on a subway car.....go into the city,....and walk from one end of town to the other end.
Frankfurt has high-end appeal.....and low-end appeal. You can run around the shopping district and be surprised at the draw of crowds. You can also walk around the train-station area and find places that it's best to forget.
When I got to Frankfurt in 1978, you could walk outside of the train station and immediately note that it was a seedy part of town.....low-brow pubs, trampy strip clubs, and brothels. No matter when you walked though.....you felt fairly safe. There were drugs in Frankfurt, but it was 99-percent marijuana, half-a-percent of LSD, and a half-percent of heroin.
In 1984 when I went back.....the area had changed a bit. The area out front of the train station had become this drug sales yard, with cocaine as a substantial drug. Cops? You rarely saw them. The interior of the train station had seedy characters running around, and the subway areas around the station were all 'infected'....it wasn't a place that you hung around.
I came through Frankfurt in the 1990s and spent an hour walking around. Cops were now walking within the train-station and subway areas.....no seedy characters within the area. The weird folks had moved on out into the red-light district. Drug sales were easily accomplished.....if you wanted anything, this was the place to buy it.
So I went back yesterday to walk the railway station and the subway area. Pure and clean. Renovated in the past couple of years. This was a place where you felt safe.
Coming out of the subway area to the first 500 feet of Kaiser Strasse? The homeless guys had all been herded out of their bunk area....so around eight folks (guys and gals) were standing there....drinking coffee or beer at 9 AM. Everyone was smoking and you could tell they were all heavy dopers or former dopers. No dangers there on the Kaiser Strasse....as far as I could see.
So I walked a block over, to Taunusstrasse. Once you got on the streeet, this was 'heron city'. Guys were actively selling it. Guys and gals were 'cooking' it right there in front of you, with the needle ready to shoot-up. In a matter of five minutes, I'd seen at least six 'deals' made and three groups of folks shooting up.
I don't think the city has any interest in messing with these folks....if you did....they would just move onto the city parks (where you really DON'T want them to reside). Leaving them in the red-light district? It'll cure folks eventually of any desire of operating a brothel or visiting as a customer.
It's odd how things have progressed since 1978. All you had to worry about then was mostly marijuana, LSD, and Heron. You never saw anyone using it on the street, and it was just a sale in passing. Today? Toss meth, pain-killers, cocaine, bath salts, and a dozen-odd prescription deals onto the pile. Then you have folks using the stuff right there in front of you. As you walk down the street....all you see is zombie-like eyes and people living on borrowed time.
Frankfurt has high-end appeal.....and low-end appeal. You can run around the shopping district and be surprised at the draw of crowds. You can also walk around the train-station area and find places that it's best to forget.
When I got to Frankfurt in 1978, you could walk outside of the train station and immediately note that it was a seedy part of town.....low-brow pubs, trampy strip clubs, and brothels. No matter when you walked though.....you felt fairly safe. There were drugs in Frankfurt, but it was 99-percent marijuana, half-a-percent of LSD, and a half-percent of heroin.
In 1984 when I went back.....the area had changed a bit. The area out front of the train station had become this drug sales yard, with cocaine as a substantial drug. Cops? You rarely saw them. The interior of the train station had seedy characters running around, and the subway areas around the station were all 'infected'....it wasn't a place that you hung around.
I came through Frankfurt in the 1990s and spent an hour walking around. Cops were now walking within the train-station and subway areas.....no seedy characters within the area. The weird folks had moved on out into the red-light district. Drug sales were easily accomplished.....if you wanted anything, this was the place to buy it.
So I went back yesterday to walk the railway station and the subway area. Pure and clean. Renovated in the past couple of years. This was a place where you felt safe.
Coming out of the subway area to the first 500 feet of Kaiser Strasse? The homeless guys had all been herded out of their bunk area....so around eight folks (guys and gals) were standing there....drinking coffee or beer at 9 AM. Everyone was smoking and you could tell they were all heavy dopers or former dopers. No dangers there on the Kaiser Strasse....as far as I could see.
So I walked a block over, to Taunusstrasse. Once you got on the streeet, this was 'heron city'. Guys were actively selling it. Guys and gals were 'cooking' it right there in front of you, with the needle ready to shoot-up. In a matter of five minutes, I'd seen at least six 'deals' made and three groups of folks shooting up.
I don't think the city has any interest in messing with these folks....if you did....they would just move onto the city parks (where you really DON'T want them to reside). Leaving them in the red-light district? It'll cure folks eventually of any desire of operating a brothel or visiting as a customer.
It's odd how things have progressed since 1978. All you had to worry about then was mostly marijuana, LSD, and Heron. You never saw anyone using it on the street, and it was just a sale in passing. Today? Toss meth, pain-killers, cocaine, bath salts, and a dozen-odd prescription deals onto the pile. Then you have folks using the stuff right there in front of you. As you walk down the street....all you see is zombie-like eyes and people living on borrowed time.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Greek Threats to Germany
At some point over the weekend, there's a comment made by the Greek minister of defense. He's a new guy.....from the election episode of a couple weeks ago in Greece. Got his portfolio and slipped into the defense chief position. Panos Kammenos.
The comment?
He basically said if Germany won't help in this financial crisis episode, Greece ought to open up it's borders and allow refugees to transit Greece and make way to Germany, unhindered.
Kammenos is a member of the right-wing party....Independent Greeks.
This got the German police union come out rather quickly and suggest Greece ought to be revoked of some EU privileges.....namely to force a passport situation on all Greeks entering Germany. It was simply spoken by the union leadership....not Chancellor Merkel, who has been rather quiet on Greece for the past week or two.
