I noted one of the better reports that ARD (public-TV channel One in Germany) has done in recent times. Over the past week, a major German government audit agency came out with a pretty hard-hitting negative report on integration, the language schools, and the lack of success that they see.
It's worth reading....but I'll limit myself to discussing three aspects of the ARD report.
1. Before the 2014 to now era of immigration occurred....no one in the state or federal government of Germany really cared that much about the whole process of integration. There might have been speeches given or some pep-talk by some government representative....but that didn't really change much of anything.
Once the full force of the million-plus migrants and immigrants came onto the scene.....all of these regional offices were given orders....bulk up on language and integration instructors. Well....they did the HR routine....found some university degree folks, and hired them. They put some of them through a certification process, and then started teaching classes.
The audit came to realize that it was more of 'hit-and-miss' with this HR method of recruitment, and that a fair number of these people aren't instructors by profession. Some might have been grade-school teachers before. Some might have been accountants. Some might have social workers by their profession.
Criticism is probably deserved, but frankly....no one ever expected to be told to bulk up in a hurry and have instructors carrying out the job in less than a year. So, they've done the best they could....with what they have.
2. There's this reality....a fair number of the immigrants aren't as gifted or qualified as some might expect. Some have never studied a foreign language in their life. Some have never been in a structured university-like setting. The audit guys kinda figured this out.
Three years ago, I sat in a German class with a Chinese guy who was a cook. My best guess was that other than basic school, and Chinese military boot-camp....this type of class environment was all new to him. He was one of those guys that a tutor on the side three or four times a week would have helped a great deal. This past year, I sat in a class with a fairly educated Syrian gal....who had some usage of English and been a teacher to some degree in Syria. She was another person who would have been greatly by a tutor a couple of times a week on top of the regular class. Sadly....the system isn't built for that type of extra help or tutoring.
3. It was a fairly damning report by the audit folks....who basically hint that bits and pieces of this whole mechanism are working as intended, but it's just not a program that you'd want to brag about.
But I think they miss the achievement of this. Five years ago....Germany had what you'd call a simple and marginalized program to meet the basic needs of a very limited group of 'customers'. Almost overnight, they've done something that typically doesn't occur in German society....they built a huge vehicle with lots of parts, and simply put it on the autobahn "as-is".
Maybe if they'd had really clever bosses at the top when they started.....or had this vast number of people with the right skill-sets....it'd all be different. But when you start a poker game with a hundred dollars in your pocket....it's going to be nickles, dimes and quarters that you end betting on for the majority of the game.
Oddly....I read through the whole report that ARD wrote of the critical survey by the audit agency. It only covers the adult side of this picture. Yeah....they didn't want to cover school kids who are immigrants. My guess is that it'd be an awful woeful tale that would make some political folks very nervous about the school system failures, and the future being drawn out.
In some ways, the German integration guys should pat themselves on the back because they made something out of nothing in a remarkable short period of time. But to turn this into a smooth-running machine? Man, that could take another decade and a billion Euro a year on top of the current expenditures. Do Germans have the patience to make this work right?
Friday, March 31, 2017
Modern-Day Cattle Rustling in Germany
RBB (the public-TV of Berlin) put out this news piece and I spent a while reading it, and re-reading it. So, this is the basic story of a very unique crime which Germany has not really faced in modern times....cattle-rustling.
Yeah, it could be told from the prospective of a guy from Texas or Oklahoma....but this is from Brandenburg.
The cops in Brandenburg have finally gotten enough political pressure and public frustration....that they have to change their tactics, and put some major effort into this problem....so a special commission is going to form up and discuss the problem and how to go against it.
The main area of focus is around the Markisch-Oderland area. We can refer to the area as the 'badlands of Germany'. Here on the 'frontier', an area about ten miles east of Berlin and stretching to the Polish border....it's mostly rural and farms.
The population stands out at around 190,000 but this is mostly just a couple of major towns where people live in the shadow of Berlin, go there for their work or occupation, and retreat each night to the comfort of a quiet town without all the hustle and bustle of Berlin. Farms populate the landscape and folks like the quiet nature of the region.
So, cattle have been stolen on a regular basis. One local farm had 30 head of cattle that just disappeared overnight....gone without a trace. Cops say it's a routine thing now....20 to 30 farmers who walk out into a field and kinda notice that their herd has been thinned out.
The cops and their reaction? "The thieves must be absolute professionals."
All of these events occur mostly at night and people tend to think that they must be crossing over the border.
So far....there's never been a single case solved....so they can only use speculation about where the cattle are headed. Maybe it is straight east into Poland. Maybe it's just two German guys and pick up a dozen cows and sell them off to some German butcher who doesn't ask questions. Some speculation is centered on the cattle ending up in the Ukraine, but you'd have to transport the cattle almost 800 km or approximately 9 hours of driving across Poland to make this successfully work....hoping no Polish cops would stop you.
Cops say that for 2016....they are at a peak on damages to local farmers....240,000 Euro (roughly 260,000 dollars).
If you look at the numbers....it's a fairly decent trade that this guy has gotten up. It's probably two guys....a truck big enough to handle 15 to 20 head of cattle, and they likely use back-roads across Poland to reach the Ukraine where they sell the cattle for local pricing. My guess is that they make sixty-percent of what the beef would have gone for in Germany....so for all of last year, their take was probably in the 150,000 Euro range.
Odds of the cops ending this cattle rustling business? It's hard to say.
They will have to make a mistake on down the line, where some camera notes their truck passing the border at 3AM and cops get the Polish cops active to locate the truck.
Yeah, it could be told from the prospective of a guy from Texas or Oklahoma....but this is from Brandenburg.
The cops in Brandenburg have finally gotten enough political pressure and public frustration....that they have to change their tactics, and put some major effort into this problem....so a special commission is going to form up and discuss the problem and how to go against it.
The main area of focus is around the Markisch-Oderland area. We can refer to the area as the 'badlands of Germany'. Here on the 'frontier', an area about ten miles east of Berlin and stretching to the Polish border....it's mostly rural and farms.
The population stands out at around 190,000 but this is mostly just a couple of major towns where people live in the shadow of Berlin, go there for their work or occupation, and retreat each night to the comfort of a quiet town without all the hustle and bustle of Berlin. Farms populate the landscape and folks like the quiet nature of the region.
So, cattle have been stolen on a regular basis. One local farm had 30 head of cattle that just disappeared overnight....gone without a trace. Cops say it's a routine thing now....20 to 30 farmers who walk out into a field and kinda notice that their herd has been thinned out.
The cops and their reaction? "The thieves must be absolute professionals."
All of these events occur mostly at night and people tend to think that they must be crossing over the border.
So far....there's never been a single case solved....so they can only use speculation about where the cattle are headed. Maybe it is straight east into Poland. Maybe it's just two German guys and pick up a dozen cows and sell them off to some German butcher who doesn't ask questions. Some speculation is centered on the cattle ending up in the Ukraine, but you'd have to transport the cattle almost 800 km or approximately 9 hours of driving across Poland to make this successfully work....hoping no Polish cops would stop you.
Cops say that for 2016....they are at a peak on damages to local farmers....240,000 Euro (roughly 260,000 dollars).
If you look at the numbers....it's a fairly decent trade that this guy has gotten up. It's probably two guys....a truck big enough to handle 15 to 20 head of cattle, and they likely use back-roads across Poland to reach the Ukraine where they sell the cattle for local pricing. My guess is that they make sixty-percent of what the beef would have gone for in Germany....so for all of last year, their take was probably in the 150,000 Euro range.
Odds of the cops ending this cattle rustling business? It's hard to say.
They will have to make a mistake on down the line, where some camera notes their truck passing the border at 3AM and cops get the Polish cops active to locate the truck.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
German Integration Booklet
I have the work booklet for the German integration course for government and law....one of these classes I'll have to take in the next year. Roughly eighty-odd pages. So I went through it this week.
Generally, I can say five things about the book.
1. It is very limited on German history....basically starting in the 1930s...talking to a fair extent over Nazis, a page to the 1945 to 1960 era, and has a couple of pages to talk over the past thirty years....the Wall, DDR, and the new Germany. Roughly 2,000 years missing but it'd just overwhelm most immigrants I think, if you told the whole story.
The emphasis on Nazis? Well, you tell the Holocaust in thirty lines and throw up a picture of the Berlin Memorial.
2. It's supposed to be 60 hours devoted to this material. The instructor must have a bigger booklet to toss out wisdom and bits of history.....because the booklet is awful limited.
3. There's probably about six hours of material over German law, the Constitution, and basic rights. For some guy from a hard dictatorship...it's like reading a condensed version of Lawrence of Arabia of two pages.
4. Maybe there's some movies or video material attached to this....to enhance the whole theme. I won't discredit the book but it's similar to a fifth-grade government studies book (just with better graphics).
5. I imagine there was some big meeting held, and a lot of arguing going over the amount of material. Some history geeks wanted a 300-hour episode....with Kaiser Wilhelm II, Karl Benz, Max Zorn, and Erwin Rommel featured. The integration guys probably didn't want immigrants weeping away at the complex nature of German history. Oddly, Roman history is barely mentioned in this booklet, yet most of everything about Germany is dependent on the Romans.
The thing is....some type of introduction to Germany is required. Somewhere in the thinking....60 hours is a nice round number.
Generally, I can say five things about the book.
1. It is very limited on German history....basically starting in the 1930s...talking to a fair extent over Nazis, a page to the 1945 to 1960 era, and has a couple of pages to talk over the past thirty years....the Wall, DDR, and the new Germany. Roughly 2,000 years missing but it'd just overwhelm most immigrants I think, if you told the whole story.
The emphasis on Nazis? Well, you tell the Holocaust in thirty lines and throw up a picture of the Berlin Memorial.
2. It's supposed to be 60 hours devoted to this material. The instructor must have a bigger booklet to toss out wisdom and bits of history.....because the booklet is awful limited.
3. There's probably about six hours of material over German law, the Constitution, and basic rights. For some guy from a hard dictatorship...it's like reading a condensed version of Lawrence of Arabia of two pages.
4. Maybe there's some movies or video material attached to this....to enhance the whole theme. I won't discredit the book but it's similar to a fifth-grade government studies book (just with better graphics).
5. I imagine there was some big meeting held, and a lot of arguing going over the amount of material. Some history geeks wanted a 300-hour episode....with Kaiser Wilhelm II, Karl Benz, Max Zorn, and Erwin Rommel featured. The integration guys probably didn't want immigrants weeping away at the complex nature of German history. Oddly, Roman history is barely mentioned in this booklet, yet most of everything about Germany is dependent on the Romans.
The thing is....some type of introduction to Germany is required. Somewhere in the thinking....60 hours is a nice round number.
Future Coalition Talk in Germany
From yesterday, if you follow German political news.....a six-hour meeting occurred with the CDU and SPD folks.
Topic? The potential coalition, after September's election.
Previously, the SPD had hyped up to a major extent that they would win, and they would not form a coalition with the CDU. Instead, they would only partner with the Greens and Linke Party.
Well....for several weeks, everyone was hyped up over Martin Schulz being the new candidate of the SPD, and those wonderful coalition would be coming in September.
Over the weekend in Saarland, the SPD lost by a fair margin, and polling says that SPD-likely voters are NOT happy over the Green and Linke Party partnership deal. To the point....they'd vote CDU to avoid this partnership.
Yeah, shocker.
Results out of this six-hour meeting? Nothing.
Both parties laid down their big topics, and simply nodded. No agreement.
For Schulz, it's a big dose of reality.
Schulz will have to give a couple of speeches to indicate that they could partner with the CDU....angering elements of the left who'd like this dream-team of SPD, Linke Party and Greens. At some point, journalists will want more of a promise to come out, and I have doubts that Schulz really wants to make a promise like that.
A win by the CDU? This creates an interesting game that might develop. If Merkel could pull a 41-percent win, and the Greens got 9-percent....then they might try to develop a CDU-Green coalition (like you see in Hessen today in the state government). It works although some Greens are a bit angry over the established relationship.
If Merkel wins with only 35-percent? She'd have no choice but to partner up with the SPD, and Schulz would end up as vice-chancellor or some cabinet job.
So, settle back and enjoy the theatrics at work.
Topic? The potential coalition, after September's election.
Previously, the SPD had hyped up to a major extent that they would win, and they would not form a coalition with the CDU. Instead, they would only partner with the Greens and Linke Party.
Well....for several weeks, everyone was hyped up over Martin Schulz being the new candidate of the SPD, and those wonderful coalition would be coming in September.
Over the weekend in Saarland, the SPD lost by a fair margin, and polling says that SPD-likely voters are NOT happy over the Green and Linke Party partnership deal. To the point....they'd vote CDU to avoid this partnership.
Yeah, shocker.
Results out of this six-hour meeting? Nothing.
Both parties laid down their big topics, and simply nodded. No agreement.
For Schulz, it's a big dose of reality.
Schulz will have to give a couple of speeches to indicate that they could partner with the CDU....angering elements of the left who'd like this dream-team of SPD, Linke Party and Greens. At some point, journalists will want more of a promise to come out, and I have doubts that Schulz really wants to make a promise like that.
A win by the CDU? This creates an interesting game that might develop. If Merkel could pull a 41-percent win, and the Greens got 9-percent....then they might try to develop a CDU-Green coalition (like you see in Hessen today in the state government). It works although some Greens are a bit angry over the established relationship.
If Merkel wins with only 35-percent? She'd have no choice but to partner up with the SPD, and Schulz would end up as vice-chancellor or some cabinet job.
So, settle back and enjoy the theatrics at work.
Immigration and Housing Topic
Focus put up a piece today talking to the subject in Germany of housing issues for migrants and immigrants. It stimulates a good conversation.
In this story, they used Duisburg....a German city to the far north and just 10 km west of Essen. This region of NRW (North Rhineland Westphalia).....has been the magnet for the past five years drawing a large migrant population. Part of the issue is the population that existed prior to this surge in 2013 to present, and part of it is due to the 'key' business (a German state agreed upon ratio where you get paid money out of the national pot of revenue depending on various economic and population features of your state). The key is used as well for distributing refugees and asylum-seekers coming into Germany.
If you were looking for more key reference material....Google up Konigstein Key.
What Focus points out is that there is a problem noted now in the city of Duisburg.....486,000 in population. Affordable housing is practically impossible to find. When you do find such housing, most landlords now have a personal preference NOT to rent to immigrants. In their mind, while somewhat illegal....there are 99 different ways of denying the apartment to such migrants.
A decade ago....credit checks on potential renters were rarely if ever done. Today? It's a growing trend. If you don't have a job, or have a real work contract (doing hour-by-hour work instead)....then it's fairly easy and legal to deny you the apartment.
Face it....apartment construction isn't going on to any big degree, and if they are being built....these are not at the low affordable level.
Dragging this into court? Unless you said something really stupid in your speech denying the migrant the apartment....most lawyers can get you off the hook. At some point, some political folks will likely create a heavy fine for apartment owners and try to push them into a corner with no way out.
There are primarily two issues at work here.
The first is the fact that major urban cities in Germany aren't in some era of mass construction of affordable housing. In the Frankfurt area, if you ask about construction trends....large condo buildings are being built....not apartment buildings. If you did have an interest in the condo deal....you'd need at least 300,000 Euro to talk about buying a nicer 1-bedroom deal in the upscale part of town. Why no surge on affordable housing? Where's the profit that you'd take home? It's nickles and dimes. If you had ten million and had a valuable piece of real estate.....it's 90-percent chance it's going to be a condo building rather than affordable apartments.
The second issue is that all of these migrants and immigrants are drawn to metropolitan cities which they think is the 'promised-land' on jobs. It's true, but then these aren't high paying jobs, and if you look at cost-of-living situations across metropolitan Germany....it's a lousy landscape.
Go look in Essen or Frankfurt for a 3-bedroom to cover a couple and their three kids....you could be talking about 900 Euro (assuming you accept 100 sq meters or less) and a structure over 40 years old.
Maybe if you were 15 to 25 km outside of the Frankfurt shadow, you might find something in the 600 Euro range, but then you'd need to have a dependable car to get to work....where will that purchase money come from, and the insurance to ensure it?
This is one of the odd realities of this whole migration period of the past five years. No one ever sat down and asked about where they'd all stay. Oddly, at the same time....throughout rural Germany....thousands of empty houses sit. Their problem is no jobs in the local area and too far a distance from any major city to be of any use.
On the political spectrum, this topic promises to be around for the next decade.
In this story, they used Duisburg....a German city to the far north and just 10 km west of Essen. This region of NRW (North Rhineland Westphalia).....has been the magnet for the past five years drawing a large migrant population. Part of the issue is the population that existed prior to this surge in 2013 to present, and part of it is due to the 'key' business (a German state agreed upon ratio where you get paid money out of the national pot of revenue depending on various economic and population features of your state). The key is used as well for distributing refugees and asylum-seekers coming into Germany.
