For months here in 2016, the government had stuck by the story of 1.1 million refugees, immigrants and migrants entering Germany in 2015. In the past twenty-four hours.....they dropped that "fact" and went to the current number of 890,000 (more or less). That's 210,000 less migrants.
How did they screw up?
A lot of Germans seem to have forgotten that for almost a decade.....Germany had been projecting itself at 82 million residents, then one day....a software team arrived and began to look at the database (this would have been around 2007-2010). The team eventually went up and spoke to the boss.....there's some duplicates in the master listing.
Well.....how many? By the end, they had cut almost one-million Germans off the master list of residents.
It seems that when folks pack up and move from one city to another....they go and register themselves at the new city, and the old city "deducts" them. Well....folks weren't being deducted in every single case. Some towns lost thousands (like Kaiserslautern for example). Some complained but the reality was that there just weren't 82-million people existing at that point. Note: this has changed in the past twelve months and they've pumped themselves back up to 82-million.
So with the refugees....did they so easily add 210,000?
My guess is that as a hundred guys showed up at such-and-such center at the Bavarian border....Huns-the-computer-guy entered all hundred into a database and gave them a small sheet of paper, with a name and special number. Then they gave the hundred a box lunch and a bottle of water....two hours later, a bus came and took them to the "welcome-center" where they'd get a shower, clean clothing, and a bunk for two or three days.
A couple of the hundred asked questions and noted that they had relatives in Hessen or the Pfalz, and wanted to sent onto that region.....but they'd lost that slip of paper. So the computer guy asked for info and eventually made another entry, with another number, and printed another slip of paper.
Then a couple of the folks get put on a bus and land in the Pfalz....at a more permanent camp. Something happens at this point, where another dozen guys arrive, who've lost their slips.....and the next computer guy enters them yet a third time.
Day after day in 2015.....folks were added....maybe a second, a third, a fourth, and maybe even a fifth time.
The system was begging to be fixed, and the leadership just couldn't grasp that fact. The sad thing is that this overage of 210,000 would have lessen the criticism of the Merkel government, and lessen the push by the AfD in 2015 and 2016. In some ways, they helped to marginalize the Merkel government by their stupidity.
But this brings me to this odd feature of the problem. So.....all this money funneled into the chaos.....is it for real people, or just made-up numbers? Are we all paying taxes into a funnel to cover the migrants and immigrants......who don't exist?
Then we come to other odd question. The 210,000.....do they come equally from each of the sixteen states....or did they all come from primarily two or three states? Oddly, they really didn't lay out this part of the issue, nor did the reporters ask any additional questions.
The other funny thing to this.....it radically changes the country-make-up of the migrants. There were less Iraqis....less Syrians....etc. Yet no one asked questions about that either.
So here we are....the Berlin crowd admitted to yet another screw-up with this whole thing, but at least it lessen the impact of 2015 (twenty-percent less).
Friday, September 30, 2016
The "FUNK" Story
Several years ago here in Germany.....the ZDF/ARD public-run TV empires came to a mutual understanding....a shocker at the time....that young people aren't watching their product.
After a while, they began to grasp that if the trend held out....this growing population of non-viewers would eventually reach the point of suggesting that the TV tax was unfair and that public-run TV was not a necessity in life. So began a search for a solution.
Yesterday, came the solution...."FUNK".
FUNK is this downloadable or data-streaming network that will exist for a younger audience.
What the ZDF and ARD folks realized is that younger viewers don't watch regular TV. They prefer to log on and download what they want to watch, at the time that they desire.
They also came to realize that cheap productions don't work. The younger generation want science fiction and more youth-related TV products, so what FUNK will produce will go into this direction.
Success guaranteed? No. To produce quality science fiction TV....means money. No one said much yesterday but after watching a four-minute review of their product, I can only assume that the TV tax will have to go up a minimum of 2 Euro more a month (17.50 Euro a month now) to meet this new cost dynamic. Will the kids even come to review this network or download anything? It's hard to say.
At one point, they wanted people to know that the network will also serve to provide information and news....in a fashion that younger viewers desire. How? Unexplained.
Then I noticed some of the packaged news pieces. Strong anti-BREXIT products....pro-EU products....environmental issues laid out. Basically the same themes as the ZDF and ARD players. Will the news pieces be downloaded? My humble guess is "no". They might find 50,000 young viewers....mostly university students who fall into this category, but I suspect that 90-percent of the young audience will just grin and continue the trend toward Netflix and Amazon.
They had to do something in an attempt to reacquire the young viewers but I just don't see this being the success that ZDF and ARD talk about. In three years, they will assess the numbers and find that it's got two or three shows that get a decent audience, and the bulk of their daily production (probably over 22 hours a day) will be marginally downloaded.
Yesterday, came the solution...."FUNK".
FUNK is this downloadable or data-streaming network that will exist for a younger audience.
What the ZDF and ARD folks realized is that younger viewers don't watch regular TV. They prefer to log on and download what they want to watch, at the time that they desire.
They also came to realize that cheap productions don't work. The younger generation want science fiction and more youth-related TV products, so what FUNK will produce will go into this direction.
Success guaranteed? No. To produce quality science fiction TV....means money. No one said much yesterday but after watching a four-minute review of their product, I can only assume that the TV tax will have to go up a minimum of 2 Euro more a month (17.50 Euro a month now) to meet this new cost dynamic. Will the kids even come to review this network or download anything? It's hard to say.
At one point, they wanted people to know that the network will also serve to provide information and news....in a fashion that younger viewers desire. How? Unexplained.
Then I noticed some of the packaged news pieces. Strong anti-BREXIT products....pro-EU products....environmental issues laid out. Basically the same themes as the ZDF and ARD players. Will the news pieces be downloaded? My humble guess is "no". They might find 50,000 young viewers....mostly university students who fall into this category, but I suspect that 90-percent of the young audience will just grin and continue the trend toward Netflix and Amazon.
They had to do something in an attempt to reacquire the young viewers but I just don't see this being the success that ZDF and ARD talk about. In three years, they will assess the numbers and find that it's got two or three shows that get a decent audience, and the bulk of their daily production (probably over 22 hours a day) will be marginally downloaded.
The Bank Job Problem
So, the German Commerz Bank has decided to trim back 9,600 jobs in Germany. It won't happen all in one single month, or one single year....the analysts hint that it should be finished by 2020. Some folks may find job offers to come back within the bank, but in a totally different capacity.
The Deutsche Bank? It's announcement in the past week involved the cut of 7,300 jobs. This probably won't be spread out to 2020, and a fair number of people will be let go over the next twelve months. In their case, the jobs will be internationally done.....so the affect on the German market is a question mark. One might assume that half of these jobs will be from within Germany itself.
If you add it up.....it's probably in the range of 12,000 banking sector jobs in Germany. Those who are near sixty....probably will go and retire....using some of their savings to cover things until they reach 65 and they get their pension. The rest? That's a big question mark.
What does an unemployed bank employee do?
Some of their talents might fit into the insurance business but there's no growth in jobs there. Some of the jobs might fit into a regular clerk field, but there's no growth there.
You can imagine in a town like Wiesbaden.....being the bank-jobs-technician....you sit and review forty folders. No job growth in town for these people, and so you need to convince them to retrain. Some who are in their 20's....might easily accept this. Some who are in their 40's....won't easily accept this. Some in their 50's.....will be extremely disturbed by this mess.
Two or three years from now....you might be standing in some small grocery and chatting with the new shift supervisor of the grocery.....then come to realize that he was your mid-level bank boss from town, and this is his new profession.
It's an odd problem....one must admit.
The Deutsche Bank? It's announcement in the past week involved the cut of 7,300 jobs. This probably won't be spread out to 2020, and a fair number of people will be let go over the next twelve months. In their case, the jobs will be internationally done.....so the affect on the German market is a question mark. One might assume that half of these jobs will be from within Germany itself.
If you add it up.....it's probably in the range of 12,000 banking sector jobs in Germany. Those who are near sixty....probably will go and retire....using some of their savings to cover things until they reach 65 and they get their pension. The rest? That's a big question mark.
What does an unemployed bank employee do?
Some of their talents might fit into the insurance business but there's no growth in jobs there. Some of the jobs might fit into a regular clerk field, but there's no growth there.
You can imagine in a town like Wiesbaden.....being the bank-jobs-technician....you sit and review forty folders. No job growth in town for these people, and so you need to convince them to retrain. Some who are in their 20's....might easily accept this. Some who are in their 40's....won't easily accept this. Some in their 50's.....will be extremely disturbed by this mess.
Two or three years from now....you might be standing in some small grocery and chatting with the new shift supervisor of the grocery.....then come to realize that he was your mid-level bank boss from town, and this is his new profession.
It's an odd problem....one must admit.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Deutschland Sucht Chancellor (Germany Seeks a Chancellor)
There are two German TV shows.....Bauer Sucht Frau (Farmer Seeks a Wife) and Deutschland Sucht Super-Star, which Germans tend to watch and get all hyped up over some reality TV business.
Very shortly, in about 120 to 150 days, we will begin an election cycle and start the way toward the next Chancellor. Most folks are convinced that Merkel won't run again, and it'll open the door for a wide debate over current policies and where things ought to go.
Frankly, if you line up the cast of characters....no one is really that excited (they'd probably get more excited about the two TV shows and their entertainment value).
The SPD (left-of-center Democrats) talk about Gabriel as their lead guy, but the true player is Martin Schulz....the EU SPD guy. His thing though is that it's best not to talk about the immigration, integration or refugee business because there's no real changes that he wants to bring to the table. So, his slant on this.....hopefully looking at Trump winning and make an anti-Trump and anti-US campaign out of thin air.
The CDU? Two or three close associates of Merkels are on the chart and might make it as the CDU Chancellor candidate. None would be appreciated that much. The CDU player out of the Pfalz....Julie Klockner? She has a 25-percent chance of being the candidate and probably generating more interest than most folks. But she's also determined to have a change on the immigration and refugee policy.....which may not interest the leadership within the CDU party that much.
The Greens and Linke Party? Marginal interest across the nation.
Then you come to AfD (the anti-immigration party). Frauke Petry is the current head and does good in debates. Nationally? Probably not that much enthusiasm for her.
There just isn't anyone with charm, charisma, or debate skills that really stands out. A Schulz versus Klockner versus Petry race? Yeah, and it'd be curious how the public reacts to a non-Merkel race and some new direction on refugees and integration laid out.
The effort to make this into a anti-US or anti-Trump election? There's a research project from 2015 which asked Germans about their trust in the news media....with roughly two-thirds of Germans saying that they don't have trust any longer. Even if the news media carries the anti-US or anti-Trump theme.....the public will stay back with the current anti-immigration or anti-integration issue. It's hard to see where this election would go and who might carve out a 25-to-30 percent win and who they would partner up in a coalition with. The AfD is considered toxic and will not be able to partner with anyone.
So, as we approach early spring of 2017.....settle back and prepare for an interesting race.
Very shortly, in about 120 to 150 days, we will begin an election cycle and start the way toward the next Chancellor. Most folks are convinced that Merkel won't run again, and it'll open the door for a wide debate over current policies and where things ought to go.
Frankly, if you line up the cast of characters....no one is really that excited (they'd probably get more excited about the two TV shows and their entertainment value).
The SPD (left-of-center Democrats) talk about Gabriel as their lead guy, but the true player is Martin Schulz....the EU SPD guy. His thing though is that it's best not to talk about the immigration, integration or refugee business because there's no real changes that he wants to bring to the table. So, his slant on this.....hopefully looking at Trump winning and make an anti-Trump and anti-US campaign out of thin air.
The CDU? Two or three close associates of Merkels are on the chart and might make it as the CDU Chancellor candidate. None would be appreciated that much. The CDU player out of the Pfalz....Julie Klockner? She has a 25-percent chance of being the candidate and probably generating more interest than most folks. But she's also determined to have a change on the immigration and refugee policy.....which may not interest the leadership within the CDU party that much.
The Greens and Linke Party? Marginal interest across the nation.
Then you come to AfD (the anti-immigration party). Frauke Petry is the current head and does good in debates. Nationally? Probably not that much enthusiasm for her.
There just isn't anyone with charm, charisma, or debate skills that really stands out. A Schulz versus Klockner versus Petry race? Yeah, and it'd be curious how the public reacts to a non-Merkel race and some new direction on refugees and integration laid out.
The effort to make this into a anti-US or anti-Trump election? There's a research project from 2015 which asked Germans about their trust in the news media....with roughly two-thirds of Germans saying that they don't have trust any longer. Even if the news media carries the anti-US or anti-Trump theme.....the public will stay back with the current anti-immigration or anti-integration issue. It's hard to see where this election would go and who might carve out a 25-to-30 percent win and who they would partner up in a coalition with. The AfD is considered toxic and will not be able to partner with anyone.
So, as we approach early spring of 2017.....settle back and prepare for an interesting race.
Monday, September 26, 2016
German Spread on Trump-Clinton Election
Last night, via German public-run ARD, the Anne Will Show came on. The public forum chat topic? Trump-Clinton.
There are six observations to make from this show, which featured five entertaining guests.
1. "Are Americans that stupid?" This was the question at some point directed by Anne Will (the moderator) toward Thomas Gottschalk (the German entertainer who lives out of California). In about sixty seconds, Gottschalk laid it out....that Americans are the always the energetic child-like people....always pumped up and going onto the next thing. He didn't mean it as a slam, but just the way that public things work.
The suggestion here by the moderator.....which the public would normally perceive is that Americans really aren't capable of making correct decisions. This theme came over and over in the forum.
2. The chief active political player invited as a guest? Martin Schulz (SPD) who typically is a EU member. It's an amusing invitation because behind the scenes.....Schulz is being seen as the top SPD chancellor candidate instead of Gabriel. Few Germans know that, and it's not widely discussed.
Throughout the evening Schulz laid out issues and problems with Trump. I would suggest that the chief political theme for summer and fall of 2017 for the SPD in it's way toward the Oct/Nov election.....instead of security and immigration.....it'll be an anti-US/anti-Trump theme. Amusing to some but not likely to work as it has in the past.
3. A fair amount of assumption by the entire panel that Trump wouldn't win. This is the part that surprised me....in that they are fairly assessing the situation and have already determined that Hillary would win against Trump.
Back in April and May, Hillary would come up as a topic and talk was always positive on public-run TV on her campaign. Now? The assessment must be in and the sense is that she's in a bad situation.
4. Roger Johnson was the sole American on the panel and did a fair job (in German) explaining the whole thing. He is a Republican, I should note. Oddly, they didn't invite someone to hype up Hillary, which made one wonder if they had quietly gone ahead and assumed she was pre-determined loser.
Johnson's one key positive in the episode came toward the end and explaining the public desire for more jobs. There is a significant assumption that only Trump can deliver on the jobs promise.....which no one seemed to argue much against that logical reason to pick Trump.
5. Only intellectuals and statesmen should be leaders. Over the first ten minutes of this show.....this topic was drilled down into, and repeated. Trump isn't a statesman, or an intellectual. Trump's profession as mentioned at least a dozen times over the evening.....is reality show host.
Perhaps they could have asked about the intellectualism assessed to President Obama.....or how Chancellor Merkel's intellectualism got them deep into AfD territory with disgruntled voters, but they didn't reach that stage.
There is a need for intellectuals within politics....but to say they are some kind of 'anchor' or the stable side of the game....is a joke.
6. A clear moment where you realized this forum had become an entertainment forum. Over and over, it was stressed via the guests of the show and the moderator.....that politics isn't entertainment. Yet, over and over.....they proved the point of all of this coming full circle and being entertainment for the public.
As I came to the end of this chat forum show.....I came to this odd conclusion. There are some people (political figures and journalists) who are generally in some trance or zombie-like state, and haven't met real people in a decade. These people (not just the ones who appeared on this show) aren't connected to the public or understand the general public frustration....whether it be in Germany or the US. They hang out with like-minded friends, sip wine with other intellectual-types, and read intellectual-minded material.
These were the people who want to tell you what the priorities are.....why things are great....and how you should appreciate things as they are. The general public frustration is obvious.
There are six observations to make from this show, which featured five entertaining guests.
1. "Are Americans that stupid?" This was the question at some point directed by Anne Will (the moderator) toward Thomas Gottschalk (the German entertainer who lives out of California). In about sixty seconds, Gottschalk laid it out....that Americans are the always the energetic child-like people....always pumped up and going onto the next thing. He didn't mean it as a slam, but just the way that public things work.
The suggestion here by the moderator.....which the public would normally perceive is that Americans really aren't capable of making correct decisions. This theme came over and over in the forum.
2. The chief active political player invited as a guest? Martin Schulz (SPD) who typically is a EU member. It's an amusing invitation because behind the scenes.....Schulz is being seen as the top SPD chancellor candidate instead of Gabriel. Few Germans know that, and it's not widely discussed.
