There was a vote yesterday within the city of Mannheim, Germany. The city council wants to introduce a social quota episode into housing construction.
So the way this would work....you come up and want to build a new structure along the river for upscale apartments (the typical units would cost 2,500 Euro, let's assume). A normal low-income or affordable housing cost would typically run 500 to 800 Euro, so it's the well-off that would be in the building.
With the city council rule....you would be forced to offer a quarter of your apartments at an affordable level (likely to be in the 750-to-850 Euro level (my best guess). No one says the precise amount and I suspect this is the first big problem that lawyers get involved in.
The political folks think that this method will help to get new housing built for the affordable rent folks.
What will happen? I sat and pondered upon this scenario and eventually reached this conclusion. If I were a syndicate or group of investors and had this affordable-housing rule stuck in my face....where a quarter of the building is not going to be rented at the 2,000 Euro level...why build for apartments? I'd go and ONLY build toward condo sales.
I suspect over the next three years....the city will be shocked that the handful of apartment buildings constructed in Mannheim....will only be affordable-range buildings. No upscale or trendy apartment buildings for the 2,000 Euro range renters.....will be built. Naturally, huge upswing on condo construction.
As much as the political folks wanted to fix a problem....they just re-invented the mess to be something totally different and more complicated to repair.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
The German Experiment
Focus wrote up a piece on Schleswig-Holstein's idea for 'basic income'.
For those not in the know....basic income is where the state just writes out a check to everyone who is not getting a company check each week or month, and it is X-amount....to meet the needs of the individual. You and I, from another generation, would call it a welfare-check. But it's been re-invented and re-worded.....basic income.
To reach this political consensus....the new state government of S-H (CDU-Green-FDP).....had to do a lot of talking. This was hyped up by the Greens....they want to show at the state-level, it'll work and then transform into a national program.
The one hook added to this experiment that S-H intends? Well....you have to be willing to work. For some folks who were on the Hartz-IV welfare situation....that was a small problem.
Over the past few years, it's been discussed that basic income is the only way to go because down the road.....automation and robots will replace workers and the state will have to step in and cover a lot of people. Naturally, a normal person would ask.....where will the tax base or funding for this basic income for this added cost come from, and the PhD guys just grin. They hadn't thought about this part of the story.
For S-H, it's an experiment, and you can figure in two years....some report will emerge about problems and the fact that in the end.....it was just a renamed vehicle for welfare.
My expectation is that it'll eventually stick and become a regular program. In twenty years....because people associate basic income with poverty....they will have to re-invent the whole thing again with another name....maybe 'wealth-income' or 'step-up income'.
For those not in the know....basic income is where the state just writes out a check to everyone who is not getting a company check each week or month, and it is X-amount....to meet the needs of the individual. You and I, from another generation, would call it a welfare-check. But it's been re-invented and re-worded.....basic income.
To reach this political consensus....the new state government of S-H (CDU-Green-FDP).....had to do a lot of talking. This was hyped up by the Greens....they want to show at the state-level, it'll work and then transform into a national program.
The one hook added to this experiment that S-H intends? Well....you have to be willing to work. For some folks who were on the Hartz-IV welfare situation....that was a small problem.
Over the past few years, it's been discussed that basic income is the only way to go because down the road.....automation and robots will replace workers and the state will have to step in and cover a lot of people. Naturally, a normal person would ask.....where will the tax base or funding for this basic income for this added cost come from, and the PhD guys just grin. They hadn't thought about this part of the story.
For S-H, it's an experiment, and you can figure in two years....some report will emerge about problems and the fact that in the end.....it was just a renamed vehicle for welfare.
My expectation is that it'll eventually stick and become a regular program. In twenty years....because people associate basic income with poverty....they will have to re-invent the whole thing again with another name....maybe 'wealth-income' or 'step-up income'.
Apartment Building Update
It might be worth noting today that a German apartment building in Wuppertal (northern Germany) has temporarily kicked out around 70 of it's tenets because of the same matting-problem as in the London fire episode.
Eleven story building....built in the 1960s....had a renovation deal and the same type material was used.
Period of time until the material is removed? Unknown.
Odds of dozens of such buildings in Germany being found with the same material problem as in the London fire? I would imagine every single apartment building which had renovation in the past ten years will be evaluated. There could be dozens like this.
Eleven story building....built in the 1960s....had a renovation deal and the same type material was used.
Period of time until the material is removed? Unknown.
Odds of dozens of such buildings in Germany being found with the same material problem as in the London fire? I would imagine every single apartment building which had renovation in the past ten years will be evaluated. There could be dozens like this.
The Google-EU Fine
The EU came out today and said that basically....Goggle has it's search-engine rigged to hype products that people pay them to hype.....when you do a product search. Shocking? No. It's been a known fact for a decade. It's just a shock that the EU said there's a fine involved in this now....to the tune of 2.75-billion Euro. A fair sum of money.
What happens now? Court action probably. The Google folks will say that it's a very unfair sum of money (suggesting 10-percent of that sum probably). I don't see any payoff coming for at least three years minimum.
So what does the EU do with 2.75-billion....if it all did come?
Well....the EU building in Brussels is deemed now as mostly unfit (I know....it's been around since 1993 and folks are shocked that this topic has come up). The price to replace the structure.....in Brussels? Back in 2015, it was quoted around at 450-million Euro. That's probably without the fancy art, the parking lot, or furnishings. That's also without cost-over-runs. So a nice tidy.....one-billion Euro is the likely end-cost. All from the Google fine? Maybe.
But there is this big problem if you sit and think about it. Google only makes massive profit off it's advertising scheme which is what the EU got angry about. Now that everyone realizes it's a problem....who else will sue? Will Google have to admit that it's only mechanism for profit.....is a problem in all countries? This really brings out a hundred possible scenarios on the future with Google and how they survive into the next decade.
If I were to bet on the final outcome? I think the EU will get the bulk of the fine suggested, and Google sits there in some shock at the damage done to it. If you can't make a profit off advertising in the way that they did......why bother making it a tool for any EU resident to use? I might even go to the extent of making Google a private tool....that you have to pay 20-Euro a month....to be an inside-user.
What happens now? Court action probably. The Google folks will say that it's a very unfair sum of money (suggesting 10-percent of that sum probably). I don't see any payoff coming for at least three years minimum.
So what does the EU do with 2.75-billion....if it all did come?
Well....the EU building in Brussels is deemed now as mostly unfit (I know....it's been around since 1993 and folks are shocked that this topic has come up). The price to replace the structure.....in Brussels? Back in 2015, it was quoted around at 450-million Euro. That's probably without the fancy art, the parking lot, or furnishings. That's also without cost-over-runs. So a nice tidy.....one-billion Euro is the likely end-cost. All from the Google fine? Maybe.
But there is this big problem if you sit and think about it. Google only makes massive profit off it's advertising scheme which is what the EU got angry about. Now that everyone realizes it's a problem....who else will sue? Will Google have to admit that it's only mechanism for profit.....is a problem in all countries? This really brings out a hundred possible scenarios on the future with Google and how they survive into the next decade.
If I were to bet on the final outcome? I think the EU will get the bulk of the fine suggested, and Google sits there in some shock at the damage done to it. If you can't make a profit off advertising in the way that they did......why bother making it a tool for any EU resident to use? I might even go to the extent of making Google a private tool....that you have to pay 20-Euro a month....to be an inside-user.
Gay Marriage Coming to Germany
Up until now....civil unions were the tool that you used in Germany....if you wanted to be a same-sex pair. Generally, the public didn't put gay-marriage on their top ten issues (maybe not even the top twenty-five issues).
For the CDU and CSU (the right of center political parties)....there was simply not going to be any serious interest in changing the law.
The Greens and Linke Party were mostly all for gay-marriage occurring, and the SPD in recent months went to favor this heavily.
So, this past week....Merkel went and modified the CDU platform yet again (basically taking another theme from the SPD).....making gay-marriage now likely to be voted upon.
For sixteen years.....civil unions have been the norm. It was pretty much a simple task....go down to the local Rothaus...do some paperwork, and it's stamped official.
Polling suggests that 70-percent of the German public supports gay-marriage.
An EU shift? No one says that. It might take another decade for the EU to step up and push on this.
A rush to have large numbers married? I'm not so sure about that. A fair number are already in civil unions and some might conduct the marriage just make a public statement.
For the CDU and CSU (the right of center political parties)....there was simply not going to be any serious interest in changing the law.
The Greens and Linke Party were mostly all for gay-marriage occurring, and the SPD in recent months went to favor this heavily.
So, this past week....Merkel went and modified the CDU platform yet again (basically taking another theme from the SPD).....making gay-marriage now likely to be voted upon.
For sixteen years.....civil unions have been the norm. It was pretty much a simple task....go down to the local Rothaus...do some paperwork, and it's stamped official.
Polling suggests that 70-percent of the German public supports gay-marriage.
An EU shift? No one says that. It might take another decade for the EU to step up and push on this.
A rush to have large numbers married? I'm not so sure about that. A fair number are already in civil unions and some might conduct the marriage just make a public statement.
Cop Story
Cops from all over Germany have been moved and placed in the past ten days in Hamburg for the G20 summit episode.....to occur in roughly a week. Massive show of police force for this brief weekend 'show'.
Well....some Berlin cops among these folks....got kinda bored and started drinking. Their behavior....after work....got reported.
Focus reported on one of these episodes.....where several cops from Berlin were dismissed and sent back home. Gun-play? Well, yeah, that did get mentioned.
One might get the impression that a review will occur and some folks will get reprimanded/warned. Some alcohol abuse classes? Maybe.
Well....some Berlin cops among these folks....got kinda bored and started drinking. Their behavior....after work....got reported.
Focus reported on one of these episodes.....where several cops from Berlin were dismissed and sent back home. Gun-play? Well, yeah, that did get mentioned.
One might get the impression that a review will occur and some folks will get reprimanded/warned. Some alcohol abuse classes? Maybe.
The Rental Story
Over the past decade, two unusual events have come to arrive in Germany, and created some anger and frustrations.
First, affordable housing in most urbanized areas is becoming non-existent. If you drive around Frankfurt and look for something in the 500 to 800 Euro range....you will find that it's fairly hard to find empty apartments.
Second, second-home 'owners' are now becoming noticed. No one says the numbers that existed prior to the 1990s....but in the past decade, it's become apparent that people have a primary residence and a secondary residence. Some of this is due to purchases made two decades ago by people who were single....now they've married or they've moved into an apartment to share with their partner. So if you look on-line for 'holiday'rentals'.....there are roughly 1,500 situations around Frankfurt now.
So, naturally, the Frankfurt city-government wants to get involved in this, and stop it (the rentals of second-home owners).
HR does a good job of telling this story.
The humor side of this is that even if you took away the 1,500 second-home situations....statistically, it'd only amount to one-quarter of one percent of the homes/residences....in Frankfurt.
I suspect that this will get dragged into some court and the question for the judges to decide....where does property reach the level of being government-controlled yet personally-owned. The hint here by the city management folks is that they don't want anyone to rent out residence (actual apartments) to the holiday crowd. If you look at the trend.....there's roughly 1,500 'mini-hotels' now existing in Frankfurt.
The actual hotel-owners angry? No one has suggested that, but it is unfair competition....if you think about it.
Black-money worries as well? Well, the article didn't touch on that little issue. You see....if you were going into Frankfurt for three weeks in some job-capacity.....you could find some guy to rent out his 'flat' for cash-only. This might amount to a thousand Euro....which isn't reported as income. Somewhere in the mix of this whole government involvement business....I suspect that tax problems also bother some folks.
First, affordable housing in most urbanized areas is becoming non-existent. If you drive around Frankfurt and look for something in the 500 to 800 Euro range....you will find that it's fairly hard to find empty apartments.
Second, second-home 'owners' are now becoming noticed. No one says the numbers that existed prior to the 1990s....but in the past decade, it's become apparent that people have a primary residence and a secondary residence. Some of this is due to purchases made two decades ago by people who were single....now they've married or they've moved into an apartment to share with their partner. So if you look on-line for 'holiday'rentals'.....there are roughly 1,500 situations around Frankfurt now.
So, naturally, the Frankfurt city-government wants to get involved in this, and stop it (the rentals of second-home owners).
HR does a good job of telling this story.
The humor side of this is that even if you took away the 1,500 second-home situations....statistically, it'd only amount to one-quarter of one percent of the homes/residences....in Frankfurt.
I suspect that this will get dragged into some court and the question for the judges to decide....where does property reach the level of being government-controlled yet personally-owned. The hint here by the city management folks is that they don't want anyone to rent out residence (actual apartments) to the holiday crowd. If you look at the trend.....there's roughly 1,500 'mini-hotels' now existing in Frankfurt.
The actual hotel-owners angry? No one has suggested that, but it is unfair competition....if you think about it.
Black-money worries as well? Well, the article didn't touch on that little issue. You see....if you were going into Frankfurt for three weeks in some job-capacity.....you could find some guy to rent out his 'flat' for cash-only. This might amount to a thousand Euro....which isn't reported as income. Somewhere in the mix of this whole government involvement business....I suspect that tax problems also bother some folks.
Monday, June 26, 2017
Turf-Battles
In the drug sales game.....controlling 'turf' is the central theme. You don't want competition. If you have two or three groups that appear on your turf, and start selling at a discounted price.....then your entire business plan is destroyed and you have drugs on your hands....which can't be sold without a loss.
German cops up in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein have basically laid out this unusual problem....turf-fights. It's broken out in the last couple of months and groups are meeting on the street and conducting brawls to win over territory and kick out the competition. This means some folks get sent off to the hospital.
The groups that the cops are encountering? North African, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, refugees, migrants and immigrants.
Why? The newspaper S-H Zeitungsverlag didn't get into these details.
Typically, after you arrive in Germany and get some real dose of reality as a new immigrant.....you come to realize that real jobs don't pay what you thought they would. You don't have the background, the certificates, or the education to ask anything beyond minimum wage. You go and talk to a couple of guys and they refer you to some gang who deals in drugs.. You offer your services.....you wake up a month later with a couple thousand Euro in your pocket and a pretty regular schedule. The great thing about this? No taxes....no pension deductions....nothing removed from your pay. Maybe the cops get onto your deal but that's weeks or months down the road.
