I spent the weekend (a long weekend)....at some German spa in the midst of Bavaria. To be honest, if I hadn't used the GPS....I doubt if I could have found this place. It was in some hidden valley ten miles off the autobahn...with ten turns and side-roads....before you come to this small village of maybe 500 people. No gas station. No grocery. Just a hotel-spa operation, that's it.
It was one of those weird places that you might hear about but never see much advertising. Maybe a hundred rooms in the place. Their whole specialty was wellness and spa stuff.
Germans get into wellness. Usually, with a doctor's note....you can get the 'cure', which means three weeks in some wellness clinic/hotel.
Me? You could have dropped me off for twelve hours at the Texas state fair, or sent me to some Amish farm demonstration, and that'd be all the wellness that I needed.....with maybe a catfish plate or some bar-b-q'ed ribs.
My impression of wellness, and that of Germans.....are about 180-degrees different.
The peak of my weekend (after sitting in some sauna for an hour)....was a 90-minute period in some salt-mine contraption. It was some cave-like room, with hot water running over some salt collection, and you had all this misty salt air that you were sniffing. I'm not sure what wellness you get out of this stuff.....but some folks think it 'heals' you (molasses heals you too but don't bring this up to a German).
Eating? Well, Bavarians tend to cook well, and I will admit that over the four days....I probably ate around 20,000 calories in food. Bavarians rarely lose weight with the food that they serve.
The highlight of the four days? Well, we are into fasching season....which means parades, music, beer, and frolic stuff (typically meaning costumes and beer consumption mixed). This village advertises itself as having the smallest parade in Germany.....one single float pulled by local farmer and his tractor, with 12 cowboy-dressed Bavarians, and one guy dressed as an Indian. Yep, that was mostly it with forty locals standing around to hoot and hollow.....with twenty kids all pepped up on sugar-drinks. Toss in the 40-odd hotel guests, and that was fasching for 2017.
My wellness level? It's pretty hyped up right now. But I have to kinda admit (to anyone but my German wife), that it's at the same level that existed in the middle of last week before I took this wellness trip.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
The Spain Story
I often point out birth-rates in Europe and how it's influencing the future.
This week, it came out that Spain is suffering to a fair degree.....with a 1.32 reproduction rate (for each couple). It got thrown out there by a government office with this interesting statistic....since 1977....the number of childless couples in Spain went from 1.5 million to 4.4 million.
It obviously worries the government. 2014 numbers show around 46.5 million residents in Spain. I looked around for surveys but there are very few which predict numbers for twenty years into the future. If it's like Germany....it's a twenty-percent drop expected by 2035, so you could be looking at Spain having a population of 37.5 million residents if the trend stays on par.
I went and looked up the 1960 population number....it's roughly 30.45-million. The 1960s and 1970s were a "robust" period for the population.
What's going on? Birth control is readily available.....cost of living is an on-going issue.....taxation is a topic that most people hate to engage upon.....business interests aren't booming. All of this leads women to make the decision that one single kid is enough.
When you look across much of Europe....it's all destined to be 30-percent less in number within the the forty years.....unless immigration occurs.
This week, it came out that Spain is suffering to a fair degree.....with a 1.32 reproduction rate (for each couple). It got thrown out there by a government office with this interesting statistic....since 1977....the number of childless couples in Spain went from 1.5 million to 4.4 million.
It obviously worries the government. 2014 numbers show around 46.5 million residents in Spain. I looked around for surveys but there are very few which predict numbers for twenty years into the future. If it's like Germany....it's a twenty-percent drop expected by 2035, so you could be looking at Spain having a population of 37.5 million residents if the trend stays on par.
I went and looked up the 1960 population number....it's roughly 30.45-million. The 1960s and 1970s were a "robust" period for the population.
What's going on? Birth control is readily available.....cost of living is an on-going issue.....taxation is a topic that most people hate to engage upon.....business interests aren't booming. All of this leads women to make the decision that one single kid is enough.
When you look across much of Europe....it's all destined to be 30-percent less in number within the the forty years.....unless immigration occurs.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Iceland and Numbers
One of the things that I tend to point about some European countries....is the declining birth-rate. Germany is typically a country that I will mention often on this topic.
Another good example is Iceland. I'll use Wiki-numbers to tell this story.
Back in the 1930s....the birth-rate for Iceland was 2.99, having dropped from 1916 point of 4.0
By the late 1960s....Iceland was looking at 3.06 as the average reproduction level.
By 2000? 2.06 was then the average.
The 2015 numbers? 1.81.
That means for every two people....they are only producing 1.81 to replace them.
You can do the statistical sheets....it doesn't matter....they've hit their peak.
In the case of Iceland, over the next decade....they will have to open the immigration door and start to discuss recruitment angles. Why the lower number? A lot of this has to do with birth-control being readily available and females tending to have careers where large families are not a consideration. Add to this....a small group of male-only or female-only pairs, and the standard high-cost of living.
Roughly 7-percent of the 325-thousand are immigrant....from forty-odd countries (even a hundred folks from India).
How do you go and recruit for the environment in Iceland? That's the thing. Once you explain the 23-hour summer days or 23-hour winter nights....toss in snow-storms....limited lifestyle....fair taxation...and a Viking-like existence with fairly stoic people.....well, it's a tough matter to make this wild adventure deal.
So, if you were sitting there and some email popped into your box talking about the great life situation in Iceland....well, it's a recruitment deal for immigration.
Another good example is Iceland. I'll use Wiki-numbers to tell this story.
Back in the 1930s....the birth-rate for Iceland was 2.99, having dropped from 1916 point of 4.0
By the late 1960s....Iceland was looking at 3.06 as the average reproduction level.
By 2000? 2.06 was then the average.
The 2015 numbers? 1.81.
That means for every two people....they are only producing 1.81 to replace them.
You can do the statistical sheets....it doesn't matter....they've hit their peak.
In the case of Iceland, over the next decade....they will have to open the immigration door and start to discuss recruitment angles. Why the lower number? A lot of this has to do with birth-control being readily available and females tending to have careers where large families are not a consideration. Add to this....a small group of male-only or female-only pairs, and the standard high-cost of living.
Roughly 7-percent of the 325-thousand are immigrant....from forty-odd countries (even a hundred folks from India).
How do you go and recruit for the environment in Iceland? That's the thing. Once you explain the 23-hour summer days or 23-hour winter nights....toss in snow-storms....limited lifestyle....fair taxation...and a Viking-like existence with fairly stoic people.....well, it's a tough matter to make this wild adventure deal.
So, if you were sitting there and some email popped into your box talking about the great life situation in Iceland....well, it's a recruitment deal for immigration.
Cheap Pizza Story
At some point two years ago in Finland.....the cops (no one suggests how they arrived at this topic)....came to discuss pizza prices in Finland.
What they said was.....you CAN'T make a normal pizza for less than six Euro. It's simply not possible unless you are cheating the government out of taxes or have employees who are not getting full wages.
This was based on the fact that roughly 35-percent of the normal price of a pizza is labor costs. Roughly one-third of the cost is related to the materials of the pizza. And the rest? Well....that's related to rent, tax, heat (you need that in a typical Finn winter), and advertising.
After the cops arrived at this analysis, they then informed the public that they needed to report such cheap pizza sales to them,, and they would conduct an investigation. Yes, you'd just call your local city cops in Finland and they'd take down the report.....stating what you paid, and they'd go and check this out.
An economic crime? Yes. Cheating the government out of taxes? More than likely.
You can imagine the two-man cop team arriving and citing some report that they'd received about 'cheap' pizza. They'd have a talk with you and you'd show the pricing list....likely to be 6.25 or such. They would respond that you seem to have done a special on Friday night....offering three pizzas for the price of 17.50 Euro (beating the six-Euro per pizza situation). You'd respond that there was a special but you had to buy at least three to get that deal. In fact, you would probably state if a customer would buy 100 pizzas at a whack....you'd offer them at 5.25 Euro each....thus violating the law in some way (yet to be proven).
I sat and surveyed the story....it's from 2015 and got a fair amount of traction. Number of arrests? Well....that's the thing. No one can cite from 2015 or 2016....a single arrest related to cheap pizzas. There might have been some reports turned in and some cop visits.....but no one suggests a single pizza owner was arrested or charged with 'cheap' pizza.
Why pizza? No one really says reason to this.
Having been to Helsinki, I can vouch that there just aren't that many burger-joints around town. There are a couple of McDonalds and Burger Kings.....but most fast-food shops don't do much other than Asian-food and pizzas.
How did the cops ever arrive at the right-price idea for pizzas? No one says much. It had to be some PhD guy out of Helsinki....likely some economist who was sitting there one day at a local pizza shop and looking at a 5.75 pizza price and realizing it just didn't make sense. He probably put 300 man-hours into an analysis review, with statistical data and economic graphs....coming to the realization that you can do the complete job for less than six-Euro. He probably ran straight over to the Mayor's office and showed them the charts, and they realized there was a massive cheating scandal going on.
The sad thing.....is that people like the PhD guy....don't go and waste their time examining incompetence in government, corruption, or wasted revenue spending by the government. Instead, they center their project on pizza.
What happened to the PhD guy? One can only imagine that he got himself a reputation, and eventually some foundation hired him for future Nobel-Economic-Prize work. Somewhere down the line in a decade....he'll write some massive theory up and be talked about with his report on comparing pizza prices, GDP, tax revenue, employment statistics, and overweight people.
Note: I should hint here, that I did have a pizza while in Helsinki....paying 18 Euro for a standard regular pizza....which I felt was not exactly top-of-the-line pizza. I would have liked to have reported crappy pizza to the cops.
What they said was.....you CAN'T make a normal pizza for less than six Euro. It's simply not possible unless you are cheating the government out of taxes or have employees who are not getting full wages.
This was based on the fact that roughly 35-percent of the normal price of a pizza is labor costs. Roughly one-third of the cost is related to the materials of the pizza. And the rest? Well....that's related to rent, tax, heat (you need that in a typical Finn winter), and advertising.
After the cops arrived at this analysis, they then informed the public that they needed to report such cheap pizza sales to them,, and they would conduct an investigation. Yes, you'd just call your local city cops in Finland and they'd take down the report.....stating what you paid, and they'd go and check this out.
An economic crime? Yes. Cheating the government out of taxes? More than likely.
You can imagine the two-man cop team arriving and citing some report that they'd received about 'cheap' pizza. They'd have a talk with you and you'd show the pricing list....likely to be 6.25 or such. They would respond that you seem to have done a special on Friday night....offering three pizzas for the price of 17.50 Euro (beating the six-Euro per pizza situation). You'd respond that there was a special but you had to buy at least three to get that deal. In fact, you would probably state if a customer would buy 100 pizzas at a whack....you'd offer them at 5.25 Euro each....thus violating the law in some way (yet to be proven).
I sat and surveyed the story....it's from 2015 and got a fair amount of traction. Number of arrests? Well....that's the thing. No one can cite from 2015 or 2016....a single arrest related to cheap pizzas. There might have been some reports turned in and some cop visits.....but no one suggests a single pizza owner was arrested or charged with 'cheap' pizza.
Why pizza? No one really says reason to this.
Having been to Helsinki, I can vouch that there just aren't that many burger-joints around town. There are a couple of McDonalds and Burger Kings.....but most fast-food shops don't do much other than Asian-food and pizzas.
How did the cops ever arrive at the right-price idea for pizzas? No one says much. It had to be some PhD guy out of Helsinki....likely some economist who was sitting there one day at a local pizza shop and looking at a 5.75 pizza price and realizing it just didn't make sense. He probably put 300 man-hours into an analysis review, with statistical data and economic graphs....coming to the realization that you can do the complete job for less than six-Euro. He probably ran straight over to the Mayor's office and showed them the charts, and they realized there was a massive cheating scandal going on.
The sad thing.....is that people like the PhD guy....don't go and waste their time examining incompetence in government, corruption, or wasted revenue spending by the government. Instead, they center their project on pizza.
What happened to the PhD guy? One can only imagine that he got himself a reputation, and eventually some foundation hired him for future Nobel-Economic-Prize work. Somewhere down the line in a decade....he'll write some massive theory up and be talked about with his report on comparing pizza prices, GDP, tax revenue, employment statistics, and overweight people.
Note: I should hint here, that I did have a pizza while in Helsinki....paying 18 Euro for a standard regular pizza....which I felt was not exactly top-of-the-line pizza. I would have liked to have reported crappy pizza to the cops.
How the September Election May Go
The morning of 25 September 2017 will dawn in Germany, and the results of the election will be laid out.
While the election revolves around 40 political parties....it really comes down to six parties and how the public perceived the past, present, and future.
Sixty days ago, I would have predicted that Merkel (of the CDU) would easily win with roughly 35-percent of the vote (combined with the CSU of Bavaria). Today? With the arrival of "Mega" Schulz as the new front man for the SPD Party....things have changed. The SPD is sitting around 32-percent....two points ahead of the CDU (depending on which poll you read).
There is a trend underway. The general public has three basic things on their mind.
1. Immigration, safety, and crime.
2. A fresh new Chancellor with a new prospective.
3. Promises of new benefits for the middle-class and families.
The SPD can deliver on two of these. They will avoid the immigration, safety and crime topic as much as possible. The news media will help on this matter by not focusing as much within the weekly news and chat forums.
The odds of a SPD win? They've yet to see any results of the three state elections, which might suggest some public discontent with "Mega" Schulz and the SPD Party. They've yet to see any real campaign efforts. They've yet to experience togh questions in debates. And "Mega" Schulz has yet to face any terror acts or serious criminal talk.....which he'd have to make some positions known....one way or another.
What happens if Merkel loses?
The general talk is that the SPD will form the next government with the Green Party and Linke Party. Some SPD members aren't happy about this team episode of the Linke Party and the consequences of them running two or three of the cabinet positions. Just to suggest that the Linke Party might get the Interior Minister position or the Finance Minister position....would bring on serious debate within the SPD Party.
All of these programs that "Mega" Schulz has promised? Well....they all cost money, and would require more taxes. Some would have a harsh affect on companies and the way that they do business. Somewhere along the third quarter after the SPD win.....I'd expect a couple of companies to announce that some part of the operation was going to move out to France, or Poland. The idea of the BREXIT bank jobs leaving London and going into Frankfurt? That idea would immediately halt and I think either Amsterdam or Paris would suddenly be the chief point of interest for the bank jobs.
My best guess is that some elements of the economy would slow down, and a minor trend would occur with less tax revenue occurring, and the unemployment rate would shift (presently 5.9-percent)....with a 7-percent rate likely by the end of 2018 (if this election result were to occur).
Of all the EU members.....Germany is one of the very few with a low rate of unemployment. If they did have the 10-percent number....as a number of countries currently suffer from....this would be a totally different election and about different complaints.
With "Mega" Schulz in charge....the migration and immigration trends would continue.....as is.
The 2021 election? Oddly, this would be a very critical election with negativity brewing across all sectors. Greater unemployment, more migrants, more safety and crime issues, high taxation, etc.
The bully-tactics or bias of the news folks? They might be able to carry things for a year....but there is such a negativity about the news media in Germany....that long-term help for "Mega" Schulz and the SPD Party just isn't possible. They'd have to take down comment-boards and avoid letting the public comment on various stories (a trend that already exists to some degree).
Micky Mouse-politics? I give it this title because of gimmicks involved. A lot of promises are laid out which involve funding. If you don't deliver, the public becomes disgruntled. So you start to tax more to reach a 'magic kingdom' stage. Those taxes end up making you less competitive....which might make other European countries happy because they can now get contracts easier and hire up more folks. Germans will wake up in the middle of this great cartoon....wondering what happened and eventually realize that they were all part of some great episode.
Maybe I'm wrong and Merkel stages some last minute changes to retake the lead. Maybe.
While the election revolves around 40 political parties....it really comes down to six parties and how the public perceived the past, present, and future.
Sixty days ago, I would have predicted that Merkel (of the CDU) would easily win with roughly 35-percent of the vote (combined with the CSU of Bavaria). Today? With the arrival of "Mega" Schulz as the new front man for the SPD Party....things have changed. The SPD is sitting around 32-percent....two points ahead of the CDU (depending on which poll you read).
There is a trend underway. The general public has three basic things on their mind.
1. Immigration, safety, and crime.
2. A fresh new Chancellor with a new prospective.
3. Promises of new benefits for the middle-class and families.
The SPD can deliver on two of these. They will avoid the immigration, safety and crime topic as much as possible. The news media will help on this matter by not focusing as much within the weekly news and chat forums.
The odds of a SPD win? They've yet to see any results of the three state elections, which might suggest some public discontent with "Mega" Schulz and the SPD Party. They've yet to see any real campaign efforts. They've yet to experience togh questions in debates. And "Mega" Schulz has yet to face any terror acts or serious criminal talk.....which he'd have to make some positions known....one way or another.