Throughout the evening Schulz laid out issues and problems with Trump. I would suggest that the chief political theme for summer and fall of 2017 for the SPD in it's way toward the Oct/Nov election.....instead of security and immigration.....it'll be an anti-US/anti-Trump theme. Amusing to some but not likely to work as it has in the past.
3. A fair amount of assumption by the entire panel that Trump wouldn't win. This is the part that surprised me....in that they are fairly assessing the situation and have already determined that Hillary would win against Trump.
Back in April and May, Hillary would come up as a topic and talk was always positive on public-run TV on her campaign. Now? The assessment must be in and the sense is that she's in a bad situation.
4. Roger Johnson was the sole American on the panel and did a fair job (in German) explaining the whole thing. He is a Republican, I should note. Oddly, they didn't invite someone to hype up Hillary, which made one wonder if they had quietly gone ahead and assumed she was pre-determined loser.
Johnson's one key positive in the episode came toward the end and explaining the public desire for more jobs. There is a significant assumption that only Trump can deliver on the jobs promise.....which no one seemed to argue much against that logical reason to pick Trump.
5. Only intellectuals and statesmen should be leaders. Over the first ten minutes of this show.....this topic was drilled down into, and repeated. Trump isn't a statesman, or an intellectual. Trump's profession as mentioned at least a dozen times over the evening.....is reality show host.
Perhaps they could have asked about the intellectualism assessed to President Obama.....or how Chancellor Merkel's intellectualism got them deep into AfD territory with disgruntled voters, but they didn't reach that stage.
There is a need for intellectuals within politics....but to say they are some kind of 'anchor' or the stable side of the game....is a joke.
6. A clear moment where you realized this forum had become an entertainment forum. Over and over, it was stressed via the guests of the show and the moderator.....that politics isn't entertainment. Yet, over and over.....they proved the point of all of this coming full circle and being entertainment for the public.
As I came to the end of this chat forum show.....I came to this odd conclusion. There are some people (political figures and journalists) who are generally in some trance or zombie-like state, and haven't met real people in a decade. These people (not just the ones who appeared on this show) aren't connected to the public or understand the general public frustration....whether it be in Germany or the US. They hang out with like-minded friends, sip wine with other intellectual-types, and read intellectual-minded material.
These were the people who want to tell you what the priorities are.....why things are great....and how you should appreciate things as they are. The general public frustration is obvious.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Riga 94 Epic Story
If you live around Berlin, and hear the term "Riga-94" mentioned.....most Berliners will have an opinion. It goes from one side of the spectrum to the other.
I've blogged the house on Riga Strasse.....number 94....before. So I won't go into a long detailed description of the mess.
What you have is an old building on Riga Strasse....on the far east side of town....which squatters took over several decades ago.
I've blogged the house on Riga Strasse.....number 94....before. So I won't go into a long detailed description of the mess.
What you have is an old building on Riga Strasse....on the far east side of town....which squatters took over several decades ago.
Off and on....ownership has been called into question. Squatters refuse to leave. What you have are a number of oddball characters which make up some hippy-type commune who have resorted to violence and cops have responded with their form of violence. Neighbors take an uneasy view of the house and the "guests" that stay there. For the past five years....with a CDU senator in charge of the police force....it's been tense at times with some riots.
I noted in the Berlin news today that the Green Party and SPD Party (likely part of a new coalition in the state of Berlin) are talking about this new idea of handling Riga-94. They want the city to buy the property via the city's municipal housing authority. The house would then be city property and that would "fix" everything.
I sat there for five minutes after reading short article. It was written up by BR (the state-run Berlin regional network) by someone who just wanted to report the thing and be done with it. No analysis....no pondering....nothing.
Right now today....the property is owned by someone, who basically can't get the squatters to move on, and can't really modernize or improve the building because the squatters refuse to leave or allow any real significant changes. So you start to wonder.
Let's say the property changes hands tomorrow.....for 10,000 Euro. To be honest, it's bad shape and looks like some 3rd world apartment building. I would question any idiot paying more than 100,000 Euro at the very most. If the city did pay more.....I'd suggest corruption involved and have a complete audit of the people doing the deal.
So, we move on. The true owner at this point is the Berlin city municipal housing authority. My guess is that they own at least 200 similar structures around the city and have a basic code on who lives there, what they pay, and the safety/appearance of the facility does matter. So an inspector will arrive and note the upgrades required.
Will the squatters allow the upgrades? I doubt it.
Will the squatters agree to some kind of compensation or rent? I have my doubts.
Will the squatters agree to the city exercising their authority over the building? I doubt it.
After about a year of trying to take control and exercise normal authority (like the other 200-odd buildings).....some guy in the housing authority management group will have a chat with the mayor. He'll suggest that there's nothing being paid by the squatters on rent, and that they won't accept the authority's simplistic rules or code of conduct. The mayor will grin and say....yeah, that's for sure. After a while, the neighbors will finally have enough and go to a lawyer to sue the city because they won't resolve the condition of the building or kick the squatters out. The judge will look at the city and the municipal housing authority and ask what the heck is going on.
Basically, "nothing" will be the answer.
The positive is that the Greens and SPD will have wasted three years.....doing mostly nothing, spent at least 10,000 Euro to buy the building, and focused everyone on some resolution which really didn't fix anything in the end.
It's an odd political mess......actually worthy of a movie, if you ask me.
I noted in the Berlin news today that the Green Party and SPD Party (likely part of a new coalition in the state of Berlin) are talking about this new idea of handling Riga-94. They want the city to buy the property via the city's municipal housing authority. The house would then be city property and that would "fix" everything.
I sat there for five minutes after reading short article. It was written up by BR (the state-run Berlin regional network) by someone who just wanted to report the thing and be done with it. No analysis....no pondering....nothing.
Right now today....the property is owned by someone, who basically can't get the squatters to move on, and can't really modernize or improve the building because the squatters refuse to leave or allow any real significant changes. So you start to wonder.
Let's say the property changes hands tomorrow.....for 10,000 Euro. To be honest, it's bad shape and looks like some 3rd world apartment building. I would question any idiot paying more than 100,000 Euro at the very most. If the city did pay more.....I'd suggest corruption involved and have a complete audit of the people doing the deal.
So, we move on. The true owner at this point is the Berlin city municipal housing authority. My guess is that they own at least 200 similar structures around the city and have a basic code on who lives there, what they pay, and the safety/appearance of the facility does matter. So an inspector will arrive and note the upgrades required.
Will the squatters allow the upgrades? I doubt it.
Will the squatters agree to some kind of compensation or rent? I have my doubts.
Will the squatters agree to the city exercising their authority over the building? I doubt it.
After about a year of trying to take control and exercise normal authority (like the other 200-odd buildings).....some guy in the housing authority management group will have a chat with the mayor. He'll suggest that there's nothing being paid by the squatters on rent, and that they won't accept the authority's simplistic rules or code of conduct. The mayor will grin and say....yeah, that's for sure. After a while, the neighbors will finally have enough and go to a lawyer to sue the city because they won't resolve the condition of the building or kick the squatters out. The judge will look at the city and the municipal housing authority and ask what the heck is going on.
Basically, "nothing" will be the answer.
The positive is that the Greens and SPD will have wasted three years.....doing mostly nothing, spent at least 10,000 Euro to buy the building, and focused everyone on some resolution which really didn't fix anything in the end.
It's an odd political mess......actually worthy of a movie, if you ask me.
A Frustration to the Frustration Vote?
Since WW II, there's been this unwritten understanding between the CDU (Christian Democrats or Germany's Republican Party) and the CSU (Christian Social Union, or Germany's Bavarian-style Republican Party).
In fifteen states, the CDU operates and has candidates. In Bavaria, it's the CSU.
There are some hostile feelings brewing now between the two Conservative parties over Merkel's immigration vision. The Bavarians aren't happy and have been demanding changes over the past two years. For every two steps forward that they ask.....they get at best....one step forward.
There's been this hyped up discussion or threat.....that the CSU might go national, or that the CDU might enter Bavarian politics.
Today, it went one step closer as the governor of Hessen (a CDU member) brought up the topic again and said it could actually happen.
There are several observations that one might make.
If you look across the fifteen states where the CDU operates....a fair number of members are sticking to the party but it's obvious that while they can't vote for the AfD, they'd like a frustration vote. If the CSU (Bavarians) were existing in their state.....like Schleswig-Holstein (the state), which has an election in early May? The 28-percent polling rate that the CDU shows right now.....might drop 6-points and trigger an easy loss for the CDU. The Bavarians don't care if they only got 6-to-8 percent, it's the point that they could affect the CDU folks in their home territory.
The CSU in Saarbrucken in March of 2017 for their state election? Same story.....they could take 6-to-8 points off the CDU and cause them to lose that election.
The CSU in NRW in their May 2017 election? There might be enough frustration to slide 20-percent of the vote and deny the AfD a big chunk of the voting, and deny the CDU as well.
In some ways, I see this as a theater operation and some fakeness to it. If you had a real proven Conservative party to vote for, and you were seeking only a frustration opportunity to vote against Merkel, then the CSU makes perfect sense. Why waste a vote for the AfD?
Nationally for the CSU? No one has ever done a poll like this, and you have to wonder 'why not'?
The facts that we do know is that in Bavaria, the CSU can pull 8.5 percent of the national voting off their one single state.
If the CDU were to enter Bavarian politics? At best, the CDU might carve away one entire point in the national election. Most Bavarians probably wouldn't slip over unless there were more changes to the immigration policy.....the heart of the problem for the CDU in the first place.
So, all this talk.....something to generate a "frustration to the frustration-vote"?
It would make one wonder about this.
Worst case scenario.....another riot in Koln on 31 December 2016, massive sexual assaults, Turkey releasing refugees in the April 2017 period to come to Germany in massive numbers? With the AfD as a frustration vote and a weak CDU chancellor candidate.....the AfD might actually clear 20-to-24 percent of the national vote.
If you could create a fake diversion and give people the CSU Bavarians as a chance to send your frustration vote that way? I suspect that the AfD folks would barely clear 10-percent and the Bavarians would take the bulk of this frustration vote nationally. A 18-percent CDU win and a 24-percent CSU win? That probably would be enough the election and create a new partnership (really the same people, just in different numbers).
A fake frustration-vote opera? Yeah. It would be humorous to consider but these are Germans and fairly creative at things like this.
In fifteen states, the CDU operates and has candidates. In Bavaria, it's the CSU.
There are some hostile feelings brewing now between the two Conservative parties over Merkel's immigration vision. The Bavarians aren't happy and have been demanding changes over the past two years. For every two steps forward that they ask.....they get at best....one step forward.
There's been this hyped up discussion or threat.....that the CSU might go national, or that the CDU might enter Bavarian politics.
Today, it went one step closer as the governor of Hessen (a CDU member) brought up the topic again and said it could actually happen.
There are several observations that one might make.
If you look across the fifteen states where the CDU operates....a fair number of members are sticking to the party but it's obvious that while they can't vote for the AfD, they'd like a frustration vote. If the CSU (Bavarians) were existing in their state.....like Schleswig-Holstein (the state), which has an election in early May? The 28-percent polling rate that the CDU shows right now.....might drop 6-points and trigger an easy loss for the CDU. The Bavarians don't care if they only got 6-to-8 percent, it's the point that they could affect the CDU folks in their home territory.
The CSU in Saarbrucken in March of 2017 for their state election? Same story.....they could take 6-to-8 points off the CDU and cause them to lose that election.
The CSU in NRW in their May 2017 election? There might be enough frustration to slide 20-percent of the vote and deny the AfD a big chunk of the voting, and deny the CDU as well.
In some ways, I see this as a theater operation and some fakeness to it. If you had a real proven Conservative party to vote for, and you were seeking only a frustration opportunity to vote against Merkel, then the CSU makes perfect sense. Why waste a vote for the AfD?
Nationally for the CSU? No one has ever done a poll like this, and you have to wonder 'why not'?
The facts that we do know is that in Bavaria, the CSU can pull 8.5 percent of the national voting off their one single state.
If the CDU were to enter Bavarian politics? At best, the CDU might carve away one entire point in the national election. Most Bavarians probably wouldn't slip over unless there were more changes to the immigration policy.....the heart of the problem for the CDU in the first place.
So, all this talk.....something to generate a "frustration to the frustration-vote"?
It would make one wonder about this.
Worst case scenario.....another riot in Koln on 31 December 2016, massive sexual assaults, Turkey releasing refugees in the April 2017 period to come to Germany in massive numbers? With the AfD as a frustration vote and a weak CDU chancellor candidate.....the AfD might actually clear 20-to-24 percent of the national vote.
If you could create a fake diversion and give people the CSU Bavarians as a chance to send your frustration vote that way? I suspect that the AfD folks would barely clear 10-percent and the Bavarians would take the bulk of this frustration vote nationally. A 18-percent CDU win and a 24-percent CSU win? That probably would be enough the election and create a new partnership (really the same people, just in different numbers).
A fake frustration-vote opera? Yeah. It would be humorous to consider but these are Germans and fairly creative at things like this.
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
My Bus Audit Story
I sat this morning on a Wiesbaden city bus. We had around thirty folks on it as we left mid-town, and at some stop....three ticket-audit folks got onboard.
Kinda surprising on statistics. Out of 30 passengers....I'd say at least five didn't have a ticket (awful high statistics).
But from those five....two guys didn't have a passport. Both were immigrants. One guy....I would guess was Iraqi or Syrian, and the other Eritrean.
The Eritrean kid (around 20 to 24 years old) took to some bit of arguing with the audit gal. He wanted to just step off the bus, and she wasn't going to let him get away (60 Euro fine but you need the passport to asses this).
You could see that the kid was looking to ease back and go out the backdoor.....but the second audit guy (big guy) stood there to ensure he didn't leave.
We were nearing the cop station in that neighborhood, and so they yelled for the driver to stop there and they escorted the two folks to the front door. Cops would make the ID on both and settle this matter.
You see this occasionally with the immigrants.....they just seem to think that no one ever audits people on the buses. The 60 Euro fine? They can't really pay it but it goes to the auslander office and somewhere down the line.....it's going to be deducted from some payment to the guy.
Does someone ever explain this to the new immigrants? You'd think that some German bureaucrat would sit there and lay out a hundred really important things that you need to know once you get accepted to some center and await your visa.
Kinda surprising on statistics. Out of 30 passengers....I'd say at least five didn't have a ticket (awful high statistics).
But from those five....two guys didn't have a passport. Both were immigrants. One guy....I would guess was Iraqi or Syrian, and the other Eritrean.
The Eritrean kid (around 20 to 24 years old) took to some bit of arguing with the audit gal. He wanted to just step off the bus, and she wasn't going to let him get away (60 Euro fine but you need the passport to asses this).
You could see that the kid was looking to ease back and go out the backdoor.....but the second audit guy (big guy) stood there to ensure he didn't leave.
We were nearing the cop station in that neighborhood, and so they yelled for the driver to stop there and they escorted the two folks to the front door. Cops would make the ID on both and settle this matter.
You see this occasionally with the immigrants.....they just seem to think that no one ever audits people on the buses. The 60 Euro fine? They can't really pay it but it goes to the auslander office and somewhere down the line.....it's going to be deducted from some payment to the guy.
Does someone ever explain this to the new immigrants? You'd think that some German bureaucrat would sit there and lay out a hundred really important things that you need to know once you get accepted to some center and await your visa.
Monday, September 19, 2016
Berlin in Five Years
The final results of the election are:
SPD: 21.6
CDU: 17.6
Linke Party: 15.6
Green Party: 15.2
AfD Party: 14.2
FDP: 6.7
Roughly 9-percent went to parties who couldn't go over the five-percent point.
This election was more about urban issues than the national issues. Most Berliners think that the city is broke and in serious jeopardy. This new government coming out of this (likely to be the SPD-Linke Party-Greens) will have five years to reshape public opinion and go onto fixing the issues. The odds are...resolutions and repairs won't occur, and this five-year period is mostly about convincing the locals that things did get better.
For the CDU? It's a lousy trend and obvious that they've lost a quarter of their normal voters (as have the SPD as well).
The things to watch? The Riga Strasse riots and radicals will see a new slant on things....with the CDU boss over the police being pushed out. Will the riots continue?
The new Berlin Airport? Will it open or have more delays?
The housing issues with the immigrants? Will neighborhoods get more tense and frustrated with city plans?
Will the development of Templehof Airport continue to be discussed item?
This continued talk of making marijuana legal within the city? Will something finally occur?
If you were looking for an urbanized area with literally hundreds of issues and resolution hidden in the shadows.....Berlin is "it". I think in five years, when the next election rolls around, the same problems will be projected out and still exist. In some ways, the SPD is harnessed up to a losing situation.