If you go and examine the trends.....refugees are making their way through Italy and several East European countries.....heading mostly toward Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Germany is presently the more popular of countries to end up in....Italy for the most part, is the least favorite of countries to end up in. The reason? Italy doesn't really care much for your welfare and treats you like crap.
The current trend? I think Greece has roughly a hundred days to figure the solution or accept quitting the Euro. No more extensions.....this is the final episode. As for threat of allowing more refugees to come through? Nothing much to say on the dynamics of the threat. Something of a third-world strategy, if you ask me.
The comment?
He basically said if Germany won't help in this financial crisis episode, Greece ought to open up it's borders and allow refugees to transit Greece and make way to Germany, unhindered.
Kammenos is a member of the right-wing party....Independent Greeks.
This got the German police union come out rather quickly and suggest Greece ought to be revoked of some EU privileges.....namely to force a passport situation on all Greeks entering Germany. It was simply spoken by the union leadership....not Chancellor Merkel, who has been rather quiet on Greece for the past week or two.
If you go and examine the trends.....refugees are making their way through Italy and several East European countries.....heading mostly toward Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Germany is presently the more popular of countries to end up in....Italy for the most part, is the least favorite of countries to end up in. The reason? Italy doesn't really care much for your welfare and treats you like crap.
The current trend? I think Greece has roughly a hundred days to figure the solution or accept quitting the Euro. No more extensions.....this is the final episode. As for threat of allowing more refugees to come through? Nothing much to say on the dynamics of the threat. Something of a third-world strategy, if you ask me.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Heat on the Solidarity Tax?
I wrote a brief introduction last fall on the German Solidarity Tax. It was designed after the fall of the Berlin Wall as a vehicle to help rebuild DDR (East Germany). Roughly.....a 5.5-percent tax on top of what you owed....was tossed onto your yearly income tax.
Curiously, it was never designed as a 'forever-tax'. It was meant to come to an end one day. When.....no one will really explain in detail.
In recent months, the CDU/CSU folks have talked up this new idea. 2020.....in their mind.....will be the end of the tax. From 1998 to 2009, it generated around 185 billion Euro.
While the CDU plan attracts a lot of public sentiment and might get the edge......the SPD Party has taken a different approach. They'd like for the tax, in some form, to continue on.....maybe not at the 5.5 percent level, but the majority needs to stay. Their hook onto the public sentiment? They'd like for the money to be split up between the sixteen German states in some fair manner. Free revenue for state renovation or infrastructure projects (bridge money, so to speak).
For the small-time wage earner, the yearly tax bill wasn't a big deal, and this 5.5 percent attached to his situation was minimum. This is the guy who'd buy more on the SPD deal of more bridge money.
For the middle-class wage earner, this probably adds up to somewhere in the 200-to-400 Euro range. It's enough to attract the attention and make it somewhat interesting.
For the wealthy folks who pay 20,000 to 100,000 in normal taxes a year? It would amount to 500-to-5,500 Euro a year. It's a tidy sum for a small business guy or someone who pulls a decent income.
There was a fair amount of frustration in Germany when the Solidarity Tax came up originally. It wasn't a happy moment for most Germans. Infrastructure improvement in eastern Germany? It's come to virtually every community.....new roads, new libraries, new schools, and they almost like like most communities in the western half of Germany. I should note.....you can still find various communities that look like some third-world country, but it's rare.
How much will this tax play into politics over the next five years? A good bit.
Every political party will talk about this, and try to sell the public on continuing the tax.....for new infrastructure. The general problem will be that the upper-class will be the ones contributing to the bulk of this continued tax....and they don't exactly reside in a fair number within the sixteen German states (something that people will obviously point out). So, suggesting there is some fairness angle to the game....well....no....it's not that fair. And the projects? After a while, you might start to note various art projects, concert halls, big new airports with few customers, and an odd feeling that this is simply a building slush fund for various states.
Bottom line? The Solidarity Tax is a magnet for discussion and frustrations.
Curiously, it was never designed as a 'forever-tax'. It was meant to come to an end one day. When.....no one will really explain in detail.
In recent months, the CDU/CSU folks have talked up this new idea. 2020.....in their mind.....will be the end of the tax. From 1998 to 2009, it generated around 185 billion Euro.
While the CDU plan attracts a lot of public sentiment and might get the edge......the SPD Party has taken a different approach. They'd like for the tax, in some form, to continue on.....maybe not at the 5.5 percent level, but the majority needs to stay. Their hook onto the public sentiment? They'd like for the money to be split up between the sixteen German states in some fair manner. Free revenue for state renovation or infrastructure projects (bridge money, so to speak).
For the small-time wage earner, the yearly tax bill wasn't a big deal, and this 5.5 percent attached to his situation was minimum. This is the guy who'd buy more on the SPD deal of more bridge money.
For the middle-class wage earner, this probably adds up to somewhere in the 200-to-400 Euro range. It's enough to attract the attention and make it somewhat interesting.
For the wealthy folks who pay 20,000 to 100,000 in normal taxes a year? It would amount to 500-to-5,500 Euro a year. It's a tidy sum for a small business guy or someone who pulls a decent income.
There was a fair amount of frustration in Germany when the Solidarity Tax came up originally. It wasn't a happy moment for most Germans. Infrastructure improvement in eastern Germany? It's come to virtually every community.....new roads, new libraries, new schools, and they almost like like most communities in the western half of Germany. I should note.....you can still find various communities that look like some third-world country, but it's rare.
How much will this tax play into politics over the next five years? A good bit.