If you were aggressive and out there everyday.....building up your clients.....you might be sitting on 5k Euro a month minimum. Maybe as much as 10k Euro.
But all of this is built on controlling turf. If you wake up one day the typical group of Tuesday shoppers don't show up and you find out that they got a better deal with some new Afghan guy down the street.....well, then you call the boss, and some turf-battle starts up. Cops? They typically don't arrive until some serious damage has been done.
The public? They talk about this stuff....mostly from the prospective that they've never seen such stuff like this before. It's the kind of stuff that you'd see in New Jersey or Chicago...not in some urbanized German city.
German cops up in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein have basically laid out this unusual problem....turf-fights. It's broken out in the last couple of months and groups are meeting on the street and conducting brawls to win over territory and kick out the competition. This means some folks get sent off to the hospital.
The groups that the cops are encountering? North African, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, refugees, migrants and immigrants.
Why? The newspaper S-H Zeitungsverlag didn't get into these details.
Typically, after you arrive in Germany and get some real dose of reality as a new immigrant.....you come to realize that real jobs don't pay what you thought they would. You don't have the background, the certificates, or the education to ask anything beyond minimum wage. You go and talk to a couple of guys and they refer you to some gang who deals in drugs.. You offer your services.....you wake up a month later with a couple thousand Euro in your pocket and a pretty regular schedule. The great thing about this? No taxes....no pension deductions....nothing removed from your pay. Maybe the cops get onto your deal but that's weeks or months down the road.
If you were aggressive and out there everyday.....building up your clients.....you might be sitting on 5k Euro a month minimum. Maybe as much as 10k Euro.
But all of this is built on controlling turf. If you wake up one day the typical group of Tuesday shoppers don't show up and you find out that they got a better deal with some new Afghan guy down the street.....well, then you call the boss, and some turf-battle starts up. Cops? They typically don't arrive until some serious damage has been done.
The public? They talk about this stuff....mostly from the prospective that they've never seen such stuff like this before. It's the kind of stuff that you'd see in New Jersey or Chicago...not in some urbanized German city.
German RV
You basically take an all-wheel drive truck (diesel) and put a fairly large RV package on the back of it. It's the kind of vehicle that you could take into the 'boonies' of Germany, or down into some African jungle region, or off to some remote Russian plateau.
It's a hefty package....with a rebuild of the RV itself set at between 70k and 120k Euro.....with whatever you had to use to buy the truck itself. It's for the guy who is on the extreme end of travel and has the money to do just about anything he desires. Article by N-TV is worth a read.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Germany and Electrical Cars
SWR (the public network from Baden-Wurttemberg) had a piece to cover the Green Party and the criticism being dumped upon the chief Green 'boss' from the region. The B-W Prime Minister (Kretschmann) has been criticized over comments about the Green policy of stopping all new gas/diesel-powered cars in 2030 (the current German government law).
What you find is that more than a few Germans really don't think or care much about the law.....with a very limited number who think that the country will arrive in 2030 and reach this mythical stage of no gas or diesel 'new-car' sales. The curious thing is that no other European country has gone in this direction, and a fair number of what Opel, VW, Mercedes, Porsche and BMW produce.....go beyond German borders. They will continue to manufacture gas/diesel powered cars (much to the shock of the Green Party members, I think).
The piece by SWR talks to comments by Anton Hofreiter....one of the top five Greens in Germany. His vision of this 2030 period is that each 'parking lot' instead of standard gas stations....would turn into a charging station.
One has to sit and ponder upon these concepts. First, you look at apartment buildings around Germany and the idea of charging stations being installed and the cost of each station within an apartment building. If you had a 100-apartment building....you are likely talking about 150 parking spots in the basement garage, and 150 of them having some kind of port-installation of chargers. Cost? Home Advisor did a study and put the rough average between $373 and $892....with the very high end upwards to $1,500. If you did the rough average of $1,000 and 150 stations required.....then the building cost would be near $150,000. Who would pay? It'd be assigned to each resident and come out with some rental increase. The odds that for the next 25 years that half of the residents would still have gas cars and NOT ever use the charging port? Well....one might speculate at this point and take an educated guess that at least one-third of the building residents might fall into that category.
Another issue? Charging stations at work. Some German government entities would get grants and hook up 100 chargers in their 300 parking spot lot. Another race would be on each day as people drove in and attempted to get into position to charge their cars. Taking the attitude of making all of the 300 parking spots chargeable? Maybe, but then you'd start to look at government (federal, state, and city) across Germany, and each parking lot requiring a massive infrastructure change....going into the billions over a decade.
The black-out scenario? Last year, I was reading a Brit blog piece and the clever guy got around to the scenario of a highly populated electric car situation....and the grid of some region or a country being taken down for two or three days (storm front or terrorism). You could wake up to realize a large portion of society was unable to reach work.
In some ways, you can sense that a Green 'divide' is occurring and there are some Greens (not a lot) that live in some world where this electric-car utopia isn't that readily apparent. I might be able to agree that Hybrid (combination of gas and electric) is likely to be a major part of the future. But to suggest to me that a quarter of the cars in my village by 2030 will be electric-only? No.....I don't buy into that idea.
I noted that as 2016 closed out....there are approximately 75,000 electrical cars registered in Germany (not hybrid but pure battery-power).
Norway leads Europe presently with the vehicle number....with a 2016 number of 135,000 vehicles. The chief reason for the surge there? No sales taxes on the electric vehicles. All parking fees waived on electric vehicles. Toll payments? Waived. I should add....these weren't permanent incentives....but having a time limit attached. If you look at their commentary....there was a big burst of activity to a degree, but these nice incentives will end, and then normal purchases will likely go and lag until another incentive is put into place.
About a decade ago....Iceland talked of having most all new cars being electric. Today? For 2016, roughly 5-percent of all cars sold 'new' were hybrid or electric-only. It's a good trend, but part of their plus-side is a very low electrical cost rate (compared to the rest of Europe).
So you turn and look at the Berlin crowd of Green Party members (the leadership), and you kinda wonder if they've been out into the rest of the country and looked at the general problems and limits of this whole electric car business. Maybe if they offered no sales tax, and brought the electrical grid cost down a notch.....they might get people charged up a bit, but at the present rate....it's hard to see this 2030 plan working well in the end.
What you find is that more than a few Germans really don't think or care much about the law.....with a very limited number who think that the country will arrive in 2030 and reach this mythical stage of no gas or diesel 'new-car' sales. The curious thing is that no other European country has gone in this direction, and a fair number of what Opel, VW, Mercedes, Porsche and BMW produce.....go beyond German borders. They will continue to manufacture gas/diesel powered cars (much to the shock of the Green Party members, I think).
The piece by SWR talks to comments by Anton Hofreiter....one of the top five Greens in Germany. His vision of this 2030 period is that each 'parking lot' instead of standard gas stations....would turn into a charging station.
One has to sit and ponder upon these concepts. First, you look at apartment buildings around Germany and the idea of charging stations being installed and the cost of each station within an apartment building. If you had a 100-apartment building....you are likely talking about 150 parking spots in the basement garage, and 150 of them having some kind of port-installation of chargers. Cost? Home Advisor did a study and put the rough average between $373 and $892....with the very high end upwards to $1,500. If you did the rough average of $1,000 and 150 stations required.....then the building cost would be near $150,000. Who would pay? It'd be assigned to each resident and come out with some rental increase. The odds that for the next 25 years that half of the residents would still have gas cars and NOT ever use the charging port? Well....one might speculate at this point and take an educated guess that at least one-third of the building residents might fall into that category.
Another issue? Charging stations at work. Some German government entities would get grants and hook up 100 chargers in their 300 parking spot lot. Another race would be on each day as people drove in and attempted to get into position to charge their cars. Taking the attitude of making all of the 300 parking spots chargeable? Maybe, but then you'd start to look at government (federal, state, and city) across Germany, and each parking lot requiring a massive infrastructure change....going into the billions over a decade.
The black-out scenario? Last year, I was reading a Brit blog piece and the clever guy got around to the scenario of a highly populated electric car situation....and the grid of some region or a country being taken down for two or three days (storm front or terrorism). You could wake up to realize a large portion of society was unable to reach work.
In some ways, you can sense that a Green 'divide' is occurring and there are some Greens (not a lot) that live in some world where this electric-car utopia isn't that readily apparent. I might be able to agree that Hybrid (combination of gas and electric) is likely to be a major part of the future. But to suggest to me that a quarter of the cars in my village by 2030 will be electric-only? No.....I don't buy into that idea.
I noted that as 2016 closed out....there are approximately 75,000 electrical cars registered in Germany (not hybrid but pure battery-power).
Norway leads Europe presently with the vehicle number....with a 2016 number of 135,000 vehicles. The chief reason for the surge there? No sales taxes on the electric vehicles. All parking fees waived on electric vehicles. Toll payments? Waived. I should add....these weren't permanent incentives....but having a time limit attached. If you look at their commentary....there was a big burst of activity to a degree, but these nice incentives will end, and then normal purchases will likely go and lag until another incentive is put into place.
About a decade ago....Iceland talked of having most all new cars being electric. Today? For 2016, roughly 5-percent of all cars sold 'new' were hybrid or electric-only. It's a good trend, but part of their plus-side is a very low electrical cost rate (compared to the rest of Europe).
So you turn and look at the Berlin crowd of Green Party members (the leadership), and you kinda wonder if they've been out into the rest of the country and looked at the general problems and limits of this whole electric car business. Maybe if they offered no sales tax, and brought the electrical grid cost down a notch.....they might get people charged up a bit, but at the present rate....it's hard to see this 2030 plan working well in the end.
Hamburg G-20 Summit
I was reading through the German news this morning, and Focus was summing up the expected chaos for the G-20 summit in Hamburg (roughly two weeks away).
One of the big threats is Kurds of Germany coming to demonstrate against the Erdogan government of Turkey.
A few weeks ago in DC....some Kurds came out and a massive fight erupted with Erdogan body-guards fighting demonstrators, and the DC cops mostly shocked at the violence.
The Tagesspiegel wrote up a fairly in-depth piece on the various groups that will focus on unrest in Hamburg during this period back on the 19th of June.
How badly will the external setting go for this summit? If you follow the various news journals....one might speculate that it'll be the most threatening of all G-meetings ever held. Who came up with the idea of picking Hamburg? That might be a curious question to ask at this point. If you went looking for revolutionary-types per city....Hamburg would likely be neck-and-neck with Berlin for the most active protest crowd.
One of the big threats is Kurds of Germany coming to demonstrate against the Erdogan government of Turkey.
A few weeks ago in DC....some Kurds came out and a massive fight erupted with Erdogan body-guards fighting demonstrators, and the DC cops mostly shocked at the violence.
The Tagesspiegel wrote up a fairly in-depth piece on the various groups that will focus on unrest in Hamburg during this period back on the 19th of June.
How badly will the external setting go for this summit? If you follow the various news journals....one might speculate that it'll be the most threatening of all G-meetings ever held. Who came up with the idea of picking Hamburg? That might be a curious question to ask at this point. If you went looking for revolutionary-types per city....Hamburg would likely be neck-and-neck with Berlin for the most active protest crowd.
German Sunday News
Growth expected in Germany: N-TV had a financial item today discussing higher than expected growth. Countries seen buying more German products? US, Argentina, Russia, and China. German economy expected to grow by 1.7-percent (see article for more info). Likely to be lesser on unemployment numbers in the near future.
No merger between Lufthansa and Air Berlin: Air Berlin's days are numbered....no merger expected. Airline is in serious decline. What Lufthansa did hint is that it's willing to lease Air Berlin's planes (38 of them) and put Lufthansa routes on them. This would at least keep the crews and planes active, while waiting on something to happen. Air Berlin's troubles are mostly associated with huge debt and limited income. Hopes of having BER open and making maximum use of the Berlin routes was part of their long-term planning from a dozen years ago. Good piece by N-TV news.
Election spiral for SPD: There are 13 weeks left until the September election.....Schulz is simply treading water at present. Big meeting here on Sunday with speeches. Some hype within the SPD Party on a wealth-tax and trying to get the public energized to vote SPD. Last week, Schulz was figured (RTL poll) to have around 23-percent, which is a dismal fall from the 32-odd percent of January.
Kohl funeral for invited guests only: Slated for 1 July.....the preparations are now becoming known to the public. If you aren't on the list.....you don't attend. It's likely to be only insiders of the Kohl-camp of the past decade. His sons? It doesn't appear likely they will be invited. The 2nd wife is controlling the funeral episode and burial. It's become like a soap opera now.
Green turmoil: This projected agenda of only electric cars sold new after 2030....is drawing criticism within the Green Party....notably from their chief political figure of Baden-Wurttemberg (Kretschmann). What Kretschmann is pointing out is the jobs-game of Germany, and the huge significance of German car manufacturing on the jobs market. Analysts aren't that confident about this goal being achievable or it's affect. The national level of Green members are full-speed ahead and pushing Kretschmann's words aside. Zero chance that the Greens will achieve the results of the past two elections, and there's some belief that they've peaked out finally.
No merger between Lufthansa and Air Berlin: Air Berlin's days are numbered....no merger expected. Airline is in serious decline. What Lufthansa did hint is that it's willing to lease Air Berlin's planes (38 of them) and put Lufthansa routes on them. This would at least keep the crews and planes active, while waiting on something to happen. Air Berlin's troubles are mostly associated with huge debt and limited income. Hopes of having BER open and making maximum use of the Berlin routes was part of their long-term planning from a dozen years ago. Good piece by N-TV news.
Election spiral for SPD: There are 13 weeks left until the September election.....Schulz is simply treading water at present. Big meeting here on Sunday with speeches. Some hype within the SPD Party on a wealth-tax and trying to get the public energized to vote SPD. Last week, Schulz was figured (RTL poll) to have around 23-percent, which is a dismal fall from the 32-odd percent of January.
Kohl funeral for invited guests only: Slated for 1 July.....the preparations are now becoming known to the public. If you aren't on the list.....you don't attend. It's likely to be only insiders of the Kohl-camp of the past decade. His sons? It doesn't appear likely they will be invited. The 2nd wife is controlling the funeral episode and burial. It's become like a soap opera now.