What happens if Merkel loses?
The general talk is that the SPD will form the next government with the Green Party and Linke Party. Some SPD members aren't happy about this team episode of the Linke Party and the consequences of them running two or three of the cabinet positions. Just to suggest that the Linke Party might get the Interior Minister position or the Finance Minister position....would bring on serious debate within the SPD Party.
All of these programs that "Mega" Schulz has promised? Well....they all cost money, and would require more taxes. Some would have a harsh affect on companies and the way that they do business. Somewhere along the third quarter after the SPD win.....I'd expect a couple of companies to announce that some part of the operation was going to move out to France, or Poland. The idea of the BREXIT bank jobs leaving London and going into Frankfurt? That idea would immediately halt and I think either Amsterdam or Paris would suddenly be the chief point of interest for the bank jobs.
My best guess is that some elements of the economy would slow down, and a minor trend would occur with less tax revenue occurring, and the unemployment rate would shift (presently 5.9-percent)....with a 7-percent rate likely by the end of 2018 (if this election result were to occur).
Of all the EU members.....Germany is one of the very few with a low rate of unemployment. If they did have the 10-percent number....as a number of countries currently suffer from....this would be a totally different election and about different complaints.
With "Mega" Schulz in charge....the migration and immigration trends would continue.....as is.
The 2021 election? Oddly, this would be a very critical election with negativity brewing across all sectors. Greater unemployment, more migrants, more safety and crime issues, high taxation, etc.
The bully-tactics or bias of the news folks? They might be able to carry things for a year....but there is such a negativity about the news media in Germany....that long-term help for "Mega" Schulz and the SPD Party just isn't possible. They'd have to take down comment-boards and avoid letting the public comment on various stories (a trend that already exists to some degree).
Micky Mouse-politics? I give it this title because of gimmicks involved. A lot of promises are laid out which involve funding. If you don't deliver, the public becomes disgruntled. So you start to tax more to reach a 'magic kingdom' stage. Those taxes end up making you less competitive....which might make other European countries happy because they can now get contracts easier and hire up more folks. Germans will wake up in the middle of this great cartoon....wondering what happened and eventually realize that they were all part of some great episode.
Maybe I'm wrong and Merkel stages some last minute changes to retake the lead. Maybe.
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Viking Dracula?
Around 110 years ago....some Icelandic writer (there were a handful at that point)....that had taken the work of Bram Soker and rewrote Dracula, with some Icelandic slant.
Not much is remembered over this....but the topic came up in the last week or two. There is a Icelandic film producer who is working out the idea of bringing this to a TV series. The working title so far? "Powers of Darkness".
The 1900 book was written by Valdimar Asmundsson (he died in 1902 curiously enough). Some suggest that correspondence did occur between Stoker and Asmundsson....so there is some connectivity between the two.
If you've never been to Iceland....it is a place where you could imagine a Dracula-like character hanging out and being part of the culture. Naturally, there would be some problems.
In July, the sun really never sets....so for a six-week period, there just isn't any darkness. An Icelandic Dracula would have some problems.
In December, the sun is up for barely 90 minutes, so an Icelandic Dracula would be carousing for more than 22 hours out of the day.
There is also the problem in that there are only a limited number of people in Iceland....so victims disappearing would trigger a national emergency.
Then you have the fatal character flaws of most Icelandic people....Viking-like coldness and stoic in attitude to the ninth-degree. The Icelandic Dracula might go a whole week without saying much beyond 'good morning'.
It's hard to say if this TV series idea will be a serious Dracula-piece or some Icelandic comedy over a wannabe Dracula-viking guy. The odd thing is that this will attract more attention to Iceland, and ensure even MORE tourists in the future.
Not much is remembered over this....but the topic came up in the last week or two. There is a Icelandic film producer who is working out the idea of bringing this to a TV series. The working title so far? "Powers of Darkness".
The 1900 book was written by Valdimar Asmundsson (he died in 1902 curiously enough). Some suggest that correspondence did occur between Stoker and Asmundsson....so there is some connectivity between the two.
If you've never been to Iceland....it is a place where you could imagine a Dracula-like character hanging out and being part of the culture. Naturally, there would be some problems.
In July, the sun really never sets....so for a six-week period, there just isn't any darkness. An Icelandic Dracula would have some problems.
In December, the sun is up for barely 90 minutes, so an Icelandic Dracula would be carousing for more than 22 hours out of the day.
There is also the problem in that there are only a limited number of people in Iceland....so victims disappearing would trigger a national emergency.
Then you have the fatal character flaws of most Icelandic people....Viking-like coldness and stoic in attitude to the ninth-degree. The Icelandic Dracula might go a whole week without saying much beyond 'good morning'.
It's hard to say if this TV series idea will be a serious Dracula-piece or some Icelandic comedy over a wannabe Dracula-viking guy. The odd thing is that this will attract more attention to Iceland, and ensure even MORE tourists in the future.
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
MEGA Slogan
"Make Europe Great Again".....campaign slogan for SPD's Martin Schulz.
Younger crowd from SPD are all hyped up over his EU enthusiasm and are uttering MEGA in their chats and forums.
(Source: BR)
Sounds Trumpish? Yeah....but don't tell the Germans.
A Footnote on Rinkeby Riot
The Rinkeby, Sweden riot probably got worldwide coverage....but when you stand back and look at the whole episode....it is a fairly minor riot.
First, the riot only starts as the cops snare one of the local guys somewhere around the tram/subway station (T-bana) for supposed drugs. The riot did not start up because of Trump....unlike what some would like to suggest.
The cars burned? Only local vehicles from the neighborhood....NOT from Stockholm itself. They burned cars from their own neighbors. Yeah, that's how stupid they are.
The one person injured in this whole thing? A photograph journalist (from a left-of-center newspaper) who walked into the neighborhood around two hours after the crazy stuff started. Once the provocative crowd noted the guy...they attacked him. How many in the attack group? He says roughly 15. The punks stole his camera, and he basically got up and wandered around over (maybe 300 to 600 meters) to the Rinkeby gas station.
There at the gas station....he called the cops and asked for help. "No" was the answer from the cops.....they had a fair amount of stuff going on, and it might be a while before they'd get there. So the guy stayed around the gas station....waiting. It's safe to say that it was past midnight before help arrived.
Cops finally arrive....write some report. No one says if they took him to a hospital or simply back to his car (his vehicle wasn't burned).
So far, no one can show that there were more than thirty folks at this 'riot', and the whole story suggests that they might have some relationship to the punk who was arrested in the subway station for drug activity. More likely to be defending their 'turf' than anything else.
Is it a story worth front-page news? No.
Does it really need vast analysis by CNN or Fox News? No. It's a ten-line story at best.
With the exception of burning cars....stuff like this happens in Chicago almost nightly....so I wouldn't get to excited. For Swedes, it might be a twist to their safe environment....but they are the creators of this ghetto in Rinkeby.
Where'd I get all the info? Local news folks from Stockholm....you just need to piece together the story from different prospectives.
First, the riot only starts as the cops snare one of the local guys somewhere around the tram/subway station (T-bana) for supposed drugs. The riot did not start up because of Trump....unlike what some would like to suggest.
The cars burned? Only local vehicles from the neighborhood....NOT from Stockholm itself. They burned cars from their own neighbors. Yeah, that's how stupid they are.
The one person injured in this whole thing? A photograph journalist (from a left-of-center newspaper) who walked into the neighborhood around two hours after the crazy stuff started. Once the provocative crowd noted the guy...they attacked him. How many in the attack group? He says roughly 15. The punks stole his camera, and he basically got up and wandered around over (maybe 300 to 600 meters) to the Rinkeby gas station.
There at the gas station....he called the cops and asked for help. "No" was the answer from the cops.....they had a fair amount of stuff going on, and it might be a while before they'd get there. So the guy stayed around the gas station....waiting. It's safe to say that it was past midnight before help arrived.
Cops finally arrive....write some report. No one says if they took him to a hospital or simply back to his car (his vehicle wasn't burned).
So far, no one can show that there were more than thirty folks at this 'riot', and the whole story suggests that they might have some relationship to the punk who was arrested in the subway station for drug activity. More likely to be defending their 'turf' than anything else.
Is it a story worth front-page news? No.
Does it really need vast analysis by CNN or Fox News? No. It's a ten-line story at best.
With the exception of burning cars....stuff like this happens in Chicago almost nightly....so I wouldn't get to excited. For Swedes, it might be a twist to their safe environment....but they are the creators of this ghetto in Rinkeby.
Where'd I get all the info? Local news folks from Stockholm....you just need to piece together the story from different prospectives.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Explaining Rinkeby
Before we get all hyped up on Sweden and recent riot talk, with a wide array of commentary.....let's establish some facts.
1. This recent riot episode started not in Malmo.....but in a suburb of Stockholm.....Rinkeby. It's about five kilometers northwest of the city of Stockholm...and mostly considered a suburb. It's safe to say that it's on the far end of city.....and it was planned that way.
2. This riot? It started Monday evening (8PM) around the local cop station. The charge? Illicit drug sales of some type. However, what happened over the next four hours at the suburb involved car-burning and public damage. It would appear that the cops mostly just stood back, and did a minimum amount of action against the youths involved in the act. One cop was noted firing a warning shot. For personal injury....other than one reporter that was roughed up and his camera stolen.....no one can report anyone injured (oddly, with all the action going on). Total cars burned? Six (at least the locals report that). Drug gang situation? I can only guess that's the connection.
3. Rinkeby? Well....there's a story to the area. Size-wise....I'd say it's no more than 50 acres. It's around forty apartment buildings.
The history? It's far from the waterfront, the old medieval part of town, and away from tourists. It was designed that way in the mid-1960s.
Around 1975/76.....they completed the project. Let's be very honest....in 1965, this was supposed to fix up a major housing shortage that existed in Stockholm. Presently, around 16,000 to 18,000 people live there.
It was supposed to be built to be affordable housing for the MIDDLE class. Please note....that was the 1965 idea.
On the planning side....they built it with bike paths, plenty of parking, and green space surrounding the whole thing. But here's the curious thing....it was built as a dense structure. Oddly, by the time that they completed the project.....the economy had slowed down and the urgent need for the housing seemed to diminish. Yeah, that's generally the problem with government planning.
Over roughly a twenty-year period after wrapping up this project.....Stockholm lost 20-percent of it's population. They built something that the middle class really didn't need. By the 1990s....immigration was starting to occur in higher numbers.
Wanna take a guess where they pushed the migrants and immigrants? Rinkeby.
Yeah....it made sense. Empty apartments....all in a dense location. Perfect ghetto design.
Lots of different migrants.....all regions of Africa, southern Europe (Albania, Serbia, etc), Middle East, etc. Muslim. Non-Muslims.
Public housing....dense design....cheap look. It was a perfect ghetto.
Wild kids? Yeah. Accepted poor behavior in this entire neighborhood? Yeah.
No one from the city does unemployment statistics for this one single neighborhood. It would be curious to know the rate but then it'd draw the social workers into a difficult position....you can't really fix this unless you threw everyone out of this ghetto operation and forced them to live in normal neighborhoods and start to act more "Swedish".
Rinkeby was planned out over fifty years ago, and it's design is what creates a lot of these problems of today. Urbanization, ghetto life, and youths with no maturity.
1. This recent riot episode started not in Malmo.....but in a suburb of Stockholm.....Rinkeby. It's about five kilometers northwest of the city of Stockholm...and mostly considered a suburb. It's safe to say that it's on the far end of city.....and it was planned that way.
2. This riot? It started Monday evening (8PM) around the local cop station. The charge? Illicit drug sales of some type. However, what happened over the next four hours at the suburb involved car-burning and public damage. It would appear that the cops mostly just stood back, and did a minimum amount of action against the youths involved in the act. One cop was noted firing a warning shot. For personal injury....other than one reporter that was roughed up and his camera stolen.....no one can report anyone injured (oddly, with all the action going on). Total cars burned? Six (at least the locals report that). Drug gang situation? I can only guess that's the connection.
3. Rinkeby? Well....there's a story to the area. Size-wise....I'd say it's no more than 50 acres. It's around forty apartment buildings.
The history? It's far from the waterfront, the old medieval part of town, and away from tourists. It was designed that way in the mid-1960s.
Around 1975/76.....they completed the project. Let's be very honest....in 1965, this was supposed to fix up a major housing shortage that existed in Stockholm. Presently, around 16,000 to 18,000 people live there.
It was supposed to be built to be affordable housing for the MIDDLE class. Please note....that was the 1965 idea.
On the planning side....they built it with bike paths, plenty of parking, and green space surrounding the whole thing. But here's the curious thing....it was built as a dense structure. Oddly, by the time that they completed the project.....the economy had slowed down and the urgent need for the housing seemed to diminish. Yeah, that's generally the problem with government planning.
Over roughly a twenty-year period after wrapping up this project.....Stockholm lost 20-percent of it's population. They built something that the middle class really didn't need. By the 1990s....immigration was starting to occur in higher numbers.
Wanna take a guess where they pushed the migrants and immigrants? Rinkeby.
Yeah....it made sense. Empty apartments....all in a dense location. Perfect ghetto design.
Lots of different migrants.....all regions of Africa, southern Europe (Albania, Serbia, etc), Middle East, etc. Muslim. Non-Muslims.
Public housing....dense design....cheap look. It was a perfect ghetto.
Wild kids? Yeah. Accepted poor behavior in this entire neighborhood? Yeah.
No one from the city does unemployment statistics for this one single neighborhood. It would be curious to know the rate but then it'd draw the social workers into a difficult position....you can't really fix this unless you threw everyone out of this ghetto operation and forced them to live in normal neighborhoods and start to act more "Swedish".
Rinkeby was planned out over fifty years ago, and it's design is what creates a lot of these problems of today. Urbanization, ghetto life, and youths with no maturity.
The Malmo Story
Once upon a time....that's the way that most Swedish epic stories tend to start, with some Pippi Longstocking-like character charming their way through a slew of minor and laughable problems. In today's world....Malmo (the city) would start their story with 'once upon a time', and then kinda halt there because it's not exactly a story that you'd like to weave or entertain people with.
Malmo isn't a household name to most Americans. It's the first major city you come to....once you cross the bridge from Denmark. It's the third largest city in Sweden, and mostly known for the past seventy-odd years as an industrialized city.
Part of the story of Malmo circles around the population shift. In the late 1950s....as Sweden was quietly building up an industrial base....the city had a population of roughly 190,000 residents. By the mid-1960s....they were up to the 230,000 range. People came to Malmo....not just from within Sweden, or from Finland or Norway or Denmark.....but they came from across Europe because there was plenty of work.
Malmo was about hustle and bustle.....growing industry....urban growth....and essentially becoming some doorway of import/export between the rest of Sweden and Europe.
In the 1970s....the city hit some peak with 270,000-odd residents. The business sector had outpaced itself, and reality set in. A decade later....most agree that 10-percent of the city had packed up and left (they were down into the 233,000-odd level of residents).
Over the past seventeen years....they've gone from a base of 260,000 residents to 320,000 (roughly a 30-percent increase).
Roughly 40-percent (Wiki numbers) of the population of Malmo are non-ethnic Swede. They either came decades ago or recently. Fourteen-percent of the city are visa-carriers....which you can interpret as newly arrived or recently arrived. The drive to immigrate or stay in Malmo? Generally, at least in the earlier stage of the period....there were jobs and an average guy with limited resume could find himself a position.
The unemployment rate in Malmo now? That's part of this story as well. Nationally, Sweden has a problem with roughly 8-percent unemployment. But in Malmo? It's closer to fifteen-percent. Added to this picture is that fact that Malmo wages are fairly stagnant....you'd make more in Stockholm or Gothenburg, for the same type labor. Generally, this gets explained because of the large group of unemployed staying in town and refusing to leave....so employers don't have to edge up cost or salaries to attract more workers.
Various arguments will be made about the no-go myth or the no-go reality. The thing is....like almost every other single European metropolitan area....the new immigrants (not just yesterday or the last decade....but over thirty-odd years)....settled into certain neighborhoods in Malmo, and these neighborhoods became highly ethnic territories. Swedes living in these neighborhoods? For the most part....no. It's the same way in metropolitan areas of Belgium, France, and England. No one thought much about this in the 1970s or 1980s. Today....it's part of the big-story.
Some job growth does continue in Malmo....but we are talking about a couple hundred jobs on average per year.....not thousands. So there are a fair number of people sitting there with not much to do, and some might suggest that a bad image of the city has become accepted (not just in Sweden).
Oddly, it's a historic city. There's a major university. There are various architectural structures to see. And there's some art-related projects underway. The Swedes do have a basis to be proud of the city.