If you were looking for more key reference material....Google up Konigstein Key.
What Focus points out is that there is a problem noted now in the city of Duisburg.....486,000 in population. Affordable housing is practically impossible to find. When you do find such housing, most landlords now have a personal preference NOT to rent to immigrants. In their mind, while somewhat illegal....there are 99 different ways of denying the apartment to such migrants.
A decade ago....credit checks on potential renters were rarely if ever done. Today? It's a growing trend. If you don't have a job, or have a real work contract (doing hour-by-hour work instead)....then it's fairly easy and legal to deny you the apartment.
Face it....apartment construction isn't going on to any big degree, and if they are being built....these are not at the low affordable level.
Dragging this into court? Unless you said something really stupid in your speech denying the migrant the apartment....most lawyers can get you off the hook. At some point, some political folks will likely create a heavy fine for apartment owners and try to push them into a corner with no way out.
There are primarily two issues at work here.
The first is the fact that major urban cities in Germany aren't in some era of mass construction of affordable housing. In the Frankfurt area, if you ask about construction trends....large condo buildings are being built....not apartment buildings. If you did have an interest in the condo deal....you'd need at least 300,000 Euro to talk about buying a nicer 1-bedroom deal in the upscale part of town. Why no surge on affordable housing? Where's the profit that you'd take home? It's nickles and dimes. If you had ten million and had a valuable piece of real estate.....it's 90-percent chance it's going to be a condo building rather than affordable apartments.
The second issue is that all of these migrants and immigrants are drawn to metropolitan cities which they think is the 'promised-land' on jobs. It's true, but then these aren't high paying jobs, and if you look at cost-of-living situations across metropolitan Germany....it's a lousy landscape.
Go look in Essen or Frankfurt for a 3-bedroom to cover a couple and their three kids....you could be talking about 900 Euro (assuming you accept 100 sq meters or less) and a structure over 40 years old.
Maybe if you were 15 to 25 km outside of the Frankfurt shadow, you might find something in the 600 Euro range, but then you'd need to have a dependable car to get to work....where will that purchase money come from, and the insurance to ensure it?
This is one of the odd realities of this whole migration period of the past five years. No one ever sat down and asked about where they'd all stay. Oddly, at the same time....throughout rural Germany....thousands of empty houses sit. Their problem is no jobs in the local area and too far a distance from any major city to be of any use.
On the political spectrum, this topic promises to be around for the next decade.
The Public Chat Forum Topic
Focus wrote a piece today over a SPD political figure and his analysis of public TV chat forums.
So, Marco Bulow, the SPD figure....analyzed 204 talk-shows from ARD and ZDF.
For those who aren't into this public TV thing.....it's a remarkable amount of chat forums that are arranged on a weekly basis. Some come late at night and likely resemble a Johnny Carson Tonight-Show format. Some are very political in nature. All are usually live, which means nothing gets cut out. So if you uttered something of a shocking nature, well, it's going straight to the home and viewers will get the full dose of your comment.
Average amount per week? I'd take a guess that 20 hours of chat forums on political or national topics occur each week.
The variety will shift. You could have 15 hours over an entire week just on the US government or Trump. You could have 90 minutes dedicated to just pension reform. You could have six hours in one week devoted to just Erdogan and Turkey. You could have an entire hour wasted on the reason to pick the FIFA Soccer Championship for Qatar and how it was so legit (while grinning at the camera).
I should note....it's rare that anyone talks over how many people watch the public chat forums. From the age group of 18 to 25....I doubt if more than 10-percent watch more than one hour per week of these chats. From the over-40 age group....maybe thirty-percent will catch one to two hours a week. The idea of someone watching all twenty hours a week? Maybe one guy out of five-hundred. In some cases, if given a choice of watching Knight Rider, Japanese cartoons, or a chat forum, you might be shocked that fewer than 10-percent would be interested in the chat forum (total depending on the topic selected for the evening).
So the SPD guy came to this conclusion....from 204 talksshows done over the past 18 months....which include: "Maishberger", "Anne Will", "Hart but fair", "Günther Jauch" and "Maybrit Illner"....roughly a quarter of all these broadcasts were about refugees. If you included refugees, Islam, terrorism, ISIS, and populism......it's almost fifty percent of the 204 show topics.
So, Bulow says that this is a "distortion of reality".
I sat and read the piece....roughly forty lines.
What interested me is that he carefully picked 18 months (going from summer of 2015 to the past month). When you cherry-pick your data collection, it begs questions. What happened in this previous 18 months?
I have some memory over the period and readily say that a quarter of chat forums from early 2014 to December of 2015...were pro-immigrant or pro-migrant in nature. The forums even lined up the guest invited so it'd always be four pro-immigrant talkers and just one anti-immigrant talker. At some stage toward the end of 2014, this chat forum arrangement even helped to create the various political groups that brought AfD and the anti-immigrant situation to the stage of today. A segment of Germany society simply felt that the cards were stacked on free and open discussion.
Various Germans would say from early 2014 to the end of 2015....this chat forum cycle was a "distortion of reality".
The overall problem here is the intellectual and news media folks from public TV in Germany, have a perception that the vast number of citizens in the country watch the chat forums, and these arrange the political situation of which the CDU, the SPD, the Greens, etc.....all get support or non-support. I would imagine that roughly half the nation will tell you that they watch less than five hours per year of chat forums. Maybe in an election year.....it might mean more to watch....but that only occurs once every four years for roughly eight months of a campaign cycle. From the other half? You might find that fewer than a quarter of the nation watches two hours a month.
Polling or surveys? Never done. This is one of the hundred-odd things in German society that you probably don't want to ask because it would reflect in a negative sense on public TV giving lots of attention to something that the vast majority don't care about. Put up a Germany versus Italy soccer game? Oh, that would easily get forty to fifty percent of the viewers on for two hours.
So, maybe this suggestion of lesser chat on migrants and immigrants will push the two public TV networks in Germany to reshuffle their chat schedule....at least until public sentiment goes very negative. But don't worry, somewhere on the vast number of menu options....there's always Bonanza (with Hoss having a Bavarian accent), Baywatch (Germans seem to like the beach scenes), or some French zombie love-movie on, and you can select that instead of chat forums.
So, Marco Bulow, the SPD figure....analyzed 204 talk-shows from ARD and ZDF.
For those who aren't into this public TV thing.....it's a remarkable amount of chat forums that are arranged on a weekly basis. Some come late at night and likely resemble a Johnny Carson Tonight-Show format. Some are very political in nature. All are usually live, which means nothing gets cut out. So if you uttered something of a shocking nature, well, it's going straight to the home and viewers will get the full dose of your comment.
Average amount per week? I'd take a guess that 20 hours of chat forums on political or national topics occur each week.
The variety will shift. You could have 15 hours over an entire week just on the US government or Trump. You could have 90 minutes dedicated to just pension reform. You could have six hours in one week devoted to just Erdogan and Turkey. You could have an entire hour wasted on the reason to pick the FIFA Soccer Championship for Qatar and how it was so legit (while grinning at the camera).
I should note....it's rare that anyone talks over how many people watch the public chat forums. From the age group of 18 to 25....I doubt if more than 10-percent watch more than one hour per week of these chats. From the over-40 age group....maybe thirty-percent will catch one to two hours a week. The idea of someone watching all twenty hours a week? Maybe one guy out of five-hundred. In some cases, if given a choice of watching Knight Rider, Japanese cartoons, or a chat forum, you might be shocked that fewer than 10-percent would be interested in the chat forum (total depending on the topic selected for the evening).
So the SPD guy came to this conclusion....from 204 talksshows done over the past 18 months....which include: "Maishberger", "Anne Will", "Hart but fair", "Günther Jauch" and "Maybrit Illner"....roughly a quarter of all these broadcasts were about refugees. If you included refugees, Islam, terrorism, ISIS, and populism......it's almost fifty percent of the 204 show topics.
So, Bulow says that this is a "distortion of reality".
I sat and read the piece....roughly forty lines.
What interested me is that he carefully picked 18 months (going from summer of 2015 to the past month). When you cherry-pick your data collection, it begs questions. What happened in this previous 18 months?
I have some memory over the period and readily say that a quarter of chat forums from early 2014 to December of 2015...were pro-immigrant or pro-migrant in nature. The forums even lined up the guest invited so it'd always be four pro-immigrant talkers and just one anti-immigrant talker. At some stage toward the end of 2014, this chat forum arrangement even helped to create the various political groups that brought AfD and the anti-immigrant situation to the stage of today. A segment of Germany society simply felt that the cards were stacked on free and open discussion.
Various Germans would say from early 2014 to the end of 2015....this chat forum cycle was a "distortion of reality".
The overall problem here is the intellectual and news media folks from public TV in Germany, have a perception that the vast number of citizens in the country watch the chat forums, and these arrange the political situation of which the CDU, the SPD, the Greens, etc.....all get support or non-support. I would imagine that roughly half the nation will tell you that they watch less than five hours per year of chat forums. Maybe in an election year.....it might mean more to watch....but that only occurs once every four years for roughly eight months of a campaign cycle. From the other half? You might find that fewer than a quarter of the nation watches two hours a month.
Polling or surveys? Never done. This is one of the hundred-odd things in German society that you probably don't want to ask because it would reflect in a negative sense on public TV giving lots of attention to something that the vast majority don't care about. Put up a Germany versus Italy soccer game? Oh, that would easily get forty to fifty percent of the viewers on for two hours.
So, maybe this suggestion of lesser chat on migrants and immigrants will push the two public TV networks in Germany to reshuffle their chat schedule....at least until public sentiment goes very negative. But don't worry, somewhere on the vast number of menu options....there's always Bonanza (with Hoss having a Bavarian accent), Baywatch (Germans seem to like the beach scenes), or some French zombie love-movie on, and you can select that instead of chat forums.
Observation Over BREXIT
In recent days, with the BREXIT paperwork sent over to the EU, I've sat and noted a number of observations.
First, this talk from the EU of the UK owing around 60 billion Euro (more or less) to the EU, and it has to be settled as part of the 'divorce' process. There's a two-year period written down into the EU rules about this 'divorce'....but no one has ever used the process before so, it's questionable about the nature of the process.
The 60 billion Euro? If you walk into a Brit pub, I think a working class guy would stand there and call it a 'whore-tax'....meaning you can't quit working at the bordello unless you pay some debt that the pimp wants. Working-class Brits are that direct in their commentary. EU bureaucrats will get all sensitive about such language being used.
Where'd the 60 billion number come from? Some budget guys at the EU have done some studies and reflect upon what they would have been paid over a certain period, and they have already built a funnel device or revenue pay-out device....requiring such funds. A business would be laughed out of existence if they tried to someone over future services which have yet to occur, and there was no contract for such services. But, in this case, the EU is NOT a business.
How this will work out?
My guess is that the Brit rep will walk in and offer 6 Pounds 60 or 250 Mongolian Tughriks (roughly 100 US dollars). The EU guy won't be laughing. So they will talk over this, and any chance of the UK getting a 4-star trade deal out of this whole treaty business....will revolve around the payment of this 60 billion Euro.
Talk will go on for two years, and then the UK will announce that it's done....they will exit, with no treaty. Yes, the rules say a treaty must exist, but it's difficult to imagine the Brits being willing to pay more than maybe 5 billion in cash and maybe another five billion over five years. The EU won't accept that, and so some massive negative trade situation will be triggered.
But here's the thing that should bother the EU. Across the continent right now....probably 20-percent of the public (in Poland and Hungary, it might be sixty-percent)....are talking anti-EU sentiments. In Germany, I'd take a guess that 10-percent of the public has negative comments about the EU.
A number of nations would jump in and immediately sign trade agreements with the UK and unseat the power value of the EU headquarters. For negative propaganda value, handling this in a bad way would be a bigger problem in the end.
The second issue, which few look at....is this Scottish referendum to separate from the UK. It will happen prior to the end of the treat talks with the EU. The last vote? Three years ago.....11-point difference, with NO winning.
This time around? I think YES could take 50 to 52-percent at this point. Scotland would then separate and likely try to enter the EU (don't expect this to be very quick).
It is very likely that the dozen districts of Scotland on the south side of the country....will then ask for a referendum themselves....to separate from Scotland. My humble guess is that this area (I'd call it New Caldonia), about the size of Belgium, would turn around and ask to join the UK.
Reason for this? Go back 2014 and look at district by district voting. This southern area was mostly 70-percent NO. That kind of trend would be hard to overcome.
If this unfolds....London or at least the inner-city of London, would go and ask for it's own referendum to exit. From the inner-city, it's a population of 3.2 million. I think they could swing the vote to exit from the UK. Although one major problem would exist....there's only one single airport serving the inner-circle of London. The other five regional airports? All well outside of the circle.
While the EU guys might be gleeful in the first couple weeks of this episode of the UK....other regions of the EU might find themselves with unhappy voters and asking to separate as well. In five years, instead of 28 EU members....you could be looking at 50 members, and a number of city-states trying to exist by themselves. The formula for the EU wasn't built for a large scale group and so many diverse issues.
I point back to the 1970s and the 30-odd problems confronting various countries and individuals in Europe. There were various repairs needed to fix what was a highly evolving economic sphere. There was an absolute necessity for the EU to exist and fix those issues.
So here we are....forty-odd years later, and the thirty-odd problems mostly fixed. The EU device now? They want to continue on fixing things, which this remarkable list now include regulation over electric tea-pots, vacuum cleaners, and toasters. Every month, people wake up and there's some rumor about some odd EU discussion underway, which wasn't discussed with the general public. You can't do much to hinder them or to suggest to cut back the days of meeting. In some ways, the EU has made itself into more of a problem now, than a solution.
I might suggest that you spend some fair time looking around Europe today, and the 28 members of the EU. In a year or two....you might be shocked over how the landscape looks, and start to wonder where it'll all end.
First, this talk from the EU of the UK owing around 60 billion Euro (more or less) to the EU, and it has to be settled as part of the 'divorce' process. There's a two-year period written down into the EU rules about this 'divorce'....but no one has ever used the process before so, it's questionable about the nature of the process.
The 60 billion Euro? If you walk into a Brit pub, I think a working class guy would stand there and call it a 'whore-tax'....meaning you can't quit working at the bordello unless you pay some debt that the pimp wants. Working-class Brits are that direct in their commentary. EU bureaucrats will get all sensitive about such language being used.
Where'd the 60 billion number come from? Some budget guys at the EU have done some studies and reflect upon what they would have been paid over a certain period, and they have already built a funnel device or revenue pay-out device....requiring such funds. A business would be laughed out of existence if they tried to someone over future services which have yet to occur, and there was no contract for such services. But, in this case, the EU is NOT a business.
How this will work out?
My guess is that the Brit rep will walk in and offer 6 Pounds 60 or 250 Mongolian Tughriks (roughly 100 US dollars). The EU guy won't be laughing. So they will talk over this, and any chance of the UK getting a 4-star trade deal out of this whole treaty business....will revolve around the payment of this 60 billion Euro.
Talk will go on for two years, and then the UK will announce that it's done....they will exit, with no treaty. Yes, the rules say a treaty must exist, but it's difficult to imagine the Brits being willing to pay more than maybe 5 billion in cash and maybe another five billion over five years. The EU won't accept that, and so some massive negative trade situation will be triggered.
But here's the thing that should bother the EU. Across the continent right now....probably 20-percent of the public (in Poland and Hungary, it might be sixty-percent)....are talking anti-EU sentiments. In Germany, I'd take a guess that 10-percent of the public has negative comments about the EU.
A number of nations would jump in and immediately sign trade agreements with the UK and unseat the power value of the EU headquarters. For negative propaganda value, handling this in a bad way would be a bigger problem in the end.
The second issue, which few look at....is this Scottish referendum to separate from the UK. It will happen prior to the end of the treat talks with the EU. The last vote? Three years ago.....11-point difference, with NO winning.
This time around? I think YES could take 50 to 52-percent at this point. Scotland would then separate and likely try to enter the EU (don't expect this to be very quick).
It is very likely that the dozen districts of Scotland on the south side of the country....will then ask for a referendum themselves....to separate from Scotland. My humble guess is that this area (I'd call it New Caldonia), about the size of Belgium, would turn around and ask to join the UK.
Reason for this? Go back 2014 and look at district by district voting. This southern area was mostly 70-percent NO. That kind of trend would be hard to overcome.
If this unfolds....London or at least the inner-city of London, would go and ask for it's own referendum to exit. From the inner-city, it's a population of 3.2 million. I think they could swing the vote to exit from the UK. Although one major problem would exist....there's only one single airport serving the inner-circle of London. The other five regional airports? All well outside of the circle.