Green turmoil: This projected agenda of only electric cars sold new after 2030....is drawing criticism within the Green Party....notably from their chief political figure of Baden-Wurttemberg (Kretschmann). What Kretschmann is pointing out is the jobs-game of Germany, and the huge significance of German car manufacturing on the jobs market. Analysts aren't that confident about this goal being achievable or it's affect. The national level of Green members are full-speed ahead and pushing Kretschmann's words aside. Zero chance that the Greens will achieve the results of the past two elections, and there's some belief that they've peaked out finally.
Saturday, June 24, 2017
'Friends Don't Spy on Friends'
It was a good quote in the German press from 2013...after discovering that the NSA folks had various Germans that they were spying upon. Everyone was hyped and negative about this terrible thing that the Americans were doing.
Well....Spiegel (the German news magazine) came out yesterday and said....The German BND (NSA/CIA operation) has around 4,000 American political and business folks or numbers covered. This was reported by the British Daily Mail.
White House? Yep, covered. NASA? Yep, covered. Even the group....Human Rights Watch, covered.
Explanation via Merkel? In an election campaign? No, I wouldn't expect a single comment to occur. She can't utter the phrase famous from 2013.....friends don't spy on friends.
Who gave Spiegel the information? That would be a curious thing to ask. The odds that most of the Senators are on this list? It wouldn't surprise me if a dozen Senators were listed. The report even suggested various business leaders were also under surveillance. News reporters from the Washington Post and New York Times? They weren't mentioned but it wouldn't surprise me if several were listed.
If you were of the naive group of Germans and all hyped up in 2013 to be anti-American because of the NSA spying? Now? You might owe a beer or two to the American you spewed all your 'friends don't spy on friends' routine upon.
Well....Spiegel (the German news magazine) came out yesterday and said....The German BND (NSA/CIA operation) has around 4,000 American political and business folks or numbers covered. This was reported by the British Daily Mail.
White House? Yep, covered. NASA? Yep, covered. Even the group....Human Rights Watch, covered.
Explanation via Merkel? In an election campaign? No, I wouldn't expect a single comment to occur. She can't utter the phrase famous from 2013.....friends don't spy on friends.
Who gave Spiegel the information? That would be a curious thing to ask. The odds that most of the Senators are on this list? It wouldn't surprise me if a dozen Senators were listed. The report even suggested various business leaders were also under surveillance. News reporters from the Washington Post and New York Times? They weren't mentioned but it wouldn't surprise me if several were listed.
If you were of the naive group of Germans and all hyped up in 2013 to be anti-American because of the NSA spying? Now? You might owe a beer or two to the American you spewed all your 'friends don't spy on friends' routine upon.
New Technology Coming
I was reading through RBB (the Berlin regional network news) this morning and there's this short piece on new technology.
The federal cops of Germany have been pursuing a face-detection software package, and are ready to test the process. It would combine video-cameras and technology.....to ID people as they walk through an area (say a subway or city-park).
So, they needed test-subjects....300 of them. Apparently, they didn't have any trouble in finding volunteers. The test area? The Sudkreuz railway area....just next to the Tempelhof Airfield.
The general procedure is that you have some barometric pictures loaded up and the system ties itself into the video cameras of the railway area. Each time one of the 300 appears....it identifies them and notes the time.
A page out of 'Person of Interest'? To some degree, yes.
Some people think that the technology will rapidly develop and be fairly common at every railway station in Germany in the next decade, and along the streets of metropolitan areas. Privacy-minded people? They hype this as negative and are attempting to delay the deployment of the technology. Various political groups are discussing the pro and con situation over this.
The federal cops of Germany have been pursuing a face-detection software package, and are ready to test the process. It would combine video-cameras and technology.....to ID people as they walk through an area (say a subway or city-park).
So, they needed test-subjects....300 of them. Apparently, they didn't have any trouble in finding volunteers. The test area? The Sudkreuz railway area....just next to the Tempelhof Airfield.
The general procedure is that you have some barometric pictures loaded up and the system ties itself into the video cameras of the railway area. Each time one of the 300 appears....it identifies them and notes the time.
A page out of 'Person of Interest'? To some degree, yes.
Some people think that the technology will rapidly develop and be fairly common at every railway station in Germany in the next decade, and along the streets of metropolitan areas. Privacy-minded people? They hype this as negative and are attempting to delay the deployment of the technology. Various political groups are discussing the pro and con situation over this.
German News, Saturday Morning
London buildings: News this morning via ARD indicates that five London high-rises were more or less decertified yesterday and residents were told to leave....because of the matting used in renovation. Sent to hotels (cost factor assumed by the city council)....it'll take at least a month before all of this matting can be removed. There's talk also in various press reports of manslaughter being sought on several people who approved the matting for the burnt apartment building.
Tough action in Hamburg: Local authorities have forbidden a protest camp from being erected for the G20 summit period. Lot of prevention activity noted for this summit.
"Falsification of Religion": About ten days ago, a new liberal mosque opened up in Berlin.....open to men, women, and gays. They could all walk in and pray in one facility. At the time, various German news media sources were all positive and talked of a change coming across Germany. Well...in the last day or two...the central Islam authority of Turkey said that this was a bad thing, and a 'falsification of religion'. Diyanet is the authority over Islam in Turkey and their message was rather blunt. Oddly enough, the Gulen-movement (the arch-rival of Erdogan of Turkey) weren't exactly happy over the new type mosque either.....one of the few times that Gulen and Erdogan agreed on something. Where this new concept mosque goes? It's anyone's guess.
Bank failures in Italy: Ever since 2008, various banks in Europe have been on the borderline of failure. This week, the EU said that both the Veneto-bank and Popolare-bank are likely to fail. No one has any enthusiasm to save either. Who is left to pay off the bank deposit folks? The government of Italy....maybe up to 12 billion Euro.
Harley buying Ducati: N-TV reports that Harley-Davidson is looking at deal....maybe up to around 1.5-billion Euro to buy the Ducati brand from Audi. One odd factor is that Harley doesn't have a lot of cash on hand to make this work (some say 500 million max). If you've never heard of Ducati.....it's one of the premier high-speed motorcycle companies in the world. Most of their bikes run around $12k to $20k, and are sold in the US.
Slavery in Brussels: Odd story by N-TV on slavery accusations. Widow of an Arab Sheikh and several daughters (princesses) stayed long-term in some Brussels hotel.....with staff that they'd brought with them. Their treatment amounted to some form of slavery.....at least that's what the Brussels court said. Fifteen months of jail was prescribed for human trafficking, and total fine amounted to around 165,000 Euro.
Tough action in Hamburg: Local authorities have forbidden a protest camp from being erected for the G20 summit period. Lot of prevention activity noted for this summit.
"Falsification of Religion": About ten days ago, a new liberal mosque opened up in Berlin.....open to men, women, and gays. They could all walk in and pray in one facility. At the time, various German news media sources were all positive and talked of a change coming across Germany. Well...in the last day or two...the central Islam authority of Turkey said that this was a bad thing, and a 'falsification of religion'. Diyanet is the authority over Islam in Turkey and their message was rather blunt. Oddly enough, the Gulen-movement (the arch-rival of Erdogan of Turkey) weren't exactly happy over the new type mosque either.....one of the few times that Gulen and Erdogan agreed on something. Where this new concept mosque goes? It's anyone's guess.
Bank failures in Italy: Ever since 2008, various banks in Europe have been on the borderline of failure. This week, the EU said that both the Veneto-bank and Popolare-bank are likely to fail. No one has any enthusiasm to save either. Who is left to pay off the bank deposit folks? The government of Italy....maybe up to 12 billion Euro.
Harley buying Ducati: N-TV reports that Harley-Davidson is looking at deal....maybe up to around 1.5-billion Euro to buy the Ducati brand from Audi. One odd factor is that Harley doesn't have a lot of cash on hand to make this work (some say 500 million max). If you've never heard of Ducati.....it's one of the premier high-speed motorcycle companies in the world. Most of their bikes run around $12k to $20k, and are sold in the US.
Slavery in Brussels: Odd story by N-TV on slavery accusations. Widow of an Arab Sheikh and several daughters (princesses) stayed long-term in some Brussels hotel.....with staff that they'd brought with them. Their treatment amounted to some form of slavery.....at least that's what the Brussels court said. Fifteen months of jail was prescribed for human trafficking, and total fine amounted to around 165,000 Euro.
Friday, June 23, 2017
This Exploding Freezer Story
This freezer explosion which set off the London tower fire....had me kinda curious. Having never heard of freezers exploding....I set this morning to do some research.
Explosion in 2016, new freezer.
2009 episode in England. This was a new environmentally-friendly freezer. The coolant was blamed in this episode.....propane was starting to be used as the 'friendly-mixture'.
2015 episode killed a bride-to-be. Flames engulfed the house.
2009 episode left the house looking like a bomb site. Environmentally friendly coolant?
BBC reports this back to 2007. Environmentally friendly coolant.
This apparently has occurred, although not at huge numbers. Fear of this environmentally-friendly situation? I would take a guess that the public will ask the question....across all of Europe, and you might see a reversal to the older style coolant....rather quickly, as people dump their dangerous freezer units.
Added note: You have to look at the amazing combination in this tower episode. A freezer unit which blows up at 1AM....in a building where the cladding was done.
Explosion in 2016, new freezer.
2009 episode in England. This was a new environmentally-friendly freezer. The coolant was blamed in this episode.....propane was starting to be used as the 'friendly-mixture'.
2015 episode killed a bride-to-be. Flames engulfed the house.
2009 episode left the house looking like a bomb site. Environmentally friendly coolant?
BBC reports this back to 2007. Environmentally friendly coolant.
This apparently has occurred, although not at huge numbers. Fear of this environmentally-friendly situation? I would take a guess that the public will ask the question....across all of Europe, and you might see a reversal to the older style coolant....rather quickly, as people dump their dangerous freezer units.
Added note: You have to look at the amazing combination in this tower episode. A freezer unit which blows up at 1AM....in a building where the cladding was done.
From Public Forum Chatter Last Night
Last night, at the end of prime time on German Channel Two (ZDF, public-TV), was the public chat forum Maybrit Illner. Typically, it runs for about sixty minutes, and starts at 10:15PM.....meaning that the viewership is minimal.
Focus carried a decent description of the evening....at it's site.
The topic last night? "Help or cap-off refugees".
So it was a live show....six guests, and centered on the topic of migration, asylum and immigration....NOT just on Germany, but on European countries.
It's safe to say that the six guests all had a fair amount of knowledge on the topic and were fairly divided on situation.
The general divide reflects what you see in political bickering within Europe today. One group is set upon to 'help or save' people escaping misery and terrible woes. A second group asks the question where does the help start and end....meaning that there is a limit. Neither group can find a common ground.
The use of the Turkey-EU pact as a future template? Basically, Germany convinced the EU to stage a funding vehicle (3 billion Euro a year).....to hold back the smuggler route from Turkey into Greece. As long as the money flows and this promise of consideration for entry into the EU are part of the episode.....Turkey will hinder the smugglers. A forever-type of compromise? No one can precisely the length of this deal or the complicated nature of accepting the Turks into the EU. Getting the 27 remaining nations to agree on Turkey's entry....seems to be just about impossible. Using the template for Libya or Tunisia or such? You could easily see 12-billion Euro being spent as a 'holding-fee' on smuggling. Who pays the billions? EU taxpayers.
The forum brought up to the typical topic that arises in these situations....individual countries believe that they are the only ones that can be responsible for determining who comes into the country to stay, and the method of acceptance or review. The EU says that they have the responsibility. The hint by members of the EU is that after a discussion, you need to accept their method or have EU funding cut short to your country.....to let you understand a sort of 'punishment'. In some ways, the EU crowd are simply setting up some heavy blocks to fall and anti-EU chatter to be part of the future.
The spiraling up of this topic? What's generally seen in the Med is an increase in boat-people attempting to be picked up an deposited upon Italian island, and by the EU method....dispersed out across the EU. The idea of a review, application handling, and eventual determination that may allow the person to stay or be sent back? It's not in the public view of things and the EU doesn't want to suggest that any denial might occur (which obviously it will). The other odd thing to this boat-people scheme....is that they generally only have two or three countries in their mind....Germany, the UK, and France. If you listed out the 27 EU countries (not using the UK).....over half are NOT desired as the end-location on this 'adventure'. The EU avoids that little slice of the story.
It was an interesting chat-forum, but if you asked me on viewership within Germany.....I'd take a guess that fewer than 400,000 of the 82-million residents....watched the show.
Focus carried a decent description of the evening....at it's site.
The topic last night? "Help or cap-off refugees".
So it was a live show....six guests, and centered on the topic of migration, asylum and immigration....NOT just on Germany, but on European countries.
It's safe to say that the six guests all had a fair amount of knowledge on the topic and were fairly divided on situation.
The general divide reflects what you see in political bickering within Europe today. One group is set upon to 'help or save' people escaping misery and terrible woes. A second group asks the question where does the help start and end....meaning that there is a limit. Neither group can find a common ground.
The use of the Turkey-EU pact as a future template? Basically, Germany convinced the EU to stage a funding vehicle (3 billion Euro a year).....to hold back the smuggler route from Turkey into Greece. As long as the money flows and this promise of consideration for entry into the EU are part of the episode.....Turkey will hinder the smugglers. A forever-type of compromise? No one can precisely the length of this deal or the complicated nature of accepting the Turks into the EU. Getting the 27 remaining nations to agree on Turkey's entry....seems to be just about impossible. Using the template for Libya or Tunisia or such? You could easily see 12-billion Euro being spent as a 'holding-fee' on smuggling. Who pays the billions? EU taxpayers.
The forum brought up to the typical topic that arises in these situations....individual countries believe that they are the only ones that can be responsible for determining who comes into the country to stay, and the method of acceptance or review. The EU says that they have the responsibility. The hint by members of the EU is that after a discussion, you need to accept their method or have EU funding cut short to your country.....to let you understand a sort of 'punishment'. In some ways, the EU crowd are simply setting up some heavy blocks to fall and anti-EU chatter to be part of the future.
The spiraling up of this topic? What's generally seen in the Med is an increase in boat-people attempting to be picked up an deposited upon Italian island, and by the EU method....dispersed out across the EU. The idea of a review, application handling, and eventual determination that may allow the person to stay or be sent back? It's not in the public view of things and the EU doesn't want to suggest that any denial might occur (which obviously it will). The other odd thing to this boat-people scheme....is that they generally only have two or three countries in their mind....Germany, the UK, and France. If you listed out the 27 EU countries (not using the UK).....over half are NOT desired as the end-location on this 'adventure'. The EU avoids that little slice of the story.