SPD: 21.6
CDU: 17.6
Linke Party: 15.6
Green Party: 15.2
AfD Party: 14.2
FDP: 6.7
Roughly 9-percent went to parties who couldn't go over the five-percent point.
This election was more about urban issues than the national issues. Most Berliners think that the city is broke and in serious jeopardy. This new government coming out of this (likely to be the SPD-Linke Party-Greens) will have five years to reshape public opinion and go onto fixing the issues. The odds are...resolutions and repairs won't occur, and this five-year period is mostly about convincing the locals that things did get better.
For the CDU? It's a lousy trend and obvious that they've lost a quarter of their normal voters (as have the SPD as well).
The things to watch? The Riga Strasse riots and radicals will see a new slant on things....with the CDU boss over the police being pushed out. Will the riots continue?
The new Berlin Airport? Will it open or have more delays?
The housing issues with the immigrants? Will neighborhoods get more tense and frustrated with city plans?
Will the development of Templehof Airport continue to be discussed item?
This continued talk of making marijuana legal within the city? Will something finally occur?
If you were looking for an urbanized area with literally hundreds of issues and resolution hidden in the shadows.....Berlin is "it". I think in five years, when the next election rolls around, the same problems will be projected out and still exist. In some ways, the SPD is harnessed up to a losing situation.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
Berlin Election Results
Berlin polling stations closed at 6PM. Results presently:
SPD: 23-percent
CDU: 18-percent
Green Party: 16.5-percent
Linke Party: 16.5-percent
AfD Party: 11.5-percent
FDP: 5-percent
More results will roll in but these numbers will likely stay within one percent of what is reported at 6PM.
What you can take out of this? The Pirate Party is finished off.....they barely got 2-percent of the vote. The SPD fell from five years ago.....but they did win this election. Both the CDU and SPD lost 5 points off their results of 2011.....which isn't something you'd want to brag about. The Linke Party did gain five points over 2011 results and this shows they are still active. Finally, the FDP did exceptionally well....pulling 4.7-points better than in 2011.
AfD was believed last week to be closing in on 15-percent.....which they missed. But the Berlin election is about a number (over twenty) urban problems or issues, which are totally different from the national election.
Also, it should be pointed out that in West Berlin.....both the CDU and SPD did better than the east-end (old DDR section). The east-end voted heavily for the Linke Party and the AfD.
Who showed up? Sixty-six percent of those registered.....voted.
SPD: 23-percent
CDU: 18-percent
Green Party: 16.5-percent
Linke Party: 16.5-percent
AfD Party: 11.5-percent
FDP: 5-percent
More results will roll in but these numbers will likely stay within one percent of what is reported at 6PM.
What you can take out of this? The Pirate Party is finished off.....they barely got 2-percent of the vote. The SPD fell from five years ago.....but they did win this election. Both the CDU and SPD lost 5 points off their results of 2011.....which isn't something you'd want to brag about. The Linke Party did gain five points over 2011 results and this shows they are still active. Finally, the FDP did exceptionally well....pulling 4.7-points better than in 2011.
AfD was believed last week to be closing in on 15-percent.....which they missed. But the Berlin election is about a number (over twenty) urban problems or issues, which are totally different from the national election.
Also, it should be pointed out that in West Berlin.....both the CDU and SPD did better than the east-end (old DDR section). The east-end voted heavily for the Linke Party and the AfD.
Who showed up? Sixty-six percent of those registered.....voted.
Explaining Public-run TV and the Media Tax
The driving force in the 1950s as public-run TV came to exist in Germany was to provide a vehicle that would give the public some entertainment, valued culture, news, education and public forums. I should emphasize the word "some" in this case.
If you go and drag the executives who run ZDF and ARD into a forum.....they will tell you that public-run TV in Germany is a great asset, and that they strive to meet this wide spectrum of goals.
When they talk about culture, it's a theme where documentaries are produced that resemble National Geographic production shows, or some classical musical or opera. It's a theme that roughly ten-percent of German society appreciate.
So, what you have is two significant networks and another twenty sub-networks that feed off the two and their material.
Part of the weakness of the system is that they are trying to be all things for all people, and mostly failing at this. The younger viewers (under age twenty-five) have mostly drifted away from state-run TV. Presently.....units like Netflix are picking up more and more young German viewers.
The formula for the entertainment side? Movies are regularly produced off award-winning books in Germany, but they tend to fall into three categories.....murder mysteries, light-hearted humor, and game-shows (which typically feature science or health in some fashion). Science Fiction is non-existent.
Some of the anger and frustration shown in the 1980s when commercial TV did finally arrive was that they would not be showing culture or proper respect to the intellectual type viewers. To which the commercial networks said "Yes, you are absolutely correct, and that the public is sick and tired of the formula". The commercial networks have survived and found the majority of Germans do enjoy their material. Entertainment or culture for the intellectuals? Zero priority within commercial TV. Maximum priority within state-run TV. It is that simple.
Around a decade ago, with increasing pressure going against state-run TV....the tax was revamped. It used to be based off how many TVs and radios you had. Now the new tax is 17.50 Euro a month for each residence, and it doesn't matter how many TVs or radios you have. To be honest, most Germans had stopped being honest on the quantity of TVs in the house anyway. The other angle to this is that public TV noted that the internet was becoming a big deal and people were starting to watch TV off their computer or laptop. So the new tax said even if you DIDN'T have a TV or radio in the house.....by having a laptop or computer, you might be receiving their signal so you had to pay. The new TV tax was really a media-tax.
Because of the method of control......the Bundestag and the political parties have very little control over state-run TV. This was done in the 1950s to prevent the parties from firing people or pumping up agendas. With a governing board of 70-odd members.....the board is a tool with minimum ability to really shift or move the ZDF or ARD empires. Both networks know this and rarely worry about public sentiment.
Social media criticism? Oddly, over the past two years.....social media criticism has finally begun to force the two networks and their various employees to consider public feelings. Anger and frustration are readily apparent now. There's an entire generation of viewer (under the age of 25) who has zero interest in continuing the media tax or state-run TV. Some political folks think that something needs to change.
My humble opinion is that the two networks and the board will try to stall any significant change. At some point, maybe after the 2017 election or the 2021 election....there will be enough votes to close ranks and force some change to occur. The networks will use the Constitutional Court to fight this off and find some support, but public frustration will only grow.
If you go and drag the executives who run ZDF and ARD into a forum.....they will tell you that public-run TV in Germany is a great asset, and that they strive to meet this wide spectrum of goals.
When they talk about culture, it's a theme where documentaries are produced that resemble National Geographic production shows, or some classical musical or opera. It's a theme that roughly ten-percent of German society appreciate.
So, what you have is two significant networks and another twenty sub-networks that feed off the two and their material.
Part of the weakness of the system is that they are trying to be all things for all people, and mostly failing at this. The younger viewers (under age twenty-five) have mostly drifted away from state-run TV. Presently.....units like Netflix are picking up more and more young German viewers.
The formula for the entertainment side? Movies are regularly produced off award-winning books in Germany, but they tend to fall into three categories.....murder mysteries, light-hearted humor, and game-shows (which typically feature science or health in some fashion). Science Fiction is non-existent.
Some of the anger and frustration shown in the 1980s when commercial TV did finally arrive was that they would not be showing culture or proper respect to the intellectual type viewers. To which the commercial networks said "Yes, you are absolutely correct, and that the public is sick and tired of the formula". The commercial networks have survived and found the majority of Germans do enjoy their material. Entertainment or culture for the intellectuals? Zero priority within commercial TV. Maximum priority within state-run TV. It is that simple.
Around a decade ago, with increasing pressure going against state-run TV....the tax was revamped. It used to be based off how many TVs and radios you had. Now the new tax is 17.50 Euro a month for each residence, and it doesn't matter how many TVs or radios you have. To be honest, most Germans had stopped being honest on the quantity of TVs in the house anyway. The other angle to this is that public TV noted that the internet was becoming a big deal and people were starting to watch TV off their computer or laptop. So the new tax said even if you DIDN'T have a TV or radio in the house.....by having a laptop or computer, you might be receiving their signal so you had to pay. The new TV tax was really a media-tax.
Because of the method of control......the Bundestag and the political parties have very little control over state-run TV. This was done in the 1950s to prevent the parties from firing people or pumping up agendas. With a governing board of 70-odd members.....the board is a tool with minimum ability to really shift or move the ZDF or ARD empires. Both networks know this and rarely worry about public sentiment.
Social media criticism? Oddly, over the past two years.....social media criticism has finally begun to force the two networks and their various employees to consider public feelings. Anger and frustration are readily apparent now. There's an entire generation of viewer (under the age of 25) who has zero interest in continuing the media tax or state-run TV. Some political folks think that something needs to change.
My humble opinion is that the two networks and the board will try to stall any significant change. At some point, maybe after the 2017 election or the 2021 election....there will be enough votes to close ranks and force some change to occur. The networks will use the Constitutional Court to fight this off and find some support, but public frustration will only grow.
Saturday, September 17, 2016
Germans and Racism?
For some reason....over the past couple of days in Germany, some news reports and journalists have hyped up the idea of racism being a problem in Germany. Naturally, the target of this racism would be Islamic people, if you follow the story-line.
If you follow German history like I do.....I just look at the journalists involved and wonder what planet they've existed on for the past thousand-odd years. Yeah, there's racism in Germany and it's nothing new or spectacular.
Jews, French people, Italians, the Dutch, Americans, blacks, Russians, and English have all been on some racism situation.
Intellectuals may attempt to say that things got cleared up after WW II, and most Germans were pure and innocent of racism accusations up until the past five years.....but that's a bogus comment.
To what degree does racism exist in Germany? That would be debated and would require 81-million answers. You could have a German who dislikes just any kind of foreigner, period. You could have a German who hates Russians....mostly because three of their relatives died in WW II on the eastern front. You could have some older Germans who hate Americans because of WW II. You could have some Germans who dislike Czechs for various reasons. You could have some Germans who dislike Bavarians because of their "Austrian-like" behavior (you'd have to ask a German to explain that one).
There are Germans who had a super happy and positive view of immigrants until the 31 December riot and sexual assault business in Koln, and today....they are very suspicious of all immigrants, period.
There are Germans who walk into a train station today and see one single foreigner with a Middle-Eastern or African look.....and they get tense because of pick-pocket crimes.
Having Gypsies around will hype up most Germans, who are always suspicious of what kind of crime they might be up to.
As for this journalistic gimmick to talk about racism right now? It's mostly to push the public back a step and intimidate them into lessening their confrontational view of foreigners. To their face, no one wants to be called a racist.....so you try to act nice for a while, and eventually will return to the normal 'lack-trust' situation.
So, when you hear some debate going on, or some German political figure harping on racism in Germany.....rest assured.....there's absolutely racism existing and it's nothing new. It's just some fancy gimmick to isolate people and push them back a step.
If you follow German history like I do.....I just look at the journalists involved and wonder what planet they've existed on for the past thousand-odd years. Yeah, there's racism in Germany and it's nothing new or spectacular.
Jews, French people, Italians, the Dutch, Americans, blacks, Russians, and English have all been on some racism situation.
Intellectuals may attempt to say that things got cleared up after WW II, and most Germans were pure and innocent of racism accusations up until the past five years.....but that's a bogus comment.
To what degree does racism exist in Germany? That would be debated and would require 81-million answers. You could have a German who dislikes just any kind of foreigner, period. You could have a German who hates Russians....mostly because three of their relatives died in WW II on the eastern front. You could have some older Germans who hate Americans because of WW II. You could have some Germans who dislike Czechs for various reasons. You could have some Germans who dislike Bavarians because of their "Austrian-like" behavior (you'd have to ask a German to explain that one).
There are Germans who had a super happy and positive view of immigrants until the 31 December riot and sexual assault business in Koln, and today....they are very suspicious of all immigrants, period.
There are Germans who walk into a train station today and see one single foreigner with a Middle-Eastern or African look.....and they get tense because of pick-pocket crimes.
Having Gypsies around will hype up most Germans, who are always suspicious of what kind of crime they might be up to.
As for this journalistic gimmick to talk about racism right now? It's mostly to push the public back a step and intimidate them into lessening their confrontational view of foreigners. To their face, no one wants to be called a racist.....so you try to act nice for a while, and eventually will return to the normal 'lack-trust' situation.
So, when you hear some debate going on, or some German political figure harping on racism in Germany.....rest assured.....there's absolutely racism existing and it's nothing new. It's just some fancy gimmick to isolate people and push them back a step.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Reaching People with Reason Talk
At some point today, German Chancellor Merkel gave an interview in Berlin with RBB (the local regional state-run TV network). It was mostly to hype up the election on Sunday and the local CDU political folks.
The key comment of the interview? She reached the topic of enthusiasm building up for AfD and criticism of the government's immigration policy, to which she said:
This was mostly aimed at social media and the gut-feeling by the CDU leadership that so many Germans were getting false or misleading information, and basing their voting pattern on this false information. If these people only knew the truth and understood the understood the nature of the immigration plan.....well....things would be fine.
As an outsider viewing the progress or lack of progress.....I tend to see several things which weren't focused upon early on, there a year ago....or simply not seen by the leadership today.
1. To say all immigrants were of one single variety and each deserved the same consideration....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
2. To say that Germany needed migrants and immigrants of any variety, with skills and crafts ranging from PhD-level to 3rd-grade reading level.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
3. To reason that you'd cope through some mechanism with radicalized religious "crazies" and not threaten German society.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
4. To think that you had some shelter plan that could handle a million-plus migrants coming each year....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
5. To sit and keep thinking that your immigration bureau with 650-odd employees were up to the task at hand, and spend six months just hoping they'd pick up speed when they weren't showing that tendency.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
6. To sit and have the public-run news apparatus acting like a cheer-leader nightly....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
7. To keep talking about the use of the migrants to fill the job-cycle.....when more than half lacked the school educational requirements, and language training consumes a minimum of twelve to fifteen months.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
8. To keep talking about bringing more in or accepting more....when no one within the Berlin leadership knew of any cost theme to the whole program.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
9. To allow states and cities to sign up shelters and steel building 'condos' to long-term contracts, then a year later realize that the flow lessened to such an extent that they don't need the shelters to this extent but have to pay a hefty 'get-out' fee to quit the contract.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
10. To have teachers sitting there with various language groups of kids, and different variations of educational skills from their homeland....and not really grasping the huge impact created.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
11. To have literally thousands of people arriving.....kids and teenagers within the group.....with possible PTSD as a significant problem....probably wasn't the smartest idea.
12. To enter into a "deal" with the EU and Turkey....to force those in Germany to return to Turkey as part of some financial compensation deal, and rely upon Erdogan to keep "peace" in Turkey.....probably wasn't the smartest idea.
13. To sit there and use the EU 'stick' to whack on other EU members....trying to force them into accepting "their fair share" of refugees....probably wasn't the smartest idea.
I could probably add another twenty items onto the list but it really doesn't matter. In a way, this crowd in Berlin went out and did everything possible to create the AfD and the enthusiasm for them.
When you see that roughly 70-percent of German society doesn't trust the national news media, something is going wrong. When you have six-hundred-plus women in Koln turn in sexual assault reports to the cops and they see mostly no one convicted of a crime, something has gone wrong. When you have frustrated long-time CDU, SPD, and Linke Party voters who just stand up and walk away because they can't get your attention......something has gone wrong.
So pardon me.....if this suggestion of reaching people with "reasoning" doesn't seem to be something of value.
Oh, I agree....you don't need Einstein-like people working on this. I agree that the AfD is a single issue party and lacks maturity. And I'll even agree that most Germans really don't know how to fix this.....they just know it's broke.
People only stop doing a protest-vote when they feel like you've fixed the problem. Obviously, people are still waiting on a fix. And in this case.....the AfD guys are some kind of whacked-up ADAC autobahn crew (the German car repair guys).
The key comment of the interview? She reached the topic of enthusiasm building up for AfD and criticism of the government's immigration policy, to which she said:
“Right now it’s hard to reach some people with reasoning and still we have to keep trying again and again, I believe that we shouldn’t give up on people who are now casting a protest vote, but rather keep courting them with our policies.”
This was mostly aimed at social media and the gut-feeling by the CDU leadership that so many Germans were getting false or misleading information, and basing their voting pattern on this false information. If these people only knew the truth and understood the understood the nature of the immigration plan.....well....things would be fine.
As an outsider viewing the progress or lack of progress.....I tend to see several things which weren't focused upon early on, there a year ago....or simply not seen by the leadership today.