What you end up with is a tale of two cities. There is Malmo....the city whose image is being protected by the local resident Swedes and trying to correct everyone on the non-existence of no-go areas. There is also Malmo....the city where violent assault, rape, and street crimes are a daily event which the cops now realize they are deep into a long-term problem. If the cops do come out at night to a reported problem area....it's usually in a large group (not the two-man patrol unit as you'd see in France or Germany). Most cops, by their own public admission....depending on the neighborhood.....will say that you have to have an effective plan of entry into a situation...detain whoever is designated....and then leave the area as quickly as possible. That means that they really don't want any interaction with the locals because they expect trouble. We can laugh over this plan of operation, but it's basically the same mentality that you'd see in Iraq....not some westernized society.
So, where does this all lead onto? I would suggest three eventual issues that will end up being resolved:
1. In September of 2018, there's a national election slated for Sweden. Based on trends and public comments....there's a lot of hype that the Swedish Democrats (the right-wing party) will take a fair number of votes....much higher than the 12.9-percent of the last election. My humble guess is that they will likely move to near 25-percent. The Social Democrats of Sweden (the left-of-center party) took in the last election around 31-percent. They might still be able to cling to some mid-20's number but it's apparent that they will lose somewhere around one-third of their public support.
I should add....this election won't really fix anything because most of the seven other parties to the Swedish Democrats....have already said they won't form a coalition with them, and so it's likely to be the number two winner of the election forming a weak and marginalized government with a minimum of two partners.
2. Most of the city council of Malmo are moderate or left-of-center related political parties. I would expect that trend to continue. But I would also expect immigrant-candidates within the parties to be more noticed in the next city election. Social programs, welfare programs, and improved social housing will be the likely promises made to entertain votes. All relate to money, and to meet those programs and votes.....you will have to deduct the money or funding from other projects (street renovation, park upkeep, etc). It may take a decade but the locals will eventually notice this and ask why the city appearance is sliding. So the Malmo trend by 2030 will be a fair number of people who live beyond the city....20 to 60 km away...riding in by train or driving into their job.
3. Cities out on the far side of Malmo....like Eslov (17,000 population currently) and Svedala (10,000 population currently) with railway access....will grow because of the exodus of people from Malmo. Other cities will benefit and find new housing construction and urban growth to be the norm.....while Malmo stagnates.
Malmo, I think.....ended up like some 'magic kingdom' attraction where a lot of migrants and immigrants heard great things of the 1980s and the job atmosphere. So they came. Swedes there in Malmo never saw this as a negative situation. Course, they never had much of a crime problem to exist in the 1960s or 1970s. At the present point, unless politics change....the only way a local Malmo resident can fix the problem....is by moving beyond the shadow of the city. Just drive or ride in...to do your job...and quickly leave at the end of the day.
It's a simple solution....which no one really wants to talk about around some pub, or drill down into at some televised TV forum. You see the same mentality in most urbanized US cities with urban decay and no ability to change the direction of the city. For those who stay....mostly because of their marginal income levels? Well....they have to be shaking their heads because this isn't the magic kingdom that they dreamed about a decade ago, and it's more or less a ghetto in some dark state of existence for five months out of the year. If you did plan on escaping....where?
Pardon me.....if I'm not writing a some pro-Malmo story. But it's really a story about urbanization and how easily things can get out of control. Once you have an urgent need for cops in your neighborhood, and there has to be a minimum of ten of them to show up, with a master plan of entry and exit.....that's the point where you know things are not relatively safe anymore.
As a footnote, I should add that the Swedish interior minister visited Malmo yesterday....mostly to listen. Three folks shot dead over the past four weeks....with a fourth guy (local janitor shoveling snow still in serious condition) has some folks worried. Typically, at least in Sweden, you don't get shot shoveling snow.
Malmo isn't a household name to most Americans. It's the first major city you come to....once you cross the bridge from Denmark. It's the third largest city in Sweden, and mostly known for the past seventy-odd years as an industrialized city.
Part of the story of Malmo circles around the population shift. In the late 1950s....as Sweden was quietly building up an industrial base....the city had a population of roughly 190,000 residents. By the mid-1960s....they were up to the 230,000 range. People came to Malmo....not just from within Sweden, or from Finland or Norway or Denmark.....but they came from across Europe because there was plenty of work.
Malmo was about hustle and bustle.....growing industry....urban growth....and essentially becoming some doorway of import/export between the rest of Sweden and Europe.
In the 1970s....the city hit some peak with 270,000-odd residents. The business sector had outpaced itself, and reality set in. A decade later....most agree that 10-percent of the city had packed up and left (they were down into the 233,000-odd level of residents).
Over the past seventeen years....they've gone from a base of 260,000 residents to 320,000 (roughly a 30-percent increase).
Roughly 40-percent (Wiki numbers) of the population of Malmo are non-ethnic Swede. They either came decades ago or recently. Fourteen-percent of the city are visa-carriers....which you can interpret as newly arrived or recently arrived. The drive to immigrate or stay in Malmo? Generally, at least in the earlier stage of the period....there were jobs and an average guy with limited resume could find himself a position.
The unemployment rate in Malmo now? That's part of this story as well. Nationally, Sweden has a problem with roughly 8-percent unemployment. But in Malmo? It's closer to fifteen-percent. Added to this picture is that fact that Malmo wages are fairly stagnant....you'd make more in Stockholm or Gothenburg, for the same type labor. Generally, this gets explained because of the large group of unemployed staying in town and refusing to leave....so employers don't have to edge up cost or salaries to attract more workers.
Various arguments will be made about the no-go myth or the no-go reality. The thing is....like almost every other single European metropolitan area....the new immigrants (not just yesterday or the last decade....but over thirty-odd years)....settled into certain neighborhoods in Malmo, and these neighborhoods became highly ethnic territories. Swedes living in these neighborhoods? For the most part....no. It's the same way in metropolitan areas of Belgium, France, and England. No one thought much about this in the 1970s or 1980s. Today....it's part of the big-story.
Some job growth does continue in Malmo....but we are talking about a couple hundred jobs on average per year.....not thousands. So there are a fair number of people sitting there with not much to do, and some might suggest that a bad image of the city has become accepted (not just in Sweden).
Oddly, it's a historic city. There's a major university. There are various architectural structures to see. And there's some art-related projects underway. The Swedes do have a basis to be proud of the city.
What you end up with is a tale of two cities. There is Malmo....the city whose image is being protected by the local resident Swedes and trying to correct everyone on the non-existence of no-go areas. There is also Malmo....the city where violent assault, rape, and street crimes are a daily event which the cops now realize they are deep into a long-term problem. If the cops do come out at night to a reported problem area....it's usually in a large group (not the two-man patrol unit as you'd see in France or Germany). Most cops, by their own public admission....depending on the neighborhood.....will say that you have to have an effective plan of entry into a situation...detain whoever is designated....and then leave the area as quickly as possible. That means that they really don't want any interaction with the locals because they expect trouble. We can laugh over this plan of operation, but it's basically the same mentality that you'd see in Iraq....not some westernized society.
So, where does this all lead onto? I would suggest three eventual issues that will end up being resolved:
1. In September of 2018, there's a national election slated for Sweden. Based on trends and public comments....there's a lot of hype that the Swedish Democrats (the right-wing party) will take a fair number of votes....much higher than the 12.9-percent of the last election. My humble guess is that they will likely move to near 25-percent. The Social Democrats of Sweden (the left-of-center party) took in the last election around 31-percent. They might still be able to cling to some mid-20's number but it's apparent that they will lose somewhere around one-third of their public support.
I should add....this election won't really fix anything because most of the seven other parties to the Swedish Democrats....have already said they won't form a coalition with them, and so it's likely to be the number two winner of the election forming a weak and marginalized government with a minimum of two partners.
2. Most of the city council of Malmo are moderate or left-of-center related political parties. I would expect that trend to continue. But I would also expect immigrant-candidates within the parties to be more noticed in the next city election. Social programs, welfare programs, and improved social housing will be the likely promises made to entertain votes. All relate to money, and to meet those programs and votes.....you will have to deduct the money or funding from other projects (street renovation, park upkeep, etc). It may take a decade but the locals will eventually notice this and ask why the city appearance is sliding. So the Malmo trend by 2030 will be a fair number of people who live beyond the city....20 to 60 km away...riding in by train or driving into their job.
3. Cities out on the far side of Malmo....like Eslov (17,000 population currently) and Svedala (10,000 population currently) with railway access....will grow because of the exodus of people from Malmo. Other cities will benefit and find new housing construction and urban growth to be the norm.....while Malmo stagnates.
Malmo, I think.....ended up like some 'magic kingdom' attraction where a lot of migrants and immigrants heard great things of the 1980s and the job atmosphere. So they came. Swedes there in Malmo never saw this as a negative situation. Course, they never had much of a crime problem to exist in the 1960s or 1970s. At the present point, unless politics change....the only way a local Malmo resident can fix the problem....is by moving beyond the shadow of the city. Just drive or ride in...to do your job...and quickly leave at the end of the day.
It's a simple solution....which no one really wants to talk about around some pub, or drill down into at some televised TV forum. You see the same mentality in most urbanized US cities with urban decay and no ability to change the direction of the city. For those who stay....mostly because of their marginal income levels? Well....they have to be shaking their heads because this isn't the magic kingdom that they dreamed about a decade ago, and it's more or less a ghetto in some dark state of existence for five months out of the year. If you did plan on escaping....where?
Pardon me.....if I'm not writing a some pro-Malmo story. But it's really a story about urbanization and how easily things can get out of control. Once you have an urgent need for cops in your neighborhood, and there has to be a minimum of ten of them to show up, with a master plan of entry and exit.....that's the point where you know things are not relatively safe anymore.
As a footnote, I should add that the Swedish interior minister visited Malmo yesterday....mostly to listen. Three folks shot dead over the past four weeks....with a fourth guy (local janitor shoveling snow still in serious condition) has some folks worried. Typically, at least in Sweden, you don't get shot shoveling snow.
Monday, February 20, 2017
SPD: Agenda 2020
A big speech got delivered by Germany's Martin Schulz (vice-chancellor, and SPD's candidate for the fall election against Merkel).
He listed out his big seven points for the public to get energized about.
1. He wants to establish a stable pension level for all Germans so that no one slips off into poverty upon retirement.
The problem with this? Basically, the government would have to raise taxes and artificially dip into the pot to retrieve enough money cover some imaginary level of adequate pension.
Presently, you could be a low-wage earner and wake up at age 66....getting 600 Euro a month....which isn't really enough to live off. So you prepare your paperwork, and show the social office of the inadequate nature...and they pay you currently out of the welfare pot. So, it'd be the same money but just out of one single pot instead of the present two-pot system? More or less. But they haven't really said what this imaginary level of adequate pension would be, and a lot of people would argue pensions in urban areas like Berlin need to be fairly high, while in rural areas....much lower.
2. Stable pension level. He wants a particular level of pension....currently, it's set at 46-percent of your pay. It sounds like he wants it raised but I doubt that there money exists unless you raise taxes.
3. A change to the contract system.....with no limitations. He indicates that some type of future view would involve your contract having to do with education, family, the home, honorary offices and possibly the care of relatives. Companies probably don't want him messing with the contracts of present, and it could entice some companies to relocate outside of Germany. Course, politicians never come through with half their promises anyway.
4. More protection for the unemployed. It was an odd quote: "People must be treated with decency and respect. People who have paid their contributions for many years need our support if they get into trouble. Everyone must have the opportunity to do their own job in the job center. "
He says some stuff about better training opportunities....which is usually a catch-phrase for these private companies who specialize in some computer classes. Most Germans laugh about these classes and take them to be more of a joke.
5. Change Temporary part-time status. This was a mystery comment (at least for me). He hints that women need to reshape their career, and that part-time work is a key-part of this. It's generally a company decision on how many part-time slots they create, and it's hard to imagine the government forcing more part-time slots to exist, without some hostility about it.
6. Free education. Schulz says that everything....from daycare to university....ought to be free. To be honest....some cities do offer subsidized daycare already. But in this case....he wants it to be totally free....meaning a massive amount of taxation and government running the whole thing. The university thing? Well....it's mostly free (with a few fees currently). Sounds nice on paper, but taxes would have to be part of this deal.
7. More protection of unions. Frankly, unions kinda left the SPD movement in the last decade and aren't that hyped up over the party. Maybe he's trying to get them back with some kind words and law changes.
My view? Most of the seven involve more government taxation, and have limited pay-back. If you were a family and in the middle-class....you might like some of the talk. If you were worried about your company folding up and moving outside of Germany.....his talk might make you even more worried.
He listed out his big seven points for the public to get energized about.
1. He wants to establish a stable pension level for all Germans so that no one slips off into poverty upon retirement.
The problem with this? Basically, the government would have to raise taxes and artificially dip into the pot to retrieve enough money cover some imaginary level of adequate pension.
Presently, you could be a low-wage earner and wake up at age 66....getting 600 Euro a month....which isn't really enough to live off. So you prepare your paperwork, and show the social office of the inadequate nature...and they pay you currently out of the welfare pot. So, it'd be the same money but just out of one single pot instead of the present two-pot system? More or less. But they haven't really said what this imaginary level of adequate pension would be, and a lot of people would argue pensions in urban areas like Berlin need to be fairly high, while in rural areas....much lower.
2. Stable pension level. He wants a particular level of pension....currently, it's set at 46-percent of your pay. It sounds like he wants it raised but I doubt that there money exists unless you raise taxes.
3. A change to the contract system.....with no limitations. He indicates that some type of future view would involve your contract having to do with education, family, the home, honorary offices and possibly the care of relatives. Companies probably don't want him messing with the contracts of present, and it could entice some companies to relocate outside of Germany. Course, politicians never come through with half their promises anyway.
4. More protection for the unemployed. It was an odd quote: "People must be treated with decency and respect. People who have paid their contributions for many years need our support if they get into trouble. Everyone must have the opportunity to do their own job in the job center. "
He says some stuff about better training opportunities....which is usually a catch-phrase for these private companies who specialize in some computer classes. Most Germans laugh about these classes and take them to be more of a joke.
5. Change Temporary part-time status. This was a mystery comment (at least for me). He hints that women need to reshape their career, and that part-time work is a key-part of this. It's generally a company decision on how many part-time slots they create, and it's hard to imagine the government forcing more part-time slots to exist, without some hostility about it.
6. Free education. Schulz says that everything....from daycare to university....ought to be free. To be honest....some cities do offer subsidized daycare already. But in this case....he wants it to be totally free....meaning a massive amount of taxation and government running the whole thing. The university thing? Well....it's mostly free (with a few fees currently). Sounds nice on paper, but taxes would have to be part of this deal.
7. More protection of unions. Frankly, unions kinda left the SPD movement in the last decade and aren't that hyped up over the party. Maybe he's trying to get them back with some kind words and law changes.
My view? Most of the seven involve more government taxation, and have limited pay-back. If you were a family and in the middle-class....you might like some of the talk. If you were worried about your company folding up and moving outside of Germany.....his talk might make you even more worried.
The Swede Story
Over the past week, Swedish social program folks have met and discussed an ongoing crisis....young immigrant/migrant males who are committing suicide at a noticeable pace (7 have attempted in the past three weeks, three successfully). I should note, all were Afghan.
The general story? There are a large number of young migrant folks under the age of 18 who've made their way into Sweden. All were told to fill out the immigration papers and submit.....because it's NOT a guaranteed matter to get a visa and be allowed to stay. The current trend? Roughly 80-percent are granted a visa....meaning a fair sum (600-odd folks for 2016) fail.
What bothers the Swedish social folks is that it's mostly all young men attempting suicide and in some cases....they were pushed on (peer-pressure) by other migrant teens to 'go ahead and do it'.
Few people talk about this but in general.....Sweden has one of the higher suicide rates of any European country.....17.5 per 100,000 residents. Reason? They generally give two reasons. The first is the darkness factor of winter (you are talking about roughly 22 hours of darkness in December). A lot of people can't handle that. The second factor is that Swedes generally don't get aggressive about seeing a mental health person when behavior or emotions require it.
In the case of these Afghan teens? I would add several other factors to the list:
1. The behavior or maturity level of a Afghan 15-year old isn't exactly at the same point or level as a Swedish or German or American 15-year old. I've noticed this here in Germany where local Germans wanted to perceive everyone acting and behaving at the same age-level, and it's simply not that way in real life.
In the case of a lot of these Afghan 15-year olds.....they've made some big adventure and come all the way into Sweden without any family connection and no adult-mentor. While the Swedes may operate some dorm-like structure and try to guide the kid.....I think it's more show than a legit program.
2. Lack of structure. If you are sitting around after school for eight hours and have basically nothing constructive going on....especially as a 15-year old kid....you'll likely to get yourself into trouble or start doing some really stupid stuff.
I doubt if the Swedes want to sit there with some authoritarian "Sarge" dumping jobs and activities on some kid for eight hours everyday and sixteen hours per Saturday.....but that's basically what they need.