While the EU guys might be gleeful in the first couple weeks of this episode of the UK....other regions of the EU might find themselves with unhappy voters and asking to separate as well. In five years, instead of 28 EU members....you could be looking at 50 members, and a number of city-states trying to exist by themselves. The formula for the EU wasn't built for a large scale group and so many diverse issues.
I point back to the 1970s and the 30-odd problems confronting various countries and individuals in Europe. There were various repairs needed to fix what was a highly evolving economic sphere. There was an absolute necessity for the EU to exist and fix those issues.
So here we are....forty-odd years later, and the thirty-odd problems mostly fixed. The EU device now? They want to continue on fixing things, which this remarkable list now include regulation over electric tea-pots, vacuum cleaners, and toasters. Every month, people wake up and there's some rumor about some odd EU discussion underway, which wasn't discussed with the general public. You can't do much to hinder them or to suggest to cut back the days of meeting. In some ways, the EU has made itself into more of a problem now, than a solution.
I might suggest that you spend some fair time looking around Europe today, and the 28 members of the EU. In a year or two....you might be shocked over how the landscape looks, and start to wonder where it'll all end.
TV Observations
I sat last night and watched two information-related shows last night on German TV.
The first? MEX....an HR information show. They take various topics and go over these with legit experts. The big topic last night? Germans and their lack of sleep.
The people who collect statistical data say that 80-percent of all German adults have a problem with sleeping. So the HR folks went out on the street and asked folks about remedy list. Alcohol, sleeping pills, reading books. etc.
One German pharmacy manager was questioned over this, and noted that there are near 300 different sleeping pills now on the market in Germany. Some are herbal in nature....some go to the stronger level.
The emphasis of the whole report is this odd statistic.....eight years ago, it was 47.5-percent of folks who said they had sleep issues. Now? It's almost 80-percent. What changed in eight years? Unknown. They really couldn't find anything that stands out. Maybe it's stress....maybe it's more of a society worried about something. You just don't know.
The second show of interest was the Mario Barth Show. Mario is a German comedian who covers a number of topics. But he has a TV show which focuses on governmental waste of money. As much as you'd like to think America is the king of wasting tax-payer money....the Germans work hard at wasting money as well.
So the show is entirely focused on various projects....from federal to state, and onto local city council projects.
Last night's lead topic was BER. BER is the new Berlin airport which is now roughly seven years over their delivery date. Most folks are confident that the airport won't open in 2017, and fairly confident that it won't open in 2018 either. 2019 is a 50-50 shot at this point, in my humble opinion.
What he pointed out last night covered several BER topics, but my favorite was the BER operations manual. The airport has installed all of the phones and intercom devices. To orientate yourself (if they were operational), you need to read the BER manual. There's an entire page to explain how to use the phone. Yeah, all phones are the standard type, and you'd think that instructions would not be necessary, but there's an entire page with a picture of identification of buttons. Same for the intercom device. The booklet has hundreds of tips but the curious thing is that it's been around for probably the whole seven years. Nothing about the airport is operational, but the book is sitting there and waiting for someone to open the door and start landing planes. In fact, the book appears to be the only thing that works as designed.
The first? MEX....an HR information show. They take various topics and go over these with legit experts. The big topic last night? Germans and their lack of sleep.
The people who collect statistical data say that 80-percent of all German adults have a problem with sleeping. So the HR folks went out on the street and asked folks about remedy list. Alcohol, sleeping pills, reading books. etc.
One German pharmacy manager was questioned over this, and noted that there are near 300 different sleeping pills now on the market in Germany. Some are herbal in nature....some go to the stronger level.
The emphasis of the whole report is this odd statistic.....eight years ago, it was 47.5-percent of folks who said they had sleep issues. Now? It's almost 80-percent. What changed in eight years? Unknown. They really couldn't find anything that stands out. Maybe it's stress....maybe it's more of a society worried about something. You just don't know.
The second show of interest was the Mario Barth Show. Mario is a German comedian who covers a number of topics. But he has a TV show which focuses on governmental waste of money. As much as you'd like to think America is the king of wasting tax-payer money....the Germans work hard at wasting money as well.
So the show is entirely focused on various projects....from federal to state, and onto local city council projects.
Last night's lead topic was BER. BER is the new Berlin airport which is now roughly seven years over their delivery date. Most folks are confident that the airport won't open in 2017, and fairly confident that it won't open in 2018 either. 2019 is a 50-50 shot at this point, in my humble opinion.
What he pointed out last night covered several BER topics, but my favorite was the BER operations manual. The airport has installed all of the phones and intercom devices. To orientate yourself (if they were operational), you need to read the BER manual. There's an entire page to explain how to use the phone. Yeah, all phones are the standard type, and you'd think that instructions would not be necessary, but there's an entire page with a picture of identification of buttons. Same for the intercom device. The booklet has hundreds of tips but the curious thing is that it's been around for probably the whole seven years. Nothing about the airport is operational, but the book is sitting there and waiting for someone to open the door and start landing planes. In fact, the book appears to be the only thing that works as designed.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Looking Back at the Los Rodeos Airport Disaster
Yesterday was the 40 year anniversary of the 27 March 1977 Los Rodeos Airport disaster (Canaary Islands, Spain) where two 747 jets collided on the runway. Total dead, 583. It was the deadliest accident in aviation.
Few ever sit down and analyze the accident and understand what exactly started around 15-odd problems to occur.
At some point in the morning....a bomb goes off at the primary airport in Tenerife....at a flower shop. The bomb was set by CIIM....a local group who were hyping up independence for the island chain (from Spain). They'd actually been around for 13 years....but in January of 1977....had decided to go for bombs to make their impression. The first was set off in a airline office at Tenerife (no one dead or injured). The flower shop episode on 27 March? Only eight wounded.
Spanish authorities reacted that morning and decided that Tenerife's airport was not safe. So they rerouted incoming aircraft to land at an alternate runway.....Los Rodeos.
Los Rodeos did have an exceptionally long runway (11,000 ft long)....but there a long list of problem issues in terms of being a major airport. No ground radar existed at the time. On the day of the accident, the ground lights weren't working. This was an airport which had a history of fog which would roll in and give very limited viability. On this particular morning....with low expectations of traffic for the day....there were only two guys for air traffic control (it was a Sunday).
The KLM flight (the other was Pan Am) would have had one chance to lift off and possibly fly over the Pan Am 747....except they'd done something untypical for them....they'd loaded the plane completely with fuel. A plane with the normal fuel load....would have been lighter, and given them this one opportunity to fly over the top of the Pan Am plane.
There's a list of problems here...at least fifteen odd issues which triggered the crash to occur. But I tend to go back to the CIIM bomb and ask some stupid questions.
CIIM is an odd group. All they wanted was Canary Island independence from Spain. No one ever cites much in terms of public support on the islands for the group. Their base of operations? This is strangely enough....Algeria. Roughly two years after this accident, caused mostly by the CIIM bomb, a public statement is issued by CIIM in that they are ceasing operations and the 'struggle'.
Who financed CIIM? That's the amusing thing to this story. No one has ever gone back to dig into the group or ask about the financing. The fact that they lead to Algeria....makes you wonder if there were some Warsaw Pact country and their secret service-type group helping to run CIIM, and if this accident draw a lot of review and unsettled the political agenda at work.
Without the flower shop bomb? None of the events of the day would have unfolded.
Few ever sit down and analyze the accident and understand what exactly started around 15-odd problems to occur.
At some point in the morning....a bomb goes off at the primary airport in Tenerife....at a flower shop. The bomb was set by CIIM....a local group who were hyping up independence for the island chain (from Spain). They'd actually been around for 13 years....but in January of 1977....had decided to go for bombs to make their impression. The first was set off in a airline office at Tenerife (no one dead or injured). The flower shop episode on 27 March? Only eight wounded.
Spanish authorities reacted that morning and decided that Tenerife's airport was not safe. So they rerouted incoming aircraft to land at an alternate runway.....Los Rodeos.
Los Rodeos did have an exceptionally long runway (11,000 ft long)....but there a long list of problem issues in terms of being a major airport. No ground radar existed at the time. On the day of the accident, the ground lights weren't working. This was an airport which had a history of fog which would roll in and give very limited viability. On this particular morning....with low expectations of traffic for the day....there were only two guys for air traffic control (it was a Sunday).
The KLM flight (the other was Pan Am) would have had one chance to lift off and possibly fly over the Pan Am 747....except they'd done something untypical for them....they'd loaded the plane completely with fuel. A plane with the normal fuel load....would have been lighter, and given them this one opportunity to fly over the top of the Pan Am plane.
There's a list of problems here...at least fifteen odd issues which triggered the crash to occur. But I tend to go back to the CIIM bomb and ask some stupid questions.
CIIM is an odd group. All they wanted was Canary Island independence from Spain. No one ever cites much in terms of public support on the islands for the group. Their base of operations? This is strangely enough....Algeria. Roughly two years after this accident, caused mostly by the CIIM bomb, a public statement is issued by CIIM in that they are ceasing operations and the 'struggle'.
Who financed CIIM? That's the amusing thing to this story. No one has ever gone back to dig into the group or ask about the financing. The fact that they lead to Algeria....makes you wonder if there were some Warsaw Pact country and their secret service-type group helping to run CIIM, and if this accident draw a lot of review and unsettled the political agenda at work.
Without the flower shop bomb? None of the events of the day would have unfolded.
Sunday, March 26, 2017
German Industry and the Migrants
One of the more impressive bureaucrats that the German government has....is Frank-Jurgen Weiss. I've sat over the past three years and seen at least three forums or interviews with the guy. If you were looking for a clever German guy, with some common sense and ability to read through lots of data to reach conclusions....he's that guy.
Unfortunately for Germany....Weiss is retiring this year (he's 65 years old).
For fourteen of the past years....Weiss was the head of the German Federal Agency for Labor.
In his youth....he spent twelve years with the German Army. They offered him a chance for advanced studies and he took advantage of that. He went into reserve duty, and worked as a civilian for the German Army. Lot of people were impressed with his competency and drive. He's a guy who puts a lot of effort into thinking about a problem before arriving at a decision.
At some point in late 2015....the head of the BamF (the German agency over migration and immigration) quit. It's safe to say that for the entire year prior....Manfried Schmidt (the boss) was under constant criticism from all sides of the German government. Schmidt had problems in getting changes made within his agency....he had manpower issues....and the agency was ill-equipped to perform at the level required.
As Schmidt handed in his resignation....the Merkel coalition was stuck having to find a replacement. Basically, they needed someone who simply didn't exist. They needed an administrator, a genius, a general, an innovations guy, a tough disciplinarian, and a person with Einstein-like thinking skills. They called Frank Jurgen Weiss up and asked if he'd take the job.
The problem was....legally by German law, he could not take the 'salaried job' because of obligations.
So, he basically continued to work as the head of the German Federal Agency for Labor, and became the 'CEO' of BamF.
For twelve months, Weiss led BamF out of the mess they were in. He forced the employees to accept change. He brought in more manpower. He instituted various changes that were not easily accepted. In some ways...he fixed what was really broke, and made the job for the new incoming guy in late 2016 a lot easier.
I bring up this topic of Weiss because he's done an interview in the past week. He quietly admits something which will not make the Merkel coalition government happy.
From all the immigrants and migrants who came into Germany since 2012....Weiss notes that only 10-to-15 percent have some skill, craft, or degree....which will result in a job within twelve months after arrival.
The rest? It's divided into two groups. The bulk (maybe 60-percent) have some background or work experience that means something....but there's no certification or the depth that German companies would expect. This group will require some type of program....meaning not just a year, but maybe two or three years of some support and training help. The remaining group? Nothing.
In Weiss's own words....if German industry had some faint hope of using these people....it's a false hope.
At the end of 2016....there were only 34,000 of the million-plus migrants/immigrants who had real full-time jobs. The rest? They fell into training programs, 1-Euro an hour jobs which companies were training the employees while the government paid subsidy checks to cover the cost of living for the employees. Some were part-time employees.
Toward the end of 2016, Weiss made a comment in public that if German industry needed more employees....they'd best aim at European countries....more so than immigrants or migrants.
This is a topic which rarely gets discussed by anyone from the CDU or SPD. They both have gone deep into Merkel's migrant plan, and have little room to maneuver. The problem here is that industry managers and planners have to view this great idea of using new talent from the migration deal....as mostly a failure.
Since the Greece crisis and the Spanish downturn on the economy....there's been some educated and trained Greeks and Spaniards showing up for German employment. I would expect this to continue and possibly expand.
I imagine if you asked Weiss a wide set of questions of the migration policy....he'd probably tell you some blunt truths, and want to fix the whole system. But I doubt that the Merkel coalition would be happy with those blunt truths.
Unfortunately for Germany....Weiss is retiring this year (he's 65 years old).
For fourteen of the past years....Weiss was the head of the German Federal Agency for Labor.
In his youth....he spent twelve years with the German Army. They offered him a chance for advanced studies and he took advantage of that. He went into reserve duty, and worked as a civilian for the German Army. Lot of people were impressed with his competency and drive. He's a guy who puts a lot of effort into thinking about a problem before arriving at a decision.
At some point in late 2015....the head of the BamF (the German agency over migration and immigration) quit. It's safe to say that for the entire year prior....Manfried Schmidt (the boss) was under constant criticism from all sides of the German government. Schmidt had problems in getting changes made within his agency....he had manpower issues....and the agency was ill-equipped to perform at the level required.
As Schmidt handed in his resignation....the Merkel coalition was stuck having to find a replacement. Basically, they needed someone who simply didn't exist. They needed an administrator, a genius, a general, an innovations guy, a tough disciplinarian, and a person with Einstein-like thinking skills. They called Frank Jurgen Weiss up and asked if he'd take the job.
The problem was....legally by German law, he could not take the 'salaried job' because of obligations.
So, he basically continued to work as the head of the German Federal Agency for Labor, and became the 'CEO' of BamF.
For twelve months, Weiss led BamF out of the mess they were in. He forced the employees to accept change. He brought in more manpower. He instituted various changes that were not easily accepted. In some ways...he fixed what was really broke, and made the job for the new incoming guy in late 2016 a lot easier.
I bring up this topic of Weiss because he's done an interview in the past week. He quietly admits something which will not make the Merkel coalition government happy.
From all the immigrants and migrants who came into Germany since 2012....Weiss notes that only 10-to-15 percent have some skill, craft, or degree....which will result in a job within twelve months after arrival.
The rest? It's divided into two groups. The bulk (maybe 60-percent) have some background or work experience that means something....but there's no certification or the depth that German companies would expect. This group will require some type of program....meaning not just a year, but maybe two or three years of some support and training help. The remaining group? Nothing.
In Weiss's own words....if German industry had some faint hope of using these people....it's a false hope.
At the end of 2016....there were only 34,000 of the million-plus migrants/immigrants who had real full-time jobs. The rest? They fell into training programs, 1-Euro an hour jobs which companies were training the employees while the government paid subsidy checks to cover the cost of living for the employees. Some were part-time employees.
Toward the end of 2016, Weiss made a comment in public that if German industry needed more employees....they'd best aim at European countries....more so than immigrants or migrants.
This is a topic which rarely gets discussed by anyone from the CDU or SPD. They both have gone deep into Merkel's migrant plan, and have little room to maneuver. The problem here is that industry managers and planners have to view this great idea of using new talent from the migration deal....as mostly a failure.
Since the Greece crisis and the Spanish downturn on the economy....there's been some educated and trained Greeks and Spaniards showing up for German employment. I would expect this to continue and possibly expand.
I imagine if you asked Weiss a wide set of questions of the migration policy....he'd probably tell you some blunt truths, and want to fix the whole system. But I doubt that the Merkel coalition would be happy with those blunt truths.
Sweden and the Chief Story
For six months, I kinda follow on a weekly basis....news and events going on in Sweden. I should note....I've never been there. It's just that it started to make the news last summer, and I'd pick up a Swede newspaper (via Chrome translations) and go over headlines. The immigration thing, and crime interested me.
For months, I've been trying to understand how the Swedish cops have been dragged down and seem to be totally disconnected from reality. It would seem like the cops on the street knew what was going on, and the managers at the top did not.
Today, some story came out via Speisa....a news service out of Sweden. The chief of police for the nation (9.6 million residents).....came out this past week and introduced a new strategy. Police investigators have been told to re-prioritize their efforts. More time on traffic violations....less time on serious crimes.
Now, a normal guy....not even a cop....would sit there and ask some stupid questions.
What the head office of the national police has said is that this effort to focus on traffic situations will result in a higher percentage of closed cases. On numbers, it'll look great in six months. The serious crime numbers? Well....yeah, they didn't say much. They did say that murders would still get their full attention and full investigative power.
Someone from Speisa pointed out that with the new 'creative' talk suggested....if you busted some dude with 30 marijuana plants....it would end up as thirty separate cases of marijuana, and each would be easily accomplished....thus showing a terrific rate of case closure.