1. To say all immigrants were of one single variety and each deserved the same consideration....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
2. To say that Germany needed migrants and immigrants of any variety, with skills and crafts ranging from PhD-level to 3rd-grade reading level.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
3. To reason that you'd cope through some mechanism with radicalized religious "crazies" and not threaten German society.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
4. To think that you had some shelter plan that could handle a million-plus migrants coming each year....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
5. To sit and keep thinking that your immigration bureau with 650-odd employees were up to the task at hand, and spend six months just hoping they'd pick up speed when they weren't showing that tendency.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
6. To sit and have the public-run news apparatus acting like a cheer-leader nightly....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
7. To keep talking about the use of the migrants to fill the job-cycle.....when more than half lacked the school educational requirements, and language training consumes a minimum of twelve to fifteen months.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
8. To keep talking about bringing more in or accepting more....when no one within the Berlin leadership knew of any cost theme to the whole program.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
9. To allow states and cities to sign up shelters and steel building 'condos' to long-term contracts, then a year later realize that the flow lessened to such an extent that they don't need the shelters to this extent but have to pay a hefty 'get-out' fee to quit the contract.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
10. To have teachers sitting there with various language groups of kids, and different variations of educational skills from their homeland....and not really grasping the huge impact created.....probably wasn't the brightest idea.
11. To have literally thousands of people arriving.....kids and teenagers within the group.....with possible PTSD as a significant problem....probably wasn't the smartest idea.
12. To enter into a "deal" with the EU and Turkey....to force those in Germany to return to Turkey as part of some financial compensation deal, and rely upon Erdogan to keep "peace" in Turkey.....probably wasn't the smartest idea.
13. To sit there and use the EU 'stick' to whack on other EU members....trying to force them into accepting "their fair share" of refugees....probably wasn't the smartest idea.
I could probably add another twenty items onto the list but it really doesn't matter. In a way, this crowd in Berlin went out and did everything possible to create the AfD and the enthusiasm for them.
When you see that roughly 70-percent of German society doesn't trust the national news media, something is going wrong. When you have six-hundred-plus women in Koln turn in sexual assault reports to the cops and they see mostly no one convicted of a crime, something has gone wrong. When you have frustrated long-time CDU, SPD, and Linke Party voters who just stand up and walk away because they can't get your attention......something has gone wrong.
So pardon me.....if this suggestion of reaching people with "reasoning" doesn't seem to be something of value.
Oh, I agree....you don't need Einstein-like people working on this. I agree that the AfD is a single issue party and lacks maturity. And I'll even agree that most Germans really don't know how to fix this.....they just know it's broke.
People only stop doing a protest-vote when they feel like you've fixed the problem. Obviously, people are still waiting on a fix. And in this case.....the AfD guys are some kind of whacked-up ADAC autobahn crew (the German car repair guys).
The Training Story
This week, the topic of high unemployment among new immigrants in Germany came up in the state-run news.....roughly 150,000 of the new folks who are approved for a visa but haven't found work.
There are various reasons given for this....but they mostly lead down to two central items....lack of language ability and no real background (skill or certificate).
So the suggestion which came from the clever intellectual folks in Berlin....was this idea of getting companies (not the Mom-and-Pop twenty-man shops), to bring in a large untrained and but mostly limited German-speakers, and train them in their native language to the German craft or skill required.
I sat and pondered upon this.
What you'd be talking about is perhaps a 500-man company where you have three to six trainers hired and they typically take two or three apprentices each and "walk" them through the training steps to get their apprentice skill craft.
In this case.....three Iraqis would be hired and trained in their native language. Naturally, the next question would be....trained by who? What Germans do you have that speak Iraqi or Arabic? Across all of Germany, in terms of certified trainers....I doubt if you can find more than a hundred folks who speak some level of Arabic.
The thing is....even if you had this trainer who spoke Arabic and spent two years getting these three guys trained and certified.....by the end, they really need to speak German to a proficient level.....to fit into a permanent position.
This is one of the harsh realities about so many coming in and some Berlin idiots who kept blabbing "we can do it" over and over.....but never thinking of the way that German culture and commerce are structured. Even with this suggestion....the clever intellectual crowd continue to show their limited grasp of industry in Germany and the training atmosphere.
What will happen? I suspect in the end that industry will mandate that the government (either local or state) need to step up to the plate and ensure everyone gets German language on a fast pace. Fast-pace....sadly....will mean an entire year.
So you stand back and look at this.....150,000 folks who came in search of a new life, unemployed, and it could be a year, or two, or three....before anything really happens in their life.
There are various reasons given for this....but they mostly lead down to two central items....lack of language ability and no real background (skill or certificate).
So the suggestion which came from the clever intellectual folks in Berlin....was this idea of getting companies (not the Mom-and-Pop twenty-man shops), to bring in a large untrained and but mostly limited German-speakers, and train them in their native language to the German craft or skill required.
I sat and pondered upon this.
What you'd be talking about is perhaps a 500-man company where you have three to six trainers hired and they typically take two or three apprentices each and "walk" them through the training steps to get their apprentice skill craft.
In this case.....three Iraqis would be hired and trained in their native language. Naturally, the next question would be....trained by who? What Germans do you have that speak Iraqi or Arabic? Across all of Germany, in terms of certified trainers....I doubt if you can find more than a hundred folks who speak some level of Arabic.
The thing is....even if you had this trainer who spoke Arabic and spent two years getting these three guys trained and certified.....by the end, they really need to speak German to a proficient level.....to fit into a permanent position.
This is one of the harsh realities about so many coming in and some Berlin idiots who kept blabbing "we can do it" over and over.....but never thinking of the way that German culture and commerce are structured. Even with this suggestion....the clever intellectual crowd continue to show their limited grasp of industry in Germany and the training atmosphere.
What will happen? I suspect in the end that industry will mandate that the government (either local or state) need to step up to the plate and ensure everyone gets German language on a fast pace. Fast-pace....sadly....will mean an entire year.
So you stand back and look at this.....150,000 folks who came in search of a new life, unemployed, and it could be a year, or two, or three....before anything really happens in their life.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
The Austria Election Topic
A day or two have passed in Austria since the decision was made to push back the Presidential election.
For those who don't remember.....back in April of this year....they ran the primary for various parties and the top two parties to win....were to have a final Presidential vote in May. That May election occurred and the Green Party candidate won (2,251,517 votes) against the right-wing party....the Freedom Party....which got 2,220,654 votes. Yeah, it was fairly close. Oddly, 164,000 votes were declared invalid (for various reasons).
A Constitutional Court held a meeting later, and declared the election....null and void. They were supposed to another vote here in October, but things got screwed up on that election....so it's in early December now for the vote.
There were two things pointed out today by BR, the Bavarian state-run TV network, which I thought was kinda interesting.
First, as each month is added onto the election.....more and more Austrians turn 16 (the legal voting age). So they show up and register. The best guess on added voters between now and December? 45,000. Course, there are folks who will pass away between now and then. So I'm not so sure about a bigger number occurring. More young folks voting Green than the Freedom Party? Yeah, that's a fair possibility.
But the second thing is that folks around Austria....as BR points out.....have gotten use to this idea of having no real presidency around. To be honest, it hasn't been a big deal.
It has to worry some political folks because they like to hype up the fact that Presidents are so vital to democracies existing around the globe. And Austria has kinda proven that they ran the government without any trouble.
The odds of a screw-up and another election? Last year, it'd be a million to one odds. Today....I'd say it's one chance in ten that they will screw-up yet again, and trigger another election.
For those who don't remember.....back in April of this year....they ran the primary for various parties and the top two parties to win....were to have a final Presidential vote in May. That May election occurred and the Green Party candidate won (2,251,517 votes) against the right-wing party....the Freedom Party....which got 2,220,654 votes. Yeah, it was fairly close. Oddly, 164,000 votes were declared invalid (for various reasons).
A Constitutional Court held a meeting later, and declared the election....null and void. They were supposed to another vote here in October, but things got screwed up on that election....so it's in early December now for the vote.
There were two things pointed out today by BR, the Bavarian state-run TV network, which I thought was kinda interesting.
First, as each month is added onto the election.....more and more Austrians turn 16 (the legal voting age). So they show up and register. The best guess on added voters between now and December? 45,000. Course, there are folks who will pass away between now and then. So I'm not so sure about a bigger number occurring. More young folks voting Green than the Freedom Party? Yeah, that's a fair possibility.
But the second thing is that folks around Austria....as BR points out.....have gotten use to this idea of having no real presidency around. To be honest, it hasn't been a big deal.
It has to worry some political folks because they like to hype up the fact that Presidents are so vital to democracies existing around the globe. And Austria has kinda proven that they ran the government without any trouble.
The odds of a screw-up and another election? Last year, it'd be a million to one odds. Today....I'd say it's one chance in ten that they will screw-up yet again, and trigger another election.
Monday, September 12, 2016
The Distance Between Fact and Fiction: Germany
For several months, I've watched both US, British and German journalists sit and write stories which were partly true, mostly true, or completely false on events in Germany. So, I'll take my "whack" at ten things.
1. Threats to Germans. Presently, I'd rate my safety level as 99.99-percent safe in the Wiesbaden area....and that's about fifty times safer than Memphis or Atlanta. And that's even considering walking around at night.
Oh, I admit, there are two areas of this local town (280,000) where I might avoid after 9PM (after dark).....but 99-percent of the city is absolutely safe. The same goes for Mainz....and most German cities.
For Frankfurt, well, if you were to walk around the Taunus Strasse.....I'd rate it a 24-hour a day place to avoid. The rest of Frankfurt....I'd rate near 97-percent safe.
There are some major urban areas....like Koln, Berlin, or Stuttgart....that might deserve some worry. The bulk of rural areas in Germany? You could sip beer on the steps of a local church for the next forty years and never see a potential threat ever.
So when someone chats up a storm about a growing threat.....you need to think about just how safe it is presently and how that compares to cities in the US.
2. If someone in Germany wants a gun.....all they have to do is go apply at the local station. If they were in some war zone, or been arrested for violence or threats.....they won't get a license. If their doctor won't sign off on their mental situation, they won't get a license. If they can't pass the stupid gun or hunting class.....they won't get a license. My best guess is that 70-percent of German society, if they desired a gun.....could get the license. The rest? They might be people that you'd prefer not to have a weapon.
The odds of anyone in my entire village of 4,000 people getting attacked....in the home? Pretty much a one-in-ten-billion type scenario. The odds of me getting assaulted in Wiesbaden? Pretty close to a one-in-a-billion type scenario....unless I walked in a neighborhood or two after 10PM at night.
So, here's the blunt truth.....I just don't need a gun. If I wanted to get into hunting (wild boar), then there might be a reason to have a gun. You can ask any of the 4,000 folks around my village and no one can think of a reason to hold a gun.....other than for hunting purposes.
3. Taxing the hell out of people. On this topic, you can view every single tax and how they add up, and an average guy is losing fifty-percent of his pay-check. What he gets in return? It's hard to say if a guy gets his fair share of the return.
4. All of the incoming refugees are lacking education or job skills. Well.....NO. If you go and study the overall numbers....roughly 30-percent of all immigrants have a skill, craft or degree which can be put to use. The remaining 70-percent? Yeah, they lack the education or skill to do anything and that is troublesome.
But here's the odd thing......Assad from Syria put a lot of effort into educating Syrians. Different studies exist on this, but you tend to see over sixty-percent of men and women from Syria have some kind of craft or education that leads onto a job after the language business is wrapped up.
From North Africa? It's probably less than ten-percent who have a skill or craft or education to use. Eventually, Germans will realize this issue and become very picky about who they accept.
5. Merkel in serious trouble. It's pretty much a 100-percent deal that she won't run as the CDU chief in the November 2017 national election. Up until this immigration business went south, most folks were awful happy over her performance. Today, they'd just like for her to retire and move on.....and something come to fix the immigration crisis. Kicking her out early? Why? There's literally no one that can fill the shoes and the public has finally come to grasp that. It's a lousy slate for the national election.
So, if anyone was thinking that Germans are fired up for an election to get rid of Merkel.....well....no. They might be fired up to change the make-up of the Bundestag and do some reforms on immigration and integration. But there's no urgent need to hustle "mutti" out because there's just no replacement to fit the position.
6. 500 potential terrorists in Germany? Yeah. There might be that many. It surprises folks about every twenty days of a major bust by the national cops. Some suspect....some group.....some bit of intelligence. German cops have been aggressive for two years now. Every bit of usage via social media? It just leaves a trail and these stupid idiots have never grasped who is viewing all of their stupid comments.
Lately, we've been having some folks note that when they catch these Sarafists or extremists.....based on mental reviews.....they consider most all of these people mentally unfit or having some questionable mental behavior. I admit.....it would be odd if we reach a point where just acting like an extremist would be enough to get you into a mental facility for the rest of your life.....but this is Germany, and they are pretty creative at facilities (remember the 1930s).
7. Tons of Muslim kids being born and will outgrow German population. Well, here's the honest truth. Any idiot who thinks that he can support a wife and six kids....on a tire-shop salary....is begging for a mental exam. Getting welfare and supporting these six kids? Go for it.....you will be living on the edge of society and having just enough to get by. The kids will continually be asking why Dad can't make more money, and why they are so impoverished? Studies show that some immigrants try to go on to have kids but they tend to realize by the third kid.....they just won't be able to afford more. Then other studies show that second-generation immigrants all REVERT to the German attitude.....of one or two kids....max.
Germany has anchored itself down......with low wages, high taxes, and a high cost of living. No one.....goes to have more kids unless they have a technical skill or craft that really does pay well as the guy hits forty to sixty years old. Show me what immigrant fits into this highly desired skill or craft deal.
8. Cities overflowing with immigrants. Well....cities were overflowing already fifteen years ago. There's just no affordable housing being constructed for the low-wage earner. Go to any major urban area.....Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, etc.....it's all the same.
Construction of upper-cost houses and apartments? That continues. If you are a low-wage earner.....you'd best be looking for homes or apartments in the "burbs" twenty or thirty kilometers out of town.
One should also note that there's been a trend since the 1970s for people to move further and further out of town.....so those in the middle of towns who remain.....often create little ghetto operations. No one really cares because the people with real jobs or real money.....left two or three decades ago.
9. The AfD Party is moving up. The anti-immigration slant of the AfD Party? It has a limit. People agree.....they aren't happy with the various parties within the Bundestag today. But getting past 25-percent in the national vote? It won't happen in 2017, and I'd have doubts even for 2021. But if they just got 10 percent.....they could sit there and ask stupid questions, which the top parties would have to answer in public. That's really all you need to do.....reinforce people to be honest and to do the right thing when running a government.
10. The burqa business. To be honest, no one knows how many women wear the facial covering burqa or the open-face burqa. Nor do I think anyone (even journalists) want to go and count up the number.
If you ask me to make a number up on facial covering burqas.....I have this number in my mind....across all of Germany (16 states) of about 10,000. It might even be too high.
The true German opinion? Two years ago.....they probably didn't have much of an opinion....mostly because there weren't that many around. If you live in a rural section of eastern Germany.....you might go an entire year without seeing a single one. If you live in some rural section of the Pfalz....unless you went to Mainz or Worms.....you probably won't see any. Today.....Germans have an opinion and they are mostly (probably 65-to-70 percent anti-facial covering).
Will some law come to fix this or make people happy? Hard to say. Some folks think that the courts will throw out such a law.
That's my opinion and humble thoughts on fact and fiction in Germany.
1. Threats to Germans. Presently, I'd rate my safety level as 99.99-percent safe in the Wiesbaden area....and that's about fifty times safer than Memphis or Atlanta. And that's even considering walking around at night.
Oh, I admit, there are two areas of this local town (280,000) where I might avoid after 9PM (after dark).....but 99-percent of the city is absolutely safe. The same goes for Mainz....and most German cities.
For Frankfurt, well, if you were to walk around the Taunus Strasse.....I'd rate it a 24-hour a day place to avoid. The rest of Frankfurt....I'd rate near 97-percent safe.
There are some major urban areas....like Koln, Berlin, or Stuttgart....that might deserve some worry. The bulk of rural areas in Germany? You could sip beer on the steps of a local church for the next forty years and never see a potential threat ever.
So when someone chats up a storm about a growing threat.....you need to think about just how safe it is presently and how that compares to cities in the US.
2. If someone in Germany wants a gun.....all they have to do is go apply at the local station. If they were in some war zone, or been arrested for violence or threats.....they won't get a license. If their doctor won't sign off on their mental situation, they won't get a license. If they can't pass the stupid gun or hunting class.....they won't get a license. My best guess is that 70-percent of German society, if they desired a gun.....could get the license. The rest? They might be people that you'd prefer not to have a weapon.
The odds of anyone in my entire village of 4,000 people getting attacked....in the home? Pretty much a one-in-ten-billion type scenario. The odds of me getting assaulted in Wiesbaden? Pretty close to a one-in-a-billion type scenario....unless I walked in a neighborhood or two after 10PM at night.