3. The 'sum-total-factor'. If you were young, immature and not really grasping of this whole deal....so what happens after you get to the "magic kingdom"? You have to prepare yourself for a rough period of not just days or weeks.....but months and years of adjustment. There's the language business where you probably won't speak reasonable Swedish until you've wrapped up nine months of intensive language classes. Acceptance by the locals? It might be three or four years before you have a couple of Swedes who you can call a "friend". Occupational training? High taxation? High cost of living? These are all realities of the adventure that you undertook but really didn't think to a great degree of the sum total of this adventure.
These Swedish social program folks are likely sitting in some conference room and going over the rate of suicides and how they really need to lessen the numbers very quickly. If this trend were to continue....you could be looking at 50-to-100 dead Afghan males by the end of 2017. Someone may suggest that each and every young male needs to have some local Swede assigned and trying to mentor them. I personally doubt that people want this kind of responsibility. I also doubt that this is a problem that you can just throw money out and hope for some quick solution.
It'll be curious how this gets solved in the end.
The general story? There are a large number of young migrant folks under the age of 18 who've made their way into Sweden. All were told to fill out the immigration papers and submit.....because it's NOT a guaranteed matter to get a visa and be allowed to stay. The current trend? Roughly 80-percent are granted a visa....meaning a fair sum (600-odd folks for 2016) fail.
What bothers the Swedish social folks is that it's mostly all young men attempting suicide and in some cases....they were pushed on (peer-pressure) by other migrant teens to 'go ahead and do it'.
Few people talk about this but in general.....Sweden has one of the higher suicide rates of any European country.....17.5 per 100,000 residents. Reason? They generally give two reasons. The first is the darkness factor of winter (you are talking about roughly 22 hours of darkness in December). A lot of people can't handle that. The second factor is that Swedes generally don't get aggressive about seeing a mental health person when behavior or emotions require it.
In the case of these Afghan teens? I would add several other factors to the list:
1. The behavior or maturity level of a Afghan 15-year old isn't exactly at the same point or level as a Swedish or German or American 15-year old. I've noticed this here in Germany where local Germans wanted to perceive everyone acting and behaving at the same age-level, and it's simply not that way in real life.
In the case of a lot of these Afghan 15-year olds.....they've made some big adventure and come all the way into Sweden without any family connection and no adult-mentor. While the Swedes may operate some dorm-like structure and try to guide the kid.....I think it's more show than a legit program.
2. Lack of structure. If you are sitting around after school for eight hours and have basically nothing constructive going on....especially as a 15-year old kid....you'll likely to get yourself into trouble or start doing some really stupid stuff.
I doubt if the Swedes want to sit there with some authoritarian "Sarge" dumping jobs and activities on some kid for eight hours everyday and sixteen hours per Saturday.....but that's basically what they need.
3. The 'sum-total-factor'. If you were young, immature and not really grasping of this whole deal....so what happens after you get to the "magic kingdom"? You have to prepare yourself for a rough period of not just days or weeks.....but months and years of adjustment. There's the language business where you probably won't speak reasonable Swedish until you've wrapped up nine months of intensive language classes. Acceptance by the locals? It might be three or four years before you have a couple of Swedes who you can call a "friend". Occupational training? High taxation? High cost of living? These are all realities of the adventure that you undertook but really didn't think to a great degree of the sum total of this adventure.
These Swedish social program folks are likely sitting in some conference room and going over the rate of suicides and how they really need to lessen the numbers very quickly. If this trend were to continue....you could be looking at 50-to-100 dead Afghan males by the end of 2017. Someone may suggest that each and every young male needs to have some local Swede assigned and trying to mentor them. I personally doubt that people want this kind of responsibility. I also doubt that this is a problem that you can just throw money out and hope for some quick solution.
It'll be curious how this gets solved in the end.
That Spain Demonstration
Over the weekend, there was this massive demonstration in Barcelona, Spain. The authorities say that roughly 160,000 folks showed up. The topic? They want to push the Spanish government to go ahead and accept 16,000 immigrants into Spain....which was the quota set up by the EU. This quota (from 2015) hasn't exactly been an easy thing for the government, and in the 18 months since it came out....there's been roughly one-thousand accepted.
The curious thing about this enthusiasm? Well....Spain has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the EU....currently at 22-percent.
If you look at youth-unemployment.....it's roughly 42-percent.
If you look at the southern one-third of Spain....general unemployment is close to 30-to-35 percent (2016 numbers).
What happens when the 16,000 are accepted and pumped into Spain? Well...after completing a Spanish language class....they would go to the unemployment office and talk with the counselor. If they have no job background or craft....then Spain would have to put them through a one-to-two year program. The odds of a job after that? I'd give it a 50-50 shot....mostly because you could hire the new immigrants at a fairly cheap price.
Adding migrants and immigrants in the midst of a 22-percent unemployment rate? Stupid. Fairly stupid. You only set up more revenue expenditures by the social welfare office and the state unemployment office.
It's hard to say who pumped up the agenda and got the 160,000 people to show up. I doubt if any of them really sat and thought about the employment situation. All this does in the end is create an atmosphere where people come into Spain....quickly drift into social welfare....live in the cheapest housing possible...and grumble day-by-day over a fairly negative social atmosphere. Four to six years down the line....everyone wants to run off to Germany because they think the jobs are there.
The curious thing about this enthusiasm? Well....Spain has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the EU....currently at 22-percent.
If you look at youth-unemployment.....it's roughly 42-percent.
If you look at the southern one-third of Spain....general unemployment is close to 30-to-35 percent (2016 numbers).
What happens when the 16,000 are accepted and pumped into Spain? Well...after completing a Spanish language class....they would go to the unemployment office and talk with the counselor. If they have no job background or craft....then Spain would have to put them through a one-to-two year program. The odds of a job after that? I'd give it a 50-50 shot....mostly because you could hire the new immigrants at a fairly cheap price.
Adding migrants and immigrants in the midst of a 22-percent unemployment rate? Stupid. Fairly stupid. You only set up more revenue expenditures by the social welfare office and the state unemployment office.
It's hard to say who pumped up the agenda and got the 160,000 people to show up. I doubt if any of them really sat and thought about the employment situation. All this does in the end is create an atmosphere where people come into Spain....quickly drift into social welfare....live in the cheapest housing possible...and grumble day-by-day over a fairly negative social atmosphere. Four to six years down the line....everyone wants to run off to Germany because they think the jobs are there.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
Germany and Immigration: The Whole Story
A lot of people think that Germans are basically crazy in their immigration policy and have created a massive mess. So, let me lay out the entire story so it can be understood.
In case you didn't know....the reproduction rate roughly 1.4 for each German couple. It's been in decline since the 1970s. Over the last two years, I've read three different studies (private economic group, university group, and the government statistics folks). They all reach the same basic conclusion. The 82-million population will slide and in 20-to-25 years reach somewhere between 65 and 70 million people (at least 12 million less than it is today). It's not a 50-50 chance.....it's one-hundred-percent, with the only question being the amount of time it takes to reach this stage.
Blunt? Yeah....you can say this in various ways but they essentially have to be open-minded about immigration.
Back around a decade ago, the Bundestag sat down and wrote up a draft change, and discussed this for several years. By 2009....the new immigration law was put into place.
There are several basic doors of entry:
1. EU resident. This is the Greek, Brit, or Italian (27 countries total) that can find a job and get free access into Germany. No check or review is required. The same is true if a German wants to go and work in Spain or Greece....no paperwork.
2. Student visa. You apply to a university in Germany (state-run or for-profit) and get accepted. They issue you a visa for the period of school. At the end of the school process (with a degree), they give you roughly 18 months to find a job or exit. No one says statistics over this....so it's hard to say if take the student visa and eventually goes back to the home-country.....or applies to stay and work in Germany.
3. Business visa. Typically, it runs up to six months and is renewable. You could be here to perform work for a company, or to teach a class.
4. Residence permits are typically for the individual who wants to stay and work, but has zero interest in getting citizenship. In this case, you need to establish your occupation, skills, crafts, degree, etc. In the IT industry, it's fairly easy now to get your foot in the front door. For jobs like cooks or car-mechanics? Less so. Teachers? It depends on your background or degree.
5. Asylum/refugees. It used to be that the Wall or east-west relations kinda kept this under some control. What the German law says is that if you enter and request status under this umbrella....you must be considered, so they can't force you to leave. However, it means you will fill out a form....note your language ability (probably zero), and then list your job or craft background. If you had some skills....like heating technician, or instructor, or baker....then they give you a few more points and the evaluation may go well. However, if you were simply a guy on the street selling watermelons for the past ten years.....it's like a one-percent chance that they will approve a visa or residence permit.
Oddly, these two-million-plus folks who've entered Germany....tend to have this fantasy-like concept that entering means a 99-percent chance of acceptance. Frankly, while the Germans seem to be hyped and ever-so-polite.....well, they really don't want to mention it to you....that your odds are 5-percent in terms of staying.
Back when the BaMF group (the immigration agency) had only 250,000 folks to check out per year, this was fairly easy to review a guy in six to eight weeks (with him sitting in his home-country). With the roughly two million who've entered....it can take up to a year now to prove a guy's identity, check his crime record, review his language ability, and be sure of his past profession. It becomes a rather sad thing to come up to a guy then, and just say it in a blunt-German way.....you didn't pass.
There are 101 countries represented in Germany (at least by 2014 numbers). Yeah, it is a bit shocking.
Iceland for example....has roughly 1,500 folks residing in Germany. No one says much over what they do. My guess is that at least a quarter of them are university students.
Chile for example.....has roughly 7,000 folks residing in Germany. Some are students. Some are employed.
China has almost 120,000 folks in Germany. I'd take a guess that more than three-quarters are students. The odds that they graduate and decide to stay in Germany? Unknown. No one ever asks questions like that.
Are the Germans in some ways trying to recruit more immigrants? Yes. Just on the BREXIT factor alone....they are talking about 10,000 Brits and their jobs relocating from London to Frankfurt.
A wide open door? No. They'd like to ensure it's people who appreciate the offer, have a skill or degree, and won't be trouble-makers.
Americans interested in some adventure? You could likely apply with some basic German language skills and show some craft (like an Air Conditioning certification), or some skill (twenty years of running a business), or some degree (like nursing).....and find that in six months...the BaMF folks would approve your entry.
The Syrian angle? Few people grasp that Assad put real money into craft schools and university operations. A fair number of the Syrians who show up....have some background worth discussing. The Iraqis....less so. The North Africans....MOST-LESS SO.
So we come to the big problem. Once you've come to realize after 12 months that your application didn't get approved....you are supposed to leave, and the Germans have a problem in laying down the law on this. Lots of Germans want to get into the middle and try to hinder the exit of the migrant or immigrant. These are individuals who don't respect the law or the problems that lay out in this whole thing.
The immigration law? It ought to be a finely-tuned machine. That's what you'd expect out of the German culture. Well....it just hasn't worked that way. Some problems are simply incompetence of the people involved. Some problems involve no real management or leadership from Berlin. Some problems involve crime situations which have made people question their safety around urban areas. Some are simply Germans who seem to be overly nice and very open to new people from new lands....it wouldn't matter if it were Chinese or Thai folks....it'd just be nice to have someone new around. Naturally, if you were American, pro-Trump, and maybe right-wing....well...you probably wouldn't get that big hug like the Chinese guy would. Please note....Bavarians typically don't hug much and aren't that immigrant-friendly, unless you are from Austria.
That's the basic theme of this whole program. I think if the typical yearly average had stayed around 300,000 a year, and only a third of them were from the Middle East...this might have gone in a better way. I'd even go and suggest that 200,000 Chinese folks a year could arrive and probably find Germans overly friendly (something that's rare for them) and hyping up Chinese classes for Germans in every town to accommodate the new folks. But this thing of a million new folks a year....most without a real profession or degree? It's a problem.
In case you didn't know....the reproduction rate roughly 1.4 for each German couple. It's been in decline since the 1970s. Over the last two years, I've read three different studies (private economic group, university group, and the government statistics folks). They all reach the same basic conclusion. The 82-million population will slide and in 20-to-25 years reach somewhere between 65 and 70 million people (at least 12 million less than it is today). It's not a 50-50 chance.....it's one-hundred-percent, with the only question being the amount of time it takes to reach this stage.
Blunt? Yeah....you can say this in various ways but they essentially have to be open-minded about immigration.
Back around a decade ago, the Bundestag sat down and wrote up a draft change, and discussed this for several years. By 2009....the new immigration law was put into place.
There are several basic doors of entry:
1. EU resident. This is the Greek, Brit, or Italian (27 countries total) that can find a job and get free access into Germany. No check or review is required. The same is true if a German wants to go and work in Spain or Greece....no paperwork.
2. Student visa. You apply to a university in Germany (state-run or for-profit) and get accepted. They issue you a visa for the period of school. At the end of the school process (with a degree), they give you roughly 18 months to find a job or exit. No one says statistics over this....so it's hard to say if take the student visa and eventually goes back to the home-country.....or applies to stay and work in Germany.
3. Business visa. Typically, it runs up to six months and is renewable. You could be here to perform work for a company, or to teach a class.
4. Residence permits are typically for the individual who wants to stay and work, but has zero interest in getting citizenship. In this case, you need to establish your occupation, skills, crafts, degree, etc. In the IT industry, it's fairly easy now to get your foot in the front door. For jobs like cooks or car-mechanics? Less so. Teachers? It depends on your background or degree.
5. Asylum/refugees. It used to be that the Wall or east-west relations kinda kept this under some control. What the German law says is that if you enter and request status under this umbrella....you must be considered, so they can't force you to leave. However, it means you will fill out a form....note your language ability (probably zero), and then list your job or craft background. If you had some skills....like heating technician, or instructor, or baker....then they give you a few more points and the evaluation may go well. However, if you were simply a guy on the street selling watermelons for the past ten years.....it's like a one-percent chance that they will approve a visa or residence permit.
Oddly, these two-million-plus folks who've entered Germany....tend to have this fantasy-like concept that entering means a 99-percent chance of acceptance. Frankly, while the Germans seem to be hyped and ever-so-polite.....well, they really don't want to mention it to you....that your odds are 5-percent in terms of staying.
Back when the BaMF group (the immigration agency) had only 250,000 folks to check out per year, this was fairly easy to review a guy in six to eight weeks (with him sitting in his home-country). With the roughly two million who've entered....it can take up to a year now to prove a guy's identity, check his crime record, review his language ability, and be sure of his past profession. It becomes a rather sad thing to come up to a guy then, and just say it in a blunt-German way.....you didn't pass.
There are 101 countries represented in Germany (at least by 2014 numbers). Yeah, it is a bit shocking.
Iceland for example....has roughly 1,500 folks residing in Germany. No one says much over what they do. My guess is that at least a quarter of them are university students.
Chile for example.....has roughly 7,000 folks residing in Germany. Some are students. Some are employed.
China has almost 120,000 folks in Germany. I'd take a guess that more than three-quarters are students. The odds that they graduate and decide to stay in Germany? Unknown. No one ever asks questions like that.
Are the Germans in some ways trying to recruit more immigrants? Yes. Just on the BREXIT factor alone....they are talking about 10,000 Brits and their jobs relocating from London to Frankfurt.
A wide open door? No. They'd like to ensure it's people who appreciate the offer, have a skill or degree, and won't be trouble-makers.
Americans interested in some adventure? You could likely apply with some basic German language skills and show some craft (like an Air Conditioning certification), or some skill (twenty years of running a business), or some degree (like nursing).....and find that in six months...the BaMF folks would approve your entry.
The Syrian angle? Few people grasp that Assad put real money into craft schools and university operations. A fair number of the Syrians who show up....have some background worth discussing. The Iraqis....less so. The North Africans....MOST-LESS SO.
So we come to the big problem. Once you've come to realize after 12 months that your application didn't get approved....you are supposed to leave, and the Germans have a problem in laying down the law on this. Lots of Germans want to get into the middle and try to hinder the exit of the migrant or immigrant. These are individuals who don't respect the law or the problems that lay out in this whole thing.
The immigration law? It ought to be a finely-tuned machine. That's what you'd expect out of the German culture. Well....it just hasn't worked that way. Some problems are simply incompetence of the people involved. Some problems involve no real management or leadership from Berlin. Some problems involve crime situations which have made people question their safety around urban areas. Some are simply Germans who seem to be overly nice and very open to new people from new lands....it wouldn't matter if it were Chinese or Thai folks....it'd just be nice to have someone new around. Naturally, if you were American, pro-Trump, and maybe right-wing....well...you probably wouldn't get that big hug like the Chinese guy would. Please note....Bavarians typically don't hug much and aren't that immigrant-friendly, unless you are from Austria.