So I looked up the head of the Swedish national police....Dan Eliasson. He's an interesting character. Mid-50's, lawyer background, career government employee. Early on in his career....he was the head of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (their version of Social Security). Later, he headed up the chiefs job at the international affairs section of the Justice Ministry. Then he served five years as the chief of staff for the Justice Minister. For a short period, he was the acting chief of the Swedish Security Service, then he headed up for four years the Swedish Migration Agency.
In 2015, he was picked and chosen to be the head of the national police in Sweden.
You'd look at the guy's resume, and ask.....what police background or experience does he have? Well....none.
My guess is that the cops kinda felt that way when he arrived, but it's the political system that delivered Dan to them, and you can't fix this.
So I come to this last piece of the resume business. In the mid-70s....for a short period, Dan headed up a punk rock band in Sweden, and they had this big national hit in 1979....."*ucking in Bangkok". I double-checked the translation to this,
In a way, the political system has delivered this guy to be the chief of police, who has no police background or experience. He is a pure bureaucrat in nature.
The idea of building some fortress-like police complex in the thug neighborhood of Rinkeby? Tens of millions will be spent on this....mostly to make it secure enough that cops feel it's safe. Eliasson had to approve this idea and press the government to spend the money. It makes sense now how this idea was pushed forward and accepted by the government.
The national election comes up in 2018....so maybe there is some massive change of government, and the chief of police is changed out. Until then, you have to live with the problem created.
For months, I've been trying to understand how the Swedish cops have been dragged down and seem to be totally disconnected from reality. It would seem like the cops on the street knew what was going on, and the managers at the top did not.
Today, some story came out via Speisa....a news service out of Sweden. The chief of police for the nation (9.6 million residents).....came out this past week and introduced a new strategy. Police investigators have been told to re-prioritize their efforts. More time on traffic violations....less time on serious crimes.
Now, a normal guy....not even a cop....would sit there and ask some stupid questions.
What the head office of the national police has said is that this effort to focus on traffic situations will result in a higher percentage of closed cases. On numbers, it'll look great in six months. The serious crime numbers? Well....yeah, they didn't say much. They did say that murders would still get their full attention and full investigative power.
Someone from Speisa pointed out that with the new 'creative' talk suggested....if you busted some dude with 30 marijuana plants....it would end up as thirty separate cases of marijuana, and each would be easily accomplished....thus showing a terrific rate of case closure.
So I looked up the head of the Swedish national police....Dan Eliasson. He's an interesting character. Mid-50's, lawyer background, career government employee. Early on in his career....he was the head of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (their version of Social Security). Later, he headed up the chiefs job at the international affairs section of the Justice Ministry. Then he served five years as the chief of staff for the Justice Minister. For a short period, he was the acting chief of the Swedish Security Service, then he headed up for four years the Swedish Migration Agency.
In 2015, he was picked and chosen to be the head of the national police in Sweden.
You'd look at the guy's resume, and ask.....what police background or experience does he have? Well....none.
My guess is that the cops kinda felt that way when he arrived, but it's the political system that delivered Dan to them, and you can't fix this.
So I come to this last piece of the resume business. In the mid-70s....for a short period, Dan headed up a punk rock band in Sweden, and they had this big national hit in 1979....."*ucking in Bangkok". I double-checked the translation to this,
In a way, the political system has delivered this guy to be the chief of police, who has no police background or experience. He is a pure bureaucrat in nature.
The idea of building some fortress-like police complex in the thug neighborhood of Rinkeby? Tens of millions will be spent on this....mostly to make it secure enough that cops feel it's safe. Eliasson had to approve this idea and press the government to spend the money. It makes sense now how this idea was pushed forward and accepted by the government.
The national election comes up in 2018....so maybe there is some massive change of government, and the chief of police is changed out. Until then, you have to live with the problem created.
Saturday, March 25, 2017
The Drug Trade in Europe
So, you come on a Saturday afternoon, in Europe, and you'd really like a hit of Cocaine, LSD, or Meth. Well....some folks would. Maybe you'd like some Captagon, or Heroin. If you live in a rural area....it's going to be a problem. If you live in Duisburg, Stockholm, Malmo, Koln, Frankfurt, or Berlin? It's basically a 10 to 30 minute subway ride, and you can buy all the stuff you need.
No need to worry about cops. They rarely enforce any law on the drug zones in most urbanized cities.
I can draw you a map to Koln, Stockholm, Frankfurt or Berlin's best places to get the drugs.
No drug enforcement? On rare occasions, the German cops will stage some run through a drug district....like in Frankfurt's Taunus Strasse district.....mostly with journalists hanging on and taking pictures to assure the public that enforcement is a big priority. Then the cops disappear and stay mostly out of sight for six months until the next public show of non-existent enforcement.
If you follow the news (at least in Germany), there are various mafia groups now....all leading to ethnic attachments (Kurds, Turks, Albanians, Serbs, Russians). I admit Bavarian gangs, Scottish gangs, and Icelandic gangs are rarely if ever noted in the news.
You end up with different levels or special features of these gangs. Meth labs for the most part are talked as being mostly in Czech, and gangs arrange for purchases, and then have specialized folks who drive the stuff in and make a central delivery. The gang then has it's distribution group....which these days are said to be mostly North African gentlemen and some central African guys.....mostly those without any occupation or trade, and they don't worry much about jail.
Cash and profit gets generated, and then? Well....no one much talks about the black market of cash flow. It's hard to laundry out millions per week of cash. Transferring it around? Practically impossible. This is one of the parts of the whole drug sales story that never seems to be told by any news source.
Locals not angry? That's an odd part to this whole thing. If you live around these drug districts....you are fairly angry and want the city to clean up the mess. But if you live outside of the district....you will never notice any of the drug trade, or the doped-up punks.
I stood six months ago in a park in Wiesbaden and noted two young guys who were totally spaced out....my guess....heroin. With the exception of some misty rain coming down, there wasn't much to worry the two guys. Cops were going to come and mess with them. The general public won't see the business or worry about this. If they were out in some public street and jumping in front of cars.....maybe the cops would get pepped up and do something. But this is the reality of where Europe is today....just accepting the business as long as it's not by your front-door.
In Germany, we are fairly close to a point where the general public (my guess 50-percent) will accept marijuana as a logical and non-problem drug. Twenty years ago....it would have been 25-percent. Times have changed people perceptions.
Even the use of MCMA (Ecstasy)....has become an accepted thing among probably one-third of the German youth (18 to 25 years old). It's affect? Mostly putting you into a trance-like state for a couple of hours. A bad batch or excessive use? Yeah, it might kill you. On a Friday night across Germany....I would take a humble guess that 350,000 of the 82-million are easily taking it....maybe as many as half-a-million.
If you look around the Middle East at the growing use of Captagon....I'd take a guess that in less than three years....it'll be a major drug within Germany. In this case....people might be show signs of violence, and the general public might not be as accepting to it....as the other drugs.
As bad as Detroit? You can't say that....at least not yet. Maybe in twenty years it might reach that stage, but with the standard of living where it is....a lot of folks just don't have the extra cash for recreational type drugs.
It might shock Americans that the drugs are that open and acceptable....without the threat of arrest....but the other shock is that much in drug trafficking is done daily....without taxation. That part should anger a lot of Germans.
No need to worry about cops. They rarely enforce any law on the drug zones in most urbanized cities.
I can draw you a map to Koln, Stockholm, Frankfurt or Berlin's best places to get the drugs.
No drug enforcement? On rare occasions, the German cops will stage some run through a drug district....like in Frankfurt's Taunus Strasse district.....mostly with journalists hanging on and taking pictures to assure the public that enforcement is a big priority. Then the cops disappear and stay mostly out of sight for six months until the next public show of non-existent enforcement.
If you follow the news (at least in Germany), there are various mafia groups now....all leading to ethnic attachments (Kurds, Turks, Albanians, Serbs, Russians). I admit Bavarian gangs, Scottish gangs, and Icelandic gangs are rarely if ever noted in the news.
You end up with different levels or special features of these gangs. Meth labs for the most part are talked as being mostly in Czech, and gangs arrange for purchases, and then have specialized folks who drive the stuff in and make a central delivery. The gang then has it's distribution group....which these days are said to be mostly North African gentlemen and some central African guys.....mostly those without any occupation or trade, and they don't worry much about jail.
Cash and profit gets generated, and then? Well....no one much talks about the black market of cash flow. It's hard to laundry out millions per week of cash. Transferring it around? Practically impossible. This is one of the parts of the whole drug sales story that never seems to be told by any news source.
Locals not angry? That's an odd part to this whole thing. If you live around these drug districts....you are fairly angry and want the city to clean up the mess. But if you live outside of the district....you will never notice any of the drug trade, or the doped-up punks.
I stood six months ago in a park in Wiesbaden and noted two young guys who were totally spaced out....my guess....heroin. With the exception of some misty rain coming down, there wasn't much to worry the two guys. Cops were going to come and mess with them. The general public won't see the business or worry about this. If they were out in some public street and jumping in front of cars.....maybe the cops would get pepped up and do something. But this is the reality of where Europe is today....just accepting the business as long as it's not by your front-door.
In Germany, we are fairly close to a point where the general public (my guess 50-percent) will accept marijuana as a logical and non-problem drug. Twenty years ago....it would have been 25-percent. Times have changed people perceptions.
Even the use of MCMA (Ecstasy)....has become an accepted thing among probably one-third of the German youth (18 to 25 years old). It's affect? Mostly putting you into a trance-like state for a couple of hours. A bad batch or excessive use? Yeah, it might kill you. On a Friday night across Germany....I would take a humble guess that 350,000 of the 82-million are easily taking it....maybe as many as half-a-million.
If you look around the Middle East at the growing use of Captagon....I'd take a guess that in less than three years....it'll be a major drug within Germany. In this case....people might be show signs of violence, and the general public might not be as accepting to it....as the other drugs.
As bad as Detroit? You can't say that....at least not yet. Maybe in twenty years it might reach that stage, but with the standard of living where it is....a lot of folks just don't have the extra cash for recreational type drugs.
It might shock Americans that the drugs are that open and acceptable....without the threat of arrest....but the other shock is that much in drug trafficking is done daily....without taxation. That part should anger a lot of Germans.
The Dublin Agreement
Around 25 years ago....Sep 1997....a group of EU members sat down and wrote up what would be called the Dublin Convention. The countries involved? Denmark, UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Greece, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands). About every decade, it gets updated or slightly changed.
The basis of the agreement is this....when some immigrant, refugee, or asylum seeker arrives in the member states....if they don't have a visa, then they will be returned to their original country, or they will be offered a chance to submit paperwork for immigration....ONLY in the country of arrival.
Basically, you are from X-country and hate the place for whatever reason. You find some way (by boat or aircraft) to enter a EU host country with the Dublin Convention in place. You arrive....ask for asylum, and they present the paperwork.
In the process of feeling great that your new country will accept you....you come to two odd realities (you didn't do any homework ahead of time). Your new host country lets you know of a high rate of NOT accepting applications from your country (reasons don't matter). By the words of the Dublin Agreement, that's the end of your game....you can't go to France, or Germany....to restart your whole process on a second attempt.
The second issue in your discover is that some countries offer lousy and marginal benefits. Portugal, Poland and Greece area fairly well known for marginal help for immigrants. So you wake up and realize this, then want to to just disappear to a better country (like Germany, Sweden, UK, or Iceland). By the agreement, you can't do that.....at least until you've become a full up citizen of that country that you applied into.
If you went and asked a hundred Germans about the Dublin Agreement....you might have maybe two folks who know the basic rule. The rest will comment that they've never heard of the agreement.
In recent months, folks in Iceland have gotten all hyped up (mostly by social media and news site) to come out and support such-and-such poor character from Iraq, or Syria, or wherever.....who apparently signed up in some country, and came to realize some disadvantage. They've made their way into Iceland, and sought a new immigration or asylum situation. Well....the authorities hand them the paperwork....review the application, and come to realize they are under the Dublin agreement. They need to finish up the process where they started. So they are attempting to send individuals or families out of Iceland.
The Icelandic social media side is condemning all deportations....while not understanding this Dublin Agreement.
In some ways, it's fake news, and a fair number of the public being drawn into a topic which they understand little about.
How did the Dublin Agreement ever come about? There aren't a lot of details. If you look at the way it's constructed.....countries on the exterior of Europe are the ones who might get stuck with a large number of asylum seekers, while France and Germany are mostly protected by this agreement. Only by cross through Greece and continuing on....never asking for help or attention....doing the same in Hungary, Serbia, and Austria.....then asking for asylum in Germany....do you avoid the Dublin Agreement situation.
Effect in Iceland? This all draws upon political parties and puts the conservative folks into a bind. They are branded as unfair and unable to support the poor young gentlemen or families who've arrived but have already registered in places like Spain or Greece. Asking the naive folks to update or change the Dublin Agreement? Oh my....they'd freak out.
Just one single example of dozens which affect immigration and asylum in Europe, and few understand it enough to chat on the topic.
The basis of the agreement is this....when some immigrant, refugee, or asylum seeker arrives in the member states....if they don't have a visa, then they will be returned to their original country, or they will be offered a chance to submit paperwork for immigration....ONLY in the country of arrival.
Basically, you are from X-country and hate the place for whatever reason. You find some way (by boat or aircraft) to enter a EU host country with the Dublin Convention in place. You arrive....ask for asylum, and they present the paperwork.
In the process of feeling great that your new country will accept you....you come to two odd realities (you didn't do any homework ahead of time). Your new host country lets you know of a high rate of NOT accepting applications from your country (reasons don't matter). By the words of the Dublin Agreement, that's the end of your game....you can't go to France, or Germany....to restart your whole process on a second attempt.
The second issue in your discover is that some countries offer lousy and marginal benefits. Portugal, Poland and Greece area fairly well known for marginal help for immigrants. So you wake up and realize this, then want to to just disappear to a better country (like Germany, Sweden, UK, or Iceland). By the agreement, you can't do that.....at least until you've become a full up citizen of that country that you applied into.
If you went and asked a hundred Germans about the Dublin Agreement....you might have maybe two folks who know the basic rule. The rest will comment that they've never heard of the agreement.
In recent months, folks in Iceland have gotten all hyped up (mostly by social media and news site) to come out and support such-and-such poor character from Iraq, or Syria, or wherever.....who apparently signed up in some country, and came to realize some disadvantage. They've made their way into Iceland, and sought a new immigration or asylum situation. Well....the authorities hand them the paperwork....review the application, and come to realize they are under the Dublin agreement. They need to finish up the process where they started. So they are attempting to send individuals or families out of Iceland.
The Icelandic social media side is condemning all deportations....while not understanding this Dublin Agreement.
In some ways, it's fake news, and a fair number of the public being drawn into a topic which they understand little about.
How did the Dublin Agreement ever come about? There aren't a lot of details. If you look at the way it's constructed.....countries on the exterior of Europe are the ones who might get stuck with a large number of asylum seekers, while France and Germany are mostly protected by this agreement. Only by cross through Greece and continuing on....never asking for help or attention....doing the same in Hungary, Serbia, and Austria.....then asking for asylum in Germany....do you avoid the Dublin Agreement situation.
Effect in Iceland? This all draws upon political parties and puts the conservative folks into a bind. They are branded as unfair and unable to support the poor young gentlemen or families who've arrived but have already registered in places like Spain or Greece. Asking the naive folks to update or change the Dublin Agreement? Oh my....they'd freak out.
Just one single example of dozens which affect immigration and asylum in Europe, and few understand it enough to chat on the topic.
Sommerzeit
Tonight....I will be traveling through time....putting one hour onto my household clocks here in Germany. It's always two weeks behind the US switch to daylight savings time.
This is a topic which comes up twice a year, and generally gets very negative criticism by most Germans. I'd say roughly 80-percent are fully against daylight savings time (Sommerzeit).
Roughly a hundred years ago (one year into WW I), Sommerzeit was introduced (forced) onto German citizens. To be honest, it was a joint deal with the Kaiser and the Austrian Empire agreeing to do this. The year was 1916. Within twelve months, the UK....opposing Germany....had oddly agreed also to daylight savings time. The US? It would not be until 1918 that they went to the idea.
If you went to the general German public and asked them (not the politicians) to align priorities and ID things to fix....then dumping Sommerzeit would likely make it into the top ten issues. The only discussion would be if you just went forward with normal time, or with the Sommerzeit option as the permanent fix.
Odds of this ever becoming a Bundestag discussion item? Less than ten-percent chance (my humble opinion).
This is a topic which comes up twice a year, and generally gets very negative criticism by most Germans. I'd say roughly 80-percent are fully against daylight savings time (Sommerzeit).