So, here's the blunt truth.....I just don't need a gun. If I wanted to get into hunting (wild boar), then there might be a reason to have a gun. You can ask any of the 4,000 folks around my village and no one can think of a reason to hold a gun.....other than for hunting purposes.
3. Taxing the hell out of people. On this topic, you can view every single tax and how they add up, and an average guy is losing fifty-percent of his pay-check. What he gets in return? It's hard to say if a guy gets his fair share of the return.
4. All of the incoming refugees are lacking education or job skills. Well.....NO. If you go and study the overall numbers....roughly 30-percent of all immigrants have a skill, craft or degree which can be put to use. The remaining 70-percent? Yeah, they lack the education or skill to do anything and that is troublesome.
But here's the odd thing......Assad from Syria put a lot of effort into educating Syrians. Different studies exist on this, but you tend to see over sixty-percent of men and women from Syria have some kind of craft or education that leads onto a job after the language business is wrapped up.
From North Africa? It's probably less than ten-percent who have a skill or craft or education to use. Eventually, Germans will realize this issue and become very picky about who they accept.
5. Merkel in serious trouble. It's pretty much a 100-percent deal that she won't run as the CDU chief in the November 2017 national election. Up until this immigration business went south, most folks were awful happy over her performance. Today, they'd just like for her to retire and move on.....and something come to fix the immigration crisis. Kicking her out early? Why? There's literally no one that can fill the shoes and the public has finally come to grasp that. It's a lousy slate for the national election.
So, if anyone was thinking that Germans are fired up for an election to get rid of Merkel.....well....no. They might be fired up to change the make-up of the Bundestag and do some reforms on immigration and integration. But there's no urgent need to hustle "mutti" out because there's just no replacement to fit the position.
6. 500 potential terrorists in Germany? Yeah. There might be that many. It surprises folks about every twenty days of a major bust by the national cops. Some suspect....some group.....some bit of intelligence. German cops have been aggressive for two years now. Every bit of usage via social media? It just leaves a trail and these stupid idiots have never grasped who is viewing all of their stupid comments.
Lately, we've been having some folks note that when they catch these Sarafists or extremists.....based on mental reviews.....they consider most all of these people mentally unfit or having some questionable mental behavior. I admit.....it would be odd if we reach a point where just acting like an extremist would be enough to get you into a mental facility for the rest of your life.....but this is Germany, and they are pretty creative at facilities (remember the 1930s).
7. Tons of Muslim kids being born and will outgrow German population. Well, here's the honest truth. Any idiot who thinks that he can support a wife and six kids....on a tire-shop salary....is begging for a mental exam. Getting welfare and supporting these six kids? Go for it.....you will be living on the edge of society and having just enough to get by. The kids will continually be asking why Dad can't make more money, and why they are so impoverished? Studies show that some immigrants try to go on to have kids but they tend to realize by the third kid.....they just won't be able to afford more. Then other studies show that second-generation immigrants all REVERT to the German attitude.....of one or two kids....max.
Germany has anchored itself down......with low wages, high taxes, and a high cost of living. No one.....goes to have more kids unless they have a technical skill or craft that really does pay well as the guy hits forty to sixty years old. Show me what immigrant fits into this highly desired skill or craft deal.
8. Cities overflowing with immigrants. Well....cities were overflowing already fifteen years ago. There's just no affordable housing being constructed for the low-wage earner. Go to any major urban area.....Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, etc.....it's all the same.
Construction of upper-cost houses and apartments? That continues. If you are a low-wage earner.....you'd best be looking for homes or apartments in the "burbs" twenty or thirty kilometers out of town.
One should also note that there's been a trend since the 1970s for people to move further and further out of town.....so those in the middle of towns who remain.....often create little ghetto operations. No one really cares because the people with real jobs or real money.....left two or three decades ago.
9. The AfD Party is moving up. The anti-immigration slant of the AfD Party? It has a limit. People agree.....they aren't happy with the various parties within the Bundestag today. But getting past 25-percent in the national vote? It won't happen in 2017, and I'd have doubts even for 2021. But if they just got 10 percent.....they could sit there and ask stupid questions, which the top parties would have to answer in public. That's really all you need to do.....reinforce people to be honest and to do the right thing when running a government.
10. The burqa business. To be honest, no one knows how many women wear the facial covering burqa or the open-face burqa. Nor do I think anyone (even journalists) want to go and count up the number.
If you ask me to make a number up on facial covering burqas.....I have this number in my mind....across all of Germany (16 states) of about 10,000. It might even be too high.
The true German opinion? Two years ago.....they probably didn't have much of an opinion....mostly because there weren't that many around. If you live in a rural section of eastern Germany.....you might go an entire year without seeing a single one. If you live in some rural section of the Pfalz....unless you went to Mainz or Worms.....you probably won't see any. Today.....Germans have an opinion and they are mostly (probably 65-to-70 percent anti-facial covering).
Will some law come to fix this or make people happy? Hard to say. Some folks think that the courts will throw out such a law.
That's my opinion and humble thoughts on fact and fiction in Germany.
If I Were in Charge of the German Integration Program
It's safe to say.....it'll never happen....because I'm the American in the mix and most Germans would say as such.....it can only be run by a German. But here's how I would run the program.
1. "Boot-Camp" would start the day after the initial visa was granted. You'd pack up and go to one of three different boot-camps around Germany for a hundred-day orientation deal....federally-paid....none of this state by state budget business. Anyone walking out of boot-camp or not participating....gets the initial visa scrapped and sent back home.
2. Minute one of boot-camp. You get an hour-long video, in your home-language, which describes what exactly you should expect. Right up front.....the taxation rate is explained, and what a typical normal salary might be in ten different fields. The mandatory nature of healthcare and what costs.....would be explained. The cost of gas, electricity, and water gets explained. Grocery pricing would be explained so that they know what they have to clear to survive. The German welfare program (Hartz IV) would be explained in three simple minutes and driven home on the fact that if you rely upon it.....you are at the lowest level of survival in Germany. Then I'd take about German cops and the authority they have. I'd lay out the fact that most German families have both spouses working at a minimum of part-time, in order to have the "extras" in life. Finally, I'd be painfully obvious about affordable housing in major urban areas....that just wanting to live in Frankfurt doesn't mean you will find a house, and you might encounter serious issues in waiting to find such a house. At the end of that video.....I'd bring in someone who speaks their language and ask if they have questions. If people are overly shocked and can't grasp how people can make it or afford it.....then maybe there should be some more questions asked before moving onto the next phase.
3. After day one, I'd separate the kids off into an intensive eight-hour a day language class, and send the parents to a basic four-hour a day intensive language class for the majority of the hundred days, with afternoons broken down into a separate minor modules. All language training would be for this hundred day period.....a federally-paid program. At the end of a hundred days....everyone ought to be speaking good basic German.
4. If you have a drivers license from the home-country, then the federal office would offer a 30-hour orientation class, and six forty-five minute driving sessions to get the individual up to standards. If the guy doesn't have a license.....then TOUGH luck and they do this after boot-camp.....at the cost of the individual themselves.
5. Around day ten, swimming lessons would be mandated for kids between six and fifteen. Anyone over 15, it'd be an optional deal. No cost.
6. At least three fests or German-style parties would be created in the camp atmosphere and one-hour participation required for each individual for each fest. Non-alcoholic drinks would be offered....along with beer. All free of course.
7. TV's in the camp would only have German networks offered.
8. Ten kilometer volksmarches would be mandatory for family members who are healthy enough....at least one every two weeks.
9. At least one hundred hours of economics mandated.....to include how to shop for cars, apartments, insurance, and furniture. Twenty hours of maturity and proper behavior training would be mandatory for anyone over the age of twelve. For all men over the after of fifteen.....at least forty hours of respect training toward women. Anyone who wants to 'fake' their through or just not participate.....send them back to the original starting point and make them start the whole process over again.
10. Establish discussion groups on a dozen occasions of the hundred days where religious freedom is discussed and respect for human life. If someone shows they can't handle either.....reverse them back to day one and recommend them to be returned to the home-country.
1. "Boot-Camp" would start the day after the initial visa was granted. You'd pack up and go to one of three different boot-camps around Germany for a hundred-day orientation deal....federally-paid....none of this state by state budget business. Anyone walking out of boot-camp or not participating....gets the initial visa scrapped and sent back home.
2. Minute one of boot-camp. You get an hour-long video, in your home-language, which describes what exactly you should expect. Right up front.....the taxation rate is explained, and what a typical normal salary might be in ten different fields. The mandatory nature of healthcare and what costs.....would be explained. The cost of gas, electricity, and water gets explained. Grocery pricing would be explained so that they know what they have to clear to survive. The German welfare program (Hartz IV) would be explained in three simple minutes and driven home on the fact that if you rely upon it.....you are at the lowest level of survival in Germany. Then I'd take about German cops and the authority they have. I'd lay out the fact that most German families have both spouses working at a minimum of part-time, in order to have the "extras" in life. Finally, I'd be painfully obvious about affordable housing in major urban areas....that just wanting to live in Frankfurt doesn't mean you will find a house, and you might encounter serious issues in waiting to find such a house. At the end of that video.....I'd bring in someone who speaks their language and ask if they have questions. If people are overly shocked and can't grasp how people can make it or afford it.....then maybe there should be some more questions asked before moving onto the next phase.
3. After day one, I'd separate the kids off into an intensive eight-hour a day language class, and send the parents to a basic four-hour a day intensive language class for the majority of the hundred days, with afternoons broken down into a separate minor modules. All language training would be for this hundred day period.....a federally-paid program. At the end of a hundred days....everyone ought to be speaking good basic German.
4. If you have a drivers license from the home-country, then the federal office would offer a 30-hour orientation class, and six forty-five minute driving sessions to get the individual up to standards. If the guy doesn't have a license.....then TOUGH luck and they do this after boot-camp.....at the cost of the individual themselves.
5. Around day ten, swimming lessons would be mandated for kids between six and fifteen. Anyone over 15, it'd be an optional deal. No cost.
6. At least three fests or German-style parties would be created in the camp atmosphere and one-hour participation required for each individual for each fest. Non-alcoholic drinks would be offered....along with beer. All free of course.
7. TV's in the camp would only have German networks offered.
8. Ten kilometer volksmarches would be mandatory for family members who are healthy enough....at least one every two weeks.
9. At least one hundred hours of economics mandated.....to include how to shop for cars, apartments, insurance, and furniture. Twenty hours of maturity and proper behavior training would be mandatory for anyone over the age of twelve. For all men over the after of fifteen.....at least forty hours of respect training toward women. Anyone who wants to 'fake' their through or just not participate.....send them back to the original starting point and make them start the whole process over again.
10. Establish discussion groups on a dozen occasions of the hundred days where religious freedom is discussed and respect for human life. If someone shows they can't handle either.....reverse them back to day one and recommend them to be returned to the home-country.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
The Drowning Story
Most German kids....by the age of twelve will be offered (forced might be a better term) a chance to learn how to swim. Typically, it occurs with the school and is part of their PT plan. Most schools in Germany are are in urbanized areas which have access to an indoor pool. So some instructor will come out for that 90-minute period once a week, and offer training. By the end of the semester, the kid will be a swimmer. The kid is signed off and can swim.
I would take a guess that more than 50-percent of German society can swim. Some might admit....they haven't taken a swim in thirty years but they still have their certificate.
This year....we are experiencing one of the higher rates of drowning of the past decade or two.
Up until last month (August), they were at 425 dead folks in Germany....resulting from drowning. For a country of eighty-one million.....it's a fair number.
Fifty-six of these 425 dead folks....were migrants or immigrants. If you consider that it's only around 1.5 to 2 million that came in....it's a fair-sized number who drowned.
Chief reason? They can't swim. It's been talked about by the experts....the safety folks, and politicians. Added to this list of reasons.....alcohol consumption and swimming in areas which were remarkably unsafe (like rivers for example).
Fixing the rate? You'd have to convince a lot of these folks to take swimming courses, and a large number would have to be guys over the age of eighteen. The sad thing is that you'd have to probably go and recruit male-only instructors (Germans never talk numbers but I think it's pretty split 50-50 on certified instructors).
On the list of 500-odd priorities concerning refugees and immigrants? It won't make the top-hundred but it'll be somewhere on the list to remedy this swimming issue and prevent unnecessary deaths. Naturally, it's not a zero-cost item.
I would take a guess that more than 50-percent of German society can swim. Some might admit....they haven't taken a swim in thirty years but they still have their certificate.
This year....we are experiencing one of the higher rates of drowning of the past decade or two.
Up until last month (August), they were at 425 dead folks in Germany....resulting from drowning. For a country of eighty-one million.....it's a fair number.
Fifty-six of these 425 dead folks....were migrants or immigrants. If you consider that it's only around 1.5 to 2 million that came in....it's a fair-sized number who drowned.
Chief reason? They can't swim. It's been talked about by the experts....the safety folks, and politicians. Added to this list of reasons.....alcohol consumption and swimming in areas which were remarkably unsafe (like rivers for example).
Fixing the rate? You'd have to convince a lot of these folks to take swimming courses, and a large number would have to be guys over the age of eighteen. The sad thing is that you'd have to probably go and recruit male-only instructors (Germans never talk numbers but I think it's pretty split 50-50 on certified instructors).
On the list of 500-odd priorities concerning refugees and immigrants? It won't make the top-hundred but it'll be somewhere on the list to remedy this swimming issue and prevent unnecessary deaths. Naturally, it's not a zero-cost item.
The Number 361
One of the odd things that you get out of having AfD Party individuals in various state parliaments in Germany.....is that they can now stand there and ask questions of state "bosses" of various departments and force them to answer simple questions.
About two weeks ago.....in the Pflaz....the AfD folks made the authorities there answer how many marriages existed in the state....where one member of the couple was under the age of fourteen. Normally, none of the political parties would ask a loaded question like this.
Well....after that answer.....news folks got around to asking at the Berlin level....nationally....what was the magic number. Answer? 361 couples in Germany exist with a spouse who is under the age of fourteen.
Over the next week or two.....via various public TV chat forums....I expect this topic to come up a couple of times. Generally, even the more liberal-minded of Germans have a problem with this type of situation. Generally, you can't run a dual-tracked society where one groups gets a big special favor and the other group doesn't.
Waiting for state governments (all sixteen) to react? It won't happen. Waiting for Berlin to find a solution? It won't happen with the current balance of political parties in Berlin.
Each day brings you closer to the point where some German guy will show up in Pakistan....arrange a marriage.....and bring his 12-year-old bride back into Germany. Any attempt to charge him with a crime....will simply bring judges closer to the point of admitting that two different societies have been created in Germany and they can't handle this legally.
But this brings to the big part of this 'game' being played out. You really don't need a majority of the AfD folks in Berlin. What you need is ten to fifteen percent.....which is enough to force questions to be asked and various agencies put into a compromised position of providing an answer. Each answer that makes you look foolish....teaches the controlling parties to modify their positions to make the general public happy. It might take two or three years.....but you'd eventually notice that most of the political parties would have dropped their Merkel-vision and reversed a number of trends. Even the news journalists with a pro-immigration slant on things.....would find themselves also having to explain stupidity, and forced into modifying their positions.
So when you hear the conversation this next week drift around and 361 gets mentioned a couple of times.....you know what the conversation is all about. It's a special number.....which will force changes to occur.
About two weeks ago.....in the Pflaz....the AfD folks made the authorities there answer how many marriages existed in the state....where one member of the couple was under the age of fourteen. Normally, none of the political parties would ask a loaded question like this.
Well....after that answer.....news folks got around to asking at the Berlin level....nationally....what was the magic number. Answer? 361 couples in Germany exist with a spouse who is under the age of fourteen.
Over the next week or two.....via various public TV chat forums....I expect this topic to come up a couple of times. Generally, even the more liberal-minded of Germans have a problem with this type of situation. Generally, you can't run a dual-tracked society where one groups gets a big special favor and the other group doesn't.
Waiting for state governments (all sixteen) to react? It won't happen. Waiting for Berlin to find a solution? It won't happen with the current balance of political parties in Berlin.
Each day brings you closer to the point where some German guy will show up in Pakistan....arrange a marriage.....and bring his 12-year-old bride back into Germany. Any attempt to charge him with a crime....will simply bring judges closer to the point of admitting that two different societies have been created in Germany and they can't handle this legally.
But this brings to the big part of this 'game' being played out. You really don't need a majority of the AfD folks in Berlin. What you need is ten to fifteen percent.....which is enough to force questions to be asked and various agencies put into a compromised position of providing an answer. Each answer that makes you look foolish....teaches the controlling parties to modify their positions to make the general public happy. It might take two or three years.....but you'd eventually notice that most of the political parties would have dropped their Merkel-vision and reversed a number of trends. Even the news journalists with a pro-immigration slant on things.....would find themselves also having to explain stupidity, and forced into modifying their positions.