It was an interesting chat-forum, but if you asked me on viewership within Germany.....I'd take a guess that fewer than 400,000 of the 82-million residents....watched the show.
German News, Friday Morning
Kohl article. Focus wrote a fine piece on Kohl, this discussion over the burial site, and the frustrating last few years. I would strongly recommend the article. There will be no state funeral for Kohl. There is a EU memorial set for him, with Orban from Hungary to lead it (not Merkel, family decision). It is an unusual ending for one of the more dynamic German leaders of the past 100 years.
Macron and the EU summit: It's safe to say that the new President of France....Macron....is NOT that popular all over Europe. Lot of criticism from Poland and Hungary over his comments. He's pushing on financial fee situations if they don't accept quotas of migrants.
The 'Johnny Cash' of Germany has passed on: Gunter Gabriel passed away yesterday....a result of a tumble on a stairway. The guy was in his 70s. Gabriel was known for the past 40 years as a rough-and-tough country-ballad singer. He had made millions....he had spent millions. He probably consumed ten times the amount of alcohol as a normal guy would ever drink. But he actually had a number of big-time hits over the decades.
Criminal family gangs in Germany: SWR wrote a very fine piece on crime and gang activity in Germany. They point out that a lot of this relates to gangs coming out of Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Georgia, and Montenegro. Shoplifting has been turned into an art-form and these front-line guys simply turn their 'goods' over to a middle-man who moves the material along. For major store-fronts in Germany....this trend has disrupted the normal model of profit-margins. They want harsh jail-time situations to be constructed. Again, part of the problem for cops is the lack of an intelligence system which lays out the threat. It would appear in this case.....they've done a lot of homework and now understand their threat.
US hunting for VW managers: There are five former VW officials which the US is searching for now.....world-wide. Little is said over their involvement in the diesel episode but they seem to be a key part of the court episode. Hiding out? I would suspect that some folks have taken their savings and quietly skipped out to some Pacific isle or Greek resort, and will just stay out of sight for a while.
Macron and the EU summit: It's safe to say that the new President of France....Macron....is NOT that popular all over Europe. Lot of criticism from Poland and Hungary over his comments. He's pushing on financial fee situations if they don't accept quotas of migrants.
The 'Johnny Cash' of Germany has passed on: Gunter Gabriel passed away yesterday....a result of a tumble on a stairway. The guy was in his 70s. Gabriel was known for the past 40 years as a rough-and-tough country-ballad singer. He had made millions....he had spent millions. He probably consumed ten times the amount of alcohol as a normal guy would ever drink. But he actually had a number of big-time hits over the decades.
Criminal family gangs in Germany: SWR wrote a very fine piece on crime and gang activity in Germany. They point out that a lot of this relates to gangs coming out of Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Georgia, and Montenegro. Shoplifting has been turned into an art-form and these front-line guys simply turn their 'goods' over to a middle-man who moves the material along. For major store-fronts in Germany....this trend has disrupted the normal model of profit-margins. They want harsh jail-time situations to be constructed. Again, part of the problem for cops is the lack of an intelligence system which lays out the threat. It would appear in this case.....they've done a lot of homework and now understand their threat.
US hunting for VW managers: There are five former VW officials which the US is searching for now.....world-wide. Little is said over their involvement in the diesel episode but they seem to be a key part of the court episode. Hiding out? I would suspect that some folks have taken their savings and quietly skipped out to some Pacific isle or Greek resort, and will just stay out of sight for a while.
Thursday, June 22, 2017
Methadone?
I sat and watched a German news show last night.....commercial news.....which highlighted methadone usage for cancer treatment.
Normally, methadone is only used for getting people off some pretty harsh drugs. Somewhere in the process of handling some cancer patients a couple of years ago....someone discovered that methadone used in combination with chemo.....acts like a hammer and goes after cancer growths.
The odd factor in this episode? It costs roughly 28 Euro for a month's dosage of the stuff.
The factors at work? Not fully explained. You left the show with the opinion that they just accidentally figured this out and have used on various people but there is simply not enough research to prove the reason for the success.
Normally, methadone is only used for getting people off some pretty harsh drugs. Somewhere in the process of handling some cancer patients a couple of years ago....someone discovered that methadone used in combination with chemo.....acts like a hammer and goes after cancer growths.
The odd factor in this episode? It costs roughly 28 Euro for a month's dosage of the stuff.
The factors at work? Not fully explained. You left the show with the opinion that they just accidentally figured this out and have used on various people but there is simply not enough research to prove the reason for the success.
The Cladding Mess
I expected it to be announced this week.....the London city management folks have finished a review on high-rises within the city and the number which have been renovated and had cladding added to the exterior of the building.
600 high-rise apartment buildings.
Focus did the simple analysis over this and wrote the report.
What happens now? My humble opinion is that some group of London leadership will have to make a decision and spend a ton of public money....to have the cladding removed....quickly. In this case, you can't even suggest a three-year or four-year period. The public won't stand for it.
Billions involved? More than likely.
But here's the thing which few think much about....it's not just London. You can walk around all of England and find several thousand houses or non-high-rise buildings in this category. I imagine the folks in Paris, Amsterdam, and Madrid are doing the same review. In the weeks to come.....they also will come to announce some magic number and an opinion that the cladding must be removed. Where does the cladding get dumped? One might ask that question and find environmentalists who think it can't be in a regular garbage dump.
600 high-rise apartment buildings.
Focus did the simple analysis over this and wrote the report.
What happens now? My humble opinion is that some group of London leadership will have to make a decision and spend a ton of public money....to have the cladding removed....quickly. In this case, you can't even suggest a three-year or four-year period. The public won't stand for it.
Billions involved? More than likely.
But here's the thing which few think much about....it's not just London. You can walk around all of England and find several thousand houses or non-high-rise buildings in this category. I imagine the folks in Paris, Amsterdam, and Madrid are doing the same review. In the weeks to come.....they also will come to announce some magic number and an opinion that the cladding must be removed. Where does the cladding get dumped? One might ask that question and find environmentalists who think it can't be in a regular garbage dump.
Affordable Housing Topic
I often chat on German problems with affordable housing. This morning, an N-TV article came up and covered it with another prospective.
There are seven cities mentioned in this article: Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Koln, Munich and Stuttgart.
So, a family with a net income of 2,168 Euro a month....can barely afford something of 70 square meters within these seven cities. The rough average is that you'd have to spend 760 Euro to get something in the right size.
The option of moving? The article talks about that, and it's become highly impractical. I think this goes into several areas: you might end up in a new building which suddenly comes up on a renovation program and monthly rent goes up by 50-percent when the job is done, or the distance involved in getting to work becomes a bigger problem. Just looking for or locating a decent place in the affordable range....within these seven cities....is a major task.
In highly urbanized areas....like the seven mentioned and probably another ten areas.....it's safe to say that affordable housing is now one of the top five topics that the working-class talks about. The political parties? They've gone though the rental-brake solution (with minimum improvement), talked of forcing new projects to include some affordable housing, and looked at adding new suburbs out on the far end of towns. Unlike Vienna which has a lot of government built and run housing.....most German cities don't have that type of situation.
This population decrease? The birth-rate would indicate that within the next two decades.....roughly 12-million Germans won't exist any longer, and one might get the idea that this smaller Germany scene would help in this affordable housing issue. However, the bulk of jobs today, and for the foreseeable future....are in urbanized environments.
If you asked me to look ahead at the 2021 national election in Germany....I'm guessing that this affordable housing issue will be one of the top three discussions going on for the election.
There are seven cities mentioned in this article: Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Koln, Munich and Stuttgart.
So, a family with a net income of 2,168 Euro a month....can barely afford something of 70 square meters within these seven cities. The rough average is that you'd have to spend 760 Euro to get something in the right size.
The option of moving? The article talks about that, and it's become highly impractical. I think this goes into several areas: you might end up in a new building which suddenly comes up on a renovation program and monthly rent goes up by 50-percent when the job is done, or the distance involved in getting to work becomes a bigger problem. Just looking for or locating a decent place in the affordable range....within these seven cities....is a major task.
In highly urbanized areas....like the seven mentioned and probably another ten areas.....it's safe to say that affordable housing is now one of the top five topics that the working-class talks about. The political parties? They've gone though the rental-brake solution (with minimum improvement), talked of forcing new projects to include some affordable housing, and looked at adding new suburbs out on the far end of towns. Unlike Vienna which has a lot of government built and run housing.....most German cities don't have that type of situation.
This population decrease? The birth-rate would indicate that within the next two decades.....roughly 12-million Germans won't exist any longer, and one might get the idea that this smaller Germany scene would help in this affordable housing issue. However, the bulk of jobs today, and for the foreseeable future....are in urbanized environments.
If you asked me to look ahead at the 2021 national election in Germany....I'm guessing that this affordable housing issue will be one of the top three discussions going on for the election.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
German News, Thursday Morning
Kohl bad blood scene: It's been known for several years that after Helmet Kohl remarried....the sons of Helmet didn't exactly feel that happy over the situation. From two days ago, Focus covered the event when Walter Kohl came to the Kohl house to pay his respects. The widow didn't open the door and requested the police to send them away. The memorial service? It's hard to say if Walter will show up for that. One might also note that the speaker for the memorial service will end up being Viktor Orban (PM of Hungary), and not a high-ranking member of the CDU. That in itself says a good bit over inner-relationships between Kohl and the CDU in recent years.
"Miserably little": Focus wrote a piece and quoted a number of news media stories on the Helmet Kohl death. In their humble opinion, here was one of the most dynamic Germans out of the 1980s and 1990s.....with very little really being said over his career by the news media. Part of this is in comparison with Schmidt or Brandt passing. I might make the observation that after the secret political slush fund was discovered in the late 1990s....Kohl's 'star' dimmed slightly and some older Germans still remember that particular episode. But no one over the past week has mentioned this episode at all.
Lesser participants: Focus put up an article talking over the German TV/media tax. The gov't reports that almost ten-percent of German residences refused to pay the tax (a growing trend). It's double what it was three years ago (2014). Because of the structure of the law, it's difficult to option out of the media tax (even if you don't own a radio or TV, you might still have an internet connection and that hooks you to the monthly tax). The networks (in charge of collection) have started going to collection-agencies to get their money. Frankly, it'll just aggravate the public more and trigger confrontations. Roughly 40-million contributors pay into the public-TV pot. One might expect this to become a top-three political topic three to five years down the road.
Summer heat: HR covered what is a yearly topic.....summer heat affect upon autobahn pavement. Once you have several days of plus-30-C temperatures.....you have pavement that 'explodes' and making high-speed driving somewhat risky.
Erdogan denial: There had been some attempts to go and rent another arena and have more appearances by Turkey's Erdogan. Well, as WDR reports it.....most of the large hall-structures are saying 'no'. They are rejecting reservations. It's anyone's guess how this will go.....maybe an open-air situation and avoid the arenas.
VW moves to next level: The head of the Bundestag received the final 'truth-commission' report on the VW-diesel affair. What the opposition parties (Greens and Linke Party) are saying is that 'state-failure' has occurred. It is true that both the SPD and CDU are limiting negativity talk on the VW-diesel topic. The general accusation is that stringent oversight of VW should have been done in the previous years, and that the government has failed on that matter.
"Miserably little": Focus wrote a piece and quoted a number of news media stories on the Helmet Kohl death. In their humble opinion, here was one of the most dynamic Germans out of the 1980s and 1990s.....with very little really being said over his career by the news media. Part of this is in comparison with Schmidt or Brandt passing. I might make the observation that after the secret political slush fund was discovered in the late 1990s....Kohl's 'star' dimmed slightly and some older Germans still remember that particular episode. But no one over the past week has mentioned this episode at all.
Lesser participants: Focus put up an article talking over the German TV/media tax. The gov't reports that almost ten-percent of German residences refused to pay the tax (a growing trend). It's double what it was three years ago (2014). Because of the structure of the law, it's difficult to option out of the media tax (even if you don't own a radio or TV, you might still have an internet connection and that hooks you to the monthly tax). The networks (in charge of collection) have started going to collection-agencies to get their money. Frankly, it'll just aggravate the public more and trigger confrontations. Roughly 40-million contributors pay into the public-TV pot. One might expect this to become a top-three political topic three to five years down the road.
Summer heat: HR covered what is a yearly topic.....summer heat affect upon autobahn pavement. Once you have several days of plus-30-C temperatures.....you have pavement that 'explodes' and making high-speed driving somewhat risky.
Erdogan denial: There had been some attempts to go and rent another arena and have more appearances by Turkey's Erdogan. Well, as WDR reports it.....most of the large hall-structures are saying 'no'. They are rejecting reservations. It's anyone's guess how this will go.....maybe an open-air situation and avoid the arenas.
VW moves to next level: The head of the Bundestag received the final 'truth-commission' report on the VW-diesel affair. What the opposition parties (Greens and Linke Party) are saying is that 'state-failure' has occurred. It is true that both the SPD and CDU are limiting negativity talk on the VW-diesel topic. The general accusation is that stringent oversight of VW should have been done in the previous years, and that the government has failed on that matter.
Odd Trend with Apartment Ownership in Germany
Focus had a financial article this morning of some interest. There is a trend going on with Chinese individuals arriving in Germany, and buying property as an investment situation. Their big interest? Apartments.
Years ago, when I was in need of an apartment in the Bitburg area, I found this great deal and the landlord came out to show me the place. It was a 8-apartment building. It wasn't a case of one landlord owning the whole building.....but individual landlords. There had been an investment opportunity and this guy had a chance to buy one-eighth of the building while it was under construction. For long-term investment, it made sense.
The Chinese are using the same basic formula. They show up.....find a couple of situations up for sale.....bring investment money into Germany, and have a sum of money which comes to them each month via apartment rentals. How they moved the money out of China? Yeah, that might be a question best left out of the story. My humble guess is that they found some different ways to clear the money via a third-party and looked around for a place where you could be safe and no one asked about your money.
The curious part to this story....is that the chief area that the Chinese are interested in....is Berlin and Frankfurt. Frankfurt....more so.
I didn't realize the number of Chinese now living in the Frankfurt area....listed for 2016 (by the article from Focus) to around 14,000. It's a fair sum of folks.