Every political party will talk about this, and try to sell the public on continuing the tax.....for new infrastructure. The general problem will be that the upper-class will be the ones contributing to the bulk of this continued tax....and they don't exactly reside in a fair number within the sixteen German states (something that people will obviously point out). So, suggesting there is some fairness angle to the game....well....no....it's not that fair. And the projects? After a while, you might start to note various art projects, concert halls, big new airports with few customers, and an odd feeling that this is simply a building slush fund for various states.
Bottom line? The Solidarity Tax is a magnet for discussion and frustrations.
How to Slant Statistical Data
A new book came out this week in Germany....entitled: When The Soldiers Came. There's been several reviews of the book and the historical slant of the book. Basically, it covers the period after WW II in Germany and lays out a statistical analysis of rapes committed by American solders.
They arrive at a 'number', which comes from data available from the various German states. "Unmarried women" are noted as having given birth, and so a statistical number is generated into this number which attributes a percentage (five percent) as being from rapes committed by American soldiers. The mythical five percent number? It's invented.....it's not fact.
Layered into the book also points to rapes of German men and boys....although there's not a factual number that you can arrive at....it's simply a suggestion of a number. Once you suggest German men and boys were raped by American soldiers.....it draws a negative conclusion by those listening to the story.
Some German news sources have done a review of the book and question the statistical analysis done, and the percentages used to arrive at some factual information. It's simply an open-ended book with more questions left by the end, than answers. Over the next week or two, I expect several German chat forums on state-run TV to take the book.....conduct some public talks and generate some conversations out of it.
Issues?
Well....since the Americans were some pepped up on raping.....you'd expect find some great statistical data for North Africa from the 1942-1943 period. This would certainly help to portray the slant the rest of the way. But oddly, the writers of the book chose not to gather this type of data.
Americans in Italy during WW II and the decades after the war? You'd expect find some great statistical data for Italy and pregnant/raped by American women. Oddly, the writers of the book chose not to gather this type of data.
Americans in England for 1942 to 1944? You'd expect them to be raping the heck out of English women, thus providing great statistical data on rapes there on the Isle. Oddly, the writers of the book chose not to gather this type of data.
Americans in France after the 6th of June of 1944? You'd expect the book authors to gather statistical data of the French countryside and cite great statistical data on rapes there. Odd, the writers of the book chose not to gather such data.
Americans in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium? Same deal.....lots of data would be existing there, so why not use that as well.
Nothing?
So, let's be logical....where German soldiers went in Poland.....are there an increased number of rapes there as they invaded Poland? As the German advanced across the French countryside, Belgium, and the Netherlands.....statistical analysis of rapes there? No.
There's a great book here potentially. You could have gathered data from seven countries and shown a vast amount of American soldier rapes. Well.....maybe. If you slanted the numbers the right way, and simply guessed that a unmarried woman was raped by a soldier of an American variety but never of a German variety.
There's a lot of history missing from central Europe from the 1920s to 1960s.
Roughly 4.3 German men never returned from WW II, period. There's roughly 300,000 Germans who died not from Allied bombing but from Nazi justice of the 1930s and 1940s. Half a million Germans died in the allied bombing campaign from 1942 to 1945.
Over four million German men never returned home. Roughly fifteen million German men and boys served in the German army. You can figure that one out of four never made it back. Of those who did make it back....you can figure that a quarter of them as a minimum had mental and emotional issues.
There is no such thing as family life or normal living for those German women. Rebuilding a society? Nothing was reach the normal view of what existed in the 1930s.
German women surviving from 1945 on? Every single household suffered. They saw husbands who never returned, or the ones who did return....were never the same. Getting back to some norm? Impossible. Twenty thousand German women by 1949 had married American soldiers and left Germany for the US (Wiki numbers).
The ability to take an unmarried woman giving birth to a child and attributing it to some American soldier rape? Virtually impossible to reach some factual point.
So, it's a book to simply stir the pot and get emotions progressing one way or another.
They arrive at a 'number', which comes from data available from the various German states. "Unmarried women" are noted as having given birth, and so a statistical number is generated into this number which attributes a percentage (five percent) as being from rapes committed by American soldiers. The mythical five percent number? It's invented.....it's not fact.
Layered into the book also points to rapes of German men and boys....although there's not a factual number that you can arrive at....it's simply a suggestion of a number. Once you suggest German men and boys were raped by American soldiers.....it draws a negative conclusion by those listening to the story.
Some German news sources have done a review of the book and question the statistical analysis done, and the percentages used to arrive at some factual information. It's simply an open-ended book with more questions left by the end, than answers. Over the next week or two, I expect several German chat forums on state-run TV to take the book.....conduct some public talks and generate some conversations out of it.
Issues?
Well....since the Americans were some pepped up on raping.....you'd expect find some great statistical data for North Africa from the 1942-1943 period. This would certainly help to portray the slant the rest of the way. But oddly, the writers of the book chose not to gather this type of data.
Americans in Italy during WW II and the decades after the war? You'd expect find some great statistical data for Italy and pregnant/raped by American women. Oddly, the writers of the book chose not to gather this type of data.
Americans in England for 1942 to 1944? You'd expect them to be raping the heck out of English women, thus providing great statistical data on rapes there on the Isle. Oddly, the writers of the book chose not to gather this type of data.
Americans in France after the 6th of June of 1944? You'd expect the book authors to gather statistical data of the French countryside and cite great statistical data on rapes there. Odd, the writers of the book chose not to gather such data.
Americans in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Belgium? Same deal.....lots of data would be existing there, so why not use that as well.
Nothing?