So when you hear the conversation this next week drift around and 361 gets mentioned a couple of times.....you know what the conversation is all about. It's a special number.....which will force changes to occur.
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Burqa-clad Cops?
News came out of the UK late this week of a police department that is considering a recruitment drive.....which would allow burqa-clad women to be police members. It drew some laughs but apparently is not a joke. There will be a discussion and some thoughts put into this.
So I sat and pondered how burqa cops would work.
First, they are debating over the plain burqa uniform itself or possibly even the facial covering burqa. Would the police have a particular style (in blue) for the young woman?
Second, for the bullet-proof vest.....do you wear it under the burqa or over the top of the burqa?
Third, if you have to wear a holster and carry a pistol.....will the holster be over the top of the burqa outfit or under the outfit?
Fourth, if the burqa gal is sent to detain and arrest a Muslim man.....will she respect the authority of the Islamic man....more than British law? If the Islamic man refuses to allow the burqa-clad woman to touch him....is that the end of the authority game?
Fifth, can you really see clearly enough to fire a 9mm pistol while wearing the facial covering? Really?
Sixth, would people generally on the street show respect to a cop dressed in a burqa outfit? It's hard to imagine the bulk of society having automatic respect for someone who is in a burqa.
Seventh, what happens if "Barnaby" (a non-Islamic gay British police guy) takes to this and asks to be allowed to wear the burqa? Will burqa gals get upset? Will Islamic folks get upset? Will the other cops get upset?
Eighth? If someone creates a religion of thin air and makes all members wear Ballerina clothing or cowboy clothing, and they ask to join this police unit and be allowed to wear their religion's choice of silky Ballerina outfits.....will they have to comply?
You see, this all leads to more questions....more doors opening.....more issues.
So I sat and pondered how burqa cops would work.
First, they are debating over the plain burqa uniform itself or possibly even the facial covering burqa. Would the police have a particular style (in blue) for the young woman?
Second, for the bullet-proof vest.....do you wear it under the burqa or over the top of the burqa?
Third, if you have to wear a holster and carry a pistol.....will the holster be over the top of the burqa outfit or under the outfit?
Fourth, if the burqa gal is sent to detain and arrest a Muslim man.....will she respect the authority of the Islamic man....more than British law? If the Islamic man refuses to allow the burqa-clad woman to touch him....is that the end of the authority game?
Fifth, can you really see clearly enough to fire a 9mm pistol while wearing the facial covering? Really?
Sixth, would people generally on the street show respect to a cop dressed in a burqa outfit? It's hard to imagine the bulk of society having automatic respect for someone who is in a burqa.
Seventh, what happens if "Barnaby" (a non-Islamic gay British police guy) takes to this and asks to be allowed to wear the burqa? Will burqa gals get upset? Will Islamic folks get upset? Will the other cops get upset?
Eighth? If someone creates a religion of thin air and makes all members wear Ballerina clothing or cowboy clothing, and they ask to join this police unit and be allowed to wear their religion's choice of silky Ballerina outfits.....will they have to comply?
You see, this all leads to more questions....more doors opening.....more issues.
Friday, September 9, 2016
*.* and German Immigration
In the mid-1990s, the Air Force decided to make an IT "pro" out of me. It was an unwise decision but in the end....I became a capable minor-league technician and even got to the point of being a trainer and instructor. One of the 100,000 things that I ended up learning about....was "*.*". It was this command that you could write into some brief code or search pattern for.....and get everything (and I mean ABSOLUTELY everything).
*.* is a nifty tool.....if you need how to use it and how it can be focused on the right things.
In the German immigration mess....typically everything about the incoming crowd is *.*.
That means that there is not a lot of rational thought process or understanding by the Berlin crowd into what *.* means..
If you went and asked the statistical guys in Germany about what makes up the immigrant population now.....they'd tell you that it probably tops sixty-odd countries. So many in fact.....that in a lot of camps or centers.....they have no one there to speak that particular language of the guy they delivered today, and he'll end up being a special case until they ship to another camp or center.....where they might have sixty of his "culture".
So, if you start thinking about all these cultures, languages, customs, and behavior oddities.....then you start asking stupid questions. Like.....how do you arrange some school system in a particular district to handle sixteen different nationalities or languages? How do you handle one group which is heavily affected by wartime situations versus another group who emerged out of a peaceful island nation in the Pacific? How do you handle one group of fourteen-year-olds from one culture who seem to be just a year behind the German kids.....while this one other different cultural group of fourteen-year-olds are two or three years behind the German kids?
How do you handle disciplinary actions on some kids who can't handle directions from women teachers, when just two meters away are another totally different immigrant group of kids.....who seem to easily take orders from female teachers?
Maturity? Go take forty average immigrants in Germany and review their ability to handle a simple maturity situation. Various nationalities will handle one situation one way......and another group a different way.
At some point in the 2015 debate and defense tactics shown by the news media in Germany.....there was this odd projection of all refugees being the same. It was the *.* projection. At the time, I just sat there and thought.....well....maybe in some hyped period of mass drinking and hallucinogenic medications....but you've got all kinds of different cultures, languages and groups. I kept thinking....surely they would realize the implications. Well....I was wrong.
When you look across the entire spectrum of various groups and visualize the *.* situation existing....it's hard to figure how this can ever come out as some success without massive funding and effort invested.
A German attempt to disprove *.* as a problem? That's about the only theory that I can come up with. Some smart clever German intellectual.....just sat there and said let's prove *.* isn't a big deal. Days go by.....weeks go by.....months go by.....and the intellectual is still standing there and trying to disprove it's a big deal. Even five years from now....he'll still be trying to disprove it's an issue.
Maybe one day.....some geeky and creative guy will write some Mark Twain-like book entitled "*.* Explained in Ten Simple Sentences".....and German intellectuals will finally proclaim this is something to think about.
*.* is a nifty tool.....if you need how to use it and how it can be focused on the right things.
In the German immigration mess....typically everything about the incoming crowd is *.*.
That means that there is not a lot of rational thought process or understanding by the Berlin crowd into what *.* means..
If you went and asked the statistical guys in Germany about what makes up the immigrant population now.....they'd tell you that it probably tops sixty-odd countries. So many in fact.....that in a lot of camps or centers.....they have no one there to speak that particular language of the guy they delivered today, and he'll end up being a special case until they ship to another camp or center.....where they might have sixty of his "culture".
So, if you start thinking about all these cultures, languages, customs, and behavior oddities.....then you start asking stupid questions. Like.....how do you arrange some school system in a particular district to handle sixteen different nationalities or languages? How do you handle one group which is heavily affected by wartime situations versus another group who emerged out of a peaceful island nation in the Pacific? How do you handle one group of fourteen-year-olds from one culture who seem to be just a year behind the German kids.....while this one other different cultural group of fourteen-year-olds are two or three years behind the German kids?
How do you handle disciplinary actions on some kids who can't handle directions from women teachers, when just two meters away are another totally different immigrant group of kids.....who seem to easily take orders from female teachers?
Maturity? Go take forty average immigrants in Germany and review their ability to handle a simple maturity situation. Various nationalities will handle one situation one way......and another group a different way.
At some point in the 2015 debate and defense tactics shown by the news media in Germany.....there was this odd projection of all refugees being the same. It was the *.* projection. At the time, I just sat there and thought.....well....maybe in some hyped period of mass drinking and hallucinogenic medications....but you've got all kinds of different cultures, languages and groups. I kept thinking....surely they would realize the implications. Well....I was wrong.
When you look across the entire spectrum of various groups and visualize the *.* situation existing....it's hard to figure how this can ever come out as some success without massive funding and effort invested.
A German attempt to disprove *.* as a problem? That's about the only theory that I can come up with. Some smart clever German intellectual.....just sat there and said let's prove *.* isn't a big deal. Days go by.....weeks go by.....months go by.....and the intellectual is still standing there and trying to disprove it's a big deal. Even five years from now....he'll still be trying to disprove it's an issue.
Maybe one day.....some geeky and creative guy will write some Mark Twain-like book entitled "*.* Explained in Ten Simple Sentences".....and German intellectuals will finally proclaim this is something to think about.
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
The Jewish Path into Germany
One of the rare questions....that never gets asked in German history....is how Jews arrived. So this is one of those historical essays that I'll write on a certain element of history which isn't clearly laid out in most resources.
Depending on which historian you use....the Romans came into the Germanic region of central core of Europe around 58 BC (during the Gallic Wars period of six to eight years). They probably were roaming around earlier than that but this is the clear point when they established some authority over the Germanic people.
Some documents exist from around the 321AD period which identifies the Jews in the Germanic region. They came as part of the trade and commerce trend developed with the Roman trails and roads that led from Rome north into central Germany.
The chief purpose of the original crowd? Trade, agriculture, manufacture, and eventually they got into the lending practice.
The chief trading points of the Roman Empire in this early period? Mainz, Speyer and Worms. You can pull out any map of the region.....it all leads along the Rhine River.
Because of various rules established by the Catholic Church after the Roman Empire dissolved....the Jews were on the 'approved list' of money-lenders. A key word that you might see thrown around occasionally is "Usury"....which basically means the black-market side of loaning money. If someone was dealing loans under this Usury-umbrella....it tends to mean a dishonest or unethical type of loan.....maybe an unfair interest rate.....or the requirement of a hefty amount of property should the loan fail.
It's safe to say that as the loan-handlers of the time.....people had an appreciation of their services but also hated dealing with them. If you needed money to solve a problem.....you usually had very few choices beyond the Jewish loan merchant in your local area. So in some ways....this was the beginning of a negative perception about Jews.
If you go back to the era of 1096 to 1349....it's a pretty negative period for most Jews in central Europe. Between Koln, Speyer, Mainz and Worms....roughly 12,000 Jews were murdered over one short summer (1096). Anger over the money business? Yeah, it might lead back to that as one of a couple of reasons for the attitude by the locals..
Trade and commerce occurring in this seven-hundred year period without the Jews? Maybe, but to a much lesser degree. You have to remember that the ability to loan and concentrate great deals.....was fairly dependent on cash flow. If the money wasn't there.....big deals would not occur. Course, this also involved risk, and if you failed to pay loan off.....it meant a fairly big loss to your lifestyle and comfort (maybe losing your bakery, your farm, or livestock). This loss would unsettle most people and set up revenge perceptions down the line.
So, in simple terms.....without the Roman invasion of central Europe and decades of occupation.....you wouldn't have had much reason for the Jewish merchants to arrive and set up shop.
Depending on which historian you use....the Romans came into the Germanic region of central core of Europe around 58 BC (during the Gallic Wars period of six to eight years). They probably were roaming around earlier than that but this is the clear point when they established some authority over the Germanic people.
Some documents exist from around the 321AD period which identifies the Jews in the Germanic region. They came as part of the trade and commerce trend developed with the Roman trails and roads that led from Rome north into central Germany.
The chief purpose of the original crowd? Trade, agriculture, manufacture, and eventually they got into the lending practice.
The chief trading points of the Roman Empire in this early period? Mainz, Speyer and Worms. You can pull out any map of the region.....it all leads along the Rhine River.
Because of various rules established by the Catholic Church after the Roman Empire dissolved....the Jews were on the 'approved list' of money-lenders. A key word that you might see thrown around occasionally is "Usury"....which basically means the black-market side of loaning money. If someone was dealing loans under this Usury-umbrella....it tends to mean a dishonest or unethical type of loan.....maybe an unfair interest rate.....or the requirement of a hefty amount of property should the loan fail.
It's safe to say that as the loan-handlers of the time.....people had an appreciation of their services but also hated dealing with them. If you needed money to solve a problem.....you usually had very few choices beyond the Jewish loan merchant in your local area. So in some ways....this was the beginning of a negative perception about Jews.
If you go back to the era of 1096 to 1349....it's a pretty negative period for most Jews in central Europe. Between Koln, Speyer, Mainz and Worms....roughly 12,000 Jews were murdered over one short summer (1096). Anger over the money business? Yeah, it might lead back to that as one of a couple of reasons for the attitude by the locals..
Trade and commerce occurring in this seven-hundred year period without the Jews? Maybe, but to a much lesser degree. You have to remember that the ability to loan and concentrate great deals.....was fairly dependent on cash flow. If the money wasn't there.....big deals would not occur. Course, this also involved risk, and if you failed to pay loan off.....it meant a fairly big loss to your lifestyle and comfort (maybe losing your bakery, your farm, or livestock). This loss would unsettle most people and set up revenge perceptions down the line.
So, in simple terms.....without the Roman invasion of central Europe and decades of occupation.....you wouldn't have had much reason for the Jewish merchants to arrive and set up shop.
Germany and Cultural Survival Points
Different cultures survive....year after year....decade after decade.....century after century....off some key survival points. It's embedded into their mind and customs.
For a German....it's what makes a German....a German.
Some people might be able to throw around a hundred such points on Germans. For me....I sequenced these down into ten key points (which are in no order).
1. Repeating a process. If you go and view a BMW manufacturing line and test the guys there.....month after month....the window installation guy comes back to install the window in the same correct manner....over and over. When you go to a city landscaping division...."Huns" has a Monday through Friday schedule....for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, and it doesn't change. If you asked the head guy of a German vinegar company about the formula for their product.....it probably hasn't changed since 1898.
Across German society, it doesn't matter if you talk education, government, commerce, banking or IT....people are taught a process, and they repeat that process. I admit.....it may be a bad process or a screwed-up process.....but Germans are very keen to keep repeating it.
2. Structure. When you get introduced to the German language.....you eventually come to grasp about ten weeks into the matter....that 90-percent of the whole learning process is simply structure. It's like some light-switch flips, and you realize all this structure stuff and how it repeats over and over.
But it's not limited to just language. There's structure in education, government funding, taxation, sales, enforcement, and even regular plain politics.
It's like connecting the dots, and you eventually realize that each dot has another point, and you continue with that trend to see the big picture.
3. Liquid Refreshment. Believe it or not.....German culture could not survive without beer, wine, or the hundred odd liquors that exist. Ceremonies, fests, and celebrations require liquid refreshment. Germans have been that way for several thousand years. Anyone arriving and having some anti-alcohol sentiment.....is probably in the wrong land.
4. Respect. Since the days of the Romans, and through the Catholic Church days....onto the Kaiser and Duke days....through the 1920s....through the Nazi era....and over the past fifty-odd years....Germans have stressed respect.
There is respect for authority. There is respect for positions. There is respect built into the language itself. There is respect for the law. There is respect for the police. There is respect for anyone who has a PhD or high degree. There is respect for judges. And there is respect for life.
Anyone who shows up and skips out on the respect business....is just setting themselves up as a "loser" in German society. If you lived in some dark end of the Earth and just about everyone lacked respect....and you think you can continue that trend upon arrival in Germany....well, you guessed wrong. You'd best keep a bag handy and start planning an exodus of some type.
5. Regulation. One of the key features of German society is that they have a natural tendency to write rules. Lots of rules in fact. Part of this goes back to standards and expectations in society.
When they say you need a first aid kid in the car, and it has to be in accordance with such-and-such regulation, and it notes the 16 things within that first aid kit.....they aren't joking. If the cops stop you and do a stupid random check of the kit....and it's by year 2011 standards and it's missing two key items from the 2014 era.....well, that's a ticket....quick and easy.
There are tens of thousands of regulations in German society. You could spend years of your life trying to learn all of these. At best, I think most Germans will claim they are up to date with forty-percent of the rules.....the ones that usually matter in everyday life.
If you are a new guy in Germany, and you hate rules and regulations? Well....it's something that you can try to slide by.....but it'll keep getting drilled into you....about a standardized life and various rules that accompany it.
6. Clever-Rocket Scientist-Intellectualism. Lets be honest about this.....not every German falls into the category of C-RS-I (Clever-Rocket Scientist-Intellectual). But there are probably 300,000 such people in Germany....who are capable of walking in Einstein's shadow. This ought to worry most people because of the high ratio of smart people around. But a lot of these people waste time devising window sensors to detect rain and turn the wiper on automatically.....or they work on an apple that stays fresh for months and months after being picked.
Some of these people attach themselves to politics and drive some Germans almost to tears with arguments balanced upon the most marginal topics you could imagine.
On a daily basis, you might bump into two or three of these people. On the nightly news chat forum, you might get six minutes of Einstein-like chat. Sometimes....it's a positive thing.....sometimes not.
Sometimes, you even get one of these people in as Chancellor....and you get some brilliant words or clever policy decisions. And sometimes, you get a recipe for disaster.