Long-term? One has to think that the number of Chinese in the Frankfurt region will continue to grow, and that more investment into apartment ownership will be part of the story. In another decade, the population of Chinese around Frankfurt will probably double, and more apartments will be part of the Chinese-investment scheme.
Years ago, when I was in need of an apartment in the Bitburg area, I found this great deal and the landlord came out to show me the place. It was a 8-apartment building. It wasn't a case of one landlord owning the whole building.....but individual landlords. There had been an investment opportunity and this guy had a chance to buy one-eighth of the building while it was under construction. For long-term investment, it made sense.
The Chinese are using the same basic formula. They show up.....find a couple of situations up for sale.....bring investment money into Germany, and have a sum of money which comes to them each month via apartment rentals. How they moved the money out of China? Yeah, that might be a question best left out of the story. My humble guess is that they found some different ways to clear the money via a third-party and looked around for a place where you could be safe and no one asked about your money.
The curious part to this story....is that the chief area that the Chinese are interested in....is Berlin and Frankfurt. Frankfurt....more so.
I didn't realize the number of Chinese now living in the Frankfurt area....listed for 2016 (by the article from Focus) to around 14,000. It's a fair sum of folks.
Long-term? One has to think that the number of Chinese in the Frankfurt region will continue to grow, and that more investment into apartment ownership will be part of the story. In another decade, the population of Chinese around Frankfurt will probably double, and more apartments will be part of the Chinese-investment scheme.
German News, Wednesday Morning
Terrorist taken down in Brussels: Basically, one single guy (unknown ID at this point) attempted some bomb situation near the central railway station. Belgium troops were in the area....reacted....and ended up shooting the guy. One single explosion noted.....no one hurt from that. It appears that a second explosive was set up but halted (guy was wearing some kind of explosive belt or vest). More likely to come out this morning over the individual and the act.
Le Pen calling on Le Pen to resign: Basically, dad wants daughter to quit/resign/leave. Marine has pushed 'dad' out of most of the party and there is some hostility brewing.
Calais crowd back: Last year, the French authorities finally made the decision to clear out the migrant camps around Calais, France. Everyone was told to vacate, and the tent-city was torn down. Well....they returned. A blockade of the autobahn area occurred with tree trunks put in the middle of the road....two trucks slammed on the brakes, and a third truck ran into the back of the first two. That driver is dead. Cops came.....apprehended nine Eritreans. Charges undefined at this point. One can assume that each played some part in moving the tree trunks and causing the accident. Why Calais is a magnet for the migrants? There is some small hope that they can climb onto trucks there....manage to avoid detection and then finally make it to 'paradise' (the United Kingdom)....as the truck is loaded onto the train and goes to the coast of the UK under the Channel. Why not make France their home? This is something that journalists rarely cover.....my guess is that better benefits exist in the UK.
2nd Christening discussed: Some Church of England authority has said that if you go and have a transgender situation, and a name-change.....then you need to get a second christening. Its a curious episode.....making you think that christening number one is no longer valid. If the transgender individual does a second transgender operation and reverts back? Well....no one has brought this up yet, but you might need a third christening as well. And if they desire to revert back to the other situation again? Well....a fourth christening as well. One gets the opinion that Church of England guys sit around and try to drum up business.
Poll Shift: I noted with a RTL-Stern poll situation....a pretty negative situation with the SPD. They rest now at 23-percent. The Merkel/CDU crowd? 39-percent. The Linke Party sits at 10-percent, with the Greens and FDP splitting 8-percent each. AfD is now at 7-percent. If the trend is true? Schulz has done mostly nothing to help the party, and one might wonder about this coalition business more. A CDU win at 39-percent, and FDP win at 8-percent.....doesn't give them enough. They would have to partner up with another group. My humble guess is that a CDU-SPD coalition might still occur in the end.
Le Pen calling on Le Pen to resign: Basically, dad wants daughter to quit/resign/leave. Marine has pushed 'dad' out of most of the party and there is some hostility brewing.
Calais crowd back: Last year, the French authorities finally made the decision to clear out the migrant camps around Calais, France. Everyone was told to vacate, and the tent-city was torn down. Well....they returned. A blockade of the autobahn area occurred with tree trunks put in the middle of the road....two trucks slammed on the brakes, and a third truck ran into the back of the first two. That driver is dead. Cops came.....apprehended nine Eritreans. Charges undefined at this point. One can assume that each played some part in moving the tree trunks and causing the accident. Why Calais is a magnet for the migrants? There is some small hope that they can climb onto trucks there....manage to avoid detection and then finally make it to 'paradise' (the United Kingdom)....as the truck is loaded onto the train and goes to the coast of the UK under the Channel. Why not make France their home? This is something that journalists rarely cover.....my guess is that better benefits exist in the UK.
2nd Christening discussed: Some Church of England authority has said that if you go and have a transgender situation, and a name-change.....then you need to get a second christening. Its a curious episode.....making you think that christening number one is no longer valid. If the transgender individual does a second transgender operation and reverts back? Well....no one has brought this up yet, but you might need a third christening as well. And if they desire to revert back to the other situation again? Well....a fourth christening as well. One gets the opinion that Church of England guys sit around and try to drum up business.
Poll Shift: I noted with a RTL-Stern poll situation....a pretty negative situation with the SPD. They rest now at 23-percent. The Merkel/CDU crowd? 39-percent. The Linke Party sits at 10-percent, with the Greens and FDP splitting 8-percent each. AfD is now at 7-percent. If the trend is true? Schulz has done mostly nothing to help the party, and one might wonder about this coalition business more. A CDU win at 39-percent, and FDP win at 8-percent.....doesn't give them enough. They would have to partner up with another group. My humble guess is that a CDU-SPD coalition might still occur in the end.
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Taxes and Lack of Wealthy People
Focus did an interesting financial story today.
So, there's this foundation group....German Institute for Economic Research (DIW)....and they have been doing yearly surveys of 12,000 residences. One of the key things that they continually look for....is upscale wealth. The definition? Having more than 3-million Euro.
To be honest with me....anyone having one-million Euro is wealthy. But DIW defined it with 3-million Euro.
So, what they found generally.....year after year.....was only 44 folks out of the 12,000 who had the 3-million Euro in wealth.
There's a problem here, which they readily admit. According to statistical data, there ought to be lots more out there, and they just don't exist. What this typically leads to.....is this summary or belief by the public of tens of thousands of people throughout Germany with this kind of wealth. This goes hand in hand with the idea of massive taxation (48-percent suggested by the SPD), to take away the wealth of these ultra-rich folks.
If you did the numbers with this SPD wealth-tax.....there would be around 10 to 11 billion EXTRA Euro in the tax revenue bucket.....BUT only if you had the anticipated people that the SPD talks about in summaries.
DIW states a curious thing about this knowledge factor.....that the German government actually knows more about Hartz IV (welfare) folks.....than ultra-rich folks.
So, do the ultra-rich exist or not? I've spent twenty-odd years in and around Germany, and will make three observations about this whole topic.
1. Generally, you find the ultra-rich in clusters. If you travel into Wiesbaden, Hamburg, certain neighborhoods of Stuttgart and Munich, and a few areas of Berlin.....you will find the ultra-rich. If you travel around Bitburg, Worms, or Moosburg.....no, you won't find them. My guess is that of the 12,000 residences that the DIW folks talk to.....it's in small towns or average working-class neighborhoods.
2. Ultra-rich Germans don't exactly advertise their status or their income. You can go up to a guy who has a dozen business operations and ask him about his income, and he'll just say in the quarter-million Euro range each year.....when he's actually pulling in ten times that amount. You can go and talk to well-to-do Germans who pull in 70,000 Euro a year after taxes, and other than their car or vacation travel....you might not realize that they are doing that well.
3. A lot of German hide their income. Ever since WW II.....it's been a common practice. People buy homes in foreign countries (like Greece or Croatia), or they buy into a investment deal in Malta and just sneak the money in to pay for the deal.
I talked to an American real estate guy who had a German come in and talk over some open lots in southern Colorado (in the middle of the Rockies).....and the German wanted three lots.....but he wanted to only pay in cash (Deutsche Marks at the time). It was clearly money-laundering and the lots probably wouldn't show profit for ten years.
Back in the 1990s, I sat and watched a news documentary piece talk about a 'bust' at the Lux border.....some German carpenter trying to cross over with his RV, and the coffee can in the vehicle held around 80,000 DM's. It was supposed to be black-cash that he'd collected over one year and destined for a bank account there.
DIW is correct. I doubt if the government has any true idea about the true wealth of its citizens and they are missing tens of billions in income.
If the SPD wealth tax goes through? Two years later, I would speculate.....they will admit that there's a lot of money which ought to be there....but isn't. More taxes? Yeah.....that's the only way to proceed.
So, there's this foundation group....German Institute for Economic Research (DIW)....and they have been doing yearly surveys of 12,000 residences. One of the key things that they continually look for....is upscale wealth. The definition? Having more than 3-million Euro.
To be honest with me....anyone having one-million Euro is wealthy. But DIW defined it with 3-million Euro.
So, what they found generally.....year after year.....was only 44 folks out of the 12,000 who had the 3-million Euro in wealth.
There's a problem here, which they readily admit. According to statistical data, there ought to be lots more out there, and they just don't exist. What this typically leads to.....is this summary or belief by the public of tens of thousands of people throughout Germany with this kind of wealth. This goes hand in hand with the idea of massive taxation (48-percent suggested by the SPD), to take away the wealth of these ultra-rich folks.
If you did the numbers with this SPD wealth-tax.....there would be around 10 to 11 billion EXTRA Euro in the tax revenue bucket.....BUT only if you had the anticipated people that the SPD talks about in summaries.
DIW states a curious thing about this knowledge factor.....that the German government actually knows more about Hartz IV (welfare) folks.....than ultra-rich folks.
So, do the ultra-rich exist or not? I've spent twenty-odd years in and around Germany, and will make three observations about this whole topic.
1. Generally, you find the ultra-rich in clusters. If you travel into Wiesbaden, Hamburg, certain neighborhoods of Stuttgart and Munich, and a few areas of Berlin.....you will find the ultra-rich. If you travel around Bitburg, Worms, or Moosburg.....no, you won't find them. My guess is that of the 12,000 residences that the DIW folks talk to.....it's in small towns or average working-class neighborhoods.
2. Ultra-rich Germans don't exactly advertise their status or their income. You can go up to a guy who has a dozen business operations and ask him about his income, and he'll just say in the quarter-million Euro range each year.....when he's actually pulling in ten times that amount. You can go and talk to well-to-do Germans who pull in 70,000 Euro a year after taxes, and other than their car or vacation travel....you might not realize that they are doing that well.
3. A lot of German hide their income. Ever since WW II.....it's been a common practice. People buy homes in foreign countries (like Greece or Croatia), or they buy into a investment deal in Malta and just sneak the money in to pay for the deal.
I talked to an American real estate guy who had a German come in and talk over some open lots in southern Colorado (in the middle of the Rockies).....and the German wanted three lots.....but he wanted to only pay in cash (Deutsche Marks at the time). It was clearly money-laundering and the lots probably wouldn't show profit for ten years.
Back in the 1990s, I sat and watched a news documentary piece talk about a 'bust' at the Lux border.....some German carpenter trying to cross over with his RV, and the coffee can in the vehicle held around 80,000 DM's. It was supposed to be black-cash that he'd collected over one year and destined for a bank account there.
DIW is correct. I doubt if the government has any true idea about the true wealth of its citizens and they are missing tens of billions in income.
If the SPD wealth tax goes through? Two years later, I would speculate.....they will admit that there's a lot of money which ought to be there....but isn't. More taxes? Yeah.....that's the only way to proceed.
How to Irk Folks Real Quick
I noted in the news this morning....from Focus....the Green Party representatives at the EU stood up and suggested for 'large' immigrant groups (asylum, refugee, etc) to be sent as groups into eastern Europe.
The topic in question was to take an entire village from Syria, and move them into Latvia. Why Latvia? That really isn't explained by Focus, or the Green Party official. Why not Bitburg, Germany? Or Bitch, France?
The suggestion here.....without any real research or thought process is that integration would occur in an easier fashion. If you were to ask me.....integration would likely occur at a quarter-speed or less than what you have presently.
You would end up with a significant group who blends more into being whatever nationality they were originally and not so much into the new land.
At the heart of this talk on the idea.....the Green enthusiasm was that states who were not accepting of this idea....should be 'compelled'. One might ask if the state might also put pressure on the EU, and 'compel' them to work in another way.
How this all comes up? Well....there is a EU summit this weekend, and one of the chief topics is the handling of refugees. At the heart of the matter is the increasing number of people being rescued in the Med and dragged off to Italian coastal areas or islands, and the necessity of the EU to find some long-term solution.
The EU goal? They'd like to find a way to force the 27 members (without the UK) to just accept a quota deal. Presently, I'd take a fair guess that at least five states are very much against the quota, and another ten might accept a quota if it's very limited and they can review the candidates in question (something that the EU probably doesn't want to see happen).
A bigger mess coming? Trying to force this issue might ignite another exit rally in several EU member states, and it makes the BREXIT episode now seem as an opening round.
My humble guess is that several leaders from the individual states will present their case that the EU idea on quotas will have to be fairly limited....with less than 100,000 total residents being in acceptance quota group. If you look at the yearly tally.....you could be talking about 500,000 to one-million people arriving in the EU. The EU bosses who have pushed on acceptance will then stand there in some moment of reality, and realize there's a fairy big mess laying there and they can't resolve it.
As for the idea of having whole villages from Syria just move into Latvia, or France, or Germany? Forget it. It's an idea which has zero potential to be accepted.
The topic in question was to take an entire village from Syria, and move them into Latvia. Why Latvia? That really isn't explained by Focus, or the Green Party official. Why not Bitburg, Germany? Or Bitch, France?
The suggestion here.....without any real research or thought process is that integration would occur in an easier fashion. If you were to ask me.....integration would likely occur at a quarter-speed or less than what you have presently.
You would end up with a significant group who blends more into being whatever nationality they were originally and not so much into the new land.
At the heart of this talk on the idea.....the Green enthusiasm was that states who were not accepting of this idea....should be 'compelled'. One might ask if the state might also put pressure on the EU, and 'compel' them to work in another way.