That's the basic theme of this whole program. I think if the typical yearly average had stayed around 300,000 a year, and only a third of them were from the Middle East...this might have gone in a better way. I'd even go and suggest that 200,000 Chinese folks a year could arrive and probably find Germans overly friendly (something that's rare for them) and hyping up Chinese classes for Germans in every town to accommodate the new folks. But this thing of a million new folks a year....most without a real profession or degree? It's a problem.
This 2017 Election Campaign So Far
While in recent days....the SPD Party of Germany has suddenly surged and passed by Merkel and the CDU Party in public opinion polls....there are two problems that Martin Schulz of the SPD (their chancellor candidate now) has facing him. Both are ethical problems which can't be resolved easily.
Problem one came up the first day or two when he became the new vice-chancellor of the Merkel coalition government....having arrived from prior job at the EU (the President of the Parliament there in Brussels).
The first issue involves a tax-free allowance paid to each member of the EU of 304 Euro per day of attendance (typically 4-to-5 days a week). For over a year....Schulz took the 304 Euro per day....each and every day (7 days a week)....tax-free as the laws allowed. Some will say that he was working seven days a week in some capacity. Others will argue that this was NOT the norm prior to his arrival at the position. What this adds up to is roughly 2,400 extra Euro a month, and probably more on periods of vacation (when it's not authorized).
It's a stupid problem....if you ask me.
The second issue is more interesting. There's this guy....Markus Engels, who is a long-time associate of Schulz and closely associated with past campaign activity.
Engels ends being hired by Schulz as a contractor. He was supposed to be based primarily out of Berlin and be some kind of liaison although no can explain the details of this job in any real summary. If Merkel wanted to chat with Schulz....she could have just picked up the phone and called....why have some liaison in Berlin, unless the guy is a political player for the SPD? The problem is....this was a EU position and not supposed to be political in nature.
Then you come to this odd issue...you only get tax-free status as a EU contractor, if you were living in Brussels. Engels wasn't living in Brussels.....he was living in Berlin....so all of the income should have been German-taxed. His salary? Well....the base salary was 5,200 Euro a month for this multi-year contract. But Engels was given an expense account....roughly 16,000 Euro a year (tax-free) to cover his living expenses (probably the apartment).
What work was Engels doing? The SPD Party is trying to defend all of this....but it does have an appearance of fake-work for fake-pay, which gets Germans all upset and disturbed. The part where it's tax-free pay? Oh, that really gets some of the working class folks upset.
Here's the other thing....no one can say that Engels is the only one who got this special deal. There is some rumor of four other folks with special deals.
It's hard to say that these two episodes will just wash away or disappear. Eventually, someone will ask about what work Engels was doing and no one will be able to present much to show value for a guy who was making 75,000 Euro a year.
Problem one came up the first day or two when he became the new vice-chancellor of the Merkel coalition government....having arrived from prior job at the EU (the President of the Parliament there in Brussels).
The first issue involves a tax-free allowance paid to each member of the EU of 304 Euro per day of attendance (typically 4-to-5 days a week). For over a year....Schulz took the 304 Euro per day....each and every day (7 days a week)....tax-free as the laws allowed. Some will say that he was working seven days a week in some capacity. Others will argue that this was NOT the norm prior to his arrival at the position. What this adds up to is roughly 2,400 extra Euro a month, and probably more on periods of vacation (when it's not authorized).
It's a stupid problem....if you ask me.
The second issue is more interesting. There's this guy....Markus Engels, who is a long-time associate of Schulz and closely associated with past campaign activity.
Engels ends being hired by Schulz as a contractor. He was supposed to be based primarily out of Berlin and be some kind of liaison although no can explain the details of this job in any real summary. If Merkel wanted to chat with Schulz....she could have just picked up the phone and called....why have some liaison in Berlin, unless the guy is a political player for the SPD? The problem is....this was a EU position and not supposed to be political in nature.
Then you come to this odd issue...you only get tax-free status as a EU contractor, if you were living in Brussels. Engels wasn't living in Brussels.....he was living in Berlin....so all of the income should have been German-taxed. His salary? Well....the base salary was 5,200 Euro a month for this multi-year contract. But Engels was given an expense account....roughly 16,000 Euro a year (tax-free) to cover his living expenses (probably the apartment).
What work was Engels doing? The SPD Party is trying to defend all of this....but it does have an appearance of fake-work for fake-pay, which gets Germans all upset and disturbed. The part where it's tax-free pay? Oh, that really gets some of the working class folks upset.
Here's the other thing....no one can say that Engels is the only one who got this special deal. There is some rumor of four other folks with special deals.
It's hard to say that these two episodes will just wash away or disappear. Eventually, someone will ask about what work Engels was doing and no one will be able to present much to show value for a guy who was making 75,000 Euro a year.
Partei Bibeltreuer Christen
I often chat about the wide variety of German politics. One example of that is the vast multi-party system that exists today in Germany. One example of this? The PBS group.....the Party of Bible-Abiding Christians.
In the 2013 national election in Germany....the PBS group had roughly 2,000 votes. Not enough to really say much....just a simple statistic at the end of the day.
It's been around for almost thirty years now. Base of operations? Mostly around Wurttemberg.
Chief theme? While it might be wordy.....it comes down to two chief themes....against abortion and against gay-marriage. Oh, they will say they are pro-Bible as well, but that typically doesn't get people all hyped up on their political party.
The odds of ever expanding and getting 100,000 votes? One in a million is the number that I'd give them.
The thing about these oddball minor parties in Germany is that you are talking about two to three million votes in each election out of the 44-million typically cast....that will go to zero-chance political parties. Most rarely even make a dent in state politics....let alone local city politics. Yet they continue to survive.
In the 2013 national election in Germany....the PBS group had roughly 2,000 votes. Not enough to really say much....just a simple statistic at the end of the day.
It's been around for almost thirty years now. Base of operations? Mostly around Wurttemberg.
Chief theme? While it might be wordy.....it comes down to two chief themes....against abortion and against gay-marriage. Oh, they will say they are pro-Bible as well, but that typically doesn't get people all hyped up on their political party.
The odds of ever expanding and getting 100,000 votes? One in a million is the number that I'd give them.
The thing about these oddball minor parties in Germany is that you are talking about two to three million votes in each election out of the 44-million typically cast....that will go to zero-chance political parties. Most rarely even make a dent in state politics....let alone local city politics. Yet they continue to survive.
The Graffiti Story
Just about everywhere you go in urban Germany....graffiti is now a problem. Just in the city of Wiesbaden (285,000 residents), I'd take a guess that at least 3,000 examples of graffiti art exist (not even counting the little 10-second marking of various buildings which is even more common).
Some of the art is fairly decent. Some have a message or theme. Some simply note a cartoon-like character in a pose. Some, I would classify as art, and some that I'd just admit is trash-like drawings with nothing of value.
Today, I noted in Berlin news a new problem with the graffiti world, but it was one that I kept expecting to occur sooner or later.
Some people (big culture VIPs).....often want to give a leg up to some artists and allow them to paint a valued piece for the community. It'll often be something with a message which is approved. So around 20-odd years ago, in some Berlin subway platform area....the city gave permission for some graffiti art to be drawn.
The theme? Nazi-Germany, dead Jews, murder, immortal words.
This was in the Westhafen subway tunnel.
This week....some graffiti artist decided that it was time to put graffiti on top of graffiti, and he painted a fairly extensive piece. RBB covered a good portion of the story and had pictures.
A lot of negative commentary came out of this event. There are supposed rules about real art graffiti and this was a violation of those to paint over graffiti....so the experts say.
So far, there is no law written down to cover something like this....painting over the top of previous graffiti. I doubt if you could make any kind of law which would stand up in court. Graffiti survives only because there are no laws.
The thing about this is that it might start a new trend where graffiti is openly painted over the top of and continually telling a different message by the artist to a different view. Whatever existed in perception in 1990.....could be seen in a totally different way today.
Sitting around some cafe today are two or three guys....discussing the Westhafen episode....and intense dialog is underway about the meaning of this art painted over the top of the Nazi-Germany piece, and perhaps the suggestion that a 3rd graffiti piece is necessary now to retell the artist image in yet another way....over the top of the new graffiti. Things might get interesting, if you ask me.
Some of the art is fairly decent. Some have a message or theme. Some simply note a cartoon-like character in a pose. Some, I would classify as art, and some that I'd just admit is trash-like drawings with nothing of value.
Today, I noted in Berlin news a new problem with the graffiti world, but it was one that I kept expecting to occur sooner or later.
Some people (big culture VIPs).....often want to give a leg up to some artists and allow them to paint a valued piece for the community. It'll often be something with a message which is approved. So around 20-odd years ago, in some Berlin subway platform area....the city gave permission for some graffiti art to be drawn.
The theme? Nazi-Germany, dead Jews, murder, immortal words.
This was in the Westhafen subway tunnel.
This week....some graffiti artist decided that it was time to put graffiti on top of graffiti, and he painted a fairly extensive piece. RBB covered a good portion of the story and had pictures.
A lot of negative commentary came out of this event. There are supposed rules about real art graffiti and this was a violation of those to paint over graffiti....so the experts say.
So far, there is no law written down to cover something like this....painting over the top of previous graffiti. I doubt if you could make any kind of law which would stand up in court. Graffiti survives only because there are no laws.
The thing about this is that it might start a new trend where graffiti is openly painted over the top of and continually telling a different message by the artist to a different view. Whatever existed in perception in 1990.....could be seen in a totally different way today.
Sitting around some cafe today are two or three guys....discussing the Westhafen episode....and intense dialog is underway about the meaning of this art painted over the top of the Nazi-Germany piece, and perhaps the suggestion that a 3rd graffiti piece is necessary now to retell the artist image in yet another way....over the top of the new graffiti. Things might get interesting, if you ask me.
Saturday, February 18, 2017
This Vote Story
Welt did a survey poll....which Focus reported upon this morning.
They polled Germans and asked the question....should non-Germans with a visa in Germany...have the right to vote in national elections. They separated this among political party affiliation. Roughly 65-percent of Greens and SPD members said 'yes', that non-Germans should be given the right to vote. Much less so with the CDU, and it was about 97-percent 'no' with AfD members.
Now, you have pause and think over what exactly they are saying. We aren't talking about refugee folks with zero status. We are talking about visa-carrying residents of Germany.
Most folks would be shocked to know that out of the 82-million residents in Germany....roughly 6.3-percent carry a visa (2014 numbers). It probably is closer to 7-percent today, with the inflow of the past 18 months.
Amongst this group of roughly 6-million non-Germans? Americans, roughly 110,000 (not counting military related personnel). Brits, roughly 110,000 (not counting military personnel). Greeks? Roughly 325,000. Chinese? Roughly 115,000 (mostly university students). Russians? Roughly 220,000.
These are all people who have a visa and either work, study or are retired in Germany. I would take a guess in the Wiesbaden-Frankfurt area...that roughly 5,000 of us reside. Some own businesses....some work for airlines....some work for German technology companies.
There are two ways of looking at this vote question. Here are a large segment of German society which aren't German, but they pay into the tax revenue pot and the social pension program. They deserve to have some type of voice.
On the other hand.....you are likely handing out a vote situation which might greatly change the landscape in a couple of German states (NRW stands on this).
Would I want an extra vote? No. It's a mess already to vote in US elections and I'd rather not entertain a second vote.
Could this off in weird directions? Yes. A great example would be BREXIT and Frankfurt.....if they got the 10,000 London bank jobs, and these people brought 20,000 family members or associates with them.....it would create at least 20,,000 new votes in Frankfurt, and they could go and swing their alliance with some unusual parties (yes, the Tory bunch could actually organize and be a Frankfurt City political entity).
Is it possible that some of the newer folks in Germany with visas might have two or three ID's, and thus end up with two or three visas, and two or three extra votes? Well, it's best not to bring this up with a German.....they'd get all huffy and aggravated over something they can't fix.
Odds of this happening? With the current government? No.....never. With a SPD-led government? Maybe.
They polled Germans and asked the question....should non-Germans with a visa in Germany...have the right to vote in national elections. They separated this among political party affiliation. Roughly 65-percent of Greens and SPD members said 'yes', that non-Germans should be given the right to vote. Much less so with the CDU, and it was about 97-percent 'no' with AfD members.
Now, you have pause and think over what exactly they are saying. We aren't talking about refugee folks with zero status. We are talking about visa-carrying residents of Germany.
Most folks would be shocked to know that out of the 82-million residents in Germany....roughly 6.3-percent carry a visa (2014 numbers). It probably is closer to 7-percent today, with the inflow of the past 18 months.
Amongst this group of roughly 6-million non-Germans? Americans, roughly 110,000 (not counting military related personnel). Brits, roughly 110,000 (not counting military personnel). Greeks? Roughly 325,000. Chinese? Roughly 115,000 (mostly university students). Russians? Roughly 220,000.
These are all people who have a visa and either work, study or are retired in Germany. I would take a guess in the Wiesbaden-Frankfurt area...that roughly 5,000 of us reside. Some own businesses....some work for airlines....some work for German technology companies.
There are two ways of looking at this vote question. Here are a large segment of German society which aren't German, but they pay into the tax revenue pot and the social pension program. They deserve to have some type of voice.
On the other hand.....you are likely handing out a vote situation which might greatly change the landscape in a couple of German states (NRW stands on this).
Would I want an extra vote? No. It's a mess already to vote in US elections and I'd rather not entertain a second vote.
Could this off in weird directions? Yes. A great example would be BREXIT and Frankfurt.....if they got the 10,000 London bank jobs, and these people brought 20,000 family members or associates with them.....it would create at least 20,,000 new votes in Frankfurt, and they could go and swing their alliance with some unusual parties (yes, the Tory bunch could actually organize and be a Frankfurt City political entity).
Is it possible that some of the newer folks in Germany with visas might have two or three ID's, and thus end up with two or three visas, and two or three extra votes? Well, it's best not to bring this up with a German.....they'd get all huffy and aggravated over something they can't fix.
Odds of this happening? With the current government? No.....never. With a SPD-led government? Maybe.
The 18,000 Story
If you were the state of Virginia, and one day....some state official noted that you were missing 18,000 people (like they'd just walked off the face of the Earth)....you'd probably sit there and ask questions. Did they just up and disappear? Did some alien ship come down to remove them? Did they ever even exist?
Well....this week, over in the region of Brandenburg, Germany....they got to this odd position. They are missing 18,000 migrants.
RBB, the regional public network, did a fair job in telling this story.
What seems to have happened is that as 2015 and the full-scale arrival of hundreds of thousand of refugees occurred.....a fair sum of the group were shipped off to the region of Brandenburg. At the time, some bare essentials were put into the computer system....identified as immigrants....and coded in some way as being Brandenburg-assets.
For those who aren't aware.....Germany kinda tracks all of it's people. There's a law. You move from house X to house W.....across town, or 20 miles away.....you go and register at the local town-hall. They note your address, and things proceed.
Around a decade ago, they finally went and did a major scrub of their nation-wide database....to dump out duplicate people who never noted their most current address. They actually threw out a million people in the official listing of Germany at the time.
For these Brandenburg data folks, they just kept looking at the listing they had and these 18,000 folks who weren't showing up. This has now gone to the public-prosecutors office and they are trying to determine what has happened here.
The general belief? As article states near the end....there is a belief that as folks arrived in Brandenburg....they simply used this as a brief moment to rest, and moved on. Some might have eventually returned to their country of origin. Some may have gone to some other European country.
The problem is that someone needs to take authority and go name-by-name....removing the 18,000 from the listing. My guess is that no one is raising their hand because it means you have to go and review each record. They won't exist anymore....once you do this.
For the Syrians, or North Africans? They don't get it. Germany runs a tight ship and they want to account for every single person. If you went to some village in the middle of Bavaria and asked the mayor how many people reside in the village....he'd pull up the official listing and tell you the precise number. Unless someone died overnight.....his number would be 100-percent correct. So, when he says 4,658....it's precisely that number. For a non-German, it's hard to convey the necessity or dynamics to this precise German-method of running things.
Because of the dog-tax situation in Germany.....you can be fairly sure of the number of dogs in each village or town as well.
So I return to the 18,000 missing folks. It bothers the Germans that 18,000 aren't around or existing. They want to have closure.....some answer as to the whereabouts of the 18,000. They aren't used to having mysteries like this existing.
Eventually, some political figure will just appear one day and take full responsibility, and just start hitting the 'delete-button'. Over eight hours.....he will wipe out 18,000 names. Some opposition political group will get all upset and angry.....you just can't delete people from the national database. But at the end of eight hours....they will be wiped out and just be non-existent. The guy ought to get a medal or maybe get nominated as Chancellor for just taking a decisive decision.
But here's the bigger question. Is this just a Brandenburg only problem? Could there be 300,000 migrant/immigrants missing from across all of Germany? You just don't know.