7. Fix-It-Mentality. This goes hand-in-hand with the C-RS-I routine that I just mentioned. A couple of years ago, some mental giant came up with the idea of taxing truckers for their miles on the autobahn....saying they should pay more than the average car-driver. So the only way to make this work.....was to spend literally billions to up sensors around the country and force trucks to have sensor receivers that would talk and deduct funds from some account of the trucker's company. When they delivered the sensors and all the bells and whistles.....it was a jacked-up piece of "crap" that simply didn't work. They spent roughly three years trying to fix the final product.....going way beyond the completion date....before they resolved everything and forced it upon the truckers.
BER, the new Berlin Airport? Basically the same way.....it was built screwed up and they've spent three years trying to fix it and there's likely to be at least two more years before it'll be operational.
You can go down various major jobs in Germany.....all the same way....all requiring a fix-it-mentality. Germans are good at this.
8. Must-Be-Right. Germans can be argumentative at times.....mostly because they have this feeling of being right.....99-percent of the time. It is part of their culture and part of the way that they survive.
What happens when you get a number of Germans into some argument? Just settle back and enjoy the conversation....it'll be like five or six Einsteins sitting in a room and arguing to the ninth-degree about E equaling energy but each in some small subtle but different way.
9. Humor. On the landscape.....Germans aren't exactly a humor-filled society. So, you need to stand back and catch the brilliant moments when shift schedules have to change and various reasons are laid out why Johan can't be on this shift, or why Maria can't be on that shift, and it's apparent that no one can really cover the job that Marvin does, and even though Gerhard has been there for thirty years.....he really doesn't know that much about the other functions of the office.
On some occasions, German humor will be cynical and dramatic....to the point where reality and fantasy meet. It took the Germans almost fifty years to find humor within Hitler.....but if you watch Er Ist Wieder Da......it's loaded with Hitler-humor.
10. Even if you ask a German what makes up a German.....they really can't say. But in their heart....they do feel that you need training to become a German and to understand the nature of the "beast". If you asked how many hours this integration training would take.....everyone has their humble opinion.....some say eight hours.....some forty.....some 240 hours.....some will just wink and say eight years.
To survive as a culture but not really clear on how it is to be a German? Yeah. It's a confusing stage of the culture. Some professor came out today and even said that Germans themselves.....ought to be attending integration classes.
So, if you are an American or just some odd character who trekked into Germany and wants to stay a while.....you might want to think about these Germans and their culture. It might take a while to assimilate.
For a German....it's what makes a German....a German.
Some people might be able to throw around a hundred such points on Germans. For me....I sequenced these down into ten key points (which are in no order).
1. Repeating a process. If you go and view a BMW manufacturing line and test the guys there.....month after month....the window installation guy comes back to install the window in the same correct manner....over and over. When you go to a city landscaping division...."Huns" has a Monday through Friday schedule....for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, and it doesn't change. If you asked the head guy of a German vinegar company about the formula for their product.....it probably hasn't changed since 1898.
Across German society, it doesn't matter if you talk education, government, commerce, banking or IT....people are taught a process, and they repeat that process. I admit.....it may be a bad process or a screwed-up process.....but Germans are very keen to keep repeating it.
2. Structure. When you get introduced to the German language.....you eventually come to grasp about ten weeks into the matter....that 90-percent of the whole learning process is simply structure. It's like some light-switch flips, and you realize all this structure stuff and how it repeats over and over.
But it's not limited to just language. There's structure in education, government funding, taxation, sales, enforcement, and even regular plain politics.
It's like connecting the dots, and you eventually realize that each dot has another point, and you continue with that trend to see the big picture.
3. Liquid Refreshment. Believe it or not.....German culture could not survive without beer, wine, or the hundred odd liquors that exist. Ceremonies, fests, and celebrations require liquid refreshment. Germans have been that way for several thousand years. Anyone arriving and having some anti-alcohol sentiment.....is probably in the wrong land.
4. Respect. Since the days of the Romans, and through the Catholic Church days....onto the Kaiser and Duke days....through the 1920s....through the Nazi era....and over the past fifty-odd years....Germans have stressed respect.
There is respect for authority. There is respect for positions. There is respect built into the language itself. There is respect for the law. There is respect for the police. There is respect for anyone who has a PhD or high degree. There is respect for judges. And there is respect for life.
Anyone who shows up and skips out on the respect business....is just setting themselves up as a "loser" in German society. If you lived in some dark end of the Earth and just about everyone lacked respect....and you think you can continue that trend upon arrival in Germany....well, you guessed wrong. You'd best keep a bag handy and start planning an exodus of some type.
5. Regulation. One of the key features of German society is that they have a natural tendency to write rules. Lots of rules in fact. Part of this goes back to standards and expectations in society.
When they say you need a first aid kid in the car, and it has to be in accordance with such-and-such regulation, and it notes the 16 things within that first aid kit.....they aren't joking. If the cops stop you and do a stupid random check of the kit....and it's by year 2011 standards and it's missing two key items from the 2014 era.....well, that's a ticket....quick and easy.
There are tens of thousands of regulations in German society. You could spend years of your life trying to learn all of these. At best, I think most Germans will claim they are up to date with forty-percent of the rules.....the ones that usually matter in everyday life.
If you are a new guy in Germany, and you hate rules and regulations? Well....it's something that you can try to slide by.....but it'll keep getting drilled into you....about a standardized life and various rules that accompany it.
6. Clever-Rocket Scientist-Intellectualism. Lets be honest about this.....not every German falls into the category of C-RS-I (Clever-Rocket Scientist-Intellectual). But there are probably 300,000 such people in Germany....who are capable of walking in Einstein's shadow. This ought to worry most people because of the high ratio of smart people around. But a lot of these people waste time devising window sensors to detect rain and turn the wiper on automatically.....or they work on an apple that stays fresh for months and months after being picked.
Some of these people attach themselves to politics and drive some Germans almost to tears with arguments balanced upon the most marginal topics you could imagine.
On a daily basis, you might bump into two or three of these people. On the nightly news chat forum, you might get six minutes of Einstein-like chat. Sometimes....it's a positive thing.....sometimes not.
Sometimes, you even get one of these people in as Chancellor....and you get some brilliant words or clever policy decisions. And sometimes, you get a recipe for disaster.
7. Fix-It-Mentality. This goes hand-in-hand with the C-RS-I routine that I just mentioned. A couple of years ago, some mental giant came up with the idea of taxing truckers for their miles on the autobahn....saying they should pay more than the average car-driver. So the only way to make this work.....was to spend literally billions to up sensors around the country and force trucks to have sensor receivers that would talk and deduct funds from some account of the trucker's company. When they delivered the sensors and all the bells and whistles.....it was a jacked-up piece of "crap" that simply didn't work. They spent roughly three years trying to fix the final product.....going way beyond the completion date....before they resolved everything and forced it upon the truckers.
BER, the new Berlin Airport? Basically the same way.....it was built screwed up and they've spent three years trying to fix it and there's likely to be at least two more years before it'll be operational.
You can go down various major jobs in Germany.....all the same way....all requiring a fix-it-mentality. Germans are good at this.
8. Must-Be-Right. Germans can be argumentative at times.....mostly because they have this feeling of being right.....99-percent of the time. It is part of their culture and part of the way that they survive.
What happens when you get a number of Germans into some argument? Just settle back and enjoy the conversation....it'll be like five or six Einsteins sitting in a room and arguing to the ninth-degree about E equaling energy but each in some small subtle but different way.
9. Humor. On the landscape.....Germans aren't exactly a humor-filled society. So, you need to stand back and catch the brilliant moments when shift schedules have to change and various reasons are laid out why Johan can't be on this shift, or why Maria can't be on that shift, and it's apparent that no one can really cover the job that Marvin does, and even though Gerhard has been there for thirty years.....he really doesn't know that much about the other functions of the office.
On some occasions, German humor will be cynical and dramatic....to the point where reality and fantasy meet. It took the Germans almost fifty years to find humor within Hitler.....but if you watch Er Ist Wieder Da......it's loaded with Hitler-humor.
10. Even if you ask a German what makes up a German.....they really can't say. But in their heart....they do feel that you need training to become a German and to understand the nature of the "beast". If you asked how many hours this integration training would take.....everyone has their humble opinion.....some say eight hours.....some forty.....some 240 hours.....some will just wink and say eight years.
To survive as a culture but not really clear on how it is to be a German? Yeah. It's a confusing stage of the culture. Some professor came out today and even said that Germans themselves.....ought to be attending integration classes.
So, if you are an American or just some odd character who trekked into Germany and wants to stay a while.....you might want to think about these Germans and their culture. It might take a while to assimilate.
"Have We Done It?"
Last night at 8:15, ZDF ran a short documentary piece....entitled: Have We Done It?
The topic was.....just how screwed up is the immigration, refugee and integration business?
It was a fairly balanced documentary....up to date....and covered every possible angle. On some pieces, it was very positive....on others...very negative. There are great success stories and some remarkable people who've come to Germany over the past three years. There are also some people who've come and they probably ought to leave.
You can watch the clip off this point. It is 45 minutes long but a decent report.
I think the bigger thing that you take out of this documentary is that when you do come across to "losers" or people who just won't ever integrate into Germany....you just can't seem to remove or get rid of them. In a way.....this only causes more money to be wasted....more cops to be dragged into solving the mess....and more blame getting shifted around to political figures who just aren't that bright.
At one point in the documentary....they go to a village which decided that the whole village would be pro-active and immigrant families brought into the village.....were involved daily with the locals. I admit.....it was one of those villages in the middle of nowhere and very rural in nature. I think if you were measuring integration....in this one village with the fifty-odd people involved....they were maxing out at a "10" on the scale of one to ten. But that was an exception to the standard.
At one point, they had a two-minute piece on the two-wife situation, and you could sense that one of the wives wasn't that happy with the relationship deal. How would Germany handle this for the future? Still being debated and the public is generally against the idea of changing German law.
I should note....as the video ends....if you watch all the way to the end....it's NOT a ZDF production (state-run network)....it's a Spiegel production. So as fair as the documentary was....it wasn't something produced by ZDF.
If you have 45 minutes....settle back and get a complete introduction to the broad topic of immigration in Germany. Note: it is all in Germany.
The topic was.....just how screwed up is the immigration, refugee and integration business?
It was a fairly balanced documentary....up to date....and covered every possible angle. On some pieces, it was very positive....on others...very negative. There are great success stories and some remarkable people who've come to Germany over the past three years. There are also some people who've come and they probably ought to leave.
You can watch the clip off this point. It is 45 minutes long but a decent report.
I think the bigger thing that you take out of this documentary is that when you do come across to "losers" or people who just won't ever integrate into Germany....you just can't seem to remove or get rid of them. In a way.....this only causes more money to be wasted....more cops to be dragged into solving the mess....and more blame getting shifted around to political figures who just aren't that bright.
At one point in the documentary....they go to a village which decided that the whole village would be pro-active and immigrant families brought into the village.....were involved daily with the locals. I admit.....it was one of those villages in the middle of nowhere and very rural in nature. I think if you were measuring integration....in this one village with the fifty-odd people involved....they were maxing out at a "10" on the scale of one to ten. But that was an exception to the standard.
At one point, they had a two-minute piece on the two-wife situation, and you could sense that one of the wives wasn't that happy with the relationship deal. How would Germany handle this for the future? Still being debated and the public is generally against the idea of changing German law.
I should note....as the video ends....if you watch all the way to the end....it's NOT a ZDF production (state-run network)....it's a Spiegel production. So as fair as the documentary was....it wasn't something produced by ZDF.
If you have 45 minutes....settle back and get a complete introduction to the broad topic of immigration in Germany. Note: it is all in Germany.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Berlin State Election from 2011?
With the Berlin state election coming up in two weeks.....one might go back to look at 2011 and how things went in the last state election there:
SPD: 28.3-percent
CDU: 23.4-percent
Pirate Party: 8.9-percent
Linke Party: 11.6-percent
Green Party: 17.6-percent
The rest went to marginal parties that had no standing in the regional parliament.
This election?
If AfD is successful in getting 250,000 Russian-Germans in the state...that would amount to roughly 20-percent of the vote by itself, and you could throw in another 100,000 of just angry and frustrated Germans.....then this would give them roughly 25-percent of the vote. My take is that probably won't be the result.
There are several unusual factors in this election. The Pirate Party has made a large effort this time around and might exceed what they had from the last election.
These Russian-Germans might come out and vote in big numbers....and we exceed the roughly 1.5 million who voted in 2011.
The CDU? They, and their associates from the SPD....will both lose around three or four points each from the 2011 election.....which will be a problem to explain via the journalists.
The Linke Party? They probably won't match what they got in 2011, and that will also drag up questions about their strength going into 2017's big election year.
My general take is that the Green Party might actually reach up to around 23-percent this time and win the election. It is odd.....there's been very few polls accomplished since May in Berlin. Even the local state-run network hasn't said much over how the parties are doing politically.
SPD: 28.3-percent
CDU: 23.4-percent
Pirate Party: 8.9-percent
Linke Party: 11.6-percent
Green Party: 17.6-percent
The rest went to marginal parties that had no standing in the regional parliament.
This election?
If AfD is successful in getting 250,000 Russian-Germans in the state...that would amount to roughly 20-percent of the vote by itself, and you could throw in another 100,000 of just angry and frustrated Germans.....then this would give them roughly 25-percent of the vote. My take is that probably won't be the result.
There are several unusual factors in this election. The Pirate Party has made a large effort this time around and might exceed what they had from the last election.
These Russian-Germans might come out and vote in big numbers....and we exceed the roughly 1.5 million who voted in 2011.
The CDU? They, and their associates from the SPD....will both lose around three or four points each from the 2011 election.....which will be a problem to explain via the journalists.
The Linke Party? They probably won't match what they got in 2011, and that will also drag up questions about their strength going into 2017's big election year.
My general take is that the Green Party might actually reach up to around 23-percent this time and win the election. It is odd.....there's been very few polls accomplished since May in Berlin. Even the local state-run network hasn't said much over how the parties are doing politically.
Fixing the German Immigration Crisis
First, let me say that I generally don't think the German refugee/migrant/immigrant crisis has a path of resolution. I don't want to sound negative but the actions required would not be acceptable to most people.
There's an episode of Star Trek Voyager that I often think of....when pondering upon the German immigration crisis and the path taken by the German government.
The episode unfolds with the Voyager crew rescuing some distressed ship with people who think they are highly advanced.....much more than the Voyager crew. Yet every step of the way.....through every single scene.....the advanced society demonstrates that they really aren't that bright or clever, and that their own vision of themselves is "bloated". And sadly.....they can't recognize their lack of advancement.
When you go back to 2013 and view things starting up with increased migrant/refugee/immigrant numbers in Germany and the Berlin leadership trying to resolve the problem....it was like the society on the Voyager episode.....who kept thinking they were smart and clever, but they really weren't.
You have two totally separate issues. One is closing the door to prevent any further growth or re-emergence.....and the second is to resolve the mess already created and lessening it's impact.
So you look at issue one. You basically need a quorum existing in the German Bundestag that are willing to write a paragraph of the Basic Law (the Constitution). Instead of saying that everyone who enters Germany has a right to present a petition and ask for asylum or immigration.....you need to basically split this off.
Anyone wanting migrant-status or job-entry status....needs to enter his petition from his original country through the local German embassy. If it comes back "disapproved", then you don't need to waste time trekking into Germany. You need to be blunt....if you just show up and want to fill out paperwork in Germany and wait there.....then you as the polite German need to get the point across that no paperwork will be accepted in this method and you need to leave by tomorrow morning.
Then......you start to hinge this migrant-status on experience, job-skills, or university degree. You limit zero-experience people to just a couple thousand a year, and you know precisely how much they will cost you in the end.
For the German who wants to argue about vast open doors and just training people....ask the budget guys what it cost to train a guy who has zero background or job experience.....for three years. For one single guy, between the social-living costs and education costs....with shelter and language training required....it's probably in the neighborhood of 200,000 Euro. Ask the opposition guy who pays that million Euro for five single applicants?
Anyone wanting a war-time refugee visa....then the Germans need to establish some camps and have an idea that they will only handle X-thousand refugees, and there's a time-limit to this (probably 24 months). You offer shelter and basic aid. If the refugee visa goes to a full-status, then you hinge their entry to the next level to being law-abiding for five years. Anyone breaking the law or creating a nuisance of their situation.....get revoked and removed from society.
Writing this change to the Constitution? Almost impossible. Even if you write it.....various judges might attempt to stand in the way or you could have the EU courts play out some game.
Issue number two is the list of things to be viewed with the current group in Germany.
It helps to bulk up the police presence in Germany. It also helps to enforce laws on the books and ensure judges are carrying out their assigned duties.
If someone's criminal aspects are a problem....you need to remove them from society and send them home.