How this all comes up? Well....there is a EU summit this weekend, and one of the chief topics is the handling of refugees. At the heart of the matter is the increasing number of people being rescued in the Med and dragged off to Italian coastal areas or islands, and the necessity of the EU to find some long-term solution.
The EU goal? They'd like to find a way to force the 27 members (without the UK) to just accept a quota deal. Presently, I'd take a fair guess that at least five states are very much against the quota, and another ten might accept a quota if it's very limited and they can review the candidates in question (something that the EU probably doesn't want to see happen).
A bigger mess coming? Trying to force this issue might ignite another exit rally in several EU member states, and it makes the BREXIT episode now seem as an opening round.
My humble guess is that several leaders from the individual states will present their case that the EU idea on quotas will have to be fairly limited....with less than 100,000 total residents being in acceptance quota group. If you look at the yearly tally.....you could be talking about 500,000 to one-million people arriving in the EU. The EU bosses who have pushed on acceptance will then stand there in some moment of reality, and realize there's a fairy big mess laying there and they can't resolve it.
As for the idea of having whole villages from Syria just move into Latvia, or France, or Germany? Forget it. It's an idea which has zero potential to be accepted.
Dual-Citizen Story
We are into the BREXIT period now.....with some Britians fairly worried about their future. I noticed in BR (Bavarian public TV) that there are some Brits signing up for a German passport.
Presently, you can have dual-citizenship within Germany (don't ask the logic, even Germans are negative now about this feature of their law).
BR notes that back in 2015.....only forty folks signed up in Bavaria for Brit-to-German citizenship/passports. This year (2017, only half-way through the year).....Bavaria has 250 Brits who've come to sign up for the deal.
How long does it take? Well.....that's the curious part to me. Nine months. You can figure there's the language part, the national studies part, and an investigation into your background.
Oh, and there's odd part of German bureaucracy.....an 86-page questionnaire. That's a bit more than the visa-application which typically gets up to around 20 pages.
My guess is that the numbers will dramatically increase over the second half of 2017, and maybe even double-up again into 2018. BREXIT officially concludes in the spring of 2019. Its anyone's guess how many will have the dual citizenship deal by that point.
How long does the dual-citizenship game last in Germany? This topic occasionally comes up and in the past year....I'd say that the tide of support has shifted....mostly because of the Turkey episode. I doubt if the Bundestag will change the law in the next two or three years, but if you asked me about the chances of the dual-citizenship thing still being in effect around 2027? I'd probably say no. What happens to the dual Brits at that point? Unknown.
Presently, you can have dual-citizenship within Germany (don't ask the logic, even Germans are negative now about this feature of their law).
BR notes that back in 2015.....only forty folks signed up in Bavaria for Brit-to-German citizenship/passports. This year (2017, only half-way through the year).....Bavaria has 250 Brits who've come to sign up for the deal.
How long does it take? Well.....that's the curious part to me. Nine months. You can figure there's the language part, the national studies part, and an investigation into your background.
Oh, and there's odd part of German bureaucracy.....an 86-page questionnaire. That's a bit more than the visa-application which typically gets up to around 20 pages.
My guess is that the numbers will dramatically increase over the second half of 2017, and maybe even double-up again into 2018. BREXIT officially concludes in the spring of 2019. Its anyone's guess how many will have the dual citizenship deal by that point.
How long does the dual-citizenship game last in Germany? This topic occasionally comes up and in the past year....I'd say that the tide of support has shifted....mostly because of the Turkey episode. I doubt if the Bundestag will change the law in the next two or three years, but if you asked me about the chances of the dual-citizenship thing still being in effect around 2027? I'd probably say no. What happens to the dual Brits at that point? Unknown.
Monday, June 19, 2017
German News, Tuesday Morning
SPD new tax policy: Schulz came out yesterday with the new plan on tax relief for the public. Basically, the solidarity tax....which must end in 2019....would go, but you'd have a new tax just on the wealthy of Germany. Roughly, for those who make over 250,000 Euro a year.....you'd have to pay 48-percent of your income toward the government. The end of the solidarity tax? It'd return 15 billion Euro to the lower and middle tax bracket. Negative? There are some programs which the SPD wants to run, and there's some hint that the wealth-tax would cover this....but you have to wonder, did they really run the numbers through or is it a guess, and a new tax has to come in two years to pay for the program requirements? Also.....might the wealthy folks just go and hide more of their money (entirely possible)?
NSA truth commission wrapping up: According to ARD, the German truth commission over the NSA business is near a finishing point.....400 to 500 pages long. Yes, there is an accusation by the Greens and Linke Party over the report and the behavior of the government over the past 15 years. Will this trigger some fall-out? I would doubt it. Will the NSA be pushed out of intelligence sharing? That's about the only thing which might occur in a negative way. The amusing thing is that if you asked a hundred Germans about this truth commission....probably over 90-percent (my humble opinion) didn't even know it existed, and at least 90-percent (my humble opinion) don't care what the truth commission discovered. You'd have more concern over soccer rule changes or some discovery of horse-meat found in frozen spaghetti.
False investigation: Well, the Berlin terrorist from December is long dead now.....but the original investigation into his act and final days.....reached a stage where investigators needed a truth commission to go and find why fraudulent documents were inserted into the cop files. Manipulation is the word used, and N-TV tells a good story over this. The question is....why insert fake files into this whole matter? The guy is dead.....there is little to be gained with fraudulent info. My humble gut feeling is that the dead terrorist was a drug dealer on the side, and some cops (maybe just one single cop) were in on some deals with the Tunisian terrorist. Maybe some undercover cop was close to the Tunisian and they just sought to protect the cop. It's confusing on this episode.
Hamburg railway traffic problem: If you are anywhere around Hamburg for the next three weeks, you will likely find stalled traffic due to protests and the G-20 preparation. Vandalism is being reported as part of the problems.
Very blunt: Hamburg cops had a press conference yesterday. Basically, they wanted the bodyguards of all G-20 representatives coming in....to avoid what occurred in Washington DC four weeks ago....where Turk bodyguards began beating protesters. The hint was more or less....they wouldn't put up with it, and maybe they might turn on the bodyguards. There are dozens of scenarios for this G-20 meeting where things might go very negative.
Legal trouble for AfD Petry: Back three years ago, there was a loan question posed to Frauke Petry (head of the AfD Party) by the state government. She responded. There is a question over the truth and they want to strip her of immunity from prosecution (right of political members), and bring her into court. The theme of her act? I often point out that the maturity of the AfD to play in the 'big leagues' is missing. In this case, if they had decent legal advice.....she would have done the loan in a different manner, and avoided the whole misunderstanding. MDR tells a balanced story over the episode.
Helmut Kohl Airport: There is this discussion now going on.....renaming the Frankfurt Airport, in honor of Helmut Kohl. There is some history on things like this....the Hamburg Airport was renamed the Helmut Schmidt Airport after the former Chancellor. The Willy Brandt Airport in Berlin is also noted. My guess is that it'll happen. An airport for Merkel in twenty years? Well....there aren't that many left of significance.
NSA truth commission wrapping up: According to ARD, the German truth commission over the NSA business is near a finishing point.....400 to 500 pages long. Yes, there is an accusation by the Greens and Linke Party over the report and the behavior of the government over the past 15 years. Will this trigger some fall-out? I would doubt it. Will the NSA be pushed out of intelligence sharing? That's about the only thing which might occur in a negative way. The amusing thing is that if you asked a hundred Germans about this truth commission....probably over 90-percent (my humble opinion) didn't even know it existed, and at least 90-percent (my humble opinion) don't care what the truth commission discovered. You'd have more concern over soccer rule changes or some discovery of horse-meat found in frozen spaghetti.
False investigation: Well, the Berlin terrorist from December is long dead now.....but the original investigation into his act and final days.....reached a stage where investigators needed a truth commission to go and find why fraudulent documents were inserted into the cop files. Manipulation is the word used, and N-TV tells a good story over this. The question is....why insert fake files into this whole matter? The guy is dead.....there is little to be gained with fraudulent info. My humble gut feeling is that the dead terrorist was a drug dealer on the side, and some cops (maybe just one single cop) were in on some deals with the Tunisian terrorist. Maybe some undercover cop was close to the Tunisian and they just sought to protect the cop. It's confusing on this episode.
Hamburg railway traffic problem: If you are anywhere around Hamburg for the next three weeks, you will likely find stalled traffic due to protests and the G-20 preparation. Vandalism is being reported as part of the problems.
Very blunt: Hamburg cops had a press conference yesterday. Basically, they wanted the bodyguards of all G-20 representatives coming in....to avoid what occurred in Washington DC four weeks ago....where Turk bodyguards began beating protesters. The hint was more or less....they wouldn't put up with it, and maybe they might turn on the bodyguards. There are dozens of scenarios for this G-20 meeting where things might go very negative.
Legal trouble for AfD Petry: Back three years ago, there was a loan question posed to Frauke Petry (head of the AfD Party) by the state government. She responded. There is a question over the truth and they want to strip her of immunity from prosecution (right of political members), and bring her into court. The theme of her act? I often point out that the maturity of the AfD to play in the 'big leagues' is missing. In this case, if they had decent legal advice.....she would have done the loan in a different manner, and avoided the whole misunderstanding. MDR tells a balanced story over the episode.
Helmut Kohl Airport: There is this discussion now going on.....renaming the Frankfurt Airport, in honor of Helmut Kohl. There is some history on things like this....the Hamburg Airport was renamed the Helmut Schmidt Airport after the former Chancellor. The Willy Brandt Airport in Berlin is also noted. My guess is that it'll happen. An airport for Merkel in twenty years? Well....there aren't that many left of significance.
German News, Monday Morning
French election: What you an generally take home about the French legislative election results is that the mass of the general public has voted in an unusual pattern. The center-left and center-right parties which have been the major player of French politics since WW II? Mostly gone now....wiped out. Le Pen and her National Front? They were lucky to take ten seats. Macron? He needed 289 seats to run his agenda....but he ended with a minimum of 355, and it may go as high as 400 seats. You get five full years of Macron-hype and whatever it brings. One very curious part of this story.....only one out of every three people registered....voted in this election. Lowest turn-out in decades. Reporters only say that people were tired of endless campaigns.
Green Party weekend meeting concludes: Generally, you get three things out of the meeting. First, a lot of hype and political ax-sharpening was made on environmental issues for this election period. They went back to their core of twenty years ago and this weekend was dominated by this message. Second, it appears very unlikely that the Greens will allow themselves to be a partner of the CDU in a coalition government. All this effort over the past five years to leave doors open and hope one day to have a CDU-Green Party coalition? Just a dream. Third and final.....this weekend meeting was highly hyped by the news media but you just don't see that translating over to more votes. They are likely sitting on a stagnant political hill with no real view of anything.
Civil case starts up: For months and months, there's been a court case brewing over several murders and some NSU-right-wing-Nazi-extremist group (mostly down to one single woman). A lot of evidence has been presented to show the government could have stepped in with competent people and figured out the plans of this small group. So the families of the murdered folks....have decided to now sue the government. Very rare to see this and it's a big question-mark if they can get the court to agree on this level of incompetence. One might note.....the court case against the remaining gal? It's now on the 4th year and no is sure about how the judges might conclude this case.
Cost of G20 Meeting: At least 32 million Euro being spent by the German government on security and support for the weekend meeting in Hamburg. Lot of security and cops in the mix. Massive protests expected.
Green Party weekend meeting concludes: Generally, you get three things out of the meeting. First, a lot of hype and political ax-sharpening was made on environmental issues for this election period. They went back to their core of twenty years ago and this weekend was dominated by this message. Second, it appears very unlikely that the Greens will allow themselves to be a partner of the CDU in a coalition government. All this effort over the past five years to leave doors open and hope one day to have a CDU-Green Party coalition? Just a dream. Third and final.....this weekend meeting was highly hyped by the news media but you just don't see that translating over to more votes. They are likely sitting on a stagnant political hill with no real view of anything.
Civil case starts up: For months and months, there's been a court case brewing over several murders and some NSU-right-wing-Nazi-extremist group (mostly down to one single woman). A lot of evidence has been presented to show the government could have stepped in with competent people and figured out the plans of this small group. So the families of the murdered folks....have decided to now sue the government. Very rare to see this and it's a big question-mark if they can get the court to agree on this level of incompetence. One might note.....the court case against the remaining gal? It's now on the 4th year and no is sure about how the judges might conclude this case.
Cost of G20 Meeting: At least 32 million Euro being spent by the German government on security and support for the weekend meeting in Hamburg. Lot of security and cops in the mix. Massive protests expected.
Sunday, June 18, 2017
Where the Green Party of Germany Lost Their Way
Presently, most polls put the Green Party at 7-percent.....a hefty fall from the 2009 results of 9.2-percent. If you went back to the 2002 election, they were limited to 5.6 percent, and in the 2005 election, they were at 5.4-percent. Some folks aren't even sure that they can stay above the 6-percent point and that it might be another marginal vote in September around 5-percent. Where did the enthusiasm go?
Part of the big bump-up in the 2009 period came from the Stuttgart-21 position of the Green Party. It was a fair shocker in the spring 2011 local state election in Baden-Wurttemberg....when the Greens suddenly found themselves with 24-percent of the state vote....mostly coming from the SPD, FDP and CDU votes.
The Stuttgart-21 talk hyped up the Green theme gave enthusiasts of the party a reason to feel good at times ahead. Presently, we are seven years into the Stuttgart mass-transit project and the negativity has been met now with more questions. Green hype is gone.
Added to the public feeling across Germany.....by Merkel killing off nuke-power, this whole agenda item which was one of the top three issues of the German Green Party.....is pretty much zeroed-out now. The carbon-issue and climate-talk? Merkel and the CDU adapted to it and own most of the agenda.
If you wrote the top ten platforms of the Green Party in 2007.....you'd find full ownership of those platforms today to be a joke.
Then you come to this odd topic of migration, asylum and immigration. No one cites polls or numbers, but you sense that of every ten people who were solid Green votes back in 2009 period....at least a quarter of them today have some kind of issue with the Green Party position on migration and immigration.
There are roughly 800,000 Green votes missing at present, and it might go closer to one-million votes (2009 comparison).
At least once or twice a week now.....there's some Green political chat on German public TV where they talk about connecting to voters (meaning....they need voters to come back). The general theme of these chats? The party bosses perceive that the 'message' is not getting to these 800,000 missing voters. From the 800,000? One might perceive that they are wondering if the party bosses are not getting the message from the general public.