So, let's be logical....where German soldiers went in Poland.....are there an increased number of rapes there as they invaded Poland? As the German advanced across the French countryside, Belgium, and the Netherlands.....statistical analysis of rapes there? No.
There's a great book here potentially. You could have gathered data from seven countries and shown a vast amount of American soldier rapes. Well.....maybe. If you slanted the numbers the right way, and simply guessed that a unmarried woman was raped by a soldier of an American variety but never of a German variety.
There's a lot of history missing from central Europe from the 1920s to 1960s.
Roughly 4.3 German men never returned from WW II, period. There's roughly 300,000 Germans who died not from Allied bombing but from Nazi justice of the 1930s and 1940s. Half a million Germans died in the allied bombing campaign from 1942 to 1945.
Over four million German men never returned home. Roughly fifteen million German men and boys served in the German army. You can figure that one out of four never made it back. Of those who did make it back....you can figure that a quarter of them as a minimum had mental and emotional issues.
There is no such thing as family life or normal living for those German women. Rebuilding a society? Nothing was reach the normal view of what existed in the 1930s.
German women surviving from 1945 on? Every single household suffered. They saw husbands who never returned, or the ones who did return....were never the same. Getting back to some norm? Impossible. Twenty thousand German women by 1949 had married American soldiers and left Germany for the US (Wiki numbers).
The ability to take an unmarried woman giving birth to a child and attributing it to some American soldier rape? Virtually impossible to reach some factual point.
So, it's a book to simply stir the pot and get emotions progressing one way or another.
German TV Tax Episode
It's a rare thing when some German tax revenue collection deal goes above the line and has TOO MUCH money at the end of the day. Yesterday, the folks who collect the German TV tax had to admit this.
At the current rate, by the end of 2016, TV tax revenues would be 1.5 billion Euro ahead.
So, the government announced that there will be a 48-Euro-cent reduction within the next sixty-odd days. The extra money? Well, by law, the state-run TV mafia folks cannot retain it. Imagine that....they actually wrote it into the law....you can have up to X amount and after that point, you hand it to the government to hold.
Sent back to the tax-payers? No. What the discussion now indicates is that the excess funds will simply be held by the government until there is a need for funding within the TV empire. Some folks anticipate that another rate hike would come up in talks within five years, and this money might delay the hike for several years.
The new monthly TV tax? 17.50 Euro.
At the current rate, by the end of 2016, TV tax revenues would be 1.5 billion Euro ahead.
So, the government announced that there will be a 48-Euro-cent reduction within the next sixty-odd days. The extra money? Well, by law, the state-run TV mafia folks cannot retain it. Imagine that....they actually wrote it into the law....you can have up to X amount and after that point, you hand it to the government to hold.
Sent back to the tax-payers? No. What the discussion now indicates is that the excess funds will simply be held by the government until there is a need for funding within the TV empire. Some folks anticipate that another rate hike would come up in talks within five years, and this money might delay the hike for several years.
The new monthly TV tax? 17.50 Euro.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Explaining Borgwald
Once upon a time.....as corny as it sounds.....there was this car company in Germany named Borgwald. Prior to WW I, they were in a position to take off and be noted. Things soured in Germany after WW I because of the economy. Somewhere in the middle of the 1920s.....Borgwald was at a point of failure. For Carl Borgwald, there was only one thing to do.....design a radical car and move ahead.
The 1924 "Lightning Cart" was this radical car. Three wheels.....two horse-power....it was a mini-racing type vehicle....."fun factor" was written all over the car.
Borgwald continued on through the 1930s, and emerged out of WW II with a fair amount of business. The Isabella design came up in 1954, and became the 'ace' of the companies designs. It was popular and had a sporty look to it.
Air suspension and automatic transmissions were the novelty items that you could get with the Isabella.
By 1961, Borgwald was in serious financial straits. There are various arguments that a conspiracy helped to bring them down.....yet never proven. Carl Borgwald? He would die in 1963 and never see a recovery. The odd thing about the demise of Borgwald as a car company? Every single person or business that was owed money.....got paid.....in full. There was no debts left on the table.
So, Borgwald sat there for the past fifty years.....mostly as a historical type discussion. They were known for innovation and daring engineering. They designed cars that people beg to have.
Well....it's an odd thing. The big international car show for Frankfurt (later in the fall) is going to have a new Borgwald car for display. The company, with some type of Chinese partnership, is going to begin a comeback. The design or look? No one knows. In fact, it's fairly secretive and might end up being the biggest draw of the car show.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
US Army Properties Flipping to Wiesbaden
An agreement of sorts was worked out today and signed....by the city of Wiesbaden, the federal office for property for Germany, and the US Army.
The focus of the agreement? More or less....there's a simplified method to the Army property being turned over, and the city will get to be the planning source for usage. No one said much but I would imagine there was some worry over 'other' parties barging into the Army property situation and Wiesbaden city officials wanted to make sure they were the sole source of planning.
The short-term priority? The American Arms Hotel and the Mainz-Kastel housing/barracks area. Both are set to flip over, and the usage plan needs to be pretty quickly determined.
The long-term plan? There's two additional properties set to turn....the Amelia Earhart Hotel complex (it's apparently not finalized yet and I suspect the US consulate in Frankfurt might have some interest in the property). And there is the second Mainz-Kastel property.....the storage station or AAFES property (depending your memory of the site).
From about a year ago, there was intense interest in reusing the American Arms Hotel as a student-housing complex (something of a big deal in Wiesbaden with several university operations in the local region). There's two issues with this idea.....a parking garage might be required, and there's a funding requirement for some renovation to make it into apartments.