Roughly a hundred years ago (one year into WW I), Sommerzeit was introduced (forced) onto German citizens. To be honest, it was a joint deal with the Kaiser and the Austrian Empire agreeing to do this. The year was 1916. Within twelve months, the UK....opposing Germany....had oddly agreed also to daylight savings time. The US? It would not be until 1918 that they went to the idea.
If you went to the general German public and asked them (not the politicians) to align priorities and ID things to fix....then dumping Sommerzeit would likely make it into the top ten issues. The only discussion would be if you just went forward with normal time, or with the Sommerzeit option as the permanent fix.
Odds of this ever becoming a Bundestag discussion item? Less than ten-percent chance (my humble opinion).
Turkey and the Summer Vacation Dilemma
I was looking this morning at Turkey resort vacations and pricing, and it's a staggering change from a year ago.
There is this outstanding resort chain known around the world as "Robinson Club" hotels. When you walk in....you get the feel of a five-star resort, with every employee working to make your stay the trip of a lifetime. Food and drink (beer, wine, soda), are all included in the price, with a mid-afternoon tea and cake session included. Airfare? It is also worked into the price.
So I checked out the Robinson Club Masavi pricing. Normally for late June, as you enter the German vacation high season.....it should be 1,700-Euro for two weeks....PER PERSON. Right now? It's running for 1,382 Euro (roughly 30-percent off).
In a normal summer, the place would be packed with limited rooms left to pick from. Because of the coup business and the anti-Erdogan sentiment in Germany....they've got lots of rooms still left, and they've reached the stage of lessening the price to a significant level.
The thing about the Robinson Club situation is that it's more of a resort than a hotel. There are shows every evening. It's located right on the beach but features a fine pool complex. Dinners are a gourmet delight for each evening. Breakfast offers every type of fruit in existence, with tons of normal items (bacon and omelets included). Private security around the clock to ensure you feel safe. Activities planned around the clock for your kids, if you did drag them along.
If you did go down the list of resort hotels along the southern Turkish coast....even from the top-end type resorts....they've all settled upon a twenty-to-thirty percent discount. If you went to lesser hotels....in the three to four star range....most have gone onto a forty percent discount.
Would I go? No. All this chatter and hype from Erdogan has even unsettled me. It's sad in a way. You could get the vacation of a lifetime for a fairly reasonable price now....with airfare and even have a bus pick you up at the airport to deliver you to the front door of the hotel.
There is this outstanding resort chain known around the world as "Robinson Club" hotels. When you walk in....you get the feel of a five-star resort, with every employee working to make your stay the trip of a lifetime. Food and drink (beer, wine, soda), are all included in the price, with a mid-afternoon tea and cake session included. Airfare? It is also worked into the price.
So I checked out the Robinson Club Masavi pricing. Normally for late June, as you enter the German vacation high season.....it should be 1,700-Euro for two weeks....PER PERSON. Right now? It's running for 1,382 Euro (roughly 30-percent off).
In a normal summer, the place would be packed with limited rooms left to pick from. Because of the coup business and the anti-Erdogan sentiment in Germany....they've got lots of rooms still left, and they've reached the stage of lessening the price to a significant level.
The thing about the Robinson Club situation is that it's more of a resort than a hotel. There are shows every evening. It's located right on the beach but features a fine pool complex. Dinners are a gourmet delight for each evening. Breakfast offers every type of fruit in existence, with tons of normal items (bacon and omelets included). Private security around the clock to ensure you feel safe. Activities planned around the clock for your kids, if you did drag them along.
If you did go down the list of resort hotels along the southern Turkish coast....even from the top-end type resorts....they've all settled upon a twenty-to-thirty percent discount. If you went to lesser hotels....in the three to four star range....most have gone onto a forty percent discount.
Would I go? No. All this chatter and hype from Erdogan has even unsettled me. It's sad in a way. You could get the vacation of a lifetime for a fairly reasonable price now....with airfare and even have a bus pick you up at the airport to deliver you to the front door of the hotel.
Painted into a Corner
Yesterday, a plane was supposed to lift off from Frankfurt carrying a Tunisian guy....forcibly....back to Tunisia to stand court action.
This action was set off in early February when the German cops did a search warrant and came to note a number of issues with this guy and some terror planing going on (for acts in Germany).
The Tunisians were interested in the guy, because he'd helped to plan terror acts there as well.
The Tunisians say he was on the planning side of the Bardo National Museum attack where 20 tourists were killed (note nationalities of the dead: Italy, France, Japan, Tunisia, Belgium, Russia, UK, Columbia, Poland, and Belgium). No Germans among the dead.
As he got to the airport....he asked for asylum paperwork. By law, the Germans have to provide such paperwork. He filled it out, and then as the plane sat on the tarmac ready to go...cops stopped it, and removed the guy.
By German law, they must consider him for asylum. Chief reason? If he goes back to Tunisia....they have a capital punishment law and can execute him for the connection to the 20 tourists dead.
As far as I know....no terrorists has ever enacted this German law in this particular way.
His history? Well, this gets to an interesting point. He came to Germany fourteen years ago on a student visa. At some point, with details left out by journalists, this student visa was going to run out so he went and married a German woman. Little is said about this marriage. Perhaps it was a cash-related marriage where the woman got paid off. But in the end.....with the marriage....he got an indefinite visa and could stay forever.
You would think that the guy would go on and get a regular job and make a success out of his situation. Well....no.
At some point, he gives up and goes to return to Tunisia. Little is said about his profession, or ability to turn an income. That's more or less a mystery in this whole story.
By mid-summer of 2015....he'd returned back to Germany....five months after the Bardo Museum attack.
He's been picked up by the German cops on a couple of occasions....little is discussed on his crimes....theft is the only thing that journalists will comment upon.
As you sit and ponder upon the guy.....you come to realize if he was connected to the Bardo Museum episode....he's fairly dangerous. He's not the kind of guy that you can allow into the general population. Because of the house search and various planning activities....there are some minor charges that the Germans could hustle up, but none will get him more than a couple of years in prison.
By the unique features of German law....if anyone enters Germany....even if this were a African-Hitler-like character who'd killed thousands, the German law requires an asylum application to be reviewed and if the threat of death is likely in the old country, then Germany must accept the guy. A fair number of Germans will complain about this feature, but it's the law.
My guess is that the review of the guy will require approximately 100 days....putting this into the middle of summer. It'll be approved for asylum, but note that he's fairly dangerous. They will have to hustle up planning charges here in Germany, and hopefully have a court case by early 2018....which deems he guilty of something and simply puts him in prison for a couple of years. Then what? He can't be sent back to Tunisia....so he'll be a permanent German in the end.
Here's the thing....if you were a Tunisian sitting there in Tunis and observing all of this....angry as heck over this terror act at the Bardo Museum and the harm to the tourist profits that Tunisia used to enjoy....you'd view Germany's behavior in a pretty negative way.
The Germans, with all of their niceness laid on the table....have painted themselves into a harsh corner. There is no escape....they have to welcome a guy who is a potential threat.
This action was set off in early February when the German cops did a search warrant and came to note a number of issues with this guy and some terror planing going on (for acts in Germany).
The Tunisians were interested in the guy, because he'd helped to plan terror acts there as well.
The Tunisians say he was on the planning side of the Bardo National Museum attack where 20 tourists were killed (note nationalities of the dead: Italy, France, Japan, Tunisia, Belgium, Russia, UK, Columbia, Poland, and Belgium). No Germans among the dead.
As he got to the airport....he asked for asylum paperwork. By law, the Germans have to provide such paperwork. He filled it out, and then as the plane sat on the tarmac ready to go...cops stopped it, and removed the guy.
By German law, they must consider him for asylum. Chief reason? If he goes back to Tunisia....they have a capital punishment law and can execute him for the connection to the 20 tourists dead.
As far as I know....no terrorists has ever enacted this German law in this particular way.
His history? Well, this gets to an interesting point. He came to Germany fourteen years ago on a student visa. At some point, with details left out by journalists, this student visa was going to run out so he went and married a German woman. Little is said about this marriage. Perhaps it was a cash-related marriage where the woman got paid off. But in the end.....with the marriage....he got an indefinite visa and could stay forever.
You would think that the guy would go on and get a regular job and make a success out of his situation. Well....no.
At some point, he gives up and goes to return to Tunisia. Little is said about his profession, or ability to turn an income. That's more or less a mystery in this whole story.
By mid-summer of 2015....he'd returned back to Germany....five months after the Bardo Museum attack.
He's been picked up by the German cops on a couple of occasions....little is discussed on his crimes....theft is the only thing that journalists will comment upon.
As you sit and ponder upon the guy.....you come to realize if he was connected to the Bardo Museum episode....he's fairly dangerous. He's not the kind of guy that you can allow into the general population. Because of the house search and various planning activities....there are some minor charges that the Germans could hustle up, but none will get him more than a couple of years in prison.
By the unique features of German law....if anyone enters Germany....even if this were a African-Hitler-like character who'd killed thousands, the German law requires an asylum application to be reviewed and if the threat of death is likely in the old country, then Germany must accept the guy. A fair number of Germans will complain about this feature, but it's the law.
My guess is that the review of the guy will require approximately 100 days....putting this into the middle of summer. It'll be approved for asylum, but note that he's fairly dangerous. They will have to hustle up planning charges here in Germany, and hopefully have a court case by early 2018....which deems he guilty of something and simply puts him in prison for a couple of years. Then what? He can't be sent back to Tunisia....so he'll be a permanent German in the end.
Here's the thing....if you were a Tunisian sitting there in Tunis and observing all of this....angry as heck over this terror act at the Bardo Museum and the harm to the tourist profits that Tunisia used to enjoy....you'd view Germany's behavior in a pretty negative way.
The Germans, with all of their niceness laid on the table....have painted themselves into a harsh corner. There is no escape....they have to welcome a guy who is a potential threat.
Friday, March 24, 2017
When You Tell Just a Marginal Story
Back in the 1950s of West Germany.....a meeting was held, and a number of news reporters felt it was time to have some accountability....some mature behavior....and to note some ways and methods of conducting proper journalism. So, the German Press Council came to exist.
The council had only two central functions. One was to advise politicians on draft laws that might infringe or harm journalism....in essence...try to talk the Bundestag out of doing something really stupid that would hurt the trade. The second function was to offer advice to preserve the reputation of journalists in Germany. Some of this was supposed to ensure that wild speculation, fake stories, or false accusations....did not become a standard of German journalism.
At some point twenty years later....a press 'code' came into existence. This was supposed to strongly suggest to journalists where the 'line' would be drawn on telling stories. People accused of crimes were to be treated as innocent folks, without much mention to their entire name....at least until the court convicted them. There were a list of things in this original code, which helped to mold German journalism into the trade that exists today.
Four years ago (2013)....the code was updated again....with some minor changes.
This week (Wed), the council came out again with another code change.
What they've suggested now is that an individual's ethnicity or religion should NOT be published “unless there is a justified public interest in doing so.”
In essence, you can write the following statement: "Muhammad A was arrested and charged for assault and rape over an incident that occurred at such-and-such pool complex in Mannheim." Beyond that....you can't say that Muhammad is from Tunisia, or a recent immigrant into Germany.
The possible story of: "Muhammad A was arrested and charged for terror planning acts, over an incident that occurred at such-and-such apartment in Mannheim." can be written, but you can't use the word jihad, or Islamic terror group in the article....otherwise, you'd break the code rule.
It's a humor-filled directive because the minute you say "Muhammad" or any of 10,000 names....the reader is immediately drawn to the fact that he's NOT a German.
What the council says is that the old method was setting up a curiosity with readers, thus getting them to go and do a search of social media or fake news sites....thus stirring up conspiracy thoughts or suggestions of migrant problems.
Course...the only way to really avoid any of this....is to avoid using any part of the guy's name at all....just saying "Herr X was arrested for terror-act planning in Mannheim." Who is Herr X? You can only scan over that comment and grin because you don't know of any Germans who typically plan terror acts.
All of this involves some elitist thinking or intellectual thought process.
You might have some journalists who just avoid these stories or trying to explain them in a soften manner entirely. Then six months into this....you start having cops pass information privately to bloggers who write the entire article with all of the information, and thus attract more attention to their blog because you get all of what the newspapers or public-TV journalists used to hand out but avoid. In some ways....you are creating a bigger problem because people trust the blogger now more....than the journalist.
It is a passionate stance that the press council is taking....trying to lessen negative feeling over migration and asylum seekers in Germany. The fact that 90-to-95-percent of the crowd are not trouble-makers or problem-kids is not something that gets drilled into news stories everyday in Germany. The fact that 99-percent of the new crowd made it through an entire day without any bad behavior, stupid terror planning, illicit drug sales, assaulting, or robbing anyone....isn't something that gets talked about.
I noticed this week that a blogger-type site in Sweden is keeping weekly notes and numbers on immigrant gang-rapes now. The fact that the government doesn't keep such statistics (yeah, you can't collect such data in Sweden)....means that the reports that the bloggers are getting....comes direct from the cops to them. In short summary.....the cops have given up on the system working and that the legal system will protect the public. So, cops hand their weekly numbers and text over. I would expect some government investigation to occur and they will attempt to point out the cops, with punishments to be dished out eventually. The fact that the data makes the authorities look stupid....has yet to really dawn upon the political establishment. You see the same trend developing in Germany....not so much over rape but just the landscape of any crime.
The value of a news organization goes to three central themes (at least in my mind). You have to view what's going on within the landscape of readers or viewers. Then you have to tell a fully accurate but short summary of what is factual, with details to suggest to the reader why it's important to know this. Finally, there has to be some conclusion down the line where you wrap up this story and explain how things ended....factually. If you can do these three things with any effort....then you are wasting the time of the viewer/reader. They will skip you and go onto the next available source. In recent years....bloggers gained something over news organizations, and you have to wonder where things changed.
As for the council guidance? Most journalists will follow this because of peer pressure. Their value to the public will eventually be questioned. On down the line, journalists will condemn and blast the bloggers because their ethics aren't as pure as the journalists. The public will laugh over the accusation and deem the journalists as having lost something in their trade.
The council had only two central functions. One was to advise politicians on draft laws that might infringe or harm journalism....in essence...try to talk the Bundestag out of doing something really stupid that would hurt the trade. The second function was to offer advice to preserve the reputation of journalists in Germany. Some of this was supposed to ensure that wild speculation, fake stories, or false accusations....did not become a standard of German journalism.
At some point twenty years later....a press 'code' came into existence. This was supposed to strongly suggest to journalists where the 'line' would be drawn on telling stories. People accused of crimes were to be treated as innocent folks, without much mention to their entire name....at least until the court convicted them. There were a list of things in this original code, which helped to mold German journalism into the trade that exists today.
Four years ago (2013)....the code was updated again....with some minor changes.
This week (Wed), the council came out again with another code change.
What they've suggested now is that an individual's ethnicity or religion should NOT be published “unless there is a justified public interest in doing so.”
In essence, you can write the following statement: "Muhammad A was arrested and charged for assault and rape over an incident that occurred at such-and-such pool complex in Mannheim." Beyond that....you can't say that Muhammad is from Tunisia, or a recent immigrant into Germany.
The possible story of: "Muhammad A was arrested and charged for terror planning acts, over an incident that occurred at such-and-such apartment in Mannheim." can be written, but you can't use the word jihad, or Islamic terror group in the article....otherwise, you'd break the code rule.
It's a humor-filled directive because the minute you say "Muhammad" or any of 10,000 names....the reader is immediately drawn to the fact that he's NOT a German.
What the council says is that the old method was setting up a curiosity with readers, thus getting them to go and do a search of social media or fake news sites....thus stirring up conspiracy thoughts or suggestions of migrant problems.
Course...the only way to really avoid any of this....is to avoid using any part of the guy's name at all....just saying "Herr X was arrested for terror-act planning in Mannheim." Who is Herr X? You can only scan over that comment and grin because you don't know of any Germans who typically plan terror acts.
All of this involves some elitist thinking or intellectual thought process.
You might have some journalists who just avoid these stories or trying to explain them in a soften manner entirely. Then six months into this....you start having cops pass information privately to bloggers who write the entire article with all of the information, and thus attract more attention to their blog because you get all of what the newspapers or public-TV journalists used to hand out but avoid. In some ways....you are creating a bigger problem because people trust the blogger now more....than the journalist.
It is a passionate stance that the press council is taking....trying to lessen negative feeling over migration and asylum seekers in Germany. The fact that 90-to-95-percent of the crowd are not trouble-makers or problem-kids is not something that gets drilled into news stories everyday in Germany. The fact that 99-percent of the new crowd made it through an entire day without any bad behavior, stupid terror planning, illicit drug sales, assaulting, or robbing anyone....isn't something that gets talked about.