The big worry here? For you to be in the Bundestag after an election.....you must get 5.0-percent of the national vote. If you miss it....even with 4.99-percent....you don't get representation or seats. You go home for four years and rebuild your party. Presently, I don't think the Greens are in this category.....but you get the sense that they will marginally clear around 6.5-percent and have to rebuild their theme or voter platform.
Part of the big bump-up in the 2009 period came from the Stuttgart-21 position of the Green Party. It was a fair shocker in the spring 2011 local state election in Baden-Wurttemberg....when the Greens suddenly found themselves with 24-percent of the state vote....mostly coming from the SPD, FDP and CDU votes.
The Stuttgart-21 talk hyped up the Green theme gave enthusiasts of the party a reason to feel good at times ahead. Presently, we are seven years into the Stuttgart mass-transit project and the negativity has been met now with more questions. Green hype is gone.
Added to the public feeling across Germany.....by Merkel killing off nuke-power, this whole agenda item which was one of the top three issues of the German Green Party.....is pretty much zeroed-out now. The carbon-issue and climate-talk? Merkel and the CDU adapted to it and own most of the agenda.
If you wrote the top ten platforms of the Green Party in 2007.....you'd find full ownership of those platforms today to be a joke.
Then you come to this odd topic of migration, asylum and immigration. No one cites polls or numbers, but you sense that of every ten people who were solid Green votes back in 2009 period....at least a quarter of them today have some kind of issue with the Green Party position on migration and immigration.
There are roughly 800,000 Green votes missing at present, and it might go closer to one-million votes (2009 comparison).
At least once or twice a week now.....there's some Green political chat on German public TV where they talk about connecting to voters (meaning....they need voters to come back). The general theme of these chats? The party bosses perceive that the 'message' is not getting to these 800,000 missing voters. From the 800,000? One might perceive that they are wondering if the party bosses are not getting the message from the general public.
The big worry here? For you to be in the Bundestag after an election.....you must get 5.0-percent of the national vote. If you miss it....even with 4.99-percent....you don't get representation or seats. You go home for four years and rebuild your party. Presently, I don't think the Greens are in this category.....but you get the sense that they will marginally clear around 6.5-percent and have to rebuild their theme or voter platform.
The PEW Report
I sat this morning and read through a PEW report. They typically go out and poll folks to find out general feelings. The question today.....in Europe, do you want the EU or your own government, to handle migration or asylum laws/procedures?
It's an interesting topic. Nation by nation....it was overwhelmingly for the state government and NOT the EU.
For Germany, you could only find 23-percent of the public who felt that the EU should run the migration situation. Over three-quarters of the people polled felt that the German government itself should be responsible for management and laws.
Over the past three years, if you watched German public TV.....the EU was often portrayed as the better manager of migration. The reason given? You were often left with the answer that only the EU could deliver a 'fair' judgement and sound reasoning. Beyond that, it was a mystery answer.
From the poll....Hungary had the least number of people in favor of a EU leadership position on migration (9-percent for the EU).
I sat last year and read over a EU story where they were hyping up that Poland, Hungary and several eastern European countries needed to just accept the EU quota numbers. The response that typically came back was that these countries hadn't signed up for a quota deal, and they wanted a complete review of every single person coming into the country....meaning that out of 5,000 migrants that the EU wanted to truck into the country....only a couple of hundred might be accepted (mostly because they had a safe history, educational background to be an asset, etc). The EU didn't want that type of review.....they just wanted the group to be accepted without any questions.
What the PEW report delivers is a fairly safe to accept political warning that any political parties that want to sign up for EU regulation and management over migration.....it'll be a negative to the general public.
The shocker for a lot of immigration folks and migrants in Germany over the past four years....is that they all thought that the visa-deal was simple and they were going to be just accepted after walking or hiking 1,500 miles to reach Germany. Then, the German bureaucrat brought out the paperwork, and there was this little speech about a review. Even now, with millions of pro-immigrant Germans walking around and all hyped up.....there is a surprise when it's noted that people fail the visa application and are put on a deportee listing.
Nothing about the German program is understandable....not just for a migrant, but for a German himself. You could have 100 migrants hand over the paperwork, and dozens are approved for various reasons and dozens are disapproved for various reasons.
I doubt if the German news media will mention the PEW report much. It's a burden upon them to explain why the public feels this way.
It's an interesting topic. Nation by nation....it was overwhelmingly for the state government and NOT the EU.
For Germany, you could only find 23-percent of the public who felt that the EU should run the migration situation. Over three-quarters of the people polled felt that the German government itself should be responsible for management and laws.
Over the past three years, if you watched German public TV.....the EU was often portrayed as the better manager of migration. The reason given? You were often left with the answer that only the EU could deliver a 'fair' judgement and sound reasoning. Beyond that, it was a mystery answer.
From the poll....Hungary had the least number of people in favor of a EU leadership position on migration (9-percent for the EU).
I sat last year and read over a EU story where they were hyping up that Poland, Hungary and several eastern European countries needed to just accept the EU quota numbers. The response that typically came back was that these countries hadn't signed up for a quota deal, and they wanted a complete review of every single person coming into the country....meaning that out of 5,000 migrants that the EU wanted to truck into the country....only a couple of hundred might be accepted (mostly because they had a safe history, educational background to be an asset, etc). The EU didn't want that type of review.....they just wanted the group to be accepted without any questions.
What the PEW report delivers is a fairly safe to accept political warning that any political parties that want to sign up for EU regulation and management over migration.....it'll be a negative to the general public.
The shocker for a lot of immigration folks and migrants in Germany over the past four years....is that they all thought that the visa-deal was simple and they were going to be just accepted after walking or hiking 1,500 miles to reach Germany. Then, the German bureaucrat brought out the paperwork, and there was this little speech about a review. Even now, with millions of pro-immigrant Germans walking around and all hyped up.....there is a surprise when it's noted that people fail the visa application and are put on a deportee listing.
Nothing about the German program is understandable....not just for a migrant, but for a German himself. You could have 100 migrants hand over the paperwork, and dozens are approved for various reasons and dozens are disapproved for various reasons.
I doubt if the German news media will mention the PEW report much. It's a burden upon them to explain why the public feels this way.
'Dry' Talk
If you go around a lot of the more urbanized German cities over the past decade....you'd likely say that there are a lot of alcoholics or heavy-drinkers in the mix now. For some Germans, it's a public nuisance now. Some cities are going to harsh matters....like making the shopping district or heaviest traveled area of town....into 'dry-zones' (no alcohol).
I noticed that in the news today with Duisburg (a city to the far north of Germany).
The city made a decision and laid out the new law about a month ago. You can walk into a pub, restaurant or cafe....and have a glass of wine, a cocktail, or a beer.....as long as you stay within the premise.
If you went to some grocery and bought a six-pack and intended to drink on the street? Cops would come up and issue you a 'warning'. One might say that they are trying to nudge the public into less nuisance drinking....preferring not to arrest someone at this stage.
The rule? It's not exactly a permanent rule. It's made for a six-month test phase.
Did this nuisance-drinking occur in the 1970s or 1980s? No. I can't recall seeing this type issue until the very late 1990s. At that point, it was mostly teenagers (15 to 18 years old) who were drinking to excessive stages. The older guys who were homeless? That started to become a noticeable thing about 15 years ago. In fact, it went up a notch when the bottle deposit business occurred and these guys suddenly found that they could collect twenty bottles over a morning and buy a couple of beers off deposit-collection.
Will this 'dry-zone' business catch on? No one is collecting data or counting up the number of dry-zones in existence in Germany at present. My humble guess is that it's less than forty cities with some type of zone. It doesn't exactly mean that people drank less.....just that they went to some outside of the dry-zone and consumed their alcohol there....out of public sight. The rule simply helped to hide the drinking issue, not resolve it.
I noticed that in the news today with Duisburg (a city to the far north of Germany).
The city made a decision and laid out the new law about a month ago. You can walk into a pub, restaurant or cafe....and have a glass of wine, a cocktail, or a beer.....as long as you stay within the premise.
If you went to some grocery and bought a six-pack and intended to drink on the street? Cops would come up and issue you a 'warning'. One might say that they are trying to nudge the public into less nuisance drinking....preferring not to arrest someone at this stage.
The rule? It's not exactly a permanent rule. It's made for a six-month test phase.
Did this nuisance-drinking occur in the 1970s or 1980s? No. I can't recall seeing this type issue until the very late 1990s. At that point, it was mostly teenagers (15 to 18 years old) who were drinking to excessive stages. The older guys who were homeless? That started to become a noticeable thing about 15 years ago. In fact, it went up a notch when the bottle deposit business occurred and these guys suddenly found that they could collect twenty bottles over a morning and buy a couple of beers off deposit-collection.
Will this 'dry-zone' business catch on? No one is collecting data or counting up the number of dry-zones in existence in Germany at present. My humble guess is that it's less than forty cities with some type of zone. It doesn't exactly mean that people drank less.....just that they went to some outside of the dry-zone and consumed their alcohol there....out of public sight. The rule simply helped to hide the drinking issue, not resolve it.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
The Travel Story
Generally, everyday out of the Frankfurt airport.....flights take off for locations around Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Oddly enough, there are various refugees and asylum folks who have hyped up their necessity to stay in Germany, but are taking vacations or visits to their homeland.....where they contend it's unsafe to stay (yet they visit there).
This got brought up yesterday by Mitteldeutsche Zeitung.
What is said is that the BamF and the Police.....both are noticing this trend. They will be honest and say that there aren't statistics on this because they aren't collecting the data. I would imagine that neither want the responsibility of collecting it because it could be politically embarrassing for some folks.
It should be noted that Germany has no law to prevent this or re-prioritize ranking on visa acceptance....if you were to take a two-week trip back to the homeland. If you were collecting welfare money or Hartz IV funding....and you stayed long-term in the old country, then it would be a legal problem. Most don't appear to be in that category.
I sat and looked at this issue, and the difficult thing to imagine is the funding to pay for these airline tickets. A Frankfurt to Baghdad trip (round-trip) runs around 650 Euro. Frankfurt to Asmara runs around 1,300 Euro. Frankfurt to Mogadishu? Near 1,200 Euro.
Most aren't making great wages in Germany, so it's curious where a couple might find 2,000 Euro for the airline tickets? If you were on some kind of welfare funding, there simply isn't enough money there for some expense like this. Most Germans on Hartz IV funding will tell you that it's hard to just find the money for school supplies or clothing.
Some change to occur where the authorities track this type of travel? I seriously doubt it. It's simply opening up another door where more questions get asked and the answers probably aren't what you want to hear about.
This got brought up yesterday by Mitteldeutsche Zeitung.
What is said is that the BamF and the Police.....both are noticing this trend. They will be honest and say that there aren't statistics on this because they aren't collecting the data. I would imagine that neither want the responsibility of collecting it because it could be politically embarrassing for some folks.
It should be noted that Germany has no law to prevent this or re-prioritize ranking on visa acceptance....if you were to take a two-week trip back to the homeland. If you were collecting welfare money or Hartz IV funding....and you stayed long-term in the old country, then it would be a legal problem. Most don't appear to be in that category.
I sat and looked at this issue, and the difficult thing to imagine is the funding to pay for these airline tickets. A Frankfurt to Baghdad trip (round-trip) runs around 650 Euro. Frankfurt to Asmara runs around 1,300 Euro. Frankfurt to Mogadishu? Near 1,200 Euro.
Most aren't making great wages in Germany, so it's curious where a couple might find 2,000 Euro for the airline tickets? If you were on some kind of welfare funding, there simply isn't enough money there for some expense like this. Most Germans on Hartz IV funding will tell you that it's hard to just find the money for school supplies or clothing.
Some change to occur where the authorities track this type of travel? I seriously doubt it. It's simply opening up another door where more questions get asked and the answers probably aren't what you want to hear about.
German News Saturday Morning
Roaming costs update: Up until recently, once you crossed over a border in Europe, you were screwed with cellphone roaming costs. This is one of the few EU initiatives fixed that most people are very happy about. One might note however, there are six countries within Europe where the EU rule doesn't effect or change: Andorra, San Marino, Switzerland, Channel Islands, Monaco, and the Isle of Man.
Diesel car fiasco: Focus did a good article over this collection of city-by-city regulations over diesel cars and how there is a patchwork developing, without a clear state or federal mandate (from Berlin). As they point out, it's a screwed-up mess and desperately needs attention by Berlin....with their suggestion being some trade-in compensation deal deal where Berlin pays 10,000 Euro to help some family get rid of their diesel car and get a new car. One can be amused by the whole thing which caught on only 18 months ago and has raged across the country without any federal involvement. You could be talking about billions to pay off the public and just dump the diesel cars.
US is asking for Erdogan bodyguards: Not a front-page story but a couple of weeks ago as Erdogan visited the US.....a protest occurred at the Turkish embassy area and video shot of the event showed the personal security personal beating to a fair extent the protesters. DC cops tried to intervene. DC court now wants some individuals who guard Erdogan to return to the US and face court. I seriously doubt that they will return but it's another negative for Erdogan to face.
Spinners: If you look around this summer in Germany....the new hot trend is spinners. Generally, you can buy a decently made one for about 13-to-15 Euro. I noted in the local Hessen news that the German customs people at the Flughafen in Frankfurt intercepted an entire shipment (35 tons) of spinners. After inspection, they determined that these Chinese-made spinners were unsafe, and failed to meet German safety regulations. All were destroyed. Based on the weight involved, the guess is that the shipment contained one-million spinners. Someone lost a ton of money on that purchase.
My favorite Helmet Kohl story: At some point in the early 1950s, the Americans wanted to open a base in the Sembach region. Things were bogged down because the area desired was heavily-used farm-land. Helmet Kohl was a regional political at the time and came in to help work out the details of the land transfer. Most locals around Sembach believe this deal would not have happen without Kohl working out the fine details and compensation involved.
Muslim stats in Germany: ARD did a fairly decent statistic project on Muslims in Germany. Current population? It's estimated at around 4.4 to 4.7 million. Associations or clubs around Germany? The consensus is that most are Turkish-operated. The one curious piece from this report is that from 2009 (8 years ago and before the migration episode).....only one Muslim out of five considered themselves members of a particular local mosque operation. One might take the belief that a lot of German Muslims prior to the migration episode were 'lightly' practicing the faith and not influenced to a great extent by religious instructors or Mullahs.