The Kastel housing/barracks area? There's two ideas. One was a mini-mall-type operation with some housing. The locals preferred a green solution with a couple of business operations and some housing. The green idea would have meant taking out a vast amount of concrete and asphalt.....landscaping.....and adding trees. Map-wise, I was looking over the site and doubt that it's more than thirty-five acres.
The Amelia Earhart Hotel? No one says much but it's likely another project for student housing. It's in great condition and has the parking garage already. Location-wise, it's a five-star location....near bus lines and within walking distance of the railroad station of Wiesbaden.
The Kastel storage site? At best, it's forty acres, with mostly large-scale warehouses. Most were built in the 1960s and 1970s.....so it's hard to see them being retained in anyway by the city. My guess is that the whole thing is bulldozed and most of the site ends up as a commercial site, with a quarter of it as some Kastel park (my suggestion, not theirs).
More sites to flip? No. Presently, no one has suggested any other property. The old BX on the hill? It'll be torn down at some point as the new BX opens but no one is talking of that property flipping to the Wiesbaden authorities.
The focus of the agreement? More or less....there's a simplified method to the Army property being turned over, and the city will get to be the planning source for usage. No one said much but I would imagine there was some worry over 'other' parties barging into the Army property situation and Wiesbaden city officials wanted to make sure they were the sole source of planning.
The short-term priority? The American Arms Hotel and the Mainz-Kastel housing/barracks area. Both are set to flip over, and the usage plan needs to be pretty quickly determined.
The long-term plan? There's two additional properties set to turn....the Amelia Earhart Hotel complex (it's apparently not finalized yet and I suspect the US consulate in Frankfurt might have some interest in the property). And there is the second Mainz-Kastel property.....the storage station or AAFES property (depending your memory of the site).
From about a year ago, there was intense interest in reusing the American Arms Hotel as a student-housing complex (something of a big deal in Wiesbaden with several university operations in the local region). There's two issues with this idea.....a parking garage might be required, and there's a funding requirement for some renovation to make it into apartments.
The Kastel housing/barracks area? There's two ideas. One was a mini-mall-type operation with some housing. The locals preferred a green solution with a couple of business operations and some housing. The green idea would have meant taking out a vast amount of concrete and asphalt.....landscaping.....and adding trees. Map-wise, I was looking over the site and doubt that it's more than thirty-five acres.
The Amelia Earhart Hotel? No one says much but it's likely another project for student housing. It's in great condition and has the parking garage already. Location-wise, it's a five-star location....near bus lines and within walking distance of the railroad station of Wiesbaden.
The Kastel storage site? At best, it's forty acres, with mostly large-scale warehouses. Most were built in the 1960s and 1970s.....so it's hard to see them being retained in anyway by the city. My guess is that the whole thing is bulldozed and most of the site ends up as a commercial site, with a quarter of it as some Kastel park (my suggestion, not theirs).
More sites to flip? No. Presently, no one has suggested any other property. The old BX on the hill? It'll be torn down at some point as the new BX opens but no one is talking of that property flipping to the Wiesbaden authorities.
Cops and Trouble
It was one of those situations that will barely get mentioned in German news, but it displays some of the continual situations arising from rapid immigration.
Somewhere along 6PM on Tuesday night (3 Mar)....up in Altendorf (a smaller town near Essen in the north of Germany).....the cop station had this situation develop with Lebanese families from the area.
Based on various descriptions.....the scene came up this way where someone from one of the Lebanese families felt that he'd been screwed over on a deal with a guy from another Lebanese family. You can compare it to mafia-like situations or Scottish clans....where it became a family versus family episode.
So as guy number one and his assorted friends arrive at this Altendorf station to lodge a complaint.....some guys from the opposing family began to arrive as well. It's not completely clear but you get the impression that they were going to counter-complain.
As both groups of families grasped the situation.....they apparently called out to associate families and they began to show up as well. In the words of one reporter....."dozens" of family members descended upon this one station.
For small town police stations, like Altendorf.....a burb of Essen....the population is around 20,000. A typical cop station, on an evening shift.....might have thirty to forty folks, at least at the beginning of the shift. The situation reached a point within an hour of the first guy arriving....where the cops in the station didn't think they had enough people to control the situation. They called out to surrounding towns for more reinforcements.
After these other cops arrive.....the situation starts to chill out and tensions lessen. The cops took the original guy's complaint and it would appear that the second guy got a chance to lodge his counter-complaint.
What'll happen now? The prosecutor will get the complaints and assign some junior guy to read them over and invite witnesses. None of this may ever go to some city magistrate, but you can't be sure where the facts will lead this case.
The odds of something like this occurring with a German? Virtually zero. You simply don't have German clans or mafia-like families. If there was some disagreement to erupt between two Germans.....it typically gets turned to lawyers and they drag this off to a court area with a magistrate making a decision. In some radical situations......a guy might come over to burn down or damage the second guy's business. But some massive family or mafia-like episode? No.....it just doesn't happen.
An episode like this will get some notice locally....mostly as a immigration issue and why things aren't working the way that German political figures try to suggest. As for the cops? It says a lot about the way that German cops defuse a situation....put plenty of people into the mix and let them know more are coming. Strength in numbers....usually works.
Somewhere along 6PM on Tuesday night (3 Mar)....up in Altendorf (a smaller town near Essen in the north of Germany).....the cop station had this situation develop with Lebanese families from the area.
Based on various descriptions.....the scene came up this way where someone from one of the Lebanese families felt that he'd been screwed over on a deal with a guy from another Lebanese family. You can compare it to mafia-like situations or Scottish clans....where it became a family versus family episode.