I noticed this week that a blogger-type site in Sweden is keeping weekly notes and numbers on immigrant gang-rapes now. The fact that the government doesn't keep such statistics (yeah, you can't collect such data in Sweden)....means that the reports that the bloggers are getting....comes direct from the cops to them. In short summary.....the cops have given up on the system working and that the legal system will protect the public. So, cops hand their weekly numbers and text over. I would expect some government investigation to occur and they will attempt to point out the cops, with punishments to be dished out eventually. The fact that the data makes the authorities look stupid....has yet to really dawn upon the political establishment. You see the same trend developing in Germany....not so much over rape but just the landscape of any crime.
The value of a news organization goes to three central themes (at least in my mind). You have to view what's going on within the landscape of readers or viewers. Then you have to tell a fully accurate but short summary of what is factual, with details to suggest to the reader why it's important to know this. Finally, there has to be some conclusion down the line where you wrap up this story and explain how things ended....factually. If you can do these three things with any effort....then you are wasting the time of the viewer/reader. They will skip you and go onto the next available source. In recent years....bloggers gained something over news organizations, and you have to wonder where things changed.
As for the council guidance? Most journalists will follow this because of peer pressure. Their value to the public will eventually be questioned. On down the line, journalists will condemn and blast the bloggers because their ethics aren't as pure as the journalists. The public will laugh over the accusation and deem the journalists as having lost something in their trade.
This Discussion Over Diesel Cars
Coming out of the south in the mid-70s....I never had much of a introduction to diesel cars. It wasn't until I arrived into Rhein Main in 1978....that I came to note that such cars exist. The VW Golf was one example, and I worked with a guy who came to own one. The chief advantage which he enjoyed bragging about....gas-mileage.
By the mid-80s when I came back to Germany for another tour....I knew another guy who had car that he'd procured....diesel.....ten years old. His chatter was dependability and gas-mileage. In some ways....both guys were addicted to the diesel technology.
By the early 1990s, with another tour back to Germany....I came to note several Americans who'd gotten into the diesel gimmick, and I did a fair amount of reading and research.
Because of the way they are built, they generate less heat than a gas car.....so diesel engines tend to last twice as long as a gas-powered car. Some guys will chatter over their car having crossed the 400,000 kilometer range (roughly 250,000 miles)....with the same engine, and still going strong.
The same guys will talk about the 40 miles per gallon situation and for a long trek each day....they are saving a thousand gallons of fuel per year.
At some point in the 1990s....the realization of pollution or particles came up and the diesel industry had to go and visit the idea of filters or lessening particle issues. Over the past decade, another new standard has risen in Germany/the EU.
But there's this odd problem sitting there. So you have a fair number of guys (it's always guys who buy the diesel if you go and look at ownership), and as long as the car runs....they have no desire in getting a new car. So you could be standing there at the edge of Stuttgart or Frankfurt, and note that probably fifty-percent of the diesel cars you see on the road....are more than 15 years old. I would take a guess that 5-percent of the diesels on the roads of Germany are more than 20 years old. In a way, the fine quality of manufacturing and the craftsmanship of the engines have created this odd problem.
So, the Germans want to fix this problem. To be honest, the push is going on in Baden-Wurttemberg (Stuttgart)....mostly with the Green Party, and to a lesser extent with the SPD Party. Fine particle pollution is talked about daily in Stuttgart. It's described as a major problem.
The first agenda out there? Ban all diesel cars from a particular age group (mostly fitting those over ten years old). So you'd be standing there with a 15-year old diesel VW in great condition, and have a job in the heart of Stuttgart....only to discover that you can't use the car for work anymore. The car has no value. Trying to sell it? Well...the market in this region is now screwed up for older-model diesel cars. It's worthless.
The second agenda? Some type of kit that you'd have put on your older diesel car....to ensure no harmful particular issues. Cost? Between 1,000 and 2,000 Euro. But note....this kit is only in draft form and yet to be fully tested. Would you be willing to spend 2,000 Euro on a 3,000 Euro car? My guess is no.
So, there is anger and hostility brewing in this one German state, and this fear (aggravation to be precise), that when the election finishes up in September....the new coalition (SPD, Greens and Linke Party) will mandate this problem as a national problem and suddenly all diesel owners have a worthless car.
A odd political topic in an election year? Yeah. You have idiot politicians chattering away on this....knowing virtually nothing about diesel engines or the fine particle business, but they have to seem like experts when they are not.
At the end of this spectrum....there could be tons of German diesel cars deemed worthless in a short period of time, and little compensation from the government. Court action? I expect a court deal to be part of this, and force the government into some deal over compensation....maybe a tax credit....to soften the pain to this deal.
By the mid-80s when I came back to Germany for another tour....I knew another guy who had car that he'd procured....diesel.....ten years old. His chatter was dependability and gas-mileage. In some ways....both guys were addicted to the diesel technology.
By the early 1990s, with another tour back to Germany....I came to note several Americans who'd gotten into the diesel gimmick, and I did a fair amount of reading and research.
Because of the way they are built, they generate less heat than a gas car.....so diesel engines tend to last twice as long as a gas-powered car. Some guys will chatter over their car having crossed the 400,000 kilometer range (roughly 250,000 miles)....with the same engine, and still going strong.
The same guys will talk about the 40 miles per gallon situation and for a long trek each day....they are saving a thousand gallons of fuel per year.
At some point in the 1990s....the realization of pollution or particles came up and the diesel industry had to go and visit the idea of filters or lessening particle issues. Over the past decade, another new standard has risen in Germany/the EU.
But there's this odd problem sitting there. So you have a fair number of guys (it's always guys who buy the diesel if you go and look at ownership), and as long as the car runs....they have no desire in getting a new car. So you could be standing there at the edge of Stuttgart or Frankfurt, and note that probably fifty-percent of the diesel cars you see on the road....are more than 15 years old. I would take a guess that 5-percent of the diesels on the roads of Germany are more than 20 years old. In a way, the fine quality of manufacturing and the craftsmanship of the engines have created this odd problem.
So, the Germans want to fix this problem. To be honest, the push is going on in Baden-Wurttemberg (Stuttgart)....mostly with the Green Party, and to a lesser extent with the SPD Party. Fine particle pollution is talked about daily in Stuttgart. It's described as a major problem.
The first agenda out there? Ban all diesel cars from a particular age group (mostly fitting those over ten years old). So you'd be standing there with a 15-year old diesel VW in great condition, and have a job in the heart of Stuttgart....only to discover that you can't use the car for work anymore. The car has no value. Trying to sell it? Well...the market in this region is now screwed up for older-model diesel cars. It's worthless.
The second agenda? Some type of kit that you'd have put on your older diesel car....to ensure no harmful particular issues. Cost? Between 1,000 and 2,000 Euro. But note....this kit is only in draft form and yet to be fully tested. Would you be willing to spend 2,000 Euro on a 3,000 Euro car? My guess is no.
So, there is anger and hostility brewing in this one German state, and this fear (aggravation to be precise), that when the election finishes up in September....the new coalition (SPD, Greens and Linke Party) will mandate this problem as a national problem and suddenly all diesel owners have a worthless car.
A odd political topic in an election year? Yeah. You have idiot politicians chattering away on this....knowing virtually nothing about diesel engines or the fine particle business, but they have to seem like experts when they are not.
At the end of this spectrum....there could be tons of German diesel cars deemed worthless in a short period of time, and little compensation from the government. Court action? I expect a court deal to be part of this, and force the government into some deal over compensation....maybe a tax credit....to soften the pain to this deal.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Rinkeby Back into the News
I've essayed a few occasions on this one suburb of Stockholm, Sweden....Rinkeby. It's on the northwest side of Stockholm, and was a developed project out of the late 1960s where affordable housing was deemed a city-required project. By the time that work was done....years had passed by, and the economic boom had flatten out. A decade later....the mostly empty made great interest for the next economic boom....which brought migrants in, and over the past twenty years....it's become an unofficial ghetto.
This week....one of the Stockholm news sites....Mitti....did a piece on the new police station being developed for the suburb.
If you go through the description...enhanced fortress-like design and protected parking for cop cars....it's designed like some US embassy in Afghanistan....with a ton of security measures for one single suburb station.
The cops for the most part....don't feel safe in this neighborhood, and the city is going to spend near $43-million for the station. It's a fair sum of money.
Mitti noted one law procedure written up for a station like this.....you can't take pictures of the building without special permission. Violating that....could be one-year in prison.
But this brings me to this odd problem which Mitti points out....they didn't plan on special and extra parking for the private vehicles of the cops themselves. So there's some planning going on....where the cops would drive to a specially guarded parking lot in the area, and be taken by bus (I assume) to work, while someone stands there to protect their cars. No one sat there and figured the cost.....but if you had a big security fence....private cameras....roving guards...you could be talking about three or four million Euro a year just to guard two hundred to three hundred private cars on a hour-by-hour basis.
It's hard to imagine this much money going out for a just a suburb police station, and a private car parking lot with enhanced security.
Folks in Stockholm? No one seems to be saying much. It comes out of the city and state budget, and some bureaucrats sign off on this without worrying about political issues later.
Why this much effort on Rinkeby? My humble guess is that it's supposed to send a message and say that the cops are now anchored down, and will react. Course, you'd have to have the city prosecutor be aggressive, and the judge-system invoke some sentences to get people reacting in a different fashion. All of this....five years into the future. So the local public waits....hoping that fortress-Rinkeby has some plus-side to it in the end. Those punks around twelve years old today? They will be the crowd in the next couple of years to face off the fortress crowd.
Footnote: I should also note.....it's yet to be built. So you can expect roving gang activity in after-hours, damage to be a weekly thing, and this likely to take two extra years minimum on top of the original opening date. They might have to hire an extensive guard force....just to protect it while in the construction phase. If you were looking for a great reality show topic....Fortress Rinkeby would be it.
This week....one of the Stockholm news sites....Mitti....did a piece on the new police station being developed for the suburb.
If you go through the description...enhanced fortress-like design and protected parking for cop cars....it's designed like some US embassy in Afghanistan....with a ton of security measures for one single suburb station.
The cops for the most part....don't feel safe in this neighborhood, and the city is going to spend near $43-million for the station. It's a fair sum of money.
Mitti noted one law procedure written up for a station like this.....you can't take pictures of the building without special permission. Violating that....could be one-year in prison.
But this brings me to this odd problem which Mitti points out....they didn't plan on special and extra parking for the private vehicles of the cops themselves. So there's some planning going on....where the cops would drive to a specially guarded parking lot in the area, and be taken by bus (I assume) to work, while someone stands there to protect their cars. No one sat there and figured the cost.....but if you had a big security fence....private cameras....roving guards...you could be talking about three or four million Euro a year just to guard two hundred to three hundred private cars on a hour-by-hour basis.
It's hard to imagine this much money going out for a just a suburb police station, and a private car parking lot with enhanced security.
Folks in Stockholm? No one seems to be saying much. It comes out of the city and state budget, and some bureaucrats sign off on this without worrying about political issues later.
Why this much effort on Rinkeby? My humble guess is that it's supposed to send a message and say that the cops are now anchored down, and will react. Course, you'd have to have the city prosecutor be aggressive, and the judge-system invoke some sentences to get people reacting in a different fashion. All of this....five years into the future. So the local public waits....hoping that fortress-Rinkeby has some plus-side to it in the end. Those punks around twelve years old today? They will be the crowd in the next couple of years to face off the fortress crowd.
Footnote: I should also note.....it's yet to be built. So you can expect roving gang activity in after-hours, damage to be a weekly thing, and this likely to take two extra years minimum on top of the original opening date. They might have to hire an extensive guard force....just to protect it while in the construction phase. If you were looking for a great reality show topic....Fortress Rinkeby would be it.
Next Evolution of ISIS?
I noted two pieces of journalism in the past week, which talked about this new feature that came out of the Syrian civil war and ISIS.
For those who really didn't dig into ISIS operations over the past five years in Syria....they had to rely a great deal upon one single little pill....Captagon. It's a upper....amphetamine.
The neat thing about it is that you could go out to your jihadist warrior team there....on the frontlines of the civil war....handing out the Captagons, and your guys would go and fight strong for a minimum of twenty-four hours, and even longer. They would be hyped up and full of 'fake' energy.
It's one of those German-invented wonder drugs of the 1960s. At some point....reality set in with the government folks, after about twenty-five years of usage, and it was kinda halted.
The drug has been quietly manufactured by a couple of underground labs, and today easily markets for $5 to $20 per pill.
From the two articles I read over....there is some belief that as the civil war is kinda going in a downward stage....there's a market out there for the drug now, and it's pulling the leadership of ISIS into a new stage....manufacture and deliver the drug to individual sellers. Yes, ISIS is morphing into a drug-cartel of sorts.
But if you dig into this market story, there's an odd story out there. Two years ago....fall of 2015....the Saudis came to bust a member of the royal family on importation of Captagon. Two tons (yeah....massive bulk delivery) was going into Saudi Arabia....not Syria. It's become a party-drug and cheap enough that no one is making a big deal over cost.
So you look at this introduction as a war-drug for the troops, and various labs created to make the stuff, and it just makes sense to move onto a money-making operation as the war is wrapping up.
No one ever talks much over the next stage of ISIS. People have sat and watched the chaotic war in Syria/Iraq go on for five years now....thousands of young men thrown to the ISIS challenge....with probably half of those who signed up....now dead. Between the efforts of the Iraqi Army, the Syrians, the Russians....you can sense that the war is in some conclusion stage....maybe a year....maybe two years down the line. Then? That's really the question which is never discussed by the news media or intellectuals.
One of the odd changes to the German drug-dealer market is that it used to be Turks and Russians who ran the illicit drug empire within Germany going back to the 1990 era. In the past two decades....you've got Albanian, Lebanese, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Romanian mafia groups in the mix in terms of owning distribution. The sales people? Well....mostly Moroccans and Tunisians....with some Africans at the end of this job profession.
There's a bold new era coming in my humble opinion, with Captagon as a big-name drug on the streets of Germany....oddly being a product out of the ISIS-civil war. The labs in Syria? Likely to continue on and not be threatened because there's cash flow resulting from this one unlikely product.
A final note....this was a minor comment out of the French cop report from the Nice, France terror attack (84 dead) of summer 2016....cops did a chemical exam on the cellphone of the terrorist (dead)....yeah, it had Captagon residue on it. The thug was likely doped up on it when he went into his terror act. It wouldn't surprise me if the Berlin terrorist also used the drug. We might even find out that the London jihadist from yesterday was using the stuff.
For those who really didn't dig into ISIS operations over the past five years in Syria....they had to rely a great deal upon one single little pill....Captagon. It's a upper....amphetamine.
The neat thing about it is that you could go out to your jihadist warrior team there....on the frontlines of the civil war....handing out the Captagons, and your guys would go and fight strong for a minimum of twenty-four hours, and even longer. They would be hyped up and full of 'fake' energy.
It's one of those German-invented wonder drugs of the 1960s. At some point....reality set in with the government folks, after about twenty-five years of usage, and it was kinda halted.
The drug has been quietly manufactured by a couple of underground labs, and today easily markets for $5 to $20 per pill.
From the two articles I read over....there is some belief that as the civil war is kinda going in a downward stage....there's a market out there for the drug now, and it's pulling the leadership of ISIS into a new stage....manufacture and deliver the drug to individual sellers. Yes, ISIS is morphing into a drug-cartel of sorts.
But if you dig into this market story, there's an odd story out there. Two years ago....fall of 2015....the Saudis came to bust a member of the royal family on importation of Captagon. Two tons (yeah....massive bulk delivery) was going into Saudi Arabia....not Syria. It's become a party-drug and cheap enough that no one is making a big deal over cost.
So you look at this introduction as a war-drug for the troops, and various labs created to make the stuff, and it just makes sense to move onto a money-making operation as the war is wrapping up.
No one ever talks much over the next stage of ISIS. People have sat and watched the chaotic war in Syria/Iraq go on for five years now....thousands of young men thrown to the ISIS challenge....with probably half of those who signed up....now dead. Between the efforts of the Iraqi Army, the Syrians, the Russians....you can sense that the war is in some conclusion stage....maybe a year....maybe two years down the line. Then? That's really the question which is never discussed by the news media or intellectuals.
One of the odd changes to the German drug-dealer market is that it used to be Turks and Russians who ran the illicit drug empire within Germany going back to the 1990 era. In the past two decades....you've got Albanian, Lebanese, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Romanian mafia groups in the mix in terms of owning distribution. The sales people? Well....mostly Moroccans and Tunisians....with some Africans at the end of this job profession.
There's a bold new era coming in my humble opinion, with Captagon as a big-name drug on the streets of Germany....oddly being a product out of the ISIS-civil war. The labs in Syria? Likely to continue on and not be threatened because there's cash flow resulting from this one unlikely product.