Well....this week, over in the region of Brandenburg, Germany....they got to this odd position. They are missing 18,000 migrants.
RBB, the regional public network, did a fair job in telling this story.
What seems to have happened is that as 2015 and the full-scale arrival of hundreds of thousand of refugees occurred.....a fair sum of the group were shipped off to the region of Brandenburg. At the time, some bare essentials were put into the computer system....identified as immigrants....and coded in some way as being Brandenburg-assets.
For those who aren't aware.....Germany kinda tracks all of it's people. There's a law. You move from house X to house W.....across town, or 20 miles away.....you go and register at the local town-hall. They note your address, and things proceed.
Around a decade ago, they finally went and did a major scrub of their nation-wide database....to dump out duplicate people who never noted their most current address. They actually threw out a million people in the official listing of Germany at the time.
For these Brandenburg data folks, they just kept looking at the listing they had and these 18,000 folks who weren't showing up. This has now gone to the public-prosecutors office and they are trying to determine what has happened here.
The general belief? As article states near the end....there is a belief that as folks arrived in Brandenburg....they simply used this as a brief moment to rest, and moved on. Some might have eventually returned to their country of origin. Some may have gone to some other European country.
The problem is that someone needs to take authority and go name-by-name....removing the 18,000 from the listing. My guess is that no one is raising their hand because it means you have to go and review each record. They won't exist anymore....once you do this.
For the Syrians, or North Africans? They don't get it. Germany runs a tight ship and they want to account for every single person. If you went to some village in the middle of Bavaria and asked the mayor how many people reside in the village....he'd pull up the official listing and tell you the precise number. Unless someone died overnight.....his number would be 100-percent correct. So, when he says 4,658....it's precisely that number. For a non-German, it's hard to convey the necessity or dynamics to this precise German-method of running things.
Because of the dog-tax situation in Germany.....you can be fairly sure of the number of dogs in each village or town as well.
So I return to the 18,000 missing folks. It bothers the Germans that 18,000 aren't around or existing. They want to have closure.....some answer as to the whereabouts of the 18,000. They aren't used to having mysteries like this existing.
Eventually, some political figure will just appear one day and take full responsibility, and just start hitting the 'delete-button'. Over eight hours.....he will wipe out 18,000 names. Some opposition political group will get all upset and angry.....you just can't delete people from the national database. But at the end of eight hours....they will be wiped out and just be non-existent. The guy ought to get a medal or maybe get nominated as Chancellor for just taking a decisive decision.
But here's the bigger question. Is this just a Brandenburg only problem? Could there be 300,000 migrant/immigrants missing from across all of Germany? You just don't know.
Friday, February 17, 2017
CIA Spies on French Election (2012)?
Somewhere in the midst of 2012....the US government gave orders to the CIA to send folks off to view and report back on the French Presidential election. Wikileaks has the messages. It's a seven-page thing....which just gives a detailed instruction to use X, Y and Z capabilities.
The necessity for this? Well....you are in the middle of the Obama period, and Hillary Clinton was still the Secretary of State. You can imagine some meeting occurring where Hillary says to so-and-so....I heard the French election is coming up, and so-and-so knew basically nothing about the election, or the party platforms. Rather than look bad....that so-and-so then passes off requirements to some guy....who writes up some requirement letters to the CIA.
The CIA receives these and gets all happy because now there is a requirement which means travel in exotic France. So Agent X and Agent Y pack up some bags, and they likely spend weeks driving around France....sipping wine....talking to reporters....attending some speeches by the political folks, and writing up some assessment every week or two.
Did Obama or Hillary ever read the assessments? I would have my doubts about that. Maybe they did, but the odds are that they had some guy read them, and then make a nice 3x5 card up....maybe three or four of these cards....to just give them the big stuff out of the whole package.
The sad thing here is that any idiot with a laptop could have gone and done open-source viewing of the political parties, the speeches made, and written a 300-page book over the four-month long primary and election period in France. By the time, these CIA guys got finished.....between their salary and trip cost.....they probably spent in the neighborhood of $150,000. Me? I would have probably done the 300-page book for $2,000. Course, I'm not the CIA and I might have been a bit more cynical or sarcastic than the boss at the CIA would have preferred. I probably wouldn't have dined on $120 plates of snails and peanut sauce either. A two-Euro beer and some Clafoutis (sweet-filled breakfast treat) would have been enough for me.
The French looking at this? They have to ask....why the heck any idiot would come over and waste weeks and weeks listening to some whiny French political geek....mostly making fakes promises, and then reporting all the strategy and fake promises back to VIPs within the US government?
But this brings us to this odd question....did the French secret service (DGSE) send over some French spies to monitor the Trump-Clinton election? Maybe? But the odds were that they simply landed in some urbanized area like New York City and spent most of the 'mad-money' that the boss gave them....on hot-dogs and Pepsi.
Were the secret service folks from Denmark, Italy, and Russia also in the US....monitoring the Trump-Clinton election as well?
Maybe it's just me....but I'm mostly amused by this whole thing and why any of it matters. I mean....you could turn on France-24 (the news network in English) and get most of the stuff you need to know....on a nightly basis. You could do from your garage in Houston, and not even spend a day in France.
Just my humble two cents.
The necessity for this? Well....you are in the middle of the Obama period, and Hillary Clinton was still the Secretary of State. You can imagine some meeting occurring where Hillary says to so-and-so....I heard the French election is coming up, and so-and-so knew basically nothing about the election, or the party platforms. Rather than look bad....that so-and-so then passes off requirements to some guy....who writes up some requirement letters to the CIA.
The CIA receives these and gets all happy because now there is a requirement which means travel in exotic France. So Agent X and Agent Y pack up some bags, and they likely spend weeks driving around France....sipping wine....talking to reporters....attending some speeches by the political folks, and writing up some assessment every week or two.
Did Obama or Hillary ever read the assessments? I would have my doubts about that. Maybe they did, but the odds are that they had some guy read them, and then make a nice 3x5 card up....maybe three or four of these cards....to just give them the big stuff out of the whole package.
The sad thing here is that any idiot with a laptop could have gone and done open-source viewing of the political parties, the speeches made, and written a 300-page book over the four-month long primary and election period in France. By the time, these CIA guys got finished.....between their salary and trip cost.....they probably spent in the neighborhood of $150,000. Me? I would have probably done the 300-page book for $2,000. Course, I'm not the CIA and I might have been a bit more cynical or sarcastic than the boss at the CIA would have preferred. I probably wouldn't have dined on $120 plates of snails and peanut sauce either. A two-Euro beer and some Clafoutis (sweet-filled breakfast treat) would have been enough for me.
The French looking at this? They have to ask....why the heck any idiot would come over and waste weeks and weeks listening to some whiny French political geek....mostly making fakes promises, and then reporting all the strategy and fake promises back to VIPs within the US government?
But this brings us to this odd question....did the French secret service (DGSE) send over some French spies to monitor the Trump-Clinton election? Maybe? But the odds were that they simply landed in some urbanized area like New York City and spent most of the 'mad-money' that the boss gave them....on hot-dogs and Pepsi.
Were the secret service folks from Denmark, Italy, and Russia also in the US....monitoring the Trump-Clinton election as well?
Maybe it's just me....but I'm mostly amused by this whole thing and why any of it matters. I mean....you could turn on France-24 (the news network in English) and get most of the stuff you need to know....on a nightly basis. You could do from your garage in Houston, and not even spend a day in France.
Just my humble two cents.
Wednesday, February 15, 2017
A German Spiral
There is a trend underway in Germany which gets recognized every couple of months by some public-TV news journalist.....and then kinda gets dropped. It's an interesting and long-term trend.
Going back roughly 150 years ago in Germany.....industrialization became a big deal with metropolitan German cities. Those were cities which had growth, medical establishments, university operations, and growing trade centers.
By the early 1920s....with cars and more railway planning....suburban neighborhoods next to these metropolitan cities began to grow. You didn't have to live in the city itself....you could live on the outskirts and reach your job or the things that drew you to the city.
After WW II, autobahn advancement and U-Bahn/S-Bahn innovation grow the shadow of these urbanized areas out further and further.
The jobs? The bulk of jobs since WW II in Germany....are within the metropolitan or major city circle. Rural areas beyond the metropolitan, city or suburbs? Job growth is zero or in decline. The only exception to this is where you have autobahns going through a rural region and some guy was smart enough to know where cheaper labor can be found and built up smaller companies to take advantage of the situation.
So you go to communities that had 1,000 residents two decade ago....with a one-doctor clinic....two gas stations, a grocery, a bank or two, a pharmacy, and five or six small business operations. Today? The same rural town is likely to be around 500 residents....no doctor or clinic....at best an ATM which replaced the full-up bank service deal that existed before, no pharmacy, no grocery, and a self-service gas station where you card your way through to buy fuel for your car. These are towns that are 50 to 100 kilometers beyond Frankfurt and nowhere near an autobahn point that might entice people to live there while commuting to work.
There are countless numbers of towns like this in Germany today....spiraling quietly and slowly down to limited services. Some folks now have to drive 30 minutes in some direction to find a full-service bank, a pharmacy, or a clinic of some type. Garage operations are becoming fewer in number in the rural regions of Germany.....as are grocery-stores.
Some hope that immigrants or migrants will shift to these areas? No....it'll never happen because there are no jobs there.
Some towns are in some faint hope that major cities like Frankfurt will dream up another S-Bahn/U-Bahn extension and come way out into the middle of nowhere.....where fantastic new urban zones will suddenly pop up and you can catch a 50-min tram ride into a job-zone.
Beyond that....rural Germany is dying off....like the dinosaurs.
Where does this all lead onto? Take a drive through the heart of Hessen....to the triangle area between Limburg, Frankfurt and Giessen. Those near the autobahn structure will survive 'as-is'. Those further away? As the population declines over the next two decades.....these will all be smaller in nature, without modern conveniences that you typically accept today. In five or six decades.....half the population of these remaining towns will be over the age of sixty. In a hundred years.....you will find a lot of towns with dozens of empty buildings....mostly resembling the start of a ghost-town appearance as you might see in the western part of the US.
It is an odd way for society to advance.
Going back roughly 150 years ago in Germany.....industrialization became a big deal with metropolitan German cities. Those were cities which had growth, medical establishments, university operations, and growing trade centers.
By the early 1920s....with cars and more railway planning....suburban neighborhoods next to these metropolitan cities began to grow. You didn't have to live in the city itself....you could live on the outskirts and reach your job or the things that drew you to the city.
After WW II, autobahn advancement and U-Bahn/S-Bahn innovation grow the shadow of these urbanized areas out further and further.
The jobs? The bulk of jobs since WW II in Germany....are within the metropolitan or major city circle. Rural areas beyond the metropolitan, city or suburbs? Job growth is zero or in decline. The only exception to this is where you have autobahns going through a rural region and some guy was smart enough to know where cheaper labor can be found and built up smaller companies to take advantage of the situation.
So you go to communities that had 1,000 residents two decade ago....with a one-doctor clinic....two gas stations, a grocery, a bank or two, a pharmacy, and five or six small business operations. Today? The same rural town is likely to be around 500 residents....no doctor or clinic....at best an ATM which replaced the full-up bank service deal that existed before, no pharmacy, no grocery, and a self-service gas station where you card your way through to buy fuel for your car. These are towns that are 50 to 100 kilometers beyond Frankfurt and nowhere near an autobahn point that might entice people to live there while commuting to work.
There are countless numbers of towns like this in Germany today....spiraling quietly and slowly down to limited services. Some folks now have to drive 30 minutes in some direction to find a full-service bank, a pharmacy, or a clinic of some type. Garage operations are becoming fewer in number in the rural regions of Germany.....as are grocery-stores.
Some hope that immigrants or migrants will shift to these areas? No....it'll never happen because there are no jobs there.
Some towns are in some faint hope that major cities like Frankfurt will dream up another S-Bahn/U-Bahn extension and come way out into the middle of nowhere.....where fantastic new urban zones will suddenly pop up and you can catch a 50-min tram ride into a job-zone.
Beyond that....rural Germany is dying off....like the dinosaurs.
Where does this all lead onto? Take a drive through the heart of Hessen....to the triangle area between Limburg, Frankfurt and Giessen. Those near the autobahn structure will survive 'as-is'. Those further away? As the population declines over the next two decades.....these will all be smaller in nature, without modern conveniences that you typically accept today. In five or six decades.....half the population of these remaining towns will be over the age of sixty. In a hundred years.....you will find a lot of towns with dozens of empty buildings....mostly resembling the start of a ghost-town appearance as you might see in the western part of the US.
It is an odd way for society to advance.
Why Germany Has a Bigger Long Term Issue
Yesterday in Berlin....Chancellor Merkel had a chance to meet up with the Premier of Tunisia (Chahed). Chief topic? The news media won't go into big details but the Chancellor wanted more openness by Tunisia to take back thousands of failed-visa applicants who sit currently in Germany. You might want to note this as part of the picture.....there's the crowd who currently have failed visa-applications, and the crowd yet to come....who will eventually fail on their visa-application.
The Tunisia Premier? Well....he's not that open to the idea.
You need to put yourself into his shoes.
Here is a country in north Africa....approximately 10.9 million people....about the size of Hessen and Bavaria together. The economy was growing to some degree over the past forty years.....helped greatly by tourism (golf courses and resorts along the Med), and then hit a stumbling block at the beginning of 2015 with various terror acts. If you go back to 2009....they had a minimum of 390,000 Tunisians who were employed within tourism, and it was a fair chunk of the national economy (minimum of 5-to-7 percent).
Added to their problems which were kinda noted two decades ago already....was corruption. It's hard not to find part of the government or the commercial sector....which doesn't have itself tied to corruption.
If you are 15 years old and a Tunisian kid....you likely have a fairly negative view of the future ahead of you. Things aren't working that well, and jobs are a problem.
Toss in radical Islam and the potential weekly threats......the locals are fairly happy when the young radical kids leave Tunisia for Europe. When some idiot European political figure comes calling to ask you to take the wild kid back.....well....you just don't have much enthusiasm to do it.
So you can understand not only the Premier's attitude, but the general attitude by the public in Tunisia. It wouldn't matter if we were only talking about a hundred of these punks....or a thousand....it's all the same....they need to go elsewhere....NOT back to Tunisia.
The Germans....ever clever and intellectual....are stuck in a Twilight-Zone-like situation. Thousands of young Tunisian guys who saw nothing in their homeland, and they've made into Germany but failed the visa-application. No one wants them. Every single day.....the group faces some ISIS-recruiter or determined Islamic guy who wants to flip them over to terrorism.
Maybe there is some amount of money that Germany can pull out of some pocket and entice the Tunisian political folks to take some of these punks back....but then you have to think in your mind....what exactly will stop the flow because there are more kids in Tunisia reaching maturity shortly, and they will jump to the raft-business and make their way into Germany. Just how big a pocket of money does Germany have.....and when will the public suddenly wake up and figure out this lose-lose-lose game?
The Tunisia Premier? Well....he's not that open to the idea.
You need to put yourself into his shoes.
Here is a country in north Africa....approximately 10.9 million people....about the size of Hessen and Bavaria together. The economy was growing to some degree over the past forty years.....helped greatly by tourism (golf courses and resorts along the Med), and then hit a stumbling block at the beginning of 2015 with various terror acts. If you go back to 2009....they had a minimum of 390,000 Tunisians who were employed within tourism, and it was a fair chunk of the national economy (minimum of 5-to-7 percent).
Added to their problems which were kinda noted two decades ago already....was corruption. It's hard not to find part of the government or the commercial sector....which doesn't have itself tied to corruption.
If you are 15 years old and a Tunisian kid....you likely have a fairly negative view of the future ahead of you. Things aren't working that well, and jobs are a problem.
Toss in radical Islam and the potential weekly threats......the locals are fairly happy when the young radical kids leave Tunisia for Europe. When some idiot European political figure comes calling to ask you to take the wild kid back.....well....you just don't have much enthusiasm to do it.
So you can understand not only the Premier's attitude, but the general attitude by the public in Tunisia. It wouldn't matter if we were only talking about a hundred of these punks....or a thousand....it's all the same....they need to go elsewhere....NOT back to Tunisia.
The Germans....ever clever and intellectual....are stuck in a Twilight-Zone-like situation. Thousands of young Tunisian guys who saw nothing in their homeland, and they've made into Germany but failed the visa-application. No one wants them. Every single day.....the group faces some ISIS-recruiter or determined Islamic guy who wants to flip them over to terrorism.
Maybe there is some amount of money that Germany can pull out of some pocket and entice the Tunisian political folks to take some of these punks back....but then you have to think in your mind....what exactly will stop the flow because there are more kids in Tunisia reaching maturity shortly, and they will jump to the raft-business and make their way into Germany. Just how big a pocket of money does Germany have.....and when will the public suddenly wake up and figure out this lose-lose-lose game?