So as guy number one and his assorted friends arrive at this Altendorf station to lodge a complaint.....some guys from the opposing family began to arrive as well. It's not completely clear but you get the impression that they were going to counter-complain.
As both groups of families grasped the situation.....they apparently called out to associate families and they began to show up as well. In the words of one reporter....."dozens" of family members descended upon this one station.
For small town police stations, like Altendorf.....a burb of Essen....the population is around 20,000. A typical cop station, on an evening shift.....might have thirty to forty folks, at least at the beginning of the shift. The situation reached a point within an hour of the first guy arriving....where the cops in the station didn't think they had enough people to control the situation. They called out to surrounding towns for more reinforcements.
After these other cops arrive.....the situation starts to chill out and tensions lessen. The cops took the original guy's complaint and it would appear that the second guy got a chance to lodge his counter-complaint.
What'll happen now? The prosecutor will get the complaints and assign some junior guy to read them over and invite witnesses. None of this may ever go to some city magistrate, but you can't be sure where the facts will lead this case.
The odds of something like this occurring with a German? Virtually zero. You simply don't have German clans or mafia-like families. If there was some disagreement to erupt between two Germans.....it typically gets turned to lawyers and they drag this off to a court area with a magistrate making a decision. In some radical situations......a guy might come over to burn down or damage the second guy's business. But some massive family or mafia-like episode? No.....it just doesn't happen.
An episode like this will get some notice locally....mostly as a immigration issue and why things aren't working the way that German political figures try to suggest. As for the cops? It says a lot about the way that German cops defuse a situation....put plenty of people into the mix and let them know more are coming. Strength in numbers....usually works.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Asylum, the Bio-Hotel, and Hessen
Up in north Hessen (over two hours away from me), there's this small village of Gilserberg. It's a village of nowhere.....three-hundred-odd residents.....with an old railway station that was converted a decade or two ago into a 'bio-hotel'.
Defining a bio-hotel? Well....it has to be all natural. That means when you step into the room....it's a wood floor, natural materials, wood (no plastics), real cotton sheets, goose-feather pillows, and a restaurant that serves robust home-cooked meals with no additives. Somewhere nearby is a significant walking trail, plenty of open landscape, and flowing streams.
Things have gotten stirred up in Gilserberg for an odd reason. The town council (with the mayor) are firmed up to offer the bio-hotel operation for an asylum holding point. Yeah, they want to take the whole hotel operation and flip it over for a minimum of thirty asylum seekers. The selling point is that it's a quiet village and near a kindergarten. The locals? They've gotten pretty hostile about this offering deal....they don't want asylum seekers in the town.
The size of the rooms? From the various descriptions offered, these are your typical single bed or double bed rooms. You might be able to cram a couple with one kid into room.
From what the journalists say, there's a two-phase approach to this. Thirty folks would come in early March, and another group would come by May (making the final total between eighty and ninety).
Why seek a contract for the asylum hotel? I can only make a guess that the bio-hotel scheme for business isn't paying off. No one says what the government pays, but you'd have to assume they'd pay for each room rented and cover lunch and dinner options via the small restaurant within the hotel.
One might assume forty rooms....renting out at forty Euro a day, meaning 1,600 Euro a day, multiplied by thirty days? Over 48,000 Euro.....then toss in the lunch/dinner option, and you might be up around 58,000 Euro a month flowing through the hotel. That might be three or four times the normal amount of money that the hotel generates. Profit-wise, you might actually clear 200,000 Euro a year (before taxes).
The question is.....what type of characters will you be attracting? What will they be doing in their off-time? Will there be trouble? You can't predict this. You might run such a facility for two years and never have an ounce of trouble....ever.
My prediction is someone will watch over this and eventually make a commercial TV comedy over such a Hessen refugee center in some remote village, and make a hit out of it.
Defining a bio-hotel? Well....it has to be all natural. That means when you step into the room....it's a wood floor, natural materials, wood (no plastics), real cotton sheets, goose-feather pillows, and a restaurant that serves robust home-cooked meals with no additives. Somewhere nearby is a significant walking trail, plenty of open landscape, and flowing streams.
Things have gotten stirred up in Gilserberg for an odd reason. The town council (with the mayor) are firmed up to offer the bio-hotel operation for an asylum holding point. Yeah, they want to take the whole hotel operation and flip it over for a minimum of thirty asylum seekers. The selling point is that it's a quiet village and near a kindergarten. The locals? They've gotten pretty hostile about this offering deal....they don't want asylum seekers in the town.
The size of the rooms? From the various descriptions offered, these are your typical single bed or double bed rooms. You might be able to cram a couple with one kid into room.
From what the journalists say, there's a two-phase approach to this. Thirty folks would come in early March, and another group would come by May (making the final total between eighty and ninety).
Why seek a contract for the asylum hotel? I can only make a guess that the bio-hotel scheme for business isn't paying off. No one says what the government pays, but you'd have to assume they'd pay for each room rented and cover lunch and dinner options via the small restaurant within the hotel.
One might assume forty rooms....renting out at forty Euro a day, meaning 1,600 Euro a day, multiplied by thirty days? Over 48,000 Euro.....then toss in the lunch/dinner option, and you might be up around 58,000 Euro a month flowing through the hotel. That might be three or four times the normal amount of money that the hotel generates. Profit-wise, you might actually clear 200,000 Euro a year (before taxes).
The question is.....what type of characters will you be attracting? What will they be doing in their off-time? Will there be trouble? You can't predict this. You might run such a facility for two years and never have an ounce of trouble....ever.