A final note....this was a minor comment out of the French cop report from the Nice, France terror attack (84 dead) of summer 2016....cops did a chemical exam on the cellphone of the terrorist (dead)....yeah, it had Captagon residue on it. The thug was likely doped up on it when he went into his terror act. It wouldn't surprise me if the Berlin terrorist also used the drug. We might even find out that the London jihadist from yesterday was using the stuff.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
How to Manufacture Fake News
I read a lot of news pieces every single day (probably over 250 articles per day) from across Europe. I admit....I am a news 'junkie' of some degree.
So in the past couple of weeks, I've been viewing this 'story' told by a particular news group. I won't say which group, their web-site, or even the country. The focus of the story? There is this woeful tale that they weave about the terrible handling of migrants and immigrants in their country, and they've got this one guy who is a martyr of sorts.
The guy? He's from county X. It's a country with an Islamic situation and the tale starts off with the poor gentleman in his youth....having his parents killed off by an earthquake back eleven years ago. After that, the guy's brother was killed by the local evil war-lord. So the young kid leaves the threatening land and goes elsewhere.
The story is always told in bits and pieces.
The guy will arrive in Greece. They are always careful not to tell what year he arrives there. He does something but it's always told in a way that all migrants in Greece are arrested on the spot and end up in prison on false charges. Greece has a huge prison system, and it just makes sense to populate the prison as much as possible. Well....after you read the news group's story....it always seems like that this can only be the logical way that the guy ends up in prison.
The sentence? The deal is that he applies for asylum in Greece or takes 18 months in jail. Why? That's an odd part of this story. It cannot be explained why a sentence is required or why 18 months, or why he's offered asylum in Greece.
Somehow, they end this paragraph noting that the poor kid spent four years in prison before he leaves in 2014.
Normally, for misdemeanors...you'd be talking about a couple of weeks to a couple of months for a fairly serious misdemeanor. For four years? You start having to think critically over this. It'd have to be some kind of robbery or drug-trafficking deal, or assault.....to get four years in a Greek prison.
When the guy finishes up his term in late 2014.....the story skips out and avoids more details. The next thing you know....he shows up in his new country (a far distance from Greece) in late 2016. He's applying for residency....taking language classes....and trying to show integration. That country does a review of his application, and there's something there which just doesn't work for the application. So here in the past month or so.....the country's authority on immigration said "no" and he's supposed to leave.
Naturally, this news team/source.....tell the story in a woeful way and gets everyone all pepped up to support the poor guy.
A normal person would read through their piece and feel really sorry for the guy, and really hang bad words over the government and their terrible immigration policy. But I sit there and see five or six big empty holes in the whole story.
In fact, I even go and write in the comments area, that this story has problems....explaining that you don't go to prison for four years, for sneaking into a country....you typically go for a felony-like charge....so why not explain to the public what that charge really was. Then I suggested that this period between 2014 and 2016.....you just need to explain what happened.
That criticism of mine drew 'evil-American' criticism in return.
You see....this is one of the problems outside of this fake-news business....in that you tell a marginal story with gaping holes, and when it gets pointed out.....you can't allow that criticism to lay there and fault your wonderful story over the poor migrant guy. These folks, with all good intentions but no real sense of reality....are merely there to manufacture fake news. Naive readers will accept that and go along with the storyline until someone points out the lacking facts.
Is the guy a threat? No.....nothing in any of the storyline says that. Maybe the Greeks would say otherwise, but oddly, there's virtually not a word about this guy in their local press....I checked.
It's just that a huge amount of the story is just left out, and you have to wonder about that.
So in the past couple of weeks, I've been viewing this 'story' told by a particular news group. I won't say which group, their web-site, or even the country. The focus of the story? There is this woeful tale that they weave about the terrible handling of migrants and immigrants in their country, and they've got this one guy who is a martyr of sorts.
The guy? He's from county X. It's a country with an Islamic situation and the tale starts off with the poor gentleman in his youth....having his parents killed off by an earthquake back eleven years ago. After that, the guy's brother was killed by the local evil war-lord. So the young kid leaves the threatening land and goes elsewhere.
The story is always told in bits and pieces.
The guy will arrive in Greece. They are always careful not to tell what year he arrives there. He does something but it's always told in a way that all migrants in Greece are arrested on the spot and end up in prison on false charges. Greece has a huge prison system, and it just makes sense to populate the prison as much as possible. Well....after you read the news group's story....it always seems like that this can only be the logical way that the guy ends up in prison.
The sentence? The deal is that he applies for asylum in Greece or takes 18 months in jail. Why? That's an odd part of this story. It cannot be explained why a sentence is required or why 18 months, or why he's offered asylum in Greece.
Somehow, they end this paragraph noting that the poor kid spent four years in prison before he leaves in 2014.
Normally, for misdemeanors...you'd be talking about a couple of weeks to a couple of months for a fairly serious misdemeanor. For four years? You start having to think critically over this. It'd have to be some kind of robbery or drug-trafficking deal, or assault.....to get four years in a Greek prison.
When the guy finishes up his term in late 2014.....the story skips out and avoids more details. The next thing you know....he shows up in his new country (a far distance from Greece) in late 2016. He's applying for residency....taking language classes....and trying to show integration. That country does a review of his application, and there's something there which just doesn't work for the application. So here in the past month or so.....the country's authority on immigration said "no" and he's supposed to leave.
Naturally, this news team/source.....tell the story in a woeful way and gets everyone all pepped up to support the poor guy.
A normal person would read through their piece and feel really sorry for the guy, and really hang bad words over the government and their terrible immigration policy. But I sit there and see five or six big empty holes in the whole story.
In fact, I even go and write in the comments area, that this story has problems....explaining that you don't go to prison for four years, for sneaking into a country....you typically go for a felony-like charge....so why not explain to the public what that charge really was. Then I suggested that this period between 2014 and 2016.....you just need to explain what happened.
That criticism of mine drew 'evil-American' criticism in return.
You see....this is one of the problems outside of this fake-news business....in that you tell a marginal story with gaping holes, and when it gets pointed out.....you can't allow that criticism to lay there and fault your wonderful story over the poor migrant guy. These folks, with all good intentions but no real sense of reality....are merely there to manufacture fake news. Naive readers will accept that and go along with the storyline until someone points out the lacking facts.
Is the guy a threat? No.....nothing in any of the storyline says that. Maybe the Greeks would say otherwise, but oddly, there's virtually not a word about this guy in their local press....I checked.
It's just that a huge amount of the story is just left out, and you have to wonder about that.
A Grade over Breitbart
A couple of months ago, I signed myself up to evaluate Breitbart on truthful or fake stories, and grade them in some ways.....so today, I'll pick out a dozen odd stories from their London section:
1. BBC slammed for 'fawning' coverage of 'peacemaker' Martin McGuinness. So, Irish dude Martin McGuinness has passed on, and the BBC folks did up a obit coverage piece, which portrayed him as a man of peace. Breitbart noted that a group of people (not a vast number) had condemned the BBC for this....noting that he been accused of terror acts during the unstable period with Northern Ireland. So, here's the thing....the court system could never reach a position that take a case forward and try McGuinness. There were bits and pieces of evidence, but no one seemed willing to go with that. So he has no convictions. All you have is rumor, and gut feelings. Breitbart laid out this story in somewhat fair detail. The BBC was slammed by a number of individuals but it was not a significant story.
2. Study: Third of France's young Muslims hold fundamentalist religious views. So, Breitbart picked up a copy of this CNRS study which looked at 7,000 French kid between 14 and 16 years old. The number of students with religious fundamentalism features? 11-percent. If you use strictly Muslim youths only....32-percent. The entire article was based on the research project only....no filler material. It can be described as factual.....based however only on CNRS and their interviews/polling. I would say that Breitbart gave a fair summary of the piece. One might conclude that CNRS might have some agenda at heart, but it was a group of 7,000 students that they did the poll against.
3. Sturgeon urges Scottish Parliament to back referendum call. Breitbart laid out a short summary with all factual materal from public statements by Sturgeon. No filler material. Fair summary. All accurate in detail but short in content.
4. EU says they can force all members, including Poland to take migrants. Breitbart takes one simple and short statement by the EU commissioner for migration (Avramopoulos) to write this piece. It should be noted...Avramopoulos NEVER spoke to Poland in this comment....just that all EU members could be forced in some manner. It was simply a EU bureaucrat making a public statement. The headline of Breitbart might be misleading and I might suggest a better headline. It is an accurate piece in that the EU commissioner did say that members could be forced....whether force could ever be exercised....is a totally different story. Fair summary other than a poor choice for the headline.
5. Germany: Three Islamist teens convicted for bombing Sikh temple. Piece is a short summary by Breitbart over the three teens who were convicted in a Essen court. Nothing about the summary is inaccurate. Ten-line summary at best but there's not a lot more to the story. Fair in detail and accurate of the event with the court and what happened at the temple.
6. Afghan migrant who murdered girlfriend's fathered expected to get just three years in prison. A story out of Sweden over a murder situation involving a migrant. Most commentary came from a criminal professor (Persson). Breitbart used a summary from SVT Vastmanland (regional newspaper) to tell the basic story of how the murder occurred. There is a short explanation to Swedish murder sentences, and how juveniles get a lesser sentence. About fifty percent of this article from Breitbart is based on comments by Persson. One can doubt the background of Persson or trust in his experience. Fair summary, no fraudulent or fakeness to the story. The worst that you can say is that Persson is guessing a good bit over what will happen as the young man is released from prison.
7. Rapid increase of migrants arriving in Greece. Greece reports 350 migrants arriving in 3 days. Average is 35 per day. Breitbart writer takes a number of news sources to combine this piece....some from Turkey, some from Greece, and at least one from Germany. Lot of facts....some estimations. The ending quote: "....15,000 migrants per month could have disastrous consequence" does not appear to be from some government official so I'm not sure if it's a factual number or one pulled out of the air. The bulk of the article is truthful, at least from the prospective that different newspapers tell the story. One might question those newspapers and their legit interest. Fair summary.
So, overall, other than a few notes....all were factually based and told a truthful summary. Again, as I've said in the past.....Breitbart is typically NOT the original source of most of it's material.....they use newspapers and experts at the scene to get the bulk of the story written.
One could say they overemphasized some threat (like the 15,000 migrants a month in Greece story). However, over three days.....350 migrants did arrive. If the trend would continue, then in one month you'd have 3,500 migrants that the Greeks would have to deal with. And you might notice....no one broke down the nationalities of the 350 migrants, which might have told a more interesting story (if they weren't primarily Syrians or Iraqis).
On the Irish obit deal with the BBC....some (not an overwhelmingly number did complain). If you asked the bulk of Brits under the age of forty today about the dead guy....I would imagine that 95-percent have never heard of the guy, nor care about some BBC obit coverage on him.
Breitbart did a fair summary with these stories. I might have picked better or more accurate titles but there's no fakeness related to the way they wrote the stories.
1. BBC slammed for 'fawning' coverage of 'peacemaker' Martin McGuinness. So, Irish dude Martin McGuinness has passed on, and the BBC folks did up a obit coverage piece, which portrayed him as a man of peace. Breitbart noted that a group of people (not a vast number) had condemned the BBC for this....noting that he been accused of terror acts during the unstable period with Northern Ireland. So, here's the thing....the court system could never reach a position that take a case forward and try McGuinness. There were bits and pieces of evidence, but no one seemed willing to go with that. So he has no convictions. All you have is rumor, and gut feelings. Breitbart laid out this story in somewhat fair detail. The BBC was slammed by a number of individuals but it was not a significant story.
2. Study: Third of France's young Muslims hold fundamentalist religious views. So, Breitbart picked up a copy of this CNRS study which looked at 7,000 French kid between 14 and 16 years old. The number of students with religious fundamentalism features? 11-percent. If you use strictly Muslim youths only....32-percent. The entire article was based on the research project only....no filler material. It can be described as factual.....based however only on CNRS and their interviews/polling. I would say that Breitbart gave a fair summary of the piece. One might conclude that CNRS might have some agenda at heart, but it was a group of 7,000 students that they did the poll against.
3. Sturgeon urges Scottish Parliament to back referendum call. Breitbart laid out a short summary with all factual materal from public statements by Sturgeon. No filler material. Fair summary. All accurate in detail but short in content.
4. EU says they can force all members, including Poland to take migrants. Breitbart takes one simple and short statement by the EU commissioner for migration (Avramopoulos) to write this piece. It should be noted...Avramopoulos NEVER spoke to Poland in this comment....just that all EU members could be forced in some manner. It was simply a EU bureaucrat making a public statement. The headline of Breitbart might be misleading and I might suggest a better headline. It is an accurate piece in that the EU commissioner did say that members could be forced....whether force could ever be exercised....is a totally different story. Fair summary other than a poor choice for the headline.
5. Germany: Three Islamist teens convicted for bombing Sikh temple. Piece is a short summary by Breitbart over the three teens who were convicted in a Essen court. Nothing about the summary is inaccurate. Ten-line summary at best but there's not a lot more to the story. Fair in detail and accurate of the event with the court and what happened at the temple.
6. Afghan migrant who murdered girlfriend's fathered expected to get just three years in prison. A story out of Sweden over a murder situation involving a migrant. Most commentary came from a criminal professor (Persson). Breitbart used a summary from SVT Vastmanland (regional newspaper) to tell the basic story of how the murder occurred. There is a short explanation to Swedish murder sentences, and how juveniles get a lesser sentence. About fifty percent of this article from Breitbart is based on comments by Persson. One can doubt the background of Persson or trust in his experience. Fair summary, no fraudulent or fakeness to the story. The worst that you can say is that Persson is guessing a good bit over what will happen as the young man is released from prison.
7. Rapid increase of migrants arriving in Greece. Greece reports 350 migrants arriving in 3 days. Average is 35 per day. Breitbart writer takes a number of news sources to combine this piece....some from Turkey, some from Greece, and at least one from Germany. Lot of facts....some estimations. The ending quote: "....15,000 migrants per month could have disastrous consequence" does not appear to be from some government official so I'm not sure if it's a factual number or one pulled out of the air. The bulk of the article is truthful, at least from the prospective that different newspapers tell the story. One might question those newspapers and their legit interest. Fair summary.
So, overall, other than a few notes....all were factually based and told a truthful summary. Again, as I've said in the past.....Breitbart is typically NOT the original source of most of it's material.....they use newspapers and experts at the scene to get the bulk of the story written.
One could say they overemphasized some threat (like the 15,000 migrants a month in Greece story). However, over three days.....350 migrants did arrive. If the trend would continue, then in one month you'd have 3,500 migrants that the Greeks would have to deal with. And you might notice....no one broke down the nationalities of the 350 migrants, which might have told a more interesting story (if they weren't primarily Syrians or Iraqis).
On the Irish obit deal with the BBC....some (not an overwhelmingly number did complain). If you asked the bulk of Brits under the age of forty today about the dead guy....I would imagine that 95-percent have never heard of the guy, nor care about some BBC obit coverage on him.
Breitbart did a fair summary with these stories. I might have picked better or more accurate titles but there's no fakeness related to the way they wrote the stories.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Schmalbart?
In the past couple of weeks....there's a new German 'platform' that has come to exist in some fashion, that claims they are the counter-weight to Breitbart.
The network? "Schmalbart".
Their theme? "Against Breitbart. Fair. Open. Critical. Neutral. Freedom."
It's a group of bright and clever German individuals who believe that fake news and populist trends are waging some battle against reality. So they've banded together.
Their hyped up sense? That they can be a catalyst to hinder or halt fake news sites.
Part of their gimmick is to create the image that quotable locations (foundations, lobbyists, agenda groups) are "safe". How "safe"? Well....if Schmalbart endorses them, they must be safe (the logical assumption).
Am I skeptical of this? Yes.
In a group like this....the initial crowd will be thrilled, hyped up and driven. At some point....probably three to six months into this....someone will ask a thoughtful and logical question about this dividing line and why some fair, open and neutral sites are given a free ticket by Schmalbart and others are on some bad-boy list? That individual will be quickly pushed out and cast aside. A few members will observe the 'mobbing-tactic' (German phrase for bullying), and quietly step out for a extra-long sip of coffee...the infection of sorts (kinda like Star Trek and the Borg guys) will have started. They will pick up the topic of why the dividing line is controlled by certain members of the group, and why no discussion can occur over that dividing line.
By fall, if you were on the inside of this crew with Schmalbart....you'd notice a few faces missing each month as people just leave the movement. It won't be discussed in the open because no one wants to be mobbed. It'll be a topic that you only discuss with trusted friends. Naturally, it's not a big deal because Schmalbart will always go on and find new members or hosts to participate.
The minute that you open a clever and intellectual group up and lay down a simple card of skeptical nature....it will be like a 'Jesus-moment' occurring where people suddenly reflect upon themselves and the openness of debate is swung to a dimension that the people running the gimmick really don't want.