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
The New Berlin Monument?
After Kaiser Wilhelm I died (the 'good Kaiser' as described by some Germans)....Germans got all hyped up in Berlin and wanted a massive statue to be dedicated to the Kaiser.
After six years of talking about this and going over options....they picked a plan and started in 1894. By 1897, the statue was finished. The cost? A massive sum at the time of roughly four million Marks. Reason for the high cost? It was a larger than life type monument. Location? It stood opposite the Eosanderportal on the western side of the Berlin Stadtschloss.
The massive statue sat there for a number of years....and then suffered some minor damage in 1918....with crowd causing a riot. No one talks much over what was done. Some repairs occurred, and the monument actually survived. WW II. At some point....being in the East Germany side of Berlin and controlled by DDR.....the monument was dismantled. The base stood there....just nothing on top of it.
After the Wall came down.....a fair amount of talk occurred about putting a monument back up. The thing was.....no one within the VIP or political crowd....wanted a statue.
So, they held a contest and this design has come up....the Einheitswippe. It's supposed to mean 'citizens in motion'. When you look at the shape of this....when enough people walk to one side....it will cause that end to go down and the opposite end to lift.
The cost factor? Some people (depending on who you read from)....will put the price at a minimum of 20-million Euro.
Some others speculate that the movement part of this, and the typical screwed-up nature of German structures....will end up with cracks or a unsafe condition (remember, it moves).
Some people question the necessity of something like this when so many Germans (15-percent are living below the welfare level).
The city bosses? They are fairly fired up over the project and today let it be known that the project is going ahead....with a budget of 15-million.
The problem I see is that it's a magnet for political statements. I could see some crazy political cause getting 300 people to show up and balance the platform on one end.....with 50 people on the other end, and have a picture taken to make a political statement.
Putting up some Kaiser Wilhelm statue again? No....forget that. Virtually everything about the 1800s in Berlin is non-trendy right now.
The odds of some screwed up project....taking ten years to finish? It's best not to bring this up.
After six years of talking about this and going over options....they picked a plan and started in 1894. By 1897, the statue was finished. The cost? A massive sum at the time of roughly four million Marks. Reason for the high cost? It was a larger than life type monument. Location? It stood opposite the Eosanderportal on the western side of the Berlin Stadtschloss.
The massive statue sat there for a number of years....and then suffered some minor damage in 1918....with crowd causing a riot. No one talks much over what was done. Some repairs occurred, and the monument actually survived. WW II. At some point....being in the East Germany side of Berlin and controlled by DDR.....the monument was dismantled. The base stood there....just nothing on top of it.
After the Wall came down.....a fair amount of talk occurred about putting a monument back up. The thing was.....no one within the VIP or political crowd....wanted a statue.
So, they held a contest and this design has come up....the Einheitswippe. It's supposed to mean 'citizens in motion'. When you look at the shape of this....when enough people walk to one side....it will cause that end to go down and the opposite end to lift. The cost factor? Some people (depending on who you read from)....will put the price at a minimum of 20-million Euro.
Some others speculate that the movement part of this, and the typical screwed-up nature of German structures....will end up with cracks or a unsafe condition (remember, it moves).
Some people question the necessity of something like this when so many Germans (15-percent are living below the welfare level).
The city bosses? They are fairly fired up over the project and today let it be known that the project is going ahead....with a budget of 15-million.
The problem I see is that it's a magnet for political statements. I could see some crazy political cause getting 300 people to show up and balance the platform on one end.....with 50 people on the other end, and have a picture taken to make a political statement.
Putting up some Kaiser Wilhelm statue again? No....forget that. Virtually everything about the 1800s in Berlin is non-trendy right now.
The odds of some screwed up project....taking ten years to finish? It's best not to bring this up.
The Thing About Selective Amnesia
Every year in Germany, there are particular remembrances of WW II....like in mid-February where massive attacks upon heavy populated cities by the British and Americans, and the terrible aftermath of these attacks are blended with a political slant or two.
Hamburg and Dresden are two most popular events slated for each year. Here in mid-February.....comes Dresden reminders....with ceremonies and forums where intellectuals talk of the unfairness of these attacks upon civilians.
I would guess out of the 82-million population....less than 10-percent pay some attention to news segments. In Dresden, they will get thousands to show up at the memorial services, and it'll be hyped up for a week or two about the terrible event that unfolded in 1945.
Occasionally, they (the public-TV gurus in Germany) will find an American or Brit PhD type who will talk about the whole terrible thing and all the unnecessary deaths.
I watch these pieces for a few minutes....then kinda have this odd memory pop in my head....the German V-2 rocket attacks upon London in 1944 (1,300-odd missiles launched without much on targeting....other than hitting the city of London). Then I'll remember the Blitz period of 1940...lasting until the spring of 1941, with a minimum of 40,000 English dead by the end of the attacks.
Oddly, the German news media and intellectuals never bring up the V2 or Blitz attacks in the context of the Hamburg or Dresden remembrances. Selective amnesia? You might say that.
The thing is....the German population that might have some identification or care about this topic.....are mostly dying off. Most German teens of today....really don't care, or waste time with these type of remembrances. Life has moved on for them.
Hamburg and Dresden are two most popular events slated for each year. Here in mid-February.....comes Dresden reminders....with ceremonies and forums where intellectuals talk of the unfairness of these attacks upon civilians.
I would guess out of the 82-million population....less than 10-percent pay some attention to news segments. In Dresden, they will get thousands to show up at the memorial services, and it'll be hyped up for a week or two about the terrible event that unfolded in 1945.
Occasionally, they (the public-TV gurus in Germany) will find an American or Brit PhD type who will talk about the whole terrible thing and all the unnecessary deaths.
I watch these pieces for a few minutes....then kinda have this odd memory pop in my head....the German V-2 rocket attacks upon London in 1944 (1,300-odd missiles launched without much on targeting....other than hitting the city of London). Then I'll remember the Blitz period of 1940...lasting until the spring of 1941, with a minimum of 40,000 English dead by the end of the attacks.
Oddly, the German news media and intellectuals never bring up the V2 or Blitz attacks in the context of the Hamburg or Dresden remembrances. Selective amnesia? You might say that.
The thing is....the German population that might have some identification or care about this topic.....are mostly dying off. Most German teens of today....really don't care, or waste time with these type of remembrances. Life has moved on for them.
"Ferguson" in France
If you haven't been watching French news over the past ten days....there is a violent setting going into place over a police assault of a African migrant.
The basic story (with video of the incident shuffling around) is where a couple of cops were going after a particular guy and they used one of their police batons in a sexual assault sort of way (why the cop had to act this stupid has yet to be explained). The video got around, and right now....you've got a full-scale riot situation going in various urban areas of France, in the middle of an election period.
Business windows are being broken.....cars lit up....and violence being a nightly thing.
Around ten years ago....the same type of event occurred and for a number of weeks.....France had a mess on its hands. The current President (Holland) came into office with lots of promises to ensure the situation did not repeat itself. Well....it has.
France over the past couple of decades....going back to the 1960s....has become this magnet for immigrants and migrants....in search of the good life that they seen in newspapers and magazines. They came into France....took low-paying jobs....settled into urbanized neighborhoods, and eventually these neighborhoods become ghetto areas, with no real hope of escape. If you do stick around in the local school environment....upon graduation, you discover that your values to any business are minimal. No one gives any thumbs-up at the certificate that you hold in your hands....so you never move up in life.
Over the past decade, with social media and radical Islam on the trending routine....the nation of France can be be described as a total failure for migration. Social scientists? They generally say you need to throw more money into the pit. Most French people don't see that as remarkably wise. The problem is....no reasonable solution is on the table. You have a large segment of the migrant-turned-French people who are over thirty years old and have nothing to really hope for in terms of education or job placement.
Those who think this was simply to put cheap labor at the hands of French companies and markets? Well....yeah, they probably are correct in that this was a national strategy and never really thought completely through. For all of the political parties at work in France.....it's a problem to be seen in different ways, and marketed to voters.
A repeat of the "Ferguson" event? If you look at BLM and the continuing trend in the US....it's a virtual copy of the France problem. Cops feel threatened and disrespect. Migrants feel threatened and disrespect. General public is worried over crime and violence. Politicians try to show some heart and peaceful nature, while chatting about calm nature.
The basic story (with video of the incident shuffling around) is where a couple of cops were going after a particular guy and they used one of their police batons in a sexual assault sort of way (why the cop had to act this stupid has yet to be explained). The video got around, and right now....you've got a full-scale riot situation going in various urban areas of France, in the middle of an election period.
Business windows are being broken.....cars lit up....and violence being a nightly thing.
Around ten years ago....the same type of event occurred and for a number of weeks.....France had a mess on its hands. The current President (Holland) came into office with lots of promises to ensure the situation did not repeat itself. Well....it has.
France over the past couple of decades....going back to the 1960s....has become this magnet for immigrants and migrants....in search of the good life that they seen in newspapers and magazines. They came into France....took low-paying jobs....settled into urbanized neighborhoods, and eventually these neighborhoods become ghetto areas, with no real hope of escape. If you do stick around in the local school environment....upon graduation, you discover that your values to any business are minimal. No one gives any thumbs-up at the certificate that you hold in your hands....so you never move up in life.
Over the past decade, with social media and radical Islam on the trending routine....the nation of France can be be described as a total failure for migration. Social scientists? They generally say you need to throw more money into the pit. Most French people don't see that as remarkably wise. The problem is....no reasonable solution is on the table. You have a large segment of the migrant-turned-French people who are over thirty years old and have nothing to really hope for in terms of education or job placement.
Those who think this was simply to put cheap labor at the hands of French companies and markets? Well....yeah, they probably are correct in that this was a national strategy and never really thought completely through. For all of the political parties at work in France.....it's a problem to be seen in different ways, and marketed to voters.
A repeat of the "Ferguson" event? If you look at BLM and the continuing trend in the US....it's a virtual copy of the France problem. Cops feel threatened and disrespect. Migrants feel threatened and disrespect. General public is worried over crime and violence. Politicians try to show some heart and peaceful nature, while chatting about calm nature.
Monday, February 13, 2017
Confiscation Tactic
It was a radical idea handed over to Chancellor Merkel's Berlin crowd....from the Hessen Chief (Bouffier, CDU) over handling migrants or immigrants who don't want to identify themselves or their country of origin.
The idea? Once you show up and apparently play this game with the BAMF Agency.....they confiscate your smart-phone (on the spot). They will use it to track down who you chat with and eventually figure out your status.
Trying to hide the phone? I'm guessing that they'd send the cops around to you everyday and play the game out....eventually getting your phone.
Getting a replacement phone? That's the thing....you'd probably find some kid who'd sell you another phone for 50 Euro and just continue on, and find a week or two later....the cops coming around to possibly confiscate that phone.
This is one of the odd characteristics I've come to notice over the past four years....virtually every single immigrant/refugee/asylum requester.....has a smart-phone.
The idea? Once you show up and apparently play this game with the BAMF Agency.....they confiscate your smart-phone (on the spot). They will use it to track down who you chat with and eventually figure out your status.
Trying to hide the phone? I'm guessing that they'd send the cops around to you everyday and play the game out....eventually getting your phone.
Getting a replacement phone? That's the thing....you'd probably find some kid who'd sell you another phone for 50 Euro and just continue on, and find a week or two later....the cops coming around to possibly confiscate that phone.
This is one of the odd characteristics I've come to notice over the past four years....virtually every single immigrant/refugee/asylum requester.....has a smart-phone.
Those Hyped Up over Brown-Shirts
This past month, I've sat and read commentary from a number of people wanted to chat up their humble fear of a new dark era of 'brown-shirts' (Nazi slang for the Sturmabteilung).
These naive individuals for the most part have zero understanding on the topic. Some are journalists. Some are Hollywood-types. Some are politicians. Some are just fired-up agenda thugs.
They all seem to want you to know that they are under some threat, and the 'demons' or brown-shirt crowd are coming to get them.
So, let's introduce the brown-shirts and chat about their characteristics.
1. The brown-shirts or Sturmabteilung....started in 1920. Some elements of the group were active in 1915....in the midst of the war. The reputation of the 1915 crowd? They were there to push back the front.....to maximize an assault. After the war, they were there to intimidate. Few realize the period of operation, but the basic function of the brown-shirts lasted until the summer of 1934. The Nazi Party no longer required their services, and it was a fairly messy event (Night of the Long Knives). You can go and read up on this roughly 3-day period....no one from the top level was given a waiver or pass. History will say that the brown-shirts in some way were still around til 1945.....but you can't really identify much of an existence.
2. Brown-shirts were there to confront and intimidate anyone. There was one single policy ideology. In today's environment....when you find a hostile group....using intimidation and allowing only one ideology....yes, it's brown-shirt in nature.
3 Brown-shirts destroy personal property. They did this throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s. Brown-shirts of today.....destroy personal property (burn cars, loot, etc) and assault public safety officials and private citizens.
4. Brown-shirts took orders from their district bosses in the 1920s/1930s. Brown-shirts of today take orders from bosses in the shadows.
5. Brown-shirts of the earlier period absolutely hated free speech. Brown-shirts of today hate free speech. No open discussion can be allowed when in the company of a brown-shirt. No debate....no facts....no open dialog is possible with a brown-shirt.
6. Few people realize it but the whole "shirt" mentality stretches way past Germany. You have the Green-Shirts of Ireland, the Gold-Shirts of Mexico, and even the Blue Shirts of Taiwan. Numerous countries have operated around the concept.
7. The brown-shirts of the 1920s and 1930s were multi-group orientated....meaning they didn't just target Jews. They targeted the Communist Party of Germany, Slavic folks, union members, gays, etc. The brown-shirts of today? They were go after various groups as well, and not be confined to just single ideology.
8. Brown-shirts reached a point by 1930....that they were a fairly regularly seen thing. In Munich by the mid-20's....it was a regular thing. In the US? Where exactly do you see Brown-shirts? Highly urbanized areas, university campus settings, and low-income/welfare areas. Oh, and at airports last week. Brown-shirt displays in rural settings? No. Small US towns? No. Kinda odd....don't you think? What does that say about the Brown-shirt generation of 2017?
9. News reporters of the 1920s and 1930s in Germany tended to avoid reporting on the phenomenon because it'd only get you noted as a problem. In modern society, the news folks see it as a plus in some ways....although you can only interview a modern-day brown-shirt for about two or three minutes before it's obvious that they aren't giving you the commentary you need. That's why there's always some media-expert within each modern-day brown-shirt episode....to hype their cause or ensure the public message is sent out the right way.
10. Brown-shirts were dumped as soon as their legitimate value was reached in 1934. Brown-shirts of today....will be dumped as soon as you reach maximum value. Ask yourself why this is general trend?
With this commentary.....I only want to set people into a method of thinking about this before unloading some stupid comment about Brown-shirt this, or Brown-shirt that.
These naive individuals for the most part have zero understanding on the topic. Some are journalists. Some are Hollywood-types. Some are politicians. Some are just fired-up agenda thugs.
They all seem to want you to know that they are under some threat, and the 'demons' or brown-shirt crowd are coming to get them.
So, let's introduce the brown-shirts and chat about their characteristics.
1. The brown-shirts or Sturmabteilung....started in 1920. Some elements of the group were active in 1915....in the midst of the war. The reputation of the 1915 crowd? They were there to push back the front.....to maximize an assault. After the war, they were there to intimidate. Few realize the period of operation, but the basic function of the brown-shirts lasted until the summer of 1934. The Nazi Party no longer required their services, and it was a fairly messy event (Night of the Long Knives). You can go and read up on this roughly 3-day period....no one from the top level was given a waiver or pass. History will say that the brown-shirts in some way were still around til 1945.....but you can't really identify much of an existence.
2. Brown-shirts were there to confront and intimidate anyone. There was one single policy ideology. In today's environment....when you find a hostile group....using intimidation and allowing only one ideology....yes, it's brown-shirt in nature.
3 Brown-shirts destroy personal property. They did this throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s. Brown-shirts of today.....destroy personal property (burn cars, loot, etc) and assault public safety officials and private citizens.
4. Brown-shirts took orders from their district bosses in the 1920s/1930s. Brown-shirts of today take orders from bosses in the shadows.
5. Brown-shirts of the earlier period absolutely hated free speech. Brown-shirts of today hate free speech. No open discussion can be allowed when in the company of a brown-shirt. No debate....no facts....no open dialog is possible with a brown-shirt.
6. Few people realize it but the whole "shirt" mentality stretches way past Germany. You have the Green-Shirts of Ireland, the Gold-Shirts of Mexico, and even the Blue Shirts of Taiwan. Numerous countries have operated around the concept.
7. The brown-shirts of the 1920s and 1930s were multi-group orientated....meaning they didn't just target Jews. They targeted the Communist Party of Germany, Slavic folks, union members, gays, etc. The brown-shirts of today? They were go after various groups as well, and not be confined to just single ideology.