Diesel car fiasco: Focus did a good article over this collection of city-by-city regulations over diesel cars and how there is a patchwork developing, without a clear state or federal mandate (from Berlin). As they point out, it's a screwed-up mess and desperately needs attention by Berlin....with their suggestion being some trade-in compensation deal deal where Berlin pays 10,000 Euro to help some family get rid of their diesel car and get a new car. One can be amused by the whole thing which caught on only 18 months ago and has raged across the country without any federal involvement. You could be talking about billions to pay off the public and just dump the diesel cars.
US is asking for Erdogan bodyguards: Not a front-page story but a couple of weeks ago as Erdogan visited the US.....a protest occurred at the Turkish embassy area and video shot of the event showed the personal security personal beating to a fair extent the protesters. DC cops tried to intervene. DC court now wants some individuals who guard Erdogan to return to the US and face court. I seriously doubt that they will return but it's another negative for Erdogan to face.
Spinners: If you look around this summer in Germany....the new hot trend is spinners. Generally, you can buy a decently made one for about 13-to-15 Euro. I noted in the local Hessen news that the German customs people at the Flughafen in Frankfurt intercepted an entire shipment (35 tons) of spinners. After inspection, they determined that these Chinese-made spinners were unsafe, and failed to meet German safety regulations. All were destroyed. Based on the weight involved, the guess is that the shipment contained one-million spinners. Someone lost a ton of money on that purchase.
My favorite Helmet Kohl story: At some point in the early 1950s, the Americans wanted to open a base in the Sembach region. Things were bogged down because the area desired was heavily-used farm-land. Helmet Kohl was a regional political at the time and came in to help work out the details of the land transfer. Most locals around Sembach believe this deal would not have happen without Kohl working out the fine details and compensation involved.
Muslim stats in Germany: ARD did a fairly decent statistic project on Muslims in Germany. Current population? It's estimated at around 4.4 to 4.7 million. Associations or clubs around Germany? The consensus is that most are Turkish-operated. The one curious piece from this report is that from 2009 (8 years ago and before the migration episode).....only one Muslim out of five considered themselves members of a particular local mosque operation. One might take the belief that a lot of German Muslims prior to the migration episode were 'lightly' practicing the faith and not influenced to a great extent by religious instructors or Mullahs.
Friday, June 16, 2017
Travel Observation
There's a new schedule coming out for railway travel in Germany for the end of the year.
A good example of change is the new route from Munich to Berlin. This railway travel deal used to take six hours aboard ICE.
With the new route? It's just at the four-hour point now.....it used to be a full six hours.
How? They spent several years working on a new path, with better lines, and the innovation will be seen as the new track opens in the late fall.
If you were going to fly the same route? It's roughly 65 minutes in the air....plus two hours figured into the baggage game, security and waiting for boarding. Toss in the hour getting to or from the airport.....so you could be talking about four hours for the aircraft trip to work. Now? The railway link is virtually the same deal....with no security games....or waiting for boarding.
The cost factor of the flight? One-way is typically 105 Euro for the direct flights. Presently on the railway trips.....with the special discount features.....you might be able to get the one-way rail-way ticket (2nd-class) for 39-odd Euro.
A good example of change is the new route from Munich to Berlin. This railway travel deal used to take six hours aboard ICE.
With the new route? It's just at the four-hour point now.....it used to be a full six hours.
How? They spent several years working on a new path, with better lines, and the innovation will be seen as the new track opens in the late fall.
If you were going to fly the same route? It's roughly 65 minutes in the air....plus two hours figured into the baggage game, security and waiting for boarding. Toss in the hour getting to or from the airport.....so you could be talking about four hours for the aircraft trip to work. Now? The railway link is virtually the same deal....with no security games....or waiting for boarding.
The cost factor of the flight? One-way is typically 105 Euro for the direct flights. Presently on the railway trips.....with the special discount features.....you might be able to get the one-way rail-way ticket (2nd-class) for 39-odd Euro.
How Farm Subsides Work in Europe
I know some folks are fairly naive....but this is the simple narrative about how farm subsidies work.
Farmer Joe runs a farm in Europe. Farmer Joe has three things that he produces in some fashion.....which relate to a profit situation and a sustainable business. Farmer Joe has roughly 300 acres to manage and produce these products.
To make Farmer Joe's empire work.....he spends around 100,000 Euro a year on equipment, fuel, fertilizer, etc. The sad thing is that if you went and added up the profits from all of Farmer Joe's three production items....in an average year....it would only add up to around 100,000 Euro....showing no real profit or the ability to support Farmer Joe and his family.
So, the government.....unwilling to let agricultural prices escalate and make things really cost a lot more than normal (like five Euro for a container of milk).....simply taxes the public to some degree, and like a hundred other things that are fake in terms of price-reality....you make up the lack of profit for Farmer Joe, with a yearly or quarterly subsidy payment. Farmer Joe is happy. The public is happy. And the political apparatus is happy.
A fake reality? More or less.
How many western countries use subsidies? Most all now use it.
If farm subsides were to suddenly cease? Then prices at groceries would have to move up in a very short period, or you'd sit and watch farmers who refuse to produce with their acreage. Would you pay the actual price? Well....here's the thing....you might find that Spanish or Italian farmers might actually produce at a lesser cost, than Dutch or German farmers.....if everyone had their subsidy dumped.
The sad thing about this current system is that it's all locked into place and you have no way of ceasing this, or proceeding onto a more realistic system. The necessity of the EU managing this whole subsidy thing? It's the only way to keep all 28 nations lined up and 'fair'.
Farmer Joe runs a farm in Europe. Farmer Joe has three things that he produces in some fashion.....which relate to a profit situation and a sustainable business. Farmer Joe has roughly 300 acres to manage and produce these products.
To make Farmer Joe's empire work.....he spends around 100,000 Euro a year on equipment, fuel, fertilizer, etc. The sad thing is that if you went and added up the profits from all of Farmer Joe's three production items....in an average year....it would only add up to around 100,000 Euro....showing no real profit or the ability to support Farmer Joe and his family.
So, the government.....unwilling to let agricultural prices escalate and make things really cost a lot more than normal (like five Euro for a container of milk).....simply taxes the public to some degree, and like a hundred other things that are fake in terms of price-reality....you make up the lack of profit for Farmer Joe, with a yearly or quarterly subsidy payment. Farmer Joe is happy. The public is happy. And the political apparatus is happy.
A fake reality? More or less.
How many western countries use subsidies? Most all now use it.
If farm subsides were to suddenly cease? Then prices at groceries would have to move up in a very short period, or you'd sit and watch farmers who refuse to produce with their acreage. Would you pay the actual price? Well....here's the thing....you might find that Spanish or Italian farmers might actually produce at a lesser cost, than Dutch or German farmers.....if everyone had their subsidy dumped.
The sad thing about this current system is that it's all locked into place and you have no way of ceasing this, or proceeding onto a more realistic system. The necessity of the EU managing this whole subsidy thing? It's the only way to keep all 28 nations lined up and 'fair'.
Fourteen Observations Over Hamburg
1. If you intend to travel from the airport of Hamburg into the city.....just walk downstairs into the subway area and take S1 into the middle of town (about seven stops, maybe 20 minutes). Cost of 3.50 Euro approximately. The ticket you buy.....is good for the entire city (one-way).
2. The new opera hall (750-odd million Euro spent on the place.....is down next to the harbor. I'd put it on the list of ten things in the city to view. Note, presently, it cost nothing to go up to the observation deck. That might change in a year. It gives you a 360-degree view of the city and harbor. One of the ten places in town you ought to visit.
3. Best way to travel around the city? There is a 5-person ticket (all-day travel) which would cost 48 Euro for 3 days. Just the inner city region, but it's the best deal for subway, tram, or bus travel. Note also, it's good for some of the ferry rides around the harbor.
4. Walking under the Elbe River. Near the harbor area, there is a large building which will take you down 60 feet and allow you to walk UNDER the river.....about a 15-minute walk. It developed about hundred years ago. There is a ferry which could bring you back but it only operates in early morning or late afternoon hours. I'd put this on one of the top ten must-do things in Hamburg. Interesting experience. No cost.
5. Crime? I spent four days walking around the city. It's safe to say that lots of drugs are used....including heroin and meth. I witnessed one idiot on a high who just walked straight out into a street, and did some deer-in-the-headlights stare at some oncoming car. I didn't come across any no-go areas but I would recommend watching yourself while around the train-station or any of the subway areas.
6. Food. Well.....just about everywhere you go....it's seafood of some type or Italian.
7. Along the harbor area, they have a Russian sub on display....a Tango-class. There's a guided tour which I would endorse. The gal gives a great 30 minute speech. If you have knee or hip issues....DON'T go on the sub. There are a bunch of hatches you have to crawl through and this is a fairly tough episode for a guy over sixty or anyone over 6-foot tall. If you are paranoid about tight places....DON'T go.
8. Weather. It's on the coast, so weather patterns change hour by hour. Bring an umbrella.
9. There are a lot of people around Hamburg area revolution-types.....anti-capitalists.....and prone to violence against the cops, authorities, or structure. Of most German cities that I've been across.....I'd say Hamburg has more per-square-kilometer....than any other city.
This site to the left is near the harbor and part of the planning episode against the G20 summit in early July. You can figure tens of thousands of revolutionary types will be brought in from across Germany to supplement the local folks. Unlike previous years.....this episode may go in a different fashion because there is a new German law that says if you harm a cop in any way.....you could easily get prison time. Some of the anti-capitalists may be enjoyed a year or two in prison after this summit episode.
10. Reeperbahn. This is the seedy part of Hamburg....formerly the party district, and to some degree....the red-light district. My advice is that it's ok to walk around in the daylight hours, and in groups at night. Don't bring expensive cameras or lots of cash with you. There are about a dozen great restaurants in the local area. There's a subway platform at both ends of the district....I'd use them to arrive and depart.
11. Beachfront. If you'd like to take an excursion in June, July or August....for an entire day out of Hamburg, then I might suggest the one-hour train episode up to Travelmunde. Four-star beach....lots of shops. Don't go except in the summer months.
12. No matter where you go in Hamburg....you won't be able to walk more than a block without observing street-people. To some degree in other cities in Germany, you will observe the trend. Here, it's just more for square kilometer than in most cities.
They panhandle....ride the subway and ask for a Euro here and there....and generally just enjoy the free and easy lifestyle.
The public just accepts the situation, and most refuse to pass over money or notice them.
13. Cost of living. The one obvious thing you notice when comparing against other German cities....there's lots of money that has been put into streets, infrastructure, and homes. You can't afford anything much in the inner city area. If you stop for a pizza or beer.....you tend to note that the pricing is 10 to 20 percent more than in most average German cities.
14. The one more odd thing in Hamburg to check out....is the Dungeon. Some capitalists came up with this fake idea and built up a business.....which is mostly a scare-you-type haunted house. Frankly, it's awful stupid but it makes a ton of money from mostly the 12 year old to 20 year old punks. For me, it's a total waste of time and money.
2. The new opera hall (750-odd million Euro spent on the place.....is down next to the harbor. I'd put it on the list of ten things in the city to view. Note, presently, it cost nothing to go up to the observation deck. That might change in a year. It gives you a 360-degree view of the city and harbor. One of the ten places in town you ought to visit.3. Best way to travel around the city? There is a 5-person ticket (all-day travel) which would cost 48 Euro for 3 days. Just the inner city region, but it's the best deal for subway, tram, or bus travel. Note also, it's good for some of the ferry rides around the harbor.
4. Walking under the Elbe River. Near the harbor area, there is a large building which will take you down 60 feet and allow you to walk UNDER the river.....about a 15-minute walk. It developed about hundred years ago. There is a ferry which could bring you back but it only operates in early morning or late afternoon hours. I'd put this on one of the top ten must-do things in Hamburg. Interesting experience. No cost. 5. Crime? I spent four days walking around the city. It's safe to say that lots of drugs are used....including heroin and meth. I witnessed one idiot on a high who just walked straight out into a street, and did some deer-in-the-headlights stare at some oncoming car. I didn't come across any no-go areas but I would recommend watching yourself while around the train-station or any of the subway areas.
6. Food. Well.....just about everywhere you go....it's seafood of some type or Italian.
8. Weather. It's on the coast, so weather patterns change hour by hour. Bring an umbrella.
9. There are a lot of people around Hamburg area revolution-types.....anti-capitalists.....and prone to violence against the cops, authorities, or structure. Of most German cities that I've been across.....I'd say Hamburg has more per-square-kilometer....than any other city. This site to the left is near the harbor and part of the planning episode against the G20 summit in early July. You can figure tens of thousands of revolutionary types will be brought in from across Germany to supplement the local folks. Unlike previous years.....this episode may go in a different fashion because there is a new German law that says if you harm a cop in any way.....you could easily get prison time. Some of the anti-capitalists may be enjoyed a year or two in prison after this summit episode.
10. Reeperbahn. This is the seedy part of Hamburg....formerly the party district, and to some degree....the red-light district. My advice is that it's ok to walk around in the daylight hours, and in groups at night. Don't bring expensive cameras or lots of cash with you. There are about a dozen great restaurants in the local area. There's a subway platform at both ends of the district....I'd use them to arrive and depart.
11. Beachfront. If you'd like to take an excursion in June, July or August....for an entire day out of Hamburg, then I might suggest the one-hour train episode up to Travelmunde. Four-star beach....lots of shops. Don't go except in the summer months.
They panhandle....ride the subway and ask for a Euro here and there....and generally just enjoy the free and easy lifestyle.
The public just accepts the situation, and most refuse to pass over money or notice them.
13. Cost of living. The one obvious thing you notice when comparing against other German cities....there's lots of money that has been put into streets, infrastructure, and homes. You can't afford anything much in the inner city area. If you stop for a pizza or beer.....you tend to note that the pricing is 10 to 20 percent more than in most average German cities. 14. The one more odd thing in Hamburg to check out....is the Dungeon. Some capitalists came up with this fake idea and built up a business.....which is mostly a scare-you-type haunted house. Frankly, it's awful stupid but it makes a ton of money from mostly the 12 year old to 20 year old punks. For me, it's a total waste of time and money.
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