My prediction is someone will watch over this and eventually make a commercial TV comedy over such a Hessen refugee center in some remote village, and make a hit out of it.
Local Snake Story
About twenty miles southwest of where I live....near Darmstadt....cops got called this past weekend to a point on the banks of the Rhine River.
Dead boa constrictor snake.
Yeah....eleven foot long.....laying there on the side of the river.
What the snake experts say is that the snake probably expired from the low temperatures of the past week or two.
Shocking? Well....here in Germany, you don't typically don't find snakes of any type. So, naturally, there are questions. No owner has come up to say anything....mostly because there's some big rules that he violated.
The only folks happy about this? The Senckenberg Museum is the organization that ends up with the snake and intend to make some type of display out of it.
I sat and read over the whole story, or what facts do exist. The thing is.....this snake could have been 'lost' for a year or two in some local building and simply surviving off mice. Perhaps winter came along....low supply of mice....and the boa left the warm comforts of the building in search of food down near the river.
Dead boa constrictor snake.
Yeah....eleven foot long.....laying there on the side of the river.
What the snake experts say is that the snake probably expired from the low temperatures of the past week or two.
Shocking? Well....here in Germany, you don't typically don't find snakes of any type. So, naturally, there are questions. No owner has come up to say anything....mostly because there's some big rules that he violated.
The only folks happy about this? The Senckenberg Museum is the organization that ends up with the snake and intend to make some type of display out of it.
I sat and read over the whole story, or what facts do exist. The thing is.....this snake could have been 'lost' for a year or two in some local building and simply surviving off mice. Perhaps winter came along....low supply of mice....and the boa left the warm comforts of the building in search of food down near the river.
Monday, March 2, 2015
One-Way Cans/Bottles?
Around a decade ago....Germany passed regulations that required all soda cans and bottles (glass and plastic) to be re-usable. This meant a 'pfund' situation where you paid a deposit and got the money back later at some gas station, grocery, or drink shop. Generally, most Germans all grumbled about this regulation, accepted it, and continued on.
Over the past year....there's this new expression that has come about in German society....one-way drinks. It's basically a container that cannot be reused. The chief company pushing the product? Coca-Cola.
Coke looked over the regulations and it plainly says that all containers must be in a recyclable container....but it's less stringent that it must be the type collected with a pfund (deposit).
Naturally, in the last few weeks....the folks who press hard on recycling believe that Coke is not playing by the rules and have been suggesting additional layers of rules to prevent this avoidance. Yeah, you read it right....obeying the current rules and thus skipping the pfund gimmick.....so more rules need to be written.
The Federal Environmental Ministry has so far denied any plans exist and aren't talking about making such rules.
The environmentalists are suggesting a standard pfund of 20-cents for all one-way containers.....so you'd have to return a non-reusable container.....for simple waste collection. As stupid as it sounds.....it's the only way to make this work the environmental way.
The comeback used in this argument is that precious resources are often used in bottle/can production.....so re-use simply makes sense.
A month or two ago, I sat and watched a news piece from the state-run network HR, which oddly covered the re-used plastic bottles for sodas. The science guy got to some point where he kinda admitted degradation occurring with the plastic bottles after X number of uses. Yeah, a breakdown of plastics. Bad for humans? He didn't get to the point of this......or it was removed from the discussion.
Eventually, I expect some science guys to show up and note that bottles are the only safe item for re-use, and we are contaminating society with this stupid recycling pfund/deposit gimmick. But don't worry....this is probably another decade away from Germans realizing it and changing the rules back to the old system.
As for Coke and their one-way cans/containers? Don't worry.....various shops and distributors are already buying sodas made outside of Germany and just avoiding the government's gimmick. It might not be obvious or legal.....but it's going on already. Coke is simply playing the game legally.
Over the past year....there's this new expression that has come about in German society....one-way drinks. It's basically a container that cannot be reused. The chief company pushing the product? Coca-Cola.
Coke looked over the regulations and it plainly says that all containers must be in a recyclable container....but it's less stringent that it must be the type collected with a pfund (deposit).
Naturally, in the last few weeks....the folks who press hard on recycling believe that Coke is not playing by the rules and have been suggesting additional layers of rules to prevent this avoidance. Yeah, you read it right....obeying the current rules and thus skipping the pfund gimmick.....so more rules need to be written.
The Federal Environmental Ministry has so far denied any plans exist and aren't talking about making such rules.
The environmentalists are suggesting a standard pfund of 20-cents for all one-way containers.....so you'd have to return a non-reusable container.....for simple waste collection. As stupid as it sounds.....it's the only way to make this work the environmental way.
The comeback used in this argument is that precious resources are often used in bottle/can production.....so re-use simply makes sense.
A month or two ago, I sat and watched a news piece from the state-run network HR, which oddly covered the re-used plastic bottles for sodas. The science guy got to some point where he kinda admitted degradation occurring with the plastic bottles after X number of uses. Yeah, a breakdown of plastics. Bad for humans? He didn't get to the point of this......or it was removed from the discussion.
Eventually, I expect some science guys to show up and note that bottles are the only safe item for re-use, and we are contaminating society with this stupid recycling pfund/deposit gimmick. But don't worry....this is probably another decade away from Germans realizing it and changing the rules back to the old system.
As for Coke and their one-way cans/containers? Don't worry.....various shops and distributors are already buying sodas made outside of Germany and just avoiding the government's gimmick. It might not be obvious or legal.....but it's going on already. Coke is simply playing the game legally.
The Illusion/Delusion Factor
There is a slight difference between an illusion and a delusion.
An illusion is simply a false concept or idea where your mind sees something but notes it as simply 'unreal'.