8. Brown-shirts reached a point by 1930....that they were a fairly regularly seen thing. In Munich by the mid-20's....it was a regular thing. In the US? Where exactly do you see Brown-shirts? Highly urbanized areas, university campus settings, and low-income/welfare areas. Oh, and at airports last week. Brown-shirt displays in rural settings? No. Small US towns? No. Kinda odd....don't you think? What does that say about the Brown-shirt generation of 2017?
9. News reporters of the 1920s and 1930s in Germany tended to avoid reporting on the phenomenon because it'd only get you noted as a problem. In modern society, the news folks see it as a plus in some ways....although you can only interview a modern-day brown-shirt for about two or three minutes before it's obvious that they aren't giving you the commentary you need. That's why there's always some media-expert within each modern-day brown-shirt episode....to hype their cause or ensure the public message is sent out the right way.
10. Brown-shirts were dumped as soon as their legitimate value was reached in 1934. Brown-shirts of today....will be dumped as soon as you reach maximum value. Ask yourself why this is general trend?
With this commentary.....I only want to set people into a method of thinking about this before unloading some stupid comment about Brown-shirt this, or Brown-shirt that.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
The French Asylum Deal
As part of his campaign talk....the Liberal Party guy (Macron) has offered asylum to US climate scientists.....if he is elected.
In a short video piece, he noted how the Trump administration is now a problem, and that American scientists might be under some threat....so France will open it's door to the poor Americans scientist.
The chief problem with this offer? Let's say that 2,000 climate scientists in the US wake and feel some threat (real or perceived). So they haul off and move to France and ask for this asylum deal. French immigration officials grumble about this....mostly because few of the Americans speak French, and their job/craft background is purely climate science....which isn't exactly a booming trade or situation in France.
Weeks would pass with the Americans trying to fit into France....starting up with French courses.....talking with French scientist-intellectuals....gulping down French wine, and eating various new fancy pastries.
At some point, the American climate scientists.....one by one....would come to ask about their future, and their French political folks would admit....there just aren't that many jobs around. Then the jobs-center chief would ask if they would accept jobs....teaching at some school (within the ghetto region of France) or perhaps entertain the idea of some police academy situation to become one of the new 10,000-odd cops in France.
Six months into this deal....the American scientists would realize that they'd jumped a bit too quick into this deal and it's a lousy relocation episode. That cheese and wine business? It was ok for six weeks but it's tiring after a while. By this point, they've watched Le Corniaud (The Sucker) (1965) with Louie de Funes at least six times and seem to be lost on how the French mafia and cops seem to be so incompetent. French rap music is really bad. French women on the metro seem to be dressed in some tramp-fashion daily. And the meat is always served a bit raw.
After a year, the whole offer deal is considered a complete failure, and some American starts to write the script to what will be one of the biggest French-American epic movies of all time.....entitled: Les Scientifiques Foutu (the Screwed-up Scientists).
In a short video piece, he noted how the Trump administration is now a problem, and that American scientists might be under some threat....so France will open it's door to the poor Americans scientist.
The chief problem with this offer? Let's say that 2,000 climate scientists in the US wake and feel some threat (real or perceived). So they haul off and move to France and ask for this asylum deal. French immigration officials grumble about this....mostly because few of the Americans speak French, and their job/craft background is purely climate science....which isn't exactly a booming trade or situation in France.
Weeks would pass with the Americans trying to fit into France....starting up with French courses.....talking with French scientist-intellectuals....gulping down French wine, and eating various new fancy pastries.
At some point, the American climate scientists.....one by one....would come to ask about their future, and their French political folks would admit....there just aren't that many jobs around. Then the jobs-center chief would ask if they would accept jobs....teaching at some school (within the ghetto region of France) or perhaps entertain the idea of some police academy situation to become one of the new 10,000-odd cops in France.
Six months into this deal....the American scientists would realize that they'd jumped a bit too quick into this deal and it's a lousy relocation episode. That cheese and wine business? It was ok for six weeks but it's tiring after a while. By this point, they've watched Le Corniaud (The Sucker) (1965) with Louie de Funes at least six times and seem to be lost on how the French mafia and cops seem to be so incompetent. French rap music is really bad. French women on the metro seem to be dressed in some tramp-fashion daily. And the meat is always served a bit raw.
After a year, the whole offer deal is considered a complete failure, and some American starts to write the script to what will be one of the biggest French-American epic movies of all time.....entitled: Les Scientifiques Foutu (the Screwed-up Scientists).
Friday, February 10, 2017
Fences and Walls
If you go up to a German intellectual and bring up fences and walls....immediately they want to chat on Trump and this silly wall on the border idea. They will bring in various foundation experts and immigration enthusiasts to cite "fact".
If you go to a German pub and find a dozen-odd working-class Germans just sitting there and sipping beer....asking them why there is no big refugee or asylum rush into Germany today....compared against 2014 or 2015....they will simply grin. It's a topic that won't appear much on German news or get discussed in forums.
It's a two-step approach.
First, Chancellor Merkel went and convinced all twenty-eight members of the EU to put 3-billion Euro into a pot, and give it to Turkey's Erdogan.....to cover costs of handling his share of Iraqi/Syrian refugees. The cost of these camps? There's no doubt that middle-men in Turkey are taking a cut on the support costs and selling food/etc at full price and more.
How Merkel convinced the bulk of the membership to go along with this? This has never been fully explained....other than the EU used a lot of pressure to get their folks lined up....even if the countries themselves were unhappy with the deal.
Each year....three billion Euro gets sent and Erdogan ensures that the smugglers are kept on a tight rope.
The second step? Every single country to the southeast of Germany built fences, and put armed guards on their borders. Every single country.
You head north out of Greece....you come to Albania, Macedonia, or Bulgaria. All three put up fencing and guards.
You head further north.....you find Serbia and Hungry put up fencing.
Kosovo? Yep, they put up fences.
It's a funny thing....fences and regular patrols work. You have virtually no one making it across six countries to Germany now. Greece? If some migrants or asylum-seekers make it there....they are mostly stuck there. My guess is that the Germans will make sure things are covered there in some fashion.
All this chatter by the Germans on Trump's wall idea failing? They would prefer not to bring up the fences to the south and how they actually did work. They'd also like to avoid discussing the three billion Euro a year going to Erdogan's Turkey.
If you go to a German pub and find a dozen-odd working-class Germans just sitting there and sipping beer....asking them why there is no big refugee or asylum rush into Germany today....compared against 2014 or 2015....they will simply grin. It's a topic that won't appear much on German news or get discussed in forums.
It's a two-step approach.
First, Chancellor Merkel went and convinced all twenty-eight members of the EU to put 3-billion Euro into a pot, and give it to Turkey's Erdogan.....to cover costs of handling his share of Iraqi/Syrian refugees. The cost of these camps? There's no doubt that middle-men in Turkey are taking a cut on the support costs and selling food/etc at full price and more.
How Merkel convinced the bulk of the membership to go along with this? This has never been fully explained....other than the EU used a lot of pressure to get their folks lined up....even if the countries themselves were unhappy with the deal.
Each year....three billion Euro gets sent and Erdogan ensures that the smugglers are kept on a tight rope.
The second step? Every single country to the southeast of Germany built fences, and put armed guards on their borders. Every single country.
You head north out of Greece....you come to Albania, Macedonia, or Bulgaria. All three put up fencing and guards.
You head further north.....you find Serbia and Hungry put up fencing.
Kosovo? Yep, they put up fences.
It's a funny thing....fences and regular patrols work. You have virtually no one making it across six countries to Germany now. Greece? If some migrants or asylum-seekers make it there....they are mostly stuck there. My guess is that the Germans will make sure things are covered there in some fashion.
All this chatter by the Germans on Trump's wall idea failing? They would prefer not to bring up the fences to the south and how they actually did work. They'd also like to avoid discussing the three billion Euro a year going to Erdogan's Turkey.
The Education Story
It's an interesting Welt article....with the Philogical Association of Germany and the Gymnasium Teacher's Union saying that roughly 300,000 immigrant kids will end up in the German school system, and the system simply isn't capable or prepared for this.
The government plan? At present, there's talk of recruitment of 13,000 teachers to add into the system to cover this issue.
Various numbers are thrown around about the cost impact of education and how much it might be....with some folks citing 2 billion Euro (per year) and some folks going as high as 4 billion Euro.
The chief issues? First, you come to language. My own humble view is that you need to take the kid upon arrival and the visa is approved....and just put them into an intensive language program for a minimum of nine months. If the kid isn't that bright....layer another six to eight months onto this. You basically can't let the non-German capable kid progress into any German school system until this one deficiency is wrapped up.
The level of foreign schools equaling German schools? No. You can take a German kid in the 6th grade, and pretty much guarantee that most of these foreign kids coming in....who claim they ought to be at the sixth-grade level....just aren't at that level. Maybe if you wasted six months on preparatory classes and some private tutor work.....then maybe they might be able to handle the course load.
Shock among the parents on the material and the progressive nature of German schools? Well....yeah, that might be a problem if you came from a fairly conservative religious community. Some waiver? No. If you don't like the progressive nature of German society....you picked the wrong country. Move on.
Some people are starting to use the phrase 'ghetto creation'. I might agree with this.
Here's the thing.....you have a school in some urbanized area, and you throw sixty foreign kids into the school.....to discover six months later than half of them are having attitude and adjustment problems. You find PTSD with some kids. You start to identify some kids as nut-cases, who need major help. The German school system is really made in some fashion to handle this kind of mess.
Demoralizing for the teachers? Yes. Two years of messing around with attitude problems and punks with no interest in the school......you might have to start recruiting more teachers for those who quit.
Where will the 13,000 new teachers be found? I have my doubts.
Do you need the 13,000 new teachers for the next 30 years? No....that's the puzzling part of this story. At best, with the current trend....you might need the 13,000 teachers for around five to eight years. Then? Well....no one says much. Force them into other jobs? Where?
You see....none of this has been really thought out. It's one of the 99-odd problems with the Merkel plan. It should be on some plan, and list how everything would connect and function. There is no such plan.
I feel sorry for the kids. They didn't really ask for this mess. Their parents have to make due with what they've got. Maybe on positive nature and lots of effort.....maybe half of these kids might amount to something down the road. But I would question how the 300,000 will work out in the end.
The government plan? At present, there's talk of recruitment of 13,000 teachers to add into the system to cover this issue.
Various numbers are thrown around about the cost impact of education and how much it might be....with some folks citing 2 billion Euro (per year) and some folks going as high as 4 billion Euro.
The chief issues? First, you come to language. My own humble view is that you need to take the kid upon arrival and the visa is approved....and just put them into an intensive language program for a minimum of nine months. If the kid isn't that bright....layer another six to eight months onto this. You basically can't let the non-German capable kid progress into any German school system until this one deficiency is wrapped up.
The level of foreign schools equaling German schools? No. You can take a German kid in the 6th grade, and pretty much guarantee that most of these foreign kids coming in....who claim they ought to be at the sixth-grade level....just aren't at that level. Maybe if you wasted six months on preparatory classes and some private tutor work.....then maybe they might be able to handle the course load.
Shock among the parents on the material and the progressive nature of German schools? Well....yeah, that might be a problem if you came from a fairly conservative religious community. Some waiver? No. If you don't like the progressive nature of German society....you picked the wrong country. Move on.
Some people are starting to use the phrase 'ghetto creation'. I might agree with this.
Here's the thing.....you have a school in some urbanized area, and you throw sixty foreign kids into the school.....to discover six months later than half of them are having attitude and adjustment problems. You find PTSD with some kids. You start to identify some kids as nut-cases, who need major help. The German school system is really made in some fashion to handle this kind of mess.
Demoralizing for the teachers? Yes. Two years of messing around with attitude problems and punks with no interest in the school......you might have to start recruiting more teachers for those who quit.
Where will the 13,000 new teachers be found? I have my doubts.
Do you need the 13,000 new teachers for the next 30 years? No....that's the puzzling part of this story. At best, with the current trend....you might need the 13,000 teachers for around five to eight years. Then? Well....no one says much. Force them into other jobs? Where?
You see....none of this has been really thought out. It's one of the 99-odd problems with the Merkel plan. It should be on some plan, and list how everything would connect and function. There is no such plan.
I feel sorry for the kids. They didn't really ask for this mess. Their parents have to make due with what they've got. Maybe on positive nature and lots of effort.....maybe half of these kids might amount to something down the road. But I would question how the 300,000 will work out in the end.
Thursday, February 9, 2017
The German Radicals
Someone in the Berlin state operation came up and asked for data from the cops (the city cops, not the federal guys)...over arrests related to left-wing radicals within the city. I don't know how a cop confronts some idiot and does an arrest, then notes his political situation....but they apparently keep some kind of information like this.
So they looked over the last couple of years. If you aren't aware....there are generally two cities in Germany which have a fair amount of left-wing radical troubles.....Hamburg and Berlin. To a lesser degree, Stuttgart has some minor issues, and once in a great while....you notice some demonstration in Frankfurt.
I would generally say that left-wing radicals are like the dinosaurs.....they are dying off.
So, the Berlin statistical data came to three conclusions. Most of those who they arrested in this category....are between 20 and 25 years old (they just aren't that many folks are left-wing radicals over the age of thirty.....for some odd reason). The second odd thing is that the majority are unemployed (shocker?). And most live in some situation in their parent's house/apartment....meaning that they did some job training episode, failed, and mostly live off dad's pocket-money at age 20.
I should note as well.....most are guys.....not women.
For years, I've kinda stood back and admired left-wing activities in Germany. I admit....I'm from Alabama, and we just didn't ever have this type of activity going on there. If you end up in the middle of Berlin or Hamburg.....you can generally note the crowd....mostly guys and they like dressing up in hoodies. No flip-flops or sandals.....mostly tennis-shoes. The clothing is the type that they wear for a week or two....until Mom demands they hand them over for the washer.
How you end up as a left-wing radical? Generally, you hang around some guys who seem intellectual in nature....talk up anti-capitalism to some degree....gross unfairness of the government....and smoke a fair amount of weed. No one ever tests these guys on soccer knowledge, current events, or such. I generally end up identifying them as mostly over-grown kids who never had any desire to move on in life....they are more or less at the 13-year-old kid level.
The women who do end up in the group? I'd generally say they were just looking for some tribal-like atmosphere and found some guys who party an awful lot.
Who pays for their booze or weed? That's the question I'd like for these news folks to ask, but they always same hyped up to ask about their anti-government or anti-capitalism standings.
What happens to this data identifying the punks? Nothing much. I suspect that everyone already knew their situation in life, and some of the political folks actually know the punks on a first-name basis. As for the typical German? Most would suggest it's time for the punks to get a bath, a haircut, and do some real work in life.
So they looked over the last couple of years. If you aren't aware....there are generally two cities in Germany which have a fair amount of left-wing radical troubles.....Hamburg and Berlin. To a lesser degree, Stuttgart has some minor issues, and once in a great while....you notice some demonstration in Frankfurt.
I would generally say that left-wing radicals are like the dinosaurs.....they are dying off.
So, the Berlin statistical data came to three conclusions. Most of those who they arrested in this category....are between 20 and 25 years old (they just aren't that many folks are left-wing radicals over the age of thirty.....for some odd reason). The second odd thing is that the majority are unemployed (shocker?). And most live in some situation in their parent's house/apartment....meaning that they did some job training episode, failed, and mostly live off dad's pocket-money at age 20.
I should note as well.....most are guys.....not women.
For years, I've kinda stood back and admired left-wing activities in Germany. I admit....I'm from Alabama, and we just didn't ever have this type of activity going on there. If you end up in the middle of Berlin or Hamburg.....you can generally note the crowd....mostly guys and they like dressing up in hoodies. No flip-flops or sandals.....mostly tennis-shoes. The clothing is the type that they wear for a week or two....until Mom demands they hand them over for the washer.
How you end up as a left-wing radical? Generally, you hang around some guys who seem intellectual in nature....talk up anti-capitalism to some degree....gross unfairness of the government....and smoke a fair amount of weed. No one ever tests these guys on soccer knowledge, current events, or such. I generally end up identifying them as mostly over-grown kids who never had any desire to move on in life....they are more or less at the 13-year-old kid level.
The women who do end up in the group? I'd generally say they were just looking for some tribal-like atmosphere and found some guys who party an awful lot.
Who pays for their booze or weed? That's the question I'd like for these news folks to ask, but they always same hyped up to ask about their anti-government or anti-capitalism standings.
What happens to this data identifying the punks? Nothing much. I suspect that everyone already knew their situation in life, and some of the political folks actually know the punks on a first-name basis. As for the typical German? Most would suggest it's time for the punks to get a bath, a haircut, and do some real work in life.
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