If someone's religion is hindering their adapting to Germany....you need to remove them from society and find a place where they would be happy.
If you got some guy who has visa papers and it's apparent that he has no real employment but seems to have cash.....then he's dealing in drugs, and you need to send him home.
There is a cost factor to every single thing that you do as a government, and you need to wise-up to realize how much it costs to allow just a hundred migrants to be sheltered and where the money has to come from.
Guys arrest for groping or sexual assault charges? Once you've determined some truth to the issue....you need to bring the guy into some special camp and just let him fill sand-bags and get reorientation training for several months. If he can't develop a different behavior.....he's in the wrong country and you need to just make that decision and live with it.
The bottom line is that it takes some effort to be a German, or to be a good guest of Germany. It's not rocket-science....if it were....then most Germans would be failed citizens. But it does take effort.
There's an episode of Star Trek Voyager that I often think of....when pondering upon the German immigration crisis and the path taken by the German government.
The episode unfolds with the Voyager crew rescuing some distressed ship with people who think they are highly advanced.....much more than the Voyager crew. Yet every step of the way.....through every single scene.....the advanced society demonstrates that they really aren't that bright or clever, and that their own vision of themselves is "bloated". And sadly.....they can't recognize their lack of advancement.
When you go back to 2013 and view things starting up with increased migrant/refugee/immigrant numbers in Germany and the Berlin leadership trying to resolve the problem....it was like the society on the Voyager episode.....who kept thinking they were smart and clever, but they really weren't.
You have two totally separate issues. One is closing the door to prevent any further growth or re-emergence.....and the second is to resolve the mess already created and lessening it's impact.
So you look at issue one. You basically need a quorum existing in the German Bundestag that are willing to write a paragraph of the Basic Law (the Constitution). Instead of saying that everyone who enters Germany has a right to present a petition and ask for asylum or immigration.....you need to basically split this off.
Anyone wanting migrant-status or job-entry status....needs to enter his petition from his original country through the local German embassy. If it comes back "disapproved", then you don't need to waste time trekking into Germany. You need to be blunt....if you just show up and want to fill out paperwork in Germany and wait there.....then you as the polite German need to get the point across that no paperwork will be accepted in this method and you need to leave by tomorrow morning.
Then......you start to hinge this migrant-status on experience, job-skills, or university degree. You limit zero-experience people to just a couple thousand a year, and you know precisely how much they will cost you in the end.
For the German who wants to argue about vast open doors and just training people....ask the budget guys what it cost to train a guy who has zero background or job experience.....for three years. For one single guy, between the social-living costs and education costs....with shelter and language training required....it's probably in the neighborhood of 200,000 Euro. Ask the opposition guy who pays that million Euro for five single applicants?
Anyone wanting a war-time refugee visa....then the Germans need to establish some camps and have an idea that they will only handle X-thousand refugees, and there's a time-limit to this (probably 24 months). You offer shelter and basic aid. If the refugee visa goes to a full-status, then you hinge their entry to the next level to being law-abiding for five years. Anyone breaking the law or creating a nuisance of their situation.....get revoked and removed from society.
Writing this change to the Constitution? Almost impossible. Even if you write it.....various judges might attempt to stand in the way or you could have the EU courts play out some game.
Issue number two is the list of things to be viewed with the current group in Germany.
It helps to bulk up the police presence in Germany. It also helps to enforce laws on the books and ensure judges are carrying out their assigned duties.
If someone's criminal aspects are a problem....you need to remove them from society and send them home.
If someone's religion is hindering their adapting to Germany....you need to remove them from society and find a place where they would be happy.
If you got some guy who has visa papers and it's apparent that he has no real employment but seems to have cash.....then he's dealing in drugs, and you need to send him home.
There is a cost factor to every single thing that you do as a government, and you need to wise-up to realize how much it costs to allow just a hundred migrants to be sheltered and where the money has to come from.
Guys arrest for groping or sexual assault charges? Once you've determined some truth to the issue....you need to bring the guy into some special camp and just let him fill sand-bags and get reorientation training for several months. If he can't develop a different behavior.....he's in the wrong country and you need to just make that decision and live with it.
The bottom line is that it takes some effort to be a German, or to be a good guest of Germany. It's not rocket-science....if it were....then most Germans would be failed citizens. But it does take effort.
Monday, September 5, 2016
Iceland and Refugees?
I travel a lot around Europe and tend to notice things.....maybe things that the locals don't grasp or notice, and it sticks in my mind.
This week, I came to notice an article from an Icelandic group.....hyping this new poll in Iceland....from a marketing group called Maskina that was paid by Amnesty International to sort through polls and report on the general public in Iceland.
For a couple of years now, Iceland has had a somewhat open door for refugees and immigrants. What they typically will say is that if you have skills or education....they'd like for the door to be wide and open. Beyond that point.....the government tends to suggest that maybe that door is mostly closed. What they don't want to do is haul a bunch of folks in (suggest the German standard of one-million) and then get stuck with the bill to cover everyone for months, or maybe years.
If you did the comparison.....Iceland to Germany.....it's roughly 340,000 to 82,000,000. Maybe half the population of Frankfurt at best. If you used the 2015 German refugee/immigrant numbers....I suspect that the best that Iceland could accept is maybe 300 folks....in one single year. Course, that 300 group probably has to agree to be hauled around and at least half of them need to live in some fairly rural communities or villages with 100 residents there presently.
So, Amnesty International would like to show that Icelandic people are hyped up to get more refugees. The 2015 total that came in....legally and under permission of the government? Thirteen. Yeah....that's it.
My best guess is that Amnesty International would like to add at least one zero to that and get up to the 130-level.....maybe even double that.....to 260.
Poll numbers say that almost 85-percent of all Icelandic people would love to have more refugees coming to Iceland, and the majority (three-quarters) think that the government ought to do more to help those "fleeing war and persecution". I'm guessing that Amnesty International wanted to ensure this sounded pretty important.
Having been to Iceland....I would suggest that when someone gets hyped up and want to go and bring more refugees and immigrants into Iceland.....they might want to and pause over things.
It's not cheap.....and by far, one of the most expensive countries in the EU. The minute you lay out to some poor immigrant guy or Syrian war refugee....what it cost to survive each day, or a liter of gas....they might start asking questions.
Then you kinda bring up the 23-hour day of sunlight for summer or 23-hour night in December.
Then you kinda discuss the topic of weather.....snowfall.....wind.....and pretty mild (65 degrees F would be a heat-wave in July) summers.
Then you bring up salt damage and corrosion to cars.
Then you bring up limited travel. You can get on route one, and just drive the full circle.
Then you bring up the volcanic landscape.
To be honest....there's just not something that would draw most refugees to Iceland. I do admit....there are jobs there and economic growth, but they tend to desire people with crafts or education....so there's not much time to waste except for language classes.
Maybe I'm missing some angle that the Amnesty International folks would like to get hyped up about. But the reality of this is that Iceland is a fair amount of challenge on people to accept as a new arrival guy.
My general advice is not to bring up this Icelandic problem with any German. If you told them that all Iceland had for refugees in 2015 was 13 people.....it might bring some tears to the German guy.
Oh, and I'll make this observation as well. If you were to haul 300 Germans off to Iceland....for immigration purposes.....I'd take a guess that sixty would haul up and leave Iceland within six months, and another hundred would leave by the end of the 2nd year. Even with the mental tough nature of German mentality......it'd be too much for most to handle. Those Icelandic folks.....are awful tough, if you ask me.
This week, I came to notice an article from an Icelandic group.....hyping this new poll in Iceland....from a marketing group called Maskina that was paid by Amnesty International to sort through polls and report on the general public in Iceland.
For a couple of years now, Iceland has had a somewhat open door for refugees and immigrants. What they typically will say is that if you have skills or education....they'd like for the door to be wide and open. Beyond that point.....the government tends to suggest that maybe that door is mostly closed. What they don't want to do is haul a bunch of folks in (suggest the German standard of one-million) and then get stuck with the bill to cover everyone for months, or maybe years.
If you did the comparison.....Iceland to Germany.....it's roughly 340,000 to 82,000,000. Maybe half the population of Frankfurt at best. If you used the 2015 German refugee/immigrant numbers....I suspect that the best that Iceland could accept is maybe 300 folks....in one single year. Course, that 300 group probably has to agree to be hauled around and at least half of them need to live in some fairly rural communities or villages with 100 residents there presently.
So, Amnesty International would like to show that Icelandic people are hyped up to get more refugees. The 2015 total that came in....legally and under permission of the government? Thirteen. Yeah....that's it.
My best guess is that Amnesty International would like to add at least one zero to that and get up to the 130-level.....maybe even double that.....to 260.
Poll numbers say that almost 85-percent of all Icelandic people would love to have more refugees coming to Iceland, and the majority (three-quarters) think that the government ought to do more to help those "fleeing war and persecution". I'm guessing that Amnesty International wanted to ensure this sounded pretty important.
Having been to Iceland....I would suggest that when someone gets hyped up and want to go and bring more refugees and immigrants into Iceland.....they might want to and pause over things.
It's not cheap.....and by far, one of the most expensive countries in the EU. The minute you lay out to some poor immigrant guy or Syrian war refugee....what it cost to survive each day, or a liter of gas....they might start asking questions.
Then you kinda bring up the 23-hour day of sunlight for summer or 23-hour night in December.
Then you kinda discuss the topic of weather.....snowfall.....wind.....and pretty mild (65 degrees F would be a heat-wave in July) summers.
Then you bring up salt damage and corrosion to cars.
Then you bring up limited travel. You can get on route one, and just drive the full circle.
Then you bring up the volcanic landscape.
To be honest....there's just not something that would draw most refugees to Iceland. I do admit....there are jobs there and economic growth, but they tend to desire people with crafts or education....so there's not much time to waste except for language classes.
Maybe I'm missing some angle that the Amnesty International folks would like to get hyped up about. But the reality of this is that Iceland is a fair amount of challenge on people to accept as a new arrival guy.
My general advice is not to bring up this Icelandic problem with any German. If you told them that all Iceland had for refugees in 2015 was 13 people.....it might bring some tears to the German guy.
Oh, and I'll make this observation as well. If you were to haul 300 Germans off to Iceland....for immigration purposes.....I'd take a guess that sixty would haul up and leave Iceland within six months, and another hundred would leave by the end of the 2nd year. Even with the mental tough nature of German mentality......it'd be too much for most to handle. Those Icelandic folks.....are awful tough, if you ask me.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
End Result of the Mecklenburg Sunday Election
Five years ago (2011), Mecklenburg's state election ended up with:
SPD - 36-percent
CDU- 23-percent
Linke Party - 18.4-percent
Green Party - 8-percent
FDP - 6-percent
What occurred over the last five years is an interesting episode. Mecklenburg isn't a big German state, and it doesn't have much of an immigrant population (they probably took in 35,000 over the past three years). It is part of the old DDR (East Germany), and they do have a fair number of working-class people.
So, today's vote:
SPD - 30.5-percent
AfD - 21-percent
CDU - 19-percent
Linke Party - 12.5-percent
Green Party - 5-percent
For the SPD, they lost 20-percent of their voting public since five years ago.....which is a fairly damaging part of the story. For the CDU, they lost almost a quarter of their voting public. For the Linke Party, they lost a third of their voting public.
The AfD is in a great position for the Berlin election in the next couple of weeks, and likely to take near 15-percent there. All of this puts the AfD in a great position for the three early state elections in the spring of 2017.....and makes one question how both the SPD and CDU can counter them in the months ahead.
SPD - 36-percent
CDU- 23-percent
Linke Party - 18.4-percent
Green Party - 8-percent
FDP - 6-percent
What occurred over the last five years is an interesting episode. Mecklenburg isn't a big German state, and it doesn't have much of an immigrant population (they probably took in 35,000 over the past three years). It is part of the old DDR (East Germany), and they do have a fair number of working-class people.
So, today's vote:
SPD - 30.5-percent
AfD - 21-percent
CDU - 19-percent
Linke Party - 12.5-percent
Green Party - 5-percent
For the SPD, they lost 20-percent of their voting public since five years ago.....which is a fairly damaging part of the story. For the CDU, they lost almost a quarter of their voting public. For the Linke Party, they lost a third of their voting public.
The AfD is in a great position for the Berlin election in the next couple of weeks, and likely to take near 15-percent there. All of this puts the AfD in a great position for the three early state elections in the spring of 2017.....and makes one question how both the SPD and CDU can counter them in the months ahead.
The "No-Reduced-Benefits" Comment
Chancellor Merkel did an interview with the national newspaper BILD yesterday.
It was a short piece and the key point in it? She noted that with all the refugees that came in over the past three years....."We did not reduce benefits for anyone in Germany as a result of the aid for refugees. In fact, we actually saw social improvements in some areas. We took nothing away from people here. We are still achieving our big goal of maintaining and improving the quality of life in Germany."
It's fairly true....up to a point.
No one in Germany has seen their benefit packages retreat or lessen. Now, if you ask the other question....did you have to carve or cut in infrastructure or road projects, or spread out programs to have enough money cover refugee cost.....well....the answer is yes.
There are a hundred-odd ways that refugee/immigrant/migrant cost get divided up within the national, state, and local budgets. So it's just about impossible to get any German political figure to stand there and give an honest answer about what the costs are and how they found the budget money to fund them.
If you go to a job-center and find 400 migrants who have their visas now.....but their skill sets are zero, then there has to be a training episode required. You test the guy, and look at the local training programs.....then you assign him to such-and-such program....which might take eighteen to thirty-six months to complete.
One of the sensitive topics that you can view is the discussion over the Solidarity Tax.....which is supposed to end in 2019. Originally devised as a vehicle to renovate DDR coming into Germany and giving a massive construction fund for the eastern part of Germany.....it was not stamped as a permanent tax. Right now....just about every single party in the Bundestag wants the Solidarity Tax to remain on the books or be invented into something else.....mostly because they believe they really need the money. The bulk of the Solidarity Tax....comes from the middle and upper-class of Germany. They'd like for the tax to end and the money to stay in their pocket.
Some political figures believe that the only way that the immigration chaos stays controlled.....is by using funds by the Solidarity Tax to cover costs.
Does the public buy the Chancellor's comments? I would imagine that more than fifty-percent of the country question how the Chancellor saw the issue. The fact that money is being spent by the federal government....means that it's coming out of some pot of revenue and won't be used for normal expenditures.
Does this all lead to election topics and hurt the CDU? Yes. After today, there are four state elections left in Germany until the Oct/Nov national election in 2017. Each of these state elections is affected by the marginal program run by the Chancellor and her coalition government. The general public probably isn't as naive as the group of politicians sitting in the Bundestag.
It was a short piece and the key point in it? She noted that with all the refugees that came in over the past three years....."We did not reduce benefits for anyone in Germany as a result of the aid for refugees. In fact, we actually saw social improvements in some areas. We took nothing away from people here. We are still achieving our big goal of maintaining and improving the quality of life in Germany."
It's fairly true....up to a point.
No one in Germany has seen their benefit packages retreat or lessen. Now, if you ask the other question....did you have to carve or cut in infrastructure or road projects, or spread out programs to have enough money cover refugee cost.....well....the answer is yes.
There are a hundred-odd ways that refugee/immigrant/migrant cost get divided up within the national, state, and local budgets. So it's just about impossible to get any German political figure to stand there and give an honest answer about what the costs are and how they found the budget money to fund them.
If you go to a job-center and find 400 migrants who have their visas now.....but their skill sets are zero, then there has to be a training episode required. You test the guy, and look at the local training programs.....then you assign him to such-and-such program....which might take eighteen to thirty-six months to complete.
One of the sensitive topics that you can view is the discussion over the Solidarity Tax.....which is supposed to end in 2019. Originally devised as a vehicle to renovate DDR coming into Germany and giving a massive construction fund for the eastern part of Germany.....it was not stamped as a permanent tax. Right now....just about every single party in the Bundestag wants the Solidarity Tax to remain on the books or be invented into something else.....mostly because they believe they really need the money. The bulk of the Solidarity Tax....comes from the middle and upper-class of Germany. They'd like for the tax to end and the money to stay in their pocket.
Some political figures believe that the only way that the immigration chaos stays controlled.....is by using funds by the Solidarity Tax to cover costs.
Does the public buy the Chancellor's comments? I would imagine that more than fifty-percent of the country question how the Chancellor saw the issue. The fact that money is being spent by the federal government....means that it's coming out of some pot of revenue and won't be used for normal expenditures.
Does this all lead to election topics and hurt the CDU? Yes. After today, there are four state elections left in Germany until the Oct/Nov national election in 2017. Each of these state elections is affected by the marginal program run by the Chancellor and her coalition government. The general public probably isn't as naive as the group of politicians sitting in the Bundestag.
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