A delusion is where impression of an event or situation, where there is some action going on, where someone or some group is trying to convince you of the wrong thing....in essence fooling you or deceiving you.
Over the past couple of months, there's been this environmentalist type fight going on against wind-mill construction here in Hessen.
The big part of this issue is that wind-mill investors got smart over the past twenty years and know there's only three places where you want to put up wind-mill farms....coastal waters, plateau areas and hill-tops. This is the only way that you get maximum power for the majority of days throughout a year.
So, the companies have taken up the option of finding forested areas....especially in Hessen....acquiring usage of the property.....which usually state-owned property, and building their wind-mill farms there. This typically means a fifteen-acre section gets trimmed down drastically of trees and six to ten wind-mills get put up. Adding to the solution.....you have to find somewhat remote areas now because putting such an operation up....near a village or town...draws negativity and complaints. It just makes sense to find forested areas.
Well, all of this attracted the negative attention of certain environmentalists. The pro-tree and pro-green crowd are taking political stands against the pro-wind-mill crowd.
This past week, in Fulda (east Hessen)....roughly six hundred folks came to a local protest against wind-mill episodes. Last week, using a court injunction.....they stopped the placement of the wind-mills in the Fulda region. The trees were already knocked down but the enthusiasts were able to stop any further development of the small acreage. The current political gimmick being suggested is a voter initiative....removing this topic from politics.
How a local vote might come out? No one can be sure. Added to the problem.....just how far do you allow the vote? If this was a local forest.....there might be five or six local villages or towns involved. If it's a state forest.....I don't see how you allow the voter initiative to occur without the entire state of Hessen voting on it. Perception by locals? I suspect if you asked a hundred folks over twenty-one....most would say it's not much of a topic for them to worry about and there's dozens of more pressing issues (immigration, jobs, pension reform, refugees, robberies and assaults, etc).
So, I come to the topic of wind-mills and environmentalism....then stir up illusions and delusions. For years, everyone felt that something good would come of this magnificent crusade that environmentalists were engaged upon. Clean power, anti-nukes, cleaning up lakes and river, etc. Was this crusade an illusion....just something that we felt was going to come and be pure and wonderful? Or was it a delusion, where some people manipulated the system and deceived us on purpose?
Putting wind-mills on a largely underpopulated and flat area....out of sight....might sound wonderful, but there's no high capacity gain on the wind being there for three-hundred days out of the year. They need to be on hill-tops and plateaus. Strangely enough....these are the areas that the German states staked out decades ago....as state-owned forests, and sought to protect. As much as the environmentalists are trying to achieve one result.....they are screwing up the priorities that were originally part of the system.
And mixing a voter initiative into this? I hate to say this, but it's purely delusional, with some odd manipulation standing in the midst of the whole topic now.
An illusion is simply a false concept or idea where your mind sees something but notes it as simply 'unreal'.
A delusion is where impression of an event or situation, where there is some action going on, where someone or some group is trying to convince you of the wrong thing....in essence fooling you or deceiving you.
Over the past couple of months, there's been this environmentalist type fight going on against wind-mill construction here in Hessen.
The big part of this issue is that wind-mill investors got smart over the past twenty years and know there's only three places where you want to put up wind-mill farms....coastal waters, plateau areas and hill-tops. This is the only way that you get maximum power for the majority of days throughout a year.
So, the companies have taken up the option of finding forested areas....especially in Hessen....acquiring usage of the property.....which usually state-owned property, and building their wind-mill farms there. This typically means a fifteen-acre section gets trimmed down drastically of trees and six to ten wind-mills get put up. Adding to the solution.....you have to find somewhat remote areas now because putting such an operation up....near a village or town...draws negativity and complaints. It just makes sense to find forested areas.
Well, all of this attracted the negative attention of certain environmentalists. The pro-tree and pro-green crowd are taking political stands against the pro-wind-mill crowd.
This past week, in Fulda (east Hessen)....roughly six hundred folks came to a local protest against wind-mill episodes. Last week, using a court injunction.....they stopped the placement of the wind-mills in the Fulda region. The trees were already knocked down but the enthusiasts were able to stop any further development of the small acreage. The current political gimmick being suggested is a voter initiative....removing this topic from politics.
How a local vote might come out? No one can be sure. Added to the problem.....just how far do you allow the vote? If this was a local forest.....there might be five or six local villages or towns involved. If it's a state forest.....I don't see how you allow the voter initiative to occur without the entire state of Hessen voting on it. Perception by locals? I suspect if you asked a hundred folks over twenty-one....most would say it's not much of a topic for them to worry about and there's dozens of more pressing issues (immigration, jobs, pension reform, refugees, robberies and assaults, etc).
So, I come to the topic of wind-mills and environmentalism....then stir up illusions and delusions. For years, everyone felt that something good would come of this magnificent crusade that environmentalists were engaged upon. Clean power, anti-nukes, cleaning up lakes and river, etc. Was this crusade an illusion....just something that we felt was going to come and be pure and wonderful? Or was it a delusion, where some people manipulated the system and deceived us on purpose?
Putting wind-mills on a largely underpopulated and flat area....out of sight....might sound wonderful, but there's no high capacity gain on the wind being there for three-hundred days out of the year. They need to be on hill-tops and plateaus. Strangely enough....these are the areas that the German states staked out decades ago....as state-owned forests, and sought to protect. As much as the environmentalists are trying to achieve one result.....they are screwing up the priorities that were originally part of the system.
And mixing a voter initiative into this? I hate to say this, but it's purely delusional, with some odd manipulation standing in the midst of the whole topic now.
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