You can only have this type of operation existing....as long as the debate is only centered upon one single view of the topic.
My view of Breitbart? You can go and generally review 20 of their daily stories (say over Europe). All start off with a factual story that is generally 100-percent true. It's hard to avoid the solid nature of the story as it opens. Then you go into what I'd call the 50-50 split. After the initial truth is laid out....half of the stories go on with other factual information and deliver a story that is undeniably true. The other fifty-percent? Well....they paste bits and pieces of other stories which may or may not fit the opening story. Of that group, you end up with a promising story with limited value because it doesn't really say much in terms of truth.
On this, Schmalbart could probably stage some value and point things out. The problem (I expect this to occur) is that they will attempt to dissolve all of Breitbart's stories and end up creating some fakeness themselves.
Could Schmalbart swing around and take on ARD/ZDF (the public networks of Germany)....if they wrote up long-winded report with some facts and fakeness mixed together? No. It'd be an unwritten cardinal rule that you can't touch them. That suggestion alone would make people within Schmalbart ask questions over the purpose of the organization.
So I am amused mostly by this. So much talent....so much intellectual potential....so much value in terms of clever nature, and it's mostly a baited group with no ability to view things in a 360-degree fashion.
Will there be a Schmal-Schmalbart group? Yes. The meaning of schmal is "narrow", in terms of narrow focus. Some alt-right group will appear and logically become the anti-schmalbart crew. If you were looking for entertainment....all of this has interesting potential.
The network? "Schmalbart".
Their theme? "Against Breitbart. Fair. Open. Critical. Neutral. Freedom."
It's a group of bright and clever German individuals who believe that fake news and populist trends are waging some battle against reality. So they've banded together.
Their hyped up sense? That they can be a catalyst to hinder or halt fake news sites.
Part of their gimmick is to create the image that quotable locations (foundations, lobbyists, agenda groups) are "safe". How "safe"? Well....if Schmalbart endorses them, they must be safe (the logical assumption).
Am I skeptical of this? Yes.
In a group like this....the initial crowd will be thrilled, hyped up and driven. At some point....probably three to six months into this....someone will ask a thoughtful and logical question about this dividing line and why some fair, open and neutral sites are given a free ticket by Schmalbart and others are on some bad-boy list? That individual will be quickly pushed out and cast aside. A few members will observe the 'mobbing-tactic' (German phrase for bullying), and quietly step out for a extra-long sip of coffee...the infection of sorts (kinda like Star Trek and the Borg guys) will have started. They will pick up the topic of why the dividing line is controlled by certain members of the group, and why no discussion can occur over that dividing line.
By fall, if you were on the inside of this crew with Schmalbart....you'd notice a few faces missing each month as people just leave the movement. It won't be discussed in the open because no one wants to be mobbed. It'll be a topic that you only discuss with trusted friends. Naturally, it's not a big deal because Schmalbart will always go on and find new members or hosts to participate.
The minute that you open a clever and intellectual group up and lay down a simple card of skeptical nature....it will be like a 'Jesus-moment' occurring where people suddenly reflect upon themselves and the openness of debate is swung to a dimension that the people running the gimmick really don't want.
You can only have this type of operation existing....as long as the debate is only centered upon one single view of the topic.
My view of Breitbart? You can go and generally review 20 of their daily stories (say over Europe). All start off with a factual story that is generally 100-percent true. It's hard to avoid the solid nature of the story as it opens. Then you go into what I'd call the 50-50 split. After the initial truth is laid out....half of the stories go on with other factual information and deliver a story that is undeniably true. The other fifty-percent? Well....they paste bits and pieces of other stories which may or may not fit the opening story. Of that group, you end up with a promising story with limited value because it doesn't really say much in terms of truth.
On this, Schmalbart could probably stage some value and point things out. The problem (I expect this to occur) is that they will attempt to dissolve all of Breitbart's stories and end up creating some fakeness themselves.
Could Schmalbart swing around and take on ARD/ZDF (the public networks of Germany)....if they wrote up long-winded report with some facts and fakeness mixed together? No. It'd be an unwritten cardinal rule that you can't touch them. That suggestion alone would make people within Schmalbart ask questions over the purpose of the organization.
So I am amused mostly by this. So much talent....so much intellectual potential....so much value in terms of clever nature, and it's mostly a baited group with no ability to view things in a 360-degree fashion.
Will there be a Schmal-Schmalbart group? Yes. The meaning of schmal is "narrow", in terms of narrow focus. Some alt-right group will appear and logically become the anti-schmalbart crew. If you were looking for entertainment....all of this has interesting potential.
Measuring a German's Happiness
The UN runs a happiness scale....with several perceived factors (real GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption).
It's run by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. No one says much over the "network"....my guess is that it's twenty-odd PhD guys who collect statistical data, travel to exotic lands to mingle, and discuss perceptions with other PhD characters.
So the 2017 list came out and there's interesting thing to notice.....Germany is rated number sixteen, and the US is rated number fourteen.
There are several factors which Germany does very well on (better than the US), but there are several factors which Germany does much less on.
If you travel around....especially outside of urbanized areas (like Berlin or Frankfurt)....you tend to find a lot of happy Germans. Over the years, I've come to notice this odd feature. In Bavaria...it seems like fifty-percent of the folks you might bump into....are on some unnatural happiness "high" (it's not marijuana). I could generally say the same about people from the Pfalz and even from Hessen.
This corruption factor? Well....it helps to have a news media which points out corruption, but that usually convinces you that you have a corruption problem. So the less you talk about corruption....the more convinced that you become that you don't have a problem.
If you sub-divided this into individual states? I'm guessing that you'd be shocked to learn that Alaskans are happier than most everyone else during the summer-time. You might also be shocked if Bavarians were happier than folks from the other fifteen German states. Obviously, the UN PhD guys have yet to get around to this odd factor of individual states. And you might be shocked to find out that folks from Stuttgart want Stuttgart-21 infrastructure construction listed as one of the measurements of happiness.
For me....I have this odd sense that Germans are an eternal group of highly critical and angst-handicapped individuals (worried or anxiety-filled), and that trying measure them on happiness is a waste of time.
It's run by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. No one says much over the "network"....my guess is that it's twenty-odd PhD guys who collect statistical data, travel to exotic lands to mingle, and discuss perceptions with other PhD characters.
So the 2017 list came out and there's interesting thing to notice.....Germany is rated number sixteen, and the US is rated number fourteen.
There are several factors which Germany does very well on (better than the US), but there are several factors which Germany does much less on.
If you travel around....especially outside of urbanized areas (like Berlin or Frankfurt)....you tend to find a lot of happy Germans. Over the years, I've come to notice this odd feature. In Bavaria...it seems like fifty-percent of the folks you might bump into....are on some unnatural happiness "high" (it's not marijuana). I could generally say the same about people from the Pfalz and even from Hessen.
This corruption factor? Well....it helps to have a news media which points out corruption, but that usually convinces you that you have a corruption problem. So the less you talk about corruption....the more convinced that you become that you don't have a problem.
If you sub-divided this into individual states? I'm guessing that you'd be shocked to learn that Alaskans are happier than most everyone else during the summer-time. You might also be shocked if Bavarians were happier than folks from the other fifteen German states. Obviously, the UN PhD guys have yet to get around to this odd factor of individual states. And you might be shocked to find out that folks from Stuttgart want Stuttgart-21 infrastructure construction listed as one of the measurements of happiness.
For me....I have this odd sense that Germans are an eternal group of highly critical and angst-handicapped individuals (worried or anxiety-filled), and that trying measure them on happiness is a waste of time.
McDonalds Delivery Service
Back in 2014, this odd commercial company started up in Germany. Foodora GmbH.
The original concept was designed around Berlin. They would become a delivery mechanism for various restaurants to go onto the next level of offering home-delivery. Instead of an operation or restaurant having to run their delivery service....Foodora would be the delivery mechanism.
You would browse Foodora's app or web-site.....find the type of food you desired (hamburgers, pizza, pasta, schnitzel, Asian, chicken, etc)....order, and your food would be delivered by a bike guy or delivery driver.
They branched out....more cities....more restaurants (over 6,000 at present).
I noticed this morning that McDonalds now says that by the end of 2017....at least 200 of their operations will be on the delivery track (roughly 1,400 McDonalds now exist in Germany) with Foodora as their mechanism of advertising and ordering for home-delivery.
It used to be....twenty years ago in Germany....that the most you could hope for on delivery was pizza. That's all changed now.
Does it help McDonalds? I would question that it really changes their dynamics much. You might have teens who flip over from being pizza-freaks to burger-freaks. But I seriously doubt that they never go past three-percent of their sales via delivery mechanisms. Course, it opens up this interesting idea of lunch-time situations within companies, and where you might have a boss who orders up 200 burgers for his 100 employees once a month. Or you might have a small office of eight people who have a McDonalds day every two weeks.
Helped by urbanization? Well, that's part of the bigger story. You might be able to operate some system like this in a couple of US cities....but in Germany....because of the structure of society and people tied to larger urbanized areas, this has more potential.
As for Foodora? They've gotten a brilliant idea and run to maximum potential with it.
The original concept was designed around Berlin. They would become a delivery mechanism for various restaurants to go onto the next level of offering home-delivery. Instead of an operation or restaurant having to run their delivery service....Foodora would be the delivery mechanism.
You would browse Foodora's app or web-site.....find the type of food you desired (hamburgers, pizza, pasta, schnitzel, Asian, chicken, etc)....order, and your food would be delivered by a bike guy or delivery driver.
They branched out....more cities....more restaurants (over 6,000 at present).
I noticed this morning that McDonalds now says that by the end of 2017....at least 200 of their operations will be on the delivery track (roughly 1,400 McDonalds now exist in Germany) with Foodora as their mechanism of advertising and ordering for home-delivery.
It used to be....twenty years ago in Germany....that the most you could hope for on delivery was pizza. That's all changed now.
Does it help McDonalds? I would question that it really changes their dynamics much. You might have teens who flip over from being pizza-freaks to burger-freaks. But I seriously doubt that they never go past three-percent of their sales via delivery mechanisms. Course, it opens up this interesting idea of lunch-time situations within companies, and where you might have a boss who orders up 200 burgers for his 100 employees once a month. Or you might have a small office of eight people who have a McDonalds day every two weeks.
Helped by urbanization? Well, that's part of the bigger story. You might be able to operate some system like this in a couple of US cities....but in Germany....because of the structure of society and people tied to larger urbanized areas, this has more potential.
As for Foodora? They've gotten a brilliant idea and run to maximum potential with it.
This NATO 2-Percent Rule
Around a decade ago.....NATO members sat down and made up this rule. It basically said that whatever your GDP was....you needed to spend 2-percent of that GDP on military requirements.
In recent months, that decision has come up because it's become a problem. Only five nations of the group spend two percent or more on military requirements.
In particular....Germany spends 1.2 percent at present. Naturally, they are viewed upon in a negative position because of this.
The countries making the 2-percent or more? US, Poland, Estonia, UK, and Greece. There are some footnotes to this group....in that Greece is mostly bankrupt and it's hard to explain how they can afford the 2-percent, when Germany can't. In the case of the UK....there are several ways (at least 3) in which you can count GDP, and in one of those methods....the UK fails the 2-percent rule. Naturally, no one in NATO prescribed the correct method.....so it may not matter.
The other reality to this deal? Well....NATO said at the time of this rule (a decade ago) that you'd have until 2024 to reach 2-percent. Will Germany or the others reach the 2-percent? Unknown. Several journalists have written pieces saying absolutely yes. A couple have said that the 2-percent can't be reached in Germany unless taxation occurs or a reshuffling of priorities (cutting infrastructure or people-programs).
Is Trump harping on something to trigger some change? Unknown. I might speculate that he'd like to position US forces from Germany into some other European region and use this lack of spending on Germany's part as a reason. The two countries to get the US forces out of Germany? UK and Poland.
But then I come to this odd problem about this whole discussion. There just isn't much of a threat existing against Europe since the early 1990s. Once the Soviet Union fell apart....the chief reasons for having a large military situation have dissolved year after year. To be honest, no one in Europe really fears much about the Russians except the five or six countries which border Russia and feel occasional intimidation.
So the question ought to be.....is 2-percent a realistic goal or just some fake number? Oddly, no one ever said how you had to spend the 2-percent. So you could go and have an entire military force in your country based on tanks, helicopters, and surface-to-air missiles. You could spend 75-percent of your budget on submarines. You could go and have the bulk of your expenditures on weapons with limited value.
In some ways, I think that NATO has come to the end of it' useful potential. It probably was there at the epic peak of 1991, and the downsizing of the US over the next decade never went to the degree required.
This whole 2-percent thing will be discussed over and over for the remainder of this year and it'll reach a point where the public will ask where the real threat is, and Russia can't be painted up as some massive threat. At that point, I think NATO is finished. It served a great purpose and it's sad that it had to be carved up in some dramatic fashion like this in the end.
In recent months, that decision has come up because it's become a problem. Only five nations of the group spend two percent or more on military requirements.
In particular....Germany spends 1.2 percent at present. Naturally, they are viewed upon in a negative position because of this.
The countries making the 2-percent or more? US, Poland, Estonia, UK, and Greece. There are some footnotes to this group....in that Greece is mostly bankrupt and it's hard to explain how they can afford the 2-percent, when Germany can't. In the case of the UK....there are several ways (at least 3) in which you can count GDP, and in one of those methods....the UK fails the 2-percent rule. Naturally, no one in NATO prescribed the correct method.....so it may not matter.
The other reality to this deal? Well....NATO said at the time of this rule (a decade ago) that you'd have until 2024 to reach 2-percent. Will Germany or the others reach the 2-percent? Unknown. Several journalists have written pieces saying absolutely yes. A couple have said that the 2-percent can't be reached in Germany unless taxation occurs or a reshuffling of priorities (cutting infrastructure or people-programs).
Is Trump harping on something to trigger some change? Unknown. I might speculate that he'd like to position US forces from Germany into some other European region and use this lack of spending on Germany's part as a reason. The two countries to get the US forces out of Germany? UK and Poland.
But then I come to this odd problem about this whole discussion. There just isn't much of a threat existing against Europe since the early 1990s. Once the Soviet Union fell apart....the chief reasons for having a large military situation have dissolved year after year. To be honest, no one in Europe really fears much about the Russians except the five or six countries which border Russia and feel occasional intimidation.
So the question ought to be.....is 2-percent a realistic goal or just some fake number? Oddly, no one ever said how you had to spend the 2-percent. So you could go and have an entire military force in your country based on tanks, helicopters, and surface-to-air missiles. You could spend 75-percent of your budget on submarines. You could go and have the bulk of your expenditures on weapons with limited value.
In some ways, I think that NATO has come to the end of it' useful potential. It probably was there at the epic peak of 1991, and the downsizing of the US over the next decade never went to the degree required.
This whole 2-percent thing will be discussed over and over for the remainder of this year and it'll reach a point where the public will ask where the real threat is, and Russia can't be painted up as some massive threat. At that point, I think NATO is finished. It served a great purpose and it's sad that it had to be carved up in some dramatic fashion like this in the end.
Monday, March 20, 2017
Bringing Back the Draft?
Back around 2001, France took this big step forward and halted the 'draft'. Conscription was tossed to the side, and some hearty benefits and decent pay-scale changes came into effect to attract young people to the French Army.
Most folks are happy about the situation....preferring not to be drafted or forced into something they have no interest in.
Well.....this past week....the Progressive Party guy....Macron....running for President of France, has said that he wants to bring back the draft.
Yeah, it was a bit of shocker to the general public.
Numbers? You could be talking about 600,000 young French men and women forced into this.
Acceptance, if it were to come up as a draft law? There would be various waivers written up into the piece (my humble opinion) that would defer tens of thousands with various fake reasons why they can't participate. Two or three years into this....the waivers I suspect....would become some massive scale investigation and require some people to face criminal judges for illegal actions.
It's an odd piece of some political platform to pick up and hype in of all places.....France. My guess is that various individuals are preparing for bribes down the line to get the waivers.
Most folks are happy about the situation....preferring not to be drafted or forced into something they have no interest in.
Well.....this past week....the Progressive Party guy....Macron....running for President of France, has said that he wants to bring back the draft.
Yeah, it was a bit of shocker to the general public.
Numbers? You could be talking about 600,000 young French men and women forced into this.
Acceptance, if it were to come up as a draft law? There would be various waivers written up into the piece (my humble opinion) that would defer tens of thousands with various fake reasons why they can't participate. Two or three years into this....the waivers I suspect....would become some massive scale investigation and require some people to face criminal judges for illegal actions.
It's an odd piece of some political platform to pick up and hype in of all places.....France. My guess is that various individuals are preparing for bribes down the line to get the waivers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)